From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.polish
Subject: Re: On Polish Anti-semitism
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:06:24 GMT
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <92847@netnews.upenn.edu> kkniaz@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Krzysztof W. Kniaz) writes:
>It is good that the book of Lucy S. Dawidowicz "The Holocaust and the 
>Historians" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981) was mentioned on 
>the net. I have read it and can share my impressions about it:

>Let us start from the end of the book. In the Afterword Ms. Dawidowicz 
>makes some general remarks, including a quote from Polybius on the ethics 
>of a historian:

>`More than 2,000 years ago, Polybius conceded as a regrettable necessity 
>"that historians must show some partiality to their own countries". 
>Nevertheless, he cautioned against writing untruths in behalf of one's 
>country.' (p. 142)

>In chapter 6, Ms. Dawidowicz strongly criticizes Hannah Arendt's book 
>"Eichmann in Jerusalem:"

>`Instead of beginning with research and investigation and following with 
>analysis and finally conclusions, Miss Arendt began with grand 
>generalizations and sweeping moral judgements' (p.138)

>One can only applaud Ms. Dawidowicz's ideas on a historian's ethics. 
>However, let us see how she applies this ethics to herself. Below 
>are a few fragments taken from the first three pages of chapter 5 
>(Appropriating the Holocaust: Polish Historical Revisionism). These pages 
>represent a brief summary of Poland's thousand years of history: 

>`[The Jews] Invited by the Polish kings to a land of indolent nobility...'

You might at least finish that *part* of the sentence, hm?  "...landed
gentry (szlachta), and a peasantry reduced to serfdom, the Jews 
became the middle class."

>`For centuries Poland had been unable to govern itself, to maintain 
>political or economic stability. The nobility and the clergy feuded 
>endlessly with the royal and ducal powers'

>`[The Poles] alienated from other Slavic peoples because of their 
>adherence to Rome'

>`[In 1795] Poland as a nation disappeared from the map'

>`[During the partition period] Attempted suppression of language and faith 
>only intensified and politicized Polish nationalist passions and the 
>appetite for independence. Indeed, their exaltation of martyrdom inclined 
>the Poles to desperate, even suicidal, ventures to win their freedom.'

>Ms. Dawidowicz was far too erudite a scholar not to know that the feuds 
>between the nobility, royal and ducal powers were inherent to each and 
>every European state, be it England, France or Germany and the reasons for 
>Poland's decline and loss of independence (after eight centuries of 
>existence - so much for the unability of governing herself) 

You're telling me that Poland *didn't* have crises of governance all
the time, for the very reasons Dawidowicz gives (but you don't see fit
to quote)?

>must be looked for elsewhere. 

This is a non-sequitur.  In England and France, the nobility were kept
under control, more so as time passed.  Just because all states had this
problem to some degree does not mean that they all had it to the *same*
degree, nor that the problem wass acute in certain times of crisis.  Even
though the problem may have existed elsewhere, other circumstances
*combined* with this problem may have led to a given consequence in
Poland and not elsewhere.  

>Also, she must have known that some other Slavic peoples 
>besides the Poles have traditionally recognized the pope, notably the 
>Slovaks and Ukrainians. 

She said "*OTHER* peoples," not "ALL OTHER peoples."

>She must have realized, too, that a map usually 
>shows *countries* and *states*, the term "Poland" meaning either one. The 
>Polish *nation* did not disappear, to which I and my colleagues are living 
>witnesses. 

Even when you *do* type the words, you don't read them, it seems.  
"...disappeared FROM THE MAP."  That is to say, the Polish nation 
was no longer represented by a state, no longer had recognizable
political boundaries.

Yes, you're a living witness, but I wouldn't look for YOU on a map, 
either.

>I seriously doubt, too, if she would describe the unsuccessful 
>Jewish revolts against Rome in the first two centuries A.D. as expressions 
>of `politicized nationalist passions' and `appetite for independence'.

Why not ask her?

>But she does not heed the wise advise of Polybius, thereby showing an 
>ill-disguised contempt for the subject of her study, and in my eyes 
>seriously compromising herself as a historian.

Well, we've seen what your eyes are worth, I'm afraid. Or perhaps
its the tinted glasses -- in any case, your bleeding chunks of
text have little to do with Dawidowicz's argument.

>Yet despite such an unpromising introduction, her description of the 
>Polish post-war historiography is by and large fair and accurate, 
>notwithstanding some more lapses, like the one:

>`The accusation comes with little grace from a Pole whose people offered 
>no armed resistance to the Germans until August 1944' (p. 121)

>(Sam Saal may be ignorant about the September 1939 campaign and its 
>aftermath, but a historian like Ms. Dawidowicz should know better, I 
>think).

I think she's referring to resistance *after* the occupation, not 
defense vs. an invation.  Such resistances are popular movements,
as opposed to governmental/military ones.  Or are the people now
suddenly to be identified with the state, contrary to everything 
you've been arguing?

>Although I appreciate Ms. Dawidowicz's description of the Polish 
>historiography in the years 1945-1981, I am deeply troubled by something 
>else in her analysis of the above mentioned period: the use of the generic 
>term "Poles" for describing party historians like Walichnowski, Madajczyk 
>or Pilichowski, all of whom played a particularly infamous role in the 
>1968-1969 period.

What do you prefer?  "Chinese"?

>It worries me because if we agree that I and many of my colleagues, who 
>feel little in common with the gentlemen mentioned above, have to be 
>ashamed of what they wrote since all of us were "Poles", than I will start 

Could you cite a passage where she says that?  Just because the government
that commissioned such work was not a nice one makes these people
no less Polish, nor does it make other Poles responsible for what
they say.  Dawidowcz is explicit in her attribution of blame to the
Communist Party and to Marxist historiography in general: the
previous chapter (on the SU) makes this numbingly obvious.

>thinking about subscribing to Aleksander Mazur's theories of "Jews" being 
>responsible for the actions of some UB (secret police) bosses about 15 
>years earlier.

What *IS* this shit?  Dawidowicz nowhere espouses collective guilt as
a way of looking at these writers.  And insisting that it's wrong to
call them "Poles" is as wrong as insisting that one not call David
Duke and American, or Meir Kahane a Jew.  What are you afraid of?

(Also, I've seen this threat before: "If you don't stop saying that,
I'll start believing some really stupid things."  I'm not impressed.)

>Seriously, both ideas are of course absurd to me: both groups of people 
>did not represent the interests of any ethnic group, but solely those of 
>the communist ideology which they represented, were totally loyal to, and 
>tried to implement at any cost.

But that ideology was represented by a national government, like it or
not.  There's no point in pretending that Poland did not exist as
a nation-on-the-map between 1945 and 1989; it had a unique governmental
and political and socio-cultural situation, much of which was determined
by CP bosses, to be sure, but much of which was determined by *Polish*
Communists, who very much considered themselves Poles, and also by
*non*-Communists.  

>However, if somebody insists that I as a Pole should bear responsibility 
>for a certain Mr. Walichnowski while Mr. Lustig for example should not 
>feel the same about a certain Mr. Rozanski, then I feel it is *grossly* 
>unfair and quite paranoidal.

The only person insisting that would seem to be *you*, and I would
indeed consider much of the above to be "paranoidal."   Nowhere have
I called for you to bear responsibility for things you have not done;
i *do* consider it right that anyone who considers himself a member of
a people should take on some responsibility for righting wrongs done
in the name of that people.  That goes for you and for me.

I might also add that Lucy Dawidowicz does not accuse you of anything, either.

>To finish this posting, I would like to humbly suggest that if our Jewish 
>colleagues really mean what they say, i.e. the aim of their contributions 
>is to make us familiar with literature hitherto unknown to us (at least in 
>my case they succeeded), then perhaps they try to reach to some literature 
>worth reading and either unknown or ignored by them. Here I have to 
>recommend practically all the publications of the Institute for Polish- 
>Jewish Studies based in Oxford, under the direction of Antony Polonsky, 
>and notably the yearly issues of "Polin". The Jewish and Polish historians 
>writing there offer usually sincere and honest evaluations of certain 
>historical problems, sometimes very critical of Poland and Poles, but 
>usually fair and interesting (the article of Ezra Mendelsohn quoted in 
>extenso by W. Dobosiewicz was an example of this). 

Fine.  Any particular ones you have in mind?  Show me where to start.

>Which unfortunately cannot always be said about Ms. Dawidowicz whose 
>emotions seem to negatively affect her vision.

Well, if those are all the examples you can cite, I'm not impressed.
Seems to me the one whose vision is lacking is you.

Roger