Execution of Poles, Bochnia.

Richards Lukas book has raised a lot of controversy in America.

“My intentions have been totally distorted”, he said, and I was attacked below the belt. I received calls and letters with threats and insults. Since the release of “Forgotten Holocaust” in America, I stopped receiving invitations to conferences and lectures.

Holocaust of the Poles – a conversation with prof. Richard C. Lukas

Piotr Zychowicz talks about ant-polonism of Jewish historians in the United States with prof. Richard C. Lukas, author of “Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944″

” American historians are divided into two groups. Historians of World War II and historians of the Holocaust. The first is very objective and professional. Their reaction to my book was very calm and factual. I received from them positive feedback. The second group – the historians of the Holocaust – is made up almost entirely of Jewish scholars. They found my book a heresy, and the use of the word “Holocaust” a scandal.

Why?

RL: Because they believe that Jews have a patent on that word. An attempt to compare their tragedy with any other is a crime. My book was deemed “too pro-Polish”.

PZ: It’s hard to imagine that any book could be criticized for being too “pro-Jewish”.

RL: (laughs) Oh, definitely – no one would have dared to make such a claim. No one in the United States objected to Professor Jan Gross’ productions. The division of roles is in fact predetermined. Jews in the story of World War II are “good guys” and the Poles are “bad guys”.

PZ: And the Germans?

RL: The Germans are an abstraction.

PZ: Why have you decided to write the book?

RL: I started as a military and diplomatic historian. I wrote a book called “Eagles East” about the relations between America and the Soviets during World War II. Then I wrote about the war relations between the U.S. and Poland (“The Strange Allies”). It was during the work on this last monograph that I came across a large number of informations and documents relating to the wartime sufferings of Poles. I realized that these matters are completely unknown in America.

PZ: What do you attribute this ignorance to?

RL: This ignorance stems from a specific approach to the occupation of Poland in 1939-1945. Poland and the Poles are only background for the Holocaust to American historians dealing with this period. The Holocaust is the most important and central event. Everything else does not matter, the whole of the twentieth century of Polish history is written from the perspective of Jewish suffering.

PZ: And what about the Poles?

RL: When in the 80s I started researching for the book, I decided to see what American historians had written so far about the suffering of the Poles during the war. It turned out that … nothing. The number of books about the suffering of the Jews in Poland were already in the thousands. This situation is an oddity, given that quantitatively, the war casualties among Polish Catholics were more or less the same as those of the Polish Jews. Hence the idea for the title. I believe that there is no reason why you can not call what happened to the Poles a Holocaust. Polish victims were in no way inferior to the Jews.

PZ: How do you explain the disparity in the approach to the tragedy of the Jews and the Poles?

RL: Let’s start from the press. In America, it has an enormous importance. The soul of the American intellectual class is in the hands of “New York Times”. My book, “The Forgotten Holocaust” had, throughout a quarter of a century, a large number of issues in America and in the scientific community is considered a “classic”. The extremely interested in World War II “New York Times” has not devoted to it even a single line.

PZ: Have you sent them copies for review?

RL: Always (laughs). It always carefully read the “New York Times”, especially the section with book reviews. Over the decades, the paper has never published a review of any book on the occupation of Poland in which the Poles would not have been portrayed as the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and co-responsible for the Holocaust. In this way, “New York Times” shapes the American intellectual elite in appropriate way.

PZ: Does “New York Times” intimidate historians?

RL: It does not intimidate. It discourages. Because a favorable review in the “New York Times” sells a huge number of copies. The whole media machinery in the United States works like this. The historian, who wants to be “rich and famous”, the historian who wants to be cherished by newspapers, academic and intellectual salons, will not write about the suffering of the Poles. Why create something that goes unnoticed and can even be harmful? So the historian writes another standard book on the Holocaust, which presents the Poles as criminals. It’s easier.

I think the case in point is the career of Mr. Gross mentioned by you. His career in America began from writing about Polish suffering (including the excellent “In 1940 they exiled us to Siberia”). When he realized that nobody cares about these books, he he wrote the “Neighbors”. “New York Times” went into raptures over it and Gross got a tenure at Princeton.

The book “Neighbors” is something extraordinary. When I read it, I was amazed. If I’d written something like this, a book based on such incredibly poor research, a book based mainly on speculations, I’d have been kicked out of the guild of historians. It would have been embarrassing for me, I would have lost all credibility as a researcher. To write something like this without checking in German archives – is simply incredible! Gross not only published the book, not only managed to avoid responsibility for fatal professional errors, but his book is positively cherished.

PZ: How is this possible?

RL: It is a book with the right thesis. The book is written for the tastes of American academia. A few historians of the Holocaust expressed to me their support after I wrote “Forgotten Holocaust”. “Well done Richard! I agree with you “- they told me in private conversations. None of them, however, ever dared to write or say it publicly. All major departments in American universities dealing with the Holocaust are in fact run by Jewish historians. No one wants to expose himself.

PZ: You certainly know the case of Norman Davies, who in the 80s was to get tenure at the prestigious Stanford University. His candidacy was shot down, because his book “God’s Playground” had just been deemed “too pro-Polish”.

RL: Of course I knew this outrageous story. I wrote then a very sharp letter to the Rector of Stanford, where I defended Davies. This award-winning historian, was the victim of the same pathological phenomenon, of which we are talking about.

PZ: Someone might say that your words about the Jewish domination in American universities is a conspiracy theory?

RL: That someone would have no clue about American universities. This is actually not just a problem of universities. Around 10 years ago I wrote a book called “Did the Children Cry: Hitler’s War Against Jewish and Polish Children”. I summarized in it the harrowing accounts of children under occupation. Both the Jewish and Polish. My publisher put it up for the prestigious Janusz Korczak Award, be granted by the Anti Defamation League. This is the most known and influential Jewish organization in the United States. This award is given the management of the foundation, but by a special jury, composed of Jews and non-Jews. The management of the League has nothing to say in this matter.

PZ: Did you get it?

RL: Yeah, I got this award. I was delighted, because Janusz Korczak is one of my idols. The man who represented all the best in both nations – Polish and Jewish. I got the official notice that I was granted the award. In the meantime, the board of the League realized, that the jury gave the award to the author of “Forgotten Holocaust”. 24 hours later I got a letter from the League, in which it is written that the award was taken away from me. It was found that, I highlighted the problem “in an inappropriate manner.”

PZ: What did you do?

RL: I got mad! And I decided that I would not let go. I went to a lawyer and told him to deal with the matter. He wrote a letter to the League’s boss, Abraham Foxman.

PZ: A Polish Jew who was saved by his Polish babysitter.

RL: Right. In his letter, my lawyer threatened that he would go to the media. Anti Defamation League fears bad PR, so they decided to give me the prize. It is being awarded at a great ceremony in New York, followed by a banquet. The whole intellectual elite of the city attends, and the newspapers write about the event extensively. My prize was sent by mail … That’s the price I payed for “Forgotten Holocaust”.

( … )

PZ: It’s a closed circle.

RL: Unfortunately, the Jewish historians are simply ignorant, they do not understand and do not know the subject. They write their books in a vacuum. If the historian pulls an event out of context, he paints a distorted picture. You can not write about the history of Polish occupation through the prism of the experience of only one nation. Such a judeocentric approach is wrong from a methodological point of view. Unfortunately, another one not allowed. This is what explains why my book “The Forgotten Holocaust” caused such a shock and outrage in the United States. If these people are for years, fed with the idea that only Jews have suffered, and the Poles were anti-Semites and accomplices in the Holocaust, no wonder that when someone wrote that the Poles were also victims of the Holocaust, people were shocked.

PZ: Is it really that bad?

( …)

RL: As I said, since I published “The Forgotten Holocaust”, I’m not welcome in academic centers. Scientists, even if they agree with me, are afraid to invite me. However, there are exceptions. Once I was asked to give a lecture at one of the top universities in Pennsylvania. The audience was huge. Professors and students. About 500, maybe 600 people. I talked about Polish suffering during the war. When I finished, 10 Jewish professors stood up in silence, and ostentatiously left the room.

PZ: Unbelievable…

RL: Unfortunately, it’s true. The good news is, however, is that the the students stayed. As soon as the door shut behind the professors, they began to ask questions. They were completely surprised. “Professor Lukas – they said – over the period of our study no one has told us about it. The whole time we were taught the history of Polish Jews, and only in Jewish interpretation. They told us about the suffering of Jews and about Polish iniquity, but they never told us that the Poles were persecuted too”. Unfortunately, the American higher education in this area is a spectacular failure. Added to this is that Holocaust survivors themselves are censored by historians.

PZ: How’s that?

RL: I once met a Jewess from Poland who survived the German occupation through the support of Poles. Ordinary peasants who fed and hid her, despite the death penalty which threatened them for this. She was telling it to me, crying. These were tears of gratitude. She said, however, that she would be afraid to say about all of this to the American public. Many other Holocaust survivors told me the same thing. That their experiences are not politically correct. She spoke with tremendous admiration about the heroism of the Poles. She admitted that she doubted that if the roles were reversed, she would have found the courage to do the same. Thus, it is easy today, in the security of America, in a secure university office, to throw thunderbolts at Polish nation and ask idiotic questions: “Why have you not done more?”

PZ: The saddest thing of all is that 70 years after the war, the victims of that conflict are jumping down the throats of each other.

RL: This is a great, sad paradox. During the war, the Poles and the Jews went in the same boat. Both nations have been attacked, and then fell victim to terrible reprisals by the Germans. Millions of Jews and millions of Poles were killed. Today, nobody blames the Germans, and the Jews fight against the Poles, trying to prove that they deserve a palm tree in this gruesome victimhood pageant. Indeed, a strange situation.

***

Professor Richard C. Lukas also wrote “The Strange Allies, the United States and Poland, 1941-1945″, “Bitter Legacy: Polish-American Relations in the Wake of World War II,” “Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust”, “Did the Children Cry: Hitler’s War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. “

***

A couple of quotes from “customer reviews” of the book at Amazon which illustrate what Lucas is talking about:

The Thesis is Not Only Wrong, It Is Offensive: “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…. The Jews of Poland are gone now. Polish anti-semitism is not.”

Poles win the prize?: “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.”

“Because they believe that Jews have a patent on that word. An attempt to compare their tragedy with any other is a crime.

The Nazis”

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