{"id":41416,"date":"2018-08-15T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T01:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=41416"},"modified":"2018-08-15T10:58:27","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T00:58:27","slug":"polands-dictatorship-of-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/polands-dictatorship-of-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland\u2019s dictatorship of myth"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

There is no escaping history in Poland. At an abruptly convened session in late June, the Polish Sejm<\/em> (the lower house of parliament) rushed through an amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, reversing another amendment that had been adopted<\/a> in January of this year. Effective immediately, attributing blame to Poland for World War II\u2013era Nazi crimes would no longer be punishable by three years in prison.<\/p>\n

The ruling Law and Justice Party\u2019s (PiS\u2019s) rapid defanging of its own \u2018memory law\u2019 comes as no surprise. The original legislation invited international outrage, especially from Israel. Even US President Donald Trump\u2014usually a close friend to Poland\u2019s nationalists\u2014indicated that he would not meet with Polish leaders until the crisis was resolved.<\/p>\n

Still, the way the Polish government went about tweaking the law was absurd. For one thing, the entire process was carried out in secret, to the point that Israeli\u2013Polish relations were mediated by the countries\u2019 respective intelligence agencies, lest the law\u2019s key proponent, Polish Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro, catch wind of what was in the works.<\/p>\n

Ziobro is Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki\u2019s main rival in the battle for influence with PiS Chairman Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski. So, when the new amendment passed, Morawiecki did not hesitate to take credit for salvaging Poland\u2019s image. He and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a joint declaration<\/a> ending the dispute between their countries; and the Polish government purchased full-page ads in major newspapers around the world\u2014including the three largest Israeli dailies\u2014to promote the text of the statement.<\/p>\n

Yet, just when the Polish government seemed to have put its troubles behind it, Israel\u2019s Holocaust remembrance centre, Yad Vashem, and its minister of education and diaspora affairs, Naftali Bennett, issued<\/a> sharp denunciations<\/a> of the joint declaration. As it happens, the push within Israel to condemn Poland\u2019s memory law was launched by the Israeli opposition, and Netanyahu had only gone along with it because he had no other choice.<\/p>\n

In the event, Netanyahu\u2014a fellow populist\u2014was eager to resolve the conflict with the PiS government, because he did not want to alienate Israel\u2019s most loyal ally within the European Union. This explains why the joint declaration is so emphatic about assigning culpability for Nazi death camps solely to Germans. Moreover, it even seems to suggest that the evil of anti-Polonism is somehow comparable in scale to that of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, while the Polish version of the statement admits of individual instances of \u2018cruelty to Jews\u2019 by Poles, the Hebrew version states that \u2018we acknowledge and condemn every incident of cruelty\u2019. But both versions then immediately go on to \u2018remember heroic acts of numerous Poles, especially the Righteous Among the Nations, who risked their lives to save Jewish people\u2019.<\/p>\n

In the next section, there is merely a veiled reference to the szmalcowniks<\/em> who, \u2018regardless of their origin, religion, or worldview\u2014revealed their darkest side\u2019. By contrast, the language concerning Polish heroism is very concrete, and embraces the entire nation. \u2018[The] Polish underground State supervised by the Polish Government-in-Exile created a mechanism of systematic help and support to Jewish people, and its courts sentenced Poles for collaborating with German occupation authorities, including for denouncing Jews.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is invented history. As Bennett notes<\/a>, while some Poles did help Jews, \u2018these activities were few and not central\u2019. Thus, the joint declaration incorrectly treats \u2018the rare doers of kindness\u2019 as a \u2018common phenomenon\u2019, and the \u2018widespread events of [Poles] handing over [Jews]\u2019 as \u2018rarities\u2019.<\/p>\n

Bennett\u2019s characterisation is supported by thorough research, not least Night without an end: the fate of Jews in selected counties of occupied Poland<\/a><\/em>, a two-volume history edited by Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research. According to the book\u2019s tally of nine German-occupied Polish counties, two-thirds of the 250,000 Jews who escaped during the Nazis\u2019 \u2018liquidation\u2019 of Jewish ghettos in 1942 had been killed by 1945, most of them by Poles or with Polish participation.<\/p>\n

Of course, supporters of the joint statement would point out that Yad Vashem itself has recognised<\/a> more Poles (6,863) than any other nationality as the \u2018Righteous Among the Nations\u2019 who helped Jews. But this is pure casuistry. Poland was home to more than three million Jews before the war, and the Germans built their death camps on Polish territory. So, where else would the \u2018Righteous Among the Nations\u2019 come from if not Poland?<\/p>\n

None of this is to say that Poles are collectively worse or better than any other nationality. Indeed, Yale University historian Timothy D. Snyder<\/a>, who could hardly be accused of harbouring anti-Polish sentiments, has concluded<\/a> that Poles behaved more or less the same as other people under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n

Heroism is rare, which is precisely why it is accorded such high honours. If an entire country could be heroic, the term would lose all meaning. Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s and Morawiecki\u2019s desperate struggle to burnish Poland\u2019s historical standing is a wasted effort. As Snyder reminds<\/a> us, it was the Polish underground leader W\u0142adys\u0142aw Bartoszewski who perhaps put it best: \u2018[The] individuals who worked on behalf of Jews did not first ask the Polish nation for permission to do so.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no escaping history in Poland. At an abruptly convened session in late June, the Polish Sejm (the lower house of parliament) rushed through an amendment to the Act on the Institute of National …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":646,"featured_media":41420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[240,955,207],"class_list":["post-41416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-israel","tag-poland","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPoland\u2019s dictatorship of myth | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/polands-dictatorship-of-myth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poland\u2019s dictatorship of myth | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is no escaping history in Poland. 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