The outrage after Barbara Engelking’s statement does not subside. Let us remind our readers: during a talk in one of commercial TV stations on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising Engelking expressed opinion that during the German occupation Poles „simply failed” their Jewish compatriots.

To fully demonstrate the strength of this accusation it is worth to quote a tweet by Jakub Biedrzyński, an entrepreneur and journalist associated with liberal and leftist circles. Not only did he agree with Engelking, but intensified her message writing that Poles „gave Jews over to Germans on a mass scale, perpetrated pogroms, blackmailed and robbed victims on a mass scale”.

After reading these horrific statements it is hard to resist an impression that what we are dealing with is an orchestrated provocation, some form of a revisionist performance calculated to stir up an angry response. Such violation of a taboo is bound to spark a reaction of Polish „bigots”, make them demonstrate their fury and thus be disgraced in the eyes of the world.

An antisemitic slur in response to anti-Polish black PR would be a proof that Poles are a nation of Jew-baiters. And obviously there are many individuals and groups out there interested – for various reasons – in branding Poles as such.

However, from the Polish perspective a symmetrical reaction would mean falling in a trap. If in response to Engelking’s statements someone declared that the situation was completely different and that Poles en masse helped Jews, such false generalization would be easily disproved, and thus would turn out inconvenient for defenders of Poland’s good name.

It is a banal to say that social reality is complex. Although Poles presented different attitudes, one emotion prevailed: fear of German terror. And it was that fear (and not antisemitism) that predominantly determined their behaviour – also towards Jews. This fact has to be explained without heroization or romanticization of the past.

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  By the way, the hassle around Engelking’s proclamation is a good opportunity to mention some myth concerning reasons for which some Poles took side with Germans against Jews. This myth was invoked in a text by political scientist Piotr Forecki published recently on Krytyka Polityczna’s website.

According to the author, Polish antisemitism which came to light during the German occupation was not as much the expression of commoners’ prejudice as an aftermath of actions taken by Polish elites in the interwar period. In Forecki’s opinion even before the Third Reich attacked the Second Polish Republic the part of intelligentsia associated with National Democracy political movement instilled antisemitic contents into minds of lower classes – and on a big scale.

But if we were to accept this stance it would become completely inconceivable why Poles sympathizing with the ND (or in general believing that Jewish minority was detrimental for their country) helped Jews. And this is an irrefutable fact.

Let us mention just three people: Zofia Kossak, Jan Dobraczyński, priest Marceli Godlewski. Their biographies prove that seeing Jews as an element politically hostile towards Poles did not translate into attitudes to the Holocaust. All three of them were awarded medals for Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Zofia Kossak’s is an especially intriguing example. Even in 1942 in her famous appeal „Protest!” she termed Jews as political enemies of Poland. But at the same time, as a Catholic, she saw in them neighbours threatened with death and therefore became engaged in their rescuing. Obviously perceiving politics as a field where national interests clash (sometimes brutally) does not mean an acceptance of political enemy’s annihilation.

What is more, to arrive at a conclusion that there is no causal relationship between being a ND member and being a shmaltzovnik, one does not even have to sympathise with the Polish right. Take for example Zygmunt Bauman.

This leftist thinker of Jewish descent and a March ‘68 emigrant (he settled down in the UK) in the Stalin era had served as an political commissar of the Internal Security Corps and an operative of the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army for which he has never shown repentance. What is more he was extremely critical of Israel’s politics towards Palestinians, comparing it to that of the Third Reich’s towards Jews, which is both unwise and improper.

However, not all his deeds are equally discrediting. He is also known as an author of interesting reflections on darker sides of modern times. Among other things he delved into question of how Holocaust was possible in Europe, so advanced in its civilizational development.

In 1999 his essay „A Spectre of Shoah” was published in a monthly magazine „Midrasz” (now closed). He remarked in it: „we have to accept and remember that many an ardent anti-Semite flatly refused to cooperate with Holocaust perpetrators whereas ranks of Holocaust executors were teeming with law-abiding citizens and disciplined public servants otherwise not prejudiced against Jews”.

Of course in today’s Poland this apt observation is not convenient for historiography performers trying to involve Poles in Nazism and tarnish Polish patriotism with their revisionist theories on Holocaust. Still basically what they attempt to do is to transplant American cultural conflicts onto Polish soil.

Leftist intellectuals representing the new Polish school of Holocaust studies lump Jews together with groups like homosexuals or „refugees” as victims of cruel Polish patriarchate. As a result ideology once more takes precedence over truth.

– Filip Memches

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

translated by Hanna Pasierska