the nationalists were increasingly subjected to trials and other restrictions, like the suspension of some groupsâ activity, the Church shielded them more and more closely. From August 1938, Father Antoni KochaÅski was the executive director of the Åomża district branch of the National Party, whichâas Professor Szymon Rudnicki, an expert on the nationalist parties of the interbellum, told meâis a testament to the extremely close ties between the local church hierarchy and the party.
The Polish-Jewish conflict, or rather the conflict between nationalists and Jews, did not determine the entire network of neighborly ties. Conflicts among Poles also inflamed great passions. The Church in the Åomża district forbade the dedication of Masses on the occasion of the name day or memorial celebrations of Marshal PiÅsudski, the head of state in independent Poland, a politician favorably disposed to national minorities and therefore hated by nationalists. 8 PiÅsudskiâs followers, among them a large part of the local intelligentsia, teachers, and officials, were politically closer to the educated Jewish elite than to fellow Poles who joined the National Party.
6.
Reading the reports of the Interior Ministry, one could easily think that the life of the Jedwabne or RadziÅów Jews was one long succession of humiliations and persecution. But it is worth remembering that the reports of security services usually create a distorted image of reality.
Although it was not easy for Jews to live in a hostile environment, and though they often suffered from poverty, they nevertheless lived a life that was often sorely missed by those who managed to escape across the ocean. Relations with their Polish neighbors were only the backdrop to the life of a Jewish community bound by strong ties and equally strong antagonisms, absorbed in its own dreams and quarrels. The Jews in the region constituted a strong, separate modern society. Even in the smallest towns there were Jewish institutions, parties, mutual-aid groups, banks, and associations. 9
The reports of the Interior Ministry, which monitored the Yiddish press, give a good sense of just how much Jews led a life of their own, how remote the issues at the heart of the Jewish community were from the things that occupied their Polish neighbors.
Let us take the time of the pogrom in RadziÅów. In March 1933, on the premises of the Union of Jewish Butchers on Zamenhof Street in BiaÅystok, at the conference of delegates of Jewish butchersâ guilds of the BiaÅystok region, Icchak WaÅach and Lejb Szlapak gave speeches protesting a law intended to restrict ritual slaughter. In May in BiaÅystok, there was a strike by Jewish textile workers, and the Zionist Orthodox organization Mizrachi created a consortium of artisans and businessmen committed to establishing a textile factory in Tel Aviv. Thanks to the daily press these kinds of events were on everybodyâs tongue in no time.
In Warsaw, Lvov, or BiaÅystok, assimilated Jews often treated both Jewish tradition and the activity of Jewish organizations as a kind of alien folklore. But in RadziÅów or Jedwabne, every Jewâeven ones who preferred speaking Polish rather than Yiddish and were proud of service in the 1920 Polish war of independenceâwent to the synagogue and belonged to some Jewish organization.
The growing influence of the National Party was met among the Jewish population with the reactive growth of Zionism, which involved Zionist groups competing with one another. None of them had any liking for Jewish Communists, or vice versa for that matter. Agudat Israel, the organization of Orthodox Jews, fought with equal passion against both Zionists and Communists. 10
7.
âThe nationalists broke down their stalls until the police had to intervene,â remembered Kazimierz Mocarski, âand the Jews at those stalls were so polite: âGood day,â they
The Polish-Jewish conflict, or rather the conflict between nationalists and Jews, did not determine the entire network of neighborly ties. Conflicts among Poles also inflamed great passions. The Church in the Åomża district forbade the dedication of Masses on the occasion of the name day or memorial celebrations of Marshal PiÅsudski, the head of state in independent Poland, a politician favorably disposed to national minorities and therefore hated by nationalists. 8 PiÅsudskiâs followers, among them a large part of the local intelligentsia, teachers, and officials, were politically closer to the educated Jewish elite than to fellow Poles who joined the National Party.
6.
Reading the reports of the Interior Ministry, one could easily think that the life of the Jedwabne or RadziÅów Jews was one long succession of humiliations and persecution. But it is worth remembering that the reports of security services usually create a distorted image of reality.
Although it was not easy for Jews to live in a hostile environment, and though they often suffered from poverty, they nevertheless lived a life that was often sorely missed by those who managed to escape across the ocean. Relations with their Polish neighbors were only the backdrop to the life of a Jewish community bound by strong ties and equally strong antagonisms, absorbed in its own dreams and quarrels. The Jews in the region constituted a strong, separate modern society. Even in the smallest towns there were Jewish institutions, parties, mutual-aid groups, banks, and associations. 9
The reports of the Interior Ministry, which monitored the Yiddish press, give a good sense of just how much Jews led a life of their own, how remote the issues at the heart of the Jewish community were from the things that occupied their Polish neighbors.
Let us take the time of the pogrom in RadziÅów. In March 1933, on the premises of the Union of Jewish Butchers on Zamenhof Street in BiaÅystok, at the conference of delegates of Jewish butchersâ guilds of the BiaÅystok region, Icchak WaÅach and Lejb Szlapak gave speeches protesting a law intended to restrict ritual slaughter. In May in BiaÅystok, there was a strike by Jewish textile workers, and the Zionist Orthodox organization Mizrachi created a consortium of artisans and businessmen committed to establishing a textile factory in Tel Aviv. Thanks to the daily press these kinds of events were on everybodyâs tongue in no time.
In Warsaw, Lvov, or BiaÅystok, assimilated Jews often treated both Jewish tradition and the activity of Jewish organizations as a kind of alien folklore. But in RadziÅów or Jedwabne, every Jewâeven ones who preferred speaking Polish rather than Yiddish and were proud of service in the 1920 Polish war of independenceâwent to the synagogue and belonged to some Jewish organization.
The growing influence of the National Party was met among the Jewish population with the reactive growth of Zionism, which involved Zionist groups competing with one another. None of them had any liking for Jewish Communists, or vice versa for that matter. Agudat Israel, the organization of Orthodox Jews, fought with equal passion against both Zionists and Communists. 10
7.
âThe nationalists broke down their stalls until the police had to intervene,â remembered Kazimierz Mocarski, âand the Jews at those stalls were so polite: âGood day,â they
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