''An Eye for an Eye: The Untold Story of Jewish Revenge Against Germans in 1945'' is a 1993 book by

John Sack John Sack (March 24, 1930 – March 27, 2004) was an American literary journalism, literary journalist and war correspondent. He was the only journalist to cover List of wars involving the United States, each American war over half a century. B ...

, in which Sack states that some

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

took revenge on their former captors while overseeing over 1,000

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

s in Poland for German civilians. Sack provides details of the imprisonment of 200,000 Germans "many of them starved, beaten and tortured" and estimates that "more than 60,000 died at the hands of a largely Jewish-run security organisation."

Discourse

A professor of Jewish history at Brandeis University,

Antony Polonsky Antony Barry Polonsky (born 23 September 1940, Johannesburg, South Africa) is Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. He is the author of many historical works on the Holocaust, and is an expert on Polish Jewish history. ...

, said that his "research appears to be sound",Crittenden, Jules (13 December 1993)
Book claiming Jewish revenge vs. Germans creates dispute
'' Boston Herald'' but he and other reviewers have questioned the "extent of Jewish persecution of Germans", in Sack's book. Streitfeld, David. (15 February 1995)
Book on Jewish-Run `Revenge' Camps Is Pulled
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' ("A German publisher has abruptly canceled a book that investigates the Jewish role in running internment camps in Poland after World War II, saying the work otherwise could be "cause for some misunderstanding."")Kevles, Bettyann (23 December 1993)
A Post-Holocaust Search for Revenge
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

''Streitfeld, David (7 February 1997)
`Revenge' Talk Scratched; Holocaust Museum Disinvites Author
''

'' ("Sack's talk was an outgrowth of ''An Eye for an Eye'', his controversial 1993 book about "a second atrocity" after the Holocaust.") Polish historians including Tadeusz Wolsza from the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences ( pl, Polska Akademia Nauk, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society o ...

and Krzysztof Szwagrzyk from the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

inform that in 1945–1950 there were between 206 and 500 internment camps set up mostly by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

at the former Nazi slave-labor camps in Greater Poland and across

Silesia Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...

, but the numbers reaching or ever exceeding 1,000 have no grounds in reality. According to

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

writer

Daniel Goldhagen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached international attention and broad criticism as the author of two controver ...

's review of the book in ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'', most of the people working in these camps were not Jewish and Goldhagen argued Sack did his best to conceal this. Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah (27 December 1993)
False Witness
''

'' Goldhagen cited a November 1945 report that only 1.7% of the members of the Office of State Security were Jews as refutation of Sack's figure of 75%. Sack responded that he had stated his figure for officers in Kattowitz in February, not all members in November, and that he had also written that hundreds of Jews left OSS during the year.Sack, ''An Eye for an Eye'', 4th edition 2000, pp. 174–175 Sack said that he attempted to publish a response in a letter to the editor of ''The New Republic'' but the magazine refused it. Sack said that ''The New Republic'' agreed to publish his reply as an advertisement, but later reversed its position. Sack has responded to American critics of the book who say that it is "sensational and its charges inadequately attributed to source" by replying that his extensive research left little doubt that Jews ran the Świętochłowice "Zgoda" camp "from the bottom to the top". He added "It pains me as a Jew to report this". Sack expressed surprise at criticisms denying the accuracy of his claims, asserting that the main points have been repeatedly confirmed by others, the TV programme '' 60 Minutes'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' among them. In 1995, the German publisher

Piper Verlag Piper Verlag is a German publisher based in Munich, printing both fiction and non-fiction works. It currently prints over 200 new paperback titles per year. Authors published by the company include Andreas von Bülow and Sara Paretsky. It is owne ...

pulled the book after printing it, apparently in response to a review by journalist Eike Geisel that called it "antisemitic fodder". According to Sack, Geisel claimed to quote a passage that doesn't exist in the book.Sack, ''An Eye for an Eye'', 4th edition 2000, pp. 175, 236. It was published by another German publisher instead.

Discourse

References

See also