Poland – Before World War II, Poland was home to about 3.5 million Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe.
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Some 90% of them were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Today there are only a few thousand Jews left in Poland to look after the country’s 1,400-or-so Jewish cemeteries, most of which are overgrown or in ruins.
But now prisoners have volunteered to take part in a nationwide programme organised by the prison service and the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.
“Our main aim is to preserve some elements of Jewish culture in Poland,” says prison service spokesman, Nikodem Banas.
“There are some side benefits of course,” he added.
“It gets the prisoners used to working and it helps destroy the stereotypes which still exist in Polish and Israeli culture. Thanks to this programme anti-Semitism can be defeated and the prisoners can learn a lot about Jews.”
Anti-Semitic incidents are on the decline in Poland, but the country has a reputation for being hostile to Jews.
It largely stems from the war when the Nazis built many of their death camps in Poland and rewarded Poles financially to inform on their Jewish neighbours.
Some did, and there is even a slang word for it in Polish, “szmalcownik”. But at the same time, more Poles are honoured by Israel for saving Jews during the war than any other nationality.
Anti-Semitism is still evident, however. At a recent football match supporters unveiled a huge banner with the words, “death to the crooked noses”. The clubs involved have been punished and the fans responsible arrested.
‘Changed attitude’
A dozen prisoners from Grodzisk Mazowiecki outside Warsaw, carrying wooden rakes and metal trowels, walk the short distance to the town’s cemetery in the pouring rain.
As they arrive, workers are cutting the overgrown grass and weeds. Decades of neglect are clearly visible. Gravestones, some dating back to the 1700s, stick out of the grass at precarious angles or lie broken on the ground.
It is hard to imagine now, but at one time 85% of the town’s population was Jewish and the graveyard was seven times larger.
Small Jewish towns, or shtetls, were widespread across Poland and Eastern Europe before the war, but they were wiped out during the Holocaust.
The prisoners rake up the grass cuttings and scrape moss from the inscriptions on the headstones.
One of them, Artur Blinski, says the scheme has broadened his outlook towards his country’s past.
“Until now I wasn’t that interested,” he says.
“This programme has changed my attitude towards Jewish culture and I’ve started to get interested in it. I had no idea about this culture and the more I learn the more interesting it becomes.”
‘Larger picture’
Dressed in his striped prayer shawl, Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, is answering questions from about 50 green-uniformed prisoners in Siedlce, in eastern Poland.
One asks whether rabbis can be married, while another wants to know which year it is in the Hebrew calendar.
The rabbi is visiting prisons across the country to talk about Jewish culture before they start the physical work in the cemeteries.
Discussions like this have only been possible in Poland for the last 20 years because under communism and its doctrine of atheism, talking about anything Jewish was taboo.
Rabbi Schudrich says now, many Poles, not just prisoners, find Jewish culture interesting and are exploring it in this climate of freedom.
“It’s not only interesting, it’s also a realisation among the non-Jewish Poles that Jews have been an important part of their civilisation, contribution to culture, to the history of Poland,” he says.
“This interest in trying to preserve cemeteries today is part of a larger picture of Poles understanding now the role that Jews played for nearly 1,000 years in this country.”
That picture can clearly be seen in Warsaw’s synagogue where a choir is rehearsing songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, the language spoken by most Polish Jews before the war.
Most of the choir members, like Marta Wesolowska, are not Jewish but they feel a special connection to the music.
“I think this is really quite exotic for us but very deeply rooted in the Polish tradition,” she says.
“Jewish music was a part of Polish culture for hundreds of years and after the Second World War it was destroyed and we try to revive this tradition.”
Poland’s Jewish community was devastated by the Holocaust.
But increasingly, a new generation of Poles are helping the few Jews who remain to ensure the country’s rich Jewish legacy endures.
I visited Poland 10 years ago and my feelings back then were of sadness at a great Yiddishkeit heritage destroyed and nostalgia for what existed before WW2. I read recent articles about Jewish life today in Poland and have mixed feelings. There is no doubt that Rabbi Schudrich has accomplished immeasurable gains for Jewish life in Poland. He is truly an amazing individual. And it’s true that the Polish governments throughtout the country help him, along with the many international Jewish organizations. But I still find it very hard to accept Jews living in a land so soaked with oceans of holy Jewish blood spilled during WW2. However the reality is that these Jews do live there and anything that can be done to make Yiddishkeit easier and available should be commended.
I am not sure who the writer of this article is, but one thing for sure is that he clearly does not know what he is talking about when he makes the statement “It largely stems from the war when the Nazis built many of their death camps in Poland and rewarded Poles financially to inform on their Jewish neighbours” Anti-semitism in Poland was rampant for centuries and not just covert or behind closed doors. It was virulent and preached openly to the Poles by the galuchim of the church. I have never in my life seen a country more anti-semitic than Poland. Both my parents were from Poland and I vividly recall the stories told to me by my late Mother & Father about the abuse and degredation and worse Yidden suffered at the hands of the Poles. Why we are trying sanitize the the Pollakim is beyond my comprehension. The blood of Yidden still is on the hands of these people and I’m refering to just the nazi era, but hundreds of years of Jewish torture. Please let us not paint Poland as a wonderful country, they are still a bunch of drunken Jew hating mamzirim. And if you don’t beleive me ask any Polisher Yid who was fortunate enough to survive Oswiecim. Honor the memory of the Kidoshim.
While the Polish seek to minimize their involvement by trying to rephrase such things as Auschwitz polish concentration camp to: German concentration camp on Polish soil, the fact remains that Nazis could not have caccomplished their evil task had they not have the willing assistance or the silent acquiesence of tens of millions of Poles.