Polish prosecutors investigate communist-era anti-Semitic purge
Documentation shows communist leaders' public calls for hatred against Polish citizens of Jewish ethnicity in 1968-1969.
By The Associated PressProsecutors are investigating members of Poland's ex-Communist Party on suspicion of inciting racial hatred through anti-Semitic comments that sparked an exodus ofPolish Jews in the late 1960s, a state institute said Saturday.
Based on extensive archive research, prosecutors from the Institute of National Remembrance, a state-run body that investigates crimes by the communist and fascist regimes, said they had ample documentation showing communist leaders' public calls for hatred against Polish citizens of Jewish ethnicity in 1968-1969 in the central city of Lodz.
"In light of gathered documentation, there is no doubting the fact that at the beginning of 1967, central Communist Party authorities started calling for hatred ... directed against people of Jewish descent, and the operation then moved to the local level, setting in across the country," the institute stated.
The institute notes that first secretary of the Communist Party Wladyslaw Gomulka launched the anti-Semitic push in a speech on June 19, 1967, in which he pointed to the existence in Poland of an "imperial-Zionist fifth column."
Prosecutors say documents indicate the Lodz Communist Party leaders were the main instigators of the anti-Semitic drive in the industrial city and environs, which saw businessmen, academics, and journalists out of jobs after tagging them with Jewish roots or Zionist views.
According to the statement, more than 11,000 Jews applied for immigration papers during the anti-Semitic purge, a dramatic increase from the early 1960s.
No charges have been pressed and prosecutors said they are still working to identify those who were involved.
People convicted of public incitement of racial hatred face up to two years in prison.
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Yes, dear. Did you forget to take your medication?
The reality is that Jews will always be accused of whatever works, false history, myths, Harry Potterism, and thus Jew-hatred thrives.
Boy, I hate arguing with ideologues! Would you agree that what seems reasonable to you and to me would not have sold to the KGB and its Polish subsidiaries (which is what I was talking about)? Would you also agree that what THEY thought was the only thing that counted at the time?
Why not wait and see if they do?
I amglad to hear it. I was growing up in Poland and am always interested in the goings on. I wish someone would E-mail Tygodnik Polski to tell them to lay off us. Why waste time on us? Czesc
I must say it again and again: no matter how antisemitic the press is in Melbourne, it is absolutely NOT representative for today's Poland. Today's mainstream press is either proisraeli and projewish, or indifferent. It is not "polish radio has a priest": there is a private radio run by polish priest. Yes, this radio is primitively antisemitic, but the main listeners are some of elderly people, who additionally open this radio because 80% of airtime are prayers. True that this priest has influences, but there is no other antisemitic radio in Poland.
So what that Israel was US's ally? First, this remainder of polish diaspora, who were in Poland at that time was these people who had decided NOT to leave Poland in 1948. They were polish citizens, with families residing there from centuries. It was collective punishment for inexistent guilt. It was a intrigue between two fractions of polish communist party, of which one decided to play the jewish argument, knowing that it will induce a "proper" response within society. While it is fact, that some part of these Jews were involved in the security apparatus, other part was university professors, and other was just people in the street. The "atmosphere" touched them all.
The Poles dont need a reason to hate Jews. Here, in the local Poish paper you can read virulent antisemitic old canards on every page. Jews were responsible for slavery, Jews are not the old Israelites, but descending from th Khazars and dont deserve Israel, etc.etc.Polish radio has a priest vilifying Jews in a really primitive manner in Poland now, so how are they going to punish those who acted in 1967?
1. For whatever reason, the fact remains that Israel WAS allied with the US, a mortal enemy of the USSR. 2. The story referred to Jews and zionists. It goes without saying that under a Soviet regime, being an advocate of an enemy country (zionist) was a no-no. There certainly was reason to believe that Polish Jews at that time had sympathy for and identification with Israel (an enemy). Does it surprise you that these would find disfavor with Soviet secret police? Whether or not you approve of how the Soviets thought (and few do), this is reality.
I am well aware of how dictators find religious hatred so useful in manipulating the mob. I am well aware of how Stalin - almost as much as Hitler - used anti-Semitism as a tool of power. I am aware that even when I was a child it was quite common for American communities to have ''deed restrictions" or "Gentlemen's agreements," to exclude Jews. It was not odd to me that American Jews drove GM cars and not Fords. That is just the way it was. Before I was a man, I was told why it was that way. That Henry Ford had been an anti-Semite and had accepted from Hitler the highest award Nazi Germany could give a foreigner - to say nothing of a man who was not a member of the master race. Poland was a very anti-Semitic nation in 1939. It was very Catholic and thus very anti-Semitic. It was also a nation which had slipped from Pilsudskies liberal dictatorship into a quasi-fascist right wing dictatorship. Now Poland is anything other than anti-Semitic. Thus the new probe.
"Realism"(?!) writes: "By this time, Israel had pretty much allied itself with the US. One could hardly expect any other reaction from a communist government under Soviet domination." Israel allied itself with the US in great part because of Soviet hostility. In addition, the Poles are not investigating hostility to Israel as a state; they're investigating hatred against Jewish citizens. There is no justification for government-directed persecution of a minority. You're not acting as a realist; rather, your stance is as an apologist.
By this time, Israel had pretty much allied itself with the US. One could hardly expect any other reaction from a communist government under Soviet domination.