Golden Harvest (book)

A photograph which was reprinted in 2008 in an article titled Gorączka złota w Treblince (Gold rush in Treblinka) by Marcin Kowalski and Piotr Głuchowski, journalists of Gazeta Wyborcza. This photograph served as an inspiration for Gross's Golden Harvest and was eprinted on English language cover. However, according to research by Paweł Majewski and Michał Reszka and others, the photograph shows local citizens sent in to clean up the grounds.

Golden Harvest (Polish: Złote żniwa) is a 2011 book about The Holocaust in Poland. It was written by historian Jan T. Gross together his wife Irena Grudzińska-Gross. It was first published in Polish in March 2011, and then had its English edition released in 2012.

Reception

The book is about Poles enriching themselves at the expense of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, primarily through robbing the graves of Holocaust victims, searching for golden tooth fillings.

Critics in Poland have alleged that Gross dwelt too much on wartime pathologies emerging during wartime, drawing "unfair generalizations".

According to Christopher Browning's review, Gross begins the book with a succinct statement of its subject: “The collusion of the Polish population in the pillaging and killing of Jews at the periphery of the Holocaust." The central argument of the book, per Browning, is that the interpretation of the Polish role in pillaging and killing Jews as the merely deviant behavior of "scum" during wartime is wrong. Browning notes that Polish readers will find Gross's descriptions of Polish participation in the killing of their Jewish neighbors as challenging. According to Browning, contemporary research shows that Jews hiding in rural Poland were exposed by local village elites and officials and that these Jews were subjected to torture, rape, and rituals of humiliation done in a public manner in an attempt to force the doomed Jews to reveal their presumed hidden wealth. Locals resented those who attempted to hide Jews as they were perceived to engage in "unjustified enrichment" at the expense of other community members who did not receive their fair share of Jewish property, while not seeing the torture and murder of Jews in the villages as a crime. Per Browning, an examination of such episodes reveals the shared values and norms of society. Browning concludes by writing that the book, as well as works by other scholars Gross helped to bring to the attention of Holocaust historians, indicate that enormous strides have been taken in the study of the Holocaust in Poland and Polish-Jewish relations.

According to Zoe Waxman's review, Gross sees the Polish obsession for Jewish property as a crucial point for understanding the persistent and brutal Polish antisemitism. While Gross stresses the German overall responsibility for the Holocaust, many people enjoyed the spoils of Jewish property, and this was particularly true of villagers near the death camps in Poland. According to Waxman, Gross sees the murder of Jews and plunder of their property as a collective endeavor, openly acknowledged and visible. Waxman notes that Gross has at times been accused of anti-Polish bias, and according to Waxman he at times displays a lack of sympathy to the dilemmas ordinary Poles faced, however this lack of sympathy can be readily explained by material covered as it is difficult to sympathize with those who capitalized on, and even rejoiced in, their neighbors' murder. Waxman notes that there are doubts over the cover photo's nature, and criticizes his over-reliance on eyewitness testimony. However, Waxman sees Golden Harvest as a "powerful and haunting work" that "demands to be read".

The head of Znak, the book's publisher, stated: "It does not purport to provide a comprehensive overview of Polish rural communities' actions... The authors focus on the most horrid events, on robberies and killings. Those who say the book is anti-Polish make no sense."

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz has argued that Golden Harvest is based on a one-sided interpretation of its sources, the vast majority of which are secondary. Chodakiewicz takes issue with what he considers a grossly unfair portrayal of treating marginal wartime social pathologies as an all-national Polish norm. Chodakiewicz describes his interpretation of Polish history as "neo-Stalinist", due to its resemblance to postwar Stalinist propaganda that alleged mass Polish collaboration and collusion with Nazi Germany, a claim used to justify the Soviet occupation of Poland.

Yad Vashem historian Witold Mędykowski reviewed Golden Harvest. Mędykowski wrote that since there is no exact statistics, it's impossible to state the extent of the phenomenon, but that Gross generalizes much less than his critics claim. Medykowski also writes that Gross approaches his subect very generally and does not address how the relevant property changed ownership. Medykowski also refers to the photograph which was supposed to have inspired Gross, saying that actually it was taken by an "unknown photographer at an unknown time in an unknown place and depicts unknown figures".

Ingo Loose reviewed Golden Harvest, along side Jan Grabowski's Hunt for the Jews, and Barbara Engelking's It Was Such a Beautiful Sunny Day. Loose wrote that all three works relate to the open wound of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, a very sensitive point in Polish historical memory. Loose writes that Gross makes it clear that a well-informed reader will find nothing new in the book, and in this manner, the book is perhaps disappointing to a professional reader, though worth reading as it has a social "therapeutic" dimension rather than opening a new page in the state of research. Loose also notes that there is no reason to think Gross and his wife are correct in their interpretation of the photograph. Loose also criticizes the work for lack of archival research and its jump to rash conclusions, and states that the methodology "leaves much to be desired."