Poland – A new book by the controversial historian and sociologist Jan Tomasz Gross describes how Polish gold-diggers robbed Jewish corpses in the area of the Treblinka Nazi death camp immediately following WW II.
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A Golden Harvest, which will be in bookstores in Poland in February, could cause as much controversy as Gross’s Neighbours (2001), which described a pogrom by Poles against Jews in the town of Jedwabne.
Previously it had been supposed that the Nazis had massacred the Jews.
“It seems at first commonplace: a photograph of peasants at harvest time, after work well done, resting contentedly with their tools, behind the fruits of their labour,” reads the publisher’s blurb for the new book by the Polish-American academic.
“But when one finally notices that what seemed innocent on first view becomes horrific: the crops scattered in front of the group are skulls and bones. Where are we? Who are the people in the photograph, and what are they doing?
“The starting point of Jan Gross’s A Golden Harvest , this haunting photograph in fact depicts a group of peasants-“diggers” atop a mountain of ashes at Treblinka, where some 800,000 Jews were gassed and cremated.
“The diggers are hoping to find gold and precious stones that Nazi executioners may have overlooked. The story captured in this grainy black-and-white photograph symbolizes the vast, continent-wide plunder of Jewish wealth.”
Plunder
A Golden Harvest is based on an article published in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily three years ago by Piotr Głuchowski and Marcin Kowalski under the headline – Gold Rush in Treblinka, which describes how the area around the camp became a magnet for gold diggers.
The new book by Gross – who was born in Warsaw in 1947, but emigrated with his family to the US in 1969 after an anti-Semitic campaign was launched by the communist authorities – continues his exploration of Poles attitude to the Holocaust during Nazi occupied Poland is bound to cause a storm of controversy.
After publication of Gross’s Neighbours, Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein wrote that “Neighbours bears the unmistakable imprint of the Holocaust industry. By Holocaust industry, I mean those individuals and institutions exploiting the Jewish genocide during World War II for political and financial gain.”
I remember al to well stories from my Uncle of the Poles and their pogroms. He was a Shomer at his Yeshiva, and would sit on a roof top watching for the Poles to come. He would then warn the yeshiva, and everyone would run for their lives and to hide. Nothing is beneath these despicable characters. And I am being nice in calling them despicable.
A rabbi friend’s mother often told me other stories of her life in Poladn, and to this day refuses to speak Polish. I can tell other stories from My Grandmother, and their families.
Let it be sid that they are all animals, and beneath contempt.
Of course Poles robbed Jewish corpses. They are lowlifes, even to this day.
to # 1 ” all are animals “- did you meet them ALL?
What about those few who helped Jews like the previous Pope and the family of the current President of Poland ? I know its an emotionally charged issue but use some
seichel.These comments only serve to poison the air more.
yet we allow them into our homes as maids all the time. we always hired spanish because my father would not allow us to bring poles into our home
Ah you mean the Polish nuns that saved Jewish children so they could have them baptized and would create great difficulties in returning them to their relatives after the war. . . .
my grandma told me the Poles were worse than the Germans too.
#13 skazam. tell your grandma no one was worse than the Germans.Unless she was referring to Ukrainians living in Galicia . You see most Germans killed Jews because it was an order ;Ukrainians did it because they enjoyed it! Same goes for
Lithuanians. Study Holocaust history- before sloganeering.
Oh yeah. Poles were the worst. Is this why Poland has the biggest number of Righterous Among the Nations? Or mabe they were honoured by Yad Vashem for being the worst? Or maybe Poles saved Jewes from Germans only because they wanted to …kill them by themselves? … In GERMAN-occupied Pland, all household members were punished by death if a Jew was found concealed in their home or property. This was the most severe law enforced by the German Nazis in occupied Europe. Anybody knows why Germans had to go as far as to kill this polish “animals” and “lowlifes” to prevent them from saving Jews? They didn`t had to enforce such severe law in any other country. Probably people in other european countries were less animals and lowlifes the Poles… If any of you know or heard about a Jew who survived war in Polad, then you have to be aware that no Jew could do that unless he had support from Poles. There were no other way. And the number of jewish survivors in Poland is 200 000 (estimated approximately)
Saved by polish lowlifes and animals who risked they lives to do that.
In the first place, Gross is not a historian. He got a Msc in physics in Poland in 1968. His book is “a historical story.”He himself said it on Polish TV. Historians write books on history that are based and documented solely on documents and witnesses’ accounts. This cannot be said about Gross’es books. A Polish historian wrote a book “100 lies in Gross book.” Secondly, he was asked where else Polish were so cruel to the Jews and he answered that it was somewhere in Polasie. Polasie is a region in Poland. I just wonder why a historian who do research on this subject and writes so many books on it cannot point the precise places where allegedly these atrocities happened. The Polish TV send a journalist and a cameraman to Tremblinka to ask the old inhabitants of this village whether they remembered people searching for gold and gems in the ground where the prisoners of Tremblinka camp had been buried and they answered “yes.” The thing is that that in tremblinka not only the Jews who were murdered there. Actually there were two camps in Tremblinka. Tremblinka camp I was destined for Polish people, whereas Tremblinka Camp II was destined for Jews from Poland, France, Jugoslavia.
Consequently, the peasants hunted for gold among both Jew and Polish corpses. Gross did not mention it. Why didnt he do that?
Gross as it this search for gold was, it was not antisemitic. Besides, the prisoners were searched through on their arrival to labour and concentration camps by the Germans. It was the Germans who took most of the gold and gems. Polish peasants looked for those gold that the Germans overlooked. Someone said that German soldiers did not give all the gold and valuables they had sequestrated to their authorities, but hid it somewhere. The thing it that they hid it and probably took it to Germany when they were forced to withdraw from Poland. Of cource some Germans probably died meanwhile and could not take the gold they had hidden and the Polish peasants searched the premises of the camp and cementary in search of that gold. But can the leftovers the Germans left be called “golden harvest” maybe for a peasant a gold ring or tooth was real treasure because it enabled him to sustain his family for a long time, but on the whole it cannot be called “golden harvest” at least not for the Polish people.
” Theres is a good reason the germans set up theyre camps in poland and not france austria romainia etc.”
Yes there was a reason why concentration camp were established on Polish land. But the reason is different. Before the war 30% of people who lived in Poland were Jews. In Auswitz 60 % of people were Jews. It was easier to transport small numbers of Jews from France or romainia than to transport huge number of Jews from Poland to France.
Were the Polish so bad? In Poland for hiding Jews or helping them in anyway there was one penalty- the death of the helper and his family.
In France it was not so. But there are more trees for Polish people in the Institute of Jadwashen than french trees. go and count the number of polish trees there and maybe you will draw some conclusions from that.
Last but not least, why do Gross runs this antiPolish campain?
The reason is simple Polish Jews left in Poland lots of tenament houses. Since they were citizens of Poland, if they dont have lawful heirs, then their property becomes the property of Polish state. The american Jews who did not lift a finger to help their compatriots in Austwitz want to take over the property Autswitz vitims.