The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945
ISBN 1107014263 | |
The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945 is a book by American historian
Contents
Researching the book took Joshua Zimmerman nine years. He lived for a year in Poland, interviewed witnesses (Jewish survivors as well as Home Army members), and examined archives in the United Kingdom and Israel. Zimmerman states that his intent was to present evidence without offering a verdict.[1]
The book falls into two parts. The first and shorter part covers prewar background, the initial German and Soviet
Reception
Wojtek Rappak, reviewing the book in 2016 for the
Michael Meng, in 2016 in The American Historical Review, wrote that the book tackles a "difficult and sensitive topic" and that the author "made a significant contribution to the historiography of Polish-Jewish relations."[6]
That same year,
Eva Plach, reviewing the book for the Slavic Review, also in 2016, wrote that it is "a book richly deserving of praise" and commented that Zimmerman's account discussed both examples of how, on occasion, some elements of the Polish Underground killed Jews and examples of how other elements provided aid to Jews, which "reminds us... why we cannot treat the Polish Underground as a homogeneous entity."[2]
A 2016 review by
According to Andrzej Żbikowski, Zimmerman is less critical of the Polish underground than the Polish historian Adam Puławski, who has written multiple books on the same subject. For example, while Zimmerman praises the bulletin published by the Home Army, Puławski argues that the bulletin was of little importance at the time. In addition, according to Żbikowski, Zimmerman's book is written with a foreign reader in mind and therefore spends considerable space on background information. He also states that sometimes Zimmerman goes too far in attempting to avoid offending supporters of the Polish Underground State.[11]
Theodore R. Weeks, writing in 2018 in The Polish Review, called the book "a remarkably fair, objective and scholarly monograph" in a controversial topic area.[12] Jadwiga Biskupska, writing the same year in H-Net, called the book "essential reading for modern Polish history and the Holocaust" and observed that it should be seen as a valuable contribution not only to those topics but also the literature on World War II resistance movements, particularly on Poland's Home Army.[13]
Robert Blobaum wrote in his review that Zimmerman does not make enough of an effort to answer the questions he raises:[14]
However much new information Zimmerman has added to the balance sheet, one ultimately has to ask and answer the question: Do the Home Army’s accounts really balance or do they contain a substantial moral deficit? And, more significantly, where does the wartime record fit into the larger downward spiral of Polish-Jewish relations in the first half of the twentieth century?
References
- ^ Lipman, Steve (3 November 2015). "Killers Of Jews Or Saviors of Jews?". jewishweek.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ S2CID 164257094.
- ^ a b Fox-Bevilacqua, Marisa (29 December 2015). "Did the Polish underground save Jews during WWII?". Haaretz. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ Polonsky, Antony (2015). "The Complex Story of the Armia Krajowa: Review of Joshua Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945". Yad Vashem Studies. 43 (2).
- S2CID 147692623.
- ISSN 0002-8762.
- ISSN 8756-6583.
- ISSN 1895-247X.
- ISSN 1895-247X.
- ISSN 1895-247X.
- S2CID 204642374.
- .
- ^ "Biskupska on Zimmerman, 'The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945' | H-Poland | H-Net". networks.h-net.org. Retrieved 2020-05-23.
- ^ "The American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies | Blobaum review of Zimmerman". www.aapjstudies.org.
External links
- Rossoliński-Liebe, Grzegorz (2017). "Review of The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945". Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (in German). 65 (4): 676–680. JSTOR 44646106.
- Library Book Talk: The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945. Video lecture by Joshua D. Zimmerman about his book. Yeshiva University Libraries
- Frydel, Tomasz (January 31, 2016). "The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945". The Cosmopolitan Review. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
- Zimmerman, Joshua D. (2019). "Odpowiedź profesorowi Andrzejowi Żbikowskiemu". Konteksty Kultury (in Polish). 16 (1): 95–98. S2CID 204694141.