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

With God’s Help, by Samuil Manski. 1990. Privately Printed

An Instant Communist Jewish Mayor. 1939 Zydokomuna: Serving the Soviet Union Even Before Poland Was Defeated

The author is a Jew who lived in Poland before WWII, and managed to escape the German-made Holocaust through the mediation of the Japanese. This memoir, written 48 years after the events, is mostly personal in nature. I focus on one item of lasting interest:

A COMMUNIST JEWISH MAYOR DURING THE 1939 GERMAN-SOVIET CONQUEST OF POLAND

WWII began. Some Jews came out of the woodwork, and began serving Poland’s Soviet enemies even before the latter had completed their conquest of this part of Poland. Manski writes, “One day, while we were waiting for the Russians to occupy Lida, I went into the City Hall. To my surprise, I found a friend occupying the mayor’s chair. I asked him how this came to be. He explained that, while a member of the left wing Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzier [Hashomer Hatzair], he had also been a member of the Communist party. The Communist partv was illegal in Poland. My friend had used the Hashomer as a cover. He asked if I would like to join the militia, and I did.” (p. 30).

JOINING THE COMMUNIST MILITIA

The author continues, “People in the militia were given special privileges. Never did I have to wait in line for anything. This by itself made joining the militia worthwhile. People looked up to you; it was a good feeling.” (p. 30). Evidently, whatever benefitted him was all that mattered to him. Poland did not enter the picture.

IMPLICATIONS

Zydokomuna denialists repeat the claim that few prewar Jews were members of the Communist Party, and that relatively few Jews overall were openly pro-Communist. While technically correct, this is disingenuous for several reasons, one of which is the fact that Communism was unpopular in Poland, and the Communist Party itself was illegal in Poland. For more on this, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/zydokomuna-communist-party-poland-schatz/

In fact, Jewish involvement in Communism was much broader than formal membership in the Communist Party. Manski’s experience with the new mayor of Lida reminds us that prior Communist affinity was often subsumed by membership in mainstream Jewish political organizations.

Finally, Jewish support for Communism was latent: It was largely covert until it could manifest itself at an opportune time. As Manski’s experience shows, Jewish “peer pressure” could and did recruit previously-noncommunist Jews to Communism.