Jewish–Gentile Relations in Hiding during the Holocaust in Sokołów County, Poland (1942–1944)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the experience of Jews in hiding with gentile Poles during the Holocaust through the geographical lens of one county in eastern Poland, Sokołów, which was situated a few kilometers south of the Treblinka death camp. Drawing on the written and oral testimonies of Jews from the region, the following pages illustrate the attempts of Sokołów Jews to survive after the liquidation of the ghettos in 1942 by finding shelter with Gentile neighbors, looking into their divergent experiences of hiding. This article shows that there were very few cases in which Jews received shelter from Polish Gentiles without providing something in return: For many Jews in hiding, financial exchanges were the lifeline connecting them with their aid-provider, and, at times, offers of shelter were rescinded gradually or immediately once financial resources ran dry. It further exposes that the roles of ‘rescuer’ and ‘perpetrator’ could be performed simultaneously, complicating the notion of the Gentile rescuer as a one-dimensional actor of moral good, which has dominated public spaces of memory in contemporary Poland and appears in pieces of academic writing. Finally, this article pays homage to the community of Sokołów Jews destroyed in the Holocaust by exploring the memory of Sokołów’s Jewish past in the region today.