When Israel ignorantly blames the Holocaust on the Poles, it boosts their illiberal nationalists *** haaretz.com
It
is ironic that Poland, the country that suffered most at the hands of
the Nazis, is almost more closely associated with the Holocaust than
Germany itself.
Ironic,
but not surprising: Many view the massacre of Jews in Poland during
World War II as the logical conclusion of centuries of anti-Semitism,
while there's more sympathy for the view that Nazism was an aberration
in German history. Germany, while culpable, is commended for coming to
terms with its past, not least through a program of denazification,
while Poland is chastised for not accepting responsibility for its role
in the Holocaust.
However, Poland’s new law
banning the attribution of collective guilt to the Polish people for
the Holocaust is deeply troubling. The law, which stipulates a fine or a
prison sentence of up to three years for offenders, is an authoritarian
curb on free speech by Poland’s nationalist government, and joins the continued persecution of Holocaust scholars for investigating Polish atrocities.
Clearly,
it’s a complicated situation that requires a thoughtful and yet
forceful response. Israeli leaders opted instead to equate the Polish
law with Holocaust denial, in an ignorant and foolish display of
haughtiness and prejudice.
Ignorant,
because it ignores historical facts, and foolish, because it only plays
into the hands of the Polish government, which can now legitimize the
law by saying it’s standing up in defense of Polish national honor.
"History cannot be changed and it is forbidden to deny the Holocaust," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Cabinet minister Yisrael Katz tweeted that it was, "The Polish
parliament's law is to deny Poland's part in and responsibility for the
massacre that took place on its soil. We will not forget or forgive." he cherry on top of was a Twitter exchange
between the head of the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid, and the Polish
Embassy in Israel. Lapid accused Poland of denying "Polish complicity"
in the Holocaust, using the questionable term "Polish death camps" to
buttress his claim.
The
Embassy responded with a link to a statement by the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance condemning the use of the term, and
followed up with the tactless comment: "Your unsupportable claims show
how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel." Lapid
responded by haughtily demanding an immediate apology for attempting to
"educate" him, the son of a Holocaust survivor, about the Holocaust.
The
Polish Embassy’s response to Lapid was crude, and its snide insinuation
that Israel’s Holocaust education is faulty is deeply offensive.
But the Israeli politician’s implicit claim of a
monopoly over historical truth is ludicrous and conceited. Had Lapid
claimed that it was the Poles who came up with the Final Solution, would
it have been impermissible to correct him, just because his father
survived the Holocaust?
Even before we debate a "Polish culpability" for
the Holocaust, it should be admitted that the very concept of collective
guilt is fraught with danger. No one knows this better than the Jews,
whom the Church only cleared of collective guilt for the death of Jesus
in 1965. In modernity, no pogrom in Russia was carried out without the
preamble of a supposed atrocity by a Jew. Even the Nazis had recourse to
one, the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, to "justify"
Kristallnacht in 1938, when more than 90 Jews were killed in attacks
across Germany.
Even
in relation to Germany, the question of collective guilt or
responsibility has been hotly debated by such eminent Jewish
philosophers as Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt. While Arendt argued
against it, Jaspers defended
the use of the concept, saying that, "There exists a solidarity among
men as human beings that makes each as responsible for every wrong and
every injustice in the world, especially for crimes committed in his
presence or with his knowledge. If I fail to do whatever I can do to
prevent them, I too am guilty."
But in Poland’s case, ascribing collective guilt is more precarious.
Contrary to other European countries, such as
France or Norway, Poland was directly controlled by Nazi Germany. There
was no puppet regime in Poland to assist the Germans, like the Vichy or
Quisling governments, and the Nazis annexed parts of the country, while
putting the rest under the control of a German governor, Hans Frank.
Frank
subjected Poland to a terror "much fiercer and more protracted [...]
than anywhere in Europe," scholar Norman Davies says, as cited by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
This terror included capital punishment for offering any help to Jews.
While it’s true that Poles aided, abetted and participated in the Holocaust (an estimated 200,000 Jews died at Polish hands),
it is also true that 6,500 Poles were recognized as righteous among
nations, more than in any other country, and it is widely considered
that this number is just the tip of the iceberg.
The
Nazi terror also included the killing of at least a million and a half
Polish civilians, as well as a cultural genocide aimed specifically to
make the Poles into better laborers for their German masters. While in
France intellectuals were free to continue their efforts - Sartre, for
instance, produced his magnum opus Being and Nothingness in 1943 in occupied Paris - the Polish intelligentsia was practically obliterated.
Not
only this, but the Nazis sought to ensure that there would be no one to
replace their ranks. As the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum states:
"To prevent the birth of a new generation of educated Poles, German
officials decreed that Polish children's schooling end after a few years
of elementary education. "The sole goal of this schooling is to teach
them simple arithmetic, nothing above the number 500; writing one's
name; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans. . . . I
do not think that reading is desirable," Himmler wrote in his May 1940
memorandum."
Considering,
then, that Poland was under direct Nazi rule, that this regime was
ruthless toward Polish civilians, and that aiding Jews was a capital
offense, Poland’s consternation at being accused of national complicity
with the Nazis is reasonable. Defending a Polish culpability for the
three million Jews killed in Poland is problematic at best, just like
arguing for a collective Polish saintliness due to 6,500 Polish
righteous among nations would be.
That
said, the new law is misguided and its repercussions are chilling. The
law doesn't define what would constitute an accusation against the
Polish nation, and as such, it is unclear how the law will be enforced
and against whom. As the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights noted,
the law may discourage members of the public from discussing certain
aspects of Poland’s history because of the risk of facing criminal
sanctions.
Oded Even Or
Haaretz Contributor
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