Narratives under Siege: Polish-Jewish Relations and Jewish Historical Writings
in Interwar Poland

Natalia Aleksiun[*]

INTRODUCTION

In an article published in 1932 in the Polish language monthly Miesięcznik Żydowski, Shalom Asch commented:

Just as the Jews cannot live without Poland, so the Polish state… could not develop naturally and peacefully if it excluded its Jews and left them at the mercy of fate.... It is entirely up to Poland to decide what it does with its three million Jews: Will it make them into a productive element or a destructive one?[1]

He insisted that Poles and Jews shared a common history and that their alliance had been mutually beneficial in the past. Therefore, it could and should have continued after Poland regained its independence in 1918. Asch singled out two elements that came to play a vital role in the Polish-Jewish historical narrative in the interwar period, particularly in the 1930s: a Jewish communal identity rooted in Polish history and in the Polish landscape, and a sense of deep crisis.

Asch’s argument can serve to illustrate the broad phenomenon of historical writings which highlighted the advantages of the Jewish presence over hundreds of years as a possible model for the Second Polish Republic.[2] This perception of the Polish Jewish past was shaped and transmitted by Jewish historians and communal leaders in interwar Poland. Their books and articles, devoted to the history of Polish Jewry, constituted a highly politicized body of literature intended to present their case to both a Polish and a Jewish audience.

Troubled by contemporary issues, they used discussions about the Jewish community in earlier periods in an attempt to prove the success of Polish Jewish integration in the past. History served as a repository of positive examples of Polish-Jewish coexistence; it also became a tool in the struggle against antisemitism. In an article published in Głos Gminy Żydowskiej in the summer of 1938, Adam Czerniaków, vice president of the Jewish community in Warsaw, appealed to the Jewish public to create a program that would change the situation, which he described as a “vicious circle”: “Two nations that have lived next to each other for centuries have recently been noticing only the faults without appreciating the virtues!” He suggested publishing materials that would inform Polish society about Jewish contributions in the past. “Poles who cherish in their hearts noble and upright intentions in response to the wrongs done to Polish Jews,” were to be given arguments they could use “in defense of the Jews who are stigmatized, defamed, rendered repugnant at all street corners.” In leaflets, brochures and books the defenders of the Jews were to:

look for factual material illustrating Jewish participation in the defense and formation of a common Polish fatherland [wspólna ojczyzna polska]... Let an average Pole learn from them what Polish Jews achieved for Poland in the spiritual and material field, where and when they sacrificed their blood and their possessions for Poland’s sake, what they did in the Kościuszko insurrection, in 1863, in 1905, in the [Piłsudski’s] Legions. Let us search in the Archives of Old Documents [Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych] in Warsaw the documents of the central leadership of the insurrection, correspondence with the civil-military Commissions of Order. Let us point to the participation of thousands of our people (and not merely individuals as many believe) in the struggles for independence.

In the interwar period Jewish historians came to play a crucial role in providing the Polish Jewish community with a historical narrative. Learning about the past and filling the void constituted the essence of the historian’s mission. It also entailed laying down the foundations for “the national and social liberation of Jewish society in Poland.”[3] Writing in Yunger Historiker in 1926, Emanuel Ringelblum expressed his conviction that “when a Jewish historian reads an objective historical lecture in front of Polish colleagues – future high school teachers – even if it concerns the very distant past – he is contributing to the bonding of Polish and Jewish society.”[4]

This essay will focus on the ways in which Polish-Jewish historiography depicted Polish-Jewish relations in the past. In particular, it will examine the academic and popular writing of leading Jewish historians, such as Mayer Bałaban, Icchak Schiper, Moshe Schorr, Emanuel Ringelblum and Philip Friedman, in the decade before World War II. These scholars espoused Jewish nationalism while supporting the notion that Polish Jewry constituted a community with its own history, traditions and mentality. I will analyze the works they wrote in Polish because of their potential accessibility to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences and which addressed a particular segment of the Jewish population that might have been extremely disappointed with the deterioration in Polish Jewish relations.[5] I will investigate the ways in which Polish Jewish intellectuals accounted for past conflicts between Jews and Poles, and how they reconciled the vision of a shared Jewish past and the interconnectedness of the Polish and Jewish fate in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as during the partitions, in the context of Polish-Jewish relations in the second half of the 1930s.

The 1930s witnessed a heated debate about the status of Polish Jewry in the Polish state and in society, in which ideas about the essentially ethnic and Catholic character of the resurrected Polish Commonwealth were gaining increasing popularity.[6] Responding to the escalation of antisemitism in Germany after Hitler’s rise to power and to the deteriorating situation of the Jews in Poland, Jewish intellectuals resorted to history in their internal debates and in discussions in the public arena. Celebrating the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Poland’s independence in the fall of 1938, Moshe Schorr – rabbi, historian and member of the Polish Senate − declared:

Together with the entire public of the citizens of the state, Polish Jewry, which for centuries has been settled on Polish lands, participates with all its heart and soul in the joy aroused by this special moment of the twentieth century, since the resurrection of the most Enlightened Commonwealth [Najjaśniejsza Rzeczypospolita]. The Jewish community has a moral right to it, because during the period of 150 years of bondage it participated in the uprisings and struggles for its [Poland’s] liberation as well as the battles of the Great World War. It took part in the first years of shaping the framework of the Polish Commonwealth. In the following years [Polish Jewry] participated in creative work in all sectors of economic, cultural and social life – sacrificing a share of their means and their blood - together with all the Polish nation.[7]

Writing in Poland in the 1930s Jewish intellectuals and historians, in particular, found it necessary to impart group identity in an atmosphere of prevalent antisemitic rhetoric. While combining a separate Jewish identity with an immersion in general Polish history, they looked at the past in order to shed light on the present and give hope for the future.[8] Historical accounts of Polish-Jewish relations hardly reflected the sense of threat experienced by Polish Jews in Poland during the 1930s. The impact of this menace was greatly heightened by the close presence and influence of Nazi Germany. However, the vision of antisemitism that emerges from Jewish historical writing in 1930s’ Poland is one in which hatred of the Jews in not endemic. To borrow the term that Daniel Blatman coined for the attitudes of the left-wing underground Jewish press in the Warsaw ghetto, interwar historical writings also expressed “nostalgia for the future.”[9]

The Jews’ place in the economic structure

The economic role of the Jews proved to be a central element in the discussion of Polish-Jewish relations and the possible roots of anti-Jewish antagonism. Within this context, historians examined Jewish trade with a particular thoroughness. Some articles in the Jewish press bemoaned the occupational structure that had been formed during the course of Jewish history, Polish-Jewish history included. Moshe Schorr explained in his article “Towards Work”:

It is not our fault that we – an agricultural nation, who, on our own soil and by the toil of our own hands − were searching for an ideal, and in time not only did we lose the feeling for the blessed effort of our own hands, but we began to look down on craftsmen who see sense in their lives. We placed craftsmen almost at the very bottom of the social ladder. This tragedy of our goles [Yid., diaspora] and the blame for it should be laid rather on the consciousness of the Middle Ages.[10]

However, other Jewish historians of the Second Polish Republic were more positive in their assessments of the influence of Jewish trade. They pointed to the contributions of Jewish merchants from the dawn of the Polish state in the early Middle Ages, how they bore responsibility for the revival of international trade, and continued to play a decisively positive role in domestic and international trade in the Medieval and Early Modern periods.[11] Engaging in explicit polemics over Polish economic history, Schiper criticized a leading ideologue of the National Democracy, Roman Rybarski, for his claim about the negative influence of the domination of Jewish trade on the development and status of Polish towns, describing it as a “fictitious reality.”[12] Schiper, Bałaban and Ringelblum argued that the privileges that allowed Jewish trade to flourish in the Polish Kingdom and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were bestowed upon the Jews by the kings and the nobility.[13] Therefore Polish Jews bore no responsibility for this state of affairs, since:

Polish commerce was weakened by the process of absorption into the nobility [warstwa szlachecka] of the most prominent individuals from among the patriciate. Every prominent Polish merchant, having accumulated wealth, caste away the scales and tried very hard to rise to the rank of nobility, in order to become a part of the gentry... Polish commerce fell into decay because of this infiltration, its wealth melted away, its social standing deteriorated, and its strength in competition with the Jews weakened.[14]

Some writers considered such defensive historical arguments unnecessary. Asch regarded Polish Jews as “a productive element,” constituting “a part of the structure of this country and its conditions.” He wanted:

… to put an end to the legend, that a merchant is less worthy than a craftsman or a peasant. Poland cannot function as an exclusively agrarian state. It must, as every modern state, develop its industry and its trade. Amidst inhuman conditions, in the epoch of the tsar, the Jews enriched this land.[15]

Jewish trade served as a tool in the struggle of the nobility with the German – in the national and linguistic sense − patriciate of the towns.[16] Last but not least, despite the difficulties stemming from the economic situation in the country and the legal confines, Jewish experience and financial resources proved useful in setting up factories in the second half of the 18th century.[17]

Past Polish-Jewish relations served as an example of mutually beneficial coexistence, despite occasional conflicts. Jewish historical narratives underscored the bond between the Jews and the Polish state, of which the Jews were always loyal citizens with close links to the rest of the population. Examples demonstrating the familiar nature of social relations between Jews and non-Jews were given. In his work on the history of the Jews of Warsaw, Ringelblum argued:

More recent research about the… life of the Jews dispels the common legend about the Chinese wall that allegedly separated Jewish and Christian societies. However, research on Jewish culture and the life of Warsaw Jews indicates that both worlds permeated each other. The signs of mutual influence mark almost every field of life.[18]

He gave examples of “Jewish familiarity with the Polish population” as business partners or neighbors, including a case of a Jew and a nobleman drinking wine and playing dice together.[19] Ringelblum believed that historical sources revealed an image of mutual openness despite religious prohibitions: “Not only is the Chinese wall allegedly dividing Jews and Christians the figment of the imagination of old-style historians, but one should consider the proverbial religiosity of Polish Jews in the Middle Ages a legend.”[20] According to Schiper, German-speaking townspeople prevented fuller cultural integration of Jews in towns of the Polish Commonwealth, making the adoption of the Slavic language as a Jewish daily language impossible at first due to the German character of the urban population and only at a later stage due to general Polish-Jewish antagonism.[21]

The picture of Polish-Jewish relations that Jewish historians painted, however, was far from being idyllic. In Polish-language articles they argued that economic competition between various groups within the urban population affected Christian-Jewish relations most of all. Townspeople constituted the main antagonists of Polish Jews with whom they contended for commercial privileges from 1485 onwards:

Stall keepers fought against Jewish retailing and demanded close scrutiny of the agreements between townspeople and Jews, which forbade the latter to deal in retail goods… In this context there were continuous conflicts between the ‘common people’ and Jewish traders.[22]

The nobility tended to assist the Jews in these confrontations.[23] Ringelblum deemed that the first pogrom of Jews in Warsaw took place in 1454 or 1455:

Although… staged by the Bernardine Order, we consider it to be a result of competition between the townspeople and the Jews; this struggle was in fact the proverbial barrelful of explosives to which one needed only to add a spark for a catastrophe to happen. It would be naïve to explain away the pogrom as having been caused only by religious hatred. There were other motivations, usually hidden behind the guise of religion, which were in the majority of cases of a material nature.[24]

Ultimately, the townspeople’s hatred of Jewish competition failed to subvert the advantageous conditions of Jewish existence in the old Poland. Although the townspeople gradually managed to achieve

edicts and royal prescripts which limited the commercial freedom of the Jews, or signed pacts and settlements, which the towns, using advantageous circumstances, were able to force on the Jews. The reality was never as bad for the Jews as one might infer from the edicts and agreements. Limitations on Jewish trade, established by the pacts and court decisions were enforced only temporarily or in reality never enforced at all.[25]

Thus, despite economic competition and the struggle of the townspeople against Jewish trade, relations on the ground were often better than one could infer from some legal sources,[26] and “relations between Jews and Christians were peaceful and agreeable.”[27]

Polish Jewish historians in the 1930s pointed to such events and phenomena as the period of Catholic reaction in Poland during the 17th and 18th centuries, anti-Jewish propaganda, the Chmielnicki pogroms (1648−49), blood libel accusations, allegations of Jews spying for Poland’s enemies, and forced conversions.[28] Although downplaying their significance in the grand scheme of things, Ringelblum admitted that “many times economic antagonisms, incited by religious motivation, exploded in the form of pogroms, disturbances, etc.”[29] Schiper attributed the deterioration of relations among the common people in the towns to the influence of the counter-reformation as well as the effects of economic competition: “Religious hatred spread by the counter-reformation found… receptive ground in the milieu of stall keepers and artisans in towns,” who in turn “inflamed… economic antagonism between the townspeople and the Jews.”[30] At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries the impact of the clergy became even more sinister: “Catholic reaction and increasing religious intolerance... made their mark in Polish Jewish history through a long series of pogroms and trials in cases involving allegations of blood libel.”[31] Nevertheless, the model of economic competition as the leading factor contributing to periodic conflicts and anti-Jewish violence remained for the most part unquestioned.

Polish struggles for independence

The subject of the partitions as a formative period in the creation of modern national identity and Polish romantic mythology proved a leading element in the historical tale of Polish-Jewish relations. Discussing the events of the late 18th and 19th centuries, Jewish historians extended and consolidated the familiar theme of Polish-Jewish brotherhood by exemplifying figures who became symbols of the harmonious coexistence of Poles and Jews and their joint struggle for Poland’s freedom and independence. In one of his articles Zdzisław Zmigryder-Konopka – professor of ancient history at Warsaw University and a senator in the Polish parliament, listed such figures:

The history and the cultural traditions of Polish Jewry link it to the spiritual culture which flourished in the land where they lived. The aspiration to sustain and broaden this tradition harmonizes with the ideological testament of the Polish democrats of the 19th and 20th centuries and with the lives of such personalities as Berek Joselewicz, Henryk Wohl or Feliks Perl.[32]

The life and work of artist Maurycy Gottlieb also attracted considerable attention, since they represented a model in Polish-Jewish relations “in the field of spiritual coexistence and cultural rapprochement of both nations,” as one of the Jewish reviewers of his 1932 exhibition in the National Museum of Cracow noted.[33] He described Gottlieb as:

the first artist-Jew in Poland, in whose soul the duality of the Jewish spiritual situation in Polish lands expressed itself fullest and in depth... He was the first Jewish creator in Poland in whose soul these two vibrant streams came together – his Jewishness and Polishness − into one powerful and creative unity. Despite this tragic duality, he affirmed in himself both currents that had been placed in his soul by life and by history. He did not cover up his Jewishness or blur his Polishness. Lovingly he embraced both elements struggling within him and hugged them to his warm heart with all the passion of a Jew and an artist.[34]

Joselewicz, Wohl, Perl, Gottlieb and other nineteenth century Jewish personalities served as examples of a difficult, painful dual national identity but also of the integration of two national identities. Mayer Bałaban listed Berek Joselewicz, military commander of the Kościuszko uprising of 1794, and Rabbi Dov Ber Mejzels, who was linked to 19th century Polish national causes, as important lecture topics that might be organized by the Warsaw branch of B’nai Brith.[35] Czerniaków argued that they had to “digest and assimilate both elements creating a fusion.”[36] Such Jews loved Poland “not out of selfishness but felt [it] with all the fibers of [their] soul” and stayed faithful to their Jewishness and never “disgraced [themselves] by running away from the people out of which [they] grew.”[37]

The tradition of struggle for Polish independence was a topic that attracted significant attention among Jewish historians. It allowed them to discuss an aspect of Polish-Jewish relations that dealt not only with the degree of integration and mutual cultural influence but also touched directly on the question of Jewish patriotism. They stressed Jewish participation in military struggles and uprisings but also other types of assistance extended to Polish national causes. For example, according to Głos Gminy Żydowskiej in 1939, during the Kościuszko uprising of 1794: “Warsaw Jews: tailors [and] hat makers did a great deal of work, providing thousands of pairs of trousers, coats… hats for the army that was being organized.”[38] Berek Joselewicz became one of the most popular national symbols of Jewish heroism in Polish battles of the late 18th and 19th centuries and numerous articles were devoted to his life.[39] Historians also dealt with Poland’s struggle for independence during World War I in which they stressed that Jews had taken an active part. Bronisław Mansperl – a Jewish soldier who fought and fell in battle with Pilsudski's legions, became the embodiment of selfless patriotism and heroism.[40] The Jewish intelligentsia considered articles about such personalities to carry some weight in the public debates that were taking place in the 1930s over the character of the Polish state and the essence of Polish national identity.

The authors focused on positive aspects of Polish traditions which were being undermined in those debates. Zmigryder-Konopka called on the Polish and Jewish public to continue liberal traditions of openness toward Poland’s minorities to which Jews had contributed in the past since “the cultural bond of this good and noble legacy constitutes a value of tremendous importance for the Polish state.”[41]

Antisemitism as Foreign to the Polish Tadition

Relying on this notion of Poland’s “good and noble legacy,” history was to prove that hatred of the Jews was the result of foreign cultural influences which sometimes caused grievances and crises in Polish-Jewish relations. It was emphasized that conflicts occurred due to the impact of external factors. In his popular article of 1932, Bałaban characterized the relationship of Polish society toward the Jews in Poland as being ”totally exclusionist” since the beginning of the Jewish settlement in Polish lands from the 9th to the 12th century. He attributed this exclusion to the influence of the Justinian Code:

From the 6th century on the Christian societies took over; thus with the baptism of Mieczysław Polish society also adopted western attitudes toward the Jews as being unfaithful [and] existing beyond the pale of other estates. The more the currents from the West blew [over Poland] the more Polish society separated itself (nobility and the townspeople) from the Jews: with a wall, a trench, a fence and hatred.[42]

Similarly, describing the life of Cracow Jews in the 15th century, Bałaban bemoaned influences and ideas from the West that were “redemptive for Poland, but catastrophic for Polish Jewry. Western Europe displayed enmity toward the Jews… and the fruits of anti-Jewish literature found their way to Poland in various ways together with other works.”[43]

Ringelblum mentions the hatred of “the Jewish masses for Russia which was known for its policy of intolerance toward the Jews, and for the Russian army, particularly the Cossacks, recalled from earlier eras (the Chmielnicki pogroms), and the… 1768 Confederation at Bar.”[44] Anti-Jewish violence of the late 19th century and the pogroms of 1900−04, too, were planned, directed and provoked by the Russian authorities. For example, in 1900 “the worst instincts were unleashed against the Vilna Jews by the staging of a blood libel trial.”[45] When describing a wave of pogroms that devastated the northern and eastern borderlands of the Polish lands at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Schiper stressed that responsibility for their organization and implementation rested with the Russian authorities.[46] Similarly, when writing about the anti-Jewish violence of 1905−14, Schiper described it as a crime perpetrated by “dark reactionary forces” or “arranged by the army.”[47]

This notion of antisemitism being essentially foreign to Polish culture and tradition led Czerniaków to make a sarcastic remark about those responsible for the wave of antisemitism and the resulting rupture of the “radiant thread binding the sons of one land”: “Patriots, often of foreign and inimical origin, who have been living in Poland, in some cases for two or three centuries, fuel the flames. The blood calls these wolves back to the forest.”[48] Asch unmasked the supposedly true origin of contemporary radical Polish antisemitism:

However absurd this might sound, we have to state clearly that the current wave of ‘Jewish excesses’ in Poland is not a purely Polish creation, but an imported one – from Germany. The leaders of Polish hooligans do not let Adolf Hitler rest on his laurels… Altars to Adolf Hitler are being constructed not only in Germany, but also in this country for which he has a sword hidden in store. Look at the incense that is being burnt for him in this country.[49]

“The essence of Polishness” in the sense of an open and democratic society was embodied in and best expressed by spiritual and political leaders such as Tadeusz Kościuszko, romantic writers such as Adam Mickiewicz, and national leaders, most recently Józef Piłsudski, who was reputed to view minorities as the strength of a resurrected Poland.[50] Tolerance toward the Jews had been in the past an expression of an open society, one that would draw on the resources of all the inhabitants of various nationalities and creeds who lived in Polish lands.[51] On the other hand, this vision was personified by the Jews, who contributed significantly to the cultural and political life of the country, fought for its independence and yet remained Jewish. History served as a source of consolation and hope for the restoration of Polish-Jewish relations true to that legacy. Commenting on the decision of the rectors of Polish institutions of higher education to establish a ‘ghetto bench’ for Jewish students, one author expressed his over-optimistic belief that “the nation of Mickiewicz, Lelewel, Kościuszko and Puławski will not allow itself to impose imported slogans that are incompatible with Polish culture, and the spirit of true and homogeneous [zglajchszaltowany] Christianity.”[52]

Comparing the tradition of Polish-Jewish coexistence with the crisis and gradual marginalization of Jews in the public, social and professional arena of that time, Zmigryder-Konopka admitted in the summer of 1938 that, “this very moment can take away any hope for sustaining this tradition.”[53] He still trusted that the deterioration was the result of an aberration in contrast to “the great historical processes,”[54] suggesting that Jews should respond to it with – what he called – “the heroism of honesty” [heroizm rzetelności], according to which they would begin to produce “attractive values which will make the demagogy of some groupings about the alleged worthlessness of Jewish citizens in the eyes of future generations far from the truth.”[55]

The Danger of Apologetics

Jewish historians were aware of the danger of having their history in Poland merely serve as a way of ingratiating Jews with Polish society. Describing the patriotic fervor of Polish Jewry upon Poland’s resurrection as an independent political entity, Ozjasz Thon assured the readers of two volumes of Żydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej (Jews in Resurrected Poland): “I do not say that in order to prove my patriotism before this or that group, or this or that social circle, for captandam benevolentiam – for gaining a little bit of favor and merit with anybody.”[56] Historical writing on the participation of Jews in the Polish struggle under the partitions was particularly vulnerable to the danger of apologetics, which Ringelblum described as “looking [at historical sources] through a magnifying glass.”[57] In the introduction to his book entitled Jews in the Kościuszko Uprising, Ringelblum criticized the state of research on the topic as being overtly ideological:

The authors often came to radically contradictory conclusions. Some overestimated the role of the Jews in the insurrection, ascribing an exaggerated importance to Berek Joselewicz’s Jewish unit, while others negated Jewish participation in the uprising altogether, ascribing them a decidedly negative attitude toward it. Without a doubt, issues that had nothing to do with research were at work in both cases.[58]

Ringelblum accused writers of “being tendentious in their interpretation of the sources,” arguing that the only correct approach was to try to understand the context of Jewish attitudes to the uprising.[59] Thus he claimed that the Jewish intelligentsia and plutocracy showed no great interest in the cause of the Kościuszko insurgents, which he linked to their lack of Polish education leading to shortcomings in “merging with the local society”[60] and to the failure of projects for reforming Polish Jewry. Ringelblum contrasted their limited understanding and support for the uprising with the situation in 1830 and 1863 when “the Jewish intelligentsia educated in part in Polish schools, took a lively part in the struggle for freedom, simultaneously mobilizing Jewish society to fight the invader.”[61]

Conclusions

Jewish intellectuals and especially Jewish historians of two generations – those who had begun their academic careers before 1918 and those who attended universities in interwar Poland – paid close attention to past instances of conflict and cooperation in Polish-Jewish relations.[62] Writing extensively on the Jewish past in the Polish and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they focused on relations between the crown and the nobility with the Jews. The historians examined the processes that led to political and economic alliances and characterized the groups antagonistic toward the Jews. Discussing the period of the partitions, they pointed to Jewish contributions to the economy and culture of the Polish lands and particularly to Polish national culture, stressing examples of Jewish patriotism as positivist work “at the foundations” (u podstaw), but also their role in the armed struggles for Poland’s independence in the 19th and 20th centuries.[63]

Jewish historians tried to refute historical narratives in which Jews were portrayed as foreign and harmful elements in the past and, by implication, in the Polish present. A positive assessment of the history of Polish-Jewish relations was to constitute evidence for contemporary adversaries. Such a narrative attested to the possibility of Polish-Jewish coexistence and described mutual benefits of the integration of the Jews into Polish social, cultural and economic life. History thus became an intellectual refuge where integration remained a viable option in a political climate which was strongly influenced and at times dominated by the demand for the emigration of the Jews from Poland, and/or for their marginalization within the country.[64]

The discussion about the nature of Polish-Jewish relations in the past served as an important commentary on the crisis of the second half of the 1930s, with the emergence of a radical antisemitic ideology and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.[65] “Polish Jews know that this country is also theirs and that they have nowhere to go,” declared Shalom Asch, noting that their rights were rooted deeply in history. Pointing to the historical coexistence of Poles and Jews, Asch stated: “For over one thousand years both streams, Poles and Jews, were floating in the same river bed which is called the Polish land.” He argued that “since the Jews were allowed to join in the defense, they fought for their motherland [w obronie tej swojej ziemi rodzinnej], from the Kościuszko uprising to Napoleon, to the uprisings of 1830 and 1863, to the last war, which fulfilled Poland’s hopes.”[66] Thus, Jews over the centuries – in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and during the period of the partitions – had earned full civil rights in Poland. Therefore, concluded Asch: “The Poles must make the Jews part of their state program [program państwowy],” and “a brotherly coexistence of both nations… is a necessity for our dear and tear-stained land.”[67]

The sense of deep contemporary crisis, particularly in the second half of the 1930s, shaped and influenced the interpretations of earlier Polish Jewish history, particularly the issue of the Jews’ place in Poland and the nature of Polish Jewish identity. Analysis of the texts that constitute the bulk of the discussion allows us to understand the internal discourses among the intelligentsia of this highly diversified, politicized and divided community. It also permits the reconstruction of the narrative they wanted to present to a potential non-Jewish audience. I argue that they were engaged in constructing “a usable Jewish past” with history supporting their claim for the moral right of Polish Jews to equal status and for Poland to be considered their home.[68]

In the interwar period, Jewish historians’ perception of Polish-Jewish relations in the past seemed hardly to have changed in comparison to their work on the eve of World War I. It appears highly unlikely that they did not take note of the crisis. On the contrary, Jewish political leaders and publicists expressed their disappointment. Possibly, it was less manifest in their historical writing because of the sense of mission that directed Jewish historians and which made them search for arguments for the Jewish contribution to Poland’s greatness in the past and to Polish-Jewish coexistence.[69] The understanding of Polish-Jewish relations and the notions of conflict and coexistence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in the period of partitions would be reappraised and re-evaluated by Jewish historians with the outbreak of World War II and the reality of the Nazi occupation.[70] On 9 July 1942, Czerniaków noted in his diary:

In the afternoon Polish urchins [keep] throwing stones over the little wall to Chlodna Street. Ever since we removed the bricks and stones from the middle of Chlodna Street, they have not got much ammunition left. I have often asked myself the question whether Poland is Mickiewicz and Slowacki or whether it is that urchin. The truth lies in the middle.[71]