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(More customer reviews)This second edition of the book contains new chapters. One of them contains a list of Polish gentiles, murdered by the German occupants, while attempting to assist Jews (Poland was one of the only countries where the death penalty was handed out by the Nazis to anyone who gave the slightest assistance to the Jews). Of course, this list is but a drop in the bucket: The actual number of Polish gentiles strongly assisting Polish Jews, but caught and slain by the Germans for helping Jews, is estimated to be as high as 50,000.
The second new chapter is a discussion of Zegota: A clandestine Polish underground organization for assisting Jews. At its height, it consisted of tens of thousands of Polish gentiles in German-occupied Warsaw alone--all working under the threat of death if caught.
Lukas also discusses Polish collaboration with the Nazis, but shows that, contrary to much popular Holocaust material, this level of collaboration was much smaller than those of most other German-occupied European nations, and was also dwarfed by the number of Poles who assisted the Jews.
Earlier, Lukas documents how 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. This is very rarely mentioned in most Holocaust materials. Also included is discussion of the cultural genocide of Poland: the systematic, barbaric German practice of systematically destroying visible traces of Polish culture (monuments, libraries, museums, etc.). If you are one raised on the belief that only Jews suffered in the hands of the Nazis, you are in for a shock when you read this excellent book.
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