Edelman – Last of the Bundists?

RIP Marek Edelman 1919-2009

Although the title of this piece is, in all probability, utterly misleading, it is not without reason I pin the moniker “Last of the Bundists” on the head of the departed Marek Edelman. There are several reasons. Firstly, he was most certainly the last of a dying breed. Marek Edelman passed away on the 2nd October 2009 at the age of 90. He was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, fighting tooth and nail for Poland’s decimated Jewish population. He was a member of Solidarity and took part in the Round Table Talks which triggered the beginning of the end for communism in Europe. He received Poland’s Order of the White Eagle and France’s Legion of Honour for his wartime bravery and opposition activism.

Edelman Survived the Ghetto

Secondly, Marek Edelman was in every sense a true hero. Honoured in Poland, France and the US, and respected across Europe, this humble man decided to stay in Poland after the war and not, like so many Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, emigrate to the newly forming State of Israel, then still the British Mandate of Palestine. He had fought and witnessed most of his friends and family die at the hands of the Nazis. To have survived such atrocities and then take up and leave was not Edelman’s style. He had defended Warsaw so that Warsaw and its inhabitants would live on. He would not be leaving Poland’s capital.

Edelman & the Round Table Talks

It is odd then that Edelman, a Jew and the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was never honoured by or afforded the same degree of respect in Israel that he was given in Europe and the US.  In trying to explain the “Last of the Bundists” sobriquet we should remmber that Marek Edelman belonged to the the Jewish Labour Party ‘Bund’ and was an outspoken anti-Zionist and a firm critic of Israel’s foreign policy in particular with regards to its middle-eastern neighbours. It was difficult for him, a socialist and supporter of Solidarity (and solidarity), to come to terms with what had become of the State of Israel. In this sense he really was the “Last of the Bundists”…

Marek Edelman 1919-2009, wartime hero, political activist and cardiologist will be sorely missed.

The Creation of Genocide

The Great Rafał Lemkin

Rafał Lemkin (better known as Raphael Lemkin) was born in a country that did not exist. In 1900, the year of Lemkin’s birth, Poland had not yet regained its independence, yet Rafał Lemkin considered himself Polish. The village of Bezwodne (not too far from Grodno, now in Belarus), the birthplace of this great man, lay in what was then Imperial Russia. Being both Polish (with no Poland) and Jewish (with Anti-Semitism particularly strong in Imperial Russia), Lemkin knew exactly what it meant to be  part of an ostracised minority. He knew what it meant to be different. He was therefore also acutely aware of the importance and value of freedom.

NY Times Reports... (1915)

Rafał Lemkin studied linguistics at the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów. While at Lwów, he became interested and then began researching the Armenian massacre at the hands of the Turks in 1915-1916. He was later to continue his research into similar massacres of this kind with work on the Simele massacre in which the Iraqi government ordered the murder and forced exile of the Assyrians in 1933. Lemkin, through his research, became interested in crime and justice and, through his grounding in linguistics, was disturbed by the lack of definitions of various crimes, particularly those perpetrated by the Turks and the Iraqis.

Nuremberg Trials

When Hilter began his rampage through Poland killing Jews, Poles and many others in the Nazi death camps, Lemkin saw that the mistakes and atrocities of the past perpetrated on the Armenians and Assyrians were coming back to haunt humanity and in particular him – he was both Jewish and Polish. He felt the need to define these atrocities from a criminal (and linguistic) point of view. In 1943 Lemkin coined the word genocide from the Greek genos (tribe, race) and the Latin -cide (killing) to describe what Hitler and the Nazis were doing. Lemkin’s definition of genocide became a part of international law and one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials against Nazi war criminals.

Katyń - War Crime or Genocide?

In his own words, Lemkin said, “By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group… Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor”. The word “genocide” has been in the news in recent weeks. Many Polish politicians declare the Katyń massacre of 1940 by the Soviets on Polish military officers and intellectuals to be genocide. The Russians, of course, do not agree. Several days ago, the Deputy Speaker of the House Stefan Niesiołowski hit the headlines by stating that Katyń was a war crime, not genocide.

Legacy of Katyń

This comment has not only outraged members of the opposition, particularly Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński, but also members of Niesiołowski’s own party Civic Platform (PO). Kaczyński claims that Niesiołowski has gone too far and is being disloyal to his country. The Polish parlimanent wishes to pass a resolution this week regarding the atrocities of WWII. The PiS resolution talks about genocide, rape, murder perpertrated on the Polish nation by two totalitarian governments. PO prefers a milder resolution. However, the question of whether Katyń is “genocide” (as Lemkin defined it) or not still seems unresolved.

Who actually Won the War?

GERMAN Nazis

The events of the last few days have led me to ask the question: “Who actually won World War II?” Noises from the political elite in Germany and an even greater hoohah in Poland have got me thinking about two issues: (1) the necessity for Germany to feel responsible for the Holocaust and the slaughter of so many innocent lives in World War II, and (2) the growing rise of negationism, or rather historical relativism.

German Revisionism
The surprising news that has come out of Germany is that the two political powerhouses, the CDU and CSU, have called for the European Parliament to back a decision to condemn all forms of forced repatriation. Without such a joint EU declaration, Germany has intimated that it will not agree to further expansion of the European Union. This is all well and good and indeed forced repatriating should be condemned but this issue deflects away from the causes of the last forced exodus in Europe. As we all know, the forced repatriation of millions of European citizens was a direct result of the Nazi attack on Poland in 1945. The CDU and CSU have also added that all laws and rights violated through repatriation need to be reversed. This appears to be a call to give compensation to those Germans who were forced out of Poland after the war, a war the Germans began!

Polish Oversensitiveness
This has caused an almighty explosion of outrage in Poland. The first to respond to Germany’s call was Jarosław Kaczyński who has called upon PM Donald Tusk for his Civic Platform (PO) to leave the the European People’s Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) political group, the group to which both PO and the CDU and CSU belong in a mark of protest against this German revisionism. He has also called the PO “weak” in the face of German brute force and expansionism. Germany has also stated that it wishes the German language to be stronger within the EU. There’s no getting away from the fact that Jarosław Kaczyński made these statements for political gain but he’s not all that wrong about Germany trying to deflect away from the cause of Europe’s most recent forced bout of repatriations.

European Problems
Yes, Poland is oversensitive. But wouldn’t you be a little touchy if you had experienced what the inhabitants of Poland experienced during the war. Not only was Poland’s Jewish population wiped out but its other citizens also faced humiliation, torture and death at the hands of the German Nazis. Any calls for a re-evaluation of the facts will unsurprisingly cause a stir. Two things need to happen for Europe to take a good look at itself and grow up. Firstly, not only Germany and Poland but ALL of the EU’s member states need to sit down and talk, not only at the ministerial level but at the level of local communities to see how these issues still affect us all today. Secondly, Europe needs to learn the true meaning of solidarity and the meaning of ‘being European’, whatever that means.

Revisionist Museum

Erika on a Mission

The news that Erika Steinbach has decided not to stand as a member of the council for the the new museum dedicated to Germans expelled from their homes after World War II has come as a relief to the majority of Poles, Czechs and Jews but it does not solve the problem that this museum is being built in the first place.

Revisionismus
Steinbach is president of the Federation of Expellees (BdV), an organisation that seeks to represent the interests of all Germans who were forced to leave their homes in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. Steinbach is known for her controversial views and there are hints of revisionism in her attitude to Germany’s part in the Second World War. She seeks to focus on the plight of German expellees after the war rather than looking at the plight of all expellees and the reason behind these expulsions. What is more, Poles note the fact that Steinbach voted against the act reconfirming modern Polish-German borders in 1990. The Czechs, on the other hand, remember the fact that she was a vehement critic of the implementation of the Czech-German Declaration in 1997.

Goldenes Zeitalter
The amount of ill feeling caused by the Centre Against Expulsions and the proposed museum is unsurprising. Rather than discuss the whole problem of expulsions in a wider context, the Centre Against Expulsions eagerly lists the history of each expelled German ‘tribe’ (together with coat-of-arms) as well as listing how many people from each particular nation were expelled and by whom (which country). The attitude here is one of lost tribes, a glorious past as well as finger-pointing and the shifting of responsibility for the expulsion of Germans away from the country that instigated World War II. It is not therefore surprising that most Central and Eastern European citizens find the idea of such a museum repulsive.

Graue Eminenz
With Erika Steinbach being at the forefront of this shift in attitude to the outcomes of, reasons and responsibilities for World War II, the sigh of relief that she will not be a part of the council for this museum can be heard across Europe. The museum council numbers thirteen members of which three have been allotted to members of BdV. With the resignation of Steinbach, the council, curiously, will only number twelve with no one taking her place which leads to the suggestion that her resignation is probably only temporary and that she will soon be back leading the fight for the construction of the museum. In the meantime, behind the curtain, she will be pulling the strings anyway.

Is Poland a Racist Country?

Poland's Eaglets

There’s been a great big hoo-hah in the press recently after Law and Justice (PiS) MP Artur Górski came out with ridiculous comments about Barack Obama’s win spelling the end of the civilisation of the white man. Poland’s other political parties (including ruling Civic Platiform) have called for strict action to be taken against Górski. What added fuel to the flames was PiS head Jarosław Kaczyński making a feeble attempt to defend Górski in the name of free speech.

From Fire to Blaze
Kaczyński overzealous yet absurd defence of Górski may have added fuel to the flames but his recent gaffe has sprayed high-octane petrol on the now raging blaze. PiS are considering reporting Minster of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski to the public prosecutor for telling a racist joke about Barack Obama, the only problem is that Jarosław Kaczyński was caught telling the very same joke, a story told to the press by Wojciech Olejniczak, former head of Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).

Is Rydzyk Typical?
This leads to the question, is Poland a racist country? A great number of Poland’s politicians have become embroiled in this mini-scandal, this scandalette of sorts, but is this a reflection of Polish society in general? Many claim that Polish people are anti-semitic. Yes, there are very public accounts of certain notables making anti-semitic comments, most notably Tadeusz Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja, but does this mirror your average Jan Kowalski?

Bubbling Ignorance
In a post some time ago, we looked at racism in football. But isn’t racism present in football all over Europe? Poland is no different to other EU states, which doesn’t make it a good thing but some would argue that the football culture in, for example, Spain is much more racist than Polish football could ever be. In my own humble opinion, I’d say that Polish people aren’t overtly racist, nor are they overtly anti-semitic, however, there is a great deal of underlying ignorance which often bubbles to the surface in the form of what may appear to be racism. Let’s just hope that Poland’s politicians can keep a lid on it.

History is Gross (Part II)

History is brutal, history is merciless, history leaves no stone unturned. When the Nazis began the invasion of Poland they destroyed two nations. The Ashkenazi Jews were exterminated. Utterly. Together with the Soviets, the Nazis successfully decimated the Polish ruling classes.

Cultural Vacuum
The Jews were left with nothing. There were none left. The Poles were left with a nation in tatters, in the iron grip of Stalin. Without true leaders and role models (who had all been murdered by either the Nazis or the Soviets), Poland wandered like a blind man in the first few years of its forcibly re-shaped and hermetic state.

Cultural Backlash
The Jews who had helped set up the embryonic communities in the Middle East were creating a new Israeli identity. The Poles in post-war Poland were of a different ilk from those who had existed before the war. The Israeli Jews took on Zionism, Hebraism and a brash type of patriotism as a response to peace-loving Ashkanazi society and the need to survive in their new environment surrounded by Arab (anti-Jewish) states. The Polish communists got on the patriotic bandwagon in order to help rebuild the new socialist Poland.

Social Change
A great part of post-war Polish society was largely uneducated or poorly educated. Unfortunately, ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is never bliss. After surviving the Nazi occupation, Poland now had to deal with the Soviet occupation. Poland, we must remember, had won the war. Many post-war Poles felt like the victims.

Divided Society
It is not surprising that the Poles felt cheated after ‘winning’ the war. Many of the Jews who survived the war embraced communism as, what they believed, to be the antithesis of National Socialism. Many of the highest ranking communists in Poland were in fact Jews. And this fact began to irk the uneducated masses. The seed of discontent had been sown.

New Perspective
What happened during the war and after the war was appalling. What many Poles did to their fellow (Jewish) Poles was not only reprehensible, criminal but also disgusting. Perspective allows us to see the big picture and the real context. That does not mean Poland is in any way off the hook. Gross’ book allows us to review our perspective on history. And this, we all have to live with.

History is Gross (Part I)

The Polish publication of “Fear” by Jan Tomasz Gross has not only thrown a spanner into the works and caused an almighty stir in the media but has raised a big old question mark over the future of Polish-Jewish relations. I have not read the book and so this post is not an analysis of the book but a short discussion of history and our relationship with history.

Historical Facts
In any analysis of history, we must first have enough wits about us to sort the real facts from pseudo-facts, quasi facts, rumour and hearsay. A useful distinction is what we might term ‘objective’ facts, ‘subjective’ facts and ‘popular’ facts. For example… The Germans started World War II – an objective fact. Germany (in the guise of Hitler’s Third reich) declared war on (the Second Republic of) Poland – an objective fact. The Nazis built the concentration camps – an objective fact. The WWII Germans were evil – a subjective (and popular) fact. The Poles did nothing to help the Jews – subjective fact. The Jews were the richest class in Eastern Europe – popular fact. The Jews owned all the gold in Eastern Europe – popular fact. This mix of fact and fiction flows into popular consciousness on a daily basis, colouring and distorting our view of history, creating stereotypes and fueling racism.

Point of Reference
History is all about perspective but this is also its fundamental problem. General facts and generalisations often fall into the ‘subjective’ and ‘popular’ facts category. What is believed to be true by certain groups (or even individuals) can often spread and become a ‘truth’. The claim that the Poles did their utmost to save the Ashkenazi Jews is subjective, as is the claim that the Poles were as guilty as the Germans in the extermination of the Jews. Understanding perspective is all important here. Sweeping generalisations are both misleading and dangerous (as I have mentioned before).

Value of Discussion
However, what Gross’ book has achieved is bringing the problem of perspective out into the open. There WERE hordes of Polish people who did absolutely nothing to help the Jews during the war. Moreover, they helped in their extermination. Gross’ book will allow historians (and more importantly, average Poles) to review their mythologised view of WWII. Yes, many Poles DID help the Jews during the war (with Poles being the most numerous among the Righteous Among the Nations in the Yad Vashem). But on the other had, many Poles helped the Germans. Sad but true.

Open Dialogue
“Fear” is an important publication. It will allow us all to separate the objective facts from the subjective facts and popular facts. Why did so many Polish people help the Germans in the extermination of the Jews? Did they see it as revenge? Did they feel disenfranchised by the would-be ‘richer’ class of Ashkenazi Jewry? History shows that Poland did more than most countries to help the Jews settle into European society so how did it ever come to this? Why, after WWII, were so many Polish people anti-semitic? Or was it just racism? Or simply “barbarism” as famous Jewish-Polish activist Marek Edelman calls it? History demands discussion and dialogue.

Interesting Times

There is a wonderful Chinese saying: “May you never live in interesting times”. How true…

Happy Family
Before we discuss today’s scandal, let us move back a few days. On Sunday, in an audacious bid to garner more support among the catholic masses, all the high-ranking members of the government including Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, Deputy PM Andrzej Lepper and Deputy PM Roman Giertych decided to take part in the Radio Maryja pilgrimage to the Jasna Góra Monastery. For the first time ever in the history of Jasna Góra pilgrimages, the Prime Minister of Poland was invited to speak from the altar by the uber-chief of Radio Maryja Tadeusz Rydzyk. Kaczyński with Andrzej Lepper sitting close behind sang the praises of Rydzyk and his great work and also told the masses how they are the real Poland (hinting that anyone who is not catholic or part of the ‘Radio Maryja’ family is not).

Media Family
The scandal is in the fact that the government has become embroiled in a poisonous relationship with Rydzyk’s Radio Maryja and his TV station Trwam leading to a situation where many political decisions seem to be taken at the behest of or with the blessing of Rydzyk. TV Trwam was given exclusive rights to broadcast the pilgrimage with all other stations being banned from the gathering. Much to the media’s surprise, Rydzyk hired heavies to stop any other (as he called them “liberalising, foreign-backed and anti-Polish”) cameramen and reporters from appearing at the pilgrimage.

Religious Family
The whole political-religious gathering was watched by (some say) 150,000 pilgrims. At one stage Rydzyk ironically asked the PM whether the PiS-Self-Defence-LPR coalition would survive. The PM retorted that the altar was not a place for politics. Yeah right…

Family Surprise
On Monday, the day after the pilgirmage, the last thing anybody expected was an attack on the Kaczyńskis from… Taduesz Rydzyk. However, out of nowhere, the weekly Wprost published an article giving a verbatim account of Rydzyk speaking to students of the Higher School of Social Culture and Media (a Toruń university set up by Rydzyk himself). In his lecture he charged headlong into an attack on President Kaczyński (the PM’s twin brother) calling him a cheat and weakling. He then added that his wife Maria Kaczyńska is a witch for supporting euthanasia and if she is so keen on euthanasia should be the first to go and kill herself. He also added his usual anti-semitic spiel.

Family Break-up
And then, this morning, we hear that Andrzej Lepper has been thrown out of the government by PM Kaczyński. The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) is said to have found evidence of massive corruption by the head of Self-Defence amounting to millions upon millions of złoty. This follows months of to-ing and fro-ing from both Kaczyński and Lepper in which the coalition has been constantly in doubt because of the excesses of members of the Self-Defence party. Straws and camel backs, straws and camel backs…

Family Issues
It now seems likely that the coalition will come to a final and crashing end. Self-Defence is currently in discussion and are deciding whether or not to continue in government without Lepper. Whatever the decision, the repercussions for Poland will be seismic with political instability damaging both the economy, exacerbating social unrest and destabilising the work that has already been done.

Booking Hell

Roman Giertcyh, Minister of Education has done it again. He’s got himself into yet another pickle thanks to the ridiculousness of his ideas. Well done, Roman!

Deputy Roman
Giertych is of course Deputy PM and leader of the League of Polish Families (LPR), an extremist catholic party intent on slapping their right-wing ideas on the whole nation regardless of whether the nation agrees with these ideas or not. The LPR currently has around 4% in the opinion polls which means the party will, in all likelihood, not get into parliament at the next election.

Roman the Educator
Wanting to flex a bit of political muscle and show the world he really is a big, powerful man, Roman Giertych has decided to change the obligatory reading list for school kids and do away with some of the biggest names in Polish literature in an effort to impose his idea of ‘canon’ on Poland’s youngest readers.

Roman the Wise
For the first time ever, a Minister of Education has made this decision single-handedly without consulting it with any school teachers, head teachers, literary experts or specialists in education. Roman has decided that the poets Jan Lechoń and Kazimierz Wierzyński are not good enough for Poland’s school children and has also forced out Maria Konopnicka, Bruno Schulz, Witold Gombrowicz and Stanisław Lem – all literary pillars, veritable heavyweights of the Polish literary canon.

Roman the Bold
Like a school boy ready to prove a point and ready to show he’s in control, Giertych has been quick to elbow his way into the nation’s collective consciousness eagerly sticking his hand up with slogans like, “Miss, Miss, there’s too much violence in our schools”. Or, “Miss, Miss, we need to re-think our moral values”. Oh yes, when it comes to conservative, right-wing slogans, Roman’s yer man.

Roman the Cunning
However, when it comes to the reading list, commentators are a little worried. They’ve put two and two together and realised there’s more to this controversy than Giertych simply finding Gombrowicz too difficult or Lem a little over his head. It seems that each and every one of the authors of these Index-ed books is of Jewish descent or, in the case of Konopicka, fought ardently for the Jewish cause.

Hmm…