Nazi Book Burning Symbolic Ranicki

The Author Of Himself: The Life Of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, by Marcel Reich-Ranicki. 2001

1938 Bentschen (Zbaszyn): The Sudden Nazi German Expulsion of “Polish” Jews. Zydokomuna Exculpation Fails. Extortionist/Benefactor Coexistence in the Same Person

I mainly discuss particular issues.

NAZI GERMAN BOOK-BURNING DID NOT MAKE UNDESIRABLE BOOKS UNAVAILABLE

While focusing on authors of literature, Reich-Ranicki mentions Nazi book burning. However, he points out that this action was mainly symbolic rather an act of censorship. He found that these proscribed books were still readily available in bookshops, publishers’ warehouses, and in private homes. Bookshops also surreptitiously sold them, and did so at a low price. (p. 63).

INTRODUCTION

The author was born in Wloclawek in 1920. Prior to the resurrection of the Polish state, this area was part of the Russian Empire, not far from the border with Prussia. (p. 7). The Jews identified with Germans. This was so much so that, when his older sister was derided at school, the author was unsure if this was because she was Jewish, or because she was so much a German. (p. 8).

The author never believed in God. (p. 36). His father may not have either for, even though he went to synagogue, this may have been entirely for social reasons. (p. 6). Reich-Ranicki felt turned off from Jewish religion because he found it hypocritical. His grandfather would get around the Sabbath prohibition against working (in this case,by turning on the electric light) by saying, “It’s dark in here”, to get the boy to turn on the light without leading him into sin by requesting that he turn it on. (p. 37). [In other contexts, observant Jews would direct similar hints to Sabbath GOYs.]

THE BENTSCHEN (ZBASZYN) EVENT

The family moved to Germany, and, by 1935 at the very latest, Reich-Ranicki did not consider himself a Pole. (p. 44). The author clarifies the German action against Jews that became associated with Bentschen (Zbaszyn). The German police awakened Reich-Ranicki in the early morning of October 28, 1938. He found himself in the company of many other Jews, about whom he commented, (quote) They were Jews, all of them older than me, the eighteen year old. They were speaking perfect German and not a word of Polish. They had either been born in Germany, or had come to Germany as small children and attended school there. But like me they all, as I soon discovered, had Polish passports. (unquote). (p. 107).

The balking of the Polish government in accepting the suddenly-expelled 1938 Jews, though not mentioned by Reich-Ranicki, has conventionally been blamed on–what else–Polish anti-Semitism. The Polish government, on the other hand, claimed that these Jews were unwelcome because they had severed ties with Poland and Polishness, and were now functionally German Jews. Reich-Ranicki’s experience, as described in the previous paragraph, fully supports this premise.

JEWISH-SOVIET COLLABORATION TO PREVENT FALLING INTO NAZI HANDS? HARDLY

The author adds to information that undermines the common exculpation, for Jewish-Soviet collaboration, as a manifestation of abject fear of the Nazis. When Nazi Germany attacked Poland in 1939, his family fled east as refugees. However, they later left the Russian-occupation zone and returned to what was now the German-occupation zone. (pp. 121-122). Obviously, were Jews mortally afraid of the Nazis in 1939, a voluntary relocation into Nazi-held territory would have been inconceivable.

Jewish awareness of Nazi exterminatory plans was a much, much later development, as described by the author while in the Warsaw Ghetto, (quote) It was then, probably in March [1942], that I first heard that somewhere in Poland the Germans were killing Jews with the exhaust gases of motor vehicles channeled into confined spaces. I did not believe these stories, and nobody I knew considered them even possible. (unquote)(p. 161).

NAZI GENOCIDES OF POLES AND JEWS: INTELLIGENTSIA FIRST

The Nazi extermination of Poles had begun with aristocide–the destruction of the cream of Polish society. Interestingly, in the Warsaw Ghetto at least–the largest concentration of Polish Jews–the Nazis began with the Jewish intelligentsia before turning on the Jewish population as a whole. The author comments, (quote) Further acts of terrorism following in May and June 1942. Every night Jews, chiefly men, were being arrested and instantly executed. It was noted that these were mainly intellectuals, including many doctors. (unquote)(p. 161).

POLISH ACTS AGAINST JEWS IN PERSPECTIVE

Polish anti-Semitism was not the only form of hostility that Jews faced. They also experienced the alienation and even hostility of other Jews. In addition, Endeks were not the only ones who often questioned the motives of Jews who had assimilated. The author characterizes the divisions among Polish Jews as follows, (quote) Contact between these two large groups was minimal even before the war, each had a low opinion of the other, even to the extent of despising their fellow Jews. The assimilated accused the orthodox of being backward, in almost every respect; the orthodox, in turn, believed that the assimilated had abandoned the faith and traditions of their ancestors, mainly for opportunistic reasons. None of this changed after 1939; in consequence, there were two separate Jewish worlds in the Warsaw ghetto. (unquote)(pp. 148-149).

Reich-Ranicki describes how the Nazis, during the early part of the occupation, would humiliate the Jews, and characterizes the Poles who joined in as follows, (quote) …Polish rowdies and good-for-nothings, often by teenagers who were delighted to have found a new and amusing way of spending their time. (unquote)(p. 124). This is consistent with the premise that such Poles were marginal members of Polish society.

The author characterizes the later SZMALCOWNIKI (extortionists of fugitive Jews) as follows, (quote) Did these young ruffians, of “Shmaltsovniks” as they were known in the Occupation jargon, really want to hand over their victims to the German authorities? No, they were not particularly interested in that. Instead they wanted to rob the Jews, relieve them of their money, jewelry and other valuables, or at least of a jacket or winter coat. (unquote)(p. 194).

Interestingly, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a neighbor, who was an unemployed mechanic, robbed the author. The neighbor, Antek, returned, and eventually enabled the author to find a family (that of Bolek, Antek’s brother) with whom to stay and hide. (pp. 195-on). This experience illustrates the fact that exploitation of Jews by Poles was driven by wartime privations, and not necessarily by malevolence towards Jews.

The relationship between Reich-Ranicki, and Bolek, even grew into a friendship. In time, Bolek shamefully confided to the author that, in a moment of weakness, and while inebriated, he had declared himself a German [signed the VOLSLISTE?] in order to alleviate his poverty. (pp. 201-202). (His wife Genia had been a Protestant.) How many other untoward Polish acts, such as denunciations of fugitive Jews, also took place during such moments of inebriation or weakness?

POST-WWII ZYDOKOMUNA WAS VOLUNTARY

The author was one of many Holocaust-surviving Polish Jews who collaborated with the new Soviet-installed Communist establishment. He became part of the BEZPIEKA (U. B.). (pp. 222-on). He also joined the Communist Party, and not under compulsion in any sense, (quote) No one forced me to do so, no one even suggested it to me. (unquote)(p. 227).