Jews in the D
20 | DECEMBER 12 • 2019
continued on page 22
T
hree million
Polish Jews
died during the
Holocaust — more than
any other nationality.
Many died in Auschwitz-
Birkenau, the largest
Nazi concentration
camp, but others were
killed near the villages
where they lived.
Despite the
Holocaust’
s devastating
impact on Polish Jewry,
Poland as a nation and
many of its citizens have
for decades waivered
and backtracked on their
roles in this tragedy.
According to Dariusz
Stola, a Polish historian,
professor and scholar, the
reasons include Poland’
s years
as a communist state and a
nationalistic emphasis on
all Polish victims. Recurring
anti-Semitism, sometimes
shrouded in anti-Zionist
sentiment, has been another
issue.
Stola discussed Poland’
s
complex response to the
Holocaust on Oct. 23 at the
Holocaust Memorial Center
(HMC) in Farmington Hills.
More than 200 individuals
attended. Stola is a founder
and former director of the
Polin Museum of the History
of Polish Jews, which opened
in 2014 in Warsaw.
The connection between the
HMC and Stola came through
Dr. Edward Malinowski, a
79-year-old survivor of the
Warsaw ghetto and a retired
cardiologist who lives in
West Bloomfield. He and his
mother and sister were able
to survive the war although
his father was captured by the
Gestapo and never returned.
After the war, they lived in
Warsaw where Malinowksi
became a physician and
medical school professor.
However, when the Polish
political climate became anti-
Semitic in 1968, he and his
family immigrated to Detroit.
After the environment
tempered, Malinowski visited
Poland and met Stola, whom
he later recommended to
the HMC as a speaker.
Malinowski is an HMC board
member.
SHIFTING REACTIONS
Stola described Poland’
s
shifting response to its
role in the Holocaust as
denial, discussion of some
responsibility, shock at Polish
attacks against Jews and then
back to denial of complicity
with the Nazis. The Nazi plan
to kill European Jewry was
known to senior officers in
the Polish underground in
1942; many Polish Jews had
already been massacred, he
said.
After the war, there was
some debate about the Polish
role in the Holocaust; but
there was also anti-Jewish
violence, including a pogrom
in Kielce, where 42 Jews were
killed by Polish soldiers,
police officers and civilians in
1946. Discussion of the Polish
role during the Holocaust
ended during the late 1940s
with the Soviet takeover.
In 1968, Polish students
organized a rebellion and
the government accused
protesters of anti-Zionist
conspiracies. Some Jews
lost their jobs and many
left Poland.
By the 1980s, the
communist regime
was gradually eroding,
enabling a freer exchange
of information. Stola
cited the writings of
Nobel prize-winning
poet Czeslaw Milosz,
a Polish American, as
spurring discussion. Milosz
was a witness of the Warsaw
uprising and wrote an account
titled “Poor Christian Looks
at the Ghetto.” He asked the
“universal problem of non-
Jews: Will we be counted
among the helpers of death?
Jews were dying a lonelier
death because of things we
didn’
t do.”
Other Poles countered,
“We did all we could do in
these circumstances,” citing
Nazi brutality toward anyone
helping Jewish Poles.
The massacre of the Jews
of Jedwabne, Poland, by
their neighbors and others
in 1941 was a “shock to
the Polish public — many
didn’
t know about it,” Stola
said. Although there was an
investigation and trial after
the war, a book by historian
JERRY ZOLYNSKY
Poland’s Struggle
Poles continue to wrestle with guilt and denial
about their country’
s Holocaust role.
SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld,
Richard Herman, Deb Tyner
and Dariusz Stola