Fascinating history

As many people are aware Henry Srebrnik, professor of political science at UPEI, and I have not always seen eye to eye regarding a number of important matters. That said, I genuinely want to thank Henry for sharing his family history and background with the readership of these newspapers (Journal Pioneer, July 24, 2017). His reportage is both fascinating and sensitive, and certainly helps to contextualize him as a person, as well as his scholarship. Intended or not, Henry however has circumvented a highly contentious and acrimonious historical debate, namely, Poland’s ugly anti-Semitic history and how that played out in Poland during the Second World War. The relationship between the gentile and Jew communities in Poland has been a politically sensitive and volatile issue, and is bitterly disputed. Poland, historically, in once instance was considered “a Paradise for the Jews,” but has a history of virulent anti-Semitism that dates back to at least the 1648 Cossack pogroms (massacres) where nearly 750 Jewish communities were destroyed killing between 100 - 500, 000 people.

During the Second World War 3.5 million gentile Poles were killed by the Germans, and about 3 million Polish Jews. Subsequently, this has resulted in what Prof. Srebrnik, in another context, has called “competitive victimhood,” with gentile and Jewish Poles each claiming to be the more injured party during the German occupation during the war. The Jewish community has attacked what they feel was Polish collaboration with the Germans in their extermination, while successive Polish governments and historians have argued that they had an active underground resistance to the Germans and helped Jews when they could.

The reality was undoubtedly complex with at least four different interactive scenarios unfolding simultaneously with: the Germans killing Poles; the Germans killing Jews; some Poles collaborating with the Germans; and some Poles hiding and saving Jews. For myself, I have always felt uncomfortable when I viewed Lanzmann’s film, Shoah, that showed Polish peasants cheering when a train passed going to the Auschwitz death camp. What is inexplicable and unforgivable is the Jedwabne (1941) pogrom, and, in the post- war era, the Kielce (1946) pogrom where good Poles literally killed their Jewish neighbours.

According to one source however, “Poles represented the largest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.” And the Israeli War Crimes Commission concluded that only 0.1 per cent of Polish gentiles collaborated with the Nazis. The ongoing historical and political debate on the subject is an open wound.

Again, I would like to thank Henry Srebrnik for sharing his family’s fascinating history with us. For him there must be many lingering, if not painful, memories and lessons. All of which suggests that we are products of the past and subject to forces that are often beyond our control.

Richard Deaton,

Stanley Bridge