Grandson

GRANDSON

How much do I know about the occupation times? Probably not much. These are the times of my grandparents and even my mother doesn't know much about it, because she was born after the war. My grandparents lived in Podhale. My grandma talked about it a bit. She even showed me one photo where she was standing with two grenschutzes and a little pig. These grenschutzes were actually Austrians, but strangely enough, they understood Polish, which my grandmother didn't know about. Because when they were walking by and saw my grandma, they asked if they could take a photo with her. She grumbled under her breath that she rather wished she had a photo with a pig. Then they told her in Polish to bring a pig from the pigsty. And that's how this photo was created. Funny and scary at the same time.
These times were terrible. Grandma's brother went into the army when the war started. He survived, but when he went, he weighed 87 kilos and only 37 kilos when he was back. Apparently, at the end of the war, the Germans locked him together with some Russian prisoners in a bunker without food, and people ate corpses to survive.
My grandmother's other brother was in the partisans, and the Gestapo from Maków raided the village every few weeks, looking for Jews and partisans. At the end of the war, these partisans set an ambush for the Germans under the bridge, and my grandfather had to carve out of ice the corpses of the dead Germans. Strangely enough, the Germans spared the village, but other villages were not so lucky.
In Podhale, some people had written them out of the Polish nation. One of their activists in Podhale came up with the idea that the Podhale highlanders were descendants of the Teutons, not the Slavs. And this is how they turned the Podhale highlanders into the Goralenvolk. 30 thousand highlanders took the Goralenvolk kennkarte. In Szczawnica, where your parents went on holiday after the war, 96% of the inhabitants took it. Of course, there were no Jews in Szczawnica anymore at that time.
Jews? Yes, it wasn't easy for them. But others weren't doing well either. It was known that once the Germans were finished with the Jews, it would be the Poles' turn. Besides, the Germans started with the Poles from the beginning of the occupation. At first, they only separated the Jews in ghettos. The first German camps were established for the Poles.
What was the general attitude towards Jews? It's a difficult question. Before the war, Poles and Jews lived side by side. When the occupation came, the Germans turned the Jews not only into subhumans but also into cattle for slaughter. And they not only gave permission for such treatment but even encouraged it. And anyone who wanted to help Jews could expect punishment, including killing not only oneself but the entire family. Even those who felt sorry for the Jews were not that eager to help.
My grandmother told me that a Jew came once to their farm and asked if they could give him a hide. It was probably when the Germans were driving the remnants of Jordanów Jews through the village to Maków town. But under these conditions, his grandparents chased him away.
As I have already said, the Gestapo often raided the village, and the presence of a Jew nearby could create a danger. Someone said that he had been seen hanging in a nearby forest, and they said that he had hanged himself out of grief.
My mother dispraised my grandparents for this, but she was born after the war, and if you didn't live in those times, it's hard to imagine how you would react in such a situation.
For the village inhabitants, these Jews wandering around were like a danger hanging over them.
Because even if such one hid at their place without their knowledge, if a neighbor denounced them, it would be difficult to explain it to the Germans. Everyone knew what the punishment could be. This wasn't about some anti-Semitism. It was the fear of a possible disaster that could be caused by the Jews. They were never loved, and that time to have contact with them was dangerous. As if they were believed to be the main reason for fear of the Germans. Because if there were no Jews, there would be no fear.
And anyway, it's a strange thing with this fear of Germans. The resistance movement was also punishable by death, and yet hundreds of thousands of Poles took part in it. There was also a danger that someone would report to the Gestapo, but somehow it had less significance. Maybe because if someone denounced a Pole from an underground organization, he would risk retaliation from his surviving colleagues? Because in the case of denouncing Jews, there was hardly one who cared about it, although there are known cases of the Underground State's executions of blackmailers.
However, despite the threat of death, people helped Jews, even though there was danger from Germans, neighbors, and complete strangers' side. Many of these helping people died. And many of them were afraid to admit that they were helping Jews, even after the war.
Oh yes. Because some neighbors associated hiding Jews with a lot of gold, jewelry, and money. Few people could imagine that a Jew who did not have occupation food stamps could be accommodated without paying tribute. In my grandparents' village, a priest saved a Jew by giving him Aryan papers, but the rest were too afraid to help.
Besides, the help covered not only giving shelter or hiding the Jews. There was also smuggling of Jews beyond the borders of the occupied Poland. The smugglers operated in Podhale already in the pre-war Poland. And some of these smugglers were involved in smuggling people across the border. Of course, not all smugglers had clean hands. There were some scoundrels among them who killed Jews in the mountains and took whatever could be taken.
But there were also people like Jan "Kiwa" Malec from Rzepisko in Spisz, who led over 700 Jews across the border during the occupation time. This Malec had to flee Podhale after the war because he received a threatening letter from Kuraś "Ogień" himself. In the end, he came and lived in America, but you won't see his name on the list of the Righteous because he took money for smuggling Jews.
What do I think about it? I do not know what to think. Those were different times. Our life is too easy today. We don't think about whether we will be hungry today. Our "problem" is what to buy and what not to buy, whereas most people during the occupation time had a problem with where to buy food and what to buy it for.
Just as a satiating person will not understand a hungry person, we do not know and do not understand how people felt and thought during the war and why they did what they did.
It's easy for us to condemn them. And I'm not talking about traitors, thugs, blackmailers or informers. I'm talking about those who could have helped but didn't do it.
Today, not giving a slice of bread to a hungry person is considered mean. But it was different during the war and occupation time.
And I'm happy I don't live in those times.

Alex Wieseltier
November 2023

Footnotes:

Grenschutzes – German border guards in occupation time
Podhale – the mountainous area in the south part of Poland
Maków, Jordanów, Szczawnica – small towns and village in Podhale area
Goralenvolk – the name of Podhale highlanders, who treated themselves as the descendants of German Teutons (not Poles)
Kuraś "Ogień" – the controversial commander of anti-communistic partisans in Podhale
Rzepisko – a village in Polish part of Spisz area, which borders with the south part of Podhale