Pogrom Cries

Chapter 8: Communitas of Violence. The Kielce Pogrom as a Social Drama The Kielce pogrom is one of the best documented events of Polish postwar his- tory, described not only in official documents filed in communist and ecclesiastical archives (the former have been declassified after 1989, while the latter are still largely inaccessible), but also in various personal testimonies of both Poles and Jews� Reports from Warsaw were also wired by foreign diplomats to their governments, e�g� by Ambassador Victor Cavendish-Bentinck to the Brit- ish Foreign Office1 and Ambassador Arthur Bliss-Lane to the US Department of State�2 Arieh Kochavi has researched the correspondence between the latter institution and the Vatican, showing that blood libel rumors which preceded all Polish pogroms were taken seriously in the ecclesiastical state3� The tabooization of the pogrom by Communist authorities resulted in a multitude of conspiracy theories, of which the following three were the most important: • The official theory, claiming that the pogrom was started by the anti-Commu- nist underground� • The second theory, claiming it was a deliberate provocation by Communist security forces, which in cooperation with NKVD tried to diminish foreign sympathy for Poland, and to draw attention away from the rigged referen- dum�4 1 Kochavi, Arieh: Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States and Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948� University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill 2001, p� 161� 2 Bliss-Lane, Arthur: I Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People. Bobbs-Merrill: New York 1948� 3 Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics, p� 181: “The Vatican’s version of the causes of the Kielce pogrom reveals that there was little or no difference between Vatican antisem- itism and that of the Polish bishops� A Vatican memorandum stated, among other things, that the ‘influx of [Russian] Jews into Poland coincided with the mysterious vanishing of Christian children� The Vatican totally accepted the fabrication that the child in Kielce had been kidnapped to draw his blood and expressed doubts only as to the number of Jewish victims in the pogrom�” 4 See e�g� Perkal, Jakub [Andrzej Paczkowski]: Życie polityczne w Polsce 1944–1948. Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza Nowa: Warsaw 1983, �p 25; also see Kersten, Krystyna: “Kielce – 4 lipca 1946 roku”� In: id�: Pisma rozproszone� Szarota, Tomasz / Libionka, Dariusz (eds�), Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek: Toruń 2006, p� 273� 273 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir - 9783631789469 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:40:30AM via free access • The third theory, viewing the pogrom as a Zionist attempt to initiate a mass Jewish emigration to Palestine�5 It seemed that once the archives were declassified, the issue would instantane- ously be clarified� However, it was not so� After 1989, researchers found large quantities of archival material, which was nonetheless inconclusive�6 After re- viewing the documents, experts Krystyna Kersten and Andrzej Paczkowski asked in surprise why “none of the documents produced by the Polish Workers Party authorities contained at least a broad analysis of the causes of this pogrom�”7 Consequently, an official investigation intended to answer such questions was initiated in the 1990s� One decade later, the investigators produced two tomes of sources8 and concluded that they had found nothing that could confirm the provocation hypothesis�9 Historians, relieved of the weight of conspiracy theories, transferred their efforts to the field of historical sociology� Researchers started to explore the social aspect of the pogrom, analyzing connections between nationalism and Catholicism,10 and also the mythological background of the blood libel�11 5 Orlicki, Józef: Szkice z dziejów stosunków polsko-żydowskich 1918–1949. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza: Szczecin 1983� 6 Suggested volumes of sources include: Meducki, Stanisław / Wrona, Zenon (eds�): Antyżydowskie wydarzenia kieleckie 4 lipca 1946 roku. Dokumenty i materiały, vol. I. Kieleckie Towarzystwo Naukowe: Kielce 1992; Meducki, Stanisław (ed�): Antyżydowskie wydarzenia kieleckie 4 lipca 1946 roku. Dokumenty i materiały, vol. II. Kieleckie Towa- rzystwo Naukowe: Kielce 1994; Szaynok, Bożena: Pogrom Żydów w Kielcach 4 lipca 1946. Bellona 1992; Blus-Węgrowska, Danuta: Pogrom kielecki. (master’s thesis) Uniwersytet Warszawski: Warsaw 1994� 7 After: Rubin, Arnon: Facts and Fictions about the Rescue of the Polish Jewry during the Holocaust, Vol. VI: The Kielce Pogrom: Spontaneity, Provocation or a Country-wide Scheme. Tel Aviv University Press: Tel Aviv 2004, p� 144� 8 Żaryn, Jan / Kamiński, Łukasz (eds�): Wokół pogromu kieleckiego I. Instytut Pamięci Narodowej: Kielce and Warsaw 2006; id� (eds�): Wokół pogromu kieleckiego II. Instytut Pamięci Narodowej: Kielce and Warsaw 2008� 9 “Postanowienie o umorzeniu śledztwa w sprawie pogromu kieleckiego”� In: Żaryn and Kamiński, Wokół pogromu kieleckiego I, pp� 441–483� 10 Gross, Jan T�: Strach. Antysemityzm w Polsce tuż po wojnie. Historia moralnej zapaści� Znak: Kraków 2008� 11 Zaremba, Marcin: “Mit mordu rytualnego w powojennej Polsce� Archeologia i h i p o t e z y ”� Kultura i Społeczeństwo 61(2), 2007, pp� 91–135� 274 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir - 9783631789469 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:40:30AM via free access In this chapter, I continue in this line of research, inscribing the Kielce pogrom into the structure of Victor Turner’s social drama�12 The hypothetical chronology of the Kielce events presented here simultaneously constitutes an interpretation13 of the causes of the pogrom and its contextualization in time� Social Drama – Field and Arena Turner uses this term to describe “isolable and minutely describable units of social process,” manifesting themselves in “public episodes of tensional irruption,” when the interests and attitudes of various groups are in obvious opposition�14 Social drama is a process that undermines social paradigms;15 as Kurt Lewin puts it, this occurs in the non-harmonic phase of the social process,16 which usually involves a multitude of changes� In accordance with the Freudian principle that inversions and disorders give us a greater insight into the social reality than its direct study, social drama reveals a usually inaccessible normative foundation� The period of the introduction of communist rule in Poland, spanning the years just after the end of the war, can be viewed as a series of social dramas playing out in different arenas17 and in different fields�18 The square in front of the Jewish shelter at 7 Planty Street in Kielce became one of these arenas� The 12 In this chapter, I use concepts derived from Turner, Victor: Dramas, Fields and Meta- phors: Symbolic Actions in Human Society. Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London 1974, pp� 32–45, 78–79; id�: Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life. Manchester University Press: Manchester 1957)� 13 On the basis of subsumption and reduction� Following Paul Ricoeur (Ricoeur, Paul / Drwięga, Marek (transl�): Krytyka i przekonanie [La Critique et la Conviction]. KR: Warsaw 2003), I take subsumption to mean the exemplification of a rule, �i e� a way of explaining in which fact is subordinate to a rule; whereas reduction stands for explana- tion by reference to the level below� 14 Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, p� 33� 15 Ibid�, 17� 16 As appearing in Turner’s reference to Lewin, Kurt: “Action Research and Minority P r o b l e m s”� Journal of Social Issues 2(4), 1946, pp� 34–46� 17 “‘Arenas’ are the concrete settings in which paradigms become transferred into metaphors and symbols with reference to which political power is mobilized and in which there is trial of strength between influential paradigm-bearers,” Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, p� 17� 18 “[…] ‘fields’ are the abstract cultural domains where paradigms are formulated, es- tablished, and come into conflict� Such paradigms consist of sets of ‘rules’, from which many kinds of sequences of social action may be generated but which further specify what sequences must be excluded,” Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors, p� 17� 275 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir - 9783631789469 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 10:40:30AM via free access character of the drama played out here was determined by two factors: spectacle and violence� Their combination often compels people to engage in what Clifford Geertz calls “deep play,” a situation whereby – just like in a Balinese cockfight – one plays “out of his league,” putting all the eggs in one basket� During deep play […] one at the same time plays for something more than just material gain; it is the social esteem, honor, dignity, and respect – to sum it up […] the status�19 The full social analysis of this field needs to be postponed until the conclusion of the research into the personnel files of the militiamen based at the 45 Sienkie- wicza Street station and of the State Security officers on the municipal, district, and provincial levels� However, an analysis from the political point of view is possible based on Turner, who has analyzed the Mexican Revolution in a similar manner�20 Based on Turner, the political field of this event will be defined as “an entirety of relationships between actors aspiring to identical rewards or values”� The relationships that bind the actors include values, meanings, or resources� They compel the actors of the drama to (1) compete for prizes and/or shared resources; to (2) safeguard a particular distribution of resources;

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