Poland vs. Netanyahu: Memory on Trial

In Auschwitz, who should speak for 'Never Again'?

On 27th January, Auschwitz will celebrate the 80th anniversary of liberation of the concentration camp. Leaders of many nations will come. But Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu won’t. Poland said that if he comes, he would be arrested as suspect of war crimes, following the recent decision of International Court of Justice.

In response, Poland was widely condemned as antisemitic:

• Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, said: “This the most Orwellian-inverted reality, a manifestation of a tsunami of antisemitism. Poland had missed the most important moment to say ‘never again’

• Alan Dershowitz, a prominent American-Jewish law professor, said: “Let’s remember what Poland did. It played such a major role in the Holocaust. “

• Herb Keinon from The Jerusalem Post condemned the “obscene irony” of Poland’s announcement, which was further exarcebated by letters from readers

[Update of 2024-01-12]: A few days later, Poland bowed to pressure and said that after all, Netanyahu can come. In the announcement, various moral, ethical and arcane legal reasons were given. What was not mentioned that meanwhile, the US Congress imposed sanctions on anyone who has “directly engaged or otherwise aided” ICC.

I felt it made sense to comment. Small disclaimer - I am Polish, should that matter.

Never Again

I want to talk about two men. Both were role models to millions of Poles. Both were Jews.

Marek Edelman (1919-2009) was the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), in which a group of 200 outnumbered and badly equipped Jewish partisan fighters led heroic fight against the criminals of SS and Gestapo. The uprising ended with brutal destruction of the ghetto and killing of the remainding 60,000 Jewish residents. Edelman, together with a handful of fighters escaped through sewers. Edelman’s books The Ghetto Fights and Straznik (the Watchman) are must-reads to anyone who wants to understand humanity. In one of the scenes, the last surviving fighters, who entered the canals in the burning ghetto ruins, and spent long hours underground, leave the canal on the Aryan side (outside the ghetto). But they are still far from safety. The text may not be precise - I write from memory:

The truck stops right near the canal. The canal hatch opens and the first fighter slowly mounts the ladder, wet, half-blinded by sunlight and exhausted. He spent one day in water and urine. He enters the truck and lies down. A moment later, another exhausted , half-alive body crawls out of the canal and enters the truck.

The crowd of passers-by begins to gather. It is getting dangerous. Everyone understands what is happening - the ghetto still burns a few hundred meters away. Two policemen stand just fifty meters away. Their job is to catch any Jew found alive. Finally one policeman approaches. But he pretends not to see: the last Jewish fighters, one by one, leaving their hiding. The policeman, instead of raising alarm, walks away.

The situation lasts half an hour, until the last fighter crawls out of the dark. Kazik Ratajzer, who organized the exodus, counts: forty people here - a dozen still missing. They must have remained in the canal. But there is no time to wait. The truck leaves and drives the fighters to safety. Those still in canals later die.

Ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw

The book isn’t available online, but some context can be found here.

Edelman’s story doesn’t end here. But before continuing, we need some more context.

The Polish Jew

The Polish national poem Pan Tadeusz starts with the words “Lithuania, my motherland”. It’s not a mistake. The author, Adam Mickiewicz, prominent 19th century Polish poet, considered himself Lithuanian. He wrote in Polish, he was a dedicated Polish patriot and created some biggest masterpieces of Polish literature.

Importantly, Adam Mickiewicz did not think he was “half Polish by mother, half Lithuanian by father”. He felt fully Lithuanian and, same time, fully Polish. Today, not just Poland but also Lithuania rightly claims Mickiewicz as their very own Adomas Mickevičius (which, of course, sparks endless controversy of unhappy nationalists of both sides).

A few generations ago, such dual identity was nothing unusual: many people considered themselves both Polish and Lithuanian, both Polish and Armenian, et caetera. It was the norm in the multi-ethnic society, which Poland was.

The concept of a Polish Jew (being not “half Polish”, but fully Jewish and fully Polish at the same time) comes from that epoch.

Later, towards end of 19th century, the wave of nationalism came in Europe and people were told they need one national identity. They were also told that loyalty to national flag was a virtue. The climax of this ultra-nationalist ethos was the Second World War. When criminals in soldier uniforms entered your home and pointed guns at you, you were asked only one question. The answer meant life or death to your family. This is how people learned they identify as “Jew”, “Ukrainian” or “Pole” but never both. This was the final triumph of nationalism.

Many pople never agreed with this.

The 3 million Polish Jews, just like in any large and intellectually developed society, did not form a uniform group in terms of social and political sympathies. They ranged from atheist to orthodox, wealthy bankers to unemployed communists, and from devout Zionists who declared no loyalty to Poland, to devout Polish patriots.

One of the prominent and respected Jewish Poles was another writer: Julian Tuwim (1894–1953), some say the greatest Polish poet of the 20th Century.

Tuwim’s patriotism was dfficult to many: it was about values. He did not think loyalty to flag was a virtue. He hated racism, fascism, consumerism and nationalism. He wrote revolutionary and pacifist poems and was many times accused of subversive, anti-state activities. Tuwim was the fierce fighter for ‘never again’, before and after the phrase was coined. In his poetry he violently condemned all acts of violence. In the era of nationalism and fascism, Tuwim often felt alienated, attacked by Poles for being a Jew, and by Jews for being a Pole. He bravely continued his stance.

In 1944, on the first anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising, he wrote this poem (below is translation of selected verses, original here)

We, Polish Jews

By Julian Tuwim, 1944

I am Polish because I choose to be.
I do not divide Poles into “native” and “non-native,”
leaving that to racists. […]

I divide Poles, as I do Jews
into the wise and the foolish, the honest and the thieves, fascists and anti-fascists. […]

I am Polish because, in my parents’ home,
I was told so in Polish. […]

I am Polish because my hatred of Polish fascists
is greater than my hatred of fascists of other nations.
And I consider this a very significant feature of my Polishness. […]

The story of Marek Edelman continued

Both Tuwim and Edelman survived the war: the former as 50-year-old emmigrant in Rio de Janeiro, the latter as fighter in Polish underground. For Marek Edelman, who was 25, that was only the beginning of his life journey. I will summarize his life using materials from Dialogue Center:

After the war, Edelman dropped the gun, became a surgeon and worked in Łódź, Poland’s major industrial town. Due to his charisma and moral principles, he gained enormous respect among coleagues. In the 1960’s when the Communist authorities in Poland launched an anti-Semitic and anti-intelligentsia campaign of hatred, Edelman was fired from the hospital. Almost all of the doctors and nurses left alongside with him.

Marek Edelman became active in the oposition against the brutal communist regime.
He was often interrogated by the secret service and imprisoned.

Celebrations of the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were one of the opportunities to manifest against the Communist Government. Marek Edelman boycotted official national celebrations, perceiving them as manipulations of history. More and more people gathered with him during unofficial celebrations. Over time those annual events became „Solidarity” [“Solidarność’] manifestations against the regime who had no respect for the human dignity. He said during one of those events:

I’m standing here alone, (...) There is nothingness behind me. The nothingness into which hundreds of thousands of people perished. I have no right to speak on their behalf, because I don’t know whether they died with hatred or forgave their torturers. But it’s my duty to make sure that the memory of them doesn’t vanish. I know that the memory of those women, children, old and young people, who disappeared into nothingness, who were murdered without any sense or reason, is necessary. (…)’.

Marek Edelman engaged in humanitarian work worldwide. He acted against murders and ethnic purges in Rwanda, Zaire, discrimination in South Africa, Izrael, and acts of violence against Roma people in Poland and Czech Republic:

‘When you look at evil and turn your head away, or you don’t help when you can, you become complicit. Because by turning your head away you help those who commit that evil. And there were dozens of such cases. It’s much easier and nicer to go to a café and savour a piece of cake than watch people being shot’.

The perception of Tuwim in Israel

Marek Edelman and Julian Tuwim, two emblematic figures, standing bravely over nationalistic and ethnic divisions, could be heroes of both nations.

But they are not. Both are respected in Poland, but not in Israel.

Jerusalem Post asked in 2019: Why is the great poet Tuwim beloved by Poles, yet forgotten by Jews?) The answer is simple. Tuwim stubbornly wrote in Polish. His Jewish-Polishness did not fit the dominant revisionist Zionist narration, built on one and only one national identity.

His unyielding, uncompromising stand for truth and justice, and his pacifism and hatred for national symbols was another problem to those who saw nationalism as foundational principle of Israel (Many Poles condemned Tuwim for the same reason).

Just how incomprehensible Tuwim’s timeless words were to the impoverished nationalistic mentality, shows this example of his famous sentence: ”I do not appear here as a Jew or a Pole or as a European: I am Humankind.”

Completely (deliberately?) misinterpreting this phrase, a Hebrew scholar Chone Shmeruk said in 1984 article Jewish Poles Orwellian Fiction: Famous Polish Jew Julian Tuwim Admits That He is Not a Pole.

The perception of Edelman in Israel

Edelman also never gained recognition in Israel. Edelman, in his relentless pursuit of truth and justice, insisted that Zionism was imperialist (rebelnews.ie). In 1993, the Israeli government delegation refused to participate in the Ghetto Uprising anniversary if Edelman was to speak. Poland’s president and Nobel laureate Lech Wałęsa had to interfere and invite Yitzhak Rabin and Edelman to private breakfast in his home (jewishcurrents.org). In 2002, the elderly Edelman sent an open letter to Palestinian leaders, calling for peace. But the letter was heavily criticized in Israel. Edelman wrote as one resistance fighter to another, and never called Palestinians “terrorists” (Schiller institute).

Just how uncomfortable Edelman was for some, can be seen in this sarcastic 1983 review of his book, by Lucy Dawidowicz, an American-Jewish scholar:

“The readers here [in the USA], hardly need instruction on the nature of the struggle of Warsaw Jewry during World War II. Edelman talks after a drink or two.

Foremost, Dawidowicz could not stand that Edelman calls the Poles tolerant people. Nowhere does he mention Polish anti-Semitism.

Edelman, the last witness of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising told a different story than some people wanted to hear.

Who should speak for ‘never again’

Auschwitz, the symbol of Shoah, is extremely sensitive. Netanyahu, if invited, would not be the first problematic person there. In the recent history, numerous politicians made international waves by unfortunate remarks in, or about, Auschwitz. Regarding the exchange between Poland’s president Duda (who said Netanyahu cannot come) and Poland’s PM Tusk (who said he can), please do not think this has anything to do with morality, Holocaust or Palestine. It’s a pathetic exchange between two famous, but morally mediocre politicians who use the case for their own political game.

In my private view, not just Netanyahu but all politicians (regardless of nationality) should be banned from the VIP row during the Auschwitz commemoration. Words should be reserved for Holocaust survivors, clergy to lead prayers, scholars of undisputed moral authority, and poets.

And what would Edelman and Tuwim say?

***

In 1970’s and 1980’s, year after year, Marek Edelman refused to participate in the official celebration of Ghetto Uprising anniversary, where the first VIP row was reserved for communist dignitaries with blood on their hands. He said:

To observe our anniversary here, where words and gestures have become nothing but lies, would betray the spirit of our struggle. The memory of the victims and heroes, will be preserved in the silence of graves and hearts—far from manipulated commemorations.

***

Edelman was kind. Tuwim used sharper language.

In 1922, Poland’s president Gabriel Narutowicz was assassinated by a nationalist psychopath. Presiden’s funeral was attended by the ultra-right politicians, who sat in the first VIP row. But it was precisely them who were responsible for his death. Julian Tuwim, who witnessed the event, could not stand their hypocrisy. The great Polish Jewish poet addressed the politicians with these words [translated selection, original here]

You bore the cross on your chest, and a pistol in your pocket.
With God in alliance, and a pact with the murderer. […]
Do not avert your eyes! Stand and watch, you scoundrels!

The mourning procession moves, draped in black and blood: […]
Let the people see your faces, criminals—and let it greet you
With the dreadful cry of silence from the mourning streets.

Post Scriptum

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