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10. POLISH History
August 20, 1998
POGROMS
The below article was sent to us without identification of the published source.
POGROMS, by Roman Gerlach
In connection with the controversy between Mr. Strakacz-Appleton and Ms.
Natasha concerning the use of the word "pogrom", I'd like to observe the
following.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word pogrom as an "organized,
officially tolerated, attack on any community or social group ... especially
one directed against Jews". The emphasis here is on organized, officially
tolerated assault on Jews just because they are Jews. The problem is only that
the Jews are apt to define as pogrom any punch in the nose that might have
absolutely nothing to do with their being Jews or with the supposed anti-
Semitism of the puncher. For the word pogrom has become an emotionally charged
term, bringing to one's mind the persecution of Jews just because they are
Jews. And the Jews are experts in purveying this idea to the world's public
opinion. As put by Arthur Koestler ... hardly an anti-Semite ... in his Thieves
in the Night: "The Jews are the most admirable salesmen in the world,
regardless of whether they sell carpets, Marxism, or their pogroms". And a
prime example of this we find in the Anglo-American Investigating Mission sent
to Poland in 1919 to examine the Jewish charges of over 100 pogroms in the
course of which between 2,500 and 3,000 Jews supposedly lost their lives.
The Commission was headed by an American Jew, Henry Morgenthau, and a British
Jew, Sir Stuart M. Samuel. It thus could hardly have been accused of a bias
against the Jewish charges. Yet, after two months of investigation, July 13 to
September 13, 1919, it came to the conclusion that:
The word pogrom conveys massacres or excesses against
a portion of the population which are either organized
or contenanced by the authorities ... Since the Polish
authorities could not be held responsible for the excesses
committed, these lose the character of pogroms.
And as to the "excesses committed", the Commission has determined that the real
reason for the Jewish charges was to be found in the fact that "it had seemed
certain to them that one of the two, the German or the Russian Empire, must
win, and that the Jews, who had their money staked on both, were safe, but the
despised Poland came in first, and the Jews could hardly believe in its
resurection ... At the Armistice, there were, therefore, Jewish demonstrations
against the 'Polish goose', as they termed the newly arisen Polish White
Eagle ... They had no more loyalty to Germany or Russia than to Poland. The
East Jews are Jews and only Jews ... (And for this reason they demanded
that) 'until we can have Palestine as a national home, we want to be organized
as a nation in Poland' ... [that is], they want Home Rule, a political and
cultural independence in Poland, and a national home in Palestine."
Taking this attitude of the Jews, who have become Polish citizens against their
will, into consideration, the Commission came to the conclusion that
the "excesses committed" were of a political rather than anti-Semitic
character. To boot, far from over 100, there had been only t w o of them in the
territory recognized by the Allies as Poland proper, the so-called Congress
Poland: in Kielce, 11 November 1918, and in Czestochowa, 27 May, 1919, in the
course of which nine Jews lost their lives. And both were spontaneous outbreaks
of violence, occasioned by the Jewish attitude toward the reborn Polish State
and "certain malicious German and Russian influence ... [of statesmen] anxious
to prevent foreign financial aid to Poland and using criticism of the Polish
State as a weapon to forestall the assistance of the allied and associated
powers."
And the report of the Commission continues: "Some representatives of the Jewish
national movement, who have been conspicuously active, refuse to subordinate
the Jewish question to the general needs of the Polish State ... The voluntary
separation of the Jews from Polish interests has thus led to identification of
the Jews with anti-Polish elements ... The numerical inferiority of the Jews in
what is undeniably Poland has at the same time proved no check to their
political assertiveness."
Their "political assertiveness" led, among others, to the "outbreak in Kielce
on the day of the armistice, November 11, 1918, which the Poles began
celebrating with euphoria the moment the Austrian garrison departed from the
city. The Jews, by contrast, called a meeting in support of their own
nationalist aim. Contending that they were no Poles of Mosaic confession, but
Jews, they demanded a national autonomy. "The Jewish meeting, which was easily
rumoured to be in opposition to Polish national independence, was thus broken
up with fatal results to four people and injuries to others before the Polish
authorities came into existence to organize a service of security."
In Czestochowa, by contrast, riots broke out after a Polish officer had been
shot in the head by a Jew. But after five Jewish deaths, they had been
contained by the Polish military authorities.
Reported also was a "mob violence" in Kolbuszowa on 27 May, 1919, which
resulted in death on both sides. Embittered by their supposed exploitation by
the Jews, the peasants from the surrounding area staged a riot that was soon
enough contained by the Polish Army. But not before eight Jews, three peasants,
and two Polish soldiers lost their lives ... hardly a pogrom in the proper
sense of the word.
The remaining Jewish charges of pogroms were dismissed by the Commission as
inapplicable to the conditions existing in a war zone. In the course of the
Defense of Lwow, Polish soldiers were indeed been fired upon by the Jewish
militia. In the course of three days of street fighting in Wilno, thirty three
Polish soldiers lost their lives to the bullets of the Jewish garrison guard.
And in Lida, Pinsk, and Minsk the cause of Polish retaliation was found to have
been the "active sympathy with the Bolsheviks by Jews sniping at the [Polish
soldiers] during the street fighting". The Commission's conclusion thus was
that while the reaction of Polish soldiers might have been excessive, "a
military court would have aquitted them as being fully within their rights."
Such was the case history of over 100 pogroms, in the course of which 2,500 to
3,000 Jews supposedly lost their lives ... just because they were Jews.
Dismissing the nine Jewish lives lost in Kielce and Czestochowa as a result of
neither a pogrom nor the supposed Polish anti-Semitism, the Anglo-American
Commission dismissed also the Jewish casualties incurred in the course of
military operations in the defense of Lwow and the war with the Soviet Russia.
According to the American version, the latter amounted to 234, according to the
British estimate, to ca. 300. By adding an innocuous little zero to those
numbers, the Jews created a veritable wave of pogroms, meant to shock the
world's public opinion to the detriment of the good name of the reborn Polish
State and thus placed themselves clearly on the side of its enemies.
Speaking now of the 1946 pogrom in Kielce. Ms. Borovsky is right in stating
that "the use of the word pogrom is widely used today to refer to anti-Semitic
outbreaks in any country". But she must clearly realize herself that it is n o
t applicable to that particular outbreak of violence. For she says [in her
reply to a review of her book, Lost Heritage, by Mrs. Strakacz-Appleton,
published in the September 1995 FORUM - W.T.] that the young American in
question was "immediately reproved by his Polish mother for not understanding
the true situation". And the "true s
