KSAWERY PRUSZYNSKI
339
better." T hi s, as we a ll know, is the la t resort of malice - a quality
whi ch is never in sho rt supp ly among us .
When a fCw weeks late r I v isited our a rmy camps, it turned out
tha t wha t in the embassy circles was insidi ously whi spe red here was
a nnounced th rough a loudspeaker. A prominent pe rson told me
blun tly : "You unde rsta nd , we a ll like very much Pro fessor Kot,
*
but
some go ings-on a re intole rable. I mean the inAue nce whi ch these
two me n , Alter a nd Erlich , have on him . T hi s is int e rn a ti onal
J ewry, tota ll y ali en inHuences. These me n have no bu siness bein g
pa rt o f the entourage o f the Poli sh ambassado r ." "Bu t they a re not. "
"Oh , I know what I'm ta lkin g abou t." "And wha t if they we re?"
"Wha t do you mean ?" "The ambassador ," I woul d try to expla in ,
"represe nts a coun try whi ch incl udes not onl y citi zens o f the Polish
na ti ona lity. W e have, in pa rti cul a r on ou r Eas te rn borde rs, othe r
nati onalities a well. " "It's too bad you didn't see how these othe r
na ti ona lities behaved a ft e r Septembe r 17 ." "No, I did not see thi s,
but our po iti on is th a t wha teve r ac ts o f di sloyalty did occur reAec t
on onl y a pa r t o f thi s popul a ti on . T he leaders o f the stronges t a nd
the mos t radi cal movement among the J ew ish minority proved by
their behav ior tha t they we re loyal Po les. This, I feel , is wha t we
should be emphas izing."
Bu t the re was a lso sniping from the o the r side. And thi s time it
was scarcely a ma tte r of mi spe rception . Sto ri es about a nti-Semiti c
incidents in the Polish a rmy would trave l to Kuybys hev very
rapidl y. Their magnified echoes p romptl y reached the ea rs of the
representat ives o f the W est - members o f the embass ies a nd o f the
press corps. Pole , who we re widely admired , when they has tened
upon release from Sovie t prisons a nd camps to ta ke up a rms on the
side of tho e who had impri soned them , we re now po rtrayed as un–
reconstruc ted a nti -Semites. W e we re los ing the sympa thy o f the
Wes t, whi ch a t tha t point was essenti al to us.
Alte r a nd Erli ch knew thi s a nd agoni zed ove r it. They fe lt tha t
our a uthoriti es we re not do in g everything th a t was within their
power to curb the abuse. But they we re read y to use the credibility
they had acquired vis-a-v i a ma ll group o f fo reigne rs in the drab
town on the Volga to place those ma tte rs in prope r pe rspec ti ve a nd
reduce them to prope r size . T hey we re convinced tha t some a lie n
elements we re a t wo rk the re, eleme nts which we re di scomfited by
· Prof. Stanislaw Kot, a liberal politician and a d istinguished cu ltural historia n , was
at the ti me the Poli sh ambassador to the Soviet U nion .
