Change of heart

Recently Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz had a change of heart in contrast to what he wrote in 2001 in a book entitled “First after the devil,” (“Pierwsi po diable”). It is a symbolic change of heart of a Polish historians. The book “First after the devil” mentioned as supposedly typical Polish exaggerations in the reports of massive Jewish collaboration in the imposition of Soviet rule in postwar Poland.

Sociologist-historian Krzysztof Jasiewicz then thought that the stereotype about the Jewish collaboration with the Soviets was in part at least caused by Poles who wanted to unjustly shift the blame and accuse the Jewish minority as of the main culprits, especially since a Polish-Jewish sociologist-historian J. T. Gross propagated such notions in his books “Ghastly Decade” (“Upiorna Dekada” Universitas, Kraków 1994) and “Sąsiedzi,” or “Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne.” (Princeton University Press, 2001). Professor Norman Finkelstein accused Gross of exploiting the Holocaust and professor Norman Davies describes “Neighbors” as “deeply unfair to Poles.”

During Soviet-Nazi cooperation in the Spring of 1940 the NKVD executed over 25,000 Polish prisoners of war, officers, soldiers and state functionaries, following the “Katyn list” prepared by Soviet terror apparatus, starting on October 3, 1939. When the Katyn graves were discovered the Soviet propaganda fraudulently claimed that the mass execution was conducted by the Germans.

The Soviet propaganda machine created a decoy site in village Khatyn and build there some 120 monuments to commemorate Nazi executions, each by means of locking hundreds of people and suffocating them in barns set on fire. Two of similar executions were conducted in two Polish villages near Poznań on September 1, 1939 and continued to be used by the Nazis during the war including huge execution of this type in France at Ordour sur Glen. After the war president Nixon and Henry Kissinger visited Khatyn memorial and were deceived by the Soviets that they are visiting the site of Katyn execution of Polish prisoners of war by the NKVD..

German de-nazification courts after the war tried many war criminals including Haputsturmfuerer Harmann Schaper, who was sentenced to serve six years in prison for leading Sonder Commando Zichenau (Ciechanów) and committing massacre of Jews in Jedwabne in Summer 1941 by suffocating them in a barn set on fire.

Nazi Sonder Cammandos committed hundreds of such mass-murders by means of suffocation of people locked up in a building set on fire. They usually did it after selecting physically strong individuals and executing them first. In the case of Jedwabne the selection was accomplished by selecting people strong enough to break up a concrete statue of Lenin at the market place and then by ordering them to carry the broken up statue to be buried. After the digging was over, the Nazis shot the Jews and had them buried in the barn, in which later, the rest of the Jewish victims were suffocated upon setting of the wooden building on fire, using some 400 liters of gasoline, according to pyrotechnical analysis.

Gross tried to mislead the Poles by claiming in his book that broken up Lenin’s monument was carried to a Jewish cemetery. He wrote so in order to hide the fact, that the carriers were killed by shooting, while Gross himself admitted, that at that time the Poles in Jedwabne had no fire weapons. When fifty years after the massacre a forensic study found inside the barn the grave of people who brought there the broken monument of Lenin, the rabbi of Warsaw succeeded in stopping the exhumation, on the grounds that it would offend Jewish religion. It is known that at the same time old Jewish cemeteries were sold in New York for paving and use as parking lots at shopping centers.

Gross’ most recent book, “Fear- Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz” was published in the US in 2006 and in Poland in 2008.” While dr. Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising said that “Postwar violence against Jews was mostly banditry, not about anti-Semitism” he should have added that at that time many Jews were killed by the anti-Soviet resistance not because they were Jewish but because they were communists and helped in Soviet pacification of Poland.

No wander that Jewish controlled newspapers like Gazeta Wyborcza, could not prize enough professor Jasiewicz’s opinions of 2001. However after a few years in his new book entitled: “The Soviet Reality [in Poland] 1939-1941 in testimonials of Polish Jews,” professor Jasiewicz came to a very different conclusion about the role of the local Jews in the Sovietization of Poland. Jasiewicz came to the conclusion that pogroms in occupied Poland constituted retaliation for Jewish collaboration with the Soviets in 1939-1941.

The Nazis were aware of the mass murders of some 30,000 Polish citizens by the NKVD following Stalin’s orders to brutalize the war. Therefore Reinhold Heydrich, the head of Nazi terror apparatus in Berlin, issued an order in Summer 1941 instructing the SS Sonder Commandos to remove the evidence of their presence at the site of the executions of Communists and Jews. Heydrich wanted to strengthen the claims of Nazi propaganda, that the mass executions in 1941 were the retaliation of the local relatives of the victims of Communist and Jewish executioners. Thus Gross in a way recycles the Nazi propaganda scheme this time for the benefit of crooks who collect the compensation damages and enrich themselves instead of paying the Jewish survivors of German Concentration Camps, according to professor Norman Finkielstein in his book “Holocast Industry: .

In his new book professor Jasiewicz proves, by using written reports o Polish Jews that the pogroms that actually took place were done in retaliation for massive Jewish collaboration with the Soviet terror apparatus. This time the massive Jewish collaboration is proven by very extensive statements written by Jews who witnessed the atrocities committed by the Soviets with the help of local Jews on the Polish population of occupied eastern Poland. Similarly extensive work, considered fundamental, was written by professor Jasiewicz on the subject of the “Losses of Polish landowners.”

Thus, Professor Jasiewicz had a change of heart, from the time when what he wrote in 2001 the a book entitled “First after the devil.” He does not believe any more in exaggerations in the reports of massive Jewish collaboration in the imposition of soviet rule in postwar Poland. He then thought that the stereotype about the Jewish collaboration with the Soviets was in part at least caused by Poles who wanted to unjustly shift the blame and accuse the Jewish minority as of the main culprits. Now the record of Jewish witnesses convinced professor Jasiewicz that in fact many Polish Jews betrayed their fellow citizens.

Many Jews greeted the Red Army with triumphal arches and kissed the armored plates on Soviet tanks. What worse Jews were attacking uniformed Polish soldiers, formed pro Soviet militias and made fun of the catastrophe of the Polish state in 1939. Many Jews not only insulted and betrayed Polish officers but also volunteered to work for the Soviet administration and Soviet terror apparatus. Many of these Jewish actions were not only reprehensible, but are classified as treason, which was also punishable by the laws of Poland.

Behavior of Jewish minority in Soviet occupied Poland, can not be explained as ignorance of
the gravity of the situation, or as efforts to survive etc. In all civilized countries of the world ignorance of law and lack of knowledge which actions are punishable by law do not excuse such actions and do not free an individual from criminal responsibility as well as do not provide valid arguments for reduction of the punishment proscribed by the law of the land, according to professor Jasiewicz in his new book entitled: “The Soviet Reality [in Poland] 1939-1941 in testimonials of Polish Jews.”

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