Stephen Romei
editor, Review
The Weekend Australian
www.theaustralian.com.au

Dear Sir

In "The Weekend Australian" of 14.10.06, in the "Review" section, Jack Hibberd attempts to review Jan T. Gross's latest book, "Fear". I use the word "attempts" deliberately, because the author seems to deal not so much with Gross's book as with the history of alleged Polish anti-Semitism which is supposedly an inherent characteristic of that nation.

Hibberd, with remorseless abandon, paints a nation completely devoid of any humanity, a nation so evil that today's terrorists pale into insignificance. The distortion of truth, nay, its absence in this article must stem from his prejudice, or plain hatred, for I cannot imagine anybody being so ignorant. I am at a loss to understand Hibberd's rabid anti - Polonism. Truth can be bent, can be distorted, but in the end truth cannot be completely obliterated and replaced by a lie. E.g. the author writes how the Polish government in-exile hid the truth of the fate of Polish Jewry "so as to present a chaste Polish face to the Allies".

I understand the author is based in Melbourne, therefore I would suggest that he visits the Holocaust Museum, where he would find a portrait of one Jan Karski. Who was he? Karski was a Pole, a member of the Polish Resistance who, after arrival in London in 1942, was sent by the Polish government in exile to the USA to report on the Jewish plight in German occupied Poland.

While there he met, amongst others, with the US Supreme Court Judge Felix Frankfurter, himself a Jew, who said to Karski: "I am not saying that you are lying, but I can't believe you." Was he not permitted to acknowledge Karski's report? Another example: Samuel Zigelbojm a Jewish member of the Polish government in exile, after failing to convince the Allies (USA and Great Britain) about the Jewish fate, committed suicide after learning that his wife and son perished in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Hibberd drools over Jerzy Kosinski's (real name Nikodem Lewinkopf) book "The Painted Bird". Years ago this book was debunked as a work of fiction true to the author's motto: "not to portray but to evoke". Even the most enthusiastic reviewers in the American press retracted their views after Kosinski's suicide soon after the truth came out. Throughout the war Kosinski was sheltered by a Polish family. A Polish priest issued him a bogus baptismal certificate (without actually baptizing him), hence his (very) Polish name.

Gross is rabidly anti Polish. His book "Fear" is a continuation of another book titled "Neighbors", published in 2000. In both instances Gross poses as a historian which he is not. Both books are based on hearsay stories of a few, mostly anonymous so called "eyewitnesses". Both lack the methodology normally applied in writings of serious professional historians. Gross, in both instances, seems to apply Kosinski's motto, "not to portray but to evoke". In this case to evoke in the reader anti - Polish sentiments.

In pre World War II Poland 3.5 million Jews made up 10% of the entire population. This begs the question - why? It was because, over the centuries, Jews expelled from other European countries found refuge in Poland.

Nicholas Bethel (Lord Bethel) in his biography of Polish communist leader Gomulka (Pelican Books 1969 - 1972) writes that 50% of the upper echelon of the Polish (communist) Security Service (the dreaded UB) was Jewish. The Jews (in the Central Committee of the Party) themselves were concerned over the fact that such a disproportion could cause resentment in an intensely anticommunist Polish population.

Jack Hibberd visited Auschwitz in 1969. He did not discern a mention of Jews in the museum. One wonders then, how Auschwitz became synonymous with the Jewish Holocaust? I visited Auschwitz in 1979 and have been there several times since. It is enough to read the name tags on the suitcases in the museum to see that most were Jewish. He did not see Polish visitors there, but was impressed with throngs of weeping Germans. Well might they have wept, their tears were worth 60 billion dollars paid by the (West) German government in compensation, not to the Holocaust survivors, but to wealthy Jewish American organisations.

I am sure that Jack Hibberd has access to the Internet. I would suggest therefore that, to find Gross's veracity he reads the opinion of another Jewish writer, professor Norman Finkelstein.

Zbigniew (George) Sudull
Spokesman, Polish Community Council Of Australia and New Zealand

Brisbane, 16.10.2006