Polish Historians Found Guilty of “Violating Honor”

Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland

When my mother-in-law Esther, and later my father-in-law, Sam, hid in Poland during World War II, they weren’t just hiding from the Germans but also from their Polish neighbors.  Citing research done by Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking in my book, My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story, I share how Polish people hunted the hidden Jews for rewards or sometimes, just for sport.  Polish people would betray hidden Jews in the countryside, with devastating results for the Jews and for the Polish families that were helping them.  I’m grateful for the honest, meticulous and powerful work done by Grabowksi and Engelking.  

Grabowski is a Polish-Canadian history professor at the University of Ottawa and Engelking is the founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw.   In a 1,600-page work that Grabowski and Engelking co-edited titled: Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland, they document the fate of Polish Jews who tried to hide from the Nazis.  It’s written in Polish.  I looked it up on Amazon and found that the book description is also in Polish.  I copied and pasted the description into google translate and, though the English translation is stilted, I want to share what google provided:

In all the counties we examined, the greatest number of Jews sought help, not in towns, but in nearby villages – at their neighbors’ homes. The ability to survive largely depended on the willingness of these neighbors – Christians, on whether they were able to overcome the fear of the threat posed by the hiding Jews to the rural community. It was not favored by the applicable group norms, anti-Semitism that was everywhere, and the mechanisms of social conformism. All the more we should emphasize the courage and unparalleled sacrifice of the Righteous. All the more we should admire those who were able to oppose not only German legal regulations, but also the written and unwritten rules of group life.

The pronunciation of the numbers is impeccable: two out of every three Jews in search of rescue – have died. The studies included in the volumes provide evidence indicating a significant – and greater than it has been previously thought – scale of participation of local residents in the destruction of Jewish fellow citizens.

Sixteen hundred pages – imagine the years of work that went into this book and the tears that were shed by the Polish researchers uncovering the truth of what their countrymen did during the war.  These historians are, to me, heroes.  They are looking under the rocks of history and shining a light where dark truths lay dormant.   

Barbara Engleking and Jan Grabowski – Yad Vashem Photo

But no good deed goes unpunished.  Grabowski and Engelking were sued by 81-year-old Filomena Leszczynska.  Ms. Leszczynska claims that in their book her Uncle, Edward Malinowski is wrongly accused of assisting in the murder of Jews.  Ms. Leszczynska argued that her uncle was a Polish hero and saved Jews.   The plaintiff maintains that her family’s good name was damaged. 

Well, on February 9, 2021, the Warsaw District Court ruled that Grabowski and Engelking must issue a written apology for inaccurately writing that Uncle Edward, “robbed a Jewish woman during the war and contributed to the death of Jews hiding in a forest in Malinowo in 1943, when Poland was under German occupation. They were also ordered to apologize for “violating his honor.”[1] 

It’s not all bad — the court ruled that Grabowski and Engelking don’t have to pay the 100,000 zlotys ($27,017) demanded. Why?  Because as the judge writes, “it might have a cooling effect on academic research.”[2]

I believe that this lawsuit is a direct outgrowth of the Polish government’s attempt to rewrite history and engage in a competition over who had it worse – the Poles or the Jews?  The twisted narrative is that Polish people didn’t assist with the genocidal murder but helped the Jews during the war.  The large numbers of Polish Righteous Among the Nations is often cited as evidence.   In fact, to claim that the Polish nation had anything to do with the murder of three million of its Jewish citizens is against a law passed in 2018. 

While it is certainly true that there were Polish Christians who helped Jews, including the Stys family, without whose help Sam and Esther surely would have died, “[h]istorians debate how many Poles aided the Nazi death machine, with estimates ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.”[3]

The Times of Israel reports that a “2019 study on Holocaust remembrance in Europe argued that the Poles are among the “worst offenders” when it comes to . . . . ‘minimizing their own guilt in the attempted extermination of Jews.’ According to the study, conducted by researchers from Yale and Grinnell colleges, the government in Warsaw has ‘engaged in competitive victimization, emphasizing the experience of Polish victims over that of Jewish victims. The government spends considerable effort on rewriting history rather than acknowledging and learning from it,’ the study found.”[4]

While we rejoice in Sam and Esther’s survival, we must take a hard look at what happened to most Polish Jews who tried to escape the death grip of the Nazis.  All too often, they were betrayed or murdered by Poles.  For example, Esther’s first husband, Moishe Kwiatek was murdered in the forest by a Polish man and his mother and sister were betrayed in hiding by their Polish neighbors. 

Esther and Sam never got over the betrayal of their friends and neighbors.  They told their children never to step foot in finstere (dark) Poland.  I heard them often say: “the Poles were worse than the Germans.”  This, coming from two people who survived with the help of Christian Poles. 

What are the lesson to learn from this lawsuit?

What are the lessons to learn from betrayal?  

I don’t know. I am struggling. 

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[1] Gera, Vanesa, Scislowska, Monika, Poland Orders Scholars to Apologize in Case That Could Muzzle Research, Times of Israel, February 9, 2021.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

FASCISM PART II

Cartoon by Carlson 2017; from article by Matt Rothschild in The Cap Times 8/14/18

Propaganda, lies, conspiracy theories, fear and hate – these are some of the tools a fascist politician has at his disposal.  One of the favorites in the fascist playbook is to engage in a loud anticorruption campaign.  “Drain the Swamp,” is not new.   Hitler set out to make democracy and corruption as synonymous as Jews and Bolsheviks and ironically did so by creating one of the most corrupt governments in history.  Hitler’s Mein Kampf sets it out for all to read: “[T]he aim of propaganda is to replace reasoned argument in the public sphere with irrational fears and passions.”  (Stanley 55)  Stanley jumps from Hitler to Steve Bannon, quoting Bannon’s comment: “We got elected on Drain the Swamp, Lock Her Up, Build a Wall  . . This was pure anger. Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.”  (Stanley 55)

Photo from Wikipedia

We’ve all watched as repeated lies have turned into perceived truths by millions of American citizens (e.g., Stop the Steal).  Stanley describes the use of repeated lies as a way to destroy the “information space.  A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequences.” (Stanley 57)  Reality disappears and “fake news” takes over the public square. 

So why are we humans susceptible to the fascist leader’s tactics?  Stanley sees the pull of fascist politics as “powerful.”  “It simplifies existence,” he writes, and “gives us an object, a ‘them’ whose supposed laziness highlights our own virtue and discipline, encourages us to identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the world, whose bluntness regarding the ‘undeserving’ people in the world is refreshing.  If democracy looks like a successful business, if the CEO is tough-talking and cares little for democratic institutions, even denigrates them, so much the better. Fascist politics preys on the human frailty that makes our own suffering seem bearable if we know that those we look down upon are being made to suffer more.”  (Stanley, 183)

Another way a fascist politician succeed is by moving the goalposts of “normal.”  How many times have we worried that the horrors we hear on TV and read in the papers have become the “new normal.”  Over time, we’ve become desensitized to the awful things that we have heard in the public square and disturbing and even horrifying policies and government actions we have witnessed over the past four years.  The transition from democracy to fascism is a slow drip of normalizing the once unthinkable. 

Stanley raises his grandmother’s experience in Nazi Germany as an example of this.  In 1936, Stanley’s grandfather was arrested and taken to a concentration camp.  In her 1957 memoir, The Unforgotten (which is unfortunately out of print), Ilse Stanley explains that her husband was arrested because he was a “criminal” with two court fines for traffic violations. (Stanley 112)  Ilse began a clandestine mission, disguised as a Nazi social worker, to rescue hundreds of Jewish prisoners from the concentration camp, Sachensanhausen.  She would tell her Jewish friends in Berlin what was happening behind the barbed wire fence and that they should immediately leave Germany.   But these Jews didn’t believe they were in danger.  “She recounts,” writes Stanley, “the disparity between the extremes she witnessed in the concentration camp and the denials of the seriousness of the situation, its normalization, by the Jewish community of Berlin.” (Stanley 189) 

Ilse Stanley

What the Jews experienced in Germany and what we Americans experienced (and are experiencing) during the Trump era is a type of normalization that transforms “the morally extraordinary into the ordinary.  It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.” (190)

I want to thank Jason Stanley for allowing me to better understand how fascist politicians can co-opt an entire society.  It is a frightening reality that we must guard against. 

In his most recent article – Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda, published on February 4^th in Just Security, Stanley argues all the theory came together on January 6.  Analyzing a video shown at the Trump rally outside the White House, which was followed by the shocking attack on the United States Congress, Stanley unveils Trump fascist propaganda.  This dethroned leader is using fascist tactics to retain power and keep his millions of adoring followers from slipping out of his iron grasp. 

Here’s the video from the rally, but please read Stanley’s analysis. It makes it understandable and terrifying:

I post this blog just a few minutes before the United States Senate is to begin their second trial of impeachment of Donald Trump.

After you view the video and read the piece, post comments on the blog.  Want to hear what you think.    

Hitler, Trump and other Fascist Icons

What would you do if some friends gave you a book titled – How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them as a gift for your 60^th birthday?  

Perhaps you would put the book on a bookshelf in the back room where it can collect dust.  Well, I decided that this was just the book for my 60^th year.  It was time to better understand how leaders like Hitler and Trump came to power and how they convinced millions to follow them.  So, I got comfortable, pulled on a cozy blanket and cracked the cover of the book, written by Jason Stanley.   What I found was that I fell off a steep cliff of fascist politics and politicians.

In two blog posts, I’ll share some of what I learned from Dr. Stanley.  I suggest you read to end of the second blog post, as there you will find a link to Dr. Stanley’s February 4, 2021 article published by Just Security.   It brings everything he discusses in the book home to what happened on January 6^th in our nation’s capital.  The February 4^th piece focuses on a video shown at the Trump rally in front of the White House on that fateful day.  As I watched the video and read the article, a chill went down my spine and honestly, it has left me with a pit in my stomach. 

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We begin this journey into fascism with a quote from the end of Stanley’s book.       

The mechanisms of fascist politics all build on and support one another. They weave a myth of a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ based in a romanticized fictional past featuring ‘us’ and no ‘them,’ and supported by a resentment for a corrupt liberal elite, who take our hard-earned money and threaten our traditions.  ‘They’ are lazy criminals on whom freedom would mask their destructive goals with the language of liberalism, or ‘social justice,’ and are out to destroy our culture and traditions and make ‘us’ weak. ‘We’ are industrious and law-abiding, having earned our freedom through work; ‘they’ are lazy, perverse, corrupt, and decadent.  Fascist politics traffics in delusions that create these kinds of false distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ regardless of obvious realities.” (187)

Fascism begins with a false myth of a nation’s past.  To elucidate this point, Stanley quotes from one of our favorite fascists – Benito Mussolini: “We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion.  It is not necessary for it to be a reality . . . Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation!”  (Stanley 5) The fascist leader spins a false history of the great nation which was great and now has fallen.  The point of this myth is to replace “facts with power.” (Stanley 21)    

At the center of this glorious mythical past – the source of all power and moral authority – is the father, the leader of the family and the nation.  Fathers are the ones who bring the country to glory.  The role of the all-powerful father is starkly juxtaposed to the submissive mother.  These lines were drawn clearly in Nazi propaganda.  For example, Gregor Strasser, the Nazi propaganda master in the 1920’s made clear that “for a man, military service is the most profound and valuable form of participation – for the woman it is motherhood!” (Stanley 6-7) The TV series The High Castle, which depicts the dystopian world in which Germany and Japan were victorious in World War II, highlights this hierarchy of roles. It’s clear in the series that women are to be mothers and are to give birth to Aryan children for the glory of the Reich.   

Feminism and feminists were enemies of the Nazis regime.  “The women’s movement,” Stanley explains, “was part of an international Jewish conspiracy to subvert the German family and thus destroy the German race.  . . .  [the movement was] encouraging women to assert their economic independence and to neglect their proper task of producing children.” (Stanley 43-44) 

Perpetuating the myth of the past where men were king and, if they just worked hard, they would succeed, creates expectations that cannot be met in the present.  “When these expectations are not met,” Stanley contends, “it feels like victimhood.”  (Stanley 101) 

This idea helped me understand how so many white men in America today feel that they are the victims.  The falsehoods about the glorious past of white men in America created expectations that can’t be met and now they feel victimized and angry.  The fascist politician takes all that anger (that he created) and provides a place to put it – on the “other.”  The “other” can be Jews, immigrants, people of different races or ethnic origins, whatever works.  But the message to the target audience is that it’s not your fault that you don’t live in the glorious present of patriarchal dominance.  The “other” is at fault and they must be put in their place or, better yet, evicted from the country.  If this could happen, all would be right in the world.   

The “us” not “them” approach comes right out of the fascist playbook.    The “us” deserve more because we are hardworking Aryans/Americans/Hungarians, while the “them” are lazy criminals who have no work ethic and live off of our hard work.  Intense labor is the answer for these lazy parasites – Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes you Free) – as the sign over Auschwitz declares.  “In Nazi ideology,” Stanley writes, “Jews were lazy, corrupt criminals who spent their time scheming to take the money of hardworking Aryans, a job that was facilitated by the state.” (Stanley 157-58)

This theory, that work is the ultimate value, leads directly to the idea that if you are lazy (like the Jews) or unable to work (like the disabled), you are of no value to society.  This warped theory ultimately led to the murder of mentally and physically disabled Germans and the murder of six million Jews.

Tomorrow, Part II, will describe the tools a fascist politician has at his disposal, why this ideology is appealing, and will conclude with the promised link.

Albert Bourla Speaks on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Albert Bourla

I read many speeches and articles related to International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but the one, given by Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, hit me the hardest. He had never spoken publicly about his family’s story. I found it so powerful that I decided to share it with all of you. Thank you to my Mechuten, Amy Wolf for sharing it with me.

Warning, you may cry.

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My Family’s Story: Why We Remember
Albert Bourla, January 29, 2021

This week, as we do every year, we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day so that the stories of the victims and survivors are never forgotten. Yesterday, I was deeply honored to join the Sephardic Heritage International in DC’s Annual Congressional Holocaust Commemoration to share my family’s story in connection with the Holocaust.

Remembrance. It’s this word, perhaps more than any other, that inspired me to share my parents’ story. That’s because I recognize how fortunate I am that my parents shared their stories with me and the rest of our family.

Many Holocaust survivors never spoke to their children of the horrors they endured because it was too painful. But we talked about it a great deal in my family. Growing up in Thessaloniki, Greece, we would get together with our cousins on the weekends, and my parents, aunts and uncles would often share their stories.

They did this because they wanted us to remember. To remember all the lives that were lost. To remember what can happen when the virus of evil is allowed to spread unchecked. But, most important, to remember the value of a human life.

You see, when my parents spoke of the Holocaust, they never spoke of anger or revenge. They didn’t teach us to hate those who did this to our family and friends. Instead they spoke of how lucky they were to be alive … and how we all needed to build on that feeling, celebrate life and move forward. Hatred would only stand in the way.

So, in that spirit, I’m here to share the story of Mois and Sara Bourla, my beloved parents.

Our ancestors had fled Spain in the late 15th century, after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, which mandated that all Spanish Jews either convert to Catholicism or be expelled from the country. They eventually settled in the Ottoman Thessaloniki, which later became part of Greece following its liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.

Before Hitler began his march through Europe, there was a thriving Sephardic Jewish community in Thessaloniki. So much so that it was known as “La Madre de Israel” or “The Mother of Israel.” Within a week of the occupation, however, the Germans had arrested the Jewish leadership, evicted hundreds of Jewish families and confiscated their apartments. And it took them less than three years to accomplish their goal of exterminating the community. When the Germans invaded Greece, there were approximately 50,000 Jews living in the city. By the end of the war, only 2,000 had survived.

Lucky for me, both of my parents were among the 2,000.

My father’s family, like so many others, had been forced from their home and taken to a crowded house within one of the Jewish ghettos. It was a house they had to share with several other Jewish families. They could circulate in and out of the ghetto, as long as they were wearing the yellow star.

But one day in March 1943, the ghetto was surrounded by occupation forces, and the exit was blocked. My father, Mois, and his brother, Into, were outside when this happened. When they approached, they met their father, who also was outside. He told them what was happening and asked them to leave and hide. But he had to go in because his wife and his two other children were home. Later that day, my grandfather, Abraham Bourla, his wife, Rachel, his daughter, Graciela, and his younger son, David, were taken to a camp outside the train station. From there they left for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Mois and Into never saw them again.

The same night, my father and uncle escaped to Athens, where they were able to obtain fake IDs with Christian names. They got the IDs from the head of police, who at the time was helping Jews escape the persecution of the Nazis. They lived there until the end of the war … all the while having to pretend that they were not Jews … that they were not Mois and Into – but rather Manolis and Vasilis.

When the German occupation ended, they went back to Thessaloniki and found that all their property and belongings had been stolen or sold. With nothing to their name, they started from scratch, becoming partners in a successful liquor business that they ran together until they both retired.

My mom’s story also was one of having to hide in her own land … of narrowly escaping the horrors of Auschwitz … and of family bonds that sustained her spirit and, quite literally, saved her life.

Like my father’s family, my mom’s family was relocated to a house within the ghetto. My mother was the youngest girl of seven children. Her older sister had converted to Christianity to marry a Christian man she had fallen in love with before the war, and she and her husband were living in another city where no one knew that she had previously been a Jew. At that time mixed weddings were not accepted by society, and my grandfather wouldn’t talk to his eldest daughter because of this.

But when it became clear that the family was going to head to Poland, where the Germans had promised a new life in a Jewish settlement, my grandfather asked his eldest daughter to come and see him. In this last meeting they ever had, he asked her to take her youngest sister – my mom – with her.
There my mom would be safe because no one knew that she or her sister were of Jewish heritage. The rest of the family went by train straight to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Toward the end of the war, my mom’s brother-in-law was transferred back to Thessaloniki. People knew my mom there, so she had to hide in the house 24 hours a day out of fear of being recognized and turned over to the Germans. But she was still a teenager, and every so often, she would venture outside. Unfortunately, during one of those walks, she was spotted and arrested.
She was sent to a local prison. It was not good news. It was well known that every day around noon, some of the prisoners would be loaded on a truck to be transferred to another location where the next dawn they would be executed. Knowing this, her brother-in-law, my dearest Christian uncle, Kostas Dimadis, approached Max Merten, a known war criminal who was in charge of the Nazi occupation forces in the city.

He paid Merten a ransom in exchange for his promise that my mom would not be executed. But her sister, my aunt, didn’t trust the Germans. So, she would go to the prison every day at noon to watch as they loaded the truck that would transfer the prisoners to the execution site. And one day she saw what she had been afraid of: my mom being put on the truck.

She ran home and told her husband who immediately called Merten. He reminded him of their agreement and tried to shame him for not keeping his word. Merten said he would look into it and then abruptly hung up the phone.
That night was the longest in my aunt and uncle’s life because they knew the next morning, my mom would likely be executed. The next day – on the other side of town – my mom was lined up against a wall with other prisoners. And moments before she would have been executed, a soldier on a BMW motorcycle arrived and handed some papers to the man in charge of the firing squad.
They removed from the line my mom and another woman. As they rode away, my mom could hear the machine gun fire slaughtering those that were left behind. It’s a sound that stayed with her for the rest of her life.
Two or three days later, she was released from prison. And just a few weeks after that, the Germans left Greece.

Fast forward eight years and my parents were introduced by their families in a typical-for-the-time matchmaking. They liked each other and agreed to marry. They had two children – me and my sister, Seli.

My father had two dreams for me. He wanted me to become a scientist and was hoping I would marry a nice Jewish girl. I am happy to say that he lived long enough to see both dreams come true. Unfortunately, he died before our children were born … but my mom did live long enough to see them, which was the greatest of blessings.

So, that is the story of Mois and Sara Bourla. It’s a story that had a great impact on my life and my view of the world, and it is a story that, for the first time today, I share publicly.

However, when I received the invitation to speak at this event – at this moment in time when racism and hatred are tearing at the fabric of our great nation – I felt it was the right time to share the story of two simple people who loved, and were loved by, their family and friends. Two people who stared down hatred and built a life filled with love and joy. Two people whose names are known by very few … but whose story has now been shared with the members of the United States Congress – the world’s greatest and most just legislative body. And that makes their son very proud.

This brings me back to remembrance. As time marches on and today’s event shrinks in our rearview mirrors, I wouldn’t expect you to remember my parents’ names, but I implore you to remember their story. Because remembering gives each of us the conviction, the courage and the compassion to take the necessary actions to ensure their story is never repeated.

Thank you again for the invitation to speak today. And thank you for remembering.
Stay safe and stay well.

Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Israel created in 1950.

You can access the video of the speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0xvah1Sp7c<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watchv=J0xvah1Sp7c__;!!JHVTxvw!wvmzx1xuQLjIdgVf3Z1kEzYU9CfmRa30vP4tz1X0uOrWDWQpITpWtB8LFrmNow$>