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

The “Spectral Turn”: Jewish Ghosts in the Polish Post-Holocaust Imaginaire, edited by Zuzanna Dziuban. 2019. Transcript Publishing, Verlag, Bielefeld

Poland’s Philosemitism Only Provokes the Usual Jewish Attacks on Poland

If you believe that unilateral Polish concessions to Jews will win the Jews over, think again. Poles face attacks for being anti-Semitic, and then, not to be denied, Poles face attacks for being philosemitic! It is obvious that it is not enough for Poles to esteem Jews. Poles must also continue to fall in line with all the standard Jewish anti-Polish narratives.

This book is completely Holocaust-centric and Judeocentric. Everything is negative about Poles, and never do we hear about the murders of millions of Poles by Germans during WWII. And, of course, we never hear about the Jewish wrongs to Poles and Poland—before, during, and after WWII.

THE PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU (PEDAGOGY OF SHAME) IN OVERDRIVE: GHOSTS AS A MEANS OF INSTILLING SHAME IN POLES

This German-published (surprise) book, centered at Poland’s philosemitism, takes potshots at Poland’s historical memories and its memories of the Jews. By dismissively calling these memories “ghosts” (Dziuban, p. 8), it implies that Polish memories are fictional, or else they are something that must be exorcized. Of course, no one ever suggests that the Holocaust is some kind of ghost that dwells in the Jewish imagination, much less that it is something that must finally be exorcized!

In this book, the ghost of Jewish folklore (DYBBUK) is updated and weaponized as a rhetorical device for making the Poles feel guilty. Jewish ghosts are haunting Poland, and Poles are struggling with how to exorcize these ghosts. The “ghosting” is predictably selective. The ghosts of the Poles ruined by Jewish usurers never get to instill guilt in Jews. And, of course, the ghosts of the Poles that were victims of Jewish Communists never get to haunt the Jews.

POLES MUST ACCEPT POLAND’S JEWS AS POLES, AND SIMULTANEOUSLY POLES MUST NOT ACCEPT POLAND’S JEWS AS POLES (WHICHEVER IS THE MOST CONVENIENT FOR JEWS)

With reference to the dreaded possibility that the Holocaust “will become incorporated into the pantheon of Polish culture” (p. 209), Janicka and Zukowski object:  “The concept of posthumous inclusion must be problematized.” (p. 209). In other words, Polish Jews are not Poles, and must not be remembered in Poland as Poles. Yet, at the same time, Polish Jews are supposed to be included in Polishness through such newfangled Orwellian constructs as “Jewish Poles” and “non-Jewish Poles”. Poland’s critics cannot have it both ways!

PREJUDICES AGAINST JEWS ARE AWFUL: PREJUDICES AGAINST POLES ARE NOTHING

With reference to the philosemitic film PO-LIN: OKRUCHY PAMIECI, the authors comment, “Constructed as a premise for contemporary tolerance, it takes a stand equally against anti-Semitism and so-called anti-Polonism.” (p. 212). So, Janicka and Zukowski nicely pretend that anti-Polonism does not exist, and furthermore denounce it as “a construct and a phantasm”. (p. 212). Here we go again. Prejudices against Jews are something terrible, but prejudices against Poles are no big deal.

POLES MUST FOCUS ON HOW JEWS LIVED, AND NOT ON HOW JEWS DIED. NO, POLES MUST FOCUS ON HOW JEWS DIED. MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

Janicka and Zukowski criticize Poland’s philosemitism tendency of emphasizing Jewish life that existed in Poland prior to the German-made Holocaust, “The emphasis shifts from the need to rethink the mechanisms of genocide and the behavior of the dominant group vis-à-vis those exterminated, towards a cultivation of the memory of the Jews from before the disaster–or, indeed, of the image constructed by the majority, which precludes any need for revision of its belief and behaviors.” (p. 222).

This means that history runs backwards, and everything gets folded into the Holocaust. What’s more, this, as always, is tendentious. Poles are blamed for just about everything, while Jews are exempt from any criticism, and German guilt is diffused. It is the same old, same old. Poles are forbidden from talking about the harmonious and positive aspects of Polish-Jewish relations.

Nothing is said about the unilateral Jewish ability to manipulate western public opinion in the usual portrayal of Poles as the bad guys, and the disempowerment of Poles in presenting another view to influence western public opinion. The Jewish image of Poland is all that most people see and hear. Jews are everlasting victims. Of course nothing is ever said about Jews needing to revise their behaviors and views (least of all about Poland). Once again, Jews sit on the moral throne. That’s what it has always been about, and that is what it is still all about. It is all Holocaust-centric.

POLAND’S PHILOSEMITISM REJECTED: INSTILLING GUILT IN POLES (PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU IN ACTION)

Janicka and Zukowski make these revealing comments in their criticisms of the philosemitic film, PO-LIN, “This flattering image of the Polish community and of Polish-Jewish relations hinges on silencing basic facts and questions. Although we are looking at a post-Jewish house, we learn nothing about the circumstances under which it passed into the hands of its new owners.” (p. 225). Can the Holocaust Industry be far behind? Once again, Poles must always be the bad guys. Now tell me again that there is no such thing as a PEDAGOGIKA WSTYDU (Pedagogy of Shame).

HAVING IT BOTH WAYS: POLES MUST CELEBRATE DIVERSITY, BUT, IF POLES CELEBRATE DIVERSITY, THEN POLES ARE REALLY PROMOTING THEIR OWN ETHNONATIONALISM

Janicka and Zukowski comment, “The de facto separation of the two communities coincides with sham encounters. Culinary philosemitism perfectly serves this role…A sentiment for cholent or kugel, and the insinuation of a shared table, constitute a proof of friendship. Yet, judging by other elements of the description, the friendship never really existed. Basic knowledge of recipes is no indication of understanding. Again, it is difference and otherness that is being underscored.” (p. 241).

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JEWS ALSO IMAGINE A MASSIVE RETURN OF JEWS TO POLAND

When Poles nowadays imagine Jews massively coming back to Poland, they are dismissed as paranoid “Jews are taking over” anti-Semites. But when Jews imagine such things, as described below, then it is just fine.

Magdalene Waligorska writes, “Mary Koszmary [Nightmares, 2007] by the Israeli artist Yael Bartana is a short but powerful film. Opening her Polish trilogy, which also includes Wall and Tower (2009) and Assassination (2011), Nightmares depicts a speech by the charismatic leader of a fictitious Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland. Addressing the empty bleachers in the eerie Decennial Stadium in Warsaw, the young activist calls for the return of 3.3 million Jews to Poland. His impassioned appeal is both an address to the absent–a lost world of Jews who are missing in today’s mono-ethnic, Catholic Poland–and a summoning of ghosts that might heal the Polish soul.” (p. 107).

Here, the fancied mass movement of Jews back to Poland is a rhetorical device in order to instill shame in the rascally Poles for how terrible they had once been to Jews. Notice also the undisguised hostility to Poland’s Catholic identity.

Waligorska adds that, “The ‘Manifesto’ of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), published in 2010 when Bartana was working on the third part of her trilogy, articulates a utopian wish for a mass Jewish (re-)migration to Poland, and, at the same time, plays with the notion of Jewish spirits who haunt their former neighbors…” (p. 108).

No thanks to Poland’s philosemitism! For another Jewish author who imagines millions of Jews coming back to Poland, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/judeopolonia-in-jewish-fiction-roth/