| POLISH - JEWISH RELATIONS |
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During World War II, against overwhelming odds, the Polish people saved thousands of Jewish lives from Nazi persecution. It was a testament to the courage and compassion of many Poles to have risked their lives to save their Jewish compatriots. No doubt this comes as a surprise to many people who perceive the Polish nation as staunchly anti-semetic. White antisemetism did manifest itself in varying degrees, mainstream Polish society was sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. Hitler's objective was the annihilation of Poland altogether - not only of the Jews, but Polish Christians as well. Hundreds of thousands of Poles were arrested, tortured, and executed, or deported to concentration camps. Even more more sent to the Reich as slave labor for German factories and farms. While Poles were not herded into ghettos like the Jews, they were prisoners just the same. Central Poland, that is, the General Gouvernement, under the command of General Frank was in fact one gigantic penal colony. Within central Poland, Poles were frequently rounded up, tortured and executed. Poles' suffering under the Nazi occupation was as great as that of the Jews, though few people today know this. At the core of Polish-Jewish relations was a common suffering, and hatred of the Germans. The Poles and Jews were kindred spirits united in a common purpose - the defence of their homeland and freedom. They dug the trenches together, and fought against the invading Germans. But events were to unfold that would pit them against each other. The initial solidarity between Poles and Jews was all too shortlived. It ended on September 17, 1939 when the Russians invaded eastern Poland. Thousands of Jews welcomed the Russians as liberators, enlisting in the Red Army to help them fight the Nazis. In the process, Jews became the accomplices in the deportation of tens of thousands of their fellow Poles to the Russian gulag. Some Jews who had been placed in positions of authority at Russian labor camps were responsible for the deaths of many Poles. Yet the Jews, in an ironic twist, would also become the victims of Russian tyranny as soon as they outlived their usefulness as Stalins' pawns. Collaboration with the enemy was a betrayal of the Polish nation and was vehemently denounced by the Polish Underground State, and Home Army. So strong was their hatred of the Germans and the Soviets that the majority of Poles did not collaborate with either of them. Prominent Polish leaders refused to collaborate with the Nazis. Alfred Wysocki, former Polish envoy to Berlin, and Ambassador to Rome, refused to negotiate with the Nazis for an end to the Polish Resistance, even for the exchange of political prisoners. In fact, Poland was the only Nazi-occupied country which did not have a Quisling. Distrustful of the Soviets, some Poles and Jews felt that they had no choice but to collaborate with the hated Nazis in order to drive the Red Army out of eastern Poland. Conversely, some Jews and Poles collaborated with the Soviets as their only hope to rid Poland of the Nazis. Inevitably, it led to the eruption of fratricidal violence where Poles were pitted not only against the Jews but other Poles as well.. And Jews were pitted against the Poles as well as fellow Jews. (It is not possible to make generalizations about either Poles and Jews. ) For a country already torn apart by violent partition and conflicting ideologies, it needed little more than a spark to bring about a violent clash between some Poles and Jews. The Germans and the Soviets wielded their propaganda at partisan politics, and exploited the existing tensions among nationalist movements among Polands' minorities ( the Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, and the Jews). The massacres that took place in Poland were one of the darkest episodes in Polish-Jewish history. Bromberg, Jozefow, Lomazy, Bialystok, Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek, Stutthof, Gruben, Radzilow, Jedwabne, Naliboki, Koniuchy, are just a few of the places where horrible massacres took place. In its wake were thousands of Polish, and of Jewish victims. The Germans and the Soviets used massacres as a tool in their policy of pacification - to subdue the local population into submission. In the September Campaign of 1939, the invading German troops wiped out over 500 Polish towns and villages. In retaliation, Poles and Jews escaping from the westen front massacred the Germans and the Volksdeutscher (Poles of German descent). But people today have no idea that Jewish partisans had also been responsible for a number of atrocities. As part of the Soviet armies, the Jews participated in the massacre of Poles at Koniuchy, and Naliboki, among other places. When the Germans invaded eastern Poland, and drove out the Soviet forces, some Poles turned on their Jewish neighbors in a fit of rage because the Jews had collaborated with the other enemy - Russia. Most infamous was the massacre at Jednabwe. The controversy continues to this day whether it was the Nazis or the Poles who instigated the killing. Apparently some claim that the Germans were not even present. Others allege that the Germans even tried to intervene in order to stop the Poles from slaughtering the Jews. This has all the earmarks of German propaganda. Professor Tamasz Szarota, in his article, Holocaust z perspetywy polwiecze ( The Holocaust from the Perspective of Half a Century) published by the Jewish Historical Institute, discussed the subject of anti-Jewish outbreaks. Szarota asserted that " each time it was probably a provocation prepared by...[the Germans]. The primary purpose was of propaganda. The world was thus shown that the Germans were not the only ones who felt the need to eliminate the Jews, and that the strength of hatred of the Jews was even stronger in other countries than in Germany. As a by-product, there was a demon- stration of the alleged approval of the occupied countries for the way in which Nazi ideology brandished antisemetic slogans. By intervening for law and order, the Germans achieved yet another aim - they suddenly appeared as defenders of the Jews against an assault by the Poles." The Poles who were involved in carrying out these massacres were comprised from the lowest element of society - hooligans, hardened criminals, moral degenerates, and punks. Poles from mainstream society referred to them as szmalcowniks, a derogatory terms meaning the lowest criminal element of mankind. The Poles most likely to collaborate with the Nazis was indeed this category, as well as the Volksdeutscher. But beneath the veneer of violent anti-semetism, and antipolonism, were Poles who were devoted to the mission of saving Jews from Nazi persecution. They were the Polish Underground - a vast network of military and civilian organizations that had members from a wide cross-section of Polish society - professionals, blue-collar workers, priests, boyscouts, among many others. |