Pogroms Jews Against Jews Hoffman

Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews, by Eva Hoffman. 1998

Jewish Loyalty and Disloyalty to Poland Through 1918 and 1920. Bialystok Sedition. Internecine Jewish Violence. Jewish Gestapo Agents. No Polish Death Camps

Hoffman traces the experience of Jews in pre-modern Poland, partitioned Poland, the Second Republic, WWII, and the immediate postwar period. There is a wealth of information presented in this volume, and I generally focus on seldom-mentioned facts.

UNLIKE POLES, JEWS GENERALLY DID NOT MIND THE FOREIGN OCCUPATION OF POLAND

After the Partitions, and particularly as the 19th century wore on, Jewish and Polish political interests increasingly diverged. Consider the situation in Russian-ruled eastern Poland: “In fact, Jewish attitudes towards tsarist rule were mixed. In contrast with the Poles, Jewish communities basically accepted the legitimacy of the Russian government, even though they may have bridled against some of its policies.” (p. 117). Hoffman sees the later Litvak (Litwak) immigrants as not so much a force of Russification, as a significant source of pro-Russian political orientation as well as radical-left sentiment (p. 137).

THE YIDDISHIST MOVEMENT AND THE DEMANDED SPECIAL NATION-WITHIN-NATION SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR JEWS

By the time of the resurrection of the Polish state in 1918, the Polish-Jewish gulf had grown large. Polish Jews wanted not only civil rights, but, in contrast to western European Jews, also minority rights (p. 164). Not surprisingly, this led to overt separatism.

JEWISH SEDITION AT BIALYSTOK: A WOULD-BE LITERAL JUDEOPOLONIA BASED ON NARROW JEWISH SELF-INTEREST

At times, the Jewish separatism led to Jews seriously assuming the prerogatives of a full-fledged separate nation on Polish soil. Hoffman writes: “In Bialystok, representatives of the Jewish community proposed that the city and surrounding region should become part of Lithuania rather than Poland, because this would put Jews in a better numerical position. The suggestion was met with outrage by Polish politicians.” (p. 164).

THE 1920 POLISH-SOVIET WAR AND JEWISH CONDUCT

During the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, Jewish loyalties were ephemeral. Hoffman remarks: “According to the Yizkor Book, views were divided between those who sided unequivocally with the Polish cause, and others who felt that Bransk did not really belong to Poland, and therefore should not be required to supply soldiers to the Polish army.” (p. 165)

JEWISH POGROMS AGAINST OTHER JEWS

Much has been said about prewar Polish violence against Polish Jews, but very little about internecine Jewish violence. [Why so?] Hoffman comments: “The factions quarreled, splintered, and accused each other of betrayal and Jewish anti-Semitism. Not infrequently, members of competing parties disrupted each other’s meetings and got into bloody street brawls.” (p. 179; see also pp. 180-181).

JEWISH GESTAPO AGENTS

Most Bransk-area Jews were murdered by the Germans at Treblinka. Those Jews who managed to flee the ghettos not only faced the danger of betrayal by Poles, but also betrayal by other Jews (pp. 224-225). In fact, two of Hoffman’s fugitive relatives perished as a result of a Jew who led the Germans to their hiding place (p. 6).

DOES NOT SOLELY BLAME POLES FOR THE LOW OVERALL JEWISH SURVIVORSHIP RATE

The small percentage of Jews saved owes to the rarity of Jews who escaped the ghettos. Furthermore, Hoffman remarks: The Yizkor Book records several instances in which Jews refused help offered to them by Poles, because they did not want to abandon the others.” (p. 223).

NO SUCH THING AS A POLISH DEATH CAMP

Hoffman recognizes the fact (p. 2) that the Germans’ choice of occupied Poland as the site of the death camps had nothing to do with actual or presumed Polish attitudes towards Jews. She is also open-minded to the possibility that the Kielce Pogrom had been a Soviet-staged event (p. 249).