Golden Harvest Or Hearts of Gold?: Studies on the Fate of Wartime Poles and Jews

Description

Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold? is a collection of essays on Polish-Jewish relations during World War II. In search of the much-debated truths about those times - truths that are often distorted by a neo-stalinist analysis shaped by the Soviet occupation of Poland after its capture from the Nazis - the authors present the results of their historical research and analyses based on forensic evidence, primary sources and documents, and testimonials. Throughout the volume, the writers reject as extreme and indefensibly reductive two of the most popular - and contradictory - interpretations of the relations between Poles and Jews. The authors refer to these interpretations as the "black legend" and the "heroic mythology." In particular, the authors directly challenge the premise of Princeton University Professor Jan T. Gross, in his poorly documented book, Golden Harvest (Oxford, 2012). Alleging widespread and willful looting of Jewish homes, bodies and graves for a harvest of gold teeth, Gross perpetuates the myth of widespread Polish collaboration with the Nazi invaders of their country, including systematic looting of Jewish homes and cemeteries, and willful and mass-based participation in the extermination of their Jewish countrymen in Nazi death camps. In this book, the authors respond to Gross's "golden harvest" thesis with a "hearts of gold" rejoinder. Using exhaustive case studies, statistical data and archival research, the authors carefully document widespread Polish sympathy for their doomed Jewish countrymen, and acts of heroic resistance to the Nazis' "final solution." At a time when the simple act of sheltering a Jew for a night, sharing some bread or water, or simply not informing the authorities meant a death sentence for oneself and one's family, countless Polish citizens - especially peasants in the countryside - risked their very existence to help Jews escape and survive. Much of that heroism has taken mythological proportions to confront the demonization of the Poles. The authors document the fiction of the Golden Harvest and the extent of Poland's Hearts of Gold.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Similar books

• 

  Tell Me how this Ends Well: A Novel

  By DAVID LEVINSON

  When a flood of Israeli refugees into a near-future America triggers anti-Semitic hostilities throughout the country, a Passover celebration for the Jacobson family is disrupted by years of resentment and claims of abuse from a hateful ...

• 

  Prank

  By Kathryn Lasky

  Also by Kathryn Lasky BEYOND THE DIVIDE “ The versatile Lasky has written a quintessential pioneer story , a piece so textured and rich that readers will remember it long after they've put it down . Meribah Simon , an Amish girl ...

• 

  The Crucifixion, Book 1

  By David Birnbaum

  The Crucifixion, Book 1

• 

  One Jewish Boy

  By Stephen Laughton

  With the shadow of hatred festering at its core, One Jewish Boy is a bittersweet comedy fueled by rising anti-Semitism. It premiered at the Old Red Lion Theatre, London, in 2018.

• 

  Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1933-1938

  By Leah Wolfson

  Reich einen Frontsoldaten proclamations : beleidigt , wird mit Zuchthaus bestraftl " “ In the Third Reich , Die 3 Bruder Leyens waren als Kriegsfreiwillige an der Front , sie sind whoever offends a combat verwundet worden und haben ...

• 

  "Wehr dich!": der Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (C.V.) 1893-1938

  By Avraham Barkai

  Ebenso deutlich und ideengeschichtlich von Bedeutung ist diese Verflechtung in einem Aufsatz des Philosophen Hermann Cohen ( 1842–1918 ) , der inhaltlich und auch durch sein Erscheinen in der von Martin Buber neu gegründeten Zeitschrift ...

• 

  Em nome da fé: estudos in memoriam de Elias Lipiner

  By Avraham Milgram, Nachman Falbel, Alberto Dines

  Esse requerimento foi assinado pelos suplicantes Aarão Cohen , Samuel M. Nahon , Isaac P. Melul , Isaac Larrat Bemsolil , Salomão Alcaim , David Cohen , Abraham Amzalak , Izidro Obadia , Elias El Bemmuyal , Salomão Fabela , Isaac ...

• 

  A People Apart: The Jews in Europe, 1789-1939

  By David Vital

  ... Galician town of Brody , an important staging - post for the early waves of emigrants headed west.38 When it was realized that nothing of the kind could be done , that the effort to keep the great mass of east European Jewry intent ...

• 

  Columbia University Studies in Jewish History, Culture and Institutions

  By Ismar Schorsch

  Columbia University Studies in Jewish History, Culture and Institutions

• 

  --and God Cried: The Holocaust Remembered

  By Chuck Lawliss, Charles Lawliss

  H. H. LAUGHLIN , PER ASSO . PRESS DISPATCH MAR . 7 , 1934 , IN THE DAILY CITIZEN OF TUCSON , ARIZ . A SIMILAR CHART WAS PUBLISHED BY THE WASHINGTON , D. C. , STAR , OF FS 29. 1079 ) Even a hasty perusal of this factual document ...