Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz

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Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz is a book by Jan T. Gross, published by Random House and Princeton University Press in 2006. A Polish version was published in Krakow as Strach: antysemityzm w Polsce tuż po wojnie: historia moralnej zapaści by Znak Publishers in 2008. Fear is an expansion of themes from his 2001 book Neighbors. In this book, Gross explores the issues concerning incidents of post-war anti-Jewish violence in Poland, with particular focus on the 1946 Kielce pogrom. The book received international attention with reviews in major newspapers, but has also been a subject of much criticism from Polish historians.

Content

In the English version of the book, Gross begins with a chapter illustrating the horrors suffered by Poland during World War II including the physical destruction of Poland's Jews, the initial partition of the country between Stalin and Hitler, the subsequent Nazi crimes and the Katyn massacre of Polish army officers by the Soviets; the Warsaw uprising of 1944, as well as the Soviet decision to postpone their advance until the German army had defeated the Polish Armia Krajowa, which resulted in the destruction of Warsaw "reduced to a pile of rubble." And finally, the abandonment of Poland knowingly consigned to half a century of Soviet communist domination by Britain and America at the Yalta Conference.

Gross estimates that 250,000 Polish Jews returned home at the end of the war. Often, they would find their property occupied by the homeless or taken over by the communist government nationalizing much of the Polish economy. He discusses the alienation, hostile atmosphere and violence experienced by some Jews and the inability of Polish elites to prevent it. Gross makes additional claims about the Kielce pogrom arguing that the crime was initiated not by a mob, but by the police, and involved people from every walk of life except the highest level of government officials in the city.

Gross concludes with the controversial claim that the cause of postwar anti-Semitism in Poland was the asserted wartime participation of selected Poles, especially in rural areas, in the Nazi effort to annihilate and despoil the Jews. The fear of punishment for their own crimes, according to Gross, was what drove them to continue attacking Jews after the war (hence the title of the book). The following example of a rhetorical argument employed by Gross in the process of asserting his often inflamatory, sweeping generalizations against the entire people was drawn from the book by his reviewer:

We must seek the reasons for the novel, virulent quality of postwar anti-Semitism in Poland not in collective hallucinations nor in prewar attitudes, but in actual experiences acquired during the war years...Living Jews embodied the massive failure of character and reason on the part of their Polish neighbors and constituted by mere presence both a reminder and a threat that they might need to account for themselves.

David Engel, who found this quote as a main topic of Gross' thesis, criticized him for bracketing off Nazi era from the longer course in Polish history, but while doing this he (Gross) - Prof. Engel admits - has altered the terms for reflecting on transgenerational Polish responsibility for past deeds. Engel's commented on the above quotation with the following statement: This bracket emerges from Gross' summation of his basic thesis.

The Polish version of the book was different from its English language original because Gross assumed that his Polish readers were familiar with the tragic history of wartime Poland. The English-version first chapter was replaced by a chapter documenting Polish awareness of the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

Reception

United States

Fear received praise in reviews in a number of popular magazines and newspapers including The New York Times (by David Margolick), the Washington Post (by Elie Wiesel), the Boston Globe, the Kirkus Reviews and the Los Angeles Times (by Thane Rosenbaum). Elie Wiesel reviewing the book rejected the notion of collective guilt for all of Poland, but noted that Gross' book impels Poland to confront its past. "You read it breathlessly, all human reason telling you it can't be so... Bitterness, envy, murderous rage: Everything that is low, primitive, vile and ugly in the human animal is laid bare and analyzed on these pages."

The Piast Institute, a Polish-American think tank, published an analysis of Fear and its reception. The analysis concluded that: "Reviewers in major newspapers such as the New York Times, The Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times, none of whom has any expertise in Polish or East Central European history, have reacted to the book with uncritical acclaim and considerable anti-Polish rhetoric. As such, it is clear already that Fear will have a serious and negative effect on Polish-Jewish relations." Wiesel's review was among those that have generated most discussion. The Washington Post printed a letter to the editor by Janusz Reiter, a Polish ambassador to the United States, who cited Polish-Jewish journalist Adam Michnik's reply to Wiesel's review. Michnik wrote in a leading Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza (of which he is editor-in-chief), that: "Wiesel's review conveys the image of a country unable to confront the plague of anti-Semitism... falsifies – even if unintentionally – the truth about Poland." With regards to Rosenbaum's review Piast Institute concluded that he has "presented the argument in highly emotional and hyperbolic prose and is given to exaggeration...". Piast Institute was critical of the book itself, concluding that "the thesis of the book is highly controversial and many Poles and others also find it unfair and tendentious". David Engel criticized Gross for bracketing off Nazi era from the longer course in Polish history, thus altering the terms of scientific inquiry.

In Poland

Fear has caused controversy in Poland (where it was published in 2008). Polish rabbi Burt Schuman (quoted by German magazine Der Spiegel) described the book as unfairly depicting the country as anti-Semitic thus "harming our goal of reconciliation." In a televised discussion with Gross Prof. Andrzej Paczkowski expressed his discomfort about the speed with which the author makes generalizations. "Memory and history are two different things" Paczkowski said. "Memory is black and white while history is about shades of grey." Fear has been criticized by historians such as Paweł Machcewicz, Piotr Gontarczyk, Thaddeus Radzilowski, Janusz Kurtyka, Dariusz Stola and Marek Jan Chodakiewicz; accusing Gross of imperfect methodology, generalizations, stereotyping, ignoring works which did not confirm his views, neglecting the wider context of the events in that Jews were not a unique subject of persecution and banditry which occurred throughout postwar Europe, misinterpreting or distorting data, relying mostly on Jewish sources, using inflammatory and emotional language and drawing unsubstantiated conclusions. Janusz Kurtyka, the president of the Institute of National Remembrance, in an interview with journalist Konrad Piasecki, stated that Fear has serious methodological errors and omissions, as well as emotive use of political epithets, and therefore does not stand a chance of being accepted (even conditionally) in the historical community.

Feliks Tych, head of Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute, criticized Gross for being more of a judge than an analyst, neglecting the impact of the post-war collapse of state institutions, and selectively using facts to support his thesis. Tych also noted, "But after his book, it is no longer possible to escape from the question why there were killings of Jews after the war, and that is is his undeniable achievement."

Polish prosecutors reviewed the accusations that the book is slanderous against the Polish nation, but rejected the claim, refusing to launch an investigation. The very fact that such requests were made has become the subject of some additional media controversy. The article of the Polish law that allowed the case to be made in the first place has been criticized by some as infringing upon the right to free speech and will be reviewed by the Polish Constitutional Court.

Citations

^ Symposium: Analysis of Fear - Summary of the Essay
Fear, pp. 83-166
^ Piotr Gontarczyk, Far From Truth, Rzeczpospolita, January 12, 2008 Template:En icon
^ Marek Jan Chodakiewicz: People’s past has to be reviewed critically on individual basis, Rzeczpospolita, January 11, 2008 Template:En icon
^ Jan T. Gross. Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical Interpretation. New York, Random House, 2006. Quoted in: David Engel, On Continuity and Discontinuity in Polish-Jewish Relations: Observations on Fear: Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz—An Essay in Historical Interpretation by Jan T. Gross. New York: Random House, 2006, East European Politics & Societies, Vol. 21, No. 3, 534-548 (2007)
David Margolick. Postwar Pogrom. The New York Times, July 23, 2006
Elie Wiesel. The Killing After The Killing. The Washington Post, June 25, 2006.
Susan Rubin Suleiman. Aftershocks. The Boston Globe, July 02, 2006
Kirkus Reviews 74.9 (May 1, 2006): p448(1).
Thane Rosenbaum, "A Lethal Homecoming" (pdf), book review of Fear, Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2006.
Elie Wiesel. The Killing After The Killing. The Washington Post, June 25, 2006.
Symposium: Analysis of Fear - Introduction
JANUSZ REITER Washington Post July 9th, 2006
Analysis of Thane Rosenbaum's Review of FEAR
Symposium: Analysis of Fear - Symposium's Purpose
Siobhán Dowling. Fear and Slander in Poland. Anti-Semitism Book Could Land Historian in Jail. Spiegel International. January 18, 2008.
^ Craig Whitlock, A Scholar's Legal Peril in Poland, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, January 18, 2008; Page A14
TVN24 2008, "Gross chce zmusić Polaków do zmiany świadomości", 2008-19-1, TVN24, PAP
^ THADDEUS RADZILOWSKI, Review of FEAR
^ Template:Pl icon Konrad Piasecki, "Gross to wampir historiografii," interview with historian Janusz Kurtyka, RMF FM, 10 January 2008
^ Dariusz Stolam Review of Fear, in The English Historical Review 2007 CXXII(499):1460-1463; doi:10.1093/ehr/cem344
Beats Pasek. Confronting Poland's Anti-Semitic Demons. Time, Jan. 23, 2008.
Template:Pl icon Nie będzie śledztwa ws. książki Grossa Wprost 24

Externa links

The Killing After the Killing, Review of Fear, Washington Post
Chasing Away the Memory of Guilt: The End of Jewish Life in Poland H-Net review of Fear
"Polish criminal investigation into the book Fear" by European Jewish Press

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