Jedwabne prompts discussion of Polish-Jewish issues
The controversy created by a new book about a 1941 massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne dramatizes the change in public debate about Poles and Jews in recent years.
"The debate about Jan Tomasz Gross' book is by far the most important and most honest about Polish-Jewish debate in the last 15 years," said Konstanty Gebert, a start-up editor/publisher of the Jewish political-cultural monthly Midrasz. "This is qualitative. It is deep. It is honest and soul-searching and it's not revisionist. I don't have to agree with every voice, but I do agree with the legitimacy of those voices."
The book, "Sasiedzi" (Neighbors), draws on historical archives and interviews with survivors to describe how an estimated 1,600 Jews were killed by their Polish neighbors in the northeast village. Local officials had blamed the Nazis for the crime.
There is little doubt that something horrendous occurred that was covered up for decades. In past discussion of pogroms, however, Gebert said the tone was defensive, from "no way" rejections to "yes, but ..." rationales.
"This is actually a debate," he said. "And the Poles can be proud of themselves. I only wish there was someone with a PR sense in the Foreign Ministry to capitalize on this. Seriously, because this is Poland facing its past."
Western European countries have had a half century to come to terms with wartime revelations. Poland, under tight communist control until 1989, is in the early stages of that painful process.
And it's not only Jedwabne, Gebert said. Another incident under review involves Polish attacks on Poles of German origin in two towns, Aleksandrow Kujawski and Mienieszawa, after the Nazis were defeated.
"But once Poland is able to face its past, then it can no longer fall victim to demagogues who try to conceal that past," Gebert said. "It frees Poland from blackmail."
He said changes in Polish-Jewish relations "are incremental, positive and irreversible." But he admitted there's still a way to go. "Intelligent debate has become legitimized, but anti-Semitism has not become de-legitimized."
Overseas Jews also still wait for "some kind of cathartic act on behalf of Polish society that would correspond to the depth of Jewish pain. Honestly, I do not believe that such an act is possible. And Jews have to accept that we are stuck with the pain."
This absence is not just because the larger society, in New York or Warsaw, is insensitive, Gebert said. "But because it is beyond human means to cope with such inhuman evil."
Midrasz is financed largely by the Ronald Lauder Foundation, one of many start-up entities Lauder funded since 1989. This had "an incalculable impact" in Poland, Gebert said, at a time when thousands of closeted Jews began to embrace or explore the identity they had denied. "We in a naive way expected this to last," he said. "This has not happened."
Between 6,000-7,000 Polish Jews belong to some groups today "and we estimate this is 25% of those with Jewish origins who want to do something Jewish," he added.
The good news is that "this is big enough to assure that there will be an organized Jewish presence in Poland, but not big enough to assure that it will be vibrant and self-sustaining," he said. The downside is there are "simply not enough of us."
And there's not much help on the way to change that. The Jewish religious community is perhaps indirectly helped by the voice of Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. But Gebert is impatient with Michnik's definition of himself as a Pole with the caveat that "as long as there is anti-Semitism, he's Jewish. I find that ridiculous. Being Jewish is a choice. He's chosen to be Polish. I consider myself Polish and Jewish."
Jewish migrants uprooting themselves from countries further east rarely settle in Poland, but go on to countries they define as safe and prosperous usually Germany or the United States. Israelis here "are doing business, not the Jewish thing," Gebert said, and most American Jews "identify with Jewish reform and they find it very difficult to relate to our synagogue, which is Orthodox. So they see us as the enemy."
While there are Polish-Jewish returnees who left during the 1968 communist-led anti-Semitic purge, few connect with those who stayed. They "may be very Jewish but not religious and many are here, settling scores," he said.
These days Gebert spends more time back at Gazeta Wyborcza and less at Midrasz. He rejoices that Midrasz disproved skeptics, getting both writers and readers (half of them non-Jewish), but he despairs about financing as Lauder will cut its grant in half this summer. Lauder isn't through with Poland's Jewish community, however.
In a recent rollercoaster series of New York events, Lauder sided with Polish Jews against overseas Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), on finding financing to request the return of an estimated 3,000 properties confiscated by the Nazis and the postwar communist government.
The Polish deadline for restitution appeals is May 2002. Three years of acrimony between overseas Jewish groups, and with the Union of Jewish Religious Congregations in Poland, headed by Jerzy Kichler of Wroclaw, ended two weeks ago with the collapse of a financing foundation.
Lauder then moved to set up his own non-profit foundation to jointly run the restitution project with Kichler's group. "We are simply not going to lose the chance to recapture 1,000 years of Polish history because of internal bickering at the WJRO," Lauder told the New York Jewish Week on March 23.
He later backed off and the WJRO agreed to try to forge an agreement with the Polish Jews.
It's clear, however, that not only has Lauder had an impact in Poland, but Poland has affected him so much that he defends its interests in a showdown with potent U.S. and Israeli Jewish groups.
