Jan Tomasz Gross defends Barbara Engelking in an interview with “Newsweek” defending the lie that anti-Semitism is common in Poland, and that during the occupation most Poles denounced Jews and their neighbors who hid them. He calls those who disagree with the version presented by him “the posthumous of Dmowski and Moczar”.
A repetition of communist “March” propaganda
“Interesting” are not only the statements of the writer, who is a sociologist by training, not a historian, but also the questions of the journalist from “Newsweek”.
Could PiS have been expected to seize the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to start a brawl?
Aleksandra Pawlicka asks at the beginning. It’s not known exactly what “adventurous” she meant – it was probably responses to Barbara Engelking’s interview on TVN.
We have a repeat of communist “Mars” propaganda – a chorus of voices from PiS officials who oppose the historical truth that Jews were abandoned and persecuted by their Polish neighbors during the occupation
– emphasizes Jan Tomasz Gross, probably forgetting what the events of March 1968 were like, since he makes comparisons like this.
An interview with Engelking described him as “calm, even-tempered and erudite”, and claiming that Poles helped Jews en masse during the occupation is “a lie”.
How did Gross use Karski’s report?
The “Newsweek” interviewee uses Jan Karski’s report from 1940 – unfortunately he quotes very selectively and only the fragment that can confirm his statement about the Poles’ indifference to the fate of the Jews.
“this issue [tzn. kwestia żydowska] however, it creates a kind of narrow catwalk where they usually meet in unison [podkreślenie Karskiego] Germany and a large part of Polish society”
Gross says.
“The solution of the Jewish question by the Germans – I must say with all sense of responsibility for what I say – is a serious and quite dangerous instrument in the hands of the Germans to ‘morally pacify’ broad sections of Polish society.
— these words also appear in Karski’s report.
And after the words about the “pedestrian bridge”:
Of course, this pedestrian bridge is as narrow as the Germans wish to buttress and strengthen it
– in other words, Jan Karski also pointed out that it was the German occupiers who willingly fueled Poland’s aversion to Jews, which in some ways resembles the current attempts to quarrel between Poles and Ukrainians through Putin’s propaganda.
“Debunking Myths”
To make it even more interesting, the journalist of “Newsweek” argues that Jan Tomasz Gross from the beginning “refutes the myth of massive aid Poland provides to Jews”.
Detailed knowledge of the threat and persecution from the Poles to which the Jews in hiding were exposed is recorded in thousands of testimonials and memoirs by Jews who survived the occupation
he convinces.
The denial of this reality by historians – and Prime Minister Morawiecki also presented himself as such in his Twitter post – is pure fraud
– underlined.
Well, Prime Minister Morawiecki is indeed a historian by training, unlike Jan Tomasz Gross. As for the testimonies and recollections of surviving Jews, the “Newsweek” interlocutor, for example, left the recollections of the recently deceased Prof. Shevah Weiss. They probably just didn’t quite fit the thesis. The following scripts:
We will never know much about the Holocaust, but that only a few Poles helped Jews during the occupation, at the risk of their lives, tracked down and denounced by their own Polish neighbors, is known beyond any doubt. And it is these Polish neighbors who are largely responsible for the repression that befell the Righteous Among the Nations (as we talk about them today) by the occupiers
the writer convinces.
What about the home army?
Gross also attacks the Home Army, referring to an excerpt from Icchak Zuckerman’s memoir, somewhat more extensive than in Jan Karski’s case. Antek.
Zuckerman, who at the time of the uprising was following the so-called Aryan side, met a Home Army officer and asked for help. After consulting their superiors, “People from the Home Army told me they had neither transportation nor housing for us.” The largest underground anti-Nazi organization in occupied Europe, in a city where every second inhabitant was active underground, was the response to a group of Jewish insurgents in mortal danger. Shame and disgrace
– claims.
The journalist notes “significantly” that PiS treats history selectively, “on this disgrace and disgrace (…) builds a new model of a true Polish patriot.”
Posthumous Dmowski and Moczar, through the mouths of PiS regime officials, oppose the moral liberation attempt by facing the historical truth about the period of occupation
Jan Tomasz Gross thunders on.
PiS and anti-Semitism
At the same time, he assures that Law and Justice are the “spiritual heirs of National Democracy and ONR”, whose “spiritual essence (…) was anti-Semitism”.
All PiS propaganda is embedded in an anti-Semitic template. Starting with the form – the language of contempt for political opponents.
he convinces. It is certainly for this reason that genuine anti-Semites are punished in Poland, and what is more, they themselves accuse politicians associated with Law and Justice of being either of Jewish origin or of excessively favoring Jews.
Partly thanks to the work of Professor Engelking and the entire team of the Center for Holocaust Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences (…), Poland may have the opportunity to combat and rid itself of the false consciousness that Twardoch talks about. shake. the fumes of anti-Semitism that have brought so much human misery to this country
emphasizes the writer.
It may sound sentimental, but Poland is my homeland, no matter where in the world I live. And it pains me terribly that to this day he has not been able to free himself from this anti-Semitic poison.
– he emphasizes at the end of the conversation, reaching for another quote – this time the words of the poet Julian Przyboś, including that he considered every anti-Semite a potential murderer.
Interestingly, Gross, along with a “Newsweek” reporter, does with history exactly what they accuse PiS of doing – selectively using it to justify their claims. So what if the writer himself is the son of a Jew and… a Polish woman who helped him during the occupation?
READ ALSO:
-ONLY HERE. Minister Dziedziczak: Engelking, Grabowski, Gross want personal careers, prestige, money. Hence the attacks on Poland
– He wanted Poland to apologize to the Germans, now he accuses the Poles! Bilewicz: “Poles lived in peace while watching the destruction of the ghetto”
-ONLY HERE. Prof. Musiał: If the Germans had known how to stop helping Jews in Poland, they would not have introduced the extended death penalty for Poland
aja/Newsweek
Source: wPolityce