ADL "Bearing Witness" Program

I would like to ask you a favor.  Please read the article "Bearing Witness to the Holocaust" on Jewish Exponent.

I will briefly quote a part of the article to give you an idea..



The middle school English and religion teacher at Saint Agnes School in West Chester also learned that helping Jews during that time period was punishable by death in Poland -- a fact that made her ashamed to have Polish ancestry.
"It was really hard to listen to," said Dunn, her voice thick with emotion. "They're my people and how could they be like that?"




Now, if you are as disturbed as I am at reading this, please read the letter I wrote:


"I am writing in regards to the article “Bearing Witness to the Holocaust”, July 25^th, 2012 by Deborah Hirsch. I am letting you know I will also be forwarding this letter to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National and Philadelphia chapters, as well as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

After reading the article, I must express my disappointment and hurt, as a Pole living in the USA. Specifically, regarding the incorrect statement attributed to a teacher, Eileen Marie Dunn, “that helping Jews during that time period was punishable by death in Poland”.
The statement, and her following statements of horror, shock, and shame of being of Polish ancestry, essentially and strongly insinuate that the Polish government was responsible for the laws which forbade Poles from helping Jews.
This is completely untrue, and could be misconstrued as slanderous to the character of the Polish people. We all know, or else, should know by now, that the German Nazis occupied Poland during that time. That it was the German Nazis who passed and enforced that law, and many others which hurt Jews, Poles, and many others during that time period.
Whether Ms. Dunn believed this, and stated this, Jewish Exponent, as a news entity, has the responsibility to, either a. quote Ms. Dunn as saying such, and making a clear note following the statement that this is untrue and the actual facts, or, b. not quote Ms. Dunn at all. Because Jewish Exponent did no such thing, it comes across as though Jewish Exponent and ADL are presenting Poles as the incorrect perpetrators of this horrific crime. Which I presume, of course, was not in any way your intent.
Also, I call into question where Ms. Dunn learned this misinformation. Did she learn it from the ADL “Bearing Witness” program? Is ADL properly presenting the facts regarding this time period? I would presume that they would be, since any organization wishing to present classroom training and material to teachers bears responsibility to present correct, clear and complete information to the same teachers.
If the “Bearing Witness” program is incorrectly teaching that responsibility lies with the Poles and not the German Nazis, is the Archdiocese of Philadelphia aware that this is happening, since it is their teachers receiving this training? That their teachers are being told this misinformation, and then passing the guilt to their students, that Polish American students be raised in the school system feeling shame for what their grandparents and great-grandparents are, in fact, not guilty of?
As a Polish woman living in the USA, whose children also attend Catholic school under the Chicagoland Archdiocese, I am especially alarmed. Does this mean that teachers are being trained to present this incorrect blame to children such as mine? So that they may grow up feeling shame for their heritage because Poles are accused of something that every historian knows is the fault of the German Nazis and not the Poles?
Is this the aim? If so, I find it absolutely disturbing. Both the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the Poles whose land was occupied and used by German Nazis for evil intent deserve to have the truth be shared of their death and brutal abuse, as well as the truth of who was the perpetrator. Truth must not be distorted."




ADL's "Bearing Witness" program is a national program which is done in partnership with Catholic schools to teach more about the Holocaust.  In no way do I find anything wrong with that.  It's great, in fact.  My concern is that the article might be shining light on a flaw in the program, or perhaps there is no flaw but the article is incorrectly quoting someone, or who knows what.



If you would like to also write a letter to the Jewish Exponent editor regarding this matter, please do so. 

I will keep you up to date on this.

Na razie...

Rice Keugel

This is a Jewish dish but like many Jewish recipes, it can easily be mistaken for a Polish dish by an outsider since the two cultures lived side by side for so many centuries in Poland. 

All the ingredients used are typical in a Polska Kuchnia (Polish Kitchen) and are inexpensive.

When I was younger, my mother would occasionally make it along with a couple of other Jewish dishes when teaching us about Jewish culture.  I had mentioned before that my mother would make dinners themed around various cultures and countries and tell us different facts about that culture while we would cook and eat so that we would learn about the world while sitting around the dining room table.  I do the same thing now with my children.

If you like apples or rice pudding, you will enjoy this dish.

I made it at the request of my "dirty hippy" husband, who had not grown up with this or other Jewish dishes but who loves rice pudding.  It was a hit with the entire family.




Ingredients:


1/3 to 1/2 cup Raisins, soaked *
2-3 Apples, washed, peeled, and grated
1 large Egg
Pinch of Salt
1/3 cup Sugar
1 cup cooked Rice
5-6 tablespoons of Butter, softened at room temperature
2-3 tablespoons finely chopped Almonds
1 teaspoon Sugar

Optional:  1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon, 1-2 tablespoons of Apricot Preserves and/or 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel, if you like



Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a baking pan.

Beat the Egg, Salt and 1/3 cup Sugar together.  Mix in Raisins, Apples, Rice, 1/4 cup Butter, the optional flavors such as Preserves, and Almonds. 

Add to baking pan.  Dot with a tablespoon or two of Butter and sprinkle with the teaspoon of Sugar.

Bake for about 35-45 minutes until browned.

Serve hot in a dessert dish.  You can garnish with a bit of fresh whipped cream, if you like.

Smacznego!




Notes: 


* The raisins can be soaked in hot water for about 10 minutes until plump.  If not serving to children, you can soak them in warmed brandy for a few minutes for an adult treat.


As it is described above, the recipe will come out like rice pudding.  If you want to make it come out thicker so that it can be cut like a cake, instead of 1 Egg, use 4 Eggs and instead of 1 cup cooked Rice, use 2 cups cooked Rice.  You would also want to cook it for just a few minutes longer.  We prefer it softer like a rice pudding.


You can make the recipe less sweet by cutting down the sugar amount after trying it this way first to see how you like it.




You might enjoy reading my syndicated post on BlogHer "I Am Raising Two Future Foodies" (15 Tips to Raising Adventurous Eaters).


If you liked this recipe, consider making a donation

More People Who Are Polish: Warner

We all know Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., one of the largest largest American motion-picture studios.  But did you know that the Warner brothers are Polish?  Jack, Harry, Sam, and Albert Warner were brothers born to a Polish immigrant.

I found some interesting links showing the family's history:
A link with geneological information about the Warner brothers and their family.  The article states they were from "Krasnoshiltz" of the "Russian Empire".  This town is called Krasnosielc of Poland, as Poland was at the time of their immigration a part of the Russian Empire.

While the last name Warner is not a Polish last name, Polish and Jewish history and culture have been linked since the 10th century and, especially, during the time of the "Black Death" when Jews were unfairly blamed for it.  Yes, I know, it's Wikipedia, but there are a lot of credible links in this link.

Another link with the history of the Warner brothers.

And a link to a family history film.

I don't think I need to explain Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc., what films they have done, etc.  We all know that large gold "WB" logo instinctively when it flashes across the screen.

Na razie...

Polack, the Film: A Review and Interview

Polack.

I see this word and my defenses come up.  As they do for anyone who has been the victim of a racial slur their entire life and then sees the racial slur as the title of a movie.

Because I am a person who will not sit still and tolerate a racial slur of any kind against any group of peoples, I decide to do some investigate into this film.  And I'm glad I did.

 Jim Kenney, the man behind the film, takes you for an emotional and intellectual ride with Polack.  The movie starts off talking about being Polish American and being subjected to Polack jokes from other Americans.  And from the main stream media.  Many many times.

The history of Poland during this time is discussed, including the discussion of how incorrect Polack jokes actually are.  That we aren't racist, stupid, meatheads, who all love bowling (by the way, I have to interject that nobody in my family likes bowling.  I've actually never met a Pole who does), etc.  From my own perspective, I think he does a brilliant job of discussing it, to be frank.

"Polack: the Film" also gives an idea of what it has been like to be searching for identity.  And what it's like to be gay.  Jim Kenney is a gay Polish American man. 

In the film, Jim visits Poland, meets other gay Poles and discusses the issues surrounding being gay in Poland right now. 

I was in tears throughout the film.  For several reasons.  As a proud Polish American.  As a victim of "polack" jokes from childhood and into adulthood.  And as a woman who went to school in the US and had several gay friends, whom I am still friends with.  But with no homosexuals in my family.

After watching the film, I felt that to review it on Polish Mama on the Prairie is something I need to do.  But to interview Jim would give the film more justice and perhaps entice more people to see the film.  Whether you are homosexual or of Polish descent, I hope this peeks your curiousity, that you watch the film, and that discussions arise from it.



Let's begin the interview, shall we:

1.  How did you originally decide to do this film?

My father had an elderly distant relative give him her notes on the Polish family history. These sparked my interest in understanding why I had always been ashamed to be Polish. As a kid, I was an in-the-closet Polish-American because of Polack jokes. I wanted to find out why. 

2.  Where did you grow up?  Did you grow up in an area with a Polish community?  Or did you grow up as I did, relatively isolated from other Polish Americans?

I grew up in Peoria, Illinois; so oddly, I grew up both in the Polish heartland and isolated from the community; ie, the upper Midwest from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin was a common tract for Polish-American settlement. In Peoria, the Polack jokes were rampant, however, if there was ever an identified Polish-American community there, I didn't know of it. 

3.  When did you finally decide to accept being Polish American, as you state in the film that in the beginning you hid this part of yourself from others?

I don't think I fully accepted being Polish-American until I knew what our true last name had been. My grandfather changed it and said that he couldn't remember the original. The actual name has so much meaning and history, that I was proud of the identity it gave me. I now have it tattooed on my arm. 

4.  How did it feel to come out?  First, as a Pole.  Second, as a gay man.  I ask this because the film tackles both subjects together and separately, in a sense.

Coming out as a gay man in America was very difficult for me some twenty years ago. I believe my true coming-out as Polish only happened when I first traveled there in 2005. Poland then was still adjusting from Communist life. It was a very foreign place, and yet, I had studied their history enough to have pride as a returning "son." I had a hard time connecting to the Polish, so I relied on my other "family", the gays there. It was only in living this experience that I eventually made the parallel connections between these two groups. 

5.  Is this meant to be, as I see it, a film for opening discussion on something some feel to be taboo to talk about?

I've always been interested in seemingly arbitrary intersections. So I am interested to see how the film can encourage thought by comparing Poles and gays. The comparative taboo is also interesting to me; Poles everywhere are sensitive to the jokes, and Poles in Poland are challenged with the visibility of gays in their country. 

6.  In your visit to Poland, what did you come away with as an overall impression of the country?

I feel that the Polish people are highly educated and refined, and yet in their adolescence as a reborn country. They have been manipulated by so many foreign powers for centuries, that they struggle to determine their identity. 

7. Do you plan on visiting again?

Yesterday, I saw photos of gay pride in Warsaw. I recognized a lot of locations and yet the city is changing so quickly. I miss it and would love to visit again soon, before it starts to feel foreign to me again. 

8.  I know in the film, you discuss how you thought that you would just be walking down the street and someone would grab you and proclaim you to be their family.  Did you end up finding and connecting with any of your family?

My father joined me on one of my trips to Poland. We drove to the small town that was in the family history notes, and we found families with the same last name. We were not able to connect a gap of a few generations because the records at their church had burnt in a fire. We were invited into their home and had coffee with a large number of their family; and I was excited that I was able to translate the conversation with the basic level of Polish that I had learnt. 

9.  I know you said Poles seem distant.  I know that we tend to be rather formal with a stranger until we become familiar with them.  Do you think that it was the cultural difference between America and Poland that made you feel that way?  Or was it a thinking that in Poland, perhaps the population is smaller and therefor easier to find others you are related to?

Poles do seem distant until you meet them and then they open up very quickly. I do think it is cultural. Although I consider myself to be shy, Americans are very relaxed and extroverted by comparison. It was actually a nice change for me to be the loud one. 

10.  When I first went back to Poland after leaving as a child, the feeling of being surrounded by other people who looked like me was overwhelming but in a wonderful way.  How did you feel at that moment?

I actually didn't really have that moment. I had hoped to, but I now don't think that I look absolutely Polish, the way that I can sometimes identify a Pole just by looking at one.

11.  Do you think that our large majority being Roman Catholic has anything to do with the general attitude that homosexuality is something to discourage?

Absolutely. In Poland, Catholicism is more than a religion. It is the culture. Most of the gays I met in Poland profess to being Catholic. They consider themselves born and raised Catholic; whether they attend church or even believe in the religion. What was most sad is that some of the gays I met there still believe that they will burn in actual hell for their sexuality. 

12.  How did it feel hanging the signs?

The street activism that I did was extremely scary. It is somewhat thrilling to look back on now; but at the time, it took me three nights to convince my cameraman to go out and do it with me. The idea of it now seems easy as I sit here and write, but I have Polish friends who still tell me how offensive my subversion of the Polish anchor symbol is to many Poles. 

13.  Have you read the book Hollywood's War With Poland, 1939-1945 by M. B. B. Biskupski, released last year?  I have not yet read it but I think it would be a great companion read to the beginnings of the film.  What is your opinion?

I didn't know of this book, and it adds to my worry that the film should never be finished, because I keep discovering more... I can't wait to read it. 

 



14.  This really probably has nothing to do with the film, but I noticed a worried look on your face, in your eyebrows, in the film.  What could you tell me that is from? 

That's funny. I think it's my natural state: worried. My eyebrows give everything away. When I started the film, I didn't want to be in the actual story. I thought I was just making a film about Polish jokes. Eventually others helped me to see that to connect the jokes and gays, it would need a character to combine them, and that my personal journey was the most natural and available outlet for that. In the film, you mostly see me in stop-frame animations on train windows; this was my way of not fully being on camera... and yet, the worry still came through : )  The film is a lot about belonging and acceptance. I don't think I'll ever feel either completely. 

As honored as I felt that Jim agreed to the interview, his answers left me feeling more that this is a film worth watching, talking about, researching various facts to better grasp the topics, and perhaps bring about a social change.

Images and links used in this article come from the film's website and are used with written permission from Jim Kenney.

A Cemetery in a Small Village in the Polish Countryside and WWII

My first experience seeing, feeling, and understanding the effects of WWII on Poland and myself was not while reading history books, or watching television, or talking to my Dziadek.  At those moments, WWII was an abstract idea, surreal, not tangible.  It just didn't seem real.  It was as distant as the Revolutionary War.

I was in a village visiting a Ciocia ("Aunt" in Polish) the first moment it really dawned on me what WWII meant.  What WWII was in terms of a human event, in terms of my family's history. 

This was my first trip back to Poland.  And it was life changing.



I stand in a small cemetery.

This is not a cemetery in America.  There are no artificial flowers, Styrofoam wreaths, and other such grave ornaments.  There aren't miles of meticulously manicured grass, limited plants and trees and bushes, tombstones flat on the ground so that from the highway running next to it, you are not reminded that it is a cemetery.  There is no mausoleum of hundreds of unrelated bodies.

This is a cemetery in a small village in Poland.  On a path travelled for centuries by villagers as they go about life.

This is the village's cemetery for centuries.  The local Catholic church towers over the village, as all Catholic churches in Poland tend to do.  The path to the cemetery had been lined with trees, tall grasses, and fields.  Not empty fields, but fields planted and growing food, some with cows and other livestock.  Farmer's fields growing what the village would be eating and making a living from. 

The walk had been beautiful, peaceful.  I knew we were going to visit a grave of some family member.  I don't know who.  Perhaps it is my other Dziadek's but I'm sorry to say I can't remember.

It is a warm sunny summer day.  There is a sign above the cemetery.  I don't remember what it says. 

The cemetery is surrounded by trees and cool shadows.  At first, the cemetery seems small.  All the graves have tall tombstones and stone covers.  Many have bushes and flowers planted around them.  Some have candles on the covers. 

Behind the cemetery is a once white stucco house with a red roof.  The yard is bursting with flowers.  Clothes hang on the line, gently moving with the warm summer breeze.  A cat, dark brown, peeks at me from under a bush.  Winks and crosses the yard toward the other side of the house.

Browning tall grass bends and bobs it's seedheads as the wind plays across them on one half of the cemetery, to my left.  All around, Nature is singing and celebrating Life.  Yet, I stand in a cemetery, with tombstones marking places where the dead rest, to my right.  To the left, tall grasses.

I look around, curious.  Begin reading tombstones.  Walking down each row.  So many names that never would sound "normal" in the USA but names which I grew up hearing around me.  And many with my first name.  "Katarzyna".

I always loved my first name.  I thought it was elegant, exotic and yet not strange, classic.  But until I visited Poland, I had never ever heard of anyone else having the same name, let alone met anyone.

I begin to pick small yellow flowers that were growing wild in a section of the cemetery.  They are small and beautiful.  They seemed so joyous while I walk around this final resting site.  I place a flower on one particular grave which has my same first name.  It feels right.  I begin to do the same for others.

The dates in this cemetery go back at least to the 1600's, with some faded, covered in moss.  The idea begins to hit me, as it does everyone at some point in their life, that one day I am going to be a marked tombstone somewhere.  The thought makes me uncomfortable.  And the more "Katarzyna"'s I read on tombstones, the more the idea hits me.

I place more flowers on graves.  This urge is primal.  It needs to be followed through.  It is the root for All Souls Day.  This is my Polish blood, whispering to me in a way I had never heard before.

The sun shines on my head.  On the flowers.  On grasshoppers and insects flying away from me with each step.

I step to the other half of the cemetery, grass as tall as I am in most places.  Wild flowers grow here, blue, yellow, red.  I start to pick more flowers.  My mother and Ciocia look at me and laugh.  They ask what I am doing and realize I have placed flowers on every grave that looks slightly neglected or has my first name.

They don't understand and I can't explain it.  Not to them.  They grew up around here.  Their names are normal to them and people around them, this cemetery is like all cemeteries to them, their history in the soil they tread is normal to them.  To me, this is so strange. 

I feel something that I had not understood before start to creep over me but I can't explain it.  I just can't.  I turn away from them and continue what I'm doing.  I don't care what they think.  It doesn't matter.  This is something spiritual I must wrestle with that they never had to.  I'm jealous of them.

In that area of the cemetery which I assume to be the empty section meant for future graves, I begin to pick flowers.  A few blades of grass move.  I find a tombstone.  My breathe stops.  I look around more carefully, moving wildflowers and grass out of the way and find many many more.  More than in the other, more cared for section of the cemetery.  And almost all their death dates are during WWII.  And there are many other Katarzynas.

I look at my mother and ask "Why hasn't the caretaker mowed around these graves?" 

My mother looks at me with a strange look in her eyes.  I think now it dawns on her, at least a bit, how much I just don't understand.  Not just in life.  I'm still a child, after all.  But about my family's history, Poland's history.  The culture.  Little subtle things that I could never really learn about living in the US.

She replies in a quiet voice, "Kasiu, there is no caretaker.  In Poland, the family cares for each grave."

I point to the graves, some knocked over or sitting crooked.  "But in this village, why don't they take care of these graves also?  The tombstones are broken, falling over.  The grasses are so tall.  The dead must be sad."

My Ciocia doesn't understand.  She waves a hand dismissively.  I don't like her.  "They are Jews.  Some Poles.  Their families left us here with their graves when they fled to America and never came back to care for their family (meaning their dead).  You don't understand how much work is to be done here.  People are too tired to care for more graves."

"But a lot of these are children.  And how can they be Jews?  I see a lot of Katarzyna's."

My mother looks at me, shakes her head, and says, "Kasiu, that's how it is."  She turns herself to end the conversation.  I wanted a hug from someone who understood what I was wrestling with.  My brother was there, he was walking around as well but he was quiet.  And he didn't touch any graves.  I don't know what he was thinking.  I should have reached out to him but didn't know what to say.

I continue walking around the graves.  I'm angry.  I see that there is a group of graves which all share the same death day.  Another grave has a Star of David.  So many are children.

I realize these people were killed by Nazis.  I don't know what the exact event was.  Perhaps I never will.  But first hand, for the first time ever, I see the effects of WWII.  In a village where some family member of mine is buried and therefor a part of my blood is from. 

It could have been over 100 graves, I'm not sure.  But there were so many.

I continue to walk and begin pulling up grass.  I leave the flowers.  But the grass I start to pull up and toss into a pile in the back of the cemetery that must have been from others tending graves before.

I keep pulling up the grave.  Graves which had not seen light in many years begin to bask in sunshine.  I know my Ciocia is upset.  Perhaps I'm making someone else look bad.  I don't care.

I would not want to have my final resting place forgotten.

But then, which is worse?  Paying a stranger to care for the cemetery and family not feeling the need to come visit and care over your final resting place?  Or being forgotten in a corner of a cemetery.

But not really forgotten.  I understand that this is an event which still rests freshly in the memories of the Babcias and Dziadeks of this village, they saw it first hand.  It can never be forgotten.  No matter how horrible.  But life must go on.  And if caring for those graves chokes people up all over again, remembering such a horrible event in human history, perpetrated right there, in their own backyards, in the backyards and fields which for centuries had been in their family, can you imagine the feeling?

Graves continue to be pulled free from the wildlife taking over them.  Light brings more names back to the present, reminders of others who passed away, who I don't know.  But I will always remember them.

I keep pulling grass and picking flowers...

Poland's Decision to Suspend Compensation Plans for WWII Victims

I should be writing a recipe about Polish Creamed Green Peas and another about raising a bi-lingual child in the USA, but...

Right now, there is a controversial decision by the Polish government being discussed around the world.  The decision to suspend compensation plans for real estate seized by Nazi Germany and then by the USSR Communists.

If you haven't heard about it, I asked Poland.gov.pl's facebook fan page administrator about it and she kindly gave me the following links:

http://www.ejpress.org/article/49652

http://thenews.pl/national/artykul151246_polands-chief-rabbi-rails-against-restitution-backdown.html

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-congress-condemns-poland-s-decision-to-halt-property-restitution-1.349366

First, I need to address something I am noticing in the first article, and has been a trend throughout some other articles, is the term "post-war Polish communists".  Whoever wrote this article must not know their history.  Otherwise, I can not fathom how the USSR, the Soviet Communists, can be mistaken for the Polish government, as the term "post-war Polish Communists" (as a side note, I always thought you capitalized the word Communist) implies. 

To me, it smacks of the same lack of understanding and perhaps even purposeful rewriting of history as the "Polish Concentration Camps" issue, which Mr. Alex Storozynski fought against recently with his effective petition.

I acknowledge there were some Poles who were Communists.  But let's get something clear.  There were also Jewish Communists, American Communists, Ukrainian Communists, British Communists, etc.  That doesn't mean that those countries were Communist.  And if I recall correctly, the USSR was in control of Poland, as well as other countries, and was a Communist government.

Back to the point, I wanted to share a conversation I had with a friend once.  He was originally from South Africa and his family were Polish Jews.  He has since moved back to South Africa but he, my husband and myself had the chance to spend some great afternoons together hiking and discussing Nature, History, Cultures, and all sorts of other interesting subjects.

One day, we were discussing his Polish roots.  His father was born in Poland and fled to South Africa from the German Nazis as he was Jewish.  I can't fault him for that, I would have done the same.  In fact, my non-Jewish Babcia on my father's side fled the Nazis as well, first to France, then to the US, then back to Poland once the Nazi madness was over.

The discussion continued to his father deciding to return to Poland for a time.  He wanted his property back.  This was about ten years ago.  Our friend went on to say that the villagers treated his father rudely and refused to give him back the estate.

Here is what I think on that subject.  Now, this is just my opinion.  Not the opinion of all Poles, Polish Americans, or Americans.  Only mine.

WWWII ended in 1945.  Ten years ago, this would have been 56 years ago.  I understand that some time passes before someone extremely traumatized by such events can return.

But I learned something from my father, which has guided me in a lot of my views in life.  Always look at the big picture before deciding which side you sit on.  And religion and fact are just part of that. Human emotion are also a part of that.

So, I listened to what he said, and visualized Poland as I knew her.  Only in 1989 did Poland finally gain her freedom from Communist Russia.  Ten years ago, this would have been 12 years of freedom. 

If you have not been to a former Communist country and not listened to it's people what it was like, you have no idea.  The way my Babcia sums it up is "There was no toilet paper.  No chocolate for the children.  You stood in line for hours only to find out the store had only one bag of potatoes to sell and they were rotten."  That's why my parents fled with me to Austria, and later to the US.  Can you imagine?

And no, this was not Poland's own doing.  This is what every country suffered through under the Communist regime which dictated from Moscow.

Also, when Poland's government fled in exile to Britain in order to keep fighting the Nazis, she placed her entire Treasury in the "trustworthy" care of Switzerland.  All of which was stolen (or handed over to, whichever way your history book states it) by the Nazis.  At the time when I had this conversation with our friend, I had read and heard that when Poland was reimbursed (a lot but not reimbursed all, as I recall) her stolen treasury, the Polish government then handed the money to fund the creation of the Israeli government.  At this time, I cannot find any proof of this anywhere.  But if this is true, that is an amazing gesture.

Now, let's imagine a village in Poland after WWII.  Homes destroyed, the population traumatized by the horrors which were dealt to the local residences at the hands of the German Nazis and the Soviet soldiers.  They are told that the treaty for the ending of this war included handing over Poland to the Soviets.  Life is hard.  Nazi concentration camps in Poland are for a while used by the Soviets.

People are freed from concentration camps and not given a direction or help by their "liberators" and simply wander the countryside, mentally still in the camps.  Slowly, painfully, life goes on.  Poland picks herself up as a people, though once again, no longer a country, removed off the map of Europe.  Again.

Time passes.  There are times when it's not so bad anymore.  When life is full of promise and hope.  Other times, there is oppression and people by the hundreds of thousands again die of starvation, or are sent to Siberia, or just never heard from again.

The little village lost half of it's residences during WWII.  Now, the question is this...

Should the houses have stayed empty all this time?  When people like my grandparents were on a waiting list for about 5 years, waiting to be given a small apartment because so much of Poland had been destroyed.  Buildings, homes, places to live.  When people were thankful to be given an apartment the size of my living room.

Should the houses of the WWII victims stayed empty, waiting in hope that someone, a relative of some kind would return to claim it?  5 years later.  15 years later.  55 years later.

Should the fields have not been worked in the meantime?  Cows, horses, pigs of the victims not eaten by a starving populace in the meantime?

I know what the Bible says.  And that is not stealing.  If you think the person is dead and your children are starving, do you let them starve?  Or tell the Soviet government no when they assign you that house?  Do you think that is what the Bible teaches us to do?

Later on, when the new owners decide to sell the property, as they 20, 30, 55 years later, might want to, do they not have that right?  Do the new owners not have claim to that property when they pay for it with money, as the old owners did?  They pay taxes to the government, care for the property, live and die in that property. Just as the victims of WWII did.

Alright.  Now, let's discuss the government of Poland.  Which is only about 23 years old.  After 6 years of WWII, 44 years of Soviet rule.  Prior to which, was only it's own country for 21 years after WWI, a victim of WWI for 4 years, and off the maps of Europe in the Great Partitions for about 123 years.  I'm not asking for a pity party.  I'm saying, know the facts.  All of them.  Grasp the full situation of a country before deciding who is right about what.

Poland right now is the least impacted country in the EU right now from the recession.  That does not mean they are the richest country in the EU right now.  If country X had 800 dollars and only lost 8 in the recession and country Y had 1,000 and lost 150, then country X is least effected but country Y has more money.  I am also not saying Poland is the poorest.  I am just saying, look at figure before slapping a fun and easy to swallow summary on a country's economy and making your decisions from there.

Also, in order for Poland to be a member of the EU, Poland must maintain a certain economic and budgetary balance.  With the economy being what it is and the recession, as well as the still in progress picking upand fixing of the damage caused by the Soviet government, it's not as simple as you might think.  I have been following the Polish economy and it's not so easy to fix all that.

Poland being a member of the EU also benefits Israeli citizens who can claim Polish citizenship, as they can also use their Polish passport to move freely between EU countries, whereas their Israeli passport does not allow that at this time.

In the end, I told our friend, "I understand how your father felt.  But I have to also see it from the villagers perspective and it wasn't fair to them either that your father expected them to simply hand over the house when he himself admits nobody for 56 years knew anything about what happened to the family except that they had died.  I'm so sorry what happened to your family.  Did your father speak to the local government to see what was able to be done with this?"

He stopped talking during that hike.  And after that day, did not speak to us.  I'm not sure what I did wrong, other than empathize with an entire victimized nation, rather than one particular people.

What would you have done?  How does Poland's decision make you feel?



For other's perspectives in the Polonia (Polish American Community), you can also read here at Jagahost's Polish Culture Forum...