Customer Reviews

Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future

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Given this book's title, there is surprisingly little "rethinking" and "brighter future," and surprisingly much "troubled past."

One essay stands out for its freshness and courage. Jewish-American journalist Carolyn Slutsky unabashedly exposes almost unbelievable hostility to Poles nurtured by March of the Living: youngsters were told not to "leave any good Jewish money in Poland" (190); marchers were encouraged to view Poles living near camps as participants in genocide, though those Poles witnessed Polish non-Jews' internment, torture, and murder. In MOL ideology, Poland has been the "evil country" Slutsky says (190). Participants who had positive experiences with Poles, or assessments of Poland, were steered away from those experiences by MOL leaders (192). After her MOL experience, Slutsky went on to live in Poland, and soon met Poles whose family members had been victimized by the Nazis. Ewa, a Polish girl, reported that her grandfather had been killed in Majdanek. Slutsky says her head spun - she finally realized the other side of the story (195). Slutsky ends with an exhortation that MOL try harder to find truth (195).

Mieczyslaw Biskupski carefully outlines the cinematic version of the Holocaust in theatrical films, documentaries, and television miniseries including "Schindler's List," "Holocaust," "Uprising," "Sophie's Choice," "Shoah," and "Shtetl," and compares that depiction with historical fact. Verdict? Poles are now the perpetrators of the Holocaust. In scene after scene, historical fact is distorted to divert guilt from German Nazis and place it on the shoulders of Poles, especially Polish, Catholic, peasants. Please note: all these films are shown in high schools and colleges as Holocaust educational material.

Robert Cherry demonstrates, through surveys, that Holocaust education teachers in the US tend to have anti-Polish biases.

Father John T. Pawlikowski is a Polish American priest and scholar who has been active in Polish-Jewish dialogue for decades. His essay offers a first-person account of his frontline experience, including at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Pawlikowski is frank in recording obstacles he met from both Poles and Jews. Elie Wiesel was wary of him because of his ethnicity. At the same time, Poles demanded why he should represent Polonia (112). Polish Americans often complain about their depiction in scholarship, journalism, and media. Rightly so. But Polish Americans have not done the hard work to correct the stereotypical depictions of Poles, or to educate the public about Poland's history and culture, or even to begin to honor that history and culture (114). Poles must not blame Jews or anyone else, Father Pawlikowski insists; rather, they must look to Poles' own organizing, Poles' own support of scholarship and cultural products. Bravo, Father Pawlikowski.

Lawrence Baron offers an interesting account of how Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," based on the life of Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman, and Andrzej Wajda's "Korczak," based on the heroic doctor and child advocate Janusz Korczak, were received in world media. Bottom line: politics and prejudice, rather than aesthetic merit, played a role in the acceptance or rejection of these works of art.

Michael Shudrich, Poland's chief rabbi, speaks as a very visible Jew in today's Poland. He talks about young people in Poland who discover, or begin to invest in, their previously hidden or ignored Jewish roots, and he salutes non-Jews who commit themselves to preserving Poland's Jewish heritage. Shudrich cites Pope John Paul II and his philo-semitism as having a positive impact on Polish-Jewish relations.

There are a few contributions that cling to past hates, and do not offer a road, as the book's subtitle suggests, to a "brighter future." Shana Penn says that print media do not misrepresent Poles (56). Her evidence of this? She used to preside over very tall file cabinets full of clippings (49). Penn is simply wrong in her assertion; print media certainly do misrepresent Poles and Poland. One need only mention the frequently repeated phrase "Polish concentration camps" and absence of mention of Polish suffering under the Nazis, for example in a 12/23/2009 NYT article about the theft of the Auschwitz sign that failed to mention that Poles were interned at Auschwitz, while being sure to list other victims.

Joanna Michlic continues to attribute anti-Semitism to Polish, Catholic, peasant, folk, pre-modern, and patriotic identities. She adduces no evidence to support this assertion. Much evidence could be adduced to call Michlic's conclusion into doubt: the Holocaust, the worst expression of anti-Semitism in history, was inspired and facilitated by modern, scientific, atheistic, Pagan, Western, advanced, ideology and persons. Many Catholic, peasant, folk, pre-modern and patriotic Poles rescued Jews. Michlic needs to jettison her prejudices and go back to actual data.

Eli Zborowski's foreword is very much a throwback to the past, and not part of any movement toward a "brighter future." In his brief piece, Zborowski emphasizes that his family was victimized by Nazis and by Poles. Zborowski's family was helped by Poles; that help is not his focus. Zborowski does not mention, and the book does not emphasize, that Poles suffered during the Holocaust, and that that suffering must be understood in any Polish-Jewish dialogue. Zborowski's victimizatioin is tragic and wrong and his story needs to be attended to and sympathy and restitution must be extended. At the same time, the central placement, in the foreward, of Zborowski's victimization at the hands of evil Poles during the Holocaust is very much not part of any steps toward a brighter future; it skews the entire text and undermines its stated purpose. Steps toward a "brighter future" for Poles and Jews will include mention of Polish suffering under the Nazis, and fearless probing of the complex shared history that preceded the 1939-45 era.

This collection of essays ranges from highly academic to deeply personal. It explores the difficult relationships among Jews and Poles, not only since World War II but also during the centuries prior when Poland was the largest, most vibrant part of the Jewish world. The authors make no attempt to gloss over the problems but they illustrate potential solutions and present evidence that new approaches are working. Co-editor and contributor Annamaria Orla-Bukowska is an American born professor of Polish parentage who lives in Poland and knows more about Jews and Poles than most Jews and Poles know about themselves and each other. After meeting and being impressed by her in Poland I bought the book and it further opened my eyes to the possibilities of creating new and stronger connections between these two peoples. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in post-Holocaust studies in particular or the sociology of strained inter-national relationships in general.

Anyone who questions the severity of anti-Polonism is in for a rude awakening upon reading this book. Robert Cherry's surveys of Holocaust academicians and others prompt him to conclude that: "The evidence presented strongly suggests that complaints in the Polish American community about the anti-Polish stereotypes found among non-Polish faculty who teach Holocaust-related courses are well-founded; not surprisingly, these stereotypes are strongest among non-historians." (p. 76).

Cherry is candid about the marginalization of the PolAm voice: "Jewish faculty teach Holocaust courses throughout the country, courses that enroll tens of thousands of students annually...By contrast, Polish academicians do not have a significant forum to promote their views to the general public...It is only within Polish American communities that their views dominate." (p. 77)

What about the American media? Biskupski's systematic analysis of Hollywood's decades-old portrayal of Poles relative to Jews is damning.

The quality of this book is variable; hence my 3-star rating. Novel features, besides the surveys, include the repudiation of the phrase "Polish concentration camps" by the American Jewish Committee (pp. 65-66). More-of-the-same aspects of this book include its transparent Judeocentrism. Poles are praised insofar as some of them agree with Jewish attacks on Poland (e. g., p. 57).

Although some Jewish authors are candid about Jewish prejudices against Poles, they don't seem to show the same degree of moral urgency that Poles do (or are supposed to do) relative to Polish prejudices against Jews. And many of Cherry's survey questions are clearly of the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" type.

There is the customary preoccupation with unequal victimhood (e. g., Pawlikowski, who misrepresents Lukas as teaching that Poles and Jews were equal victims: pp. 116-117). Why can't we just recognize each other as victims of the Nazis, and leave it at that? (Among cancer-victims organizations, we don't see month-terminal patients complain that they are unequal victims with year-terminal patients).

There are also the usual ruminations about past Christian teachings on Jews, but not a hint of the reverse. How many Poles felt hostility to Jews because they knew that Jews saw them as idolatrous worshippers of the Bastard Son of an adulteress, and of three gods?

Throughout this book, Jan T. Gross is lionized ad nauseam, with no hint of the fraudulence of most of his claims (see, for instance, the Peczkis review of Sto klamstw J.T. Grossa o Jedwabnem i zydowskich sasiadach).

And if "coming to terms with the past" is a mark of maturity, then why won't the Jewish side freely admit its crimes (instead of the usual dismissive attitude--e. g. Polonsky, p. 131, 133)? Jewish crimes against Poles are undeniable and considerable (see, for instance, the Peczkis review of Przemilczane zbrodnie: Zydzi i Polacy na Kresach w latach 1939-1941).

Pawlikowski defends the U. S. Holocaust Museum's inclusion of the Kielce Pogrom (p. 117). It doesn't matter that Kielce wasn't part of the Holocaust, was trivial next to the same, and was probably a Soviet provocation. Talk about relativizing the Holocaust!

Joanna B. Michlic takes cheap shots at RADIO MARYJA, and name-calls several careful scholars with whom she disagrees, actually going as far as expressing concern that they are taken seriously! (p. 163). Along these lines, she dismisses Chodakiewicz's detailed research on the Jedwabne massacre (p. 168). Evidently, facts don't matter to her. And whom does Krajewski think that he is fooling in his implicit denial (p. 148) that certain Jewish groups are trying to extort money from Poland?

When Rethinking Poles and Jews was initially published in 2007 it received all kinds of favorable press in the Polish American media. I suspect this was because Pol-Am reviewers, who had yet to actually read the book, had caught wind that it included a section on anti-Polish stereotypes. While Rethinking Poles and Jews does present a balanced treatment of Polish-Jewish relations, it doesn't shy away from the pervasiveness and virulence of Polish Catholic anti-Semitism.

The two overly-critical customer reviews that you find here, one from an academic who specializes in anti-Polonisms and the other from a radical Dmowskian ethno-nationalist, translate into a very favorable recommendation for the objective and fair-minded reader.

Some other very good books which discuss Polish Catholic anti-Semitism:

"Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present" by Joanna B. Michlic

"Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland" by Jan T. Gross

"The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland" by Antony Polonsky

"Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz" by Jan Tomasz Gross

"Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath" by Joshua D. Zimmerman

"Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945" by Gunnar S. Paulsson

"Shtetl" by Eva Hoffman

"Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust" by Michael C. Steinlauf

"Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust" by E. Thomas Wood

"My Brother's Keeper: Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust" by Antony Polonsky

"Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War" by Emanuel Ringelblum

"On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars" by Celia Stopnicka Heller

"The Convent at Auschwitz" by Wladyslaw Bartoszewski

"The Hidden Pope: The Untold Story of a Lifelong Friendship That Is Changing the Relationship Between Catholics and Jews - The Personal Journey of John Paul II and Jerzy Kluger" by Darcy O'Brien

"When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland" by Brian Porter

"Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland" by Brian Porter

"The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots" by Rafal Pankowski

"Rome's Most Faithful Daughter: The Catholic Church and Independent Poland, 1914-1939" (Polish and Polish American Studies) by Neal Pease

"Traitors & True Poles: Narrating A Polish-American Identity, 1880-1939" (Polish and Polish American Studies) by Karen Majewski

"The Catholic Church and Antisemitism: Poland, 1933-1939" by Ronald E. Modras

"The Jews in Poland" by Chimen Abramsky

"Imaginary Neighbors: Mediating Polish-Jewish Relations after the Holocaust" by Dorota Glowacka

"Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation" by Magda Teter

"From Assimilation to Anti-Semitism: The Jewish Question in Poland, 1850-1914" by Theodore R. Weeks

"Antisemitism And Its Opponents In Modern Poland" by Robert Blobaum

"The Jews of Poland Between Two World Wars" by Yisrael Gutman

"Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews During World War Two" by Israel Gutman

"Economic Origins of Antisemitism: Poland and Its Jews in the Early Modern Period" by Hillel Levine

"Forced Out: The Fate of Polish Jewry in Communist Poland" by Arthur J. Wolak

"The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland" by Geneviève Zubrzycki

"Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy" by John K. Roth

"In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust and Beyond" by Leo Cooper

"No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939" by Emanuel Melzer

"The Politics of Hate: Anti-Semitism, History, and the Holocaust in Modern Europe" by John Weiss