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Friday, March 25, 2011
I received an e-mail this morning from Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn
alleging that I am a pogromist, or participant in pogroms, that is,
government-incited, or at least tolerated, anti-Jewish riots. Pogroms are
particularly heinous events, often involving not just murder, but public
humiliation, rape, and torture.
Rabbi Cukierkorn leveled
this accusation at me because I posted a critical Amazon review of a book he
co-authored, "They Were Just People." I will include the full text of
my review, below, and a link.
I also mentioned
"They Were Just People" in a recent blog post about a 1917
anti-Polish riot that resulted in the terrorizing and expulsion of Polish
immigrants from the lead mining region of Missouri.
Rabbi
Cukierkorn's allegation that I am a pogromist is troubling to me for several
reasons:
Rabbi Cukierkorn is a man of God.
Rabbi Cukierkorn is a religious leader.
Rabbi Cukierkorn's opinions of Poles have been given the imprimatur of the
University of Missouri Press. Rabbi Cukierkorn knows nothing about me except
this: I am Polish-American, and I object to stereotyping of Poles. That is
enough for Rabbi Cukierkorn to accuse me of being a pogromist. It is troubling
to me that a book by a man who holds that worldview has been granted sanction
by the University of Missouri Press.
I must ask the
University of Missouri Press: If a Polish Catholic priest did not like a Jewish
reader's Amazon review, and sent that reader an email accusing the Jewish
reader of being a "Shylock," would the University of Missouri publish
that priest's assessments of Jews?
I hope, and assume,
that the answer to the previous question is "No."
Responding to any criticism of racist stereotyping of Poles with a charge
that the person who criticized anti-Polish stereotyping is a pogromist is a
rhetorical strategy. This strategy cripples and distorts discourse about Poles
and Jews, about the Holocaust, and about World War Two. Too many good people
are, simply, afraid to speak up when Poles are stereotyped and scapegoated, and
when history is rewritten to serve stereotyping rather than truth.
***
I welcome input from Bill Tammeus,
Rabbi Cukierkorn, or the University of Missouri Press. I welcome input that
addresses the key points in my Amazon review and subsequent comments, and that
does not stoop to ad hominem invective and stereotyping.
The Brute Polak stereotype gained power in America, as chapter three of
"Bieganski"
shows, when peasant immigrants arrived in America from Eastern Europe.
Scientific racists like Madison Grant put a veneer of respectability, even
ethics, on elite Americans' instinctive recoil from dirty, alien, peasants from
Eastern Europe.
Madison Grant and other scientific
racists assured elite America that it was not only natural to be disgusted by
Bohunk peasants; it was also virtuous to feel that disgust. Bohunks were no
only disgusting, they were very, very bad.
Chapter Seven
of "Bieganski," which was previously published in Polin, and well reviewed
in Shofar and American Jewish History, shows how Nazis defined themselves as
"decent" while condemning Eastern European peasants as dirty and
undisciplined.
Anti-Bohunk images that were communicated
and sanctioned by scientific racists in the US, and by Nazis, are alive today.
They are used strategically. As the American Jewish History reviewer of
"Bieganski" said, "'The necessity of Bieganski,' Goska finally
argues, lies also on an even higher platform: it gives illusion of absolving
those who failed in their own test of humanity [during the Holocaust], by
placing blame on easily identifiable others."
Elites
today use a timeworn image – The Brute Polak – to justify their own hate of
ethnic others. One hundred years ago, elites despised Polish, Catholic
peasants, and justified that hatred, even as they exiled Poles from living in
Missouri's lead mining region, and passed the notorious Quota Acts that defined
Poles and other Eastern and Southern European immigrants as racially inferior,
and denying them entry to the US.
Today, as in the past,
elites continue to despise Polish, Catholic peasants, and, as in the past, they
continue to justify that hatred – even to identify it as virtuous. Elites no
longer drive Poles out with riots. Now they exile and lynch Poles with
language.
Today, the timeworn image of the unsavory peasant,
Catholic Pole is exploited thus. Elites locate the horrible crime of
anti-Semitism exclusively, diagnostically, and essentially in peasant, Catholic
Poles. "Anti-Semitism equals Poles equals Polish Catholic peasants equals
Poland": this formula absolves elites of ever being suspected of, or
feeling guilt for, anti-Semitism or any other ethnic hate. "We are not
Polish, Catholic peasants; therefore, we are above reproach."
***
Here is a link
to my Amazon review of "They Were Just People," the book co-authored
by Rabbi Cukierkorn, who accused me of being a pogromist because I critiqued
his book.
Here is the full text of my Amazon review of
"They Were Just People":
"They Were Just
People: Stories of Rescue in Poland during the Holocaust" appears
wholesome and high-minded. The proverbial one candle – "It is better to
light one candle than to curse the darkness" – illuminates the black
cover. The title is clever – Polish rescuers identified the Jews they saved as
"just people," meaning, "simply people." These rescuers can
be identified as "just people," as in "righteous people."
Co-author Tammeus is a Presbyterian elder whose surname suggests German ancestry;
Cukierkorn is descended from Polish Rabbis. Maggie Finefrock, my old Peace
Corps buddy, sent me the book. What could be wrong with this picture?
"They Were Just People" systematically erases
important facts in distortion so careful it's hard to believe it occurred by
chance. A book that purports to be about tolerance is in fact a book that may
contribute to the cultivation of ignorant arrogance and even hate. Neither the
University of Missouri nor any other American university press would publish a
Holocaust-related book that so carefully presented an equally skewed depiction
of Jews. That a university press gave this book the green light says much, none
of it good, about double standards in academia.
Writing
about Polish-Jewish relations during World War Two is one of the hardest tasks
any author might ever undertake. Strides have been made by authors like
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Eva Hoffman, Gunnar S. Paulsson, Antony Polonsky,
Michael C. Steinlauf, Nechama Tec, and Leon Weliczker Wells. Tammeus and Cukierkorn
appear either to be unaware of these authors' efforts at fairness or so
dismissive of them that they need not incorporate their ethical heritage.
Rather, Tammeus and Cukierkorn revert to a completely false simplification
designed to use Poles as primitive villains in order to flatter American
readers.
"They Were Just People," contrary to
its subtitle, does not create vivid impressions of or deep insights into Poles,
Poland, or Polish rescuers. Poles, here, are two-dimensional. Given that most American
readers will come to this book knowing little or nothing of Poland, and given
that the authors say as little about Poland as possible, the overwhelming
impression readers will be left with is of a country, Poland, that was worse
than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and that, out of no reason other than
perverse sinfulness or degradation, nurtured a deadly hatred of Jews. The
audience is invited to discharge the overwhelming trauma that the Holocaust
narrative generates by hating Poles.
The most memorable
Poles are very much not rescuers. The most memorable Poles in "They Were
Just People" include, rather, a twisted sadist who tormented a starving
Jewish boy by carefully laying out, in front of him, rows of apples that he
forbade the Jew to touch (58). Why did the Polish sadist do this? We never
learn – he is not interviewed, not even to corroborate this harrowing anecdote.
Another Pole feeds Jews to his pigs (94).
The Home Army
was an anti-Semitic organization bent on killing Jews (206, 133) this comment
does not reflect current scholarly assessment of the Home Army. Though, in
Poland alone, Nazis mandated death for entire families if one member so much as
offered a Jew a glass of water, Poles helped, the book tells us, because they
were peasants too greedy or stupid to understand the risk (44, 111, 144); Poles
should never be forgiven (42); most Poles, including priests, collaborated with
Nazis (114, 167) or were worse than Nazis (131, 189) and worse than Soviets
(161). Leaving Poland for France constitutes "escape" where one can
"breathe clean air for the first time" (172) and perhaps enjoy some
refreshing Vichy water.
The focus is on Jewish
survivors. Polish rescuers are not fleshed out. Many lack full names. They are
just "Jan," or "a farmer." Wladyslaw Bartoszewski's far
superior "The Samaritans" and Block and Drucker's
"Rescuers" convey rescuers' hardship, terror, sacrifice and
ingenuity. How to: dispose of human waste; acquire food when Nazis kept Poles
on starvation rations and monitored every transaction; hide footprints in snow?
"Rescuers" tells of Irene Gut Opdyke surrendering her body to save
Jews and Stefania Podgorska heeding spectral voices. Polish heroes struggled
alone: the Allies repeatedly abandoned and betrayed Poland's Jews AND non-Jews.
"Just People" erases all this vital information, and
more: the unique demographic, economic, educational, and political realities of
interwar, wartime, and postwar Poland that can never excuse Polish
anti-Semitism, but that certainly reveal as specious Tammeus and Cukierkorn's
insistence that Poles be understood no differently than twenty-first century,
suburban Americans. Their "readers' guide" presumes to present
ethical questions, without ever probing the genuine ethical realities Poles
faced. The authors reveal a damning degree of ignorance, if not hostility, when
they condemn Poles for using the terms "Poles" and "Jews"
(186) when there are very good reasons for these terms that are used
universally by scholars invested in the topic.
"Just
People" never mentions that Auschwitz was built and used for Polish
prisoners during its first 18 months, that the Einsatzgruppen targeted Polish
elites, that Polish convents were remarkable in their rescue of Jewish
children. Polish Zegota was the only government-sponsored underground agency
devoted to aiding Jews. The authors never mention this. The authors mention
Ponary, never that 20,000 Poles were killed there. The number of Polish
non-Jews murdered, exiled, tortured, and enslaved reaches into the millions.
Poles rescued even as they lived in Hell.
On the plus
side: The anecdotes here support important realities discussed in better books:
Jews who were integrated into Polish culture had a better chance of survival;
the survival of one Jew depended on the participation of many Poles who can
never be named, never mind honored. Jews received food, shelter, documents,
housing, supportive testimonials, and guidance from Poles they'd never met, and
would never see again. When asked why they helped, many Poles cited their
Christian faith as inspiration.
[At the end of the
review, I included the links, below, to better books on the same topic.]
The
Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust.
Zegota:
The rescue of Jews in wartime Poland
Your
Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in
German-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945
Rescuers:
Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
***
Here is a link
to the blog post relating anti-Polish hate in Missouri, old and new.
***
Here is the full text of my e-mail
to Bill Tammeus, which he forwarded to Rabbi Cukierkorn:
"Hello, I mention you in a blog post: http://bieganski-the-blog.blogspot.com/2011/03/christina-pacosz-on-missouri-leadbelt.html"
Here is the full text, phone number deleted, of Rabbi
Cukierkorn's email to me:
"As a Proud descendant of
Polish Jews, I am flabbergasted by your gratuitous hate and disparagement of my
co-author. The world would be a much
better place if people knew what they are talking about before acting in
hurtful ways.
I will be delighted to talk with you and
share my views that are committed to my understanding of the truth in the land
that welcomed us when we were expelled from Spain. Chances are you will not call me, showing
that had you had the chance you would be among those doing the expelling or taking
part in the pogrom...
Regards,
Rabbi
Jacques Cukierkorn"
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