For neither the first nor the last time,
a storm has broken out in Polish media about the response of non-Jewish Poles
to the Holocaust. Two days ago, on the eightieth anniversary of the outbreak of
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Prof. Barbara Engelking of the Center for Holocaust
Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences gave a controversial interview on
the topic on the TVN24 television program. As I am now writing a doctoral
dissertation in history at the Jagiellonian University on how the clandestine
press of the Home Army, the main branch of the Polish underground, responded to
the Holocaust and have written one sub-chapter about its response to the Jewish
uprising, I thought I'd respond to Prof. Engelking.
During her interview for TVN24,
Engelking said that the blackmailing of Jews in occupied Poland was "widespread,"
while Poles who sheltered Jews were "true heroes and they were really
small in number." When discussing the response of non-Jewish Varsovians to
the ghetto rising, she said that "some simply came to stare. They made
different comments, but the most common was: the 'Żydki' (a pejorative term for
a Jew in Polish, although one not as offensive as the English "kike"
or the Polish "parch") are burning."
Monika Olejnik, the journalist
conducting the interview, responded to Engelking: "But there were also
those for whom this was an inconceivable tragedy. We can't forget that."
Engelking responded: "But they were
few in number, and the atmosphere of the street was different."
Before I respond to Engelking, I wanted
to emphasize that I never have denied that there was widespread antisemitism in
twentieth century Poland, before, during, and after WWII. There are many
examples, but to me the most tragic is the Kielce pogrom of 1946. The expulsion
of the Jews in 1968 was the work of a communist regime that lacked the
legitimacy of most Poles, while the pogroms in the Łomża region in the summer
of 1941 (the most notorious of which took place in the village of Jedwabne),
while carried out by Poles, were probably inspired by the Germans. That doesn't
excuse such immoral behavior, but it does have a certain situational context.
Yet in 1946, more than a year after the
Germans had left Poland, a mob believed an antisemitic canard that Jews had
kidnapped a Christian boy. Rather than being met with compassion and
gentleness, more than forty Holocaust survivors were murdered by their
countrymen in broad daylight. If I remember correctly, about 200 more were
wounded in the pogrom.
But back to Engelking. In my research, I
stumbled across a couple dozen articles from the Home Army press in Krakow on
the ghetto rising. All of them are written using sympathetic language, condemn
the Germans, and praise the bravery of the fighters. Some emphasize the
patriotic nature of the uprising, noting that the Jewish fighters had planted
both red-and-white Polish and white-and-blue Zionist flags on a building they
captured and sang patriotic Polish songs.
During my research, I have found some
antisemitic publications by the Home Army in Krakow, but with regards to those
related to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the closest anything came to
antisemitism was an article in "Watra," affiliated with the Grey
Ranks (boy scouts who fought in the ranks of the Home Army) that contrasted the
bravery of the Jews in April 1943 to their previous response to the Germans,
which is described as "lambs going to the slaughter."
I should note that this perception
(which was naturally unfair; there were quite a few examples of armed Jewish
resistance in occupied Poland, from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to the Treblinka
revolt in 1943) was not limited to Polish society: according to Israeli
political scientist Tom Segev's book "The Seventh Million," until the
Eichmann trial, for the first decade and a half after the war many Sabras
looked down on Holocaust survivors, condescendingly referring to them as "soap"
and accusing them of passivity.
The results of my research are not an
outlier. In her chapter in the book Żegota. Ukryta pomoc ("Żegota: Hidden
Aid"), Katarzyna Kocik also studied the response of the press of the
Polish Socialist Party, Polish Democratic Party, and National Democrats in
Krakow to the rising. Only the last of these groupings published hostile
articles. Similarly, in his article "The Attitude of the Polish Home Army
(AK) to the Jewish Question During the Holocaust: The Case of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising" in the book Varieties of Antisemitism: History, Ideology,
Discourse, Yeshiva University's Joshua Zimmerman notes that with some
exceptions, the Home Army publications he studied were supportive of the Jewish
fighters.
My research did not surprise me. Many
eyewitness accounts have noted that while some Poles did make antisemitic
statements with regards to the burning ghetto, contrary to what Engelking said
the dominant feeling on the street was that of being impressed with the bravery
of the Jews taking on the hated Germans.
In his memoir "A Surplus of Memory,"
Yitzhak Zuckerman, one of the leaders of the ghetto rising, writes: "You
could say that the Polish street then sympathized with the ghetto. I'm not
talking about the dregs of society, who were very happy that the Jews were
being burned alive in the ghetto. One had to be a vile person to rejoice at the
fate of the Jews in those terrible days. Such people exist, but in general the
atmosphere on the Polish street was favorable to us, and we received some help
from it." (Zuckerman's memoir was originally published in Hebrew; it's
been translated into both Polish and English, but I'm translating into English
the Polish translation of this excerpt, because I have it at hand).
Vladka Meed, a liaison of the Jewish
Fighting Organization, writes in her memoir "On Both Sides of the Wall":
"'Aryan' Warsaw observed the Jewish struggle with admiration, accepting
the uphill struggle of the hated Germans with grim satisfaction, but this did
not mean that it meant to do anything about it" (same thing as with the
Zuckerman translation, except that Meed's memoir was originally written in
Yiddish).
At multiple points in her memoir, Meed
expresses disappointment that the citizens of Warsaw did not join the Jewish
revolt (she does, however, call the aid in arms that the Home Army gave the
Jewish Fighting Organization "sizeable;" the scale of the Home Army's
aid is also a matter of controversy – there are conflicting opinions as to
whether it wasn't greater because of fears that a large-scale uprising would
spill over into a premature national revolt before Operation Tempest or if it
resulted from anti-Jewish prejudice; the aim of this post is not to resolve
this dispute), but always emphasizes how impressed non-Jewish Poles were with
the ghetto fighters' bravery.
Another Warsaw Jew, Ruth Altbeker
Cyprys, offers a more nuanced view in her memoir, "A Jump for Life."
She writes that as the Germans were burning down the ghetto, Poles gathered
there to hurl insults at the Jews and denounce them. However, she calls such
people "the scum of society" and notes that "other Poles"
gathered by the ghetto wall to provide the Jews with arms and ammunition.
Władysław Bartoszewski, a member of the
Żegota Council to Aid Jews, writes in his last book "Polacy, Żydzi,
okupacja. Fakty, postawy, refleksje" ("Poles, Jews, the Occupation:
Facts, Attitudes, Reflections") that "the Polish nation, saturated
with the Christian spirit and not recognizing inconsistent morality, was
disgusted at the anti-Jewish cruelty of the Germans, and when an unequal battle
raged in the Warsaw Ghetto after April 19th it treated the Jews who bravely
defended themselves and their German murderers with disdain."
We could say that Bartoszewski, a
non-Jewish Pole, was viewing this situation with rose-colored glasses. But
Vladka Meed, Yitzhak Zuckerman, and Ruth Altbeker Cyprys were all Jews who left
Poland after the war and had no interest to defend their behavior. While noting
deplorable Polish behaviors, all three emphasize that the dominant Polish
feeling was supportive. Furthermore, the activity of Żegota, of which
Bartoszewski was a member, included not only financial assistance to fugitive
Jews but also the struggle against blackmail and other forms of collaboration.
With regards to Engelking's comment that
blackmail was more common than assistance to Jews, we will never know this for
a fact. However, in his study "Secret City," based on the study of
hundreds of Jewish testimonies, Gunnar S. Paulsson estimated the number of
blackmailers in Warsaw at 3,000 to 4,000 while the number of non-Jewish Poles
who aided Jews (regardless of motive; some were solely concerned about
financial profit) at 70,000 to 90,000.
Paulsson came up with an elaborate
methodology that one can question. However, Emanuel Ringelblum, the famous
chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto, estimated in his famous wartime essay on
Polish-Jewish relations the number of Varsovians engaged in blackmailing Jews
as "hundreds, possibly thousands" and the number of rescuers at
between 40,000 and 60,000, so numbers fairly similar to Paulsson's. Ringelblum
had many informers both outside and inside the ghetto from which he probably
extrapolated these figures.
He himself was hidden in a bunker, along
with more than twenty other Jews, built by the socialist Polish gardener
Mieczysław Wolski. Wolski was eventually denounced by a former lover;
consequently, he, Ringelblum, Ringelblum's family, and all the Jews in the
bunker were killed by the Germans. This shows how difficult it was to hide Jews
and how easy it was to betray them.
Interestingly, Engelking, Grabowski, et
consortes frequently cite Ringelblum's bitter comments on Poles and especially
the Polish "Blue" Police from the same essay. You can't have the cake
and eat it too, Barbara; either you trust Ringelblum as a credible witness or
you don't.
I would like to conclude by emphasizing
that the favorable, from the Polish perspective, proportion of rescuers of Jews
to blackmailers cannot be extrapolated to all of Poland. Poland was a big
country. In Warsaw, there were the most assimilated Jews (along with Krakow and
Lwów), which naturally facilitated rescue – people were more likely to be
hidden by friends and acquaintances.
Meanwhile, a big city offers anonymity,
which facilitates any illegal activity (and hiding Jews in the General
Government was definitely illegal). In rural areas, where Jews lived in much
more separate worlds than Christians and where everyone knew everyone, which
made hiding Jews more difficult. Also, there were plenty of regions, such as
around Łomża or Kielce, where popular antisemitism was much stronger than in
Warsaw.
My comment: I was lucky enough to know
Roman Solecki, a Polish secular Jew who fought with the Home Army. He
graciously allowed me to add his comments to my dissertation. I include a
couple, below.
***
Roman Solecki, when asked about his
experience of interwar anti-Semitism, reported that one day his father was
attacked on the street by ONR fascists who punched his father in the nose.
Otherwise, though, he reported positive interactions:
Teachers
were nice and I don't recall any discrimination against Jews. In 1937 I passed
the entrance exam and was admitted to Polish State High school. Again the
students were about 50-50 Catholics and Jews. Among the teachers there were two
Jews ... In my class there were several Catholics I liked: Borsuk,
Dunin-Soligostowski, brothers Olchowy, Brzezinski, Rzeszowski, Panas,
Zdanowicz, Rzeszotarski, Strachocki, Sroka, Wrona. The names are real; the
reason I'm giving them is to convince you of the truthfulness of my statements.
…
From
[Rachel Patron's] essay, one draws the conclusion that Poland was a country of
murderers. As a U.S. citizen and a Polish Jew, I couldn't disagree more with
such a bigoted view. Poland, like any other country, is home to all kinds of
people. Let me briefly acquaint you with others' experiences. One close friend
was saved by a Polish Catholic priest, who placed him in a convent. Another was
saved by a Polish peasant. A close friend was deported with his family to the
Soviet Union. He joined the Polish army and took part in the battle of Monte
Cassino in Italy. My second cousin, who lives in Poland, was saved by a Polish
peasant whose son she later married ... No personal suffering entitles someone
to make generalizations and false accusations (Solecki).
…
From
a letter to the Simon Wiesenthal Center
I
looked on your entry about Poland and was upset by: 1. a standing out note that
'anti-Semitism still exists in Poland.' It's true but it's also true regarding
other countries including the USA. Why on a page which should show gratitude to
those who risked their lives make such a negative comment? 2. On another page
you write: 'The Righteous Among the Nations in Poland make up the largest
number of such persons recognized by Yad Vashem per country of origin. However,
while their absolute numbers might be the largest, by percentage the amount of
rescuers from Poland is small indeed.' Why don't you give this number, like you
do when referring to other countries? Why don't you explain that Poland was the
only country where there was death penalty for helping Jews? ... You possibly
compare the fate of Jews in Denmark and Norway (they were helped to escape to
neutral Sweden) without realizing that a. the number of Jews in those countries
was about 0.1% of total population; b. the distance from Denmark to neutral
Sweden at Helsingor (Elsinore) is about 3 miles and that Norway shares with
Sweden an over 1000 mile border so that the escape was relatively easy. Poland
did not have neighbors willing to accept 3.5 million Jews. The only country
that comes to mind, Sweden, was separated from Poland by about 120 miles of
Baltic Sea. Even if such a transportation would be logistically possible, and
it would be absurd to think so (Poland had a very short sea shore, small number
of boats, and a developing economy where majority of people, including Jews
were poor or very poor [Dr. Solecki later wrote: "I made a mistake saying:
'Poland had a very short sea shore.' That's true but the access to this
seashore was eliminated at the first days of war so every sea transportation
from Poland was impossible."], you can't seriously think that Sweden would
be willing to increase its population by 50% of poor foreigners ... I urge you
to make corrections in your site" (Solecki "Wisenthal").
…
I'm
a Polish Jew raised and educated in Poland. I survived the Nazi occupation
using "Aryan" documents. I was a member of the underground PPS/WRN, a
part of, so maligned by some, the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) where some of my co-conspirators knew that I
was Jewish. I met anti-Semites, and I met people who risked their lives to save
Jews. I'm very disturbed by the generalizations: when someone makes the whole
nation responsible for the crimes of a group. I don't believe that
anti-Polonism is any better, or more justified, than anti-Semitism. (Solecki,
Letter to the New York Times).
***
As a young man, Solecki and his mother
left Lwow in 1941 and traveled to Warsaw. They hoped to live out the war under
a false "Aryan" identity.
When
in Warsaw we went to a Christian lady who lived in Zoliborz district of Warsaw
and whose name somebody gave to us. She knew that we are Jewish and let us stay
in one of the rooms in her apartment. Next day she came to my mother and said
that she is very sorry but we cannot stay longer there because her brother, a
pre-war member of the fascist ONR (Organizacja Narodowo-Radykalna) who lived
with her, said that he doesn't want Jews in his house.
Luckily, in this case, Solecki and his
mother, through several contacts, including a Christian woman who had five Jews
in her house already and could place no more, found other quarters among Poles
who were not fascists. His story dramatizes that it took only one fascist,
fearful, anti-Semitic or greedy Pole to endanger a Jew in hiding, but it took
several cooperative Poles to keep a Jew hidden.
***
One informant for this paper, Roman
Solecki, who himself had been in the AK, when asked specifically about
anti-Semitism in the AK, replied:
Once
we ... went on a longer exercise to Bielany Woods. There were about 10 of us.
At a certain moment one of the fighters named "Kedzior" told a rather
offensive Jewish joke. Then he looked at me and said: "Are you Jewish by
any chance?" I said, "Yes!" He apologized profusely ...
I
never thought that either the AK leadership or the members were anti-Semitic as
a rule. I'm sure there were some anti-Semites in AK and maybe even some AK
detachments were anti-Semitic but I don't believe that this was AK policy. Yes,
I believe that AK was helpful to the Jews to the extent it was possible (but I
know that really only second-hand). I think that AK did whatever possible to
fight the Germans. This was the main objective. The only way AK could try
helping Jews on a big scale is to attack the ghettos killing the German guards
and then what? The Germans would mercilessly crush such an attempt, AK would be
hurt and Jews not helped.
***
I asked Roman Solecki his impressions of
the public reaction to the burning of the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a transcript
of our exchange. His comments are offered as the comments of one Jew living in
Warsaw at that time. They are not meant to be representational.
DVG: "You say people were watching.
Can you guess what the mood of the crowd was? You probably know there is a lot
of talk about this. Czeslaw Milosz's famous poem, 'Campo di Fiori,' and
Andrzejewski's story, 'Wielki Tydzien.'"
RS: "I haven't the slightest idea,
but I think that the mood was rather somber."
DVG: "Were the non-Jews happy to
see Jews burning? or horrified? Or mixed reactions? I know it must be awful to
think or talk about this. Please forgive me if you don't want to talk about
it."
RS: "No, I have nothing against
talking about the past. I'm sure only few people were happy."
A very different story can be found in
Fundacja, 110. A Jewish woman in hiding heard very anti-Semitic comments during
the burning of the ghetto. This paper does not argue that either account is
representational of the reaction of the population as a whole. Such data simply
doesn't exist.
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