Boycotts of Jews Contextualized Slomka

From Serfdom to Self-Government: Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor, 1842-1927, by John Slomka. 1941

19th Century Polish Peasants: Their Enslavement to Jewish Usury. Peasants Strive Against Jewish Economic Hegemony in an Organized Effort to Improve Their Poverty-Stricken Lot

This work was published in 1912 in Polish, with an English-language abridged version in 1929. The present work consists of a 1941 reprint of the latter along with a few added chapters. Jan Slomka was the village mayor of Dzikov (near Tarnobrzeg), in Austrian-ruled Poland near the border with Russian-ruled Poland. His invaluable insights are supported by specific events that he relates.

This book focuses on everyday peasant life, and includes details on such things as peasant tales, superstitions, pranks, etc. No mention is made of peasants believing in the blood libel or blaming Jews for the Crucifixion of Christ. However, it is noted that the local Jews “…staged a mock representation of the sufferings of our Lord.” (p. 50).

HOW JEWS EXPLOITED THE POLES: THE SPECIFICS

Those who wonder about the origins of Polish anti-Semitism can immediately see that the Polish peasantry was consistently at the mercy of Jewish usurers: “Peasants had nothing to do with trade, holding it to be a Jewish enterprise…Often the peasant would pay dearly in the spring for grain he had sold the autumn before for a song.” (p. 81). “We felt the lack of nourishment, almost every year, from the spring until the crop came in. Grain and other things would jump in price just double, and could be had only from the Jews. These latter would begin from harvest-time to buy up provisions from the farmers, mostly paying them with vodka: and this they would sell during the hunger-period at huge profit.” (p. 46).

Slomka continues: “In business the Jews were crooks and unreliable. The buyer had always to look sharp, else he would get short weight or measure, or get poor goods, or pay higher than he expected.” (p. 96). “Easy” money from Jewish lenders was a trap: “In the first years after serfdom ended, the Jews managed to get a hold of not a few people, win them by cleverness, loans, or vodka, and for the moment persuade them that they had no better friends in the world. But before the latter could think things out, in a year or two their farms were gone, and became the property of the other.” (p. 97). “By these tactics, the Jews ruined as much as half of the farmers, for there were enough light-headed folk in every community who would borrow money, and do nothing with it, or even spend it for a drink.” (p. 85). The Polish nobility also lost out to Jewish usurers: “So too the list is long of the manor estates lost by their former owners. During my day there have passed into Jewish hands a whole row of houses in Tarnobrzeg County.” (p. 89).

THE POLISH PEASANTS AT SEVERE DISADVANTAGE IN COMPETITION WITH JEWS

The author’s portrayal of Jews is free of rancor, and far from unilaterally negative. He praises Jews as a whole for such things as their frugality, ambition, and fiscal self-discipline, as well as the virtual absence of alcoholism among them. (pp. 94-95). He also has high regards for the skills of certain Jewish tailors. (pp. 64-65). At the same time, Slomka notes that, apart from alcoholism (p. 91), the lack of sophistication of peasants made them an easy mark: “Peasants had nothing to do with trade, holding it to be a Jewish enterprise. One must remember that we had no schools, and the peasant was not trained to do business–he couldn’t reckon at all. How hard it was for a peasant in those days to get into business, I can tell from my own experience.” (p. 81).

Finally, Slomka realizes how Jewish economic dominance had originated: “It was the gentry, lords of the big estates, who gave the Jews their proper chance to get money and lands. They put them in charge of the village inns, and gave them the license to sell vodka. With this chance to drown the brain of the ignorant, they began their thieving trade, and in time wormed their way into the manor houses as agents, purveyors, dealers in timber, in cattle, hay, lands, etc.–in short, before long they got the whole estate under their thumbs…But the Jews have never wanted to till the soil, they have preferred to live by their wits, to profit by trading in the lands peasants have had to pay for.” (p. 98).

THE POLISH PEASANTRY BEGINS TO PUSH BACK

Slowly, things began to change. Ironically, the eventual 20th-century poverty of much of Polish Jewry was the result of belated restrictions on their usurious conduct. Slomka comments: “This sort of thing went on until the laws were passed against usury, forbidding the taking of high interest (1877 and 1881). From them on the courts began to prosecute and punish usurers, and the vengeance of God came upon them. They fell on evil days…” (p. 87). Also, the growing sophistication of the peasantry became evident: “In general, it is harder for the Jews to get rich today. They can do better in business and live better than can the peasant on his land or the lower rank of officials, but in a short time they cannot make such a fortune. The change came when schools began to flourish and people got wiser and stopped their drinking. Folk began to waste less time. Agricultural Societies were formed, and Catholics went into business.” (pp. 100-101).

BEFORE POLES BOYCOTTED JEWS, THE JEWS HAD BOYCOTTED THE POLES. GUESS WHICH ONE GETS A PASS

We hear a lot selectively-condemned Polish boycotts of Jews, but we never hear the Polish side of the story. This book presents it.

Author Slomka himself opened up a shop, but: “We couldn’t do much with it, because the town was too near and the competition of the Jewish shops was too keen.” (p. 182). The author addresses Jewish ethnic solidarity. In fact, local Jews took extreme measures to maintain their economic hegemony, even offering to buy back a strategic property from the Poles at a high price. Failing that, they ostracized and committed violence against the fellow Jew who had sold the property to the Poles. (p. 199).

Dmowski-style boycotts of Jewish shops, designed to emancipate Poles from Jewish economic dominance, are not mentioned. They were a later development, and eventually became a mainstay of the selectively-condemned Endek policies.