Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945 (review)

Book Reviews 123 known and understood. Aeon Rodrigue's scholarship has done much to remedy this. Feroz Ahmad History Department University ofMassachusetts, Boston Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945, by David Engel. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. 317 pp. $42.50. With the sequel to his earlier study, In the Shadow ofAuschwitz: The Polish Government-in-fu:ile and thejews, 1939-1942 (1987), David Engel has brought his comprehensive and well-researched description of the World War II relationship of the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews to a conclusion in Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and thejews, 1943-1945. This reviewer said of Engel's earlier volume, In the Shadow of Auschwitz, that that book effectively described and documented "the indifference of the Polish Government-in-Exile to the plight of the Jews in Poland and in the Soviet Union" between 1939 and 1942 and that a major cause of the indifference was, for Engel, that World Jewry "demonstrated little sensitivity" and "little tolerance" to the Polish Government-in-Exile and did not "take the conciliatory steps" needed to win the support of that Government (Shofar, Winter 1988). In Facing a Holocaust, David Engel extends these views to the period 1943-1945. This reviewer's conclusion to the review of In the Shadow ofAuschwitz raised questions about holding the Jews responsible for the failure of the Polish Government-in-Exile to assist them during the Holocaust. Engel argued that his book did not justify the conclusion. Partially in response to critical reviews of Engel's earlier book, Facing a Holocaust begins with an introduction that argues on behalf of the "present volume's purely factual, morally neutral aim," rejects the use of the term "antisemitism" in order to enhance objectivity, and expresses the author's intention to avoid "value-laden conclusions," which "are neither implied nor endorsed by the text." While the book is not entirely free of value judgments, it points to some very serious moral questions about the process and goals of decision-making and diplomatic approaches on the part of the Polish Government-in-Exile, the wartime Allies, and, for Engel, 124 SHOFAR Spring 1995 Vol. 13, No.3 also on the part of Jews seeking to rescue their coreligionists from the horrors of the Holocaust. Engel's book contains a description of many Jewish appeals, pleas, and requests (which throughout the book he refers to as "demands") that the Government-in-Exile provide assistance to the Jews in Poland. Engel indicates that the "demands" were evaluated in terms of the high priority of "the ethnic Polish community" and the low priority of Jews; the perception of Jews as competitors, inhibiting the development of ethnic Poles; a pattern of adverse treatment ofJews in the Polish Army, in society, and in the distribution of relief supplies to refugees; the belief that Jews were "ill-disposed" toward the Polish cause; the view "that Jews were not prepared to defend Polish independence"; the feeling that Jewish charges of "anti-Jewish prejudice" demonstrated "an ineluctable Jewish antiPolonism "-"thatJews were incurably hostile toward their country"; and the "stereotype" that Jews were conspiring with the Soviet Union against Poles (Zydokomuna). In both of his books, Engel makes clear that all of these views dominated the attitudes and policies toward Jews of the Government-inExile from 1939 to 1942 and would continue to dominate the thinking and policies of that Government throughout the period 1943-1945. They explain why the Government-in-Exile almost invariably refused to undertake any actions to assist the Jews throughout World War II. The only reasons that the Government-in-Exile even considered and initiated very limited actions on behalf of the Jews were either to induce World Jewry to exert influence on behalfof Poland or to deflect public reaction against the Polish Army for its discriminatory treatment ofJews. In dealing with the many instances from 1943 to 1945 of Jewish appeals for help, Polish insensitivity to the Nazi murder of]ews during the Holocaust, and the failure of the Government-in-Exile to act with compassion for theJews, Engel provides real insight into...