by Tec, Nechama
Antoni picked up the story:
I returned to my room looking forward to Lolek’s visit. Suddenly, earlier than I had expected, Lolek burst into our place. He threw himself on my bed. What I saw shook me up. There was no need for explanations. Badly disfigured, Lolek obviously had been the victim of a severe onslaught. Several of his teeth were missing; a finger of his hand was broken. The upper part of his entire body was covered with blood . . . Keep in mind that this had happened in 1937. I can still hear Lolek’s angry, distorted voice saying that he had completed all exams! And that never ever again will he come back to this hellish place.
He kept his promise. While Lolek never returned to the Warsaw University grounds, he had to remain in Kolo for a while. The two friends continued their active involvement with the PPS. Of the two, Lolek was much more politically active. His leftist views grew more extreme than Antoni’s.
In 1939, Antoni was mobilized into the Polish army, where he automatically assumed the rank of an officer. Lolek was not asked to join the army, very likely because of his strong leftist leanings and his Jewish background. Officially, both Lolek and Antoni qualified for an officer’s rank.
The PPS encouraged Lolek to go east. They offered help. Lolek eventually ended up at Moscow University, where he became a prominent professor. Antoni said that they never met again.8 However, their commitment to the socialist ideology and their devotion to the study of law bonded Lolek and Antoni, and after Lolek’s absence his influence upon Antoni’s life lingered on.
It would have been put to a brutal test by the events that followed in Poland. By the fall of 1940, the Germans were consolidating their hold over the newly acquired territories, pouring into them a proliferation of rules. Failure to comply with any of these so-called “laws” resulted in severe punishments. Faced with unending assaults, and unable to cope with such ruthless force, the army and Polish civilians were overwhelmed. Many people took to the roads. Enemy planes bombed some of them. Some, discouraged, turned back. Precise figures for those who escaped are not available, but I am interested in finding out who these runaways were and what happened to them. A secondary question is how Germans and Poles coped with their respective circumstances, and whether reactions to oppression affected Jewish and non-Jewish resistance.
History shows that the Polish political leaders who were a part of the mass migration quickly recognized what the German offensive would mean. Initially, a group of these political leaders escaped to France where they established a Polish government-in-exile. When the Germans threatened France’s independence, this government moved to London, where it reassembled.
What the Poles failed to accomplish through direct military means against the Germans, therefore, they set out to achieve from a distance, with the aid of the newly created Polish government-in-exile. An important step in this process was the realization that scattered members of the Polish army, especially Polish officers, could serve as links between German-occupied Poland and the government in London.
In no time, a protective Polish underground surrounded former officers. They were informed about the lurking dangers. They were automatically supplied with new documents. Early on, the Germans had ordered all Polish officers to register with the appropriate authorities. Recent experiences had proven that official registration would automatically translate into execution. Whatever help was received saved their lives and simultaneously increased the ranks of the already existent Polish underground. About 20,000 former Polish officers are estimated to have successfully concealed their officer status. All former members of the Polish army, including the unidentifiable officers, contributed in a variety of ways to the development and continuity of the Polish underground.
Soon this underground movement had crystallized into two major ruling bodies. One of them consisted of the coalition of the four largest political parties: the Peasant, the Socialist, the Christian Labor, and the National Party. The second part, the official military organization, was recognized by the government as a military unit, enjoying equal rights with the Polish army first in France and subsequently in England.9
In all the countries under German occupation, men were usually more vigorously persecuted than women. Men were seen as more threatening and potentially more rebellious than women.10 Since Jewish men rather than women were perceived as the chief enemies of the Third Reich, most of the anti-Jewish terror was directed against them.11 Nevertheless, the Jews, in general, were singled out for the most ruthless treatment.12
The 1939 anti-Polish campaign included five German security police (Schutzstaffel, or SS) and security service (Sicherheitsdienst, or SD) task forces—the Einsatzgruppen—operating behind the front lines. Their main task was to secure and “pacify” the occupied area. In so doing they, along with some German army units, routinely murdered Jewish civilians. The majority of the victims were men; women and children were a small minority.13
Time and the emergent political, military, and economic circumstances would occasionally alter the ever-expanding course of Jewish destruction. In the absence of other evidence, most historians agree that the plan for Jewish annihilation—the “Final Solution”—crystallized after the start of the Russian-German war in June 1941. As the Germans moved east, they searched for more efficient methods of destruction. The capture of Russian-held territories coincided with the mass murder of Jews.14
Within the context of future Germanization of Poland, Goebbels quoted Hitler as saying that the Poles were “more animal than human beings” and that “the filth of the Poles is unimaginable.” Poles were at the very bottom of the racial ranking system, only slightly above the Jews. Hitler had therefore consistently opposed any close connections between the Poles and the Germans. He felt that the Poles should be pushed into their beleaguered state, namely the General Government, the part of Poland designated for German rule but identified formally as a separate region of the Third Reich.
The Einsatzgruppen were used in Poland for the first time. Their cruelty had moved the conduct of the war and Poland to an unprecedented level of criminality.15 Initially, the German army objected to excessive oppression toward the Polish population; with time, however, their objections evaporated. Eventually, the order to liquidate the Polish aristocracy, clergy, and intelligentsia claimed an estimated 60,000 victims.16 German concentration upon the destruction of Polish elites affected the entire Polish underground, including Antoni and other officers of the Polish army.
The Nazis defined all Jews as fitting into a racial category distinguishable by specific physical, social, and psychological characteristics. Yet, undermining this myth was the fact that in the newly occupied territories of Eastern Europe, the conquerors often had difficulty separating Jews from the rest of the population. An official decree requiring Jews to wear a Star of David helped, but it took some time before it went into effect. Therefore, at the start, the Germans relied on collaborators to identify the Jews and their property. To gain the cooperation of the local populations, the Germans bombarded the newly conquered territories with virulent anti-Semitic propaganda. Not only did this propaganda describe the Jews as subhuman vermin to be exterminated, but it also blamed them for every conceivable ill, including the war. These ideas fell on fertile ground, and anti-Semitic mobs sprang up, encouraged by this official attitude.17
The chronicler Chaim Kaplan described Warsaw in an entry of October 1939: “Every public place shows hatred and loathing against Jews. Isolated incidents of violence against Jews have grown too numerous to count. Eyewitnesses tell horrifying stories, and they are not exaggerations.” Half a year later, the situation had worsened: “Gangs of tough Polish youths (you won’t find one adult among them), armed with clubs, sticks and all kinds of harmful weapons, make pogroms against the Jews. They break into stores and empty their goods into their own pockets. The Jews they encounter on the way are beaten and wounded. The Jewish quarter has been abandoned to toughs and killers who were organized for this purpose by some invisible hand.”18<
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The Germans followed each territorial conquest with a viciousness that was specifically designed to debase and humiliate. Numerous photographs show gleeful German soldiers looking on and laughing while their comrades cut off the beards of Orthodox Jews. Often such encounters involved brutal beatings, with the victims forced to kneel, pray, dance, and sing.19 From the beginning of the war, the Germans viewed their military victories as opportunities to destroy those segments of local populations they defined as barriers to the creation of the ideal Aryan world. The Jews, the Slavs, and Poland’s other minorities fit this description.
But time did not favor the Germans. In the summer of 1943, the Germans were losing ground, both at the front and in the occupied territories. The Polish underground was increasing its opposition, blowing up trains and bridges and killing high-ranking Germans. Unable to track down those who were responsible, the Germans were becoming more ruthless and more arbitrary in their retaliations against the civilian population. Raids, deportations, and killings occurred more frequently and less predictably. In the past, they had stayed away from the poorer section of town, but with time, they were beginning to move their operations into such areas as well.20 As the Third Reich continued to incur more substantial losses, the Germans became more vigilant, suspicious, and hostile. What the Germans lost by increased casualties, they tried to make up by greater cruelty.
Actively involved in a range of underground operations, threatened by the increased German persecutions, Antoni escaped to Podlesie in Eastern Poland. Here, in a village so remote that it did not even have a police station, he found a job as a secretary to the mayor of the village. Although the pay was modest, the duties were undemanding. This village was surrounded by several equally small villages. More advanced than these surrounding villages, it attracted local peasants, who liked to discuss their problems with the mayor, a native peasant. He was a decent, well-liked man who had a reputation for brains.
The summer of 1943 was a time during which the Germans were viciously persecuting local populations for all transgressions, large and small. Eager to avenge their failure to win the war, the German authorities were busy overseeing public hangings of Poles and Jews. Antoni picks up the story,
On a hot day, during the lunch hour, a delegation of local peasants paid a visit to the mayor’s office. The mayor was away on business. This delegation brought with them an official report, which they insisted, on reading loudly, in front of all those who were present. The report stated that in a nearby village, Skarzyn, they came upon a group of Jews who lived in a dugout shelter, close to the forest, under a specific pear tree. As law-abiding citizens, they came to report a legal transgression. The law required that such a report should be telephoned to the local police. All those who listened knew that this story would end with the execution of the hidden Jews.
He was initially horrified and puzzled, then realized that this delegation had purposefully selected a time when the mayor was away. The public way in which this report was presented was aimed at protecting the mayor from an unpleasant task. The accusers wanted Antoni, a stranger, to do the dirty work and not the mayor, who was one of them. Antoni reflected on the problem. “I could not denounce the Jews, who after all were not guilty of anything. . . . It crossed my mind to run away.” But Antoni realized that he had nowhere to go. His duties were to call the police, though he knew they would shoot the Jews. “I was vacillating, unsure, groping.” Finally he assured the group that he had accepted their report and would notify the police. The group left, apparently satisfied. “When they were gone, I decided to consult with a friend of mine, Wojcik, a local peasant, a decent good-natured person. I sent for him. He came and responded to the news with deep sadness. After all, he argued, they survived till now. What a shame to give them into the hands of the German murders.”
Wojcik came up with a solution, Antoni remembered. He told his friend to send someone trustworthy to the Jews and warn them to get out, and then give them instructions about a new hiding place deeper in the forest. They should wait there until someone contacted them.
That very evening we called the police and shared the report with them. We went to the hideout with the police. There, we were confronted by an empty place. A new report had to be written, which meant that the original report was false. When next day the mayor returned, he seemed very happy with the situation. This mayor was a decent, smart man. He must have guessed what happened. He seemed to be in high spirits, probably because he had avoided committing a horrible crime.
Antoni and Wojcik formed a bond over their successful plan. Eventually, they became the protectors and ultimately the rescuers of the “missing Jews.” The group included four women and three men, their ages ranging from twenty to thirty. They had been in hiding together for about a year. Occasionally, in the evening, one of these men would approach a trusted farmer to purchase some food from him. Antoni was vaguely aware of these transactions. By chance, here and there, he would meet one of them in a farmer’s hut. He preferred not to ask about them. Secrecy went hand in hand with safety.
As Antoni and Wojcik became the official food suppliers for these hidden Jews, I asked him if they were reimbursed. Antoni was taken aback by my question. “I could never accept payment for food from people who were forced to live under such dire circumstances. I simply could not do that!”
Antoni explained that the Germans had ordered the local peasants to supply the authorities with produce, and especially with luxury items such as meats, cheeses, eggs, and cream. The farmers resented these demands. They tried to sabotage orders by making sure that a substantial portion of their deliveries would miss their destination. Some of these goods stayed on the farms and were consumed by the farmers and their families. Some found their way to other Poles, usually those whom the owners liked. Antoni and Wojcik looked for safe ways to supply the seven Jews with flour and whatever else these suppliers could spare. Food found its way into the Jewish hideout in the nearby forest. Deliveries happened at night.
How did these self-appointed rescuers view what they were doing? When I raised this question, Antoni gave me a range of responses. He felt that his continuous involvements with risky AK operations helped him identify with the way the Jews felt. “The Nazis were trying to get me, so I knew what it meant to be persecuted. It was my duty to help, so I did.” He, too, was living in danger. To be sure, the village had welcomed him by offering him the position of the mayor’s secretary. On the other hand, he was still an outsider.
The report about the Jews’ hiding place pointed to the distinction the local people made between their mayor, whom they wanted to protect, and Antoni, who for them was the outsider. To those who presented the report, the Jews were even more outsiders, and as such had no right to live. Antoni refrained from telling me in detail the kinds of activities he pursued on behalf of the AK. I knew that with the Soviet takeover of this part of Poland, the Home Army had been made illegal. Even in 1978, with Poland still under Soviet domination, Antoni was cautious about revealing AK’s secrets. As an AK member and former officer of the Polish army, Antoni was involved in illegal activities throughout the war. He was aware that the Germans were on the lookout for members of the Home Army.
Antoni was visibly uncomfortable when I asked him whether the Jews he had rescued were grateful enough. He said that he had expected no gratitude. Then he said that the Jews were very grateful, but that while the war was on they had no opportunities to show their gratitude. It would have been very dangerous to have much contact between the hidden Jews and their protectors.
In fact, it was only after the war was behind them—and the Soviets had taken over this part of Poland—that the Jews learned that Antoni and Wojcik had been their rescuers. Antoni insisted that they were grateful. After the German retreat, he said, “I was invited to their home. For quite a while, I did not even tell them that I was involved in helping them. To be sure they knew in part, the next day, what had happened when they had to relocate. But there
was no time to explain the details.” In a way, gratitude was a luxury that no one could afford.
I asked Antoni if he ever regretted his involvement with the rescue of Jewish lives. His answer was insistent. “I never regretted this! I did what I should have done. I could not have lived with myself had I not done everything in my power.” When touching on the protection of wartime Jews, he felt constrained about talking openly until quite late. Not until 1975 did he talk about the war years. “Up until then, most of the people who denounced the Jews were still alive,” he told me. “As long as the people were still alive, I did not want to talk about it to hurt them. I did not want to be a witness. Besides, I was afraid to respond to questions about my AK involvement.” But word about his activities began to spread at his workplace, and things became uncomfortable for him. “This is what prompted me to admit publicly that I saved Jews during the war. Bringing this into the open helped stop all negative whisperings about my wartime conduct.”
When I raised the subject of Polish anti-Semitism, Antoni replied that it was merely a part of life. The Poles felt inferior to the Jews, many of whom had become successful in business and in institutions of higher learning. “I am a Pole, but I have to admit that Jews are more capable than Poles. Maybe not all of them but many are. When Jews perform more demanding tasks, then they are better at it than Poles, who seized upon anti-Semitism as a way ‘to eliminate competition.’”
Without asking whether he shared that feeling, I asked Antoni how he felt about his rescue efforts during the war. “Today I would have done exactly the same thing. For sure I could not act in any other way. Besides, I was not alone. There were quite a number of people who helped Jews. I knew an old bachelor, a Pole, who kept four people in a cellar. There were many more Poles who risked their lives to save Jews in a variety of ways and never spoke about it. On the other hand, I also know that some Poles were following German orders and were harming Jews.”
