Talk:Antisemitism in Poland

Neutrality/error?

@Gitz6666 Regarding "The Polish army, allied with the anti-communist Ukrainian government of Symon Petliura, actively participated in the pogroms (1918–1920) that wiped out entire Jewish communities in the course of the Polish–Soviet War". I am not sure this is correct, as it 1) implies this was done by the Army, rather than disorderly troops and 2) it implies that the Polish Army actively targetted and destroyed "entire Jewish communities". The linked articles talks about several pogroms in which Polish Army participated, linking one: Lwów pogrom (1918). That pogrom does not seem to be condined by the Polish military authorities, nor did it result in the city's Jewish population being "wiped out". _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:47, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The book I'm right now consulting (Mendelsohn 1983, quoted in the bibliography) says on the subject:

pogroms accompanied the very founding of the new, free Poland. The first major pogrom occurred in Lwów in November, 1918, when this city was captured by the Poles from the Ukrainians (...). Although early reports of the casualties were exaggerated, the fact that Polish troops had been permitted to kill and loot in Jewish neighborhoods without the intervention of the state was justly interpreted by Polish Jews as a sign of how precarious their situation was (..) Not only Lwo6w but also many other Galician cities were the scene of anti-Jewish disorders, perpetrated both by soldiers and by peasants. From this point on, Galician Jewry began to long for the “‘good old days” of the Emperor Francis Joseph, when, as we know, Galicia was relatively free of anti-Jewish violence. In 1919 the wave of pogroms spread to Polish-controlled Lithuania, another region which had not known many pogroms before the war. In April Jews were shot by Polish soldiers in Pinsk, a pogrom took place in Lida, and, most shocking of all, anti-Jewish riots broke out in the Jerusalem of Lithuania, Vilna. In Congress Poland, too, Jews were terriorized, particularly in railroad trains, where their beards were cut off by Polish patriots. The anti-Semitic tide reached new heights during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1920, especially in the summer when Warsaw was threatened by the Bolsheviks. During the Polish-Soviet war the Polish government went so far as to intern in a concentration camp Jewish officers serving as volunteers in the Polish army, thus demonstrating to the public at large that it regarded all Jews as potential traitors.»

Admittedly this second source doesn't mention "wiped out" communities but the direct involvement of the army seems to be confirmed. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 17:21, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Poland did not sign an alliance with Petlura until April 1920, so I don't see how you can connect this event to the pogroms that happened earlier. I don't know why you link to Pogroms of the Russian Civil War, since these pogroms had nothing to do with the Russian Civil War (Poland was not involved in this conflict). And the Lviv pogrom took place in an area that was never part of Russia. Marcelus (talk) 17:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

My concern is that outside of the Pinsk massacre, AFAIK such events were not sanctioned by the commanding officers. Participation by a mob of soldiers is not the same as participation of the army. And which source supports the claim that the Polish army wiped out any Jewish communities? This sounds very much like a WP:REDFLAG. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:03, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

PS. This is a likely good and recent source: [1] and it mentions "more than 130 pogroms of 1918–1921; many of them initiated by Polish military troops as they entered towns and cities of the new Poland". We could quantify the sentence above, v2: "In over a hundred of occasions, Polish soldiers and civilians actively participated in the pogroms (1918–1920)". We can link here to the Lwów pogrom (1918) and Pinsk massacre and others, mentioned by Mendelsohn and other sources, if they have dedicated articles. There is also a related discussion and sources at Blue_Army_(Poland)#Anti-Jewish_violence that may be worth linking to. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 18:20, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Piotrus, that's an excellent source. Another good one is Hagen, Anti-Jewish violence in Poland [2]. At pp. 311 ff. he discusses "Military Authorities and Soldierly Antisemitism":

Did uniformed pogromists ever act with superiors’ sanction? There is no unambiguous answer partly because resurrected Poland’s armed forces were multifarious ... Probably soldierly plunder of Jews seemed unavoidable and partly justifiable to military authorities, but bloodshed was another matter, and rampant criminality crossed their purposes. Yet, granting seriousness to Piɬsudski’s and Haller’s pogrom-fighting motives, soldierly compliance and grassroots enforcement were questionable.

Relevant also p. 512:

This book’s documentation yields a maximum number of 279 anti-Jewish riots or pogroms staged in historically Polish lands outside the orbit of the Russian civil war, about half in Galicia. The lowest number of deaths inflicted in these incidents, as documented in these pages, is 400; the highest number is 532 (the October 1919 Morgenthau report reckoned deaths at 280). But because murders committed during the Polish-Soviet war are certainly imperfectly quantified in our sources, despite the Zionist Club’s scrupulous efforts, maximum deaths will have climbed higher, probably by some hundreds.

Re wikilink, we could perhaps add Wilno-Lida pogroms. Note that Pogroms of the Russian Civil War also mentions pogrom in the context of the Polish–Ukrainian War, including the Lwów pogrom, and the infobox correctly includes Polish army among the perpetretors. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:24, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the link and another good source we probably should use. It is likely that Wilno and Lida pogroms are notable and we need stand-alone articles about them. It is also possible we need artcles on Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1918–1921 and Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1935–1937 (I'll ping User:Dreamcatcher25 on whether pl wiki has any relavant articles to translate).

@Piotrus: As far as I know, at pl.wiki there are no "overall themed" articles about Anti-Jewish violence in Poland in the years 1918-1921 or 1935-1937. There are lot articles about particular events, antisemitic initiatives or policies etc., but imao they quality and credibility differs. There are two GA, however, on attempted pogroms in Lwów in 1929 and 1932: pl:Zamieszki we Lwowie (1929), pl:Zamieszki we Lwowie (1932).Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 07:06, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

But back to the issue at hand: do you have any thoughts about my proposed rewording (which does not include the list of relevant articles in the parenthesis, includng red links, I'ld fully support having)? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:33, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm fine with your proposed rewording. Please change the draft as you think best. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 00:39, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

This still needs work

@Gitz6666, @Marcelus - just a reminder this still needs work. We don't need to make it a GA-level article before publishing; rewording the stuff we have in quote blocks would get us pretty much to the point this could be published. It can be expaned later in the mainspace, but I think the readers would benefit from seeing this - now this is hidden in the draftspace. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:53, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm short on time lately, but I'll do what I can Marcelus (talk) 21:04, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

@Marcelus @Gitz6666 Still looking forward to seeing this finished, but I am not that interested in this to do it myself quickly. If nobody has more energy, I am going to remove some undue quotations, slap some lead and move this to the mainspace so others can work on this as well. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:08, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Let's give ourselves 2-3 weeks more ok? I struggle to find time recently, but I will try to add some content soon. Marcelus (talk) 14:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

yes, I would like to continue working on this article because I've good sources that I have not yet cited, but I won't be able to do it in the next two weeks. If you want to move it to mainspace that's OK for me, then I will work on it from there, or you can wait a bit more, as you and Marcelus prefer. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Another important topic

Draft:Antisemitism in Germany - also missing (well, just a very stubby draft). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jayen466 @Buidhe You guys did a nice job with Anti-antisemitism in Germany! Perhaps you'd be interested in helping out here? It seems those of us working on this a while ago run out of steam... I don't think I need to say that this is an important if controversial topic, and it would be good to finally have this as an article, rather than a redirect. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:11, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Quote rewriting finished

I finished transforming copyrighted quotations into text that should be free. The article still has many gaps, but I think we can publish it and see if other folks, hopefully less burned out than those of us watching this here, will improve it further. I think this is a good start (start to C-class, I guess). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. We need a source for "Though contemporary antisemitism is marginal" (from the lead). I vaguely remember a source making the opposite point. Later I'll check. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:45, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Gitz6666 I've removed that claim from the lead, it is rather subjective (marginal compared to what?). I think we can publish that article now, with the understanding that it is not very complete yet, hence it is start or C class at best. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:51, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the article is ready to be published. Sections Middles Ages and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are overlapping, often contradicting themselves. That's something we need to solve. Marcelus (talk) 13:01, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@Marcelus An article does not have to be comprehensive or error free to be published (see WP:ASSESSMENT). The point is that nobody active here right now has much motivation to work on this, so we need to make this public, which hopefully will attract someone or someone's interested in working on this. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I understand it. Can you give me please one week more to work on this draft? I really didn't have much time in the past few weeks, but I will have couple free days and I'm planning to dive into this subject again. Marcelus (talk) 11:15, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Marcelus Sure, if you think you can make it more presentable in the near future, go for it. Removing contradictions is certainly desirable before making it public. I just don't want this to be forgotten here - inactive drafts get deleted and that would be a shame considering effort already put into this by several editors. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:00, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

@Marcelus I see you did some c/e last week. Thanks. I've asked for this to be published - it is not at Good Article level yet, but I see no reason to keep it hidden from the mainspace anymore - in the current form it should already be useful to the reader as a C-class article or so. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Piotrus ok, I think it needs more polish, but since I don't really have time lately to seriously dive into this topic again, I won't block its publication any longer Marcelus (talk) 10:29, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

@Marcelus Thanks. This obviously needs more attention, but it is best to let the usual process take over (collaborative editing in the mainspace). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:26, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

You mentioned this unfortunate 16 Nov copyedit. I would strongly suggest the original authors check the following edit as well. I also noticed that the post-1989 section was a very one-sided rendering of the book edited by Krzemiński (2015). -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 13:36, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to edit and improve more, this article is not comprehensive, and may have some neutrality issues - it's just a C-class, after all. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Removal of claim that antisemitism came from Germany

I removed the very strange claim that antisemitism first "filtered in from Germany". I assume this may be a misreading of the discussion of the highly-sophisticated propaganda that was centered in Germany in the late 19th century, however the source is clear that this combined with much older antisemitism which already existed in Poland (what she calls Judeophobia) and with an eastern variant which the author described as being based on conspiracy theories, like the writings of Jacob Brafman. cf. Cała for exact context on what she describes as a "new" political antisemitism. In general, the pagination should be updated from the Polish version to the English version, it appears the Polish version is being cited for pages 88-90 only? It should not be difficult to identify this page rage in the English translation.-- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 16:00, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

And we still don't have anything on this better than Draft:Antisemitism in Germany. Sigh. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@ SashiRolls I encourage you to read this passage again. It doesn't mention the 19th century, but the Middle Ages (it was in the section title "Middle Ages"). Most of the anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic stereotypes originated in German-speaking countries and then spread throughout Europe, appearing in Poland in the late Middle Ages. Check the book by Cała that you linked.

Page 35: "It was the German culture that formed the image of a dehumanized “Jew” with beastly characteristics. From fifteenth to seventeenth centuries the most popular sculptures, woodcuts, and drawings in the region were Judensau, which depicted Jews in an obscene manner; for instance, as sucking milk from a pig".

Page 36: "Historians estimate the number of accusations of “ritual murder” in the Middle Ages to range from 80 to 150 cases. Most of them appeared in the German culture between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. (...) In the sixteenth century the superstition moved east, to the Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary."

Page 42: "Medieval burghers in Wielkopolska and Silesia consisted mostly of ethnic Germans, who brought the enmity toward Jews that was rooted in their region." Marcelus (talk) 08:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)