History / THE POLES ON THE FRONT LINES OF WWII [92]

I read recently about the Lemko and their forced removal from the carpathians to western poland after the war. This is all new to me, so I'd appreciate some background on this subject -- who they are ethnically, what their role (or fate) was in WWII, and what their current situation is. Do they have anything to do with the gorale? (I realize I'm showing my ignorance here, but bear with me.)

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]


There were no borders at that point. At the end of WWII the palestine mandate included all of what is now Israel, Gaza and the West bank. The UN voted to divide the area between a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted this compromise and declared independence on the day the British left. All the Arab countries and the local Arabs as well refused to accept the UN decision and invaded the jewish state in order to destroy it. Jordan took over what they conquered west of the jordan. Egypt took over gaza. Neither country allowed the creation of a palestinian arab state.When the fighting stopped, there were ceasefire lines that became known as the green line, which was the defacto border between Israel, Egypt and Jordan till 1967 when they attacked again. This time we conquered all of what was in the original mandate.

So going back to original borders would mean going to the ceasefire lines of 1949. Some Israelis advocate that too. I don't. Those weren't international borders but an arbitrary ceasefire line. I personally favor autonomy for arab areas west of the jordan, but not a separate state, which would only be a base for endless terrorism. I don't agree with your assumption that a return to the ceasefire lines would end the terorism since experience has shown that withdrawal has the opposite effect. But this is a legitimate argument and you're entitled to your opinion.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

In Gaza we pulled out completely to the old border.
In Lebanon we also pulled out to the old border and the UN confirmed that. Then the Hizbullah claimed that the Shaba farms area ( a tiny area of a few square kilometers overlooking the northern galilee) was part of Lebanon too. But the UN and Israel say it's part of the Golan which was taken from Syria in 1967. That piece of territory is subject to negotiations with Syria, if and when that happens. So you see, the Hizbullah will use any excuse to attack. If we gave them Shaba, they would claim that some villages in Israel are also theirs (they already started talking about something like that).

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

I didn't say anything about Poles. I said that whoever helped the Germans to do what they did was also to blame. I think you can agree with that.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]


You're right that the story changes as people's perspective changes. In the end you can't even recognize the original events.
Today it's become fashionable for "enlightened" people to take the blame for all the world's problems. When I visited Auschwitz, an American girl on our tour said "We're all to blame for Auschwitz", meaning the whole world. I argued with her on the spot and told her that if we're "all to blame" then really no one is to blame. You can't let the Germans off that easy. They were to blame, and so was anyone who helped them.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]


That was part of the logic behind our withdrawal from southern lebanon a few years back. But Hizbullah started fighting again after they used the quiet to build bunkers and rocket launchers all over the south. When they attacked in summer 2006 there was no Israeli soldier in Lebanon.

It was also the logic behind the withdrawal from the Gaza strip, which included uprooting several Jewish towns and farming villages. There is not a single Jew in all the of the Gaza strip since then, and yet Hamas is firing rockets from there into civilian targets in Israel every day.

The arabs don't need an excuse to attack Israel. Israel's existence, inside any border at all, is the excuse. It's not a win-win situation. Wherever we withdrew, the situation got worse. Controlling other people is not a good situation but it's better than being hit with rockets.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]

I was incommunicado on Shabat, so I'm answering some older posts:


Jews saw Poland not as a means to an end, but as a means of survival, because it seemed to offer a more comfortable existence than Germany, Bohemia or Spain. That's the historian's answer, but the average Jew didn't think in those terms. For him Poland was simply the place he was born in because some unknown ancestor moved there from Germany (for example) to join a cousin who moved there before. That's the way migration works.


No nation is required to accept newcomers unconditionally. I understand why Poles would have been irritated by a large community of foreigners who maintain their own separateness. But a nation, and individuals are required to deal with that issue in a non-violent manner as long as the newcomers are non-violent. The Jews, it should be emphasized, never were a physical threat to any Polish town or city where they lived. There were no bands of Jewish rioters killing and burning Polish towns. So I can't fault a Pole back in those days for resenting Jews and trying to exclude them. I would definitely fault a Pole or anyone else for participating in a pogrom.

I think that over the centuries, even though Jews remained separate, they became an integral part of the make up of Poland, some of them being there for as long as the "ethnic Poles" were. So the resentment of the newcomer became less legitimate as time went on. Once the Jews had been a part of the country for hundreds of years, they could not be called "newcomers" or "foreigners" any more. At a certain point the ethnic Poles would have to accept that Polish Jews had the same right as the Christians to live their lives as they saw fit -- even if it meant that they spoke a different language and dressed differently.

Did the Jews have an obligation to try to fit in? To some extent, yes. They had to adapt to the local ways of doing things in social matters, business affairs and politics. And in these respects they did adapt. But an ethnic minority is not obligated to disappear.


The organized tours are now very aware of that problem and are trying to shift the emphasis to the centuries of Jewish life in Poland and not only on the destruction. Most of them now visit the Nozik synagogue in Warsaw, and some go to the museum at Oświęcim. I was there. There is also a Jewish culture festival in Krakow that is drawing more visitors each year. But it's hard to get around the fact that the few physical remnants of that vanished world are mostly in the cemeteries.


That of course is a good thing -- to be able to be accepted without having to convert. What I meant is: Is it a good thing for Jews to assimilate to the extent that they disappear as Jews?

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


I am an Israeli Jew, but my grandfather (father's side) was born in Poland as was his grandfather before that for generations. I'll try to answer why Jews generally didn't assimilate with ethnic Poles.


That was part of it for sure. But for traditional Jews it was more than that. Traditional society for both Christians and Jews was structured around religious affiliation. In the liberal modern world that seems irrelevant, but for our grandparents there was nothing more relevant than that. People's everyday lives revolved around praying together, studying together, eating the foods that the religion allowed, celebrating holidays and weddings together, etc. Catholics and Jews had almost nothing in common in these areas. (I think that Orthodox Christians and Catholics were also separated to an extent for the same reasons.) To become a "Pole" meant to become a Catholic. Jews wanted to be Jews -- both in the religious sense and in the ethnic sense. The two were inseparable.

Traditional Jews have a very strong consciousness of being a separate ethnic group. They think of themselves as part of the overall Jewish nation that was temporarily in exile from the homeland. Poles were a different nation and Jews saw no point in pretending to be Poles.

Toward the end of the 19th century, as religion became less of a force, more Jews did assimilate (as they did in Germany and Russia too). They adopted the Polish language and some of its culture. But to really assimilate you had to be a Catholic. And there was no point in giving up your own religion just to take on another one you didn't believe in.

In countries where religion is considered a private thing and not part of national identification, like the US, UK and France, a Jew can assimilate culturally more smoothly. But is that a good thing?

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]

You've all been discussing the attitides of Jews vs Poles on a national and historic level. But on a personal level, one on one, it doesn't always work the same way. My one trip to Poland (so far) gave me an interesting perspective on this. Instead of going on an organized group, I traveled with one friend who speaks polish fluently. We rented a car and just drove around from town to town, stopping in places with Jewish historical importance and places that we heard of from our grandparents or from stories. In each place we would walk around the rynek and look for people to talk to. We would look for people who were old enough to have been around during the war, and also had a friendly face. (I think that Jews have a sixth sense of who is hostile and who is friendly). We met some very warm people, who when they heard we were from israel really wanted to talk about the Jewish aspect of poland and about the war. Some witnessed terrible things, some were themsleves in camps, and some were very uptight about the whole subject and a few were suspicious and unfriendly. But aside from grafitti, i didn't witness outright hostility.

There was a strange thing that we noticed though: In a casual conversation with random Polish people, after the first pleasantries, when they would realize we were Jews, there was usually a few seconds of awkward silence and caution, and then the conversation would continue. It seemed as if they would pause to think for a minute what to make of us, and then they would decide to be be civil and sometimes friendly.

Another weird experience was this: When we went to the local museum in Kalisz hoping to see something about the long Jewish history in the city, and we saw practically nothing. So we asked the curator about that , and she said, "Oh, if you want to see about the Jews, look in the cemetery." It gave me a chill. What she meant was that in the Jewish cemetery there is a small museum of the history if Jews in Kalisz. But that symbolizes the weirdness that a Jew feels in Poland today. Everything is about death and cemeteries, and nobody thinks that's not normal. It's taken for granted by both Poles and visiting jews. Here in israel, Jewishness is totally alive and considered a happy thing. So the contrast is startling.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


There is a much more relevant common denominator: Both groups lost sovereignty at the hands of larger world powers. Jews in Roman times and Poland in the partitions and then again in the molotov-ribbentrop pact.

One result is that both groups have a festering feeling of being victims. (The feeling is justified -- even paranoids can have real enemies). And both groups spent a good part of their history dreaming of righting the wrong. Look at their national anthems, "Poland is not yet Lost", "Our hope is not yet Lost"(part of Hatikva anthem).

With so much in common, why is there so little understanding? Put two people with a victim complex in one room (ie one country) and they'll soon start arguing over who got more screwed.

The argument is pointless, but hard to let go of.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]

Have your coffee. I've already had mine.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


Excuse me. I wrote WWI (one) not WWII (two). What's with the "kibbutz Gossip"? I'm not using any sarcasm so why are you?

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


I'm no expert, but my impression is that society in Eastern europe in the end of the middle ages was more feudal than western europe, so the middle class was less developed. The Jews filled a need, which was good for both poland and the jews. The conditions were better than in the west, as you say. But that doesn't mean that the common people welcomed the Jews. Most people don't like foreigners moving in in large numbers, and neither did Polish people. So to say that Poland was nice to the Jews is true of the kings and some of the nobility, but not necessarily true of the common people. I'm not complaining, only explaining.


But the teachings of the Polish catholic church demonized Jews in the popular imagination and also contributed to anti-Jewish feeling. It doesn't matter whether they were carrying out the policies of Rome. The effect on people's minds was the same.


Yes. And they also streamed out of Poland and Russia from the 1880s onward. I said that people generally stay where they are out of inertia till a more powerful force moves themn away. Russian policy in Poland and, after WWI, polish policy toward Jews drove hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews to the west. But of course, most stayed till the Germans came.

The continuity of Jewish civilization in poland for so many centuries is not due to the love of Poland for all things Jewish. It was because, for a lot of political and economic reasons, Poland became the largest concentration fo Jews in the world, and the critical mass made it the most natural place for Jews who wanted to be live among their own people.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]

This is making me hungry. I'm going out to lunch. See you later.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


That's something that's interesting to me. I'd like to know more about customs and traditions that Poles and Jews have in common. I know we both drink Borscht but we spell it differently. We also eat potato pirogen. How about gefilte fish - carp stuffed with chopped fish - Do Poles eat that too? Stuffed cabbage (with chopped meat and rice)? Braided bread (called challah in hebrew-yiddish)?

Maybe we can't resolve historical issues, but we can eat.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]

While it was night time here in Israel, you've all had a very interesting discussion. I agree that there was vicious antisemitism in Western Europe before there was any in Poland. Just look at the crusades or the inquisition. That's why Jews migrated over centuries Eastward. When eastern europe was developing the kings wanted Jews to come because it gave them an instant middle class of traders business people and craftsmen. They gave Jews relatively good conditions. When Polish magnates settled ukraine they also brought in Jews to manage estates and that led to communities of Jewish craftsmen and traders to service the new settlements. But that doesn't mean that the general Polish or ukrainian populace were happy about this policy. Townsmen felt threatened by Jewish competition. The church felt threatened or scandalized by the presence of Jews. So Poland was officially good to the Jews in the early centuries, but that doesn't mean that the Poles liked the Jews. Jews and Poles lived "side by side" like two families living in the same house, speaking different languages and following different religions. As the much smaller of the two families, the Jews got kicked around. Particularly when Polish national consciousness grew and excluded the Jews of Poland. (The French, British or Germans didn't like jews any more than Poles did, but their national consciousness grew in a period when there were hardly any Jews there.)

So why did Jews stay in Poland if it was so bad there? Out of interia. People generally stay in the place they were born no matter the conditions. Poland had such a strong and lively Jewish civilization that, with all it's problems, it was till looked at as the best place for a Jew if he wanted to live as a Jew. My greatgrandfather left poland to america in 1890. But after a few years in New York they went back to poland because he said "America is no place for a Jew." The Russians helped to change his mind and they left again about 10 years later.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


True. Most did. And that's why I'm a Jew today and not a Pole, even though my grandfather and his father and his father... were born in Poland. It was an absurd situation , an nation maintaining a separate identity without living in a territory of its own, and it had no solution until it became feasible for Jews to go back to Israel. The US was the choice for many, because it's a country not based on ethnicity. But I prefer a Jewish country where Jewish naitonhood can flourish rather than just be tolerated. (Today Israel and Poland get along politically much better than Jews and Poles ever did within Poland.)


Most israeli politicians and leaders are not religious. I wish they would cite the bible as often as you give them credit for. The jewish claim to this land is based on our well-known historic connection with the land. The bible is the most widely known record of that and is believed by a large part of the world, so that's why we quote it. But it's not an excuse for everything, just a basis for our being here. And face it, if we weren't here, we might be in Poland, or the UK. So be happy we're here.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


It's a question of belief if the bible was given to Moses at Mount Sinai (I'm referring now only to the 5 books of Moses) and if the books of the prophets were written under direct divine inspiration as the word of God. If you don't believe this then you can say that the ancient Jews made up the idea of a chosen people. Fine. But a christian would believe that the bible is from God. Jesus certianly would have said so. And if it was from God, where do christians come off blaming us for being chosen. It's not as if we asked for it.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


That's a question of belief. The point I wanted to make is that many Christians who criticize Jews for being the so called "chosen people" have forgotten that their own religion is based on that same premise. They believe that Jesus was the promised messiah of the jews, a descendant of the house of david. That presupposes a belief in the hebrew bible, where all those concepts originated, including the concept of a chosen people.


I said "by comparison". I would hope that they don't assimilate completely.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


That might be true in the UK. But I think the important accomplishment in the UK and the US is acceptance of diversity, which means that you don't have to assimilate to avoid persecution, you just have to be a decent citizen and accept certain public social norms. Also, in the UK there are much more visible minority cultures around, so UK Jews seem very british by comparison.

History / Jewish love towards Poles [389]


We (the Jews) are not the ones telling everyone we're chosen. The bible says so, and Christians are meant to believe the bible. But we were chosen not as a "master race" but for a specific spiritual purpose, to follow the Torah that God gave us and to be a holy nation. We haven't always done our job properly and we're the first to admit that, but we're doing the best we can considering.

About assimilation: Jews have tried that, particularly in Germany, where most Jews considered themselves german above all. A lot of good that did!

History / Potoccy Magnate Family in Politics and History [23]

Did you ever hear the story of a Graf Potocki who became a Jewish scholar? Among Polish and Lithuanian Jews this was a popular legend but I don't know if it's true or not. Look at this link for the story...

jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=P&artid=482

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

It's a fascinating story because of the Biblical connections, and the world's interest in anything having to do with Jews. But I think the world should get a life and notice other things going on. The most dangerous spot in the world today is Pakistan, where you have an unstable government unable to control a country torn apart by tribal strife and Islamic fanatics, and this failing government has atom bombs. Who is to say what tribe will have their finger on the button a month or a year from now.

But that's not the topic of this thread, is it?

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

Oy Pilsudski, Pisudski. Your namesake liked Jews more than you do. Since I'll never convince you that Israel has a right to do anything, why don't we go back to the topic of this thread, which is "Jews and their Polish Experience".

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]


That you say that apparently the nazis didn't use gas chambers shows where you get your ideas from. I hope the others here notice that. The "facts" you raise are so blatantly false there's hardly any point in talking with you. But for the benefit of the others let me make clear:

1. Israel has no torture sells and cages, either in Gaza or elsewhere.
2. Israel does not target children. Ever. (Some unfortunately get killed in counterattacks after rockets are launched from residential neighborhoods. There is a war going on in an around Gaza, and it can easily be stopped by Hamas if they cared about their children.) The palestinians, on the other hand are targeting ONLY civilian targets with rockets and suicide bombers.

3. There are no rapes going on, and there never were.
4. The wall and checkpoints serve as a border between their areas and ours to keep out suicide bombers. Have any better ideas? Before the intifada there were no walls and there was free travel and employment for West Bank arabs all over israel. There was no need for one till the palestinians started bombing and roadside shootings. So we put up a security border. If putting up a border means creating a ghetto, then every country in the world is a ghetto.

I live about an hour from Gaza, out of rocket range for now. So everything here is quiet and peaceful for both Jews and Arabs. Before the wall, we had suicide bombs. Now we don't. The wall is ugly but it works.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

Last time I looked, i didn't see anyone shipping Arabs to concentration camps or gassing them or shooting them in pits or throwing babies out of windows. But what I did see in my lunch break in the mall were Arab families and couples sitting in the coffee shop just like me, and shopping like any Jew in the mall. The same as I see every day. So don't give any of that garbage about us treating them liike Nazis treated Jews!

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

The extreme right wing groups in poland are a problem for poland, but most Jews are unaware of all of that. (Except the tiny communities in Warsaw and Krakow). The rest of us get our information from our parents and grandparents, and most of it is based on experiences from the pre 1945 era. I know that things have changed since then, but on the same token I still hear people in this forum talking about the "Jewish Bolsheviks" as if there are still any bolsheviks in the world. We should all learn from the past but not live in the past.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

Before getting into the Israeli role, let me ask, why is it that no one screams about the people who actually did the slaughter - the Lebanese Christians? Is it because it's more important for you to find an argument against Israel than to blame the actual perpertrators? (Now I understand Poles who are upset when people complain more about the inaction of the Poles in the holocaust that the actual murders commited by the germans.)


Nothing is forgotten by our people. You should know that by now. Just like we don't forget what others have done to us, we don't forget what we have done. We're not perfect, but we are our own worst critics. For more on the Sabra Shatilla massacres, look at this link. Read it before you comment on it.

jafi.org.il/education/actual/sabra-shatilla/index.html

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

They sent milosovic to trial because there was evidence that he massacred civilians. Sharon was investigated by his own country because he had administrative authority over that theater of war. He wasn't involved in a massacre.

Sharon has gotten a lot of bad press because he is the kind of Israeli that Europeans love to hate: self-confident, unapologetic, dedicated to protecting his country, and not concerned with what foreigners think of him. I think he made some mistakes during his career, but he is nothing like the person depicted in the anti-israel press. That's a made up character that sums up all the anti-jewish stereotypes. The cartoonists even show him with a hook nose even though his nose isn't hooked at all.

History / Jews...and their Polish experience [520]

Wrong on both counts:
1. The Sabra and Shatilla massacre was done by Arab Christians in Beirut against palestinians in Beirut. So ask the christians why they did that.

2. Sharon was investigated by a government commission in Israel. It fired him from the job of defence minister because they said he should have known that it might happen and should have tried to keep the christians away from palestinian neighborhoods. But no one said that he was involved in it in any way or that he knew about it while it was happening.

But I guess when christians kill muslims it's the fault of the jews.