Dr. Laurence Weinbaum is the holder of the Gold Cross of Merit, one of Poland’s highest civilian awards. He received it for his ongoing contributions to fostering Polish-Jewish dialogue. In 2002, he received the medal of the Polish Society of the Righteous among the Nations. Weinbaum is certainly no stranger to the delicate relations between Poland and Israel and, of course, the very thorny history between Poland and Jews.
In 2017 and on the back of a previous public debate about Polish history and the Jews, he had this to say: “It is a fact that during the German occupation, Poland’s spirited underground press was heavily infected by antisemitism and displayed little sympathy for Jews. Numerous Polish testimonies paint a picture of widespread indifference to the elimination of local Jews and often great satisfaction.”
“It is a fact that during the German occupation, Poland’s spirited underground press was heavily infected by antisemitism and displayed little sympathy for Jews. Numerous Polish testimonies paint a picture of widespread indifference to the elimination of local Jews and often great satisfaction.”
Laurence Weinbaum
He is clear that while it is obviously important to highlight Poland’s Righteous Among the Nations, “it is readily evident that in certain circles, the memory of the Righteous is being used as a battering ram to suppress research on the Holocaust and as it contradicts the notion that the actions of the Righteous were somehow representative of the attitude of Polish society at large.”
This is a serious charge laid at Poland’s leadership and others enabling this narrative. It was made just weeks before the current Polish president signed into law a controversial bill that would lead to jail time for anyone suggesting that Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.
Netanyahu the bridge-builder
Very soon after the bill passed into law, Netanyahu negotiated with the Polish government to soften the legislation (removing the threat of jail time) which included a joint statement on behalf of the two governments. Among other things, the joint statement rejected both antisemitism and anti-Polonism. This was just one aspect of the agreement that led to unusual and heavy criticism by Yad Vashem, which said that the declaration contained highly problematic wording that contradicts existing and accepted historical knowledge in this field.
Deborah Lipstadt – at the time the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and now the United States Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism – was one of a number of Holocaust academics to slam the agreement, raising the question that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu places relations with Poland over protecting the memory of the Holocaust and the present-day fight against antisemitism.
“You’re sleeping with people who have used antisemitism, who have rewritten the history of their country’s role in the Holocaust, who are whitewashing the history of their country.”
Deborah Lipstadt
She did not mince words – “You’re sleeping with people who have used antisemitism, who have rewritten the history of their country’s role in the Holocaust, who are whitewashing the history of their country.” She was not only referring to Netanyahu’s realpolitik with respect to Poland but also his warm relations with Victor Orban, prime minister of Hungary.
Holocaust education or politics?
The latest agreement, as yet to be ratified by the Knesset, will allow for the restart of the educational trips to Poland for Israeli teenagers. There are those who have welcomed the opportunity to again educate Israeli high school students about the Holocaust through visits to Poland, in spite of an implicit acceptance of Poland’s revisionist narrative.
Dr. Netanel Fischer, a former such guide set out this case in a column for Yediot Aharonot, that in practice, schools will be able to plan trips pretty much in the same way as they had previously and that ultimately, the narrative is controlled by the Israeli guides and the schools. Yad Vashem, in their own statement, agreed with his point in practice, although they certainly had concerns about some of the recommended sites agreed upon by Israel’s Education Ministry.
Tzvi Sperber is the director of JRoots, specializing in informal adult education, and offers a different view. He has designed and led hundreds of trips to Poland with participants studying the 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland, culminating in the catastrophe of the Holocaust.
Sperber believes in the immersive educational impact of the visit, although he has some concerns about what is the best age. He is absolutely clear though that any attempt to interfere with the ability to talk openly about the antisemitism and the role of Poles in Jewish suffering would undermine a central plank of the experience.
A closer look at the agreement reveals, just as in the 2018 joint statement, that the Israeli government has agreed to some troubling equivalency. The agreement seeks to ensure the best possible relations between the peoples of Poland and Israel and to eliminate any mutual prejudice between Israelis and Poles.
The agreement considers the visits of Israeli youth to Poland and of Polish youth to Israel as an important stage in building further the relations between Israel and Poland and their peoples. This is in addition to the deeply problematic nature of the sites approved to be visited as detailed in a Haaretz expose.
Student exchange program
I would have to be honest, the wording sounds like an agreement for student exchanges between Sweden and Canada. Given the actual history of Jews and Poland, of course, the Holocaust but also the hundreds of years of complex relations before and seemingly since, I would expect a much clearer distinction. Mutual ties between Poland and Israel cannot be based on the whitewashing of Poland’s history.
All the more ironic is a government that is highly nationalistic and desires to fight what they consider to be postmodern narratives within Israel should pander to the Polish need to revise their own narrative. Netanyahu has consistently shown a willingness to compromise on this sensitive topic.
Post-liberal Europe
The Netanyahu doctrine in Europe calls for the deepening of ties with Hungary, Poland and other post-liberal and even post-democratic countries as a contra to the Western European countries that tend to have a more critical stance towards Israel in general. By connecting the dots of Netanyahu’s priorities over the years, it becomes increasingly clear that the history of the Holocaust can be negotiated in order to advance that diplomatic doctrine.
Whether this is problematic realpolitik or a sign of his deeper sense of political identity with post-liberal politics is hard to say but either way, I would suggest that the price that is paid is too high. Given this conclusion, if I were a school principal, I would think carefully before renewing school trips to Poland under the latest agreement.
The writer is a founding partner of Goldrock Capital and the founder of The Institute for Jewish and Zionist Research. He was a founding chair of the Coalition for Haredi Employment and is a former chair of Gesher and World Bnei Akiva.