The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
After understanding this quite easy method to review and get this The Polish Underground And The Jews, 1939-1945, By Joshua D. Zimmerman, why don't you tell to others regarding this way? You could inform others to visit this internet site and opt for searching them preferred books The Polish Underground And The Jews, 1939-1945, By Joshua D. Zimmerman As known, here are great deals of lists that offer several sort of books to gather. Merely prepare couple of time as well as web links to get the books. You can truly appreciate the life by checking out The Polish Underground And The Jews, 1939-1945, By Joshua D. Zimmerman in a really easy fashion.
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
Ebook PDF The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 examines one of the central problems in the history of Polish-Jewish relations: the attitude and the behavior of the Polish Underground - the resistance organization loyal to the Polish government -in-exile - toward the Jews during World War II. Using a variety of archival documents, testimonies, and memoirs, Zimmerman offers a careful, dispassionate narrative, arguing that the reaction of the Polish Underground to the catastrophe that befell European Jewry was immensely varied, ranging from aggressive aid to acts of murder. By analyzing the military, civilian, and political wings of the Polish Underground and offering portraits of the organization's main leaders, this book is the first full-length scholarly monograph in any language to provide a thorough examination of the Polish Underground's attitude and behavior towards the Jews during the entire period of World War II.
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman - Amazon Sales Rank: #1683580 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.96" h x 1.06" w x 6.97" l, 2.28 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 474 pages
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman Review "This is a superb history of one of the oddest episodes of World War II. Zimmerman has emerged as one of the best experts on the history of the controversial Polish-Jewish relations. His matter-of-fact style further dramatizes the Polish-Jewish affairs during World War II when the Polish underground army heroically fought against the Nazis, sometimes killing and sometimes helping the Jews who also participated in the anti-Nazi struggle. A shocking drama and a wonderfully researched, documented and written book - a real page-turner." Ivan T. Berend, Distinguished Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles"Joshua D. Zimmerman has chosen to deal with an extremely controversial topic. He has carried out his task with great sensitivity and intelligence. The attitude of the Home Army to Jews was complicated, varying from time to time and also from place to place. On the basis of original sources, Zimmerman demonstrates how difficult it is to make generalizations about aspects of Polish-Jewish relations. This is an exciting and important book." Peter Kenez, Emeritus Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz"This well-researched and clearly written monograph deals with a very important but inadequately investigated topic - the reaction of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) ... to the mass murder of the Jews carried out by Nazi Germany in Poland. Although the topic has aroused considerable controversy ... it has never been subject to a full scholarly investigation, making use of the large archival resources now available in Poland and abroad. This has now been accomplished by Professor Zimmerman. His approach is balanced and dispassionate and he consistently allows the documents to speak for themselves and to show all sides of a complex story. His book will, in my view, become the definitive account of the subject, which is crucial for an understanding the larger problem of the attitude of Polish society to the mass murder of Polish Jews carried out on Polish soil." Antony Polonsky, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University, and Chief Historian, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw"Joshua Zimmerman's [book] is not only the most recent addition to the growing field of historical study of Polish-Jewish relations in World War II, but is also certainly the most complete in current literature. Brilliantly combining the divergent perspective of the Polish underground leadership and of the Jewish resistance, and accounting for their internal diversity, Zimmerman presents the stark choices each actor had to face, and why what was best to one was often seen as detrimental to the other. Skilfully combining analyses of pre-war and wartime Polish politics, military choices, anti-Semitism, the impact of the German genocide, and the perspective of liberation/occupation at the hands of the Soviets, as well as personal world-views of the individual commanders, the monograph explains why not enough help was forthcoming from the Polish side, and why Jews were perceived, and sometimes perceived themselves, as no longer being part of it." Konstanty Gebert, Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw"Zimmerman's book is a masterpiece. Zimmerman joins the ranks of other great Jewish historians who have published outstanding works on Polish-Jewish wartime relations free of prejudice." Filip Mazurczak, Visegrad Insight"[Zimmerman's] neutrality, painstaking dedication and fluency in Polish [has] helped him sift through the various cobwebs of perception on both sides and gain access to files others would never have found." Haaretz (Haaretz.com)"Zimmerman's book offers a balanced perspective, personalizing the topic by presenting profiles of several righteous individuals as well as unrepentant anti-Semites." Steve Lipman, The Jewish Week"What makes [Zimmerman's] book new is not only his extensive use of archival and secondary materials, but his attempt to provide a comprehensive synthesis over the whole period, from the formation of the ZWZ (Home Army) to the crushing of the Warsaw Uprising. In this he succeeds admirably." Yad Vashem Studies"The author has dealt with a subject that seduces us into moral judgements despite our best intentions. Zimmerman does not lose sight of the crucial crises and dilemmas that informed each historic moment and thus carries out two fundamental tasks of the historian: restoring the buried sense of historical contingency and recognizing the human proportion of experiences still painfully fresh." Cosmopolitan Review"Joshua Zimmerman's book ... is an important work on a topic that is among the central themes of Holocaust history ... There is a need for a historical study that presents a 'comprehensive treatment of different patterns of behavior towards the Jews at different times during the war and in various regions of occupied Poland' ... Zimmerman's book is an important attempt to present such a study in English, and he succeeds in his aim to maintain 'an absolute commitment to strive for impartiality'." Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs
About the Author Joshua D. Zimmerman is an Associate Professor of History and the Eli and Diana Zborowski Professorial Chair in Holocaust Studies and East European Jewish History at Yeshiva University in New York. He is the author of Poles, Jews and the Politics of Nationality: The Bund and the Polish Socialist Party in Late Tsarist Russia and the editor of two contributed volumes: Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its Aftermath and Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945.
Where to Download The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful. An Odd Chimera of Good/Poor Quality. Contextual Vacuum. Scholars Disregarded. Blatantly Selective Use and Avoidance of Evidence By Jan Peczkis The sophisticated reader who is looking for something new--a book that candidly addresses both sides of Polish-Jewish antagonisms--can stop right here. It does not. It continues the standard Jewish-wrongdoing-denialism approach. [My review is based on an online version, and the pagination used below does not correspond to the pagination of the printed version of this book.]To address and correct all the issues raised in this book would require its own book. I focus on a few of them.INTRODUCTIONThe author provides more details on Polish suffering under German Nazi occupation than do many other Jewish authors. However, Zimmerman fails to internalize the implications of Polish suffering. He does not appreciate the crushing poverty and degrading circumstances faced by Poles, which, for example, drove some of them to hanker after post-Jewish property or to denounce fugitive Jews for a reward. Furthermore, Zimmerman's "fishing expedition", in Polish Underground documents, tendentiously culls certain "fish". Pole-against-Jew conduct is "caught" and highlighted, while Pole-against-Pole, Jew-against-Jew, and Jew-against-Pole conduct is "thrown back into the water".Author Zimmerman distances himself from the most egregious Polonophobic accusations of some previous Jewish authors. He recognizes both positive and negative Polish attitudes towards Jews--for example in the many Polish Underground reports he cites. However, his over-800 pages of text are scrupulously sanitized of recognition of the fact that Jewish conduct played a role in Polish indifference and hostility against Jews. Worse yet, he shows open disregard--even contempt--for scholars whose views do not fit the "Jews can do no wrong" standard narrative. This is so blatant that it, in my opinion, borders on intellectual dishonesty.DELEGITIMIZING SCHOLARS WHO PRESENT UNWELCOME EVIDENCEInstead of intelligently telling the reader why he disagrees with their research findings, Zimmerman summarily dismisses historians Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Marek Wierzbicki, and the late Tomasz Strzembosz, as "nationalist historians" or of the "nationalist school". (p. 39, 661). Evidently, to Zimmerman, this leftist and Holocaustspeak buzzword is supposed to make them, and their unwanted facts, smell bad and disappear down an Orwellian memory hole. [BTW, Chodakiewicz unambiguously repudiates the nationalist characterization.] Clearly, the author is engaging in poisoning-the-well tactics. And if Zimmerman must resort to characterizations, then why doesn't he identify himself for what he is--a Judeocentric scholar of the Holocaust Establishment? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.But, wait. It is actually worse. Zimmerman relies uncritically on the assertions of Joanna Beata Michlic on these scholars. (p. 39). To begin with, what makes Zimmerman think that Michlic, in ANY case, is some kind of authority on--much less the final word on--this subject? As it turns out, Joanna B. Michlic presents no evidence in support of her flippant opinions of historians not to her liking. See, and read my detailed review, of Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present.Not surprisingly, Zimmerman sings an entirely different tune about those Polish (and half-Polish) authors who agree with him, and who support Jewish attacks on Poland. (e. g., Jan T. Gross, Jan Grabowski). He lauds them for being "path-breaking" (p. 177) and exhibiting "critical scholarship" (p. 39).Having reviewed a number of earlier works by Zimmerman, I had thought better of him. Instead, his willful abandonment of the most elementary canons of objectivity can only cause the discerning reader to reasonably question Zimmerman's credibility. However, for purposes of this review, I assume that Zimmerman accurately quotes from works that I have not checked myself, and that he does not omit material facts from them.PRE-WWII POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONSThe author consistently tells half the story. He repeats the endless complaint that Poles commonly did not see Jews as fellow Poles, or as part of the Polish nation. He avoids the fact that most Polish Jews didn't EITHER. For centuries, the Jews had lived in religious-based self-imposed apartheid. In time, Jewish religious-based separatism gave way to an even more aggressive and politicized self-imposed apartheid--based on the Yiddishist movement. When Poland was about to be resurrected (1918), Jews clamored, through the so-called Minorities Treaty, for the expansive special rights of effectively a separate nation on Polish soil, complete with government-funded Yiddish-language Jewish schools, their own judicial courts, their own representation in the Sejm (Polish parliament) as a bloc, etc. Other Jews became Zionists which--by definition--meant their loyalties were to another nation rather than Poland. As for the relatively few assimilated Jews, they had done so less in order to "become Poles" in some way, than in order to advance themselves in Polish society by escaping the enclave mentalities of both the "old ghetto" traditional Judaism and the "new ghetto" Yiddishist movement. In any case, few of Poland's Jews considered themselves Poles first and Jews second.Zimmerman demonizes Endek calls for most Polish Jews to emigrate, which would have left as little as 50,000 Jews in Poland. (p. 54). What he omits is the fact that many Jews ALSO thought that Poland had a "Jewish problem"--that Poland was vastly overcrowded with Jews, that the Polish economy could never support so many entrepreneur-oriented Jews, that Polish and Jewish ways were fundamentally and permanently incompatible with each other, and that the only lasting solution was for nearly all of Poland's Jews to emigrate. These included, but were hardly limited to, Zionists such as Vladimir Jabotinsky and Alfred Nossig.Economic rivalry also had two sides, but the reader would never guess it by reading Zimmerman. As Poles began to encroach on the centuries-old Jewish economic privileges, Jews banded together to drive Polish newcomers out of business. The Poles then retaliated with boycotts, discriminatory policies (nowadays called affirmative action) against Jews, and sometimes violence.Zimmerman exaggerates, and recycles old information about, violent anti-Jewish acts in pre-WWII Poland. (pp. 63-on). He is silent about the violence, by the militantly-Zionist Betar, against Pole-conciliatory Jews. More glaringly, Zimmerman omits the fact that, according to police reports, violent incidents by the ONR were dwarfed by violent incidents by Communists. See, and read my detailed English-language review, of Duch mlodych. Evidently, to Zimmerman, Polish ONR violence against Jews was a horrible thing never to be forgotten, but Communist violence (including Jewish Communist violence) against Poles (and anti-Communist Jews), which was much more common, was no big deal. It, too, can go down the Orwellian memory hole.POLISH GUERRILLAS AND THE JEWSThe selective attention to facts, exhibited so consistently by Zimmerman, extends to wartime situations. The author elaborates on the generally good relations between Jews and the ARMIA KRAJOWA (A. K.), in most regions of German-occupied Poland, with the glaring exception of the Nowogrodek area. Again, the author omits essential facts. Apart from animosities resulting from recent events surrounding Communism, there were older, deep-seated antagonisms going back many decades--to the time that the Nowogrodek area of Poland had been part of the Pale of Jewish Settlement in tsarist Russia. These Jews were Litvaks (Litwaks) and their descendants, and had a long history of extreme separatism, frequent Russophilia, and ingrained anti-Polonism. In addition, the overcrowding of Jews was far more extreme than anywhere else in Poland, and this had long exacerbated the tensions based on Polish-Jewish economic and political rivalries.Zimmerman uncritically brings up Michal Cichy, and his accusations of the A. K. killing Jews during the Warsaw Uprising. He is deafeningly silent about contrary evidence. Please click on, and read my detailed review, of the following scholarly work: Paszkwil Wyborczej.The author dusts off, and presents as gospel truth, the decades-old Communist propaganda about the NSZ being a Jew-hating and Jew-killing guerrilla organization. For corrective, please read the Sebastian Bojemski research article in the GOLDEN... booklink in the first comment.ELECTION RESULTS, JEWS, AND COMMUNISMZimmerman cites a study (which I have read) on Jewish voting patterns in some 1920's Polish elections. These indicate that "only" 7% of Jews voted for the Communists (p. 421). From this, Zimmerman draws the completely non sequitur conclusion that Jewish support for Communism was minimal.To begin with, Jewish support for Communism was hardly limited to electoral support for, or open identification with, overtly Communist movements--far from it! Various mainstream Jewish political parties and movements were ALSO infected with Communism to varying degrees, usually in muted or disguised ways. These included Jewish socialist parties, the Hashomer Hatzair, the Poalei Zion, and the Bund.In addition, Jews commonly switched loyalties to whoever coincided with their immediate interests, or whoever was the stronger. After Poland was Partitioned, Poland's Jews generally supported the empires that ruled over Poland, and few Jews backed Polish national aspirations. By the 1920's, with the resurrected Polish state a fait accompli, and Poland having recently (1920) defeated the Soviet Union, the Polish nation had unambiguously emerged as the stronger. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that relatively few Jews openly supported Communism in the 1920's. In 1939, with Poland on the ropes and the USSR the stronger, it was a different story. [See first comment.]Finally, why waste one's vote on a party that had no chance of winning? Surely the Jews knew that Communists hardly ever come to power through free elections, least of all likely in Poland. They come to power by force. To help make Poland Communist, it is best to wait for renewed Soviet aggression, and then become actively pro-Communist.THE STANDARD NARRATIVE: JEWS AS VICTIMS, NEVER VICTIMIZERSZimmerman glosses over the Jewish fifth-column activity on behalf of the Soviet invaders of eastern Poland in 1939. (e. g, p. 150, 165). These did not exclude murderous acts against Poles. For more, see the first comment. Do you need still more evidence? Then read the detailed, free, online book: "A TANGLED WEB: POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS" by Mark Paul.Now consider the situation under the German occupation of Poland:The reader should remember that, during times of war, banditry is commonly a capital crime. Zimmerman exhibits an openly “Jewish suffering is special” or even “Jews are special” attitude as he complains that Polish Underground reports on Jewish banditry did not, in his opinion, show sympathy to the plight of fugitive Jews. Excuse me. Polish peasants suffered too. They could be murdered at any time, at will, by the Germans. They lived in near-starvation conditions under the Nazi German occupation, and were furthermore subject to constant requisition of goods by the German authorities, Soviet bands, etc. What is Zimmerman thinking? Were the peasants, and the Polish Underground, supposed to take kindly to banditry—by ANYONE?Although Zimmerman repeatedly tries to pooh-pooh the fact of Jewish banditry against Polish villagers, done by Jews independently and as part of the intentional trauma-causing policy of "revolutionary banditry" conducted by the Communist GL-AL bands (which was designed to terrorize the Polish population into submission to the upcoming Soviet-imposed Communist puppet government), it was substantial. Apropos to this, the author mentions the TAJNE OBLICZE book for a trivial reason (p. 661), but chooses to run away from it, completely ignoring its detailed archive-based findings on the magnitude of Jewish banditry and collaboration with the Communist GL-AL. [For link, see first comment.]Not surprisingly, Zimmerman is silent about the large-scale Jewish complicity in the wholesale Soviet-guerrilla massacres of Polish civilians in villages such as Naliboki and Koniuchy. For the truth, please click on, and read, my detailed review of Intermarium: The Land between the Black and Baltic Seas: 0.The Jewish-Soviet collaboration, against Poles, only expanded upon the start of the second Soviet occupation of Poland (1944). This collaboration was a long-term broad-based phenomenon that contributed to the oppression of the Poles, and this led to retaliatory "pogroms" by Poles. For details, please click on, and read my detailed review, of Pogrom Czy Odwet?.Let us put all this in broader context--especially in the light of the Soviet-imposed Communist puppet government in Poland and its wanton use of terror to consolidate its totalitarian power. Consider the Zydokomuna (Judeo-Bolshevism), a term which Zimmerman regularly brings up, but would prefer that the reader not think about. The considerable extent of Jewish complicity in the murderous Soviet Communist apparatus is an inescapable fact. The extensive Jewish involvement, in all phases of the Soviet subjugation of Poland, is also undeniable. For details, see the first comment. And let us hear no silly exculpations about Jewish Communists not being real Jews, about Jewish Communists "not acting as Jews", or Jews not knowing what Communism really was. They most certainly were, they could not turn their Judaism on and off and on again like water from a tap, and they most certainly did.We also keep hearing that, relative to the total Jewish population, few Jews were Communists. This is a facile argument, as it goes both ways. There is no doubt that, relative to the entire Polish population, few Poles were involved in the denunciation or murder of fugitive Jews, but this does not prevent Zimmerman, and innumerable other Jewish authors, from constantly making an issue of them, and for calling on Poles as a whole to "come to terms with the past". So let us hold Jews to the same standard.What about innocent Jews being blamed for Communism? Innocent victims fell on both sides. During the Holocaust itself, millions of Jews, most of whom had nothing to do with Communism, were being put to death. Earlier, however, millions of non-Jews, most of whom had never done anything to Jews, had been put to death, in large part thanks to the deliberate acts of Jewish Communists.WAS GENERAL ZYGMUNT BERLING JEWISH?The author tries to make something of the fact that some Poles had reckoned Berling a Jew (p. 636), that historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz does also (p. 661), and that Berling had once been baptized. In doing so, Zimmerman misrepresents Chodakiewicz. The latter takes no position on the Jewishness or otherwise of Zygmunt Berling. Historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz simply cites a work that mentions the fact that Berling had identified himself as Jewish while at Jagiellonian University in Krakow.Pointedly, however, the issue is even more basic. Jews have no problem identifying baptized Jews, as Jews, if it serves their purposes. For example, think of famous poet and writer Heinrich Heine, and Karl Marx. In fact, Jewish authors commonly write of Karl Marx--alongside Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein--as the three most influential 19th- and 20th-century Jewish thinkers. Now, if Jews can recognize baptized Jews, as Jews, as they see fit, then surely Poles can do likewise. Either that, or we have yet another double standard.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Meticulously and academically researched, presented as a scholarly, evidence based review. Can not recommend highly enough. By Lisa Gitelson Dr. Zimmerman is the preeminent scholar on this subject. His rigorous academic review of thousands of pages of documents yields this extraordinary and deeply through monograph. With regard to this subject, there has never been the depth of Dr. Zimmerman's research and the fair and dispassionate distillation of the research.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful. He Avoids Condemning or Condoning By lloyd Meadow Joshua Zimmerman's ne book The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, covers a very significant period in the relationship of the Poles to their allies, and to Germany.Relationships were complicated during this period. Zimmerman's book clarifies the many complexities, and his data is organized, thus making it easy to follow. He avoids condemning or condoning. A major direction that the book takes is considering the organizing the material in such a way that he invites the reader to make judgments using all the facts available.The author doesn't allow his biases to distort the Polish Uprising's record as it occurred. He encourages the reader to arrive at his/her own opinion which I feel contributed to the well-written and carefully comprised volume. In fact, one learns to resist placing the blame or jumping to quick conclusions.Zimmerman is to be commended for what I sense is an attempt not to overly dramatize some of the horrors during this 6-year period of which so many of us have become aware.Finally, my experience with the author's new treatment of this controversial subject of the Polish Underground and the Jews is that the book was hard to put down.
See all 8 customer reviews...
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman PDF
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman iBooks
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman ePub
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman rtf
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman AZW
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman Kindle
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, by Joshua D. Zimmerman
