The Geography of Forgiveness

I’m reposting an essay I wrote over a year ago that is close to my heart, yet few of you have read it because it was behind a paywall. It’s about the time I traveled to Poland, my reluctance to go, and my complicated feelings after returning. Some readers strongly disagreed with my sentiments, including Professor Christopher Kowalski, who shared his thoughts in a separate essay.

Heroes, Villains, and History's Gray Areas

This is a sensitive topic for me because of my uncle Shlomo, his personal story, and the tremendous impact he had on my life. He passed away a few years ago, but I remain grateful for all that he taught me over the years. I miss him dearly.

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Every Mother’s Day, I send out two cards: one to my mother in Montreal and one to my second mother in New York City.

My second mother is in reality my aunt, my mother’s eldest sister, Rachella. Because my aunt was born in Yemen, where they did not keep such records, she does not know how old she is or the date of her birth. My family guesses that she might now be 86, and she marks her birthday as the day she immigrated to the US in her early 30s. Rachella has always treated me as a son. Growing up in my chaotic and sometimes unsafe childhood home, Rachella was a beacon of love, a guardian, and the most generous person I know. I love her completely.

Rachella married Shlomo when I was in grade 7, but I had loved him long before. Shlomo instilled in me a love of science; he always lifted me up and encouraged me. He was my role model.

When Shlomo told me he had grown up in Będzin, Poland, in the 1930s, I couldn’t grasp what he meant. When Shlomo spoke of a sister I knew only through faded sepia photographs, I couldn’t grasp what he had lost. And when Shlomo refused to explain the strange numbers etched into his arm, I couldn’t grasp what he had endured. It wasn’t until I was older—until I learned of Auschwitz and its horrors—that I began to understand. At the same age I was playing road hockey with friends, Shlomo was fighting to survive in a world trying to erase him.

His story didn’t end in tragedy, but it didn’t end easily either. He escaped Europe after spending time in a displaced persons camp with his surviving brother. They both gained passage to the US, where they built new and remarkable lives for themselves. Yet, the scars of his early life never fully healed. He had nightmares until the day he died a few years ago, his sleep haunted by what he endured. He struggled in his relationships, sometimes letting others take advantage of his kindness. Despite his many achievements, he never seemed comfortable in his own skin, as if constantly needing to prove his worth. His survival was a triumph, but it came at a cost he carried for the rest of his life.

So, when I think of Poland, I think of my uncle Shlomo and the tattoo on his arm that he refused to have removed. When I think of Poland, I think of a land that had once been hospitable to Jews.

Yeah, this is going to be another post about Jew hate. I won’t make a habit of it, but I recently visited Poland, where I was giving a university talk, and could not shake my feelings of discomfort while there. I never have the same feelings when I visit Germany, however. I want to use this post to wrestle with why.

Poland once hosted a Jewish population of 3.5 million, often called the “Paradise of the Jews” for its tolerance. By the war’s end, 93% had been exterminated, leaving only 10,000–20,000 Jews today.

The German occupying force was brutal and efficient. The scale of the Germans’ murderous scheming is unparalleled and remains today the epitome of evil. Many Jews today cannot and will not step foot on German soil. My wife, who loves traveling, refuses to visit Germany. Some Jews avoid buying German products. I recall as a high-schooler how my mother’s friend Sophia—a Lebanese Jewish woman all the boys had crushes on—admonishing me for my German-made Faber-Castell eraser. I can still hear her raspy, accented voice explaining how even hearing German being spoken gave her shivers of fear.

Yet, I hold no animus toward Germans today. These are the authors of my father’s grandparents’ murder, but I have forgiven, moved on. Why? Germans did the unthinkable but have since wrestled with and taken responsibility for it. They faced their history with honesty, creating monuments, laws against hate speech, and offering reparations.

I am a forgiving person. I can forgive even the unforgivable. But you need to ask for it, truly and deeply. Germany has done this. And as such, I have no ambivalence when I visit Berlin, Cologne, or Tubingen. I feel comfortable there and truly admire German culture and people.

But Poland…

Let me just say that I feel like an ingrate for writing about these feelings, particularly given the kindness of my Polish hosts. Despite the generosity I received, I couldn’t shake my sense of unease there. Certainly, my uncle Shlomo’s experience and the near-complete annihilation of Polish Jewry explains some of my discomfort. But Poles were also victimized by the Germans. The Nazis occupied Poland and terrorized Poles, who were deported to Germany and sent to forced labour and concentration camps too. The Nazis murdered many, many non-Jewish Polish civilians during the war.

So why would I feel more comfortable in the land of the oppressors than in the land of the oppressed? Because some Poles were also oppressors. Yes, sometimes victims are also victimizers. Certain factions within Polish society victimized their Jewish neighbours, actively collaborating with the Germans, sometimes enthusiastically.

It is now well-documented that some Poles chose to kill Jews. They actively participated in rounding up their Jewish neighbours, sometimes volunteering their efforts but more often accepting payment to betray their fellow Poles. And after the war, when Europe was liberated, some Poles continued to kill Jews, particularly those who tried to return to their homes, which were often occupied by strangers. In the first year after liberation, more than 1,000 Polish Jews were killed, not by Germans but by the local Polish population. There were still pogroms in Poland after the war, most notably in the city of Kielce.

I could go on. But I won’t. If I were in the same situation as a poor Polish peasant, maybe I too would give up my neighbour to feed my children, even knowing what would happen to them. The fact that some Polish people participated in atrocities does not make them unique. Evil, after all, can be banal.

Like I said, I am a forgiving sort. I want to forgive. But has Poland asked for forgiveness? Have the guilty admitted to their active participation in the mass murder of their Jewish neighbours?

Paintings sold on the streets of Krakow

In 2000, a full 55 years after the war, the Polish-American historian Jan Gross published the book Neighbors about the destruction of a Polish Jewish community in 1941. Refuting the common Polish story that the occupying Germans were the sole perpetrators of this mass murder, the book states that some of the perpetrators were also ordinary Polish civilians. There was an outcry in Poland when the book was published, with many denying Polish involvement. Later forensic studies confirmed the book’s central claim of Polish complicity, though the exact number of victims remains debated.

But this fact had been well known among Jews for decades. I remember learning about it in my Jewish high school in Montreal in the late 80s, based on many survivor witness accounts. So, why did it take over half a century for Poland to admit their own wrongdoing and complicity? Why did the publication of this book cause so much controversy in Poland? Some of it was no doubt due to Poland being behind the Iron Curtain for so many years with strict limits on free speech and the sort of self-criticism that free speech allows.

Poland is now trying to make amends, but there are consequences when a nation denies its own evil for too long. This evil can rise again and more quickly. On Good Friday of 2019, for example, some people in the town of Pruchnik dragged an effigy of a Jew through the streets before hanging it and setting it on fire. The last populist government of Poland, no longer in power, passed a law making it illegal to discuss Polish complicity in the war. Although the populist government backed down from the worst aspect of this law—it is no longer a jailable criminal offense, but a finable civil offense—it has still made life difficult for some. Professor Michał Bilewicz, for example, is a Jewish social psychologist who studies genocide and antisemitism, and he is widely praised for the quality of his scholarship. However, the Polish President has refused to sign off on granting him full professorship because of Bilewicz’s insistence that some Poles collaborated and were not exclusively victims. Bilewicz is still waiting for his well-deserved promotion to this day.

To be sure, Poland’s story doesn’t end there. Over the decades, there have been real efforts within Poland to confront this past. Initiatives like the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw or Kraków’s Galicia Jewish Museum have spearheaded public conversations about Polish-Jewish relations. Liberal newspapers like Gazeta Wyborcza actively promote reconciliation. Yet, these efforts coexist with deeply ingrained stereotypes and resistance to historical accountability among certain groups. And some of these stereotypes are promulgated by the Polish state: Polish textbooks given to school children, for example, continue to peddle in antisemitic tropes. Clearly, a lot more work is needed for real reconciliation to occur.

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When I visited Krakow, I did not see any overt denial of history or any hostility. Everyone I met was charming and welcoming and kind. But some things felt off. While wandering Krakow’s old city, I noticed paintings of stereotypical Jews—usually men, often bearded and black-hatted, and always handling coins. When I asked an artist about the images, she said they were believed to bring good luck and financial fortune. I later learned this is a common Polish superstition, with sales of stereotypical Jewish figurines handling money a common feature in parts of Poland.

That evening, I dined at a Jewish restaurant in Krakow’s former Jewish quarter. The food was classic Ashkenazi and delicious, but the setting was not quite right; paintings of stereotypical Jews adorned the walls for example. Worse, I later realized that it was Yom Kippur eve—the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar when observant Jews fast for over 24 hours—so no authentic Jewish establishment, let alone restaurant would be open, making the experience feel like a performance of Jewishness.

I had many interesting conversations in Poland and returned home with good memories. I’d like to return one day. Hopefully, this piece will not foreclose that possibility.

But forgiveness is only possible when people take responsibility, a lesson my Uncle Shlomo knew all too well. He kept that tattoo as a testament to his survival, a mark of what couldn’t be erased. Forgiveness requires honesty, a willingness to confront dark truths, even if they can’t be undone. While some liberal corners of Poland are making strides toward this reckoning, denial and defensiveness persist in other parts of the country. Perhaps one day, these efforts will coalesce, and I’ll find myself ready, at last, to forgive.

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Coda

Reflecting on this piece—which I wrote a few months ago—I’m reminded of the criticism Ta-Nehisi Coates received for The Message, his anti-Israel book accused of presenting a one-sided narrative without engaging dissenting views. Did I, like Coates, focus on what aligns with my discomfort while overlooking signs of progress or the nuances of modern Polish society? Was I too quick to see stereotypes while neglecting efforts at reconciliation and the diversity of Polish thought?

Perhaps my discomfort stems less from Poland itself and more from the lens I’ve brought with me. Had I sought out more contemporary voices or ventured beyond the tourist sites, maybe my impressions would have been different. I can’t help but wonder if I’m holding Poland to a higher standard because its relationship to my history feels more personal.

This post is me wrestling with all of this, and I now realize just how easy it is to tell a story that feels true enough but isn’t the whole truth.