Uprooted: How Breslau Became Wroclaw During the Century of Expulsions, by Gregor Thum. 2011. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford
Post-German Property Just Like Post-Jewish Property: Poles Acted Properly
This very detailed book, by a German author, is relatively objective. It identifies many factors in the transition of Breslau into Wroclaw. For instance, we learn that, in the 1933 elections, the Breslauers gave Hitler an absolute majority, which was rare in German voting districts. (p. xviii). Author Thum also recounts the massive postwar Soviet dismantling and theft of property (pp. 110-117), which persisted well over a year after the end of the war. (p. 181). Finally, we learn that the Poles removed many bricks from the ruins in Wroclaw for the purpose of rebuilding Warsaw. (pp. 128-132).
NOT ONLY GERMAN EXPELLEES: POLES WERE ALSO EXPELLEES
Instead of whining about the German expellees from the Recovered Territories, as many other German authors do, Gregor Thum recognizes the comparable fate of the Polish expellees (from the Soviet-confiscated eastern Poland–the Kresy). He comments, “…the so-called repatriates from the Polish eastern territories ceded to the Soviet Union were expellees. They were not ‘repatriates’ but ‘expatriates,’ who either had been chased from their homeland, often under threat of fatal reprisals…most of the residents in the regions ceded to the Soviet Union who considered themselves ethnically Polish had no choice but to relocate to Poland, thus abandoning their homeland and leaving behind most of their property. The transfers from eastern Poland were carried out under essentially the same conditions as those experienced by the German evacuees— people were packed in primitive railway cars that sometimes took weeks to reach their destination. There was insufficient food and water, hygienic conditions were deplorable, and no protection was provided against assault and looters.” (p. 68. Emphasis added).
NOT ONLY POST-JEWISH PROPERTY FOR THE TAKING: POST-GERMAN PROPERTY TOO
Thum writes, “The Polish government declared by decree on March 2, 1945, and also in an edict of May 6, 1945, that all the property and possessions left by Germans belonged to the Polish state.” (p. 118). It certainly did. And so did all the former property of the German-murdered Jews.
Now consider the individual transfer of property. Thum writes, “…the Polish state was not in any position to assert its property claims against an impoverished and hungry population or to preside over any kind of ‘orderly distribution.’ People simply took whatever they needed.” (p. 118). Thum rejects the notion that szaber was simply looting. He writes, “Szaber, on the other hand, took place in a legal gray zone. Temporarily it was, at least de facto, tolerated. According to a Polish dictionary, szaber means ‘to appropriate objects that have been abandoned by their owners, divested of guardianship (usually in wartime).’ In the western territories it became a mass phenomenon…a necessary strategy for survival.” (p. 118).
The foregoing paragraph clarifies the much-maligned postwar Polish acquisition of Jewish property that had been divested of guardianship. Despite Jewish complaints, it was no different from the postwar Polish acquisition of post-German property that had been divested of guardianship. The “divested of guardianship” is what made it post-Jewish and post-German.
THE RE-USE OF POLISH, GERMAN, AND JEWISH CEMETERIES–A PROPER AND CUSTOMARY ACT
Nowadays, Holocaust-related propaganda often shows photos of matzevot (Jewish gravestones) that are now embedded in buildings, and Poles are portrayed as a terrible people for having violated Jewish cemeteries. They were not. Cemeteries are not eternal, and re-use of old cemetery materials is unremarkable. Poles repurposed abandoned Jewish cemeteries just like the Ukrainians repurposed abandoned Polish cemeteries (in the Soviet-confiscated Kresy), and the Poles repurposed abandoned German cemeteries (in the Recovered territories), as described next.
Thum comments, “Between 1964 and 1968, about twenty years after the last funeral, all of the remaining German cemeteries were dismantled. Some of the memorial slabs and gravestones were stacked into huge piles on the grounds of the former municipal cemetery on ul. Grabiszyńska and offered for sale to stonecutters. Some were used as building material to fortify the city moat, to repair the stands in the athletic stadium, and in constructing a new outdoor enclosure in the zoo, so that with a bit of luck it is possible to find old gravestone inscriptions in all kinds of surprising places.” (pp. 283-284).
GERMAN REPARATIONS TO POLAND: A FARCE
The Soviet Union recouped German reparations to Poland through the forced purchase of Polish coal at artificially low prices. Thum realizes this, “…prime minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk protested vehemently against the plundering of his country by the Soviet Union. A bilateral agreement was signed on August 16, 1945, in which the Soviet Union agreed to refrain from all further dismantling operations and also promised to pay Poland 15 percent of the reparations from the Soviet Occupation Zone in Germany and 30 percent of those from the western zones. In return Poland had to supply the Soviet Union with Silesian coal for a fixed price far under the world market price for the entire duration of the Soviet occupation in Germany. Irrespective of this agreement, the dismantling continued.” (p. 113. Emphasis added).
