The forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German occupation, 1939-1944

by Richard C. Lukas

The revised edition includes a short history of ZEGOTA, the underground government organisation working to save the Jews, and an annotated listing of many Poles executed by the Germans for trying to shelter and save Jews.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Holocaust, Poland, World War II, Polish Literature, Germany

310 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

An American historian and author of numerous books and articles on Polish history and Polish-Jewish relations

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course I was aware that the Poles suffered horribly during World War II and, as a nation, were the most victimized of all. I already knew that something like 20% of the population of Poland was killed during the war. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn a lot from Dr. Lukas's book. He covers World War II in Poland almost day by day -- though not in chronological order; each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the war (civilian attitudes towards the Germans, the Polish Underground, Poles and Jews, etc) instead. And he is able to enlighten the reader on Polish attitudes towards Jews without trying to either demonize or whitewash either side.

The Poles would best be described as feisty. Certainly they have a long history of resisting invasions from one direction or another (it's telling that the first line of their national anthem is "Poland is not yet lost"), and their defiant attitude can be seen throughout the book. The last chapter, describing the Warsaw Uprising, sounds like something out of a good novel -- one by Frederick Forsyth, say.

I will also note that this book is a work of superb scholarship with loads of notes and footnotes to back up Lukas's arguments.

Well done!

[Wanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poland lost 15-20% of her population during the war, the most of any country, and they came from all walks of life. These forgotten millions were murdered simply because they were born Polish. Very few people are aware of the fact that 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. Much of the 1939-1945 Polish history remains to be uncovered, such as the stories concerning resistance units, and the uprising of the Home Army and the suppression by the Soviets.
Lucas’ historical volley “Forgotten Holocaust” is aimed at exposing a much overlooked part of WW II history, i.e. the suffering and wholesale slaughter of the Polish people. The tragedy of the Polish experience, is that it has been neglected and distorted by the West (which betrayed much of Eastern Europe at Yalta) and the suppression of this history by the Soviet puppet governments. The truth is beginning to trickle out, but archives are scant, some still being labeled as top secret (e.g. the SOE role in WW II resistance movements). In other cases only oral history survives, but those potential oral historians who are still alive are in their 80s and older. The search goes on in Poland with some alacrity to reconstruct many stories before they die.
Lucas’ main goal is to contrast the Polish gentile experience to the Polish Jewish one. The Polish experience was different than the Jewish one, in that Polish Jews were marked for immediate and total extermination while Poles were slaughtered a bit differently. Both were killed in large numbers.
What contrasted the Polish gentile experience was that the German genocide of Poles focused on the destruction of the intelligentsia and cultural genocide, while using the others as slaves to wait on those Germans who were resettled into what Hitler viewed as rightfully belonging to Germany (east of the Molotov Ribbentrop line). The total, or near-total, extermination of the Poles was to await the end of the war.
An interesting part of the book deals with a different kind of Holocaust, the destruction of families. Polish children who would be Germanized, because of their blond hair and blue eyes, represented about 3% of the Polish population of the Reich-annexed regions and were ripped from their families to be placed in German foster homes and orphanages. According to German crazy ideology, these were not Poles; they were Germans who had become Polonized, and would now be re-Germanized.
The book pays scant attention to the Warsaw Uprising, although to be fair, the intent is not to provide a blow-by-blow account of those tragic 63 days. I did find some interesting material herein about weapons stockpiles held by the Home Army.
What was fascinating to me was Luccas' description of the underground state. Absolutely extraordinary. All of those thousands and thousands of patriotic Poles running schools, universities, a justice system, cultural and journalism activities under the very noses of the Gestapo in an attempt to keep their country, history and culture alive. Recall that the Germans were trying to do away completely with Polish culture during their occupation; Poles were not considered worthy of education past elementary school and they could not speak their own language (under penalty of prison or death). I came away with an intense appreciation for the tenacity and courage of a peoples who said “Hell no.” It is no accident that the Polish national anthem begins with "Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła" (Poland is not yet lost). This is a country that takes its spirit to heart. Moreover, to think of the unity in preserving this vast underground state when at any minute there could have been a wholesale slaughter of its thousands of citizens is an extraordinary feat and one that has not been seen in any country. Much is made of the French underground and resistance, but it must be remembered that the French were divided. Their Vichy government were Nazi collaborators. Whereas the Poles refused to engage in any Quisling activity, although as Lucas points out Germans unsuccessfully approached Prince Janusz Radziwill, and others, as prospective Quislings. BTW, I did not know the meaning of the word quisling before reading this book. So I improved my vocabulary!
If I have one criticism of the book, which is very well written and footnoted, it is that Lucas drops words that he assumes we should know – e.g. numerus clausus, philo-Semite. I confess that I think that I have a very good grasp of words, but I found myself consulting google frequently. It would have been nice to put in parentheses what these words mean – at least the first time that they are used.
Finally, as one brick in the building of my understanding of all things Polish, this book gave me a great deal of food for thought. What is it about the Poles that in WW II TWO powers tried to destroy the Polish culture and peoples? There was a double tragedy in this time of their history when one realizes that in addition to wholesale slaughter by Nazis, hundreds of thousands of Poles were deported by the Communist Soviets between 1939 and 1941. Most (including most of my father's family) died. The Katyn massacres represented Stalin’s effort to exterminate Polish intelligentsia. Perhaps the answer lies in the Poles' extraordinary tenacity that is anathema to tolitarianism that always seeks to destroy democracy and independent thought.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a meticulously detailed history of the occupation of Poland by the Nazis during WWII. VERY detailed and informative while remaining highly readable. It is also highly objective, though it is not without appropriate subjective aspects. Saddening but necessary history. Highly recommended for all Poles as well as those who want a more complete picture of WWII, focusing on the plight of Poles. The plight of Jews in Poland is a prominent and detailed feature of this book as well, as discussion of the relations between Jews and Poles is discussed at length without neglecting the role of the Nazis to both of these groups. Overall, highly recommended.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good to see the hidden and forgotten genocides now coming to the fore in scholarship. The Holocaust was much bigger than most people believe, and the Nazis targeted many peoples for destruction. It is ironic that Poland is often seen as a tragic victim in WWII, but that the extermination policies are sometimes ignored in the process. This book is a great contribution to the growing scholarship on the question.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me this was a trip into my family history and the little known story of how the polish people were also systematically murdered by both the Nazis and Soviets during WW2.

It is an excellent record of what happened in Poland in addition to the murder of Jews that Poles were being killed at the same time.

I would recommend this for anyone with an interest in 20th Century European History.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book about the six million Poles who died under the Nazi occupation. The six million break out as follows:

Jews (Yiddish and Polish Speaking) 3 million
Roman Catholics (Polish Speaking) 1.5 million
Greek Catholics (Ukranian Speaking) 0.75 Million
Orthodox Catholics (Polish Speaking) 0.75 Million

Mr. Lukas does not address issue of the 0.5 million German speaking Lutheran civilians who also disappeared in 1944.

The reason for the Drang nach Osten was to eliminate Poles and thus free up land for German colonists. The concentration camps thus were first built and used to exterminate primarily Roman Catholics. The Greek Catholics and Orthodox Catholics were killed under other programs.

The Germans did not kill Jews in the camps until June 21, 1941 when they invaded Russia. After this point exterminating Jews became steadily a higher priority so that by 1944 only Jews were being exterminated.

The Nazis massacred the citizens of 170 towns for supporting the partisans over three years. Once the Russian army entered Polish territory, the Germans tried to round up and murder Young polish males to prevent them from joining the Russian army.

Forgive me for participating in the rather distasteful statistical debate as to who suffered most from the endlosung. I encourage everyone to week for first their own dead and then for dead of their companions in suffering.

All ethnic communities in Poland suffered during the Nazi Occupation. The Jews obviously lost the highest percentage of their population.

Since all the extermination (as opposed to work) camps were in Polish territory, Jews from all over Europe were sent to Poland to be liquidated. This considerable raises the Jewish percentage of death camps victims.

[denudatio_pulpae · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Skoro więc powieściopisarze i publicyści podtrzymują zakłamany obraz historii narodu polskiego, to czegoś lepszego można by się spodziewać przynajmniej po historykach. Niestety, nie da się bez zdenerwowania czytać większości książek na temat Holokaustu, tak polemicznie traktuje się tam zagadnienie stosunków polsko-żydowskich. Dominujący w tej dziedzinie historycy żydowscy, zajęci głównie straszliwym dramatem własnego narodu, rzadko, jeśli w ogóle, zdobywają się na bezstronną ocenę uprzedzeń Żydów wobec Polaków i apologii w stosunku do innych Żydów. Efektem tego jest tendencyjność, która bardziej przypomina propagandę niż pisanie historii".

Główny tytuł "Zapomniany holokaust" zmylił i mnie, gdy z rozpędu sięgnęłam po tę książkę w poszukiwaniu kolejnej dawki informacji na temat zagłady Żydów. Autor zaś postanowił podejść do tematu zupełnie z innej strony, odważnie pisząc, że terminu "holokaust" niekoniecznie trzeba używać tylko w odniesieniu do narodu żydowskiego. Jak stwierdził sam Davies, było to bardzo kontrowersyjne i autor nie uniknął skandalu.

Poza trudnym tematem, jakim jest złożoność stosunków polsko-żydowskich podczas II WŚ, Lukas opisał koszmar niemieckiej okupacji na ziemiach polskich w latach 1939-1944 oraz rząd RP na uchodźstwie i cywilny ruch oporu, na Powstaniu warszawskim kończąc.

Książka dość trudna do oceny. W patriotyzmie jak we wszystkim - przesada nie jest wskazana. Daleko mi od idealizowania naszego narodu i w książce zabrakło mi właśnie większej ilości informacji na temat kolaborantów i przejawów współpracy z wrogiem. Nie wątpię jednak w sens jej powstania, jak inne narody mają pamiętać o prawdziwych wydarzeniach II WŚ, skoro obecnie części naszych rodaków nie przeszkadza używanie terminu "polskie obozy koncentracyjne", a upominanie się o sprostowywanie takich sformułowań uważają za przesadną nadgorliwość.

O takich wydarzeniach trzeba pisać, czytać i pamiętać, aby nie powtórzyły się już nigdy więcej. Trzeba jednak pisać obiektywnie, jak stwierdził sam autor:
"Czy wobec tego uczciwie jest twierdzić, że historycy powinni inaczej osądzać Żydów, a inaczej Polaków? W końcu każdy Żyd i każdy Polak, święty czy łajdak, pragnął tylko jednego - przeżyć!"

Nie obyło się bez kontrowersyjnych tez, jednak nie jestem historykiem i nie mnie oceniać ich zasadność. Polecam przeczytanie "Zapomnianego holokaustu" aby wyrobić sobie własne zdanie na ten temat.
7/10

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very compelling book. I am glad to be what really happened in Poland to the Polish people. Pretty shocking and surprising that a lot of this hasn't been known before. Something that the world should know about.

I have put it down for now but will continue to read a small amount at a time, it there is so much information, hard to take in one bite.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess I would call this book "sober" and "sensible".
Another very well researched book on Poland in WWII... and... having just done a google search, I think i know why Lukas became a specialist on Poland in the war... his family's longer surname was Lukaszewski... so he may well have had family in Poland during the war.

Anyway - Lukas is a historian (as opposed to a participant, like Jozef Garlinski whose book I read recently) - and Lukas has a nice, thoughtful tone to his writing. He very clearly separates the Jewish holocaust from the Polish one... and... without a doubt the Nazis wanted to eradicate the Poles from the face of the earth... they just hadn't gotten around to it yet by the time the war was ending.

my page numbers (below) by the way are referring to a 1990 paperback Hippocrene Books version... which doesn't match the pagination of this Goodreads edition.

Hitler referred to the war on Poland as a "war of annihilation" and Himmler wrote "all Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles" (page 4).

Nicely laid out book with logical chapters on the Polish underground and the Polish government in exile etc.

Some interesting details here and there which shows the extent of his research, for example the note that due to German control of many materials and supplies, Poles found it close to impossible to get new clothing, especially shoes... and even in winter time many Poles had no choice but to wear wooden clogs (pg 32). (Lukas words it in such a way that ALL Poles were wearing wooden clogs, but I find that hard to believe).

Also a lot of good work describing the Polish resistance to the Germans, and how the AK (Home Army) was one thing... but there were lots of semi-independent Polish resistance groups who didn't like each other very much.

Goes into a lot of detail about the Warsaw Uprising... and his chapter on this is way more readable than the huge Alexandra Richie book on this topic... though obviously Richie's book is more complete. I liked Lukas's description of Oskar Dirlewanger... who was one of the two main psychopaths on the German side, who piled up thousands of Polish bodies on the streets of Warsaw:

Oskar Dirlewanger was one of those degenerates who, in saner days, would have been court-martialed out of the German army (pg 197).

Anyway - this book doesn't give you the "i was there and this is how it was" feeling that Garlinski sometimes touches upon in his book (Poland in the 2nd World War) but Lukas's book is an authoritative, without being overly massive, overview of this subject.

[Bob Podesfinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am 73 years old, and when I was a boy in Irvington, New Jersey, my doctor was Leonard Tushnet who authored the first books about the Jewish suffering during World War 2. "To Die With Honor" was his book's title, the struggle of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis who decided to kill them as the Russian Army approached.
In the 1950s, the Nazi Holocaust was considered to be the 13 million civilians the Nazis executed. The Jews totalled 6 million, Polish Catholics and other Polish Christians totalled 3 million, and political prisoners, homosexuals, gypsies totalled the remaining 4 million. But deniers focused on the Jewish totals most of all, so the word Holocaust had become tied more and more only to Jews in the media. This books tries to focus on the original total of 13 million.
Actually, the first 3 million were mostly Catholic and Christian Poles. The Nazis executed all Poles who held public office, anyone with a college education, and all priests. (This is why Pope John 2 when just a priest hid under a theater stage during the war.)
This book "Forgotten Holocaust" details the numerous ways the Nazis attacked the Poles. Because my Polish grandparents came to America decades earlier, I see what horrors I missed.
My brother is blond haired and has blue eyes. The Nazis forced Polish families to give blond and blue eyed children to German families. The Poles had developed deep friendships with Jews so the Nazis passed a law allowing Nazis to execute the entire family of any Pole helping a Jew, something not done in any other conquered nation.
But Dictator Adolph Hitler changed his plans and focused on the Jews, a group who were in many nations.
All of Hitler's plans were in his book: kill the Jews and then kill all Slavic peoples so that Germany's eastern border would be the Vistula River in Moscow.
Remember that only 1 percent of Germany's population was Jewish, a mere 100,000. Poland had 3 million Jews, the largest concentration in Europe then. By losing 3 million Christians and 3 million Jews, Poland lost 25 percent of its 24 million people from non-war Nazi actions.
When I was at my Polish Roman Catholic Church, I saw my grandmother (our babcia) crying as we went to the communion rail. Why were you crying? I aaked. She replied the organ was playing the forbidden Polish National Anthem.
Yes, The Nazis executed Polish men who hummed the anthem,. I have read in this and other books.
This is a great book, recommended by a Polish Christian who married a Jewish Pole who both fled to Israel.
This is a good book. I found the book's use of the words Christian Pole and Jewish Pole a bit annoying, but remember that I'm an American who takes our nation's tolerance for granted. After you read this book, you won't, Iguarantee you.

[JShier JShier · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the better history books, presenting the situation much more honestly and openly. It is easier to read and is more objective than some.
I found this very informative and honest. It includes some photographs which give good insight into the plight of the population.
Still,though, there are important omissions and a student can't build a full picture without comprehensively reading around the subject. Like so many other books on this subject, it completely omits the key situations leading up to the war, leaving the reader to come to erroneous conclusions about who was ultimately responsible.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it very informative. I had some difficulty with the details, but I've come away with a better understanding of the Polish situation during the German occupation of WWII.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise look at Poland while occupied by the Nazis from 1939-44, Lukas' book is quick and a very basic overview. It doesn't get into too much detail about any of the various aspects of the occupation, and jumps from topic to topic quickly. Indeed the lack of any introduction or real conclusion also hamper its message, and really should have been edited better, as it sounds like it was written by a first-year undergrad, not a seasoned professor. To this extent many phrases are repeated and really become distracting, and it weakens the overall message.

Though some allowance must be made for the era it was written in, and being one of the first books on the topic, it could have done so much better. While useful from a historiographical aspect, there are far better books on the subject available now that are better written and more comprehensive.

[Alicja Osiej · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pozycja dosyć przeciętna. Dla osób, które nic nie wiedzą o historii. Sam autor opisuje wydarzenia z boku, ze swojego, amerykańskiego punktu widzenia. Dużo ogólników, ocen bez uzasadnienia. Jeżeli szukasz książki, która przedstawi ci szczegółowo Holokaust to sięgnij po inną pozycję.

[Ptj11 · Rating 5 out of 5]

hgvgjfgj

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a bit dated, but it was a good read. I have so many notes to take from it!

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. Lots of detail and sad information.

[Howard Jaeckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard Lukas' book is an important one, because it details facts about which there should be far wider knowledge.

The Nazi occupation regime in Poland was the most brutal of them all. The Nazis started by rounding up and murdering members of the intelligentsia—doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, teachers and clergy – in an effort to preempt any resistance by decapitating the Polish nation. (That was the same strategy almost contemporaneously employed by Stalin when he ordered the infamous Katyn massacre, in which 20,000 Polish officers taken prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 were murdered.) The Nazis continued by executing scores of hostages for any Polish act of resistance and finished by utterly razing Warsaw after the two-month battle that followed the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. In all, about six million Polish citizens were killed -- almost a fifth of Poland's pre-war population, about half of them non-Jewish.

The other principal theme of the book is the incredible heroism of tens of thousands of Poles in either saving or trying to save Jews, despite the posters the Nazis plastered everywhere warning that the penalty for giving any aid to a Jew – a bite to eat, a ride, a night’s shelter—was death, not only for oneself but for one’s entire family. An appendix to the book details more than 700 instances in which the Nazis’ threat was carried out, and there were many, many more.

This is an inspiring story, which is recognized at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial. In addition to more than 6,000 Poles individually honored as “Righteous Among the Nations” – a larger group than represented by any other nationality – there is a stone for the “Zegota,” the only resistance group in occupied Europe specifically dedicated to aiding the Jews, which in addition to its other exploits produced tens of thousands of expertly forged “gentile papers” that enabled Jews to survive.

But as uplifting as these portions of Lukas’ book were, other parts left me uncomfortable, because they read like a polemic aimed at convincing the reader that anti-Semitism in Poland was a rare phenomenon, practically non-existent outside of one virulently anti-Semitic political party. Unfortunately, that is simply not true, as exemplified by the Jedwabne massacre of 1941, the infamous post-war Kielce pogrom of 1946, and contemporary anti-Semitic attitudes that are shockingly widespread, as detailed by Anna Bikont in her recent book, "The Crime and the Silence." And at times I thought Lukas betrayed an undercurrent of hostility to Jews for supposedly exaggerating Polish anti-Semitism and failing to sufficiently recognize the heroism of the many Polish rescuers.

Nonetheless, while simplistic views about Polish anti-Semitism are widespread in the Jewish community, little is known of the courage and sacrifice of so many Poles in attempting to rescue their Jewish compatriots. It is the heroes who deserve to be remembered, and "The Forgotten Holocaust" makes an important contribution in this regard.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways, I have mixed feelings about this book--but I feel like I should read the revised edition before making too firm a statement on it. It is certainly a valuable and interesting look at Polish responses to Nazi occupation--but I'll be curious to see what revisions have been made since this edition was published in 1986.

[FSU Alumni]

Richard C. Lukas (B.A. '57, M.A. '60, Ph.D. '63)