On August 6, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe’s book will be published in Germany, in which Poland is definitively accused of participation in the Holocaust. About the work “Polish mayors and the Holocaust. “Profession, administration and cooperation”, the wPolityce.pl portal is the first to write the content of the entire book.
The author, associated with Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, omits research in his work that contradicts his theses, which causes controversy. The book claims that Polish mayors had a lot of independence and helped the Germans carry out the Holocaust. The author’s workshop raises concerns about manipulation and historical distortions, which could have serious political consequences.
Who is the author?
Rossoliński-Liebe is a Polish-German historian who teaches in Berlin and deals with the history of World War II, in particular Nazism and the Holocaust, and is the author of an extensive biography of Stepan Bandera. In the environmental field, the professor is associated with Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, the author of the notorious work “Next Jest Noc”, whose scholars pointed out a number of errors and even interference with historical sources, by eliminating the presence of Germans in some crimes and adding the presence of Poles. In the first parts of this 1,100-page book, Rossoliński-Liebe thanks the above-mentioned authors and also refers to their research. Although the bibliography of the book on “Polish mayors” contains entries from 2020, the historian deliberately omitted those scholarly works that contradict his thesis – the thesis that Polish mayors were accomplices in the Holocaust.
Rossolińskie-Liebe therefore ignores the works of Dr. Maciej Korkuć, Dr. Piotr Gontarczyk and Dr. Tomasz Domański, and uses the work of Professor Bogdan Musiał only in an old position from a quarter century ago, ignoring the latest research on this. Polish historian working in Germany. This selection of bibliographies already proves the author’s intentions.
What does the book say?
One of the main theses of the work is the Polish perpetrator of the Holocaust, which is expressed in many places in the book, including: the following formulations:
Polish mayors and city councils supported the German occupiers in carrying out the Holocaust.
Polish mayors and employees of the city administration in the General Administration [Generalnym Gubernatorstwie – red.] They were largely involved in the Holocaust and other crimes committed by the German occupiers, as this was part of their daily administrative duties.
the interests of mayors and German occupiers overlapped in the areas of the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust.
the participation of Polish mayors in the Holocaust is a serious contribution to a huge crime.
What distortions do we find in the book?
Although an in-depth analysis and review of the 1,100-page book on “Polish mayors” should be left to historians, it is already clear at first glance what the manipulations of the German researcher are. Like Engelking and Grabowski, Rossoliński-Liebe builds his arguments on the assumption that the “German-Polish government” exercised power in the General Government. Although it is clear to historians that during the occupation the decision-makers and executors of the essential elements of the policy were Germans, a researcher from Berlin tries to reform the understanding of the German occupation of Poland during the Second World War. The author claims that since some mayors and most officials in towns and villages were Poles, Poles were also responsible for the crimes in these areas. The historian paints a picture in which mayors and department heads in the German-occupied cities would have a lot of freedom.
Provincial and city governments, town councils and other offices had a German-Polish character, even though some buildings had flags with swastikas on them – we read in the book.
According to Rossoliński-Liebe, which arguments prove the ‘Polish nature’ of the government?
In 1939 and still in 1940 it was common in large cities to call the mayor or even the city commissioner ‘city president’.
Is the informal use of the old nomenclature evidence of the separateness and independence of the occupied population? The author diligently searches for historical facts, which he presents as evidence of the autonomy of Polish officials during the German occupation. For example, he gives a situation when a beverage tax is introduced in Warsaw, but Germany (Hermann Fribolin) leaves the question of tax reductions and exemptions to Julian Kulski. If Poles could pay less for lemonade, they would have truly experienced sovereignty and independence capable of deciding the Holocaust…
There are common threads running through the work that are supposed to prove the existence of a ‘German-Polish government’ in the occupied territories. Another example is the mayor’s decision to remove barbed wire from someone’s private garden because passers-by were tearing their clothes on it. Elsewhere the author writes that both the Germans and the “Polish” government monitored the markets in search of illegal trade, or that Jews in Krakow wore armbands with the Star of David before they were forced to do so even in the Reich. One might think that the author makes no distinction between the simplest administrative tasks, which were assigned to local officials, and state tasks, imposed by the occupier under threat of death – but it is hard to believe that the historian would be unaware of such elementary realities of the German occupation.
That is why the odium of the German decisions in Rossoliński-Liebe’s book falls on the Poles.
Who is slandered by Rossoliński-Liebe?
Describing “Polish mayors” as a single category of officials of the General Government leads to methodological absurdities. One group includes the hero Julian Kulski, who privately helped Jews, collaborated with the Underground State from the beginning of the occupation, and sent his son to participate in the Warsaw Uprising, who is equated with the collaborator, the mayor of Krzeszowice, Bruno Kochański, who was sentenced to death after the war for his collaboration with the Germans.
The problem with holding Poles responsible for the Holocaust is that there was no institution or organization that would cooperate with the Germans in this regard. There were cases when Poles collaborated with the occupiers, there were also people who participated in various crimes, but neither the Underground State nor other independent organizations supported the Nazis in their policies. This is why the initial accusation of Poland as a society (Jan Tomasz Gross) was later transformed into an accusation against the blue policemen, firefighters and village leaders (Jan Grabowski, Barbara Engelking) and why the work of Rossoliński-Liebe is the next step – defining the supposedly institutional group that would be responsible for the extermination of the Jews. In this way, no one has ever accused Poles of committing crimes.
Are there many errors in the book?
Checking the book with thousands of footnotes will be a tedious and lengthy work of independent Polish historians, but even a cursory reading allows us to point out manipulations. For example, based on the German protocol from the conversation between Julian Kulski and the German authorities on May 28, 1940, the historian states that “neither Kulski nor the city government was interested in providing special assistance to the Jewish population.” Again The author writes as if this was not the reality of the occupation! For the Germans, Poles were people of an inferior race, and the Polish intelligentsia itself was destined for extermination. All Jews were to be killed and helping them was punishable by death. How could a Pole talking to the Germans under such circumstances “show interest in helping” Jews? Especially since Kulski participated in the conspiracy and his role was to often adopt a different attitude towards the Germans, instead of expressing himself honestly to the occupiers. Elsewhere, Rossoliński-Liebe seems to follow in the footsteps of his Grabowski and Engelking circle by presenting some fragments of the sources in a dishonest way. If we compare the quotation he quoted from the memoirs of a Jewish Holocaust survivor with the original, significant discrepancies can be identified – but it is up to historians with the appropriate skills to determine the correct version of the scholarly translation (the book will be published in German). It is worth mentioning these manipulations of sources, because Dr. Piotr Gontarczyk and Dr. Tomasz Domański showed that Grabowski and Engelking in the work “Next Jest Noc” were able to provide fragments of sources that they changed – to fit their thesis.
Why is this so serious?
By omitting scientific works in his book that contradict his theses, Professor Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe positions himself as an author who adapts the historian’s technique to his thesis, which may have political consequences. However, this book can be assessed more seriously than the works of Grabowski or Engelking, because the researcher first publishes his text in German and this is where his dissertation will find its first readers, commentators and reviewers, thus bypassing the scientific criticism of Polish experts. Moreover, the author relied largely on German sources, which is in contrast to the shortcomings of authors of the ‘Jewish Holocaust Research Center’. But above all, previous experiences with dishonest Holocaust researchers show that any criticism of their work and pointing out mistakes is marginalized by being labeled as an ‘attack’ or ‘whitewashing of Polish history’ and left out of the debate. The German state financed a new milestone by blaming the Poles for their crimes.
Source: wPolityce
Emma Matthew is a political analyst for “Social Bites”. With a keen understanding of the inner workings of government and a passion for politics, she provides insightful and informative coverage of the latest political developments.