Entry Denied

An e-mail from Gush Shalom included an appeal from an Israel Committee for the Right of Residency (ICRR) concerning entry denials to the occupied territories with strong resemblances to what happened to Jewish citizens of Poland living in, and expelled from, Nazi Germany in October 1938. The event is now remembered almost only for leading indirectly to the Kristallnacht pogrom a week later, after Herschel Grynszpan, whose family, like mine, was among those expelled, fatally shot vom Rath of the German embassy in Paris. My posting of January 6, 2006 has a brief description of what actually happened to us in Dortmund: being woken up by brownshirted stormtroopers (SA) banging on our door, exhibited with all others on the central city square, then put on a special train to the Polish border; where the Polish government refused to admit the Jews who had been born in what had since become Polish territory. Some pertinent background not included in that posting is given in the next two paragraphs before the ICCR appeal.

That "Polenaktion", the first Nazi "Aktion" in which children were also targeted, was not just a German atrocity. Most of our parents' generation had been born in what became the second Polish Republic after World War I, but had really been born in, and come to Germany from, one of the three empires that had kept partitioning Poland among themselves, predominantly from the Habsburg one. Getting German citizenship had been almost impossible, even for those of us who had been born in Germany. But when the Polish state was revived, its government had undertaken to provide citizenship to people born in the areas now to be part of Poland. Passports were renewed periodically, without problems.Then, near the end of October 1938 the increasingly authoritarian and antisemitic Polish government made clear that it would no longer renew passports, or recognize still valid ones (at least for Jews), beyond the end of the month.

That the Nazis were taken by surprise and had to decide fast, if they were not to have a lot of stateless Jews, is shown by the lack of preparation and the poor organization of the expulsions. In turn, the Polish authorities were not prepared for the way the Nazis reacted and had to improvise their own reaction. There were stories of people being chased back and forth by rifle fire from both the German and the Polish side of the border; even of many thus killed. Apparently none were, and it now appears likely that from the Polish side there was shooting with only one group, and that was above their heads. As to Polish policy, there is ample documentation now of demographic considerations and steps taken to decrease the percentage of Jews in Poland. So they decided : Entry denied; to the Grynszpans, to us and thousands of others.

The following excerpts from the appeal of the Israel Committee for the Right of Residency, ICRR, start at the beginning.:
"In March 2006, the Israeli government initiated a policy of visa denial to individuals of Palestinian descent having foreign passports, many of whom Israel has arbitrarily denied residency rights to in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Many of these persons have lived in the OPT for years without succeeding to obtain residency rights ……… These people have managed to stay in the Occupied Palestinian Territory by means of tourist visas issued by the Israeli government. Such visas are valid for three months. Their holders are obliged to go abroad to renew them ……..[but] have no assurance that they will be allowed to return, and in recent years the number of people denied reentry has increased significantly ……… And only today, December 5, 2006, we learn from the Palestinian campaign for entry rights, of an escalation in Israeli policy. The Ministry of Interior now refuses to process visa extensions at all. .. As a result of this 'entry-denied' policy, families are torn apart, schooling for the children is disrupted, and economic disasters follow."

[Although there are differences, most notably in that their foreign passports entitle them to go to the issuing country, this part is very close to what was happening to us at the (German-) Polish border and is clearly also motivated by the "demographic threat", albeit this time from non Jews. The latter probably also figures in the following]:

" Among the entry-denied individuals are professionals from foreign countries who are not necessarily Palestinian. This group includes physicians, teachers ….. and professionals in a variety of fields filling critically important positions in hospitals, schools, universities, and social institutions……[They] leave a vacuum in institutions unable to find replacements. This is devastating for all concerned, and has life-threatening implications particularly in the field of medical care"
" A group of concerned Israeli citizens has organized to protest this injustice which stands in gross contradiction to Israel's self-declared image as a democratic state supportive of human rights and aspiring to a peaceful resolution of its conflict with the Palestinian people. ….. We have been meeting with staffs of foreign embassies in Israel and have called upon them to use their good offices……However, embassies do not make policy."

" We therefore call upon you, people of conscience living abroad, to organize campaigns to inform your officials in your countries about Israel's policy of 'entry-denied. …… write letters of protest to the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, and for those of you who are academics or are in the medical profession to additionally write to the Minister of Education and Minister of Health."

The ICRR asked to have this distributed widely. I tried to have it disseminated by what seemed a suitable Canadian outfit; no success, so I have to hope this achieves something. The full appeal, with addresses to write to, is at http://www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/Palestina/palestina312.htm