History /
Jews...and their Polish experience [520]
To the original poster,
I cannot offer much on the history of Polish-Jewish relations except to say that before the outbreak of the war there was a clear division between a nationalist movement which sought limits on the rights of all minorities including Jews and the government led of General Pilsudski who championed loyality over ethnic identity. His rule saw many improvements in Jewish life in Poland. Today Pilsudski is considered one of Poland’s greatest heroes.
Rather, I can offer something on Poland today.
Firstly, I would suggest if you go looking for anti-Semetism, then that’s exactly what you will find, but that will not be a reflection of Polish-Jewish relations in Poland. Recently a graveyard was smashed up in Israel by immigrant Jewish kids from Russia who are neo-nazis. This is hardly a reflection of Russian Jew's attitudes to Israel. I would suggest that an examination of relations between Poles and Jews perhaps a more solid platform to stand on.
I lived in Poland for five years and have the following to offer:
Lets start with the ugly:
I knew one person who was always snipping at Jews. Her habitual complaint was that they were money-grabbers. This was not a case of familial anti-Semitism. Her mother and father were horrified by their daughter’s attitudes. She stole a lot of money from me.
I noticed the same thing with Father Henryk Jankowski, a noted anti-Semite from Gdansk. He railed against “Jewish bankers” as he rolled around in his Jag promoting his own wine.
As an aside, I recently met a Swiss woman who told me that “the Jews have all the money”. Wow! (I wanted to say: And the Swiss are just keeping it nice and safe until the rightful owners are all dead)
Carl Jung had a theory that we hate the “Other” who most reflects what we hate in ourselves but deny exists. I have found this very true of Jew haters who focus on the money thing.
Then there are the street Nazis/skinheads. You know you are in their neighbourhood by the proliferation of Neo-Nazi/White Power symbols and Stars of David hanging from gallows. I have met a few of these. One was quite smart. He was young, 16, and had a black heart. He was almost single-minded in his desire to seek opportunities to offend and hurt. The others were extraordinarily stupid, and I have to emphasize the extraordinary part. They never got it that if they dressed as they do now in 1944 the AK (the Polish Home Army) would have arrested, tired and probably executed them for treason. I still consider any Pole who is a neo-Nazi to be a traitor to his people.
Then there was the passive low-grade anti-Semitism which would rise in passing comments on trams or bars, like “don’t be a Jew”. These are the habitual anti-Semites. These are the really scary ones. They are of course not a Polish phenomena, but seem to grow like weeds across Europe and North America (I only have experience in these places).
I was an English teacher in Poland. I taught teens and university students, mostly from well-off backgrounds. I gave a few lessons with Jewish cultural topics. I would say that perhaps 5% of my students displayed discernable anti-Semitic behaviour. The vast majority were very enthusiastic about the subject matter. That’s the nearest I can offer to numbers from personal experience.
In my time there I found official Polish attitudes to Jews, whether Polish or not, is often contradictory. Example: the current President was accused in the Israeli press of anti-Semitism. The Israeli Ambassador staunchly defended him. Soon there will be a museum to 800 years of Jewish life in Poland, a project championed by the president. This will be a major project, not some token jesture. Its intention is to celebrate Polish-Jewish history and to turn Poland from being seen as a mass graveyard for Jews to being a place where a unique story is still unfolding. When the president visited Israel he surprised politicians by his in-depth knowledge of Jewish and Israeli life, history and culture. Yet … his twin brother, also a long-standing supporter of Polish-Jewish life, went into government with a right-wing, anti-Semitic party. That party, LPR, the clearest political expression of anti-Semitism in Poland, denies anti-Semitism exists in Poland.
www://jagahost.proboards79.com/index.cgi?board=history&action=display& thread=1182948489
Here are their youth members giving a Nazi salute. LPR’s response was that they were ordering beer.
But it can be argued that these guys are an aberration. In the last election LPR was decimated, with only 1.3% of the vote, so few votes that it cannot take a seat in the national parliament. Their significance is that they were welcomed into a government by a politician with good Jewish relations. Herein lies the difficulty of understanding Polish-Jewish relations.
Many Poles I met were proud of Poland’s Jewish connection. A journalist for the main broad sheet, Gazeta Wyborza, tried a little experiment. He walked around Warsaw in his Yamaka. He did the same in Paris. In Warsaw he was approached by many people saying they were glad to see this. In Paris he was subjected to verbal abuse. In my time in Poland I followed many forums and blogs on the topic and came across a lot of anti-Polish feeling from Jews in Israel and the States, usually deeply ill-informed and vitriolic. I never recognized the Poland they attacked as the Poland I lived in. I know from talking to Poles that they are deeply hurt by this. If this is hurtful, then they are angered by the portrayal of Poland as the place where European Jewry was butchered. Coach loads of non-Polish Jews arrive in Poland, visits the camps, walk the Ghetto and that’s their entire experience of Poland. And Poles aren’t the only ones who resent this. Polish Jews are pretty fed up with this as well.
Jewish life in Poland is entering a new age. Recently I read a story of a young skinhead, a neo-nazi. He was the real deal. At weekends he would go out looking for non-Poles and if he and his pals found them then “We did what we did.” One day he heard his parents arguing. It seemed serious, something concerning him. He insisted they tell him. Yes, you guessed, he was Jewish. His family changed religion to assimilate after the war when being Jewish wasn’t to your advantage. He has since converted. Now he works at the local Jewish center. Many Poles have Jewish roots. Some know about it, others not. Some have converted, others not. But Jewish life in Poland is becoming healthier. Since the fall of communism a healing has begun. A few weeks ago I was back in Warsaw for the weekend. On Sunday morning I called into the New Synagogue. The Chief Rabbi was preparing boys for their Bar Mitzvah. Judahism’s story in Poland is not over.
There are a lot of misconceptions about “Jews” and “Poles” but I will finish with this: on the first day of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising in 1943 Jews flew the Star of David was along side the Polish flag. A year later when the Warsaw Rising began, the Home Army committed one of its only armoured vehicles to rescue Jews from an extermination camp the Nazis had built in the city. When the Poles overcame the Germans they were met by the Jewish prisoners who presented themselves in military formation and saluted their fellow countrymen, saying that they were ready for active service. They took up arms and every one of them died in the Rising fighting for a free Poland. Poland’s story is more closely linked to European Jewry than any other nation. There history is long, rich, often joyful, sometimes bloody, but irrevocably intertwined in how they lived and died. Understand their story very slowly.
I hope this post was useful. My views are certainly biased. I have chosen to focus on the positive. I do noyt deny the bad. It is there. It is in the dark corner of the everyday. I wish you luck in your search. Please spend as much time thinking about your questions as you do about the answers.
Sincerely,
P
