May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles

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557 Doubtless Spielberg’s impressions were coloured by his own experiences as a Jewish child growing up in affluent upper middle-class America where open anti-Semitism was the norm at that time (see Bernard Weinraub, “For Spielberg, an Anniversary Full of Urgency,” New York Times, March 9, 2004):

“Anti-Semitism affected me deeply; it made me feel I wasn’t safe outside my own door.” … Discussing the taunts and ugly incidents of his childhood, Mr. Spielberg, 57, said: “It happened in affluent neighborhoods in Arizona and California, where I was one of the few Jewish students. I didn’t experience it in more lower-middle-class environments in New Jersey and Ohio.”

Once, in a silent study hall of 100 students, several of them pitched pennies around his desk to taunt him, Mr. Spielberg said quietly. “I have vivid memories of that,” he said. The hallways, too, could be an ordeal: “A lot of kids coughed the word ‘Jew’ in their hands as they walked by me between classes.”
Anti-Semitism was also a feature of “WASP” (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) upper-middle-class Canadian society well into the 1950s. According to Michael Valpy, a prominent journalist who grew up in an affluent neighbourhood in Vancouver (see his article, “Painful Memories of a Childhood Immersed in Anti-Semitism,” The Globe and Mail, March 26, 2005),
I began unearthing from my memory the portrait of myself as a teenager and the gang of boys I hung out with. Our jokes about lampshades and melting our Jewish classmates into bars of soap, and screaming “Jew!” (or “Ki-Ki-Ki-Kike”) down the hallways of Point Grey and Magee High School. …

Here is what Michael Levy, Harold Groberman and Joel Wener talked about … the golf clubs like Shaughnessy that barred their fathers, the private schools like Crofton House and St. George’s that they and their sisters and cousins could not attend, the restrictive covenants prohibiting property sales to Jews, the slurs, the hostility, the sports games.

The high-school games got dirty, says Joel Wener. “But it wasn’t just that. You’d start hearing ‘Jew-boy,’ then the punches would fly. …” …

My gang, behind Harold’s back, said terrible things about him we thought hilarious. Because he was a Jew. … Our fathers were professional men; they were business executives. …

On Oct. 29 [1943], the minutes of a Queen’s University senate meeting report: “Jewish students in arts … are admitted only on an academic standing of 75 per cent or over. Other students are admitted on a standing of 60 per cent or over.” “This regulation,” the minutes go on, “is widely known and seems to operate without any friction.” …

In November, 1948, … Maclean’s [magazine] publishes Pierre Berton’s devastating investigative exposé of anti-Semitism in Canada, detailing what occurs when people with Jewish names and non-Jewish names [i.e., British-sounding names] apply for the same jobs, try to make reservations at the same vacation resorts, ask to join the same clubs, and even try to sign up for postwar vocational training at the same government-operated schools.”

Similar (or even worse) attitudes prevailed in relation to Catholics and people of Southern and Eastern European origin, not to mention native Indians, Blacks, and Asians. Reassuringly, in North America, such prejudice is attributed to “snobbery” rather than the dislike of “the other.” Moreover, the notion that Jews were forced into ghettos in Poland and that this happened against their will has been amply discredited. What contemporary commentators neglect to take into account is that in even North America many Jews, especially Orthodox ones, choose to live in close-knit communities of their own (sometimes walled ones, as in California) and tend not to interact with non-Jews. In Toronto, for example, Jews comprise as much as 70 per cent of the residents of certain areas, making them the most “segregated” neighbourhoods in the city. As one rabbi explains, living in such enclaves with limited interaction with the outside world lessens the pressure on children to assimiliate. See Prithi Yelaja and Nicholas Keung, “A little piece of the Punjab,” Toronto Star, June 25, 2005.

558 Debbie Schlussel, “Poles Were Complicit in the Holocaust: Outrage Over Obama ‘Gaff’ Is Fraudulent, Ignorant,” May 30, 2012, posted at <http://www.debbieschlussel.com/tag/jan-karski/>. By this rant Debbie Schlussel effectively discredited herself as an authority on any topic.

559 David Samuels, “The Conscience of Poland: A Q&A with Adam Michnik,” Tablet Magazine, December 18, 2014.

560 William B. Helmreich, Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 192.

561 Helmreich, Against All Odds, 252. The author points out that this sentiment is not, however, unanimous, especially among those who were saved by Poles. He cites Leon Lepold, a survivor, who stated: “Speaking from experience, if not for the Poles, none of us would have survived in southeastern Poland. A lot of Polish people were murdered, hung, shot, and had their homes burned because they were hiding Jewish people.” Ibid., 253.

562 David Samuels, “The Conscience of Poland: A Q&A with Adam Michnik,” Tablet Magazine, December 18, 2014.

563 Jack Felman, “Growing Up As a Child of Holocaust Survivors,” Internet: .

564 Jonathan Krasner, “Constructing Collective Memory: The Re-envisioning of Eastern Europe as Seen Through American Jewish Textbooks,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 19 (2007): 229–55.

565 Danusha V. Goska, “The Necessity of ‘Bieganski’: A Shamed and Horrified World Seeks a Scapegoat,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 19 (2007): 205–28, here at 219–21. See also Danusha V. Goska, Bieganski: The Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010). (Surprisingly, Goska views Jan Gross’s problematic book Neighbors in a positive light, without realizing that the outpouring of bigoted and ugly demagoguery that it generated, some of which she cites, was not only inspired by the book but also calculated by the author to do exactly that. Gross never complained about his book being misread by its American reviewers, nor did he distance himself from their anti-Polish diatribes.) Fénelon’s descriptions of Poles contrast with those of many other Jewish inmates of Auschwitz. Halina Nelken, a Jewish woman from Kraków, writes of the solidarity of Polish and Jewish prisoners in the Płaszów concentration camps, the assistance shown by Polish inmates of Auschwitz, the camp’s first inmates, to later transports of prisoners, including Jews. These anonymous benefactors, who may well not have been the “norm,” were known by the name of “kochany” (“darling”). While they did not have much to offer—perhaps some scraps of food or clothing—their attitude had a great impact on the new arrivals. Nelken relates similar displays of solidarity she was shown by Polish women inmates at Ravensbrück. See Halina Nelken, And Yet, I Am Here! (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 232, 248, 272. Sigmund Gerson and Eddie Gastfriend, young Jews imprisoned in Auschwitz, speak of the “loving” attitude of Father Maximilian Kolbe and all the Polish priests toward the Jews in the camp. Eddie Gastfriend said: “There were many priests in Auschwitz. They wore no collars, but you knew they were priests by their manner and their attitude, especially toward Jews. They were so gentle, so loving.” See Patricia Treece, A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe, Saint of Auschwitz (New York: Harper & Row, 1982; reissued by Our Sunday Visitor, Hutington, Indiana, 1982), 138, 152–53. Ada Omieljanczuk, a Jewish woman, attributes her survival to Polish fellow prisoners of Auschwitz who shared their food parcels with her. See Tadeusz Andrzejewski, “Wileńscy strażnicy oświęcimskiej pamięci,” Tygodnik Wileńszczyzny (Vilnius), February 3–9, 2005. Jerzy Radwanek, a member of the Polish underground in Auschwitz, used his position as camp electrician to provide widespread assistance to Jewish prisoners, and came to be known by them as the “Jewish uncle” of Auschwitz. See the profile of Jerzy Radwanek under “Poland” in the web site of The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, Internet: