May 2016 Traditional Jewish Attitudes Toward Poles

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222 Kosow Lacki (San Francisco: Holocaust Center of Northern California, 1992), 19.

223 Ibid., 49.

224 Mordechai Bochner, ed., Sefer Chrzanow: Lebn un umkum fun a yidish shtetl (Roslyn Harbor, New York: Solomon Gross, 1989), 1ff., translated (by Jonathan Boyarin) as Chrzanow: The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Shtetl, Internet: .

225 Interview with Miles Lerman, July 17, 2001, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

226 Samuel P. Oliner, Restless Memories: Recollections of the Holocaust Years (Berkeley, California: Judah L. Magnes Museum, 1986), 29, 44, 46, 54, 81.

227 Zborowski and Herzog, Life IsW with People, 91.

228 Alex Gross, Yankele: A Holocaust Survivor’s Bittersweet Memoir (Lanham, New York, and Oxford: University Press of America, 2001), 3.

229 Leon Weliczker Wells, The Janowska Road (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 15.

230 Roman Frister, The Cap, or the Price of a Life (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), 277–78.

231 Edith S. Weigand, Edith Weigand, Out of the Fury: The Incredible Odysssey of Eliezer Urbach (Denver: Zhera Publications, 1987), 17–18.

232 Gill, The Journey Back From Hell, 139.

233 Wiesław Magiera, “Żydówka za karmelitankami,” Głos Polski (Toronto), October 9, 1993.

234 Sulia Wolozhinski Rubin, Against the Tide: The Story of an Unknown Partisan (Jerusalem: Posner & Sons, 1980), 47, 49.

235 Account of Irena Kisielewska née Englard in Marian Turski, ed., Losy żydowskie: Świadectwo żywych, vol. 1 (Warsaw: Stowarzyszenie Żydów Kombatantów i Poszkodowanych w II Wojnie Światowej, 1996), 8–10.

236 Lucien Steinberg, The Jews Against Hitler: Not as a Lamb (London: Gordon and Cremonesi, 1978), 168.

237 Theo Richmond, Konin: A Quest (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), 58–59, 161.

238 Account of Rochl Leichter in Berl Kagan, ed., Luboml: The Memorial Book of a Vanquished Shtetl (Hoboken, New Jersey: Ktav Publishing House, 1997), 135. We also learn that this woman’s sister became a popular seamstress: “All our Christian neighbors began to bring in orders for dresses, blouses, and children’s items.”

239 Donia Rosen, The Forest, My Friend (New York and Tel Aviv: Bergen Belsen Memorial Press, 1971), 6–7.

240 Testimony of Irit R. in Ewa Kurek, Your Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939–1945 (New York: Hippocrene, 1997), 191.

241 Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, Strange and Unexpected Love: A Teenage Girl’s Holocaust Memoirs (Hoboken, New Jersey: Ktav, 1993), 20, 31–32. Adam Neuman, who grew up in Płock, also recalled, “I never felt different from my Catholic friends, and, in fact, I always had an open invitation to their homes at holiday time.” See Adam Neuman-Nowicki, Struggle for Life During the Nazi Occupation of Poland (Lewiston, New York; Queenston, Ontario; Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998), 4.

242 Sylvia Rothchild, ed., Voices from the Holocaust (New York: Nal Books/New American Library, 1981), 74.

243 Joseph S. Kutrzeba, The Contract: A Life for a Life (New York: iUniverse, 2009), 56–57.

244 Timothy W. Ryback, The Last Survivor: In Search of Martin Zaidenstadt (New York: Pantheon Books/Random House, 1999), 185.

245 Salsitz, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland, 137.

246 “Bartoszewski i Wishner—Twarzą w twarz: Dialog polsko-żydowski,” Dziennik Związkowy (Chicago), December 6–8, 1996.

247 Her testimony is posted online at: .

248 Cited in Józef Geresz, Międzyrzec Podlaski: Dzieje miasta i okolic (Międzyrzec Podlaski: InterGraf, 2001).

249 Joanna Wiszniewicz, And Yet I Still Have Dreams: A Story of Certain Loneliness (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004), 8, 11.

250 Yehuda Nir, The Lost Childhood: A Memoir (San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989), 44.

251 A Jewish girl who grew up in a small village near Kraków where there were only five Jewish families, all of them merchants who appeared to have led comfortable and peaceful lives and were “very close” to one another, nonetheless “felt”—though she was not actually told as much—that the villagers looked upon them “as different because of our religion, and their inability to handle our differences set the Jewish inhabitants apart. Their fear of us was so pronounced that any attempts to come close, in any shape or form, always failed. I was keenly aware of this situation but could not understand it, nor could I accept it emotionally.” Since the writer was just a young girl at the time and her assessment goes far beyond her own personal experiences, it is doubtless much embellished by her impressions and by hearsay for which she does not set out a factual basis for the reader to judge. Typically, she is silent about Jewish views of Poles. See Renée Fodor Schwarz, Renée (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1991), 31.

252 Anthony Netboy, A Boy’s Life in the Chicago Ghetto ([Chicago:] n.p., 1980), 44.

253 Eliyahu Eisenberg, ed., Plotzk (Płock): A History of an Ancient Jewish Community in Poland (Tel Aviv: World Committee for the Plotzk Memorial Book and Plotzker Association in Israel, 1967), 37; English translation posted online at .

254 The rebbe in the cheder in Kortelisy, Volhynia, used the word shkotsim, a derogatory term for non-Jews. See Laizer Blitt, No Strength to Forget: Survival in the Ukraine, 1941–1944 (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007), 9.

255 L. Losh, ed., Sefer zikaron le-kehilot Shtutshin, Vasilishki, Ostrina, Novi Dvor, and Rozanka (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Shtutshin, Vasilishki, Ostrina, Novi Dvor, and Rozanka, 1966), 41.

256 Rubin, Against the Tide, 122.

257 Account of Ahuvah Linchevsky (Ramat Gan), “My Childhood Memories,” in David Shtokfish, ed., Sefer Drohiczyn (Tel Aviv: n.p., 1969), 5ff. (English section).

258 Account of Isaac Milstein in Berl Kagan, ed., Szydlowiec Memorial Book (New York: Shidlowtzer Benevolent Association in New York, 1989), 61.

259 Cited in Alina Cała, “The Social Consciousness of Young Jews in Interwar Poland,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 8 (1994): 53.

260 Zosia Goldberg, as told to Hilton Obenzinger, Running Through Fire: How I Survived the Holocaust (San Francisco: Mercury House, 2004), 4.

261 Res Publica, no. 7 (1988): 43–52.

262 Theodore S. Hamerow, Remembering a Vanished World: A Jewish Childhood in Interwar Poland (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001), 129. It is a well-documented fact that popular sporting events like soccer matches are often a venue for hooliganism and crass or even racist behaviour throughout the world. The Amsterdam soccer team Ajax falsely gained a reputation for being a “Jewish” team in the 1960s; although its own fans adopted this identity as a point of pride, it soon became a source of derision for, and anti-Semitic displays by, fans of opposing teams. To provoke Ajax supporters, rival fans would give the Nazi salute, chant “Hamas, Hamas!”, shout “Jews to the gas!” or simply hiss to simulate the sound of gas escaping. See Craig S. Smith, “A Dutch Soccer Riddle: Jewish Regalia Without Jews,” The New York Times, March 28, 2005. The activities of Beitar Jerusalem Football Club supporters in Charleroi, Belgium, on July 16, 2015, were describd as follows: “Beitar supporters, including members of the French Jewish Defence League, began their visit by rampaging in the streets of Charleroi, picking fights with fans of the local team. … The JDL, founded by the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose movement and political party, Kach, are banned in Israel and several other countries, claims affiliation to the militaristic Beitar movement to which Mr. Kahane belonged as a youth. The fans arrived at the stadium and hung their Kach flags alongside Israel’s national flags. Charleroi fans chided them by giving them the Nazi straight-arm salute, which drove Beitar supporters crazy. Dozens of flares and fireworks were thrown on the field, delaying the game. Later, the Charleroi goalkeeper was hit in the head with some object thrown from the Beitar crowd. Despite all that, Beitar players came over to their fans at the end of the game and applauded them. … This is a team that never has had an Arab on its squad, even though Israel’s population is 20 per cent Arab … Two years ago, Beitar signed two skilled Chechens—Muslims—to play for the team, and fans became incensed, burning down part of the club’s practice facility. The Chechens were traded to another team.” See Patrick Martin, “Love, Hatred, Religion and Politics Fuel Fans of Beitar Jerusalem FC,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), July 25, 2015.

263 Larry Stillman, A Match Made in Hell: The Jewish Boy and the Polish Outlaw Who Defied the Nazis. From the Testimony of Morris Goldner (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 16–17.

264 Tenenbaum, Legacy and Redemption, 31.

265 Irene Shapiro, Revisiting the Shadows: Memoirs from War-torn Poland to the Statue of Liberty (Elk River, Minnesota: DeForest Press, 2004), 41.

266 Henry G. Gribou, Hunted in Warsaw: A Memoir of Resistance and Survival in the Holocaust (Jefferson, North Carolina a,d Londond: McFarlans, 2012), 37.

267 Daniel Kac, Koncert grany żywym (Warsaw: Tu, 1998), 66–67.

268 Berk, Destined to Live, 64–65.

269 Isaac Aron, Fallen Leaves: Stories of the Holocaust and the Partisans (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1981), 118.

270 Henry Orenstein, I Shall Live: Surviving Against All Odds, 1939–1945 (New York: Beaufort, 1987), 25. As Orenstein notes, “the Jews had always lived almost totally separate from the gentile population … Many Jews did not speak Polish at all, or at best only broken Polish. At home, they spoke Yiddish, and their customs and culture were different, too, as was their appearance: most of them wore beards and long earlocks, yarmulkes on their heads, and black caftans. Their religion was the key to their existence, and precluded any assimilation. … The Polish peasants were poor, and opportunities for Jews were limited. … These conditions and many restrictions caused a few of the Jews to resort to questionable business practices. … Most Poles viewed the Jews with suspicion; to them they were a strange people, a foreign body thrust into the middle of Polish society. They couldn’t understand why Jews held to their traditions and religious beliefs with such fanatic dedication, and they resented them for it. … The relationship between Jews and Poles had become a vicious cycle. Each had good reason to mistrust the other, but it was the Jews who bore the brunt of the abuse because they were the minority.” Ibid., 4–6.

271 Interview with Leon Lepold, June 30, 1983, The Generation After Oral History Project, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

272 André Caussat, Gutka: Du ghetto de Varsovie à la liberté retrouvée (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), 22.

273 Maurice Shainberg, Breaking From the KGB: Warsaw Ghetto Fighter…Intelligence Officer…Defector to the West (New York: Shapolsky, 1986), 33–40.

274 Munro, Bialystok to Birkenau, 54; Jakub Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała, eds., The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak, vol. 2 (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2005), 319. On the other hand, the Polish family in the latter case did not disown their son for marrying a Jewish woman, even though she did not convert and their child was not baptized. For another example a religious Jewish family cutting off relations with a Jewish woman who married a Pole, see Ruta Pragier, Żydzi czy Polacy (Warsaw: Rytm, 1992), 124.

275 Livingston, Tradition and Modernism in the Shtetl, 68. The attitude toward illegitimate offspring was equally unenlightened. When a child was born to a Jewish maid in Kolbuszowa, “The town’s younsters never tired of taunting the man’s other children with the name of the illegitimate child. See Salsitz, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland, 190. Edwin Langberg of Drohobycz described the situation in his own household as follows: “my 75 year-old maternal grandmother Sara Nacht was frail and permanently bedridden. She relied on her nurse Blima for all of her physical needs. Our housekeeper Sophie helped in trading for food and took care of meals. The status of Sophie and Blima was an anachronism, an indirect result of the orthodox interpretation of the Hebrew Old Testament relating to ‘mamzers,’ those born of an illegitimate union. The Torah states: ‘No mamzer shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord; none of his descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of the Lord’ (23:3). The circumstances of their births tragically precluded Blima and Sophie from any chance of a Jewish marriage and family, or membership in the Jewish congregation in pre-war Poland when Jewish life was to a large extent ruled by Orthodox Judaism. Female mamzers frequently entered into service with Jewish families, usually at a young age. There was no binding agreement but after a year or two, both parties considered the position lifelong. Sophie took care of the children in my uncle Elias’ family, and after my mother’s death, became our housekeeper. Blima took care of my arthritic grandmother for years.” See Edwin Langberg with Julia M. Langberg, Sara’s Blessing (Lumberton, New Jersey: Emethas Publishers, 2003), 16–17. This phenomenon probably accounts for the fact that a number of Jewish children were taken in by Catholic orphanages in the interwar period. The traditional charge levelled against the Catholic Church in Poland, in particular its convents, regarding the abduction and forcible conversion of Jewish children and especially young women has been discredited by research conducted by Jewish historians. See ChaeRan Freeze, “When Chava Left Home: Gender, Conversion, and the Jewish Family in Tsarist Russia,” and Rachel Manekin, “The Lost Generation: Education and Female Conversion in Fin-de-Siècle Kraków,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 18 (Oxford and Portland, Oregon: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2005), 153–219. For statistics on conversions in the 1930s see Wacław Wierzbieniec, Żydzi w województwie lwowskim w okresie międzywojennym: Zagadnienia demograficzne i społeczne (Rzeszów: Uniwersytet Rzeszowski, 2003), 33–40.

276 Abraham W. Landau, Branded on My Arm and on My Soul: A Holocaust Memoir (New Bedford, Massachusetts: Spinner Publications with The Jewish Federation of Greater New Bedford, 2011), 25.

277 Machla Lewin-Botler, “The Last Ones of a Family,” in A. Sh. Sztejn (Shtayn) and Gavriel Wejszman (Vaysman), eds., Pinkas Sokhatshev (Jerusalem: Former Residents of Sochaczew in Israel, 1962), 533ff.; translasted as Memorial Book of Sochaczew, Internet: