A Plague of Anti-Semitism : Poland: What accounts for xenophobic prejudice, which spreads like a malignant virus? Apart from the stereotypes, there is a strong resistance to democratic pluralism.

What is anti-Semitism in today’s Poland? First of all, it is not unique. Aggressive anti-Semitic slogans can be heard today in Prague and Bratislava, in Russia and the Ukraine, in Hungary and in Romania. All these voices have a double edge. Each is a manifestation not merely of hatred of Jews but simply of a hostility toward the fundamental standards of European democracy. Anti-Semitism has become a code and a common language for people who are dreaming of a nationally pure and politically disciplined state--a state without people who are “different” and without a free opposition.

The explosions of anti-Semitic xenophobia in my country have recently provoked uneasiness and protest on the part of the most respected and distinguished representatives of Polish culture as well as the Catholic Church Episcopate and the president of the Republic. The Episcopate issued a special bishops’ letter in which, for the first time in the history of the Catholic church in Poland, anti-Semitism was unequivocally condemned. President Lech Walesa established a special council for Polish-Jewish relations.

Clearly, these acts and initiatives, deserving as they are of support, do not solve the problem. For--I will repeat--the issue at this late date is not Polish-Jewish relations; the issue is the plague of anti-Semitism, which, though it only touches the margins of Polish public life, has, as we know from history, the tendency to spread.

Anti-Semitism is like a malignant virus which first implants itself in one cell in order to poison and kill the entire organism. What characterizes this kind of anti-Semitism is a strange fascination with blood and heredity, a morbid interest in the racial background of grandfathers and great-grandfathers. The attempt is, once again, independently of historical truth and the demands of logic, to divide Polish citizens, or citizens of any country, into the better, the “real” ones, and the worse--those infected by Jewish blood.

That is why the habit of ascribing Jewish forebears to political enemies has become a grotesque and tragic part of the political debate in post-communist countries. One must discuss all this with utter openness and have the courage to call the disease by its proper name. I can assure you that in Poland there are many people who have such courage--there are in fact large numbers of them. I’ll say more; these are the people who create the authentic, cultural values of Polish democracy and make up its spiritual core.

Relations between Poles and Jews are still burdened by two stereotypes--one Polish, and the other Jewish. According to the Polish stereotype, there has never been any anti-Semitism in Poland, and the Jews were never so well-off as they were there. In this stereotype, each critical voice condemning anti-Semitism is considered an expression of the anti-Polish conspiracy on the part of international forces who are filled with hatred for Poland. There is also a Jewish stereotype, which says that each Pole imbibes anti-Semitism with his mother’s milk; that Poles share the responsibility for the Holocaust; that the only thing worth knowing about Poland is just that--that Poles hate Jews.

The Polish stereotype produces among Jews, even Jews well-disposed toward Poland, an instinctive dislike of Poles. This stereotype makes any calm and clarifying debate on the history of Polish anti-Semitism impossible. On the other hand, the Jewish stereotype immediately arouses a sort of “secondary anti-Semitism” among Poles, because people who are completely free of anti-Semitic phobias feel accused of sins they’ve never committed. And having been accused of being natural anti-Semites, they feel hurt and perceive ill will on the part of Jews; and such feelings tend to preclude an honest dialogue with Jews about the past and the future.

It isn’t easy for me to talk about all this, because my judgment is far from impartial. Because of my own past--as a Pole of Jewish origin, engaged from early youth in the democratic opposition, fighting for the freedom of Poland and of each human being--I have always perceived anti-Semitism as a form of anti-Polonism; and, listening to Jewish accusations of Polish anti-Semitism, I’ve always felt solidarity with the great part of Polish public opinion that in every historical period was capable of opposing clearly, bravely and unambiguously the successive campaigns of hatred.

Among my friends, one thing was always clear: Anti-Semitism is the name of hatred. But it was also clear to us that the stubborn categorization of Poland as an anti-Semitic nation was used in Europe and America as an alibi for the betrayal of Poland at Yalta. The nation so categorized was seen as unworthy of sympathy, or of help, or of compassion. That is why, for decades, we have stubbornly explained that anti-Semitic pathology doesn’t define Poland, just as Le Pen doesn’t define France, the John Birch Society doesn’t define America, the Black Hundreds don’t define Russia, and extreme Israeli chauvinism doesn’t define the state of Israel.

Reprinted with permission from New York Review of Books, NYREV Inc. 1991.