Massive Pogroms 1918 Fake News Valasek

Haller’s Polish Army in France, by Paul S. Valasek.

WWI-Era Emerging Poland, the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, and the Media-Mythologized So-Called Pogroms. Polish Nobility Clarified

This work informs the reader of many aspects of Haller’s Army. It includes statistics, testimonies, descriptions of battles, reprints of 1920s-era reports, and much more. It follows combat operations in France as well as Poland, including the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918-1919) and the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920. The author’s grandfather had fought in the ranks of Haller.

RECRUITMENT OF MEN FOR HALLER’S BLUE ARMY

When Haller’s Army was initially being formed, the United States was neutral, and the training of the Polish men had to be disguised as Leadership Training and “Physical Development Courses”. (p. 29). Polish clergy played a major role in the recruitment drive. (pp. 40-41). During the window of American recruitment–from October 1917 through February 15, 1919, approximately 38,000 volunteers joined Haller’s Army. (p. 47). In Europe, according to an anonymous 1922 YMCA report, more men joined, and Haller’s Army grew to about 75,000. (p. 347).

From a map of the United States and Canada (p. 399), one learns that Poles were recruited not only from intuitively obvious Polish centers such as Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburg, but also, on a smaller scale, from places such as Winnipeg, Duluth, Steven’s Point, Saginaw, Omaha, Kansas City, and St. Louis. A table (pp. 399-400) lists 47 cities of North American recruitment along with the approximate number of recruits per city. One photo (p. 121) shows a large group of recruits standing, with Ignace Jan Paderewski, on the steps of Holy Trinity Church in Chicago. (p. 121). Another set of photos (p. 142) show General Haller before his men in France, and Roman Dmowski with the Polish Riflemen.

JEWISH POGROM ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HALLER’S ARMY

This book includes many lists of enlistees by name. These lists (e. g, pp. 224-225) contain a sprinkling of Jewish-sounding names, consistent with the fact that some Jews served in Haller’s Army.

Jewish conduct varied. Major Stefan Wyczolkowski, in 1928, reported (p. 169) Haller’s Army being greeted formally by Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish delegations, at Pohrebyszcze, on May 3, 1920. Captain Stanislaw I. Nastal, in 1922, reported and on the combat against the Communist Budionny’s forces, which included many Jewish commissars. He wrote, “The innumerable columns of bandits went proudly, wreaking havoc and conflagration as they went. Their Jewish commissars encouraged them to march with vodka, future plunder, and music. `To Warsaw, comrades!’ went the cry.” (p. 283). He also states that, “Rowne was taken on 19 September 1920. The soldier of the 13th Division demolished with his bayonet the freshly adorned gates set up by the Jews for Trotsky’s drive.” (p. 289).

REFUTING JEWISH CALUMNIES ABOUT GENERAL HALLER”S MEN

This work includes an interesting 1920 interview with Walter S. Schutz of the YMCA. He saw the events in Poland firsthand, notably the situation in Krakow that had provoked Polish anger against Jews. Alluding, in addition, to the plethora of mostly-bogus pogrom accounts, Schutz comments, (quote) The Jewish question is one that I don’t want to go into. I will say for my own observation, the great majority of these stories of persecution are absolutely deliberate exaggerations or misrepresentations. I think the figures show that some 233 Jews were killed during these trials, during this condition; but at that time certainly more Christians were killed. There was rioting. So far as my observation goes, the Jew has no loyalty for Poland, he wanted to be a Jew. He wanted to be an international, and he didn’t want Poland to be established. In fact, they were caught red-handfed dealing and trafficking with the Ukrainians and Bolshevists. I was in Cracow the day there was quite a riot there. These troops found that the Jews were extorting awful prices from the Polish women, and went into the chief square and rough-housed some of the Jewish stores. There was only one person killed, and it was purely accidental. I spoke of it to General Haller, and he said: `You know that all of these stories are absolutely false.'” (unquote)(pp. 369-370).

CANDOR ON WHY JEWS WERE HATED

Polish-Jewish relations were also strained by the increasingly-outdated, centuries-old economically privileged position of Jews above peasants (that is, the vast majority of Poles)–a position now further aggravated by its function in favor of the Germans. Schutz comments, (quote) You saw German cameras and German films that were sold very cheap, and the Jew is the man who will be the liaison man. They hate him for about the same reason that in Palestine they hated the tax-collector because he has been the representative of the outsider to get their money from them. (unquote)(p. 375).

INTERESTING FACTS

This work has a variety of seldom-discussed facts. For instance, Janet Carnochan, in 1923, provided the lyrics, in Polish and English, of one of the songs sung by Haller’s men, BOZE COS POLSKE (Oh God, Protector of Poland). (pp. 326-327). On another subject, eyewitness Walter S. Schutz, in 1920, reported women taking up arms to fight against the Ukrainian separatists in 1918 over Lwow (Lviv). (p. 367).

FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT THE MUCH-MISUNDERSTOOD POLISH NOBILITY

On another subject, Poland has long been attacked and awfulized (even to this day) as a nation with a onetime horrible feudalist system. Ignace Jan Paderewski, in 1918, refuted this as follows, (quote) Poland’s enemies have had much to say about the excesses committed by our nobility. There is no need to discuss this at any length, but I may say that with the exception of a few almost feudal families, the Polish nobility was not an aristocratic class, but simply a privileged democracy. The Polish nobility was a vast body of men enjoying all civic and political rights, even some rather mediaeval privileges won by their ancestors or by themselves on battlefields or in other public service. They were electors, voters. Everyone who distinguished himself in war, in statesmanship, in science, or eve in art could become a nobleman, a voter. How democratically this was applied some facts and figures will attest: In 1847, in France, at the time of Louis Philippe, out of a nation of twenty-eight millions, there were but 150,000 voters; whereas two hundred years before that, in 1647, Poland had nearly 300,000 voters in a nation of less than eleven millions. In England, before the famous Reform Bill of 1832, 2 percent only of the population enjoyed all political rights, while in 1732, 12 percent of the Polish population was in complete possession of those rights. And it may be said further to the credit of our nobility that in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, our landowners of their own initiative began the emancipation of peasants from the conditions of serfdom. (unquote)(pp. 384-385).