INFORMATION ISSUED by the - ASSOCIATION of JEWISH REFUGEES in GREAT BRITAIN I FAIRFAX MANSIONS, FINCHLEY RD, (Corner Falrflk Rd.)
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Vol. XVII No. 9 September, 1962 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE - ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES IN GREAT BRITAIN I FAIRFAX MANSIONS, FINCHLEY RD, (corner FalrflK Rd.). Lendcii, N,W,3 offic* and Coiaulting Heur$: T*l«phei» : MAIda Vale 909«n (General Ollice and Weltare for the A(ed> Monday to Thunday 10 a.m.—l p.m. 3—* p.m MAIda Vale 4449 (Emplovnient Agencv, annuallv licensed by the L.C,C., and Sociai Services Dept.) Friday 10 a.m.—l p.m. Egon Larsen of Jewish emigrants have come back recently. " Our Jews are greater patriots than the rest", I was told. " Few non-Jewish emigrants have retumed." But they do come back for occa sional visits, and the authorities do not stop them BEYOND THE GHETTO WALLS when they want to leave again. All this travelling is restricted only by the great lack of foreign Impressions from a Journey Through Poland currency which (bedevils the Polish economy; those who want to go abroad have to get friends in other countries to pay for their tickets. To my own surprise, my first meal in Warsaw then that, after the Poznan riots, Wladislaw consisted of matzo and gefilte fisch. washed down Gomulka retumed from prison and obscurity to One remigrant to whom I spoke was the manager with vodka. Guided by a helpful native, who become, as First Secretary of the Communist of the second Jewish restaurant in Warsaw, said that Jewish restaurants (there are two of Party, virtually the ruler of Poland, From that " Samson", whose tripe and onions are famous them in Warsaw) were especially good, I had day there began a liberalisation which transformed all over the town. He told me that he had been landed in a large basement restaurant called the country from an Iron Curtain Police State in Australia, but returned after seven months. " Arnica '•, run and staffed by a collective of into something like a halfway house between East Complaining about the conditions in the camps Jewish veterans. As in most Polish restaurants, and West. For this the Poles are deeply grateful for new arrivals, he said: "That country is like a band was playing, and the couples filled the to Gomulka. The fact that he has a Jewish wife, a prison." dance floor to the last inch. The guests were who has stood by him in his most difficult times mainly non-Jews to judge by their faces—but I (and he by her), may have contributed much Religious and Cultural Life Was soon to find out that in this respect one to the marked improvement of relationships cannot trust appearances in Poland. There was between the handful of Jews who had remained I did not see much of the Jewish religious Jife rouch Siimmung, and already on this first evening in, or returned to, Poland and at least the urban that is left; it is obvious that the process of out in Warsaw I could sense the free and easy piopulation, the intelligentsia, and the educated assimilation among the Jewish Poles is continu atmosphere in present-day Poland. I was also classes in general, " No one cares who is a Jew ous and goes on under its own momentum, with and who isn't", I heard several Poles say quite out any pressure from the outside. Very few to encounter many more times Jewish dishes emphatically, " What does it matter today ? '• which are an essential part of the excellent Polish of them speak Yiddish ; the younger generation cuisine, and are produced and exported in great I spoke to one of these non-Jews about the in the big towns hardly ever hear it spoken. There quantities in tins. Their production would not chances for a Jew to get on in present-day seems to be little desire for a religious life ; it is be warranted if the remaining Jews in Poland Poland, and he began to enumerate some people true, they like their matzo at Passover, they were the only buyers. gather for Seder, they light candles at Chanucah in leading positions whom he knew to be Jews. —but this they do less for religious than for Suddenly he checked himself. " It's all wrong ", sentimental reasons. The existing Jewish com he said. " We shouldn't think on those lines at A Small Remnant munities are so small that they could never live all. Once you start refiecting who is a Jew and on members' contributions; the State subsidises who isn't you have the seeds of antisemitism in them and keeps the synagogues going. There How many are there left ? Figures vary, and your mind." ai;e kosher butchers, but they could not carry on there are no official statistics, but 50,000 is the without their non-Jewish customers—^Polish house Usual estimate. It is no use trying to " spot •• Anti-Jewish Prejudices wives maintain that kosher meat is best. These Jews in the streets, the offices, the caf^s. During shops are among the 30 per cent privately owned rnoxc than three weeks in Poland—in Warsaw, Has the evil of antisemitism, then, disappeared businesses. Cracow, Gdansk and the provinces—I did not in Poland, the country notorious for its tradi see a single " Polish Jew" as we in the West Theatre goers are enthusiastic about the War tional hatred of the Jews ? saw Yiddish Theatre, which has also been on tour visualise that type: with beard, peyes, long gabar Among the whole generation that witnessed dine, and black hat. These Jews have disappeared in England. This, too, is a State enterprise. The the Warsaw Ghetto rising of 1943, the heroism of Yiddish-language daily, Vollisstimme, published by completely, e.xcept in the former German towns the Jews must have acted as a deep historical of Western Poland ; and if you attempt to judge the Jewish Cultural Association, and the monthly nierely by looking at faces you are bound to go shock, upsetting all the conventional ideas about Yiddish Scltriftn are financed by the State, which *rong. in one case, for instance, a " typically them. It can never be erased from the memory also assists some Yiddish schools and a number Jewish" face turned out to belong to a woman of the nation ; only in the villages, among the of Jewish clubs. I saw the one in Cracow, which from an old aristocratic family. peasant population, it does not seem to have had has two large halls, a kosher restaurant, two the same impact as in the towns, among the grand pianos, ping-pong tables and a nursery. What we in the West rarely realise is that a working class and what used to be called the substantial part of the Jews in Poland were not bourgeoisie. And it is indeed in the provinces, The bookshops have a good variety of Western " Polish Jews " but " Jewish Poles •', and a small among the country folk, that the traditional pre books, either in their original languages or in nutnber of them have survived the holocau&t judices against thc Jews still persist—despite the Polish translations. I do not think that you which cost three million Jewish lives. Those who fact that there is hardly any Jewish population could find a biography of Ben-Gurion and a book have remained in Poland have merged in the in the country. It is sad to record that the lower called " Israel Today", prominently displayed, rest of the papulation. Many changed their Catholic clergy are still a source of the time- in any other Iron C5urtain country, as I did in names during the occupation, or had their names honoured antisemitism, although many Jews owe a Cracow shop. There are also a few Yiddish changed for them by those who rescued them their lives to Catholic priests. A Jewish woman books. from the ghettoes while they were still children, told me that in 1945, when she happened to get The Warsaw Ghetto, or rather the place where A Jewess told me that she and her family were into a Sunday school, she heard the curate say: it was, is now a vast residential district with very smuggled out, disguised at labourers, by the " Poland has benefited much from the two world modem and attractive blocks of flats; on the Polish resistance; others were hidden by monks wars. In the first we got rid of the Russians, in main square is Natan Rappaport's large monu ^nd nuns—who, of course, did so because they the second of the Jews." ment to the ghetto fighters, with realistic figures Wanted to save not only the children's lives biit in half-relief, the centre slab being flanked by also their souls ; it is, however, difficult to esti- It would be a mistake to underestimate the two bronze candelabra, Polish artists are not very "late how many of these young Jews have effect of these attitudes. To be sure, Poland is happy about the memorial because they feel it is i^rnained Roman Catholics in their adult lives. a Socialist State, but in the villages 90 per cent of not modern and impressive enough. I know of one instance in which three children, the people are practising Catholics, Church and rescued by monks, later embraced the Catholic State seem to be equally powerful; in fact, it is The Cracow ghetto is still there, that is, the taith out of gratitude, while their parents remained precisely this balance of power which accords streets of which it consisted. It is one of the most Jewish. the individual citizen a degree of liberty which depressing and dilapidated districts one can must be the envy of the people of Eastern Ger imagine, with muddy, unpaved roads and crumb There is, of course, no official bias of any sort many, Czechoslovakia and Russia.