Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry, by Jack Kugelmass (Editor), Jonathan Boyarin (Editor). 1998

Bribery in Action. Economic Rivalry. Evasion of Military Service. Poles Also Experienced WWI Pogroms (But It’s Never Called That). Post-WWII Killings of Unmentioned Poles as Well as Oft-Mentioned Jews

This work, in its expanded 2nd edition, is an anthology of Jewish publications originally written mainly in Yiddish. It takes the “pulse” of Poland’s once-huge Jewish community. The book title comes from a Holocaust survivor who, alluding to the rarity of Jewish survival after the German-made Shoah in Poland, compared himself to one branch from one plant of a ruined garden.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis (National Socialists), true to their socialist character, observed May Day, even late in the war (1943). (p. 196).

WWI. NOT ONLY JEWS EXPERIENCED POGROMS. POLES DID TOO

There is a description of how Kaiser Wilhelm’s soldiers entered Czestochowa during the Great War, plundering the rural wealth and imposing such things as starvation rations on the Poles. (pp. 152-153). Would this be called a pogrom even though the victims were ethnic Poles? Not very likely.

JEWISH-POLISH ECONOMIC RIVALRY

In the interwar period, Polish peasant cooperatives were formed to eliminate the Jewish middleman. Jews, in turn, banded together to preserve their monopolies, sometimes successfully (for example, see pp. 62-63). In the Polish textile industry, Jews were frequently the factory owners, while Poles and Jews competed for jobs as weavers. (pp. 76-78).

THE USE OF BRIBERY TO GET GOVERNMENT FAVORS

At Chmielnik, two rabbis had a dispute in 1920 as to who has authority over their community. The matter eventually reached Polish courts (p. 156), and both sides tried to bribe Polish officials for a favorable decision. (p. 157). For a time, each rabbi claimed to have sole authority to declare foods kosher, and said that food authorized by the other rabbi was TREYF (ritually unclean). The same reasoning went behind the recognition of valid marriages. (pp. 157-158). Finally, decades later, after the Nazi German invasion of Poland, the two rabbis reconciled.

JEWS AND ALCOHOL (PROPINACJA)

Not only Polish peasants, but also the Jews had their own superstitions, including the evil eye. (pp. 122-123, 150). Although Jews looked down at goys for drunkenness, there were sometimes instances where Jews were quite inebriated. (pp. 130-131).

DRAFT DODGING: EVASION OF MILITARY SERVICE

The accusation of Jews avoiding military service to Poland finds support in this work. A Jewish draftee, Shloyme, attempted to avoid military service by finding money to bribe someone, and, failing that, committed a self-inflicted injury that also failed to keep him out of the Polish armed forces. (p. 151).

THE ZYDOKOMUNA: MUCH BROADER THAN CP MEMBERSHIP

Among Jewish sports clubs, the Skala club was Communist, and its influence was enhanced by the fact that it also accepted “politically undecided” Jews. (p. 89). Author Gina Medem has a long essay glorifying the Polish Jews who had recently fought on the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War. (pp. 166-167). The volunteers included members of TSUKUNFT, an ostensibly mainstream Bundist youth organization. (p. 167).

JEWISH COMMUNISTS WERE STILL JEWS

In the Introduction, the editors cite a Jewish funeral during which, “The woman being buried, though a Communist, was still a Jew, and hence required burial according to Jewish law.” (p. 23). So much for the exculpatory argument that Jewish Communists were “not really” Jews. They most certainly were, and moreover were recognized by the Jewish community as such.

DEMONIZING THE POLES: CONFLATING TRIVIAL INCIDENTS WITH NAZI GERMAN GENOCIDE

One Jewish author reported how he had been called a ZHIDEK (“little Jew”; which the reader needs to realize is only mildly derogatory). From this unfortunate experience, which he imaginatively magnified to an “outrageous act”, he generalized on Poland in general, and then jumped to how it “paved the way for Majdanek and Treblinka.” (p. 88). [Wow! As if mild Polish insults of Jews turned out to be the trigger that possessed the invading Germans to conduct systematic genocide against the Jews!]

Then again, the equating of minor Polish acts, with those the Nazi killing of 6 million Jews, is a common Polonophobic meme. Think, for example, of Jedwabne, the JUDENJAGD, the Kielce Pogrom, etc.

THE ARMIA KRAJOWA DEMONIZED AS KILLER OF JEWS AND POLES

One writer makes the bizarre claim that: “Virtually all of the Christians who hid Jews were murdered by the A. K. [ARMIA KRAJOWA]” (p. 202). [I have studied Jewish Polonophobia a long time, and had never heard THAT one before.] So how did several thousand Poles get awarded the Yad Vashem award? Did they come back from the dead?

JEWISH NAZI COLLABORATION

The Nazis were helped not only by certain locals, but also by Jewish informers (p. 222) and so-characterized murderous Jewish police. (p. 194).

NO JEWS OR POLES WERE TO SURVIVE AUSCHWITZ

Poles were not esteemed by the Nazis any better than Jews. After Auschwitz was evacuated, the author heard from a Russian servant of the S.S. that all of the evacuees were to be shot, not only Jews, and regardless of nationality. (pp. 237-238). Evidently, the Allied forces came sooner than expected, as the S.S. guards ran away.

POSTWAR JEW KILLINGS. POLES WERE KILLED TOO. BUT WE NEVER HEAR ABOUT THEM

A number of testimonies describe postwar experiences, including instances of returning Jews being killed. An element of objectivity exists in that one of these descriptions notes that Jews were not the only victims. In those early years of the [Soviet-imposed] Communist government, Poles often denounced each other, and Poles killed other Poles. (pp. 257-258).