On Socialists and Semi-Fascists
When I first encountered Abba Kovner's book at the Vancouver Public Library, I did something I had never done before; writing to the publisher with a list of suggested corrections for future editions. Most of these concerned the side commentary, some clearly not written by Kovner before his death and others almost surely problems of the English translation only. It was thus quite possible that I was one of very few still alive to be adequately familiar with much of the story and to read the book in its English translation. Also, while Abba Kovner was far more knowledgeable than I, or possibly anyone, with the story as a whole, there was at least one aspect where he also was subject to an almost universal misinformation, but where I had been directly involved. It concerned a boy about my age from Dinslaken, a small town in the Ruhr district not far from Dortmund, where I came from; who also was expelled from Germany and confined to Zbaszyn.
The response from the Jewish Publication Society, who had published the book (see preceding posting), was to acknowledge the corrections with thanks, but that a second edition did not appear likely. They clearly were also surprised, and disappointed, by it. So when I came across the book by Yitzkhak Zuckerman, the only one with comparable authority to bear witness on what has been the subject of a constant stream of less informed books, I saw no point wasting my time with the minor corrections that could have helped there , too. What I have seen since, seems to confirm the impression that there again will not be another edition.
On the other hand, there are quite a few websites repeating a novel version of events by one (Moshe Arens) with less first hand knowledge of background and events in Warsaw than the very limited one I have, but with a decidedly less sympathetic attitude toward Zuckerman; as we probably should have expected from a long time Revisionist politician.The question may be whether they will decide what will be remembered in the future.
From the various accounts I had read (long before coming across the "Antek" book), their Betar was the only group that formed their own separate resistance outfit (ZZW) apart from the ZOB. The rationale was that, unlike the other Zionist youth groups who wanted to build kibbutzim (and other agricultural settlements peacefully, while defending themselves when attacked), the Revisionists explicitly wanted to conquer the land (on both banks of the Jordan river) by force of arms; "blood and fire" they sang. By a secret deal that would sound too insane if summarized here briefly, some of their people from Palestine had indeed been trained before the war for military action by Polish army officers of the increasingly antisemitic post-Pilsudski ND regime; and returned home for their terrorist activity. I had also read of tunnels they had dug to the "Aryan" side, for bringing in supplies and through which they expected to leave for the forests after a brief, spectacular fight in the ghetto; which latter they did, flying Polish and David Star flags over their headquarters. But that they were betrayed by their Polish allies beyond the tunnels and killed by the Germans without reaching the forests.
Arens cannot really claim that the fight of their ZZW was kept from the public. If any have a basis for such complaint, it is the anti-Zionist groups in the ZOB, Communist and Bund; at least in Israeli and Western sources.
In the book, Antek also describes other reasons for Betar non participation in the ZOB in some detail, which Arens does not address. Instead he keeps harping on the ZOB "Socialists" in an obvious attempt to appeal to readers hostile to socialists. For an old Revisonist, he shows unexpected honesty in at least mentioning the Akiva "General Zionists", maybe hoping readers won't notice that they were not socialists, but part of the ZOB. All non-fascists could be labeled Socialists by fascists at that time, thus justifying things like violently breaking up their meetings. All Arens says on this, is that the others regarded his Betar as "semi-fascist". Even if you are not of my advanced age group, with memories of their pride at their leader's (Jabotinsky) reception by Mussolini, you should have no problem googling such ties. Since the Einstein Year, celebrating 100 years since the most outstanding series of papers in the history of science, is now at an end, let me just recall that Einstein generally avoided that F word when expressing his disparaging opinion of them; but that he did co-sign a letter to the New York Times warning against the fascist nature of Begin's party when the latter came to New York to give it a democratic veneer.
If Antek touched on that at all in his book, he sure doesn't emphasize it. He seems to have been an especially unifying figure in a fractious environment. And his role was not confined to Warsaw. He travelled to organize ZOB branches far away, without wearing the obligatory Jew badge, which by itself could have got him shot had he been caught. The book simply tells the story as he (also others) remembers it, and Arens wants to discredit it and to substitute one in which the ZZW are the main resisters who died fighting, so none to speak of were left to tell the tale. Until he found new memories in 2003.
Arens consistently refers to Zuckerman as Cukierman, apparently the Polish spelling, rather than the normal one transcribed from Hebrew or Yiddish / German. On the other hand, he calls the Revisionist leader, who didn't come to live in (pre)Israel, by the Hebrew Zeev; whom I saw in an English language right wing Polish website referred to as Wolodimierz Jabotinsky. Wolodimierz had already shown the same pretensions described above much earlier when, having lost his bid for Zionist leadership to Weizman, he quit and formed the separate "New Zionist" organization. Again later, when the State of Israel was proclaimed, the terrorist disciples of Wolodimierz wanted to keep their own private little armies, until Ben Gurion made very clear they would serve in the one Israeli army (Tzahal) or their leaders would be in jail (Begin et al; Arens remained in the USA, I believe). Tzahal's predecessor Haganah, consisted of the same Zionist spectrum as that in the Warsaw ZOB, i.e. all but Wolodimierz's folks, who had quit, and democratic socialists of various stripes / degree again the most involved.
The Israeli Likud party has often been called the latest version of the Revisionists; not quite accurately, since it also incorporated others, e.g. the right wing of those General Zionists. It was true of the prime ministers, Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu. Arens, who didn't succeed in his bid, had looked like less of a demagogue to me. Maybe I shouldn't have spent all this space on his Warsaw snow job, at the expense of something on Zbaszyn intended earlier here. In any case, they are not the only ones working on distortion of our historical memory; which can only benefit if the recent news from Israel means that a rump Revisionists' Likud will return to the margin they used to occupy.
The response from the Jewish Publication Society, who had published the book (see preceding posting), was to acknowledge the corrections with thanks, but that a second edition did not appear likely. They clearly were also surprised, and disappointed, by it. So when I came across the book by Yitzkhak Zuckerman, the only one with comparable authority to bear witness on what has been the subject of a constant stream of less informed books, I saw no point wasting my time with the minor corrections that could have helped there , too. What I have seen since, seems to confirm the impression that there again will not be another edition.
On the other hand, there are quite a few websites repeating a novel version of events by one (Moshe Arens) with less first hand knowledge of background and events in Warsaw than the very limited one I have, but with a decidedly less sympathetic attitude toward Zuckerman; as we probably should have expected from a long time Revisionist politician.The question may be whether they will decide what will be remembered in the future.
From the various accounts I had read (long before coming across the "Antek" book), their Betar was the only group that formed their own separate resistance outfit (ZZW) apart from the ZOB. The rationale was that, unlike the other Zionist youth groups who wanted to build kibbutzim (and other agricultural settlements peacefully, while defending themselves when attacked), the Revisionists explicitly wanted to conquer the land (on both banks of the Jordan river) by force of arms; "blood and fire" they sang. By a secret deal that would sound too insane if summarized here briefly, some of their people from Palestine had indeed been trained before the war for military action by Polish army officers of the increasingly antisemitic post-Pilsudski ND regime; and returned home for their terrorist activity. I had also read of tunnels they had dug to the "Aryan" side, for bringing in supplies and through which they expected to leave for the forests after a brief, spectacular fight in the ghetto; which latter they did, flying Polish and David Star flags over their headquarters. But that they were betrayed by their Polish allies beyond the tunnels and killed by the Germans without reaching the forests.
Arens cannot really claim that the fight of their ZZW was kept from the public. If any have a basis for such complaint, it is the anti-Zionist groups in the ZOB, Communist and Bund; at least in Israeli and Western sources.
In the book, Antek also describes other reasons for Betar non participation in the ZOB in some detail, which Arens does not address. Instead he keeps harping on the ZOB "Socialists" in an obvious attempt to appeal to readers hostile to socialists. For an old Revisonist, he shows unexpected honesty in at least mentioning the Akiva "General Zionists", maybe hoping readers won't notice that they were not socialists, but part of the ZOB. All non-fascists could be labeled Socialists by fascists at that time, thus justifying things like violently breaking up their meetings. All Arens says on this, is that the others regarded his Betar as "semi-fascist". Even if you are not of my advanced age group, with memories of their pride at their leader's (Jabotinsky) reception by Mussolini, you should have no problem googling such ties. Since the Einstein Year, celebrating 100 years since the most outstanding series of papers in the history of science, is now at an end, let me just recall that Einstein generally avoided that F word when expressing his disparaging opinion of them; but that he did co-sign a letter to the New York Times warning against the fascist nature of Begin's party when the latter came to New York to give it a democratic veneer.
If Antek touched on that at all in his book, he sure doesn't emphasize it. He seems to have been an especially unifying figure in a fractious environment. And his role was not confined to Warsaw. He travelled to organize ZOB branches far away, without wearing the obligatory Jew badge, which by itself could have got him shot had he been caught. The book simply tells the story as he (also others) remembers it, and Arens wants to discredit it and to substitute one in which the ZZW are the main resisters who died fighting, so none to speak of were left to tell the tale. Until he found new memories in 2003.
Arens consistently refers to Zuckerman as Cukierman, apparently the Polish spelling, rather than the normal one transcribed from Hebrew or Yiddish / German. On the other hand, he calls the Revisionist leader, who didn't come to live in (pre)Israel, by the Hebrew Zeev; whom I saw in an English language right wing Polish website referred to as Wolodimierz Jabotinsky. Wolodimierz had already shown the same pretensions described above much earlier when, having lost his bid for Zionist leadership to Weizman, he quit and formed the separate "New Zionist" organization. Again later, when the State of Israel was proclaimed, the terrorist disciples of Wolodimierz wanted to keep their own private little armies, until Ben Gurion made very clear they would serve in the one Israeli army (Tzahal) or their leaders would be in jail (Begin et al; Arens remained in the USA, I believe). Tzahal's predecessor Haganah, consisted of the same Zionist spectrum as that in the Warsaw ZOB, i.e. all but Wolodimierz's folks, who had quit, and democratic socialists of various stripes / degree again the most involved.
The Israeli Likud party has often been called the latest version of the Revisionists; not quite accurately, since it also incorporated others, e.g. the right wing of those General Zionists. It was true of the prime ministers, Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu. Arens, who didn't succeed in his bid, had looked like less of a demagogue to me. Maybe I shouldn't have spent all this space on his Warsaw snow job, at the expense of something on Zbaszyn intended earlier here. In any case, they are not the only ones working on distortion of our historical memory; which can only benefit if the recent news from Israel means that a rump Revisionists' Likud will return to the margin they used to occupy.
posted by solar_sol | 5:45 PM
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