My Brother's Keeper: Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust / Edition 1

by Antony Polonsky

Overview

In recent years, a lively debate has developed in Poland on the question of what responsibility the Poles share for the mass murder of the Jews, which took place largely on Polish soil. This debate was sparked off by the showing in Poland of Claude Lanzmann's film, Shoah , which revealed how deeply-rooted anti-Jewish prejudice could still be found in the Polish countryside. Anti-semitism is something which Poland has preferred to forget. But before the Second World War hostility to the Jews was widespread and this climate of pervasive anti-semitism may have facilitated the Nazis' murderous plans. But Poles now, with great courage, are facing this dark side of their past. This book, translated and edited by a leading British historian of Poland, Antony Polonsky, is a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust. It gathers together the most important contribution to the current debate, revealing the agony many Poles feel about their lack of action during the war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415042321
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/04/1990
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1320L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Antony Polonsky is Reader in International History at the London School of Economics. Among his books are Politics in Independent Poland (Oxford, 1972), The Little Dictators (London 1975) and, with Boleslaw Drukiér, The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland (London 1981). He is President of the Institute for Polish-Jewish studies and editor of POLIN: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies.

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 2 THE POOR POLES LOOK AT THE GHETTO 3 THE DEEP ROOTS AND LONG LIFE OF STEREOTYPES 4 A REPLY TO JAN BLONSKI 5 GUILT BY NEGLECT 6 THE ‘JUST’ AND THE ‘PASSIVE’ 7 THE MISSION THAT FAILED: A POLISH COURIER WHO TRIED TO HELP THE JEWS 8 ‘THE BLACK HOLE’: CONVERSATION WITH STANISLAW KRAJEWSKI, ‘A POLE AND A JEW IN ONE PERSON’ 9 DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME, PLEASE 10 DIFFERING ETHICAL STANDPOINTS 11 IN A SENSE I AM AN ANTI-SEMITE 12 POLISH REASONS AND JEWISH REASONS 13 THE EIGHTY-FIRST BLOW 14 PILATE’S GESTURE 15 THE DISSEMINATOR OF ANTI-SEMITISM? A REJOINDER TO JAN BLONSKI 16 THE HIDDEN COMPLEX OF THE POLISH MIND: POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS DURING THE HOLOCAUST 17 ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF THE HOLOCAUST IN POLAND

Editorial Reviews

'This book is a valuable slice of contemporary history which sheds much light on Polish moral sensibilities towards the Holocaust itself ...' – The Slavonic Review

From the Publisher