Undemonizing Dmowski Wolikowska

Roman Dmowski: Czlowiek, Polak, Przyjaciel, by Isabella Wolikowska. 1961

Roman Dmowski Was a Very Different Man From the Portrayal By His Critics

ROMAN DMOWSKI: PERSONAGE, POLE, AND FRIEND is the title of this book in English-language translation. [My review is based on the original 1961 edition.] It was published by Chicago-area members of the SN (STRONNICTWO NARODOWE), including Antoni Wawro. [I knew his son, in my childhood, from Saturday-morning Polish School and from the ZUCHY (Polish Scouts)].

Apart from the main text, the book includes an assortment of short articles, some reprinted from other sources, about Dmowski. It also features considerable detail about Dmowski’s declining health, death, and funeral. Several eulogies are published.

Several misconceptions about Dmowski are addressed. Contrary to popular belief, Dmowski was not an atheist. He had grown up in a religious home, and, although he did not actively practice Catholicism during much of his life, he was never far from it, as evidenced by his statements and writings. He had a good knowledge of the Bible and, although he was influenced by the then-new higher-critical theories, he never was completely absorbed by them. (p. 68, 230).

Nor had Walenty Dmowski, Roman’s father, been illiterate. Walenty had misidentified himself as an illiterate as an act of defiance against the occupying Russian authorities, who had been requiring Poles to sign their names in Russian. This he would not do. (p. 61).

ROMAN DMOWSKI: A MAN OF MANY GIFTS

Roman Dmowski was a man of intellect. He was self-taught in both French and English. (p. 22). His background in Latin enabled him to learn Spanish with no difficulty. (p. 74).

Dmowski was best known for his leadership. He was a true servant of Poland, but in no sense a career politician even though he had known no other profession. (p. 150). In 1944, none other than the main Nazi publication, VOLKISCHER BEOBACHTER, described Roman Dmowski as a man of great wisdom, and one who overcame many difficult challenges to secure Silesia and Pomerania for Poland at Versailles. (p. 164).

Interestingly, Roman Dmowski had organized the first mass public rally in Russian-ruled Warsaw since the ill-fated January (1863) Insurrection. (p. 21). Occurring in 1891, it commemorated the 100th anniversary of the historic Polish Constitution. All social classes of Poles were involved in it. As punishment for this, the tsarist Russian authorities imprisoned him for five months. (For a picture of the prison, see first picture that faces page 32).

ROMAN DMOWSKI HAD NO TRACE OF FASCIST TENDENCIES

Dmowski had unambiguously called his movement a nationalistic one. (p. 185, 188). Nowadays, nationalism is often burlesqued, by LEWAKS (leftists) as chauvinism, xenophobia, anger, and hatred. Dmowski did not fit this stereotype at all. For example, he said that Poles should avoid reacting with blind antipathy towards Germany, and he longed for the day when the German-Polish relationship would be one guided by friendship and mutual respect. (pp. 124-125). Such traits as bitterness, vindictiveness, and fanaticism were completely foreign to Dmowski (p. 155), and he had a chronically jovial disposition. (p. 104).

ROMAN DMOWSKI DEMONIZED BY THE JEWS FOR NOT CARRYING THEIR WATER

Jews have never forgiven Dmowski for standing up to them. He was vilified as an anti-Semite, and gone down in history as one. Whether or not he was an anti-Semite depends upon the definition of this oft-used elastic term. Tadeusz Sztajer recounts how, during one of the trips to the USA, Dmowski was visited by Jewish bankers demanding that he call off the boycott of Jews. He replied: “Let Jews start devoting their lives and wealth to the cause of Poland.” They retorted: “This Jews will not do.” Dmowski also mentioned how, at Versailles, he had to switch back and forth between English and French because the translators, most of whom were Jewish, were distorting what he was saying. (p. 237).

Wojciech Wasiutynski, the editor of the London-based newspaper, MYSLI POLSKIEJ, commented: “Dmowski was an anti-Semite but never was a Judeophobe or racist. You will never find anything in his writings advocating the persecution of Jews or acts of violence against them. Dmowski devoted much more attention to Freemasonry, which he saw as an ever-present danger.” (p. 223). Andrzej Wolikowski seconds the entire foregoing opinion, and adds that Dmowski knew many patriotic Polish Jews, and greatly respected them. In addition, those who practiced violence against Jews had been a splinter group that had betrayed the principles of Dmowski’s national movement. (p. 278).

In contrast to those who suppose that Endeks had nothing but antipathy towards Jews, Izabella Wolikowska, the main author of this Endek publication, comments: “Naturally, there were many Jews in the Polish armed forces, and as soldiers and patriots we will always honor them. Roman Dmowski was the type of person who could never stoop so low as to hate…I am convinced that a man so free of hatred was not and could not be an anti-Semite. He was an uncompromising defender of Polishness, and when Jews hindered the development of Polish commerce…and since they had taken over Polish industry and commerce, Dmowski fought against them. But it was always a fight out in the open based on morally clean principles. The same cannot be said of the other side.” (p. 125; see also p. 50).