The Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw can play an important role

Filip Mazurczak

Professor Antony Polonsky

Filip Mazurczak talks to Professor Anthony Polonsky, the vice-president of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies in Oxford and of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Polonsky is also the chief historian of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

Filip Mazurczak: In 1968, Poland’s communist leader Władysław Gomułka started an anti-Semitic campaign, purging public life of Poles with Jewish origins. A dozen or so years later, the Israeli prime minister generated controversy by saying that “all Poles suck anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk.” This year, the Knesset was in session for the first time abroad in Poland and is now a strong ally of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu says he feels at home in Warsaw. Is the age of political bad feelings between Warsaw and Tel Aviv over?

Antony Polonsky: Poland is one of the strongest supporters of Israel in the European Union and this is much appreciated in Tel Aviv. Cultural relations between Poland and Israel are also much closer. One would like to see more cooperation between the relevant authorities in the two countries on the content and itinerary of “Holocaust pilgrimages” in Poland, such as the March of the Living. Some progress has been made in this area but much more could be done. I believe an important role can be played by the Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw, whose permanent exhibition is to open at the end of October 2014.

There is now a clearer understanding that the mass murder of the Jews during the Second World War was initiated and for the most part carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany and by the German people who largely followed its lead. It is also understood that the reason for siting death camps on Polish soil is that this was where most of European Jewry was to be found. In addition, it was far from the front and also away from Germany and Western Europe.

After the Second World War, a wave of anti-Jewish violence struck Poland, with 500 to 2,000 casualties. Sociologist Jan Gross believes anti-Semitism sparked this, while Marek Edelman, a veteran of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, claimed this was “pure banditry” that had little in common with ethnic hatred. What, in your opinion, unleashed this?

The violence was the result of a number of factors and “pure banditry” certainly played a role. More important was the fact hat the war didn’t bring an end to anti-Semitism or seriously compromise anti-Semitic ideology. The Nazis persecuted the Polish radical Right, the main supporters of anti-Semitism in Poland, as fiercely as they did all other manifestations of Polish resistance to their rule. In addition, anti-Semitism was deliberately encouraged by the Nazis and intensified by the long-standing identification of Jews with communism. This was reinforced by the belief in extensive Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupying authorities in eastern Poland between 1939 and 1941, and by the presence of a number of people of Jewish origin in prominent positions in the post-war government.

Read more : The Museum of Polish Jews…