The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944. by ShmuelKrakowski; Orah Blaustein; Yehuda BauerReview by: John D. KlierSlavic Review, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter, 1985), pp. 748-749Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2498581 .

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748 Slavic Review

reader would prefer-as the author himself concedes. The sweep of this section is suffi- ciently broad to include a discussion of Jewish education, demography, housing, social and economic policies, social institutions, national income, and national wealth-the last two calculated by the author using his own innovative method and producing figures at variance with those hitherto accepted as conclusive. The result is a solid treatment of the subject.

The section devoted to Jewish politics is far less satisfying. While Marcus provides adequate brief sketches of the internal evolution of individual political parties and political life in general, one can find far more extensive information and perceptive insights in the works of Ezra Mendelsohn and Celia Heller, not to mention the numerous journal articles that have appeared in recent years. Perhaps more disquieting is the author's tendency to present statements of fact without supporting them by documentation, even when these assertions challenge accepted beliefs. Two of the more blatant examples of this practice are his claims that the dissolution of the Communist Party of Poland in 1938 "was un- doubtedly largely the result of its ethnic [that is, Jewish] composition" and that the Nazis in Germany "provided ample finance for [Polish] anti-Semitic propaganda" shortly after Hitler's assumption of power in early 1933. There are numerous other instances of un- substantiated assertions that, taken together, raise serious reservations about the credi- bility of the author's scholarship. It is also difficult to accept at face value his insistence that the persistent activities of Jewish politicians, especially the Zionists, in pursuit of Jewish "national" (as opposed to religious) demands intensified and broadened anti-Sem- itism, because "instead of trying to resolve the many differences with the Poles these Jewish leaders deepened them, and thus made life harder for the Jews."

Perhaps the key to these major deficiencies lies in the author's sources. He relies exclusively upon published primary and secondary materials, despite the availability of archival files in London, New York, Israel, and Poland (notwithstanding his claim that archives in Poland "are not accessible to outsiders"). His bibliography omits some of the major periodical work of the last decade on Jewish politics. Far more distressing is his widespread use of the Jewish and Polish press of the period, without having actually read the newspapers himself but instead relying on the summaries (in translation) printed in the government-sponsored journal Sprawy Narodowos'ciowe. He blithely dismisses what- ever credibility problems his source selection might raise, although they seriously under- mine the scholarly value of his work, at least as it relates to political life. It is regrettable that Marcus did not confine his attention to the socioeconomic dimensions of interwar Polish Jewry; the serious student of Jewish politics in Poland must look elsewhere for reliable information and well-grounded insights.

EDWARD D. WYNOT, JR. Florida State University

THE WAR OF THE DOOMED: JEWISH ARMED RESISTANCE IN POLAND, 1942-1944. By Shmuel Krakowski. Translated from the Hebrew by Orah Blaustein. Foreword by Yehuda Bauer. New York and London: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1984. xii, 340 pp. Maps. $37.50.

Shmuel Krakowski's book explores the genesis and fate of Jewish armed resistance to the Germans in the Nazi administrative units of occupied Poland, the Generalgouvernement. Chapters are devoted to partisan activities in the forests of the districts of Lublin, Warsaw, Krak6w, and Radom, to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and to armed resistance in the labor, concentration, and extermination camps of Poland. The work is based on a wide variety of primary sources and memoirs and gives a detailed picture of a little-known episode in the history of the European Holocaust.

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Reviews 749

As Krakowski reveals, the Jewish resistance had to overcome unique and exceptional obstacles. Unlike the parallel Polish partisan movement, the Jewish effort was not one of choice but one of iron necessity, of simple physical survival. The typical Jewish partisan was an escapee from an urban ghetto or a camp, untrained and unequipped. Jews op- erated in a hostile environment, unable to count on the protection and assistance of the native population, or even other partisan bands. There was no option but to fight to the death, since after the defeat of Jewish partisan bands individual Jews could not merge back into the civilian population.

The logistics of Jewish partisan bands were invariably complicated by the need to protect noncombatants who hid from the Germans in specially prepared bunkers in the woods. Invariably out-gunned, partisans and camp rebels had little chance of success. At best, they could hope to live a few more weeks, kill a few Germans, and face "death with honor, death with arms in hand." As Krakowski's enumeration of the activities of these groups indicates, partisan activities were at most an inconvenience for the Germans. The sole exception was the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto, which proved an embarrass- ment to the Germans because of their inability to crush it quickly, and which, Krakowski believes, inspired the course of the Polish resistance.

The fate of almost all the Jewish partisans was dolefully similar: after operations of a few weeks or months, they perished in the course of German "hunts" in the forest or, just as often, were destroyed by partisans connected with the Polish Home Army (the KA), the national Polish political-military underground. As Krakowski demonstrates, the KA did nothing to oppose the German extermination of the Jews and had no use for Jewish partisans. Refugees from ghettos and camps were more often robbed and executed by KA units than accepted into their ranks.

In part the response of the KA and individual Poles to Jewish partisan efforts was a reflection of Polish anti-Semitism. Yet the Jews were also caught in the struggle between the KA and the fighting units of the Communist Polish Workers party (PPR), the People's Guard (GL), and the People's Army (AL). The KA advocated the secret organization of military strength, to be used for national liberation when the defeat of Germany was imminent. The GL and the AL, on the other hand, advocated immediate armed struggle, in order to assist the Red Army. They were eager to receive and assist any active partisan, Jews included. Such a situation confirmed for many Poles the equation of the Jews and "Bolshevism." (Ironically, while Jews were a significant component of the interwar Polish Communist movement, they were underrepresented in the wartime PPR leadership.) In addition, partisan action meant German reprisals against Polish civilians. These circum- stances help to explain why-with a few important exceptions-Poles were unwilling to assist Jewish partisans, and why Jews were so frequently betrayed by KA units.

The tragic fate of the Jewish resistance, as chronicled by Krakowski, was a reflection of the bitter circumstances of wartime, which gave ample opportunity for confirmation of the proverb that "man is a wolf to man."

JOHN D. KLIER Fort Hays State University

SOCIETY AND DEVIANCE IN COMMUNIST POLAND: ATTITUDES TOWARD SOCIAL CONTROL. By Jerzy Kwasniewski. Translated by Margaret Watson. Intro- duction by Adam Podgorecki. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984. 210 pp. $27.50.

This is a very interesting book. Using a long series of surveys conducted between 1963 and 1980, the book presents the attitudes of Polish society toward "deviance." By this unfortunately broad and vague word, Jerzy Kwasniewski understands above all infringe- ments of moral and legal norms. He deals with other kinds of deviance only to a limited

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