Stuck in Zbaszyn

As discussed toward the end of the preceding posting, there will be something here on Zbaszyn, the small town on the Polish side of the pre-WWII German-Polish border, where several thousand of us were confined for months after being expelled from Nazi Germany in 1938; some until shortly before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. The only thing about it that seems to have been admitted into the historical record is that, after Herschel Grynszpan, the son of a couple who had been expelled, assassinated a German diplomat in Paris, the Nazis unleashed what became known as the Kristallnacht; in which Jewish homes and stores throughout Germany had their windows smashed, belongings thrown out on the street, and synagogues were burned down. I want to at least repeat here what I had written to the publishers of Abba Kovner' s Scrolls of Testimony (cover shown in the November 22 posting) in my comments to them, the only long comment. It relates to a letter by Leo der Junge, a major character also in later parts of the Scrolls.

"I was a year older than the (presumably fictional / composite) writer of the letter, Leo der Junge, and was born (August 1925) at Dortmund; like Dinslaken (where Leo originated) in the Ruhr district, but much (~ 20x) bigger and with a more substantial Jewish community, more like 40 times the few dozen Jews of Dinslaken. That Leo would have witnessed a whole trainload from a small percentage (Polish passport holders) of those few dozen arrive at the Polish border makes no sense. He is described as being expelled at the end of November, i.e. after the Kristallnacht. We (and I believe all confined to Zbaszyn) were expelled at the end of October 1938 (leading to the pretext for the Kristallnacht a week and a half later)"

"There were loud bangs on the door about 5 in the morning, and four SA brownshirts commanded by a non-uniformed man made us dress and walk to the nearby police station. Later we were assembled from all over the city on the old market square (city center) for all to see (and be scared to still associate with Jews), then taken to the railroad station and put on normal passenger compartments (3rd class, i.e. no upholstery).The train went to Neu-Bentschen, on the German side of the Polish border; on the other side of which was the old Bentschen, as the Polish town of Zbaszyn was evidently called when it had been part of "West Prussia" until the end of WWI, when Poland regained its independence (below the a in Zbaszyn there is a wiggle I can't type here, like that of the French cedille, which makes the name of the town sound almost like Zbonshin; that is evidently were that spelling comes from, also elsewhere; the sh sound in English is obtained by sz in Polish)."

"Our train had stopped several times on the way, e.g. in Hanover. If more compartments were added to our train there, the Grynszpans would have been on the same train. More surely they were expelled at the same time, and we later saw them on Zbaszyn streets. On arrival at the Neu-Bentschen station, it became quite unpleasant, with loud shouts of "Alle raus!", "Schneller! Schneller!" from loads of brownshirted stormtroopers (maybe also SS) on the platform. My immediate family, except my father, could go inside the station, where I fell asleep sitting on a bench until we were taken by train across the border to the Zbaszyn station; outside of which we joined a big crowd of people from all over Germany sitting or lying on the ground for at least one night; during which our father arrived, also by train."

"It soon became known that many others experienced much worse before they got to Zbaszyn. As I recall it, they were told to walk across the border, and shots were fired to make them run; but then they were made to run back by shots fired from the (then near fascist) Polish authorities; back and forth. While I did not hear of people getting killed, , that needn't mean that there were none at all. But I have been dumbfounded by what has been told about this, e.g. in the Jewish Chronicle, UK, at the time of the 50th anniversary; without correcting the distortions (easily) after I called those to their attention. Leo's letter mentions 'many dead bodies' in freight wagons, as experienced routinely later, during the 'Final Solution'."

"Especially in view of what started to happen a year later, the most significant thing is probably that this 'Polenaktion' was the first in which children were targeted. Judging by what I read much later about the roundup of Jews in Rennes (France), it may also have served as dress rehearsal for the later death camp Aktionen. In view of those, and as stated wisely elsewhere in the book, there is no need to jazz up what did happen, and especially not in the name of someone like Abba Kovner; who surely would want even a fictionalized account to keep within the real historical setting."

"In some other cities, the roundup may have been worse than in Dortmund, with its anti-Nazi past; and even our parents must have experienced the long confinement to Zbaszyn more severely than us kids. Like them we slept on straw 'mattresses' (on the floor) and ate cheaper, though adequate , food. But to us that wasn't a big deal. They also did not have the side benefit of not having to attend school, and instead to be able to play football (soccer) every day; on the real football field of Zbaszyn, sure better than the Viehmarkt where we had to play in Dortmund recently."

"So it ought to be understood that I am also not the best possible (representative) source, although these are honest, first hand recollections; and too much of the little that was published, and that presumably was available to Abba Kovner, does not seem to be. There may now be better. In the course of writing this, I just became aware of a 2002 book by Jerzy Tomaszewski called (in the German translation from Polish) Auftakt zur Vernichtung (Prelude to Extermination). Judging by the internet blurb on it, it looks far superior to anything I encountered before. I intend to order it and recommend it to you, in case you contemplate changes."

"Let me add only that Zbaszyn was Polish, not 'no man's land', as seemingly everyone, including 'Leo' here, refers to it; possibly because we were not allowed to enter the bulk of Poland. Also, the 'sister of mercy' mentioned as taking care of Leo probably was called that by virtue of too literal a translation from the Hebrew 'akhot rakhmaniyah'. If so, 'nurse' should be preferable."

Having received that book after sending my comments (the others of which are of little significance to most readers, especially here), I can confirm that it indeed appears as well informed as could be hoped for after all this time, with many of the documents and most of the primary human sources lost during the war. While it tends to support what I had written, a few modifications are indicated. Tomaszewski's thorough research also didn't come up with any people killed during the expulsion.But there may only have been one case, with a group from Altona, when some shots from the Polish side were fired in the air. Even though that must have scared the people badly enough, considering the shooting from the German side, it does not amount to the story that circulated of people being chased back and forth by shooting from both sides, and which I also believed.

Also my (parenthetical) reference there to "then near fascist" Polish authorities should have been more differentiated; as indeed I had done earlier. But on that the author has thorough information showing a very complex and evolving spectrum; including even really good behavior toward Jews with Polish citizenship on the part of Polish consuls in Germany. By contrast, a memo from the consular division in the Foreign Ministry, shows outrageous bigotry in action, and foreign minister Beck is shown to favor administrative anti Jewish measures in Poland over legislative ones that may embarass internationally. The Revisionists (New Zionists) were to be strengthened relative to other Jewish organizations. It had actually been a Polish government initiative that was about to deprive its Jewish citizens in Germany of their citizenship (thus the right to return to Poland) which induced the Nazis to quickly organize that expulsion; but that had been initiated by the Interior rather than the Foreign Ministry.

Rather than repeat here a lot of details, let me link to the site that describes the German version for those specifically interested. For those who read Polish, the original title is Preludium Zaglady, published by Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warsaw.

While the lack of interest of Zionist organizations, both mainstream and "New", in finding emigration countries for the expelled other than (White Paper blocked) Palestine is reported adequately, all that is said about Zbaszyn itself is that there are likely to have been Zionist organizations since "some youths went to different Polish kibbutzim", (like me and my brother). I wouldn't have expected a big deal to be made about us, but that Oskar Handler of the Hekhalutz headquarters in Berlin, later also Warsaw, who had also been expelled and who organized that and other things in Zbaszyn, that his role be known to the author could really have been expected, e.g. from his yad vashem sources. He certainly knows about Antek (far right), with whom (i.a.) Oskar (far left) is shown again below and who ended up in the same Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz.


While we are back with (Antek) Cukierman, as spelled by New Zionist Moshe Arens, it may be well to mention that in this book Arens' idol is spelled Wlodzimierz Zabotynski (the website with the name shown earlier could not be located now). Unlike Zuckerman's story, some of Abba Kovner's, whose Scrolls gave rise to the bulk of this posting, can be seen in a History website I found on the web.