From: lbs@tkmhp4.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de (Lech Borkowski)
Subject: Re: On Polish Anti-semitism
Reply-To: lbs@tkm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:36:23 GMT

In article <1992Oct11.174254.17633@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>In article <92497@netnews.upenn.edu> kkniaz@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Krzysztof W. Kniaz) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct11.064709.5654@Princeton.EDU> roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig) writes:
>
>>>Gomulka certainly wanted it, as part of the anti-Semitic campaign of the
>>>government.  Historians whom Davidowicz names as working toward this
>>>goal include Pilichowski, Walichnowski, Poteranski, and others.  The 
>>>Polonization of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising itself was accomplished by
>>>one Eugeniusz Duraczynski, who, according to Davidowicz,
>[a line or more of mine evidently deleted?!?]
>>>She cites: Leon Shapiro's article on Poland in the American Jewish
>>>Year Book for 1971, and a 1974 paper by Krzysztof Dunin-Wasowicz.
>>>(Apologies for missed diacriticals...)
>
>>>>what silly purposes (after all, Warsaw had its genuine "Polish" uprising
>>>>and there is no need to steal glory from anybody). Until you (or someone
>>>>else) bring in some details, I will suspect this is a malicious
>>>>fabrication.
>
>>>Sorry, no.  She documents the fabrications and distortions of Jewish
>>>history in wartime Poland that the official historians created in 1968.
>
>>There is indeed a chapter in her book about revisionism of Polish
>>Historians. Problem is, that all the cited historians were paid by
>>the communist party to fabricate lies, therefore their "findings"
>>were treated as yet another anti-semitic communist propaganda.
>
>Well, of *course* this was all created by the Communist Party.  My
>remarks (some of which said exactly that) plus the context of them
>(someone who didn't believe that this had happened under *any* conditions)
>have been cut up here; I wish you'd edit a little more carefully.
>I have no objection to your cutting down my prose -- when I give
>documentation, it *does* take up a lot of space -- but the reason
>I wrote what I wrote has been obscured here.
>
>Now, as to your "therefore" in the above paragraph, well, I hope 
>that's the case.  But remember that the communist party wasn't just 
>two or three people, and that some people undoubtedly *did* swallow
>the "official" version.  Having lived in Germany for quite a while,
>and having visited the GDR on many occasions, I know that "official" 
>history was indeed accepted by many.  To be sure, the German and
>Polish societies were (and are) quite different, woth respect to
>authority, the Party, etc.; but I doubt that the propaganda had
>no effect at all.

 I would like to add that one of the factions in the Communist
Party, so called "partisans" (Moczar and his friends) began
their anti-semitic campaign before 1968. Here I quote from
"The Generation, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists
of Poland", by Jaff Schatz, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley 1991:

p.289
"Symptomatic of the mood they sought to spread was the sudden appearance
in 1966 of a Polish edition of the 'Protocols of the Elders
of Zion' among party activists, students at the military academies,
and army officers. Symptomatic of their rising ideological
influence within the party was the speech held the same
year at a meeting of Polish historians in Cracow by one
of Gomulka's closest associates, party theoretician Zenon
Kliszko. Although he did not himself belong to the partisans,
Kliszko praised the patriotic spirit of prewar nationalists,
warned against Jewish intelectuals, and called for the national
unity of true patriots 'even if this involved for some people
personal injustices ot tragedies'."

The author quotes at this point P. Lendvai "Anti-Semitism
without Jews: Communism in Eastern Europe", NY, Doubleday, 1971.

continuing on p. 289:
"Chaneling various social frustrations into a single nationalist
movement of discontent, the message and the moods that the
partisans spread became increasingly similar to those
of the pre-war National Democrats, once the sworn enemy of all
Polish Comunists."

In the endnote following this fragment we read:

"Zbigniew Brzezinski remarked in 1965, "In a curious way,
[the] emerging new Polish communist elite resembles the pre-World
War II extreme right-wing groups in Poland more than it resembles
either its Comintern-reared Stalinist predecessors or the earlier,
internationalist founders of the Polish Communist party. The program
of the prewar rightists had typically included advocacy of a close
alliance with Russia against Germany, the desirability of
a homogenous Polish state (and not one containing many minorities),
a certain dose of anti-Semitism for mass-consumption, violent
emphasis on nationalism, and contempt for liberalism. Quite
striking, and characteristic of the general decay of Marxism-Leninism,
is the fact that many of the surviving prewar neo-Fascist youth
activists are now to be found among the most outspoken enthusiasts
of the new Polish 'Communist' state - for the first time
in history nationally homogenous, allied with Russia against
Germany, domestically authoritarian, and increasingly nationalist"
(quoted in W. Rozenbaum 'The background of the anti-Zionist
campaign of 1967-1968 in Poland.' In 'Essays in History', vol. 17,
pp. 70-96, 1972-73.)"

p.291:
"Another close ally of the police faction was the previously
mentioned Pax movement. Led by Piasecki (one of the leaders
of the prewar Fascist movement and after the war, most probably
the highest Soviet intelligence agent in Poland and an ally
of the Natolin faction in 1956), with large financial means
at its disposal, the PAX and its press developed into a major center
for antiliberal and anti-Jewish propaganda."

p.304:
"Rapidly strengthening the security service's grip on the mass media
and on the local party structures, the 'anti-Zionist' campaign
occurred on two basic levels. On the official level, the mass media
built up a hysterical picture of the Zionist conspiracy against
Poland. On the unofficial party level, this was followed by a flood
of 'secret' brochures and pamphlets, all being different versions
of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' adapted to the present
Polish conditions and 'confidential' oral information about
Jews and 'revisionists' involved in actions against Poland. Soon,
'Zionist' became synonymous with 'Jews', and at local party
meetings, manipulated by people connected to the security service,
resolutions were passed calling for the instant dismissal
of all Zionists. The initially limited purges began. Some Jews
were put on trial for 'slandering the Polsih nation,' more were
harassed in their places of work, and some received telephone
calls and anonymous letters urging them to leave the country.

 Following the student and intellectual protests in the wake
of the January 1968 ban on the theatrical production of 'Dziady,'
the national drama by a great Polish nineteenth-century poet,
Adam Mickiewicz, the anti-Zionist campaign erupted with full
force. As the student demonstrations spread in Warsaw and
throughout the country (at least in part provoked and manipulated
by the security service), and as the attempts to neutralize
the discontent by showing Jews as the instigators failed,
the signal for an all-out anti-Jewish campaign was given 
in the March 11 issue of the PAX paper, 'Slowo Powszechne',
and by Warsaw party secretary Jozef Kepa. 'Slowo Powszechne',
said to be used occasionally by the KGB to put pressure
on the Polish leadership, accused Jewish students of being
leaders of the student unrest and serving foreign interest."

>Well, Dawidowicz certainly strieks me as balanced and scientific; she
>Roger
 
 Lech Borkowski
lbs@neptune.phys.ufl.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish