May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles

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73 Booker T. Washington, with the collaboration of Robert E. Park, The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1912; New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1984), 252, 257, 267–69, 291–94.

74 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2014), 151–52.

75 Adam Teller, “The Shtetl as an Arena for Polish-Jewish Integration in the Eighteenth Century,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 17 (2014): 25–40, at 37–38.

76 William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (New York: Dover Publications, reprinted 1958), vol. 2, 1200–1201.

77 In the latter part of the 19^th century, when members of the Catholic clergy undertook a battle against the widespread alcoholism and poverty that afflicted the peasants, they ran into hostility on the part of some landowners and Jewish innkeepers who owned or operated pubs in the villages, and benefitted materially from the misfortune of the peasants. The pastoral and community activities of Rev. Bronisław Markiewicz, the founder of the Michaelite Fathers, were particularly effective in bettering the lot of the peasants:
It was late fall 1875 when he [Rev. Markiewicz] found himself with a few belongings in the Parish of Gać [near Kańczuga], to devote himself to the care of souls. He approached his duties enthusiastically. First of all he had to get to know his parishioners. To achieve this he visited each house and each family and he came to the conclusion that the cause and the root of all evil in this area was alcoholism, which was deeply rooted from generation to generation, and was fostered silently by those whose duty it was to fight this evil. These people were the landowners of the surrounding villages.

Fr. Markiewicz fought with love and determination against this evil and pointed out the extent of this evil to save his parishioners from this sin. It did not take long until the pubs became very empty. To keep the farmers busy with something new he invited them to participate in conversation about new achievement in agriculture. He showed them new methods how to cultivate the land; he advised them to later the system of seeding and to start orchard farming.

It was his intention to stimulate “Self-help” for farmers. The Savings Bank was founded, which in time became the Savings and Borrowing Bank. This way the pastor helped to achieve a certain prosperity in his Parish. The youth were close to his heart in a special way and he wanted to protect them from alcoholism, he opened a meeting room in the rectory which was equipped with different games, especially chess. He did this with the conviction that decent recreation would be the best way to more noble interests.

Unfortunately, it was not granted to him to remain too long in this Parish. When the Countess Wanda Ostrowska who was a patroness of the Parish Błażowa, she heard about Fr. Markiewicz’s successful work in Gaś, and she suggested to the Bishop’s Office in Przemyśl to entrust him with the new parish which was under her custody. The Countess suffered seeing constantly spreading immorality among people.

At the request of the Countess it was decided to move Fr. Markiewicz in 1877 to the new parish. As in the previous Parish, Father began his work teaching his parishioners moderation. Also a foundation of the small hospital made people’s lives easier. Local people had been operating the weaving mill a long time. Father improved their life condition in this area as well. Father Markiewicz worked at this parish until 1882.
The village Miejsce—which later thanks to Fr. Markiewicz’s effort received the nickname “Piastowe” was at that time a small Parish with no more than 800 souls, and was situated … no more than 6 kilometres from the city of Krosno. …

Fr. Markiewicz, with his concern for souls, began to work in this new place. … In Miejsce Piastowe he started catechetical classes each Sunday for all parishioners before high mass and again in the afternoon. This program turned out very successful. Each Sunday the number of participants was larger, which resulted in larger number of people receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.

Next was the campaign against alcoholism, which deeply plagued the populace. In a few months he was able to inscribe 60 parishioners into the book of abstinence. Something should be said about the battle with the innkeepers. There were two pubs in the parish, and two others were as the saying went, “owned privately”.

Both innkeepers left the village, one in 1893 and the other later on. The “private” pubs died natural deaths. That is how one of Father’s students reported it: already in his first year as a pastor you would not see a drunkard in the village. As the destructive force of alcoholism decreases, the prosperity of the people increased, together with their moral and cultural standards. The parishioners have found themselves: these were the fruits of the enthusiastic effort of their new pastor.

See Johannes Drozd, Father Bronislaw Markiewicz and His Work: Founder of the Michaelites, Guardian of the Orphans and Educator (London, Ontario: n.p., n.d.), 3–4, 6–7.

78 Keely Stauter-Halstead, The Nation in the Village: The Genesis of Peasant National Identity in Austrian Poland, 1848–1914 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001), 41, 50, 116, 133.

79 Ibid., 41.

80 Ibid., 134.

81 Ibid., 139.

82 Michał Kurkiewicz and Monika Plutecka, “Rosyjskie pogromy w Białymstoku i Siedlcach w 1906 roku,” Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, no. 11 (November 2010): 22. See also Stanisław Thugutt, Autobiografia (Warsaw: Ludowa Współdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1984), 68–69.

83 “Confessions of Zbigniew Romaniuk,” interviewed by Wojciech A. Wierzewski, in The Story of Two Shtetls, Brańsk and Ejszyszki: An Overview of Polish-Jewish Relations in Northeastern Poland during World War II (Toronto and Chicago: The Polish Educational Foundation in North America, 1998), Part One, 22; Zbigniew Romaniuk, The Jewish Community of Brańsk, 1795–1914, The American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies, Internet: