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The Jewish pogrom in '46
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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Jeszcze raz sprawa żydowska: pogromy, wiosna '46, pogromy. Dla mnie zaczęło się to wszystko w taki sposób, który warto tu opowiedzieć, ponieważ jakoś pokazuje mechanizm ogromny. Mianowicie moja mama na Wielkanoc coś tam robiła w domu, to był Wielki Piątek, Felek, mój brat jej przeszkadzał, on miał wtedy dwa, może trzy lata, dwa. Więc powiedziała do dziadka mama, żeby Felka wziął gdzieś na ulicę. Felek nie chciał. Felek nie chciał no to dziadek wziął go za rękę i ciągnął, Felek szedł i wyrywał się i wrzeszczał, a Felek był taki niano... głosy, a dziadek stary człowiek w czapce i ciągnął go. Dziadek w ogóle nie zdejmował z głowy czapki, tak jak wszyscy ludzie jego pokolenia. I w pewnym momencie zrobił się krzyk, a to przez bazar, i zrobił się krzyk: "Żyd ciągnie dziecko na macę." Myśmy to wszystko zobaczyli dopiero w momencie, kiedy już tłum, olbrzymi tłum wkroczył na nasze podwórko. Baby niosły Felka, który wrzeszczał i prowadzono dziadka pod ręce, który się opierał, krzyczał, bluzgał, w ogóle nic nie chciał tłumaczyć. Kazano mu zaprowadzić skąd wziął to dziecko, no i on przyprowadził, tłum się przed domem, myśmy mieszkali na parterze, mama się wychyliła z okna, no ale Felek był strasznie przestraszony, zanosił się z płaczu, więc słyszałem, bo ja stałem w tłumie, bawiłem się akurat na podwórku, jak baby mówiły: "O to nie jest matka, bo przecież dziecko by nie płakało, jak by była matka naprawdę". No ale jakoś, no mógł się już w tym momencie zacząć ten pogrom, jeszcze nie doszła atmosfera i tłum się zbierał coraz większy. W międzyczasie przyjechało UB, mama nie mogła znaleźć dokumentów, bo to miała jedne lewe, drugie prawe, rosyjskie, takie, owakie, nie mogła znaleźć dokumentów, że Felek jest jej synem i zrobiła im dziką, piekielną awanturę, że wierzą w to, co tam o tym braniu krwi dziecka na macę. Oni się zaczęli tłumaczyć, jakoś tak się klimat zmienił w domu, na zewnątrz on narastał, ale tak gdzieś do wieczora, do wieczora to trwało. Słyszałem takie... tam jakaś kobita się przepychała, biegła: "O, o, widzi Pani jak oni biegają, musieliśmy trafić we właściwe miejsce". No żadnej prowokacji UB  tu nie było, a pogrom właściwie mało brakowało, aby się nie zaczął. Zaraz potem był pogrom krakowski, bo on był chyba w maju wcześniej. Nie byłem tam na tym placu, na rynku, gdzie się ten pogrom dokonywał, słyszałem opowiadania w szkole. Pamiętam zachłystującego się z radości mojego kolegę, który opowiadał taką scenę, że jakaś Żydówka wołała: "Milicja, milicja" i podbiegł do niej milicjant i kolbą ją w łeb i tak mówi: "Mózg się roztrzaskał". Byliśmy u ciotki na wakacjach i wujek mój – bardzo porządny człowiek, żołnierz Armii Krajowej, niesłychanie sympatyczny pan, który nauczył mnie lasu, to taki myśliwy, uczył mnie lasu, wpoił mi takie zamiłowanie do przyrody, lubił dzieci, życzliwy – wkroczył do pokoju i powiedział –przy obiedzie żeśmy siedzieli – "Żydki znowu giewałt podnoszą, że pogrom się odbył w Kielcach" i mama wstała, wzięła mnie za rękę i wyszła. To też bardzo śmieszne u tej mojej mamy, takiej leniwej, pogodnej, takiej jakby obojętnej, mama w czasie bombardowań nie schodziła do schronu. I jednocześnie jechała na ten... przez to getto na ten basen, zupełnie się nie przejmowała tym wszystkim, przy czym ja umierałem, tak jak by ją właściwie nic nie obchodziło, a równocześnie tych Żydów trzymano u niej w domu i ona wiedziała, że siedzi na bombie, która mogła rozerwać wszystko. I ten jej protest jeden, raz jeden widziałem ją w takim geście.

Once again, the Jewish issue resurfaced: pogroms in Spring '46, pogroms. It began for me in a way that's worth mentioning here because it shows the whole mechanism of a pogrom. Namely, my mother was doing something in the house to prepare for Easter, it was Good Friday. Felek, my brother was getting in her way, he was around two or three years old, two. So she told our grandad to take Felek outside for a walk. Felek didn't want to go so our grandad was holding him by the hand and dragging him along while Felek was yelling and trying to get away from him. Our grandad was an old man and wore a hat and, like everyone of that generation, he never took his hat off, while Felek, whom he was dragging along by the hand, had flaxen white hair. Suddenly, a shout went up across the marketplace and people started yelling: the Jew's got the child to make him into matzos. We only saw this when the crowd, which by now was huge, had piled into our courtyard. Some women were carrying Felek, who was screaming his head off, while my grandfather was being held by the arms and led while he resisted, shouted, swore but refused to explain anything. He was ordered to bring everyone to the place from which he'd taken the child and so he did. The crowd stopped in front of our home, we lived on the ground floor and my mother looked out of the window. Felek was terrified and he was sobbing uncontrollably, and as I'd been playing in the courtyard I was now in the crowd and I could hear the women saying, 'That's not his mother', the child wouldn't be crying like that if it really was his mother.

Somehow, the pogrom could have begun at that point, the atmosphere was still heating up and the crowd was getting bigger. In the meantime, the UB turned up. My mother couldn't find her papers proving that Felek was her son and so she kicked up an almighty fuss about how they believed what people say about using children's blood to make matzos. They began to defend themselves, the atmosphere indoors changed but outside it was still mounting and carried on mounting until the evening. I heard some woman who was pushing her way through and running say, 'Look, look how they're running around, we have to make sure we get the right place.' In this case, there was no provocation by the UB yet the pogrom was on the point of kicking off. Soon after this, there was the pogrom in Kraków, I think it was earlier in May. I wasn't there in that square, that marketplace where the pogrom happened but I heard it being talked about in school. I remember a friend, absolutely thrilled by what he was narrating, telling us how a Jewish woman was calling out for the police and a policeman ran up to her and smashed his rifle into her head, and I remember this boy saying, 'And her brains were bashed out.' We went to my aunt's for the summer holidays and my uncle who was a very decent man, a soldier in the AK, a very pleasant man who taught me all about the forest, he was a hunter and he taught me about the forest, he had a real love of nature, he was fond of children, he was kind, came into the room and said as we were sitting at table having lunch, 'Those Yids are kicking up stink again and there's been a pogrom in Kielce.' And my mother got up from the table, took my by the hand and left the room. This was funny coming from my mother who was so languid, good-natured, almost indifferent. During the air raids, she wouldn't go down to the shelter, and there was also that journey across the ghetto to get to the swimming pool and she wasn't bothered one bit by all of this, whereas I was wishing I was dead. It was as if none of this had anything to do with her yet at the same time those Jewish people were being concealed in her home and she knew that she was sitting on a bomb that could tear everything to shreds. So then there was her protest, the one and only time I saw her make such a gesture.

The late Polish activist, Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), had an influential but turbulent political career, helping transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and later became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy.

Listeners: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: UB, Kraków, Kielce, Felek Kuroń

Duration: 4 minutes, 10 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008