At the time I was 12, having been recently liberated by the Russian army, after living in the Sambor Ghetto, and after hiding for two years in a rat-infested cellar.
On a spring Saturday morning in 1945, I was on my way to join my father in the synagogue which was in the old market section of Krakow. As I was nearing the synagogue, I saw Jews being beaten by people in the street, being escorted by a couple of Polish soldiers. Nearby, the military band was playing. It was a bizarre scene.
A "kind" elderly lady grabbed my hand and pulled me inside a store, which was packed with fleeing Poles, ostensibly hiding from bloodthirsty Jews. She said to me: "Child, don't go out there, because the Jews are catching Christian children to use their blood for Passover." She held on to my hand firmly.
I was shaking with fear and anger, but kept quiet about being Jewish. The crowd would have instantly lynched me. In her other raised hand, the "kind" old lady held a torn fragment of a Torah scroll, as she passionately declared, "This is a souvenir of the day we finally got rid of the last Jews in Poland!"
I escaped her grip and ran to look for my father, fearing the worst. After escaping the beatings in the synagogue, my father hid in a nearby house, and returned home later.
That evening, the synagogue's janitor came over to apologize. He was drunk. He told us that his 13-year-old son had been detained by police for a couple of hours. Apparently somebody had paid him to run out of the synagogue, covered with some kind of animal blood, screaming: "Help! The Jew are using me and other Christian children to draw blood for Passover!"
Historically, the Jews were invited by a Polish king over 1,000 years ago. But they were never considered by their fellow citizens to be Polish, even after a thousand years. Even before 1939, the children in my neighborhood, and in my first grade, were calling out to me: "Dirty Jew, go to Palestine!"
During the Nazi era we were more afraid of the local Poles and Ukrainians than of the Germans. Our neighbors pointed us out to the SS, and then while we were running away and hiding like mice, they emptied our apartments.
Eventually our family fled Poland and emigrated to the United States. Now that there are virtually no Jews living in Poland, I read that the city of Krakow is inviting tourists to celebrate an exhibit of "Jewish life and culture in Poland."
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I can ID with this account and hope you answer me
Anti semitism in Poland has been rampant for years. The NAzis only tapped into it,you're right. My mother escaped Brisk even before the Holocaust and came starving to Ellis Isle in 1920 . She told me quite young I was of the barbarities of the Bolsheviks and Poles with their hatchets and clubs. Ther "Blood Libel" has been alive and well for over 800 years with their evil and stupidity against the Jews. How could anyone be stupid that long in Eastern Europe,Their history is replete with their stupidity an evil ,yet a stupidity they wanted. They loved it that way for way over 800 years of pogroms. The same in Odessa where my grandfather hailed from. They were in the US all of them by the turn of the century. My mother came later with her mother in '20. It's just as prominent today as it was then but hushed up and sub dued. The Jews will always be defiled in that manner,and those who do it,curses be upon them and the judgment of God as well. As you know Chmielnicki was as bad as Hitler who was not a unique phenomenon in Western Europe. May God avenge theuir blood.Poles were active persecutors for centuries and they loved it that way (from Jeremiah)
(2) Grzegorz Wdowiak 7/11/2005
Think
I am a Pole. I perceive this article as at least unbalanced - it does call for a context:
- Poland was the country that had the largest Jewish population in Europe before WWII, and second largest only to USA. One should ask, why Poland? And if it
- If you visit Jad Vashem - you'll find out that Polish rightous represent the largers national group - over 10,000 trees
- Poland was the ONLY country in Europe where helping a Jew was punishable by death, not only to the helper, but to his family.
- Poland lost in WWII 6 million polish citizens, half of them polish Jews. Holocaust is a unique Jewish experience. Yet WWII in which Poland lost a quarter of its citizens is something worht mentioning.
Frankly, I am perplexed by such stories. While there is no doubt antisemitizm in Poland exist, especially amongst catholic peasants aI find it unfair and unhelpful to polish-jewish relationship to publish them without a context. The perception that emergers from this site makes one believe that the Danes with their Danish boats, or the Dutch should be recognized as more friendly-to-Jews friendly nations. Nevermind, that the Danes actively supported the Nazi war machine, and the Nordic SS Brigade included many Danes and Dutch ...
What I am asking for is a balanced view. One that recognizes that Poland has been a safe haven for Jews for century, with a huge benefit for Poland. And NO HOLOCAUST would happen in Poland if it was not for the German Nazis.
(3) Anonymous 7/27/2004
unfortunately
My father told me that after the war they went back to poland ( was in russia and kazakstan) one evening during the winter months, a polish old women asked him if he is scared to walk by himself at night. My father asked her why should he. She answered him that the jewish might catch him and kill him. This happend after the war!!