ANDRZEJ BRKY
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Population," depicts the terror towards the Polish population, and then goes
on:
The greatest danger for the existence of Polish society was direct
physical extermination. Since 1941/42 a majority of about 2,000 ex–
termination centers were located on the territory of occupied Poland.
The biggest was Oswiecim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau) . In the
spring of 1943 there were nearly 100,000 people there. Those chosen
for death the Nazis sent to the gas chambers . . . At the same time
four extermination camps were also created : Chelmno, Belzec, Sobi–
bor, Treblinka. Death was a common occurrence in other Nazi camps
... The Polish population also perished in the camps outside the Polish
lands.
There is nothing about the Jewish population, and the impression is left
that these extermination camps were built for the general destruction of all
Poles instead of specifically for Polish and European Jews. Even if the
confusion in the case ofAuschwitz-Birkenau is somehow understandable, it is
indisputable that
in
Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka only Jews were
killed. Not until the end of the chapter does the author state, "Starting at the
end of 1941, the incessant deportation to the concentration and extermina–
tion camps was directed against Polish Jews through liquidation of the ghet–
tos." Then a short description of the Final Solution follows including correct
statistics. Yet the distortions in these textbooks overwhelm the true picture,
and they are especially blatant considering that elsewhere the uniqueness of
the destruction of the Polish Jews is recognized.
Both the eighth-grade and the high school textbooks also repeat
standard and recently questioned characterizations of Polish-Jewish relations.
In the textbook for the eighth grade we read: "The large part of the Jewish
population accepted its fate passively ... There were also among the Polish
Jews individuals who collaborated with the Nazis.
As
well among the Poles
there were demoralized individuals who took advantage of the tragedy of
the Jewish population ... Their activity was met with wide condemnation on
the part of the Polish population. The Polish underground took up the fight to
support the Jews, resulting in their own death sentences." The paragraph is
not so much false as incomplete. The help extended by the Poles is
acknowledged, but there are exaggerations and untrue statements. In the
textbook for the eighth grade, the author describes the activity of the heroic
Polish group "Zegota" created to help the Jews, but then again stresses the
passivity of the Jewish population. What follows is a justification of Polish in–
activity by that purported Jewish passivity: "When in 1942 the Germans
began
the liquidation of the ghettos, the terrified and deceived Jewish people
allowed themselves to be taken to the concentration camps without any
