Poland Under German Occupation, 1939-1945, edited by Jonathan Huener and Andrea Loew. 2024. Berghahn, New York, Oxford
Also: Systematic German Repurposing of Churches as Well as Synagogues
This book repeats mostly familiar information. I focus on some seldom-mentioned facts.
POLISH POLICE EVENHANDED: EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY OFFENDERS
Holocaust materials typically zero-in on what the “Polish” Blue Police did to the Jews. Seldom is it mentioned that it did the same misdeeds to the ethnic Poles.
Tomasz Frydel feels comfortable enough to make the following generality, “Importantly, the fact that many policemen accused of crimes against Jews were almost always accused of crimes against Poles and other groups provides a comparative dimension, which this study tries to integrate.” (p. 104).
POLISH POLICE EVENHANDED: FORCED POLISH SERVICE
Frydel re-affirms the fact that service in the Blue Police (Policja Granatowa) was not voluntary, “For the vast majority of its recruits, membership in the POLNISCHE POLIZEI was compulsory, as they were primarily recruited from the state police of the Second Polish Republic on the basis of a proclamation issued on 24 October 1939 by the head of the SS and Police, Friedrich Wilhelm Krueger, which required them to report back to service by 10 November under threat of the ‘harshest punishment.’” (p. 105).
For more on the Policja Granatowa (Blue Police), see:
For more on the draconian nature of German control of occupied Poland, see:
https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2025/04/19/useful-devoted-polish-holocaust-hostages/
THE GERMANS DESACRALIZED CHURCHES AS WELL AS SYNAGOGUES
Holocaust materials often remind us of the barbarities that the Nazi Germans did to the synagogues. Very few people know that the Germans did the same to Churches in many parts of German-occupied Poland. Huener comments, “In the Poznan archdiocese as a whole, of the 441 churches open at the outbreak of the war, only 30 remained open for Poles in October 1941, the remaining churches having either been simply locked down or put to alternative use as storehouses, riding schools, workshops, and the like.” (p. 88).
We thus also realize that the Communists were not the only ones that desacralized and repurposed Churches. The Nazi Germans did too.
THE EUROPEAN UNION SERVES THE JEWS’ HOLOCAUST
Winston Chu comments, “Remembrance of the Holocaust has become central to the self-understanding of the European Union, and the supposed lessons drawn from it have served as a founding myth.” (p. 134). It certainly has–which is one more reason for POLEXIT.
