Jewish Economic Habits Cause Multiple Problems Bujak

The Jewish Question in Poland, by Franciszek Bujak. 1919

Jewish Economic Hegemony Over Poland: Multiple Harmful Effects. Jewish Polonophobia, and Not Polish Anti-Semitism, is the Main Problem

This short (48 page) book presents a great deal of information. The author was a professor at Cracow (Krakow) University. (My review is based on the original 1919 edition).

Franciszek Bujak discusses the Litwaks (Litvaks) moving to central Poland, in the wake of tsarist Russian persecutions, notably in the first decade of the 20th century. These Jews hindered Polish national development by supporting the Russian state, and by fostering Jewish separatism. (p. 9, 25-26, 41).

THE JEWISH ECONOMIC HEGEMONY OVER POLAND: MULTIPLE HARMFUL EFFECTS

(Quote) The characteristic feature of Jewish commerce is the inadequateness of capital and the operation with credit, this state of things often bringing about an unavoidable rise in prices and, on the other side, frequent bankruptcies. (unquote). (p. 21). (Quote) The credit banks which, as alluded to, even in small towns are very numerous, serve as intermediaries in obtaining loans with a benefit of 8 to 9%, which however raised by additional fees to 10-11%, and with such guarantees that there is no risk whatever, while they themselves only pay 5-6%. Just as unhealthy are the conditions created by the Jews in the merchandize trade, where bankruptcies are very frequent and fraudulent bankruptcies are not at all exceptional. (unquote). (p. 24).

(Quote) Being quite strange in society, they [Jews] can employ so much easier all the unscrupulous means of dealing in relations with the economically weaker population. Without giving here detailed proofs it is sufficient to call to memory the agricultural strike of 1902 in Eastern Galicia, which was due to Jewish abuse; more than ¾ of the farms affected by this strike were in the hands of the Jews, either their property or rented by them. The agricultural disturbances which took place in Roumania [Romania] in 1907 were also caused by the Jewish abuse of the peasants. (unquote). (p. 23).

(Quote) No country, indeed, can be expected to provide a living for one eighth of its population by retail trade alone. (unquote). (p. 44).

(Quote) The eternal Jewish monopoly for trade was bound, at length, to come into conflict with the national tendency of the Christian population towards trade…The Polish people could not for ever continue to quietly look at others taking their place in certain functions… (unquote). (p. 45).

(Quote) It cannot be denied that that this tendency towards social and economic development of the Polish nation is in a way detrimental to the Jews and therefore undesirable and disagreeable for them, but it is inevitable. (unquote). (p. 46).

(Quote) If within some 10-20 years the percentage of Jews in Poland would decrease from 12-13% to 6-7% at least, their economic situation would be greatly relieved, the high prices charged by the middlemen in trade would fall, as the number of middlemen in trade and their mutual competition would be considerably reduced. (unquote). (pp. 47-48).

JEWS AND RADICAL MOVEMENTS

(Quote) In the revolutionary movement on the Vistula in the years 1905 and 1906, they [Jews] took the leadership, and this movement greatly endangered Poland’s industry, brought it to the verge of ruin, exposing the Polish working people to many sanguinary pogroms on the part of the Russian government. (unquote). (pp. 26-27).

Now consider more mainstream political movements. Bujak suggests that Jewish radicalism plays a major role in the Poale Sion (Poale Zion), the People’s Party, the Jewish socialist party, the Bund, the Social Democratic party of Poland and Lithuania [elsewhere called the SDKPIL]. (p. 26). Later, Jews involved in these parties showed especial hostility to the resurrected Polish state (1918), through such things as meetings and demonstrations against the Polish army, the Polish eagle, and the new Polish State itself. (p. 30).

THE ZYDOKOMUNA AFTER THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

(Quote) At the beginning of 1919, 80% of all the higher official positions in Bolshevist Russia were occupied by Jews, who mostly hide themselves under Slavonic pseudonyms. (unquote). (p. 26).

WWI-ERA JEWISH GERMANOPHILIA AND PROFITEERING

In the first part of WWI, the Jews strongly supported the Central Powers. According to cited German sources, Jews strongly promoted all aspects of Germanism. (pp. 27-29).

As for Jewish wartime profiteering and its consequences for Poles, Bujak discusses the impact of price fixing of commodities. He adds, (Quote) Following the German example, Austria established a whole series of central stores, to regulate the production and consumption of alimentary goods and other merchandise. In the management of these stores, which were being organized in a most unsatisfactory way, the Jews were the decisive spirit…One of the favorite operations of the Jews consisted in an unlawful exportation of alimentary article to Germany on a large scale, most injurious to the population, which, through requisitions of the authorities and of the army, was already deprived of provisions. (unquote). (pp. 27-28).

JEWISH DISLOYALTY TO POLAND IN 1918

(Quote) With regard to the creation of the Polish State the majority of Jews took a cool, passive and indifferent attitude…(unquote).(p. 29).

POGROMS IN PERSPECTIVE: NOT ONLY JEWS EXPERIENCED ROBBERY AND VIOLENCE

(Quote) In Russia in 1905, in the provinces to the East of Congress Poland, about 690 pogroms took place, while in the Kingdom [of Poland] there were but five, all organized by Russian influence…the only great pogrom, organized at Siedlce by the Russian authorities, brought about the death of only 145 Jews, and not of 6 thousand…The dimensions of the pogrom were restricted, thanks to an energetic defense on the part of the Polish clergy and population, on which occasion some Poles lost their lives. (unquote). (p. 32).

As for the much-exaggerated 1918-era pogroms, Bujak highlights the post-WWI anarchy and the economic attractiveness of Jewish targets for robbery. He comments, (Quote) The demobilization was taking place in a frenzied way…These hungry and freezing masses were stealing and robbing on their way…Inns, containing spirits, were ransacked, as well as shops with victuals and clothing…No distinction was made between shops, whether Christian or Jewish…As, however, in Polish cities, chiefly in the smaller ones, 90% of the trade is in Jewish hands, it naturally follows that the Jews were the main losers. In the attempts to find secret stocks of victuals and clothing (whose existence had been more than once confirmed by official inquest), it often happened that Jewish houses had to suffer…Here it may be stated that in Warsaw, until the middle of March 1919, the Polish authorities discovered 255 secret warehouses, of which 218 belonged to Jews. (unquote). (p. 35).

Franciszek Bujak details the 1918 Lwow pogrom. (pp. 3-37). In the wake of the Polish-Ukrainian war, the Ukrainians released several hundred criminals from jail. These, along with military deserters and the local hungry rabble, plundered and killed Jews, during the absence of government in Lwow. Christian shops were also targeted. Fifty houses were set on fire, not 300 as reported by the Jewish press. There was no burning of Jews in synagogues. According to official records, about 3,000 Lwow inhabitants were killed or wounded, of which 262 were Jews. That is, 12% of the victims were Jews even though Jews were nearly 30% of the population. However, the Jewish committee of assistance for the victims of the Lwow disorders could register only 73 Jewish fatalities.

THE MINORITIES TREATY: SEPARATE-NATION-WITHIN-NATION

(Quote)…1) Full rights of citizens, equal to those of the remaining population in Poland, and besides this, 2) Special rights as a national minority, having its own administration with the recognition of the Jewish language in all branches of public life; consequently in the administration of the country, in the schools, in the courts of justice, in the Diet and the army…Some of the political parties want a national census, and special Jewish representation in the Diet, in all social corporations, and a proportional share in all State offices…In reality the Jews have always formed and form now a separate community, but now they want to legalize their seclusion and to safeguard its development in future; they want to become, not simply citizens of the Polish State, but citizens of a Jewish State, situated within Poland. (unquote). (pp. 39-40).

(Quote) We must keep in mind that the Jews have in Poland, just as in the most liberal countries, complete autonomy in all matters connected with religion, charity, and schools. (unquote). (p. 43).

JEWS CRITICIZE OTHERS BUT CANNOT THEMSELVES BE CRITICIZED

(Quote) The description of these events [1918-era pogroms] was wrong for this reason, because it represented the Jews as a mercilessly and inhumanly persecuted race, without any due cause or offense, merely in consequence of racial hostility. The Jews are generally unfit for self-criticism, and all attempts of criticism from other sides they take as an offense to their race and confession. (unquote). (p. 33).

JEWISH POLONOPHOBIA HAS UNTOWARD CONSEQUENCES FOR JEWS

(Quote) Soon also, some more reasonable elements among the Polish Jews have understood that such indiscriminate and undeserved charges against the Polish nation must necessarily have fatal consequences for the future common life of Jews and Poles… (unquote). (p. 38).

(Quote) At any rate we may speak with more truth about Jewish anti-Polonism than about Polish anti-Semitism, which is not an aggressive movement displaying itself in consequent deeds, but merely a psychic reaction against damages suffered by the Polish nation from their part. (unquote). (p. 30).

This book includes a moving letter (in the back-cover envelope) in which Dr. J. Vorzimer, an American Polish Jew, writes to Nathan Strauss, the Chairman for the Committee for the Protection of Jewish Rights in Poland. Vorzimer clarifies the situation of Jews in Poland in detail, and calls Strauss to task for disseminating odious anti-Polish propaganda in the USA. [The entire letter of J. Vorzimer, to Nathan Strauss, can be found online. Google the keywords “Vorzimer” and “Nathan Strauss”.]

LIKE 1919 LIKE 2018

The informed reader may marvel at how little has changed in the near century since this book was published!