|
Post by Bonobo on May 15, 2008 18:51:42 GMT 1
Irena Sendler, a woman who saved 2500 Jewish children during WW2, died at the age of 98 a few days ago. Sendler during the war The funeral was today linkCatholics and Jews went together The woman saw incredibly heartbreaking scenes in the ghetto... www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1950450/Irena-Sendler.html Irena Sendler was a Polish Roman Catholic social worker in the city who already had links with Zegota, the code name for the Council for Aid to Jews, and in December 1942 Zegota put her in charge of its children's department.
Wearing nurses' uniforms, she and a colleague, Irena Schultz, were sent into the ghetto with food, clothes and medicine, including a vaccine against typhoid. It soon became clear, however, that the ultimate destination of many of the Jews was to be the Treblinka death camp, and Zegota decided to try to save as many children as possible.
Using the codename "Jolanta", and wearing a Star of David armband to identify herself with the Jewish population, Irena Sendler became part of this escape network. One baby was spirited away in a mechanic's toolbox.
Some children were transported in coffins, suitcases and sacks; others escaped through the sewer system beneath the city. An ambulance driver who smuggled infants beneath the stretchers in the back of his van kept his dog beside him in the front seat, having trained the animal to bark to mask any cries from his hidden passengers.
In later life Irena Sendler recalled the heartbreak of Jewish mothers having to part from their children: "We witnessed terrible scenes. Father agreed, but mother didn't. We sometimes had to leave those unfortunate families without taking their children from them. I'd go back there the next day and often found that everyone had been taken to the Umschlagsplatz railway siding for transport to the death camps."
The children who were taken by Irena Sendler were given new identities and placed with convents, sympathetic families, orphanages and hospitals. Those who were old enough to talk were taught Christian prayers and how to make the sign of the Cross, so that their Jewish heritage would not be suspected.
Like the more celebrated Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler kept a list of the names of all the children she saved, in the hope that she could one day reunite them with their families.
In the end it provided a record of some 2,500 names, and after the war she attempted to keep her promise to reunite the children with their families. Most of the parents, however, had been gassed at Treblinka.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Jun 24, 2008 21:55:35 GMT 1
Another Pole added to Righteous among the Nations thenews.pl 23.06.2008
Zofia Drzewiecka from Bransk, northeastern Poland, has been awarded the Righteous among the Nations medal.
Another four medals were awarded posthumously to her family, her parents, Waclawa and Pawel Sobolewski and two brothers, Antoni and Aleksander.
The Sobolweski family harboured two Jews after the liquidation of the Bransk ghetto in 1942.
The Poles saved 200 out of the 2000 Jews living in the Bransk ghetto and the town's inhabitants have received 14 medals.
The Righteous among the Nations is the highest civil Israeli recognition awarded to non-Jewish Holocaust rescuers.
By January 2008, 22,211 men and women from 44 countries have been recognized as Righteous among the Nations. Poland ranks first among them, with an impressive 6,066 number of medals received, although Poland was the only country during WWII where people harbouring and helping Jews were immediately executed.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Aug 4, 2008 19:41:44 GMT 1
Barack Obama proposes Irena Sendler resolution thenews.pl 31.07.2008
The Democratic candidate for US President, Senator Barack Obama has proposed a resolution honouring the life and legacy of Irena Sendler, the saviour of thousands of Jewish children in Poland during WW II.
When submitting his resolution to the US Senate, Wednesday, the presidential candidate said that Irena Sendler, who passed away on May 12, risked her life repeatedly to rescue more than 2,500 Jewish children living in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland who faced extermination by the Nazis.
Obama stressed before the US Senate that the courageous Pole personified human dignity, great generosity of spirit and hope. He said that during the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century, Irena Sendler committed herself to saving thousands of children from the fate that so many Polish Jews tragically faced.
"She cherished human dignity, embodied selflessness and inspired hope. She was deservedly recognized throughout her lifetime for her extraordinary courage and her unwavering compassion. Irena will be missed. I offer my deepest condolences to Irena's family and friends, and to all of those she touched during her lifetime," Senator Obama said.
Yesterday, a resolution to commemorate Irena Sendler was passed by the US House of Representatives.
Irena Sendler, who died on May 12, 2008 at the age of 98, received the highest civilian decoration in Poland, was recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********
US Congress pays tribute to Polish heroine Polish Radio 31.07.2008
The US Congress has honoured Irena Sendlerowa, the Polish woman who in Nazi-occupied Poland saved the lives of some 2,500 Jewish children from the Holocaust.
The House of Representatives adopted a resolution and a concurrent resolution has been tabled before the Senate by Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama.
The resolution of the House of Representatives read, in part: the US Congress "remembers the life of Irena Sendler for her heroic efforts to save over 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust, and for her unwavering dedication to justice and human rights".
Irena Sendler was nominated to the Nobel Peace Prize. She died on 12 May this year at the age of 98.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Aug 6, 2008 23:56:23 GMT 1
Around 100 Jewish tombstones found in Radom, Poland
by: Gigi Luz
European Jewish News
8/1/08 Radom had once a large Jewish community and Jews who fled the city in 1942 at the time of mass deportations participated in the ghetto of Warsaw uprising and in partisan battles against the Nazis. WARSAW (EJP)---Road workers on a construction site in the Polish city of Radom, about 100 km south of Warsaw, have discovered nearly hundred multi-colored and well preserved Jewish tombstones in the ground. This is the largest single find of Jewish gravestones in Poland for many years. Many Jewish gravestones were removed during World War II to be used for paving roads by the Nazis, which may explain how the stones made their way into the ground. Radom had once a large Jewish community and Jews who fled the city in 1942 at the time of mass deportations participated in the ghetto of Warsaw uprising and in partisan battles against the Nazis. The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland is working to preserve the tombstones. They will eventually be placed at the Radom Jewish cemetery. Since the stones are painted and artistically decorated, they are considered a rare Jewish archeological find. The Foundation is reporting more and more Jewish finds in Poland. Radom is located just south of Warsaw, between Lublin and Lodz. It had a large and thriving Jewish community which was forced to flee the city during WWII. Many of Radom's Jews formed Partisan units in the nearby forests and many participated in the Warsaw uprising against the Nazis. Radom is organizing a multitude of cultural events to commemorate the uprising, which started 64 years ago, in 1944. Last Friday, sirens wailed across Poland's capital Friday as the country commemorated the anniversary. Buses and trams flying the red and white Polish flag, as well as private vehicles, drew to a halt, and pedestrians stood still for a minute's silence. Polish leaders and WWII veterans laid wreaths in honour of those who revolted against Nazi occupiers in the uprising. President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk placed the tributes at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw marking the 64th anniversary of the doomed struggle, which remains a national source of pride. Some 250,000 civilians were killed in the revolt, launched by the Polish Home Army (AK), which lasted until October 2 before being crushed by the Nazi troops. The ceremonies were part of a week of observances in the capital marking the anniversary.
Monika Krawczyk, an official of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish heritage declared:"We get more and more information every year that matzevot (tombstones) used by the Nazis, are being found. In most cases we manage to save them. However it happens also that the workers prefer to take them for scrap. We believe they are important for Polish and Jewish culture and testify to the high quality of Jewish art. Discovered stones may be also important for Jewish genealogists or survivors of Radom."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Sept 20, 2008 21:55:52 GMT 1
Skirball exhibition examines Karol Wojtyla's role with Jews By Jeff Favre Ventura County Star, CA Thursday, September 18, 2008 As a boy, Karol Wojtyla loved acting in the theater, played goalie on a local team and enjoyed writing. Those interests, however, took a back seat to religion after his Polish homeland was invaded in 1939, and his friends, many of whom were Jewish, were killed by the Nazis. That varied upbringing made Wojtyla, better known as the late Pope John Paul II, one of the most intriguing and popular religious personalities of the 20th century. Several academics, including James Buchanan, director of Xavier University's Edward B. Brueggeman Center for Dialogue, joined forces to create the exhibit "A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People." On tour for the next several years, the exhibition is up now at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles; it will remain there through Jan. 4. The exhibit seeks to look at the man behind the title, and what caused him to be the first pope to openly bridge the divide between Christians and Jews. Buchanan and his colleagues, despite a lack of curatorial experience, worked overtime to keep a promise to the pope and finish the exhibition in time for his 85th birthday — although the pope died a month before it and wasn't able to see the finished product. Separated into four sections, "A Blessing to One Another" begins with Wojtyla's childhood years in Wadowice, Poland. "In the northwest corner of Poland where Karol was raised, he was less than 25 miles from Krakow, where the story told in Schindler's List' takes place," Buchanan said. "It was also less than 25 miles from Auschwitz. And had he not been elected pope, he would have probably spent his whole life here." The opening section introduces Wojtyla's friend Jerzy Kluger, who was part of Wadowice's significant Jewish population. The two lost touch during the war. Kluger, who was sent to a work camp in Siberia, was one of the town's Jewish residents to survive the Holocaust. The friends reunited decades later after Cardinal Wojtyla was named pope. "We really wanted to give people a sense of Karol's life," so we re- created exactly the window from his room, and we took a photo of the view he had and blew it up so you can see what he saw when you look through the window. We even recorded the bells that ring in the town square — the same bells he heard." Several anecdotes about Wadowice and Wojtyla are relayed through video interviews of the surviving townspeople. The exhibit takes a dark turn, signified by a reproduction of the Krakow ghetto gates. Passing through the gate, one finds that there are objects, photos and names detailing those from Wadowice who died in the Holocaust. Section three follows Wojtyla's post-war years. He was ordained in 1946. And in a story told on video by former New York Mayor Ed Koch, Wojtyla convinced a Catholic couple not to baptize a young Jewish boy trusted to their care by parents killed by the Nazis. Father Wojtyla told the couple to respect the family's wishes and send the boy to relatives in Canada, which they did. The exhibition's final section begins in 1978, with the election of Wojtyla to head of the Catholic Church. Of his several notable actions, Pope John Paul II officially recognized the state of Israel, and he issued an apology for Catholic anti-Semitism. He also was the first pope to visit the death camp at Auschwitz and the first to visit Israel. While in Israel, he went to the Western Wall and, following tradition, left a prayer in the wall. A replica of the Western Wall concludes the exhibition. Visitors are allowed to write prayers and place them in the wall, all of which will be taken to the actual wall in Israel. The path that led Karol Wojtyla to become Pope John Paul II is complex, but "A Blessing to One Another" is an illuminating and straightforward account that will likely prove fascinating to anyone of any background. A Blessing to One Another The exhibit is up through Jan. 4 at the Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Museum hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for students and seniors, $5 for children ages 2-12. For information, call 310-440-4500 or visit www.skirball .org.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Sept 20, 2008 22:31:29 GMT 1
Catholic Poles saving Jewish cemeteries Associated Press Sep. 17, 2008
About 30 Roman Catholic Poles have taken it upon themselves to preserve what they see as a unique and important aspect of their nation's history - the crooked and crumbling markers in Poland's neglected Jewish cemeteries.
Kamila Klauzinska, 35, has helped lead the grassroot efforts by average Poles who believe that preserving the nation's roughly 1,400 Jewish cemeteries is important to remembering and preserving a shared past.
"It's our common heritage, so how can we not try to save it?" Klauzinska said at a meeting this week of some 30 people involved in similar community efforts across the eastern European nation.
Poland was home to the largest Jewish community in Europe - nearly 3.5 million strong - before the Nazis destroyed their synagogues and sent them to ghettos and death camps they set up across the country during World War II.
But the cemeteries survived - most of them in small towns now devoid of Jewish life and far away from the remaining elements of Poland's tiny Jewish community, centered in big cities like Warsaw and Krakow.
For those reasons, Poland's surviving Jewish community is grateful to the activists.
"It is amazing, important, positive and moving to know that there are people like you," Poland's chief rabbi Michael Schudrich told the gathering Zdunska Wola, 130 miles (200 kilometers) west of Warsaw. "What you do for our cemeteries gives me and my team the strength to continue our work."
As a child, Klauzinska recalls slipping through holes in the fence surrounding the Jewish cemetery and wandering among the tattered tombstones lost in the wild tangle of weeds, garbage and underbrush.
Several years ago she joined forces with a local organization to galvanize school children to assist in hauling loads of garbage from the cemetery - everything from bottles, bags and wrappers to a dead dog. They also cut the weeds, trimmed the grass and pruned the trees.
But their goal doesn't stop there.
"We also try to mobilize the whole community, everybody from students to city officials, to unite in order to reach a common goal - that one day nobody ever again will damage even one tombstone in the cemetery," Klauzinska said.
Scattered across the country, the graveyards belong to the Jewish community, but Schudrich freely admits it is too small to preserve all 1,400 of the cemeteries.
"It is physically impossible for our Jewish community in Poland to think about, guard, and care for all of them," he said.
That's why the private grassroot initiative of the activists from across the country who gathered in Zdunska Wola is so important.
Most of them also lead educational efforts in their towns to get the local communities involved and give them a stake in preserving their Jewish heritage.
Grzegorz Kaminski, a history teacher in Gliwice in southern Poland, became interested in the cemeteries in nearby Toszek and Wielowies in 2002.
Along with his students, Kaminski, 36, hauled bags of bottles, cans, broken furniture from the cemeteries, where he now leads visitor tours through the two graveyards.
Like Klauzinska, he believes it is important to honor a community that was an integral part of Poland for almost a thousand years.
"The history of the Jews of Toszek and Wielowies is the history of those towns," Kaminski said. "We have to remember these people."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Sept 24, 2008 18:59:41 GMT 1
Broadway will see the premiere today of a play about the extraordinary life of Irena Gut-Opdyke - a Polish woman who saved 12 Jews. It's the first ever Broadway show about Poles savings Jews during the Holocaust. Irena Gut is played, with a Polish accent and in a blonde wig, by Tovah Feldshuh, a renowned Broadway performer. Her monodrama about Israeli prime minister Golda Meir was the longest-playing one-man show in the history of Broadway.
Irena's Vow is staged by Invictus Theater Company at the off-Broadway Baruch Performing Arts Center. The author of the play is Hollywood screenwriter Dan Gordon (e.g. Wyatt Earp starring Kevin Costner), who became friends with Irena Gut and says of her, 'She was like a mother for me'.
The play's pre-premiere showings played to fully packed audiences and ended with standing ovations. The producers are already thinking about Broadway and a film adaptation. The play is also to be shown in Poland. A staging is also being prepared by Habima National Theatre in Tel Aviv.
The heroine of Irena's Vow remains virtually unknown in Poland - just as was the case with Irena Sendlerowa, who was saved from oblivion by an amateur theatre play staged by a group of US college students.
In September 1939, Irena Gut, 21, fleeing from the Germans, was apprehended by a Red Army unit. The soldiers raped her and left her in the woods. She was found by another Soviet patrol. After recovering, she became an assistant nurse at a field hospital.
Several months later she managed to reunite with her family in Radom. There she was arrested in a German street roundup. She was sent to work as slave labourer at a munitions factory, and then in the kitchen of a hotel for German officers. She saw through the window how fire squads are shooting Jews in the so called 'small ghetto' at Bia³a street.
She started helping Jews, managing to take several out of the ghetto in cardboard boxes.
In spring 1942 she was sent to Tarnopol, where she ran the house of Major Edward Rugemer, head of a weapons plant. She gave food to Jews, and fixed several with kitchen jobs.
'She saw a Gestapo man snatch a baby from a Jewish mother, throw it in the air and shoot like a bird', Dan Gordon tells Gazeta. 'It was the single most powerful experience of diabolical evil in her life'.
In the summer she found out the ghetto would be liquidated and all its inhabitants executed. She hid a dozen workers in the basement of the major's villa.
Rugemer nabbed two young Jewish women in Irena's room. She faced her with an ultimatum - either he calls the SS and gives the Jews to them, or Irena becomes his lover. She agreed, and continued to shelter the Jews until liberation.
In 1949, Irena Gut emigrated to the US, thanks to a decision by the UN delegate to Poland, William Opdyke. She later met him accidentally on a street in New York and married him.
For years she kept silent about her story. 'She locked the horrible experiences up inside her. She didn't even talk to her own daughter about them', says Dan Gordon. 'In the 1970s, she was called by a pollster conducting research on Holocaust denial. Then she felt she had to speak out'.
She held lectures in schools about the Holocaust and her experiences. In 1982, she received the Righteous Among the Nations medal. In 1999, she wrote her memoirs. The book, called In My Hands, became a bestseller. Irena Gut died in California in 2003.
The premiere of Irena's Vow coincides with a UN session in New York. Foreign Minister Rados³aw Sikorski is to see the show Wednesday.
'We also made efforts for President Lech Kaczyñski to be present at the premiere, but his visit has been shortened', says Monika Fabijañska, director of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, which co-produces the show.
The President has posthumously awarded Irena Gut with the Commander Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. It will be presented to her daughter at a meeting of Jewish activists with Maria Kaczyñska in the Park East synagogue on Manhattan Thursday.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Oct 14, 2008 20:46:34 GMT 1
Polish Righteous Among the Nations to be honored at Yad Vashem Sunday
John Milner
10/11/08
European Jewish Press
JERUSALEM (EJP)---Wladyslaw Panczyszyn, a Polish Righteous Among the Nations who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, will be posthumously honored on Sunday at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. A ceremony will take place in theHall of Remembrance, followed by the unveiling of the name of the Righteous in theGarden of the Righteous Among the Nations. Born in Lubaczow, Wladyslaw Panczyszyn lived with his parents in Drohobycz. In 1939, he married there his Jewish neighbor, Helena Reinharz. In 1941, the Germans captured the area where Wladyslaw was living and the murder of the Jews began. Wladyslaw began to work in any way possible to help the Reinharz family. He would enter the ghetto to give the family money and food, ignoring the danger to his own life. When the ghetto was destroyed, the only surviving members of his wife's family were her sister Rosa and a brother who was in hiding elsewhere,to whom Wladyslaw had been providing food. Helena's parents and a younger sister were murdered. Wladyslaw decided to take action to save his sister-in-law, Rosa. He smuggled her into his home and hid her in a hole under the floor. But hiding Rosa placed the Panczyszyn family in danger from all sides, not only from neighbors, but also from close family members. Wladyslaw's sister-in-law, his brother's wife, strenuously objected to his marriage to a Jewish woman, and the family feared that she would inform on them. As the risk to the family increased, Wladyslaw, Helena and their 2-year-old daughter, Irena, moved to Boryslaw. Once there, Wladyslaw placed his daughter in hiding with a colleague from work, while Helena and Rosa hid behind a wall that was built in a storeroom near their home. Soon after, Wladyslaw built a new hiding place in the attic of his home. One day a fire broke out in the Panczyszyn's kitchen, attracting a great deal of attention and threatening the safety of the women's hiding place. Feeling that she was endangering his life, Rosa wanted to leave Wladyslaw's house, but he insisted that she remain. Wladyslaw hid Helena and Rosa for a year and a half, taking care of all their needs during that entire time. Carmella Ben Natan and Avi Schweitzer of Israel, children of the late survivor Rosa Schweitzer, and Irena Gorniak of Poland, daughter of the late Righteous and the late survivor, Helena Reinharz Panczyszyn, will attend Sunday's ceremony.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Nov 6, 2008 20:27:08 GMT 1
Jewish-Catholic celebrations mark 65th anniversary of the Majdanek execution Polish Radio 03.11.2008
Celebrations are held marking the 65th anniversary of the mass execution at the Majdanek German Nazi concentration camp near Lublin, eastern Poland.
On the 3rd of November 1943, Germans murdered an estimated number of eighteen thousand Jews. Twenty four more thousand people were killed in Trawniki and Poniatowa at part of the same action. According to historians, that was the single biggest mass execution of the Second World War.
Today, Catholics and Jews pray together at the Majdanek concentration camp. A conference devoted to the tragic history of the camp is also held today.
Jewish pre-WWII painters exhibited in Kazimierz Dolny thenews.pl 27.10.2008
Kazimierz Dolny in Eastern Poland, renowned for it's cache of painters and artists, is hosting an exhibit entitled "Paintings by Polish Jews" in coordination with the first International Congress of Jewish Art, held in the town from 27 – 29 October.
The town was painted many times over by Jewish artists in the years leading up to 1939. The community was host to a Jewish shtetl and it was not unusual to hear Yiddish in the town.
The exhibit will include collections of Jewish art belonging to private investors that has never before been shown to the public. It will include 120 paintings by 43 painters such as Maurycy Gottlieb and Jankel Adler.
"Paintings by Polish Jews" will remain on view until the end of March 2009.
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 4, 2008 12:13:53 GMT 1
Today in Tel-Aviv an exibition opens on the almost 1000 year long history of Jews living in Poland. Polin – Thousand Years of the History of Polish JewsThe ultramodern multimedia exhibition presents over 1000 years of Jewish history in the Polish lands. The story is told through seven films. The subsequent shorts tell of different historical times. As a whole they offer the viewers an opportunity of making a journey in time: from Middle Ages to the present. The visitor can take a guided tour: through the facts of history by the creators of the respective Museum galleries and through the realm of imagination by a band of animated characters. The historical narrative and the rich iconography are enhanced by modern animations; making the message intriguingly equivocal and thought provoking. When communicating history we always tell the story of the past. However, the most important aspect of this historical exhibition in the present. The present is the primary point of reference for history. This is why the central area of the exhibition is reserved for a Discussion Forum, a place for reflection on the importance of history for the contemporary world and for each of us, here and now. The Discussion Forum will be a place of many meetings. Registered and played on monitor screens, these form integral or possibly the central part of the exhibition. The films the exhibition presents correspond with the galleries of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the making while the creators of the respective galleries provide the narrative: 1. First Encounters and First Settlements, narrated by professor Hanna Zaremska, Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences 2. Paradisus Judaeorum, The Jewish Paradise Into the Country, narrated by Adam Teller Ph.D., Haifa University 3. Town, narrated by Adam Teller Ph.D., Haifa University 4. Encounters with Modernity, narrated by Marcin Wodziński Ph.D., University of Wrocław 5. The Street – Poland in the Interbellum Period, narrated by Jerzy Halbersztadt, Director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews 6. Holocaust, narrated by Jacek Leociak Ph.D., Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences 7. Post War Years (post 1945), narrated by Helena Datner, Jewish Historical Institute and professor Stanisław Krajewski, Warsaw University Project Head: Agnieszka Rudzińska, Curator: Kinga Duda Substantive Supervision: Renata Piątkowska, PhD, Direction and filming: Kacper Lisowski, Editing: Piotr Szamburski, Drawings: Marta Ignerska, Animation: Piotr Karetko (Mama Studio), Natalia Rajszys , Music: Hege Lønne, Rafał Krzemiński, Public program coordination: Nilli Amit Collaboration And Research: Karolina Sakowicz, Agata Pietrasik, Iwona Wiśnios, Judyta Hajduk, Kalina Gawlas, Joanna Fikus, Klaudia Smurawa, Zuzanna Jakubowska, Maria Tuszko, Text Translation and Editing: Marek Jeżowski, Ken Rabin, Jan Weinsberg, Krzysztof Dawid Majus, Exhibition Design: Centrala – designers task force, Exhibition Graphics: Krzysztof Słomka (At Work), Media Design and Installation: Camille Project co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polish Year in Israel 2008/2009 Project financed from the means of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland www.poland-israel.org Copyright © 2007 by MHPJ
|
|
|
Post by valpomike on Dec 4, 2008 21:53:40 GMT 1
You print a pre-printed statement, not you own ideas. Tell us what you think on many of postings.
Mike
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Dec 5, 2008 0:09:16 GMT 1
To be honest, I wouldn`t like to be a Jew in Poland in the past. Too stressful.... unless I lost my identity and became fully Polish ....
|
|
|
Post by valpomike on Dec 5, 2008 5:18:29 GMT 1
You could have been both Polish and Jewish, and many were, and are yet today.
Mike
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 5, 2008 9:13:19 GMT 1
You print a pre-printed statement, not you own ideas. Tell us what you think on many of postings. Mike Mike, I usually cite what I am at least in major part agreeing with, am fond of, find it interesting, or interesting for this forum's profile, disagree with, am shocked with. If you are not sure of the particular shade of intellectual reaction elicited in my brain, or mind, or soul - if you prefer - you are very welcomed to ask directly.
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 5, 2008 9:16:27 GMT 1
To be honest, I wouldn`t like to be a Jew in Poland in the past. Too stressful.... unless I lost my identity and became fully Polish .... Bo it all depended on the amount of wealth your family gathered, not on your ethnicity or faith. If you were a poor Catholic in old Poland, you did lead a stressful life as well, compared to modern times. And being a Pole of Jewish faith was feelling good in Poland, Polin. Especially relative to other countries of the world in the same time. Poles should (and are) proud about their tolerance and easy-going attitude.
|
|
|
Post by valpomike on Dec 5, 2008 15:39:06 GMT 1
Poor are poor, and have a harder life, and the rich are rich, and live the better life all over the world. But I think he meant during the war, when it was hard being Jewish in Poland. Many great Polish Jewish people helped make the world a great place.
Mike
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 12, 2008 10:02:50 GMT 1
On December 6th , 1942 in the village of Stary Ciepielów in the South-Eastern part of Mazovia, a family of seven has been burned alive in their wooden house. Their name was Kowalski - father, mother and five children. One of the daughters managed to get out to the yard. She was shot and her corpse was pulled by the plaits back into the burning building. The fate of Kowalski family was as typical for Poles caught helping the Jews in Poland under German occupation 1939-1945, as their name is. In the neighbouring village of Rekówka 6-person family of Obuchowicz, 14 persons of family Kosior, married couple Skoczylas were killed on this day for same reason – helping their Jewish compatriots. In all occupied Poland there are over 1000 well documented murders, actual deaths number much higher. On the 66th anniversary of this tragic events Institute of National Memory introduces an educational project for teachers of all schools in Poland. The project is entitled 'Poles saving Jews during World War II' The project includes edition of a folder package for familiarization of the pupils, including means enabling fact-finding, innovatory lesson scenarios, old photos, realtions of the witness and other source materials. The pupils will learn about the best known histories of Irena Sendler or Henryk Sławik as well as about other Poles involved in an honoured for helping the compatriots of Jewish faith. They will study the motives and ways of operation in the situation when Germans introduced the punishment of death for helping the Jews. It is estimated that over 1 million of Poles were directly involved in the system of assistance. Internet portal www.zyciezazycie.pl. is an element of the project, which also includes billboards, posters, documentary films and TV spots.
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 12, 2008 13:01:03 GMT 1
Thank you for this opinion. I hope you won`t mind that I want to develop this discussion here. Saving Jews by Poles was a good thing but it happened in troubled times, that is why I suppose it suits this thread too. Now, my comments. There were many cases of Poles who saved Jews. But they are counterbalanced by cases of Poles who murdered Jews during or after the war. So, here, we have a draw. And in the background there is a mass of millions of Poles who remained indifferent to Jewish tragedy. Yes, helping Jews was punished by Nazi with death in only one country- Poland. But it didn`t excuse Poles who preferred to stay aside. If there were millions of helpers, the Nazi wouldn`t be able to kill all. The Israel Yad Vashem doesn`t mean much - it is natural that most trees were planted by Poles or in their honour. The Jewish population in Poland was the biggest in Europe and pure statistics requires that such population generates the highest number of survivors. So, here, I tend to disregard the number of Polish trees. What do you think? Is calling somebody a Jew in today`s Poland a praise or abuse? Why do Poles see Jews everywhere? Unfortunately, it is an abuse. If maniacs want to humiliate a rival politician, businessman, any person of popularity and influence, they call him/her a Jew. For some maniacs even the Polish Pope was a Jew. They labelled him so when they didn`t agree with some of his teachings. Also all major Polish politicians have been accused of being Jews. How many Jews were saved by Poles? Statistics say that from 600 to 3000 Jews were killed by Poles in after-war Poland. To make it short - Poland wasn`t a loving mother to Jewish people. It was a stepmother. Do you usually love your stepmother? I don't mind that you want to develop the discussion. Your opinion is very well known to me as it is regularly presented in the thread on the shades of Polish-Jewish or Catholic-Jewsih neighbourhood. I generally very much agree with you. But I don't think only the shameful behaviours of non-Jewish Poles and Jewish Poles in their mutual interaction need acknowledgment, which you did almost perfectly well in the pertaining thread. The neighbourhood was not just troubles, it was also quite happy for most of the time, with Poland being home to anyone who wished she is his home and who was loyal to her. Thus this thread and thus the project 'Poles saving Jews during World War the Second'.
|
|
|
Post by tufta on Dec 12, 2008 16:03:50 GMT 1
Geography of Polish assistance to the Jews during German occupation of Poland 1939-1945. Polish assistance to the Jews during World War the Second was country-wide. It does not mean that all helped. On the contrary, only a minority. It resulted from the fact, that only a small percent of Polish society had personally met the refugees from ghettos or concentration camps. The more so it should be underlined that there were Poles who on their own initiated assistance and conducted it, sometimes against the will of the other side. Accidentally cases of rejecting the assistance occurred, either due to natural propensity to remain with family members or due to other reasons.
Preliminary research over geography of assistance demonstrates there's no such a region of pre-war Poland where cases of help wouldn't have been noted. Poles helped not only in the Kresy, where Poles were a minority, but also in Pomerania and Western regions of Poland which were home to very few Jews and which where incorporated into Germany making the situation especially grave. Assistance was provided everywhere and by the representatives of all all layers of the society.
The biggest obstacle for saving the Jews was not lack of Poles ready to help but lack of sufficiently strong ties between Polish and Jewish communitiesm which made impossible for the Jews finding families ready to shelter them.
Geographic index of assistance presented here serves as example merely, of a trial to locate places related to assistance and pertains to the Podkarpackie region of modern Poland only.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Jan 10, 2009 22:39:44 GMT 1
Yad Vashem to honor Polish Righteous Among the Nations Tuesday www.ejpress. org 06/Jan/2009
JERUSALEM (EJP)—Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, will hold Tuesday a ceremony honoring Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska, a Polish citizen, as Righteous Among the Nations for helping children escape from the Warsaw ghetto during WWII.
Born Rusinek, Magdalena was 15 years old when she enlisted in the Polish Underground against the Germans.
In 1943, she met Jadwiga Piotrowska, later recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, and joined her in helping children escape from the Warsaw ghetto.
Magdalena collected the children, cared for them and escorted them to their places of refuge with Polish families or in monasteries, always with the utmost dedication and love although she was placing her own life at serious risk.
Before bringing the children to their hiding places, she taught them Christian customs in an effort to disguise their Jewish identity.
One such rescue activity saw Magdalena save the life of a six-year- old Jewish boy called Adas, who had been severely injured by local thugs.
She took the boy for medical care at the hospital, and then moved him to a hiding place in a monastery. She also took five-year-old Wlodzio Berg from the ghetto to an apartment in the city as a temporary refuge. She brought him food every day, as well as colors with which to draw pictures.
Wlodzio Berg, now William Donat, survived the Holocaust and requested that Yad Vashem recognize his rescuer as Righteous Among the Nations.
Tuesday's ceremony will take place in the presence of the Righteous, who arrived from Warsaw for the event, as well as Holocaust survivor William Donat, who is flying in from New York.
Participants in the ceremony will include the wife of Polish President, Maria Kaczynska, Polish Secretary of State Ewa Junczyk- Ziomecka and educators from Lodz, Poland, currently participating in a seminar at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies.
A memorial service in Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance will be held before a ceremony awarding the medal and certificate to the Righteous in the Synagogue, followed by the unveiling of the name of the Righteous in the Garden of the Righteous.
************ ********* ********* ********* *******
American reconnects with the Polish woman who saved his life during the Holocaust Etgar Lefkovits THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 6, 2009
Even today, more than 65 years later, 71-year-old William Donat of New York cannot forget the week in the spring of 1943 when as a boy of five he was sheltered from the clutches of the Nazis by a 17-year-old Polish girl.
The image of the "sweet, heroic young woman," as he described her Tuesday, never faded from his memory over the years, even though their time together was short.
The woman, Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska, was active in the Polish underground during World War II. Donat had been smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto, but was in desperate need of shelter after some Polish neighbors had informed on the elderly Polish couple who had been safeguarding him for some weeks. The couple managed to bribe the police into silence but were warned to get rid of the Jewish child lest they all be killed the next time.
A short time later, the Polish teen, nicknamed Magda, appeared at the door of the home and took him to another apartment until his adopted "aunt and uncle" - his father's childless Polish coworkers who had agreed to take the child in - could find a safer place for him to hide.
"You took two chairs together and made them into a bed for me, and then you showed me the stars and said that the good spirit would watch over me," Donat told his now 84-year-old Polish rescuer at a ceremony Tuesday at Yad Vashem, where she was granted the honor of Righteous Among the Nations.
During that fateful week, as the Warsaw Ghetto was being razed, Grodzka-Guzkowska, who had similarly sequestered other Jewish children, brought Donat food every day as well as colors for drawing pictures, and boats made out of paper.
She also taught him Christian prayers and customs, to help disguise his Jewish identity.
The next week, the child was placed in a Polish orphanage outside of Warsaw, where he remained for the duration of the war.
After the war ended, he was reunited with his parents, who had managed to survive the Holocaust even though they had been separated after being sent to the Majdanek concentration camp.
The family of three moved to the United States in 1946.
Donat's reunion with the Polish woman who rescued him happened by chance. The boy's father, Alexander Donat, who had been a publisher of a Polish-language newspaper before the war, mentioned the story of the angelic Polish teen who had helped save his son's life in his memoir, The Holocaust Kingdom.
Then, two years ago, an American filmmaker who had read the book came across Grodzka-Guzkowska in Warsaw, where she was working on a project about the late Polish rescuer Irena Sendler, and he asked the elder Donat if he knew that "Magda" was still alive and living in Warsaw.
Donat quickly traveled to Warsaw with his wife to reconnect with the person who had helped save his life and then successfully worked to have her recognized by Yad Vashem.
Their second reunion in two years after more than six-and-a-half decades took place at the Jerusalem ceremony on Tuesday.
"I never thought that I would see him again," Grodzka-Guzkowska recounted, noting that he now had three children and six grandchildren of his own. "He was the only one of the children that I have been able to reconnect with."
Thinking back to those fateful days during the Holocaust, she noted that one of the other Jewish children had been very sick when she got him, and had soon died.
"He died in a warm bed and not eaten by worms or killed by the Germans," she said.
"I am so happy to have found you again after all these years," Donat concluded. "Unfortunately there were not enough people like you."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Jan 10, 2009 23:25:06 GMT 1
Holocaust survivor to meet her Polish savior after 60 years By Haaretz Service 11/26/08
A Holocaust survivor from northern Israel will be reunited for the first time in 60 years on Wednesday with the Polish woman who shelter her during the Holocaust and saved her from the extermination of the Nazis. Between 1942 and 1944, Wiktoria Sozanska (nee Jaworska) risked her own life, along with her widowed mother and five siblings, to secretly house Rozia Rothshild (nee Seifert) and her family in Poland. Sixty years later, the two will greet each other for the first time at the JFK Airport, in a meeting arranged by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. A Polish interpreter will be on hand to facilitate the reunion. "I cannot fully express how grateful I am to Wiktoria and her mother Anna. They opened their home and their hearts to me, risking their own lives in order to save me," said Rothshild. "Their bravery is what has allowed me to live and build a wonderful family of my own, with three children and four grandchildren, " she said. "I am so thankful to them and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous for making this extraordinary reunion possible." Rozia Seifert was one of 5,000 Jews herded away from Turka, Poland and shuttered by the Nazis into the Samburg Ghetto. Many of the healthy adults were able to hide away in a bunker in the woods before being exiled to the ghetto, but the children and the sick were taken away, forced to sell all their belongings. Wiktoria Jaworska, then a young woman, came with her mother to look at the furniture the Seifart family had put up for sale. When she learned that the girl she saw in front of her would be taken away to the ghetto, she told the family: "We will take care of you. You will come with us." In the middle of the night, Sozanka's brother Mikolaj Jaworska came to the Seifart home in a hay cart and snuck Rozia, her brother Lucien, her father Mendel and disabled aunt Fanya away, past the eyes of the Germans on patrol. The Jaworskas hid the Seifarts in an underground bunker for two years, every day bringing them food and disposing of their waste. The Germans raided Turka in the summer of 1944, when the Soviet army began to approach. Sozanka and her mother moved the Seifarts into the woods, where they lived for two weeks until the area was liberated. After the war, Rozia Seifert met her Israeli husband and moved and immigrated with him, changing her name to Shoshana - the Hebrew version of her name. Wiktoria Sozanka, now in her 80s, lives in Wroclaw, Poland. In the many years we have worked with survivors and their rescuers, I remain awestruck by the heroism of the thousands of rescuers who risked their lives to save others. By holding true to their values, these individuals saved Jews from certain death,? said JFR Executive Vice President Stanlee Stahl. ?We owe a great debt of gratitude to these men and women, and through our work, hope to improve their lives and preserve their stories." The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous was created in 1986 to provide financial assistance to non-Jews who risked their lives and often the lives of their families to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Today the JFR supports more than 1,200 aged rescuers in 26 countries. The Foundation preserves the legacy of the rescuers through its internationally lauded Holocaust education program for middle and high school teachers and Holocaust center personnel.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Feb 1, 2009 21:38:49 GMT 1
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Feb 7, 2009 22:06:44 GMT 1
A glance at Krakow's pre-war Jewish life
New exhibit uses photos, old recordings and memoirs to portray life of thriving Jewish community in Polish town before Holocaust
Yoav Friedman
Ynetnews, Israel
02.01.09
Tens of thousands of Israeli high school students have already visited the Polish town of Krakow as part of their visit to the Nazi concentration and death camps in Poland.
From the exhibit: Krakow's Jewish market
The town's Jewish community, which used to be one of the most prominent communities in Europe, was wiped out completely during the Holocaust. The Nazis and their collaborators murdered Krakow's 60,000 Jews, who comprised a fifth of the town's overall population.
Jewish bookshop in town
Very little remained from this once-thriving community. The rare photos and recordings that have been preserved and that depict everyday Jewish life in Krakow before World War II, are currently on display at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.
Entrance to town's Jewish cemetery The exhibit allows visitors a glance into the social, cultural and religious lives of Krakow's Jews, and provides a fascinating account of the congregation' s major figures, the youth movements that operated there, the unique architecture, and the artistic institutions and financial institutions that served the Jewish public until the Holocaust.
Talmud Torah students The exhibition was created by Krakow's International Culture Center. Herzl Makov, director of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, said that in recent years Polish cultural institutions have begun expressing interest in Jewish history and culture in their country prior to the Nazi occupation.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Mar 20, 2009 19:53:44 GMT 1
Thousands of Hasidic Jews set to mark rabbi's anniversary in PolandBy DPA Mar 17, 2009
Warsaw - Thousands of Hasidic Jews will on Tuesday pray at the grave in Poland of one of the faith's most influential rabbis, marking the 223 anniversary of his death.
Rabbi Elimelech Weisblum's grave in southeastern Poland will see Jews from across the world come to pray, dance and sing at one of the most significant places in the Hasidic faith.
The anniversary is 'classically Jewish - chaotic,' Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'It's very intense and it's also very individual,' Schudrich said. 'Rabbi Elimelech was one of the great Hasidic masters and it's considered a great merit to visit the grave of someone that's on such a high spiritual level at the anniversary of his death.'
Elimelech lived from 1717 to 1787, and became one of the most important figures in the Orthodox Jewish faith after dedicating his life to studying the Torah.
He came to Lezajsk in 1772 and turned it into a center for Hasidism.
The town had a big Jewish population before World War II and became again a destination for pilgrims in the 1970s.
'Generally there are two kinds of rabbis - those who inspire people, and those who wrote a great legal tracts,' Schudrich said. 'He was more on the spiritual side.'
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Mar 29, 2009 21:04:05 GMT 1
17th century synagogue to be restored Polish Radio 26.03.2009 A 17th century synagogue in Chmielnik, in the central Œwiêtokrzyske province, is to be renovated in a modern architectural style that is based on the pre-war shtetl. The central portion of the synagogue, in the old interiors of the prayer room, will be a glass reconstruction of the Bimah, the platformed area from where the Torah is recited by the cantor. The reconstruction project is set to start in 2010 and is set to cost 6 million zloty, of which 4 million has been set aside by the region from the EU's Operational Fund, and 2 million which has already been received by the town from other sources. The first Jews arrived in Chmielnik at the end of the 16th century, and the synagogue was built in 1630. Before the Second World War 80 percent of Chmielnik's 8-thousand-strong population was Jewish. In 1941 the population was all but wiped out by the Nazi occupiers.
Thousands of Hasidic Jews set to mark rabbi's anniversary in Poland By DPA Mar 17, 2009 Warsaw - Thousands of Hasidic Jews will on Tuesday pray at the grave in Poland of one of the faith's most influential rabbis, marking the 223 anniversary of his death. Rabbi Elimelech Weisblum's grave in southeastern Poland will see Jews from across the world come to pray, dance and sing at one of the most significant places in the Hasidic faith. The anniversary is 'classically Jewish - chaotic,' Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. 'It's very intense and it's also very individual,' Schudrich said. 'Rabbi Elimelech was one of the great Hasidic masters and it's considered a great merit to visit the grave of someone that's on such a high spiritual level at the anniversary of his death.' Elimelech lived from 1717 to 1787, and became one of the most important figures in the Orthodox Jewish faith after dedicating his life to studying the Torah. He came to Lezajsk in 1772 and turned it into a center for Hasidism. The town had a big Jewish population before World War II and became again a destination for pilgrims in the 1970s. 'Generally there are two kinds of rabbis - those who inspire people, and those who wrote a great legal tracts,' Schudrich said. 'He was more on the spiritual side.'
Memorial March 66 years after German Nazi Jewish ghetto liquidation 15.03.2009 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto are boarded onto a deportation train at the Umschlagplatz. 1942-1943 A Memorial March passed through Kraków on Sunday to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. Participants of the four-kilometre march, which started at noon, stopped to lay flowers and light candles at a preserved fragment of the ghetto walls, walking on to P³aszów to say the Jewish prayer for the dead at the memorial monument on the site of the Nazi concentration camp there. The Kraków ghetto was formed by the Nazis in 1941. Some 17 thousand people lived there before its liquidation in the night of March 13/14, 1943. About a thousand inhabitants were killed, the remainder were transferred to the death camp in P³aszów.
Polish documentary shows prewar Jewish life By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA 3/20/09
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's Jews were nearly wiped out in the Nazi Holocaust, then the communists who ruled the country for decades after World War II waged anti-Semitic campaigns and made Jewish history a taboo topic. But a new documentary draws on a patchwork of amateur camera footage shot mostly by American Jews visiting relatives in the 1930s in Polish towns and provides a window into what once was. It makes its debut in Canada, Germany and Ukraine in Polish next month, and an English version will be ready for the U.S. market later this year, Polish producer Miroslaw Bork said Friday. "Po-Lin, Slivers of Memory" was conceived by Polish camerawoman Jolanta Dylewska, who was inspired to make the 80-minute film after coming across one of the home movies in Jerusalem archives in 1996 while working on an earlier project. "That movie had an enormous emotional value for me," Dylewska said. "People in it reacted with great warmth to the camera because it was in the hands of a family member, a close person. The camera transported that warmth onto me, watching the film 60 years later." The word "Po-lin" in the title is Hebrew for "You will rest here" or a "Place of safe refuge," but it also means "Poland." It was Poland where Jews expelled from other parts of Europe settled during the Middle Ages, making it indeed a place of refuge for 1,000 years. But the specter of the Holocaust to come haunts the film. At one point, the narrator notes that the children in the movie have only 10 more years to live. Only a few hundred thousand of Poland's prewar population of 3.5 million survived the Nazi genocide. "The message of loss is in the end stronger because we see what has been lost," Bork said. The 1.4 million zloty ($380,000) Polish-German co-production opened in Polish art-house cinemas in November. Leaving a recent showing that she attended on her sister's recommendation, 24-year-old Malgosia Kruczek said as a non-Jew, she found the film "invaluable. " "These are the people who lived here, who lived together with us, exotic, but also very close," the Warsaw University student said. After finding the initial home movie, Dylewska found more footage in Israeli and American archives, and added commentary — based on Jewish history books — in Polish with English subtitles. At the same time, she said she took great care to preserve the original atmosphere of the black-and-white films in hope "the viewers will carry these people in their memories." She also filmed the places from the home movies as they are today, and found witnesses to talk about their former Jewish neighbors and friends. "It moves you to the core of your soul," Israeli Embassy spokesman Michal Sobelman said. "And it fits into this trend in Poland's culture now of searching for traces of former Polish citizens, the traces of Jews."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Apr 13, 2009 18:05:06 GMT 1
Schindler's list found Baltimore Sun 4/6/09
A life-saving list compiled by industrialist Oskar Schindler during World War II has been discovered at a library In Sydney, Australia, according to news reports today. The list, 13 pages of yellowed carbon paper, holds the names of 801 Jewish factory workers who were spared from Nazi death camps by Schindler's subterfuges. It was found in research notes that belonged to the Australian author of Schindler's Ark - the basis for the 1993 film, Schindler's List. The list, typed on April 18, 1945, was compiled by Schindler, who used Jewish laborers in his factory in Poland. Appalled by the conduct of the Nazis, he sought to persuade officials that his workers were vital to the war effort and should not be sent to concentration camps. This list was found among research notes and German newspaper clippings gathered by author Thomas Keneally, according to reports by the BBC and Jerusalem Post. He was given the list almost 30 years ago by Leopold Pfefferberg, worker 173 on the list, who wanted the novelist to write Schindler's story. In March, part of Schindler's factory in Krakow was opened as a museum. The building has a small exhibition about his work; a larger one is expected to open this fall, according to the Krakow Post.
************ ********* ********* ********* ****** Original 'Schindler's List' found in Sydney 4/6/09
SYDNEY (AFP) — A list of Jews saved by Oskar Schindler that inspired the novel and Oscar-winning film "Schindler's List" has been found in a Sydney library, its co-curator said. orkers at the New South Wales State Library found the list, containing the names of 801 Jews saved from the Holocaust by the businessman, as they sifted through boxes of Australian author Thomas Keneally's manuscript material. The 13-page document, a yellowed and fragile carbon typescript copy of the original, was found between research notes and German newspaper clippings in one of the boxes, library co-curator Olwen Pryke said. Pryke described the 13-page list as "one of the most powerful documents of the 20th Century" and was stunned to find it in the library's collection. "This list was hurriedly typed on April 18, 1945, in the closing days of WWII, and it saved 801 men from the gas chambers," she said. "It?s an incredibly moving piece of history." She said the library had no idea the list was among six boxes of material acquired in 1996 relating to Keneally's Booker Prize-winning novel, originally published as "Schindler's Ark". The 1982 novel told the story of how the roguish Schindler discovered his conscience and risked his life to save more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis. Hollywood director Steven Spielberg turned it into a film in 1993 starring Liam Neeson as Schindler and Ralph Fiennes as the head of an SS-run camp. Pryke said that, although the novel and film implied there was a single, definitive list, Schindler actually compiled a number of them as he persuaded Nazi bureaucrats not to send his workers to the death camps. She said the document found by the library was given to Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg -- named on the list as Jewish worker number 173 -- when he was persuading the novelist to write Schindler's story. As such, it was the list that inspired Keneally to tell the world about Schindler's heroics, she said. Pryke said she had no idea how much the list was worth. Schindler, born in a German-speaking part of Austria-Hungary in 1908, began the war as a card-carrying Nazi who used his connections to gain control of a factory in Krakow, Poland, shortly after Hitler invaded the country. He used Jewish labour in the factory but, as the war progressed, he became appalled at the conduct of the Nazis. Using bribery and charm, he persuaded officials that his workers were vital to the war effort and should not be sent to the death camps. Schindler died relatively unknown in 1974, but he gained public recognition following Keneally's book and Spielberg's film.
------------------------------------------------------------
Schindler Will Shine Thursday, April 2, 2009 Nick Hodge The Krakow Post Visualisation of the P³aszów labour camp, from the forthcoming exhibition at the Schindler Factory / photo MHK Visualisation of the P³aszów labour camp, from the forthcoming exhibition at the Schindler Factory / photo MHK The centre-piece is yet to come, but the Oskar Schindler Factory has opened to the public after years of administrative wrangling. The Historical Museum of the City of Krakow has taken control of the project, and this autumn, an interactive exhibition will transport visitors back to the trying years of the occupation: "The main aim of founding this museum is to present Krakow in the period of the Second World War: how Krakow was, what losses it sustained, and what role it played in Poland and Europe at that time," Micha³ Niezabitowski, director of the city museum, told the Krakow Post. "Up until now there has been no exhibition which shows the history of Krakow during this very difficult time," he continued. "The city completely changed its character following the years 1939-1945. Almost 30 percent of the inhabitants of the city - those who were Jewish - disappeared, and in all probability, they disappeared forever. We came through a traumatic experience - one which has had a strong impact on our history." Unquestionably, there will be a focus on Oskar Schindler himself, the German entrepreneur who saved over a thousand Jews from the Holocaust. Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) took over the enamelware factory following the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939. The business was already defunct, but Schindler, who was in the pay of German Intelligence, sought to exploit cheap labour in an effort to turn the enterprise around. He persuaded Nazi authorities to allow him to house workers on site, ultimately transferring his predominantly Jewish workforce west in 1944. A small exhibition about Schindler opened in the factory on March 15th, which will be complemented by more threads once the main section opens. "We want everyone who visits this museum to feel that they are walking into the past," explained £ukasz Czuj, co-author of the planned centre-piece. Speaking with great enthusiasm about the project, he described how the design follows a labyrinthine form, with visitors moving though a chain of halls following the chronological progression of the Nazi occupation. "We want to build an exposition that allows you to enter into the very drama of the city, so that you feel how the city is changing," he said, adding that even the sounds and smells of the occupation will be evoked. Like the acclaimed Warsaw Rising Museum, the Krakow exhibition will offer a modern, interactive experience. Dramatic episodes such as the mass arrest of Krakow professors will be rendered, as well as the emergence of resistance. Simulations of the ghetto and the Plaszów forced labour camp will evoke the magnitude of the Jewish tragedy. "The exhibition will show the dramatic choices that people made," Mr. Czuj explained. "But it should also prompt us to think 'What would my decision have been?'" Besides worthy historical heirlooms, the curators are also looking for more mundane items in an effort to recreate the atmosphere of those years. "We have a vast amount of photographs and documents," director Niezabitowski said, "but we're lacking everyday, household objects from the occupation era," he added. "These may not have great material value, but for us curators, they are very precious." One of the stumbling blocks in the regeneration of the factory thus far has been the sheer vastness of the site. In fact, despite the considerable scope of the current project, it will only utilize the former administrative buildings of the factory. These halls provide ample room for the curators' needs. The adjoining factory buildings - which resemble a string of air hangars - will house a museum of contemporary art, under separate ownership. This decision sparked some debate, with questions raised as to whether contemporary art was appropriate for a site so intimately connected with the Holocaust. However, it has been argued that a space that allows for free artistic expression is in itself a victory against the ideology of Nazism. Hitler's regime banned countless artforms, with scores of brilliant artists denounced as "degenerate. " Crucially, it is hoped that the creation of the two museums in Krakow's Zab³ocie district will help regenerate an area that is considered somewhat beyond the pale. The factory's legacy enjoys exceptional publicity owing to Thomas Keneally's historical novel Schindler's Ark and Spielberg's subsequent film, Schindler's List. One section of the main exhibition will allow visitors to walk through Oskar Schindler's private office, which will contain an "ark" of enamelware in tribute to the Jewish workers. Schindler himself continues to provoke conflicting reactions. Lili Haber, President of the Association of Cracovians in Israel, has organised events in tribute to the industrialist, and her own father was saved on the list, along with two of her uncles. She talks with joy about the overwhelming success of a recent Polish exhibition in Jerusalem about the Jews of pre-war Krakow. However, she told the Post that her father resented the praise lavished on Schindler. "My father always told me that he was a womaniser and that he did it for the money. But of course, I would not exist had it not been for Schindler." Of the current developments at the factory, Mrs. Haber is optimistic: "I am glad that something is being done," she says. Director Micha³ Niezabitowski revealed that visits to Germany, Israel and the United States had been made in order to discuss the most appropriate manner in which to handle the legacy. "Such a museum could be created elsewhere, but this is indeed an ideal place for such purposes. It is a kind of historical monument, and for this reason it is with immense good fortune that owing to the course of events, and also to the activity of the city authorities, we can realise the exhibition here."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Apr 24, 2009 20:53:25 GMT 1
March of the Living Polish Radio 21.04.2009
Thousands of young Jews from the world over and young Poles have come together at the WW2 German Nazi death camp in Auschwitz to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust in the annual March of the Living, now in its 18th year.
Organized for the first time in 1988, that first March of the Living brought together about 1500 young Jews from the world over. This year, around six thousand visitors and a thousand Poles walk under the infamous Auschwitz camp gate with its ironic motto in German "Arbeit Macht Frei" – "work liberates", following a 3-kilometre road, known as the Road of Death, from Auschwitz to the place of extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is where the main celebrations are held.
The March of the Living begins to the sound of the shofar, a ram's horn used in Jewish religious ceremonies, and culminates with the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. The young Jews who come here say that this is an occasion to demonstrate that in spite of the Holocaust their nation lives – the young Poles also add that they are here to show their respect, and just to be together in a difficult place.
The Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is the only concentration camp on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It was the largest of Nazi German concentration and extermination camps in World War 2, established on the occupied territory of Poland. Operating between 1940-1945, the camp was originally built for Polish prisoners. It developed into a mass extermination site, where mostly Jews were murdered, but Poles, Romanies, Russian POWs, and others as well. About 80% of the people who arrived in Auschwitz, brought in from ghettoes and camps around Europe, never lived to be its prisoners. From the railway ramp they were moved to the gas chambers and within some 20 minutes they were dead. The final numbers of the Holocaust are uncertain but it is calculated that around a million Jews died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, around 150 thousand Poles, 23 thousand Romanies and more than 30 thousand others.
The most numerous March of the Living so far was held in 2005 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp. The 20 thousand participants were led by then Prime Ministers of Poland and Israel.----------------------------------------------------
Ghetto commemoration project in Lodz by Polish youth thenews.pl 21.04.2009
Over 1,000 Polish schoolchildren and a youth group from Israel have started a project in Lodz, central Poland, today to mark off the borders of the former ghetto – this year commemorates the 65th anniversary of it's liquidation.
"21 April we observe Holocaust Memorial Day connected to the anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In Lodz's history, that time was also tragic. On 30 April 1940, Nazi occupying authorities closed the last borders closing in the ghetto. [The ghetto] was located in Baluty and Old Town [in Lodz]. Today's action will commemorate the memory of the former inhabitants of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto," stated Agnieszka Ostapowicz, spokesperson for the ghetto's memorial foundation.
The young people taking place in the project are equipped with stencils of the slogan `Litzmannstadt Ghetto 1940-1944' and while paint to mark on the sidewalks and streets that bordered the ghetto. The project started in the Old Town market square.
"The project has two dimensions. The first of which is to commemorate what happened here years ago. The second is to work with young people to break down stereotypes of Poles and Jews," stated Symcha Keller, a representative of the Jewish district in Lodz.
Deputy Mayor of Lodz, Wlodzimierz Tomaszewski is of the opinion that the last few years have shown great developments in recognizing history and what happened in this city.
"Now, we are not only commemorating this dramatic history but also the property of the Jewish community and their input in developing our city," says Tomaszewski.
Later in the day, the youth will met on the terrain of the former Radegast railway station where, between the years 1941-1944, Jews from around Europe were transported to the Lodz ghetto and later deported to various concentration camps. The young people will read out the names of the inhabitants of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto that were deported to concentration camps.
Nazis opened the Lodz ghetto in February 1940, the first one to be opened on Polish occupied territory. 220,000 Jews lived there from Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.
In January 1942, mass deportation of Jews from Lodz began. The entire ghetto was liquidated by January 1944.
------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabbi Melamed urges students not to visit Poland Poland is an 'impure country riddled with anti-Semitism' that Jews should refrain from visiting, prominent religious figure says
Kobi Nahshoni Ynetnews-Jewish World 4/21/09 Prominent Zionist-religious figure Rabbi Zalman Melamed this week stated that Poland is an "impure country riddled with anti-Semitism" that Jews should refrain from visiting.
Less than two months ago another leading rabbi, Shlomo Aviner, almost sparked a diplomatic incident with the Polish government after saying that Israeli students must not take part in educational trips to the Nazi death camps in the country, so as not to provide livelihood to "murderers" who assisted the Nazi regime.
www.ynetnews .com/articles/ 0,7340,L- 3675990,00. html
According to Rabbi Melamed, the participation of youths in trips to Poland was "undesirable, " and yeshiva students would be best to avoid them, "because they do not need this journey in order to boost their Jewish and national identity."
In a questions and answers session on the yeshiva.org. il website, Rabbi Melamed further stated that Jews were halachically banned from leaving the Land of Israel, even if this was done in order to visit the burial sites of great rabbis.
Controversy in Israel and Poland
About two months ago Rabbi Aviner told Ynet that visiting the death camps was forbidden for both religious and humanistic reasons. "I'm not busy holding a grudge against the Poles, but we shouldn't provide livelihood to people who allowed death camps to be built on their land and who are now making a profit out of it," he explained.
Aviner's words triggered heated controversy in Israel and Poland. Krakow's Israeli rabbi, Boaz Pash said at the time that, "With his remarks Rabbi Aviner essentially strengthens the same anti-Semitic trends that still exist in Poland and that we're fighting against.
"His words obviously aren't helping the Jewish communities here. They contained sweeping generalizations that are taken lightly in Israel, but that are met with high sensitivity in Poland; he's put us in a very difficult spot."
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on Apr 26, 2009 22:04:49 GMT 1
Five Poles honoured in Washington DC thenews.pl 23.04.2009
The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is paying honour to Polish rescuers of Jews today, part of the 2009 Days of Remembrance activities.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is hosting a breakfast today honoring five Polish citizens designated Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute for their efforts in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.
The Museum has designated "Never Again: What You Do Matters" as the 2009 Days of Remembrance theme to encourage people to reflect upon the power of individuals to create a more just and humane world.
The five Poles being honoured are:
Anna Stupnicka-Bando, Chair of the Polish Society of the Righteous, the nation's organization of Holocaust rescuers. Along with her mother, a teenaged Anna helped smuggle food supplies into the ghetto and assisted several Warsaw Jews to hide on the so-called Aryan side. In 1941, Bando swapped clothes with a Jewish girl to smuggle her out of the ghetto and live as a part of the Bando family until the end of the war.
Ireneusz Rajchowski and his family assisted many of Warsaw's Jews who escaped the ghetto during deportations and the ghetto uprising. Also during this time, he would frequently provide food to Jewish children hiding outside of the ghetto. In 1944, the Rajchowski family was deported to Germany as forced laborers where they remained until liberation.
Alicja Szczepaniak Schnepf, along with her younger sister and her mother took in several Jewish families in their one bedroom apartment, often deceiving their neighbors while risking their own lives. Frequently, Schnepf had to provide distractions for the German authorities or cover-up for noises or other signs of the many people in their apartment.
Tadeusz Stankiewicz, along with his family, assisted Jews who escaped from nearby ghettos or work camps as the family lived in a small forest village. With their familiarity of the woods, the family was able to construct numerous hiding places. Stankiewicz would frequently transport provisions to the hidden Jews using a small boat to navigate the swamplands.
Józef Walaszczyk, after escaping detainment by Nazis in the first weeks of the war, Walaszczyk rescued Irena Front from a round-up of Jews hiding in a hotel; he purchased documents and paperwork to pass her off as his wife and then hid her at his apartment. The following year, Walaszczyk used his connections and a well-paid bribe to a Nazi official to again save Front as well as 21 other Jews who were captured the same day.
The rescuers will light a candle with a Holocaust survivor and member of Congress at the national Days of Remembrance ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington D.C..
************ ********* ********* ********* **
Righteous return Polish Radio 24.04.2009
The five Poles honoured yesterday by US President Barack Obama at a ceremony at the Capitol ending the Holocaust Days of Remembrance, have returned home.
The five are holders of the Righteous Among the Nations medal, awarded by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem for rescuing Jews from the Holocaust.
One of those who took part in the ceremony at the Capitol is Anna Bando, who told reporters that she had been proud to be remembered and that especially those Jews who had left Poland wanted to stay close at all times, and began crying.
One of those rescued from the Holocaust is Barbara Góra, who said that many Polish families contributed to save her life, stating simply that without Poles she would not be alive.
At yesterday’s ceremony in Washington, the US President thanked the five Poles present for their heroic courage. 6 thousand Polish citizens have been awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal.
|
|
|
Post by Bonobo on May 1, 2009 22:13:41 GMT 1
Why I care so much for the Poles Rachel Patron South Florida Sun-Sentinel April 30, 2009
Gitele Nadolny was the most beautiful girl in the Polish town of Jedwabne. Many young men, both Jews and Gentiles, attempted to court her, but Gitele rejected all suitors, waiting for her father to arrange for her a traditional Jewish marriage.
On July 10, 1941, eighteen days after the Germans captured Jedwabne, some of the Polish men cut off Gitele Nadolny's head, and in broad daylight used it for a soccer ball in the public square.
This true event depicts the familiar view of Polish brutality towards Jews during the Holocaust. But there's another side of Polish behavior to which we in the West have paid little attention. I speak of the heroism of some Poles who risked everything to save their Jewish neighbors.
Here's what happened to the Rubinow family, that's my parents, my brother and me. In the spring of 1941, when I had just turned five, our former maid Marysia and her parents traveled from their village to the city of Bialystok where we lived, and implored my parents to let me come with them because "bad times are coming." I remember being terrified that my parents would send me away. To my relief, Dad said that no matter what happened, we must stay together. On June 21st, 1941 -- nineteen days before Gitele's death -- the Soviets deported us to Siberia.
Last Sunday CBS aired the movie "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sandler" -- the true story of a Catholic social worker in Warsaw who, together with a handful of women, spirited 2,500 Jewish children out of the ghetto. They availed themselves of a clandestine underground network of saviors, including Polish families, village hideouts, and refuge in the basements and attics of convents. Most of the children survived the war. One of the temporary shelters was the Warsaw Zoo, mostly depleted of animals, where the Zoo Keeper's wife, Antonina Zabinska, hid Jews in her home and in animal cages.
It's interesting to note how many of these righteous saviors were women. My observation is not based on research, and I do know that many Polish men helped out, but the stories reaching us after all this time are mostly about women risking their lives and the lives of their families to save their countrymen condemned to death. Men might have used the excuse that they must concentrate on the "big" picture of winning the war, and not be distracted to save a few hundred. After all, it's a puny number compared to the destruction of millions.
For decades my American Jewish friends have vigorously objected when I'd utter the slightest defense of Poles. Rachel, you of all people? Yes, me, because I understand Jewish-Polish history in a way that they never will because so many of them have forgotten their roots. I do know that my ancestors came to Poland in the beginning of the 14th century, a time when most European countries were expelling Jews. But Polish king, Casimir the Great, invited these wanderers to settle in his kingdom and bring prosperity.
For the next 700 years the interaction between Jews, Poles and Russians produced one of the greatest intellectual powerhouses in modern history. Despite constant persecution, high taxes, and occasional pogroms, Jews were allowed to practice their religion, pursue general learning, create literature, drama, music and art. They established a unique communal way of life with independent social and financial institutions. In the beginning of the 20th century many of them sailed across the ocean and built what is today's American Jewry. Others trekked to Palestine and in 1948 declared the State of Israel. Yes, Jewish life in Poland is gone, but the enlightened ideas it created live everywhere in the world.
As we mourn again six million victims, let's admit that even with their vulgar anti-Semitism -- the Poles would have never perceived or carried out the Holocaust. The Germans did it, aided by too many willing accomplices.
Ultimately, why do I care so much to defend the Poles? It's simple: the first poetry I'd learned was in Polish.------------------------------------------------ Poland's chief rabbi plays key role in Jewish revival
By SHELDON KIRSHNER
The Canadian Jewish News
Thursday, 30 April 2009
www.cjnews.com/images/stories/April09/Schudrich,_Michael_Rabbi.jpg
Rabbi Michael Schudrich
TORONTO — Since the fall of Communism 20 years ago, thousands of people in Poland who were brought up as Catholics have discovered their Jewish ancestry, says the country's chief rabbi.
"Thousands of Poles who did not know they had Jewish roots have found them," said Rabbi Michael Schudrich, who will deliver a speech in Toronto on Poland's Jewish revival on May 11 at Congregation Habonim.
Invited here by the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, the rabbi said that such Poles have voiced an interest in "learning about their Jewish heritage and expressing it in some positive manner."
Rabbi Schudrich, who has played a pivotal role in Poland's Jewish renaissance, said that Jews who were once afraid to tell their children or grandchildren about their Jewish origins have spoken up since the advent of democracy in Poland.
"We have only begun to reach out to those who are now discovering their true Jewish identity," he said in an interview.
And much remains to be done in consolidating the ongoing Jewish revival. As he put it, "We need more rabbis and teachers to teach and share [Jewish knowledge] with more people."
He singled out the Ronald Lauder Foundation for having supported this revival. Funded by American businessman Ronald Lauder, the foundation has built Jewish schools, community centres and summer camps throughout Poland and eastern Europe.
Rabbi Schudrich added that the major funder of Poland's Jewish renaissance today is the U.S.-based Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture.
In his judgment, the Polish Jewish community is dependent on philanthropy.
"It is essential for two reasons. First, it provides material help that is so necessary. Second, it shows we are not forgotten."
Rabbi Schudrich, an American of Polish Jewish descent, praised the Polish government for supporting the revival.
"There is an understanding that Jews have lived in Poland for almost 1,000 years, have been part of this country for centuries and have contributed. The desire is not to let this die out."
Rabbi Schudrich, who was appointed to his position by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, said there are no firm figures as to the number of Jews living in Poland today.
"The estimate is usually somewhere around 30,0000 to 40,000, but no one really knows, since people are still discovering their Jewish roots."
Asked what challenges face the community at present, he replied, "The main ones are to help Poles of Jewish descent return to their Jewish identity, to build a Jewish community with people who were not brought up as Jews and to balance the needs of the present with the memory of the past."
Asked if anti-Semitism is a serious problem, he said, "Anti-Semitism exists in Poland, as it tragically exists throughout Europe. There is little physical anti-Semitism in Poland, and it is certainly a lot less problematic than in places like Paris. Having said that, now is the time to fight anti-Semitism before it grows."
The rabbi added that both the Polish government and the president have been "very, very strong" in fighting it.
In closing, he said the Polish government has yet to resolve the Jewish private property issue.
Jewish community property seized by the Nazis and Communists has been returned, but not so private Jewish property.
Urging Poland to act on this matter, he said, "The government has a responsibility to all those who lost property. They should receive something for their properties."
Rabbi Schudrich, born in New York City in 1955, is a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Yeshiva University.
From 1983 to 1989, he served as rabbi of Japan's Jewish community.
He began working for the Ronald Lauder Foundation in 1992 and resided in Warsaw until 1998. Returning to Poland two years later, he was appointed chief rabbi in 2004.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Commemorating Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Polish Radio 17.04.2009
On Sunday, 19 April, Warsaw is the venue of events commemorating the 66 th anniversary of the uprising in the city's Jewish Ghetto.
Before the war Warsaw was the largest Jewish city in Europe. After invading Poland in 1939, the Germans set up ghettos across Poland to isolate and later wipe out the Jews. In Warsaw's Jewish quarter, around 450,000 people were crammed behind the walls. More than 300, 000 of them were sent to the Treblinka death camp. In April 1943 the Nazis decided to wipe out the remaining tens of thousands of ghetto inhabitants. This sparked an uprising which broke out 66 years ago this Sunday. Some 7,000 Jews died in the month-long revolt and over 50, 000 were deported to the death camps.
A wide range of events is planned for the day, including the wreath-laying ceremony at the monument to the heroes of the Uprising, a meeting with the Warsaw Rabbi, sightseeing tours of the Nozyk Synagogue as well as a performance in the city's Jewish Theatre based on the poetry and songs of Wladyslaw Szlengel, a prominent poet and lyrics writer who died in the Ghetto at the age of twenty nine.
We hear from Eleonora Bergman, the director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and Edward Odoner of the Cultural Association of Jews in Poland.
|
|
|
Post by tufta on May 3, 2009 17:34:44 GMT 1
Israel thought in Polish.by Szewach Weiss
At quick pace approaches the 61 anniversary of Israel's birthday. The state which, according to rules of both logic and history, shouldn't have survived weeks. Yet, this small nation - in 1948 in the area of British mandate there were 700 thousand Jews merely – not only won a war with all the neighbours, but with time became a regional power with advanced economy and democratic political culture. How was that possible? The answer may turn out surprising. It happened in large part thanks to Jews from Poland, Poles of Jewish origin. Let's begin with a political system. Israel is the only democracy in Middle East. And never in it's history a serious threat has appeared to this system. No party ever wanted to introduce a totalitarian system here, no general has ever tried to take power thorough coup d'etat and declare himself a dictator. Where from comes Jewish attachment to democracy and discerning? Why, Russian Jews arrived to Middle East either from the country of absolute monarchy (until the year 1917) or from the land of bloody dictatorship of proletariat (after 1917). The same with Jews from Germany, which was at first the state of kaiser, then of national-socialist totalitarianism (a short episode of a frail Weimar Republic is not worth mentioning). Neither was there a democracy in Romania , nor in Yemen, nor in other countries from which Jews originated. Except one. We owe our parliamentary system and fidelity to the idea of democracy to Poland and her republican traditions. Polish Rzeczpospolita II has politically educated not just the elites of Polish nation, but also Jewish one. Polish Jews in inter war Poland had their resilient parties – from the religious, through Zionist-rightwing, to the socialist. They took part in the elections, they were represented in Sejm and local parliaments. They have learned this political system. They haven't forgotten this lesson of civil, democratic education and they have taken advantage of it in Israel. In 120-members Knesset never a single party had a majority. The first Israeli parliament was the sole exception – the majority formed the Jews speaking Polish. So was the situation in government - prime minister Dawid Ben Gurion and almost half of ministers were born in Poland as well. One of the parliament members was a earlier a representative in Polish Sejm earlier! Sole significant difference that exists is the lack of upper house of parliament in – the senate. But what was Ben Gurion's argumentation, when the idea of forming senate emerged? „No. We don't need senate. We don't have counts Potocki.”- said our biggest hero, father of our state, born in 1886 in Płońsk. We owe Poland considerably more than just a parliamentary system, however. Israel has survived in 1948 – 1949 due to military victory over Arab neighbours in the war of independence. But what was our army of the time? It is enough to look into memories of contemporary young officer, later general and prime minister Ariel Sharon. He recalls that the troops were dominated by the Poles. During the battles Polish commands and orders were heard, and the soldiers bore the names such as Jacek, Marek or Lolek. It was just the Poles, recently saved from the Holocaust, who perished in the heavy battles for Jerusalem. It is evaluated today, that Polish Jews comprised over a half of the then 130 -thousand troops Israeli army. Part of them went to the front right from the ships, on which the arrived to settle in the land of their ancestors. They were given rifles the instant they have stepped down on the firm land... Political system and army is the beginning only. Polish Jews founded Israeli universities, philharmonic, theatres, bar association and hospitals. They have been creating trade enterprises and the biggest firms. Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who created modern-day Hebrew language, used by Israelis today, originated from Poland. He has transformed antique language of prayer into a modern language of a modern nation. At the time state of Israel was founded the Jews from Poland comprised approximately 40 percent of it's citizens . These people were the most influential in politics, economy and culture. It was them who formed the elites of newly emerged country and it was them who formed country's reality. Though Theodor Herzl, father of Zionism, originated was from Hungary, his idea was accomplished by Polish Jews. There were times when Israel thought in Polish. What from this world remained till today? Not much. Presently only 64 thousand Israelis speak Polish. Few, if we take into account that today's Israel has nearly 7,5 million inhabitants. However, I am an optimist. This Polish Israel is not at all doomed to extinction. Recently I observe a great revival and return to roots among the descendants of Polish Jews. These people have started to show interest in the country of their ancestors and it's culture. Young Israelis attend Polish-Jewish restaurants even more eagerly. During Shabbat they eat carp in jelly, on Saturday cholent. They are curious about savours and smells of Poland. They read Polish books, attend Polish performances and they visit country of ancestors more frequently. Perhaps now, after all those years – when Polish-Jewish relations are so excellent - the negative trend would be inverted ? Perhaps, just like in the past, Polish language will be heard on Israeli streets again? One more observation to end with. Polish Jews who created Israel, were one of the last scraps of the great Polish Rzeczpospolita of the past, country of many nations and many cultures. It is enough to look at their birthplaces – Vilnius, Minsk, Kiev, Chernihiv, Polotsk, Lvov, Stanislavov (Ivano-Frankivsk). Though many of them lived on these lands in time of partitions – and they were subjects of Russia or Austro-Hungary – they always knew that they actually live in Poland. They had contacts with Poles and their culture, and indeed they considered themselves Polish Jews. Partitions didn't exist to them. And today, Poles reading about these people, may see in their biographies not only somewhat exotic to them history of the State of Israel, but also a reflex of the great past of their own country.
The author is an Israeli political scientist and a politician, he was Speaker of the Knesset, an ambassador of Israel to Poland. Publishes in Polish daily 'Rzeczpospolita', weekly "Wprost".
The same article in Polish www.rp.pl/artykul/2,299387_Izrael_myslal_po_polsku.html
|
|