My Brother’s Keeper?: Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust

In recent years, a lively debate has developed in Poland on the question of what responsibility the Poles share for the mass murder of the Jews, which took place largely on Polish soil. This debate was sparked off by the showing in Poland of Claude Lanzmann''s film, Shoah, which revealed how deeply-rooted anti-Jewish prejudice could still be found in the Polish countryside. Anti-semitism is something which Poland has preferred to forget. But before the Second World War hostility to the Jews was widespread and this climate of pervasive anti-semitism may have facilitated the Nazis'' murderous plans. But Poles now, with great courage, are facing this dark side of their past. This book, translated and edited by a leading British historian of Poland, Antony Polonsky, is a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust. It gathers together the most important contribution to the current debate, revealing the agony many Poles feel about their lack of action during the war.

Antony Polonsky is Reader in International History at the London School of Economics. Among his books are Politics in Independent Poland (Oxford, 1972), The Little Dictators (London 1975) and, with Boleslaw Drukiér, The Beginnings of Communist Rule in Poland (London 1981). He is President of the Institute for Polish-Jewish studies and editor of POLIN: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies.