Poland has largest gathering of rabbis since WWII (Christians, religious, Israel)
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According to, Poland has largest gathering of rabbis since WWII (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_POLAND_RABBI_GATHERING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEM PLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-11-01-12-15-13 - broken link), dozens of rabbis from across Europe have gathered in Warsaw for the largest meeting of Jewish religious leaders in Poland since the community was virtually wiped out during World War II.
Poland was home to Europe's largest Jewish community before the war, numbering nearly 3.5 million. Most were murdered in ghettos and death camps that Germany built after invading and occupying Poland in 1939.
Over the last 30 years, the Jewish population in Poland has grown from just a few thousand to over 20,000.
My maternal grandfather came from Poland. He told my mother stories about Poles getting drunk at Christmastime and looking for Jews to beat up (if not kill). And my grandfather wasn't from the sticks--he was born in Warsaw.
Being a Jew in Poland was no walk in the park then, and I doubt it's much better now.
Calling a Polish Catholic a "Pole" and a Polish Jew a "Jew" is Polish anti-Semitism.
Another thing I learned via my maternal grandparents was that Jews weren't allowed to be citizens; it didn't matter if they'd been living there for centuries. They were never referred to as Poles--they were always Jews. Catholic Poles were also pretty good at turning Jews in to the Nazis. So you'll have to pardon me if I don't observe all the usual niceties.
Forgive and forget? Forgive, maybe. Forget, never!
Another thing I learned via my maternal grandparents was that Jews weren't allowed to be citizens; it didn't matter if they'd been living there for centuries.
Actually, Napoleon made Jews citizens of the country they were in during his conquest of most of Europe during the early 19th Century, and even after he was defeated, Jews remained citizens; in many cases ill-treated citizens, but still citizens.
Another thing I learned via my maternal grandparents was that Jews weren't allowed to be citizens; it didn't matter if they'd been living there for centuries. They were never referred to as Poles--they were always Jews. Catholic Poles were also pretty good at turning Jews in to the Nazis. So you'll have to pardon me if I don't observe all the usual niceties.
Jews of the Kaisiadorys Region of Lithuania is the first book I have seen written by a Lithuanian that admits Lithuanian Christians participated in the Holocaust. It explicitly states that local civilians, in addition to the German Einsatzgruppen, plundered and systematically murdered the Jews.
Yet the author falls into the trap that is one of the underlying seeds of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe through the centuries; that Jews are thought of not as part of the local population, but a group apart. The author refers to two groups of people who lived in the area: Lithuanians and Jews. Not Lithuanian Christians and Lithuania Jews, but Lithuanians and Jews. This was dramatically brought to my attention by the caption in one of the more than 200 pictures in the book. It originally said, “Jews and Lithuanians form the junior football team in Žiežmariai circa 1937.” I had the author change it to “Jews and non-Jews form the junior football team in Žiežmariai circa 1937.” In my request to him, I commented that had this been a book about the Jews of Philadelphia, would he have referred to the two groups of people as Philadelphians and Jews?
Unfortunately Walter this was common. Most of my family (grandparents) came from Austria in the area known as Galicia. Because of changes in the borders and wars, it now part of modern day Ukraine. My family came from an area known as Sambir which is close to the western border with Poland. I occasionally speak to individuals from the areas that I have become friends with during my travels and over the years it has gotten worse. Ukraine is highly anti-semetic to this day and most of the previous structures including synagogues and jewish graveyards have been destroyed or covered over or overgrown. On yahoo there is a group with alot of facts related to these areas of Ukraine/Poland/Galicia. I do have alot of anymosity about what happened but I can't blame people that weren't born when this happened; but I too can never forget the facts. I know at least 11 members of my family that perished during this travesty that I uncovered while doing genealogical research, 2 of them being my grandfathers parents.
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