Rescuing Jews in Poland and France. Debate
Patrick Cabanel spoke about French Jews in the context of pre-War assimilation. Compared to Poland, Jews in France were a smaller ethnic and cultural minority (about 350,000 people). The majority of them belonged to the non-religious sector of French society. Over 70% of French Jews were saved, a large percentage of whom were saved by Protestants. Protestants comprised barely 1% of the French population. “How was it possible”, asked Cabanel, “in predominantly Catholic France, that it was mainly the Protestants who did the saving? This is still a mystery to me.”
He also stressed that the rescuing of Jews had often depended on an entire network of personal connections. In France, Jews were not saved individually, but together – a whole village, an entire region. According to Cabanel, the rescue itself, here, was also not an act of heroism, but the common enterprise of a dozen or so people who, simply, saved their neighbours and close friends.
This does not change the fact that having a government, which officially collaborated with the Nazis and which conducted mass deportations of French Jews to the death camps, is a cause for shame and is a black mark in French history.
Dr Jacek Leociak highlighted the word ”deportation” as used by Patrik Cabanel. He stated that the Holocaust had a completely different dimension in France to that in Poland. For the French, the Holocaust lost its momentum when the trainloads of Jews, heading for the death camps, disappeared over the horizon. “However, the Polish peasant ploughed the earth above which blew ash from the death camps of Bełżec, Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek. The air was assaulted by the terrible smell of burnt bodies”, said Dr. Leociak.
Dr Leociak drew attention to the need for Poles to work through the trauma of witnessing the history of the Holocaust. “It is our duty to look into this terrible evidence. We must do it. We must confront these experiences”.
Leociak stressed the phenomenon of ”Żegota” – the only organisation, officially appointed by the European authorities (namely, the Polish Government-in-Exile) to help Jews and people hiding Jews in occupied Poland.
Larrissa Cain comments complemented those of the previous two speakers. Larrissa Cain, herself saved from the Warsaw Ghetto, told about her work on the book and her fascination with the charismatic Irena Adamowicz – a Polish Catholic who joined the Zionist scouts, whose friendships linked her with such important figures as Mordechaj Anielewicz, Izaak Cukerman and Aba Kovner. Cain hopes to raise the profile, in Poland, of this ”modest heroine”.
Karolina Dzięciołowska briefed the audience on ”The Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten Memory” project. She spoke about the research being carried by project workers in Poland and in Israel, conducting interviews with the rescued and the rescuers. She also spoke of the latest educational programs. “The Polish Righteous” project has recently introduced into Poland, among others initiatives, ”The Righteous in Polish Schools”.
Dr Leociak, as well as others, stressed that Poles who saved Jews in occupied Poland during WWII performed an act of heroism. Only in Poland did the act of helping Jews carry the death penalty. And so these people risked their own lives and the lives of their families. They often faced threats, not only from the German occupiers, but also from their own neighbours, janitors, szmalcowniks, and blackmailers. For all that, so much greater is the admiration for the Righteous. It was they who rescued selflessly and effectively.
This event was conducted by Dr. Eleonora Bergman, Director of the Jewish Historical Institute and Jean-Yves Potel of the Mémorial de la Shoah.
