The Forgotten Holocaust

The book focuses on the "slaughter of Poles by German Nazis", including the systematic extermination of Polish Jews and crimes committed against the non-Jewish, ethnic Polish population.[6] The book also discusses the issue of Polish-Jewish relations during World War II including Polish antisemitism and rescue of Jews by ethnic Poles.[6] Appendices include a bibliography, lists of Poles killed for helping Jews and primary source documents.[7]

Norman Davies, who wrote the foreword of the 1997 and 2012 American editions of the book, observed that over the years Lukas' work "rendered a valuable service by showing that no one can properly analyze the fate of one ethnic community in occupied Poland without referring to the fates of others."[8] Davies also noted that "by expanding the grounds for discussion and by pointing to aspects of the period that were indeed in danger of being forgotten, [the book] rendered a very real service."[9]

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum listed the book in its bibliography for the topic of "Poles", describing it as follows: "An account of the systematic persecution of the Polish nation and its residents by the German forces. Features endnotes,  a bibliography, appendices including lists of Poles killed for assisting Jews, primary source documents, and an index.".[10]

Gordon A. Craig writing for The New York Review of Books in 1986 referred to the book as an "absorbing account of wartime Poland".[11] The same year, Michael R. Marrus wrote in the Washington Post that "Lukas tells this story with an outrage properly contained within the framework of a scholarly narrative" but criticized what he felt was an unjustified "sustained polemic against Jewish historians".[12] Moreover, he added, "Lukas seriously underplays the importance of anti-Jewish ideology in the Polish consciousness. Few historians would accept his contentions that anti-Semitism was marginal".[12] George Sanford noted in International Affairs that in tackling the subject of the suffering of ethnic Poles, Lukas's work is "strictly objective and academic in tone, presentation and content. But the underlying purpose is inevitably a polemical one, as he has to rake over the smouldering ashes of numerous sensitive controversies." He continued by saying that Lukas "corrects some prevalent misconceptions about alleged Polish anti-Semitism. ... Interwar Poles may have had mixed views about their native Jews. But there was a total German failure to win over Polish collaborators. Even the odd individual cases of Poles who blackmailed or betrayed Jews were as rare as a few thousand out of 20 million ethnic Poles, as was conceded by a postwar Israeli war crimes commission. Chapter five demonstrates how unfounded, and even historically obscene, given the Poles' own suffering and wartime conditions, are any Jewish claims that Poles contributed in any substantive way to the Final Solution. Quite the contrary; individual Poles endangered their own lives to assist Jews to a far greater extent than might reasonably have been expected ..." He concludes that:

There is little dramatically new for specialists in this sound study. But Lukas's argument that Jews and Poles were co-victims should be popularized amongst new generations, so that they can resist extremists, on both sides, who use this issue to drum up support for their respective national fanaticisms.[13]

1986 also saw Donald E. Pienkos publishing a review of the book in the Slavic Review that he later described as "generally praising the book".[14] A year later David Engel published a more critical review in the same journal, in which he states that while the book purports to counter bias, it is a one-sided rebuke of "Jewish historians". In his review, he enumerated alleged inaccuracies in the book and called it "not only unreliable but thoroughly tendentious".[15] This started a discussion published in Slavic Review until 1991, starting with Lukas' reply to Engel later in 1987.[16] In 1988, Pienkos replied to Engel, defending his original review, and criticized "Engel's attack upon Lukas's scholarship in his so-called ongoing discussion". Engel insisted that Lukas lacked familiarity "with the full range of Jewish historiography" and could not be regarded "as in any sense an expert on Polish-Jewish relations".[14] Lukas and Engel continued to disagree with regards to the 1987 review with an exchange of several letters, with Slavic Review publishing the final series of letters (including Pienkos' letter from 1988, as well as letters by Shimon Redlich and Jadwiga Maurer) in the 1991 issue of the journal.[17][14] Maurer criticized Lukas's focus on Jews' "linguistic deficiency" versus other segments of Polish society and their respective dialects and jargons; and his reliance on selected witness statements, rather than on a rich history of Polish literature featuring Jewish characters.[14] Redlich accepts Engel's critique that Lukas would have benefited from a deeper familiarity with his source material and Lukas's critique that Jewish historians have been "influenced" by the Holocaust, but writes that the ultimate truth lies with the likes of Jan Błoński and Jerzy Turowicz, whose "intellectual integrity and personal courage" allowed them to admit the role of anti-Semitism in Polish society, and its effects on the treatment of Jews during the Holocaust.

The Slavic Review also published another review of the book in 1986, by Adam A. Hetnal. Hetnal described the book as "the first attempt in the English language to provide a full and impartial evaluation of Poland under Nazi rule" and wrote that Lukas "convincingly argues that most ethnic Poles, though themselves living in a state of constant fear and suffering from terrible malnutrition, not only showed compassion to the Jews, but attempted to, and did, help them. Poland was the only occupied country where one risked death even for giving a piece of bread to a Jew". Hetnal noted that "Although Lukas's study is praiseworthy and his assumptions are correct, it does not contain any new revelations for well-informed readers". He also criticized the 1986 edition for "sloppy, careless, and hasty editorial work and proofreading" but concluded that "These shortcomings notwithstanding, Lukas deserves praise for his pioneering attempt to examine a neglected and distorted topic with scholarly impartiality."[18]

Edward D. Wynot, Jr. wrote in 1987 in The American Historical Review:

Although his observations and conclusions may not be welcome to some readers, they merit serious consideration by those seeking an objective and balanced treatment of this explosive subject. In sum, Lukas has produced a book destined to have a major impact on future studies of wartime Poland... Lukas has succeeded in fashioning a study that should stand the test of time and close scrutiny.[19]

Also in 1987, Czesław Madajczyk noted in the Dzieje Najnowsze that the book has a number of strengths as well as weaknesses, and concludes that "[it] is a step forward in discussions about Nazi genocide and the fate of Jews".[3] Keith Sword, writing for The Slavonic and East European Review the following year, called the book a "notable contribution" and wrote that "[Lukas] is to be congratulated... for his own attempt to achieve a fair and balanced view", concluding that "His book must surely become required reading for students of the holocaust and of contemporary Polish history for many years to come".[20] In 1998 Ewa Thompson in the Sarmatian Review praised the book for focusing on an under-researched area of history less generally known to the American public.[21] In 2012 Stanisław Salmonowicz called the book "valuable" and suggested it can be seen as a balanced, middle ground treatment of the difficult area of the Polish-Jewish history.[22] The Polish edition was also well-received in Poland, with positive reviews in the popular history magazine Histmag and online history portal Historia.org.pl.[23][24][25]

Writing in 2007, John T. Pawlikowski noted the comprehensive nature of the work, but criticized its treatment as "a kind of Bible on the subject" within the Polish-American community — Lukas's "basic error" lay in treating ethnic Poles and Jews as "coequal victims of the Nazis".[26]

• Poland’s Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947
• The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II