Review by Choice Review
Chodakiewicz (history, Institute of World Politics) compares the German and Soviet occupations of Poland from the perspective of elites, the Polish majority, and ethnic minorities of a single county in central Poland, Janow Lubelski. The war left the region largely unscathed, and the opening phase of the Nazi occupation (1939-1944) was relatively benign. However, as the Germans began to introduce their racialist policies, the local elites--priests, teachers, cultural and political leaders--became the primary victims of the effort to subjugate the local population. Needless to say, it was the area's Jews who suffered the most at the hands of the Germans, almost all of them perishing. While the three-year Soviet occupation (1944-1947) was not as brutal, the elites--possible leaders of resistance against Russian rule--continued to suffer. Chodakiewicz concludes that the majority of Poles neither resisted nor collaborated with their German and Russian masters but rather pursued a policy of "accommodation" under which they accepted the reality of occupation for the foreseeable future, cooperated with authorities only as much as necessary, and hoped that circumstances would one day improve. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Faculty and specialists. R. W. Lemmons Jacksonville State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
