Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

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David Thompson
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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#16

Post by David Thompson » 06 Oct 2016, 02:56

Jeff Leach -- You asked:
Are there any books explaining why Jews were so disliked in Eastern Europe or Europe in general?


There is a question about just how many people (what proportion of national populations) were antisemitic prior to the holocaust. Here are some of our AHF discussions on that and related subjects:

"The majority of Poles saw the Jews as anti-Polish"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Independent anti-Jewish actions by Ukrainians in June 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
When did antisemitism start?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Einsatzkommando 3 in Lithuania, 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
German documents on anti-semitism in the Ukraine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Did the Polish people profit from the extermination of Jews?
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Bystanders
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Origins of anti-semitism in Romania
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=137526
Post-war murder of Jews in Poland
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Alleged mass slaughter of Jews by the White Russians in 1919
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=69883
Collaborators in the East
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=87176
Contemporary Polish reports on the Jew-destruction
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=92555
Crimes by certain Jews against Poles at Jedwabne, 1940
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=74763
Polish Home Army
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=52816
National Polish American –– Jewish American Council
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=53014
Polish views of Jews during WW2
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=47644
Polish historian Bogdan Musial on 'Judeo-Bolshevism'
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=42172
Anti-Jewish order by Polish General Anders
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=41682
Poland faces up to the horror of its role in the Holocaust
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=12345
A 1900 Prediction of extermination of Jews in Ukraine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Anti-Semitism in Russia
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22
Need help for this postulation on anti-semitism
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... emitism%22

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#17

Post by michael mills » 06 Oct 2016, 07:02

Are there any books explaining why Jews were so disliked in Eastern Europe or Europe in general?
Jeff, you might try this book, which deals specifically with the lands of early modern Poland, where the great majority of European Jews were concentrated prior to the Polish Partitions at the end of the 18th Century:

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

Levine shows that the conflict between peasants and Jews in the Polish lands was a result of the socio-economic role of the Jews, namely as middle men between and peasants and the Polish landowners, in which role the Jews were perceived by the Jews as their exploiters and oppressors, although the root cause of that exploitation and oppression was the greed of the landowners.

The peasants' dislike and resentment of the Jews for their function as the direct instruments of their oppression exploded in 1648, during the Cossack uprising against Polish rule led by Khmel'nyts'ky, in the course of which Cossack and peasant insurgents massacred large numbers of Jews. The Jewish chronicler of those massacres, Natan Hannover, was well aware of the causes of the peasants' hatred of the Jews who lived amongst them; in his chronicle "Yeven Metsulah" (The Deep Mire), he wrote that the "Greeks" (= Ukrainian peasants, identified by their Byzantine religion) had become the slaves of the Jews".

Back in 2006, I referred to another book, "Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective", edited by Potichnyj and Aster, published in Edmonton, 1988. That book contained an essay, "Ukrainian-Jewish Antagonism in the Galician Countryside During the Late Nineteenth Century", by the Ukrainian-American historian, John-Paul Himka, who is in fact a strong critic of Ukrainian nationalist extremism and quite sympathetic to the Jewish side in the Ukrainian-Jewish conflict.

In that essay, Himka analysed letters written by Ruthenian peasants in 1884 and 1885 to the popular Ukrainian-language newspaper in Galicia, "Batkivshchyna". Himka found a very high level of hostility toward Jews expressed in those letters. He also found that that deep hostility was based on economic and political conflict, and only marginally on religious or racial considerations. The evidence adduced by Himka demonstrates that anti-Jewish feeling was wide-spread among the ordinary Ukrainian population, and that it had quite rational causes.


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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#18

Post by wm » 06 Oct 2016, 09:19

Sergey Romanov wrote:While "the more religious, the more antisemitic" picture is simplistic, it's not *that* far from truth.
After all, both "Jews are Christ-killers" and "Jews use Christian blood for rituals" memes are undeniably religious in nature, they were present wherever Jews were present in the Christian world, and caused innumerable pogroms and other persecutions.
The chance to be killed for religious reasons was almost nill.
In Poland from the beginning of her existence to the partitions it seems there were just a few blood libel. And most of them were initiated by their economic rivals, not by irrational antisemites.
All those were totally dwarfed the number of Jews killed during the Khmelnytsky massacres (maybe about 30,000) which had nothing to do with religion - they were directed against oppressors, the Polish "lords" and their sidekicks the Jews.
And Khmelnytsky was and is a hero for lots of people.

Was any of the pogroms in the Russian Empire triggered by blood libel?
Or the pogroms during the Russian Civil War?

It seems Jews were invariably killed for economic and political reasons, and actually very few of them died as result of blood libel.
Usually they died because they were the only "worthy" target during some kind societal collapse.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#19

Post by Sergey Romanov » 06 Oct 2016, 10:39

And why were the Jews seen as such targets? Right, because "they killed our Lord". Because in the fairy tale told in the Bible the Jews say: "his blood is on us and our children".
While those who instigated pogroms, like various princes indebted to Jews, were likely to have material motives, the justifications they used to sic mobs of Christian thugs on Jews were religious - blood libel, Christ-killing, "blasphemy".

Hence you can't simply ignore the role religion played.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#20

Post by Sergey Romanov » 06 Oct 2016, 10:52

PS: the question was not "what caused most killing" but "why the Jews were disliked"; deep Christian antisemitism was certainly one of the main factors. That there were other factors of economic and socio-cultural nature does not in any way contradict this.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#21

Post by Jeff Leach » 06 Oct 2016, 11:11

Thanks Mr. Thompson and Mills, your replies made me realize that maybe I should have been more specific. I work a lot with the orginial Wehrmacht document, which give glimpses that somethings is happening but it is very confusing glimpse. It many cases it just seems that violence blossums up without reason.

For example in Iasi at the end of June 1941 there was a Progom and Death Train. Iasi was in the sector of the German XXX Army Corps, these records don't say anything about trouble in Iasi until the 29 June (the day Before the massacre). Suddenly, the movement of German Soldier are forbidden in Iasi for their own protection. A Company of German Soldier were to march down the main street on the 30th June, hopefully to calm down the situation in the Town. The Germans asked the Romanians for help but the German's felt the Romanian response would only make matters worse. The Germans then requested that the Romanians only send a Company of Soldier that would march through the Town together with the German Soldiers (no information about who they were has been found). Interesting to note is the original Corps order states that the German Soldiers in Iasi that were acting as aggitators were to leave the Town immediately. Also the Corps order reads more that the corps only wanted calm in the rear area Before launching its attack on the 1st July. There isn't any indication that saving civilian lives was a concern.

The massacre happened on the 30th but so far I haven't seen any documents directly relating to it. After the massacre, part of a German military police battalion was to be dispatched to the Town to restore order. Later there are a number of documents in the German 11th Army records after the massacre where it appears the army command was trying to figure out, if any German unit knew the massacre was to happen and if any German units assited in the massacre or the Death train afterwards.

After reconsidering my original question, I would like to refrase it: can anyone send me a copy of the article

Ioanid, Radu "The Holocaust in Romania: The Iasi Pogrom of June 1941" pages 119-148 from Contemporary European History, Volume 2, Issue # 2

Hopefully this article will give the answers to the question - why did the population go crazy in Iasi.

The above account was written from memory but if it is needed I can easy post copies of the original documents.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#22

Post by michael mills » 06 Oct 2016, 11:56

why did the population go crazy in Iasi.
There had been strong anti-Jewish feeling in Romania since the 19th Century, primarily as a reaction to the large-scale immigration of Ashkenazi Jews from the former Polish lands, beginning in the late 18th Century.

Prior to that immigration, there had been a very small Sephardic Jewish community in Romania, or the Danubian Principalities as Romania was then known. That community had settled in the region during the period of Ottoman overlordship, was well integrated, and did not have a socio-economic function substantially different from that of the other components of the urban population. As a result, there was little prejudice against the Sephardic community.

There was no Ashkenazi immigration into Bulgaria to the south, and as a result no substantial anti-Jewish feeling developed in that country.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#23

Post by wm » 06 Oct 2016, 12:48

Sergey Romanov wrote:And why were the Jews seen as such targets? Right, because "they killed our Lord". Because in the fairy tale told in the Bible the Jews say: "his blood is on us and our children".
Worthy in the literal sense, they were richer than the peasants (which weren't even worthy of robbing, and were the attackers anyway), and were defenseless. In civil war plunder is the norm, not an aberration. It's hard to survive without it.
The Polish nobility was equally attacked and ransacked, although more cautiously as they weren't as quite defenseless.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#24

Post by Sergey Romanov » 06 Oct 2016, 20:25

wm wrote:
Sergey Romanov wrote:And why were the Jews seen as such targets? Right, because "they killed our Lord". Because in the fairy tale told in the Bible the Jews say: "his blood is on us and our children".
Worthy in the literal sense, they were richer than the peasants (which weren't even worthy of robbing, and were the attackers anyway), and were defenseless. In civil war plunder is the norm, not an aberration. It's hard to survive without it.
The Polish nobility was equally attacked and ransacked, although more cautiously as they weren't as quite defenseless.
Yes, and there's no contradiction between various reasons for antisemitism. There were economic reasons, religious reasons, sociocultural reasons.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#25

Post by Terry Duncan » 07 Oct 2016, 01:06

wm wrote:Young Russian soldiers weren't exposed to religion, there were too young for that.

If that were true, that Christian faith equals antisemitism the Bible Belt will be nothing but anti-Semitic hate-fest today.
But it's a fact that a Jew had the best chance of survive among deeply religious Christians because they were helping unselfishly, and were ready for greatest sacrifices for strangers.
In Poland organized help for the Jews was started actually by right wing Christians.
The peasants, people frequently accused by the elites of adhering to "older forms and beliefs" were the most friendly to the Jews part of the population.
And young people mostly didn't care about religion, although overtly were religious.
So it is not that simple.

As to the Soviet soldiers this is from Hugo Steinhaus' memoirs, he met and talked with many Soviet soldiers at the beginning of 1945 in Poland.
They robbed and stole everything they could.
The front-line troops snatched food out of homes as their supply and field kitchens didn't ever try to keep pace.
They are drinking, stealing - when drunken they even rob and rape women.
They don't preach anymore about Lenin, Marks, the Soviet Union, and capitalists - they are the Russian Army now.
About the Jews they say they are shirking - in HQs, in commissariats, and that they will get even with them after the war.
They mark graves with crosses. They say that when the war ends, their life will be like here, like in Britain, in America. They have seen the [outside] world.
from The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia By Orlando Figes:
Anti-Semitism, which had been largely dormant in Soviet society before the war, now became widespread.
It flourished especially in areas occupied by Hitler's troops, where a large section of the Soviet population was directly influenced by the Nazis' racist propaganda, but similar ideas were imported to places as remote as Kazakhstan, Central Asia and Siberia by Soviet soldiers and evacuees from the western regions near the front.
Many people blamed the Jews for the excesses of the Stalinist regime, usually on the reasoning of Nazi propaganda that the Bolsheviks were Jews.
According to David Ortenberg, the editor of Krosnaia zvezda, soldiers often said that the Jews were 'shirking their military responsibilities by running away to the rear and occupying jobs in comfortable Soviet offices'.
More generally, this gulf between the front-line servicemen and the 'rats' who remained in the rear became the focus of a widening divide between the common people and the Soviet elite, as the unfair distribution of the military burden became associated in the popular political consciousness with a more general inequality.
Do you imagine hundreds of years of teachings were forgotten in twenty years? Comparing religion in the US to eastern Europe is not really objective, the US had not seen a history of pogroms, whilst eastern Europe had. Religion set the stage, the sentiment was already there when the Nazis came to power, they didnt invent it, they simple exploited it.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#26

Post by wm » 07 Oct 2016, 11:19

Could you be more specific? What teachings?
Do you mean the constantly reaffirmed Sicut Judaeis from 1120, that "forbade Christians, on pain of excommunication, from forcing Jews to convert, from harming them, from taking their property, from disturbing the celebration of their festivals, and from interfering with their cemeteries."
Or the prayer that everyone was required to say "Let us pray also for the faithless Jews". It seems the faithfuls were taught to pray for the Jews no to harm them.

I'm sure that in the US from the year 1000 to 1800 no Jew was harmed for the reason you mentioned, but in the same time in Poland it was maybe a score or so. What considering the times was not even a first world problem.

Of course there were differences, for example:
- one Jew per eighty in the US, 1 in 10 (up to 1 in 5) in Central Europe,
- the Jews were a privileged class placed above the bourgeoisie, in the US they weren't,
- the were richer (sometimes much richer), better educated, lived better, and longer than the general population, not in the US,
- numerous wars, civil wars, uprisings, revolts - frequently with hundreds of thousands of victims, in the US just one and localized.
And there are a few more.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#27

Post by Sergey Romanov » 07 Oct 2016, 14:48

Religion set the stage, the sentiment was already there when the Nazis came to power, they didnt invent it, they simple exploited it.
Absolutely. Any attempts at citing theoretical decrees and bullae to show that religion was not at fault are a form of denial. We know that the charges of deicide (perhaps the most important one), as well of ritual blood use and blasphemy helped to lead to massacres (cf. the Rhineland massacres) and expulsions. That religion was not the only reason (money often playing a role) doesn't mean that it wasn't *a* reason - it was much simpler to justify harming someone if you first imagined them to be a vile heretic against your religion.

Religion playing a serious role is not in doubt by any serious historian of the period.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#28

Post by wm » 07 Oct 2016, 15:45

Rhineland massacres were condemned by the Church, Sicut Judaeis was specifically issued as reaction to them.
I would say a generalization spanning a thousand years, and concerning itself with an entire continent shouldn't be based on a single event that happened over 900 years ago.

Looting, raping, stealing is/was a crime. Why should we concern themselves with excuses criminals invent to quiet their conscience (most of them it seems don't have any anyway)? For them it is more like "where is a will there's a way" than anything else.

It's different when a state or an organization declares it's not a crime, like it happened in the Nazi Germany, or do it itself like the Soviet Union.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#29

Post by Sergey Romanov » 07 Oct 2016, 19:30

wm wrote:shouldn't be based on a single event that happened over 900 years ago
The claim that the claims about the universally acknowledged influence of religion on antisemitism are based on a single event (!) is on par with your claim that the Christian Bible contains no violence. I think we're done here.

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Re: Why were the Jews so disliked in Eastern Europa?

#30

Post by Terry Duncan » 08 Oct 2016, 00:39

wm wrote:Could you be more specific? What teachings?
Do you mean the constantly reaffirmed Sicut Judaeis from 1120, that "forbade Christians, on pain of excommunication, from forcing Jews to convert, from harming them, from taking their property, from disturbing the celebration of their festivals, and from interfering with their cemeteries."
Or the prayer that everyone was required to say "Let us pray also for the faithless Jews". It seems the faithfuls were taught to pray for the Jews no to harm them.

I'm sure that in the US from the year 1000 to 1800 no Jew was harmed for the reason you mentioned, but in the same time in Poland it was maybe a score or so. What considering the times was not even a first world problem.

Of course there were differences, for example:
- one Jew per eighty in the US, 1 in 10 (up to 1 in 5) in Central Europe,
- the Jews were a privileged class placed above the bourgeoisie, in the US they weren't,
- the were richer (sometimes much richer), better educated, lived better, and longer than the general population, not in the US,
- numerous wars, civil wars, uprisings, revolts - frequently with hundreds of thousands of victims, in the US just one and localized.
And there are a few more.

I am not too sure how seriously you expect to be taken when saying few Jews were killed in the US from 1000-1800, as it is unlikely there were actually any jews at all in the first part of this period, not too many in the middle, and smaller numbers than in Europe even in the latter part.

As to a history of anti-Semitism in Europe, and its origins, try this for one;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_antisemitism

If you notice, the church is deeply involed in lots of these events, often as the prime mover. Jews were also often killed to remove debts owned to them, but as they were banned from any profession other than money lending this was a rather obvious end result as soon as people, including kings, didnt want to repay the loan, and they even had the excuse nicely provided for as the Jews were indulging in the sin of usury.

Here is a link to the history of anti-Semitism in Russia (where we get the word pogrom from, as these events were so commonplace), and again, the church is involved once more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewi ... ian_Empire

You could also look through the history of the Inquisitions instituted by the Catholic church, often directed against Jews even as late as 1858 with the Mortara Case, and amusingly still existing but under a new more PC name, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

The main difference between east and west is that the west became increasingly secularised after 1650, to a point now where many nations in western Europe have about 50% non-religious people or Atheists/Agnostics.

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