History has never been George Will’s forte – baseball – maybe? He had to cheat when coaching a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan, by resorting to the use of a stolen classified Carter White House document. In his July 9, 2001 Newsweek column, he outdid himself when he commented upon a book written by a discredited scholar, Jan Gross, a former communist, now residing in the West, to insult an entire nation and emigres of Polish origin.
Mr. Gross, in a desperate struggle for recognition, revived a fictionalized report made in 1948 by a Soviet-controlled Polish Security Office (U.B. – Urzad Bezbieczenstwa) agent named Wasserstein, who, in order to arrest former members of the Polish underground, created a false report in which he charged that the former underground fighters helped the Nazis kill “Russian” Jews in the town of Jedwabne, Poland . Consequently, innocent Poles with no chance for defense were killed or incarcerated for many years. In those days an accusation made by a KGB agent was the proverbial “kiss of death.”
Mr. Gross took the story one step beyond. He accused the entire town of Jedwabne of participation in the crime.
Mr. Will in his column willingly concealed this and other historic facts behind the incident to accentuate his support for Mr. Gross’ unfortunate meanderings. Therefore, some history needs to be resurrected in order to illustrate what George Will was unwilling to discuss or reveal.
During the period of endangerment from the Nazis, 1933-1945, most European peoples and nations succumbed to fear and collaborated with Hitler or Stalin or both.
Jews collaborated with Stalin and Hitler – Poles did not.
