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Forced Out: The Fate of Polish Jewry in Communist Poland

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Growing up in Canada as the son of Holocaust sruvivors, Arthur Wolak has traveled and studied extensively in a post-Commu-nist Poland. Forced Out: The Fate Of Polish Jewry In Communist Poland is a meticulously, informative, and insightful history of those political, economic, and foreign policy issues and circumstances that led to the post-World War II and holocaust era exodus of most of Poland's remaining Jews. Chapters discuss anti-semitism in Poland, including Communist government propaganda that targeted Jews as scapegoats to distract the population from economic troubles and other systemic failings, as well as the post-communist era future and the relationship between Poland, Poland's Jews, and Israel. A thoughtful, literate, well-researched and plainly presented account, as accessible to the lay reader as it is to sociologists and historians. Highly recommended for Judaic Studies and 20th Century European History academic reference collections.

I was amazed to read this scholarly examination of events in Poland (67/68) through which I lived as a young teen. Reading this book put these events into a broader historical context for me. I appreciate the background on the main characters involved in PZPR (Gomulka and Moczar) and elucidation of the currents and dynamics that led to that particular eruption of anti-semitism, under the banner of anti-zionism.

A thorough and scholarly examination of a subject.

The backbone of the book traces the rise in Polish nationalism and and its flip side, anti-Zionism, in "People's Poland" of the 1960s. However, it too glibly attributes this to "Communism" per se. The reality, as to be expected in this part of the world, is much more nuanced than simplistic cold war labeling.

As Professor Jan Gross shows in his major work, "Fear," on Polish anti-Semitism in the immediate postwar period, anti-Semitism in Poland was still the purview of the traditional nationalist-Catholic right. Under the banner of "Zydokomuna" Jews and Communists were linked as part of some master anti-Polish conspiracy. Communist attitudes toward this was one of the issues splitting the Party. The "internationalists" - tending to be pro-Moscow, "Stalinist," and heavily Jewish - condemned this tendency as reactionary and sought to punish it. The "nationalists" - with Gomulka as their foremost representative - tended to look the other way to curry favor with the Catholic workers and peasants, who after all were the majority and upon who the regime must base itself. After de-Stalinization, Gomulka's view prevailed. Traditional nationalist scapegoating of Jews was "integrated" into the "People's Democracy."

Unfortunately, this does not indict the Communists so much as Polish society. It is revealing that the Party had to resort to this in order to anchor itself in the popular masses. In this it paralleled the behavior of the Nazi occupation, as outlined in Professor Gross' previous book, "Neighbors." Unlike the Nazis, however, the Polish Communists were at least theoretical exemplars of a professedly anti-racist ideology. The majority of Poles did not change their fundamental attitude to the Party or Communism because of Gomulka's pandering to popular prejudice; but as under the Nazis, anti-Semites found convenient official justification for giving vent to their "time-honored tradition."

The real tragedy for Poland is that only in the totalitarian years of Stalinism could Jews have a semblance of social dignity in the country. Rather than lash out at those who explore this past - as they have done with Professor Gross - Poles should take this to heart and try to devise a society morally broad enough to embrace all its (surviving) members.

On how communist Poland sent into prison or exile the tiny Jewish community that had survided the Holocaust. Jews were again the scapegoats used by our "glorious" European intelligentsia to distract from their own evil and corrupt regime, and specifically in this episode in Polish politics of 1967/8.

The author does a good job pointing out the responsibilities for the antisemitic act that robbed thousands of Polish Jews of their possessions as well as of their own nationality. A shameful and despicable episode in Poland's recent history.

The last quarter of the book, however, besides being a follow-up on the more recent events of Poland up their joining the European Union, is a long and preachy discourse, more to be expected from a propagandist or politician -no matter how well-intentioned- than from an impartial historian. I don't like historians to preach to me even if I agree with what they say. This part if filled with "should"s and "must"s, and universal goodwill kind of discourse.

Historians should stick to their job which is telling the past as it was, no more no less.

I was in Poland during the events covered in this book. Arthur Wolak has done an important job of historiography, and has to be commended. In 1968 I had been living in Warsaw for about two years, working as a journalist. It was indeed a shameful period in Polish history, in which antisemitism was used as a weapon in what amounted to a power struggle within the PZPR, the Communist Party. I describe my own part in the "March Events" in my book "Strawberries With Everything", published in 2006. [...]