Polish views of Jews during WW2

[michael mills]

Here are some excerpts from publications of Polish resistance groups, expressing their reaction to what was being done to the Jews from 1942 onward.

I found them in the essay "The Polish Underground and the Jews" by Shmuel Krakowski, published in the book "Poles, Jews, Socialists; The Failure of an Ideal" (Polin Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 9, edited by Antony Polonski, Israel Bartal, Gershon Hundert, Magdalena Opalski and Jerzy Tomaszewski, London, 1996), pp. 138-147.

Enjoy!

A leaflet entitled "Protest", produced by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka in the name of the Front Odrodzenia Polski (Front for Polish Resurrection) in August 1942:

One has no right to remain passive when crimes are being committed. Whoever keeps silent in the face of murder becomes the murderer's accomplice. He acquiesces who does not condemn.

For this reason we, the Polish Catholics, are speaking out. But our feelings towards the Jews have not changed. We still consider them to be the political, economic, and ideological enemies of Poland. [My emphasis]

As the quote shows, it is possible to condemn the unjust killing of millions of Jews while at the same time condemning the Jewish people for its misdeeds.

Extracts from an article of 15 August 1942 in the underground newspaper "Narod", an organ of the organisation Unia of the Stronnictwo Pracy (Labour Party), which attracted the catholic elite. The article was entitled "The Slaughter of the Jews".

At the moment, from behind the ghetto walls, we can hear the unearthly moans and screams of the Jews who are being murdered. Ruthless cunning is falling victim to a ruthless brutal power, and there is no cross visible on this battlefield, as these scenes go back to pre-Christian times. [My comment: "Ruthless cunning" = Jews, "ruthless brutal power" = Germans, just in case you had not noticed]

If this continues in the same manner, then it will not be long before Warsaw will be saying farewell to the last Jew. If it were possible to conduct a funeral, the reaction to it would be interesting to see. Would sorrow follow in the wake of the coffin, or weeping, or perhaps joy?

In one of our previous decrees we urged you to be kind, but today we are faced with the following question. For hundreds of years an alien, malevolent entity has inhabited our northern suburb - malevolent and alien from the point of view of our interests, as well as our psyche and our hearts. So let us not strike false attitudes of the sort adopted by professional mourners at funerals - let us be serious and honest.

We pity the individual Jew, the human being, and as far as possible, should he be lost or trying to hide, we shall extend a helping hand. We must condemn those who denounce them. It is our duty to demand from those who allow themselves to sneer and mock that they show dignity and respect in the face of death. But we are not going to pretend to be grief-stricken about a vanishing nation which, after all, was never close to our hearts.

The above passages are consistent with Christian teaching. They express the view that even though the Jew may be malevolent and alien, it is the duty of a true Christian to feel compassion for him when he is suffering, and not to take pleasure in his punishment.

In particular, the last sentence in the above quoted passage is remarkable for its intellectual and ethical honesty, so different from the hypocrisy that is rife in the present day.

A passage from "Szaniec" (The Rampart), the organ of Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny (the national Radical Camp), on 31 january 1942.

Jews were, are, and will be against us, always and everywhere......And now the question arises of how Poles are to treat the Jews.......We, and certainly 90 per cent of Poles, have only one answer to this question: like enemies.......The basic mistake which both previous Polish constitutions had in common was to give equal rights to all its citizens, which also included national minorities. The only right and effective, authentic, and non-cowardly solution to the problem is to grant political rights to no one but Poles.

An article in the same periodical of 15 April 1942, entitled "The Problem of the Nursing Home":

There are nations which are degenerate and sick, on which one must keep a tight hold so as not to cause disaster to civilisation. These include, first and foremost, Jews, German, and Muscovites.

We have had to fight the Jews and the Muscovites, but the Germans are liquidating them much better and more effectively than anyone else could hope to do, particularly us.

There is no need to dwell at length on the Jews - we know them only too well. There is not much hope of their joining the ranks of nations of good will until they totally cleanse by fire 'the eternal revolutionary Jew' and fertilise the sterile and fallow realm of the Jewish soul with the ashes.

The middle paragraph in the above passage again displays remarkable intellectual honesty on the part of the Polish authors. In the first place, they admit that the liquidation of the Jews by the Germans is something that will be to the benefit of the Poles and which the latter want, and secondy that the Poles are too incompetent to do the job themselves.

More to follow.

[alf]

The fact that parts of the Poliand was antisemtic, some virulently so is not in dispute. But antisemitism is not a war crime, nor do the examples posted tie directly into the Holocaust.

So why is it posted here and not in the Allied or European threads? Unless Michael can show clearly where his examples of antisemtism so carefully highlighted are actually leading, then the topic should be moved

As always there are alternatives, if my memory serves me right , Chrisopher Browning in Ordinary Men: Police Battalion 101 and the Finals Solution in Poland, or The Path to Genocide provided evidence that the SS had to import guards from the Ukraine and elsewhere because they could not trust local Poles to do the bulk of the dirty work. That indicates that antsemitism was not universal throughout Poland.

Antisemitism existed in Poland, no one can dispute that fact, but there is a world of difference between not liking Jews and killing them.

That is what is needed here, for Michael to clearly show a warcrime was commited or how the Poles from the excerpts published participated in the Holocaust.

Otherwise it should be moved to a more appropiate thread.

[Dan]

That is what is needed here, for Michael to clearly show a warcrime was commited or how the Poles from the excerpts published participated in the Holocaust.

A Polish group condems other Poles who turn Jews in, and that's nothing to do with the holocaust? You seem afraid that large numbers of people are going to read this thread.

[David Thompson]

alf -- You said:

Unless Michael can show clearly where his examples of antisemtism so carefully highlighted are actually leading, then the topic should be moved

In my opinion, one of the more important topics in the study of war crimes is the question "why?" This thread addresses the psychological basis for crimes against the Jews.

The material Michael Mills has posted is original, and not generally available. In my opinion it is important to understand the conditions under which racist delusions first florish, and then turn to crime. Hopefully, this thread will assist in this understanding. If not, I will close it pursuant to the forum's rules against ethnic and religious slurs.

Michael -- If possible, could you give this presentation more of a framework, which I'm guessing will probably be along the lines of your comments in the thread "Present-day denial and ignorance" at:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=47594

[Ogorek]

Of course Mr. Mills..... the ONR had little nice to say about the Jews...

Hence the title of the thread might better read:
"ONR views of Jews during WW2"

I might also suggest that you do a little more research about Zofia Kossak-Szczucka - one of the founders of Zegota, godmother of the colors of the Polish Parachute Brigade, made and consecrated by the women of occupied Warsaw, and Auschwitz inmate....

[Mostowka]

Michael Mills,

As the Jews were the dominant majority in Poland for a very long time and assimilation was not large differences existed, even hate and a great deal of propaganda was pumped out. Antisemitism has been a widespread movement in Poland and continues suprisingly to be so even today. But what you seem to leave out is the fact that there during the advent of the second Polish republic another movement saw the light of day, Polish/Jewish collaboration in both political and intelectual life.

What a part of the Polish intelegensia with ties to the church and national parties thought of the Jews was not the dominant view among intellectuals, even if jealousy and suspicion was common. What about the rate of pogroms in Poland contra the rate in Russia ?

again displays remarkable intellectual honesty on the part of the Polish authors

Once again the views of one certain group does label a whole nation with the same views. I would go as far and say that the attitude towards Jews did not differ greatly from the viewspercieved as "comman" in lets say, Hungary.

It is a very interesting subject you have brought up Michael, and studying pamphlets and underground papers is a good source to see how the Poles viewed the Jews during an ongoing genocide. But we must not forget that solidarity and compassion was expressed during times when it was punishable with death.

There is a very good book on Polish/Jewish relations prior to the war by the name "Szkice z Dziejów stosunków Polsko-Zydowskich 1918-1939), written by Jozef Orlicki (Krajowa Agencja wydawnicza, Szeczin 1983).

[Askold]

That indicates that antsemitism was not universal throughout Poland.

- Actualy it was, especially in inter-war Poland. My grandmother used to live in what is considered Poland now, she mentioned quite often that the Jews were treated very badly in the 30's. However I should also mention that many other minorities in interwar Poland were constantly offended.

P.S. I think the reason Germans employed camp guards elsewhere, was not because of lack of antisemitism in Poland, but German general distrust for Poles.

[Kloster]

altho it's about schindler and his "types" it does give some "insight" about Polish antisisemsi (sp...) pre war and during the war.

atleast it's a link i've been spending some time to read.
http://www.tulane.edu/~so-inst/slindex.html

Best regards

Kloster

[michael mills]

The purpose of Shmuel Krakowski in writing the essay from which I have taken the excerpts posted by me was to show that Polish views of Jews were essentially negative, even among those Poles who were willing to risk their lives to help individual Jews who were in danger of death.

Thus he intends to show that the founders of "Zegota", an organisation set up to assist Jews and help them hide from their German persecutors, were not motivated by love of Jews, and that was the purpose of his quotation from the writings of Kossak-Szczucka, one of those founders. She called on Poles to oppose the mass-killing of the Jews, but at the same time confirmed her view that the Jews were the " political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland".

Krakowski appears unable to understand the contrast between the hostility of most Poles towards the Jewish minority in their midst and the willingness of some of their intellectual cultural leaders to oppose their massacre by the German occupiers and to provide aid to Jewish individuals, even at the risk of death. For him it is a total paradox. Thus he writes, in relation to the article "The Slaughter of the Jews" published in "Narod", the organ of the Catholic organisation "Unia":

It is obvious that this text contains many details which are based on primitive lies, on inhumane and disgusting diatribes against the Jews. But it also urges the extending of a helping hand to any individual Jew who is lost or in hiding - and that, after all, implies risking one's own life [my emphasis]. Are we not dealing here with a peculiar contradiction, not uncommon at the time - the wish to salve one's human conscience while yet remaining steeped in a hackneyed ideology which includes pathological antisemitism as one of its tenets?

But Krakowski, as a person embedded in the Jewish cultural sphere, is probably unable to understand the Christian teaching to "love your enemies", which was the ethical basis for the actions of Poles like Kossak-Scczucka and the Catholic intellectuals of the organisation "Unia". Furthermore, for obvious reasons, he is totally unwilling to admit the reasons why humane Polish catholic intellectuals might have a negative attitude toward his own people, and simply dismisses it as "pathological".

The attitude of the Polish Catholic intellectuals, who insisted that it was the Christian duty of the Polish population to have compassion for and assist the Jews who were suffering, despite the fact that in their view the Jews were "malevolent" and "alien", may be contrasted with the attitude of the Soviet propagandist Il'ia Erenburg, who in his writings directed at the Soviet population propagated the concept of a duty to hate the enemy, and to rejoice at his punishment, an attitude that may well derive from his own Jewish cultural background.

The book containing the essay by Krakowski also contains an essay by Teresa Prekerowa which takes issue with Krakowski's theses and, while admitting the negative attitude of Poles toward Jews expressed in the publications quoted by him, uses examples of the political positions expressed in Jewish underground publications to show why Poles had such a negative attitude. I will also be quoting from that essay in this thread.

Now to the question of racial slurs. I consider it vital, in any discussion of the destruction at German hands of the greater part of Polish Jewry, to confront the attitude of the Polish population toward what was happening, not from the point of view of dismissing it at some sort of pathological phenomenon, but from the point of view of understanding the socio-economic and political background that engendered such attitudes.

It is therefore necessary to state openly the contradictory views expressed by Polish intellectuals, rather than to sweep them under the carpet.

[Mostowka]

Il'ia Erenburg, who in his writings directed at the Soviet population propagated the concept of a duty to hate the enemy, and to rejoice at his punishment, an attitude that may well derive from his own Jewish cultural background.

Could you further explain what it was in Ehrenburgs supposedly Jewish background that made him "rejoice at his punishment", from what I have heard Ehrenburg was not more Jewish than what his name made him Jewish, i.e he came from a secular Jewish family.

[michael mills]

Here is another excerpt quoted in the essay by Krakowski. It is from a report sent to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London in August 1942 by Roman Knoll, director of the Comisssion of Foreign Affairs attached to the Delegatura, the office of the Delegate in Poland of the Government-in-Exile. The document outlines basic plans relating to the jewish poulation.

Among all our other national problems, there is alos the Jewish question. Formerly this seemed to us to be purely an internal matter. In reality it has always been an international issue, and has influenced our foreign relations. We realise that this will be the case to an even greater extent after the end of this war in which international Jewry officially belongs to one of the fighting factions. The mass murders of Jews in Poland carried out by the Germans will alleviate the Jewish problem for us, but will not remove it altogether [my emphasis]..........However, because of the monstrous persecution which European Jews have been subjected to, world public opinion is bound to be even more sympathetic towards their plight and will make an even greater effort to look after their interests. At the moment, Christian compassion for the agony of the Jews dominates our country, but apart from all this....... it remains true, whatever the nature of the current temporary psychological reaction that the eventual return of Jews to their jobs and workshops, even in greatly reduced numbers, is completely out of the question. The non-Jewish population has filled the places vacated by the Jews in towns and cities throughout Poland, and this has brought about fundameantal changes which have a final quality about them.

A mass return of the Jews would be regarded by the people not as a restitution, but as an invasion against which it would defend itself, even by physical means. In short, it would certainly be a tragic situation from the political point of view if at the time wewere having our borders redrawn, our credits secured, new alliances and federations negotiated, Poland were to be pilloried by world opinion as a ountry where militant antisemitism was still being pracrised. Then all elements hostile to us would take advantage of this moment to bring about our ruin and to deprive us of the hard-won fruits of victory. The government is doing the right thing in reassuring world opinion that there will be no antisemitism in Poland, but this can only happen if the Jews who survive the pogrom make no attempt to return en masse to Polish towns and cities.

The above passage is also remarkable in its openness and honesty. Two very important conclusions can be drawn from it.

In the first place, it shows that the removal of Polish Jewry by the German occupiers, brutal and inhumane as it was, brought tangible benefits to the majority Polish population. That was because the Jews had occupied a particular socio-economic niche, in which Poles could now move and thus improve their own socio-economic position.

Knoll was very prescient in his prediction that any attempt by surviving Jews to re-occupy their former position in the country would lead to conflict between them and the Poles who had benefitted by taking over that position. That is precisely what happened in the immediate aftermath of the war, and led to the Jewish survivors, of which there were several hundred thousand, eventually leaving Poland, contrary to the wishes of the largely Jewish post-war Communist government, which wanted to rebuild the Polish Jewish community.

A parallel might be drawn with the current situation in South Africa, where members of the indigenous population are rapidly taking over the socio-economic niche formerly occupied by the European settler population, albeit in a more humane and orderly fashion.

Second, Knoll predicts the emergence of a Jewish lobby using the sympathy engendered by the suffering of the Jews as a political tool for pursuing its own ends and inflicting damage on its rivals. He was however wrong in seeing that as a temporary psychological phenomenon; in fact, an interpretation of history based solely on sympathy for Jewish suffering in the Second World War has become ever stronger over time, and has crowded out more balanced interpetations which try to examine dispassionately the reasons for the conflict between Jews and other peoples.

[Mostowka]

largely Jewish post-war Communist government

Zydokomuna, or what are you implying Michael ? Old antisemitic b-shit which you can still hear drunk Poles spurt out from time to time. The dominance of Jews in the goverment was never strong enough to have any impact on the Polish society.

which wanted to rebuild the Polish Jewish community

I can assure you that the early post war Jewish centers like Lublin, Wroclaw, Warsaw were nothing more than rellocation camps for Jews trying to escape westward or to Palestine/USA.. The Jews in the goverment tried their best to supress whatever "Jewish" there was among Jews.. You have to remember that talk about ethnicity and any form of ethnical singularity was taboo after the war.

You seem to forget to use your own framework of analysis and seeing things in their own context with "socio-economic" and "historical" views.

Second, Knoll predicts the emergence of a Jewish lobby using the sympathy engendered by the suffering of the Jews as a political tool for pursuing its own ends and inflicting damage on its rivals.

Something which NEVER gained any foothold in Poland as victims of fascism were never pointed out by their ethnic connection. There was no psychological leverage for Jews in Poland after the war. The Jews were in fact one by one kicked out from high society and govermental positions and the goverment often demanded Jews to change their names.

[michael mills]

Mostowka wrote:

Could you further explain what it was in Ehrenburgs supposedly Jewish background that made him "rejoice at his punishment", from what I have heard Ehrenburg was not more Jewish than what his name made him Jewish, i.e he came from a secular Jewish family.

The fact that Il'ia Erenburg came from a secular Jewish family does not make him any the less Jewish in terms of his national identity. In fact he identified strongly with his fellow Jews, and his main activity at the end of the war was to find out what had happened to the Jews of Eastern Europe, and to publicise his findings. A lot of his propaganda at that time was concerned with the fate of the Jews in particular.

One does not need to practice the traditional Jewish religion to be fully Jewish. Jewishness is a matter of belonging to a particular people, or "race" if you want to call it that; it is defined by descent, ultimately from Jacob. Practice of the Jewish religion is one manifestation of a Jewish identity, but it is by no means the only one. The majority of the Jews in Medinat Yisrael are secular and go to football matches on Staurdays, but they are no less Jewish for that.

Erenburg was also strongly anti-Zionist, but that does not reduce his Jewishness. Many Jews were anti-Zionist at that time.

Secular Jewish culture, in which people like Erenburg grew up, is ultimately derived from Judaism and the traditional Jewish writings, even though the religious element may have been removed from them. Thus it is apparent that Erenburg had absorbed the Jewish traditions expressed in the Book of Esther, about the need to destroy Haman, the Amalekites and all enemies of Israel; those themes appear constantly in his propaganda, although in a secularised form.

[Mostowka]

Michael Mills:

Does a person of scottish descent always swear allegience to his heritage ? No, not necassarily. Jews are like any other people and they take influence from a variety och diffrent socio-psyhological impulses and political currents, i.e they are not blindly (as I often interpret your view on Jews and their loyalitys) following their racial creed or Jewish national feelings. Ehrenburgs views could as well be part of his almost fanatic communist beliefs.

it is apparent that Erenburg

Oh is it ? Do you have any source for how Ehrenburg materialialised his ideas ?

One does not need to practice the traditional Jewish religion to be fully Jewish

That is not what I´m saying - simply, Belonging to the Jewish people does NOT automatically make that person very Jewish or possesing any strong nationalistic bonds or loyality to the Jewish people as a whole. We have many examples in history of converts and people who changed their names and turned their back on the Jewish people.

Jewishness in not genetic, it´s socio-psychological expression. It has often been tried to label the Jews as this or that, it cannot be done as much as you can label all Australians with special traits and feelings.

[michael mills]

Mostowka wrote:

Jewishness in not genetic, it´s socio-psychological expression.

I totally agree with you. Jewishness is something that a child learns intitially from its parents, and then from the surrounding Jewish community.

That is the objective reality, one that applies to all forms of national identity. But the subjective reality of Jewish identity, ie the reason that the individual Jews gives to himself for being Jewish, is one based on "race" or descent. That is to say, when a Jew thinks to himself why he is a Jew, he does not say to himself "I am a Jew because I chose to be Jewish, because I accepted Jewish religion, or ideology, or whatever", but rather, "I am a Jew because I am descended from Jacob, because the blood of the Ancient Israelites flows in my veins".

According to the concept of Jewish self-identity, a person born a Jew cannot cease to be a Jew. If he renounces the Jewish religion and breaks all the commandments, he is a bad Jew in the eyes of the orthodox, but he is still a Jew. That is why the Law of Return of Medinat Yisrael confers citizenship of the state on any person of Jewish descent, regardless of whether they practice the Jewish religion.

Getting back to Erenburg, he certainly manifested the Jewish socio-psychological expression in his writings. At the end of the war he identified strongly with his fellow Jews, taking a strong interest in the various Jewish partisan movements. He teamed up with his Soviet Jewish compatriot, Vassili Grossman, to write the "Black Book", which was later suppressed by Stalin.

Erenburg was also a survivor, who did whatever he needed to do to placate Stalin and not fall into disfavour. He denounced Zionism when called upon to do so. Thus he alone of the wartime Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee survived the purge of 1948.

But when he was given a free hand by Stalin, and given carte blanche to say what he wanted to do, as he was when Stalin put him in charge of anti-German propaganda, he gave open expression to many of the motifs of Jewish revenge in what he wrote. His calls to exterminate the German people for what had been done to the Jews in Eastern Europe is a clear echo of the tradition about Haman in the Book of Esther and the Purim festival, although without the specific Judaic verbiage.

One of his propaganda pieces, written after a visit to Germany at the end of the war, the English-language version of which is reproduced in facsimile in the book "Stalin's War of Extermination" by the late German historian Dr Joachim Hoffmann, is entitled "Wolves They Are, Wolves They Remain".

The image of the gentile populations among which the Jews of Eastern Europe lived as "seven tribes of ravening wolves" was a common one in Jewish popular tradition, and is still found among the Hassidim of Brooklyn, who now apply the concept to the Negroes who surround them. Erenburg simply reproduced that traditional Jewish motif, demonstrating the extent to which his mind was filled with Jewish ideas, despite his secularism and his Communist ideology.