Autor cytowanych wspomnień - Żyd - był moim dobrym znajomym. Podziwiałem go za lotność umysłu, pamięć, stosunek do życia i humor. Mimo olbrzymiej różnicy wieku byliśmy po imieniu. Autor tych wspomnień miał ponad 100 lat gdy umierał, a wywiadu udzielił w wieku 90 lat. Urodził się w rodzinie ortodoksyjnego Żyda i całe życie był bardzo religijny. Z zawodu był dentystą, co ułatwiło mu przeżycie wojny. Wojnę spędził w Polsce (na terenach okupowanych przez Niemców) dzięki papierom otrzymanym od księdza zaświadczającymi, że jest Polakiem i katolikiem. Papiery te przydały mu się także po wojnie, kiedy bał się antysemityzmu polskiego i rosyjskiego (radzieckiego). Przed wojna służył w polskiej armii. W czasie wojny był związany z oddziałem AK, ale nigdy nie brał udział w czynnych walkach. Po wojnie wyjechał wpierw do Niemiec i Belgii, potem do Izraela, na koniec do USA. Wywiad jest po angielsku i nie mam czasu, ani zacięcia go tłumaczyć. Jest to dosłowny zapis rozmowy nagranej na taśmie. Tak więc notka jest tylko dla osób wytrwałych i mówiących po angielski. Jak się można zorientować Autor tych wspomnień nie mówi dobrze do angielsku. Robi mnóstwo błędów językowych i gramatycznych; niektóre bardzo podstawowe. Przeszkadza to w czytaniu, a czasami w zrozumieniu. Na usprawiedliwienie mogę powiedzieć, że przyjechał do Stanów mając 70 lat i pewnie wtedy nauczył się angielskiego.
Daję rękę za uczciwość, rzetelność i szlachetność autora tych wspomnień. Daję drugą rękę za jego pamięć.
Sporo mówi o antysemityzmie w przedwojennej (i powojennej) Polsce, antysemityzmie w Armii II RP i w kościele.
We wspomnieniach wspomina trzech Polaków, Stanisława Soltysa (a może Sołtysa), Stanisławę Oscietską (może Ościecką albo Osiecką) i Frantiszka Muschau (pewnie Franciszek Musiał). Sporo mówi o pani Osieckiej i uważa, że przeżycie wojny zawdzięcza jej przynajmniej w 50%. O panie Musiale nie mówi zbyt dużo, a już nic jak Musiał mu pomógł. Niemniej jednak nominował Musiała do Sprawiedliwych wśród Narodów Świata. Nie wiadomo dlaczego nie nominował pani Osieckiej. Może dlatego, że jej mąż i brat byli antysemitami?
Wspomina dwóch księży. Pierwszy z nich był antysemitą, ale wydał mu aryjskie papiery, które pozwoliły mu na przeżycie wojny. Cytuje tego księdza: “Chcę wam pomóc bo dopadły was ciężkie czasy”. Cytuje także innego księdza, a właściwie kleryka, który uważa, że Żydów należy pokroić i posolić bo Żydzi zabili Chrystusa.
Jeśli chodzi o obozy koncentracyjne na terenach polskich to jego interpretacja jest zgodna z linia polską; tzn. w Polsce było najwięcej Żydów, nie było sensu zwozić Żydów do Niemiec i niemożliwe by ich przewieść do małych krajów typu Holandia lub Belgia. Niemniej dodaje – “nikt w Polsce nie miał protestował przeciwko obozom”.
Całość wywiadu jest tutaj: http://collections.ushmm.org; USHMM Archives RG-50.549.05*0011 (Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection).
O antysemityzmie w przedwojennej Polsce
I will not deny there was not in Poland anti-Semitism. But you know anti-Semitism until today has many faces. There is an economic anti-Semitism, there is a political anti-Semitism and there is a racist anti-Semitism. And for me and my observance, my conviction, I think if I analyze the Jewish situation in Poland, it was more economic anti-Semitism.
And Jews were more educated, absolutely more educated than the common people in Poland. (…) Some of them didn’t go to school, the Polish people didn’t go to school ever. There was illiteracy, too.
O antysemityzmie w przedwojennej Armii
But, but, the officers, the Polish officers generally, generally, were anti-Semites. What kind? They were so educated, they were so prepared. That was the elite. That they, but of course, they didn’t, they didn’t want to show up as anti-Semites. But you could feel it, you could feel it (…). And then like I said, the poorer Jews went to the Army because they were not able to pay to get free from the Army, not to serve. The rich Jews who didn’t want to go to the Army, there was always finding a way of bribery. To whom? To the Polish officers, to the Polish doctors, to the Polish secretaries, so that they made themselves sick and they write and they are sick and they cannot serve. And so the poor and little Jews were serving in the Army.
And in the officer’s school, they didn’t want the Jews to become officers. (…). There were officers, Jewish officers, but very few, very few. It was difficult to advance, to be a Jew and to be an officer, a high officer in the Polish Army. There were higher officers only medical officers, because they needed them.
O pomocy otrzymanej z rąk polskich w czasie wojny
She knew that we are Jewish. She knew because when we arrived there, the brother of the priest was there, just there. And he was very angry. He said to the priest, “What did you bring these Jews here? Why did you do it?” And he run away very angry. And she knew, but she was a very, very fine, noble person. (…) And she was helping us a lot with bread, with food, everywhere. (…) I think maybe fifty percent of surviving we had to thank her. She was very, very, very kind.
That was a man, that was Muschau. He was recognized as a righteous man, the righteous between people. I gave him to Yad Vashem, and he is recognized. He was a wonderful person. He helped us all the time, even the time when he didn’t suspect us as Jews, he was all the time very human and very helpful.
O antysemityzmie i jego braku w Kościele przed i w czasie wojny
But in the church he was preaching the Polish people to support Polish people, to buy at Polish people, but most of the businesses were Jewish. And therefore Jews were calling all of this kind of expression, they were calling anti-Semite. That was economical anti-Semitism. They want to support their own people. I don’t find it wrong. I don’t find it wrong. I think he as a priest has an obligation to his people. How we didn’t like it, how we didn’t want it, but still it did hurt us economically. But he, as a human being and as a priest, he told us, “I want to help you because it comes a bad time to you.” So I cannot say he is a racist or he is a political anti-Semite. He was economical anti-Semite. He was anti-Semite. We are very sensitive. We Jews are very sensitive, but we have the reason why to be sensitive after thousands of years of discrimination.
The son, which is studying for priest. He was by himself, he said, if I will catch a Jew, I will cut in pieces and they should salt on it. As I said, he was a very, very bad anti-Semite. (…) But the son, which was already studying priesthood and they knew already, they told him already, at this time they were still teaching that the Jews killed Jesus and so forth.
O prześladowaniach po wojnie z rąk polskich i rosyjskich
We were in a village. And if I… realize it was a hostage village. They were not sympathetic to Jewish survivors. (…) I had to stay on my Aryan papers.
And I decided, we decided to look around, and we went to my village. (…) In the night, somebody was knocking at the door and the window. And there’s, in Russian, “Kroy (ph)! Open! You have here Jews!” He said, “I don’t have Jews. They are Polish people like you, like we.” They came in. He opened, because this was soldiers which were in the camp (…) They went to the rich Poles where we left a lot of things and he told them to go there, the Jews came here. You have to kill them, very simple. And for them to kill a Jew is like kill a German. (..) And they came in and said, “Are you Jewish?”
I said, “There’s no Jews here.” “Who are you?” We had the papers. Said, “We are here, only sleeping here. We are Polish.” Well, okay, they left. They went to the house of the mother (…). “Where are the Jews here?” “There are no Jews.” They gave some shots in the air and they left.
So the Russian driver which was taking said, “You yes, you can go. You yes, yes. But you no, no Jews, no Jews, no Jews.”
They (tzn. Rosjanie) didn’t have in their program to kill Jews. That was individual soldiers (…) So that was more individual and then it was also sometimes inspired by some other anti-Semites to go to kill a Jew. The Russians didn’t hesitate to kill a Jew, too.
Nie można uogólniać, że Polacy są antysemitami
You know, it sometimes is for me difficult to accept the general view of the Jewish world about the Polish anti-Semites, about Poland. I born in Poland. I got my education in Poland. I lived there. And I was a Polish patriot. And so were many, the majority. There were some Jews which didn’t accept never that they are Poles. And to say that the Poles were all anti-Semites, I will not put this category, put them in this category. There were some interests. And people are behaving very often, very different in different situations. But to say a priori all the Polish are anti-Semites, it is exaggerated. It’s not true. It’s not true.
O obozach koncentracyjnych w Polsce
It is still a stereotype of American Jews which have a guilty feeling that they didn’t do nothing, nothing in time of the Holocaust to help their brothers. That they are putting all the guilt of the Holocaust on Polish people. I know the truth is that the majority of extermination, gas chambers and so forth was in the Polish territory. But I find my very answer, I think the main reason is that it was much easier for the Germans to make it where the biggest concentration of the Jews were. There was, in Poland was more Jews than all over the world. So instead to go to Holland or to go to Belgium or to go to Germany, of course they didn’t want to take them because they were ashamed to bring the Jews to Germany. So I mean to this other little countries, to bring million of Jews it was for them impossible. Impossible. Physically it was impossible. Maybe it would be good if they had come to this idea. But their idea was to do this fast, fast and more able to do it was in Poland. That’s my opinion. Maybe I am wrong, but that is the reason. And of course, there is something to it that in Poland were no many objection to it.
