Golden Harvest

Golden Harvest is a 2011 book about the Holocaust in Poland. It was written by historians Jan T. Gross and Irena Grudzińska-Gross. It was first published in Polish in March 2011, with an English translation following in 2012. The book is named after the phenomenon, documented around the Treblinka extermination camp, of villagers digging up mass graves of Jewish victims in order to retrieve the golden tooth fillings of the deceased. The book was praised for tackling a difficult topic; however the extent of the phenomenon in question was disputed, with some critics arguing that Gross exaggerated what was otherwise a marginal phenomenon. Analysis Gross begins the book with a subject statement: “The collusion of the Polish population in the pillaging and killing of Jews at the periphery of the Holocaust." He claims that the interpretation of the Polish role in pillaging and killing Jews as a "deviant" behavior of "scum" during wartime is wrong; indeed, he sees the murder of Jews and plunder of Jewish property throughout Europe as a collective "effort", headed by the Nazi regime but openly and visibly benefiting many others. According to Gross, the Polish "obsession" with Jewish property is "the key to understanding the brutality and persistence of Polish antisemitism".