Things have changed, Mike.
One small correction; what happened after 1968 cannot be characterized
as a pogrom. There was an anti-Semitic campaign sponsored by the
Communist government, mostly designed to drive a wedge between the
student protests and the broader population, but a pogrom implies some
physical violence or threat, and there was none of that. We are
talking about things like expulsion from the Party (which in turn
could mean loss of job) and so on. We were in fact part of the wave of
emigration, moving to Denmark in 1972.
Today, however, there is a revival of Jewish life in Poland and a
great interest among the broader population about exploring this part
of Poland's history, painful as it is at times.
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu
http://www.greatpix.eu
http://www.nathanfoto.com
Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog
On Jul 1, 2009, at 12:26 AM, usher99@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Many layers of contrast in that image besides the colors. Perhaps the
> woman in red represents a clean break from the grey/dark past.
> That the scene was viewed through a Leica lens by this photog is also
> interesting. I suspect Ernest Leitz would have approved. He gets
> some
> gold stars spiriting away Jewish workers out of Germany.
>
> http://www.buzzle.com/articles/126992.html
>
> Poland has a long sordid history of vicious anti-Semitism. Ninety
> percent of their Jews were murdered in WWII often with the very
> willing
> cooperation of their neighbors. As late a 1968 there were further
> (probably Soviet sponsored) pogroms against the remaining few Jews so
> that their were soon less than 5000 left of the 3 million pre -war
> population. I saw a "Frontline" on PBS (public broadcasting) called
> "Shtetl" about 10 years ago where a
> a young Polish Gentile historian from Bransk interviewed neighbors of
> the previous Jews all 2500 of which were shipped to Treblinka's gas
> chambers via the villagers' horse wagons within 24 hours. They
> blamed
> their current economic plight on the "Jews" as if all of them had not
> been reduced to ashes and their property and possessions stolen many
> decades ago.
> Perhaps things have changed.
> Mike
>
>
>
> The uprising lasted about 3 weeks. It ended
> with the leaders holed up in a bunker, surrounded by the Germans. They
> fought to the end, and finally the last group committed suicide rather
> than be captured.
>
> --
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