Did the pre-WW II conduct of Jews in Poland instigate antisemitism towards them?

Lyzko	Dec 7, 11, 17:08 #211
Come to think of it, there are some North Korean Jews, the scion of refugees from Europe who once settled there as a safe haven during WWII. North Korea is called "Chosen". So, are North Korean Jews therefore the "Chosen People"? ba da bing

♂

Edited by: Gruffi_Gummi Dec 8, 11, 21:24 #212

Mr_Chips:

It has always puzzled me why anti-semitism was able to spread so quickly in europe before and during the Second World War.

Mr_Chips: (Heinlein?)

As much as this is politically incorrect, please consider the problem in light of the Occam's Razor (out of several competing explanations, the one that involves the less assumptions is probably the correct one). If there is anti-semitism in Argentina, Belarus, China (sic!), Denmark, Estonia, France,...Poland..., Romania, Sweden, Turkey and so on, then is something wrong with each and every of these nations, or rather with Jews?
The conclusion is not only politically incorrect, but, from the moral standpoint, it is really, really ugly, but nevertheless this is where logical reasoning is leading us.

Specifically, as for your question: I believe the mild anti-semitism in pre-WW II Poland was indeed caused by the characteristics of the Jewish diaspora, although I don't like the implications carried by the words "conduct" and "instigate". The characteristics, important in this pre-war context, are: non-assimilation and lack of identification with the political goals of the majority. In addition, some economic elements may have contributed, as well as the identification (only partially correct) of Jews with the communist movement - the importance of this factor was defined by the 1920 war with the Soviet Union. As a result, Poles developed rather mild anti-Jewish attitudes, not unlike the attitudes held by contemporary Americans toward illegal Latino immigrants ("they take away our jobs, we are tired of hearing "press 2 for Spanish", of uninsured drivers, identity thefts and abuses of the welfare system" - you without a doubt are familiar with these arguments; and we are NOT discussing how rational they are; I am merely explaining the source of negative sentiments and illustrate them with a contemporary, well known example). There is another parallel - just as in the present United States, these negative attitudes did not apply to assimilated Jews in Poland. Genetic anti-semitism was a phenomenon virtually unknown in Poland. There were prominent Jews who assimilated and became ardent Polish nationalists (the example of Prof. Alfred Tarski is especially relevant).

The words "conduct" and "instigate" became relevant after September 17, 1939, when Jews were substantially overrepresented among the collaborators of the Stalinist regime that invaded the Eastern part of Poland. Jews dismiss the notion of such collaboration by stating that only a minority of Jews collaborated. This fact is true, but an argumentation built on it is a fallacy: what counts for the development of anti-Jewish sentiments was not that the owner of a local grocery store and the rabbi were deported to Siberia alongside their Polish neighbors, but rather the visible, reliable services provided by Jews to the NKVD. This is what instigated the real, virulent and sometimes violent anti-semitism among the Polish masses in Eastern Poland, deprived of the elites (by NKVD squads lead by guess whom - doesn't karma bite?) and their moderating influence.

Lyzko

Dec 8, 11, 23:37 #213

There is a patent distinction between "collaboration" and "conformity". A number of Jews were indeed part of the Russian apparatus known as the Communist Regime such as Trotsky, Sverdlov, Kaganovitch and many others whose names I unfortunately am unable to recall at present! This was the reigning form of government in the former USSR, of whom Comrade Ulyanov was NOT a Jew, mistaken theories to the contrary. Jews supported this form of government because they sincerly believed it could benefit their way of life; they believed Communism was 'color blind', so to speak-:)

Jewish cooperation during the Nazi era, notably the Bechstein family (the piano peopleLOL) and other prominent, ultra assimilated, even converted, Jewish families regrettably DID exist all tooprominently, I'll grant you that. There were even the loathesome self-haters like Otto Weininger, a turn of the century Viennese Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism whose anti-Jewish rants are truly horrific and disgusting, in the light of what occurred later on.

However, to then conclude "See, some Jews DID support Herr Hitler, did yell "Sieg Heil!", have therefore zero excuse to whine on our shoulders about anti-semitism, reparations etc..." is to miss the point entirely. How can a thinking person compare the actions of a minority of misguided deviants with the planned policy of destroying an entire people merely for ideological reasons??! This I cannot fathom.

♂

Dec 9, 11, 00:15 #214

Grzegorz_:

Jews weren't liked because they didn't want to integrate, prettey much like many non-European immigrants right now in western Europe.

In defence of der Jude

You say that put I would ask you woud you rather have the 3 million Jew back or the 9 million Africans, , Pakistani and Middle Easterners,Indians we have in Britain???

Let's put it this way I'd rather have a few Jewish shtetls than being turned into a 3rd world African slum/Pakistani caliphate.

The jews didn't go around raping and looting and murdering and attacking the Police, they didn't go around spitting on Polish soldiers trying to declare sharia only zones, they didn't go around screeming and rioting everytime they were offended, they didn't go around in gangs trying to pimp out your underage girls.

this...

or this

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=9790mo&s=7

surely they weren't that bad, I mean they lived there for 1000 years and never provoked the native population, but hey maybe you would have preferred some of the above?

♂

Dec 9, 11, 01:24 #215

KingAthelstan:

surely they weren't that bad, I mean they lived there for 1000 years and never provoked the native population, but hey maybe you would have preferred some of the above?

Sure would, I’ll bet that at least they would have some sense of belonging and duty and fight for Poland in the time of need like the Nigerian jazz musician Agbala O'Brown who settled in Warsaw only 17 years before the war broke out. He took part in defense of Warsaw and later on in Warsaw Uprising as well. Not sell us out to the Soviets in a blink of an eye like the vast majority of your kind.

♀

Dec 9, 11, 01:29 #216

Let's put it this way I'd rather have a few Jewish shtetls than being turned into a 3rd world African slum/Pakistani caliphate.

Now you say this, but before and during the war, many european countries got rid of the Jews and "exported" them to the Poland. So now you say you would have, but history tells something different. You have african/pakistani because of colonies, which Poland never had. But I don't mind if you want defend Jews :) they are people like everyone and world is not just black an white.

♂

Edited by: Gruffi_Gummi Dec 9, 11, 01:51 #217

Lyzko:

There is a patent distinction between "collaboration" and "conformity". A number of Jews were indeed part of the Russian apparatus known as the Communist Regime such as Trotsky, Sverdlov, Kaganovitch and many others whose names I unfortunately am unable to recall at present!

An officer from the United States expeditionary forces in Siberia wrote the following in 1919:

"It is probably unwise to say this loudly in the United, States, but the Bolshevik movement is and has been since its beginning guided and controlled by Russian Jews of the greasiest type, who have been in the United States and there absorbed every one of the worst phases of our civilization without having the least understanding of what we really mean by liberty."

"...at that time there were 384 commissars, including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number 264 had come to Russia from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government."

Only one "probably unwise" comment from me: this goes well beyond "conformity", and also sheds some light on what had happened in the Eastern parts of Poland in 1939/1940.

Lyzko	Dec 9, 11, 02:09 #218
Participants surely, MAJORITY participants, hardly. Note Engels, Vladimir Ilyich (Tavarich Volodiya) himself, Kautsky, Liebknecht, the Italian Communists, Stalin, Beria...... all non-Jews! What precisely is your point?

♂

Dec 9, 11, 02:29 #219

Lyzko:

Participants surely, MAJORITY participants, hardly. Note Engels, Vladimir Ilyich (Tavarich Volodiya) himself, Kautsky, Liebknecht, the Italian Communists, Stalin, Beria...... all non-Jews! What precisely is your point?

Lenin too. "Vladimir Lenin Was Part Jewish, Say Declassified KGB Files".
And my point is that the Jewish support for communism was much more than incidental and merely motivated by self-preservation (as suggested by your "conformity" comment). This observation is mandatory for a complete understanding of the Polish-Jewish relations, to which Italian communists were largely irrelevant, unlike the Soviet Union's "384 commissars, including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews" mentioned by Capt. Schuyler. Italy was not Poland's neighbor, unlike the Soviet Union.

It is wrong to identify ALL, or even the majority of Jews with communism. But it is also wrong to dismiss their overrepresentation in the communist movement, the instrumental role they played, and how this unavoidably translated into the relationship with the populace of a country occupied by the communist regime. The latter was the subject of this thread.

Lyzko	Dec 9, 11, 14:13 #220
A solid counter argument, Gruffi Gummi. I too concede Jewish "overrepresentation" in certain areas of political activity.

BarneyThreads: 16 Posts: 1,630 Joined: May 26, 08 ♂	Dec 9, 11, 14:23 #221
Gruffi_Gummi: The conclusion is not only politically incorrect, but, from the moral standpoint, it is really, really ugly, but nevertheless this is where logical reasoning is leading us. No it doesnt.

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