# Complicity for the Holocaust in occupied countries
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 21, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157 "2015-04-21T02:20:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2015, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/41 "2015-04-21T23:56:37Z")
_“It should be noted without equivocation that Poland’s Holocaust record, while far from perfect, is better than most countries under Nazi occupation. Unlike most of Germany’s European colonies, Poland produced no native SS division. Those who served with the German army were primarily Volksdeutsch (Polish citizens of German extraction), and, unlike citizens of other countries under occupation, no Poles eagerly worked as death camp guards.”_
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> That’s not true. Schutzmannschaft Battalion 201 and 14th SS-Volunteer Division “Galician” were both made up of Polish Ukranians,
It is reasonable to interpret “native” as referring to ethnic Poles.
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> and, the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, made up of Volksdeusche Poles, was under SS command.
The issue is whether any ethnic Poles served.
As for VoD there were over 700,000 prewar. Thousands must have wound up in the German regular army.
---
### Author:  [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/42 "2015-04-22T00:06:27Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#):
>
> Nobody asked them, I’m pretty sure, “How did you feel about Polish collaborators?” I certainly didn’t. Which made it all the more surprising that these same feelings came pouring out of so many of them spontaneously.
Sorry to inject levity into such a serious subject, but your post reminded me so much of this, from the game _Portal 2_:
[QUOTE=GLaDOS]
Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I’m serious, that’s what it says: A horrible person. We weren’t even testing for that.
[/QUOTE]
More seriously, here’s another article that may be of interest. Apparently, a lot of violence was committed against Jews after the war by Poles who were afraid they would reclaim their confiscated property.
[http://njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/120408/cjAuthorOutlines.html](http://njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/120408/cjAuthorOutlines.html)
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/43 "2015-04-22T00:28:13Z")
> [@Haberdash](#):
>
> Yes, truly the greatest tragedy of the Holocaust was that Jews who survived it might be angry at the perpetrators.
You completely misunderstood me.
By _“Imagine a Jew surviving all those years and then coming to such an end”_ I was referring only to those who were murdered in the 1946 pogrom.
And there is nothing tragic about a victim’s anger at the criminal as long as the anger does not become an obstacle to getting on with life.
> [@Haberdash](#):
>
> You are skirting perilously close to denial here – Polish collaboration is a rock solid historical fact. The only controversy is how much and how under German duress it was.
The words I used to describe Polish collaboration were “marginally” and “insignificant” and I am going to stick with them until you do some explaining about exactly who and where all the Polish tormentors were, because they were not concentration camp staff.
About half of all holocaust victims were Jews of other than Polish origin, and it may be that far fewer Polish Jews survived than any other since they were closest to the killing fields from Day One. The other victims, including some, most or even all of your interviewees probably would not have known a Pole from any other central or eastern European, and that type of confusion might be the answer to your problem.
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### Author:  [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/44 "2015-04-22T00:47:22Z")
Why on Earth would you think that an Eastern European Jew could not tell who was a Pole from the most obvious characteristic, which is that they speak Polish? The majority of Jews in Eastern Europe spoke Polish themselves, since they had lived in Poland for 600 years. Those in other countries certainly could tell the language when they heard it.
Come on, admit that you’re a Polish nationalist propagandist already. “Jews wouldn’t know whether someone was Polish or not.” Please.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/45 "2015-04-22T01:18:40Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> It is reasonable to interpret “native” as referring to ethnic Poles.
Ethnic Poles weren’t allowed in the SS. There were some abortive attempts to create Polish SS battalions, but they were quashed by the higher ups. From an August 3, 1993 letter from the war crimes office in Ludwigsburg (quoted in Tadeusz Piotrowski’s “Poland’s Holocaust”)
> [@](#):
>
> Since December 1, 1958, my office has been responsible for information on Nazi crimes, which we have pursued systematically. In the context of this work, units that were recruited from foreigners have also been examined. Predominantly, these were units of the Waffen-SS. Based on the knowledge gained herefrom, I can conclude that there was no Waffen-SS unit similar to the Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukranianian, etc. divisions that would have consisted solely of Polish volunteers or “conscripts”.
>
> It has, however, come to our knowledge, that many soldiers fought in the Waffen-SS who (at least prior to joining it) were of Polish nationality. To all intents and purposes, however, these were essentially Poles of German ancestry, who were later “Germanized”, to use the parlance of the Nazi regime.
>
> I should also mention in this context that, after the attack on the Soviet Union, (ethnic) Poles showed an interest in joining the Waffen-SS or the Wehrmacht in order to-as the saying went-fight Communism. While the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (themselves) were pursuing such recruitment, Hitler, or rather Himmler, rejected the idea. Only on October 24, 1944, did Hitler agree to the enlistment of Poles as volunteers (see, in this connection, the decree of the Heeresgruppe Mitte of November 4, 1944, concerning guidelines for the recruitment of Polish volunteers, Federal Archives Document MA 53-13/40). We have no knowledge about the formation, duty, or attachment of these volunteer units, since for purposes of classification of the Nazi crimes, they did not become known and therefore, we did not pursue these questions.
>
> Regardless of all else, there were Polish “willing helpers” (Hilfswillige) and Polish Police units that became involved in SS operations (eg. Polish Police and “Trawniki people” during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, and “Trawniki people” serving in guards in concentration and annihilation camps)
>
> [The remainder of the letter relates to the author’s inability to determine whether any Polish citizens are drawing pensions from the German government based on service in the Waffen-SS]
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/46 "2015-04-22T01:32:03Z")
> [@Haberdash](#):
>
> Why on Earth would you think that an Eastern European Jew could not tell who was a Pole from the most obvious characteristic, which is that they speak Polish? The majority of Jews in Eastern Europe spoke Polish themselves, since they had lived in Poland for 600 years. Those in other countries certainly could tell the language when they heard it.
>
> Come on, admit that you’re a Polish nationalist propagandist already. “Jews wouldn’t know whether someone was Polish or not.” Please.
Come on and admit you could stand to read a bit more carefully: it should be obvious that my speculative premise is that the only Jews who would recognize Polish were those who lived in Poland. If so, that would leave close to 3 million other victims who would not have recognized it.
As for my own ancestral national background my maternal grandmother’s father was a circa 1850 German immigrant, complete with the nobiliary particle “von” attached to his last name. His (?grand)mother may have been a converted Jew, and closer to me in line are Welsh, English and my immigrant Danish father. So quite a mix, but no Poles that I know of, so if my ancestry counted for anything I should be taking sides against the Poles. As it is I sympathize with the Poles for their tragic national history and I admire their perseverance in face of centuries of invasion going back to the Mongols not to mention the four partitions of modern history, and my sympathy and admiration make me inclined to stick up for them, and give them the benefit of the doubt as I am in this thread.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/47 "2015-04-22T01:40:59Z")
There are precision chemistry scales capable of measuring micrograms that lack a sufficient degree of sensitivity to register the mass of my sympathy for Poland on this issue.
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/48 "2015-04-22T01:45:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> Ethnic Poles weren’t allowed in the SS. There were some abortive attempts to create Polish SS battalions, but they were quashed by the higher ups. From an August 3, 1993 letter from the war crimes office in Ludwigsburg (quoted in Tadeusz Piotrowski’s “Poland’s Holocaust”)
I never said or implied there were any Poles in the SS. In fact the opposite: (from post #41) \*Poland produced no native SS division. \*
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/49 "2015-04-22T02:25:20Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> I never said or implied there were any Poles in the SS. In fact the opposite: (from post #41) \*Poland produced no native SS division. \*
I know. But the reason there were no ethnic Polish SS division is because ethnic Poles weren’t allowed to form an SS division. It’s not because of any intrinsic saintliness of the ethnic Poles. (And, like I had said before, the Polish Ukrainian SS divisions and Volksdeutsche divisions were native Polish divisions, in that they were recruited from Polish territory and made up of people who were, when Poland existed, Polish citizens. They just didn’t define themselves ethnically as Polish.)
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/50 "2015-04-22T02:38:32Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> I know. But the reason there were no ethnic Polish SS division is because ethnic Poles weren’t allowed to form an SS division. It’s not because of any intrinsic saintliness of the ethnic Poles. (And, like I had said before, the Polish Ukrainian SS divisions and Volksdeutsche divisions were native Polish divisions, in that they were recruited from Polish territory and made up of people who were, when Poland existed, Polish citizens. They just didn’t define themselves ethnically as Polish.)
The ethnic Poles are the only ones I have been defending, and saints or no saints I doubt they would have provided enough volunteers to outfit a division.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/51 "2015-04-22T02:40:48Z")
In my book, when wikipedia runs up against reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt wins.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/52 "2015-04-22T03:02:56Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> The ethnic Poles are the only ones I have been defending, and saints or no saints I doubt they would have provided enough volunteers to outfit a division.
I don’t. The Blue Police, which did collaborate, had at its height, about 16,000 people, most of them either Poles or Polish-speaking Ukrainians, and there were two ethnically Polish auxiliary police battalions, one of which, Schutzmannschaft Battalion 202, saw combat against Soviet forces and was pretty much wiped out fighting the Red Army.
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/53 "2015-04-22T03:05:27Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> In my book, when wikipedia runs up against reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt wins.
Oh, I’ve read my share of heavy tomes, starting with \*The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich \* (\>1000p) in HS in the 1960s and continuing on to _Truman_ (992p) now. Not that tomes are the only road to knowledge, of course.
And as for Wikipedia I know enough to decide when reasonable doubt wins and when it doesn’t win without your help, thanks all the same.
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/54 "2015-04-22T03:21:03Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> I don’t. The Blue Police, which did collaborate, had at its height, about 16,000 people, most of them either Poles or Polish-speaking Ukrainians,
“Most of them”…“either”…“or” doth not a division make. Keep in mind that a full-strength WW2 division was about 18,000 strong.
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> and there were two ethnically Polish auxiliary police battalions, one of which, Schutzmannschaft Battalion 202, saw combat against Soviet forces and was pretty much wiped out fighting the Red Army.
Two auxiliary battalions doth not a division make, either, and even if it did it wouldn’t count since half were deployed in conventional combat against an almost entirely non-Jewish conventional army. Also, specific mention needs to be made if either half was used in terrorist operations against unarmed civilian Jews, who are the topic of this thread.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/55 "2015-04-22T03:53:49Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> Also, specific mention needs to be made if either half was used in terrorist operations against unarmed civilian Jews, who are the topic of this thread.
If, instead of talking about Polish Waffen-SS participation, we’re talking just about participation by ethnic Poles in the Holocaust, then the Blue Police participated in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and participated in earlier roundups of Jews, and there was civilian Polish participation in the 1940 Passover pogroms in Warsaw and in other places.
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### Author:  [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/56 "2015-04-22T07:23:16Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> During the cold war Poland was described as one of the few parts of the world that had antisemitism without Jews. The Jewish community there, once large, was tiny during that era.
Jews made up [50% of the directors](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Security_%28Poland%29) of Stalin-created Cold War era secret police in Poland. This Ministry of Public Security was responsible for 50,000 deportations to Siberia in 1945 alone, 6,000 executions, torture, mass arrests, and other crimes against humanity in Poland.
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### Author:  [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/57 "2015-04-22T11:19:37Z")
Nazi racial doctrine was extremely anti-Polish. With very few exceptions, only those Polish citizens who were of German ancestry would have been considered for roles in the German military to begin with.
The fact that, even as the Nazis were carrying out their own extermination and enslavement, many Poles still found time to turn over Jews to their own tormentors just shows how deep anti-Semitism ran in Polish society.
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/58 "2015-04-22T15:37:18Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> If, instead of talking about Polish Waffen-SS participation, we’re talking just about participation by ethnic Poles in the Holocaust, then the Blue Police participated in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and participated in earlier roundups of Jews, and there was civilian Polish participation in the 1940 Passover pogroms in Warsaw and in other places.
At the time of the April-May 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising the Germans were gearing up for what would become the gigantic Battle of Kursk against the USSR. Consequently they had almost nothing to spare for the Ghetto, and would have used every reliable Pole they could get their hands on. How many was that? 367 in a city with a prewar Polish population of over 700,000, not that they were forbidden to recruit Poles from elsewhere. 367! That is exacly what I was talking about when I used the words “marginally” and “insignificant”.
As for the 1940 pogroms a Jewish [eyewitness](https://books.google.com/books?id=4U_OcvXvhF4C&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=1940+Passover+pogroms+in+Warsaw&source=bl&ots=7FxXNehuIY&sig=j_zBrT6EzAgF-Rct2NGrTPGWq3I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BLg3VZ-zN8erggSrv4HYAQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=1940%20Passover%20pogroms%20in%20Warsaw&f=false) estimated the number of perpetrators at 1,000, and I think I will leave it at that.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/59 "2015-04-22T18:17:08Z")
Part of the isolation of Polish Jews had to do with assimilation. In the Reform movement in 19th century Germany, assimilation meant concerts, museums, dinner parties and pleasant companionship. In Central Europe, it meant associating with a bunch of fellows who regularly became intoxicated on the weekends and beat their Wives.
A group of people who dress funny and want absolutely nothing to do with you save to take your money in business transactions will for the most part be disliked and even detested.
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### Author:  [@erez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erez)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complicity-for-the-holocaust-in-occupied-countries/718157/60 "2015-04-22T19:06:20Z")
Many Jews [welcomed with open arms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland) the Soviet invasion of Poland. Jews joined and organized communist militias, which [disarmed and arrested Polish soldiers.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBydokomuna#Invasion_of_Poland_and_the_Soviet_occupation_zone) On the second day of the invasion, local Jews participated in the [Massacre of Brzostowica Mala](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Brzostowica_Ma%C5%82a), where around 50 ethnic Poles were murdered. The Soviet invasion resulted in estimated 150,000 deaths and 320,000 deportations of Poles to Siberia. In the [Katyn massacre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre) alone, around 22,000 Poles were executed by the Soviet secret police.
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