Klaus Peter Friedrich, “Views on the
Nazi Judeocide in the Polish Press, 1942-1946/47”
The author examines which views on the
Nazi Judeocide were present in the Polish press between 1942 and
1946/47. Overwhelmingly, the plight of the Jewish population was
mentioned only when it was possible to relate it to the suffering of
ethnic Poles. Meanwhile, Jews were not perceived to be part of the
ethnically defined Polish national community toward which solidarity
had to be exercised unconditionally. After the war, the (pro-)
communist press took a very critical stance regarding the reaction
of the Polish population to the Nazis’ anti-Jewish crimes. At the
same time, the communists and their political allies propagated a
specific “anti-antisemitism”. They also often withheld the truth
that the Nazis’ victims were predominantly Jews and that there was
actually no common martyrdom of Poles and Jews. The legal
non-communist press stressed the help given by Poles to the
persecuted Jews but was either unwilling or, because of government
censorship, unable to act as a corrective. Meanwhile, the
underground press repeatedly expressed a collective fear of
“Judeo-Bolshevism” (Żydokomuna), which was projected onto a
clandestine “foreign” (Jewish) enemy inside the country. The illegal
groupings opined that Poles had reacted in an exemplary way towards
the Holocaust and were chagrined by what they perceived as Jewish
ingratitude. |
