Massive Pogroms 1918 Fake News Morgenthau

All In A Life-Time, by Henry Morgenthau Sr., French Strother. 2007

1918-Era “Massive Pogroms in Poland” Fake News Debunked by Wilson-Administration Investigator Morgenthau. Pogrom an Orwellian Term. Both Sides Blamed for Polish-Jewish Antagonisms

This review is limited to Jewish-American Morgenthau’s 1919 mission to Poland (pp. 348-384) and his report on the same (pp. 407-437). It is reprinted in this 1922 book.

As for a contextualization of the events, Morgenthau points out that Poland had, up to that time, been at war for 5 years. There was widespread destitution, disease, hunger, and even starvation (p. 418).

Because this book was now written a century ago, I include some UPDATE comments, in my review, that relate the Morgenthau-raised issues to their astonishingly-similar counterparts that go on today.

POGROM: AN AMORPHOUS, ALL-PURPOSE ORWELLIAN TERM

Morgenthau cautions: “The mission has purposely avoided the use of the term ‘pogrom’, as the word is applied to everything from petty outrages to premeditated and carefully organized massacres. No fixed definition is generally understood.” (p. 409). Pilsudski (p. 371) restricted the term to government-sponsored violence against Jews (as in tsarist Russia).

UPDATE: Note that the term pogrom, apart from its vagueness, is Orwellian on its face. It is a term that makes a riot against Jews a special event because the victims are Jews. No such special terminology exists for any non-Jewish victims of civil disturbances. How can it not imply that Jews are special? (In my reviews, I use the term pogrom solely as a concession to modern usage).

GROTESQUE MEDIA FAKE NEWS OF AS MANY AS 30,000 JEWISH VICTIMS OF POLES

The facts are very different from the reality. Morgenthau comments, “These excesses were apparently not premeditated, for if they had been part of a preconceived plan, the number of victims would have run into the thousands instead of amounting to about 280.” (p. 415).
Here we are a century later, and the same fantastic lies about Poland, in modernized form, are still being told. For instance, the media has quoted, as fact, the totally unsupported claims of 200,000 fugitive Jews killed by Poles during WWII—based on the speculations of Jan Grabowski vel Abrahamer and his JUDENJAGD (Hunt for the Jews).

IMPOSING COLLECTIVE GUILT ON THE POLES: THEN AND NOW

Morgenthau’s conclusion on what he prefers to call excesses is as follows: “Just as the Jews would resent being condemned as a race for the action of a few of their undesirable coreligionists, so it would be correspondingly unfair to condemn the Polish nation as a whole for the violence committed by uncontrolled troops or local mobs.” (p. 415).

UPDATE: Here we are a century later, and nothing has changed. Poles are still being saddled with collective guilt—if only with a more subtle kind. There is an elaborate Holocaustspeak terminology in use against non-Jews, such as “engaging in moral reckoning”, “coming to terms with the past”, “facing up to dark chapters in one’s history”, etc. Poles are told to constantly apologize for Kielce and Jedwabne, and it is never enough. There are recurrent complaints that Poles have a “heroic narrative” and “Jesus Christ of Nations” mindset that prevents them from being sufficiently apologetic to the Jews.

THE LWOW POGROM

Apart from the commonly-noted triangular enmity between Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians, a major ingredient in the bloody November 1918 pogrom (64 Jewish deaths) in Lwow (Lviv, Lvov, Lemberg), had been the following: “The situation was further complicated by the presence of some 15,000 uniformed deserters and numerous criminals released by the Ukrainians from local jails, who were ready to join in any disorder, particularly if, as in the case of wholesale pillage, they might profit thereby.” (p. 410).

THE MINSK POGROM

After the Minsk pogrom, Jewish witnesses reported to Morgenthau that the retreating Soviet forces had deliberately shot at Polish troops from within Jewish homes so that the local Jews would be blamed and reprisal pogroms would be provoked (p. 361).

INSUFFICIENT MILITARY DISCIPLINE AMONGST THE NEW POLISH ARMY

An overall factor in all, or nearly all, of the pogroms had been the state and the control of the Polish armed forces: “The responsibility for these excesses is borne for the most part by the undisciplined and ill-equipped Polish recruits, who, uncontrolled by their inexperienced and ofttimes timid officers, sought to profit at the expense of that portion of the population which they regarded as alien and hostile to Polish nationality and aspirations. It is recognized that the enforcement of discipline in a new and untrained army is a matter of extreme difficulty…On the other hand…an unflinching determination to restore order and a firm application of repressive measures can prevent, or at least limit, such excesses.” (p. 415).

JEWISH NATIONALISM CLASHES WITH POLISH NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

Bearing in mind the huge size of the Jewish population (14% of Poland’s total), consider Morgenthau’s opinion of Polish attitudes towards Jews: “In considering the causes for the anti-Semitic feeling which has brought about the manifestations described above, it must be remembered that ever since the partitions of 1795 the Poles have striven to be reunited as a nation and to regain their freedom. This continual effort to keep alive their national aspirations has caused them to look with hatred upon anything which might interfere with their aims. This has led to a conflict with the nationalist declarations of the Jewish organizations which desire to establish cultural autonomy financially supported by the State…” (p. 417).

JEWISH SEPARATE-NATION SOUGHT-AFTER SPECIAL RIGHTS ADD TO POLISH-JEWISH POLARIZATION

Finally, Morgenthau recognized the fact that Jewish demands had, using modern parlance, crossed into the realm of special rights and, again using modern parlance, implied a balkanization of Poland: “We found that, among the Jews, there was a thoughtful, ambitious minority, who, sincere in their original motives, intensified the trouble by believing that its solution lay only in official recognition of the Jew as a separate nationality…they aimed at nothing short of an autonomous government and a place in the family of nations. Meanwhile, they wanted to join the Polish nation in a federation having a joint parliament where both Yiddish and Polish should be spoken…their advocacy of a state-within-the-state was naturally resented by all.” (pp. 383-384).

JEWISH SELF-IMPOSED APARTHEID EXACERBATES POLISH-JEWISH TENSIONS

Morgenthau continues, “Moreover, Polish national feeling is irritated by what is regarded as the ‘alien’ character of the great mass of the Jewish population. This is constantly brought home to the Poles by the fact that the majority of the Jews affect a distinctive dress, observe the Sabbath on Saturday, conduct business on Sunday, have separate dietary laws, wear long beards, and speak a language of their own. The basis of this language is a German dialect, and the fact that Germany was, and still is, looked upon by the Poles as an enemy country renders this vernacular especially unpopular. The concentration of the Jews in separate districts or quarters in Polish cities also emphasizes the line of demarcation separating them from other citizens.” (p. 417).

JEWISH ECONOMIC HEGEMONY ADDS TO THE CONFLICT

Another factor was the Jewish domination of commerce: “The cessation of commerce is particularly felt by the Jewish population, which are almost entirely dependent upon it. Owing to the condition described [the wars], prices have doubled and tripled, and the population has become irritated against the Jewish traders, whom it blames for the abnormal increase thus occasioned.” (p. 418). Pilsudski remarked: “Our trouble isn’t religious; It is economic. Our petty dealers are Jews. Many have been war-profiteers…” (p. 371). Morgenthau (pp. 416-417) rejects the claim that the elimination of the middleman is ipso facto an anti-Semitic act.

POLITICIZING THE CONFLICT

Morgenthau has been accused, by many Jews, of whitewashing the Poles, perhaps because he faulted both sides: “There was no question whatever but that the Jews had suffered…Yet there was also no question but that some of the Jewish leaders had exaggerated these evils. There, too, were malevolent, self-seeking mischief-makers both in the Jewish and Polish press and among politicians of all stripes. Jews and non-Jews alike started out with the presumption that there could be no reconciliation.” (pp. 382-383).