BOOKS
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The first half of Professor Heller's book deals with the objective
situation of Poland's Jews, which means the complex historical
development of that community in good times and bad, their social
definition (that of an inferior caste, and ultimately of a conquered
nation), the pattern of oppression in our century that culminated in a
policy of organized terror, abuse, exclusion. The second half shows the
Jewish response to their situation: the orthodox moving from tradi–
tional accommodation patterns toward politicization (ultimately use–
less), assimilationists struggling against ethnic consciousness (only to
return to it finally), the majority acculturating somewhere between
tradition and assimilation, and the Socialists, Communists, Zionists
militantly resisting oppression. The essential paradox was that Jewish
life was undergoing a profound transformation from a homogeneous
to
a heterogeneous culture-the impact of a belated Englightenment
tore apart families, introduced secularism and modernism everywhere,
impelled the youth towards socialism and Zionism-at the precise time
that the Poles increasingly disregarded any notion of heterogeneity
among Jews, seeing them only as foreign, dangerous, the enemy of true
Polish nationhood.
The depth and obtuseness of Polish Jew-hatred has to be seen to be
believed. In 1936 the Primate of Poland came out in support of the
government's anti-Jewish campaign with a pastoral letter that read, in
part, as follows :
A Jewish problem exists, and will continue to exist as long as
the Jews remain Jews. ...
It
is a fact that the Jews fight against the
Catholic Church. They are free-thinkers and constitute the
vangu~rd
of atheism, of the Bolshevik movement and of revolutionary activity.
It
is a fact that Jewish influence upon morals is fatal , and their
publishers spread pornographic literature.
It
is true that the Jews are
committing frauds, practicing I.\sury, and dealing in white slavery.
It
is true that in schools the influence of the Jewish youth upon the
Catholic youth is generally evil, from a religious and ethical point of
view. But-let us be just. Not all Jews are like that.
The good Cardinal goes on to deplore the beating up of Jews as
being un-Christian, but the damage has been more than done. The fact
is that instead of restraining the persecution of Jews the Church
actively supported it. The nightmare of contemporary history from
which we cannot awaken is that this same church can be seen as, and
often is, in the condition of Poland's continuing oppression, a bastion
of national aspiration and even of liberalism.
It
must be added,
however, that Pope John Paul II had a good record as a civilian in the
