Chapter 7. Antisemitism in Independent Poland 7.1. Ideology of Antisemitism in the Interwar Period The borders of the Second Polish Republic included Poland and part of contem- porary Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. A third of the population of the reborn Poland consisted of nationalities and ethnic groups other than Poles. Apart from the Communists, no other political group took the Lithuanians’, the Ukrainians’, or the Belarussians’ drive toward independence seriously, nor were these forces ready to accept ideas of territorial or cultural autonomy of those groups. Minority policies of the interwar period were incoherent and inconsistent, and had more of the instigating than consolidating character, regardless of which political parties were the leading forces of the government.377 The National Democracy, in their drive toward the concept of a nationalist state, required an unquestioned submis- sion of non-Poles. Additionally, they demanded privileges for Poles and called for discriminating limitations for the representatives of other nationalities. Slavic minorities were to be assimilated while Jews – isolated and “ousted” from eco- nomic life.378 This was a continuation of programs announced earlier, and the polit- ical ideas of Antisemitism repeated those developed in 1891–1912. As one of the National Democrat activists, J. Zdanowski, bluntly remarked, “we had but one program: strip them and make them leave the country.”379 The core of the Antisemitic ideology did not change much over the course of time. On the other hand, the intensity of the propaganda increased, and the language forms, rhetoric figures, and influence techniques rather reminded those invented by the Antisemitic weekly Rola than the early Głos and Przegląd Wszechpolski magazines. Frequent elements included derisions, insults, while dis- pute disappeared in favor of personal attacks with names, sometimes also in the plural, associating these names with the whole Jewish population. A new develop- ment was the implementation of Yiddish parodies in order to debase Jews and their 377 See J. Chlebowczyk (1988), Między dyktatem, realiami a prawem do samostanowienia, Warszawa; A. Friszke (1989), O kształt niepodległej, Warszawa; A. Chojnowski (1979), Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej rządów polskich w latach 1921–1939, Wrocław; A. Garlicki (1979), U źródeł obozu belwederskiego, Warszawa. 378 See A. Friszke (1981), “Naród, państwo, system władzy w myśli politycznej Związku Ludowo-Narodowego w latach 1919–1926,” Przegląd Historyczny, Issue 1; G. Radomski (2000); M. Sobczak (1998); J. Tomaszewski (1995), “Prawa obywatelskie Żydów w Polsce (1918–1939),” Studia z dziejów Żydów w Polsce, Warszawa, Vol. 1. 379 The manuscript ofDziennik (Diary) of J. Zdanowski (5 Jul. 1925). Qtd. after M. Sobczak (1998), p. 225. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 06:34:05PM via free access 180 Antisemitism in Independent Poland culture. In Myśl Narodowa (The National Thought), a National Democrat weekly published in Warsaw in 1921–1939 and targeting the intelligentsia as their audi- ence, one could find headlines such as “Leosz Blum der Kommende Mann Mędrców Syjonu w Paryżu w oświetleniu A. Nussbauma” (Leon Blum as the Commander of the wise men of Zion in Paris, 1924, Vol. 32, p. 10). Journalists stylized the names of political enemies to resemble Jewish ones; for instance, “Chodźkohn” or “Chodźkoch” instead of Chodźko (1924, Vol. 34, p. 15), as well as the names of the criticized institutions, where “judendentura” stood for “intendentura” (com- missariat; 1924, Vol. 48, p. 11). One easily finds similar wordplays in Antisemitic magazines published in the interwar period. Their original source were burlesques staged in café theatres of the late nineteenth century and Jewish cabaret jokes from the 1920s. National Democrat press did not directly praise the pogroms of 1918–1920, but their justification of the actions included acceptance of violence, e.g., when General Antoni Listowski, responsible for the shooting of Jews in Pińsk, was defended. Another example is a claim that the initiators of the Lviv pogrom were Jews them- selves, aiming at setting foreign governments against Poland. Father Kazimierz Lutosławski persuaded in 1922 that: Pogrom, a massacre of Jews (not mentioning moral brutality) is a political mistake and nonsense; a pogrom is not an act of Poles’ victory over Jewry, but rather a victim of the Jewry, to be used as efficient means to buy them general relief from the whole world.380 It was common to employ wording and abuse that were designed to humiliate or ridicule the victims, which meant dread and severity of the description of human suffering were neutralized. When describing the world’s reactions to the descrip- tion of pogroms, Władysław Rabski wrote about “dreadful Prussian-Jewish comedy of insincerity, which was sacrilegiously dubbed Ecce Homo.”381 Social engineering capacity of Antisemitic propaganda persistently repeated old arguments and coined slogans or notion blends, like “anonymous power” which stood for a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. This one was used by Jeske-Choiński for the first time but was popularized in the 1920s by Adolf Nowaczyński.382 The question of what kind of community Jews in general, and Polish Jews in particular, were discussed among National Democracy’s ideologists influenced the forming of this notion, as well as the absorption of the conspiracy theory. In the late 380 Ks. K. Lutosławski (1922), “Ostatnia walka o niepodległość,” Myśl Narodowa, No. 4, pp. 3–4. 381 W. Rabski (1925), Walka z polipem. Wybór felietonów (1918–1924), Warszawa. Qtd. after G. Radomski (2000), p. 57. 382 A. Nowaczyński (1921), Mocarstwo anonimowe, Warszawa. For a discussion of Nowaczyński’s journalism see: M. Domagalska (2004), Antysemityzm dla inteligencji?, Warszawa. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 06:34:05PM via free access Ideology of Antisemitism in the Interwar Period 181 nineteenth-century Antisemitic publications, one could find terms such as “tribal- national separateness” (Popławski), and “the Jewish tribe,” “crippled nation,” or “inter-nation” (Dmowski), but these were mainly reduced to religious bonds of Judaism worshippers. Journalists could not make up their minds as to whether the shaping of national identity among Jews was a positive or a negative phenom- enon. Głos and afterwardPrzegląd Wszechpolski declared their sympathy toward Zionism, which one can read with a touch of hypocrisy, but this still did not hold them from aggressive criticism of the movement.383 The ambivalence was charac- teristic for nationalist circles also after the First World War, although they largely accepted Jews as a nation; however, they did not consider them a nation equal to Poles or any other Europeans. Naturally, Jews had the right to exist as a nation, but not in Poland. Unlike other nations, Jews could not assimilate, even if they wanted to. As one of National Democracy’s ideologists, Roman Rybarski, put it: Jews are different from other nations in their ease of external assimilation, in accepting the traits of the environment they live in more easily … however, Jewish assimilation differs from other assimilations in that a Jew who becomes a Pole, a Frenchman, or an Englishman does not cease to be a Jew. … a Former Semite who considers themselves a Pole is rarely an Antisemite Antisemite.384 This last sentence contains Rybarski’s sole condition for the National Democrats to (still) accept the “Semites.” According to the German Antisemitic historiosophy, as well as Jeske-Choiński who echoed these beliefs, beginnings of the Jewish nation were to be found in ancient times, according to National Democrat ideologists. These theories did not, however, address historical changes. Zygmunt Wasilewski argued that Jews, shaped by their nomadic life in the Old Testament period, were not able to form bonds with the land, and therefore lost touch with nature and are not able to expe- rience high spiritual states, which in turn results in them looking for gains at the expense of other nations. They seemed to be lacking the creative “element,” the skills of idealizing and intuition, the gift of love for beauty, compassion, altruism, gratitude. Wasilewski denied the creators of the Decalogue, the Bible, and the caba- listic mysticism any ethics or the skills required for contemplation. He also refused them the potential for the most heroic sacrifice, i.e., giving up their individualism and establishing a nation, so he concluded their bond of “sect solidarity” was of exclusively negative character. At the same time, he accused Jews of “collectivism” and left-wing “class traits.”385 Antisemites abused the Biblical term “chosen people” 383 On of the first analyses of Zionism by a nationalist democrat was the article by J. L. Popławski (1902), “Pochodzenie i istota syonizmu,” Przegląd Wszechpolski, No. 8, p. 252–257. More about ND and the idea of the nation, see A. Walicki (2002), “Naród i terytorium,” Dziś, No. 7, p. 31. 384 R. Rybarski (1926), Naród, jednostka i klasa, Warszawa-Kraków-Lublin-Łódź- Poznań-Wilno-Zakopane, p. 223. 385 Z. Wasilewski (1921), O życiu i katastrofach cywilizacji narodowej, Warszawa. Alina Caa - 9783631670828 Downloaded from PubFactory at 09/25/2021 06:34:05PM via free access 182 Antisemitism in Independent Poland and omitting its religious connotations allowed to assign it to a stereotypical “char- acter” of contemporary Jews, which was a mixture of exclusively negative features, chosen