Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland

by Jan Grabowski

A revealing account of Polish cooperation with Nazis in WWII—a “grim, compelling [and] significant scholarly study” (Kirkus Reviews).   Between 1942 and 1943, thousands of Jews escaped the fate of German death camps in Poland. As they sought refuge in the Polish countryside, the Nazi death machine organized what they called Judenjagd, meaning hunt for the Jews. As a result of the Judenjagd, few of those who escaped the death camps would survive to see liberation. As Jan Grabowski’s penetrating microhistory reveals, the majority of the Jews in hiding perished as a consequence of betrayal by their Polish neighbors.  Hunt for the Jews tells the story of the Judenjagd in Dabrowa, Tarnowska, a rural county in southeastern Poland. Drawing on materials from Polish, Jewish, and German sources created during and after the war, Grabowski documents the involvement of the local Polish population in the process of detecting and killing the Jews who sought their aid. Through detailed reconstruction of events, “Grabowski offers incredible insight into how Poles in rural Poland reacted to and, not infrequently, were complicit with, the German practice of genocide. Grabowski also, implicitly, challenges us to confront our own myths and to rethink how we narrate British (and American) history of responding to the Holocaust” (European History Quarterly).

Genres: History, Holocaust, World War II, Nonfiction, Jewish, Poland

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2011

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A harrowing read about the various ways Jews in Poland were hunted down. The underlying premise of this book, though not overtly stated, is that without significant help from the Polish population the Germans would not have succeeded in capturing and murdering so many Jews in Poland during the war. The author gives us countless examples of this being the case, often, to his credit, naming and shaming the perpetrators. I'm not sure how many Jews live in Poland these days but frankly I'm surprised any do. Not even German civilians murdered Jews which was far from being the case in Poland. The author concentrates his research on one rural part of Poland where, it would appear, there was little need of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda. It's thoroughly depressing how monstrous people can be. This is the kind of book that makes you despair of the human race.

[RobS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely revealing of what went on in Poland during WWII.

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

** Review of Audio Format **

Particularly Poignant

The Nazi's were ruthless before, during and after WWII. But the callousness and brutality of the Polish collaboration with the Nazi captors was hard to listen to. To charge a hunted person (that you may have known your entire life) and then, when that person could no longer pay you, turn them in to be summarily murdered is gut wrenching. Not only that but Grabowski presents evidence that the very people who did this then turned around and murdered holocaust survivors so they could keep the goods entrusted to them!

The horrors of the Holocaust are without end and the trials after the war did not catch a millionth of the perpetrators. I hope we never forget this and other genocides around the world that continue to this day.

The narration by Charles Norman was a good match for the gravity of this material. It felt at times like I was listening to a war documentary. His voice is very rich and deep and he let the right amount of emotion in at the right times. I did listen on 1.5 speed.

I received this audiobook for free through Audiobook Boom! in exchange for an honest review.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing I didn't suspect, but Grabowski does an excellent job of proving that the local Poles participated, often enthusiastically, in the hunt for, and execution of Jews in rural German-occupied Poland. Grabowski makes the point that the Germans often couldn't tell Jew from gentile, esp in rural Poland, and rarely ventured out to hunt door-to-door for Jews. It was their neighbors in those small rural communities who knew the Jews and betrayed them; the Germans would have found far fewer of them without help from Polish peasants. He debunks the myth that the majority of Poles were 'Righteous Gentiles' who sheltered Jews for altruistic reasons. Although they certainly existed, many more shelterers did it only for compensation, and when the money ran out, they often killed their charges or turned them over to the authorities. One doesn't hear much about those, because there were fewer survivors in those situations. It's also astounding that those who sheltered Jews for any reason were ostracized by their neighbors--even decades after the war. And in the current political climate in Poland, it is illegal to even hint that some Poles participated in the Shoah.

[Kevin Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grabowski examines the hunt for, hiding and persecution of Jewish people in the rural area of Dabrowa Tarnowska. Using testimonies, court transcripts and archival material, he reconstructs the depravity of those groups that hunted down Jews in hiding and those assisting them. The book follows Jan T. Gross' work Neighbors and Fear, as well as the film Aftermath (2012), and aligns itself with the work of Patrick Desbois and Yahad In Unum that increasingly investigates the requisitioning, participation and profiteering of locals in the murder and plunder of their fellow citizens.

[Patrick Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good educational story of the isolation facing European Jews during WWII but very repetitive!

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Neighbors by Jan T. Gross, I will never forget the contents of this book. Such an important book to read about Polish collaboration and complicity in Holocaust.

[Yossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the summer of 1942, despite years of hunger, epidemics, and terror, some 2.5 million Polish Jews were still alive. Assuming, as the historical record seems to indicate, the around 10% of the Jewish population of the liquidated ghettos tried to flee the deportations, one can argue that 250,000 people made and active attempt to save themselves from the policies of extermination. Of that number...less than 50,000 survived the war...killed in the so called Judenjagd, or the Hunt for the Jews...Sometime in the spring, or perhaps in the summer of 1942, Jewish life, in the eyes of a large part of Polish society, had lost its value."

This thoroughly researched (but difficult to stomach) book, while not glossing over the 50,000 survivors and their sometimes righteous saviors, is the story of 200,000 Jews betrayed and murdered by their fellow Poles in the last years of the Second World War. Written by a Polish historian in 2011, and now translated into English, the book has played an important role in the ongoing debate in Poland itself regarding the role of Poles in the implementation of the Final Solution in German-occupied Poland.