25. Włodzimierz Mich

Włodzimierz Mich The Issue of the Memory of Shoah in the Polish Press after 1989 Introduction The purpose of this study is to sum up a certain stage of the discussion on the Holocaust held in the Polish press after 1989 and it is hardly intended as a media studies examination of the approach to the issue represented by particular newspapers and magazines. Instead, the analysis aims at reconstructing the positions that emerged from the debate and the argumentation used to justify them. My considerations are based on publications appearing between 1989 and the middle of the 1990s, when the case of the Jedwabne pogrom was brought into the public debate. The approach was determined by strictly practical considerations, as to examine the journalistic writings from later years would have required further time-consuming study. Substantive reasons existed as well, for the currently operating perceptions of the Holocaust were first articulated in the period under study. Moreover, it was then that this issue was the subject of heated polemics. The starting point of most discussions was the view then functioning in the West that the Holocaust was unique and hence people had the obli- gation to preserve the memory of the Shoah and to act upon a moral dic- tate of opposing anti-Semitism and compensating descendants of Holocaust victims. What seemed especially interesting was the Polish aspect of this issue, that is, the accusations put forward against the Poles and the postulates that were voiced. This aspect was examined from both the moral and the practical point of view. It was acknowledged that the adoption of any given interpretation of the past necessarily affects the way current problems are settled, thus co-determining Poland's image, its international position, alliances, the economic situation etc. To a certain 282 Włodzimierz Mich degree, which differed in particular cases, this led to an instrumental treatment of the issue. In effect of the debate, two distinct positions emerged in Polish political journalism of the period. Adherents of the first, whom I have called "rejecters" in this study, rejected the memory of the Holocaust thus articulated or at least the resultant consequences. Proponents of the second, whom I will refer to as "accepters", accepted the key elements of this mode of remembrance. Papers representative of the "rejecter" position include foremost the nationalist periodicals (Głos Narodu, Myśl Polska, Szczerbiec), which are more or less anti-Semitic, by which term I mean an anti-Jewish obsession, a hostility towards Jews in general stemming from the belief in a "Jewish conspiracy" that threatens Poland. I have also taken into account articles in the anticommunist Gazeta Polska and in the liberal Najwyższy Czas! for which the attitude towards Jews was not a corner- stone of their ideological conceptions and which were motivated not so much by hostility towards Jews as by a dislike for political correctness and a desire to defend Poland's reputation. The "accepters" viewpoint was analyzed based on publications in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, and the Polityka, Tygodnik Powszechny and Tygodnik Solidarność weeklies. In a few cases, I have referred to publications that depart from the official line presented by particular newspapers. I have also used in this study a number of articles published in other periodicals. In discussing the position represented by the two parties, I have focused on three issues: 1) the significance of the Holocaust; 2) the question of Polish (joint) responsibility; and 3) cultivation of memory. The study is structured accordingly. Significance of the Holocaust Any discussion of the Holocaust had to begin with an assessment of the importance of the phenomenon. The orientations under investigation clearly differed on this issue, the rejecters being governed by tactical reasons much more than their opponents. Striving to marginalize the prob- lem of the Poles' responsibility for the Holocaust and the resultant consequences, they downplayed the weight of the phenomenon. The least frequent - I have practically encountered no such viewpoint expressed directly - was a denial of the Holocaust itself. The interpretation of indi- The Issue of the Memory of Shoah in the Polish Press after 1989 283 vidual propositions, for example the statement that after the Holocaust there were "suspiciously many" Jews left alive, 1 can certainly be argued, yet it seems reasonable to avoid too far-reaching interpretations and treat them as a manifestation of the frequent tendency to relativize the importance of the Holocaust. To anti-Semites especially, the Holocaust was essentially insignifi- cant, something that could in no way influence the way they considered the Jewish question. In the attempts to marginalize the memory of the Holocaust two kinds of argumentation were advanced. Firstly, the number of Holocaust victims tended, more or less patent- ly, to be diminished. The demonstration, also by Israeli scholars, that earlier estimates of the number of victims, e.g. in Auschwitz (formerly four million, today's estimates are one million) were overblown, paved the way for a growing tendency to belittle the scale of the phenomenon. Efforts to learn the truth superposed on manipulations driven by anti- Semitism created a picture that was difficult to interpret in an unequivo- cal manner, additionally blurred (although rather later) by the impact of the dispute about the penalization of the Auschwitz lie, thus introducing the motif of freedom of speech. 2 The boundary between the rejecters and the accepters was somewhat blurred here, because both sides were beginning to re-examine existing findings. The rejecters generally assumed the position of an impartial observer reporting on growing revisionist or rejective tendencies. For example, Mirosław Dragan wrote in Szczerbiec that the revision of the Holocaust was intensifying. Patrick Buchanan revealed in 1990 that Diesel engine fumes could not have been used in the mass execution of Jews in Treblinka. In 1993, a Jewish organization in France published a book by J. C. Pressac, in which the number of Auschwitz victims was reduced to 800,000. In Poland, the files of the Chief Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Warsaw were declassified, revealing that archaeological investigations in Treblinka in 1945 did not confirm the existence of gas chambers and of sufficiently big mass graves (in keep- ing with the reported number of victims). 3 1 A. Gmurczyk, "Ordnung muss sein!", Awangarda Narodowa. Biuletyn Narodowego Odrodzenia Polski, 3, Supplement to Szczerbiec, 4, April 1994, p. 11 (I). 2 J. Dziadul, "Weryfikacja historii", Polityka, 2, 13 January 1990, p. 14; J. Tomaszewski, "Hitler, którego kochaliśmy i dlaczego", Polityka, 41,13 October 1990, p. 14; G. Dobiecki, "Między Verdun a Vichy", Polityka, 20, 18 May 1996, p. 39. 3 M. Dragan, "Rewizjonizm Holocaustu", Szczerbiec, 6, June 1994, p. 8. 284 Włodzimierz Mich Sometimes, the writers even distanced themselves from the rejecters as such. Jan Engelgard wrote in Myśl Polska that immediately after World War II victim estimates were exaggerated, whereas the Jewish cir- cles are now striving to sacralize the Holocaust and are denying the need for investigations. On the other hand, revisionists or rejecters are chal- lenging the truth about the extermination of Jews. Honest scholars are therefore in a difficult position, exposed to the influence of these mutu- ally driven extremes. 4 In any case, attention was focused on findings that belittled the importance of the Holocaust. Andrzej Maśnica argued in Myśl Polska that many views on World War II, including the Holocaust, inevitably would have to be revised. It would be a revision of history created by the Allies as part of the Potsdam-Conference order, which is now becoming a thing of the past. In Maśnica's opinion, this process should be assessed favorably, even if it relieved the Germans of the war-guilt odium and strengthened them morally. As part of this process it would be necessary to review the Nuremberg trial (a travesty of justice), to disclose inter alia the behind-the-scenes circumstances of "the alleged uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Allied falsification of gas chambers at the Dachau concentration camp" - in Germany there were labor camps rather than extermination camps; it would also be necessary to lower the estimates of the number of Auschwitz victims: it was earlier reported that four million Jews were killed there, whereas Dr Franciszek Piper, Director of the Auschwitz Museum, speaks of about 950,000. 5 Secondly, the proposition that the Jewish Holocaust was unique was attacked severely. In this case two arguments were employed, one being that the Jews were not the only victims of genocide. Throughout world history there were many holocausts. Examples were given of genocidal action with regard to specific ethnic groups or social classes: massacre of the Armenians, extermination of the American Indians, persecution of "enemies of the people" in the Soviet Union and Cambodia, and the tragedies of Biafra, Rwanda, Bosnia or Chechnya. 6 A different practice, 4 J. Engelgard, "Lewacka twarz rewizjonizmu", Myśl Polska (henceforth MP), 32, 11 August 1996, p. 5. 5 A. Maśnica, "O rewizjonizmie i lustracji", MP, 13, 31 March 1996, p. 7. 6 J. Garewicz, "Dług", Tygodnik Powszechny (henceforth TP), 8, 19 February 1995, p. 6; J. Korwin-Mikke, "Między nami brunatnymi", in: id., Nie tylko o Żydach, Warszawa 1991, pp. 84-86. The Issue of the Memory of Shoah in the Polish Press after 1989 285 but also leading to the relativization of the Shoah was the use of the term "the Holocaust of the unborn" by proponents of the ban on abortion. Piotr Semka, without directly referring to the Shoah, wrote about the killing of unborn children that "this Holocaust is still going on", which, even though he may not have intended it, belittled the importance of the Holocaust of the Jews.

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