Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz

Fear received positive reviews in several American magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe.[7]

David Margolick, writing in New York Times Book Review, took issue with Gross' thesis that the murders of Jews in post-war Poland was inspired by feelings of guilt on the part of Poles, positing instead that perhaps "through their own state-of-the-art anti-Semitism, the Germans emboldened many Poles to act upon what they had always felt," taking as credible "Nazi accounts of Judenjagd, or 'Jew hunts,' [which] detailed how Poles pitched in to find any stray Jews the Germans somehow managed to miss."[1]

Elie Wiesel, reviewing the book in The Washington Post, rejected the notion of collective guilt but noted that Gross' book impels Poland to confront its past.[8] In response to Wiesel's review, Polish-Jewish journalist Adam Michnik wrote in a leading Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza (of which he is editor-in-chief), that "Wiesel's review conveys the image of a country unable to confront the plague of anti-Semitism... Anyone who writes about anti-Semitism in Poland and ignores those facts, falsifies — even if unintentionally — the truth about Poland."[9] The Washington Post printed a letter to the editor by Janusz Reiter, the Polish ambassador to the United States, who cited Michnik.[9]

Thane Rosenbaum wrote in the Los Angeles Times that the book "should inspire a national reflection on why there are scarcely any Jews left in Poland.[10] According to Deborah E. Lipstadt, Gross built "a meticulous case."[11] David Engel wrote that, unlike Gross' earlier work Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001), in which Gross posited a continuity in the actions of a community of people over generations, in Fear "Gross himself appears to have bracketed off the Nazi era from the longer course of Polish history and by doing so to have altered the terms for reflecting on transgenerational Polish responsibility for past deeds that he set forth in his earlier work." Engel wrote that Gross now sees World War II as a radical break in the history of Polish behavior towards Jews.[6]

Anita J. Prazmowska, Professor in International History at the London School for Economics, has described the debate over Gross' book in Poland as "driven by historians with a nationalist agenda that they have pursued since the end of Communism," an agenda in which Jews are portrayed as antagonistic to the existence and interests of the Polish nation and in which their claims to a Polish identity are negated in order to portray communism as an alien creed.[12]

In Poland Fear caused controversy and what the German magazine Der Spiegel described as a "right wing backlash;" with the book coming under strong criticism by Polish nationalists, the country's conservative establishment as well as some historians.

The book elicited responses from the modern Polish Jewish community. Polish rabbi Burt Schuman, quoted in Der Spiegel, said he welcomed the debate Fear had begun, but described the book as unfairly depicting the country as anti-Semitic thus "harming our goal of reconciliation."[13][14][15] Marek Edelman, a Jewish leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, responded to the book by stating that "everything Gross writes about is true" but that postwar violence against Jews was "not about anti-Semitism... Murdering Jews was pure banditry, and I wouldn't explain it as anti-Semitism... It was contempt for man, for human life, plain meanness. A bandit doesn't attack someone who is stronger, like military troops, but where he sees weakness." [16][17][18]

In a letter to the Polish publishers of Fear, Znak, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, secretary to Pope John Paul II, said Gross' book "awakened the demon" of antisemitism. A Znak spokesperson responded to the complaint by asserting that the issues should be talked about. Znak spokesman Tomasz Miedzik told Der Spiegel "We have the freedom to ask difficult questions about our history and we should do that."[13][14]

In a televised discussion with Gross, historian Andrzej Paczkowski expressed his discomfort about the speed with which Gross makes generalizations. "Memory and history are two different things," Paczkowski said. "Memory is black and white while history is about shades of gray."[19]

Fear has been criticized by historians such as Paweł Machcewicz,[15] Piotr Gontarczyk,[4] Thaddeus Radzilowski,[20] Janusz Kurtyka,[21] Dariusz Stola,[22] and Marek Jan Chodakiewicz.[15][23] These authors accused Gross of using imperfect methodology,[4][23] making generalizations,[22][23] stereotyping,[23] ignoring works which did not confirm his views,[4] neglecting the wider context of the events in that Jews were not a unique subject of persecution and banditry which occurred throughout postwar Europe,[15] misinterpreting or distorting data,[4][22] relying mostly on Jewish sources,[4] using inflammatory and emotional language,[4][15][20] and drawing unsubstantiated conclusions.[4][15][20][22][23] The book quotes alleged Józef Kuraś' diary, fabricated by Communist activist and journalist Władysław Machejek.[24]

Janusz Kurtyka, the president of the Institute of National Remembrance, in an interview with journalist Konrad Piasecki, stated that Fear has serious methodological errors and omissions and that it makes emotive use of political epithets, and therefore will not be accepted — even conditionally — in the historical community.[21]

Marcin Zaremba, a historian at Warsaw University, described Fear as an important publication. Zaremba told Network Europe radio that he "agree[d] with [Gross'] argument that Poles had their share in the Holocaust," and that "anti-Semitism was a kind of cultural code which Poles used at that time, and that Jews were not responsible for the introduction of communist rule in Poland",[25] however, he also said that Gross often "can't see the forest for the trees", i.e. the hunger, Soviet brutality, and the wartime fear in the hearts of all Polish nationals regardless of faith. In 2012 Zaremba published a book about the years 1944-1947 in Poland (Wielka trwoga), in which he opposed some opinions of Gross.[26]

In response to the coverage of Fear in the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, Marek Beylin, a columnist for the competing daily Gazeta Wyborcza, called for a "sincere debate about the dark secrets of the Polish past."[14][27]

Feliks Tych, head of Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute, criticized Gross for being more of a judge than an analyst, neglecting the impact of the post-war collapse of state institutions, and selectively using facts to support his thesis. Tych also said that "after [Gross'] book, it is no longer possible to escape from the question why there were killings of Jews after the war, and that is his undeniable achievement."[28]

Polish prosecutors reviewed accusations that Fear is slanderous against the Polish nation, but rejected the claims and refused to launch an investigation. The fact that such requests were made became the subject of additional media controversy. The article of the Polish law that allowed the case to be made in the first place has been criticized by some as infringing upon the right to free speech and will be reviewed by the Polish Constitutional Court.[29]

Gross' book was denounced at an impromptu political debate held in February 2008 at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Kraków without the full awareness of priests.[30] The gathering, set to take place elsewhere,[31] was moved by its organizer Jerzy Robert Nowak to the Basilica at the last minute in anticipation of a mass attendance by 1,000 people. Among the invited guests were the Catholic station Radio Maryja and Telewizja Trwam. The debate was preceded by a short mass by a 91-year-old Bishop Albin Małysiak who had no idea what it was all about.[30] The speeches were described by Israeli press as having strong overtones of antisemitism.[32] The Polish Church officials strongly criticized the Jesuits for making the Basilica available to the event organizers. Likewise, the Society of Jesus issued a statement from Vatican confirming that the ageing priest made a mistake by allowing a Roman Catholic church to be used as a stage for this sort of agitation.[30][31][33][34]