The Strange Enrichment of Seeing Auschwitz
SHANKS, HERSHEL
PERSPECTIVE The Strange Enrichment Of Seeing Auschwitz Nearly 30 years ago, I read about the Holocaust—the confining ghettos, the daily roundups for "resettlement" in the east, the concentration...
...What conceivable purpose would be served by my reliving the experience again in my mind...
...True, as a people, the Poles have confronted neither their horrible anti-Semitic past, nor their anti-Semitic present...
...I've paid my dues to the Holocaust...
...Lech Walesa is a symbol of a new, free Poland...
...Poland is wrenching itself out of communism and struggling to rebuild a shattered economy in a democratic environment...
...If you are a Jew—and even if you're not—you will be a richer person for the experience...
...From a second-story window in Block II along the perimeter fence, you can see the wooden cross that has been erected beside the convent...
...In order to deflect attention from the inability [of the Communists!, from the stupidity of the authorities, the problem of Jews was raised...
...The Jews were left to present their own problems to him...
...Her whole family had been exterminated...
...A third explained that her number was on her hip...
...True, it does no one any good to suffer again over the details, to feel the pain, to relive the experience in your mind...
...There are elements in Poland who are ready to do this...
...You must seek it out to see it...
...He literally shouted at US: 'Answering this question, I must tell you that here I'm blaming you as well...
...But it is important for us at least to try to understand how it was perceived by the average Pole: The Jews seemed to be denying the right of the Poles to pray for their own dead...
...It may have been the first time it was raised on his visit to the United States...
...Beyond saying this, I'm tongue-tied...
...I share some of his reactions...
...You don't pass it on the way from Cracow to Auschwitz...
...To gain support, the anti-Communists blamed Communist oppression on the Jews who were among the Communist ruling elite It was easier to blame the Jews than the Communists, but the real object of the anti-Semitic attack was the Communists, not the Jews...
...How could I not visit one of the camps...
...Many of the stones bear the name of towns, but only one person is memorialized with his name on a stone—Janusz Korczak, who was offered his freedom because of the high regard his education theories had brought him in Poland He refused to abandon the children in his orphanage and marched with them to the death camp...
...See the memorials...
...Poles must treat Jewish concerns with respect and with actions...
...I can't tell you why...
...In 1968 some people tried to use anti-Semitism as a political ploy...
...People must not live in a Jewish cemetery—any people, Christians or Jews—because Jewish law forbids us to mix life and death...
...As we chatted, walking from place to place, one man told me proudly he was about to become a great-grandfather...
...The building is not even seen by most visitors...
...You will want to know in this way what happened...
...We don't understand this silence, but it is blasphemous to disturb it with the sound of anyone's prayer...
...Yitzchak Shamir didn't help matters by proclaiming that Poles have anti-Semitism in their blood, that they drink it with their mothers' milk...
...Yes, anti-Semitism is endemic in Poland at almost every level of society...
...His answer therefore has a strong claim to authenticity...
...His outburst may have been understandable, but it reduced the level of dialogue to street slurs...
...What was it like...
...Even in recent days, anti-Semitism rises to the surface with frightening ease...
...But in some respects I differ...
...Gebert observed that the Geneva agreement satisfied Jewrish religious concerns...
...Yes, it is time to move on, to recognize Polish pain and terrible losses, to encourage nascent democracy and economic reform, to accept the advantages of Polish-Israeli trade, to visit Poland, to meet Poles and to try to understand each other's painful pasts...
...We Jews have prevailed—at least, I hope the convent will now be moved and we can put this incident behind us and begin to let the wounds heal...
...What's clear to me now is that I, who have lived all my life in safely, who lost no member of my family in the Slioti/t, who only imperfectly understand Jewish religious sensibilities, am not able to say, "don't make an issue of the Carmclilc nuns...
...You know most of the details...
...I confess, I did not find it offensive...
...All people in the free world cheer their courage and look for ways to help them succeed...
...It is something which we cannot overcome, which we cannot catch up with !we cannot restorel For Poles, cohabiting with Jews was profitable, and for the Jews, cohabiting with the Poles was profitable It was one country...
...cut into the stone, is the name of a town near Lodz, where 4,300 Jews lived before the Shoah...
...A few times in history...
...Even words like awful and painful are not right...
...He gave reasons, the same theological reasons, he said, that were given by ihc Jewish representatives to the four European cardinals—including the Archbishop of Cracow—who gathered in Geneva in 1987 and who agreed to move the nuns from the convent by February 22, 1989...
...So, go...
...But I was in Poland for other reasons— to attend a scholarly conference...
...It was a painful experience even to read about—as it should have been...
...So what is wrong...
...Those people [who raised iU succeeded to deflect the attention [of some of the peoplel But I must say that, generally speaking, in Polish society, that was not successful...
...What good would it do anyone...
...The Poles too suffered under the Nazis...
...Nevertheless, the whole affair played badly among Poles...
...That happens everywhere "My second point is that the things are confusing Of course, in Poland, all—or nearly all—of the Jews were murdered...
...At Auschwitz, we met a small group of Israelis who invited us to join them...
...So I went...
...The man defected and fled to Palestine, where he fought in the Jewish British brigade for the rest of the war...
...They don't convey the strange enrichment I felt along with the pain—the enrichment of knowing...
...But I can also understand the other side...
...No special problem...
...PERSPECTIVE The Wrong Answer: Lech Walesa on Anti-Semitism A true folk hero, Lech Walesa conquered America—especially the media—with his uncommon courage, his good common sense, his unpretentious charm and directness, his earthy humor and wit his peasant good looks, all combined with his surprising ability to articulate Poland's past and her present needs Wherever he went he was greeted with a standing ovation—including Congress, where he was only the second foreign private citizen ever to address that august body (the other was the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824...
...See what is left...
...Some, however, you can't imagine—like the vastness of it...
...Rabbi Avi Weiss who climbed over the convent wall to protest was seen as a madman—even the Nazis, we were told, didn't touch the Church...
...There were some idiots who said stupid things That always happens...
...But seeing it gives you something I cannot articulate...
...It is now irrelevant to ask whether the convent was something over which we should have created an issue...
...You must go...
...I prepared my question in advance...
...Some are easily rejected, like wonderful, terrific, exciting...
...In other words, ifs not a problem...
...The secular press saw no need to ask him antagonistic questions and, so far as I have been able to tell, few, if any, were asked...
...Now, I must tell you: Go...
...Walesa's answer is worth studying closely: "I am a pure-bred, pure-blood Pole Very often I have heard about Poland willing to murder, or murdering, Jews...
...Therefore, please, stop all those who today, even today, still try to play a political part [by using] so-called anti-Semitism in Poland...
...I, for one, am ready for this kind of dialogue...
...And they did agree to ren\ove the convent...
...But I am in a distinct minority...
...Could there possibly be loo much prayer or improper prayer in this place that incarnates human evil and enshrines innocent death...
...See it with your own eyes...
...Does anti-Semitism impact on Poland's ability to progress toward democracy and economic self-sufficiency...
...The question apparently caught Walesa off guard...
...Because the ashes of Jews killed at Auschwitz may be anywhere in the vast space of the camp, Gebert explained, all of Auschwitz, including the building occupied by the convent, must today be considered a Jewish cemetery...
...I do not believe Lech Walesa himself is an anti-Semite...
...Gebert said that he and many Jews believe thai God was silent during the Shoah...
...ifs just that you're making it a problem...
...these two nations I Poles and Jews] lived together and it was mutually profitable...
...In 1946—only one year after the war ended—in the town of Kielce, Poles killed 42 Jews in a pogrom...
...He had grown up irf Poland, but fled from the Germans in time to join the Polish army in exile, stationed in Iran...
...And you they killed for political reasons...
...It is not near the only entrance to the camp...
...His immediate reaction was anger, almost offense...
...It does not lie in my mouth to say "You only lost 100,000...
...So when I have to react in a word or two to casual, friendly inquiries, this is what I say: "Strangely enriching...
...the prayers cannot be heard...
...One of Poland's foremost theologians, a leader in Jewish-Polish dialogue, told us that the expression "hit the Jew" is sometimes used when a person cheats you and that the remark should be considered "innocent...
...But I believe it is time for us to begin talking to one another, to try to understand one another...
...I watched the nuns pray at the base of the 23-foot cross that stands in the monastery garden next to the perimeter fence at Auschwitz...
...to drop them into warm, damp chambers to release their gas and smother the naked victims inside...
...It stipulated that the nuns would be moved to an ecumenical prayer centci" to be built near the perimeter of Auschwitz...
...All the words are wrong...
...the cross stands in the bottom of a bowl-shaped garden—not high and stark against the sky...
...On August 26, 1989, Cardinal Glemp reacted to Jewish protests regarding the failure to move the Carmelite nuns out of Auschwitz by the agreed date by warning Jews not to use their "power" over the Western news media to "spread anti-Polish feeling" or to speak from ' 'the position of a people raised above all others...
...Us they killed to exterminate—only because we were Jews...
...This is the way the question came out when it was read to him: 'is anti-Semitism a problem in your country today...
...And I must say that it always upsets me...
...Polish anti-Semitism is a plague that continues to this day...
...At this time, I did not feel offended as I thought I should, after hearing Jewish outrage over the presence of the nuns at Auschwitz...
...In conclusion, he said, don't you try to use anti-Semitism as a political tactic against Poland...
...At Treblinka (below), 17.000 jagged stones memorialize the camp's 800,000 victims...
...PERSPECTIVE The Strange Enrichment Of Seeing Auschwitz Nearly 30 years ago, I read about the Holocaust—the confining ghettos, the daily roundups for "resettlement" in the east, the concentration camps, the mass exterminations, the burning of the corpses...
...anti-Semitism was used as a political ploy, for political gain...
...Walesa went on to explain that of course there are anti-Semites in Poland—just as there are in "every country...
...But it is not our right to ignore Polish anti-Semitism that continues to thrive, fed by churches that distribute the Protocols of the Elders of Qon and by people who, according to a recent survey in rural Poland, still believe the infamous blood libel, that the blood of Christian babies is used to make matzah...
...If somebody, so to speak, got a house which once belonged to the Jews or a store which once belonged to a Jewish family, of course he liked to have a house or a store But those same people would never murder or would never—bang—(shoot) the Jews to get their hands on their property...
...In 1968 the Communist government of Poland liquidated all organized forms of Jewish life and carried out a relentless anti-Semitic campaign that drove out of Poland almost half its remaining 30,000 Jews, the remnant of the more than three million Jews killed by the Nazis, Jews who had made Poland the cultural and religious heart of the Jewish world...
...It won't be easy, but it is time to begin.—H.S...
...One was the same one we were all looking at...
...I would let them pray for their dead, even at the walls of Auschwitz...
...Shamir's father was killed by Poles in Poland...
...He was the only one in the picture who survived...
...Some of the buildings are now museums with pictures...
...In this country [Poland...
...But there are elements in Polish society who are willing to listen, to reach out to us, who ask us not to understand their anti-Semitism, but to understand their suffering...
...As we arrived at the site, the nuns filed silently from their building, where the Nazis had stored Zyklon B pellets in canisters until they were ready A yahrtzeit candle has been Bet beside a stone in Treblinka (right), "Skier niewice...
...Of course, there were some pigs, as there are pigs everywhere But not the whole country...
...But for Jews there is a persisting dark side—the centuries-old hatred of Jews by Poles...
...Would you comment on the situation as it exists today and what can be done about it...
...After our tour of Auschwitz, we asked to see the Carmelite monastery because it was not visible from inside the compound...
...she had been subjected to medical experiments in the infamous Block 10 at Auschwitz...
...We will have no trouble making an agenda of concrete expectations: punishing those who commit violent anti-Semitic acts, condemning libelous anti-Semitic statements, forbidding distribution of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and fulfilling the Geneva agreement to move the Carmelite nuns...
...I ended up going to five...
...They too died in Auschwitz...
...As such, for the Jewish people he is a powerful reminder that Poland has not yet confronted its anti-Semitic past nor the anti-Semitism that infects it even as I write—H.S...
...I asked him why I should be offended by the Carmelite monastery...
...So this was not really anti-Semitism...
...You must drive around to the site to see it...
...only then did she learn that she had been sterilized as a result of the medical experiments...
...Before one of the pictures, a small white-haired Israeli stopped short...
...See MOMENT, "The Last March of Janusz Korciak's Children," June 1988...
...There in one of the blown-up photos was his own face 44 years earlier...
...This is the bright, hopeful side of Poland...
...Our agenda should be the quid pro quo for Jewish participation in and support for Poland's economic revival.—S.F.S...
...Another person in the group also had a number on her forearm...
...But others that may seem nearer the mark are equally bad, like moving, extraordinary, meaningful...
...She ended up in Israel and later married...
...I have not done it again...
...Why not let the Catholics pray here...
...He pointed, then reached in his wallet...
...You can't see it from anywhere inside the camp...
...If I had been offered a free trip to see the camps, I would have turned it down...
...The outburst of Polish anti-Semitism in 1968 that led to the flight of 13,000 of Poland's remaining 30,000 Jews was not real anti-Semitism, he indicated, but a political ploy by the anti-Communists trying to rid Poland of Communist rule...
...One day his commander told the troops in his units triumphantly, "We will return to Poland without Jews...
...I won't describe them for you...
...See it for yourself...
...The format imposed by the Club, however, required the submission of questions in writing, to be read by the chairman...
...he pulled out three pictures he always carried with him—death camp pictures...
...People ask me, how was it...
...Their failure to live up to their agreement was outrageous and Cardinal Glemp's anti-Semitic remarks were even worse...
...we, a million...
...Yes, we saw the Carmelite convent...
...This dark side requires that Jews, whether in the United States or Israel, exact a price from Poles if they are to have our cooperation in their national rebirth...
...Gebert is an observant Jew...
...The Next Step For Jews and Poles I was with Hershel Shanks at Auschwitz...
...But it is clear that he doesn't understand the pervasive nature of Polish anti-Semitism...
...She is now divorced, alone again, permanently scarred in many ways...
...When I asked her her name, she explained that she was the last who would bear the name...
...One learns in Poland thai all Jews are sui"vivors of the Shoah and of Polish pogroms and it is left to us to speak for the silent dead, Ii is left to us to require that Jewish sensibilities, even if they are not our own, be heard...
...While we were in Cracow, Henryk, a Polish Jew in his 30s who runs the Jewish club in Cracow and served as our guide, was knocked down while walking across the main market square of Cracow by two young Poles who kicked him and yelled, "Jew get out...
...I attended a luncheon for Walesa at the National Press Club...
...Why go through the pain again...
...Two nights later, in Warsaw, I met a prominent Polish journalist and Solidarity activist, Konstanty Gebcrt, known widely by his pseudonym, Dawid Warszawski...
...There are stupid people in every country, in Poland as well...
Vol. 15 • February 1990 • No. 1
