This is an archive of past discussions about History of the Jews in Poland. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
My edit summary: this is absolutely positively NOT a revert of edits by Mathiasrex, but I am moving the new material as a whole to the article talk page so the more experienced editors with advanced knowledge of the Polish-Jewish history can have a discussion about the merits of the book in question and the final wording.Poeticbenttalk14:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
The fight for autonomy in the rebuilt Polish state 1918-1920
On October 21-22 1918 was held in Warsaw Zionist Conference, which adopted a resolution In the case of national policy postulating of granting Jews constitutionally guaranteed national autonomy in rebuilt Polish state. In 1920, Yitzhak Gruenbaum by the Constitutional Commission on behalf of the Union of Jewish MPs proposed Jewish autonomy. The proposed article 113 read: land of the Republic, inhabited overwhelmingly by non-Polish nationality, will be an autonomous provinces that receive separate legislative representation, selected on the basis of universal suffrage, direct, equal, secret and Ratio. Separate Act will define the powers of those legislative bodies and the ratio of the autonomous province of the State[1]
Construction of Jewish autonomy under German occupation
Bank note of 10 mark of Getto Litzmannstadt, visible menora, in 1948 becomes a Emblem of IsraelWarsaw Ghetto wall in May 1941Warsaw Ghettopolizei in May 1941
After the fall of the Polish state in 1939, Polish Jews residing in this country as well as Ukrainians and Belarusians adopted an attitude that manifested a break of contacts with representatives of the last legitimate state authority and not establishing it with forming a Polish Underground State. The Jewish community immediately established contact with the German occupation authorities and started to build on the lands of occupied Poland Jewish territorial autonomy under the tutelage of a Germany called ghettos. Polish Jews did not treat Germans as an enemies, but as harsh, but legitimate power, which leads to conversations and negotiates the terms of coexistence. At the conference, 20 September 1940 roku Ludwig Leist promised to Adam Czerniakow granting the Warsaw Jews Selbständige Autonomie (self-autonomy). May 19, 1941 Czerniakow accepted an appointment from the hands of the Germans on the Jewish mayor of Warsaw and began to use the title of head of the Verwaltung des Jüdischen Wohnbesitzes. From that moment the Warsaw Jewish territorial autonomy and other Jewish autonomy became independent from the rest of the lands of General Government became a part of the Third Reich, and Adam Czerniakow and other mayors of Jewish autonomy became government officials representing the residents of the autonomy of the German State authorities[2]
Notes
^Ewa Kurek, Poza granicą solidarności. Stosunki polsko-żydowskie 1939-1945, Kielce 2006, p. 56-57.
^Ewa Kurek, Poza granicą solidarności. Stosunki polsko-żydowskie 1939-1945, Kielce 2006, p. 120-126.
The above material, posted in mainspace on May 1, 2015 by Mathiasrex, is referenced to a fairly new book published in Poland: Dr Ewa Kurek (2014) [2006], Poza granicą solidarności. Stosunki polsko-żydowskie 1939-1945 [ Beyond the Border of Solidarity. Polish-Jewish Relations in 1939-1945 ] (available in PDF with direct download) from Wydawnictwo Wyższej Szkoły Umiejętności, Kielce 2006, ISBN83-9119181-7 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum-3; but also as a hard copy from Bollinari Publishing House; soft cover, 454 pages, reprinted in 2014.
I downloaded a copy of the book and although I did not read it in full as of yet, I familiarized myself with its premise. I might be able to comment on it later. I also searched online for the third-party reliable sources with possible reviews. I found at least one notable article in Polish. Paweł P. Reszka, Jan Cywiński (20 September 2006), "Kurek: Getta zbudowali Żydzi" [ Kurek: Ghettos were built by the Jews ] Gazeta Wyborcza (book review with Note about the author; informing that Dr Ewa Kurek is a Christian academic with several books published and/or written since the 1980s). However, the authors of the review were very critical of the book content, pointing out to the fact that the already well known history of the World War II ghettos, and the plight of Jews across occupied Poland, is misrepresented by the author who seem to pay little or no attention to their wide spread suffering during the Holocaust. Your comments are appreciated, Poeticbenttalk14:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Gazeta Wyborcza as a source
Gazeta Wyborcza is an unreliable source. You may recall an article of Michał Cichy describing the murder of Jews by the Warsaw insurgents. [2] The author himself later admit that it was a hoax.[3]Mathiasrex (talk) 07:17, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
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According to Wikipedia:General overview article a comprehensive view of the subject is achieved by combining summarized content from many specialized articles into one in an attempt to help the reader. Some of us might not be aware of that policy. Today, User:Po Kadzieli (192 edits since: 2014-12-27) dumped (+1,699) and (+2,118) of new copytext into this entry by cutting and pasting (-2,890) from Chrobry II Battalion article. The new copytext is almost completely unrelated to the Jewish uprising in Warsaw which has its own exhaustive section in this article called "Warsaw Ghetto and its uprising" featuring links to Main article: Warsaw Ghetto and Further information: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. User:Po Kadzieli created his own sections by completely ignoring the fact that (quote-unquote) Prosta Street is not even mentioned once (!) in the Warsaw Uprising article, which makes me suspect that he did not actually read the other article (including this one) before editing. The copy-paste takes zero effort. Unfortunately, it also has no place here. Below is the copy-paste of the User:Po Kadzieli's own copy-paste. Your opinions are welcome. Thanks, Poeticbenttalk05:42, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
On 1 August 1944, a general uprising in the capital was triggered by the Polish Underground Army's high command, based with the Polish government-in-exile in London. It was to last an astounding 63 days. What is as yet little documented is the fact and the number of Jewish fighters who participated in this doomed but determined endeavour against overwhelming odds. It was based on the miscalculations, as it turned out, of Hitler's military weakness and the presumption that the Allies, including Soviet Russian forces parked on the south side of the Vistula river in Praga would rally in support. The idea was to win improved bargaining at the eventual peace talks. In the event, the Soviets did not budge and the Americans made some desultory air drops that were of little use or fell into enemy hands. Among the great but unsung commanders was the hidden Jew, Captain Piotr Zacharewicz, nom de guerre: Zawadzki, a trained engineer, who headed the 'Warszawianka' company, part of the Chrobry II battalion. It not only held out in their defended quarters to the bitter end at the actual capitulation on 2 October, but brought succour to many other units throughout the action. Paradoxically, Zacharewicz, Natanson and other Jews in the unit were members of the NSZ, the nationalistically inclined movement, originally opposed to the general uprising, who were later hounded, calumnied as Jew-haters, and murdered by the Communist authorities. The fractious nature of the various partisan groups and the common criminality among some of them was evidenced by the so-called Prosta Street murders at the time.
Prosta Street
During the uprising, captainWacław Zagórski, Leszek of the Chrobry II battalion,[1] discovered a group of insurgents from a different battalion, commanded by officer Stykowski, Hal, had allegedly murdered a number Jews emerging from hiding. Together with Roman Bornstein, Chrobry II's medic. who was Jewish, they reported the crime to the AK High Command and later published an account of it.[2] According to Bornstein, the commander of the uprising, Antoni Chruściel, Monter, was outraged and ordered an immediate investigation and court martial of those responsible. Robert Kaminski, Francuz, was arrested and a warrant issued for Cpl. Mucha, recommending they both be executed. Investigations were suspended on discovering other suspects had died in fighting[3]. Stykowski's men shot Corporal Unrug, also blamed for the murders, though his killing may have been a cover for Stykowski himself, who was never prosecuted for the crime. Stykowski's men were known to have killed Chrobry II fighters during robberies. Reports after the war concluded the Chrobry II battalion had been blamed for the murders in error, owing to their control of a neighbouring area.[4]
^Cite error: The named reference Gunnar was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^name=Engel|Barbara Engelking, Dariusz Libionka, "Żydzi w Powstanczej Warszawie" (Jews in the Warsaw Uprising), Polish Center for Holocaust Research Association, 2009, pgs 184-190
^ name=Gunnar|Gunnar S. Paulsson, "Secret city: the hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945", Yale University Press, 2002, pg. 176-177, [1]
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This edit and several others by the same editor is spamming a self-published title by someone likely affiliated with the editor or self-publisher. You will not that that editor's history shows they are spamming books published by "Dale Street Books" and edited by "Aleksandra Miesak Rohde" and their user name is "Aleksjag". --Dual Freq (talk) 21:37, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
I see what you see. And, you're probably correct, but it doesn't matter. The editor, Aleksandra Rohde, is not the author of the German Occupation of Poland written in 1942 by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The book edited by Rohde is not written by her. It is a reprint of a valuable report from World War II. We ought to inform the user about our policies and guidelines (like Huntster did) and leave it at that. In Commons we already have another report by the same body called File:The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied.pdf published on behalf of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The book edited by Rohde contains original text of a different report by the same Ministry, which might also be in public domain (hence the reprint), but it is not a spam. Poeticbenttalk00:17, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
Then cite the original, public domain, document, not some for-profit reprint that the editor is spamming to wikipedia. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:24, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with the editor who is accused of spamming, but here is what appears to be her page on Amazon and this is the Amazon page for the book cited here, The German Occupation of Poland, of which she writes:
This shocking report prepared by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1941 describes the Nazi reign of terror in German-occupied Poland. ... The German Occupation of Poland supersedes an earlier report, commonly known as the Polish White Book, which was published in 1940. But while the earlier Polish White Book is readily available on the internet, this later report is extremely rare. We obtained our hard copy from a bookstore in London. The later version, officially titled, The German Occupation of Poland: An Extract of Note Addressed to the Governments of the Allied and Neutral Powers on May 3, 1941, was updated substantially from the earlier version and includes additional documents collected in the intervening year since the original publication.
I don't see why citing the report is inappropriate. The article doesn't have a link to Amazon. We cite other modern republications of relevant historical documents, such as footnotes 33 and 34 (the originals are available on archive.org, so why allow Varda Books to collect a royalty?). Why single out this editor and this source? — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk02:40, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
"This shocking report..." is the editor's own marketing write-up for the text. It's a sales pitch. If you want to endorse the use of wikipedia for marketing, and you know that it is an accurate, trustworthy reprinting that satisfies WP:V and WP:RS then feel free to re-add it. I don't think we should be linking Amazon as I removed in this diff. I'm mainly removed it because I noticed other books and reprints being spammed in other articles by the same editor. Adding a sentence or two then citing their self-published works. Some of it those edits have been deleted as copy/paste copyvios. To me, it was fairly blatant reference spamming of own work. --Dual Freq (talk) 21:21, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry to say that, User:Dual Freq, but unlike your original posting, which could have been attributed to a misunderstanding of sorts, your last argument no longer sounds equally genuine. The 1942 report from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs based on cables from the Polish Underground State describes the conditions of life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Łódź Ghetto, the two largest extermination ghettos that ever existed. So perhaps the report is 'shocking' given its scope, and 'shocking' is not just the sales pitch. [4]Poeticbenttalk01:10, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
The only thing I object to is the blatant usage of wikipedia to market a reprinted book by a person with a COI. This is just one page that this one book was spammed to. Don't accuse me of being some kind of holocaust denier because I object to spamming wikipedia. I removed no content from this article, just one recently added book that was added by a WP:COI editor, per Wikipedia:Further reading#Conflicts of interest. I was just abbreviating the marketing rhetoric that was pasted above. --Dual Freq (talk) 03:02, 26 May 2016 (UTC)
You ignore my message and instead cite an essay in support of removing the historic text? Ha. I've restored it as "Further reading", which is where it belongs since it's not being cited as a reference. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk20:00, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
LOL, you based your argument on the marketing copy for the book. That summary was not written by a 3rd party reviewer, it was written by the COI editor / re-publisher. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:40, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
28 December 2015
This has been going on for years. – Please look at Archive 3 if you want proof. Every now and than User ScottyNolan brings in rabid hate mongering from unknown individuals published in obscure open source blogs online, maybe even run by himself I don't know. But it gets worse. ScottyNolan does not even change the wording of his copyvios from those attack pages. The latest incident involves the Forum for Countering Antisemitism CFCA blog which features a sourceless quote-unquote study by three unknown authors who run their own webpage in Warsaw ... three guys claiming to have conducted their own personal "survey" twice. In reality, their CBU so-called group is a fringe highly political action intended to shame the country by painting Poland black. Absolutely positively unreliable for our purposes. The link to that PDF file, however, is also faked by ScottyNolan. See for yourself.[5] Thanks, Poeticbenttalk15:15, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
It seems ScottyNolan below me here hasn't even bothered to read the foxnews article he has linked. While it WAS done by Warsaw University, it shows a relatively harmless level of antisemitism, especially in comparison to the rest of Europe and the USA. It even says from an 85-year-old Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor himself that "Jews are safer and more accepted in Poland than in Western Europe. He said the study gave too much emphasis to a minority of bigots." Poland, for the last 1000 years, has been the safest country in the world for Jews. If you don't think so, you can at least be assured it was the best place in the world. Also, It states that it is mostly young people who showed antisemitic views, and even then it's less than 20%. Bigoted views are something you'll find in any youth demographic, and while it's a little disheartening given the history of Jews and Poland, again, it's not all surprising. I'm sure most of these young Poles will soon grow up and develop and interest into the history of their country and see the gloriously stainless history of that which is Poland's hospitality and multiculturalism, most specifically towards the Jews. Perhaps even in their ancestry they will discover that, a quick google search shows a plethora of once-hateful Poles of the 90's and early 2ks discovering their Ashkenazi background. Other Google searches will show a rapdid re-emergence happening in Poland these last few years with Jews. Also, given Poland's history, again, it's virtually impossible that there wouldn't be ANY antisemitism, considering the USSR was an extreme enabler, if not the sole enabler (aside from the Nazis, of course) of what caused this small grip of antisemitism. It was just 30-some-years ago the curtain fell over Poland, but the antisemitism of the Soviet Union didn't fall with it. There weren't many Jews in Poland anymore by the time it fell, either. Stereotypes are easily believed among people who have never even seen the group it's about, this is easily the case with Poland and Jews, except in an extremely lighter case. This Poll even states that they're high schoolers -- of whom are dumb as hell, who, in 5 years I guarantee, will shed their antisemitic ways. And, if I'm reading this correctly, this article states that 75%-80% of Poles are for banning hate-speech against Jews. As an American, I don't necessarily agree with any speech being banned, but it just goes to show that Jews are most certainly in the homes and hearts of many Poles today, as it has been since the inception of Poland for literally a millennium. -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infoman182 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
Well, Hi! First: "rabid hate mongering"? Really? Did you tried to consider the fact that there is still ongoing antisemitism in Poland? Cause there is. And there are plenty of sources to support it (unfortunately most of them in Polish, so I can't use them here). I'm trying to bring sourced and reliable (and up-to-date!) material about this issue, to enrich this important page. Second- blogs I run by myself?! It's pretty desperate to even suggest that. Moreover, it's a very severe accusation which I demand you to take back. I have to admit that I was wrong in the last source in the way I wrote it in here, which I changed a day after. But I wasn't mistaken in the source itself! Foxnews also cite this research, and also tells us (and now I DO copying :) "The data, gathered by the Warsaw University Center for Research on Prejudice, was presented to the Polish parliament on Nov. 5." I don't know why, but I believe Foxnews won't take researches of "fringe highly political action" groups. Also, I have some faith in this Polish parliament above, to let only reliable sources to enter its gate. I'll let you to judge objectively (so I believe) this reportage, and will be more than happy to continue and discuss this issue in a clean, respectful and collegial way.[1]ScottyNolan (talk) 23:24, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
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This revert has me a bit confused. Is it correct to refer to the Jewish population within Poland as a nationality? Neither source uses "nationality" to describe Jews; the first uses the phrase "mniejszość narodowa" (national minority) and the second simply refers to non-practitioners of the religion. I don't understand why the term "ethnicity" is not used here and what the difference is between a "national minority" (a term not common in the Anglophone world) and an "ethnic minority". Qzd (talk) 14:58, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
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For several years, the infobox in this article has included the Polish phrase Polscy Żydzi, which (Google Translate tells me) means "Polish Jews". Several IP editors, and now Indigowestern, have changed it to Żydzi w Polsce, which means "Jews in Poland". Because the change in the Polish is almost always accompanied by other changes that denigrate the Polish Jewish community, I consider the change from "Polish Jews" to "Jews in Poland" to be an insinuation that Polish Jews were not Polish, they just lived in Poland. (In English, that's the reasonable implication that a reader would draw from comparing the two phrases.)
Can some editors who understand Polish please comment about this? Am I being too sensitive? Is it, as some editors have suggested, a mere spelling correction (which seems unlikely to me)? Thank you. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk04:15, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Yes, you're correct Malik Shabazz. There's a difference, which is reflected in the scientific literature on the subject in the Polish language, including monographs:
Also note that articles regarding Poland, especially during WWII refer to the non-Jewish Poles as "ethnic Poles", which I always thought was strange. Raquel Baranow (talk) 05:27, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
The only problem with the gentile Poles is that the one million German Poles were also there, many hundreds of whom joined the Nazi Selbstschutz as well as Sonderdienst formations before transfer to Gestapo. — The Erwin and Riva Baker Memorial Collection (2001). Yad Vashem Studies. Wallstein Verlag. pp. 57–. ISSN 0084-3296. Poeticbenttalk05:43, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Difficulty in interpreting data is further compounded by the fact that, on top of the Catholic Poles whose mother tongue was Polish, there were thousands of Catholic Polish Germans, and thousands of Catholic Polish Ukrainians and others in the Second Republic, with 'autochtonous' background. — Wróbel, Piotr (2014). Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996. Routledge. p. 108. ISBN 1135926948. Poeticbenttalk20:52, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Quite impeccable whitewashing
Incredible. After reading this article one would come away with the impression that antisemitism practically never existed amongst the Polish people - and when it did, it was only due to...
the Russians: "the Partitions of Poland which began in 1772, in particular, with the discrimination and persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire".
the Nazis: next sentence, during which, it is explained later, Poles did more than any other nationality to save Jews
the Communists: either too many Jews were communists ("Hundreds of Jews were murdered in anti-communist violence") or antisemitism was a reaction to Zionism ("Poland's Communist government, following the Soviet lead, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and launched an antisemitic campaign under the guise of "anti-Zionism".) "However," the article tells us, "the campaign did not resonate well with the Polish public, as most Poles saw similarities between Israel's fight for survival and Poland's past struggles for independence."
The numerous pogroms and hundreds of deaths in Poland due to antisemitism from 1945 alone are buried so deep within the article and with so many qualifiers that it really makes it look like the Poles and the Polish state are the best friends and protectors the Jews have ever had. Now, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the history of the region knows this is not a fair characterization. I don't want to right now list a bunch of events and discriminatory laws and get into a flame war with the creators of this article, but I do intend to add some balance over the coming weeks. ZinedineZidane98 (talk) 09:41, 22 January 2018
The statistical estimates in Secret City are controversial, not accepted by the mainstream academic community, and have been critiqued to a great deal. Thus, reverting this edit, and saying in our voice that "However, despite that, as another scholar (Gunnar S. Paulsson) in his work on the Jews of Warsaw has demonstrated, Polish citizens of Warsaw managed to support and hide the same percentage of Jews as did the citizens of cities in Western European countries. - is not NPOV. If Paulsson is to be included, he must be clearly attributed, WP:WEASEL wording such as "demonstrated" should be redacted, and criticism of his estimate (by several notable Holocaust historians - historians who are actually tenured in major research institutions) should be noted.Icewhiz (talk) 16:40, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
"not accepted by the mainstream academic community". Nonsense. There's one dude that has a beef with Paulsson (and vice versa). That's it. This is more AGENDA driven cherry picking.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
And "demonstrated" is not a WP:WEASEL word. You just made that up and then linked to WP:WEASEL in order to pretend that your claim was true. It's not. It's false.Volunteer Marek (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I referenced two - Cooper in Slavic Review and Havi Dreifuss (in a number of publications). And there are actually quite a few more. Two published academics trump an editor's opinion.Icewhiz (talk) 18:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Propination was the main cause for massive alcoholism in Poland; also, because taverns in rural region were leased nearly exclusively by Jews who took part in enforcing these privileges (being banned from most other occupations), it was also a major reason for anti-semitism among peasants.[1]
est. 1,300,000+ ??? The real Polish Jews who spoke Polish, read Polish books are generally dead. Even Yiddish culture has gone. I understand that some people want to have an EU psssport, but it doesn't make them in any way Polish, rather pragmatic. Do they have any big cultural organization in Israel? Do they have a network of bookstores? Xx236 (talk) 06:40, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
If we were to add this - we would need strong sourcing placing Jews in Poland - as opposed to wider Eastern Europe or engaging in the trade in other countries the south / south-west. We should also avoid long quotations.Icewhiz (talk) 06:53, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Jewish traders in medieval Poland
The evidence of Jewish traders being involved in the slave trade of Christian Poles is indisputable. According to the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe: “The first information about Jewish merchants in Eastern Europe dates from about the tenth century. In this period, Jews took part in the slave trade between Central Asia, Khazaria, Byzantium, and Western Europe (in particular the Iberian Peninsula). Important stopping points on the trade routes included Prague, Kraków, and Kiev, towns in which Jewish colonies developed.” (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Trade). See also -- among many other sources -- Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, Jews in Poland: A Documentary History. New York: Hippocrene, 1993, pp. 257-266; H.H. Ben-Sasson (ed.), A History of the Jewish People. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976, pp. 394-398, Plate 31; Joseph Adler, “The Origins of Polish Jewry,” Midstream, October 1994, pp. 26-28; M.M. Postan and Edward Miller (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 416-418.
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN in Warsaw also mentions it (https://culture.pl/en/article/a-virtual-visit-to-the-museum-of-the-history-of-polish-jews):
The gallery is composed of various exhibition pieces. The first one is a map of the journeys of Ibrahim Ibn Jakob, a Jewish merchant from Cordoba who arrived in Poland (or as he writes, "the land of Mieszko") 960 years ago. Professor Hanna Zaremska, curator of the gallery explains,
"The first people of Israel who appeared in this region were nomadic merchants and arrived from Western Europe. They traded in slaves and furs, expensive fabrics, roots and weapons. The slave trade was very profitable. Buyers went with the slaves to Asia – in the great Islamic empire, Slavic slaves were in high demand." Next along the First Meetings gallery is an enlarged piece of the doors of Gniezno Cathedral. On it are Jewish slave merchants harassed by representatives of the Catholic church. The exhibition piece announces an important motif explored by the museum: the relations of Jews and the Church.
According to historian Zofia Kowalska: “In the early Middle Ages the Jews kept a high profile in various branches of long-distance and overseas trade, in which slaves were, for at least three hundred years, the chief commodity. … The accounts of travellers (Ibn Kordabheh, Ibrahim ibn Yacub), passages in the works of other Arab and Jewish authors (Ibn Haukal, Ibrahim al Quarawi, Yehuda ben Meir ha-Kohen), documents issued by ecclesiastical and secular authorities, charters of municipal privileges and customs tariffs build up a massive body of evidence corroborating the involvement of the Jews in the slave trade. Their “goods” came mostly from the Slav nations; their trade routes led to and crossed in Eastern and Central Europe. Slaves of Slav origin would be taken westwards across the Frankish lands to Arab Spain and from there to other countries in the Mediterranean. The main centres of the slave trade were Prague (from the 10th century onwards); Magdeburg, Merseburg, Mainz and Koblenz in Germany; Verdun in northern France and a number of towns in southern France. In spite of the vociferous debates that the slave trade provoked in both secular and church circles, the Jews were undismayed and went on with their business.” Zofia Kowalska, “Handel niewolnikami prowadzony przez Żydów w IX-XI wieku w Europie,” in Danuta Quirini-Popławskiej (ed.), Niewolnictwo i niewolnicy w Europie od starożytności po czasy nowożytne. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 1998, pp. 81-92.Tatzref (talk) 13:30, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
NOTE -- and this is highly telling -- what arguments have been raised to block the use of these highly reliable, published sources:
(cur | prev) 02:46, 30 June 2018 Malik Shabazz (talk | contribs) . . (218,319 bytes) (-2,673) . . (Reverted 2 edits by Tatzref (talk): Rv original research -- try it one more time and I'll report you at WP:AE. (TW)) (undo | thank) (Tag: Undo) According to Wikipedia: The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.Tatzref (talk) 13:36, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I'm concerned you're leaving out important context. The rest of the paragraph from the YIVO source (linked above) says
During the twelfth century, Jews were excluded from this trade, due in part to church opposition to their dealing in Christian slaves. From the thirteenth century, additional Jews settled in Polish cities as part of German colonization. Though their major occupation at that time was moneylending, which provided the economic basis for, among other things, urban mercantile activity, they were also active in long-range trade. As Polish markets developed in such towns as Poznań, Gniezno, Lublin, Lwów, Brześć, and Warsaw, Jewish merchants dealt in the import–export trade. Among other goods, Jews exported skins, furs, wax, and cloth to Central and Western Europe, while metal products and linens were imported to Poland. Magdeburg Law, which formed the basis for much of East European urban life in this period, largely excluded Jews from local and retail trade, domains viewed as the monopoly of the Christian burghers.
Tatzref, Jewish merchants in medieval Poland, like their counterparts in colonial America, traded in many things -- including slaves -- just like merchants of other faiths. When an editor repeatedly inserts material about Jews and the slave trade -- whether to this article or one about colonial America -- it makes me wonder what the editor's motivation is. It certainly isn't to build an encyclopedia. Choosing to force in a few facts while ignoring the hundreds of others mentioned in the same sources, often on the same pages, is not acceptable behavior. I will remind that sanctions apply to this article, as they do to all articles related to Eastern Europe. Think carefully about how you wish to proceed. — MShabazzTalk/Stalk19:36, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
These allegations are totally spurious. No good reason was provided for the removal of mention of Jewish slave traders operating in Poland in the 10th & 11th centuries, something that is very well documented and known to historians. The first reason MShabazz gave for his deletion of reliably sourced information (consisting mostly of two quotations) was that I was inventing all of this: "(cur | prev) 02:46, 30 June 2018 Malik Shabazz (talk | contribs) . . (218,319 bytes) (-2,673) . . (Reverted 2 edits by Tatzref (talk): Rv original research -- try it one more time and I'll report you at WP:AE." According to Wikipedia, "The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." To use his own words, this is not acceptable behavior.
Next, I'm told it's missing context for not referring to what happened in the 12th century, and that my motivation for referring to it at all is suspect (note the personal attack). Well what about the motivation of those involved in the serial deletion of mention of Jewish involvement in the slave trade? Just as I suspected, a search of the edit history shows that this information was also purged from this article in the past - obviously someone doesn't want it here.
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland&diff=prev&oldid=14603900#Early_Jewish_Slave-Traders
Early Period: 966-1385
Early Jewish Slave-Traders
The first actual mention of Jews in the Polish chronicles occurs under date of the eleventh century. It appears that Jews were then living inGniezno, at that time the religious capital of the Polish kingdom. Some of them were wealthy, owning Christian slaves; they even engaged in the slave-trade, according to the custom of the times. The pious Queen Judith, wife of the Polish King Ladislaus Herman (d. 1085), spent large sums of money in purchasing the freedom of Christian slaves owned by Jews.
As for the Icewhiz's claim that I am relying on a translation from the Polish made by Mark Paul, that is demonstrably false. The text in question is an English language abstract from Zofia Kowalska's article. It can be found online if you look for it. Allegations of other alleged misrepresentations have been amply debunked. Please let's just stick to the facts and cut out all of the innuendos and threats.Tatzref (talk) 17:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
Nearly two million Jews left the Pale by the late 1920s
Please explain:
unsourced;
wrong place, probably should be moved to the end of the subsection;
Do tego wszystkiego dochodzi rozpaczliwa niekompetencja i nieuctwo dr Całej, zdecydowanie zbyt często zabierającej głos w sprawach, na których się nie zna i powołującej się na książki, których nie czytała.
The alleged link 245 is wrong. I have replaced it with academia.edu. I'm not sure if the alleged Journal is academic, according to Icewhiz high standards, so maybe the reference should be removed? Xx236 (talk) 07:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The article contains many errors. Are you sure that ignorant articles are useful? What is "the Moczarite faction transposed the Jewish victims of the Holocaust with their persecutors"? Where - in one text, in several texts (which ones?), in one speach, in several speaches (which ones?), in school curricula (absurd)? People were terrorized in Communist Poland so they pretended they accepted party line, but they weren't interested. The knowledge about the Holocaust was low, but it was low in the U.S.A. in 68' either. It's obvious that people believed in death of their family members and ignored other crimes. Some Poles believed that the WWII was a war against Ukrainian nationalists and some other that it was a war against the S.U. Quite many Jews believe that the WWII was a war against the Jews, and that other victims of Nazis are unimportant. The number of Slavic victims was more than 20 million. Xx236 (talk) 06:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I have found the answer myself - the paper says Moczarites published books and articles ..., so few books, many articles. But, as I have written, the majority of Poles wasn't interested - Party Congress, harvest, anti-Zionism, one learned and quickly forgot.Xx236 (talk) 07:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Interbellum
where is Jewish business ?
The Interbellum section describes Jewish culture (and parts of the culture were successfull business, eg. the movie industry) and Tensions and antisemitism (Jewish shops attacke by Endecja). One need to be obsessionally biased to ignore Jewish business in pre-war Poland.Xx236 (talk) 12:34, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Yad Vashem says there were two Jewish banks in small Chełm [8].Xx236 (talk) 12:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
In 1934, Poland was home to 40,000 of Betar's 70,000 members.[8] Routine Betar activities in Warsaw included military drilling, instruction in Hebrew, and encouragement to learn English. Militia groups organized by Betar Poland helped to defend against attacks by the anti-Semitic ONR.[9] The interwar Polish government helped Betar with military training.[10] Some members admired the Polish nationalist camp and imitated some of its aspects.[11]
Xx236 (talk) 05:59, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
A picture - Menachem Begin Poland, reviews an Beitar lineup. Next to Begin is Moshe (Munya) CohenXx236 (talk) 06:51, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Still no answer. How to include Menachem Begin Poland, reviews an Beitar lineup. into Antisemitism ?Xx236 (talk) 06:17, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
A city is a large human settlemen. Shtettles were generally towns. A caption says even the small town of Łachwa. The interbellum Poland had a very complicated legal system based on three (Russian, German, Austrian) laws, which included miasteczko (generally under 4,000 inhabitants). Please remember the song Belz mayn shteitele, which is originally about Moldova, but the later version about Belz, Poland at that time, now Ukraine. Is it My city Belz now?Xx236 (talk) 06:21, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Every society has its underworld. To purge a society's history of its underworld is a disservice that tends to reinforce stereotypes about the society. Not all Polish Jews were merchants, financiers, mathematicians, musicians, and physicists. There were also Jewish workers... and Jewish underworld figures. We have already encountered some of the latter in "Collaboration in German-occupied Poland".
If credible sources exist, why not include some concise information about the medieval Jewish slave trade on Polish soil, and about the Jewish 1905 "pimp pogrom" (conducted by Jews against Jewish pimps)? Why deny Poland's Jews their due three-dimensional history?
I had never heard of the "Pimp Pogrom" before, but I replied to your general question last week. I believe we should include information about all facets of Jewish society in Poland, in appropriate proportion. We shouldn't focus on the Jewish underworld, nor should we ignore it. We should try to give as much attention to each aspect of a subject as a historian of the Jews in Poland would in writing about 1,000 years of Jewish history, not focus on any one aspect because we have an irrational obsession about it. — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk03:27, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
I was unfamiliar with the slave trade aspect of Jewish merchants. It is a controversial claim and needs proper consideration with regards to sources and WP:UNDUE. This seems reliable, but it does NOT support the cited key claim that "The main commodity of Jewish traders who came to Poland were Slavic slaves." It does mention Polish cities, and does confirm that some Jews were involved in slave trade in Poland, but it does not suggest slaves were their 'main commodity'. Neither is the second, longer quote from Zofia Kowalska (can't verify her academic credentials, but the book she is published in seems reliable, and Zofia Kowalska has published several books on history: [13]); through the sentence "In the early Middle Ages the Jews kept a high profile in various branches of long-distance and overseas trade, in which slaves were, for at least three hundred years, the chief commodity.", on second reading, could be interpreted that way - but it is not Poland specific, as Icewhiz mentioned and as such, not fully relevant here. I think that this article can briefly mention that slaves were one of the various commodities early Jewishs traders were involved in, but anything beyond that is off topic and undue. User:Tatzref - if you are interested in this topic, please look at Jewish views on slavery (where Jews and slave trade redirects to), note from the lead "Several scholarly works have been published[4] to rebut the antisemitic canard of Jewish domination of the slave trade in Medieval Europe, Africa, and/or the America" (which does seem to a be a view point not reflected at all in the Slavery_in_medieval_Europe#Jewish_merchants section), and is also improperly cited - I am reviewing the sources for that sentence and they seem primarily concerned with the Africa/America, not the Medieval Europe. I will make some more comments on this general issue at Talk:Jewish views on slavery. For now, to repeat myself, I don't think this article should mention Jewish slave trade in detail, but a simple mention that slaves were one of the commodities traded would not be unjustified. PS. Sadly, Kowalska's article does not see to be online. I did find a forum quote at [14] ("We wczesnym Średniowieczu Żydzi - przez co najmniej 300 lat - odgrywali dominującą rolę w dalekosiężnym i zamorskim handlu niewolnikami.") which suggests she might have made the claim that Jews were dominating that trade, but I can't verify it right now. It does not appear to be in [15], at least not from the queries I made. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here06:23, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
The above edit does not do justice to the YIVO Encyclopedia article in question, which highlights the importance of the slave trade and mentions the Church opposition to it. Similarly, as mentioned earlier, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN curator Professor Hanna Zaremska stated: "The first people of Israel who appeared in this region were nomadic merchants and arrived from Western Europe. They traded in slaves and furs, expensive fabrics, roots and weapons. The slave trade was very profitable. Buyers went with the slaves to Asia – in the great Islamic empire, Slavic slaves were in high demand." Consequently, I added more information to the edit to more accurately reflect what the scholarship states.Tatzref (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Please correct "roots" in your POLIN quotation, above, to "spices". The Polish "korzenie", when used in that plural form in contexts such as the above, means "spices". "Roots", as quoted above, is obviously a mistranslation of "korzeń", which in the singular means "root". Nihil novi (talk) 22:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Polin: 1000 Year History of Polish Jews, an official publication of the POLIN Museum edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett & Antony Polonsky (2014), at p. 57, also focuses on the slave trade. So both the YIVO Encyclopedia (historian Adam Teller) and The Museum of the History of Polish Jews are consistent as to the heightened importance of this trade in slaves in relation to other commodities. I therefore suggest that, for scholarly integrity, the order of commodities be changed to list slaves first.Tatzref (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
I see that Malik Shabazz has removed the following neutral, relevant, scholarly sourced information, along with a personal attack on me: "Kraków became an important outpost on the route for Jewish merchants (Radhanites) who brought slaves from Poland and other countries to Western Europe. The slave trade met with opposition from the Catholic Church."
02:44, 3 July 2018 Malik Shabazz (talk | contribs) . . (218,789 bytes) (-215) . . (→Early history: 966–1385: rv -- undue weight, it's mentioned very briefly in the source, but you're blowing it out of proportion (as you tend to)
NB This information comes from the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, where historian Adam Teller gives prominence to the slave trade relative to other commodities: “The first information about Jewish merchants in Eastern Europe dates from about the tenth century. In this period, Jews took part in the slave trade between Central Asia, Khazaria, Byzantium, and Western Europe (in particular the Iberian Peninsula). Important stopping points on the trade routes included Prague, Kraków, and Kiev, towns in which Jewish colonies developed.” (http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Trade). So nothing is being blown out of proportion. This is an entirely spurious deletion so I will restore it as others have endorsed it.Tatzref (talk) 13:30, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
You seem to think that all Wikipedia editors are as dense as you are. You don't need to copy and paste everything multiple times. If you wish to restore the material, build a consensus to include it per WP:ONUS. Can you find your way there, or should I copy and paste that bit of policy for you? — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk23:56, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
If there is reliable information about Jews substantially engaging, on Polish soil, in the slave trade, why not put it in a note, rather than expand on it within the main text? Nihil novi (talk) 20:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The problem is one of WP:PROPORTION. YIVO's Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe has an article of more than 25 paragraphs on Trade that includes the following paragraph:
The first information about Jewish merchants in Eastern Europe dates from about the tenth century. In this period, Jews took part in the slave trade between Central Asia, Khazaria, Byzantium, and Western Europe (in particular the Iberian Peninsula). Important stopping points on the trade routes included Prague, Kraków, and Kiev, towns in which Jewish colonies developed. During the twelfth century, Jews were excluded from this trade, due in part to church opposition to their dealing in Christian slaves. From the thirteenth century, additional Jews settled in Polish cities as part of German colonization. Though their major occupation at that time was moneylending, which provided the economic basis for, among other things, urban mercantile activity, they were also active in long-range trade. As Polish markets developed in such towns as Poznań, Gniezno, Lublin, Lwów, Brześć, and Warsaw, Jewish merchants dealt in the import–export trade. Among other goods, Jews exported skins, furs, wax, and cloth to Central and Western Europe, while metal products and linens were imported to Poland. Magdeburg Law, which formed the basis for much of East European urban life in this period, largely excluded Jews from local and retail trade, domains viewed as the monopoly of the Christian burghers.
Note that the Jews took part in money-lending, the skin and fur trade, the wax trade, the cloth trade, the linen trade, the metal trade, and the slave trade. So why does one editor keep trying to add the following two sentences about Jewish participation in the slave trade?
Kraków became an important outpost on the route for Jewish merchants who brought slaves from Poland and other countries to Western Europe. In the 12th century Jews were excluded from the slave trade, due to the Catholic Church objecting to Jews dealing in Christian slaves.
I have no objection to discussing Jews and the slave trade in context. The article currently says "As elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, the principal activity of Jews in medieval Poland was commerce and trade, including export and import of goods such as cloth, linen, furs, hides, wax, metal objects, and slaves." Why does the slave trade need two more sentences? Why not the cloth trade or the fur trade? — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk22:06, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Three editors worked on the revised text which appropriately takes into account the heightened importance both the YIVO Encyclopedia and POLIN The History of Polish Jews (see above), as well as other sources, place on this particular "commodity," because of its lucrative nature and the ensuing conflict with the Catholic Church. This is not giving undue weight but rather important context. Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity.Tatzref (talk) 03:01, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
You keep repeating yourself like a broken record. If there's consensus to include it, why are you the only editor who keeps adding it? Why don't some of the other editors who support its inclusion speak up? — Malik ShabazzTalk/Stalk03:32, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
The text your keep deleting--based on reliable sources and providing important context--was also edited by Icewhiz:
14:26, 3 July 2018 Icewhiz (talk | contribs) . . (219,953 bytes) (+74) . . (→Early history: 966–1385: Be precise on church opposition ... You are the only one who keeps removing it.Tatzref (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Information about trafficking of Jewish women is mainstream and already found in Wikipedia:
https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Zwi_Migdal
"Zwi Migdal (Yiddish: צבי מגדל, IPA: [ˈtsvɪ mɪɡˈdal]) was an organized crime group created by Jews from Warsaw, involved in the trafficking of Jewish women from the shtetls of Central Europe for sexual slavery and forced prostitution."
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A6%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C
There is a large and growing scholarship on the 1905 pimp pogrom, to mention just two publications already referred to in this very article: Scott Ury, Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry (Stanford University Press, 2012), 126–129; Antony Polonsky, The Jews in Poland and Russia, vol. 2: 1881 to 1914 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010). In addition this being mentioned here, this should be the subject matter of a separate article.Tatzref (talk) 00:09, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
The Polish September campaign
The number 61,000 has been repeated, one instance should be removed.
The next section repeats some facts presented here.
Xx236 (talk) 11:56, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
The 500,000 is unsourced and rather fantastic. Polish Wikipedia says 100,000 - 200,000 (probably from encyclopedia PWN).Xx236 (talk) 12:05, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
The title is biased. The section decribes among others the period of Sanacja rules, the best for the Jews. Xx236 (talk) 12:08, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Yet throughout the period antisemitism grew, despite some favorable rulers. e.g. per William W. HagenHagen, William W. "Before the" final solution": Toward a comparative analysis of political anti-Semitism in interwar Germany and Poland." The Journal of Modern History 68.2 (1996): 351-381."Even though in various ways the Polish regime in fact fell short of fascism, the cumulative effects on the Polish Jews of its hostile policies, as well as of Endek aggression and the consequences of demographic growth amid still widespread economic depression, were threatening them by 1939 with conditions comparable to those to which the German Jews had been reduced.".Icewhiz (talk) 12:30, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Icewhiz, do you understand mathematics? Growing is defined and you can't misuse the word for ati-Polish propaganda. Haven't we discuss about the ignorant already? It's a shame to quote such trash.
Your text is about the period after Piłsudski's death. But the section describes several periods - generally till 1926, 1926-1935, after 1935. Please think before you write. If something is growing so there was a period when the level was law. When - under the tsar till 1914? It's mathematics.Xx236 (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
You have a book by Zimmermann, you apprently haven't read it, it's too big, isn't it? So you quote Hagen without understanding.Xx236 (talk) 12:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
1926+13 = 1939? I don't think the "Changing antisemitism" section title is an improvement - the section does document growing antisemitism - kept in check by Piłsudski until his death - but still growing in Polish society.Icewhiz (talk) 07:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
I'd suggest a neutral wording of the term, it's a bit biased to discuss growth of something controversial. Once could argue that since there's less antisemitism now then there were back then, modern section could be entitled 'lessening antisemitism', too. NPOV suggests neutral terms for eras (like Second Polish Republic, or interwar period, or such). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here09:25, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The section clearly ends at 1939 - the end of the interwar period - and there is no doubt (per most mainline sources - e.g. William W. Hagen) that in 1937-9 antisemitism in Poland was at a peak compared to the entire interwar period - this should not be controversial.Icewhiz (talk) 09:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
The subsection says Matters improved for a time under the rule of Józef Piłsudski (1926–1935). For a time - for 10 years of 20.Xx236 (talk) 13:04, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
Antisemitism now
The description is biased, it quotes some research, but doesn't inform about politics. No real party in Poland is antisemitic and antisemitic politicians obtain 1%-2% of votes. Many successful politicians have Jewish roots. Jarosław Kaczyński is sometimes accused of antisemitism but at the same time he is attacked by fringe groups as a Jew, because his grandmother was probably Jewish. There are no attacks on Jewish buidings, frequent in Western Europe. Xx236 (talk) 06:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Good point. The article currently uses the wording "{n 1967–1971 under economic, political and secret police pressure, over 14,000 Polish Jews were forced to leave Poland and relinquish their Polish citizenship.[238] Officially, they were expelled to Israel. However, only about 4,000 actually went there; most settled throughout Europe and in the United States". Ref 238 is not verifiable online ([19]). The wording should probably be also discussed on Talk:1968 Polish political crisis, where I note the word expelled is not used. Now, setting aside popular press, which often likes to colorize and use more emotional terms, here are few sources - feel free to provide more:
the term 'left' is also used in the blurb of Leszek W. Głuchowski; Antony Polonsky (2009). 1968, Forty Years After. Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. ISBN978-1-904113-36-2.
Overall, I'd recommend using the phrase 'Jews left in the wave of an anti-semitic purge' or such. There are two key points: 1) there was an anti-semitic, government-supported, but non-violent purge (primarily related to mass layoffs and such, I believe) and therefore many Jews chose to emigrate, given the hostility they suddenly faced. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here14:19, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
They emigrated to rich and free countries. Similarly many ethnic Poles emigrated during martial law in Poland, but the main reason of their migration was economy.Xx236 (talk) 13:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Ah - free will, eh? expelled (BBC) or purged / forced to flee (Haaretz) are commonly used by WP:RS. Left implies choice - which was absent in 1968, and is not generally used by neutral sources. It would seem that even the present Polish president - Duda - uses "driven out"[20].Icewhiz (talk) 13:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
While most Polish Jews were neutral to the idea of a Polish state
Some Jews supported Western Ukrianians or Lithuanians. Greater Poland (Posen) Jews were Germanised and some of them emigrated to Germany.Xx236 (talk) 08:45, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Postwar Antisemitism
I was thinking about adding more information under the subsection labeled "Postwar Period". I want to discuss the animosity aimed at Jewish Poles by their fellow Poles which are tangibly seen through violence, property seizure, and systematic discrimination within the government. I am aiming to add this at the end of the subsection as there are a few sentences touching upon the subject I would like to expand upon. The source I will be using is a chapter from Jan Gross' work, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation. The chapter is titled "The Unwelcoming of Jewish Survivors." Jan Gross is a strong, credible source as he is a history professor at Princeton and has been cited in this Wiki article already. [1]
The violence I intend to write about include both assault and murder, in which members of the community knew who the murderers were, but turned a blind eye. In response, Jews in Poland requested aid from the Ministry of Public Administration as well as the Ministry of Public Security through the murders of Jewish Poles.
An effect, and sometimes motive, of the killing of Jews in Poland was the property they owned. Anti-Semitic Poles benefited since they rid their local communities of Jews. In addition, lower-class/poor Poles benefited from the murdering and fleeing of Jews as it opened up more employment opportunities as well as property available. The government would take "abandoned" property ranging from synagogues to homes and distributing it among the remaining Polish population.
Lastly, I would like to address is the government's actions that discriminated Jews. An example of this is seen through the rejection of Jews as of Polish nationality due to many records and evidence being burnt or destroyed during the Holocaust. Bias in the government was present in the social infrastructure through employment discrimination and the education system.
If anybody would like to comment on my proposed changes, please let me know on this Talk page or my Talk page! Thank you.
It is certainly a good point that the current article glosses over those points, some expansions along the lines you proposed is very much needed. Please note we do have a reasonably decent subarticle on that: Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946, which may give you further sources / ideas what to incorporate here. Finally, keep in mind that while Gross' Fear is a reliable source, it has been described by some scholars as non-neutral (check the article on the book itself for reviews). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here04:22, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Postwar? The war finished in UK and France, but not in Poland.
Second - Professor Marcin Zaremba describes situation in Poland in his book [21]. The book describes terrible conditions in Poland and sources of anti-Semitism in the Communist army and police.
Third - Gross' book has been criticized, so you are oblidged to read the critics rather than impose his opinions.
Lastly, I would like to address is the government's actions that discriminated Jews. - are you aware the structure of the government in Poland? Are you aware that several Polish leaders were Jewish - Berman, Minc, Zambrowski? They allowed the Jews to emigrate at the time when ethnic Poles were killed at the borders.
Bias in the government was present in the social infrastructure through employment discrimination and the education system. - the Communists discriminated pre-war educated people. They constructed a Communist education system, which persecuted Polish nationalists. Do you meam Jewish religious schools? The Communists fought any religion, mainly the RC Church as the strongest one.
The real conflict existed in formerly German lands, where the Jews wanted to create an autonomy, eg. in Lower Silesia, and the Communists didn't allow it.[22]
Everything was nationalised, not only Jewish businesses. Landowners were not only disposessed but also expelled from their homelands.
Expansion would be DUE. Gross is generally a top-notch source - considered to be on of the best in his generation by most scholars - criticism of his work is mainly limited to Polish media and nationalists - while widely accepted by mainstream academia. Icewhiz (talk) 07:56, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Icewhiz, please learn the subject and return.
Gross isn't even a historian, he was a sociologist, now retired. His main work The Neighbours isn't academic, it's rather a morality essay. Gross wasn't interested in basic facts like the number of Jewish victims in Jedwabne. The book misinfoms - there were many pogroms in the region, some of them more obvious than Jedwabne, please read Anna Bikont. The 1941 pogroms consisted maybe 1% of all pogroms in the area Romania-Estonia. Now everyone knows Jedwabne, but ignores Kaunas, Romanian state crimes, Petlura days in Lviv and many, many others, please see [23]. Xx236 (talk) 08:11, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Icewhiz. Gross's Fear is accepted enough by mainstream academia that it can be used as a source for Wikipedia. It's ok that there are critiques too - it doesn't discredit it as a source. Fear garnered far less criticism than Neighbors did. Also, most American scholarship on Polish anti-Semitism has its share of Polish critics - that doesn't mean it shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. As a compromise, George1738, how about adopt Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus's idea - acknowledge that Gross has his critics. The section still deserves to be there. I also agree with Xx236that using the term "government" is fuzzy when some in the government were Jewish. Gross acknowledges that but you don't as much.
In this addition, George1738, please use clean writing (noun-verb agreement!). And some of your statements are oddly discombobulated. E.g. Anti-Semitic Poles benefited since they rid their local communities of Jews - that's an almost anti-Semitic statement; explain why they stood to benefit - because they took over the Jews' property.Chapmansh (talk) 22:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Gross is only accepted by Jewish/Israeli media, not the overall mainstream media. One country does not represent entire academia views. It’s evident you’re attwmoting to push your point of views of him and publish them as fact. -2600:1001:B116:91A6:306F:ED57:5BDF:7A1D (talk) 18:30, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Just to stress the degree to which this is mainstream (outside of very narrow ethno nationalist criticism) - Fear per google scholar has been cited 382 times in an academic setting since being published in 2007 - the amount of citations indicates mainstream acceptance - it would be nearly unthinkable to write an academic journal (mainstream journal) paper on post-war Jews in Poland without citing Fear.Icewhiz (talk) 04:38, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Icewihiz formulates a very critical opinion of academic mainstream ignorance of Western writers. They don't know the subject, they just copy Fear with all its pros and cons. One should know Zaremba's book. It's interesting that biased books are translated into English, the one isn't, probably not biased enough?Xx236 (talk) 09:12, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Gross' book is best discussed on its talk page, but I agree it is a reliable source - through he does not represent the middle-ground, and an attempt to portray him as such is problematic. He represents a side in the ongoing academic discussion, no less more biased than others mentioned (ex. 'Polish nationalists'). In the middle are scholars who recognize that the neutral take lies in between such extremes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here09:39, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi! I'm working with George1738's class and wanted to drop in on this discussion. From what I can see, here are the main concerns brought up so far:
Xx236 is disputing the remarks about when the war ended in Poland, as well as the one about the government being biased.
The Gross source has been criticized and is viewed as non-neutral by at least some academics.
George1738's prospective addition needs to be clarified a bit more.
With this in mind, here are my suggestions for resolution:
Any controversial claims will be attributed to the individual making them, unless it's something that is seen as an uncontested and uncontroversial factual assertion per WP:WikiVoice.
Additional secondary sources will be used along with the Gross source.
George1738's plan is to work on this in his sandbox and will generally cover anti-Jewish violence in Poland under Communist rule. It will discuss the following points:
The types of and reasons for violence experienced by the Jewish people. This will include reasons/theories put forth by scholars.
Claims of governmental bias by scholars studying this time period.
If anyone has recommendations for sourcing that would be seen as in the middle, that would be awesome. The student will of course be searching for this as well, but some guidance would be definitely appreciated. George1738, a good starting point for this would be to look at the sourcing in the article on Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946, as well as some of the sourcing already used in the post-war section of this article. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:58, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
I would caution again using Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946 as a POV/acceptable source yardstick - that article has severe problems, not least of which is extensive use of a far-right activist/historian, widely accused of antisemitism, designated by the SPLC, who is generally seen as fringe and who has been effectively blacklisted in modt English language journals.Icewhiz (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
And I would caution you against pushing your own personal views and attempting to submit them as fact. You claim that Gross is universally accepted in academia. That is simply not true, he is only seen as such in Israeli/Jewish circles. It’s evident you are just taking what’s from his book and attempting to pass it off as fact whilst ignoring his Anti-Polish bias. There’s a clear reason why he is only seen as a historian in Israel and Canada and not thoughout Central and Eastern Europe. Icewhiz, I recommend you do your research. You have quite a bit to to do. The rhetoric of one people/country does not represent the mainstream/international overall view. -2600:1001:B10D:19D1:CD21:E0C4:D1B4:B681 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:49, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
Unlike our SPLC designated historian/far-right activist whose mention drew this vitrol, Gross's works are widely cited in English language books and journals. Also in German language (Central Europe usually) for that matter. I am not sure how "Jewish" (or Israeli for that matter) labelling academic authors is relevant, however Gross has been widely cited by non-Jewish authors as can be readily seen by scolling down the rather impressive citation list in google scholar. Criticism of Gross has been limited for the most part to very certain circles in Poland, that carry very little academic weight.Icewhiz (talk) 19:00, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
(I'm also Shalor (Wiki Ed), but have switched accounts since this is more general and not specific to the student.) Please remember to assume good faith! The Gross source is pretty widely cited, at least from what I see via Google Scholar, so it doesn't seem like Icewhiz is trying to push a personal agenda offhand. Rather than assuming that any one person has an agenda to skew the coverage to not highlight the views predominantly held in scholarly literature, a good alternative here is to suggest alternative sources that better represent the middle/moderate ground and mainstream views so that they can be discussed. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡)19:06, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
@Shalor (Wiki Ed): I didn't realize this was going to be edited as part of an educational assignment, nice. Regarding your points above. 1) The war ended in 1945, this is hardly disputed by anyone, through anti-communist resistance (see cursed soldiers) continued in Poland for several years. A few scholars etc. occasionally make an argument that for countries occupied by the Soviets the war didn't end, but it is a rhetorical and minority argument; see List of Polish wars for info on post-1945 conflicts. Bottom line, for most Poles, war ended in 1945. For a few, it didn't. 2) Gross is a perfectly reliable source, and can and should be widely used - with the understanding that there are no such things as neutral sources (per WP:NPOV). Gross represents one of the sides in the ongoing debate and some of his findings have been challenged by other reliable historians; I won't bother listing sources critical of him here because we have nice articles about his books which attribute both praise and criticism. Let me stress that I fully support using Gross as a reliable source - I am just cautioning that Gross is not the ultimate and final authority on the subject, he has his biases too. "Additional secondary sources will be used along with the Gross source." is a very good idea. Lastly, when expanding this article (and I agree expansion is needed) please keep WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV in mind, and note that excessive details may be moved to the Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946 subarticle. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here02:30, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
Zaremba describes the horrors of the period in his book. He has also criticized one of Gross' books as ignoring the context. The Anti-Jewish violence was one of many. Zaremba quotes an example of plunderning victims of a train accident.[26] The number of Roman Catholics killed in the period was much bigger than the number of killed Jews. Germans and Ukrainians were also killed or mistreated.Xx236 (talk) 09:56, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry about my Englsih, but it's difficult to summarize a 700 pages book in few lines. The post-war Poland was a terrible place in which everyone was a victim and many were criminals. Describing it as a Post-war antiisemitism is extermely biased and ignorant. Several Communist leaders were Jewish and they were co-responsible for the anarchy and state plundering of everyone, not only of the Jews. Xx236 (talk) 09:18, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Hi again all, can I ask that when George1738 makes their contribution, it be left standing for a full day, to give me a chance to bolster it with another secondary source, as per the discussion above. Thanks.Chapmansh (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
Hi again, I added a reference to George1738's contribution, as others asked for. Since the info on violence is now more comprehensive, I made it its own sub-section, and moved into it some existing info on violence from the section Aliya Bet. Thanks!Chapmansh (talk) 22:36, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
References
^Gross, Jan T. "The Unwelcoming of Jewish Survivors" in Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House Publishing Group, 2007), 31-80.
in the Politburo of the Polish United Worker's Party
An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.
