Jewish Soul is Not Polish Soul Tuwim Shore

Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968, by Marci Shore. 2006

Polish Soul? Jewish Soul? Julian Tuwim Himself–and Not Only Endeks–Asked These Questions. 1939 Jews Didn’t Particularly Fear Nazis

This work centers on mostly-Jewish personages and cultural trends as they relate to Communism in Poland and the Soviet Union in the interwar era. It presupposes a basic understanding of such trends. A detailed biographical glossary is provided of leading personages.

ENDEKS BERATED FOR DOUBTING TUWIM’S POLISHNESS. BUT IRONICALLY, TUWIM DID TOO!

Does an assimilated Polish Jew acquire a Polish soul, or does he retain a Jewish soul?

Poet Julian Tuwim, an assimilated Polish Jew, faced National Democrat (Endek) doubts. The Endeks found Skamander poetry objectionable, thought of Tuwim as an “inauthentic” Pole, and often doubted to what extent even assimilated Jews “become Poles.” Interestingly, while decisively and scornfully rejecting these Endek characterizations (and additionally professing virtually nonexistent ties to Judaism), Tuwim seriously entertained such premises HIMSELF. Julian Tuwim mused that, “`Culturally and emotionally I regard myself as a Pole, yet I realize that there exist fundamental differences between myself and my friends who are Aryans. The embryos of that difference lie in blood–I feel them in my temperament, which is more organic than the Polish temperament. I am a semite and I’ve never denied that…I do not believe in assimilation, it is not possible…I consider that I and my friends of Jewish origin from Skamander have only inflamed ‘Polish-Jewish relations.”” (pp. 136-138).

THE MYTH OF 1939 JEWS SUPPORTING THE SOVIETS OUT OF GRATITUDE FOR NOT HAVING FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF THE NAZIS

On another subject, the Jewish fear of the Nazis is often cited as exculpation for Jewish-Soviet collaboration against Poles during the 1939 German-Soviet conquest of Poland. However, Jewish-Soviet collaboration (sometimes called the Zydokomuna) long preceded the Nazis and long continued after the defeat of the Nazis. In addition, Poland’s Jews were not particularly afraid of the Nazis in 1939. Vivid proof of this is the fact that Jewish refugees later voluntarily migrated from the Soviet-occupied zone back to the Nazi German occupied zone. In fact, this took on massive proportions! Author Marci Shore cites the memoirs of Wanda Wasilewska (Ref. 20, p. 407) and comments, “Wasilewska was astonished to see even Jews applying en masse for repatriation to German-occupied Polish lands.” (p. 157).

COMMUNISTS MEDDLED IN INTERWAR POLISH POLITICS

Interestingly, for a time, the Communist and Communist-inclined authors professed support for Jozef Pilsudski, even his 1926 coup. (p. 51, 57, 97). In time, Pilsudski’s perceived departure from socialism changed their professions of support, and they reverted to the familiar mischaracterization of the pre-WWII Polish government as a (what else?) fascist one.