May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles

. Teresa Herzig, later Lena Allen-Shore, recalled three Polish priests who taught or visted her high school for girls in the town of Jasło: Rev. Józef Gayda, Rev. Eweryst Dębicki, and Rev. Jan Pasek. All of them, as well as the lay teachers, treated her with the utmost courtesy and respect. She describes the atmosphere in the school as “friendly.” See Lena Allen-Shore, Building Bridges: Pope John Paul II and the Horizon of Life (Ottawa: Novalis, 2004), 114–15. In the small town of Jeżów near Brzeziny, at the time of the fire in 1931, the priest and a good number of Poles hastened to save Jewish children and property from the flames. See “Jeżów,” in in Pinkas ha-kehilot: Polin, vol. 1, 133, Internet: See also the following testimonies: J. Ben-Meir (Treshansky), Sefer yizkor Goniadz (Tel Aviv: The Committee of Goniondz Association in the USA and in Israel, 1960), 475–76, translated as Our Hometwon Goniondz, Internet: ; I.M. Lask, ed., The Kalish Book (Tel Aviv: Societies of Former Residents of Kalish and the Vicinity in Israel and U.S.A., 1968), 88–89 (on two occasions the priest in Błaszki calmed agitated crowds of Poles); David Shtokfish, ed., Sefer Drohiczyn (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1969), 5ff. (English section) (a priest in Drohiczyn); Helen Silving, “Six Million Martyrs,” in Damian S. Wandycz, ed., Studies in Polish Civilization: Selected Papers Presented at the First Congress at the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences in America, November 25, 26, 27, 1966 in New York (New York: Institute on East Central Europe, Columbia University; and The Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences in America, 1970), 391 (Rev. Wontorek, a priest in a gymnasium in a small town); Haskell Nordon, The Education of a Polish Jew: A Physician’s War Memoirs (New York: D. Grossman Press, 1982), 90–91 (a priest who taught religion in a provincial high school in central Poland; although 90 percent of the students were Polish Catholics, the author states at pp. 65 and 76: “I sensed no enmity from most of my classmates, and I don’t remember any slurs or anti-Semitic insults directed at me by them.” When a Jewish student was expelled it was for theft of another Jewish student’s books, and he was reported by the author. “The only other mildly political rumbling that I recall disturbing the relatively apolitical tranquility of our gymnasium was thanks to a Ukrainian boy named Bohun, the son of a government official transferred to our town from a far-off, heavily Ukrainian district of Galicia. Young Bohun was an ardent and outspoken Ukrainian nationalist.”); Eugeniusz Fąfara, Gehenna ludności żydowskiej (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1983), 335 (Rev. Stanisław Mateuszczyk of Nowa Słupia); Bruno Shatyn, A Private War: Surviving in Poland on False Papers, 1941–1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1985), xx–xxi, 62–64 (Rev. Szypuła, a religious instructor at a high school in Jarosław); Samuil Manski, With God’s Help (Madison, Wisconsin: Charles F. Manski, 1990), 26 (the rector of the Piarist high school in Lida); oral history interview with Abraham Kolski, March 29, 1990, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. (the pastor in Izbica Kujawska—the author notes that there “wasn’t so much anti-Semitism” in his town); Rachela and Sam Walshaw, From out of the Firestorm: A Memoir of the Holocaust (New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1991), 7–8 (priests in Wąchock; the author states: “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.”); Alice Birnhak, Next Year, God Willing (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1992), 73 (a priest who was a religious instructor in a school in Kielce); Eva Feldenkreiz-Grinbal, ed., Eth Ezkera—W henever I Remember: Memorial Book of the Jewish Community in Tzoyzmir (Sandomierz) (Tel Aviv: Association of Tzoyzmir Jews and Moreshet Publishing, 1993), 542 (Rev. Adam Szymański, the rector of the diocesan seminary); Agata Tuszyńska, “Uczniowie Schulza,” Kultura (Paris), no. 4 (1993): 39 (priests in Drohobycz); Interview with Felix Horn, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, dated July 19, 1994, 3 (the author attended a largely Catholic high school in Lublin: “Well, my days in high school were extremely happy. They were the best years of my life. I never felt I’m different. … I was respected by my teachers, professors, by the priests, you know, by everyone”); Testimony of Sender Apelbaum, January 1966, Yad Vashem Archive, file O.3/2882 (Rev. Dominik Wawrzynowicz, the pastor of Włodzimierzec in Volhynia, enjoyed excellent relations with the Jews); Alina Cała, “The Social Consciousness of Young Jews in Interwar Poland,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 8 (1994): 48 (a priest in Krasne, a teacher of religion “who kept the pupils’ antisemitic outbursts under control by speaking up against them in a decisive way”); Szyja Bronsztejn, “Polish-Jewish Relations as Reflected in Memoirs of the Interwar Period,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 8 (1994): 78–79 (Rev. Józef Niemczyński of Kraków); Sam Halpern, Darkness and Hope (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1996), 31 (priests in the vicinity of Chorostków); Samuel Honig, From Poland to Russia and Back, 1939–1946: Surviving the Holocaust in the Soviet Union Windsor, Ontario: Black Moss Press, 1996), 233 (a priest in the Dębniki district of Kraków); Michał Rudawski, Mój obcy kraj? (Warsaw: TU, 1996), 32 (Rev. Zaremba of Przytoczno near Kock); Darcy O’Brien, The Hidden Pope: The Untold Story of a Lifelong Friendship That Is Changing the Relationship between Catholics and Jews. The Personal Journey of John Paul II and Jerzy Kluger (New York: Daybreak Books/Rodale Books, 1998), 53, 72 (the canon Rev. Leonard Prochownik of Wadowice); Henry Zagdanski, It Must Never Happen Again: The Memoirs of Henry Zagdanski (Toronto: Colombo, 1998) (a priest who taught religion in a school in Radom); Marek Urban, Polska… Polska… (Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny IN-B, 1998), 20–23 (Rev. Błaszczyk, who taught religion in the public school in Lubartów), 30–31 (Rev. Borowski, who taught religion in a public school in Lublin); Entries for “Tomaszow Lubelski” and “Szczebrzeszyn” in Pinkas ha-kehilot: Polin, vol. 7, 237–41 (Rev. Julian Bogatek of Tomaszów Lubelski), 577–80 (Rev. Jan Grabowski); Naomi Samson, Hide: A Child’s View of the Holocaust (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 45–46, 147 (a priest in Goraj); Dereczin (Mahwah, New Jersey: Jacob Solomon Berger, 2005), 325 (the local Catholic priest in Dereczyn, “who was known to be a liberal-minded individual, and who also had friendly relations with the Jews”); Ungar and Chanoff, Destined to Live, 66–67 (in Krasne near Skałat: “Both Father Hankiewicz and Father Leszczynski [Leszczyński] mainly preached the loving kindness of God. Because of the priests’ behavior, the peasants didn’t bear a grudge against Jews …”); Marcus David Leuchter, “Reflections on the Holocaust,” The Sarmatian Review (Houston, Texas), vol. 20, no. 3 (September 2000) (a village priest near Tarnów); George Lucius Salton, The 23^rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 7 (a priest in Tyczyn near Rzeszów); Mariusz Bechta, Narodowo radykalni: Obrona tradycji i ofensywa narodowa na Podlasiu w latach 1918–1939 (Biała Podlaska: Biblioteczka Bialska and Rekonkwista, 2004), 182, 184 (Rev. Tadeusz Osiński of Radzyń Podlaski and Rev. Stanisław Nowek of Międzyrzec Podlaski, both of whom intervened to diffuse Polish-Jewish tensions); Barbara Petrozolin-Skowrońska, ed., Nieświeskie wspomnienia: Ciąg dalszy… (Warsaw: Łośgraf, 2004), 430 (Rev. Jan Grodis, the director of the high school in Nieśwież); Dov Shuval, ed., The Szczebrzeszyn Memorial Book (Mahwah, New Jersey: Jacob Solomon Berger, 2005), 32 (Rev. Jan Grabowski of Szczebrzeszyn); Janusz Szczepański, Społeczność żydowska Mazowsza w XIX–XX wieku (Pułtusk: Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna imienia Aleksandra Gieysztora w Pułtusku, 2005), 375 (Rev. Jan Gęsty of Pułtusk was remembered for his acts of charity to the Jews, especially during World War I, and many Jews took part in his funeral in 1928); Mila Sandberg-Mesner, Light From the Shadows (Montreal: Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, 2005), 30 (Rev. Józef Adamski of Zaleszczyki); Diane Wyshogrod, Hiding Places: A Mother, a Daughter, an Uncovered Life (Albany: State University of New York Press–Excelsior Editions, 2012), 271(the Rozenbergs, who oewned a pharmacy in Żółkiew, north of Lwów, remembered the local Catholic priest well from before the war: “He’d come to the pharmacy, we’d chat. Nothing very personal, but pleasant. A decent man. Very respectful.”); Testimony of Salomea Gemrot, February 2005, Internet: