Wow, so wrong.
Poland was not first attacked, but first to fight. You forget Austria and Czechoslovakia. The only country to fight from the first to last day of the war. You might think that meant they didn’t agree w/ the Nazi ideology, since they were not in an alliance with them (like Italy or Romania)
Poland was split, and the General Government was not incorporated into the Reich as was Western Poland, known as Wartegau. It did not have a puppet government, but rather was administered directly by the Nazis through their Gen. Hans Frank. So we see Poland was not an ally of the Nazis, and uniquely had no occupation governement. Again, clearly the Poles were enemies of the Nazis.
Poland had the only (exile) government bureau specifically set up to help the Jews (Zegota). It was a capital crime to help the Jews (if the Poles spent the war just persecuting Jews, why need that sort of law?). The largest number of “Righteous of the Gentiles’ in Israel are Polish.
Poland was the largest fighting force in the war after the USSR, USA and UK. Over six million Polish citizens died in the war. 20% of the pilots in the Battle of Britain were Polish. The German code (Enigma) was broken by Poles and given the the British even before the War began.
The Polish (exile) government sent an eye-witness to meet w/ President Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Morgenthau to ring the bell among the Allies. Morgenthau famously said he couldn’t believe Karski’s report. The Polish Ambassador told him the young officer was telling his eye-witness report. Morgenthau replied what he meant is that he just couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of what he just heard.
The Jewish community threw itself into the defense following September 1; check the Katyn list. Not sure why you think the Jews weren’t concerned over the Germans; I think you are confused with Jewish support for the Soviets. Read Jan T. Gross’ book “Revolution from Abroad” which has a section “A Friendly Reception” about how Jews (among other non-Polish minorities) greeted the Soviets w/ kisses, parades and bread and salt.
So yes, some Poles did collaborate w/ the Nazis; true of every society in every war. Poland’s balance is heavily positive, with over six million Polish citizens killed, 90+ percent of Warsaw and 60+ percent of Poznan destroyed among other catastrophic war losses.
You lack a balanced understanding of the post-war period. Unfortunatley, Jewish support and collaboration with the Soviets extended to the post-war period. The (Communist) Interior Minister Berman himself agreed that the leadership of the security services were almost all Jewish. His brother Albert was saved from the Ghetto by Zegota. He repaid them by arresting members of Zegota b/c they were organized by the London government.
Berman himself in an interview with Teresa Toranska (in the book “Them”) notes the extent of the collaboration, saying that there was a large concentration of Jews in certain institutions, a necesary evil ‘because the Polish intelligentsia was boycotting us’ (the Communists). Doesn’t that define collaboration?
In the same book, Stefan Staszewski (a high-ranking commuists whose parents died in Treblinka) said that following Stalin’s death and the reorganization of the party “the Jews were one group (in the party) which didn’t feel threatened at all” Roman Werfel, high ranking party figure and grandson of a rabbi, told Toranska “I can see now that there were too many Jews in the Secret Service”
The moral? Collaboration happens, sadly. No community is defined solely by its collaborators.
Hitler technically didn’t invade Austria. There was a Nazi coup in Austria shortly before the Anschluss. The Anschluss wasn’t unpopular in Austria. Not exactly a similar situation.
You are right about Czechoslavakia. They were invaded in the spring of 1939 and were not organized enough to resist, whether they would have or not. I overlooked that.
I have been saying all along that Poland was administered directly by the Nazis. Not because the Poles made some kind of decision against a collaboration government, but because the Nazis did not want Poland to be an independent polity of any kind. I don’t see how this says anything about the Poles, whose collective opinion was not taken into consideration.
Poland suffered immensely under the Nazis. I certainly do not deny that. But why would that suggest that Poland as a country was braver or more noble than any other? Because of Poland’s brief resistance in 1939 and its resistance movement under the occupation? Every Nazi-occupied country had individuals who sacrificed themselves to oppose Nazi rule. Zegota saved several thousand Jews out of several million murdered from Poland, but that doesn’t change the fact that many more Jews were not helped or were killed by their Polish neighbors during the same period. It is a very sad and mixed legacy, not a remarkably glorious one.
Every country with a substantial Jewish population has had Jewish patriots. Poland was no exception. At the same time, Poland had a long history of brutal anti-Semitism and Jewish anxiety.
One reason that some Jews were hopeful about Soviet rule is that the Soviets promised to abolish anti-Semitic policies, religion being excluded from socialism.
I am dubious that Poland’s postwar Communist security apparatus could have actually been dominated by Jews, since there was only a very small remaining Jewish population in to draw from, while Poland is a country with one of Europe’s largest populations. For that reason alone, it is absurd to blame Jews as a group for Poland’s decades under communism.
Some Jews naturally would have been grateful to the U.S.S.R. for rescuing them from the Holocaust. Collectively, the Russians clearly did much more for them at that time than the Poles did and therefore had a better claim to Jewish loyalty.