Polish Jews during WW2

People often ask how it was possible that roughly 90 percent of Polish Jews perished during the Holocaust, and the question is frequently followed by comparisons to Western Europe.

Stories are invoked of King Christian of Denmark allegedly wearing the Star of David in solidarity with Danish Jews, or of the Netherlands, where Jews were not initially placed into ghettos and, in some cases, received assistance from the local population.

From these comparisons, an uninformed or misinformed observer may conclude that Poles were uniquely antisemitic or that they simply failed to do enough to help their Jewish neighbors. Such conclusions, however, rest on a profound misunderstanding of the radically different conditions that defined German occupation in Poland as opposed to Western Europe.

King Christian’s gesture, whether symbolic or literal, was undeniably humane and admirable, but it occurred within an occupation framework that bore little resemblance to Poland’s experience. The Gestapo did not respond to Danish defiance by machine-gunning the king’s family or exterminating entire neighborhoods, as they did in Poland when aid to Jews was discovered. Germany ruled occupied Denmark with a comparatively light hand because Danes were viewed as racially acceptable and politically useful within a German-dominated Europe. Poland, by contrast, was marked for destruction. Its intelligentsia was systematically targeted, its cultural and political life dismantled, and its people classified as subhuman Slavs, destined for eventual elimination. The brutality of this occupation cannot be overstated; terror was not incidental but foundational to German policy in Poland.

Demographic and geographic realities further underscore the impossibility of simplistic comparisons. Denmark had approximately 8,000 Jews and access to the sea, with nearby neutral Sweden offering a realistic escape route. Poland had over three million Jews and was landlocked, surrounded by German-occupied territories and the Soviet Union. There was nowhere to flee. In addition, many Polish Jews lived in segregated communities, particularly in the east and south, with large Orthodox populations who spoke Yiddish rather than Polish.

In towns such as Działoszyce or Skalbmierz, more than 95 percent of the population was Jewish. When only 5 percent of a town’s residents were Polish Christians, how could they possibly save the remaining 95 percent under a regime of total terror?

German policy in Poland was further defined by collective punishment. Unlike Western Europe, where those caught aiding Jews were often imprisoned, deported, or punished individually, in Poland entire families and sometimes entire villages were executed for even the smallest act of assistance. Thousands of Poles were burned alive, hanged in public squares, or shot alongside their children for hiding Jews or providing food. Aid was not merely a question of courage; it was a calculation against near-certain death. This reality stands in stark contrast to Denmark, where fishermen and smugglers, though genuinely heroic, often charged substantial sums for passage. The cost of escape could equal a year’s salary or more, meaning survival was frequently contingent on access to money. In Poland, helping a Jew brought no financial reward and carried the almost guaranteed consequence of execution.

Jewish religious tradition emphasizes Kiddush ha-Chayim, the sanctification of life and the prioritization of survival over martyrdom. Yet when Poles, faced with an occupation designed to annihilate them, made the same instinctive choice to survive, some historians and commentators have labeled this behavior as indifference or antisemitism. This moral double standard becomes even more apparent when examining the Netherlands, where approximately 85 percent of the Jewish population perished despite the absence of ghettos, despite linguistic and cultural proximity between Jews and non-Jews, and despite the country’s reputation for tolerance.

Before drawing sweeping conclusions about Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, it is essential to understand the historical context and the conditions on the ground.

The Holocaust was not a uniform experience across Europe, nor was it a simple morality play of good nations and bad ones. German occupation policies varied dramatically depending on racial ideology, geopolitical aims, and the perceived utility of local populations. More than 22 million Slavs were murdered under German rule, a figure nearly three and a half times the total Jewish death toll.

Any honest evaluation of history must therefore take into account the full scope of events, the geographic and political realities, and the impossible moral dilemmas imposed on people living under a system of absolute terror.

Edward Reid Facebook; (https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=899289019280369&set=a.159252953283983)