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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution
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No Way Out - The Politics of Polish Jewry 1935-1939 (Hardcover)
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No Way Out - The Politics of Polish Jewry 1935-1939 (Hardcover)
Series: Monographs of the Hebrew Union College
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This scholarly study sheds important new light on the politics of
Polish Jewry on the eve of its destruction. Drawing from sources in
the Polish Jewish and non-Jewish press and from archives in Europe,
Israel, and the United States, Emanuel Melzer examines the efforts
of Jews in this major center of Jewish life to secure its existence
and advance its interests in the late 1930s, when the
radicalization of antisemitism became an increasingly prominent
theme in the country's political life.
With the death of Pilsudski, the prognosis for the Polish Jews
appeared increasingly bleak, as hostile forces sought to abrogate
their constitutional rights and force them to leave the country "en
masse." The enmity they experienced drew in no small measure from
the example of Nazi Germany, which did not hesitate to portray the
Jews as the common enemy of Germans and Poles alike. In the face of
these developments, Polish Jews attempted to wage a coordinated and
concerted political battle against the economic persecution,
hostile administrative practices, discriminatory legislation, and
violent riots that increasingly pervaded their daily lives. Melzer
recounts those attempts and analyzes their failure.
Of the three primary groups among Polish Jewry--the Zionists,
Agudas Yisroel, and the Bund--only the last was capable of carrying
on effective opposition to anti-Jewish forces. But it was not
prepared to join with nonproletarian Jewish groups in an all-Jewish
defense. The Jewish press, too, was not able to forge a unified
Jewish organizational framework, tied as it was to the existing
political parties and reflecting their attitudes and shortcomings.
The only official political voice of Polish Jewry was the small
Jewish parliamentary caucus. Although respected by much of the
Jewish public, the Sejm and Senat deputies were not recognized as
its legitimate spokesmen and usually acted without coordinating
their interventions with one another. As a result, the most
effective Jewish actions were undertaken on the local
level--notably the self-defense organized during the Przytyk pogrom
and the stubborn battle of Jewish students against the ghetto
benches.
Melzer demonstrates that the vociferous Jewish public debate over
questions of policy and the tenacious daily struggles against
discrimination had little effect upon Polish Jewry's deteriorating
situation. Without charismatic leadership and an organizational
framework based on common Jewish destiny and mutual identification,
its ability to confront the grave challenges that lay ahead was
seriously impaired. With the approach of war, many felt they were
trapped with no way out, left to face the Nazi onslaught virtually
alone.
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