Jews Buy Up Landed Estates Bussgang

Dzialoszyce Memorial Book – An English Translation of Sefer Yizkor Shel Kehilat Dzialoshitz Ve-Ha-Seviva, by Fay Bussgang (Editor), Julian Bussgang (Editor). 2012

Jews Acquire More and More Landed Estates. Bogus 1918 Pogroms. Generalized Wartime Violence: Poles Also Were Victims

This YIZKOR Book has less of a provincial tone than other YIZKOR Books that I have reviewed. It has many authors, and they bring up many different subjects. I elaborate on a few themes.

THE 1918 POGROMS: JEWS and NON-JEWS WERE VICTIMS

The informed reader may be aware of the fact that, no sooner had Poland been resurrected, there arose a massive propaganda campaign to discredit the new Polish state. This included lurid and fantastic tales, in the Jewish press, of upwards of tens of thousands of Jews slain in massive pogroms in Poland.

The subsequent Morgenthau Commission debunked these calumnies. The Jewish death toll was only a few hundred, and most of the victims had fallen owing to the overall disorder of the war. As it turns out, Jews were not even specifically targeted as victims. Chaim Szwimer, who describes how he actually went through one of these episodes of civil disorder, commented, (quote) It was in 1918, several weeks after the liberation of Poland. Gangs were organized in the region of Kielce that attacked landowners and their estates, robbed people on the roads, and sometimes also killed them. Many people became the victims of these gangs, both Jews and non-Jews. In our area, people even knew the leaders of these robbers. (unquote). (p. 75).

The events now described by Szwimer describe an early, pre-media version of what is nowadays called a flash mob. The criminal element got other Poles to join in the crimes. Thus, Szwimer writes, (quote) The wagons placed themselves in the middle of the market square. The bandits jumped down. And one of them called out in a loud voice, “BIEDNI LUDZIE, SCHODZCIE SIE!’ [Poor people, come unite!] At this invitation, all the Polish janitors, butchers, underworld characters, and crooks who carried knives came out and went with the gang to plunder. Szymon Kolatacz was the first to be robbed. They took whole wagons of material from there. Then they went after all the rich Jews, robbing the stores and the apartments, all within a few hours. (unquote). (p. 75).

[The foregoing mob dynamic shows how it came to be that even previously-respectable Poles could join in the robbing of post-Jewish property during and after the later Holocaust.]

JEWS ASSUME OWNERSHIP OF LANDED ESTATES

Chaim Szwimer has authored a fascinating chapter on Jews as landowners and farmers. In the early part of the 19th century, the tsar decreed that all Jews involved in farming would be exempt from military service. (p. 87). This contradicts the common myth that Jews were involved in “nonproductive” occupations because they were banned, by law, from being farmers.

In time, many of these Jews in agriculture switched from farming to the acquisition of the ownership of vast landed estates. (p. 88). This especially occurred when Polish landowners, unable to pay off their debts to Jews, agreed to sell a portion of their land to the Jews. Szwimer concludes that, “As a result, many Jews became landowners of large properties.” (p. 88).

Moreover, an effective feedback cycle developed, enabling Jews to acquire an ever-expanding share of ownership of landed estates. Szwimer recounts how this happened, (quote) Some of these (Jewish) landowners decided to divide these huge estates into smaller portions and sell them to the peasants, who were hungry to acquire land. They gave them terms of installment payments lasting long periods of years. These promissory notes were then kept in the banks, and as a result of this, they received large amounts of money. With this income, the (Jewish) landowners went out and bought huge properties from Polish landowners. (unquote) (p. 88).

All this has broader implications for Polish-Jewish relations. The Jews are commonly portrayed as ones that were effectively order-fulfillers of the nobility. However, the fact that the nobility was economically dependent upon the Jews meant that, in some sense, the nobility was subservient to the Jews. In addition, the fact that Jews bought up more and more land had implications of its own. It meant that even the landed gentry was increasingly being squeezed-out of its economic life–the ownership of landed estates.

The overall effects on Poland are not hard to deduce. The Jewish economic hegemony over Poland, already evident in the dominant Jewish ownership of banks, factories, railroads, petty trade, and small shops, now also encompassed more and more ownership of valuable land. No wonder that many nations, at various times, had outlawed Jewish ownership of land!

HORSE TRADING, WITH SWINDLES

Arje Rolnicki describes the dealings with horses, (quote) There were also several horse traders in Dzialoszyce…At the end of the summer, when the harvest was over, the farmers tried to dispose of their aging horses rather than having to feed them all winter long, knowing they would not be able to do much work in the spring. The horse traders bought these aging horses, too. More than once it happened that they bought back a horse that they had sold the farmer a few months earlier, its teeth having been sharpened, and its coat groomed to make the animal appear younger. These horses, everyone agreed, were not suitable for work, and would be killed off before long. The unfortunate animals, frail and limp, were led to a valley near Dzialoszyce, where they were killed and then skinned. AS it turns out, the dealers made a handsome profit on their carcasses. (unquote). (p. 93).

FEAR OF DEATH DISSUADES POLISH AID TO JEWS

This YIZKOR book includes some chapters written by Dzialoszyce-area Jews that went through the Nazi German-made Holocaust. Many of them were in hiding, aided by Poles.

Unlike those like neo-Stalinist Jan T. Gross, who belittle the German-imposed death penalty on Poles for giving the slightest help to Jews, David Wohlgelernter does not. He describes how even those Poles already sheltering Jews lost their nerve because of the German terror. He comments, (quote) It was when in all the villages there were strong raids and every farmer threw out whatever Jews they were sheltering, fearing for their own lives. (unquote). (p. 322).

A FAMILIAR POLONOPHOBIC WHOPPER

Chaim Fraiman, then living in New York, wrote, “As is well known, Polish anti-Semites were not few. They sucked in their hatred toward Jews with their mother’s milk.” (p. 303). Decades later, Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime Minister of Israel, made a very similar statement. Evidently, it is a fairly common trope in Jewish thinking. The statement is as racist as saying that Jews imbibe greed and unscrupulousness with their mother’s milk!