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| Forgotten Survivors: Polish Christians Remember The Nazi Occupation (Modern War Studies) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 6 reviews)
Sales Rank: 583864
Category: Book
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Studio: University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer: University Press of Kansas
Label: University Press of Kansas
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 232
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0700613501
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5318508827
EAN: 9780700613502
ASIN: 0700613501
Publication Date: November 2004
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Product Description
Wanda Lorenc watched horrified as the first Wehrmacht soldiers stormed into Warsaw. Jan Porembski witnessed the mass executions of Polish civilians. Barbara Makuch became a courier for the Polish underground until she was caught and tortured. Jan Komski was thrown into the very first transport to Auschwitz and observed its rapid expansion firsthand. But, unlike the nearly three million other Polish Christians (and three million Polish Jews) who died during World War II, they survived. Richard Lukas presents the compelling eyewitness accounts of these and other Polish Christians who suffered at the hands of the Germans. They bear witness to unspeakable horrors endured by those who were tortured, forced into slavery, shipped off to concentration camps, and even subjected to medical experiments. Their stories provide a somber reminder that non-Jewish Poles were just as likely as Jews to suffer at the hands of the Nazis, who viewed them with nearly equal contempt. Zbigniew Haszlakiewicz remembers being brutally whipped and tortured-hung by his arms and legs, hands tied behind, and repeatedly stabbed: "I prayed to lose consciousness, but it was impossible. The Gestapo soon tired and started to drink beer and smoke cigarettes as they sat at that big desk. And I hung like a hammock." Lorenc tells of encountering starving Jews: "I broke an end off one loaf [of bread] and threw it to a woman in the group. An SS guard saw what I had done, rushed over to me and began to beat me with her stick. When I fell, she beat me with her boots. Two of my teeth dislodged and my mouth filled with blood. When I returned to the barracks, no one recognized me." But Dr. Jan Moor-Jankowski also recalls: "One night they took a prisoner and hanged him. He died in front of our eyes. I remember seeing a tiny twig of a tree from the window. As time passed, I saw a bud on the twig and soon leaves came out. It was something that gave me hope." Through the survivors' voices we also learn about the Polish underground, the Council for Aid to Jews (Zegota), the Jewish Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Home Army's heroic battle during the Warsaw Uprising in late 1944. Lukas places the narratives in their historical context and Jan Komski's drawings capture the horror of concentration camp life. This book is part of the Modern War Studies series.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 My Family's Story June 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My mother recently died and I finally started digging into the past that she could never speak about. Although painful to the reader, I am glad that someone was able to collect these witnessed accounts. The little I learned from my mother over the many years was exactly as the accounts I have read.
 Seldom-Mentioned Facts About the Holocaust (sensu Universal) August 2, 2006
26 out of 26 found this review helpful
Owing to obvious misunderstandings, the very title of this book needs clarification. The concept of "forgotten", not elaborated by Lukas, goes far beyond which side has done a better job of presenting its sufferings to the American public. It goes right to the heart of (1). Which side has the power and influence to get its message out, (2). Which side is in a position to control the very language of the debate, and (3). Which side has the political clout to have its sufferings enshrined in American educational law. As for (1), American Jew Novick pointed out in his book, THE HOLOCAUST IN AMERICAN LIFE, that Poles "never had the political, cultural, or financial resources to press their case." As for (2), George Orwell noted that those who control the language control the debate. Note contemporary Newspeak, in which there is no generally-recognized term for prejudices against Poles, only Jews (anti-Semitism), no special term for a massacre of Poles, only Jews (the pogrom), and no special term in existence for the German genocide of Poles, only Jews (the Holocaust). In this review, I use the term Holocaust (sensu Universal) to include ALL victims of Germany, including Poles. As for (3), are we supposed to believe that it is by accident that American children are required, in many US states, to learn about the murder of 5-6 million Jews in appreciable detail, as if it were something higher than the sufferings of others in WWII? Finally, the fact that Jewish spokesman have forcefully opposed the teaching about the 2-3 million murdered Poles alongside that of the 5-6 million murdered Jews (except perhaps as a footnote in order to deflect the argument) should serve as crowning proof that "forgotten" is FAR more than simply a matter of which side has done a better job of communicating its sufferings to the general public.
Lukas has done a great deal of commendable work to counter the foregoing trends. This book is an anthology of Polish survivors of German Nazi persecution, a persecution that cost the lives of 2-3 million Poles, including over half of Poland's prewar intelligentsia. WARNING: The descriptions of German methods throughout this book are often graphic, and may upset the sensitive reader. The content focuses on the September 1939 German conquest and five-plus years of occupation, the unrelenting German terror, the mass executions, Gestapo methods, the hellish German concentration camps, Jan Komski's paintings of Auschwitz (pp. 58-on), the atrocious treatment of Polish forced laborers (2 million of them), Zegota, the betrayed Warsaw Uprising, and the "liberation" of Poland by a new occupant (the USSR).
The 5-year survival rate for Poles at Mauthausen Concentration Camp was only 8 out of 200 (Antoni Palmowski, p. 109), and the several-month survival rate for Poles incarcerated at Auschwitz, following the foredoomed Warsaw Uprising, was still a small 300 out of 3,000 (Stanley J. Sagan, p. 163). Such was the starvation in the work camps of Flossenburg concentration camp that Polish inmates killed and ate a German shepherd guard dog that belonged to one of the SS men (Paul Zenon Wos, p. 217).
Some seldom-discussed German barbarities are mentioned throughout this anthology, including the bleeding of Polish children for blood transfusions to wounded German soldiers (Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride, p. 198), and the sterilization of Polish forced laborers (Katherine Graczyk, p. 34; Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride, p. 197). No one mentions the KL Warschau extermination camp, where some 200,000 gentile Poles were gassed and cremated Auschwitz-Birkenau-style.
Various incidental details, while not intended for this purpose, help rebut common Polonophobic mischaracterizations. For example, the well-worn tale of Polish cavalry charging German tanks, originating from wartime German propaganda, is once again refuted (Notes, p. 212). And, contrary to accusations, Polish Jews were actually walled off into ghettos by the conquering Germans (Barbara Makuch, p. 85), not by the prewar Poles. The shortage of food in the countryside (Jan Porembski, p. 134), caused by German confiscations, enables the reader to understand why some Poles did not help fugitive Jews, and even betrayed or killed Jews who stole food from them. Against the claim that the German-appointed Polish police were collaborationists as such, it turns out that 90% of them were involved in the Polish Underground (Paul Zenon Wos, p. 214). The Jews of Torczyn (near Warsaw) were initially trusting of the German conquerors (Halina Martin, p. 91, 99), adding rebuttal to the argument that Polish Jews immediately feared Germans, and that this (imagined) fear is what drove the widespread Jewish-Soviet collaboration in eastern Poland that occurred in the first stages of WWII. The actions of incarcerated Poles against incarcerated Jews, simplistically blamed on anti-Semitism, must be balanced by the actions of incarcerated Jews against incarcerated Poles (Dr. Stanley Garstka, p. 26).
Finally, consider the "All Jews Were Victims of the Nazis" argument, a common rationalization for the primacy of Jewish sufferings in American social studies classes. Antoni Palmowski (p. 113) describes the fate of Jews brought to Mauthausen Concentration Camp: "Early in 1945, new transports, mostly from Auschwitz, arrived...What was unusual was that the Jews were clean, blue and gray striped prisoner uniforms....The Germans began to treat Jewish prisoners much better than before. They even increased their rations. We joked that the Germans `smelled' the end of the war, which they realized by now they could not win." It is obvious that not all known Jews were slated for extermination, even among already-apprehended Jews, and the killing of every last possible Jew was clearly NOT a priority of the dying Third Reich.
Chilling Stories You'll Never Forget August 26, 2005
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
Forgotten Survivors tells the chilling, moving stories of Polish people who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, who were taking over their country. The people in these pages come to life as you learn where they were at the time they, or their family members, were seized by the SS and taken to concentration camps. You learn how some managed to stay under the Nazi radar, how others tried to escape, how they survived to tell their incredible stories. I couldn't put it down. The author has done a tremendous job compiling their stories and presenting them with each one's individual voice. It's an important contribution to the history of the Holocaust.
Everything you never knew about the Holocaust July 24, 2005
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
This book is a collection of gripping accounts of what real people experienced during this horrific chapter in history. There's the story of Jan Komski, who tried to escape from a concentration camp with a friend dressed in an SS uniform but failed. . .the story of Lilka Trzcinska-Croydon, who describes in detail what it was like to be transported in a cattle car and then transformed into a camp prisoner with a number branded on her arm. . .stories of families separated, children plucked out of their daily lives and sent off into a world of terror where they were confronted with endless harsh realities, where survival was the only goal. This book brings the Holocaust to life with sometimes moving, sometimes chilling, realism and honesty. The author takes great care to let each individual voice be heard. And each story is filled with such suspense, made even greater because each story is true. Though I'd always heard about the atrocities people endured during the Holocaust, this book gives a voice to some of those people who managed to survive against incredible odds. I highly recommend it.
First Person Accounts Important and Necessary April 26, 2005
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
First things first: buy this book. Read it. Give it to friends. Require, before anyone talk to you about Nazism, about Polish-Jewish relations - or, for that matter, about heroism or human suffering - that they read it. Demand that lecturers, students and journalists know it before they attempt to speak with authority on World War II. If they aren't familiar with it, acquaint them. You may want to carry a copy for that purpose.
Many of us have sat around a dying fire, or an emptying bottle of vodka, while Polish loved ones recounted their WW II experiences. We've wanted others to hear these sagas before being quick to judge. We've used these narratives to inspire ourselves: "If he could survive that, I can get through this." Now such stories are available in book format. It's high time. What took us so long?
"Forgotten Survivors" presents twenty-eight, first-person accounts of Poles who lived through WW II. Now-and-then photographs illustrate each account; there are also fifteen Jan Komski drawings of concentration camp scenes. Tellers include former camp inmates, slave laborers, underground fighters, and Zegota members.
As much as I appreciate this book, and that is very much, there are aspects of it that either troubled me or will trouble others, or at least deserve comment here. First, of course, there is the title. These stories are powerful, and they are transcendent. They are valuable today, and they will be valuable as long as human beings face life-and-death challenges.
The polemical title does not best serve these accounts and their authors. The word "forgotten" implies that important audiences have ignored Polish suffering. Another way of understanding post-war discourse is to acknowledge that Jews have done an admirable job of broadcasting and canonizing their story, and Polish non-Jews have, for whatever reason, been less successful at this.
Our best strategy is to honor our own story, not blame others for honoring theirs. "Heroic Polish Survivors," would have honored the narrators in this book, without positioning them as a rebuke in a feud whose importance - unlike the stories themselves - is transitory.
"Christians" is also problematical. Some Poles were neither Jewish nor Christian, and suffered under Nazism; some were openly hostile to organized religion. Many Polish Socialists were not Christian and were heroic in their resistance to Nazism.
These Poles do not deserve to be "forgotten" any more than their Christian fellow nationals do. The term "non-Jewish" - one Lukas does occasionally use - acknowledges the impact of Nazi racial policy without eliminating the stories of non-religious Poles.
Readers concerned with ethnographic technique will be frustrated by Lukas' omission of his transcription method. The accounts do bear many of the hallmarks of oral personal experience narratives, including colloquial language and lacunae where readers expect orienting details.
But some editing surely took place; there are none of the pauses or repetitions found in raw transcripts. Too, two separate accounts use the rare words "hegira" and "leggings." One wonders if Lukas didn't insert those words into the accounts while editing.
With the exception of Irena Sendler, all narrators emigrated to Canada, England, or the US. An ethnographer will want to know how survivor accounts told by Polish emigres differ from accounts told by survivors who remained in Poland.
Most narrators are highly placed, white-collar workers: college professors and engineers, for example. These narrators are not representational of a nation whose wartime population was majority agricultural. I wondered, as I read, have we become so intimidated by negative images of Poles that every Pole who survives WW II must be shown to be a high status, model citizen?
In the United States, piety is observed in discussions of the Holocaust, as many Jewish writers have protested. Some readers will be shocked to read Poles who lived through the Holocaust speak of their Jewish neighbors less than reverentially; others may welcome the frank humanity in these accounts. At least two Polish survivors recount being slapped or beaten by Jewish police or capos. One survivor who risked her life to help Jews reports being annoyed by "those hands stroking their beards" during a tense meeting.
"Non-Jewish Poles were just as likely as Jews to suffer at the hands of the Nazis," reads the book jacket. Page one of Lukas' introduction implies that Poles as a group and Jews as a group "shared" - a word he uses twice - equal fates. They did not, and histories of the Nazi era in Poland must state that clearly.
It must be stated clearly because it is true, and it must be stated clearly because there have been attempts by the Soviets and by government and popular culture entities in the US to dejudaize the Holocaust. Irena Sendler's account acknowledges the difference in scale: "Hitler created hell for all of us in Poland. But the kind of hell he made for the Jews was even greater" (166).
Like others interested in the Holocaust, I have pored over hundreds of photos of Polish-Jewish victims, both those who perished, and those who survived. I've often thought to myself, "He looks Polish; I could never differentiate this person from a Polish non-Jew by their facial features alone."
Gazing at the Poles in Lucas's book, I didn't encounter a population completely alien to the Jews in other books; I saw heart-wrenching sameness. One Polish narrator reports that he "looked Jewish," and he exploited this in his underground work helping Jews.
He's not the only Polish non-Jew in "Forgotten Survivors" who looks very like the Polish-Jewish portraits of innocence, endurance, and courage in other volumes. Wordlessly, these photos testify: Poles and Jews are not so separate as many would insist.
In the end, it is the power of the stories that matter, and these stories are among the most powerful you will ever read. Not only Poles, or students of Nazism, but anyone interested in examining cruelty, heroism, and simple, blind, fate, will find this book rewarding, fascinating, and humbling.
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