War Museum in Gdansk can unite Poles
Dear offended Poles: the article states that, allegedly, the museum already does a very good job covering the tremendous Polish heroism and Polish suffering & sacrifice — which is undoubtedly substantial — not to mention the entire history of Polish-Russian-German friendship before WW2. If that’s indeed the case, why doesn’t the plight of Polish Jews and ethnic Germans deserve a substantial place at the museum as well? Poland is, after all, the country that less than a century ago was home to most of the world’s Yiddish speakers and today is home to practically none.
I understand that many of you are wary of what you feel is foreigners casting judgement on Poles as backwards and uncivilized, while having only a superficial understanding of Polish history, how it touched people's families and how people feel about it, or of why the euro-favored Polish government lost power in favor of PiS (whatever the turnout was — PiS voters clearly felt strongly enough to show up and vote when half of the electorate didn't). I'm sure these grievances have legitimate grounds. I also understand how this colors any criticism from the other side (eg pro-euro supporters & foreign press).
And I think the opposition to these Jewish- and ethnic German-centric museum exhibits has to do with a suspicion that they will doubtless point out that, during WW2, some Poles were anti-Semites out collaborationists and contributed to persecution of the Jews (as in earlier pogroms), and likewise that the ethnic Germans didn't just suddenly decide to move to Germany. It's obviously ridiculous to think that these shameful pages of Polish history somehow characterize Poles as a nation, both then and today. It absolutely does not. Scoundrels and criminals have no nationality. Even there, xenophobia and intolerance shows up reliably everywhere people have a hard life, are anxious about what tomorrow might bring for them and their families. Then there are the people who are guilty of not being heroes. We have no right to judge them from the safety and satiety of our armchairs. When push comes to shove, we're not different. Last but not least, for every butcher there's a Janusz Korczak, an extraordinary human being and a Pole of Jewish ethnicity, in that order — and it is ludicrous to imagine that he saw his children as Jewish or Polish. Gas chambers care about nationality not one bit either.
So I think a war museum is something that can and should bring Poles together, not apart, and telling the stories of how ethnic Poles, Jews and Germans suffered alike but apart should be no obstacle — this way, in fact, they add up to a single story that is more powerful and poignant. I hope that the Polish people will be able to recognize and set aside today's heated and often bitter rhetoric from both sides and take this opportunity to say that history is never simple, we will disagree about it and that it's made of people just like us that through our lives will do good things and then bad things and sometimes exceptionally good or evil things, and sometimes all at the same time. And so it's difficult and we need to talk about it all the same and never stop. And it is to the benefit of all Poles to do so. In fact, Treblinka and Auschwitz are my history, and it's absolutely irrelevant that I'm a Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainian, born in Chisinau/Kishinev, carry a Canadian passport and live in the US. And it's the kind of history where it's absolutely irrelevant whether my great-grandfather died as an 18-year old kid "for Stalin" (which he did), "for Hitler", for Poland, or as a civilian — a small consolation — in nobody's name.
