Europe: A History (242 page)

52.
Hugh Thomas ventures a figure of 500,000 including c.200,000 military deaths and c.245,000 victims of political repressions;
The Spanish Civil War
, 3rd edn. (London, 1977), 270, 925–7.

53.
Geza Jeszenszky, Foreign Minister of Hungary, ‘The Lessons of Appeasement: Central Europe between NATO and Russia’, lecture at SSEES, University of London, 6 Dec. 1993.

54.
Keith Feiling,
A Life of Neville Chamberlain
(London, 1946), 367.

55.
See M. Gilbert,
Winston Spencer Churchill
, v:
1922–39
(London, 1976), chs. 47, 48, ‘The Worst of Both Worlds’ and ‘A Defeat without a War’.

56.
After H. C. Hillman,
The Comparative Strength of the Great Powers
(London, 1939). See also Paul Kennedy, ‘The Politics of Appeasement’, in
The Realities behind Diplomacy:
Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980
(London, 1985).

57.
For an intelligent discussion of this necessarily speculative subject, see Ernst Topitsch,
Stalin’s War: A Radical New Theory of the Origins of the Second World War
(1985), trans. A. and B. E. Taylor (London, 1987).

58.
This piece of misinformation found its way into many Western textbooks, e.g. M. L. R. Isaac,
A History of Europe, 1870–1950
(London, 1960), 241, where the Poles are described as ‘Germany’s much vaunted ally’.

59.
See Norman Davies,
Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland
(Oxford, 1984), ‘The Military Tradition’, 239–43.

60.
Quoted by Bullock,
Hitler
, 527.

61.
Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–41: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign
Office
, ed. R. J. Sonntag and J. S. Beddie (Washington, DC, 1948), 78.

62.
Memorandum of a conversation between Ribbentrop, Molotov, and Stalin, 23–4 Aug. 1939,
Nazi-Soviet Relations
, 74.

63.
US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality,
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, vi (Washington, DC, 1948), 390–2, quoting Naujocks’s own deposition at the Nuremberg Tribunal.

64.
For up-to-date encyclopedic information on the Second World War, see Ian Dear and M. R. D. Foot
et al
. (eds.),
The Oxford Companion to the Second World War
(1995).

65.
Alvin D. Coox,
Nomon-han: Japan against Russia, 1939
(Stanford, Calif., 1985).

66.
See A. Read and D. Fisher,
The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi–Soviet Pact
,
1939–41
(London, 1988).

67.
16 June 1941;
The Goebbels Diaries
, ed. F. Taylor (London, 1982), 414.

68.
See Victor Suvorov,
Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?
(London, 1990).

69.
R. C. Raack, ‘Stalin’s Plans for World War Two’,
Journal of Contemporary History
, 26 (1991), 215–27.

70.
Goebbels Diaries
, 16.

71.
J. Wnuk,
Losy dzieci polskich w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej
(Warsaw, 1980); see also C. Henry and M. Hillel,
Au nom de la race
(Paris, 1974), trans. as
Children of the SS
(London, 1976); Richard Lukas,
Did the Children Cry? Hitler’s War against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939–45
(New York, 1994).

72.
Jan T. Gross,
Polish Society under German Occupation, 1939–44
(Princeton, NJ, 1979); Richard Lukas,
The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation
(Lexington, Ky., 1986); also M. Broszat,
Nationalsozialistische Polenpolitik, 1939–45
(Frankfurt, 1965). On the Nazi-built ghettos in occupied Poland, see L. Wells,
The Janowska Road
(London, 1966); L. Dobroszycki (ed.),
The Chronicle of the Łòdź Ghetto
(New Haven, Conn., 1984); A. Lewin,
A Cup of Tears: A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto
(Oxford, 1988); A. Tory,
Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary
(New York, 1990).

73.
Norman Davies and Antony Polonsky,
The Jews in Eastern Poland and the Soviet Union, 1939–45
(London, 1991), introd. See also J. T. Gross,
Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia
(Princeton, NJ, 1988); Keith Sword,
The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939–41
(Basingstoke, 1991); Irena and J. T. Gross,
War Through Children’s Eyes: The Soviet Occupation of Poland and the Deportations, 1939–41
(Stanford, Calif., 1981); and Anon. [Zoe Zajdlerowa],
The Dark Side of the Moon
(preface by T. S. Eliot) (London, 1946).

74.
30 Sept. 1939. See Ewa M. Thompson, ‘Nationalist Propaganda in the Soviet Russian Press, 1939–41’,
Slavic Review
, 50/2 (1991), 385–99.

75.
J. Garliński,
Intercept: The Enigma War
(London, 1979); also R. Wojtak, ‘The Origins of the Ultra-secret Code in Poland, 1937–38’,
Polish Review
, 23/3 (1978).

76.
See Suvorov,
Icebreaker:
op. cit. A large part of the Soviet air force, for example, was located in vulnerable forward positions.

77.
Alan Bullock, ‘Hitler and the Holocaust’, lecture, Logan Hall, University of London, 14 July 1993.

78.
Göring to Heydrich, 31/7/1941. Text in R. Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
(London, 1961), 262.

79.
The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition
(London, 1989).

80.
R. Hilberg
et al
. (eds.),
The Diary of Adam Czerniakow, 1939–42
(New York, 1979).

81.
After Rudolf Hoess,
Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess
(London, 1959), 144–57.

82.
Prominent items include Primo Levi,
If This Is a Man
(1956),
The Truce
(1963),
If Not Now, When?;
Jerzy Kosiński,
The Painted Bird
(1966),
The Devil Tree
(1973); Leon Uris,
Mila 18
(1961),
QB VII
(1971).

83.
See Hanna Krai,
Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem: rozmowy z Markiem Edelmanem
, trans. as
Shielding the Flame
(New York, 1986); review by Norman Davies,
New York Review of Books
, 20 Nov. 1986; also ‘Poles and Jews: An Exchange’, ibid. 9 Apr. 1987.

84.
Isaak Shahak, ‘The Life of Death: An Exchange’,
New York Review of Books
, 29 Jan. 1987, 45–50.

85.
See M. Edelman,
The Ghetto Fights
(New York, 1946); Y. Zuckerman,
A Surplus of Memory: A Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising
(New York, 1993).

86.
From ‘Campo di Fiori’, Warsaw 1943; Czesław Miłosz,
Collected Poems, 1931–87
(London, 1988).

87.
Jan Błoński of the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, ‘The Poor Poles look at the Ghetto’, in
Polin
, ii (1987), 321 ff., the translation of an article which first appeared in
Tygodnik Powszechny
(Cracow), 11 January 1987.

88.
Irene Tomaszewski and T. Werbowski,
Żegota: the rescue of Jews in wartime Poland
(Montreal, 1994); T. Prekerowa,
Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w Warszawie, 1942–45
(Warsaw, 1983); W. Bartoszewski and Z. Lewin (eds.),
Righteous among Nations: How Poles Helped the Jews, 1939–45
(London, 1959); also K. Iranek-Osmecki,
He Who Saves One Life
(New York, 1971).

89.
See Bruno Szatyn,
A Private War: Surviving in Poland on False Papers, 1941–45
(Detroit, 1985); N. Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland
(New York, 1985); Thomas Keneally,
Schindler’s Ark
(London, 1982); also the true life story of Solomon Perel, as portrayed in Agnieszka Holland’s film
Europa, Europa
(1990) videorecording by Channel 4 Television (London, 1991).

90.
See Istvan Deak in ‘Who Saved Jews? An Exchange’,
New York Review of Books
, 25 Apr. 1991, 60–2, a continuation of earlier discussions starting with Deak’s ‘The Incomprehensible Holocaust’, ibid. 28 Sept. 1985.

91.
S. Friedlander,
Pius XII and the Third Reich
(London, 1966); J. D. Holmes,
Pius XII, Hitler and the Jews
(London, 1982); also R. G. Weisbord,
The Chief Rabbi, the Pope, and the Holocaust
(London, 1992).

92.
A high estimate of 5.957 millions was produced by Jakub Lestchinsky, a low estimate of 5.1 millions by Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, rev. edn. (New York, 1985), 767, 670. A detailed appendix in the
Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
, ed. I. Gutman (New York, 1990) provides a minimum estimate of 5.596 millions and a maximum estimate of 5.86 millions: iv. 1797–1802. From this, the median estimate would work out at 5.728 millions. There can be no definitive figure. But various historians using similar methods reach similar conclusions (see Appendix III, p. 1328).

93.
The total of excess wartime deaths within the USSR is now estimated at 26–7 millions. See S. Maksudov, ‘Losses Suffered by the Population of the USSR, 1918–58’, in R. Medvedyev (ed.),
The Samizdat Register II
(London, 1981). Figures above 27 million, which began to appear in the 1990s, appear to relate not to wartime deaths but to projections of demographic losses, including those of post-war generations that were never born. The breakdown of such figures, however, is highly problematical. One may reasonably assume that the heaviest civilian casualties during the war were incurred in regions most heavily contested by the Nazis and Soviets, i.e. Ukraine, Byelorussia, and eastern Poland. See n. 35 above. One must equally be wary about dubious definitions of territory, chronology, and causes of death. See M. Ellmann, S. Maksudov, ‘Soviet deaths in the Great Patriotic War: a note’,
Europe–Asia Studies
, vol. 46, no. 4 (1994), 671–80.

94.
Jean Paul II,
Maximilien Kolbe: Patron de notre siècle difficile
(Paris, 1982); W. Herbstrath and B. Bonowitz,
Edith Stein: A Biography
(London, 1985); W. T. Bartoszewski,
The Convent at Auschwitz
(London, 1990).

95.
See Józef Garliński,
Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp
(London, 1970); also M. R. D. Foot,
Six Faces of Courage
(London, 1978), 105–19. Piłecki was executed by the communist security service on 25 May 1948. His own account, suppressed for fifty years, was published as
Raport Witolda
, ed. A. Cyra (Warsaw, 1991). Polish communist propaganda wrongly stated that resistance inside Auschwitz was run by J. Cyrankiewicz, a post-war prime minister.

96.
Jan Karski, ‘The Tragedy of Szmul Zygelbojm’,
Poland
, May 1987,43–50, extracts from
Story of a Secret State
(Boston, 1944); see also David Engel,
In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government in Exile in London and the Jews, 1939–42
(London, 1987).

97.
See D. S. Wyman,
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–45
(New York, 1984); also R. Bolchover,
British Jewry and the Holocaust
(Cambridge, 1993).

98.
M. Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
(London, 1981).

99.
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ‘The fate of the Jews under National Socialism was unique’; ‘The Jews: A Special Case’, in
The Holocaust and the Historians
(Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 11 V. Discussions on the unique character of the Holocaust centre less on the historical event itself than on the motives of those who oppose all forms of comparison. According to Sir Isaiah Berlin, for example, ‘If uniqueness of a phenomenon is examined …, we mustn’t rush to the conclusion that it’s unique before we have compared it to other events which in some ways resemble it. That is what’s happening to the Holocaust… It has a conspicuously political motive.’ in G. Thomas (ed.),
The Unresolved Past: a Debate in German History
, chaired and introduced by Ralf Dahrendorf (London, 1990), pp. 18–19.

100.
Rosa Luxembourg, in relation to antisemitism at the turn of the century: ‘Why do you come with your special Jewish sorrows? I feel just as sorry for the wretched Indian victims of Putamayo.’ Quoted by Dawidowicz, ‘The Jews: A Special Case’, 4.

101.
See I. Abrahamson (ed.),
Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel
(New York, 1985).

102.
Lucy Dawidowicz,
The War Against the Jews, 1933–45
(London, 1975).

103.
R. Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
.

104.
Yehudah Bauer,
The Holocaust in Historical Perspective
(London, 1978). This line is developed in Raul Hilberg,
Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1939–45
(London, 1992).

105.
Martin Gilbert,
The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy
(London, 1986).

106.
L. Dawidowicz, ‘The Curious Case of Marek Edelman’,
Commentary
(New York), 83/3 (March, 1987), 66–9. See M. Edelman,
The Ghetto Fights
(New York, 1946), a non-Zionist view by the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising.

107.
Arnold J. Meyer,
Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The ‘Final Solution’ in History
(London, 1988).

108.
Lukas,
The Forgotten Holocaust:
also R. C. Lukas (ed.),
Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust
(Lexington, Ky., 1989).

109.
Arthur R. Butz,
The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
(Richmond, Va., 1976), also P. Rassinier,
The Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses
(Costa Mesa, Calif., 1978); see also Noam Chomsky, ‘All Denials of Free Speech Undercut a Democratic Society’,
Journal of Historical Review
, 7/1 (1986), 123–7; also his ‘Thought Control in the USA’,
Index on Censorship
, 7 (1986), 2–23, and subsequent correspondence.