Product Description The revised edition includes a short history of ZEGOTA, the underground government organisation working to save the Jews, and an annotated listing of many Poles executed by the Germans for trying to shelter and save Jews.
A somewhat misleading titleMarch 4, 2010 T. Kowalczyk(Windy City) I purchased this book in the hope it would shed more light and information about the Poles who perished during the occupation of Poland. Unfortunately, more time and effort was spent on detailing the various political parties and intercine squabble between various partisan groups that providing the reader with concrete details about the numbers of Poles who died during WW II. I also believe too much emphasis was placed on the various political shenanigans and squabbles that took place among the various political factions whether it be between Gentile Poles, Polish Jews, Socialist Poles, Communist Poles, etc. As a history major and a Pole, I think the author could have done much better. This reads more like a glorified thesis paper for a master's degree. Credit should be given to the author for documenting the difficulties all Poles experienced under the Nazis and the Communists. Only in Poland was your whole family killed for harboring a Jew. The remainder of Nazi occupied Europe did not face such severe consequences for such activity. It was also pointed out that Poland was the only country of Nazi occupied Europe that did not have a Quisling or Petain that actively collaborated with the Nazis.
Excellent overall study of the Nazi occupation of PolandJanuary 17, 2009 Damo(Melbourne, Australia) 9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The ordeal of the Polish gentiles during WW2 tends to be overlooked despite their overall suffering being much worse than that endured by people in Western Europe, Czechoslovakia or Britain. Certainly they did not suffer as much as the Jews - nor does Lukas ever claim they did - but I think they can justifiably aggrieved that in the focus on Jewish suffering, their own suffering has been virtually ignored. This book goes some way towards addressing this.
Of course as pointed out in other reviews, this book does not just talk about the "Forgotten Holocaust" and covers that aspect all too quickly. A historian could easily write a book about that aspect alone but despite it's title this book covers more broadly all aspects of the Nazi occupation of Poland. Overall it does an excellent job, but I'll focus on probably it's most contentious aspect - that of Polish Jewish relations.
Lukas does do an excellent job of discrediting some of the extremist Polonophobic myths ("majority of Poles were happy the Jews were being killed" "concentration camps located in Poland due to local support" etc etc) that are out there. However if you are just looking for a book that discredits those myths then my first recommendation would still be Gunnar Paulsson's Secret City about the hidden Jews of Warsaw . Paulsson's estimates on Polish helpers betrayers etc have greater credibility than Lukas' - partly because Paulsson goes into great detail as to how he arrives at his estimates and also because Paulsson, unlike Lukas, definitely could not be accused of Polish bias (indeed Paulsson slips into anti Polish generalisations occasionally but that is another story).
Despite probably understating the extent of Polish anti-semitism (and note that Polish anti-semitism as a factor in the holocaust is massively exaggerated), Lukas' work is an important study. I recommend it.
The Thesis is Not Only Wrong, It Is OffensiveDecember 21, 2008 reviewer1(New York, NY) 4 out of 34 found this review helpful
The Poles were not treated well by the Germans. That much is obvious. But to compare their treatment to that of the Jews . . . this author is interested in making a name for himself by "exposing" a new Holocaust. It is wrong to try to get famous by being dishonest about genocide. After conquering the majority of Continental Europe, the Nazis developed a hierarchy among their slave laborers: Poles were at the top. Then came Ostarbeiters who were treated much worse than Poles. Then far below the Ostarbeiters were the Jews. The Jews of Poland are gone now. Polish anti-semitism is not.
Poles win the prize?December 10, 2008 Lev Raphael(Okemos, MI United States) 3 out of 41 found this review helpful
So the Poles were the first victims of the Nazis? Really? The Holocaust started with them and not the Jews? Fascinating. I've been reading international scholarship on the Holocaust for thirty years, and this is pathetic revisionism. Of course the Poles suffered terribly at every level, of course they were murdered in Auschwitz, of course Hitler loathed them and all Slavs--but to claim some sort of superior victim status, and to deny or explain away Polish historic anti-Semitism--which predates Communism and thrives with barely no Jews--is disgusting.
LONG OVERDUESeptember 28, 2008 M. Rutkowski(warsaw pl) 4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Begins to fill an acute lack of such neglected history of that period.One more mention,in the mainstream there is a notable absence of mention of the organization "ZEGOTA", which despite potential lethal consequences made best efforts to save non-Christian Poles,of which at least this book addresses......DR R.
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