This is a wonderful article that provides a hopeful perspective on a dark, still living history. Just as there is more than one experience in any war, it's difficult to fully capture the truth of Poland during wartime, particularly from a Jewish perspective as so many were murdered and helped to their death by so many. From a personal perspective, it is primarily from my Jewish-Polish grandparents, who survived the war, who shaped my understanding of Poland. I suspect their different sentiments towards are also class-based. My grandmother, remained sentimental about her life in Poland, and didn't throw all Poles in the same burnt pot. My grandfather, a Polish army veteran whose mother, sister, and extended family were murdered at Auschwitz, refused to speak Polish ever again after leaving. He had nothing but scorn for the Christian Polish and considered them Nazis or complicit Nazi errand-boys. It was quite comical, albeit tragically, when my grandmother hired an illegal Polish immigrant woman as a housecleaner. She always greeted my grandfather respectfully, and he responded not-at-all or rudely in Yiddish. My grandmother loved speaking to her in the language of her youth and mistranslating my grandfather's words back, turning bitterness into bland pleasantry. History is also cruel, but can not be overcome with easily with special pleading. Does Poland really want its Jews back? What are Polish children taught about their history?
The Germans initiated and organized the Holocaust, but they were aided in the theft and murder of Jews by the often eager local populations, whose petty resentments and prejudices led them to steal from and butcher their own neighbors. Jews were still being murdered in Poland after the Germans were forced out. Anti-Semitism was and still is prevalent in Poland. To this day in the Polish countryside, some Poles fear the Jews will return to reclaim the property stolen from their families during the war. Yes, many Polish Christians aided Jews during the war; unfortunately, many more actively participated in their destruction. To imply that Poland today would be justified in rejecting Jews that might want to return to Poland simply because they may be ambivalent about their Polish identity or suspicious of Polish motives, is outrageous. And I am not Jewish, so my thoughts can't be pigeonholed as one of those "comments from Jewish people to this article."
3
The family of your grandfather was murdered at Auschwitz by the Germans, not the Poles (my Polish catholic grandfather was also murdered in the same circumstances; different camp). Your grandfather survived. You mention he was a Polish Army veteran. The Polish Army did not mistreat its soldiers. He had to meet many Poles who did not treat him poorly, and may have even been his childhood and army friends. So why did he refuse to speak Polish ever again after leaving? This just suggests that he did not feel very Polish. And why was he rude to the respectful Polish cleaning lady? (And why do you feel compelled to state that she was illegal? Your grandmother hired her, didn't she?) You ask: "Does Poland really want its Jews back?" Reading some of the comments from Jewish people to this article, I would be very surprised if it did.
6
I read this article with great interest. My father was born in the town of Zablotov, now in the Ukraine, about 300km from Borynya. My sister and I have often talked of one day visiting there. It's wonderful to read of a similar trip that you and your sister actually made happen. Thanks so much for writing this.
Marvellous travel in time. Warsaw changed irreversibly ...
I was at Auschwitz-Birkinau last Sunday, August 9th. It was my second visit to this hallowed ground. In my heart I will never understand why the hate and murderous actions ever happened and even are happening in today's world. Thank you, Mr. Berger, for your memoir.
3
So many misconceptions about Poland and Polish people. I wonder how many years after the iron curtain fell has to past till people heal from the Stalinist propaganda. Poland was a mini-America, or India, a tolerant, multicultural country beginning medieval times with the King Kazimierz invited Jews and other prosecuted foreigners and granted them rights to have peaceful life. Poles fought for US independence and Poland was first country in the world to follow America's modern constitution. This was the reason Poland was so hated by the neighboring regimes, beginning tsarist Russia, Prussia, Austria, to Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. For all of them Poland was inconvenient. Sadly, that so many people in America apparently carry on that hate towards Poland.
10
Thank you KB for this account. There are 6,532 (as of 1 January 2015) Polish men and women recognized as "Righteous", about 26% of the total number of 24,81 awards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Righteous_Among_the_Nations) and yet we are still perceived a nation of antisemites.
6
Thank you Mr. Berger for making this painful yet luminous journey with your sister, and for writing about it. No doubt contemporary interpretations of a harrowing past generate an often dissonant chorus of arguments, but nothing can alter the power of ruins, of forgotten names remembered, of small stories rescued from oblivion. An argument can sway us this way and that, but these things have the power to move us and perhaps change us.
2
Perhaps a review from the New York Review of Books or the reviewed book could help explain the situation of Poland a bit more.
The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941
The Nazi- Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact of Augsut 1939 led to the USSR supporting and aiding Germany for 18 months.
" But seventeen days after the German invasion Stalin’s armies invaded Poland from the east. A few days later in Brest, a meeting place then just on the Russian side of the new partition of Poland, there was a small joint military parade of Nazi and Soviet soldiers and military vehicles. "
"Their final extermination by the Germans was not decided by Hitler until September 1941 and not put into effect before January 1942: but in many ways their fate had been foreshadowed by the Nazi–Soviet Pact."
"The Russians deported at least one million people—including entire families, without any of their belongings—to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the Russian far north, with very few ever seeing their homelands again. In April and May 1940, some 22,000 Polish officers were shot to death near Katyn. More than a million Polish prisoners and workers were deported to Germany for forced labor during the war."
The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939–1941
The Nazi- Soviet Mutual Assistance Pact of Augsut 1939 led to the USSR supporting and aiding Germany for 18 months.
" But seventeen days after the German invasion Stalin’s armies invaded Poland from the east. A few days later in Brest, a meeting place then just on the Russian side of the new partition of Poland, there was a small joint military parade of Nazi and Soviet soldiers and military vehicles. "
"Their final extermination by the Germans was not decided by Hitler until September 1941 and not put into effect before January 1942: but in many ways their fate had been foreshadowed by the Nazi–Soviet Pact."
"The Russians deported at least one million people—including entire families, without any of their belongings—to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and the Russian far north, with very few ever seeing their homelands again. In April and May 1940, some 22,000 Polish officers were shot to death near Katyn. More than a million Polish prisoners and workers were deported to Germany for forced labor during the war."
4
From the NY Times, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/europe/poland-reconnects-to-jewi...
When 1,250 Warsaw high school students were recently asked which group suffered more in the war, Poles or Jews, nearly half, 44 percent, said the two groups had suffered equally; 28 percent answered Jews; and 25 percent said Poles.
The same poll that examined the question of Jewish versus Polish suffering found that 61 percent of students said they “would be unhappy” to learn a boyfriend or girlfriend was Jewish, while 45 percent would rather not have a Jew in their family.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/world/europe/poland-reconnects-to-jewi...
When 1,250 Warsaw high school students were recently asked which group suffered more in the war, Poles or Jews, nearly half, 44 percent, said the two groups had suffered equally; 28 percent answered Jews; and 25 percent said Poles.
The same poll that examined the question of Jewish versus Polish suffering found that 61 percent of students said they “would be unhappy” to learn a boyfriend or girlfriend was Jewish, while 45 percent would rather not have a Jew in their family.
2
I too did a similar pilgrimage to southeastern Poland in 1988 with a friend. The purpose of the visit was to see where our Ukrainian mothers were born and lived and to see the churches pictured in an architecture book "Church in Ruins". These were old Ukrainian churches built in the 18th and 19th centuries. No longer functioning due to Communism and the fear of Ukrainian nationalism, some were in ruins or converted to Polish churches. The villages were gone due to "Aksia Wisla" of 1947, a Polish policy which dispersed Ukrainians to other parts of Poland, also in fear of Ukrainian nationalism. The only sign of a former community were apple trees. Sad but still beautiful.
3
Perhaps, Irene, you should be clearer and inform the American reader that the action was taken as a result of the Wołyn Massacre conducted by UPA and the Banderowcy. Over 60,000 Polish dead. Read Snyder's Bloodlands. Once again Polish people are blamed for a decision made by the Soviet imposed Communist government.
So yes, Akcja Wisła took place - because UPA and Banderowcy elements were attempting to continue their rampage. There is a difference between Ukrainian nationalism versus what UPA did. Petlura was a nationalist - Bandera was a murderer.
I regret that the Lemkos and Boykos, who were not part of UPA also fell victim to Akcja Wisła. Please don't say Lemkos and Boykos are Ukrainian - they are not.
Regretable that you chose not to mention that Akcja Wisła was reversed in 1956 and I personally know many Lemkos as well as Ukrainians who chose to return to this area. Others decided not to.
As for the Churches - they were mainly Uniate and Lemko wooden Orthodox churches. There is no such thing as Polish churches - there are Roman (Latin) Catholic and Eastern Rite (IUniate) Churches.
Finally, there are many photographers who document the Lemko world and in Rzeszow you can generally find exhibits of their work.
So yes, Akcja Wisła took place - because UPA and Banderowcy elements were attempting to continue their rampage. There is a difference between Ukrainian nationalism versus what UPA did. Petlura was a nationalist - Bandera was a murderer.
I regret that the Lemkos and Boykos, who were not part of UPA also fell victim to Akcja Wisła. Please don't say Lemkos and Boykos are Ukrainian - they are not.
Regretable that you chose not to mention that Akcja Wisła was reversed in 1956 and I personally know many Lemkos as well as Ukrainians who chose to return to this area. Others decided not to.
As for the Churches - they were mainly Uniate and Lemko wooden Orthodox churches. There is no such thing as Polish churches - there are Roman (Latin) Catholic and Eastern Rite (IUniate) Churches.
Finally, there are many photographers who document the Lemko world and in Rzeszow you can generally find exhibits of their work.
5
Lovely article. At Sachsenhausen is computer in a booth where current visitors may leave an audio or video message concerning their experience at the camp and the way it has affected them. Check out the website, projectedmemory.org, that has the videos, many of which are extremely moving and capture the next generation’s thoughts on the Holocaust. We could use more of these thoughts from other sites of conscience.
2
I, too found it a very moving article and commented on it on the NY Times website. But ERU's information about a computer booth at Sachsenhausen is very interesting news for me. As a former inmate of Sachsenhausen I will certainly look into it.
1
Interesting survey published in the Jerusalem Post Aug 5 reports that a quarter of Romanians would like a "Jew-free" Romania. Little difference between these Eastern Europe states culturally and religiously:
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Survey-suggests-strong-popular-support-for...
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Survey-suggests-strong-popular-support-for...
Bulgaria during WW2 was different, having managed to save the overwhelming majority of it's own Jewish population.
3
Bulgaria could do it because their government collaborated with Germans. Also it is worth to point out that although they saved their own Jews, they were participating in the holocaust of the Jews from the neighboring countries
2
In 2006, when doing research for my novel, A Tale of Two Citizens, I too returned to Poland, one of the locations in the book. You were lucky enough to have your mother's memoir as a guide, and I had a photograph of the home my father grew up in. The family with whom his family shared a home, in Stawki on the River Bug, still lived there! They were Gentiles and saved some of my relatives from the Nazis. What a privilege to spend an afternoon with them, and how helpful this visit was for the authenticity of my novel. Your lovely article calls back that visit, which I trust will remain as much a highlight for you as mine was for me.
12
I agree with Peter that the comments below the article prove the ignorance and miseducation of many Jewish people. You cannot put the equals sign between pre-war antisemitism or after-war pogrom in Kielce (40 deaths) and the genocide commited by Germans who exterminated millions of Jewish and Polish humans. And do not forget: German target was to annihilate not only the Jews but also the whole Polish nation. Partially hey did, murdering the elites and turning the country into hell which took half century to bring back to life
11
Chris: true. But also we cannot ignore that some of us Poles DID murder (or helped to) helpless Jewish-Polish people in multiple instances, though "nothing remotely close to millions, by action of lowlifes etc etc". I think the point (for us Poles, this is OUR conscience and history) is to be aware of the WHOLE story.
There is much to be proud of being Polish, but I would rather not use those points of pride as a defense of actions, by some of us, which are indefensible.
There is much to be proud of being Polish, but I would rather not use those points of pride as a defense of actions, by some of us, which are indefensible.
14
Please read this article about Kielce pogrom, this was published on a Polish Jewish site, i don't think they would want to try to whitewash anyone: http://www.jewish.org.pl/index.php/en/wiadomopci-mainmenu-57/1733-ipn-po...
The article refers to the recent study by IPN indicating that much of the pogroms in the postwar were provoked by the communist government
The article refers to the recent study by IPN indicating that much of the pogroms in the postwar were provoked by the communist government
3
The unstated reasons for the attacks on Jews post WWII in Poland was very much related to a fear that they Jews were returning to reclaim property (see Marzynski's "Shtetl" movie circa 1996). Even if this is a legitimate fear and understandable, in my mind the bigger question is why so few Poles were able to empathize with those who had just returned after being liberated from death camps? My half brother was returning to Szydlowice, near Kielce, about the same time as the infamous progrom, July 1946. He had just been liberated from Buchenwald. He witnessed thugs boarding the train and pulling those they thought were Jews off the train and beating them mericilessly. In all these horrors we do still have to keep in mind the righteous gentiles who did save lives. Why weren't there more? What is the difference between the 2 polarities? Does it still exist? And what can be done to broaden the understanding of those not inclined to share with the plight of the victims? How does all this relate to how the Hungarians are viewing and treating the victims of Assad?
Piotr is right that too many American Jews unfairly blame Poles more than Germans. I am an American Jew who has studied Poland for over 30 years, originally interested not in its Jewish history but its amazing Solidarity social movement and struggle for democracy. I have met anti-Semitic Poles, surely, but I have met many more who are not, who are interested in the Jewish past and want to reach some shared understanding. But too American Jews are unable to hear this. They label Poles anti-Semitic upon meeting them, without knowing anything about them. I think the reason for this is that history is written by survivors: German Jews who survived Nazism told about being integrated into pre-Nazi bourgeois Germany, while Polish Jews who survived told about a prewar Poland which, trying to build its own state for the first time in over 100 years, often practiced exclusionary “affirmative action” policies to elevate ethnic Poles over Jews. Still, for all its pre-war anti-Semitism, “bad” Poland did not invent or carry out the Holocaust; “good” Germany did that. American Jews need not refrain from bringing up bad history, but they should also remember that the reason so many Jews lived in Poland is that countries like England, Spain and Netherlands kicked them out centuries before and Poland let them in! History is complex, and American Jews should be fair and abandon any reflexive anti-Semitism.
18
You need to be more careful in your assertions. You assert that Jewish people ended up in Poland because they were kicked out of the Netherlands. There is absolutely NO historical evidence for this whatsoever. Jewish people were never kicked out of the Netherlands, rather, they sought refuge there as the new country that took shape as part of the Reformation was staunchly against Catholic Spain from whence the Jews were expelled. Some pockets in the Netherlands, such as Utrecht, were briefly off-limits to Jews, but on the whole Jews fared very well there until Nazi occupation in WWII.
2
My parents were Holocaust survivors from Poland who spoke little of the war years. I did know that their lives were saved with some help from Christian Poles and some luck. They also spoke of Polish Anti-Semitism; but, more in the manner that many Americans look on misguided US citizens who descriminate against their fellow Americans.
About 30 years ago a patient came to me because I was a Jewish and a MD. He was a Polish Christian who had been an officer in the Polish army. On his arm was a tattooed number from Aushwitz similar to the one my mother had on her arm. To this day I often think of that man.
The German Natzis murdered 90% of Poland's Jews, 3 million people; and together with Stalin's Communists 10% of Polands Christian Population, about another 3 million people. Stalin's communists murdered Polish officers in Katyn while Hitler's Natzis practiced diabolical experiments on Chrisitan prisoners and Jews at Aushwitz. This shared suffering of Polish & Jews was hidden from the world by Stalin and his communist underlings in Poland. Stalin did not believe, as many left wing Western intellectuals that Communism would bring all nationalities together in peace and harmony. He believed different ethnic groups living together was too much work. He kicked the Germans out of Poland back to Germany, the Ukrainians back east, the Poles in Ukraine into Poland etc. The Jews that remained were scapgoats forced out of Poland as needed for political reasons. Poland is now healing.
About 30 years ago a patient came to me because I was a Jewish and a MD. He was a Polish Christian who had been an officer in the Polish army. On his arm was a tattooed number from Aushwitz similar to the one my mother had on her arm. To this day I often think of that man.
The German Natzis murdered 90% of Poland's Jews, 3 million people; and together with Stalin's Communists 10% of Polands Christian Population, about another 3 million people. Stalin's communists murdered Polish officers in Katyn while Hitler's Natzis practiced diabolical experiments on Chrisitan prisoners and Jews at Aushwitz. This shared suffering of Polish & Jews was hidden from the world by Stalin and his communist underlings in Poland. Stalin did not believe, as many left wing Western intellectuals that Communism would bring all nationalities together in peace and harmony. He believed different ethnic groups living together was too much work. He kicked the Germans out of Poland back to Germany, the Ukrainians back east, the Poles in Ukraine into Poland etc. The Jews that remained were scapgoats forced out of Poland as needed for political reasons. Poland is now healing.
12
Baruch Steinberg, chief rabbi of the Polish Army, was among Polish Jews murdered in Katyń. On June 29, 1940 over 80% of people deported by the Soviets from occupied by them eastern parts of Poland were of Jewish orgin. My grandfather was working in the 50s in one of the most severe labour camps in Vorkuta in the Jewish brigade (head of the brigade, Moses Auerbach, was by the way arrested in Moscow yet during the Great Terror, and though Theodore Bikel, who has died recently, was protesting regarding treatment of the Jewry in the USSR still in 1986!) Please do not think only 1968 has something to do with the Jewish people and communism. If you count not only Polish Jews too, there were far many more Jews suffering under Stalin than Poles.
4
Yes you are correct The chief Rabbi of the Polsih Army was murdered at Katyn. My late father told me that 8-10% of the officers murdered by the Stalin Communists in Katyn were Jews. He showed me a book in the late 1960s that first documented these events for the west by Thaddeus Wittlin, pulished in 1965. Its title is "Time Stopped at 6:30". when the book was written the Soviets still claimed the the Germans killed all the Polish officers, Christians and Jews together.
5
That's right. And sorry for my remarks, but your text could be read as only non Jews were victim of communist era and as this topic is so neglected (Poland including) I wanted to stress it. Greetings from Warsaw!
1
Nazis thought up the idea to exterminate the Jewish race, developed their plans and carried it out. Nazis were German. They were not Polish. Germans hated Slavs, their second most hated race after Jews. The Polish were not in control of anything during the war, how could they under a brutal German occupation. Polish people did not load Jews into death trains/camps. Germans did that, Italians did that, Hungarians did that, Slovaks did that, etc etc. Germans were delighted to kill Jews and Poles. People have commented they wouldn't spend any money in Poland, but wouldn't think twice of buying a BMW or BOSS clothing. Many Jews admire German engineering!? It's so bizarre how this history has been hijacked and re-written. And for what purpose? By whom? That is very wrong and very ugly.
16
I am Polish. Some of my relatives lost their lives in a concentration camp. The Nazis, the people responsible for the extermination of millions of both the Jews and the Poles, were Germans. If there is the nation to blame for the eradication of the Jews in Europe, it is Germany, not Poland.
I've travelled around the world and talked to lots of Jews. For an incomprehensible reason most of them bear the grudge against Poles more than against Germans. Can anyone explain it to me? I am fully aware of anti-Semitism of the pre-war Poland, but can it be compared to the genocide committed by the Germans?
I am personally involved in this subject. My mother’s family helped numerous Jews, offering them bread to survive (the grandfather had a mill) thus risking the whole family's lives. I really do feel painful talking listening to Israeli people, especially the young ones, who blame Poles for ALL evil deeds committed against them.
I regret to admit it, but most of Jewish people I met seemed the most biased and intolerant nation I had ever talked to. They accused me of antisemitism, not even knowing me, just taking it for granted.
Open your eyes and ears - don't label others blindly.
Perhaps it is time to visit Poland to see what the people are REALLY like here? Not just the Auschwitz, the German camp built by the Germans. And not in the large group, just to alone, to meet the people who have been famous for centuries for their tolerance, sensitivity and understanding.
I've travelled around the world and talked to lots of Jews. For an incomprehensible reason most of them bear the grudge against Poles more than against Germans. Can anyone explain it to me? I am fully aware of anti-Semitism of the pre-war Poland, but can it be compared to the genocide committed by the Germans?
I am personally involved in this subject. My mother’s family helped numerous Jews, offering them bread to survive (the grandfather had a mill) thus risking the whole family's lives. I really do feel painful talking listening to Israeli people, especially the young ones, who blame Poles for ALL evil deeds committed against them.
I regret to admit it, but most of Jewish people I met seemed the most biased and intolerant nation I had ever talked to. They accused me of antisemitism, not even knowing me, just taking it for granted.
Open your eyes and ears - don't label others blindly.
Perhaps it is time to visit Poland to see what the people are REALLY like here? Not just the Auschwitz, the German camp built by the Germans. And not in the large group, just to alone, to meet the people who have been famous for centuries for their tolerance, sensitivity and understanding.
15
I was not a victim of the Holocaust; my Jewish family lived out the war in the Bronx, safe and sound.
However, I heard the tales of my Jewish friend's relatives who survived the war in Eastern Europe by fighting
with the underground, and who managed to get to the Bronx afterwards - and I have heard from others who knew far more about this than I did. First - Hitler shipped so many Jews to Eastern Europe, I have been told, because the natives there were ardent Jew haters - more than Germans were, and supported the extermination more ardently. I have read that townspeople along the route of the trains tormented the prisoners. I have learned that after Jews were liberated from the camps they were murdered along the route back to their homelands by Poles who believed that the Jews had killed Christ and were fanatic in their religious vengeance. I am sure that in the midst of these despicable acts there were those of compassion and courage - a courage I have often felt I myself could not muster. But these tales of inhumanity are probably true, else why would Hitler have spent so much money and put so much effort into transporting Jews to this locale? Jews had little support, in general, from the native Poles. We Americans cannot point a finger though - look at our own history of genocide toward the Native Americans, a genocide which continues under the radar. Look at our own racism and our own inhumanity - our lynchings which were not even outlawed in the 20th century !!
However, I heard the tales of my Jewish friend's relatives who survived the war in Eastern Europe by fighting
with the underground, and who managed to get to the Bronx afterwards - and I have heard from others who knew far more about this than I did. First - Hitler shipped so many Jews to Eastern Europe, I have been told, because the natives there were ardent Jew haters - more than Germans were, and supported the extermination more ardently. I have read that townspeople along the route of the trains tormented the prisoners. I have learned that after Jews were liberated from the camps they were murdered along the route back to their homelands by Poles who believed that the Jews had killed Christ and were fanatic in their religious vengeance. I am sure that in the midst of these despicable acts there were those of compassion and courage - a courage I have often felt I myself could not muster. But these tales of inhumanity are probably true, else why would Hitler have spent so much money and put so much effort into transporting Jews to this locale? Jews had little support, in general, from the native Poles. We Americans cannot point a finger though - look at our own history of genocide toward the Native Americans, a genocide which continues under the radar. Look at our own racism and our own inhumanity - our lynchings which were not even outlawed in the 20th century !!
2
I'm sorry, I do not agree with you at all that the reason Hitler set up extermination camps for Jews in Poland was because the Polish population was compliant. This is total nonsense. Poland was a young country (re-established only 20 years before Hitler attacked Poland), and after the 1939 invasion, its population lived under horrible terror, with many civilians being arrested and killed for no reason. Every Polish family had someone who was "disappeared", never to be heard from again. Those people lived in constant fear for their lives and were absolutely unable to stop or interfere with Nazis activities against the Jews.
And yet, who do you think was smuggling weapons and food to the Warsaw Ghetto, which allowed the Jews start the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? Who saved a number of Jewish orphaned children by giving them false catholic birth certificates so they could survive the war with adoptive Polish families, or be sheltered in a convent?
While no one is denying that there were Polish people who were hostile to the Jews before the war (or after), people need to understand that this was largely caused by the Polish psyche being wounded because of the yoke of the Partition (when Poland was controlled by Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary). It took the Poles over a century to regain independence, and many Poles resented the Jews for not being supportive of their strife for independence. They didn't think that Jews were Polish patriots, so they didn't trust or like them.
And yet, who do you think was smuggling weapons and food to the Warsaw Ghetto, which allowed the Jews start the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising? Who saved a number of Jewish orphaned children by giving them false catholic birth certificates so they could survive the war with adoptive Polish families, or be sheltered in a convent?
While no one is denying that there were Polish people who were hostile to the Jews before the war (or after), people need to understand that this was largely caused by the Polish psyche being wounded because of the yoke of the Partition (when Poland was controlled by Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungary). It took the Poles over a century to regain independence, and many Poles resented the Jews for not being supportive of their strife for independence. They didn't think that Jews were Polish patriots, so they didn't trust or like them.
6
Reva:
1. whether Americans are "guilty" or not of racism, Native Americans genocide etc etc has nothing to do with the issue of the fate of ethnic Jewish people during WWII, and/or their neighbors complicity in murders or heroism in saving from murder.
2. I know of no instance of Jewish victims railroad transports being additionally tortured by local populations en route to death camps. Whatever horrors DID happen, not this one (to my knowledge).
Machinery of Holocaust had been located in Poland by Nazi Germany because "this is where the Jewish people were". Get that. If you want to compare German and Polish WWII era attitudes toward Jewish people - how many Jewish people survived hiding in Germany? And in Poland? I believe the ratio is about 1:100, if you want to get any comparison of attitudes, get this one.
Now, why so much bitterness by many Jewish-Polish people towards Poland/Poles? For me (a Pole) the answer is simple - we (Poles) failed many of them. With Nazi Germany the thing is simple - straight (WWII) enmity. Poland and Polish society on the other hand - we were supposed to protect OUR citizens and neighbors. We tried, failed (all, Jewish or not), then there were stories of both heroism and treachery, various cases. But a neighbor who failed (if not much worse) leaves more and longer bitterness than an outright enemy.
1. whether Americans are "guilty" or not of racism, Native Americans genocide etc etc has nothing to do with the issue of the fate of ethnic Jewish people during WWII, and/or their neighbors complicity in murders or heroism in saving from murder.
2. I know of no instance of Jewish victims railroad transports being additionally tortured by local populations en route to death camps. Whatever horrors DID happen, not this one (to my knowledge).
Machinery of Holocaust had been located in Poland by Nazi Germany because "this is where the Jewish people were". Get that. If you want to compare German and Polish WWII era attitudes toward Jewish people - how many Jewish people survived hiding in Germany? And in Poland? I believe the ratio is about 1:100, if you want to get any comparison of attitudes, get this one.
Now, why so much bitterness by many Jewish-Polish people towards Poland/Poles? For me (a Pole) the answer is simple - we (Poles) failed many of them. With Nazi Germany the thing is simple - straight (WWII) enmity. Poland and Polish society on the other hand - we were supposed to protect OUR citizens and neighbors. We tried, failed (all, Jewish or not), then there were stories of both heroism and treachery, various cases. But a neighbor who failed (if not much worse) leaves more and longer bitterness than an outright enemy.
3
Szafran from Warsaw writes about the Poles and antisemitism: "I wish people had more guts to face the truth, more true pride and more humility. But it will come. Patience."
Your voice is important because it comes from Poland. I command you for recognizing that the truth, no matter how hard and uncomfortable, has to be faced and told. Only then both Poles and Jews can start anew, and, who knows, maybe their acrimonious relationship will then be replaced by friendship and mutual respect.
Your voice is important because it comes from Poland. I command you for recognizing that the truth, no matter how hard and uncomfortable, has to be faced and told. Only then both Poles and Jews can start anew, and, who knows, maybe their acrimonious relationship will then be replaced by friendship and mutual respect.
3
I wholeheartedly endorse the idea that truth has to be faced and told. As someone with Polish background (both Catholic and Jewish) it particularly pains me to read about the post-war killings in Kielce; about the shameful things that happened during the war, and other aspects of Polish history. But is it only a matter of Poles apologizing, or regretting the past, or feeling shame? Are the lines always so clear? In Marek Edelman's account of the Warsaw ghetto uprising he recounts the need of the Jewish underground to execute a particular Jew who were collaborating with the Germans. How do we account for these uncomfortable facts? Or consider the case of Helena Wolinska-Brus, a notorious prosecutor during the post-war Stalinist period who persecuted members of the wartime resistance (she just died in 2008). Was it really necessary for Brus, a Polish Jew, in the late 1940s to persecute Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, who had saved many Jews from the Holocaust - and who was later was awarded the title Righteous Gentile and given an honorary citizenship from Israel? The history is of the Poles and Jews is hard one... unfortunately the certainties and anger of some of the commentators here are based in quite a thin knowledge of this history.
5
Dorota: thank you. Some reflection: "acrimonious relationship"? Not the whole picture. Maybe far from.
Significant part of Polish (beloved) literature (culture in general) was created by Polish-Jewish authors. It is so integrated people do not even think about it. In many professions (even today) there is an intertwined mix of Polish and Jewish authority figures (whole mixed master-apprentice lineages, with people really not caring "who is who"). About "surprising identity" of supposedly Polish and supposedly Jewish cuisine people here wrote already. In many areas of life we were one nation, for centuries. It is sad, though understandable, that today we mostly concentrate on the period (WWII and preceding years) when it came crashing down. That lesson, a bitter one, has to be thought over...
But there is a good reason why the (much hyped, and justly so) new Warsaw "Polin" museum focus is on "how Jewish people LIVED here. For centuries."
Significant part of Polish (beloved) literature (culture in general) was created by Polish-Jewish authors. It is so integrated people do not even think about it. In many professions (even today) there is an intertwined mix of Polish and Jewish authority figures (whole mixed master-apprentice lineages, with people really not caring "who is who"). About "surprising identity" of supposedly Polish and supposedly Jewish cuisine people here wrote already. In many areas of life we were one nation, for centuries. It is sad, though understandable, that today we mostly concentrate on the period (WWII and preceding years) when it came crashing down. That lesson, a bitter one, has to be thought over...
But there is a good reason why the (much hyped, and justly so) new Warsaw "Polin" museum focus is on "how Jewish people LIVED here. For centuries."
6
Szafran, I share your view on how intertwined both cultures have been. I used those arguments for years, and yet the Polish Jews were always that, Polish Jews, even if they felt completely assimilated.
Prof. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, an esteemed member of the Polish Academy of Science, asked rhetorically why the Polish Jews are called that that instead of Jewish Poles (akin to Polish Americans, not American Poles). Her answer, which I readily subscribe to, is that the homogenous cultures always need "Others" (Inni) to be blamed for the societal ills, and the Jews constituted those "Others".
Prof. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, an esteemed member of the Polish Academy of Science, asked rhetorically why the Polish Jews are called that that instead of Jewish Poles (akin to Polish Americans, not American Poles). Her answer, which I readily subscribe to, is that the homogenous cultures always need "Others" (Inni) to be blamed for the societal ills, and the Jews constituted those "Others".
4
The notorious entrance gate pictured, with its large ironic slogan, "Arbeit Macht Frei," is almost identical to large wrought iron gate of Sachsenhausen, the largest of the concentration camps i survived.
On a personal note, in 2008 I tried to get Joe Berger involved in pursuing and debunking the Herman and Roma Rosenblat hoax. We exchanged a lot of correspondence about it, but he finally decided that as a son of Holocaust survivors he did not wish to put the prestige of the NYT behind this effort. When The New Republic finally published an expose on Dec. 28, 2008, under the title, "The Greatest Story Ever SOLD," Joe Berger sent me a brief e-mail, "Watch the front page of the Times tomorrow." There appeared a prominent article written by Joseph Berger and Mokoto Rich.
On a personal note, in 2008 I tried to get Joe Berger involved in pursuing and debunking the Herman and Roma Rosenblat hoax. We exchanged a lot of correspondence about it, but he finally decided that as a son of Holocaust survivors he did not wish to put the prestige of the NYT behind this effort. When The New Republic finally published an expose on Dec. 28, 2008, under the title, "The Greatest Story Ever SOLD," Joe Berger sent me a brief e-mail, "Watch the front page of the Times tomorrow." There appeared a prominent article written by Joseph Berger and Mokoto Rich.
1
Incredibly moving piece. My family came from Ukraine; only one of my grandfather's many cousins survived the war. We found him and his family a decade after the war ended. They were living in Tashkent, and some of them still do. So much was lost in fires sparked by hatred: lives, families, history, culture. Jews in Poland made important contributions throughout Polish society. What a tragedy that their impact now only exists in plaques on walls or in museum glass cases.
3
Dear Joe Berger,
What a moving story!
I am familiar with some of the facts you recount. I am a Holocaust survivor born in 1930 in Slovakia.
When I once visited Warsaw I saw what you call the Picturesque Old Town and was well aware that it was recreated well after WWII. I, too did enjoy the Polish food which reminded me of the food of my native Slovakia.
You write about the Kielce pogrom after the War. In fact, Poland was the only country where Jews were murdered AFTER the War. As one Israeli diplomat once commented, undiplomatically, but correctly, "The Poles drink anti-Semitism with their mother's milk."
The small Nozyk synagogue is the only one in Warsaw that survived because the German army used it as a stable for their horses. It has been lovely restored in the 1970's. When I visited it I only saw it as a Jewish tourist site. I am glad to hear that Sabbath services were reignited in it.
I also saw the Umschlagplatz with the long list of Jewish victims incised it it.
On your map of Polish sites you show a part of Slovakia. My native town of Trenčin was located there, directly south of Auschwitz. The latter was the grave of 2/3 of Slovakia's Jewish population.
The tumbledown cemetery you mention reminds of may similar ones in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
More memories. While I was never a prisoner of Auschwitz, I did survive six German concentration camps and well recall the triple-tired bunks you mention.
Peter Kubicek
Author of "Memories of Evil"
What a moving story!
I am familiar with some of the facts you recount. I am a Holocaust survivor born in 1930 in Slovakia.
When I once visited Warsaw I saw what you call the Picturesque Old Town and was well aware that it was recreated well after WWII. I, too did enjoy the Polish food which reminded me of the food of my native Slovakia.
You write about the Kielce pogrom after the War. In fact, Poland was the only country where Jews were murdered AFTER the War. As one Israeli diplomat once commented, undiplomatically, but correctly, "The Poles drink anti-Semitism with their mother's milk."
The small Nozyk synagogue is the only one in Warsaw that survived because the German army used it as a stable for their horses. It has been lovely restored in the 1970's. When I visited it I only saw it as a Jewish tourist site. I am glad to hear that Sabbath services were reignited in it.
I also saw the Umschlagplatz with the long list of Jewish victims incised it it.
On your map of Polish sites you show a part of Slovakia. My native town of Trenčin was located there, directly south of Auschwitz. The latter was the grave of 2/3 of Slovakia's Jewish population.
The tumbledown cemetery you mention reminds of may similar ones in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
More memories. While I was never a prisoner of Auschwitz, I did survive six German concentration camps and well recall the triple-tired bunks you mention.
Peter Kubicek
Author of "Memories of Evil"
5
I would never go back to Poland and contribute to their economy. We were returned to Poland in 1945 and were sent to Warsaw,Prague, the old section. As identified jews, because my father was the rabbi in a temporary Jewish center, we were subjected to intense antisemitism, my sister and I, aged 5 and 7, were threatened and hounded by teenage boys with their parents tacit encouragement. It was unsafe for us to go out and play. I must say we were adorable little girls with big blue eyes and bone thin. It made me have little faith in 'human' nature.
7
Last summer my wife and I searched for my mother's small town in Germany to find that it no longer existed. We found in that location on the map instead a circular street of homes constructed in the past 60 years with no town to be seen. We went to the nearest post office in a neighboring town - no one knew anything about my mother's town - an elderly postal worker was called in and he verified that the circular street was where it had been long ago - it was flattened during the war. He directed us to where he though we could find the Jewish cemetery where relatives were buried but after speaking with cemetery workers, it seems like that place too was gone. Very sad, gave us an empty feeling.
3
This is a beautiful article about the tragedies of history (and contemporary society) and the possibility for healing. I would recommend the magnificent Polish poets, such as Anna Kamienska and Adam Zagajewski, who speak about their nation's crimes honestly and humanely, while also reminding us that there is much to admire and love in Polish culture. All countries, certainly including the U.S., have produced both beauty and horror. I have to believe in forgiveness, not forgetting, or life would be unbearable.
6
"Their nations crimes". Is that in conjunction with the holocaust and Poland? The holocaust was perpetrated by Germans. maybe you mean Germany's crimes.
6
What a strange coincidence to happen upon this report on contemporary Jews searching for their heritage among its remnants in Poland just two days after I viewed Wladyslaw Pasikowski's gripping 2012 film "Pokłosie" (released in US as "Aftermath"). The latter is set in 2001, which one hopes accounts for its diametrically different take on Polish anti-Semitism than this article's more positive view. But it's hard to imagine that the wide scope and level of intensity of anti-Semitism as reflected in the film could have disappeared or dissipated as significantly as the article suggests in the last 14 years. In any case, like the film "12 Years a Slave", "Poklosie" deserves to be seen by everyone who has any curiosity about history of humanity's darkest, most evil periods. The same is true about the need to view the existing physical reminders of the worst of these periods, many of which are located in Poland.
"Poklosie" and this article allow me as an American to take some tiny comfort in knowing that we are not the only people who still have not rid ourselves of the demons and evil that once plagued our nation. For racism continues to rear its ugly head in the US just as anti-Semitism undoubtedly still runs through the veins of many Poles. But what is more disturbing is that Polish anti-Semitism was, according to the film, fueled in part by greed for the lands and homes of Jews; black Americans did not possess property that whites desired. Their racism stems purely from hate.
"Poklosie" and this article allow me as an American to take some tiny comfort in knowing that we are not the only people who still have not rid ourselves of the demons and evil that once plagued our nation. For racism continues to rear its ugly head in the US just as anti-Semitism undoubtedly still runs through the veins of many Poles. But what is more disturbing is that Polish anti-Semitism was, according to the film, fueled in part by greed for the lands and homes of Jews; black Americans did not possess property that whites desired. Their racism stems purely from hate.
5
Pokłosie is not a documentary - it is a feature film and should be recognized as such. To treat it as a fact based film document is erroneous.
What you appear not to be aware of (nor are most of the commentators) that only in Poland would an individual as well as their family be executed for aiding Jews. There are documented cases of children, infants and babies being slaughtered because their parents aided Jews. Would you be willing to risk your child's life?
What you fail to note is that entire populations shifted provinces and fled wildly from one occupation zone to another - and then the war shifted them yet again. When the war was over there were so few houses standing that yes - people occupied vacant houses. Were all blameless? No. But to condemn a nation without studying the facts reflects poorly on your ability to be logical.
My mother was arrested by the Soviets in 1940 and sentenced to the GULAG, one cousin died at the hands of the Nazis and the other at the hands of the Soviets (vide Wilejka jail 1941), while two other cousins were exiled to Kazakhstan. After the war the seven houses my Grandfather built for them were occupied by Belarussians. We never received compensation - and we did not accuse the peasants of stealing our property. No - we are not Jews.
Look to Roosevelt who failed to stop the Holocaust.
What you appear not to be aware of (nor are most of the commentators) that only in Poland would an individual as well as their family be executed for aiding Jews. There are documented cases of children, infants and babies being slaughtered because their parents aided Jews. Would you be willing to risk your child's life?
What you fail to note is that entire populations shifted provinces and fled wildly from one occupation zone to another - and then the war shifted them yet again. When the war was over there were so few houses standing that yes - people occupied vacant houses. Were all blameless? No. But to condemn a nation without studying the facts reflects poorly on your ability to be logical.
My mother was arrested by the Soviets in 1940 and sentenced to the GULAG, one cousin died at the hands of the Nazis and the other at the hands of the Soviets (vide Wilejka jail 1941), while two other cousins were exiled to Kazakhstan. After the war the seven houses my Grandfather built for them were occupied by Belarussians. We never received compensation - and we did not accuse the peasants of stealing our property. No - we are not Jews.
Look to Roosevelt who failed to stop the Holocaust.
10
Although I would agree that Pokłosie is a film that has raised a number of very important issues regarding Poland's past and present, I would hesitate to take the film at face value. It is a caricature (albeit a very serious one) of rural Polish attitudes towards the Jewish question. There is much truth, however, it is greatly exaggerated and the present reality is nowhere near as grim as it is portrayed in the film. The film made it seem that, in the present, for every town full of people there were only one or two "righteous" individuals. This is simply false.
I will add that the film's director, Wladyslaw Pasikowski, has stated that the film was not meant to be a historical drama or reenactment, but a thriller (http://culture.pl/pl/dzielo/poklosie). He has taken a number of liberties to make a point, and as an artist had every right and reason to do so, but the film itself should not be taken as an accurate portrayal of Polish attitudes towards Jews.
I will add that the film's director, Wladyslaw Pasikowski, has stated that the film was not meant to be a historical drama or reenactment, but a thriller (http://culture.pl/pl/dzielo/poklosie). He has taken a number of liberties to make a point, and as an artist had every right and reason to do so, but the film itself should not be taken as an accurate portrayal of Polish attitudes towards Jews.
8
Jamie Nichols: "Pokłosie" is a film intended (in part) to force us POLES to discuss and face all the facts we would rather not know about our history. It is an intentionally drastic caricature. It is meant to shock *us Poles*. It intentionally exposes and inflates the most darkest corners of our history. It intentionally runs against all the conventional (true) stories of Polish wartime heroism, victimization etc. In Poland it is a very important film ("Ida" is another). But, for heavens sake, do not take it as an comprehensive historical document.
There was (and still is) a campaign in Poland against those movies ("Pokłosie" and "Ida"), where the main argument is "someone outside of Poland will see this movies and get the skewed picture of the issues". I always thought this campaign stupid, I could not believe anyone sane would see those movies and claim "wow, now I know really all about Poland and the times". I repeat, those movies are fundamental (among other things) in our Polish internal debate about our past (and yes, they underscore some true things).
But, sadly, after reading your post, I HAVE to concede that that one argument (people will see Poland exclusively through these movies) is valid. Which for us Poles does not change much, I do not intend to be stopped from open discussion of EVERYTHING, by people like you, who pick some bits and claim "now I know everything about them Poles".
There was (and still is) a campaign in Poland against those movies ("Pokłosie" and "Ida"), where the main argument is "someone outside of Poland will see this movies and get the skewed picture of the issues". I always thought this campaign stupid, I could not believe anyone sane would see those movies and claim "wow, now I know really all about Poland and the times". I repeat, those movies are fundamental (among other things) in our Polish internal debate about our past (and yes, they underscore some true things).
But, sadly, after reading your post, I HAVE to concede that that one argument (people will see Poland exclusively through these movies) is valid. Which for us Poles does not change much, I do not intend to be stopped from open discussion of EVERYTHING, by people like you, who pick some bits and claim "now I know everything about them Poles".
2
Poland was the only place I have ever traveled or lived where I felt uncomfortable. Perhaps its my ancestry as a Polish Jew (whose family did not get out in time), but I have to think it was the good-natured, blank looks that I received from almost all the Poles I talked with when they protested, "I don't understand why everyone thinks that Poland is/was anti-Semitic!" This is not to say that these people weren't lovely, kind, and of a generation that is not, in fact, responsible for the pogroms and violence that my family experienced, but it was jarring nonetheless. I found this innocence to be very much contrasted with the experience I had speaking to Germans, and even other Eastern Europeans. Moreover, it did emphasize the feeling that the Jewish Quarter in Krakow was a shiny, contrived "Jewish Disneyland" that bordered on offensive.
8
You say you felt uncomfortable? Yes - Poles can ask the question and wonder why - their nation was leveled with the earth and attacked by two nations (Germany and the USSR - and no on ever asks why the USSR sought to aid Germany for 18 months in its plans to destroy the Jews). Had the Soviet Union not attacked Poland from the east, and had the Western Allies kept their word - Poland would not have become a playing ground for the Nazis.
The Polin Museum was built with public funds - and a significant (20 million zloty) contribution to it was made by Jan Kulczyk (who died one week ago). Yes there were contributions from American Jews - but the majority of funding came from Poland including the land it stands on.
The Polin Museum was planned so that the grandchildren of those who lived before the war and their children could learn about a prewar Poland which had more Yiddish press than any other nation. How could that press have existed if there was such discrimination?
Too many of the people writing here know half facts or less and make undocumented allegations. If a person doesn't know that Minsk is the capital of Belarus - but writes about going to Minsk, Russia in 2015 - then there is a problem.
I would (and do) feel more uncomfortable walking in a country like Denmark that had its own native SS brigade - and now camouflages that - rather than in Poland where your bunk mate in Auschwitz could be a Christian Poles.
The Polin Museum was built with public funds - and a significant (20 million zloty) contribution to it was made by Jan Kulczyk (who died one week ago). Yes there were contributions from American Jews - but the majority of funding came from Poland including the land it stands on.
The Polin Museum was planned so that the grandchildren of those who lived before the war and their children could learn about a prewar Poland which had more Yiddish press than any other nation. How could that press have existed if there was such discrimination?
Too many of the people writing here know half facts or less and make undocumented allegations. If a person doesn't know that Minsk is the capital of Belarus - but writes about going to Minsk, Russia in 2015 - then there is a problem.
I would (and do) feel more uncomfortable walking in a country like Denmark that had its own native SS brigade - and now camouflages that - rather than in Poland where your bunk mate in Auschwitz could be a Christian Poles.
8
I too am struck by your statement that you felt "uncomfortable" when you visited Poland - and then, the only explanation you provide is that the Poles were giving you good-natured blank stares when you asked them about Polish anti-Semitism. I think this explains why you felt uncomfortable - you were accusing those people of something that they truly didn't understand because they have no memory or experience of that (after all, there is no sizable Jewish presence in Poland), and the Poles you meet in Poland now have never participated in persecuting any Jews.
Deep down, you must have been upset that those Poles would not confirm what you believe to be true. Had they done so, you would be pleased and vindicated. Could it be that it was you who caused your own discomfort?
You can't have good relations with the Poles, or make them think of Jewish people highly, if you only relate to them from such a negative, angry, and accusatory place in your heart. There were good Poles, and they were bad Poles (and which ethnic group does not have black sheep?). What needs to happen is for the Jewish people to stop imposing collective responsibility on the Poles for something that transpired 70-80 years ago.
After WW2 Poland had a number of high-level Jews in its communist security apparatus (installed by Stalin) who tortured & executed anti-communist Poles who were political prisoners. Would you like those victims descendants to blame YOU for that?
It's time for forgiveness, sister.
Deep down, you must have been upset that those Poles would not confirm what you believe to be true. Had they done so, you would be pleased and vindicated. Could it be that it was you who caused your own discomfort?
You can't have good relations with the Poles, or make them think of Jewish people highly, if you only relate to them from such a negative, angry, and accusatory place in your heart. There were good Poles, and they were bad Poles (and which ethnic group does not have black sheep?). What needs to happen is for the Jewish people to stop imposing collective responsibility on the Poles for something that transpired 70-80 years ago.
After WW2 Poland had a number of high-level Jews in its communist security apparatus (installed by Stalin) who tortured & executed anti-communist Poles who were political prisoners. Would you like those victims descendants to blame YOU for that?
It's time for forgiveness, sister.
11
Just a few days ago, I and my closest cousin visited our moms' family's hometown, Biala Podlaska, two hours east of Warsaw.
We stayed there for 2 days and left feeling very emotional, lucky to have done it together, closer to our moms, connected to that town in a strange way. It is picturesque, quiet, and peaceful. But at night, I tried to envision the streets we got to know, as sites where the destruction of an entire Jewish community was unfolding. the sounds of shooting, cries of horror were very real to me. The dissonance was jarring.
Biala P is in our blood. We both felt that we had come home. At last.
We stayed there for 2 days and left feeling very emotional, lucky to have done it together, closer to our moms, connected to that town in a strange way. It is picturesque, quiet, and peaceful. But at night, I tried to envision the streets we got to know, as sites where the destruction of an entire Jewish community was unfolding. the sounds of shooting, cries of horror were very real to me. The dissonance was jarring.
Biala P is in our blood. We both felt that we had come home. At last.
10
Yael Liber: welcome home. As any, much good and bad. Where your heart is.
6
Thank you for the reminder of how Europe murdered its Jews, that when people complain about Israel and think that Jews are too sensitive about the possibility of genocide, well, here is why. People who enjoy the nostalgia of Fiddler on the Roof are minimizing the role of the Cossacks. Because it was not just the Nazis. Because that was the Ukrainians and the Poles and the Lithuanians...and centuries of life are no more and even the tombstones are broken.
9
This comment is an unwitting example of the ignorance a lot of people have about this part of the world. The Cossacks uprising in the 1600s was largely directed against Polish landowners and the Jews who worked on those estates, located deep in what is today's Ukraine, but what was then part of the Polish empire. The Jews and Poles were on the same side... and the Ukrainians were on the other side. Lots of Poles and Jews were killed by the Cossacks. That is why even in today's Poland the leader of that uprising, Bohdan Khelmnitsky, is considered an evil criminal who ushered in the demise of the Polish state - and why in Kiev, Ukraine, you will see a statue of him, for he is a nationalist hero to them.
It's important to temper strong beliefs with a bit of independent study. The anecdotes we heard from grandma about the old country are only a small part of the story, not the entire universe of knowledge worth knowing.
It's important to temper strong beliefs with a bit of independent study. The anecdotes we heard from grandma about the old country are only a small part of the story, not the entire universe of knowledge worth knowing.
9
An old Jew was passing my house.
He stopped and started conversation.
He was from Kalisz, emigrated to UK in 1927 as a child.
'For most of my life, I thought the Poles were like Nazis' he said.
'Now I know it was lies' he added.
He is 95 year old.
He stopped and started conversation.
He was from Kalisz, emigrated to UK in 1927 as a child.
'For most of my life, I thought the Poles were like Nazis' he said.
'Now I know it was lies' he added.
He is 95 year old.
7
Has anyone ever heard of a town in Poland called Rachonisc? Not positive of the spelling. I think the town no longer exists. Trying to trace my family. Last name is Frost. Believe that is the original name. Thanks.
Do You know any other details about that town? Are You sure that it was town not village? In what part of Poland it could be located?
Marilyn, Polish borders shifted in 1945 so it might be located in Ukraine or Belarus. Do you recall what area of Poland or the name of the nearby city?
1
Rakoniewice maybe?
It seems most of the efforts at preservation of Jewish history in Poland have been undertaken by American Jews. Is there any real doubt that Poland and Ukraine remain two of the most anti-Semitic countries on earth -- although their lack of any remaining Jews must make it hard for them. Also there are so many countries vying for the lead in this dubious distinction that it may be silly to label any country the most anti-Semitic. There are so many to choose from.
1
Really? most of the efforts?
The land for the Polin Muzeum was donated by the Polish government - not purchased by American Jews. The Polish government gave millions of zlotys. A Polish Christian gave 20 million zlotys.
Do you think a museum could have been built without government support on government owned land?
Why are buildings being returned to the Jewish Community and to individual Jewish property owners? Buildings located in the center of cities on valuable land... tell me how those of us whose families came from the east and lost all of their property can feel when Belarus does not make any restitution?
I would ask you - are you aware of the Wołyn Massacre? 60,000 Poles murdered and hacked to pieces by the UPA and Banderowcy. Yet today, Poland has accepted over a million Ukrainians as refugees from the conflict. It chooses to aid those who need help rather than solely remembering the violence.
Perhaps you could read about the ethnic policies of Stalin - and how that impacted on the countries of Eastern Europe - occupied by the Soviets as a result of FDR's acquiescence. It is Stalin who forced a policy on those nations of de-ethnicizing the German crimes and making them a general crime 'against the peoples of'.
I wonder - do you drive a Mercedes or a BMW? Own a Krups appliance? I don't and won't...
The land for the Polin Muzeum was donated by the Polish government - not purchased by American Jews. The Polish government gave millions of zlotys. A Polish Christian gave 20 million zlotys.
Do you think a museum could have been built without government support on government owned land?
Why are buildings being returned to the Jewish Community and to individual Jewish property owners? Buildings located in the center of cities on valuable land... tell me how those of us whose families came from the east and lost all of their property can feel when Belarus does not make any restitution?
I would ask you - are you aware of the Wołyn Massacre? 60,000 Poles murdered and hacked to pieces by the UPA and Banderowcy. Yet today, Poland has accepted over a million Ukrainians as refugees from the conflict. It chooses to aid those who need help rather than solely remembering the violence.
Perhaps you could read about the ethnic policies of Stalin - and how that impacted on the countries of Eastern Europe - occupied by the Soviets as a result of FDR's acquiescence. It is Stalin who forced a policy on those nations of de-ethnicizing the German crimes and making them a general crime 'against the peoples of'.
I wonder - do you drive a Mercedes or a BMW? Own a Krups appliance? I don't and won't...
6
My husband and I also just completed a roots-seeking trip through Galician Poland. In fact, we used the same guide and met the same man in the Lancut synagogue, and even the same executive director of the Jewish History Institute in Warsaw. And if you read the posts I blogged after the trip, you'll hear the same notes of ambivalence.
http://writemorereadless.blogspot.com/2015/05/roots-expedition-to-przewo...
One thing I'd like to add: Most Poles on the street are too young to bear any guilt for actively or passively helping Nazis. If they're now living in a house stolen from Jews, it's passed through at least two generations since. It's perhaps the absence of guilt that frees them to be sincerely curious about the missing Jewish ten percent of Poland, and helpful to us American Jewish roots-seekers.
http://writemorereadless.blogspot.com/2015/05/roots-expedition-to-przewo...
One thing I'd like to add: Most Poles on the street are too young to bear any guilt for actively or passively helping Nazis. If they're now living in a house stolen from Jews, it's passed through at least two generations since. It's perhaps the absence of guilt that frees them to be sincerely curious about the missing Jewish ten percent of Poland, and helpful to us American Jewish roots-seekers.
4
No, it is Poles knowledge that for 500 years they accepted Jews and allowed the Jews to live in peace. Poland was famous for being the most religiously tolerant country in Europe. I do ask you to do some reading of Polish history -- it is unique and surprising. Please read about the 'General Charter of Jewish Liberties', a wonderfully enlightened document dating from 1264 that was the legal basis that allowed Jewish life in Poland to flourish during a time when Jews were expelled from England and France and ultimately Spain and persecuted to death in Germany. This is why Poland became home to the largest community of Jews in the world.
7
The Jewish Community of Poland has received many buildings which were owned by the Jewish Community and private owners have also had many properties returned to them. In fact, in Warsaw there was a major issue over a mikvah, considered a landmark, which was returned to the Nozyki Synagogue which wanted to demolish the property.
As for people living in Jewish apartments - my Warsaw grandparents lived in an area that was incorporated into the Small Ghetto - just as the Jews received orders to move - identical orders were given to the Christians. They had limited time to leave and a limit on what they could take. They were told where they could live - and clearly the apartment on Chmielna Street where they moved had been a unit occupied by a Jewish family.
With respect to humor – somehow none of the authors want to condemn the NEA and PBS for broadcasting a Michael Tilson Thomas program where Slavic Christian women are referred to as Shiksa Kurwas - demeaning them as women, Christians and Slavs – a Christian Twat. Why is that not offensive?
With respect to Denmark and other countries – Poland was the only European nation which did not have an Polish SS division – look up Denmark, Belgium and France – even look up England – their own personal SS division.
Look up Jan Karski who reported on the Extermination of Jews (and the Polish government in Exile published) in 1943 – Justice Frank said he did not believe Karski – for the Germans could not do this.
As for people living in Jewish apartments - my Warsaw grandparents lived in an area that was incorporated into the Small Ghetto - just as the Jews received orders to move - identical orders were given to the Christians. They had limited time to leave and a limit on what they could take. They were told where they could live - and clearly the apartment on Chmielna Street where they moved had been a unit occupied by a Jewish family.
With respect to humor – somehow none of the authors want to condemn the NEA and PBS for broadcasting a Michael Tilson Thomas program where Slavic Christian women are referred to as Shiksa Kurwas - demeaning them as women, Christians and Slavs – a Christian Twat. Why is that not offensive?
With respect to Denmark and other countries – Poland was the only European nation which did not have an Polish SS division – look up Denmark, Belgium and France – even look up England – their own personal SS division.
Look up Jan Karski who reported on the Extermination of Jews (and the Polish government in Exile published) in 1943 – Justice Frank said he did not believe Karski – for the Germans could not do this.
7
Thank you for this article, which truly brought me to tears.
I have been to Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic, being interested not only in travel, but in Jewish history and the Holocaust. I found that Poland is much more anxious to address its history of antisemitism than Germany, where it still openly exists today. One short example - at Dachau, there were many Germans wearing lederhosen and laughing constantly, making a big joke of everything. I did not see this at all in Poland.
It's true, as one person wrote, that there is a street in Krakow (which is practically Jew-free) that is sort of a Jewish Disneyland, with restaurants serving Jewish food, and several Klezmer music bands (composed of non-Jews). On the one hand, yes, this is Jewish Disneyland, but on the other hand, it does keep certain traditions alive in a city that, happily was not bombed and flattened like Warsaw, has four synagogues, even though only one is used for services
My grandparents were born in the Minsk area of Russia;my paternal grandparents specifically from Berezin and Shotsk. I only have one brother, who has no interest "beyond Ellis Island," and even so, is now unable to travel, and his children, who are adults, have no interest.
This article, however, has made me want to go to Minsk and hire a guide to satisfy my hunger for information about my ancestry.
This article has made me want to go to Russia again and hire a guide in Minsk to discover more about my ancestors.
I have been to Poland, Russia and the Czech Republic, being interested not only in travel, but in Jewish history and the Holocaust. I found that Poland is much more anxious to address its history of antisemitism than Germany, where it still openly exists today. One short example - at Dachau, there were many Germans wearing lederhosen and laughing constantly, making a big joke of everything. I did not see this at all in Poland.
It's true, as one person wrote, that there is a street in Krakow (which is practically Jew-free) that is sort of a Jewish Disneyland, with restaurants serving Jewish food, and several Klezmer music bands (composed of non-Jews). On the one hand, yes, this is Jewish Disneyland, but on the other hand, it does keep certain traditions alive in a city that, happily was not bombed and flattened like Warsaw, has four synagogues, even though only one is used for services
My grandparents were born in the Minsk area of Russia;my paternal grandparents specifically from Berezin and Shotsk. I only have one brother, who has no interest "beyond Ellis Island," and even so, is now unable to travel, and his children, who are adults, have no interest.
This article, however, has made me want to go to Minsk and hire a guide to satisfy my hunger for information about my ancestry.
This article has made me want to go to Russia again and hire a guide in Minsk to discover more about my ancestors.
5
Poland is not addressing its history of anti-Semitism. All those who believe this are showing a woeful ignorance of Polish history. From the Middle Ages to its loss of independence in the late 1700s, Poland was renowned throughout Europe as a tolerant land that allowed free practice of religion. Poland was the only major country in Europe to avoid the Protestant-Catholic wars when the Polish king decreed that faith was a matter of personal conscience. Poland was a safe harbor for Jews until Poland lost its own independence, its official Jewish policy being enshrined in the enlightened 'General Charter of Jewish Liberties' dating from 1264. From 1573, Polish kings were constitutionally obligated to reassert this document. Polish history is fascinating and surprising--read one of the books by Norman Davies or Adam Zamoyski. In WWII, it was Poles who tried to alert the western allies to the Nazi slaughter of the Jews; Poland was the only country, despite the brutal German occupation that expelled, enslaved, murdered millions of Poles, where the Germans declared the death penalty for Poles helping Jews such was the Polish help for Jews. A Yad Vashem study concluded that Polish collaboration with the Nazis was negligible (Ukrainians and Lithuanians have much to answer for but unfortunately those with superficial knowledge of history throw in the Poles as well--guilty by regional proximity). But Poles know their pro-Semitic history and want to celebrate it.
7
If you want to visit Minsk, you propably should know, that Minsk is not in Russia.
This is city in Belarus, and it looks like this is its capital city.
This is city in Belarus, and it looks like this is its capital city.
2
My grandfather was from a small Russian town called Torchin. He survived the cossacks and came to the USA sending for family members and starting the Torchiners Society to bring other Jews from his town to the USA. By the time WW2 came Torchin was apart of Poland and then the Ukraine. In 1941 the Germans arrived and in 1942 they executed the remaining Jews by marching them into the Jewish cemetery. My grandfather's last family member was the Mayor. He and his family were not able to leave because of the outbreak of WW2. There are no Jews left in Torchin.
7
This moving article brought tears to my eyes. One branch of our family is from a small town in the Carpathian mountains in an area that was Czechoslovakian at the time of World War II and which is now part of the Ukraine. That branch of our family was incarcerated at Auschwitz-- some died and others, thank G-d, survived,
Another branch of our family was from the town of Kobryn, which I believe shifted back and forth between Poland and Russia. Kobryn was part of Poland when members of our family emigrated to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Thank you for bringing your journey to the attention of the Times' readers. It is heartening to learn that the legacy of Jews in Poland and in the Carpathian Mountains remains, however faintly. I will be sharing this article with family members and am grateful for it.
Another branch of our family was from the town of Kobryn, which I believe shifted back and forth between Poland and Russia. Kobryn was part of Poland when members of our family emigrated to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Thank you for bringing your journey to the attention of the Times' readers. It is heartening to learn that the legacy of Jews in Poland and in the Carpathian Mountains remains, however faintly. I will be sharing this article with family members and am grateful for it.
7
My father, a Holocaust survivor, was born and raised in Kobrin. He fled the town when the Nazis came. His family perished.
My paternal grandparents come from that area, my grandfather from Munkacs and my grandmother from Sevlush. Nearly all of their relatives perished in Auschwitz. My mother and I plan to go back to Poland to trace her family, but given the political climate I doubt I'll return to my father's family's homeland anytime soon.
Thank you for this article.
And in case the author is reading these comments--I loved your memoir, Displaced Persons!
And in case the author is reading these comments--I loved your memoir, Displaced Persons!
1
At 68 I continue to be shocked that an entire culture - so rich in the humanities, could so effectively be wiped out. Well, we did it to the American Indians and to the Aboriginals of Australia. But that was then; Poland, the Third Reich, those things happened practically in our lifetimes. But, Serbia, Bosnia, Rwanda...and Palestine happened and continue to happen. Hate and fear lives on; it continues to produce genocide. It is a challenge of our civilisation to inoculate ourselves against the fruits of our being.
6
Stevemid makes an excellent point, however, to equate the situation in Palestine, by which I assume you mean the West Bank and Gaza strip, to the genocides in Rwanda, the native Americans, or the Aborigines is inaccurate. As unfortunate and problematic as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is, it is not characterized by genocide. The populations of Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have increased dramatically over the period of Israeli occupation, which, in the case of Gaza, ended in 2005. It is worth recalling that Israel only came to occupy these areas as a consequence of the Six Day War of 1967, which was initiated by Israel's neighboring Arab countries. Had that war not happened, there would have never been any occupation. And had the 1948 war not happened (a war that was also initiated by the neighboring Arab countries), there would never have been any Palestinian refugees in the first place.
9
Consider checking the spelling of "16 Krasinaskiego." I suspect it should be Krasinskiego. Also, is it standard NYT practice to omit diacritic marks in foreign names? It's an honest question - if you do this consistently, I suppose it makes sense.
1
I have NO interest in going to a place where the air is filled with the ashes of my exterminated family. The crematoria did their jobs. My parents were not only children, yet I have no aunts, uncles or cousins. Paying to go to Poland? Funding the exterminators of my family? I think not.
21
Your family was exterminated by Nazis, not by Poles. The Poles may have been anti-Semitic, but they didn't cause the Holocaust and were killed into the millions by the Germans at the same time. If your neighbor doesn't like you and someone comes from out of town, beats your neighbor savagely, and then kills you, it isn't your neighbor's fault just because they didn't like you.
16
What an appallingly ignorant, malicious and false statement. Poland - along with Ukraine and Belarus - was the site of the deathcamps because that was where the Nazis invaded and where the vast majority of Jewish people lived. Note the 'lived' - it was the the Nazis that exterminated them.
Poland fought Germany from the start of the war until the bitter end. Italy, Austria, Romania and Hungary were actual allies of Nazi Germany, while Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and others abetted them in many ways. However, I have no doubt that you choose to ignore this and target your venom and prejudice to your own particular obsession. Utterly contemptible.
Poland fought Germany from the start of the war until the bitter end. Italy, Austria, Romania and Hungary were actual allies of Nazi Germany, while Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and others abetted them in many ways. However, I have no doubt that you choose to ignore this and target your venom and prejudice to your own particular obsession. Utterly contemptible.
25
Fifty-five years ago, in a Danish youth holiday camp I met a Polish Jewish survivor who had spent the war years fighting in the forests as a Partisan. He told me that his Jewish band of partisans were as likely to be attacked and killed by Polish partisans as by Nazi soldiers. So rebuke Ladysmith for her feelings about Poles. I understand her.
2
Have I missed something?
How come no one including the author of the article has mentioned Claude Lanzmann's 1985 film Shoah.
His chilling interviews with Polish people living in former Jewish homes are unforgettable.
How come no one including the author of the article has mentioned Claude Lanzmann's 1985 film Shoah.
His chilling interviews with Polish people living in former Jewish homes are unforgettable.
23
This was a lovely, touching, and fair-minded story. But some of the comments I found here made me cringe. They are the ones that talk about having visited Poland, and then say unkind, heavily accusatory, hyper-critical things about Poles -- like, "Oh they are just creating tourist traps for us" (not to mention the blanket statements about Polish anti-semitism that paint all Poles with the same brush, which is painful to those Polish people who do not have an anti-Semitic bone in their body -- I have met many; and I think they are a majority).
If some folks here see the efforts by the Poles to make Jewish visitors welcome as something to complain about, then please don't visit that country. It's like going to somebody's home as part of a dinner invitation, and then afterwards mercilessly criticizing and gossiping about the hosts. If you can't appreciate the hospitality, please don't visit Poland. If you don't like the efforts of many Poles to make the country welcoming to you, why don't you go to Germany instead?
Actually, there are sites in Germany that relate to pre-WW2 Jewish life. If this article was about visiting Germany in search of Jewish roots, somehow I have a feeling that the comments here would be more measured, not as hostile to contemporary Germans. The people who live in today's Poland don't deserve the constant bashing either.
If some folks here see the efforts by the Poles to make Jewish visitors welcome as something to complain about, then please don't visit that country. It's like going to somebody's home as part of a dinner invitation, and then afterwards mercilessly criticizing and gossiping about the hosts. If you can't appreciate the hospitality, please don't visit Poland. If you don't like the efforts of many Poles to make the country welcoming to you, why don't you go to Germany instead?
Actually, there are sites in Germany that relate to pre-WW2 Jewish life. If this article was about visiting Germany in search of Jewish roots, somehow I have a feeling that the comments here would be more measured, not as hostile to contemporary Germans. The people who live in today's Poland don't deserve the constant bashing either.
31
I assure you that Jewish feelings toward German history are even less kind than the damning retelling of Polish history. Jews didn't live in shtetls while they were welcome elsewhere. They lived there because they were required to .
2
Thank you, Eva. I am horrified reading some of the posters comments suggesting to set entire Poland on fire or other things taken straight from the Mein Kampf. The same things Nazis were saying about Jews in the prewar Germany. Chauvinism and hate is the most contagious disease humans ever carried and this vicious circle needs to stop!
1
It was interesting to see the country I live in through the eyes of an American Jew with roots in Poland and Ukraine. Thank you.
The thing to remember about Poland is how heavily its population invested after WWII in promoting homogeneity. Not only Jewish but also German, Ukrainian or Lithuanian heritage have been pushed out of the national psyche and everyday reality. I'm 32 and coming from a small town in the south-west that used to be German territory before WWII (with strong Jewish presence http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/boleslawiec/5,history/) but it wasn't until very recently that I realized how important it was. This complex heritage and history were not - in any way - part of my growing up - not in school, not at home, not in books we read back then. Things do improve, but slowly. There are efforts by public institutions to document and present diversity and complexity in the region's past. Initiatives in major Polish cities (eg. music festivals) have helped to raise the issue.
Sadly, the everyday reality of Poland is that there is next to no Jewish community and honestly - why should there be after decades of neglect and silent hostility? To me Poland's homogeneity, intended by policymakers after WWII as its large asset, is one of the country's biggest liabilities in the 21st century.
Let me also mention that many educated Poles begin to understand our ancestors' role in the Holocaust and the pogroms. I feel great sadness about what happened on this soil.
The thing to remember about Poland is how heavily its population invested after WWII in promoting homogeneity. Not only Jewish but also German, Ukrainian or Lithuanian heritage have been pushed out of the national psyche and everyday reality. I'm 32 and coming from a small town in the south-west that used to be German territory before WWII (with strong Jewish presence http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/boleslawiec/5,history/) but it wasn't until very recently that I realized how important it was. This complex heritage and history were not - in any way - part of my growing up - not in school, not at home, not in books we read back then. Things do improve, but slowly. There are efforts by public institutions to document and present diversity and complexity in the region's past. Initiatives in major Polish cities (eg. music festivals) have helped to raise the issue.
Sadly, the everyday reality of Poland is that there is next to no Jewish community and honestly - why should there be after decades of neglect and silent hostility? To me Poland's homogeneity, intended by policymakers after WWII as its large asset, is one of the country's biggest liabilities in the 21st century.
Let me also mention that many educated Poles begin to understand our ancestors' role in the Holocaust and the pogroms. I feel great sadness about what happened on this soil.
44
Michal, you wrote: "To me Poland's homogeneity, intended by policymakers after WWII as its large asset, is one of the country's biggest liabilities in the 21st century." I strongly disagree with that. You forget your nation's history. Generations of Polish patriots sacrificed their lives to put Poland back on the map of Europe. None of the minorities who lived on Polish lands were helping with resurrecting your country. Now, with the relentless push for embracing muslim migration and multiculturalism from the EU bureaucrats, Poland cannot survive as a country and culture unless it protects its homogeneity. Some commenters here alas couldn't care less.
1
The dark truth is that in Eastern Europe the Nazis found strong support for their anti-semitism. Many Poles, Ukranians, Russians were all too eager to start their own little pogroms and to round up jewish citizens for the incoming SS troops.
The Germans as a society have largely atoned from the horrible crimes of their forebears, and among the younger generations you will hardly find any anti-semites (I work with Germans on a daily basis and I have several German friends, and in many years I have never witnessed even the slightest whiff of anti-semitism). Whether this is true of the populations further to the East, I am not really so sure.
The Germans as a society have largely atoned from the horrible crimes of their forebears, and among the younger generations you will hardly find any anti-semites (I work with Germans on a daily basis and I have several German friends, and in many years I have never witnessed even the slightest whiff of anti-semitism). Whether this is true of the populations further to the East, I am not really so sure.
20
As you to elegantly stated if the Germans have largely atoned from the horrible crimes of their forebears then why haven't they returned the art work and the property to the Jewish families that the Nazi's stole from during the war?
17
You are showing your ignorance here. Poland fought the Germans from start to finish. An independent Swedish analysis suggested that there was less than a thousand collaborators out of a population of 25 million in Poland. At the same time thousands of Poles risked their lives helping Jews. There were many more Nazi supporters in the USA and the UK at that time. At the end of the War, the US and UK "gave" away Poland to the Soviets, where the country suffered again for 50 more years. At the same time massive US aid went in to re-building the German economy. No people apart from Jews and Gypsies suffered more during the war than the Poles. If you want to look at countries which were not dealt with for their Nazi collaboration, than look no further than Russia.
9
Poland is not part of this 'dark truth' -- Poland protected its Jews for 500 years and gave the Jews great freedom under the 'General Charter of Jewish Liberties' dating from 1264. Please do read Polish history and I am sure you will conclude that when Poland was free and peaceful life for the Jews was free and peaceful -- when Poland suffered, as in WWII as at least 3 million Poles perished (beng 15% of the pre-war number of Poles, probably the highest mortality rate of any ethnic group in WWII other than the Jews), the Jews suffered. It is an amazing and laudable history of which most people are ignorant.
4
Beautiful article, very moving. Unfortunately some of the reader comments display a pretty thin knowledge of Polish-Jewish history. The real story is complicated and fills volumes. The history doesn't - if we are being honest - support either an anti-Polish or an anti-Semitic narrative, notwithstanding attempts by partisans on both sides.
Poland is the land of the Statute of Kalisz (issued in 1264) and religious liberties that were centuries ahead of their time; it's the land of Jozef Pilsudski, pre-war dictator and great friend of the Jews; it's the country with the most Righteous Gentiles recognized by Yad Vashem for saving Jews during the Holocaust. If Poles are to take pride in these accomplishments, they must also accept the darker side of the story: pogroms against Jews which flared up in the early 20th century; the Kielce pogram; the fact that there were too many Poles who actively collaborated with Nazis.
But it is also a mistake to view Poland's Jews as simply a meek group of victims throughout their 1000 year history in Poland. Especially in the early 20th century, Jews played an incredible role in the economic and intellectual development of Poland... Half the doctors in pre-war Poland were Jews, not to mention the greats who illuminated other fields (Alfred Tarski, Stanislam Ulam, Artur Rubenstein). But there were other who used their talents for evil (e.g., Jakub Berman, Stalin's right hand man in Poland). The story is complicated and worth exploring.
Poland is the land of the Statute of Kalisz (issued in 1264) and religious liberties that were centuries ahead of their time; it's the land of Jozef Pilsudski, pre-war dictator and great friend of the Jews; it's the country with the most Righteous Gentiles recognized by Yad Vashem for saving Jews during the Holocaust. If Poles are to take pride in these accomplishments, they must also accept the darker side of the story: pogroms against Jews which flared up in the early 20th century; the Kielce pogram; the fact that there were too many Poles who actively collaborated with Nazis.
But it is also a mistake to view Poland's Jews as simply a meek group of victims throughout their 1000 year history in Poland. Especially in the early 20th century, Jews played an incredible role in the economic and intellectual development of Poland... Half the doctors in pre-war Poland were Jews, not to mention the greats who illuminated other fields (Alfred Tarski, Stanislam Ulam, Artur Rubenstein). But there were other who used their talents for evil (e.g., Jakub Berman, Stalin's right hand man in Poland). The story is complicated and worth exploring.
35
Thank you for sharing your experiences, it most definitely awakens again my reading related to the lost past and histories of European Jewry. My go-to resource is actually the Holocaust commemorative museum in Montreal and the Jewish Public library which houses the Yizkor books of the village/communities of European jewry and the tales of each individual, remembered. (also accessible via NY Public Library digital/YIVO records as well). Numerous times i have returned to read Martin Gilbert's _Holocaust Journey: Travelling in search of the Past_ in order to trace bare elements of a lost-family-history. In my youth i thought most of Europe, a graveyard - of fallen soldiers, wars, concentration camps and pogroms. Experience and remarks from a friend who was a hidden child by Polish Christians during the war strongly reminded me that there were good people in Poland who helped her and her mother and sister to survive, and that not all Poles, and others were to be condemned.
12
all very sad, more of man's inhumanity to man. there is no explanation that would satisfy any of the people who suffered and died, probably hoping until the very end someone would save them. whether the perpetrators were Gernam Nazis, Polish Nazis, or just the rest of the world who did nothing, it is a moot point for those who died.
6
Jeanne, sorry to disagree but I must with respect to this being a moot point. History is our best predictor of the future. The ever present anti-semitism throughout Europe today needs to be taken very seriously.
25
I would say that anti-Semitism has almost disappeared in Europe, regardless of what you read in the NYT. Today's European anti-Semites are mostly radical Muslims immigrants.
The Muslims themselves are the new Jews, there must be at least 10 times more "anti-Muslimism" than anti-Semitism around.
Some right wing racists even wave the Israeli flag and think that Netanyahu is great guy and a brother in arms.
The history may repeat itself in unexpected ways.
The Muslims themselves are the new Jews, there must be at least 10 times more "anti-Muslimism" than anti-Semitism around.
Some right wing racists even wave the Israeli flag and think that Netanyahu is great guy and a brother in arms.
The history may repeat itself in unexpected ways.
1
I must have been at the Jewish Community Center in Krakow at the same time as Mr. Berger on the evening that the bicycle riders completed their ride from Oswiecim (the Polish name of the town). The JCC held a Shabbat meal in its courtyard for the riders, its members and other guests after the riders completed their tour. For me, it was something, even though I am not religious, to sing the same Hebrew songs and the same Jewish foods that I knew from America, in the land of my ancestors without fear. (There was no security there.) To me, being able to walk around Krakow and Poland and dine at the JCC, was an opportunity to laugh at Hitler, to say I am here and we are here and you are not. I am sure the bike ride would really rub it in to Hitler. Maybe next year....
I would urge all to visit Poland, it is a pretty country and Krakow is a pretty city. I would caution you that you will see Jewish stars crossed out. This is related to a football rivalry between supporters of Wisla and Cracovia, which is considered to be a "Jewish club" even though it has no Jews and their supporters are not Jewish. (The biggest "Jewish" clubs in the world are Ajax in Amsterdam and Tottenham Hotspur" in London). I love sports rivalries but you can only do so much about ignorance.
I would urge all to visit Poland, it is a pretty country and Krakow is a pretty city. I would caution you that you will see Jewish stars crossed out. This is related to a football rivalry between supporters of Wisla and Cracovia, which is considered to be a "Jewish club" even though it has no Jews and their supporters are not Jewish. (The biggest "Jewish" clubs in the world are Ajax in Amsterdam and Tottenham Hotspur" in London). I love sports rivalries but you can only do so much about ignorance.
9
Why, Why do we refuse to use the word Germans, when we talk about all this atrocities were committed? Nazism was an ideology, a political party...
11
This article is about Poland, not Germany.
Virtually the entire German population supported the Nazi regime and contributed, either actively or passively, to the virulent Jew-hatred that became the Holocaust.
16
Don't forget about the French. They let the Germans into Paris and then helped them round up all the French Jews for deportation to be slaughtered.
6
I would like to see information about how to get help claiming restitution for the homes and property of formerly German grandparents murdered by the Nazis, and whose property is now part of Poland. Specifically, Gleiwitz, Germany is now Gliwice, Poland. There seems to be no way to claim the property. Whatever its value may be I feel it is a question of justice. Yet, Poland, as far as I know still has no restitution plans or agreements. I have met recently immigrated American Poles and asked them if they knew of anyone in Poland who might help. They all immediately clammed up and refused to discuss it. So much for Poles feeling contrite or wishing to make amends.
8
Poles can be extremely defensive about this. Many were only too happy to take over Jewish homes and businesses after the mass deportations and killings during World War II. There is a deep sense of entitlement to ownership of these properties now, some 75 years and many generations later - and also "Why should we (Poles) pay the price for something done by the Germans? It wasn't us." I am afraid you will find virtually no assistance in pursuing a claim - nor much sympathy.
Watch the Oscar-winning film "Ida" for a very telling exposition of this issue.
Watch the Oscar-winning film "Ida" for a very telling exposition of this issue.
4
Maybe they just didn't know -- I've worked for state and local government in the US and most people don't know squat about what programs are available and what government does.
3
I would not suggest it. One might recall the Jews freed from concentration camps, returning home after the war only to be murdered by Poles who feared they might try to reclaim their stolen homes.
19
The attempt to reestablish a Jewish presence in Poland is pitiful. There is no reason for any Jew to live in that country with its centuries old history of pogroms and deep anti-antisemitism. Memorials and museums have become a focal point for Israelis to remember why they need their own country and perhaps to remind the gentiles exactly how the Jews of Europe were mistreated for a millennia. But why any Jew would go back to those cursed lands to live is beyond my understanding.
20
If you went to visit Krakow and the Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierz, you would be able to relax. It is a nice place to be, no security or tension, other than what is caused by the Cracovia-Wisla football rivalry which one can avoid. The JCC was VERY relaxed and warm, not what I expected.
4
Jews were invited and welcomed to Poland from places like Spain, etc. Jews thrived in Poland and the Polish anti-semitism that you are referring to mostly took place when the rest of Europe and even the US was spouting this vile language and actions against Jews. Poland was the only country in Europe during WWII that rejected the Nazi ideology and fought against it. I am amazed at the misinformation and the vitriol of so many Jewish Americans against Poles. I really think you are being way too hard on Poles and that you should come and visit yourself. I have lived here for 20 years and am not Jewish, but I have only seen attempts here to reconcile and amend for any past grievances, and have never seen resistance against these attempts, rather the opposite. There have been no incidences of anti-semitism at all when the Jewish Museum was built in Warsaw. Please, take a chance and come and visit, it is totally safe for Jews here and you will be welcome like most of the commenters here have said. If you have a history here you owe it to your relatives to seek the truth and to see that there are way more positives than negatives when talking about the cohabitation of Poles and Jews on this land through the centuries.
10
"Poland was the only country in Europe during WWII that rejected the Nazi ideology and fought against it." What incredible nonsense! Has the role of the UK in WWII slipped your mind? Poland fought for a few weeks and then was defeated. While there was a Polish Resistance, there was a reason why Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor were located in Poland, while no such facilities were located in the Netherlands or Belgium or Occupied France. Nor was Poland the only occupied country that had a resistance. Bulgaria, while aligning with the Axis in pursuit of its own territorial interests, nonetheless protected its Jews from Nazi extermination, although it failed to protect the Jews of Greek Macedonia then under Bulgarian control (for which it has very recently apologized). Poland offered no such protection for its Jews. Denmark was invaded and occupied, but facilitated the escape of its Jews--Poland didn't. Individual Poles behaved heroically and suffered greatly--Occupied Poland did not behave heroically. And then there was the vicious anti-Semitism that reared its head in Polish post-Iron Curtain politics. leading to references to "anti-Semitism without Jews." Sorry, we are not fooled.
6
Wroclaw - which was Breslau when part of Germany - has important Jewish heritage sites that are rich and resonant. Most significant is its Jewish cemetery, which the Nazis did not destroy; its tombs, some of which are Moorish in design, are elaborate and beautiful. It is a place of deep peace and repose which, oddly, stirred me to anger: here, it seemed to me, were the "surviving" Jews of Poland - the ones who had names. It was heartening to see that families were beginning to return and bury their dead in those tombs again - new life in death for that sacred place.
There are several synagogues in Wroclaw and a small, somewhat restored, Jewish quarter. I was told that the synagogues suffered more structurally from neglect during the Soviet era than from the Nazis.
Despite the evident attention paid to Wroclaw's Jewish heritage, during nearly two months I spent teaching English there with a group from New York, several of us were appalled to hear a number of casual anti-Semitic remarks from Poles we encountered. While this by far did not represent our experience there, it was sobering.
The Poles take great pains to remind visitors that, for instance, the depravities of Auschwitz were not theirs - they insist that it be called "the German camp at Oświęcim." But, as in many occupied European countries, their hands were not entirely clean.
There are several synagogues in Wroclaw and a small, somewhat restored, Jewish quarter. I was told that the synagogues suffered more structurally from neglect during the Soviet era than from the Nazis.
Despite the evident attention paid to Wroclaw's Jewish heritage, during nearly two months I spent teaching English there with a group from New York, several of us were appalled to hear a number of casual anti-Semitic remarks from Poles we encountered. While this by far did not represent our experience there, it was sobering.
The Poles take great pains to remind visitors that, for instance, the depravities of Auschwitz were not theirs - they insist that it be called "the German camp at Oświęcim." But, as in many occupied European countries, their hands were not entirely clean.
16
I have been to that cemetery and it is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever seen. Regarding your comment about the casual jokes about Jews, I have seen even worse: Jewish jokes on national TV with one person dressed in full traditional Jewish clothing, fake wig with braids and all. As an American I was in complete shock that this type of humor would be on national TV. However we must remember that Jews lived here for hundreds of years, millions of them, and that this type of insensitive humor, although ignorant and insensitive, comes from not a place of hate, but rather, in my opinion, can be compared to the same 'anti-PC' humor that is in the news today when referring to minorities, women etc. Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Amy Schumer, Sennis Miller and others are being accused of insensitivity. Does it mean they hate the minorities about whose traditions they are laughing about? No. To observers in the States who see Jewish jokes on TV in Poland it seems horrible. But in the context of 400 years of cohabitation, they treat Jews as 'one of us' in a sense: very familiar, old roommates where there is no harm in laughing. There are just as many Polish jokes that Jews have that are very specific to Poland only, such as the 'Idiot from Chełm", etc. I don't agree with any humor that is ethnic or attacks minorities, women etc in any way, but you need to take things in context.
5
The context is....millions died, not so long ago, in a country filled with hatred and bloodshed.
My grandmother was Ukrainian and came from Galicia a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Joseph the Emperor was against antisemitism. My grandmother a Catholic said the Jews and Christians all got along. Her part of Galicia had a population which was 40% Jewish. During WWI the Russians burned 9000 villages. You can only imagine how the people suffered. My grandmother came to the United States around 1910. The world lost much as a result of two World Wars.
9
Re Rogoloe who writes: "Saying that Poles can't deal with their past is proof of ignorance or just inability to understand that the real disscusion about polish-jewish history is constant in polish society for 30+ years."
I was born in Poland to the family of the Holocaust survivors who, after WWII, had returned there in 1945. We, together with twenty thousand other Jews, left Poland in 1968 as a result of the March events, when the government's anti-Jewish campaign forced into exile its Jewish population. (Jews were stripped of their citizenship prior to their emigration.)
While, as Rogoloe posits, it is true that there is a revival of Jewish life in Poland, it is also true there are hardly any Jews left in Poland. The synagogues, festivals, and the new Warsaw Jewish Museum, all deal with the past, and aptly underline that there was once a rich Jewish presence in Poland, but that is no more.
The resentment toward Jews in still well and alive. Recently, during the presidential debate, Andrzej Duda (then a presidental hopeful) reproached Bronisława Komorowski (then Polish president) for asking for forgiveness at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Jedwabne massacre which resulted in the death of at least 340 Polish Jews, locked in a barn set on fire by a group of Polish males. According to Duda, Komorowski, by doing so, has only been perpetuating the myth of Polish participation in the Holocaust.
I was born in Poland to the family of the Holocaust survivors who, after WWII, had returned there in 1945. We, together with twenty thousand other Jews, left Poland in 1968 as a result of the March events, when the government's anti-Jewish campaign forced into exile its Jewish population. (Jews were stripped of their citizenship prior to their emigration.)
While, as Rogoloe posits, it is true that there is a revival of Jewish life in Poland, it is also true there are hardly any Jews left in Poland. The synagogues, festivals, and the new Warsaw Jewish Museum, all deal with the past, and aptly underline that there was once a rich Jewish presence in Poland, but that is no more.
The resentment toward Jews in still well and alive. Recently, during the presidential debate, Andrzej Duda (then a presidental hopeful) reproached Bronisława Komorowski (then Polish president) for asking for forgiveness at a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Jedwabne massacre which resulted in the death of at least 340 Polish Jews, locked in a barn set on fire by a group of Polish males. According to Duda, Komorowski, by doing so, has only been perpetuating the myth of Polish participation in the Holocaust.
29
Dorota: well, one Polish President makes honest apologies. Another (Duda is due to be sworn in a couple of days) criticizes this. This is about how it is here. A really heated, often name-calling debate about antisemitism, among us Poles. It has to go for about a generation. I wish people had more guts to face the truth, more true pride and more humility. But it will come. Patience.
3
If you are Dorota from Gizycko, please contact me. Thank you!
Not sure what the masculine equivalent of Pollyanna is - but Mr Berger's article reflects just such a rose colored view of Poland's Jewish heritage. Go to a Polish soccer match and see the mass Hitler salutes in the stands. Listen to the chants against the opposing side of "Jew Jew." Listen to the tourist guides in Krakow who say amongst themselves that they are in the "Jew business" Lots of unpleasantness remains. Thank goodness my parents escaped & I don't have to live there.
48
This is part of the nasty Cracovia-Visla rivalry that unfortunately, tourists will not understand when they see graffiti showing Jewish stars crossed out. Cracovia is considered to be the "Jewish club" and has its own fervent fans, virtually none who are Jewish.
5
Bill, thanks for the additional background. For me the relevancy is that the term "Jew" is used as a pejorative, not that it is an ignorant one.
6
You wrote: "Lots of unpleasantness remains." If that was the case, wouldn't the Bergers notice it and report on it too? I think you are just attached to a certain narrative -- so you see what you want to see. There is also a lot of anti-Polonism in many comments here - in my opinion unwarranted.
2
I would t even give the the airport tax after the crimes perpetrated against Jewish people
10
Wonderful article. So many of the same feelings evoked by my own visit to Poland in the mid 1990's with my husband's family and other Holocaust survivors and their children. A piece of a Jewish gravestone from the now-forested cemetery of their hometown Zwolen, saved by a Pole, became the starting point of my novel "A Day of Small Beginnings." As we left town that day, after a series of extraordinary encounters, the first line of the story came to me as if someone had said it aloud: "When I went to my rest in 1905, I was 83 and childless, aggravated that life was done with me and that I was done with life..."). It is a country of ghosts as much as it is of strange living phenomena (the Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival, for certain). But there is a breath of something healthy going on in Polish-Jewish relations - a 1000 year old history that continues to surprise.
9
Thank you for a beautiful article. It is very timely for me. Just this week I have been listening to audio tapes my grandmother recorded in the 1990s detailing over 6 or 7 hours her life, starting with her upbringing as a poor Jew in Warsaw in the 1920s and 1930s, her pivotal decision in late 1939 at age 18 to run away to Russia with the man who would be my grandfather right before the Ghetto sealed in her family, the treacherous trip to Russia and the hungry war years in Russia trying to keep herself and her baby alive, then returning to Warsaw to find almost no living relatives and a population that did not welcome her. One thing that my grandmother said over and over and over on the tapes was how terribly the Polish treated the Jews and how lovely the Russian people were to her at her most desperate.
I have been inspired to learn as much as possible about my family's history (on the other side, they were hungarian jews who fared about the same). Your article has definitely inspired me to plan a trip to Warsaw in the near future to trace my roots. I want to take my mother on this trip, she was born in Poland and has never returned since leaving as a young child. She has mixed feelings about going, she can't shake the memory of her mother's hatred for Poland and the Polish people, but we are both drawn to see the place where so many of our relatives lived and died.
I have been inspired to learn as much as possible about my family's history (on the other side, they were hungarian jews who fared about the same). Your article has definitely inspired me to plan a trip to Warsaw in the near future to trace my roots. I want to take my mother on this trip, she was born in Poland and has never returned since leaving as a young child. She has mixed feelings about going, she can't shake the memory of her mother's hatred for Poland and the Polish people, but we are both drawn to see the place where so many of our relatives lived and died.
8
The Red Army entered Grodno, having Jews as guides.
My aunt with two little boys managed to escaped to the German occupied Poland. My uncle, Edward Jasionowski, was not so lucky, he, his wife, Tamara, and a boy (5 year old, don't remember his name) were killed by the Reds.
Both - the aunt and the uncle were betrayed by their Jewish neighbours as being anti-Soviet's.
My aunt with two little boys managed to escaped to the German occupied Poland. My uncle, Edward Jasionowski, was not so lucky, he, his wife, Tamara, and a boy (5 year old, don't remember his name) were killed by the Reds.
Both - the aunt and the uncle were betrayed by their Jewish neighbours as being anti-Soviet's.
3
It's quite astonishing how many of the commentators here ignore the fact that the holocaust was conceived and executed by Nazi Germans, somehow blaming Poles for it and treating it as an outcome of Polish anti-semitism.
Two facts are important to counter this hateful delusion:
* Poland had more of the "righteous among the nations" than any other
* Poles fought the Nazis continually and never gave up, unlike so many others - today (August 1st) is the anniversary of the Warsaw uprising
That Warsaw today is not an especially attractive city and contains very few Jews is therefore not a revelation: the Nazis levelled the city and so many of its inhabitants were part of the 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million ethnic Poles murdered by the Nazis.
Calling Warsaw 'depressing' however is to choose to be blind to the astonishing fact that the city and its people survived and is now prospering, engaged and aware its Jewish history and present.
Two facts are important to counter this hateful delusion:
* Poland had more of the "righteous among the nations" than any other
* Poles fought the Nazis continually and never gave up, unlike so many others - today (August 1st) is the anniversary of the Warsaw uprising
That Warsaw today is not an especially attractive city and contains very few Jews is therefore not a revelation: the Nazis levelled the city and so many of its inhabitants were part of the 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million ethnic Poles murdered by the Nazis.
Calling Warsaw 'depressing' however is to choose to be blind to the astonishing fact that the city and its people survived and is now prospering, engaged and aware its Jewish history and present.
16
Although it cannot be claimed that antisemitism was universal in Poland, as perhaps best shown in Witold Pileski's reports from Auschwitz (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/books/review/the-auschwitz-volunteer-b..., yet it has a centuries-old history; and many Poles and Ukrainians were not only complicit with the Nazis during WWII (see Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners"), but evidently went to great lengths to participate personally in the murder of Jews and theft of their property after the war as well.
The "Jewish Disneyland without actual Jews" seems consistent Hitler's dream of reducing the Jewish people to a museum exhibit (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuhrermuseum).
The "Jewish Disneyland without actual Jews" seems consistent Hitler's dream of reducing the Jewish people to a museum exhibit (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuhrermuseum).
11
GPS: I think it is impossible to choose between the narrative "antisemitic Poles" and "heroic and tolerant ones". We are a big nation, with a rich (good and bad) history.
I would simply like to ask you to know both aspects of the story. It is a rich story.
I would simply like to ask you to know both aspects of the story. It is a rich story.
2
Warsaw is the most beautiful city in the world for what it went through. Warsaw was the last to surrender to Germany, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the first uprising against German Nazis and Warsaw 44 Uprising was the most heroic civilian resistance during the ww2. And Warsaw was rebuilt from ashes thanks to their people, who said no to turing this city into a Soviet socrealist kovhoz. Glory to my heroic city of Warsaw and their people!
2
I find it hard to understand this wish to visit concentration camps and towns where so many Jews were killed. My parents came from a town called Siedlece, escaped to the Soviet Union where they lived for 7 years and returned to Poland to find their home inhabited by a Polish citizen; he kindly allowed my father to come inside to look. His whole family had died in a concentration camp. I was very young when we left Poland and all I can remember is my mother's stories and her hate for the country. In fact my parents refused to speak Polish at home and we spoke only Yiddish. That hate is my unfortunate inheritance, and I cannot bring myself to visit either Poland or Germany. I will leave it to the next generation to forgive and forget.
21
I am not Jewish. I make it a point to visit synagogues, the camps, Jewish cemeteries that survived the Nazis, museums and other heritage sites in countries that were occupied during World War II - most recently Terezin in the Czech Republic and the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam - because I am able to manage the experience emotionally where many friends cannot, and because this is my way of paying tribute to those who suffered and perished - by remembering and asking questions.
My mother's family is German, but I will never visit Germany; I hate even changing planes in Munich. That's my point of resistance. Perhaps it's irrational - I know there has been change and atonement - but the thought makes me shudder.
My mother's family is German, but I will never visit Germany; I hate even changing planes in Munich. That's my point of resistance. Perhaps it's irrational - I know there has been change and atonement - but the thought makes me shudder.
14
Over the decades Germany has been facing its evil past. However, Germans were not alone in executing this monstrous crime. Almost all nations of Europe, even while victims in their own right, have had many collaborators that gladly contributed. My great-grandfather was killed by his Belarusian neighbors (a few kilometers away from the Polish border) by hammering nails into his skull. Their progeny still lives in my great-grandfather's house. Ukrainians today celebrate ethnic cleansers like Stepan Bandera as their national heroes. When the FBI director suggested that Poles were complicit in the Holocaust, the Poles were outraged and the Obama administration promptly apologized.
25
The Nazis killed 3 million Polish Jews... and also 3 million Polish non-jews. They cut off the flow of food to Polish cities, outlawed education for Poles, and planned to reduce them to a race of illiterate slave laborers while starving some of them in the Hunger Plan and eventually deporting the rest to Siberia.
That the Polish non-Jews could somehow have saved their Jewish fellow citizens from death in such an environment is a notion only a privileged American could have.
That the Polish non-Jews could somehow have saved their Jewish fellow citizens from death in such an environment is a notion only a privileged American could have.
3
Read Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" and see if it alters your point of view.
The Poles who declined to lift a finger to save their Jewish neighbors were perhaps a lot like the over-generalized "good Germans". Those Poles and Ukrainians who were so enthusiastic about the arrival of the Wehrmacht that they surpassed the Nazis in their zeal to kill Jews -- to the point where they had to be reprimanded not for mass murder but for being stupid enough to leave rotting corpses in the village square in July -- such people and their well-documented actions are not "notion(s) only a privileged American could have."
The Poles who declined to lift a finger to save their Jewish neighbors were perhaps a lot like the over-generalized "good Germans". Those Poles and Ukrainians who were so enthusiastic about the arrival of the Wehrmacht that they surpassed the Nazis in their zeal to kill Jews -- to the point where they had to be reprimanded not for mass murder but for being stupid enough to leave rotting corpses in the village square in July -- such people and their well-documented actions are not "notion(s) only a privileged American could have."
8
"Those Poles ... who were so enthusiastic about the arrival of the Wehrmacht..."
wow
Greg, Warsaw
wow
Greg, Warsaw
1
I am always surprised by people visiting Auschwitz or Treblinka as I just could not do it; I am fairly certain the anguish would be overwhelming.
18
When reading this article and praising the author, please remember: this is why Israel came to be. Because Jews were murdered everywhere, by everyone, by the Inquisition before pogroms, by pogroms before the Holocaust, by marauding mob after. Remember this when automatically hating Israel.
34
The tiny remnants of Jewish culture are serving as tourist trap in Poland. I went there a few years ago and came back with heavier hart than before the trip. The Jewish ghettos all over the Christian world were created long before the nazis, and that awful reality still permeates the air. Nobody forced pogroms on the Poles. They were murdering Jews before the Germans came, during and after. Sanitizing history is a dirty band-aid.
38
In May 2014 I traveled to Poland for the first time, accompanied by my husband and daughter, to participate in a ceremony to posthumously honor Andrej and Yosefa Siek as Righteous Among the Nations. They risked their lives and those of their entire family, to hide my father for two years during the German occupation of Poland. I was profoundly moved by the ceremony and, even more so, by the warm reception given to us by the Sieks' daughter, granddaughters, and great-grandchildren. But in my father's hometown of Krzeszow the Jewish cemetery is so overgrown that the grass reached my waist and completely covers the headstones. It took a very long time to find anyone who could point us to the mass grave of the 1500 Jews of Krzeszow and the surrounding towns killed in November 1942. I was, like Mr. Berger, very disturbed to find a thriving tourist industry in Krakow built upon the ghosts of Jews; the absence of the Jews themselves is palpable throughout Poland. The trip was the only one I've taken in which I recorded all of my complex emotions and reactions in writing, including the shocking discovery that Jewish food is also Polish food! And like Berger I came away thinking I'd seen, in Krakow, a Jewish Disneyland, or more precisely, a Fantasyland, without the inconvenience of actual Jews.
33
The 'Disneyland' in Krakow is an attempt to pacify all of the people who complain that there is not record of Jewish culture in Poland. It seems like Poles can't win for losing when it comes to their relations with Jews, according to Jewish Americans. The hatred that has been passed on to Jewish Americans to Poles is shocking, especially considering that all of the people that were anti-Semitic during the great fascist period of 1935-1945 are mostly all dead. Poland today is much more like the rest of Europe and there are many progressives here, even though there is still a lot of work to be done overcoming 70 years of occupation/isolation. Come and see for yourselves. I have not witnessed antisemitism at all in my 20 years living here, nor have my Jewish American friends that live here, at least they have never mentioned it if they did, and I think they would've.
2
Dorothy (my fellow H.S. classmate!), I, too, traveled to Poland last October in search of my roots. My grandparents came from the Łomza region, and mercifully came to the U.S. in the first decade of the 20th century. But after obtaining Polish birth records of them and their siblings, and birth, marriage, and death records of their ancestors, I had a burning desire to know more. We were there over the High Holidays, and participated in a pitifully-attended Yom Kippur service at the synagogue in Warsaw. We were the beneficiaries of indefatigable help by a group of millenials after my purse was stolen. We experienced nothing in the way of anti-Semitism. Yet, when we visited Krakow, we had the same reaction to the blatant commercialism of the Kasimierez district as you and others: more Epcot than Disneyland, this is a place whose mere existence is to profit from the Jewish-named restaurants, none of which are owned by Jews. I felt as if we'd been had. (Hope to see you at the reunion).
Years ago, I met a Polish Holocaust survivor. He told me that as a kid, pre-1939, he had at least one Catholic friend, and one day accompanied the friend to mass. He remembered--decades later--hearing the priest engage in some vicious anti-Semitism--*from the pulpit*.
And I've read countless books and articles about the Polish resistance, and in so many of them the non-Jewish Polish resistance fighters attack the Jewish resistance fighters.
I have also read that pre-war, the passports of Jews were stamped "Jew", while the passports ofnon-Jews indicated they were "Polish".
So....anti-Semitic Poles? You decide.
And I've read countless books and articles about the Polish resistance, and in so many of them the non-Jewish Polish resistance fighters attack the Jewish resistance fighters.
I have also read that pre-war, the passports of Jews were stamped "Jew", while the passports ofnon-Jews indicated they were "Polish".
So....anti-Semitic Poles? You decide.
26
MrDumbGuy: well, all you wrote is likely true. Just that today is 2015, according to the calendar. Things change. Come and see yourself. Yes, you will find still much to reproach. But this is work in progress.
One note - the incidents of killing of Jewish resistance fighters (true) are the responsibility of one of the fractions of Polish WWII era underground. Do not generalize this on the whole underground state. That fraction was fringe, and established by a political movement legally banned (by Polish state, due to a totalitarian program of this movement) before the war. Incidentally, the same fraction had been cultivated by communist authorities after 1945, but this is another story.
And please see the whole picture when looking at the past. One thing to consider: why the overwhelming majority of European Jews lived in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Was our well-known mild climate (those warm winters for example) so great that it, by itself, convinced them against living in arctic-like France for example?
One note - the incidents of killing of Jewish resistance fighters (true) are the responsibility of one of the fractions of Polish WWII era underground. Do not generalize this on the whole underground state. That fraction was fringe, and established by a political movement legally banned (by Polish state, due to a totalitarian program of this movement) before the war. Incidentally, the same fraction had been cultivated by communist authorities after 1945, but this is another story.
And please see the whole picture when looking at the past. One thing to consider: why the overwhelming majority of European Jews lived in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? Was our well-known mild climate (those warm winters for example) so great that it, by itself, convinced them against living in arctic-like France for example?
1
Some members our family came from Eastern Europe including Poland, Hungary as well as Russia. They immigrated to the United States long before the Nazis but during the time of the Cossacks and earlier virulent anti-semtism that pervaded much of the continent. They left everything behind and arrived here with only the clothes on their backs. One woman left after viewing the body of her younger sister on a pile of bodies in the streets, killed by Cossacks.
Two of our current family members returned to Poland and also, Buda-Pest, living there for a year. In Poland one saw the remnants of the concentration camps. She said that even though there are no Jews the hatred still remains. And in Buda-Pest, the younger family member reported that anti-Jewish sentiment runs very deep even 70 years after WWII. It lies just beneath the surface waiting to strike again.
There was once, a vibrant Jewish community in Poland, but it was always on the alert for those who would senselessly rape, maim, murder any Jew only because they are Jews. The "shetls" or Jewish ghettos of Poland and Russia existed because of the "May" laws that prohibited Jews from towns where the population did not exceed 10,000 people. Jews once prospered in Poland but after 1795 when Poland was destroyed as a sovereign state the influence of the increasing anti-semitism, the Jews found themselves generally unwanted and of course, victimized. At one point after WWI there were about 3 million Jews in Poland.
Two of our current family members returned to Poland and also, Buda-Pest, living there for a year. In Poland one saw the remnants of the concentration camps. She said that even though there are no Jews the hatred still remains. And in Buda-Pest, the younger family member reported that anti-Jewish sentiment runs very deep even 70 years after WWII. It lies just beneath the surface waiting to strike again.
There was once, a vibrant Jewish community in Poland, but it was always on the alert for those who would senselessly rape, maim, murder any Jew only because they are Jews. The "shetls" or Jewish ghettos of Poland and Russia existed because of the "May" laws that prohibited Jews from towns where the population did not exceed 10,000 people. Jews once prospered in Poland but after 1795 when Poland was destroyed as a sovereign state the influence of the increasing anti-semitism, the Jews found themselves generally unwanted and of course, victimized. At one point after WWI there were about 3 million Jews in Poland.
16
The horrible experience suffered by the Jews in Poland mirrors the African Holocaust.
Millions of Africans were killed in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, there was systematic rape, torture and humiliation.
The fact that Israel stands as a Nation and that African Americans will be the majority(with Latinos)population in the United States in less than 30 years, shows that hate eventually loses.
Let us never forget what the Jews and the Africans suffered, and let us awaken to the fact that Christians in the middle east are being systemically murdered today.
Millions of Africans were killed in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, there was systematic rape, torture and humiliation.
The fact that Israel stands as a Nation and that African Americans will be the majority(with Latinos)population in the United States in less than 30 years, shows that hate eventually loses.
Let us never forget what the Jews and the Africans suffered, and let us awaken to the fact that Christians in the middle east are being systemically murdered today.
6
I don't think the majority of Americans whatever their ancestry, have been hateful. That's one of the reasons people from all over the world regardless of race, ethnicity, religion etc., still immigrate here in such significant numbers.
Slavery? Sanctioned in the US Constitution. And the history of segregation still very much in living memory. This is the curse that made a lie of the Declaration of Independence, written by a slave-holder.
A word of caution: when Polish Jews attempted to return to their shtetls in the late 1940s, they experienced ugly, deadly pogroms at the hands of the Poles. In full knowledge that Shoah had occurred in Poland, this outrage should be remembered, I suggest, by not visiting that accursed land.
17
Some people of Polish ethnicity participated in shameful postwar anti-semitic campaigns, but you must ask yourself a very important question: who was in charge in Poland at that time? Who allowed, encouraged and provoked to these acts? Without bringing the proper context, you remark is nothing than hateful stereotyping
Articles like this about Poland come and go, especially when that nation attempts to cleanse its brutally anti-Semitic history.
My late grandfather, the Sanzer Rebbe, knew better and so after WW1 he brought almost all the people of his village out of Poland and to America. A true visionary, the Rebbe accurately foresaw the coming carnage in Poland and moved deftly so that he and his village would survive it. Poland, he said at the time, was no longer a safe place to be a Jew. Those who left survived. God knows what became of those who did not leave.
Trust in the sweep of history - not the PR of the moment.
My late grandfather, the Sanzer Rebbe, knew better and so after WW1 he brought almost all the people of his village out of Poland and to America. A true visionary, the Rebbe accurately foresaw the coming carnage in Poland and moved deftly so that he and his village would survive it. Poland, he said at the time, was no longer a safe place to be a Jew. Those who left survived. God knows what became of those who did not leave.
Trust in the sweep of history - not the PR of the moment.
17
Ah, yes, the Poles.
Anti-Semitic to a fault, they were so in favor of the Jewish genocide that Poland was the only country the Nazis conquered where they felt fully comfortable leaving the locals in charge of the extermination of Jews without needing much SS supervision.
I lost lots of family in Treblinka and Auschwitz, where Hungary's Jews were sent before the Hungarian death camps were built.
To this day, every surviving member of my family despises the Poles. No amount of 'touchy-feely rehabilitation of their image' articles like this one will change that one iota.
Anti-Semitic to a fault, they were so in favor of the Jewish genocide that Poland was the only country the Nazis conquered where they felt fully comfortable leaving the locals in charge of the extermination of Jews without needing much SS supervision.
I lost lots of family in Treblinka and Auschwitz, where Hungary's Jews were sent before the Hungarian death camps were built.
To this day, every surviving member of my family despises the Poles. No amount of 'touchy-feely rehabilitation of their image' articles like this one will change that one iota.
23
DD, i believe you were the one who viciously honked at me from behind last week when i stopped at Vine and Sunset to give way to a family of four on the pedestrian crossing.
2
In 2008, while in Warsaw for business, our group had a minivan guided tour of Warsaw. I was impressed by the Poles' recent interest in the extinct Jews of Poland. I had the clear sense that this interest was commercially driven rather than related to any real interest in Jews. The whole phenomenon is analogous to America's commercial exploitation of the Native Americans after we exterminated them. There was a lot of money to be made from Cowboy and Indian movies, souvenirs, etc. I believe the Polish interest in Jews in actually an interest in Jewish tourists and extracting money from a people they tried to exterminate in collaboration with the Germans. There is a thin veneer of interest and sympathy for the Jews. Just below the surface there is the same antisemitism that has existed in Poland for hundreds of years.
38
As a Pole, sincerely and honestly interested in the history of Jews in Poland, with many friends and family members who voluntarily talk about anti-Semitism in Poland's past and present openly and critically, this comment was very disappointing to read. This is not to deny that anti-Semitism does not exist - it does and I have witnessed it - but to state that it is the same anti-Semitism that has existed of centuries is false and unfair. The floods of groups and individuals who have visited the newly-opened Polin museum should serve as some proof.
I hope that another trip to Poland or conversations with more Poles will help dispel your impression.
I hope that another trip to Poland or conversations with more Poles will help dispel your impression.
3
"Just below the surface there is the same antisemitism that has existed in Poland for hundreds of years." And you know that how? You were there hundreds of years ago? Where is your evidence that there was anti-Semitism in Poland centuries ago?
If you knew the history of Jewish-Polish relations, you would know that what you wrote is not true. For centuries Poland was welcoming to Jews, and took them in when Western European nations banished them. The Jewish culture thrived in Poland because of the country's overall tolerance.
If you knew the history of Jewish-Polish relations, you would know that what you wrote is not true. For centuries Poland was welcoming to Jews, and took them in when Western European nations banished them. The Jewish culture thrived in Poland because of the country's overall tolerance.
3
"While charming, it was hard not to think of it as a Jewish Disneyland without actual Jews."
Sums it up. Poles fleeced and sheered Jews of their property on the way to the camps, and now fleece their surviving children who return as tourists.
The Shoah could not have happened in Poland without the the active collaboration of the Polish people.
Sums it up. Poles fleeced and sheered Jews of their property on the way to the camps, and now fleece their surviving children who return as tourists.
The Shoah could not have happened in Poland without the the active collaboration of the Polish people.
14
Racism, anti-Semitism thrive only when governments provide leadership for it, which may be as simple as purposefully turning a blind eye to the evil of some ordinary folk. The French authorities cooperated with the Nazis in rounding up the Jews. The Polish did not. The Ukrainians helped with the killing. The Poles did not. We visited Warsaw and saw the overgrown Jewish cemetery there and all the sad remnants of what was once a vibrant, fascinating community. The new museum had an exhibit on the contract between the King of Poland and the Jewish people, which dates way back (15th century?) and guaranteed the Jews basic protections under law, including the right to gain legal redress against theft or murder, as well protection from Gentile kidnapping of Jewish children. After so long as a relative haven for the Jews. The Jewish cemetery in Warsaw is being cared for. It is not entirely forsaken. We stayed in the "bad neighborhood" (Praga) across the Vistula.. I don't understand Polish, but my husband does and he asked me to take a picture of graffiti on the side of an old, brick wall, which said, "Jews we miss you." I do not believe that the Poles sense of loss over what happened in their country is just a way to encourage tourism. There is a terrible sorrow, terrible sense of guilt, at watching your fellow human beings being killed, while you are powerless to fight back. No pole says that they didn't know, because they also feared the concentration camps.
8
My great grandfather was murdered by the Poles during WW2/. Please do not tell me that they did not participate in the killing. Racism is not always led by the government which often reflects the racist attitude of its people which seldom changes over time.
Gwenda: thank you. Many people in Poland work, educate their children and whoever possible so that what you describe may become just plain normal. There is still much to do, the story truly winds over centuries.
1
Mark Shyres:
1. "My great grandfather was murdered by the Poles..." - not much to say here. As a Pole (2 generations later), I can only bow my head in shame. No argument about "how typical was it", "what the times were" can change the fact that your great grandfather had been murdered, most likely precisely because he was Jewish.
2. "racist attitude of (...) people which seldom changes over time" - here I would ask you to check yourself. If you come to Warsaw, check main post office for a message addressed to you (throughout the following year), it will have my phone number. I would ask you to talk with my son and/or his friends at school (they all know English well). Then think whether "seldom changes over time" applies here. Judge yourself. You know, also specific people, specific time (70+ years later).
1. "My great grandfather was murdered by the Poles..." - not much to say here. As a Pole (2 generations later), I can only bow my head in shame. No argument about "how typical was it", "what the times were" can change the fact that your great grandfather had been murdered, most likely precisely because he was Jewish.
2. "racist attitude of (...) people which seldom changes over time" - here I would ask you to check yourself. If you come to Warsaw, check main post office for a message addressed to you (throughout the following year), it will have my phone number. I would ask you to talk with my son and/or his friends at school (they all know English well). Then think whether "seldom changes over time" applies here. Judge yourself. You know, also specific people, specific time (70+ years later).
2
Polish poet Tadeusz Rozewicz, whose mother was Jewish, wrote a stark poem about the cemetery near Lesko:
Old Jewish Cemetery at Lesko
Beneath the tires
of wartime trucks
cemeteries
lie flattened
like a long country road
there
the earth’s gentle sighs
the Słone Mountains
quietly
float off into the sky
here
beneath the clouds
beneath the crowns of oaks
burrowed into the ground
bristling
with a black stubble
of tombstones
lies the Jewish cemetery
saved
from the pogrom of graves
beneath the clouds
which pass
and shimmer in silence
beneath the green crowns
of oaks
mourned by rain
it falls into time
into silence
Old Jewish Cemetery at Lesko
Beneath the tires
of wartime trucks
cemeteries
lie flattened
like a long country road
there
the earth’s gentle sighs
the Słone Mountains
quietly
float off into the sky
here
beneath the clouds
beneath the crowns of oaks
burrowed into the ground
bristling
with a black stubble
of tombstones
lies the Jewish cemetery
saved
from the pogrom of graves
beneath the clouds
which pass
and shimmer in silence
beneath the green crowns
of oaks
mourned by rain
it falls into time
into silence
12
I went to Poland last summer and visited the museums, the graveyards, the concentration camps, the forest mass graves, the Disneyland restaurants in Krakow and the so very interesting Krakow Jewish festival where young Poles listened to Klezmer music and Gentiles sold Hasidic dolls and key chains. The only Jews were the tourists, of course, but nonetheless it was thrilling to hear Klezmer bands from Brooklyn playing music outside of the Rubinstein hotel - the birthplace of Helena Rubinstein.
The highlight of my trip was visiting the towns were my grandparents were born, Bialystock and Lodz. In Bialystock a mass Jewish grave was turned into a park by the Russians and children play on sacred ground. The Jewish cemetery there was overrun and I could not find my family graves after hours of looking; but in Lodz we easily found the grave of my great grandmother and my cousin and I said Kaddish for her and shed tears.
Why do we go to Poland? I do not know. I know that my children will never go there, so I am glad I had the chance to bear witness and breathe the air of my ancestors.
Beautiful article Mr. Berger, thank you.
The highlight of my trip was visiting the towns were my grandparents were born, Bialystock and Lodz. In Bialystock a mass Jewish grave was turned into a park by the Russians and children play on sacred ground. The Jewish cemetery there was overrun and I could not find my family graves after hours of looking; but in Lodz we easily found the grave of my great grandmother and my cousin and I said Kaddish for her and shed tears.
Why do we go to Poland? I do not know. I know that my children will never go there, so I am glad I had the chance to bear witness and breathe the air of my ancestors.
Beautiful article Mr. Berger, thank you.
28
I have traveled to many parts of the world, and Poland is one of the most depressing places I've ever been. I am glad my family left far before they could be exterminated. Oddly enough, it is plausible that as things move forward in time, France will have no Jews and Poland will repent and allow us to flourish once again.
8
Poland will 'repent'? For what - being invaded by the Nazis who exterminated 20% of the population, including almost all Polish Jews?
Can you imagine how offensive it is to Poles to be told that they are responsible for the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews?
Your comment is truly deluded and hateful.
Can you imagine how offensive it is to Poles to be told that they are responsible for the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews?
Your comment is truly deluded and hateful.
4
Joseph, the author, crafts a heartening story of the awakening of hope amidst the harsh and unrelenting aftermath of the holocaust. Also, the article's photographs were beyond description beautiful. Thank you for sharing the private journey back so publicly.
10
I visited Krakow & Auschwitz in 1996. While walking around Birkenau, the larger of the 2 death camps there, I encountered a man from Milwaukee reciting Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. He had been a prisoner there and saw the rest of his family marched toward the gas chamber.
He talked at length about the experience. He said that s brutal and murderous as the Germans were, the inmates feared the Poles the most. He talked about how they spat on the Jews as their trams passed through Jewish ghettos, formed by the nazis. He had returned to see his childhood home, which had been seized illegally and was now inhabited by Poles. They refused to let him have a look and slammed the door in his face.
Poles were not all anti-Semitic. Many were, and have Jewish blood on their hands. Many live in homes that were stolen from their murdered Jewish compatriots.
He talked at length about the experience. He said that s brutal and murderous as the Germans were, the inmates feared the Poles the most. He talked about how they spat on the Jews as their trams passed through Jewish ghettos, formed by the nazis. He had returned to see his childhood home, which had been seized illegally and was now inhabited by Poles. They refused to let him have a look and slammed the door in his face.
Poles were not all anti-Semitic. Many were, and have Jewish blood on their hands. Many live in homes that were stolen from their murdered Jewish compatriots.
41
I just reread my notes from that conversation. Actually the Poles traveling through the Jewish ghetto did not just spit. They threw rocks at the Jews. When nazi Germany was defeated, the German staff fled Auschwitz leaving the inmates at the mercy of the Poles. Having survived to the end of the 3rd Reich, they were in even more fear for their lives until the Allied troops arrived to protect them.
6
"He said that s brutal and murderous as the Germans were, the inmates feared the Poles the most. He talked about how they spat on the Jews as their trams passed through Jewish ghettos, formed by the nazis. "
This man had seen his family marched to the gas chamber by the Nazis and had himself been enslaved by the Nazis, yet he was more afraid of being spat upon? This is - if not simply untrue - delusional. 3 million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis, not spat upon.
My workmate's father survived Buchenwald, Flossenburg and Dachau; it was the SS that made him fearful, and rightfully so.
This man had seen his family marched to the gas chamber by the Nazis and had himself been enslaved by the Nazis, yet he was more afraid of being spat upon? This is - if not simply untrue - delusional. 3 million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis, not spat upon.
My workmate's father survived Buchenwald, Flossenburg and Dachau; it was the SS that made him fearful, and rightfully so.
3
You wrote: "Many [Poles] live in homes that were stolen from their murdered Jewish compatriots." Many formerly Jewish homes in Poland were abandoned as a result of deportations to death camps and other Nazi atrocities. After the war, the country was in ruin and had an acute shortage of housing. There was a lot of displacement and homelessness (many people being pushed out from the eastern regions by the Soviets). The former Jewish homes became inhabited for that reason. Would you rather they stayed empty, and people were homeless?
3
I am at one with the dead --
* There * : done and said.
I would rather break bread
With the skeletal and toothless
Than deign to rub a shoulder
With the shiny-smiled truthless.
The thing thus done cannot be overcome
And disadmits accommodation --
This alone may be said in sum:
We are overdue at Otwock station.
* There * : done and said.
I would rather break bread
With the skeletal and toothless
Than deign to rub a shoulder
With the shiny-smiled truthless.
The thing thus done cannot be overcome
And disadmits accommodation --
This alone may be said in sum:
We are overdue at Otwock station.
12
Amazing poem.
Thank you for sharing it with us.
ישר כח
Thank you for sharing it with us.
ישר כח
My father was also a Berger (Moshe) from Tarnow Poland. I don't recall him ever saying he was Polish-only that he was "from" Poland. He and his brother were the only survivors in his family.
18
Journal Entry
June 19, 2015
We have arrived in Lesko to begin work on the restoration this morning. The individuals who greeted us – Arek our contact person and who helps with the arrangement and the hotel staff – are gracious and want so much to please us. One has the sense that there are people here who are genuine in their appreciation for us coming here (Arek among them and two other individuals who are volunteering to help us in our work). None of them are Jewish.
The Jewish Cemetery of Lesko, we are told, has over 2000 headstones; by far the largest number that Project Preservation has ever encountered. When I first began working in cemeteries, both on this project and as a Rabbi, I had a certain level of heightened sensitivity that I no longer have and I think that is simply due to the sheer volume of work. Just as the number of people who lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies of Western Civilization creates a numbing effect for any student interested in this study, so too does the reverse. This "let's get to work attitude" though dissipates as one begins to read the particulars of a given headstone; sometimes it that of a small child, a person who was "cut-down" in the middle of his or her life, an inscription that describes the person as learned, a scholar, or one who opened her home to the poor or to those in need.
Much has been deleted to meet the 1500 word max.
June 19, 2015
We have arrived in Lesko to begin work on the restoration this morning. The individuals who greeted us – Arek our contact person and who helps with the arrangement and the hotel staff – are gracious and want so much to please us. One has the sense that there are people here who are genuine in their appreciation for us coming here (Arek among them and two other individuals who are volunteering to help us in our work). None of them are Jewish.
The Jewish Cemetery of Lesko, we are told, has over 2000 headstones; by far the largest number that Project Preservation has ever encountered. When I first began working in cemeteries, both on this project and as a Rabbi, I had a certain level of heightened sensitivity that I no longer have and I think that is simply due to the sheer volume of work. Just as the number of people who lost their lives in one of the greatest tragedies of Western Civilization creates a numbing effect for any student interested in this study, so too does the reverse. This "let's get to work attitude" though dissipates as one begins to read the particulars of a given headstone; sometimes it that of a small child, a person who was "cut-down" in the middle of his or her life, an inscription that describes the person as learned, a scholar, or one who opened her home to the poor or to those in need.
Much has been deleted to meet the 1500 word max.
19
Go to:
http://www.polishsynagogue.com
To see a reproduction of part of a magnificent synagogue. Workers from all over the globe have come together to show how irrepressible the Jewish spirit is.
http://www.polishsynagogue.com
To see a reproduction of part of a magnificent synagogue. Workers from all over the globe have come together to show how irrepressible the Jewish spirit is.
10
On my mother's side of the family, both of my grandparents families lived in the same town in Poland. Miedzyrzec (pronounced Mizrich) is a city in the eastern part of Poland today. My grandmother's family emigrated to New York before WWI, but my grandfather, his sister and mother lived through WWI in Miedzyrzec and came to New York after the war. To the day he died, my grandfather did not consider himself Polish. That told me a lot. My mother and her aunts did go to Poland and visited Miedzyrzec. Unfortunately, the house my grandfather had lived in no longer stood. But they were able to visit the town and get a sense of where our family's journey began. Mr. Berger does a splendid job of describing the Poland and Ukraine of yesterday and today.
5
Linda wrote: "...my grandfather, his sister and mother lived through WWI in Miedzyrzec and came to New York after the war. To the day he died, my grandfather did not consider himself Polish. That told me a lot." What exactly did it tell you? Your grandfather did not consider himself Polish because he was NOT Polish. To be Polish in the early 20th century (before and during WW1) meant being a Polish Catholic. He was Jewish and living under Russian control (Poland did not exist as an independent state then; the Polish state was re-established in 1918).
3
My brother, Roberto, has been living in Warsaw for almost eight years. He speaks, reads, and is learning to write in Polish, and is married to a Polish woman. I think he is the only Chicano there...I visited last year, and what you say is true -- I am haunted by this country, we visited the death camp in Lublin, and it helped me understand my own family's dislocations and the trauma of war. I live in Texas, after all, which is one endless conflict. Thank you for your story.
13
Poland a hundred years ago was all very nice. But when the Jews of the Russian Pale had few places to go and little recourse left, most came to America-both North and SOuth and found numerous places where they fit in-some where they didn't but always an ability to move until they were comfortable. I am of a family that lived in Russia and Germany and the Austro Hungarian Empire. My family and extended members have done spectacularly well in the USA. So when I hear or read about the wonders of Jewsihs life in places like Poland or Russia \or Gewrmany, I am confused. What other than nostalgia, is it that can be found in places like these where, in the local languages they curse you and despise you for being a foreigner with money and a filthy Yid(eastern European equivalent of insulting name for Jews).
Why have so many rushed off to a desert war zone to live with religious fanatics when they could remain here, peacefully, among others of numerous religions? Why do so many Jews see justification and pride only the past of Jewish life in Shtetls and in a revived "Judea" which was never historically stable? What is wrong with the USA and Canada that Jews whose great grandparents came here and found a land of acceptance, must run off to play at being despised outsiders? Is it akin to self flagellation?-Can one never be happy as one of us- all of us- but only as someone always different and eternally apart. It saddens me for those eternally running from us others.
Why have so many rushed off to a desert war zone to live with religious fanatics when they could remain here, peacefully, among others of numerous religions? Why do so many Jews see justification and pride only the past of Jewish life in Shtetls and in a revived "Judea" which was never historically stable? What is wrong with the USA and Canada that Jews whose great grandparents came here and found a land of acceptance, must run off to play at being despised outsiders? Is it akin to self flagellation?-Can one never be happy as one of us- all of us- but only as someone always different and eternally apart. It saddens me for those eternally running from us others.
16
A hundred years ago, Poland was not very nice. You forget that there was a war going on in 1915 and Poland was still partitioned among the three great powers of the region, namely, German, Russia and Austria-Hungary. During the war, my parents' respective families nearly starved to death and were probably saved by care packages from the American Joint Distribution Committee. During the Polish civil war period (1917-21), tens of thousands of Jews were murdered near the Polish-Ukrainian border area (Galicia). My relatives were lucky to get out when they did around 1920. Those who did not leave before the immigration barriers went up in North America were virtually all murdered during Operation Reinhard in 1942.
1
all Jews should visit Poland. The Polish people are really nice and when i was there on a visit like this one, very welcoming.
8
I'd visit Ireland, but not if the mission was to lament the English and pity my ancestors. I'd go there for the geography and culture as it exists today. That said this area of Poland does look lovely. However being so near the border of Western Ukraine would make me uneasy if I were a Jew.
7
Thank you for this. My grandparents are from the area around Lviv, a city which has been at times part of Poland and it now part of Ukraine. (An old Polish friend, who was interned at Bergen-Belsen, used to tell me I was Polish, not Ukrainian.)
The author's need to discount the active participation of the Poles, and Ukrainians, in the killing of the Jews is disturbing. Many, many Poles played an active role in the killing and there were damn few "righteous."
The author's need to discount the active participation of the Poles, and Ukrainians, in the killing of the Jews is disturbing. Many, many Poles played an active role in the killing and there were damn few "righteous."
19
Jews from Eastern Europe are neither Poles, nor Ukrainians, nor any other nationality of that region. My husband and I are usually at a loss when asked the origin or our distinctly-Germanic surname (though his parents were from Poland). I would never proclaim myself as Polish. Just ask an assimilated German Jew who survived an extermination camp just how German he was when the Nazis rounded up his family.
My grandfather was from Khodoriv/Chodorow, just SE of Lviv.
Notice the proximity to Ukraine where quasi fascism thrives in military clubs and associations like Svoboda, Right Sector and Azov Battalion. With your tax dollars, the US is backing a government there that is larded with members of these Hitlerian militarists. Meanwhile people who absolutely hate Fascists - Russian Ukrainians, are vilified for having identified the quasi-fascist nature of the Ukrainians running Kiev and demanding autonomy.
8
People in Eastern Ukraine are, to a large extent, misled by propaganda from Putin-controlled media, which falsely equate the popular movement, epitomized by the Maidan Square protests, for independence, from the former Soviet sphere, or at least non-alignment, with the WWII-era fascist organizations, which did indeed exist. Such forces, similar to the neo-nazis throughout Europe today, do exist, but were never able to gain any traction or grab the public imagination except in Russia and the zones under its control.
The "Russian Ukrainians" (the separatists and green men) act in a much more fascistic manner than those they accuse of fascism.
It would be wrong to place Mr. Putin in the same category as Hitler -- although his lack of respect for international borders (not only in Ukraine) and putative efforts to defend Russian-speakers, like Hitler's mission to liberate "das deutsche Volk", are not without historical resonance -- a more fair and balanced evaluation would compare him to Mussolini.
May he come to a similar end.
PS: A friend broke up an incipient fist fight this morning, at the local Jewish Community Center, between two Jews, one from Russia and one from the Ukraine, by saying, "What the hell are you fighting about? The people at home hate you both!"
The "Russian Ukrainians" (the separatists and green men) act in a much more fascistic manner than those they accuse of fascism.
It would be wrong to place Mr. Putin in the same category as Hitler -- although his lack of respect for international borders (not only in Ukraine) and putative efforts to defend Russian-speakers, like Hitler's mission to liberate "das deutsche Volk", are not without historical resonance -- a more fair and balanced evaluation would compare him to Mussolini.
May he come to a similar end.
PS: A friend broke up an incipient fist fight this morning, at the local Jewish Community Center, between two Jews, one from Russia and one from the Ukraine, by saying, "What the hell are you fighting about? The people at home hate you both!"
Highly recommended: "In the Memory of the Forest," a novel by Charles T. Powers: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/13/books/the-disappeared.html
Also, the excellent recent film "Ida" about two post-war Jewish sisters and their struggle for identity in their Polish homeland.
Also, the excellent recent film "Ida" about two post-war Jewish sisters and their struggle for identity in their Polish homeland.
5
"Ida" is extraordinary - the history of Poland from WWII through Solidarity, beautifully and masterfully filmed. I could watch it again and again.
Interestingly, there was an outcry in Poland about the film because of its depiction of Poles having murdered a Jewish family. There were demands that explanatory material be included to point out that the Germans started World War II and were responsible for the extermination of Poland's Jews - in case those facts had eluded anyone. The Poles are highly sensitive about these issues.
Interestingly, there was an outcry in Poland about the film because of its depiction of Poles having murdered a Jewish family. There were demands that explanatory material be included to point out that the Germans started World War II and were responsible for the extermination of Poland's Jews - in case those facts had eluded anyone. The Poles are highly sensitive about these issues.
4
I loved Lara Vapnyar's book of short stories from the former Soviet Union, "There are Jews in My House." I once saw a fantastic film about a young man who traveled the various routes of the Spanish Jews after they were expelled in 1492. I recall that one of the largest Spanish Jewish communities lived in peace in Greece for more than four centuries...until the Germans exterminated all these Jews. The terribly unfair treatment of Germany by France and Britain contributed to the rise of Nazism, the Holocaust and WWII, and after WWII Germany was treated better. But just as Israel today uses the Holocaust to justice its own crimes against Palestinians, Germany has now completely forgotten all of Germany's crimes in places like Greece.
4
"But just as Israel today uses the Holocaust to justice its own crimes against Palestinians,"
Please provide a link or any other proof of this assertion. Where and when has Israel Eve made this statement?
Please provide a link or any other proof of this assertion. Where and when has Israel Eve made this statement?
My father, a refugee from the Holocaust, was the British philosopher Stephan Körner. This year, I made a trip to his hometown, on the 70th anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis, to honor his murdered parents. You can read about my trip at http://tinyurl.com/nalfzh6 .The file is best viewed in a fairly narrow window.
3
It's absurd to lump Polish Communists with Nazis and postwar Polish fascist gangs as responsible for the decimation of Polish Jews. Ever see "Ashes and Diamonds"?
9
Not Jewish, but this reminded me of travels through many of the small villages in the northern Czech Republic, dilapidated or repurposed synagogues, cemetaries where the internments end in the '40s, the Jewish children's home turned into a hotel...profoundly moving.
5
My father was a Pole from Poznan and was a member of the First Transport to Auschwitz in June 1940. Sadly Poland is characterized as a profoundly anti-Semitic country, but the greatest problem is that people do not know Polish history. In fact, Poland was the most pro-Semitic state in history, a country known before its downfall to Russia, Prussia and Austria during the late 18th 'Partitions' or its religious tolerance. Anyone wanting to label Poland as anti-Semitic must deal with the 'Statute of Kalisz' of 1264, the 'General Charter of Jewish Liberties' that gave Jews in Poland the right to practice their religion and freely organize their affairs -- it is an enlightened document at a time when Jews were persecuted in other countries. The Charter was spread to all Poland by King Kasimierz the Great in the 14th century and every Polish king for 500 years until the fall of Poland had to constitutionally recognize the Charter upon their ascension to the throne. Please explain to me how such enlightenment is anti-Semitic. The 'Polin' Museum in Warsaw highlights the fact that Jews themselves used a word play to describe Poland -- 'polin' means 'place of peace' in Hebrew and 'Polen' is Yiddish for Poland. Jewish rabbis in the 18th C argued that Poland was in fact the promised land. The Polin Museum in not an act of 'atonement' -- it is a celebration of the long life the Jews had in Poland and the great tolerance Poles had for all religions.
33
3 million now-Jewish Poles died at the hands of Nazis. Poland never surrendered to them and always resisted, unlike many other countries. Do not forget this.
5
it is a celebration of the long life the Jews had in Poland and the great tolerance Poles had for all religions.
Until they changed their minds.
Until they changed their minds.
2
It isn't that complicated. There was a period in history when Poland was good for Jews. Then, things changed. Then there was a long period when Poland was very bad for Jews, and got worse. Then, the Jews were exteminated with the active participation and encouragement of most Poles and the Catholic Church. So whatever happened hundreds of years ago became irrelevant. Now we have whitewashing, phony celebration, and commercial exploitation.
6
Fabulous article. My grandparents all came to this country from Austria-Hungary before WW I. The town my grandmother came from is now in the Ukraine. My great-grandfather was murdered by Ukrainian SS Nazis in 1943. I wish Mr. Berger would write the contact information for the guides he used.
4
there are no words for this . . . thank you for the story . . . william wilson dallas texas
9
Poland, the only European country that had no formal reparations program for Jews who lost their property, their lands, their money (not to speak of their families.) I've been doing some research and it is almost impossible to make a successful claim. Jewish holocaust survivors from Poland receive $137 a month.
Of course, the government does not necessarily reflect the feeling of the people (we should know that well, here in the US.)
And thank you, I shed a few tears and thanked the fates that my grandparents left Russia/Poland much earlier, after the pogroms.
Of course, the government does not necessarily reflect the feeling of the people (we should know that well, here in the US.)
And thank you, I shed a few tears and thanked the fates that my grandparents left Russia/Poland much earlier, after the pogroms.
13
Miriam: $137 a month is 60% of a minimal pension in Poland (today) for someone after a whole life of work. For people who had to retire earlier (disability for example) the amount is significantly lower.
Poland (true) has "no formal reparations program" for ANYONE with respect to property lost/expropriated as a result of war. (My family is in that group as well, we also filed claims and did not succeed). Why? Because this involves massive amounts of real estate (certainly over 20% of the whole country) which had been expropriated by Soviet Union, Germans, communists and then redistributed to new owners. Any general settlement here would open Pandora box. Poles (expelled with no compensation, over 100000 executed) owned much of today's Belorussia and Ukraine. Approx. 30% of today's Poland was owned by "normal" German families, forcibly expelled in 1945. About 20% of territory of today's Poland was owned by Polish landowners, expropriated without compensation if their "estate" (a small farm, really) was over 80 acres (often much less). All of industry, down to small family businesses, was taken over by communists with no compensation. On the other hand, mortgage records for most of those properties had been lost (not that anyone cared, banks were taken over by communists as well). How do you fix that?
Most Poles have taken the attitude "this was a war, we lost everything, we start anew".
Only in some cases property restitution is straightforward, and then it is done.
Poland (true) has "no formal reparations program" for ANYONE with respect to property lost/expropriated as a result of war. (My family is in that group as well, we also filed claims and did not succeed). Why? Because this involves massive amounts of real estate (certainly over 20% of the whole country) which had been expropriated by Soviet Union, Germans, communists and then redistributed to new owners. Any general settlement here would open Pandora box. Poles (expelled with no compensation, over 100000 executed) owned much of today's Belorussia and Ukraine. Approx. 30% of today's Poland was owned by "normal" German families, forcibly expelled in 1945. About 20% of territory of today's Poland was owned by Polish landowners, expropriated without compensation if their "estate" (a small farm, really) was over 80 acres (often much less). All of industry, down to small family businesses, was taken over by communists with no compensation. On the other hand, mortgage records for most of those properties had been lost (not that anyone cared, banks were taken over by communists as well). How do you fix that?
Most Poles have taken the attitude "this was a war, we lost everything, we start anew".
Only in some cases property restitution is straightforward, and then it is done.
5
Thank you for that perspective.
1
My paternal grandparents were Jewish-Polish immigrants to the US in the 1920s, before the Nazi era. Their unflattering description of Poland never stirred any desire in me to visit the place. In fact, I was an exchange student to Switzerland when I was in high school, back in the 1980s, and mentioned to someone significantly older that my grandparents were "from Poland". When he found out we were Jewish, he "corrected" me and said "Well, they weren't really Polish then, were they?" I have no interest in being "the Jew" in a region that so quickly gave my people up to the chambers. I don't care if there were one or two decent souls who tried to help; there were thousands more who looked the other way and shrugged.
34
Poland is not paying reparations because in case you forgot it was not Poland that started the war and destroyed that entire country (not just Jewish property).
2
jmolka: I have read many Holocaust survivor's tales. Yes, sometimes very "unflattering" for me as an ethnic Pole. Still, those are stories of MY country, so we read them here. But because you pass judgments on people of Poland, I think I have the right to ask you, kindly, to read a bit of the history of that period in my country. I somehow feel (from the tone you wrote) that you actually do not know all the facts.
I do not ask you to revise your opinion, I do not challenge it. I just ask you to read.
I do not ask you to revise your opinion, I do not challenge it. I just ask you to read.
2
It's a nice article as a piece of nostalgia.
As for the apparent changed attitudes of the Poles and Ukrainians towards Jews--again, nice to hear but it's easy to be tolerant of a difficult minority when it's been reduced from three million to an endangered species twenty thousand with value as a tourist attraction. Let's see how all that looks when the twenty thousand have re-grown to a vigorous two hundred thousand and re-compete with the locals for real estate, in business and in the professions.
As for the apparent changed attitudes of the Poles and Ukrainians towards Jews--again, nice to hear but it's easy to be tolerant of a difficult minority when it's been reduced from three million to an endangered species twenty thousand with value as a tourist attraction. Let's see how all that looks when the twenty thousand have re-grown to a vigorous two hundred thousand and re-compete with the locals for real estate, in business and in the professions.
20
Max: if you want to say that you cannot forget the terrible wrongs committed by part of us (I am Polish) against the Jewish people in the past, fine. Past should not be forgotten.
But please do not project this into the present and future. We are not slaves of the past, it is totally up to us who we are today and who do we grow to be in the future.
Please stop the nonsense of the narrative "compete with the locals for real estate etc..." - this is exactly the language of the antisemitic past. This is exactly the way to split any society apart - to convince people that their neighbor is their competitor, hence an enemy. No, the neighbor is someone to get help from if you raise your own barn. There is plenty of space in Poland, it is a large country.
About "compete with the locals (...) in the professions" - I have here news for you - quite possibly I am better (on the job) than you. Except that it does not threaten you - there is always work here for those who know the work.
People and societies grow, get that. My father was being punished by his grandfather if he played with Ukrainian kids. Today here people make collections so that wounded Ukrainian soldiers can be treated in Polish hospitals. And there was much more blood spilled between Poles and Ukrainians in a living memory than between ethnic Poles and Jews. Just that the past ghastly stories of Poles and Ukrainians killing each other are not so well known.
Do not be so pessimistic.
But please do not project this into the present and future. We are not slaves of the past, it is totally up to us who we are today and who do we grow to be in the future.
Please stop the nonsense of the narrative "compete with the locals for real estate etc..." - this is exactly the language of the antisemitic past. This is exactly the way to split any society apart - to convince people that their neighbor is their competitor, hence an enemy. No, the neighbor is someone to get help from if you raise your own barn. There is plenty of space in Poland, it is a large country.
About "compete with the locals (...) in the professions" - I have here news for you - quite possibly I am better (on the job) than you. Except that it does not threaten you - there is always work here for those who know the work.
People and societies grow, get that. My father was being punished by his grandfather if he played with Ukrainian kids. Today here people make collections so that wounded Ukrainian soldiers can be treated in Polish hospitals. And there was much more blood spilled between Poles and Ukrainians in a living memory than between ethnic Poles and Jews. Just that the past ghastly stories of Poles and Ukrainians killing each other are not so well known.
Do not be so pessimistic.
6
"Oops. Israel does not allow allow much non-Jewish immigration, does it?"
Eva, what is your basis for this comment? Care to offer a link or any other proof?
Eva, what is your basis for this comment? Care to offer a link or any other proof?
I just wanted to tell the writer something about his mother's house in Otwock.
My parents were both Polish jews. My mother, from Konskowola, had the luck of coming to Brazil in 1936. My father, from Dzialoszyce, had the bad luck of having part of his family shot at the ravine near the cemitery in 1942, he and his oldest siblings taken to camps, a little sister murdered by a neighbor Pole when asking for bread. He came to Brazil in 1951. He hated Poland.
After both of them had passed away i went to study Polish, in Sao Paulo, and on a three-week course in Krakow. And fell in love with Poland, in spite a little uneasy sometimes. Things fell so familiar!
A good friend from Warsaw took me to visit my parents shtetls, and some other places in Poland, including Otwock. When i came back to Poland, one year later, i returned to Otwock, to look for the house where once stood the Chabad Yeshiva before the war. With the address in hands, we went there to find an empty land, surrounded by wooden houses still standing on the same street.
When i returned for the third time, recently, i still had not forgot the Yeshiva's house, but this time decided to ask to Sebastian Rakowski: he told me the street had changed numbers, and now, instead of number 2, the house was in the number 22! And there is was!!!! Maybe you should ask Sebastian?
My parents were both Polish jews. My mother, from Konskowola, had the luck of coming to Brazil in 1936. My father, from Dzialoszyce, had the bad luck of having part of his family shot at the ravine near the cemitery in 1942, he and his oldest siblings taken to camps, a little sister murdered by a neighbor Pole when asking for bread. He came to Brazil in 1951. He hated Poland.
After both of them had passed away i went to study Polish, in Sao Paulo, and on a three-week course in Krakow. And fell in love with Poland, in spite a little uneasy sometimes. Things fell so familiar!
A good friend from Warsaw took me to visit my parents shtetls, and some other places in Poland, including Otwock. When i came back to Poland, one year later, i returned to Otwock, to look for the house where once stood the Chabad Yeshiva before the war. With the address in hands, we went there to find an empty land, surrounded by wooden houses still standing on the same street.
When i returned for the third time, recently, i still had not forgot the Yeshiva's house, but this time decided to ask to Sebastian Rakowski: he told me the street had changed numbers, and now, instead of number 2, the house was in the number 22! And there is was!!!! Maybe you should ask Sebastian?
20
I was reminded of the film Ida as I read this very moving piece. The film has stayed with me and I'm sure this writer's experience will too.
8
My grandparents came from Poland. My grandmother came from Pultusk, arriving in New York in 1921. Her parents followed, her father in 1927 and mother in 1931. I knew and remember my great grandparents. Some of their children did not leave Europe. They remained in Warsaw and did not survive the Holocaust.
3
It has been often said, and even worse documented that the Poles were more anti Semitic to their own vast Jewish population than the more organized and deliberate Germans! Yet in my own experience here in the States , I have found my Polish American friends to be next to my Italian American friends, the least anti Semitic, and behave like dear brothers and sisters! Go figure?! G-d Bless America!!!
41
How to say this? I live amongst the many immigrants of Queens. Generally speaking those who leave a country to come here seem to be less enthralled with their country of origin's culture and more open to new experiences and ideas than those who do not emigrate.
Thank you for a fine article. Today's Poland should be visited by Jews and non-Jews alike as there is no other way to even begin to understand and learn from an historical period that's impact will be felt by many for generations to come.
17
I agree. Facing the truth and understanding the history is the only way to prevent reliving it!
Very moving story. My family and I also visited Krakow recently. I'm not sure I would call it a Jewish Disney Land, but we too were profoundly saddened by the number of synagogues and other Jewish landmarks in the city, yet the Jewish population of Krakow (once 60,000) is now only in the low hundreds. At the same time we were moved by the great care taken in preserving these sites and by the kindness and graciousness of everyone we met in the city.
25
I was on a Jewish heritage tour last summer. Although there is somewhat of a resurgence and attempt to restore the Jewish population, its daily living, and vibrant culture, it's not possible to dispel the anti-semitism that still pervades the air. The so-called 20,000 Jewish people that now exist there are mixed. They are not entirely Jewish. Some have been drawn to the Jewish culture and history, but they don't have any Jewish roots whatsoever. I couldn't shake the fact that my people were destroyed not only by the hands of the Germans, but by the hands of the Polish people themselves. They both were complicit!!
39
As someone who has a mixed heritage from Poland (Polish, Jewish and German) I would not paint such a stark judgment. It think it utterly unfair to Poles. For example, the punishment for hiding a Jew under German occupation was the harshest in Poland, bullet on spot for the whole family. If Poles were as complicit as you suppose, why Germans would need to enact such harsh punishment?
This is not to say that anti-Semitism was in any way a minor thing in Poland and I have long been trying find out the reasons for it. It is well known that in 15 to 18th centuries Poland was the only country in Europe where Jews were allow to freely settle. So what changed later on? One, which many historians have been pointing to, was that during many failed attempts in 19th century for Poles to regain independence, all minorities were sitting on the sidelines, accepting the Prussian or Russian dominance, and indifferent to the struggle for independence. The rising Polish nationalism, which finally led to Poland's independence in 1920, unfortunately came with not only strong xenophobic anti-Semitism, but also with anti-Ukrainian and other minorities bigotry.
This is not to say that anti-Semitism was in any way a minor thing in Poland and I have long been trying find out the reasons for it. It is well known that in 15 to 18th centuries Poland was the only country in Europe where Jews were allow to freely settle. So what changed later on? One, which many historians have been pointing to, was that during many failed attempts in 19th century for Poles to regain independence, all minorities were sitting on the sidelines, accepting the Prussian or Russian dominance, and indifferent to the struggle for independence. The rising Polish nationalism, which finally led to Poland's independence in 1920, unfortunately came with not only strong xenophobic anti-Semitism, but also with anti-Ukrainian and other minorities bigotry.
4
Please do not accuse all Poles of antisemitism and "destroying your people". My Polish grandmother fed Jewish children during the war at a great risk to her own life. Her husband, my grandfather, and other members of my family were killed by the Nazis. Still, I don't think that I need to blame all Germans for that.
7
What an incredible experience for you - thank you for sharing! In Otwock, Sebastian, his mother Judwiga and many others work hard to bring to life the vibrancy of the life that existed in the town before the war; maintaining the Jewish cemetery, creating a signposted Jewish trail educating townspeople and visitors as to the significance of buildings still standing and those destroyed, plus Sebastian has published a book describing life before the Holocaust and what happened to the Jews of Otwock. A very special Otwock citizen helped me to trace the Catholic sisters who hid my mother in central Poland for part of the war, and he facilitated their reunion.
Otwock was once a summer destination for many of Warsaw's Jews - Around 40,000 visited, including members of my family. Some of the architecturally stunning but crumbling Swidermajer villas were sanatoriums. My grandfather spent some of his youth there at his father's tuberculosis sanatorium, the first sanatorium to be constructed in Otwock by his grandfather, which kicked off the beginning of the resort town. Sadly, when my grandfather returned to visit Poland decades after surviving Auschwitz and Dachau, he was unable to reclaim it.
The group in Otwock who work so tirelessly are representative of many others I met throughout Poland. Sure there are still issues, but people are now talking about the past in ways that unite the pain experienced by all Poles during the occupation.
Otwock was once a summer destination for many of Warsaw's Jews - Around 40,000 visited, including members of my family. Some of the architecturally stunning but crumbling Swidermajer villas were sanatoriums. My grandfather spent some of his youth there at his father's tuberculosis sanatorium, the first sanatorium to be constructed in Otwock by his grandfather, which kicked off the beginning of the resort town. Sadly, when my grandfather returned to visit Poland decades after surviving Auschwitz and Dachau, he was unable to reclaim it.
The group in Otwock who work so tirelessly are representative of many others I met throughout Poland. Sure there are still issues, but people are now talking about the past in ways that unite the pain experienced by all Poles during the occupation.
17
I made a similar journey to Latvia and Lithuania about 10 years ago. This was home to my paternal grandfather and grandmother. I was so native to expect to find an active Jewish community. Instead I found one synagogue cared for by a lone Jewish man. Everything else Jewish was gone. How alone I felt knowing that anyone I could have be related to had perished.
30
According to Roger Cohn's piece of a few years ago, the "Last Jew of Zagare" (Lithuania), the town where my paternal great grandmother was from, recently died. The poor devil survived by joining the Russian army, of all things.
So very tragic. I would not be able to visit such a place.
So very tragic. I would not be able to visit such a place.
Excellent article. I too visited Krakow and Warsaw tracing my roots with my paternal grandmother fleeing World War I Poland at 16 never to see her parents or family again; and her brother and his children dying in Nazi work camps during World War II. I am not Jewish, however was taught from day one of the atrocities, shown family members tattoos that had been held, and ingrained how evil can exist.
In reading this article, it appears that your experience is how I also felt. The tragedy and inexplicable atrocities can still be felt. However, the people are trying to rebuild and bring Poland back to the splendor it must have been at one time.
I will also return and I hope your article encourages all of those with Polish backgrounds to return.
In reading this article, it appears that your experience is how I also felt. The tragedy and inexplicable atrocities can still be felt. However, the people are trying to rebuild and bring Poland back to the splendor it must have been at one time.
I will also return and I hope your article encourages all of those with Polish backgrounds to return.
8
My father's family came from Ludmir, also in the Ukraine. Too many people think the Holocaust is embodied in the remains of the concentration camps when it was the einzsadt grupen (sp), The German soldiers who slaughtered whole villages in situ by fire or bullets. No death trains needed.
May I suggest the BOOK 'Everything is Illuminated',
May I suggest the BOOK 'Everything is Illuminated',
23
Yes, this article reminded me of the novel "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer. I second the recommendation.
2
After my parents passed in 2010, I discovered papers that documented that my mother and her family lived in Vislanka (now the Slovak Republic); they were able to join my grandfather in the U.S. just before the war. So in 2013 I took a similar journey to Warsaw, Krakow, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Tarnov, with a drive to Vislanka and Kosice. I had a wonderful tour guide in Warsaw who took me to the remaining wall that once constituted the Warsaw Ghetto. In Vislanka, I parked and tried to imagine life in the village when my mother lived there. I scooped up a handful of soil to bring back with me. The new Museum of the History of the Polish Jews had just opened and when I visited, one memory is that of several Catholic priests waiting in line for admission; each one had a yellow Star of David pinned to his chest.
22
I took a similar trip to my grandparents villages in the Krakow vicinity 10 years ago, and experienced many of the emotions described so eloquently by Mr. Berger. Excellent article.
5
Thank you for graciously sharing this high pilgramage to the place of your people. I enjoyed seeing the pines, searching the addresses, listening to the oral histories, conjuring spaces and moments, all through your eyes. This piece is deeply moving and speaks the essence of being human; identity, hate, love, honor, group, place. Heartbreaking and totally wonderful.
9
Beautifully written and poignant family search that deeply resonates and requires much thought and reflection into the past and to the future. We're "still" trying to get our arms around how the "average" Polish non-Jewish citizens became or were involved with the Nazi ravages. Generalizations of guilt or opposition aren't helpful, buy suggestions re books/historic research would be much appreciated? Thanks.
3
Two meticulously researched books are both by Jan T. Gross, Polish-born American who is professor of history at Princeton. They are: Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland and Fear: Anti-semitism in Poland After Auschwitz, An Essay in Historical Interpretation.
1
To say that "the average Polish non-Jewish" citizens became and were involved with the Nazi ravages" is both ignorant and unfair.
3
"To say that "the average Polish non-Jewish" citizens became and were involved with the Nazi ravages" is both ignorant and unfair."
Agreed, perhaps it would more fair to say that a significantly large number of Poles participated in and assisted the Nazi effort to exterminate their Jewish neighbors?
Agreed, perhaps it would more fair to say that a significantly large number of Poles participated in and assisted the Nazi effort to exterminate their Jewish neighbors?
2
I highly recommend "The Holocaust by Bullets" by Father Patrick Desbois. In it, the French Catholic priest recounts his efforts to document, while some memories and evidence still remains, the Nazi extermination of Jews in what is now eastern Poland and western Ukraine. It is both horrific and fascinating.
While most of us are familiar with the ghettos and concentration camps, this early phase of the holocaust was carried out village by village, with bullets and shovels. In many places the Nazis were aided by willing collaborators. In others, they only obtained cooperation from non-Jews by the barrel of a gun. There were no camps, or lists, or gas chambers. Just pits and ditches and single bullets to the head. Sometimes people who survived a bad shot would crawl out of the mound of bodies and dirt days later.
When I traveled in rural w. Ukraine, tracing and meeting with relatives on the non-Jewish side of my family, I saw firsthand how the shadows of WWII still hang over the land. Some villages trashed monuments to the Red Army and partisans, celebrating Nazi collaborators. Some old Jewish cemeteries are riddled with graffiti. Others are somber (if overgrown) memorials. In every village there were people who wanted to talk, were afraid to talk, or vehemently refused to. One old woman tried to talk to me in German. Another screamed about Nazi traitors.
It is that the author found, in some parts of Poland at least, an effort to reconcile with the past and a people lost.
While most of us are familiar with the ghettos and concentration camps, this early phase of the holocaust was carried out village by village, with bullets and shovels. In many places the Nazis were aided by willing collaborators. In others, they only obtained cooperation from non-Jews by the barrel of a gun. There were no camps, or lists, or gas chambers. Just pits and ditches and single bullets to the head. Sometimes people who survived a bad shot would crawl out of the mound of bodies and dirt days later.
When I traveled in rural w. Ukraine, tracing and meeting with relatives on the non-Jewish side of my family, I saw firsthand how the shadows of WWII still hang over the land. Some villages trashed monuments to the Red Army and partisans, celebrating Nazi collaborators. Some old Jewish cemeteries are riddled with graffiti. Others are somber (if overgrown) memorials. In every village there were people who wanted to talk, were afraid to talk, or vehemently refused to. One old woman tried to talk to me in German. Another screamed about Nazi traitors.
It is that the author found, in some parts of Poland at least, an effort to reconcile with the past and a people lost.
20
Hi
My father had a similar story.
He lost his mother and seven brothers in what is now Novi Strelisk, Ukraine. All the town's Jewish population disappeared.
My father was saved because that week he was riding a train on a business
trip.
When he returned his family was gone.
He left soon thereafter feeling extremely
unsafe in that town.
I also plan to visit Poland this summer to search for my family's roots.
My father had a similar story.
He lost his mother and seven brothers in what is now Novi Strelisk, Ukraine. All the town's Jewish population disappeared.
My father was saved because that week he was riding a train on a business
trip.
When he returned his family was gone.
He left soon thereafter feeling extremely
unsafe in that town.
I also plan to visit Poland this summer to search for my family's roots.
7
My mother visited the Polish village where she was born, but had a less charitable impression of the people than you did. What struck her were all of the houses with mazuzot still on the doorposts, or marks where they had been, occupied by Poles who did not give a thought to the murdered former occupants.
50
How did your mother know that the Poles living in those houses "did not give a thought to the murdered former occupants"? Was she able to get into their heads? What were they supposed to do to make her think otherwise? They kept the mazuzot, didn't they. They live in houses that survived the war -- in their country.
3
Such a poignant and bittersweet article. It is heartening that Poland has shown signs of interest in recapturing the hundreds of years of Jewish presence in the country. The key, however, is the sentence "while charming, it is hard not to think of it as a Jewish Disneyland without actual Jews."
Jews made up roughly 10% of Poland's pre-war population. That is somewhat less than the percentage of African American in the US. Imagine for a moment a set of circumstances which left the odd African American still living in this country with the rest annihilated, and you get a picture of the magnitude of the crime.
There were certainly "Righteous Gentiles" among the Nazi collaborators, anti-Semites and those who simply coveted Jewish property. The rise of anti-Semitism elsewhere (Hungary, France, Denmark) should remind all of us that the beast has not been slain and that we must always be on our guard to prevent criminals from usurping the machinery of government to undertake mass extermination - whether in Europe, Cambodia or Rwanda
Jews made up roughly 10% of Poland's pre-war population. That is somewhat less than the percentage of African American in the US. Imagine for a moment a set of circumstances which left the odd African American still living in this country with the rest annihilated, and you get a picture of the magnitude of the crime.
There were certainly "Righteous Gentiles" among the Nazi collaborators, anti-Semites and those who simply coveted Jewish property. The rise of anti-Semitism elsewhere (Hungary, France, Denmark) should remind all of us that the beast has not been slain and that we must always be on our guard to prevent criminals from usurping the machinery of government to undertake mass extermination - whether in Europe, Cambodia or Rwanda
50
When Pat comments that anti-Semitism is rising in Hungary, France and Denmark she is mistakenly confounding anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism - the push-back against the actions of Netanyahu and his cohorts in the West Bank especially. Despite world-wide condemnation, the Zionists continue the absorption of Palestinian lands without even an attempt to morally justify their actions; they do it because they can, because power comes out of the barrel of a gun; Israel is military triumphalism run amok. But be careful, Mr. Netanyahu, you have lost the good will of former friends everywhere and history is written in centuries not decades.
10
The "push-back" is just the latest in a series of centuries of rationalizations.
4
Oh, please, this moving article has nothing to do with Netanyahu. And anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are identical in the minds of many. The latter serves as an excuse for the former.
9
Attitudes change with times. Over 40 years ago , my Jewish grandmother's niece (both were Warsaw born) met some Poles in Montreal and decided to visit Poland again. The niece was about 6 when she left Poland, my grandmother a teenager, so I presume remembered much more. I, about 15 years old at the time, naively asked Grandma if she would ever want to go back. I'll never forget what this brilliant, affectionate, super sweet, highly sophisticated old Jewish lady said afterwards. "Poland? Poland? You want to know what I think about about Poland? Give me all the gasoline in the world and one match!".
59
I always find those types of comments, after hundreds of years of Jewish history in Poland and the largest population of Jews in Europe (due primarily to the general acceptance of Jews by Poles in an otherwise hostile Europe) to be very sad. I hope your grandmother made such 'incendiary ' comments because the nightmare of the holocaust took place on Polish soil and not because of some kind of blind hatred for Poland itself.
8
Steve, and here is a more rational point of view that I came across:
"But I as a Jew have spent many many many years weeping the Holocaust, but I regret having overlooked that the ethnic Poles were also Holocaust victims and they were persecuted to the East and the West, and they were also persecuted for 55 years AFTER the end of WWII and they didn't deserve what they got....
And their story gets overshadowed, not to make less of the Jewish holocaust, the issue is the lack of awareness to the persection of the Poles. If it were the other way around and the Poles suffered the fate of the Jews and vice versa, in that exercise I would finally see with my own eyes that the Poles were victims of circumstances....and their persecution goes unappreciated to this very day....simply because the Jewish persecution has been the dominant story.
I'm starting to see the Poles in a new light and I appreciate that the reason 10% of the people in Poland were Jews was because for 5 centuries before the Nazi occupation of Poland, the Poles gave the Jews a safe haven that no other country in Europe had ever provided for Jews.
Eric S."
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110219104524AAc2VdM
"But I as a Jew have spent many many many years weeping the Holocaust, but I regret having overlooked that the ethnic Poles were also Holocaust victims and they were persecuted to the East and the West, and they were also persecuted for 55 years AFTER the end of WWII and they didn't deserve what they got....
And their story gets overshadowed, not to make less of the Jewish holocaust, the issue is the lack of awareness to the persection of the Poles. If it were the other way around and the Poles suffered the fate of the Jews and vice versa, in that exercise I would finally see with my own eyes that the Poles were victims of circumstances....and their persecution goes unappreciated to this very day....simply because the Jewish persecution has been the dominant story.
I'm starting to see the Poles in a new light and I appreciate that the reason 10% of the people in Poland were Jews was because for 5 centuries before the Nazi occupation of Poland, the Poles gave the Jews a safe haven that no other country in Europe had ever provided for Jews.
Eric S."
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110219104524AAc2VdM
2
Steven, my Polish-born Holocaust survivor grandmother would have said the exact same thing!
Mr. Berger's article stirred memories. Lodz, September 1939. Three SS men enter the apartment with drawn machine guns looking for men for forced labor while I was momentarily alone. I was six. I wet my pants with fear. I was about to start piano lessons. Shortly thereafter we were on the way to Baranowicze, Belarus. No chance of a performing career as a pianist and/or orchestra conductor. Deportation to Perm, Siberia, and later, Kazakhstan (ironically, lucky). Now, 82, teaching children group piano in elementary schools. Things could have been worse.
80
Thank you for sharing this very personal memory. Every memory that is shared adds to what we know about this horrible period.
how glad you are still on piano lessons!
will go to Krakow and Auschwitz late September - apreciate to read your impressions.
16
Please spend as little money as you an. Remember these klezmer fests and Jewish coulter all sites are for tourists. Believe me it's all about Jewish exploitation. My grandparents and uncles were murdered by poles with guns. We offered them everything but they just wanted them dead.
"My grandparents and uncles were murdered by poles with guns."
This is very interesting. Did your grandparents and uncles serve in Wehrmacht or in SS? Which units? I would love to know the details and appreciate the fact you are ready to discuss the dark chapters of your family history so openly.
From Warsaw with love.
Greg
This is very interesting. Did your grandparents and uncles serve in Wehrmacht or in SS? Which units? I would love to know the details and appreciate the fact you are ready to discuss the dark chapters of your family history so openly.
From Warsaw with love.
Greg
Thank you for your deeply-felt description of your search.
31
What an excellent piece, thank you!
20
A fascinating article. The caption under the photo of the Birkenau camp is not correct. The chimneys were left standing when the wooden barracks were taken down and moved to Warsaw for resident housing while the city was being rebuilt. This can be easily confirmed by viewing the short film of the camp shot from the air by the Red Army at liberation in January 1945.
18
My husband and I took a very similar trip this past June and Mr. Berger has captured perfectly so many of our reactions to the profound experience of actually setting foot in the places we had heard so much about. I had put off for many years this encounter with my father's family's tragic story, but I was finally ready to face it.
Poland is beautiful. At this point I find myself more interested in how my relatives actually LIVED for decades, indeed centuries, in Poland (now Ukraine) and not just in how they died.
We are planning on going back.
Poland is beautiful. At this point I find myself more interested in how my relatives actually LIVED for decades, indeed centuries, in Poland (now Ukraine) and not just in how they died.
We are planning on going back.
58
YIVO the institute for yiddish culture talks about the great library in VILNA, its twin research center, go there for centuries of history that was saved from destruction by the Nazis by Jewish librarians. .
The city of Vilna was in Poland prior to WWII and its once thriving jewish population destroyed, After WWII Vilna became part of Lithuania. Stalin's rule neglected the great library but Lithuania unable to do so before financially is now beginning to support this treasure by allocating resources for preservation. YIVO in NY, was its sister institution prior to WWII. Some of the treasures may be beyond preservation as found on a recent visit by a YIVO delegation to the library in Vilna. Crumbling strewn tossed books including theodore herzl's university writings, photos, film, theatrical memorabilia, essays, were found as I viewed in a slide presentation and this was brought to the attention of Lithuania's government.
I would like to see a similar article about Belarus, where my mother had lived. My father is from Krakow, but then it was part of Austria.
12
What a wonderful yet sad story. I am also Polish and for years wanted to visit the town where my grandfather was born and left in 1904. Our family history is not as tragic as the Berger's. Our tragedy came at the hands of the Soviets. In 2004 I was able to go the town of Zagorow where JaJa, as grandfather was called, was born and raised. Zagorow is located about 20 Kilometers SE of Poznan, which had a very pivotal role in the "Final Solution". Since I don't speak Polish, I hired a very good guide/translator. Through the local Catholic church, we were able to find a family with the same last name. With my family lore and history and the guide's questioning, I concluded we were related. The matriarch took us to the local cemetery I saw tombstones of our family dating back at least two hundred years. Our family tragedy was the family farm taken over by the Polish version of collectivization and family members taken away by the security police. It seems that members of our family fought against the Polish-Soviet War 1919-1921. While the actions of some Poles against the Jews cannot be ignored, I will suggest the nation suffered as well. I would recommend "The Forgotten Holocaust" by Richard C. Lukas. I left Poland with a greater appreciation of our family's history.
37
I also thank Joseph Berger, not only for the article but also for interesting comments it triggered. My birthplace--Warsaw was 90 % in ruins. when I saw it for the first time, in 1946 (returning from the USSR, also ironically). The Polish orphanage, "Nasz Dom," which received us, was a place in which several Jewish children were hidden during the occupation.Two famous pedagogues, Maryna Falska (Polish) and Janusz.Korczak (Jewish) cooperated in Nasz Dom before WW II.
Ludwik Kowalski,
Professor Emeritus (see Wikipedia)
Ludwik Kowalski
Professor Emeritus (see Wikipedia).
Ludwik Kowalski,
Professor Emeritus (see Wikipedia)
Ludwik Kowalski
Professor Emeritus (see Wikipedia).
4
I have read few things in my life that make me pause, feeling the need to stop everything and reflect. Many points in this story I had to pause. What a powerful, lasting image of an eighty year old man biking the path he once took after narrowly escaping death-as a child. Thank you for this piece and you make Bergers everywhere proud.
78
rather, an eighty year *young* grandfather, because of his constant bicycling exercise and his optimistic-stoic outlook on life "from which one can not escape alive" :-).
Sto Lat and well, well beyond to him !
And to Mrs. Zielinski always a good help at his side.
Sto Lat and well, well beyond to him !
And to Mrs. Zielinski always a good help at his side.
12
I went to an international conference at Auschwitz in 2011. We visited the town of Oswiecim (the town at the camps) and discovered that pre-1939, the town was 40% Jewish, with many synagogues. The last Jew left there died in 2000. The only synagogue left is at least a Jewish museum. A large part of our conference focused on the problem of rampant and radical Antisemitism still in Poland today and the inability of Poles to deal with their past for obvious reasons which this article pointed toward.
86
I'm curious to know the name of that international conference held at Auschwitz in 2011, and the dates on which it was held. I know of two conferences in that year, "Auschwitz and the Holocaust in the Context of Genocide in the 20th Century” and "The European Association of Holocaust Studies Founding Conference” but neither seems to fit the description given above.
13
"Radical anti-Semitism in Poland"? A convenient idea. Spend some time traveling the country. I don't think you will find it. My wife is Polish - half Catholic half Jewish - grew up there through college, and was raised observing both religions. This stereotype makes steam come out of her ears.
Poland was invaded during WWII, fought against the Nazis, and lost 20% of its population. And Jews are but a fraction of the people who died around that time. (For example, consider the 20 million Russians or, just a decade before, the 7 million Ukrainian peasants who died by starvation in the Holomodor.) Sure there is some bigotry, as there is everywhere, including segments of the American Jewry. But, as I said, travel the country. What I've seen are modest, hard-working people (many of whom are part Jewish, the dark hair coming from Jewish or Gypsy ancestry) who miss the richness that was stripped of the country 75 years ago.
Poland was invaded during WWII, fought against the Nazis, and lost 20% of its population. And Jews are but a fraction of the people who died around that time. (For example, consider the 20 million Russians or, just a decade before, the 7 million Ukrainian peasants who died by starvation in the Holomodor.) Sure there is some bigotry, as there is everywhere, including segments of the American Jewry. But, as I said, travel the country. What I've seen are modest, hard-working people (many of whom are part Jewish, the dark hair coming from Jewish or Gypsy ancestry) who miss the richness that was stripped of the country 75 years ago.
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Are these Poles, mentioned in this article, unable to deal with their past for obvious reasons? Maria Bukowska? People from Polin Museum? Jakub Łysiak? Rev. Jan Swierzewski? Sebastian Rakowski? Jarosława Kachaj? Miroslaw Kedzior?
Maybe they are the only ones who can?
What about the rest? What about the authors, filmmakers, journalists, artists and scholars who are constantly analyzing and researching various (even most tragic and gloomy) moments in polish-jewish history?
What about lawmakers and local activists who are taking care of polish-jewish heritage?
What about regular folks taking part in jewish revival festivals and activities in their thousands, being fascinated with that culture, buying books, attending exhibitions, taking yiddish or hebrew classes?
I'm not saying that there is no antisemitism in Poland. There is. There is antisemitism everywhere. There is a lot of Anti- -isms everywhere. No nation can monopolize idiocy. And you know that.
Stop thinking with stereotypes. Open your eyes to what's going on in reality.
Saying that Poles can't deal with their past is proof of your ignorance or just inability to understand that the real disscusion about polish-jewish history is constant in polish society for 30+ years. (Since the fall of communism it gained real momentum)
Peace, love and more understanding.
Maybe they are the only ones who can?
What about the rest? What about the authors, filmmakers, journalists, artists and scholars who are constantly analyzing and researching various (even most tragic and gloomy) moments in polish-jewish history?
What about lawmakers and local activists who are taking care of polish-jewish heritage?
What about regular folks taking part in jewish revival festivals and activities in their thousands, being fascinated with that culture, buying books, attending exhibitions, taking yiddish or hebrew classes?
I'm not saying that there is no antisemitism in Poland. There is. There is antisemitism everywhere. There is a lot of Anti- -isms everywhere. No nation can monopolize idiocy. And you know that.
Stop thinking with stereotypes. Open your eyes to what's going on in reality.
Saying that Poles can't deal with their past is proof of your ignorance or just inability to understand that the real disscusion about polish-jewish history is constant in polish society for 30+ years. (Since the fall of communism it gained real momentum)
Peace, love and more understanding.
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This is a must-read for everyone. Thank you for sharing!!!
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My maternal great grandparents were from Turka and Borynya but emigrated to the lower eastside of New York in the late 1880's. I have always wanted to see photo's of the villages and learn more about them. My great grandmother was from one of the families mentioned in the article. This area reminds me of the Catskill Mountains
Yes, neither Polish nor Jewish, stories such as these are why I treasure the NYT.
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In 1999 and again in 2002 I traveled to Southeastern Ukraine to visit the village, Grafskoy/Proletarsky, where my father was born in 1906 and the neighboring village, Novozlatopol, where he lived with his mother's family from 1912 to 1922 after his father left for Canada. I was the first Westerner to visit this region and I was treated with extreme courtesy and helpfulness by all the civic officials that I met. I was able to definitively identify my paternal grandfather's land and I was shown through my great grandfather's house in Novozlatopol. The Novozlatopol mayor gave me a list of 800 Jews, one of which was my father's second cousin, who were murdered by the Germans in 1941. This list was unknown to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and the US Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C. In 1999 people told me about some previously unknown relatives and I met them, a third cousin and her family, in 2002. A son of this cousin was a self-taught mechanic, who operated an engine-rebuilding shop and was thrilled to learn that his grandfather's brother, who emigrated to Canada in 1901 was a blacksmith. "That's where I get my skill." I consider these two trips to be among the highlights of my life.
Mel in Vancouver
Mel in Vancouver
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