{"id":57745,"date":"2017-11-23T18:05:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-23T16:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=57745"},"modified":"2017-11-23T09:07:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T07:07:50","slug":"01-05-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=57745","title":{"rendered":"I Hid From Neo-Nazis In Poland. But They Found Me Online"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>I Hid From Neo-Nazis In Poland. But They Found Me Online<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Sam Rubin<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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On November 11th, 60,000 protesters assembled in Warsaw to commemorate Polish Independence Day. The march was organized in part by two self-described \u201cradical nationalist\u201d youth movements, both of which draw their names from anti-Semitic leagues of the 1920\u2019s and 30\u2019s. The protest featured torches, chants of \u201cSieg Heil\u201d and \u201cKu Klux Klan,\u201d and banners reading \u201cWhite Europe\u201d and \u201cClean Blood.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a contingency of the protest marched through my Warsaw neighborhood in the former Jewish Ghetto, I hid. I\u2019m Jewish, and I was terrified. I closed the windows, unplugged every light, and retreated to the bathroom, as I later depicted in the Forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew that my piece would garner attention. But I didn\u2019t foresee the emotions it would elicit or the intensity of debate it would spark. And I definitely didn\u2019t foresee the online hateful barrage aimed at me, so clearly aligned with the march\u2019s anti-Semitic roots.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I wrote in my first piece, I came to Warsaw because I didn\u2019t believe what I\u2019d been told about anti-Semitism. If the march wasn\u2019t enough to convince me that anti-Semitism remains alive and well in Poland and elsewhere, the response I got to my piece certainly was.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t all bad. I received thoughtful, encouraging, and at times apologetic emails from many Polish readers, Polish people who are worried by the country\u2019s shift toward insularity.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there were some ugly responses, too. Some wrote that Poland \u201cdoesn\u2019t exist to serve or please Jews,\u201d that I was a \u201cman of Soros.\u201d Over and over I read tweets, emails, and comments with a singular message: \u201cPoland is for Poles.\u201d I wrote to my editor to ask her to take the name of my street out of the piece, fearing that online attacks could become real threats.<\/span><\/p>\n

@jdforward Don’t just hide in the washroom. Just leave. Poland is NOT your nation. Poland is for Poles. It doesn’t exist to serve or please Jews. Where do Jews get the chutzpah to think that Poles should not be patriotic in their own motherland? Jews are imperialists.\u2014 Gubbler Chechenova (@gubblerchecheno) November 16, 2017<\/em><\/p>\n

It was terrifying. But these were not the worst of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The most troubling part of the Polish response to my piece came not from the uneducated nationalist masses, but from Western-educated, seemingly cosmopolitan intellectual elites. These elites, who voiced their response to my piece on Twitter and in the comments section of the Forward, did not stoop to name calling. Rather, they introduced ahistorical facts and apologist language that should worry those who care about Poland\u2019s future possibly as much as the anti-Semitic hate speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few anecdotes:<\/span><\/p>\n

A PhD history candidate from the country\u2019s premier research institution insinuated in the comments section that my op-ed was \u201ca propaganda piece on behalf of people that probably manipulated him into writing it.\u201d This claim rehearses the ugly anti-Semitic notion of media manipulation by Jews, a mainstay of both propaganda of the past and today\u2019s \u201calt-right\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then, a prominent Polish journalist and commentator maligned both my reporting of and reaction to the march, writing, \u201cLies, lies, lies. Awful, dreadful, disgusting lies\u2026pathetic.\u201d Both toxic masculinity and cries of \u2018Fake News\u2019 find a home in Poland, too, it turns out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Explicit in many comments was the absolute victimhood complex that finds a home in the right-wing government today: Poles have been persecuted by the Germans and Russians for centuries, and therefore cannot be the oppressors when it comes to Jews and other minorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

These views don\u2019t come from nowhere. The idea that Poles are absolute victims \u2013 rather than a group capable of both hatred and compassion – is displayed all too clearly at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (POLIN) where I went after my article\u2019s publication with a fresh perspective. There I found that Polish pogroms and anti-Semitic fascist leagues are drastically underrepresented in the museum\u2019s permanent exhibit. While the German\u2019s atrocious treatment of Poland\u2019s Jewish population is rightfully given space, the complicit role of some Poles in the Holocaust is absent, it seemed to me. A museum that claims to present history should present the entire history, both the heroic actions of Poles who helped Jews and the hateful actions of those who harmed them. We can learn from both.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also got many responses from Jews to my piece. Many Polish Jews who fled the country wrote to tell me how dismayed they were that these elements still exist in such force. And yet, as I wrote, Jewish cultural and religious institutions are being rebuilt and remnant communities are thriving. The size of Jewish life isn\u2019t comparable to life here before emigration and the Holocaust. Nevertheless, the remaining Jews persist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another frequent Jewish response I received was a call to physical action. Drawing on communally-internalized notions of Jewish men\u2019s weakness, these readers urged me to arm myself and fight anti-Semites in the street.<\/span><\/p>\n

To them, I say this: I fight with my words. My previous piece was shared thousands of times, sparking debate in America, Israel and Poland. Does that not do more to forward the cause of Jewish existence than my fists ever could?<\/span><\/p>\n

The dynamics of my life in Warsaw have fundamentally changed since publication; many I barely knew have reached out with heartfelt support and validation \u2014 with calls of \u2018I see you\u2019 \u2014 while others I thought friends have clearly been made uncomfortable or worse by my naming and drawing attention to this dangerous political situation. For those, I have become the other, as we have always been.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sans yarmulke, I could hide. Now, with publicization and a forthcoming documentary from Polish newsite Wirtualna Polska, I am truly an out Jew. I ended my last piece with an acknowledgement of my own na\u00efvet\u00e9: \u2018The shelter has been cracked.\u2019 I finish this with the same responding clause: A defiance seeps through<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Sam Rubin<\/strong> is a Fulbright Research Fellow<\/strong> based in Warsaw, Poland. He can be contacted at srubinpolimus@gmail.com<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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I Hid From Neo-Nazis In Poland. But They Found Me Online Sam Rubin On November 11th, 60,000 protesters assembled in Warsaw to commemorate Polish Independence Day. The march was organized in part by two self-described \u201cradical nationalist\u201d youth movements, both of which draw their names from anti-Semitic leagues of the 1920\u2019s and 30\u2019s. The protest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57745"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57758,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57745\/revisions\/57758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}