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Polish-Catholics
and Catholic-Poles: The Gospel, National Interest, Civic Solidarity,
and the Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto
Blonski
gives the full text (on pp. 181-183) of a handbill entitled
“Protest,” written by the Polish-Catholic writer Zofia
Kossak-Szczucka, and issued by the Front for the Revival of Poland
in August 1942. The handbill, appealing to Poles to condemn the
crime of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, is also blatantly
antisemitic. Reflects on this seemingly contradictory document.
Kossak-Szczucka’s logic, though, is consistent with traditional
Polish antisemitic thought, which viewed the Jews as “Poland’s
innate enemies” and called for separation from them, but at the
same time, following Christian commandments, ruled out genocide.
This type of antisemitism does not kill nor does it rule out
compassion and active help for Jews. But it contributes to the
intensification of anti-Jewish prejudice, and indirectly lays the
burden of shared blame on Polish society for the destruction of the
Jews.
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