Le Massacre des Juifs en Pologne – Le Massacre des Juifs en Pologne – The Massacre of Jews in Poland, published by Association France-Pologne (The France-Poland Union). A preliminary report from an investigative committee established after the war to investigate Nazi crimes in Poland. This report is an initial version of the horrific testimonies gathered after the war, as well as evidence collected by the joint France-Poland committee, and was released just days after the beginning of their work. Paris, 1945. French. Extremely rare.
“Hundreds and hundreds of typewritten sheets, mimeographed folios, and printed pages pile up on our desk. Due to the numerous and conscientious testimonies, fearful of omitting even the smallest detail, dates, facts, names, and places are repeated, with sinister monotony… It may take years before historians categorize all these events, the most horrifying humanity has ever known… Moreover, the Allied Tribunal judges will certainly need long weeks to prepare their indictment. Under such conditions, we must limit ourselves to clearly outlining the essential, sparing the reader from the fever and anxiety that we ourselves experienced during the first stage of our mission. Therefore, this modest booklet can only be considered an introduction…” (from the introduction).
The findings collected by the committee allowed for a fairly clear depiction of the Holocaust of the Jews in Poland. The report divides the persecution of Jews in Poland into four periods, describing each one in detail based on countless sources gathered alongside one another at the end of the war: the first part details Alfred Rosenberg’s monstrous plan, announced on November 8, 1939, in which he envisioned cramming 15 million Jews into a single wire-fenced area and determining their fate. The second phase saw the modification of this grandiose plan, with the establishment of ghettos for Jews in every region, marking them with a yellow star as those designated for extermination—a plan that began to take effect from November 1940. After a year, when a monstrous rise in mortality was recorded within the ghettos, the Germans moved to the third phase—the construction of extermination camps and the steady, systematic deportation of ghetto residents to their deaths. The fourth phase highlights the Jewish resistance in the ghettos, with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at the forefront. The report was published at a time when the fate of thousands of Jews was still unknown, and the writers note: “Hardly a week goes by without the joy of learning that this or that Jewish figure… whom we believed had disappeared forever, has just emerged from hiding after escaping the massacre…”. The writers apologize for the fact that the report is written in a cold manner, stating that it presents facts that deserve to be shouted aloud: “We wish to justify the seemingly cold tone of the following presentation, which at every moment should prompt outraged outcries. But the Germans have placed us before facts for which the human language has yet to find sufficient terms. What more can be added to this testimony from Dr. M., which has been confirmed by identical accounts? ‘On April 3, 1943, I saw two large trucks, filled to the brim with bloodied and naked infants, slowly rolling through Grzybowski Square.” The report also includes, among other things, testimonies from survivors who appeared before the committee, detailing how Jews were led to extermination from the ghettos.
Extremely rare. Only a few copies appear in the WorldCat global library catalog.
35 [1] pages. Light wear on the cover. Good to very good condition.
