The Unregenerated Jews of Poland

[4thskorpion]

And those Jews that did resist were low-life criminals robbing and murdering their good neighbours, Eh?

Most of the Jews didn't resist and most of the Poles didn't resist, they were trying to survive - not to engage in pointless resistance that did little harm to the German Army but cost lives of up to 200 civilians per killed German.
It was the job of the Polish Army, and groups authorized to do that, like the AK.

And, it happened that a Jewish group was led by a pre-war criminal, and sometimes they used criminal methods to survive.

And it happened that a Polish AK group led by "Hal" murdered and robbed a group of Jews in hiding during the Warsaw Rising 1944 purely for being Jews.

[David Thompson]

A post from wm, containing personal remarks about another poster, was removed pursuant to forum rules -- DT.

[michael mills]

Were there anti-Polish cartoons in Poland's Jewish press of the time?

I personally do not know the answer to that question, but what I do known from my reading about the inter-war history of Poland and about relations between Poles and Jews in that period is that before the First World War, during it, and in its immediate aftermath, Jewish political leaders in Poland opposed the idea of Polish independence from Russia, since they preferred to be part of a five-million strong Jewish population in a Russia where Tsarist rule had been overthrown and a philo-Semitic government installed, rather than to become a smaller Jewish community in an independent Poland that would almost certainly be dominated by the strongly anti-Semitic National Democrat movement led by Dmowski.

That opposition to Polish independence had the effect of greatly reinforcing the anti-Jewish sentiments that already existed among large segments of the ethnic Polish population, engendered in part by the massive influx into Congress Poland of Jews from further east (the so-called "Litvaks") in the latter decades of the 19th Century.

Anti-Jewish sentiment had been further exacerbated by the large-scale collaboration of the Jewish population of Congress Poland with the German occupiers between 1915 and 1918, resulting from the fact that the German occupation had liberated the Jews from the repressive measures of the Russian Imperial Government. That collaboration reinforced the view, held especially by Dmowski and the National Democrats, that the Jews and Germans were equally enemies of the Polish people, with the Jews being German servants.

It is noteworthy that in 1919 the Anglo-Jewish leader, Lucien Wolff, expressed the view, while observing the Paris Peace Conference and the bitter conflict between rival Polish and East European Jewish delegations, that the best solution for the Jewish populations of the successor states to the collapsed Habsburg and Romanov Empires was for them to migrate en masse into Bolshevik-ruled Russia, once the civil war raging there had ended with a Bolshevik victory. Wolff took that view because, although he was no sympathiser with Bolshevism, he considered that the Bolshevik regime in Russia was essentially philo-Semitic, whereas the regimes in the successor states (except Czechoslovakia) were highly likely to be extremely anti-Jewish.

[michael mills]

And it happened that a Polish AK group led by "Hal" murdered and robbed a group of Jews in hiding during the Warsaw Rising 1944 purely for being Jews.

The essential historical fact is that there was mutual hatred between ethnic Jews and ethnic Poles, a mutual hatred that to be sure was not universal but was felt by large parts of both populations.

The result was that some Poles killed some Jews when they had power over them, and conversely some Jews killed some Poles when they, the Jews, had the power to do so, for example as members of the post-war Communist regime in the immediate post-war period.

[David Thompson]

Let's get back to the subject of "The unregenerated Jews of Poland." We already have several open threads on the other Jews of Poland, and their relations with ethnic Poles.

[wm]

And it happened that a Polish AK group led by "Hal" murdered and robbed a group of Jews in hiding during the Warsaw Rising 1944 purely for being Jews.

The essential historical fact is that there was mutual hatred between ethnic Jews and ethnic Poles, a mutual hatred that to be sure was not universal but was felt by large parts of both populations.

You are not paying attention to what has been written in this thread.
Most of the Poles were unregenerated peasants, most of the Jews were unregenerated too. They didn't know what had happened at the Paris Peace Conference, maybe didn't even know what Paris was.
This invalidates the claim of large parts.
The murder above was a robbery so it doesn't support anything. And most of the other murders were too.

So lets see the people of Kazimierz again, especially that for them all the ethnic and political problems we are discussing so fervently were the last thing on their minds, and they didn't care about them at all:

To Kill a Terrorist.
Some time ago we reported the murder of Icek Glasmman, a known terrorist, who was extorting protection money from traders and street vendors, usually in the Jewish quarters. He was killed in a scuffle in Kazimerz.

Traders in the Jewish quarters knew Glassman well, were afraid of him, and paid the requested protection money so he lived a good life, luxurious even.

On the 7th of September this year, Glassman with a knife in hand attacked a street vendor Chaim Sternbach, demanding protection money. In the scuffle Glasmman was struck in the neck with his own knife, his main arteries were severed, and he died on the spot.
Sternbach was arrested and in a few days will appear in court to face the charges of exceeding the bounds of lawful self-defense.
Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny, 1937

More people of Kazimierz, from the times you had to buy your dinner and kill it:

is this some kind of an auction?:

the note.jpg (14.58 KiB) Viewed 445 times

[michael mills]

Most of the Poles were unregenerated peasants, most of the Jews were unregenerated too. They didn't know what had happened at the Paris Peace Conference, maybe didn't even know what Paris was.

How does that invalidate what I wrote?

[wm]

The peasants and the orthodox Jews were by far the largest groups, there were no other large groups in Poland that could be called large parts of both populations. As both the peasants and the Jews had lived in a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship for centuries there was no hate between them.

Additionally your, unfortunately unproven claims can be disproved like this: hate between groups means they will jump down each other throats at the nearest opportunity. In September 1939 a suitable opportunity arrived, law and order collapsed for weeks, the Jews weren't protected by the Polish state anymore - and nothing happened.

Returning to Kazimierz. Would you believe me if I told you this and all the photos above were made in the center of one of the largest cities in Poland shortly before the WW2 started?

Jewish children and their minder:

Next, Polish orthodox Jews on vacation.
Polish health resorts were popular among those people, they were frequently seen there in large numbers.
From the times impoverish people could afford health resorts:

sources: 1, 2.

[michael mills]

The symbiotic relationship between the unregenerated Polish peasants and the unregenerated Orthodox Jews was in general one where the Jews acted as middlemen between the peasants and the towns, buying the agricultural produce of the peasants and transporting it to the town markets, and bringing back the manufactured products of the towns to sell to the peasants. The Jews also provided artisanal, retail and financial services to the peasants.

Although that symbiotic relationship could be beneficial to both sides, its structure was one that had systemic causes of conflict. The peasants tended to regard the Jewish middlemen as exploiters, who banded together to impose low prices for the peasant's crops and high prices for the goods which they sold to the peasants. There was also resentment of the fact that certain economic niches such as the retail trade were monopolised by Jews, making it difficult for peasants to escape rural overpopulation and poverty by moving into urban occupations.

The cooperative movement was an attempt by peasants, with the help of the Polish Government, to eliminate the Jewish middlemen by taking over the role of marketing their produce themselves, but it had limited success.

On the other side of the coin, the unassimilated majority of Polish Jewry tended to regard the Polish peasant as an ignorant, uncouth boor with a tendency to drunkenness and at times even violence. At the ideological level, Orthodox Jews had a negative image of all Gentiles as essentially unclean and immoral, to be avoided to the greatest extent possible.

Perhaps "hatred" was too strong a word to use; "mutual dislike" might have been a more accurate formulation. The relationship between peasants and Jews was one where competing economic interests had the potential to lead to systemic conflict, and to one side taking action detrimental to the other under certain circumstances.

On the subject of economically-based conflict between peasants and Jews, I recommend this book:

"Economic Origins of Antisemitism : Poland and its Jews in the Early Modern Period", by Hillel Levine
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, c1991

On the fraught relationship between peasants and Jews in the inter-war period, I recommend this contemporary book:

"Poland: Key to Europe...", by Raymond Leslie Buell, published in London by Jonathan Cape, 1939

Please note that I am not ascribing blame to either side, I am merely describing the objective situation as it existed in inter-war Poland, which was one of considerable conflict between ethnic groups, albeit generally at a fairly low level.

[4thskorpion]

Returning to Kazimierz. Would you believe me if I told you this and all the photos above were made in the center of one of the largest cities in Poland shortly before the WW2 started?

Kazimierz 1930's

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And would you believe me if I told you these 3 photo below are Glasgow, Scotland 1940-50's.

Glasgow 1950's

4420018.jpg (38.63 KiB) Viewed 386 times

So what point are you trying to make about Kazimierz in the 1930's? It was relatively poor as were some of its citizens? Why would that be unbelievable?

[Skyderick]

is this some kind of an auction?

The text is too blurred to read, but the title seems to be Sefirat HaOmer (ספירת העמר).

[wm]

Please note that I am not ascribing blame to either side, I am merely describing the objective situation as it existed in inter-war Poland, which was one of considerable conflict between ethnic groups, albeit generally at a fairly low level.

Well, nothing wrong with a discussion on economic cooperation.

Middlemen are indispensable part of any economic system. A peasant couldn't function without a middleman at that time, and a farmer can't today.
Peasants were actually practicing direct selling and direct buying - with poor results.

The theory of economic niches were contested by Polish economists, even then. The peasants class was enormous, the niches were small - as the benefits of this operation.
Most of the niches were obsolete already. Full of cobblers, tallow-makers, soap-makers, wheelwrights, thatchers, weavers and geese necks sellers. It wouldn't work and they knew it.

The Jewish opinions about peasants are irrelevant, for a peasant a man without land was nothing (so it follows he didn't want to be a cobbler), same thing - but business is business after all.
They say, a competitor is an entity, in the same industry or a similar industry, which offers a similar product or service. So the peasants and the Jews weren't competitors, I would say.

The Polish peasantry was well represented politically by a few large and influential political parties. Their political programs don't express sentiments you alleged.

Additionally, the largest and longest group conflict in interwar Poland was the conflict between the peasants and the ruling classes.
It resulted in hundreds of casualties, and culminated (but not abated) with so called peasants strikes of 1937. The Jews weren't part of that conflict, they weren't targeted, weren't harmed. Although there was no police in villages, and they were defenseless.
This invalidates the theory of a systemic class conflict entirely, It would say.

[wm]

And now for something completely different.
A wedding of Chana Nechama Gołd with Mojżesz Stempeł in a small Polish vilage - Bobowa.

Chana Gołd wasn't a synagogue mouse, she was a daughter of the leader of the Bobov Hasidic dynasty, one of the biggest and the most famous - Ben Zion Halberstam. It was a royal wedding.

This is how you roll - being unregenerated, in style and certainly not alone. The groom has arrived:

the bride (in the middle), her sister and mother:

security:

welcoming commitee:

locals:

On July 28th 1941 rebe Ben Zion Halberstam, his son, his three sons-in-law, and 20,000 others were murdered at the Piaski ravine near Lwów.

[4thskorpion]

Perhaps "hatred" was too strong a word to use; "mutual dislike" might have been a more accurate formulation. The relationship between peasants and Jews was one where competing economic interests had the potential to lead to systemic conflict, and to one side taking action detrimental to the other under certain circumstances.

The driver of Polish anti-Semitism was not purely about competing economic interests. The other important driver was the stream of anti-semitic rhetoric from the Catholic Church in which the church supported not only economic boycotts,but also systematically stigmatised Jews as both spiritual and political enemies. See: The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland, 1933-1939 by Ronald E. Modras.

Which of these drivers was the greater cause of Polish anti-semitism can only be conjecture other than both were strong contributors.

However the ethno-nationalists wanted more tahn merely economic boycott of Jewish businesses but "a systematic and radical elimination" of Jews from Poland as you quoted reference Poland: Key to Europe...", by Raymond Leslie Buell makes clear:

Poland-Key to Europe .png (219.82 KiB) Viewed 376 times

[wm]

This is another off topic post. Ethno-nationalists, Catholic Church, antisemitism has nothing to do with Polish Hasidim, their lives, their customs.
And the premise, that they and their role in Poland, their Holocaust have been neglected, maybe even forgotten. Loosely speaking that, they were the Polish Jews.