The Unregenerated Jews of Poland

[wm]

The Polish leaders didn't have much in common with the majority of the population i.e. mass of the frequently living in abject poverty peasants. Similarly, the true Jews of Poland weren't the Pianists, or the Schindlerites, but the mass of the very distinct in appearance orthodox Jews living in self imposed ghettos.
Because of their poverty, medieval appearances and customs, unwillingness to change their habits, to learn the Polish language, and to support the newly reborn country they were seen as liability by both the Poles and their own more progressive brethren.
They were so visible to the traveling by car foreign visitors, they frequently asked themselves "where are the Poles?".
And they were the main, and the most helpless victims of the Nazi Germany, and the Stalinist Russia.

This is what Ben-Zion Gold has to say about them in The Life of Jews in Poland Before the Holocaust:

My father, who was familiar with Polish politics, had com to the conclusion that Jews had no future in Poland. Though he was not formally a Zionist, yearning for Zion was part of his daily life. As a religious Jew he prayed many times in the course of the day for the return to Zion and Jerusalem. Hitler's rise to power and the start political-economic conditions in Poland contributed to turning these messianic hopes into a practical plan for action. Only a return to Zion could save Jews from these dire circumstances.

This realization was also reinforced by my father's critical view of Jewish life in Poland. Hew was appalled by the neglect of practical education and planning for the future of the younger generation. At that time most religious Jews, especially Hasidim, gave their children only a religious education, leaving their economic future to God, and the results had been disastrous. How many heder teachers, rabbis, shochtim, and other minor religious functionaries could the increasingly impoverished community sustain? He was also troubled by the prejudice against craftsmanship or agriculture that was prevalent among religious Jews, and was dismayed by their preoccupation with tales of miracles attributed to Hasidic leaders and their disregard of the political and economic realities.

The Polish orthodox Jews a hundred years earlier, as seen by the American writer and traveler, John Stephens, from Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland:

A few words with regard to the Jews in Poland. From the moment of crossing the borders of Lithuania, I had remarked in every town and village swarms of people differing entirely from the other inhabitants in physical appearance and costume, and in whose sharply-drawn features, long beards, and flowing dresses, with the coal-black eyes and oriental costumes of the women, I at once recognised the dispersed and wandering children of Israel.

Poland is regarded as their Land of Promise; and there they present a more extraordinary spectacle than in any country where their race is known. Centuries have rolled on, revolutions have convulsed the globe, new and strange opinions have disturbed the human race, but the Polish Jew remains unchanged: the same as the dark superstition of the middle ages made him; the same in his outward appearance and internal dispositions, in his physical and moral condition, as when he fled thither for refuge from the swords of the crusaders.

While in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and even in England and France, their whole history is that of one continued persecution, oppressed by the nobles, anathematized by the clergy, despised and abhorred by the populace, flying from city to city, arrested, and tortured, and burned alive, and sometimes destroying themselves by thousands to escape horrors worse than death; while all orders were arrayed in fierce and implacable hatred against them, in Poland the race of Israel found rest; and there they remain at this day, after centuries of residence, still a distinct people, strangers and sojourners in the land, mingling with their neighbours in the every-day business of life, but never mingling their blood; the direct descendants of the Israelites who, three thousand years ago, went out from the land of Egypt; speaking the same language, and practising the laws delivered to Moses on the mountain of Sinai; mourning over their fallen temple, and still looking for the Messiah who shall bring together their scattered nation and restore their temporal kingdom.

But notwithstanding the interest of their history and position, the Polish Jews are far from being an interesting people; they swarm about the villages and towns, intent on gain, and monopolizing all the petty traffic of the country. Outward degradation has worked inward upon their minds; confined to base and sordid occupations, their thoughts and feelings are contracted to their stations, and the despised have become despicable. It was principally in his capacity of innkeeper that I became acquainted with the Polish Jew. The inn is generally a miserable hovel communicating with, or a room partitioned off in one corner of, a large shed serving as a stable and yard for vehicles; the entrance is under a low porch of timber; the floor is of dirt; the furniture consists of a long table, or two or three small ones, and in one corner a bunch of straw, or sometimes a few raised boards formed into a platform, with straw spread over it, for beds; at one end a narrow door leads into a sort of hole filled with dirty beds, old women, half-grown boys and girls, and children not overburdened with garments, and so filthy that, however fatigued, I never felt disposed to venture among them for rest. Here the Jew, assisted by a dirty-faced Rachel, with a keen and anxious look, passes his whole day in serving out to the meanest customers beer, and hay, and corn; wrangling with and extorting money from intoxicated peasants; and, it is said, sometimes, after the day's drudgery is over, retires at night to his miserable hole to pore over the ponderous volumes filled with rabbinical lore; or sometimes his mind takes a higher flight, meditating upon the nature of the human soul; its relation to the Divinity; the connection between the spirit and the body; and indulging in the visionary hope of gaining, by means of cabalistic formula, command over the spirits of the air, the fire, the flood, and the earth.

more from Incidents, some of the other Jews, in this case the nouveau riche:

The principal public garden in Warsaw. It stands in the very heart of the city [...]. It is enclosed all around by high brick walls, screened by shrubs, and vines, and trees rising above, so as to exclude the view of the houses facing it. It is handsomely laid out with lawns and gravel-walks, and adorned with trees; and as the grounds are exceedingly rural and picturesque, and the high walls and trees completely shut out the view of all surrounding objects, I could hardly realize that I was in the centre of a populous city.

before the revolution, it had always been thronged by a gay and brilliant collection of the nobility of Warsaw; and he enumerated several families whose names were identified with the history of Poland, who were in the habit of being there at a certain time, as regularly as the trees which then shaded our walk; but since the revolution these families were broken up and dispersed, and their principal members dead or in exile, or else lived retired, too proud in their fallen state to exhibit themselves in public places, where they were liable to be insulted by the presence of their Russian conquerors.

I had noticed one party, a dark, pale, and interesting-looking man, with an elegant lady and several children and servants, as possessing, altogether, a singularly melancholy and aristocratic appearance; but the interest I was disposed to take in them was speedily dispelled by hearing that he was a baptized Jew, a money broker, who had accumulated a fortune by taking advantage of the necessities of the distressed nobles. Indeed, next to the Russian officers, the baptized Jews were the most prominent persons on the promenade. These persons form a peculiar class in Warsaw, occupying a position between the Israelites and Christians, and amalgamating with neither. Many of them are rich, well educated, and accomplished, and possess great elegance of appearance and manner. They hate most cordially their unregenerated brethren, and it is unnecessary to say that this hate is abundantly reciprocated.

[wm]

This is from The Spring to Come(1925), a damning indictment of the reconstituted Poland, its leaders, and elites for failing to to live up to the earlier (and naive) dreams and expectations. By Stefan Żeromski, one of the most famous and influential Polish novelist and dramatist.

The Northern District in Warsaw, a city within a city, the place where the Warsaw Ghetto would be established two decades later:

At first, the sight of Jewish houses, apartments and stores were disgusting to look at for this newcomer because of their specific brand of ghastliness, but later it started to intrigue him, and finally it accosted him in an overwhelming manner in the form of a conundrum.

He resolved to spend his free time wandering through the adjacent streets: Franciszkanska, §wietojerska, Gesia, Mila, Nalewek and others. The Jews residing or working in this locality created what is known as a ghetto. But this settlement of theirs was not a product of the past, it had no history. Just the names of the streets alone are an indicator that it hadn’t always been this way. Nobody settled them here separately, like, let’s say, Pope Paul IV in Rome, so that they wouldn’t interact with Christians. Nobody forced them to live exactly here and not someplace else. They flowed into this neighborhood on their own, they were drawn one to another, and growing constantly, they created a ghetto of their own free will.

On these streets the Polish signs in shops, warehouses and workshops had already started to disappear. They have been replaced by Jewish signs. You didn’t really see Poles around here much anymore. Every once in a while you could come upon a Pole who happened to be the guard in an apartment building, or on a street where the only Pole happened to be a policeman.

These streets have an awfully unattractive look about them. The apartment buildings constructed by the Jews and owned by them have a shoddy urban look of shameless vulgarity and ugliness about them. The war had stripped them of the oil or clay paint. The oil paint has twisted into pipettes and coils, and on the surface of these houses it resembles the filthy side curls on a grimy Israelite. The interiors and courtyards of these houses are not only stripped of their oil or clay top layer, but also of plaster which in some place has peeled off in pieces, and in some places entire section of wall have peeled off.
Bare brick walls shine through, but they are covered in sticky layers of filth, they are full of cracks, stains, discolorations, smears and revolting splatters which seem not to bother any of the residents. How awful must the cesspools, garbage dumps, drains, sinks, gutters and pavements themselves be! Most of the courtyards are dark, divided up, blocked, full of crates, scraps, debris and junk, shreds and rags. The melancholy of these courtyards cannot be put into words. The sadness of these windows is deaf, constantly looking out onto the rancid and disgusting alleys, the stripped walls covered in streams of filth, the hallways and cellars reeking of decay.

They play here, in these diseased corridors, throngs of Jewish children, dirty, sickly, skinny, ashen, and greenish. If only a ray of sunshine would break through these winter clouds and peer into this lamentable scene. When the winter wind howls and the frost is biting, these children are thrown into hiding spots where the old ones jabber on about business, profits and making a quick buck.
[He] did once manage see two teenage kids huddling together and walking up the long Franciszkanska Street heading somewhere. Their little legs were drenched in the sticky, black, watery mud of the sidewalks and gutters, and their clothes were soaking wet and filthy. This pair was wretched beyond description. Their legs were poking-stick skinny, and their arms looked like bird bones. Their faces did not look human either, more like a vulture ’s or a hawk’s, and their eyes were grim and crazed. This pair was waving their translucent palms, shaking their heads that sat upon their spindly necks and they were bitterly and rabidly discussing something. What can these two have been talking about? Was it also about profits and making a quick buck? [He] followed them for quite a while as they bounced off walls and lampposts dragging themselves to some unknown destination which, quite frankly, was not even worth their effort.

On the days before Sabbath, he would sneak over to the long “hospitable manor” stands (market stalls) where they sold kosher food stuffs, vegetables, meat and other culinary tidbits. There he saw a show full of the strangest absurdities, uncontrollable laughter, but deeply pathetic at the same time. These places were overrun with grunting, squalling, and grumbling generated by an exchange of goods that could only be fashioned by Jews. Buyers and sellers of offal bits, snippets of geese, legs, heads, necks, beaks, wings, herring, potatoes, orange scraps, candies and fruit — they were at each other’s throats, ripping it out of each other’s hands, hurling packs of insults at one another, ripping money out of clenched fists. Everybody had dawn in their hair, they were splattered with the blood of innocent ducks and roosters.
Wandering through the crowd were types which defy description, unknown anywhere on the planet, in rags so battered and shiny, it looked as though the only thing holding them together was a crusty layer of glistening grease — there were half naked hucksters meandering about, half naked beggars in this sea of people stood off to the side bowing their heads in a monotonous gesture, like powerless stalks in the middle of a field — begging for a morsel in the Name of God. This entire shindig was reminiscent of the council of the damned possessed by the devil, going eyeball-to-eyeball over something.

What strikes him as being the most amazing of all are the stores in this neighborhood, or rather the tiny shops, wedged into the ground floors of apartment buildings. Main streets and side streets are literally crammed full with these tiny cells. On the outer-door of these hole-in-the-wall locales, there hang metal shingles with signs in the Jewish language. Therefore, the goods being sold in these booth establishments are meant only for the Orthodox Jewish population. How paltry, how unimaginative, how pitiable are the goods of these magazines! The share capital of each one of them can ’t possibly exceed twenty zlotys. A bit of scrap iron, some animal skins, a few bundles or bushels of foodstuffs, a few rolls of threads or shoelaces and some boot polish are sources of income for people who laze about freezing and dozing for days on end into the evening hemmed into these narrow, low-ceilinged, little cages constructed of planks.

One time, [he] waded into a large courtyard whose revolting interior no pen can describe, for whose unprecedented level of disorder, filth, and disgusting mindlessness of articles being strewn about there are no words. These were the remnants of an iron depository, or rather old scrap iron. And there were scores of ironmonger shops carrying damaged, old, or lousy iron. One could say that this entire courtyard had been eaten away by rust, and that the rust was all that remained as evidence of that former state which had withered away. And the Jews who herded in droves to this place, shouting, swarmed atop the heap and were locked in hand-to hand combat over something or other, were themselves rusty, eaten through to their deaths by rust.
Suddenly, a freight truck drove into the courtyard carrying some sort of huge load wrapped in tarp.Soon, with their combined efforts, the load was removed from the truck and the tarp was discarded onto the frozen mud. Under the tarp there was a mass eaten away by rust: sawed-off pieces of pipes, twisted gridiron gates, screws, hooks, fragments of pokers, halves of forceps, bolts, warped nails, the bases of food storage containers whose use was unknown, pointy and zigzag bits of iron fencing, keys, iron heaters, braziers, fragments of windowpanes, doorknobs without fasteners, and tons of unsorted scraps of iron of various genus. Upon revealing the contents of the tarp, throngs of Jews, men and women alike, materialized out of nowhere, as though they were emerging from beneath the earth, mostly old,lopsided, all twisted and deformed, rusted, and covered with unruly hairy overgrowths all over. This entire brood, amidst wild screams and wrangling, started grasping for selected bits, pieces and slivers of iron, obtaining them amidst indescribable rows and haggling. It was not possible to grasp who these people were. Byers? Merchants? Middle-men? Collectors?

[He] was under the impression that this was a group of old idlers who specialized in gathering up old pokers. He couldn’t be bothered respecting their indigence or understanding the sense in their occupation. In their pursuits of tremendous gains they had evidently fallen from grace and were now seeking even the most negligible gains, not pausing for one moment from dreaming of the big ones. Not unlike the ones from the shops, the dungeons and caves, they’re just lurking about waiting to pounce on the opportunity to make a quick buck by literally doing nothing. What kind of reform would it possibly take to elevate them to a higher social standing? What could be done to possibly help these people, in order to make them equal to others in terms of rights, possessing some of the prosperity in the world, in employment, customs, and way of life?

There was a surfeit of wretches-ragamuffins who were wasting the innate mobility of the Jewish race on cheating each other, expending energy on quarreling over offal bits, herring, scraps of meat, and doing nothing, literally doing nothing to earn an honest wage, obtain permanent gainful employment in factories or workshops. Many, of course, did overwork themselves in those streets as porters, drivers, assistants, salesmen, and they even had a different outward expression, normal, human. Hunched over, lopsided and deformed, hairy, bearded, filthy, sources of endless entertainment in their shallow little caps and long, dirty smock-frocks that hung down to their heels, gadding about and flooding the streets,
floundering about, entering and exiting, cackling, arguing, not accomplishing much of anything really. [He] arrived at the general conclusions that the Jews who live in this neighborhood which he has been forced to spend time in are a bunch of active and talkative slackers.

[wm]

From "The Doll" by Bolesław Prus, another god-like figure of Polish literature.
These are border areas of the Northern District fifty years earlier, technically mostly Polish, which doesn't matter - the Jews living a few street further didn't have any better life.

He stopped half-way along the road and looked at the district between Nowy Zjazd and Tamka Street, stretching out at his feet.
He was struck by its resemblance to a ladder, one side formed by Dobra Street, the other by a line from Gabarska to Topiel, with several alleys across, forming lungs. This ladder leads nowhere. It’s a sick place, a wild place. And he thought bitterly that this area of riverside earth, strewn with the refuse of the whole city, had given birth to nothing but two-storey houses coloured chocolate and bright yellow, dark green and orange. To nothing but black and white fences separating empty spaces, in which a several-storey apartment house rose here and there like a pine tree spared in a forest laid waste by the axe and uneasy at its own solitude.

‘Nothing, nothing...’ he repeated, wandering through the alleys with their shacks sunk below street level, roofs overgrown with moss, buildings with shutters and doors nailed shut, with tumbledown walls, windows patched with paper or stuffed with
rags. He walked along looking through dirty window-panes into dwellings, and absorbed the sight of cupboards without doors, chairs with only three legs, sofas with torn seats, clocks with one hand and cracked faces. He walked along and silently laughed to himself to see labourers interminably waiting for work, craftsmen employed only at patching old clothes, women whose entire property was a basket of stale cakes—and to see ragged men, starving children and unusually dirty women.

‘This is a microcosm of Poland,’ he thought, ‘where everything tends to make people wretched and to extinguish them. Some perish through poverty, others through extravagance. Work is taken from other people's mouths to feed the useless; charity breeds insolent loafers, while poverty is unable to acquire tools and is besieged by perpetually hungry children, whose greatest virtue is to die a premature death. Individuals with initiative are of no use here, for everything conspires to chain initiative and waste it in a vain struggle—for nothing.’

[He] reached the Vistula bank, and looked about in surprise. Here, occupying several acres of space, was a hill of the most hideous garbage, stinking, almost moving under the sun, while only a few dozen yards away lay the reservoirs from which Warsaw drank.
‘Here,’ he thought, ‘is the centre of all infection. What a man throws out of his house today he drinks tomorrow. Later he's moved to the Powazki cemetery, and then again from the other side of the city he infects those of his dear ones who are still alive... A boulevard here, drains and water from the hill-top several thousand people could be saved from death, and tens of thousands from diseases... Not much work, but an inestimable profit; nature would know how to compensate for it.’

On the side and in the ravines of the hideous hill he saw what looked like people. Several drunkards, or criminals, were dozing in the sun, there were two women street-sweepers and a loving couple, consisting of a leprous woman and a consumptive man without a nose. They looked like phantoms of diseases unearthed here, rather than human beings, that had dressed themselves in rags. All these individuals sniffed the scent of an intruder: even the sleepers lifted their heads and gazed at the visitor with the look of mad dogs.
[He] smiled. ‘Had I come here by night, they would certainly have cured me of melancholia. Tomorrow I’d be resting under this garbage which, after all, is as comfortable a grave as any.’

But a boulevard wouldn't do away with these Mahicans: they'd move over the river to Praga or beyond, go on with their business, make love like that pair, even increase and multiply. What fine children you will have, my homeland, born and brought up in this garbage heap, with a mother covered in sores and a father with no nose!...

[wm]

From Fall of Poland by Luther Calvin Saxton, published 1851. Saxton was an American single-book writer, later a remarkable swindler, he served three years for his efforts.

At a very early period in the history of Poland, the Jews spread themselves over the country, and monopolized all the commercial business of the nation; controlling all the ready cash, and extorting enormous fees from all classes of citizens, whose necessities brought them within their power. Boleslas II granted them a charter in 1264, and the same privileges were secured to them by Casimir the Great.

While in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, and France, the whole history of this unfortunate people is that of one continued scene of persecution, — oppressed by the aristocracy, anathematized by the clergy, despised and abhorred by all nations, races, tribes, and classes — fleeing from city to city,-arrested, tortured, and burned alive, — sometimes destroying themselves by thousands to escape horrors and torments worse than death, while all orders were arrayed in fierce and implacable hatred against them — in Poland the fallen race of Israel found rest.

And there they remain at this day, after centuries of residence, — still a distinct people, strangers, and sojourners in the land; mingling with their neighbors in the every-day business of life, but never mingling their blood, their love, fortunes,- or religion. They are the same direct descendants of the Israelites, who, three thousand years ago, went from the land of Egypt, speaking the same language, and adhering to the same laws, delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai; mourning over their fallen temple, and still looking with earnest expectations for the coming of the Messiah, who shall bring together who shall bring together their scattered nation, and restore them to their former land and temporal kingdom.

No race of people in the world excels them la natural talent. Many of them are wealthy and educated; but the great majority
are poor, ignorant, and vicious, wandering about the villages and towns, intent on gain; monopolizing every petty traffic, descending to the most menial service for a penny; and not unfrequently increasing their unhallowed wealth by the licentiousness of their wives and daughters [Edinburgh Encyclo. Art. Poland.].
The inns of Poland are generally kept by this class of citizens, consisting principally of miserable hovels, with a room partitioned off in one comer of a large shed, used as a stable and yard for vehicles ; ornamented with an entrance under a low porch of timber ; a floor of naked earth ; furnished with one long table, or two or three small ones, with a bunch of straw in one comer for beds ; with a hole through a narrow door at one end, leading into a small, filthy hovel, where the family of both sexes, and all ages, have a common bed of straw.
The Jews in Poland are excluded from all offices and honors [by the tsarists autocracy of the Romanovs - wm], and from all privileges and distinctions of society. Previous to the reign of Nicholas, they were exempt from military services on payment of a tax ; but since that sovereign ascended the throne they have been subjected to military duty.

The baptized Jews of Warsaw form a peculiar class, occupying a position between the Israelites and Christians, and uniting with
neither. Many of this class are rich, well-educated, and possess great elegance of appearance and manners, the Polish Jews
generally are sober, industrious, parsimonious, and crafty; constituting a numerous and separate people in the heart of Poland.
Once a year the Polish contracts, as they are called, are made. On these occasions the nobles repair to the principal towns, — Kiev, Minsk, Warsaw, and Wilna, — to sell or mortgage their lands, pay their interest, and negotiate all their money transactions for the year with the Jews. At these annual marts the wives and daughters of the nobility resort for amusement; speculators bring hither their wares; usurers, numerous strolling players, and sharpers, come to practice their arts, and exercise their several trades. The nobles, by their prodigality, and the variations in the price of grain, have frequently found themselves involved in pecuniary embarrassments, and are compelled to mortgage their fortunes to the Jews, who have the sole control of the commerce and monetary interests of the country.

This unfortunate race are daily emigrating to America, — the world's asylum— where they find a happy home, secure from persecution and oppression, where they embrace the religion of the Bible in the form of Protestant Christianity, and worship the God of their fathers in spirit and in truth; and are fast becoming one of the most sagacious, useful, and moral class of citizens, under the improving influence of American institutions.

There is no people on the earth to whom the world is under such high obligations as the Jews. They are the bankers of all
nations, and have furnished the world with the Bible, — a most precious gift, — for which the globe, and all the bodies of unlimited space, were they all pure gold, would be no compensation.
Then give them a home in America — the land of the free.

[4thskorpion]

From the above:

"...Many of them are wealthy and educated; but the great majority are poor, ignorant, and vicious, wandering about the villages and towns, intent on gain; monopolizing every petty traffic, descending to the most menial service for a penny; and not unfrequently increasing their unhallowed wealth by the licentiousness of their wives and daughters".

Really??

WM, the tracts of text that make up the subject of this thread are smattered throughout with overtly anti-Semitic rhetoric and seem to have little to do with the Holocaust & 20th Century War crimes? Or, is the intention for their inclusion to somehow portray these poor, ignorant and vicious wandering Polish Jews only intent on personal gain and monopolising every petty traffic, were low-life "outsiders" and thus became victims of the Holocaust because of it? Or is the intention to show how Nazi German and Polish nationalist propaganda used the same anti-Semitic language and themes in their campaigns against the Jews?

[wm]

Yes, really. Please read The Jewish White Slave Trade and the Untold Story of Raquel Liberman by Nora Glickman, about the Warsaw Jewish Mutual Aid Society sex slaves trafficking network, about street battles between Jewish pimps and Jewish socialist workers in Warsaw, and why the word polaca (a Polish woman) means a prostitute in Brazil.

This how the life of the lowest classes in Central Europe looked like even in the twentieth century. The poor Jewish masses, Polish peasants, Ukrainian peasants lived and behaved like that, with their learned helplessness, passive-aggressiveness, ignorance, viciousness, cruelty.

[4thskorpion]

WM, Indeed one can point out criminal gangs/organisations and individuals in any culture including the Jewish population of Poland.

However I am questioning the editorial reasoning behind the inclusion of the selected text and passages of overtly anti-Semitic language such as below

"...the Polish Jews are far from being an interesting people; they swarm about the villages and towns, intent on gain, and monopolizing all the petty traffic of the country. Outward degradation has worked inward upon their minds; confined to base and sordid occupations, their thoughts and feelings are contracted to their stations, and the despised have become despicable."

and its relevance to the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes - what point is trying to be made?

Is it your contention that this was the cause...

Because of their poverty, medieval appearances and customs, unwillingness to change their habits, to learn the Polish language, and to support the newly reborn country they were seen as liability by both the Poles and their own more progressive brethren.
They were so visible to the traveling by car foreign visitors, they frequently asked themselves "where are the Poles?".

...and because of it therefore this was the effect?

And they were the main, and the most helpless victims of the Nazi Germany, and the Stalinist Russia.

[wm]

Yes it was, among others. The orthodox Jews were highly visible strangers, foreigners in their own country, so they had the least chance of surviving. And because they were so orthodox and old-fashion, in the USSR their culture was first in the line to be "modernized" i.e. destroyed.
And they were the Jews, the majority - the others, the "Hollywood" Jews, were a small minority.

As to John Stephens, he was an extraordinary man, credited among others for the discovery of Maya civilization. He traveled all around the world and spent some time in Russia and Poland. Is he a Hitlerite stooge because he uses colorful language? Maybe 200 years ago learned people used and enjoyed such expressions?
He was there, we were not. His work is a primary source, and because is written by a foreigner is especially fascinating.

It is all here because I find lives of other people, their stories, sociology, political science interesting. And because it seems there is not other good place for this. As indicated by the fact my posts about Artur Szyk were moved here from somewhere else, maybe in anticipation that he, being a Jew would be murdered in the end.
Well, maybe correctly - he was bullied and harassed to the death in the US, during the McCarthy hysteria in the fifties.

[michael mills]

And because they were so orthodox and old-fashion, in the USSR their culture was first in the line to be "modernized" i.e. destroyed.

There is however a clear difference between the USSR and inter-war Poland in terms of the treatment of their respective Jewish minorities.

To be sure, in the USSR the traditional culture of the Jews was destroyed, essentially by the Communist Jews of the Evsektsia (a branch of the Communist Party created to convert the Jews to Communism), but that destruction of a way of life was on balance extremely beneficial to the mass of the Jewish population.

Before the First World War, the great majority of the Jews of Russia (then including much of Poland) consisted of poverty-stricken artisans and petty traders excluded from any role in the running of the country or in determining their own fate.

By 1939, some 40% of the Jews of the USSR had risen in status to become "sluzhashchie", that is, members of the administrative and managerial class, including officials in the State and Party bureaucracy. That proportion was far higher than for the Soviet population as a whole, and for any other Soviet nationality, even for the major nationalities such as the Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, the majority of whom were oppressed industrial workers and peasants.

Thus, it would be true to say that the destruction of Jewish traditional life in the USSR resulted in the Jews as a group being proportionately better off, in terms of their rank in the Soviet political and socio-economic system, than the Soviet population as a whole and of any other Soviet nationality.

That may be contrasted with the situation in inter-war Poland, where there was no improvement in the life of the Jews. They retained their traditional culture and life-style, and remained mired in the poverty and degradation described by observers quoted in the extracts posted by wm.

It would appear from those extracts that in the inter-war period, Poles in general tended to have a rather negative and contemptuous attitude toward the Jews living in their midst. That may well be why the Judeocide committed by the German occupiers on Polish soil does not seem to have caused much distress to the bulk of the Polish population who observed it; indeed, a vocal minority expressly welcomed it, even among groups resisting the German occupation.

[wm]

The sole intention of those Polish authors was to contrast the poverty of the people (among them the Jews) with the corruption and excesses of the elites, nothing more.

Well, some said that, it's terrible but maybe without the Jews the life would be better - nothing really wrong with it. It's a political opinion, people have a right to have their own opinions. In the same manner it was said it would be better without the socialists, communists, landowners, capitalists or even the clergy. Or something else would be better, lots of nonsense was said on any possible subject.
By studding the readers' posts on foxnews/huffingtonpost one could easily come to conclusion that political opponents of most of those posters are the illegitimate spawn of the devil himself and need eradication badly, does it mean they will be gassing each other on the closest occasion?

In large SHTF events, the occupation undoubtedly was one of them, there is little solidarity or sympathy between people, thou shalt love thy neighbour is suspended, especially among the poor and dispossessed.
It is estimated 5% people informed anonymously to the authorities on their neighbour or someone known. The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Poles outside snitched on their own brethren for some personal gain as if there were no tomorrow. Criminals, conmen were everywhere. A defenseless person (e.g. a Jew) was going "to get it" eventually, as surely as a tourist wandering in Detroit at night.

So in the end all the questions, did they like them or not, how much distress there were, about negative/positive attitudes are as relevant as the question do they like tourists in Detroit. It was all about being an easy and valuable target.

That may be contrasted with the situation in inter-war Poland, where there was no improvement in the life of the Jews. They retained their traditional culture and life-style, and remained mired in the poverty and degradation described by observers quoted in the extracts posted by wm.

There was no improvement in the life of the Jews, and there was no improvement in the life of anyone. The economy was worse than before the Great War all the time.

Thus, it would be true to say that the destruction of Jewish traditional life in the USSR resulted in the Jews as a group being proportionately better off, in terms of their rank in the Soviet political and socio-economic system, than the Soviet population as a whole and of any other Soviet nationality.

And not the peasants, farm hands, the living in slavery lowest castes of the various Asian nationalities (they had huge slave markets there even at the end of the nineteenth century)?

Before the First World War, the great majority of the Jews of Russia (then including much of Poland) consisted of poverty-stricken artisans and petty traders excluded from any role in the running of the country or in determining their own fate.

Well, in the Czarist Russia almost everyone was excluded.

By 1939, some 40% of the Jews of the USSR had risen in status to become "sluzhashchie", that is, members of the administrative and managerial class, including officials in the State and Party bureaucracy. That proportion was far higher than for the Soviet population as a whole, and for any other Soviet nationality, even for the major nationalities such as the Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, the majority of whom were oppressed industrial workers and peasants.

A trader even if poverty stricken still had a better life than a peasant, a farm hand, or one of those Asian slaves. I don't think many Jews died in the famine of 1891–92.
A son of a literate petty trader became a petty administrator - not much of improvement there.
A son of a illiterate, poverty stricken, physically destroyed by backbreaking work peasant became a worker in a factory with regular working hours, access to first rate education, universal health care, his own apartment and much more - a huge improvement I would say.

There is however a clear difference between the USSR and inter-war Poland in terms of the treatment of their respective Jewish minorities.

Well the difference was like this: after spending some time in the Stalinist Russia the Polish Jews were eager to return to the non-improved, pre-war Poland - even if they had to crawl all the way. As shown by the large number of Jews trying to reach General Anders' Army, and the testimonies in the Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive.

At no point of time the life of a Jew was better in the USSR than in Poland. Please provide an example of a Jew that defected from Poland to the Soviet Russia
The life in the USSR improved but for God's sake, it was the twentieth century - some improvement were to be expected. Without the Revolution the life there would improve much more.

[4thskorpion]

The sole intention of those Polish authors was to contrast the poverty of the people (among theem the Jews) with the corruption and excesses of the elites, nothing more.

Although the only people mentioned are the Jews? The selected texts clearly express their authors' anti-Semitism and that anti-Semitism is as old as the hills.

Well, some said that, it's terrible but maybe without the Jews the life would be better - nothing really wrong with it. It's a political opinion, people have a right to have their own opinions. In the same manner it was said it would be better without the socialists, communists, landowners, capitalists or even the clergy. Or something else would be better, lots of nonsense was said on any possible subject.

Although it was only the Jews the Polish government wanted to deport to Madagascar in 1937!

Well the difference was like this: after spending some time in the Stalinist Russia the Polish Jews were eager to return to the non-improved, pre-war Poland - even if they had to crawl all the way. As shown by the large number of Jews trying to reach General Anders' Army, and the testimonies in the Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive.

Can you provide any references to such that you describe in the Ringelblum archive and in the Anders papers which are I believe still held by the Hoover Institute in the U.S.

[wm]

Those are large books, in one case over 800 pages. And the excerpts are just a page or two long. That brutal, wry, ironic style of writings was quite popular and was used many times in those books too.

in the Ringelblum archive the mass return of Jews from the Soviet occupation zone is described in the volume 3 (Relacje z Kresów) for example Account 15 (The Notes of Young Jewesses) and 18 (from Warsaw to Vitebsk and Back).
In fact the German representatives in the Soviet Zone were overwhelmed by thousands of Jews trying to force by any means their return.

[wm]

This is from Richard Glazar, a Czech Jew, a survivor of Treblinka and the revolt there:

The (Eastern) Polish Jews: they were people from a different world. They were filthy. They knew nothing. lt was impossible to feel any compassion, any solidarity with them. Of course, l am not talking about the Warsaw or Kraków intellectuals; they were no different from us. I am talking about Belorussian Jews or those from the extreme east of Poland.

From those who managed to survive it was only me and my comrade Karel Unger - from ‘West’ from Czechoslovakia. All the others came from the poor wastelands of Eastern Poland. They were simple, molded by the circumstances they grew up in. Their lives were in complete isolation from the rest, in the voluntary ghettos, which were called ‘shtetl’.

To write about Treblinka was beyond their limits. After all, they had problems with statements before the international Tribunal. They could not speak good enough German, their mother language was Yiddish, and their life was streaked with lurid fantasy.

Samuel Willenberg about Glazar:

I can remember both of them from the Camouflage Brigade. They were both in my brigade. They were quite strange and did not make friends with the Eastern Jews; frankly they did not like them. They stuck together with Czechs, but that was normal. Listen, l was ordinarily dressed, good boots, good trousers, but they had bow ties, they used to walk like dandies; that was something quite different.

from Chris Webb, The Treblinka Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance

[wm]

The unregenerated Jews are back in Poland.
It is fascinating that despite the doom and gloom of the Polish socialist writers and Ben-Zion Gold those people have been able to lift themselves from poverty, and their communities are still healthy and stable.

Below the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) of Tzadik Jeszaji of Przebórz. He died 175 years ago.
Before the war there were 403 Jewish businesses in that tiny town.

the place before the war:

The yahrzeit of Tzadik Elimelech of Leżajsk (died in 1787), one of one of the great founding Rebbes of the Hasidic movement.


The yahrzeit of Tzadik Dawid Biderman of Lelów (died in 1814), the founder of the Lelov Hasidic dynasty.

his grave:

The yahrzeit of of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in the former Polish town of Uman. He was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty.

his grave:

[michael mills]

Do all those Hassidic Jews actually live in Poland and Ukraine? Or are they just visiting from the United States?