It does not say anything significant about Poles or Poland that they had no puppet government, since it was not their decision in any way.
I don’t believe I have said anything to suggest that collaboration was an Eastern European or Polish phenomenon. That is certainly not true, nor is it what I believe.
The Germans knew that the Poles hated them, a hatred intensified by very harsh treatment. However, to a substantial extent, the Poles also hated Jews.
Of course collaboration wasn’t the only reason for the low survival rate of Polish Jews. They endured the Holocaust from 1939 to 1945, longer than most other countries. Poland was governed directly by the German military.
I am also not saying that the Poles could have prevented what happened. There is no way one can know that.
There are too many incidents of Poles killing Jews during (and after) the Holocaust to count. It wasn’t a few isolated incidents. Jedwabne is only the best known.
Regrettable, but largely peaceful political conflict over resources and opportunities or simple separation between groups tended to get painted as hatred because of what happened during the war. I'm not saying everything was fine before, but conflicts that might have been peacefully resolved or superceded are seen in a different light because of the German intervention.
Moreover, Eastern Europe saw a more general war of nationalities -- not just betweem Germans and Jews, or Germans and Poles, or Poles and Jews. There was widespread warfare and killing between Poles and Ukranians and I believe Russians and Ukranians, as well as between different Russian factions, competing Polish groups (which had varying attitudes towards Jews), and conflicting Ukranian movements.
In the East, the Holocaust took place in an enviroment where warfare between different groups was general. Things never went so far in Western Europe (in spite of fighting between collaborators and the resistance in various countries).