Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Graffiti Poland Abundance Cultural Webber


Rediscovering Traces of Memory: The Jewish Heritage of Polish Galicia, by Jonathan Webber, Chris Schwarz (Photographer). 2009

Poles Do a Lot of Graffiti. Abundant Anti-Semitic Graffiti? Not Poles Atypically Anti-Semitic. Zydokomuna Buried in Jewish Cemeteries

The area in question is western Galicia, in southern Poland. (Eastern Galicia is now in the Ukraine, following the confiscation of these territories by the USSR (in 1939 and 1944.). Poland’s Judaica comes alive! It is a shame that this lucid book is not better known. It shows numerous photographs, with detailed accompanying descriptions, of past and present Jewish cultural objects. Synagogues and cemeteries are especially featured. The amount of detail is unbelievable!

ZYDOKOMUNA “JEWISH COMMUNISTS ARE NOT REALLY JEWS” EXCULPATION FAILS

Were Jewish Communists still Jews? Yes. In fact, Jewish Communists had been recognized by the Jewish community as Jews. Webber inadvertently clarifies this matter, (quote) The tombstones [MATSEVOT] still standing in Galicia are evidence of a rich and an elaborate civilization. Here one can find the graves of great rabbis, outstanding Talmudic scholars, mystics, painters, Zionist leaders, university professors, Jewish socialists and communists. The graves of a number of the founders of Hasidism are to be found here today as well, alongside the simple memorials of poor village Jews. (unquote). (pp. 44-45).

Since avowed Jewish Communists had been buried in Jewish cemeteries, it is obvious that they still thought themselves as Jews and that they were recognized by the Jewish community as Jews. [Not that they would have been on iota less Jews (Jewishness as an ethnicity) had neither been true.] Obviously, the Zydokomuna were real Jews, and it is high time that the silly argument–that they were not–be finally retired.

NOT ONLY JEWS SUFFERED: POLES DID TOO

This book also features the western Galician Nazi death camps, notably at Belzec and Auschwitz. Interestingly, this work calls attention to the fact that there were Polish prisoners at Auschwitz, and that Polish survivors, and their close relatives, have played a major role the maintenance of the memory of Auschwitz, as by serving on the staff of the Auschwitz Museum. (p. 123).

VICTIMHOOD COMPETITION: NO VALID SYMMETRY BETWEEN JUDEOCENTRISM AND POLONOCENTRISM

The authors are candid about the fact that Poles and Jews each focus on their own respective sufferings at the hands of the Nazis (Polokaust and Holocaust) and tend to ignore that of the other. (p. 91, 110). [Based on extensive personal experience with both Jewish and Polish sources, I reject this misleading apparent symmetry. Jewish sources are much more prone to ignore Polish suffering than Polish sources are to ignore Jewish suffering.]. This is borne out even in this book. Consider the village of Zbylitowska Gora (near Tarnow). The Germans had shot both Poles and Jews on separate occasions. (p. 110). Two monuments sit alongside each other in uneasy coexistence. The older Polish one features both Polish and Jewish victims; the newer Jewish one mentions only the Jewish victims. So who is being exclusivist and chauvinistic?

The asymmetry also occurs at a higher level. The Polonocentrism of a few Poles has no impact outside Polish circles: The Judeocentrism of influential Jews shapes nothing less than the public opinion of much of the western world.

TODAY’S POLES NATURALLY EXPRESS THEMSELVES THROUGH GRAFFITI

Some commentators have jumped to the conclusion that the proliferation of anti-Semitic graffiti in modern Poland only proves that Poles are very anti-Semitic. By contrast, this book has a sophisticated understanding of Polish graffiti. Poles have a cultural inclination to express themselves by graffiti–whence its abundance. Webber comments: “Expressing social and political ideas through graffiti has become so widespread in post-communist Poland that graffiti `conversations’ are commonplace.” (p. 115). Thus, the Polish anti-Semite is much more likely to express his anti-Semitism through graffiti than a non-Polish anti-Semite elsewhere. While some graffiti is obviously anti-Semitic [or, more likely, anti-Holocaust-Industry or anti-Holocaust-memory-monopoly], not all of it is directed at Jews at all. For instance, Swastika graffiti is offensive to Poles no less than Jews, and is probably done by youth with the intention of shocking their elders. (p. 115).

THE LEGACY OF THE AUSCHWITZ CARMELITE CONVENT CONTROVERSY

Interestingly, this book describes the following at Auschwitz-Birkenau: “Formal prayers for the souls of those who were murdered during the Holocaust have become standard Jewish practice several times a year…” (p. 120). This is surprising in view of the events surrounding the Carmelite Convent Controversy. Conventional wisdom had it that Auschwitz has a perpetual “empty sky”, and is an inappropriate place for prayer by either Jews or Christians. The authors do not explain this unmentioned discrepancy. Is there now a double standard for Christians and Jews when it comes to prayer at Auschwitz?

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