May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles

.

137 Leon Berk’s account is by no means an isolated one. Samuel Lipa Tennenbaum, from Złoczów, recalls: “I entered gimnazjum in 1920, graduating in 1927 … The teachers were Poles, except for a single Ukrainian, and a Jew … grading remained fair and Jewish students were treated equally with Poles. Zloczow [Złoczów] was represented in the Sejm by its mayor, an attorney, Dr. Moszynski [Moszyński]. A liberal who associated with all, he forged good relations between Poles and Jews and between Poles and Ukrainians. … When we were in gimnazjum, my future wife and I associated mostly with gentiles. I played tennis and volleyball and was one of two or three Jews who exercised at the Polish sports association Sokol [Sokół], which ordinarily did not admit Jews.” See Samuel Lipa Tennenbaum, Zloczow Memoir (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1986), 37, 46, 54. The notion that Jews in interwar Poland were incessantly terrorized or harassed by their Polish neighbours has little basis in fact. As one historian who studied Polish-Jewish relations points out, “Recent studies on the issue of coexistence between Jews and Poles conclude that, while it is true that Jews and Poles periodically found themselves in confrontation, most of the time they lived in co-operative symbiosis.” See Rosa Lehmann, “Jewish Patrons and Polish Clients: Patronage in a Small Galician Town,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 17 (2004): 153–69, at 168. There are many reports attesting to generally correct day-to-day relations between Poles and Jews, particularly in small towns and the countryside where relations were generally amicable.

Rachela Walshaw (née Schlufman) describes a rather typical small town in central Poland by the name of “Wonchok,” probably Wąchock, near Starachowice, (Polish names are typically misspelled in Holocaust literature, especially in memoirs), where Polish-Jewish co-existence was proper, but reserved: “The community was clearly divided between Poles and Jews. There were about 500 Polish families and only about one hundred Jewish ones, but we all lived and worked in relative peace. There were no ghettos then. Jews could live anywhere in town, but generally chose to live together … among their own kind … Though I went to school with Christians, my knowledge of the private workings of the Christian world was limited. The Catholic priests who ran our school were strict but fair and excused us from participating in their prayers. On the whole, my gentile classmates were a decent lot with whom we remained distant but friendly. We were not invited to their homes; nor were they invited to ours.” See Rachela and Sam Walshaw, From Out of the Firestorm: A Memoir of the Holocaust (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1991), 7–8. Barbara Krakowski (now Stimler), the daughter of a small textile shop owner in Aleksandrów Kujawski, relates: “I attended a nursery and private school supervised by Christian nuns, where I was the only Jewish child. I had a large circle of friends, and am still in touch with the few of them who attended my school.” See Wendy Whitworth, ed., Survival: Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Story (Lound Hall, Bothamsall, Retford, Nottinghamshire: Quill Press in association with The Aegis Institute, 2003), 363. Esther Raab (née Terner), who grew up in Chełm, was enrolled in an all-girls private Catholic school which several Jewish girls attended. “Although the Jewish girls in the school were by far the minority, they got along very well with their Catholic friends. They felt very comfortable at the school and were treated fairly by the students and staff. In all her years there, Esther never experienced any anti-Semitic incidents at the Catholic school. Twice a week, when the Catholic girls received religious instruction, all the Jewish students assembled in a different classroom. The school had hired a Jewish teacher, and during those periods, they studied Jewish history.” See Shaindy Perl, Tell the World: The Story of the Sobibor Revolt (Lakewood, New Jersey: Israel Bookshop, 2004), 24. A Jew from Sierpc stated that the Jews lived in peace with their Polish neighbours. When a motion came before the town council in 1929 to change the market day to a Saturday, five Polish councillors voted with the five Jewish councillors to defeat it. See Leon Gongoła, “O prawach i ludziach,” Polska (Warsaw), no. 7 (1971): 170–72. A Jew from the village of Czerwony Bór near Łomża recalled: “we Jews always got along well with the local villagers.” He also recalls open displays of solidarity on the part of Christian acquaintances. See Rivka and Israel Teyer, eds., The Red Forest: As Narrated by Izhak Shumowitz (Raanana, Israel: Docostory, 2005?), 45, 74. A Jew from Przytoczno, a small village in Lublin province, does not recall any ethnic-based conflicts between Jews and non-Jews. In elementary school he was not treated any worse in terms of grades and discipline than Polish students, and he remembers warmly many of his teachers and the parish priest as well as the local bishop, all of whom treated Jews with respect. See Michał Rudawski, Mój obcy kraj? (Warsaw: TU, 1996), 31–32, 42–43. A Jew from Stróża, a village near Kraśnik (about 50 kilometres from Lublin), recalls: “It must be stressed again that notwithstanding occasional misunderstandings, we lived in peace, often in friendship, with our Polish neighbors. Despite the fact that we were only four Jewish families in Stroza, we never knew of any bitter quarrels.” See Sam Edelstein, Tzadikim in Sodom (Righteous Gentiles): Memoir of a Survivor of World War II (Toronto: North American Press Limited, 1990), 19. In nearby Izbica, a small town whose population was almost exclusively Jewish, the 3,600 Jewish residents lived in relative harmony with the town’s 200 Christians and those from the surrounding countryside: “We lived peacefully with our Catholic neighbors. True, once in a while anti-Semitic slogans like ‘Jews to Palestine’ and ‘Don’t buy from Jews’ appeared in the post office, but no one took them seriously. Catholic and Jewish schoolchildren kept mainly to themselves. About half of the students were Jewish and half Catholic, for though the town was over 95 percent Jewish, the children from all the outlying villages attended the town’s elementary school. Inside the classroom there was no visible antagonism.” See Thomas Toivi Blatt, From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1997), 10. In Żółkiewka, another nearby town, according to Itzhak Lichtman relations between Poles and Jews had also been proper before the war: “We didn’t feel anti-Semitism; Jews and Poles enjoyed a friendly relationship.” See Miriam Novtich, ed., Sobibor: Martyrdom and Revolt (New York: Holocaust Library, 1980), 80. Other Jewish residents of that town, Chaim Zyberklang and Natan Irland, recalled their teachers, fellow students, neighbours, and business associates, as well as the local authorities including police as fair, decent, and even generous people. See Chaim Zylberklang, Z Żółkiewki do Erec Izraela: Przez Kotłas, Buzułuk, Ural, Polskę, Niemcy i Francję, Second revised and expanded edition (Lublin: Akko, 2004), 29, 45–46, 53, 55–56, 61–62, 64–66, 228–29. In Strzyżów near Hrubieszów, the author of a memoir did not recall any outbursts of violence against Jews: “The fact is that in our little town Jews and non-Jews lived side-by-side in a restless peace … I had numerous friends, both Jews and non-Jews.” See Rose Toren, A New Beginning (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1997), 13. For reports from other towns, see Jacob Biber, ed., The Triumph of the Spirit: Ten Stories of Holocaust Survivors (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press, 1994). One Jew recalls: “I was born in 1917, in Gniwoszow [Gniewoszów near Radom] … My home town was a small Jewish shtetl, with a population of approximately 5,000 Poles and 2,500 Jews. Most of the Poles worked in agriculture, and the Jews were artisans and maintained small businesses. … Although most of the Poles were friendly towards us, there remained a minority who were anti-Semites.” Ibid., 71. Another Jew writes: “I was born in 1922, in Dzialoshcy [Działoszyce near Kraków] … Our town was eighty percent Jewish—business people, artisans, and other workers, and mostly Orthodox. … The Poles in our town had never been anti-Semitic, and even spoke Yiddish with us. We generally lived in friendly cooperation, the Polish people working together with Jews in the various trades.” Ibid., 91. In the small town of Przecław near Mielec, “The two people, the Jews and Christians lived together peacefully. For many years it even had a Jewish vice-mayor … and a few councilors.” See Avraham Spielman, “The Townlet Przeclaw,” in H. Harshoshanim, ed., Radomysl Rabati ve-ha-sevivah: Sefer yizkor (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Radomysl and Surroundings in Israel, 1965), posted online in English translation at . Leon Zalman reminisced about Szczekociny, a predominantly Jewish town of 5,000 people near Częstochowa: “On one side of the Pilica lived the Jews; on the other there was a mixed population and a large church. The Jews had two synagogues. Jews and Christians lived side by side in mutual tolerance. … Almost all the businesses and taverns surrounding the square were Jewish, with the exception of Kaletta, the large, imposing restaurant. The Jews didn’t usually go there because it wasn’t kosher. When they had something to celebrate … they preferred their own establishments. … The teachers liked me … One Sabbath, to disturb the service and get attention, some young [Jewish] socialists threw a white dove into the synagogue. The rabbis were outraged. … I had a large circle of friends, among them many non-Jews. … The young Jews did not feel that the shtetl was a ghetto. We felt no differences between Jews and Christians, except on market day, when perhaps a farmer who always mistrusted Jews felt that he had been overcharged. But that kind of thing could also happen among Christians or among Jews. We did not feel that we were discriminated against; … In school we associated widely with Polish Christians.” See Leon Zelman, After Survival: One Man’s Mission in the Cause of Memory (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1998), 2–16. Jewish survivors from Jaśliska, a village near Krosno, uniformly attest to proper relations between the two communities: “One hardly noticed anti-Semitism amongst the people. The relationships between Jews and non-Jews were rather good and the trading contacts were based on mutual trust. Until the outbreak of [World War One] there were no Christian shops in Jaśkiska or in the neighbouring villages. Also the officials, priests and teachers from the villages bought in Jewish shops. We did not experience anything like anti-Jewish harassment. The good relationship between Jews and non-Jews gave rise to a steady material prosperity among the Jews. Although there was one cooperative shop run by Christians in which agricultural products were sold, there was no question of [real] competition [for the Jews].” See Lehmann, Symbiosis and Ambivalence, 185–86. Good relations also extended to the village priest: “it is said that father Rąpała, the late priest of Jaśliska, was a fluent Yiddish speaker. Among the Polish as well as the Jewish informants, father Rąpała, was known to have been on good terms with the Jews. Polish informants mentioned the amicable conversations of the priest with local Jewish residents. The Jewish informant Josko S., for instance, recalled the evening walks of his father with the priest. While walking, both men would discuss all kinds of subjects. Harmonious contacts between the ‘learned’ priest and ‘lay’ Jews were customary in other towns and villages in the region as well. Pearl O. [from the nearby village of Królik Polski] recalled the long walks and discussions of her father with the priest. She also remembered the weekly meetings at her parents’ home, to which all members of the village elite were invited, among them the priest and teachers of the local primary school.” Ibid., 98. Man Elchanan, president of the Committee of Expatriates from Brańsk in Israel, writes of the “harmonious life of Jews and their Polish neighbors,” in the interwar period. See The Story of Two Shtetls, Brańsk and Ejszyszki, Part One, 43. In the nearby town of Zabłudów, “the relationship was cordial with mutual respect and a greeting of the traditional raising of the hat. There were mutual congratulations in times of holidays and business relationships were out of necessity. They also worked together in leather factories that were owned by Jews. Full cooperation existed also in times of crisis the town faced like natural disasters, fires, etc. … I can’t remember any anti-Jewish fights, with serious violence, except small fights when they [the villagers] were drunk. In those rare occasions Jews had the upper hand and they [the villagers] remembered the results for a long time. Our Polish neighbors from the town stood aside and didn’t intervene, and in most occasions they encouraged the Jews by saying that the villagers became obnoxious and that they have to learn a lesson. Here and there, there were reserved friendships between the Jewish and Polish youth. Usually it was during sport meets on the field, or at coed dances.” See the account of Eliyahu Ben Moshe-Baruch and Bluma Zesler in Nechama Shmueli-Schmusch, ed., Zabludow: Dapim mi-tokh yisker-bukh (Tel Aviv: The Zabludow Community in Israel, 1987), posted on the Internet in English translation at . In the village of Drobin, northeast of Płock, a Jewish survivor who was taught by his father to respect Poles recalls: “My sister was a straight A student … Her Polish was the best in the class, in which there were only two other Jewish students. … She was selected by her classmates and her teacher to read a poem for a play …” See Abraham D. Feffer, My Shtetl Drobin: A Saga of a Survivor (Toronto: n.p., 1990), 9. Mendel Berman, the president of the Lomazer Landsmanschaft in America, underscored that, in Łomazy near Biała Podlaska, “A good relationship of coexistence prevailed between Jews and Poles, even if some deplorable incidents occured [sic] from time to time, but such mishaps used to pass quickly.” See Yitzhak Alperovitz, ed., The Lomaz Book: A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Lomaz (Tel Aviv: The Lomaz Society in Israel, and the Lomaz Society in the United States of America, 1994), 68–69. Pnina Knopfmacher-Krajs from Włodawa, a town on the River Bug, recalled: “Right up to the first years of the war one did not feel anti-Semitism in our town. Our youth took part in swimming, skating and soccer matches with Polish youth.” She also mentions by name prominent Poles who were known for their friendliness toward the Jews. See the testimony of Pnina Knopfmacher-Krajs, Ghetto Fighters House Archives, catalog no. 2427. John (Jan) Damski, a Pole who was awarded by Yad Vashem, recalled a telling episode that occurred in his home town of Solec Kujawski, near Bydgoszcz, where there was just one Jewish family, the Dalmans, who had three sons: “All three brothers belonged to our gymnastic organization, the Polish Falcons. … One day a fellow from the district organization came to our meeting and made a fuss about Jews being in our group. The oldest of the three Dalman brothers stood up and told him that the Jews were just as patriotic as the Poles, they had fought for Poland too, and other such sentiments. It didn’t take very long before the local organization just fell apart. First, all the teachers from our little town who belonged to this club resigned. They didn’t say it was in protest—they were just no longer interested. My brother and I dropped out of the organization, and so did many of our friends; half of the membership resigned. Nobody said, ‘I’m quitting because the district officer made an anti-Semitic speech.’ We just didn’t like what was happening; we simply did not see any difference between us and the Jews.” See “John Damski: Polish Rescuer,” Internet: . Mala Goldrat Brandsdorfer (née Liss) of Bolesławiec, a small town near Wieluń, recalled: “I remember growing up in Boleslawiec very happy. The town had about 500 families, with about 2500 people. Jews made up about a quarter of the population. There weren’t many of the problems between the Jews and the Christians that there were in the larger cities. We lived and traded together in peace. There were some Poles in our town who were openly anti-Semitic, but very few.” See Mala Brandsdorfer, as told to Louis Brandsdorfer, The Bleeding Sky: My Mother’s Recollections of the Shoah, Internet: