The Pogrom at Eishyshok(Ejszyszki)

A frightening article entitled "The Pogrom at Eishyshok" by Yaffa
Eliach appears in today's New York Times (Page A13, West Coast
Edition). Eliach is a professor of history and literature at
Brooklyn College and is the author of the forthcoming book, "There
Once Was a World: A Nine-Century Chronicle of the Shtetl of
Eishyshok."

Eliach pulls no punches when he accuses the government of Poland of
historic revisionism with respect to the pogrom at Eishyshok that
took place on Oct. 20, 1944. Furthermore, Eliach was not simply
reporting the result of research on the subject, he was an eye
witness to the events of that day, events that took the lives of
his mother and brother as executed by the nationalist Polish Home
Army whose popular slogan was "Poland Without Jews."

The matter, as it turns out, was well documented. The Soviet secret police, the
N.K.V.D. arrived in the town to investigate the events as well as
the later murders of Jews. The Russians arrested most of the
participants in the October pogrom, and brought them to trial in
Vilnius before and N.K.V.D. military tribunal. They were sentenced
to prison terms and exiled to Siberia.

It seems it were the Einsatzgruppen at it again

The NKVD arrested the perpetrators. So I don't think it were the Einsatzgruppen.

...
On September 25–26, 1941, an Einsatzgruppen unit entered Eišiškės and killed 3,446 Jews from Eišiškės and about 1,500 Jews from neighboring towns and villages.[7] Men's bodies were buried in a trench, dug around the old Jewish cemetery to protect it from accidental cultivation by local farmers.[7]

Let's see what happened and then we can decide.

The matter is documented, hence proven. What are these Polish- American groups arguing about? It's written down in contemporary documents; the perpetrators have been arrested and sent to Siberia. Case closed.

Yes, I've seen that, but the pogrom in question was in October 1944, when the area was already liberated.

Yaffa Eliach is an author and holocaust survivor. Dr. Eliach, Professor of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College, is a pioneer scholar in Holocaust Studies and the creator of the acclaimed "Tower of Life" at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. She was the founder of the first Center for Holocaust Studies in the United States and served as its volunteer director until 1991. She received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in Russian Intellectual History. She is also a poet and playwright. Dr. Eliach is a contributing scholar to the Encyclopedia Judaica and to the Women's Studies Encyclopedia.

Yaffa Eliach, - "one of America's most respected Holocaust scholars."

When Eliach met with American officials, he asked for a copy of the
official request from Poland. He states that, despite the fact
that the Soviets tried and punished the perpetrators of the act 50
years ago, the request from the govt. of Poland stated that they
wanted to bring to justice the killers of Eliach's mother and
brother. He asks, why the ministry officials are not looking for
the other Polish murderers who killed more than 2,000 after the
liberation? And if they feel more investigation of Eishyshok is
needed, why not ask for interviews with other American citizens
such as Miriam Shulman, nee Kabacznik and Dora Dimitro, nee Kremin,
who were eyewitnesses of the October, 1944 pogrom. Instead, the
entire focus is on Eliach because of the fact that he is a
historian and will publish and account of the act in his book noted
above. That the ministry requested to interview only Eliach
suggests a hidden agenda; i.e. to impugn Eliach's credibility as an
historian.

During World War II, Eliach and her family were among 29 Jews from the then Polish village of Ejszyszki who were hidden by Christian Poles, enabling them to escape the Nazi slaughter of 4,000 other Jews in the community. After the Germans were driven out of Poland, Eliach says, she and her family returned home, where they were attacked by a band of antisemitic Polish partisans on Oct. 20, 1944. According to her recounting of the ordeal, gunmen shot and killed her mother and baby brother as she and a second brother looked on. Eliach, who assembled the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's "Tower of Life", an exhibit of prewar Jewish life in Ejszyszki, has devoted decades to documenting the fate of her family and the town's other Jews. But now several Polish-American fringe organizations have accused her of fabricating the tale of her mother's and brother's deaths to defame Poland.

Polish-American fringe organizations have accused her of fabricating the tale of her mother's and brother's deaths to defame Poland.

That was to be expected. On what do they base this?

Polish-American fringe organizations

The matter is documented, hence proven.

U.S. News & World Report, a major US publication, calling Polish organizations 'Polish-American fringe organizations' is suspect in itself, but not surprising.

Why did you start a new thread for that?

I think calling the extreme elements in a wide spectrum of organisations the 'fringe' is perfectly acceptable. They are not describing ALL US Polish organisations by this label.

How can Poland compete with the biggest propaganda machine in the world?

The matter is documented, hence proven.

He doesn't know what happened, how many Jews were killed, but if Jews say it was a pogrom, then it was, by golly.

If you in addition to what I show abover here, sign up with the executioners of Katyn, and help them murder the ethnic people of the country you are living in, then you can't blame it on "hate" and "anti-semitism", if you yourself reap what you sow.

Well, we can start by putting people like MareGaea and other "pole-bashers" to the test here on this forum. MareGaea said in one post that he would like to bash in the head of people he didn't agree with, just like the jewish character did in the movie "Inglorious Basterds". That is quite evil if I dare say so, and shows the attitude of these posters.

To the Editor:

Survivors of the Holocaust are grateful for Yaffa Eliach's account of the postwar killing of Jews, including her family, by Polish armed units (''The Pogrom at Eishyshok,'' Op-Ed, Aug. 6).

That well-documented pogrom was not an isolated incident but an organized campaign to complete the Nazi ''final solution of the Jewish problem in Poland,'' planned during the war by the anti-Semitic underground Polish Home Army and the national armed forces. The Home Army received arms and money from the Polish government in exile in London.

New evidence uncovered by Yisrael Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem confirms that in 1943 plans were laid by leaders of the Polish underground for the elimination of Jewish survivors after the war. The plans, submitted in March 1943 to the government in exile, concluded: ''If the masses of Jews ever return, our population will not recognize their restitution claims, but will treat them instead as invaders, resisting them by violent means.''

Leaders of the present Polish Government have acknowledged the massacres of Jews in liberated Poland and have asked survivors for forgiveness. More than 2,000 returnees from the death camps were killed in Poland.

Yet as Professor Eliach states, some Polish-American groups of Holocaust revisionists continue to deny Eishyshok.

ALFRED LIPSON

Bayside, Queens, Aug. 7, 1996

The writer is senior researcher at the Holocaust Resource Center and Archives, Queensborough Community College, CUNY.

What facts as to this discussion have you brought forth?

The matter is documented, hence proven.

but the pogrom in question was in October 1944, when the area was already liberated.

Not surprising. He thinks NKVD were liberators. Many other Jews think this way also. Notice he also calls it a pogrom without knowing what happened. He assumes Jews were killed because they were Jews. I hope we are learning something.

NKVD sent some Poles to Siberia, after sentencing them by the NKVD tribunal, and you call it 'proven'?

Where exactly do I say that I think the NKVD are the liberators?

the pogrom in question was in October 1944, when the area was already liberated.

Who were the liberators according to you?

but at that moment, the Russians were considered to be the liberators of Nazi occupied Poland.

This is nonsense. There were at least 5 to 600 Jews amongst the ppl executed in Katyn.

I think you are a very ill and disturbed young man. First of all it wasn't meant seriously, but the likes of you cannot notice sarcasm even when he stumbles over it, secondly if you remember posts of me, remember them correctly and don't twist words. I said that I will adhere the Myer-Lansky approach to anti-semites, racists and neo-Nazis. Intolerant ppl in short. Furhtermore, I asked "when will tolerant ppl stop tolerating the intolerant ppl". Which is a very valid question as tolerant ppl always have tolerated the intolerant and in return got several insults over their heads. Well, my boy, I bite back. And I will keep doing that until you stop that nonsense. Next time when you quote some old post from my hand, pls quote it correctly. Thanks.