Anti-Semitism in Poland after WWII: Polish officials shocked, shocked shocked!

This week’s  sign and sight newsletter features an article about the controversy in Poland over the Polish publication of Princeton historian Jan Tomas Grosz’s book “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz.” As Polish professor Jakub Kloc-Konkolowicz explains, Grosz book makes the point that:

The Holocaust victims were confronted with more or less open hostility
on the part of the Polish population, which ultimately ended in
pogroms. Gross’ book examines three of these in detail, in Rzeszow
(1945), Krakow (1945) and the most notorious pogrom in Kielce (1946) in which 37 Jews were murdered.

For Gross, neither the allegedly widespread participation of Polish Jews in the slowly consolidating Communist regime nor the horror stories
circulating about the ritual murder of Christian children were the real
reasons for these occurrences. Ultimately, economic interests were
behind the events. Many Poles had taken possession of Jewish property
after the German occupiers fled, and the Holocaust survivors’ return
was perceived as a real threat. Regardless of the pretexts for the
pogroms, Gross writes, their real purpose was to get rid of the inconvenient victims.

Although
many Poles had heroically come to the aid of their fellow Jewish
citizens by providing them with shelter at their own peril, most had
looked on with indifference – sometimes even approval – at the crimes
committed by the German occupiers on the Jews. Pangs of conscience can
be very effective, destructive even, especially when they veil a clear
interest.

Polish officials are outraged, Lech Walesa said the book may “awake dangerous demons.” To understand more of Polish reaction to the book, and the controversy it has engendered, read on here.

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