The Black Book of Polish Jewry
OCLC 1265138 | |
The Black Book of Polish Jewry is a 400-page report about the progress of the Holocaust in Poland published in 1943 during World War II by the American Federation for Polish Jews in cooperation with the Association of Jewish Refugees and Immigrants from Poland. It was compiled by Jacob Apenszlak with Jacob Kenner, Isaac Lewin and Moses Polakiewicz, and released by Roy Publishers of New York with an introduction by Ignacy Schwarzbart from the National Council of the Polish Republic.[1] The book was sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, US Senator Robert Wagner, and other high-ranking community leaders. Historian Michael Fleming suggests it downplayed the true scale and manner of the Holocaust in an effort to elicit the empathy of its readership.[a]
Contents
The Black Book of Polish Jewry is a compendium of information collected and summarized from the plethora of already available sources including The Polish Fortnightly Review series published by the
The 1943 estimates of how many Jews have died in
The Report correctly identified
About 25,000 Jews were deported from Lublin in sealed railway cars to an unknown destination and all trace of them was lost" [and] "of the 250,000 Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto up to September 1, 1942, only two small transports, numbering about 4,000 people, are known to have been sent eastwards in the direction of Brzesc and Malachowicze, allegedly to be employed on work behind the front lines. It was not possible to ascertain whether any of the other Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto still survive and it must be feared that they have been all put to death.[4]
The report documented with high accuracy the progress of the Holocaust by bullets in the east as far as localities, but the number of victims was underestimated, with significant percentage of deaths unaccounted for by year's end:
In many places the Jews were deported to an unknown destination and killed in neighboring woods. In
Wilno 50,000 Jews were murdered ... all Jews in Zurawicze, Mir, Lachowice, Kosow ... in Slonim ... nearly 9,000 Jews were slaughtered. In Rowno ... nearly 15,000 Jews were shot, men, women and children ... This mass-slaughter of Jew has taken place in all the Polish territories east of the rivers San and Bug.[5]
According to Michael Fleming, neither the editor, Jacob Apenszlak, nor his collaborators, stated the true scale and manner of the Holocaust in Poland, seeking to elicit empathy from an American public which at that time "was marked by a high level of antisemitism".[3] Fleming further wrote that "the fate of Polish Jewry was narrated without, in the most part, reference to the death camps". He attributed those issues to self-censorship and compromises made to satisfy the "US censorship and propaganda organs". The book was sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt), Albert Einstein, Senator Robert Wagner and several prominent Americans, Jews, and Poles including high-ranking officials and community leaders.[3]
Footnotes
Notes
- ^ OCLC 1265138.
- ^ Fleming (2014), p. 191, "number of victims questioned."
- ^ ISBN 9781107062795.
- OCLC 1265138– via Internet Archive.
- OCLC 1265138– via Internet Archive.
External links
- Archive.org, Black Book of Polish Jewry. Digitized; link to Collection.
- Jewish Telegraphic Agency (New York, December 15, 1943), "Black Book of Polish Jewry Estimates 1,000,000 Polish Jews Killed by Nazis". JTA Archive.
- YivoArchives.org, "American Federation for Polish Jews". Administrative History.