FROM THE EDITOR

Polemics between Rabbi David Lincoln who considers Poland as the victim of the Nazis and Fanya Gottesfeld Heller who claims that Poland was a victimizer. Below you have three texts from the New York Jewish Week:

The Rabbi's article, Fanya Gottesfeld Heller's opinion and the Rabbi's reply.

Poland As Victim, Not Victimizer
David H. Lincoln

Jewish Week

New York, June 17, 2005

I was pleased to read recently in Haaretz that the Israeli government is considering changes in the March of the Living youth trips and concentration camp visits. Polish organizations have complained about the ignorance of youth leaders, with the result that young people (joining many Jewish adults in the United States) cannot distinguish between the German killers and Polish victims, and hold the Poles responsible for the fate of Polish Jews.

The recent history of Poland is a most tragic one. During the horrors of World War II, not only was there suffering and death at the hands of Nazis, but the brutal murder of some 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Forest by the Soviets added an appalling dimension to their torment. The postwar story of communist domination is well documented.

Some will say that the Poles' treatment of their Jewish population was such that their suffering was not wholly undeserved. The prewar discrimination, the failure to come to our aid and the seeming indifference has been noted.

The outrageous events in Jedwabne, and the cruel victimization and killings in postwar Kielce and other locations caused survivors to realize they were unwelcome in Poland.

As so often happens when recounting history, however, things are not so simple. The ancient history of Polish Jewry was a blessed one in many ways. From the edict of Duke Boleslaw the Pious in 1264 to various edicts and charters of King Casimir the Great in 1343 and 1354 and onward, many rulers granted unprecedented protection to Jewish religious rights. The bravery of Jewish battalions during Kosciusko's insurrection was appreciated by the general population. Marshal Pilsudski was considered sympathetic to Jewish interests after World War I in the new republic and many groups, in
particular the Orthodox Agudah, demanded full loyalty to the state.

We turn most of our attention, however, to the years 1939-45. It would be impossible to enumerate all the events of that tragic period and their ramifications. But bear certain facts in mind. Poland was the only country occupied by the Nazis that did not set up a regime sympathetic to them or supply forces to assist them. Poland was the sole country besides Great Britain and its empire to fight the whole war on the right side: Great Britain went to war in 1939 to defend Polish independence. According to the commander in chief of the Royal Air Force, were it not for the skill and bravery of the Polish fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain, the "result might have been very different" and Britain might well have fallen.

The heroism of the Polish army under General Anders and others contributed much to the eventual victory. During those tortuous wartime years, the Polish ambassador and minister of foreign affairs, Count Edward Raczynski, was foremost in demanding that the allies condemn the persecution of Jews in his occupied homeland and entreated them to threaten the Germans with retribution. When, however, Raczynski and his government tried to alarm the Allies, they were accused of exaggeration, and when the truth became known, officials in Washington and London told the Poles not to give it too much publicity.

The author and historian Walter Laquer, in his book "The Terrible Secret," states the Poles "behaved far more humanly than Romanians or Ukrainians, than Lithuanians and Latvians. A comparison with France would be, by no means, unfavorable for Poland."

Many gentile Poles hid and saved Jews knowing full well their families would be murdered if found out. The long list of Polish names of Righteous Gentiles in Yad Vashem is testimony enough to understand their self-sacrifice on behalf of their Jewish neighbors.

Today, of course, there is somewhat of a resurgence of Judaism in Poland. Obviously there will not be a Jewry like there was before World War II, but statements like those heard among the Jewish youth during their visits - "The Poles try to put themselves as victims, etc." - are misguided.

Well, the Poles certainly were victims of Germans. Not only did the Nazis kill 2 million Poles, they sent millions to prison or forced labor.

Virtually every family in Poland had a member killed or imprisoned during the occupation.

It should be noted that the American Jewish Committee has done excellent work arranging for marchers to meet with Polish diplomats and scholars even before they depart. In the words of Charles Chotkowski, a noted friend and supporter of Polish-Jewish understanding, "Surely it would be worthwhile to promote a truthful understanding of Poland and the Poles rather than
exacerbate Polish-Jewish tensions."

David H. Lincoln is senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=4242

Poland Should Not Be Seen As a Victim of the Nazis

Fanya Gottesfeld Heller

New York Jewish News

22 July 2005

With all due respect to Rabbi David Lincoln and his Opinion piece titled "Poland As Victim, Not Victimizer" (June 17), I would be remiss not to respond. As a Holocaust survivor from Poland who suffered from the unspeakable brutality and hatred of my neighbors, I cannot bring myself to view Poland as a "victim."

I am sure that Rabbi Lincoln has read Yehuda Bauer's description of the vibrant communal and cultural life that Jews in Poland had before the war. Yet Jews were excluded from nearly all aspects of Polish society - social organizations, professional guilds, and high schools and universities, to name just a few. In my village of Skala, the Jewish community received absolutely no social support from the Polish government. We were left to care for our own, from the cradle to the grave, despite our meager resources.

Anti-Semitism was rampant in Poland long before the rise of Hitler. There was name calling, stone throwing, beard pulling, you name it. The peasants were told in church week after week that the Jews had committed deicide and, echoing the blood libels of the Middle Ages, used the blood of Christian babies to bake matzah for Passover. No one ever bothered to correct these misconceptions. (Incidentally, during my last trip to Poland several years ago, I met a Polish peasant woman who still believed that we carried out the heinous blood libel each spring.)

This bred an atmosphere of isolation - a small village of 5,500 inhabitants living side by side, but the Poles led their lives, and we lived ours. We grew ever more suspicious of one another, which ultimately led to contempt and hatred.

It is no coincidence that more Nazi death camps were established in Poland than anywhere else in Europe. The environment was ripe for Hitler, and he had little trouble convincing the locals to join his murderous crusade. In my area of Poland, Jews were not even sent to concentration camps. Why take the trouble to move us when they could round us up like cattle, force us to dig our own graves and shoot us on the spot?

We all became outlaws, hunted by armies of Poles eager to denounce us to the Gestapo. (Jewish life at that time was so cheap that the reward for turning in a Jew was a pair of boots or a bottle of vodka.) My father was desperate to find us a place to hide, yet no one would take us in. Our Polish neighbors, who came to our house frequently to listen to my father's radio and discuss politics and literature, would not even offer us a piece of bread to quiet our rumbling stomachs. They were blind and deaf to our suffering..Some carried out the brutality themselves.

Take the example of Jedwabne in northeastern Poland. On July 10, 1941, 1,600 Jewish men, women and children - nearly two-thirds of the town’s inhabitants - were massacred, burned alive by their Polish neighbors after indescribable torture and humiliation. Only seven Jews survived the pogrom in Jedwabne. They were saved by the sole family in the village willing to help them. This family was subsequently stigmatized for helping their Jewish neighbors and was driven out of town.

A man with similar conviction - the poorest man in Skala - came to the rescue of my family. Sidor could not even provide for his own family, yet somehow he found the moral courage to provide shelter to four starving Jews who otherwise were condemned to death. He dug a cave for us beneath his chicken coop, where we remained hidden, in a crouching position, for nearly two-and-a-half years. We were completely dependent upon him to give us whatever water and food scraps he could spare and to take away our waste.

Sidor was surrounded by Nazi collaborators on all sides, yet he never uttered a word of betrayal. He did not allow his 6-year-old daughter to attend kindergarten for fear that she might say something about the Jews hidden behind her house. When Sidor contracted typhus from us, he refused to go to the doctor; they knew that only the dirty Jews in hiding carried the lice that carried typhus, and Sidor did not want to jeopardize our security.

Sidor's bravery and unwavering kindness saved my life, but he was just one person in a community of many who stood by as millions were martyred before their very eyes. If, as Rabbi Lincoln writes, "many gentile Poles hid and saved Jews," why did only 45 Jews from my village manage to survive in a population of 1,500?

For months after the liberation, my family remained in hiding from the Poles who sought to finish the job for Hitler. Outbreaks of violence against Jews were commonplace. Pogroms continued throughout the country, the most noteworthy of which took place in the village of Kielce. Poland was no place for us to rebuild our lives, and certainly was no friend to the Jews.

When I speak in high schools and at universities about my Holocaust experiences, students often ask me if I have forgiven those who carried out such evil deeds during my childhood in Poland. While I do not hold the sons accountable for the sins of their fathers, it is not my place to forgive. There are some sins that only God and the dead can forgive. n

Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, a Holocaust survivor, is a noted educator and Jewish community activist. Her memoir documenting her family's rescue from Nazi-occupied Poland by two righteous Christians was reissued this year under the title "Love in a World of Sorrow" (Devora)

Special to Jewish Week

Revisionist History

David H. LincolnLetters to the Editor section New York Jewish Week,

29 July 2005

I can only describe Fanya Gottesman Heller's criticism of my article on Poland ("Poland Should Not Be Seen As A Victim Of The Nazis," July 22) as a most amazing piece of revisionist history. To suggest, as she does, that Poland was not a victim of German aggression is to wonder why the Second World War happened at all. My late father and all other Britons will have wondered why they went to fight in 1939.

I can only surmise that, sadly, she did not read my article at all. She mentions Jedwabne; so did I. She wrote about the pogrom in Kielce, the Polish anti-Semitism before and after the war; so did I. She condemned those Poles who helped the Germans; so did I. So what is she complaining about?

The thrust of my article was the heroism and gallantry of the Polish armed forces not only in the Battle of Britain but in very many campaigns of World War II. Just as Mrs. Gottesman Heller's life was saved by Poles, so was mine in wartime London, through the significant victory of the Battle of Britain brought about in large measure by Polish pilots. Finally I must ask, is the long list of Polish Righteous of the Nations in Yad Vashem a fabrication?

Rabbi David H. Lincoln

New York, N.Y.