Pogroms Quotes
Poland was one of the Nazi occupied nations which cooperated in the mass murder of Jews and facilitated the Holocaust. Even after the war, much of the Polish Catholic clergy maintained virulent anti-Semitic views and in 1946 Polish thugs with the encouragement of some priests engaged in a pogrom in Kielce of returning Polish Jewish refugees. Catholic Primate of Poland, Augustus Hlond, made numerous anti-Semitic statements further exacerbating the problem. Many cast blame on Pope Pius XII who was not very vocal during the Nazi era regarding the ill treatment and murder of Jews, Gypsies, and handicapped, giving a “green light” to the Polish Prelate and those lower anti-Semitic priests. Papal apologists note that Hitler could have turned on the Catholic Church; the Pope had to walk a fine line between condemning evil and risking the welfare of the Church. Nonetheless, many Catholic priests risked and some lost their lives speaking out against the Nazi evil and protecting Nazi targets.
The Germans were brutal in their occupation of Poland.
At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. Congress was outraged over the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, the Russian pogroms against the Jews, and the Belgian atrocities against the Blacks in the Congo. However, the State Department was then more interested in maintaining relations for our corporations than the moral aspects of mass murder within a country.
Lincoln had instituted the first draft in American History and it was terribly resented by many Americans. The draft laws allowed the wealthy and upper middle class to avoid service by paying a $300 fee of hiring a substitute just like in the Vietnam War the upper classes could get College Draft deferments. The mob led mostly by poor Irish, began by protesting the draft; then they attacked the mansions and houses of the wealthy; and then they went after Blacks. The Irish poor feared large numbers of Negroes coming out of slavery and competing for their jobs and lowering the prevailing wages. Blacks were beaten and lynched and 5,000 almost half of the then Negro population were driven to Brooklyn, New Jersey and the New York suburbs. It was the worst riot in United States History.
The Army consisted of uneducated rural peasants. As much a Petliura tried to educate his troops, there were still extensive pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. Petliura did not enforce his order rigorously. See {617891}.
Zangwill had been asked to be part of a team to assesses the accusations of pogroms against Jews in the Ukraine.
The Black Plague had terrorized Europe and many Jews were blamed and killed. The Pope responded to the slaughter:
After the Russian Revolution he fought both the Whites and the Reds. He finally lost to the Reds and was banished. Both the Red and White armies went on pogroms and attacked Jews. The Whites were the worst and did so with the complicity of their officers by and large. The Reds, under Symon Petliura issued orders {617892} against pogroms but didn’t enforce it much. Makhno’s troops had some minor anti-Semitic activity but he disciplined them harshly. Specifically he had them shot. None the less, the few incidents were publicized by both the Reds and the Whites who were themselves engaged in the worst anti-Semitic behavior used their exaggeration as propaganda against Makhno and his army.
Officially and personally he was against anti-Semitism. See {617892} but his army, made up mostly of ignorant, illiterate, rural peasants had many ingrown attitudes.
