Nobility Polish Undemonized Potocki

Master of Lancut, by Alfred Potocki. 1959

Undemonizing Poland’s Nobility. Polish Hunting Parties Not Pro-Nazi. Aiding Fugitive Jews Very Difficult

Potocki lived through a large swath of Polish history. He traced his life in Austrian-ruled Galicia (Lancut), Poland’s reacquired independence, the 1920 Bolshevik War, interwar Poland, the 1939 war, the Nazi German occupation (including his arrest by the Gestapo), his eventual flight to Vienna and then to the west, etc.

The author identified himself as being the oldest son of Count Roman and Countess Elizabeth Potocki. (p. 11). Evidently, he was Alfred Antoni Potocki (1886-1958). He provided a great deal of biographical detail on members of his family, as well as his friendships with leading Polish and non-Polish dignitaries.

POLISH HUNTING PARTIES WITH GERMAN NAZIS DID NOT IMPLY SUPPORT FOR NAZISM!

The author did quite a bit of hunting with various dignitaries of many nationalities. (p. 145, 173, 188-on, and many others). This reminds us that upper class or influential Poles who went on hunting parties with leading Nazis were simply engaging in a common custom, and not implicitly endorsing Nazi policies!

ROMAN DMOWSKI WAS NO PUPPET OF THE POLISH UPPER CLASSES

Many insights of historical value are provided by Potocki. Ironic to the characterization of Roman Dmowski as one who was beholden to the Polish upper classes, Dmowki actually faulted the Polish nobility for having lost its national spirit, for which reason he suggested that the nobility should be discounted as a force in domestic affairs. (p. 110).

LIKE THEN LIKE NOW: POLAND IS (WHAT ELSE?) ANTI-SEMITIC

Throughout the interwar era, Poland was incessantly attacked as anti-Semitic, and these attacks took advantage of the ignorance of the West of the actual situation in Poland. (p. 218, 223). [Some things never change.]

DANGER OF HITLERISM EARLY APPRECIATED

Potocki had high praises for Jozef Lipski, Poland’s ambassador to Germany. Already in 1930, at which time most knowledgeable people dismissed the Nazi movement, Lipski realized that it was “exploiting the innate militarism of the German people” and that Hitler’s rise to power was inevitable, with deadly eventual consequences for Poland. (pp. 182-183).

AIDING FUGITIVE JEWS: NOT A SIMPLE TASK

The author discusses the Nazi extermination of the Jews, and the role of Poles in aiding Jews who fled the ghettos. (p. 276). Potocki’s castle became a locus of aid, at great risk. He comments, (Quote) At night, refugees and members of the Underground would venture from their hiding places and come for food. Not all were victims and patriots; a few were desperadoes who did our cause much harm and brought Nazi retribution upon the innocent. They had to be given food and gotten rid of as quickly as possible. (unquote). (p. 276). Later, some desperadoes looted and vandalized one of his homes (at Julin; pp. 279-280).

The foregoing reminds us that fugitives who sought help from Poles often had criminal motives, and Poles were understandably reluctant to offer aid to those whom they did not know (not only Jews)! In addition, the ever-present problem of banditry, experienced by Potocki himself and clearly an ever-present threat to Poles of all social classes, reminds us that overall lawlessness existed under the German occupation, and was not only manifested as Poles blackmailing or denouncing fugitive Jews.

POLAND’S OLD CLASS-BASED SOCIETY: LIMITED ELITISM

Poland’s landowners were and are commonly demonized, once by Communists and now by their successors (the LEWACTWO). It is therefore especially interesting to read the perspective of a prominent personage of Polish nobility.

Count Alfred Potocki repudiates the implicit charges of Polish nobility getting cozy with Poland’s foreign rulers, as well as the charges of class snobbery of the Polish nobility. He comments, (Quote) We respected Emperor Franz Joseph who visited Lancut several times, signing the guest book in Polish. National and political criss-crossings, however, meant nothing to us. We remained as indelibly Polish as our name. The Polish nobility had always been a pillar of nationalism. They did not cut themselves off from the life of the people. As landowners engaged in agriculture, industry, and banking, the Potockis were brought into close contact with all classes in the country, and with the peasant, especially, we had patristic ties. Time and time again in Polish history, the nobility preserved the balance between peasants and townspeople and thus promoted national unity. The roots of Polish nationalism lie deep in this past. (unquote). (p. 15).

POLAND’S OLD CLASS-BASED SOCIETY: IMPENDING NATURAL DEATH

Poland’s feudal structure was not only disappearing because of political evolution. It was ending because it was no longer even economically tenable. Potocki comments, (Quote) The semi-feudal aspect that landed country living presented outwardly was deceptive. Despite the backwardness of certain areas, which in some cases had been fostered by foreign–mainly Russian–misrule as a matter of political policy, the Polish nobility were on the whole a progressive body of patriots, anxious to promote not only their own interests, but also the prosperity of the country. When I was a young man, the time when great estates could be maintained solely by an agricultural economy was gone. Landowners looked to industrial development to pay their way and to support estate workers on an expanding standard of living…I acquired interests in Eastern Galician oil companies, Silesian coal mines, in distilleries, brick works, and banks…(unquote). (pp. 29-30).

[Parenthetically, this shows that the Polish nobility was coming into economic conflict with very successful, upper class Jews. It was not solely a matter of the erstwhile peasantry (the nascent middle class) coming into economic conflict with the “ordinary” Jews engaged in handcrafts.]

POLAND’S OLD CLASS-BASED SOCIETY: VOLUNTARY AGRARIAN REFORM

Potocki hailed the many democratic innovations, in Poland, that long preceded the French Revolution–in fact going back to the sixteenth century. (p. 18). He not only did not oppose the democratic reforms at the time of Poland’s re-acquired independence (1918); he welcomed them as an economic necessity. (p. 101).

The author also described the VOLUNTARY division of landed estates, (Quote) My agrarian reform plans had already borne fruit by a remarkable and spontaneous offer of landowners all over Poland to hand over a half a million acres for division into small farms and holdings…My first important division of land was made in favor of 150 war veterans… (unquote). (pp. 115-116). Later, he distributed his land again, and funded the schooling of the common people. (p. 119).

As the years went by, Potocki agreed with those who said that the agrarian reforms were proceeding too slowly. (p. 214). He also contended that the government’s program was confiscatory and political in nature (to win peasant support), and suggested that the great estates, if farmed efficiently, could actually raise the peasants’ standard of living. (p. 214).