From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Kneejerk reactions
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: soc.culture.polish
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 15:07:54 GMT

In article <4031@cvbnetPrime.COM> csroc@dime.UUCP (Charles Sroczynski x4014 5-2) writes:
>Tempers are getting mighty hot on this newsgroup.  Poles don't
>appreciate being singled out for anti-semitism; Jews don't like being
>singled out for being anti-Palistinean.  Each group has a point; each
>may also be somewhat guilty.  Jews were, of course, full Polish
>citizens; as were Arabs in Israel.  This doesn't mean that everyone in
>Poland and Israel have open minds about every ethnic group, race, and
>religion, that would be asking the impossible.  The Poles have shown
>that Poland was the most open and tolerant country in Europe for Jews
>to live in for the past 500+ years.  The Jews have hav explained all
>the Anti-semetic attacks on them in this time.  The Jews point out
>that many Poles did nothing to help them escape from the Nazis and
>extermination.  Poles point out that many of them did and many of
>them(several million) were themselves sent to Nazi death and forced 
>labor camps.   Poles have been guilty of occasional anti-semitic
>attacks over the years on some occasions; Jews have been guilty of
>similar attacks on Arabs in occupied Gaza, the West Bank and in Golan Heights.
>Neither people makes a habit of it; Each has tried to be tolerant and
>other ethnic groups.  Poland and Israel have much in common.  each is
>surrounded by neighbors who can be quite hostile and have been
>on the receiving end of punishment from their neighbors. The bottom
>line for many Poles(this is my opinion, not science), We didn't start,
>continue, or have any direct involovement in the holocaust; Please do
>not place the blame for exterminating millions of Jews on us;  We were
>an occupied country;  Millions of Poles were exterminated and
>incarcerated alongside the millions of Jews.  The bottom line for the
>Israelis(this is my opinion, not science), is we didn't start the wars
>with our neighbors and since some them continue to be dedicated to our
>extermination, We are right in denying them freedom, because we cannot
>otherwise ensure our security. 

Thank you for the attempt at reconciliation.  Alas, it glosses over the
specifics we have been discussing.  

Whether Poland was the most hospitable place for Jews to live over 500
years, I don't know.  I can't say I've seen much evidence that it was
much worse in Germany over that time period; the six-year period 1933-39
would seem to be the sticking point.

And it is on this that some of our discussion has focused.  You see, in
that time, not only in Germany, *but also in Poland*, steps were taken to
withdraw or limit full citizenship of Jews.  The attempt to ban Jewish
ritual slaughter, the institution of the Arierparagraph by more and more
professional organizations and licensing boards, and the government's
utter indifference to the discrimination that these things represented
are the most blatant symptoms of a disturbing trend in Germany's
neighbor to the east.

After the war started, extreme conditions prevailed, to be sure, and 
I'm always uncomfortable about judging political or even individual 
actions under extreme circumstances.  But the problems wrt Jews that
the various resistance organizations, the government in exile, and 
so on, all experienced, are things worth examining and bringing out
into the open.

That said, I do not consider the discussion of these facts to warrant
an indictment of Poles in general, or even of the Polish people of that time
in general.  Accordingly, I am quite distressed when the discussion of
these very issues leads to attempts to indict *Jews* in general, especially
wrt Israel.  My attempt to discuss conditions in Poland in the last century
or so has led to my being called the equivalent of a denier of the
Holocaust; the person who called me that also stated that what I said
(not that he could find any flaw in my facts) had almost convinced him
to become an anti-Semite -- in short, that, if I contined to speak my 
piece, he would take up hatred of all the people of my kind, and that
it would be my fault.  He also intimated that *previous* anti-Semites
had been similarly provoked.


I am puzzled by this turn of events.  I agree with almost everything written
above, yet my saying so has brought down an outpouring of hatred -- and 
the person who has attacked me has said that he is close to hating me
because of my Jewishness, as though  my identity even mattered in a discussion
of history.

I agree -- we can do better than that.  Let us attempt to discuss the
facts, singly and globally, without resorting to personal attack.

Roger