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Titolo: When 'Zionist' Meant 'Jew':

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When 'Zionist' Meant 'Jew': Revisiting the 1968 Events in Poland
THE 1968 STATE SPONSORED anti-Zionist campaign in Poland demonstrates
how easily anti-Zionist rhetoric slips into open antisemitism. It is
also a striking example of how a supposedly internationalist anti-
imperialist movement is prone to hateful manipulation that, in fact,
has very little to do with the Middle East.
The language and imagery adopted at that time resurfaces regularly
with that utilized by contemporary antisemites. The notion of
"Zionism" loses almost all its original meaning, becoming a
politically acceptable synonym for all things Jewish. According to
this schema, which is strongly rooted in traditional antisemitism, the
"Zionists" are accused of conspiring across borders for the benefit of
Israel and its US imperial ally, to the detriment of the local
population, most notably through their control of the international
media. The actions of "Zionists" are frequently compared and equaled
to those of the Nazis and, thus conceived, "Zionism" emerges as a
purely evil phenomenon akin to historical Nazism.
    "The notion of "Zionism" loses almost all its original meaning,
becoming a politically acceptable synonym for all things Jewish"
Antisemitism and communist ideology
On the surface, communism was a thoroughly internationalist ideology
and movement, opposed to all kinds of ethnic and religious
discrimination, including antisemitism. Indeed, many original
adherents of the Polish communist movement found it attractive
precisely because they saw in it the most consistent and principled
response to the antisemitism that was rampant in Polish society in the
1920s and 1930s, openly preached by the Catholic Church and the right-
wing Nationalists. According to some estimates, in the 1920s and 1930s
around 22-26 percent of the Polish Communist Party's membership was
made up of Jews - Jews made up 9 per cent of the entire Polish
population [1]. At the same time, the Jewish communists were a
marginal group within the wider Jewish community. The clandestine
Communist Party remained relatively weak and was dissolved by order of
Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, in 1937. Many of its leaders were
subsequently called to Moscow, imprisoned and murdered by the Soviet
political police during the mass purges.
When the communists re-emerged as the ruling Polish Workers Party
after World War II, the stereotype of "Jewish communists" became even
stronger as part of the popular psyche. Jan Gross remarks: "As to the
persistence of the zydokomuna (Jewish communism) myth in popular
memory, one may attribute it, among other reasons, to an attempt by
complicitious Poles to deflect their own guilt over having contributed
to the triumph of communism." [2]
In fact, Jewish communists constituted a rather small part of the post-
war leadership, and they usually hardly identified themselves as Jews
at all. After the Holocaust, the Jewish community in Poland still
numbered some 250-400,000. Many of them left the country in subsequent
waves of emigration, for example after the Kielce pogrom in 1946 and
in 1956, when the emigration regime was liberalized. By 1968 only
25-30,000 Jews lived in Poland.
Meanwhile, sinister currents of institutionalized antisemitism
appeared across the communist bloc. Stalin ordered the execution of
the leaders of the wartime Jewish Antifascist Committee in the late
1940s and his anti-Jewish obsession reached new heights with the
alleged uncovering of a 'Doctors' Plot' in 1952. Such tendencies were
in turn reflected by the other communist regimes, most famously during
the trial of Rudolf Slansky in Czechoslovakia in 1952.
In a symbolic rapprochement in Poland, a group of activists of the pre-
war fascist National Radical Camp (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR) led
by Boleslaw Piasecki was allowed to operate legally with their own
representation in the Polish parliament in the 1950s. With assistance
from the government, Piasecki created and led his new 'patriotic'
organization, the PAX Association, which came to play an active role
in 1968. Similar developments emerged in other communist states like
Romania, where former members of the antisemitic Iron Guard were
allowed to join the Romanian Communist Party. The Polish Nobel prize-
winning poet, Czeslaw Milosz wrote of such alliances: "Let it be
stated here clearly: the Party/Descends directly from the fascist
Right." [3]
State-sponsored communist antisemitism owed a great deal to Stalin's
personal paranoia, but it also reflected deeper dynamics. The
communist regimes were increasingly seeking their legitimacy in
nationalist rather than revolutionary rhetoric. Over the years, they
were trying to reach out to non-communist sections of society and to
find some acceptance among a wider public, which, in some cases, meant
turning a blind eye to antisemitism or even actively sponsoring it.
Moreover, as the Soviet Union sought allies in the Arab world, anti-
Zionist language became widespread. This encapsulates what happened in
Poland in the late 1960s, when a growing wing in the Party expressed
nationalistic sentiments, combined with an anti-Jewish zeal. The
eruption of antisemitism in 1968 has to be understood in this context.
    "The Polish Nobel prize-winning poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote of such
alliances: 'Let it be stated here clearly: the Party/Descends directly
from the fascist Right'"
The Partisans
The so-called 'partisan' wing of the ruling Polish United Workers
Party in the 1960s was led by the Interior Minister, General
Mieczyslaw Moczar. Ironically for a self-styled Polish nationalist,
his own ethnic background was actually Belarusian, but that was kept
strictly secret [4]. Moczar gathered around himself a significant
group of war veterans (hence the group's popular name), younger party
cadres, military and security personnel and bureaucrats, as well as
some writers and artists.
    "The aim of the 'partisans' was to construct a system of national
communism, with a mixture of communist, nationalist and populist
ideology. Jan Gross called it 'a variation of National Socialism plain
and simple'"
They were unified by an eclectic ideology that combined socialism with
patriotic pathos, praised the heroic aspects of national history and
expressed hostility to all forms of alleged 'cosmopolitanism'. The
'partisans' venom was directed against 'revisionists' - a code word
for leftist dissidents and members of the liberal wing of the party
who were regarded as an obstacle towards building a more authoritarian
nationalist regime. Jews, too, were an obvious target of the
'partisans' growing anger.
The 'partisans' believed the party could regain public support by
publicly purging itself of Jews and by employing nationalist rhetoric.
The aim of the 'partisans' was to construct a system of national
communism, with a mixture of communist, nationalist and populist
ideology. Jan Gross called it "a variation of National Socialism plain
and simple." [5]
The extent to which Wladyslaw Gomulka, the first secretary of the
Central Committee of the party - and therefore the de facto leader of
the country - personally shared the 'partisans'' nationalist ideology
is debatable. Gomulka had led the party in 1945-48 , but was later
dismissed and imprisoned for alleged "right-nationalist deviation" in
the 1950s. In 1956 he was swept back to power on the wave of popular
protest and subsequently introduced a more humane - in relative terms,
at least - version of the communist regime in Poland. He was forced to
resign in the wake of a massacre of shipyard workers by the military
forces in Gdansk and Szczecin in 1970 in which around 40 people died.
According to most accounts, Gomulka remained a convinced communist
internationalist till his death, and in this context it was often
mentioned that his wife was Jewish. Nevertheless, he presided over the
increasingly antisemitic policy, probably fearing the 'partisans'
could turn against him as the old guard of the communist leaders were
pressed to give way to the younger protégées of Moczar. Gomulka's
acceptance of antisemitic elements in the party policy and propaganda
reached its peak in the late 1960s, when the tension in the Middle
East was used to legitimize another wave of anti-Jewish purges pushed
for by the 'partisans'.
The beginning of the anti-Jewish Purges
In the early and mid-1960s, purges of Jewish officers began in the
Ministry of the Interior as well as in the army. A special unit was
set up in the Ministry of the Interior that compiled a secret list of
Jews living in Poland deploying the same criteria behind Hitler's
infamous Nuremberg Laws. The list included all kinds of personal
information to be used in the years to come.
In 1960 Marshal Biriuzov, a Soviet deputy minister of defense,
reportedly remarked to his hosts while visiting Poland, "an army
commanded by Jews and counterrevolutionaries cannot be used in the
fight against imperialism." This comment sparked off the systematic
removal of the remaining Jewish officers from the Polish army,
supervised by a special commission. Although only a few hundred out of
the total number of 40-45,000 officers in the Polish military at that
time were actually Jewish, the number of those purged also included
many officers who were considered sympathetic or friendly to their
Jewish colleagues. This tendency reflected a changing power situation
in the Middle East, where the Soviet bloc provided increasing military
assistance to the Arab states in their conflict with Israel.
    "Gomulka made an important speech at a Trade Union Congress, in
which he declared that 'every citizen of Poland must have only one
fatherland - People's Poland'. He shocked many by referring to
Israel's alleged sympathizers as the 'fifth column'"
On 9 June 1967, in the wake of the Six Day War, the Warsaw Pact
states, with the exception of Romania, decided to break diplomatic
relations with Israel. The Middle Eastern conflict served as a pretext
for unleashing antisemitic smears and vendettas at home. An atmosphere
of suspicion and denunciation swept the country. For example, Moczar
was said to have prepared and passed to Gomulka a list of 94 young
Jews who allegedly contacted the Israeli embassy as possible
volunteers for the IDF.
The wife of Marian Spychalski, the Polish commander-in-chief, was
rumored to have been in Israel visiting family members. The issue was
raised in a discussion among party activists at a military unit in
Babice. Jewish members of the party leadership were attacked openly at
the meeting, among them Eugeniusz Szyr, a deputy prime minister and a
Spanish civil war veteran.
On the day of Israel's victory a birthday party was held at the office
of the popular women's magazine Przyjaciolka, which was interpreted as
a celebration of the Israeli military success. Moczar informed Gomulka
that the wife of General Czeslaw Mankiewicz, a deputy commander of the
Polish air defense, had attended the party. Mankiewicz was immediately
dismissed from his post. Later it transpired that his wife in fact had
not even been present in the city at all on the day of the party, but
too late for the dismissal to be reversed.
On 19 June 1967 Gomulka made an important speech at a Trade Union
Congress, in which he declared that "every citizen of Poland must have
only one fatherland - People's Poland." He shocked many by referring
to Israel's alleged sympathizers as the "fifth column", a term
strongly charged with memories of German-inspired sabotage during the
Second World War. Years later, Gomulka was said to have regretted
using such language to describe Polish Jews. Nevertheless, through the
Trade Union Congress speech he provided an official justification to
the mass antisemitic campaign already unleashed by Moczar's
supporters.
On 8 October 1967 Moczar made a speech on the anniversary of the
establishment of People's Militia in which he likened the Israeli
military to the Nazis. This close similarity, according to him, was
lost on "blinded Zionists, including our Zionists in Poland". A
campaign of intimidation against Polish Jews, including numerous
anonymous letters and threatening phone calls was in full swing. In
1967, a group of about 500 Jews emigrated from Poland.
The Democratic Student Movement
Israel's victory was actually viewed with sympathy in many sections of
Polish society. Many Poles saw it as a setback for the despised Soviet
bloc. They felt a connection with Israel, based on the history of the
Jewish presence in Poland and the fact that many Israeli citizens had
their roots in Poland.
Meanwhile, a democratic movement of students and young intellectuals
emerged in Poland. It was assisted by older Marxist dissidents such as
Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski and supported by a number of liberal-
minded professors at Warsaw University, among them the renowned
philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and
economist Wlodzimierz Brus. The crushing of the movement was
accompanied by aggressive 'anti-Zionist' propaganda.
On 30 January 1968 students staged a demonstration against banning of
a theatre play based on Adam Mickiewicz's 19th century Romantic text
"Dziady" ("Forefathers' Eve") that was deemed anti-Russian by the
authorities. The police arrested many of them and during
interrogations asked "Why do you allow yourself to be manipulated by
kikes?"
Anna Morawska, a daughter of Professor Stefan Morawski, a liberal
philosopher, was among the detained. She was shocked by the policemen
asking her if she knew she was Jewish. Her father's family had long
been assimilated in Polish society and she did not know. Another
interrogated student was shown a Nazi anthropological album and asked
if she recognized Morawski's facial features there.
The protest against antisemitism became part and parcel of the general
democratic movement that emerged in the weeks that followed. In
February 1968, Warsaw University students distributed a leaflet
entitled "Against Fascist Provocation!" penned by Karol Modzelewski in
response to the antisemitic leaflets distributed by security services.
On 29 February 1968, at a memorable meeting of the Polish Writers'
Union, the famous Polish historian, Pawel Jasienica, quoted an
antisemitic leaflet distributed by security services in Warsaw and
commented critically on the authorities' acceptance of such
propaganda. As a result Jasienica was put on a list of forbidden
authors and was not able to publish any works until his death in 1970.
On 3 March 1968, Adam Michnik and Henryk Szlajfer, student leaders,
were expelled from the University. A few days later, Warsaw students
gathered at a rally and a sit-in in defense of the expelled, and in
support for human rights. Both the national anthem and "The
Internationale" were sung. The student rally was brutally attacked by
riot police and plain clothes "workers-activists". One of the
participants recalled: "They beat first of all girls and first of all
the brunettes. I was thinking, why the brunettes? I understood it much
later." The riots continued for several days and spread to other
cities. A wave of arrests ensued and an ever stronger wave of anti-
democratic and antisemitic propaganda followed in the media. Later
that year leaders of the student movement were convicted to prison
sentences ranging from one and a half years to three years in the case
of Adam Michnik.
    "One of the participants recalled: 'They beat first of all girls
and first of all the brunettes. I was thinking, 'why the brunettes?' I
understood it much later'"
The official propaganda stressed the "cosmopolitan" outlook of the
student activists, often emphasizing their alleged family connections
with the Jewish communist 'elite' of the Stalinist period. The
newspapers enjoyed printing the Jewish-sounding names of the young
dissidents, frequently commenting on their allegedly privileged
background: Seweryn Blumsztajn, Henryk Szlajfer, Jozef Dajczgewand,
and so forth. In the case of Aleksander Smolar, the official line
emphasized the fact that his father had been the editor of Folks-
Sztyme, a Yiddish language newspaper published in Poland.
The official press often linked the burgeoning democratic movement
with organizations such as Klub Babel, the youth meeting club run by
the Jewish Social-Cultural Association. According to Bogdan
Hillebrandt, the club was "a propaganda forum for Jewish chauvinism
and nationalism, aiming at infecting the youth with a Zionist
attitude." [6]
In particular, the Jewish-communist family background of the 22 year
old student leader Adam Michnik was remorselessly exploited by
official propaganda, which reminded readers ad nauseam that his father
had been a censor, while his brother had served as a court martial
judge during the early years of communist Poland. Such attacks on
Michnik were continually repeated in the organs of communist
propaganda over the next several decades. Significantly, they persist
today in the discourse of the Polish extreme right. Michnik is now the
editor of the country's main liberal newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, and
is considered to be a founding father of Polish liberal democracy,
which makes him an eternal bete noire for the nationalist extremists.
Similar treatment has been meted out to one of Michnik's closest
collaborators in the student movement of Warsaw in the late 1960s, Jan
Gross, who later became a political science professor in the United
States. Gross is the author of ground-breaking books about
antisemitism that are loathed by the contemporary Polish nationalists.
[7]
    "A curious term - 'Zionist-Trotskyite' - was coined and it became
a regular feature of the media campaign against the dissidents in
1968"
Official propaganda always stressed the Trotskyist influence on the
dissidents. And there was, indeed, a degree of ideological inspiration
as well as organizational assistance provided to the 1960s student
movement by groups of Trotskyists in Poland and abroad. Nevertheless,
according to historian Jerzy Eisler, the importance attached to it by
the official propaganda could be interpreted as another means of
highlighting the Jewish background of some of the opposition
activists: "after all Trotsky's name was Leib Bronstein and he was a
Jew by origin."[8] A curious term - 'Zionist-Trotskyite' - was coined
and it became a regular feature of the media campaign against the
dissidents in 1968. This was reflected by propagandists such as Bogdan
Hillebrandt, who spun conspiracy theories linking 'Zionists,
Trotskyites and revisionists' with former members of Hashomer Hatzair,
a left-Zionist youth organization.
The Meaning of 'Zionism'
'Zionism' was a key charge in all the accusations. In most cases,
there was rather little doubt it simply served as a shorthand for
being Jewish or sympathizing with Jews. "Zionist" Jews were presented
as a rootless yet unified and homogenous trans-national group working
for the benefit of Israel and the United States. They were accused of
"cosmopolitanism" and "nationalism" simultaneously. Such apparent
contradictions are in fact a typical feature of antisemitic discourse
throughout the centuries.
In the key state media company, Interpress, six journalists were
excluded from the party organization for being "Zionists". Asked what
he actually meant by "Zionist", the director reportedly answered that
he had no time to check it precisely in an encyclopedia but he
believed a Zionist is a person whose parents were Jewish. Similar
situations were commonplace [9].
At a Warsaw party organization meeting on 26 June 1967, a female party
member was criticized for her absence at a previous meeting which
condemned Israel. A party official was reported as saying: "Your hair
and skin tone show that you are of Jewish descent. You cannot deny it.
Poles of Jewish descent do not participate in these meetings on
purpose, you should explain your attitude." The party member in
question felt duly obliged to present documents proving that in fact
she was not Jewish [10].
The state-sponsored mobilization required mass participation. In March
and April 1968 all over the country televised official rallies were
organized in support of the government with slogans such as "Zionists
Go to Zion", "Antisemitism no! Anti-Zionism yes!", and the most
curious of all "Zionists to Siam!" ("Syjonisci do Syjamu!"). The last
slogan was indicative of the fact that the participants in the rallies
couldn't care less about the real objectives of Zionism or about the
Middle East as such, which seemed distant and irrelevant to the Polish
situation. The same fact was illustrated by a popular joke:
-Daddy, how do you spell "Zionist"?
-I don't know but before the war you spelt it with a "J"!
In other words, 'Zionist' became an offensive term used against real
or perceived Jews whatever their political persuasion. Communist
rhetoric did not allow openly targeting people on the basis of racial
criteria, while the targeting of alleged "Zionists" was perfectly
acceptable.
    "The protagonists of the campaign preferred to talk about
'Zionism' rather than about Jews per se so that, if needed, they could
always point to a handful of 'good Jews' who could be used to prove
their point"
The protagonists of the campaign preferred to talk about "Zionism"
rather than about Jews per se so that, if needed, they could always
point to a handful of "good Jews" who could be used to prove their
point. According to Professor Michal Glowinski, who analyzed the
discourse of 1968, "the good Jew" was a permanent feature of the
propaganda [11].
Alleged double loyalty and treachery of the "Zionists" was a common
theme. The regional party secretary in Lublin exclaimed at a 21 March
1968 rally: "Our youth must not be led astray by such educators as
Brus, Bauman, Kolakowski and the like, by the trans-national writers
such as the Slonimskis (Antoni Slominski was a Polish-Jewish poet) or
the Kisielewskis (Stefan Kisielewski was a liberal writer and
columnist) and must not be led astray by the young Zionist organizers
and participants of the unrest in Warsaw and other academic
centers ... We have the right to demand a clear self-declaration from
those Jews, citizens of our state, who have not self-declared
themselves yet." On 19 March 1968 Gomulka himself spoke in a similar
vein at a rally in Warsaw. In his view the chief problem was the
necessity for a "self-declaration on the part of Jews - citizens of
our state".
On 11 April 1968 Boleslaw Piasecki condemned, in his parliamentary
speech, "the anti-Polish - internal and external - action of Zionist
nationalism". This charge against "nationalism", made by the historic
leader of Polish extreme nationalists, demonstrated a curious yet
characteristic inversion of meaning, according to which the liberal
and Marxist dissidents were associated with "Jewish chauvinism" while
the hard-line totalitarian antisemites hid behind the label of
"progressive anti-Zionism."
Piasecki threw his lot with General Moczar and the PAX Association
took an active part in the antisemitic campaign. Its publications,
such as the daily newspaper Slowo Powszechne, thundered against
'Zionists' and 'cosmopolitans'. It claimed the Polish student movement
was manipulated by "a political triangle formed by Washington, Bonn
and Tel-Aviv, in unity with the global Zionist movement."
A meeting of young party members with General Moczar on 8 April 1968
was characteristic of the dominant propaganda, too. The Minister of
the Interior claimed that "all the Western press, as it is commonly
known, is generally controlled by Jewish nationalists smearing the
Polish nation and the Polish government". Radio Free Europe, for
example, was "dominated by Zionist elements." He went on to attack
Jews among the party ranks. According to Moczar, "it is a worrying
phenomenon in our social-political life that many ex-policemen from
the ghetto today occupy responsible positions in the party and in the
state in socialist Poland." The Nazification of Zionists and Jews was
on display here.
In the first half of 1968, some forty people were sacked from the
staff of the State Scientific Publishing House (PWN). The pretext was
found in the fact that an encyclopedia that had just been published,
under the entry "Hitlerite concentration camps", overemphasized Jewish
suffering and neglected the issue of ethnic Polish victims. The
question became a major subject in the official press. A new entry was
printed and sent to the encyclopedia subscribers with a request to
remove and replace the relevant page. A stream of articles were
published in the press that eulogized Polish assistance to Jews during
World War II, while highlighting the cases of supposed Jewish
collaboration with the Nazis.
Even the most crude antisemitic arguments were used in the "anti-
Zionist" campaign. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and similar
antisemitic materials were secretly printed in 1968 and distributed
through party channels, in the military and security forces [12].
    "The purge extended to family members of the democratic activists,
as well as those representatives of the communist establishment who
expressed reservations about the antisemitic campaign, such as the
widely respected Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki"
The party committee in Lodz, one of Poland's industrial centers,
published a special brochure titled "Zionism, its genesis, political
outlook and anti-Polish position" in which The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion was quoted as a supposedly reliable source. The same Lodz
committee circulated a leaflet which turned out to be based directly
on an article in the notorious Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer. Once
alerted about it, Gomulka order an internal investigation which
established that an officer in the Ministry of the Interior, Wladyslaw
Ciaston, was responsible for the publication. He was subsequently
dismissed but later reinstated to his position. He worked as the head
of the Security Service and vice-minister of the interior in the 1980s
before being nominated to the post of Polish Ambassador to Albania in
1988.
As Kenneth S. Stern wrote, it is "easy (...) for one form of
antisemitism - anti-Zionism - to open the floodgates for expressions
of the other strains, tarring Judaism as a religion and Jews as
people." [13]
Repression and Emigration of 'Zionists'
As part of repressive measures that followed the student unrest,
hundreds of students were expelled from universities. Professors who
were seen as sympathizers of the student movement were sacked. In this
way, Polish academia was deprived of its leading stars, especially in
the field of humanities. Kolakowski, Bauman, Brus, Hirszowicz and many
others were dismissed and emigrated to continue their careers as
eminent academics in major universities in the West.
Shortly after his arrival in Israel, Zygmunt Bauman issued a statement
in the Ma'ariv newspaper in which he asserted: "Polish workers are not
antisemitic, and the intelligentsia is far from it either. The regime
rests chiefly on the antisemitism of the new bourgeoisie, which is
composed of army officers, governmental and party officials." Many
members of this 'new bourgeoisie' were more than happy to occupy the
positions as part of their upward social mobility.
The purge extended to family members of the democratic activists, as
well as those representatives of the communist establishment who
expressed reservations about the antisemitic campaign, such as the
widely respected Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki. A leading old-guard
communist, Stefan Jedrychowski, also spoke out, along with the nominal
head of state Edward Ochab. Ochab resigned from all his official posts
in protest against antisemitism. His letter to the party leadership
stated: "As a Pole and a communist, I protest most strongly against
the antisemitic campaign organized in Poland by various dark forces;
yesterday's ONR members (a fascist party) and their prominent
supporters today." At a party school of political cadres a resolution
to condemn Israel and its Polish supporters met with some resistance.
One discussant said that to divide the nation according to ethnic
origin was "in contradiction not only to Marxism and to common sense
but also meant sliding down towards racist, Hitlerite positions." [14]
    "This charge against 'nationalism', made by the historic leader of
Polish extreme nationalists, demonstrated a curious yet characteristic
inversion of meaning, according to which the liberal and Marxist
dissidents were associated with 'Jewish chauvinism' while the hard-
line totalitarian antisemites hid behind the label of 'progressive
anti-Zionism'"
Andrzej Werblan, a party ideologist, countered such arguments in an
article on the pages of the monhly journal Miesiecznik Literacki, in
which he complained of over-representation of Jews in academic jobs
and other important positions ("much higher than would result from the
proportion of the Jewish population in our society"). The Jews, he
said,"are prone to revisionism and Jewish nationalism, Zionism in
particular." In conclusion, he called for further "correction of an
incorrect nationality structure in the central institutions."
The purge continued downwards, reaching lower levels of the
administration and party organization as well as various professional
bodies, media outlets, schools and many other institutions. Hundreds
of real or perceived Jews or "Zionists" were sacked or forced to
resign in humiliating circumstances.
The wave of repression raised concerns of international public
opinion. Among others, on 6 April 1968, the philosopher Bertrand
Russell protested in defense of the dismissed academics on the pages
of The Times. In the face of reports in the international press, on 13
April 1968, the Polish Ambassador to France held a press conference in
Paris where - in a familiar pattern to be repeated by Polish diplomats
until quite recently - he informed the international press that
antisemitism in Poland did not exist.
About 15-20,000 Jews were forced to emigrate from Poland in an
atmosphere of intimidation in 1968 and 1969, and some 25 per cent of
them settled in Israel. As noted by Jan Jozef Lipski, a famous Polish
Socialist author, the emigrants could hardly be described as Zionists:
"People who felt ideologically connected with Zionism had left much
earlier, before 1968." [15]
All of the emigrants were forced to renounce their Polish citizenship.
Among them were many prominent figures in intellectual and artistic
circles, such as the writer Henryk Grynberg, film director Aleksander
Ford and Ida Kaminska, the 1967 Oscar-winning actress and founder of
the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. Interestingly, despite almost all of the
remaining Yiddish-speaking population fleeing the country, including
the majority of the Theatre's actors, the government continued to
maintain the Jewish Theatre as well as other Jewish institutions as a
smokescreen for external use, in order to prove that Jewish culture
was protected in Poland.
The same respect was not extended to many other symbolic sites. After
his daughter Barbara was arrested as a participant of the student
movement, the grave of General Henryk Torunczyk, a communist activist
and Spanish Civil War veteran who died in 1966, was threatened with
removal from a Warsaw cemetery reserved for those who served the
country with distinction.. The charge against Torunczyk, raised by a
fellow Spanish Civil War veteran, was that "he had allowed his
daughter to be brought up in a Zionist spirit." The exhumation was
stopped thanks to a higher level intervention. [16]
By May 1968 Gomulka himself became seriously alarmed by the
antisemitic excesses and ordered the "anti-Zionist" campaign be
halted. The damage to society and to Polish-Jewish relations, however,
was not reversed.
Anti-Zionism and the end of communism
It can be argued that in the end the "anti-Zionist" campaign of 1968
contributed to the gradual undoing of the communist regime in Poland.
By embracing antisemitic rhetoric, the regime lost whatever remained
of its ideological credentials as a progressive force. A whole
generation of students and young intellectuals subjected to harsh
repression emerged as experienced activists. Many of them played a
leading role in the formation of Solidarity in the 1980s that
eventually defeated the regime.
    "The anti-Jewish and nationalist discourse employed by the
Communist authorities...(is)..today echoed by the notorious
antisemitic broadcaster, Radio Maryja"
The antisemitic campaign of 1968 left permanent scars upon Polish
society. It resulted in a massive purge of alleged "Zionists" in
universities and many other key professional fields. Together with a
wave of forced mass emigration of Jews, it deprived Poland of a big
part of its intellectual talent.
The anti-Jewish and nationalist discourse employed by the Communist
authorities has become a permanent feature of political life in
Poland, today echoed by the notorious antisemitic broadcaster, Radio
Maryja, and its political allies. The language of national populism
finds its place, among others, on the pages of 'intellectual'
publications such as Obywatel, which serves as an 'anti-globalist'
organizing center on the edges of the extreme right and the extreme
left. Its contributors, besides a streak of Polish MPs, have included
French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, Horst Mahler, the German left-
wing terrorist turned neo-Nazi, and Alexander Dugin, leader of the
National Bolshevik Party in Russia. On a more popular level, at least
two nazi-skinhead rock bands have put "68" into their names to show
their identification with the "anti-Zionist" national-communist spirit
of that year in Poland (Deportacja 68, Sztorm 68).
On the other hand, the events of 1968 paved the way for the pro-
democracy movement whose heritage is an important point of reference
in contemporary public debates. Support for human rights and the
rejection of antisemitism in all forms are part of that heritage.
Perhaps the most striking lesson of the 1968 Polish events is simply
this: they serve as an eternal warning against the manipulation of
Israeli-Palestinian conflict by recasting an anti-Zionist agenda in
antisemitic terms. end logo
1. Werblan, Andrzej. "Przyczynek do genezy konfliktu," Miesiecznik
Literacki 6/1968, p.66 cited in Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza,
przebieg, konsekwencje, Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991,
p. 126.
2. Gross, Jan T. Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz, Random
House, New York, 2006, p.243.
3. Cited in Gross, Jan T. Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland After
Auschwitz, Random House, New York, 2006, p.243.
4. Lesiakowski, Krzysztof. Mieczyslaw Moczar, Rytm, Warszawa 1998, p.
25.
5. Gross, Jan T. Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz, Random
House, New York, 2006, p.243.
6. Hillebrandt, Bogdan. Marzec 1968, Wydawnictwo Spó?dzielcze,
Warszawa 1986, p.40.
7. E.g. Gross, Jan T. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish
Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton University Press, Princeton
2001.
8. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 100.
9. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 131.
10. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 132.
11. Pankowski, Rafal. "Tutaj dziala sam jezyk. Wywiad z Prof. Michalem
G?owinskim," Nigdy Wiecej, 1(16)/2008.
12. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 145.
13. Stern, Kenneth S. Antisemitism Today. How It Is the Same, How It
Is Different, and How to Fight It, American Jewish Committee, New York
2006, p.41.
14. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 134.
15. Cited in Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg,
konsekwencje, Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 431.
16. Eisler, Jerzy. Marzec 1968. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje,
Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa, 1991, p. 381.

 When 'Zionist' Meant 'Jew': Revisiting the 1968 Events in Poland
nahum, hai avuto un figlio, smettila di continuare a combattere coi
rottami del passato...guarda avanti...

 wrote in message 
news:fccae1ed-d4b2-408d...@e10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
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#_Aprite le finestre dei musei; aria fresca!...Le mummie non prendono il 
raffreddore!
G.