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Hitler’s attempt to murder all of Europe’s Jews almost succeeded. One reason it fell short of its nefarious goal was the work of brave non-Jews who sheltered their fellow citizens. In most countries under German control, those who rescued Jews risked imprisonment and death. In Poland, home to more Jews than any other country at the start of World War II and location of six German-built death camps, the punishment was immediate execution. This book tells the stories of Polish Holocaust survivors and their rescuers. The authors traveled extensively in the United States and Poland to interview some of the few remaining participants before their generation is gone. Tammeus and Cukierkorn unfold many stories that have never before been made public: gripping narratives of Jews who survived against all odds and courageous non-Jews who risked their own lives to provide shelter. These are harrowing accounts of survival and bravery. Maria Devinki lived for more than two years under the floors of barns. Felix Zandman sought refuge from Anna Puchalska for a night, but she pledged to hide him for the whole war if necessary—and eventually hid several Jews for seventeen months in a pit dug beneath her house. And when teenage brothers Zygie and Sol Allweiss hid behind hay bales in the Dudzik family’s barn one day when the Germans came, they were alarmed to learn the soldiers weren’t there searching for Jews, but to seize hay. But Zofia Dudzik successfully distracted them, and she and her husband insisted the boys stay despite the danger to their own family. Through some twenty stories like these, Tammeus and Cukierkorn show that even in an atmosphere of unimaginable malevolence, individuals can decide to act in civilized ways. Some rescuers had antisemitic feelings but acted because they knew and liked individual Jews. In many cases, the rescuers were simply helping friends or business associates. The accounts include the perspectives of men and women, city and rural residents, clergy and laypersons—even children who witnessed their parents’ efforts. These stories show that assistance from non-Jews was crucial, but also that Jews needed ingenuity, sometimes money, and most often what some survivors called simple good luck. Sixty years later, they invite each of us to ask what we might do today if we were at risk—or were asked to risk our lives to save others.
- Sales Rank: #1388960 in Books
- Published on: 2009-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x .80" w x 6.13" l, .85 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
Review
“They Were Just People is an important contribution to the literature of rescue during the Holocaust. Tammeus and Cukierkorn have brought to the fore many gripping stories never before told, forming an inspirational narrative of courage and survival. These are the experiences of people who had the courage to care and the courage to act in a time when caring for others meant endangering oneself and one’s family. A Reader’s Guide supplements the poignant stories and compels the reader to reflect and discuss the implications of choice and action. The stories are individual, the lessons universal.”
—Stanlee J. Stahl, Executive Vice President, The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous
“A wonderfully written, engaging book providing a perspective that sadly is often missing when reading about the Holocaust. It shows that at least a few people saved the honor of humankind and witnessed God, even in the midst of such terrible times.”—Dr. Carol Rittner, RSM, Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
“By sharing these personal accounts, authors Bill Tammeus and Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn provide for their readers a glimpse into the dilemmas and decisions faced by Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in Poland and by non-Jews who played a role in their survival. This book offers a useful perspective for those wanting to learn more about the Holocaust and the context in which rare acts of rescue occurred.”
—Midwest Center for Holocaust Education
“They Were Just People is a clear-eyed documentation of compassion during the Holocaust. The harrowing hunt to capture and exterminate a Jewish population in Poland is recalled by a score of survivors aided by rescuers—family, friends, and strangers—whose moral code and humanity transcended their own fear of Nazi retribution. But the stories do not sentimentalize nor analyze. Each account, carefully researched and corroborated, bears witness both to the survivors’ will to live and their rescuers’ determination to do the right thing. Authors Bill Tammeus and Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn triumph in a journalistic achievement about the innate spiritual resilience of humanity.”— Suzette Martinez Standring, Past President, National Society of Newspaper Columnists
About the Author
Bill Tammeus, a former nationally syndicated columnist for the Kansas City Star, is the author of A Gift of Meaning (University of Missouri Press) and lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, descended from Polish rabbis, is the spiritual leader of the New Reform Temple in Kansas City, Missouri, and author of Accessible Judaism: A Concise Guide.
Most helpful customer reviews
33 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
Tempts the Reader to Hate Poles
By Danusha V. Goska
"They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland during the Holocaust" appears wholesome and high-minded. The proverbial one candle - "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness" - illuminates the black cover. The title is clever - Polish rescuers identified the Jews they saved as "just people," meaning, "simply people." These rescuers can be identified as "just people," as in "righteous people." Co-author Tammeus is a Presbyterian elder whose surname suggests German ancestry; Cukierkorn is descended from Polish Rabbis. Maggie Finefrock, my old Peace Corps buddy, sent me the book. What could be wrong with this picture?
"They Were Just People" systematically erases important facts in distortion so careful it's hard to believe it occurred by chance. A book that purports to be about tolerance is in fact a book that may contribute to the cultivation of ignorant arrogance and even hate. Neither the University of Missouri nor any other American university press would publish a Holocaust-related book that so carefully presented an equally skewed depiction of Jews. That a university press gave this book the green light says much, none of it good, about double standards in academia.
Writing about Polish-Jewish relations during World War Two is one of the hardest tasks any author might ever undertake. Strides have been made by authors like Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Eva Hoffman, Gunnar S. Paulsson, Antony Polonsky, Michael C. Steinlauf, Nechama Tec, and Leon Weliczker Wells. Tammeus and Cukierkorn appear either to be unaware of these authors' efforts at fairness or so dismissive of them that they need not incorporate their ethical heritage. Rather, Tammeus and Cukierkorn revert to a completely false simplification designed to use Poles as primitive villains in order to flatter American readers.
"They Were Just People," contrary to its subtitle, does not create vivid impressions of or deep insights into Poles, Poland, or Polish rescuers. Poles, here, are two-dimensional. Given that most American readers will come to this book knowing little or nothing of Poland, and given that the authors say as little about Poland as possible, the overwhelming impression readers will be left with is of a country, Poland, that was worse than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and that, out of no reason other than perverse sinfulness or degradation, nurtured a deadly hatred of Jews. The audience is invited to discharge the overwhelming trauma that the Holocaust narrative generates by hating Poles.
The most memorable Poles are very much not rescuers. The most memorable Poles in "They Were Just People" include, rather, a twisted sadist who tormented a starving Jewish boy by carefully laying out, in front of him, rows of apples that he forbade the Jew to touch (58). Why did the Polish sadist do this? We never learn - he is not interviewed, not even to corroborate this harrowing anecdote. Another Pole feeds Jews to his pigs (94).
The Home Army was an anti-Semitic organization bent on killing Jews (206, 133) this comment does not reflect current scholarly assessment of the Home Army. Though, in Poland alone, Nazis mandated death for entire families if one member so much as offered a Jew a glass of water, Poles helped, the book tells us, because they were peasants too greedy or stupid to understand the risk (44, 111, 144); Poles should never be forgiven (42); most Poles, including priests, collaborated with Nazis (114, 167) or were worse than Nazis (131, 189) and worse than Soviets (161). Leaving Poland for France constitutes "escape" where one can "breathe clean air for the first time" (172) and perhaps enjoy some refreshing Vichy water.
The focus is on Jewish survivors. Polish rescuers are not fleshed out. Many lack full names. They are just "Jan," or "a farmer." Wladyslaw Bartoszewski's far superior "The Samaritans" and Block and Drucker's "Rescuers" convey rescuers' hardship, terror, sacrifice and ingenuity. How to: dispose of human waste; acquire food when Nazis kept Poles on starvation rations and monitored every transaction; hide footprints in snow? "Rescuers" tells of Irene Gut Opdyke surrendering her body to save Jews and Stefania Podgorska heeding spectral voices. Polish heroes struggled alone: the Allies repeatedly abandoned and betrayed Poland's Jews AND non-Jews.
"Just People" erases all this vital information, and more: the unique demographic, economic, educational, and political realities of interwar, wartime, and postwar Poland that can never excuse Polish anti-Semitism, but that certainly reveal as specious Tammeus and Cukierkorn's insistence that Poles be understood no differently than twenty-first century, suburban Americans. Their "readers' guide" presumes to present ethical questions, without ever probing the genuine ethical realities Poles faced. The authors reveal a damning degree of ignorance, if not hostility, when they condemn Poles for using the terms "Poles" and "Jews" (186) when there are very good reasons for these terms that are used universally by scholars invested in the topic.
"Just People" never mentions that Auschwitz was built and used for Polish prisoners during its first 18 months, that the Einsatzgruppen targeted Polish elites, that Polish convents were remarkable in their rescue of Jewish children. Polish Zegota was the only government-sponsored underground agency devoted to aiding Jews. The authors never mention this. The authors mention Ponary, never that 20,000 Poles were killed there. The number of Polish non-Jews murdered, exiled, tortured, and enslaved reaches into the millions. Poles rescued even as they lived in Hell.
On the plus side: The anecdotes here support important realities discussed in better books: Jews who were integrated into Polish culture had a better chance of survival; the survival of one Jew depended on the participation of many Poles who can never be named, never mind honored. Jews received food, shelter, documents, housing, supportive testimonials, and guidance from Poles they'd never met, and would never see again. When asked why they helped, many Poles cited their Christian faith as inspiration. The Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust.
Zegota: The rescue of Jews in wartime Poland
Your Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945
Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Lives can be saved for a variety of motives
By Esther Ingber
A disclaimer: my own father's story of rescue during the Holocaust makes up the opening chapter of "They Were Just People." The Dudziks, who sheltered Dad and his brother on their farm, knew the boys' father. Keeping them safe was motivated by respect for that relationship, but also because of the Dudziks' strong Catholic faith. As I read the other stories of rescue, I was alarmed by how often money or the promise of property prompted people to do the right thing. Ultimately, though, the motivation to do good didn't really matter. It was the end result: the lives of the Jews they saved. I'm impressed by how these personal stories have been captured in a forthright manner, in spite of detailing events that took place in Poland 70 or more years ago. This wasn't an easy project that journalist/blogger Bill Tammeus and Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn took on: finding Holocaust survivors willing to share memories of all kinds despite the inevitable ravages of memory. The survivors' histories make fascinating reading, and the tales are told with respect and dignity. I salute the authors as well as the survivors for their determination to create this collection. As the title suggests, we are all "just people" -- capable of rising to the highest level of altrusim, but also doing the opposite. The book with its helpful study questions encourage readers consider the moral/ethical issues raised in each chapter. What would YOU do -- would you risk your own life -- if someone unrelated to you needed your assistance to survive?
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Just people...just like us?
By B. K. Loots
These remarkable stories preserve the artless voices of the people interviewed--both survivors and rescuers--sharing their darkest memories. Detailed accounts of horrifying things that happened to people simply going about their lives are reported with directness and honesty. They could be your neighbors. They could be you. And that's a lot to think about. Extensive notes, bibliography, and Reader's Guide make this an exceptionally useful book for personal reflection or group discussion.
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