The Polish Book Burning

        

Commentary by Dr. Gerhard Falk

        

Poland 2021

On November 13, 2021, a prominent Polish politician, Wojciech Olszański, burned a book in public on a street in the town of Kalisz, a city of 100,000 inhabitants. The book, published in the 13th century, guarantees Jews the right to live in Poland.  As the book burned, the population stood in the streets and shouted in chorus, “Death to the Jews.” This expression of hate continues the Polish–Christian involvement of the mass murder of three million Jews who lived in Poland during the occupation of Poland by the German army between 1939 and 1945. Then, as now, the vast majority of Christians in Poland, a country of 37 million, participated vigorously in killing almost all Polish Jews. Polish citizens worked in the Nazi death camps and benefited a great deal from the mass murder of the Polish Jews, as the Christians stole all the possessions of the slaughtered Jews, including houses, furniture, pictures, kitchen utensils, bedding, and clothes. Like the citizens of every European country occupied by German troops, the Poles searched Jewish homes for money, their greed knowing no limits.  The book burning resembled the book burning conducted by the Nazis in Germany. Note that the syllable NAZI is a part of the German word NAZIONAL or “National” in English. Hitler’s party was called Die (The) Nazional Sozialistische (socialist) Deutsche (GermAn) Arbeiter (workers) Partei.

The current Jewish population of Poland is only 10,000, so that most Poles have never seen a Jew. Yet, to this day they scream in the streets “death to the Jews,” and they mean it.

It is hard to believe that even one Jew still lives in Poland. Even in Germany, there are laws prohibiting death threats against Jews, but in Poland it was Kristallnacht all over again.

Shalom u’vracha.

 Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The American Jewish Community in the 20th and 21st Century (2021).

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