A Work of Courage, Not Fear

Jan T. Gross: "Fear - Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz."

It's hard for any author to buck the national consensus when dealing with his country's history, especially the dark corners that have been kept purposely hidden. For a Polish historian like Professor Gross to come forth with this unflinching account of the Kielce pogrom, and the culture of intolerance behind it, is just such an act of courage. Ironically, it compares with modern Israeli historians who have come clean about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the same period.

The anti-Semitic scapegoating of the Polish Catholic Church's highest officials - specifically Cardinal Hlond - are too much on public record to take seriously the spirit of denial found among this book's detractors. When the spiritual leaders of a very religious country begin abusing their position politically, and pandering to the darker side of their people while piously distancing themselves from the results, Kielce is bound to happen.

Surely, Poland suffered greatly during WW II from enemies and allies alike, but that does not justify or excuse the deep-seated bigotry which made Kielce possible. Poland was also well-known during the interwar years for its intolerance of ethnic Germans and Ukrainians. While not carried to the same extremes as anti-Semitism, it is doubtless well for Jews, Germans, and 'Pravoslavs' that population transfers, genocide, voluntary emigration, and territorial concessions have removed them as targets for future patriots.