Anti-Polish Israeli media network Arutz Sheva distorts the history of Polish-Jewish relations – a Polish response from Chicago

Daniel Grynglas, a Polish-Jewish writer and a pro-Israeli activist living in San Jose, California, tries to forge a co-operation between Poland and Israel. Unfortunately, his “Can Israel make common cause with Poland?” strikes the wrong tone and distorts the history of Polish-Jewish relations. Polish Media Issues has asked Jan Peczkis, a Polish-American activist from Chicago to comment on the failed attempt of Daniel Grynglas to boost the relationship between both countries. Peczkis concluded: “Jewish tropes rule on. So some kind of Polish-Jewish reconciliation is supposed to happen? Not a chance.” Please read the full rebuttal of our contributor.

Jan Peczkis, Chicago

Arutz Sheva: Poland has a long history of anti-Semitism and unforgivable cooperation with the Nazis,

Jan Peczkis: Inane, bigoted generalities. The very opposite of reconciliation. And what nation (including the Jews), in all the wars since human history began, had been free of collaborators?

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… the well-earned distrust of Poles by Jews

How about the well-earned distrust of Jews by Poles, bearing in mind the countless falsehoods about Poland written by Jewish journalists and academics?

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In the tragic January Uprising of 1863, the local Jews played a very positive role by participating in the uprising and gaining gratitude from the Polish patriots.

Nope. Most Jews sided with the Russians, or did nothing. To use a little Holocaustspeak and turn it around, Poles and Poland were outside the Jewish sphere of moral obligations. But eating Polish bread and butter were just fine.   

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During newly-independent (after more than a century of subjugation) Poland’s successful defensive war of 1919-20 against Soviet Russia’s invasion, a number of Jews, poor and not so poor, often took the side of the Soviet aggressors.

Yes, and more than “just a number”. Entire cities of Jews (e. g., Bialystok) sided with the Soviet aggressors.

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There were even some cases of Polish Jews in the Polish army, turning their guns on their Polish comrades, in support of the Soviet revolutionary army invading Poland. As usual, all Jews were blamed.  

Yes, and validly so, because it was an organized Jewish aggression against Poland, just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) was an act of organized Japanese aggression against the USA, even though perhaps 99% of Japanese individuals had nothing to do with it.

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The upper classes of Poles held the Jews in contempt. Contempt, stemming from conviction that Jews were somehow inferior to the Poles. 

Nope. Well-earned contempt for Jews because of their all-around selfish conduct. Then again, Jewish selfishness is perhaps the main reason that Jews were hated everywhere, and were thrown out of scores of nations and city-states in the last 2,000 years.

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Additionally, a large percentage of real estate and businesses in the newly-independent Poland were owned by the Jews, which led to the usual anti-Semitic and envious trope that Jews posed an economic and cultural threat to the Poles.

That jealousy baloney. Fact is, Jews were a privileged class exercising a substantial influence on economic affairs in Poland. Jews banded together to protect their economic hegemony by driving Polish newcomers out of business.

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Boycotts of Jewish shops and businesses were commonplace occurrences.

Yes. It was the only way to emancipate Poles from Jewish economic hegemony, and to create viable opportunities for aspiring Polish entrepreneurs.

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There were attacks on Jewish students at the universities, not to mention the restrictions on the admittance of Jews to institutions of higher education.

Yes, because Jews would otherwise be massively overrepresented at universities, denying the goyim a chance at higher education. So what’s with the complaint? If something benefits the Jews, it is great, and to heck with everybody else.

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Anti-Semitism was the order of the day in the Second Polish Republic, as the country was called before 1939.

Another inane generalization.

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Nazi German were obsessed with murdering Jews.

And don’t forget also Nazi Germans obsessed with murdering Poles.

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Considerable segments of Polish society did not feel sorry for their Jewish countrymen. 

Another Polonophobic meme without a shred of basis in evidence.

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Many Poles even helped the Nazis murder their Jewish neighbors – and then occupied the Jews’ former homes.

Welcome to the gospel of Jan T. Gross. What are “many” Poles? And what were Poles supposed to do? Let post-Jewish homes permanently sit vacant, as some kind of shrines, while there was a desperate housing shortage in Poland?

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According to most estimates, between 20 and 50 thousand of the most heinous Polish szmalcownik were responsible for Jewish deaths…

Based on what source? But let’s say it is valid. Out of some 28 million ethnic Poles, this comes out to a staggering rate of between 1 in 1,400 and 1 in 560 ethnic Poles being a Jew killer. And this is worth making such a big deal out of? And of blaming Poles collectively–(using the usual Holocaustspeak) for not “coming to terms with the past”?

And don’t forget the ethnic Poles who died because of the acts of Polish collaborators. Nobody gives a rip about that.

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The most well-known are the horrific mass murders in the towns of Jedwabne and Radziejow, but these are just two examples of dozens of such massacres.

Dubious examples, based largely on the results of Communist trials that occurred with regular use of torture and an overall atmosphere of rampant terror and injustice.

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Here we encounter one source of this period’s Polish-Jewish conflict.  Those Polish Jews who subscribed to Marxist-socialist ideology, voluntarily joined the UB in large numbers, as their distrust of any rising Polish nationalism was based on the blatant Polish anti-Semitism endured in WWII.

Standard exculpatory baloney. The Zydokomuna (Judeo-Bolshevism) did not arise out of “Polish nationalism” since it long preceded “Polish nationalism”. The Zydokomuna arose as part of the Jewish rebellion against God and religion.

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The largest and most infamous of these attacks was a bloody pogrom in Kielce in 1946, where 47 homeless Jews were brutally murdered by a crowd of Poles.

The pogrom in Kielce was masterminded by the Soviet secret services to discredit Poles ahead of general elections and to pave the way for emigration of Jews, so badly needed to build the state of Israel. Most of the victims were killed by Polish soldiers and policemen, not by civilians. As if by a “miracle”, only the religious Jews were killed, the communist Jews living in the same house were spared by the Soviet-steered murderers.

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In 1968…In order to redirect the anger of the Polish masses against socialism, the PZPR regime tried to trigger new anti-Semitic excesses in Poland. Jews were to be a scapegoat for the socialists.  Some 13,000 Polish Jews were forced by the socialist government to emigrate from Poland after the internal PZPR struggle.

Do not muddy the waters. It was a Communist, not socialist, government. In 1968, some (not all) the Jewish Communists lost their privileges to ethnic Polish Communists. So one set of thieves got its booty stolen by another set of thieves.

Go shed a tear.

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Fast-forward fifty years to 2018.  

Israel is facing unending attacks against its fundamental right to exist by the whole European Union…

There are no such attacks, neither by individual EU countries nor by the EU as a whole. Both Israel and Palestinians have the right to exist. Israel bears – a stronger party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a full responsibility for not implementing the 1993 Oslo Agreement.

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Strangely, Poland has also found itself as a target of the concerted pressure and criticism by the EU and other progressive left-wing forces promoting globalism.  The EU, clearly using double standards, keeps threatening and condemning Poland for its alleged lack of democracy. Poland’s real “crime” is its refusal to surrender its sovereignty to Brussels (EU) and its refusal to admit immigration into Poland of thousands of Muslim migrants. The Polish government is branded in much of the Western press as fascist and anti-Semitic.

Of course. It is all part and parcel of the cultural Marxist agenda.

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Many Jews will not forgive the Poles and see them as violent anti-Semites born to hate the Jews.  

Forgive what? Isolated cases of Polish collaboration with Nazi Germans? What about the violent anti-Semitism among members of Jewish councils and Ghetto Polizei, the Kapos and the organizations like Zagiew? Because of the ingrained Jewish selfishness that impels Jews to always blame others and never come to terms with the past of their own crimes against other peoples.

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Poles, however, see their country as a victim of German and Soviet crimes unjustly portrayed as a perpetrator…

Because she is.

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…and want to forget their cooperation and initiatives in crimes against the Jews. 

Owing to the fact Polish crimes against Jews are too trivial to be worth a mention…unlike Jewish crimes against Poles, which we almost never hear about.

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The recent Polish law 55A-B, regarding the exposure of German crimes during the Holocaust, they feel, has been, misinterpreted as allegedly exonerating Poles for their share of Holocaust crimes.  (Please read Article 55 (A and B) and see for yourself what it says.  Reference link: https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-polands-controversial-holocaust-legislation/).

Indeed. There has been a pack of lies about the new Polish law…and not the least because of the anti-Polish hatred among Jews.

Bizarre, but some Polish Jews have become advocates of Muslim immigration to Poland, while most Poles strongly oppose it. Some Jews promote left-wing causes and ridicule Polish patriotism.  I fear that this might start to stoke anti-Jewish sentiments in Poland again.

No kidding. And, again, it is all part of cultural Marxism, of which not a few promoters are Jews. The German Jews were also advocates of Muslim immigration to Germany. Nowadays, they see them as the biggest threat to Jews living in Germany.

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My personal experience with the Poles, including far-right ones, indicates a lack of any widespread anti-Semitic sentiments.  

Very good. Now perhaps you might turn around and retract the inane “Poles are anti-Semites” sweeping generalization promoted in the title by Arutz Sheva.

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I suspect that if Jews continue to accuse today’s Poland of unwarranted anti-Semitism and to promote Muslim and leftist causes, we may encourage a negative attitude towards Jews in Poland.

Yeah, no kidding.

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To declare a lasting peace between the two peoples, both sides must face the past, learn the unvarnished truth and go on from there to what is helpful to both countries today. 

Very idealistic. It will never happen as long as Jews are locked in a shell of self-righteous Jewish-wrongdoing denialism, and it will never happen as long as the Jews’ Holocaust continues to be treated as more important than all the other genocides.

So forget it.