Behind the Headlines the Jews of Poland

It snowed on the first Passover seder night in Warsaw this year. Thick snow flakes fell over the sad and dismal city as several hundred Jewish families, the remainder of what was once one of the world’s largest Jewish communities, were preparing to celebrate the Jewish feast of freedom.

After the excitement but also the anarchy of last year, Warsaw had gone into a slumber on December 13 when the army took over the country’s government. The seder was the first occasion for the Jewish community to celebrate. Few wanted to miss it, even those who generally try to conceal their Jewishness and melt into the general population, the “submarines” as they call themselves in derision.

This year, the seder celebrations started early so as to end at 10 p.m. at the latest. At II, curfew starts and Warsaw turns into a ghost town in which only armed soldiers pace in the streets between the high, dark buildings.

Officially, it is believed that some 5,000 to 6,000 Jews are left in Poland. Unofficially, some 7,000 more live all year round as Poles and only occasionally emerge into the open. On seder night it seemed as if most wanted, for once, to openly assume their Jewishness.

FOOD AVAILABLE FOR PASSOVER

The Joint Distribution Committee had shipped weeks earlier Hungarian baked matzoh and Israeli “Kosher le Pessach” wines. Jewish housewives had also been lining up for days for the traditional carp chicken for the matzoh ball soup, and even for the herring, port of the local Jewish tradition.

For once luck was with them. The Jewish Pessach practically coincided with the Catholic Easter and larger than usual quantities of food were distributed. Competition in the shops was tougher but the official rations were easier to obtain. Even the voaka ration was doubled, from one to two bottles per month.

Warsaw’s main seder was celebrated at the community center. Over 50 people gathered into the old, half-run down building at Twarda Ulytza across from the wartime little ghetto, only a short walk away from the Umschlagplatz where the city’s Jews were taken by the Germans for their ultimate ride to their final destinations.

Today, the area, with the exception of the community center and the old Nozyk Synagogue, has been rebuilt. The Polish Ministry for Religious Affairs has also started work on the synagogue and plans to modernize the community center next year.

People started arriving at the community center shortly before five p.m. By six, the hall was full: a sad group of old and sick people who had remained when most of their families left years ago, either because of the small pensions they receive or for various family reasons.

“For once we forget our ‘tzuress,’ Shmuel Zylbestein said “This is a yom tov for us.” The tables were laden with all the traditional trimmings and even flowers, an expensive luxury in Poland, and yet the atmosphere was somber.

The four questions were asked by “little Natek” who is indeed only five feet tall but is 59 years old. With the exception of a little girl, who seemed lost in the crowd, Nathan Ziviak, “little Natek’s” real name, was the youngest member of the congregation.

The Polish government went out of its way to help the seder celebration. The Minister for Religious Affairs, Jerzy Kuberski, not only approved a special distribution of kosher meat but also sent personal greetings and well wishes. Poland’s new government headed by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski is keen to dispel any reports of government tolerated anti-Semitism.

Private homes also obtained special kosher meat if they registered in time with the community, but housewives also tried hard on their own to obtain larger quantities or better qualities of food Mrs. Adam Czarko, whose husband works as an electrician at the Warsaw Jewish Theater, had been lining up for days.

The family was lucky because it lives right in the center of the city, along Warsaw’s main Avenue Marshalewakiego, where most of the larger department stores and food shops are. Mrs. Czorko could go home for a rest after each long wait. She also managed to obtain what she had wanted. Her table, in spite of restrictions and the austerity measures now enforced, was heavily laden with the traditional dishes.

At the Czarkos, like in most Jewish homes that night, the evening started with a radio broadcast. For the first time since the war, Warsaw radio broadcast the seder ceremony, the Haggada, some of the ritual songs and even an explanation in Polish of Pass-over’s significance and symbolic importance.

ANTI-SEMITISM WILL BE PUNISHED

The broadcast was part of the Polish government’s attempt to deny reports in the Western press that following the military takeover, there has been a renewal of anti-Semitic incidents. Polish officials are adamant in claiming that any anti-Semitic incident which did take place — and they admit that there have been about half a dozen cases — occured before the December coup during what they term “the anarchy” of 1981.

The Polish officials, with whom I met, also stress that those who wrote or broadcast anti-Semitic material have now been transferred or have been fired from their previous jobs.

Kuberski told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “anyone guilty of such an offense (anti-Semitism) whatever his political background or official function, will be tried and punished as prescribed by law.” Kuberski added: “I make this declaration with the full knowledge and on behalf of General Jaruzelski himself.”

Most of the Polish Jews with whom I met during my week-long stay seemed less preoccupied with anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic reports than with food shortages, high prices, long queues and difficulty in obtaining permission to travel abroad.

Since the December 13th military takeover, exit permits are rarely granted and then only to people over 65. Even then, formalities are far more difficult and complicated than before. Most of Poland’s remaining Jews have families living abroad, often in Israel. It is this restriction which hit them hardest and standing in the Warsaw snow, after the sede night, and wishing each other “Beshana Haba Be Yerushalaim” took on added significance. It was not only a customary greeting, it expressed their deepest current preoccupation.

(Tomorrow: Part Two)