Thursday, March 22, 2007
Protest from Lech Alex Bajan, Washington DC., Polish American
RE: New Article of Mrs. Pilar Rahola of El Pais bashing Poland and Polish Nation.
Yesterday, Spain, EU.
I believe the Media group Prisa, owner of the daily El Pais media, owes an apology to the Polish people for printing an article in which the author refers to them as anti-Semitic.
Mrs. Pilar Rahola must be a complete historical ignorant to write this kind of nonsence about Polish collaboration with the Nazis and the idea of antisemitism in Poland as Mrs. Pilar Rahola did in El Pais.
Do they publish this kind of articles to make profit? How can Mrs. Pilar Rahola of El Pais do this to the Polish people who saved more Jews during the World War II than any other country or nation in the world?
What about 60 thousand Poles who lost their own lives during the war to save the Polish Jews? My grandmother from Krasnik is one of them.
Let me only remind you that during the Nazi occupation, the names of Polish towns and streets were germanized. Speaking Polish in public in the incorporated provinces was prohibited. In the predominantly German-populated area of Gdansk (renamed as Danzig), the public use of Polish language became a capital offence on September 4, 1939.
On August 22, 1939, a week before his attack on Poland, Hitler exhorted his nation: "Kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need." As many as 200,000 Polish children, deemed to have "Germanic" (Aryan) features, were forcibly taken to Germany to be raised as Germans, and had their birth records falsified. Very few of these children were reunited with their families after the war.
More than 500 towns and villages were burned, over 16 thousand persons, mostly Polish Christians, were killed in 714 mass executions, of which 60% were carried out by the Wehrmacht (German army) and 40% by the SS and Gestapo. In Bydgoszcz the first victims were boy scouts from 12 to 16 years old, shot in the marketplace. All this happened in the first eight weeks of the war. See Richard C. Lucas, The Forgotten Holocaust; The Poles under German Occupation. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky [c1986].
In the East, the Russians, collaborating with the Germans (Hitler-Stalin Pact of Aug. 23, 1939) attacked Poland on September 17, 1939, and occupied the eastern part of Poland until June 1941. Massive killings followed, among them 21,857 officers, mostly reserve members of the army, police and frontier guards, whose bodies were found later in Katyn, Miednoye, Kharkov and Tver. Other bodies from these massacres have never been found. About two million Poles, mostly members of the intelligentsia, were deported to Siberia or to Kazakhstan in North and Central Asia. More than half never returned; thousands were killed in the fighting and over 452,000 became POWs in Soviet Russia. Poland disappeared from the European map, divided between Third Reich and the Soviet Union.
Out of its pre-war population of 36 million, Poland lost 22%, the highest percentage than any other country in Europe. The heaviest losses were sustained by educated classes, youth and democratic forces that could challenge totalitarianism later on. See I. C. Pogonowski, Poland: A Historical Atlas. New York, Hippocrene Books, 1987.
According to the German AB Plan, Poles were to become a people without education, slaves for the German overlords. Secondary schools were closed; studying, keeping radios, or weapon of any kind, or practicing any kind of trade were prohibited under the threat of death.
In 1988, the public prosecutor, Waclaw Bielawski, from the Main Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish Nation, issued a list of 1,181 names of Poles who had been killed for helping Jews during World War II. In 1997, the Main Commission – The Institute of National Memory and The Polish Society for The Righteous Among the Nations in Warsaw, published Part III in the series Those Who Helped: Polish Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. It reduced the list of 1,181 names to only 704, by accepting only those whose accounts could be independently corroborated and verified fifty years later. The publication also included the names of more than 5,400 Poles, who have been recognized by the Israeli Yad Vashem Institute – The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, as “Righteous Among the Nations.” About 17,000 people of 34 nationalities were similarly honored. In Western Europe the automatic death sentence for help rendered to Jews did not exist, and applying it to a whole family or neighbors was unthinkable. The reign of terror that was organized in Poland was completely unique, and unimaginable in the West.
Those who were executed are not usually recognized as “Righteous”. They were generally murdered with the Jews they harbored, so there were no Jewish witnesses, while the Polish witnesses were not taken into consideration. Only in very rare cases (25 that were known in 1999), when a Jew managed to escape death and lived long enough to make the proper deposition in an Israeli consulate or at Yad Vashem (the State Tribunal of Israel) in Jerusalem, could the rescuers be recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations.”
Saving Jews was very difficult, as about 85% of Poland’s Jews either did not speak Polish or spoke a dialect. In many cases, Jews were easily distinguished by their appearance.
Poland, under the Soviet-imposed communist regime that lasted from 1948 until 1989, was cut from the West. Poles lost contact with the Jewish persons they saved, most of whom left the country. Many Polish Jews changed their names, either under the occupation or after settling abroad. Furthermore, it was dangerous to maintain correspondence with the West. Many of the rescuers also changed their addresses, due to the massive migration from the eastern part of the country, incorporated into the Soviet Union, to the western territories that were taken from Germany after the war.
The stories of the rescuers are a shining example of the most selfless sacrifice, surpassing in its heroism that of all the soldiers on the battlefield, whom we commemorate each November. In fact the soldier must fight; he cannot refuse. He is supported by the entire military organization and his efforts are mostly limited to battles that have a clear beginning and an end. He is paid and given the food, supplies and weapons that he needs.
Rescuers of Jews in Poland – on the other hand – were completely alone, often deprived of their pre-war means of livelihood, expelled from their farms, factories, businesses, offices and even homes, most of them living in dire poverty. For ome of them it was virtually impossible to earn a living. They were under no legal obligation to risk their own lives and, even more, the lives of their families and neighbors. Their help most often lasted days and nights, weeks, months, even years, always in secret, and always in the risk of discovery.
And what about the Polish woman, 95-year-old Irena Sendlerowa, who is credited with saving the lives of 2,500 Jews? Sendlerowa led about 20 helpers who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to safety between 1940 and 1943, placing them in Polish families, convents or orphanages.
She wrote the children's names on slips of paper and buried them in jars in a neighbor's yard as a record that could help locate their parents after the war. The Nazis arrested her in 1943, but she refused - despite repeated torture - to reveal their names.
Anyone caught helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland risked being instantaneously shot, along with family members.
Even now, more than half a century after the end of the war, questions are still being asked: What was the Polish nation's response to the unfolding Jewish Tragedy? Did the Poles try to help the Jews? How much help could have been actually offered in view of the rigours imposed by German Occupation? Such questions call for a well-considered response based on historical facts.
Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where - throughout the duration of the war - a secret organisation existed whose express purpose was to help the Jews and find, at least for some of them, a place of safety. Initially coordinated by several committees, in December 1942 this action culminated in the creation of the Relief Council for Jews in Poland, code name 'Zegota'.
'Zegota' (1) organised financial aid and medical care for the Jews hiding on the 'Aryan side', and procured for them forged identity documents. 'Zegota' was successful in providing accommodation for many. This presented an extremely difficult problem as discovery of a person of Jewish origin on the premises resulted in an immediate execution of all the occupants.
E. Ringelblum (2) describes hundreds of such cases.
Some 2500 Jewish children from Warsaw were saved by 'Zegota' by placing them either with catholic Polish foster-families or in orphanages run by convents or local councils. Also, help in the form of money, food and medicines was organised by 'Zegota' for the Jews in several forced-labour camps in Poland.
As soon as the Jewish Tragedy became apparent, the Polish Government-in-Exile, the Underground State and Polish diplomacy embarked on a massive campaign, informing the free world of the plight of the Jews. Efforts were made to obtain help for them from the Allied Governments, the Vatican and from various organisations in the Allied countries. There were countless broadcasts, articles in the press, organised meetings, approaches to Allied leaders and governments in which the Free Polish leaders, ministers, politicians and diplomats over and over again informed that a crime of genocide was being committed by the Germans against the Jews. (3). The full story of the Jewish Tragedy was brought to the Allied countries by special couriers from the Polish Resistance, one of them gaining access to the inside of the Warsaw Ghetto and to a death camp. The couriers tried to persuade the Allies and the Jewish organisations that there was a real danger and urgency to help the Jews. Unfortunately the efforts of the Poles were in vain. The Allies were too busy with the on-going war to consider the plight of the Jews in Poland. The Jewish organisations in the free world could not bring themselves to believe the Polish reports - they thought it was all an exaggeration.
So, where were the rich and influential Jews from New York and London? What did they do to help their folks? And so, one more time the same question appears: HOW DARE Mrs. Pilar Rahola and El Pais atack Polish people and Poland?
The military wing of the Polish Underground State, the Home Army, tried to involve the Jewish organisations in Poland in resistance activities. At first, there was much reluctance on their part to participate. However, in 1942 the Jewish resistance movement began. The Home Army helped by providing military intelligence, communication with the Allies and eventually by providing some weapons, explosives and military expertise for the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (4).
It is worth noting here that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Remembrance Authority, has recently expressed both thanks and appreciation to the special unit of the 'Zoska' Battalion of the Polish Home Army, which in August 1944 captured the Warsaw Concentration Camp, the so-called 'Gesiowka', liberating 348 prisoners, Polish and European Jews.
Now, what about the ordinary Polish people - were they prepared to offer help to the Jews? At the early stage of Poland's occupation the Jews were selected for special treatment by the Occupant. This meant gradual isolation, degradation, starvation and eventual denial of the right to life for all Polish Jews.
Poland was the only country in all of Nazi-occupied Europe with death penalty for sheltering Jews. Germans knew how sympathetic Poles were to Polish Jews and in that way they could get rid of them both. Entire families, sometimes whole towns were murdered for sheltering Jews. Besides, 75% of the Jewish popiulation spoke only Yiddish, which later became a problem for those who wanted to be saved and pretend to be Poles.
The harsh reality of life for the rest of Poland's population was that everybody was preoccupied with the constant struggle for survival. To find work, to obtain enough food and other necessities of life - all these were of utmost importance to very many. Furthermore, there was the constant fear of being arrested and sent to a concentration camp, to forced labour in Germany, or to be taken as a hostage for public execution by a firing squad or hanging.
Three million Poles and three million Polish Jews perished as a result of the German occupation. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where giving any kind of help to the Jews resulted in a collective execution of the helper and his or her family. Under such circumstances it would require a person of a special kind of courage and love of humanity to offer help to a Jew. How many saints would one find in any given community? How many such people would we find in Western Europe in the times of war? And yet there were Polish people who did help. It has always been difficult to establish the exact number of helpers, but some idea of that number can be gleaned from the Yad Vashem list of the 'Righteous among the Nations' (1). The list, as of 1st January 1997, gives the names of 14,706 persons from 34 nationalities who helped the Jews. 4,954 of them are Polish helpers. Among them are listed 11 catholic clergymen and 18 nuns. Only three organisations are honoured by Yad Vashem, one being the Polish organisation 'Zegota'. It is likely that - as research into the role of the Polish people in the Holocaust continues - the list of Polish names will grow.
Those listed are the helpers who survived and their heroism was verified by those whom they helped. But there were many who paid the ultimate price. In most cases those whom they were trying to help perished with them. The publication 'Those who helped' (1) lists 704 Poles who were killed because they helped the Jews. Places and dates are also given of mass executions by the Germans (the so-called pacifications of villages) of a further 143 Poles who rendered help to the Jews. To obtain and verify the names of those helpers who perished presents an even more difficult problem. Inevitably there will remain a large number of unknown heroes.
One can finally ask: Was the help given to the Jews of some significance? Stewart Steven, who in his book 'The Poles' (5), gives an extensive account of Polish-Jewish relations, offers the following conclusion: 'Maybe Poland could have done more for its Jewish population, but then so could every country of occupied Europe. The record shows that the Poles did more than most'.
So, what can we say about Poles, mostly Roman Catholic, who risked their own lives to save Jews from the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland? But it is fair to say that rescuers came from every religious background: Protestant and Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim.
What about the fact that - despite the overwhelming and deadly idea of antisemitism in the Third Reich - there were a large number of individuals and organizations (such as Zygota in Poland) that risked (and sometimes lost) their lives in the effort to save Jews? They saved thousands of Jewish children from the Nazi, smuggled them out of the Warsaw Getto and hid with Polish families?
What about Jan Karski, a courier for the Polish government-in-exile, who alerted British and American politicians to Nazi plans to murder the Jews? After an unsuccessful attempt in Great Britain, he went to the United States to give all the proof of the Holocaust to the US President and the US Congress.
Finally, what about the Jewish collaborators with the communist regime under Stalin in eastern part of Poland after the 1939 Russia aggression?
Where is your journalistic code of ethics and – at least – common sence? Such articles as the one by Mrs. Pilar Rahola contribute even more to the ever-present anti-Polonism in the American and European media. Besides, it is too difficult to understand when the reader is not provided with wider information and truthful publications.
The double standards are evident by calling an event, such as the one in Jedwabne, an act of anti-Semitism, while burning a synagogue in Worcester, Mass in the United States was called "an act of vandalism", and a shooting in the Jewish Children Center in California - "an act of a mad man". If such acts took place in Poland, surely they would have been called anti-Semitic. American patriotism applied to Poles changes into nationalism.
For 1000 years, Poland had been the spiritual and religious center of Jewish Diaspora and produced one of the greatest world centers of Talmudic studies. 300 papers in Hebrew were published in Warsaw alone. Jews, unlike Blacks in America, were not forced to settle in Poland; they prospered, attended colleges and universities, owned factories, etc.
As early as in 1264, King Boleslav of Poland issued a charter inviting the Jews there. The charter was an amazing document, granting Jews unprecedented rights and privileges. For example, it stated that::
"The testimony of a Christian alone may not be admitted in a matter which concerns the money or property of a Jew. In every such incidence there must be the testimony of both a Christian and a Jew. If a Christian injures a Jew in any which way, the accused shall pay a fine to the royal treasury."
"If a Christian desecrates or defiles a Jewish cemetery in any which way, it is our wish that he be punished severely as demanded by law."
"If a Christian should attack a Jew, the Christian shall be punished as required by the laws of this land. We absolutely forbid anyone to accuse the Jews in our domain of using the blood of human beings."
"We affirm that if any Jew cry out in the night as a result of violence done to him, and if his Christian neighbors fail to respond to his cries and do not bring the necessary help, they shall be fined."
"We also affirm that Jews are free to buy and sell all manner of things just as Christians, and if anyone hampers them, he shall pay a fine."
Polish King Kazimierz was favorably disposed towards Jews. On October 9, 1334, he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Boleslav V. Under penalty of death, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. And although Jews had lived in Poland since before the reign of King Kazimierz, he allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king.
Another Polish king, Sigmund II Augustus, issued another invitation. Here is an excerpt from his edict, granting the Jews permission to open a yeshiva at Lublin, dated August 23, 1567:
"As a result of the efforts of our advisors and in keeping with the request of the Jews of Lublin we do hereby grant permission to erect a yeshiva and to outfit said yeshiva with all that is required to advance learning. All the learned men and rabbis of Lublin shall come together for among their number they shall choose one to serve as the head of the yeshiva. Let their choice be a man who will magnify Torah and bring it glory."
GOLDEN AGE OF POLISH JEWRY
In Poland, the Jews were allowed to have their own governing body called the Va'ad Arba Artzot, which was composed of various rabbis who oversaw the affairs of the Jews in eastern Europe. The Poles did not interfere with Jewish life and Jewish scholarship flourished.
Some important personalities of this period, which every student of Jewish history should remember, were:
Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1525-1572), from Krakow, also known as the Rema. After the Sephardi rabbi Joseph Karo wrote the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish Law, Rabbi Isserles annotated it to fill in the rabbinic decisions from Eastern Europe. His commentary was, and continues to be, critically important in everyday Jewish life.
Rabbi Ya'akov Pollack (1455-1530), from Krakow. He opened the first yeshivah in Poland and was later named the chief rabbi of Poland. He developed a method of learning Talmud called pilpul, meaning "fine distinctions." This was a type of dialectical reasoning that became very popular, whereby contradictory facts or ideas were systematically weighed with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.
Rabbi Yehudah Loewe, (1526-1609), not from Poland but important to Eastern European Jewry. He was known as the Maharal of Prague and was one of the great mystical scholars of his time. He has been credited with having created the golem, a Frankenstein figure, a living being without a soul.
Along with the growth in Torah scholarship came population growth. In 1500 there were about 50,000 Jews living in Poland. By 1650 there were 500,000 Jews. This means that by the mid 17th century about majority of the Jewish population of the world was living in Poland!
Where did these Jews settle within Poland?
Jews were generally urban people as they were historically not allowed to own land in most of the places they lived. However, they also created their own farm communities called shtetls. Although we tend to think of the shtetl today as a poor farming village (like in Fiddler on the Roof), during the Golden Age of Polish Jewry many of these communities were actually quite prosperous. And there were thousands of them.
The Jews in these independent communities spoke their own language called Yiddish. Original Yiddish was written in Hebrew letters and was a mixture of Hebrew, Slavic, and German. (Note that Yiddish underwent constant development and "modern" Yiddish is not like the "old" Yiddish which first appeared in the 13th century, nor "middle" Yiddish of this period of time.) Overall, the Jews did well, working alongside Polish and Ukrainian Christians
How many African Americans till the 20th century were able to do so?
Jews came to Poland on their own will, to the country of great opportunity. They found shelter from the hostilities of Western Europe, stayed in and prospered, had representatives in the Polish parliament, and had the freedom of expressing their religion and customs. In some towns of Eastern Poland, Jews accounted for more than 50% of the occupants. They were respected citizens. So, how could this be possible if the country was anti-Semitic, as it is widely presented in the book by Jan Tomasz Gross?
Polish Jews enjoyed equal rights and full protection of the law under the Polish government. The laws changed under the rule of Prussia, Russia, and Austria. But we need to keep in mind that it also affected Poles as well. Their situation improved again after WWI when the Polish government was reestablished.
Why, between the wars, was the Jewish population growing 6 times faster than the Christian population, if the alleged anti-Semitism took place?
The only prejudice that you can accuse Polish people of is to be anti-Communist. Marek Edelman, the last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, who still lives in Poland, said: "It is not a Jew who is the enemy, it is an enemy who is Jewish." I'm sorry to destroy the beautiful image of the peaceful and innocent Jewish people but at the time of the massacre it was well known that there were "informers," "observers," "advisors," or in plain English "Soviet collaborators" among Jews then and through the war and after.
Those did not see the wrong they were doing, the comfort came from accepting a different way of thinking. They considered themselves Poles or Polish Jews before the war, now comfortably became only Jews, so there were no ties of loyalty to Poland or to the Polish people. Collaborators gave away Poles and Jews as well (Jakub Berman as an example).
But this would be too difficult to understand for us who - for decades - were fed on anti-Polish propaganda. The same propaganda that the Nazis and later the Soviets used and which is now being repeated with a nauseating consistency by the American press.
It is the backwardness of American Jews to prefer that stereotype. I was hoping that with the raising of the Iron Curtain, the flow of information about Poland would be available to the average American reader and TV viewer. Unfortunately, that did not happen. We rather prefer to publish such articles as the one in El Pais. Also, hiding Polish accomplishments from the public only adds to the image of the Poles as some primitive tribe. The fact that Poland's economy is one of fastest growing in Europe is a thorn in the eye for some. The anti-Polish sentiment spreads to minimize their success. We already forgot who first faced the Soviet power and fought Communism. And last, but not least, the public does not know that presently Poland and Israel have a very good relationship.
We must not forget that Poland was not only a victim during WWII but only recently freed herself from under Soviet occupation. We should remember that Communism in Poland was FORCED upon its people, that Soviets placed Jews on high positions, which triggered atrocities. There is no perfect nation in the world – there are always honorable citizens and there is scum in all of them. But it seems that we only find the bad in Poles and all the good in Jews.
For[AB1] a well-balanced story, the authors should mention what Soviet Jews did to Poles (Koniuchy massacre) and the fact that – out of 34 countries altogether – the Poles are those who have the biggest number of trees at Yad Vashem.
I guess American Jews don't rush to reveal some other information to the American public like: what were the Judenrat and the Jewish Police doing in the ghettos? Who took over the houses of Polish officers and their families in the east of pre-war Poland when they were taken to Siberia?
Do we inform that Poland's government was the only one in Nazi-occupied Europe to sponsor the organization to help Jews escaping the ghettos?
What did American Jews do to help their dying brothers?
In the American consciousness the Holocaust has become synonymous with Jewish history. Historical literature of the Holocaust has focused on the six million Jewish victims with the exclusion of the sixteen to twenty million Gentile (non-Jewish) victims.
We allow speculation on almost every aspect of Polish-Jewish relationship, never asking: "Why don't we speculate how many Jews would save Poles if the roles were reversed?"
For me, to have a different opinion is to risk being called an anti-Semite. An intelligent but objective Jewish person is called a "self-hating Jew". A "bystander" is someone who chose not to give his and his family's life for a strange, Jewish person.
Good things are happening in Poland .We don't rush to tell about the annual Jewish Festival in Krakow or about the opening of yet another Jewish school in Warsaw. Or even about the commemorating of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. We don't rush to tell about "Fiddler on the Roof" in Yiddish at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. Instead, we publish misleading stories about a music concert in Auschwitz (!?) and killings in Jedwabne. Why is that? American historians should stop wasting their ink only writing about alleged Polish anti-Semitism. Any atrocities toward Jews either occurred during Nazi or Soviet occupation or were triggered by revenge and greed, not to be mistaken with anti-Semitism. Also, to suggest that all Polish Jews are long gone is wrong, many prospered and became famous: actors (Holoubek, Zapasiewicz, Himilsbach, Rudzki), movie critics (Waldorf), writers (Tuwim), philosophers and editors (Michnik), politicians (Mazowiecki, Suchocka), musicians (Szpilman, Zimmerman), heart surgeons (Marek Edelman), athletes (Kirszenstein a.k.a. Szewinska), singers (Szmeterling a.k.a. Jantar). Some Polish Jews just recently became interested in their religion; Jewish schools are reopening, while the synagogues, museums, and Jewish cultural institutes have always been present in Poland's cultural life. Positive Jewish characters are in every Polish classic; there are streets named after Jewish heroes; monuments accommodate their heroism and their tragedy. All this does not seem like an anti-Semitic country, does it? But it will stay in the American media, as long as we allow it to.
Alex Lech Bajan
Polish American
CEO
RAQport Inc.
2004 North Monroe Street
Arlington Virginia 22207
Washington DC Area
USA
TEL: 703-528-0114
TEL2: 703-652-0993
FAX: 703-940-8300
EMAIL: alex@raqport.com
WEB SITE: http://raqport.com
[AB1]
