Race - the 'Big Issue'?

VOLUME 1 No.6 JUNE 2001 Race - the 'big issue'? ^êr the last few weeks race has Poles, far from thinking of converting Evolved into a major issue in the the Jews, sought to profit fi-om their General Election campaign. This misery. This was the case at Jedwabne ê hard on the heels of a series on whose Polish inhabitants perpetrated *ôC radio which described race as the a massacre of the local Jews in July ^'ngle greatest cause of mayhem in 1941 and then took over their houses. "Ûman history. Not everybody Cî Greed was certainly a motivating '-oncurred - with some critics arguing factor, for all that the alibi of the Jews "3t the worst of the scourges that acting as KGB agents dining the ^ê habitually plagued mankind was r:^^preceding Sovie t occupation is always ^'igion rather than race. These critics trotted out. It is a moot point whether '^êrlook the fact that in many global this lethal Polish antisemitism was double spots racial and religious racial or religious in origin. Given the ^îsions overlap. For instance, while uniquely dominant role of the Church •îiiay look to the outside world that in in Polish life, the attitude of Cardinal '•"eland Catholic and Protestant Hlond, instigator of the anti-Jewish '•'Others are pitted against one boycott in the 1930s, must have been Mother, in fact the Catholics are all of crucial. (Even Father Maximilian Maximilian Kolbe eltic origin whereas most Kolbe, a canonised martyr of the Nazi ''otestants are descended from Scots Gobineau and Hitler. Although the occupation, expounded antisemitism ^^ Englishmen (hence the place Catholic Poles clearly saw themselves before the war.) /^•ê Londonderry) 'planted' there by as a homogeneous entity, the race- As we turn our gaze from the realm ^'izabethandjamesl. obsessed Nazi occupiers set out to of drama and beastliness that is "Similar racial-religious overlaps plunder their gene pool through the Eastern Europe to 'election-gripped' '-Ûrred in Eastern Europe, most Eindeutschung ('germanisation') of Britain, we have difficulty in deciding •Notably in Poland. When Poland the more Nordic-looking ones among whether the centmy-long decline in '^^red partition and loss of them. A Pole accepted for religion is to be welcomed or ^tehood at the hands of Russia, germanisation could thus escape the regretted. Whatever one's view of '^'issia and Austria in the 18th near-subhuman status the Nazis that, there can be no doubt that race is •^tury, the battle lines were dravm assigned to Slavs at the cost of now a live issue. This is a potentially '•^h surgical precision. On one side shedding his national and cultural threatening development, but maybe ^ôod the Catholic Poles - and on the identity. Something not dissimilar had we can draw comfort from the fact that their mortal enemies, the happened to the 18th century class consciousness - always a key ^hodox Russians and the Lutheran Frankists - Polish Jewish followers of factor in British life - sometimes •"^ssians. (Being fellow-Catholics, the false Messiah Jakob Frank - who counteracts race consciousness. '^ Austrians were less resented, had de-judaised themselves by Akeady a himdred years ago the th, ^^Sh they allowed Galicia to following him into the Catholic fold. intake into Harrow Public School was 'âte). Of course, in those days Of course, no such way out not uniformly white-skinned. One e' Was not the dominant concept it presented itself to Polish Jewry in the Harrovian possessor of a brown skin ^"S to become in the late 19th and 1940s. The German race fanatics were was the Brahmin - i.e. top-caste - 'y 20th centuries thanks to bent on their destruction and many Indian, Jawaharlal Nehru. Dangerous truth Reaching out to refugees from Nazi persecution When the Hungarian PaHiament staged Ronald Channing its first Holocaust memorial ceremony in AJR's services - advice and guidance, late April, twelve extreme rightwing The AJR is reaching out to Jewish victims deputies stayed away. Their leader, of Nazi persecution who may still not social welfare, meals-on-wheels, Istvan Czurka, told Hungarian radio that have benefited fi-om support services or sheltered accommodation, regional he felt 'Victims of Communism and the funds to which they might be entitied. groups, publications - and invites Holocaust are the same." This is, of In its 60th aimiversary year, the AJR is enquiries and applications fot course, arrant nonsense - victims of the inviting its members, as well as members membership. Even at this comparatively Shoah outnumber casualties of the of the wider Jewish community, to help late stage it is believed that many former Budapest Uprising by a hundred to one. identify and make contact with all refugees and Holocaust survivors would In addition, it harps subliminally on the unaffiliated Jewish refugees from Nazi welcome an opportunity to reconnect Zhidekommunism myth, which casts the persecution and survivors of the Jews as germ carriers of Communism. with their Jewish roots. Together with Holocaust living in Britain, some of (Though the Jewish 'Prime Ministers' other former victims of Nazism withm whom may be in urgent need of guidance Bela Kun [1919] and Matyas Rakosi the community, they may still he [1948-54] were both Communists, their or help. unaware of the range of services co-religionists tended to be middle-class Synagogues, community centres and available to them as AJR members, or ot and religiously observant.) conmiunal organisations in all parts of the guidance on pensions, reparations, To blunt the impact of the Far Right's the country have been sent copies of a compensation or other payments ^^ specially-produced brochure entitled boycott, the Speaker of the House, Janos which they may be entitied. Ader, asserted that the fate which befell 'Friends for life', ready-packaged in an Hungarian Jewry in 1944 did not reflect attractive clear plastic dispenser. If you know of anyone entitled to be <^ the will of most Hungarians. This Synagogue secretaries and organisation member of the AJR and believe that they ^re. assertion was challenged by Matyas directors have been asked to place the might wish to join, please obtain a copy "' Eorsi, a Jewish opposition deputy. The brochures on prominent display in the new membership application brochuf sad truth is that Eorsi was right. In the places where their members and visitors for them from: AJR Membership Secretai^' 19th century the gentry who ruled usually congregate. 1 Hampstead Gate, lA Frognal, Lon'^" Hungary encouraged Jewish NW36AL. entrepreneurial talent for the sake of the The 'Friends for Life' brochure details country's economic growth, and the community flourished. The situation Regular visits are planned by her to 1 •* changed drastically when the lost 1914- Liaison officer with OSHA Bishop's Avenue Homes on Mondays a" 18 War and a Communist interlude led Ruth Finestone has been appointed by the Otto Schiff House and Eleanor Ratiibo"^ to Admiral Horthy's semi-dictatorship AJR to offer extra comfort and support to House on Tuesdays. To make certain and the Depression. The Horthy members of the AIR living either in OSHA's meeting her it is best to make *" government enacted the numerus residential homes in TTie Bishop's Avenue, appointment with the Head of Home. clausus, and other discriminatory in their sheltered accommodation at Otto measures against the Jews, which met Schiff House in Hampstead, or in Eleanor with popular approval. Nor does the LBI archive branches out Rathbone House in Highgate. fervent commitment the gendarmerie Documents collected by the New York c^ Ruth will liase with OSHA social workers brought to the roundup of Jews in 1944, Baeck Institute over more than forty y^^ and the army's sadistic treatment of and the Heads of Homes to sort out any will soon be accessible in Europe. Tha" Jewish conscripts in labour battalions queries and problems and, in addition to to an agreement between the LBI and tn bear out Speaker Ader's statement. visiting AJR members already in residence, new Berlin Jewish Museum, a branch °^ , On the other hand, it may be will befiiend members awaiting confirmed LBI will operate fi-om the Museum, head politically more expedient to argue admission, either to the homes or to by an archivist. Both institutions will ai along the lines of the Speaker. After all, if sheltered accommodation. She will also co-operate in the collection ^ the Hungarian people were really keep the AJR fully informed of their preservation of photographs, persoP genocide-minded, then the murderous progress. papers and artefacts, above all fr" Arrow Cross thugs were in tune with the The daughter of German and Austrian European sources. The arrangem^ % majority - which is one of the definitions refugee parents, Ruth has served the AJR brings together two institutions whose ta of democracy. for more than 20 years, her first job being is to document and transmit to tutu admissions officer for the refugee homes in generations German-Jewish history ^ AJR Journal Personnel The Bishop's Avenue, and later as an AJR culture. The LBI catalogues and collectJ Richard Grunberger EdItor-in-Chief rlV in Berlin will be predominan Ronald Channing Executive Editor social worker. She is married and is very Marion Koebner Staff Reporter proud of her three children and seven microfilmed copies which can be acces AJR Journal, 1 Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, grandchildren! by researchers. ^ London NW3 6AL Tel: 020 7431 6161 Fax: 020 7431 8454 e-mail: [email protected] White - (and Black-) washing Richard Grunberger NEWTONS "hen dictatorships are set up artists public. (In consequence Harwood took a Leading Hampstead Solicitors ê flight Toscanini fled Mussolini's more lenient view of Furtwangler than 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, jl^ly, Rachmaninov and Chagall Soviet the better informed Thomas Mann, for London NW3 SNB *^"ssia, and TTiomas Mann, Hindemith instance.) • All English legal work ^^ Beckmann Nazi Germany.

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