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

Lwow or L’viv: Two Uprisings in 1918, by Damian K. Markowski. 2021. Peter Lang, Berlin

Polish-Ukrainian War 1918-1919. Jews Betrayed Poland, Backed Ukrainian Separatists, and Then Tried to Put the Blame on the Poles

In the Foreword, Pawel Kurtyka writes: “The Ukrainian attempt to take over the city [of Lwow] on November 1, 1918, elicited an immediate, though at first not very well-planned reaction from the Polish community. In the first phase of the conflict, when the Ukrainian takeover seemed to be successful, the city’s Jewish community looked to its own interests and entered into a semi-formal deal with the new masters, and the Jewish militia took part in the fighting on the Ukrainian side.” (p. 10).

LWOW POGROM 1918: ALL THAT IS REMEMBERED

When Poles retook Lwow, some of them took revenge upon the Jews for their disloyalty to Poland. Nowadays, the original Jewish seditious act is forgotten, and–surprise–the Poles are unilaterally blamed for paying the Jews back. Kurtyka comments, “That pogrom is still casting a sinister shadow on Polish history, and in the Western historiography it is the most widely known incident out of the whole conflict.” (p. 10). Yes, and Jews are always innocent.

NO MORAL HIGH GROUND FOR JEWS: JEWS WERE POGROMISTS TOO

The author makes this seldom-told statement, “Jews were mostly victims, though a few could be found among the perpetrators. For example, a gendarme of Jewish nationality named Schupper ‘searched Saul Dingott’s apartment [of his own initiative and under a pretext of looking for weapons] and, threatening those present with a revolver, robbed them of 21,340 crowns.'” (p. 306).

CRIMINAL ELEMENT IN THE POGROM

The author confirms the presence of common criminals in the 1918 Lwow pogrom. He comments, “Making matters worse, due to the insouciance of the Ukrainian guards from the Brygidki prison and the jail on Batorego Street a few hundred prisoners escaped, of whom many were criminals.” (p. 121). However, author Markowski never attempts to reckon how many of the 29 Jews (p. 324) were killed by these criminals, and how many were killed by Poles.

AN APOLOGIST FOR THE JEWS

Kurytka makes this amazing apologetic statement, “The Lviv pogrom alienated some of the Jewish inhabitants of the Republic of Poland after 1918, making them feel that Poland was ‘not their country’. One of the effects of such sentiments was the relatively high percentage of individuals with Jewish roots who worked with the system of repression operated by the Communists who invaded Poland during the Second World War (1939-1941) and subsequently took over the country after the War.” (p. 11).

This is utter nonsense, and one must ask if Kurtyka is serious. Jews thought that Poland was “not their country” for over a century before 1918, as when they generally sided with the Partitioning powers. And Jews were massively overrepresented in the leadership of Communism long before the Lwow pogrom.

MORE JEWISH APOLOGETICS: THE DOUBLE STANDARD ON COLLECTIVE GUILT

Markowski echoes the Jews, who complain that Jews were collectively punished, by the Lwow pogrom, for the acts of Jewish seditionists. He conveniently forgets that innocent Polish civilians and soldiers ALSO died thanks to the acts of the Jewish seditionists. So cry me a river about the innocent Jewish victims of the Lwow pogrom.

The charge of collective guilt is also ironic because Jews impose collective guilt on Poles all the time. They call on Poles as a whole to “come to terms with the past” regarding allegations of Polish individuals’ deeds at Jedwabne and Kielce. Very well. Jews must be forced to “come to terms with the past”, in a collective sense, for all the deeds of Jewish criminals in ages past.

LWOW L’VIV. JEWISH DOUBLETALK ON TAKING SIDES

Markowski comments, “The Ukrainian armed action was followed by another, Jewish one, just several hours later. Although it had declared its neutrality, the Jewish milieus quickly began to cooperate with the Ukrainian authorities and established the Jewish Security Committee (ŻKB). Self-defense was also immediately formed. It then transformed into the Jewish Militia (MŻ), which consisted of approx. 300 armed functionaries, with machine guns at their disposal. The Militia was established with the knowledge and consent of the Ukrainian Command, which from then on used the name of the Ukrainian Main Command (UHK).130 The Jewish activists’ message was simple: ‘This is the first time that a white-and-blue flag is flying on the building of the Jewish community in Lviv. Thus, it has been expressed that we, Jews, are acting completely independently and that we wish to maintain this independence from both left and right. We wish to serve Jewish interests only and defend the Jewish population to the best of our ability. We shall do our best to prevent the Jewish population from being dragged against its will into the vortex of the dispute between the belligerent nations.'” (p. 67). So the Jewish population is pleading self-defense (how convenient), and is simultaneously taking sides and not taking sides. Total baloney.

LWOW’S JEWS WERE NOT DOING SELF-DEFENSE. THEY WERE SWORN ENEMIES OF POLAND

Markowski recounts the activeness of the Jewish aggression against Poland, “To the radical increase in the anti-Semitic sentiments also contributed the conspicuous stance of some Jewish militiamen who behaved provocatively towards Polish inhabitants after the Ukrainian uprising’s initial success. For instance, the militiamen shouted at the passers-by that now Lviv was in Ukraine and that Poland was no more. Polish men interrogated by them on the streets during routine control were often treated worse than the Poles stopped by Ukrainian patrols. There were also instances of brutal beating up of men suspected of sympathizing with the Polish insurgents.” (p. 300).

This Jewish betrayal of Poland continued throughout the end of the Ukrainian control of Lwow. Markowski writes, “A critical moment came when the Militia units opened rifle and machine gun fire near St. Ann’s Church at a column of Polish troops entering the city center down Gródecka Street. There were dead and wounded on the Polish side.” (p. 302). So this was “Jewish self-defense”. What a crock!

SOME POLISH JEWS CALLED A SPADE A SPADE

The author makes this sage comment, “A dispute within the Jewish community emerged against the background of the pogrom in Lviv. Some Polish soldiers of Jewish origin were highly critical of their compatriots, calling on them to declare themselves loyal to the Polish state. Hence, they actually accepted the reasoning that the Jews got what they deserved, and that the November tragedy was a result of their earlier political decisions.” (p. 313).

JEWISH PROFITEERING ADMITTED

Markowski comments, “The fact that the Jewish traders were overpricing food and kerosene caused an aversion or even genuine outrage on the part of the general public. Nonetheless, merchants of other nationalities were also guilty in that regard.” (p. 301). Really? Markowski provides no evidence of the latter, not even a reference. But what if it is true? What if the Polish merchants were corrupted by the Jewish influence, and thought, “If the Jews can raise prices, and get away with it, why can’t we?” In any case, the overwhelming majority of merchants were Jews, so most of the pain that the population felt, from the inflated prices, was unambiguously caused by the Jews.

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LWOW L’VIV WAS ESSENTIALLY POLISH

Markowski comments, “Thus, Lviv had a Polish character, both in linguistic and cultural terms, which resulted to a large extent from the prevalence of the Polish element over the Ukrainian one in terms of the organization of social life.” (p. 29). Case closed.

GENOCIDAL INTENT ALREADY AMONG 1918 UKRAINIANS

The 1918 Ukrainian rebels painted themselves as wanting a democracy. The facts are otherwise. Markowski realizes that, “Aside from promoting purely patriotic values, they also incited chauvinistic sentiments towards other nations inhabiting the lands deemed ‘ethnically Ukrainian.’ Highly popular among Ukrainian male youth, the Sich organization openly promised a bloody reckoning with Poles and Jews, alluding to the analogies dating back to Cossack uprisings and calling the international and political relations in Galicia ‘Austrian-Polish occupation.’ (p. 32). And yet the Jews backed the Ukrainians. Go figure.

The Jewish chumminess with the Ukrainians, against Poland, backfired. Not even 25 years thereafter, the Ukrainians turned against their Jewish allies, and massively collaborated with the invading Germans (Nazis) in the extermination of the local Jews, as part of the Holocaust.

The Ukrainian genocidal intent, manifest by 1918, also became reality in the form of the 1942-1947 OUN-UPA genocide of some 150,000 mostly defenseless Polish men, women, and children, in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, mostly under the WWII German occupation.