The publication of Jan Gross’s Neighbors fundamentally challenged common sense understandings of Poles and Jews in Poland, as the world watched on. Gross described what happened in a remote town in Eastern. “[O]ne day, in July 1941, half the population of a small East European town murdered the other half – some 1,600 men, women and children.” He reported in the introduction of his book that it took him four years between the time he first read the testimony of Szmul Wasersztajn describing the atrocities of Jedwabne, and when he really understood what happened. He read the description but was not able to process its implications. And as I observe the debate over Jedwabne, it seems to me that many people still have not been able to process the implications. Here I reflect on the meanings of the debate for better and for worse.
I have no doubt that the works of Jan Gross, and the writing of many Polish journalists, historians and sociologists, contribute to the foundation of democracy in Poland. They advance the project of freedom for Poles and for other nations, to echo the famous slogan of Polish patriots of the 19th Century. They address the Jewish question; for me, they address my mother’s question, with their dignity. There has been an extended debate, an official apology by the President of Poland and an official inquiry and correction of the public record. All of this has been noted and admired abroad, even as it sparks controversy.
On the other hand, there was much that was said and written in response to the revelations about Jedwabne, that brought me back to my Polish American compatriot’s “Jew down” remark, as reported in my first “Why Poland?” post, and much worse. It has been very hard for me to read the primitive, but also the more refined, anti-Semitism, which is now very much a part of Polish public discourse. I realize now that my travels in Poland back in the seventies, and my intensive work with the democratic opposition and underground Solidarność, though extensive and long enduring, were in important ways limited. I knew how Jews and anti-Semitism were symbolically central to modern Polish identity, but I thought there had been a significant collective learning process that had put its more pernicious aspects into the past. Now, I am not as sure of this as I once was. Apparently there were broad segments of popular opinion that I did not perceive.
I wonder now whether I really understood the nature of the problem then, whether I really understand it now. Did I really confront Polish complicity in the Holocaust? Clearly, I didn’t. Only after reading Gross do I begin to understand the dimensions of the problem. Did I really understand the meaning of the Kielce pogrom? Perhaps I did, but it is so much clearer after reading Gross’s latest book, Fear. I suspect that my learning was not that different than that of many of you in this audience, although we may have started from a different place.
I have not been easy on Poles, or Europeans in general, when it comes to anti-Semitism. I have had few illusions about my European roots. I, as a Jew, represent the other in the European tradition: vilified through the dominant interpretation of Christian doctrine, at least until Vatican II, and the subject of folk beliefs that are horrific, fantastical and ominous. And it was not just a matter of simple folk who knew no better, great works of European literature as well are saturated with anti Semitic assertions and allusions. I understand that some pretty articulate anti-Semites opposed genocide, some openly, some secretly. I know that there is a significant distance between the traditional anti-Semite and the genocidal killer, but I understand, as well, that the former in some way is a precondition for the latter. I am not sure how much different Polish Christians were from other Europeans. But that does not absolve either group. I understand the wisdom of my grandparents’ flight from Europe. I owe my life to it.
But apart from such melodramatic reflection and accusation, how do we, Poles and Jews, get beyond this? I think I saw people of good will trying to do so in 1995, as they commemorated the memory of the liberation of Auschwitz. But, finally, they failed. There were obvious problems, which have become clearer in the debates over Jedwabne, and in revelations and accusations about Kielce.
I must start with the most obvious, something I have been guilty of until this point in my presentation: the very idea of Poles and Jews. The language makes sense, Polish memory as distinct from Jewish memory. I think the greatest contribution of Gross is to show how this common sense and usage, which implies that there is a distinct separation between the Polish Jewish and the Polish Catholic experience, is not only ethically problematic but also historically misleading. Polish Catholics and Polish Jews cannot really understand their pasts without confronting their very mixed up connections. Thus it is highly problematic that there were separate ceremonies at the Auschwitz memorials in 1995.
I find this all so depressing. My years as a Poland watcher taught me to expect more, although my recognition of the wisdom of my mother’s “Why Poland?” question should have prepared me. Permit me to reflect back and forth between what gives me hope to what disgusts, from what angers to what puzzles, to what gives me hope again.
The official ceremony honoring the victims of the Jedwabne atrocity, unlike the commemoration of Auschwitz, was a noble affair. Every effort was made to do the right thing, to correct the official record, to honor the victims and the righteous. Not everyone supported the memorial. Some notably chose not to be there, but those at the event made significant progress in transcending the problem of Polish versus Jewish memory.
As I was preparing this presentation, I spoke to an Israeli sociologist, Natan Sznaider, who happened to be at the event. His father in law was the Israeli Ambassador to Poland at the time. He remembers the grace of President Kwasniewski in his impeccable address:
We know with certainty that among the persecutors and perpetrators there were Poles. We cannot have any doubt that here in Jedwabne, citizens of the Polish Republic perished at the hands of other citizens of the Republic. People prepared this fate for people, neighbors for neighbors…We express our pain and shame; we give expression of our determination in seeking to learn the truth, our courage in overcoming an evil past, our unbending understanding and harmony. Because of this crime we should beg the shadows of the dead and their families for forgiveness. Therefore, today, as a citizen and as the president of the Polish Republic, I apologize. I apologize in the name of those Poles whose conscience is moved by that crime. In the name of those who believe that we cannot be proud of the magnificence of Polish history without at the same time feeling pain and shame for the wrongs that Poles have done to others.
But as you know, better than I do, this was only one response to the Jedwabne revelations.
I read an interview with Cardinal Glemp by the Catholic News Agency (KAI). It astonished me, dripping with anti-Semitism. He is so unreflective about this, like my Polish American colleague so many years ago, that I doubt he even realizes it, as she didn’t. Polish Jewish conflicts in the thirties had no religious basis, according to the Cardinal. Asked if he thought that Jews experienced a rise in attacks during Holy Week because of accusations of God-killing, he expresses astonishment. “This statement strikes me as improbable. The first time I ever heard of this rise in anti-Jewish feeling was in Mr. Gross’s book. Clearly the book was written ‘on commission’ for someone.”
What could he be referring to? Is Gross in the pay of the Zionists, or the international Jewish conspiracy, or is it the Jewish lobby, or perhaps even “The Elders of Zion?” Near Churches, it has been reported, literature about all of this has become available in democratic Poland. A radio station makes its niche on the listening dial with this kind of stuff. The Cardinal goes on: “Polish-Jewish conflicts did occur in those times, but they had an economic basis. Jews were cleverer, and they knew how to take advantage of Poles.” In American English: they could “Jew them down,” I guess. He does qualify this point. I think realizing that it was not quite politically correct, adding: “In any case, that was the perception.” Why was the church commemorating the atrocities on May 27th and not July 10th? The 10th was not convenient. The major lesson of Gross’s inquiry is lost on Glemp. He and many others were not open to learning. Arguing for the exhumation of the site of the atrocities, contrary to a request by Jews to honor religious law and refrain from desecrating the graves, he defends his position by asserting “Jewish law is not binding in Poland.” As if that were the issue, not realizing that it is a matter of honoring and respecting customs other than your own, so that you may honor and respect people who you don’t consider to be of your own. Poles versus Jews, yet again. He wants to do this “because it is important to know the number of victims.”
I know that this is an issue that Glemp and many respected Polish academics and scholars think is central. As a matter of principle, I am in favor of trying to understand the truth in the details. I’ve dedicated my life to this. It is a major theme of my recent work on “the politics of small things”. But that the number of victims is an issue, with great moral and political importance, escapes me. Does it change the moral challenge if “only” 400 people, “Jews,” were brutally murdered by their neighbors, “Poles,” instead of 1600? Glemp goes on and on, wondering why Jews slander Poland, “when Jews had it relatively the best with us, here in Poland.” And further: “We wonder whether Jews should not acknowledge that they have a burden of responsibility in regard to Poles, in particular for the period of close cooperation with the Bolsheviks, for complicity in deportations to Siberia, for sending Poles to jails, for the degradation of many of their fellow citizens, etc.” In his reflections on Jewish cleverness, there are the Jewish banker and lawyer, the capitalists. In his reflections on the Soviet occupation, there are the Jewish communists.
The leader of the Church in Poland does not stand alone, clearly. In the Church there are strong and articulate alternative voices, I know. I read a moving piece by Rev. Stanislaw Musial just after I read the Glemp interview.
But in the reaction to the Jedwabne revelations, there is also much that is worse than is revealed in the Cardinal’s interview, with vile and more aggressive anti-Semitism. And, it seems to me, these are given support by the manifestly less pernicious and refined refusal to face the legacies of the past. They open a space for refined and vulgar anti-Semitism. There are those who worry about the numbers, who think the evidence of the murder is still not in. There are those who ask “Is the hubbub surrounding Jedwabne intended to eclipse the responsibility of Jews for communism and the Soviet occupation of Poland?” And there are those who question Gross’s approach to survivors’ testimony: i.e. take them to be truthful unless proven otherwise.
Gross wisely makes this recommendation because of the profound and systematic ignorance of Polish complicity in the murder of their Jewish compatriots when the more normal alternative skeptical approach prevails. He is suggesting a way of restructuring historical practice so that it encourages a systematic examination of dark corners in the national past, instead of systematically ignoring them. Prominent historians defend their professional ethics and accomplishments. Gross and his supporters question how it is possible that they have for so long overlooked the anti-Semitic atrocities both during and after the war.
I find myself engaging the debates, moved and heartened by some contributions, dismayed by others. Reading anxiously Gross’s next book, Fear, I realize how radical is his challenge and am convinced by his careful analysis of the post war pogroms and individual murders of Jewish survivors after Auschwitz. Some of his explanation for how this happened I find persuasive: the legacies of totalitarianism and the continuities between Nazi and Communist practices, the brutalization of the population, the normalization of stealing from and the murder of Jews that was part of the landscape during the Nazi occupation and for some time afterward. I am not convinced by his arguments completely. The projection argument, his thesis that Poles couldn’t face the survivors because of their own complicity, I am not sure about.
I have read others who make a significant contribution to my understanding of my mother’s Polish question, the Polish Jewish question, and their relationships. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Jerzy Jedlicki, Hanna Swida–Ziemba, Jerzy Slawomir Mac, Marta Kurkowska Budzan, among others. The depth and seriousness of their reflections on the cruel facts of Jedwabne mark a noble confrontation with the past.
In light of all of this, the noble and the base, I am deeply ambivalent. Let me be honest, the ascendance of anti-Semitism in Poland after the fall of Communism has been a great disappointment to me, revealing the limits of what I called at the beginning of this presentation “the wisdom of youth.” If I had kept in mind the experiences of my grandparents and parents a little bit more, I may have been less surprised, less disappointed. But on the other hand, the seriousness of the Polish debate about the legacies of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, I know, is very impressive. A Polish president distinguished himself and honored the memory of my ancestors in a way that would have astonished my grandfather who had very bitter memories as a soldier in a Polish army unit in the First World War. I am not sure that this would happen today, that the present Polish president would have so astonished my grandfather, but it did happen. The debate in Poland has negative voices, but very importantly they are being confronted. In sum, the three parts of this presentation add up to democratic or at least liberal progress. There is more free discussion and open debate, and Polish Catholics and Polish Jews, and the international Jewish community benefit, as the weaknesses of the demos are revealed.
Yet, I must conclude with a note of concern. As I have been writing and rewriting this lecture, I have wondered how you will receive my observations. I wonder whether I have breached the boundaries of the politically correct or polite. I made some of my observations with some reluctance. Are my critical comments unnecessarily provocative, or are they just obvious? Did I go too far, or not far enough? Should I have expressed my concerns about the Church authority as bluntly and personally as I did? I have thought about these questions not because I am afraid to reveal to you what I take to be the truth, but because I am well aware that in dealing with difficult problems with the other, the embodiment of discourse is important. It is not just about words, but who says them, when and where. I thus deeply appreciate Kwasniewski’s words. It really depends who says what to whom.
In this light, I understand that I have an obligation here to express my appreciation of the great and often heroic efforts of my Polish friends and colleagues, some with Catholic background, some with Jewish background, some with both, in addressing the continuing problems of anti-Semitism in Polish political culture. And I express my criticism of the limits of the address with reluctance. But I must go a bit further, having to do with the limits of democracy in the appraisal of these events by many of the most sympathetic observers.
They advise that the most rabid anti-Semitism is a marginal phenomenon. I want to believe them, but I am struck how it keeps on coming up, and how significant cultural and religious authorities, and political leaders, some with ascendant power, keep on using anti-Semitism, including members of today’s governing coalition. (Remember this lecture was given in 2007. This is no longer the case) It is so central that it persists for decades even with the absence of Jews and even with open democratic discussion about that embarrassing fact. I think this is at the center of the most provocative of Jan Gross’s contributions to the consideration of Polish-Jewish relationships in Jedwabne.
Toward the end of his book, reflecting on the two memorials then in Jedwabne, he notes that one propagates the lie that the Nazis killed the 1600 Jews of the town. The other reads “‘To the memory of about 180 people including 2 priests who were murdered in the territory of the Jedwabne district in the years 1939-1956 by the NKVD, by the Nazis and the secret police [UB].’ Signed ‘Society’ [spoleczenstwo].” He observes that Jews were killed not by Nazis, Soviets, or Polish Stalinists, but by that same “society.” And the number 180, apparently does not count Jews as people. The controversy has been about his blaming of society, apparently the accusation of collective guilt. Yet, it is clear that the first memorial was a political lie, and that the second reveals a deeply problematic common sense definition of humanity.
Objecting to collective guilt has been an important part of my answer to my mother’s question. But I think that Gross is onto something beyond such accusation. Anti-Semitism is not in the mother’s milk of Poles (this is a vulgar, an obscene accusation) but it is in a kind of cultural code of Polish society. Those who are critically appraising the role of Polish anti-Semitism during and after the Holocaust, and also after the fall of the Communist regime, are making significant contributions to transforming the code. Those who deny the strong tradition of Polish anti-Semitism and its tragic consequences, or approach historical and sociological questions doubting its significance, are helping to reproduce the code. Speaking as if Poles and Jews are mutually exclusive categories, thinking about Polish and Jewish history as being apart, nurturing collective memory as distinct, bracketing my mother’s question while studying the development of the democratic opposition (my little contribution), all help to reproduce the code.
Two components of democratization of the Polish Jewish question must confront each other. The post communist inclusion of anti-Semitism into Polish political life, as the conviction of a portion of the population, must be subjected to open and forceful democratic critique and democratic persuasion, with an honest appreciation of the dimensions of the appeal of anti-Semitism. The outcome is not a foregone conclusion. The positive result would mean that the symbol of the Jew would come to be less important in Polish political culture, and anti-Semitism won’t be continually reproduced. I sincerely hope that some day it will be possible, indeed normal, to be a Polish patriot or a Polish liberal without using the symbol of the Jew. The pious patriotic Catholic would enact patriotism and religiosity without reference to Jews. And Polish liberals also would be able to reveal their positions on all other issues without Jews somehow playing a central symbolic role in constituting their identity.
I enjoy reading Adam Michnik on such things. He moves the Polish audience away from the clear categories, as he challenges the Jewish audience abroad. His mixed up identity, self identified as a Pole primarily, Jewish secondarily, identified by others, not so gallantly, as a Jew, lends a special quality to his observations on the debate. In the U.S., he had a notable exchange with Leon Wieseltier, the book review editor of The New Republic. I was very much in Adam’s corner, but there was something to Wieseltier’s critical thrust. There is something overly exquisite about the opening of the debate about Jedwabne in the elite media of your country and mine. History is corrected. Public discourse is enriched and is much wiser. But something is missing.
As Karolina Smagalska has observed, common sense, in the understanding of Clifford Geertz, for far too many people, has not been subverted – that anti Semitic common sense that has a long and deep tradition in Poland and in Europe. Somehow the democratic public discussion has not undermined the anti-Semitic common sense, the cultural code that could either act on its own, or be incited by the Nazis in Jedwabne, that was manipulated by the Communist party or was the work of indigenous Kielce locals. The communist period helped fortify this common sense with its cynical use of anti-Semitic sentiment, and its ideological ignorance of the Holocaust. It is the common sense of every day practices that has deep and enduring effects. It comes in relatively benign forms. One can “Jew down” people after all without being directly implicated in the Holocaust. But if you do “Jew people down” in your daily life, if you are without awareness that Jews perhaps didn’t have it so great here, you cannot yourself be free, let alone understand history and constitute a collective memory that supports democracy and decency.
Now my final words, concerning my continuing project of answering my mother’s question. I confirm the truth of what I had assumed as a young man. Simplistic unitary characterizations of a people or a culture are not acceptable. Human groupings are too heterogeneous. And in the case of Poland, the heterogeneity is not just accidental. Along with the tragic history of my people on these grounds, there are broad humane currents in the culture, recently epitomized by the work of Jan Gross and the many people who have informed his work and have been informed by it, and those who add insights beyond it. The fresh attempts to address the problem is what I choose to focus on, the work of honorable Poles seeking alternatives in the details of their interactions, what I now call the politics of small things. And so focused, I recognize that the alternative project is incomplete.
Why Poland? My answer:
http://www.amazon.com/Bieganski-Stereotype-Polish-Jewish-Relations-American/dp/1936235153
Mr. Goldfarb, the best way that I can describe your commentary is that it is a very good synopsis of anti-Polish bias so pervasive in the American Jewish Community. You are parroting Stalinist and post-Stalinist propaganda, in which villains become heroes and heroes become villains. You have to get out of your Judeo-centric bubble and realize that this debate in Poland is not over anti-Semitism but rather about Polish national identity and true Polish history as opposed to the Stalinist Polish identity and history which was and is being forced down the throats of the Polish people since WWII.
I deeply resent your insinuation that any critic of Gross’s lack of scholarship and ethics, or your naïve and rambling discourse is an anti-Semite. You shroud your anti-Polish bigotry with smug self righteous indignation full of moral judgments but little if any knowledge of basic facts. Your flippant responses to deWalden’s’ comments are further proof of your blind bias against Poles. Since your main theme is that Poles were Nazi collaborators, you should ponder the fact that numerically there were more Jewish Nazi collaborators than Polish Christian Nazi collaborators and Jewish collaboration was an integral part of the extermination process. History written through a narrow window of collaboration is a false history.
You seem to love holocaust fiction in place of holocaust history. If you were better informed you would not have chosen Gross’s “Neighbors” or “Fear” as evidence of Polish anti-Semitism and collaboration in the Jewish Holocaust. I have a feeling that you did not realize that in praising Gross you are accepting his construction of events in Jedwabne in which the Poles are the rabid anti-Semites and the Nazis are the protectors of the Jews. He essentially sanitizes the Nazis and demonizes the Poles. Read the last paragraph on pp.103-4 to appreciate Gross’s state of mind.
It is impossible for me to respond to all of your thoughts and biases, so I will try to restrict my comments to the Jedwabne pogrom. As you read these comments, please remember that “show trials” are propaganda instruments and not historical records. “Neighbors” is a holocaust fiction, a fantasy of an anti-Polish mind and not an account of events that happened. None of Gross’s books are based on depositions of survivors of the pogrom or witnesses thereof. His ‘Neighbors” is totally based on a court brief prepared by an UB officer Szmul Wasersztajn for a show trial involving primarily members of the Polish underground. UB was the newly created Polish secret police, a clone of NKVD and under control of NKVD advisors. That was his job, and most likely was written under the supervision of a Soviet NKVD advisor. The period of 1944-53 in Poland can be best described as a “Reign of Terror” waged by the NKVD (Stalin’s secret police) with the Help of UB against the Polish nation and in particular against the Home Army, the largest and most effective anti-Nazi underground in Nazi occupied Europe. Anywhere from 100,000-150,000 people were murdered and over 150,000 deported to Gulags in the Soviet Union.
You should have asked what happened in Jedwabne rather than praise Jan Gross? The only physical and credible evidence comes from partial exhumation of the two graves, and from testimonies of real eyewitnesses who were still alive in Jedwabne. Gross quoted four false witnesses, including Wasersztajn, and confessions exacted by torture from about 40 individuals who were interrogated by the UB. He never spoke to any of the Jedwabne residents who witnessed the event. Based on partial exhumation, all we can say is that 22 Jewish men were brought to the barn carrying the bust of Lenin, and were shot execution style by uniformed Gestapo police (there were 200 of them in Jedwabne at the time). I will be happy to send you a more detailed response on “Neighbors” if you wish.
A lot of details are missing, but later that day the Gestapo police poured gasoline around the barn and burned it. At least three of the four walls were still standing after the fire. The partial exhumation revealed two graves. The grave inside the barn containing 22 remains of the victims was dug by the victims before they were shot. The grave outside the barn was dug a couple days later by a dozen or more peasants who were brought there by the Gestapo to clean up the site. Unless the exhumations are resumed and other graves are found than there is no evidence for the killing of 300 Jews by burning as the IPN report claimed. It may have happened but not the way it was described in ‘Neighbors” or the IPN monograph. IPN was in the hands of post-Communists at that time. Keres, the President of IPN at the time, and Ignatiew, the prosecutor, lied. Their report was a negotiated one and not based on evidence. I might add that it would have been impossible to force 300 people into a small barn, 20×60 feet, about twice the size of a large living room, and cremate them in an open fire. They did not find remains of 300 Jews in the second grave. We can settle the question of who is telling the truth by new exhumations hopefully conducted by American and European forensic pathologists and out of the hands of post-Communist Polish Governments. But, I doubt that you really care to know.
As for anti-Semitism in post-WWII Poland, let me suggest that you read Michael Checinski’s “Poland: Nationalism, Communism and Anti-Semitism”. That author is infinitely more qualified to talk about post-WWII anti-Semitism than Jan Gross. You will learn a lot about anti-Semitism in the Russian Communist Party but also about anti-Semitism in the Polish Communist Party. Gross has essentially transferred the anti-Semitism which came to Poland at the end of the Soviet bayonets, and left when the Russians left, onto the Polish nation. Once you read the book, I doubt if you will again think the same way about Jan Gross.
The libel against Polish nation as anti-Semitic and intolerant, and as Nazi collaborators is rooted in Soviet propaganda which began in 1918, when Poland gained its independence, and has continued to this day. Unwittingly, you chose to propagate this propaganda just as Gross has done.
With best regards,
Walter Orlowski.
Dear Mr. Orlowski,
I read your post below, Mr. Orlowski’s, and I’m under impression that you had only read the third part of the “Why Poland” article. Otherwise you would have had a chance to better understand the big picture the article touches upon.
The whole article, as I understand it, tells about a journey: the author’s journey(s) to Poland, and the Poles and Jews journey(s) to embrace their history and their neighborhood. I would like to read chapter four, as I feel that there is a lot new landscapes to add. On the other hand, ending the article on the Jedwabne debate, maybe unintentionally, leaves the story on a sort of an optimistic note: capturing the very moment of a new discourse entering public realm in Poland.
If Jeff Goldfarb is biased, his bias is actually of a strange sort: he has been trying to get into the shoes that are not his own, two pairs at once (neither he is a Polish Catholic, nor a Polish Jew), and to sympathetically understand all the actors involved. It creates the polyphony with scales so elaborated that many may find it a cacophony at first – until they are able to appreciate it.
What I heard in your post, though, is a different kind of song.
Historical, deeply symbolical imagination as a way of expressing and preserving Polish national identity is a concept from the 19th century: the times of partitions, but also the times of Romanticism, with its emphasis on the role of literature, its new-born national identity projects, and, in the Polish case, with the development of symbolic, historiosophical interpretation of the role of Poland, chosen as the Christ of the nations of Europe: suffering so much to redeem many.
Unfortunately, Poland’s fate didn’t allow to develop modern discourse: 123 years of non-existence on the map of Europe (1795-1918), 20 years of independence until the WWII, followed by 45 years behind the Iron Curtain – created almost permanent need for the national self-sustaining and resistance. Historiosophy became the arms in the fight for Polish identity.
This historiosophical imagination somehow shaped my patriotism, too. Taught me to proud of my culture, to study history (of Poland, of Europe, of the world) in order to better understand the present and the future.
But it also introduced a dangerous distinction between the truth and the lie; between “us” and “them” willing to invade again. I have been witnessing how this historiosophical imagination in the public discourse has become a template to dismiss any discussion (“you are a liar, as a representative of the anti-Polish enemy X, Y or Z”), to self-defend (“we had no choice”; “our historical situation was so much worse than X, Y, Z”), to white-wash dark spots of the history (“we were victims of a) enemies’ propaganda; b) partitions; c) the greatest tragedy ever”).
Debate about Jedwabne – “lopsided”, clumsy, chaotic as it was – started a public conversation about complex Polish history. The conversation that revealed that Poles are, fortunately, ordinary: not angles, not the tribe of heroes, not the Martyr and the Redeemer of all the nations. Just ordinary people. And that during the war Poles acted as ordinary people, in many different Jedwabnes: some of them with honor and righteousness, some of them – scoundrels and criminals.
When writing “Why Poland”, Jeff Goldfarb depicts well this transitional moment: confrontation with the complex history and an attempt to embrace it, thus constituting a new discourse about Poland and redefining Polish patriotism. For many it was a lost chance – post-Romantic symbolic thinking did not allow starting the conversation anew; yet many took Jedwabne debate seriously – both on the official level and on the level of kitchen table conversations. I find it symptomatic that it is the Jewish-Polish story that marked the beginning of this process.
Maybe it was somehow easier for my generation, brought up in the eighties – far enough from the terror of the war and close enough to the 1989 hope. Unfortunately it is not to say that this debate is concluded; but for sure, it can never be silenced or void again.
**
Clearly, one can continue using “the true history” argument to effectively dismiss any discussion. There will always be a good argument not to listen to “them”: Jews, post-Communists, Masons, atheists, or simply unaware ignorants. But can one be really sure he is the only depositary of truth? It may become an extremely solitary position, when no one true enough would be left around.
There is something to learn from the text written by the Outsider; his story may cover more than any insider dares to see.
With best regards,
Malgorzata Bakalarz
Dear Mr. Orlowski,
I read your post below, Mr. Orlowski’s, and I’m under impression that you had only read the third part of the “Why Poland” article. Otherwise you would have had a chance to better understand the big picture the article touches upon.
The whole article, as I understand it, tells about a journey: the author’s journey(s) to Poland, and the Poles and Jews journey(s) to embrace their history and their neighborhood. I would like to read chapter four, as I feel that there is a lot new landscapes to add. On the other hand, ending the article on the Jedwabne debate, maybe unintentionally, leaves the story on a sort of an optimistic note: capturing the very moment of a new discourse entering public realm in Poland.
If Jeff Goldfarb is biased, his bias is actually of a strange sort: he has been trying to get into the shoes that are not his own, two pairs at once (neither he is a Polish Catholic, nor a Polish Jew), and to sympathetically understand all the actors involved. It creates the polyphony with scales so elaborated that many may find it a cacophony at first – until they are able to appreciate it.
What I heard in your post, though, is a different kind of song.
Historical, deeply symbolical imagination as a way of expressing and preserving Polish national identity is a concept from the 19th century: the times of partitions, but also the times of Romanticism, with its emphasis on the role of literature, its new-born national identity projects, and, in the Polish case, with the development of symbolic, historiosophical interpretation of the role of Poland, chosen as the Christ of the nations of Europe: suffering so much to redeem many.
Unfortunately, Poland’s fate didn’t allow to develop modern discourse: 123 years of non-existence on the map of Europe (1795-1918), 20 years of independence until the WWII, followed by 45 years behind the Iron Curtain – created almost permanent need for the national self-sustaining and resistance. Historiosophy became the arms in the fight for Polish identity.
This historiosophical imagination somehow shaped my patriotism, too. Taught me to proud of my culture, to study history (of Poland, of Europe, of the world) in order to better understand the present and the future.
But it also introduced a dangerous distinction between the truth and the lie; between “us” and “them” willing to invade again. I have been witnessing how this historiosophical imagination in the public discourse has become a template to dismiss any discussion (“you are a liar, as a representative of the anti-Polish enemy X, Y or Z”), to self-defend (“we had no choice”; “our historical situation was so much worse than X, Y, Z”), to white-wash dark spots of the history (“we were victims of a) enemies’ propaganda; b) partitions; c) the greatest tragedy ever”).
Debate about Jedwabne – “lopsided”, clumsy, chaotic as it was – started a public conversation about complex Polish history. The conversation that revealed that Poles are, fortunately, ordinary: not angles, not the tribe of heroes, not the Martyr and the Redeemer of all the nations. Just ordinary people. And that during the war Poles acted as ordinary people, in many different Jedwabnes: some of them with honor and righteousness, some of them – scoundrels and criminals.
When writing “Why Poland”, Jeff Goldfarb depicts well this transitional moment: confrontation with the complex history and an attempt to embrace it, thus constituting a new discourse about Poland and redefining Polish patriotism. For many it was a lost chance – post-Romantic symbolic thinking did not allow starting the conversation anew; yet many took Jedwabne debate seriously – both on the official level and on the level of kitchen table conversations. I find it symptomatic that it is the Jewish-Polish story that marked the beginning of this process.
Maybe it was somehow easier for my generation, brought up in the eighties – far enough from the terror of the war and close enough to the 1989 hope. Unfortunately it is not to say that this debate is concluded; but for sure, it can never be silenced or void again.
**
Clearly, one can continue using “the true history” argument to effectively dismiss any discussion. There will always be a good argument not to listen to “them”: Jews, post-Communists, Masons, atheists, or simply unaware ignorant. But can one be really sure he is the only depositary of truth? It may become an extremely solitary position, when no one true enough is left around.
There is something to learn from the text written by the Outsider; his story may cover more than any insider dares to see.
With best regards,
Malgorzata Bakalarz
Thank you Malgo. I think part four is meant to be written by insiders of your generation.
Dear Malgorzata
Thank you for responding. I did not expect a response. You have raised issues different from that of Prof. Goldfarb. I have read the first two parts and his introduction to “Why Poland”, with which I also have a lot of issues. I am not sure what you meant by the big picture that Prof. Goldfarb presented. Quite on the contrary, he has a very narrow view of Polish history and of Polish-Jewish relations. He is seeing Polish history as part of Jewish Polish history written here in the US rather than Jewish history being part of Polish history written by Polish historians. It is a narrow Judeocentric view. I would even question how accurate was his mother’s perception of why her parents left Poland. If there was a place in Poland where Poles and Jews lived in harmony it would be Lwow. Prof. Goldfarb’s grandparents did not live under Polish rule and I assume that his mother was born and brought up in the United States and her perception was probably shaped by the pervasive anti-Polish propaganda emanating from both Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish organizations. Its source was Bolshevik Russia. Poland’s two “neighbors” were determined to destroy Poland as soon as Wilson announced his ‘14 Points”. I think that her parents left Poland because they were fortunate to get an immigrant visa. Like most Poles, Jews were economic immigrants looking for a better life and were not escaping persecution. Post-WWI Poland was the most war devastated country in Europe, facing mass starvation and of course no employment or means of making a living. Most of the effort of the Hoover humanitarian mission was centered on Poland. It is accurate to say that Hoover may have saved Poland and made its independence possible.
Malgosia, my comments had nothing to do with your notion of historiosophy, no matter what it means, but it has a lot to do with “truth”. I prefer to think in terms of national identity rather than coining new terms which mean whatever one wants it to mean. There is another term which I do not like –“new historiography” meaning revised mendacious history of WWII and post-war period peddled by post-Communists. It is disheartening to observe that Polish-American historians are buying into it. This new historiography began with Gorbachev and his attempt to save Communism in Russia, by admitting to some crimes but greatly downsizing others. It is a rehash of Stalinist version of history with some admission of guilt.
Your statement, when talking about history and traditions: “But it also introduced a dangerous distinction between the truth and the lie; between “us” and “them” willing to invade again”, most likely explains your mind set. You have accepted without any reservations arguments of the post-Communist in power in Poland today, and are ready to forgive, forget and move on. Malgosia, there is a clear distinction between truth and a lie, and it poses no danger to anyone except the liars. Polish national identity was built and is being reconstructed by studying its history and traditions and by a search for truth.
The “Truth Shall Set us Free”. Truth is a constructive force which unites rather segregates contested histories. It is an old saying, but it is as true today as it was in the past. Malgosia, “truth” does exist regardless of Lenin’s views and that of his followers. Communists and post-Communists in Poland and elsewhere, live in mortal fear of it. It is also the only weapon available to Poles in their efforts to finally de-communize Poland. As yet, Poland is not free of control by former Communists. No one in post-communist governments spoke or speaks for her. Only Kaczynski tried and became a target of vicious character assassination not only in post-Communist media but also in the Western media. A lot of people hate “truth” and I hope you are not one of them. I am surprised that you think that anti-Polish defamation, rooted in Soviet propaganda of yesterday, is a good starting point for soul searching discussion of Polish-Jewish issues. How does discussion of anti-Polish fantasies contribute to understanding of the issues? Not only that, to have a discussion the Poles are being asked to accept defamation as a truth and settled history. Gross’s “Neighbors” and “Fear” are Soviet style big lies.
Finally, you seem to be under the impression that the disagreement is between a Jewish version as opposed to “Polish” version of events and history. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one looks at the Kielce pogrom, why would anyone view the official Communist version of the pogrom as a “Jewish” version, when it is based on destruction of all physical evidence (including depositions of the 70 Jewish survivors), records manufactured by a kangaroo NKVD-UB court, fictional confessions written by Soviet Intelligence officers and signed under torture by innocent people, and intense disinformation propaganda campaign against the PSL, AK, the Church, and even boy scouts. Even the UB prosecutor was not allowed to enter the site of the pogrom and examine the evidence. The perpetrators of the crime became “investigators” torturers the next day and then “witnesses” against innocent people charged with the crime. The next morning after the pogrom (might have been earlier) the firing squad arrived in Kielce from Warsaw and 7 individuals were executed 4 days latter after a one day trial. What makes such a version a Jewish version? As I said before, it is not a debate between Jews and Poles, but between the Polish nation and the Soviets and their Polish Communist stooges. The successors of PRL, the post-Communists, continue to peddle that virulent anti-Polish propaganda. Soviet propaganda is not a good starting point for soul searching and one must ask why Gross and others are peddling that version. You don’t think it could be prejudice?
Remember Malgosia, the truth shall set us free and unite us all.
With best regards,
Walter Orlowski
Subject: [deliberatelyconsidered] Re: Why Poland? Part 3: Thinking about Jedwabne, Addressing Premature Holocaust Fatigue
Dear Mr. Orlowski,
This is where our conversation ends – as it slowly moves towards foggy grounds of malevolent birches, which portends an unnecessary catastrophy.
I see the struggling with the chasm between different discourses on history and national identity as a process of “authentication” of democratic transition in Poland – maybe its crucial element – which will ultimately allow to confirm or deny successful adaptation to the culture of democracy.
Clearly, it has still been a work-in-progress.
With kind regards,
m.bakalarz