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

The Dereczin Memorial Book, by Yekhezkiel Rabban (ed.) 1966, 2000. Dereczin Organizations in Israel and the United States, New Jersey

Bundists (Mainstream Jewish Socialists) Supported Bolshevism. 1939 Soviet-Serving Militia Disarms Polish Soldiers

This yizkor (yizker) book is especially instructive in showing the Jewish attitudes toward Communism. It also shows that the Bialystok pogrom of 1906 was done by Russian soldiers, based on an eyewitness account. (Chaim Rabinovich, p. 67). The setting of this yizkor book is Dereczin (Derechin), in Belarus (Grodno area), then a part of Poland.

EARLY JEWISH AFFINITY FOR COMMUNISM

In describing the period around the time of the Russian Revolution (1917), Chaim Rabinovich writes, “A portion of the Dereczin Bundists began to show open sympathy to the Bolsheviks. Over the course of several days, there were heated discussions both for and against Bolshevism.” (p. 126).

Rabinovich continues, “The revolution broke out in Russia, and it inflamed the passions of the youth in Dereczin. Most of the young people who were Bundists, allied themselves with the revolutionary cause, believing that from it would come the salvation to the Jews as well.” (p. 127). Again, one must ask, how was a murderous, totalitarian movement supposed to be a salvation for anyone, and what made the Jews so willfully blind to this sobering fact?

Shayndl Wilenczyk writes, “I still remember the year 1919, after the Russian revolution, when the Bolsheviks came into our town. The Bundists, together with some of the radical youth in town, allied themselves with the Bolsheviks.” (p. 174).

The foregoing reminds us that Jewish involvement in Communism was much, much broader than formal membership in the Communist Party, and was not limited to extremists. A large fraction of the mainstream Jewish socialist political party, the Bund, for example, was Communist or pro-Communist.

JEWISH-BELARUSSIAN SOVIET-SERVING MILITIA FORMS. IT TURNS AGAINST THE POLISH MILITARY EVEN BEFORE POLAND’S 1939 SURRENDER

Fast forward to the start of WWII. Sentiments led to anti-Polish actions. Pesha Feinsilber describes the spontaneous formation of a militia, and writes, “Immediately on that first night, they came knocking on my door, and ordered me to open the store, and to provide red cloth for banners and tablecloths, in order to receive the Red Army…On the second night, three vehicles with Polish officers drove through Dereczin, after whom were supposed to come a contingent of the Polish Army. The temporary authorities detained the Polish officers, beat them up, confiscated their autos, and arrested them. In town, an uproar and panic ensued: the contingent of Polish army was expected any minute, and the Poles [surely] would take out their displeasure at the arrest of their officers on us, the Jews.”  (p. 215). Well, actions have consequences.

—–Interwar Poland (1918-1939)—–

ANTICHRISTIANITY INCULCATED IN JEWISH CHILDREN

Haya Kreslansky recounts, “Saturday afternoons, we would take a walk in the fields, passing by the Catholic Church, its crucifix and image of the Christ, from which we would avert our eyes, and asking one another: ‘Have we passed it by yet?!’ And while a Jewish child was forbidden to gaze at the image of Jesus, one was tempted to steal a glance in passing…” (p. 161).

POLES CHALLENGE JEWISH ECONOMIC HEGEMONY

Malka Alper writes, “But Christians are buying less and less from the Jews. There are already gentile shoemakers in the villages. Indeed, they learned this trade from the Jews. The same is also true of tailors and seamstresses. The regime assists the Christian craftsmen with credit and new equipment, and in this fashion, old occupations slip out of Jewish hands.” (pp. 156-157). (My grandmother was a seamstress.)

SUNDAY CLOSING LAWS DID NOT OPPRESS THE JEWS: THEY WERE RATHER INEFFECTIVE

Malka Alper comments, “Sabbath–Jews don’t do business, Sunday–maybe God will send us a little bit of business from which to earn something, and then it will be possible to pay on Monday. Sunday, stores are supposed to be officially closed, but the police turn a blind eye to the peasant who steals into a store through a back door in order to buy something.” (p. 156).