Hearts of Gold or Golden Harvest?
Coming soon! Hearts of Gold or Golden Harvest? (Zlote serca czy zlote zniwa?) will be published first on the web in English in early March. Soon after its Polish version will come out as a book.The editors: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Wojciech Jerzy Muszynski, and (for the English version only) Pawel Styrna.
www.heartsofgoldpl.com (not yet operational)
1. Title: Hearts of Gold or Golden Harvest?
2. Introduction:
A new public debate is under way about Jewish-Polish relations. On the one hand, according to a view currently predominant in the West, the United States in particular, Christian Poles actively collaborated in the Holocaust and handsomely benefited from it. On the other hand, according to an opinion formerly widespread in Poland, Christian Polish heroes selflessly assisted Jews despite death penalty awaiting any rescuer at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War. Although these two views function at the popular level, the first has ensconced itself in post-modernist scholarship. Both views imply that the phenomena they describe were the norm. Naturally, neither pathology nor heroism can be a collective norm of an entire population.
It was neither pathology nor heroism that characterized the Poles as a collective. An active minority representing a cross-section of Polish society performed many heroic deeds with the acquiescence of a broad spectrum of the population, while the majority refrained from engaging in any life-threatening activities, including helping Jews. Passivity did not necessarily signify indifference, but was often caused by fear of German retaliations punishing any form of assistance by death. Those who actively assisted the Nazis constituted a tiny minority, though their misdeeds were inordinately destructive.
This is a conclusion by a team of scholars who adhere to empirical research and logocentric reasoning. The authors have amassed significant evidence from the widest possible range of sources, scrutinized competing methodologies, and undertook comparative and case studies.
3. Table of content and essays posted
Introduction
Part I: Facts and polemics
1. Reflections: A New Work, and the Same Old Approach – Marek Jan Chodakiewicz
2. Insults Instead of Facts: Notes on the Recent Debate on Poles and Jews – Peter Stachura
3. “If the Facts Are Against Us, Too Bad for the Facts”: On the Scholarly Methodology of Jan Tomasz Gross’s Golden Harvest – Piotr Gontarczyk
4. The Attitude of the Polish Population Toward Jewish Escapees from the Death Camps in Treblinka, Sobibór, and Be ec in Light of Jewish and Polish – Teresa Prekerowa
5.The Rescue of Jewish Escapees from the Treblinka Death Camp – Mark Paul
6. The Tale of Two Villages: The Cases of Wólka–Okr glik and Gniewczyna – Pawe Styrna
7. Collective Rescue Efforts by Poles on Behalf of Jews in the German-Occupied Polish Countryside – Richard Tyndorf
8. Looting as a Case Against Racial Determinism – Bethany M. Pa uk
Part II. Methodology:
1. Morality in Times of Contempt – Prof. Fr. Waldemar Chrostowski
2. Whose Tenaments? A Legal Analysis of the Status of Former Jewish Property in Light of Polish Law – Barbara Gorczycka-Muszy ska
3. Sociology is a Scholarly Discipline Too: Methodological Shortcomings Not Only in History – Tomasz Sommer
4. The Neo-Stalinist Discourse in Polish Historical Studies in the United States – John Radzi owski
5. Private Property and Individual Dignity: The Case of Cuba – Tania Mastrapa
Part III: Comparative history:
1. Poles and Jews in Poland’s Eastern Borderlands in September 1939 – Mark Paul
2. The Polish Nationalists: A Mainly Theoretical Anti-Jewishness – Wojciech Jerzy Muszy ski
3. The Polish Nationalists and the Jews: Everday Practice During the German Occupation Based Upon the Case of the Soldiers of the National Armed Forces [NSZ] – Sebastian Bojemski
4. Links:
a) Although the content of this web site is free, we appreciate your assistance to further research in Polish matters. Please click and indicate that you would like to make a donation to the K-Chair (Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies).
https://www.iwp.edu/donate/step1.asp
b) If you are interested in topics of current Polish and Central-Eastern European history, please visit
http://www.glaukopis.pl/
http://www.iwp.edu/faculty/news/marek-chodakiewicz
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