From Prague Spring to Warsaw Winter: Poland’s 1968 Pogrom
19. November 2007 19:56
While the Czechoslovaks were dealing with their political and cultural spring thaw coming to an end, nearby Poland was experiencing an onslaught of its own. From within. Impetus for the campaign against the Jews, however, came from outside – from both the USSR heads, as well as from the 1967 Six-Day War fought between Israel and Egypt.
Eager to take advantage of the growing mistrust of Israel, the Communist Polish system quickly abused the charges levied by the international community against Israel as weapons of anti-Semitism against their fellow citizens of Jewish origin, claiming that these people were traitors to the Polish nation. Methods of hostility varied, beginning in 1967 when the relocation of Jews to Israel was advocated and climaxing in Warsaw, March 1968, when the student demonstrations, were pinned on the Jews. Continued antagonism took the forms of compiling an index of Polish Jews (whether or not they were actively practicing), printing and distribution of anti-Semitic (euphemized as “anti-Zionist”) pamphlets, followed by the Jews’ removal from state jobs and intellectual positions at universities and schools. Many became involuntary exiles. The entire process was fraught with irony, commencing with the Party chief Władysław Gomułka who had taken on this campaign – his own wife was Jewish.
Take one zero off the approximate number of Jews who lost their work and Poland found itself in the year 2000, the first time when the events of 1968 were officially apologized for by the government, represented by President Aleksander Kwaśniewski. It was impossible, however, to repair the nation’s reputation anachronistically, especially in terms of its lessened favor with the United States. However, reaction from the West to the Polish pogrom of 1968 had lead to the establishment of groups favoring internal Polish opposition to the Communists and eventually aiding in the establishment of free Poland in 1989.
Clarice Cloutier
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