On the edge of the town, silhouetted by the church, there is still a stone obelisk with
the inscription: SITE OF THE SUFFERING OF THE JEWISH POPULATION. THE GESTAPO AND THE NAZI
GENDARMERIE BURNED 1600 PEOPLE ALIVE JULY 10, 1941. However, we now know that only the
first part of the inscription is true. There is a debate in progress on how to carry out
an unprecedented rehabilitation of the Germans without completely destroying the
self-esteem of the local Polish population, or rather the self-esteem of the population of
Mazovia and Podlasie. However, as far as the world at large is concerned, this concerns
the self-esteem of the Poles in general, for who is going to go into details about our
geography and history?
I was moved by the public disclosure, from distant New York, of the criminal secret of
Jedwabne, all the more so because I was born in these parts and my forefathers are buried
here. There is no point in proving that I personally had nothing to do with the event, or
my father or grandfather. But neither is there any point in saying that I feel totally
free of responsibility.
Jedwabne should not come as such a surprise to me. I am well-versed in the history of
Polish warfare. It contained episodes of relentlessness and cruelty, directed at times
against innocent and defenseless people. But in this case, I was surprised. I did not
expect Polish-Jewish antagonism could have such abysmal depths. In particular, I never
dreamed that such a thing could happen in my "parish."
I had an opportunity to observe the Jewish Holocaust at close range, since I was near
the Warsaw ghetto. And I remember how, shortly before the elimination of the ghetto, the
Germans removed the Polish police (the "blue police") and replaced them with
Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Latvians... No one liked the "blue police," yet
nevertheless they were Poles, and this vote of no confidence, as it were, by the
occupation regime was well received by public opinion. Let no Polish hand be close to that
atrocity! Warsaw public opinion reacted positively - no doubt with exaggeration - to any
form of help for the martyrs of the ghetto. It was unthinkable that the population of the
capital, though far from perfect, felt like summoning up its anti-Semitic feelings at that
moment. Why should the Polish provinces behave any differently? Unfortunately, various
things happened and, unfortunately, the little town of Jedwabne became the same kind of
symbol of the Mazovia-Podlasie Holocaust as Treblinka or the ghetto in Bia造stok, as if
there were not enough human complexes and historical "burdens" in this area!
Moods are serious and somber. That is a good sign, for there have been no attempts to
ignore empirical facts or pin the blame on someone else, for example the Turks or the
Chinese. Everyone knows that the Jewish population preferred Russia to Poland. Judging
from a distance in time, is there any wonder that this was so? No one tries to use
Jewish-Polish animosity, which really existed in Jedwabne, as an excuse for our atrocity,
a collective atrocity aimed at the Jewish population of Jedwabne regardless of age and sex
and in a manner that was brutal even for those bestial days. Attempts to implement justice
under the "reds" did not go beyond the facades that were typical of that system,
and the entire event was concealed from public opinion in Podlasie and Poland. Was that
solely the fault of the communists? What about the handing down of information within
families, often so effective on the subject of the public "secrets" of the
liberation from the east in 1939 and 1944? And what about the Church, starting with the
Jedwabne parish? And then there was the "first Solidarno嗆" period
[i.e., 1980-1981 - ed.], and ten years or so of various forms of liberty and democracy!
Finally, the local press is not conducting a cover-up, and is not seeking mitigating
circumstances, which amounts to a statement that there is no use trying to justify the
crime. Nor can postwar conspiracies of silence be appealed to. Honest information
prevails. However, reports by a survivor have also been published, and there has been an
overexcited letter from a reader who hails from Bia造stok who now lives in Australia.
"The truth is naked and dirty - Keeping silent after such an atrocity means the same
as taking part in it"- we read in Bia造stok regional daily "Kurier
Poranny" - "Accepting the perpetrators of the massacre in our society is the
same as having taken part in that massacre. We literally drank vodka over the graves of
the people... and in our memories they were as distant as the ancient Romans or Vikings...
How is it that we, born in a country still wet with blood, knew nothing about this?...
What I have read makes me sick. It's not that I have delusions about what kind of people
my fellow countrymen are, it's just that as a result of these events, my view of what
constitutes the lower limit has sunk even lower."
Elsewhere, the editors of "Kurier Poranny" say that they have not received a
single official statement about Jedwabne, "not a single letter from either the local
authorities or the central authorities of Podlasie Province." That is typical. As we
know, the authorities in Poland do not serve fundamental interests, but are concerned
purely with budgets and elections... The paper carries without comment a suggestion by
Professor Jacek Kurczewski about altering the inscription on the monument in Jedwabne to
read: FROM THE POLISH STATE IN REMEMBERANCE OF ITS JEWISH CITIZENS MURDERED BY THEIR
NEIGHBORS IN FRATRICIDAL RAGE. Personally, I would keep our unfortunate Polish state
out of it. It has already suffered enough from a lack of sovereignty, so it is a matter of
decency to leave it alone. Our state has had a good ten years to show what it is capable
of. Well, it was a "rule-of-law" state, whose duty was only to seek out
"crimes against the Polish nation"-which does not include the Jews!
The Jews were considered insufferable by the Catholic and Orthodox population of Podlasie,
but they also lent a bit of life to this backwater during the First and Second Republics, especially to its towns... and
most of all to the "capital" of the area, Bia造stok. In 1939, the Jews
comprised over half the population of Bia造stok, which had slightly more than 100,000
inhabitants. Synagogues and prayer houses of the various currents of Judaism were much
more in evidence than all the churches combined.
At this point, may I be allowed to make a digression. In Jerusalem, in a cafe I happened
into near the Jaffa Gate, the Hasidic owner heard me speaking Polish. He showed me a book
of photographs in which he was collecting autographs of people from Poland-especially
people from the Bia造stok area. There is nothing strange about that. The book in
question, by Tomasz Wi郾iewski and Jaros豉w Wojtach, bears the title Synagogues
of the Bia造stok Region, and is bilingual and suitably subtitled Heartland of the
Jewish Life. The authors boldly say that "it is not without reason that the
Bia造stok area is called the 'heartland of European Jewry.'" Synagogues were not
just places of worship, but also centers of community self-government, education and
culture. "It is thanks to them that the Jewish people was able to survive hundreds of
years. Without these small and often modest houses of prayer, there would be no state of
Israel today," we read.
The annihilation of the Jewish population of Podlasie was the result of a veritable
volcanic eruption of the worst forces in history - Nazism, which was given a boost at the
start by communism. A symbol of Podlasie was the great synagogue in Bia造stok, in which
the encroaching Germans burnt about 1,000 Jews in 1941, before blowing it up in the
aftermath of the uprising in the Jewish ghetto in the city. This disaster put an end to
long centuries of co-existence, with the additional historical twist, particularly gloomy
for Polish self-esteem, that we contributed to that disaster without any procrastination
on our part.
What can we do now? There is no doubt that the worst thing is to do nothing. It is the
worst thing from a moral point of view, for, when a crime occurs that is not subject to a
statute of limitations, there should be a suitable punishment, or at least penance. It is
also the worst thing from the educational point of view: we cannot build our collective
attitudes towards the dawning century and millennium on false self-awareness. The devil
has made beneath our skins a home for himself no worse than among other nations. Except
that this home of his is a peculiar kind of home.
An atmospheric tavern, even with the modish appellation "pub," is the best place
to meditate on the Leninist slogan shto dielat [what should be done?]. Its official
name, Magnat [the Magnate], is meant to refer to time-honored Polish traditions,
and especially local ones. It is located in a beautiful old cellar recently cleared of
rubble in the very heart of the city. Of course, these were once Jewish-owned storehouses:
reality, even historical reality, is not to be cheated. All of downtown Bia造stok was
built atop the ruins and charred rubble of Jewish property.
If yet another monument will not make the problem go away, then things are not going to be
easy. We are in a state of complex social depression in Poland-and we have a multitude of
problems among ourselves. It is difficult for people to tackle anything that is not
directly linked to grim reality, which is onerous and thankless for most. Should an
additional subconscious layer of guilt be added to this mixture? Penance-underlain by
uncertainty over unresolved legal and property issues! Only crumbs remain of the formerly
Jewish-owned property, yet the real estate itself - usually in the center of Podlasie
towns - possesses considerable value. All our sense of repentance would evaporate if
people had to pay compensation. Then it would be impossible to leave things in the domain
of half-sentences and rumors.
The fundamental condition is the renunciation by Poles in general of their lamentable
attitude towards Judaism and the Jews-in relation to matters past, present, and to come,
once and for all and with no ifs, ands, or buts. On a community-wide scale and in serious
terms, there is nothing to argue about because of the total lack of knowledge in Poland
about the phenomenon of Israel. Nor do we know anything about the fortunes of that people,
with their unique religion, who survived thousands of years under the most difficult
conditions, scattered around the world and persecuted to the point of physical
extermination. It is more than odd that not even centuries of coexistence with Jewish
Diaspora communities have provided us with any deeper familiarity with these people, with
their real talents and their real faults and weaknesses. Take, as an example, the way the
Poles sneered at the Jewish martial virtues. That was taken for granted in Polish
barracks, and spread from there around the country. And what did the wars with the Arabs
in the mid-century demonstrate? What about the fact that has Israel endured all this time
in a constant state of semi-mobilization? Soldiering never boiled down to mere personal
courage and physical fitness, although their current adversaries will hardly deny the
Israelis these qualities. It was also a matter of planning, intelligence, organization and
discipline, training and education, technology and logistics. And how are the Jews coping
with all this in their third generation? And what happened to all those stupid jokes told
in Poland?
The same applies to our image of Jewish agricultural talents. Barely a hundred years ago,
Palestine was mainly a desert littered with rocks or interspersed with malaria-infested
marshes. Today, Israel sustains a greatly enlarged population, and exports fruit,
vegetables and even wine to cater to the pampered palates of Western Europe. With its
prosperity, it beats its Arab neighbors, hands-down, despite having started from an
identical position and, in addition, despite not having oil. In terms of prosperity,
Israel leaves Poland, and even that the Czechs and Hungarians, far behind. Nor can we turn
up our noses at the standards of medicine in the Jewish state, or of education, physics,
chemistry, literature, music, sports, social welfare...
Perhaps there would be some way to get today's Poles, so hungry for the modernity and
money, interested in all this. Bad stereotypes and old prejudices - let them try and
defend themselves against the reality of Israel! If any lessons seep through to Polish
brains from this, so much the better. It would be a side effect, but a beneficial one.
The point is, would it be possible to gather together in Bia造stok a handful of
resourceful and energetic people, convinced of the need to rebuild relations between
Israel and Podlasie on the banks of the Narew and Jordan rivers, in a manner that
befitting the twenty-first century? It is pointless to suggest a detailed program for such
reconstruction. Anything that can arouse human curiosity in the Jewish phenomenon is good
- interest in the pioneering spirit of the Jews of Bia造stok, the culture and sport of
modern Israel, Jewish relations in the world, the relationship between Judaism and
Christianity, the militancy connected with Jerusalem, banking and the diamond trade...
even the truths and myths about "Jewish communism", should the Poles be
interested in this subject.
I personally see the best hope in direct, personal contacts. Warsaw has a small but
vibrant Jewish community. It would be a good idea to search for scattered groups of
Podlasie Jews in Israel, beginning with a reconnaissance of their "pilgrimages"
to Treblinka and Tykocin. There are also some sort of pilgrimages from Podlasie to the
Holy Land. Could they not be enriched with the subject of the reconciliation of Poles and
Jews? Our Pope, John Paul II, apologized to the Jews before the Wailing Wall, and our
Primate publicly presented a Polish "examination of the conscience," so no
religious harm would be done.
As far as work on the scale of the century is concerned, it must be targeted at young
people, starting with secondary-school students but aimed mainly at the University of
Bia造stok. One can easily imagine a center for Jewish studies, which does not exist
anywhere in Poland, and certainly nowhere east of the Bug river. It might involve research
into the current sociological realities of Israel-a phenomenon on a world scale, and also
include Hebrew studies, the geopolitics of the Middle East, the history of the Jewish
Diaspora, and biblical archaeology. The university would be an ideal place for passionate
enthusiasts. There would be opportunities for cooperation with Jewish colleges and college
communities all over the world. Global scale! The intellectual potential of the subject
might well be more appealing to the young than other global topics!
Those are the various thoughts that run through our minds while we sit in the formerly
Jewish-owned cellars of the today's Magnat bar in Bia造stok. The old walls seem to
tell us: if we are to perform penance, then let this take the form of a practical deed so
that, while enriching the memory of the Jews of Podlasie, may enrich us
ourselves-spiritually, certainly, and there is a host of other possibilities. In Cana in
Israel, I saw crates of wine bottles commemorating the miraculous turning of water into
wine. Labels inform and encourage us. Today, this wine flows to the entire Christian
world. Would these ancient cellars in Bia造stok not serve a more worthy function if they
reminded us of sunny Galilee while, at the same time, helping to perpetuate the memory of
the Jews?
* * *
In this article I have omitted to mention that it is not just the population of Podlasie which owes something to the Jews. The whole of eastern Europe - from Samogitia by way of Slovakia to Bessarabia, all the way to the "beautiful blue Danube," has something to think about and something to regret. I did not mention this because I did not wish to make it look like an attempt to whitewash the events in Podlasie or absolve that area of its co-responsibility. But I must admit that if the case of Jedwabne, Tykocin and Bia造stok, and other such places could also inspire kindred places elsewhere in eastern Europe to undertake suitable action in their own front yards, then the nationalism of the undersigned would be pleasantly tickled.