One of my first adventures here in Poland started with a good friend and I taking a trip to the peaceful Bieszczady mountains. As we wandered the touristy shoppes wedged in a nook between a glimmering lake and a small mountain, we came across something that absolutely shocked me. Here in the land where appox. 3 million Polish Jews were murdered in the Shoah (Holocaust), that day I was staring at a little trinket in a tourist shop that was making fun of Jews. Anti-Semitism can (sadly) exist anywhere, yet it felt extra shocking and historically deaf to witness it in a casual tourist shop in this land. That day I opened my phone and typed in a new photo album: Jewish-Christian Relations in Poland.
It’s almost 2022: 77 years since the end of WWII. Almost 33 years since communism ended in Poland.This painful history lives within not just the memory of people yet the land as well: almost every street and building cry the evils they have witnessed. There’s not adequate space here to write of how deeply this has shaped my time here yet I hope to share a glimpse here. I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to spend 3 months in Israel before moving to Poland (I didn’t plan it to be like that but WOW just so thankful).
During my time in Israel I learned that the Shoah is viewed as something that Christians allowed (and even perpetrated) as often Christian neighbours did not speak up for their
Jewish neighbours. The Shoah happened in Europe which had been the height of Christendom.
Those who silently continued about their lives allowing evil to unfold without pondering (or ignoring) the great cost such silence and inaction can come from. It also should be mentioned, of course there were few who acted heroically: Corrie Ten Boom and Fr Maximilian Kolbe are just a couple examples. We’re all just as capable of being silent as we are capable of acting justly.
As soon as I arrived, I had tickets for a tour of Auschwitz. I’d grown up hearing and reading about it, but it somehow seemed distant: it was time to descend into the depths of this evil history, pay respects, and learn. During that Auschwitz tour, I was met with another surprise. The story of the Shoah was shared from another perspective. They had recognised that it the Shoah was primarily for the extinction of Jews yet they at the same time continued to emphasise the extinction of Poles and all Slavs. It’s true Nazi Germany expressed an anti- Slavic sentiment (Slavs were also declared untermensch – subhuman). However it is absolutely undeniable that the primary group that had been targeted were the Jews. On the same hand it is also undeniable that both Poles and Jews endured great pain from WWII as Poland had been the focused epicentre of concentration camps. A Polish Jewish writer, Konstanty Gebert (Living in the Land of Ashes, pg 100) has an interesting thesis in regard to this:
“Especially in respect to groups, suffering hardly ennobles; rather, it makes the group concentrate on its own pain, and become inured to and indifferent tothe pain of others. This has happened both to the Poles and Serbs, and in a way also to the Jews. Therefore I venture the thesis that suffering does not ennoble, but it makes one more prone to see one’s own group as noble. Hence the self-perception trap the Poles fell into.”
Gebert, both Jewish and Polish, has a very insightful perspective as has hope for the small yet growing Jewish community in Poland today. There is certainly not enough space to dive deep into this topic here (so much more like the crumbling Israeli/Polish relations, modern anti-Semitism, etc) yet I must say this has been most impactful during my time here. I think this was a reason I didn’t write an update, I wasn’t entirely sure how to captivate this.There is never away to fully captivate the dark tragedy of the Shoah. Yet we can choose to learn and love those near and far from us.
“You kill yourself when you hate. It’s the worst disease in the world.” – William Schiff author (William and Rosalie) “We can’t choose to vanish the dark, but we can choose to kindle the light.” -Edith Eger author (the Choice) and survivor
