Undemonizing Dmowski on Jews Minnen

Van Loon: Popular Historian, Journalist, and FDR Confidant, by Cornelis van Minnen. 2005

Early 20th Century Dutch Journalist: Both Jews and Poles Were at Fault. Dmowski Pro-Russian a Myth

This work begins with a biography of Hendrik Willem van Loon, and moves on to his early life in Holland, and subsequent move to the USA. He was at Harvard University, and then a journalist in Russian-ruled Poland. In time, his American occupations included educator, journalist, artist, and radio commentator. Author van Minnen characterizes him as an all-around Dutch-American Renaissance man. (p. 267).

Van Loon was a free spirit, and had multiple marriages. He eschewed religion in favor of a vague cultural Protestantism, and eventually became a Unitarian. (p. 255). He verbalized a scorn for such things as Russian introspectivism, Jewish Talmudic reasoning, etc., in favor of “doing whatever pleases me as long as it does not interfere with my neighbor’s rights to do the same”. (p. 227).

Dutch affairs continued to have impact on van Loon. He hailed the inauguration of KLM, Holland’s airline, and took an active role on behalf of the Netherlands following the Nazi German invasion of that country in 1940.

I devote the remainder of my review to Poland and Polish-related matters.

KNOWING ROMAN DMOWSKI: HE WAS NOT PRO-RUSSIAN

As noted earlier, Hendrik Willem van Loon, during 1905-1907, was a journalist in Russia and Russian-ruled Poland. He dined with Roman Dmowski, and reported that Dmowski had verbalized (at this relatively early date) the Poles’ desire to “throw off the Russian yoke.” (p. 29). [This corrects the misrepresentations of Dmowski variously being pro-Russian, interested only in “organic work”, or content merely with greater Polish freedoms under Russian rule.] Eliza, Hendrik Willem’s fiancée, described Dmowski as one of the few men “who stick to their country and put their energies into solving her problems.” (p. 273).

POLES AND JEWS: A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

While in Russian-ruled Poland (1905-1907), van Loon thought that Poles were more capable than the Russians (p. 31), but increasingly came to see Poles as bigoted, anti-Semitic, fatalistic, full of vague and impractical ideas, and irredeemably backward. (pp. 30-32, 273-274).

Although author van Minnen portrays van Loon as a typical WASP product of his times, it turns out that Van Loon’s notions of Jews defied straightforward characterization. He expressed sympathy for Jewish suffering over the ages (p. 124), and stated his admiration for successful American Jews. (p. 190). In addition, van Loon verbalized utter revulsion at Nazi anti-Semitism, beginning with MEIN KAMPF. (pp. 175–on).

In addition, however, Hendrik Willem van Loon also contended that Jewish separatism and Jewish elitism were at least partly responsible for Polish anti-Semitism. Author van Minnen analyzed Van Loon’s unpublished writings, and commented, (quote) As for Poland, the majority of Jews there were equally “miserably poor and accordingly educated,” but worst of all, he thought, most of them were never Polonized: They hardly ever used the Polish language and did not feel to be a Pole. This attitude was used successfully by the Russian “masters” to keep the Jews apart from the Poles. Polish national feelings being more awake than ever before, the Poles found themselves “in company with 5,500,000 strangers who live with them and on them and who have no intention to act in unison with them.” More than anything else, Hendrik Willem saw the Jewish attitude of “I belong to the chosen people and am a different creature from you” as the source of feelings of hatred toward the Jews in Poland. (unquote). (p. 31).

Van Loon was unsparingly critical of even his own nationality. He faulted his fellow Dutch for such vices as low levels of culture and excessive religiosity, as well as narrow-minded, pedantic, and arrogant thinking. (pp. 96-97, 123).