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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Poland
Index
Although an estimated 200,000 Polish Jews survived the
Holocaust, only about 10,000 remained in Poland in 1991,
and that
population was mostly elderly. As the postcommunist era
began,
relations with the now very small Jewish community
retained an
ambiguous but prominent place in the consciousness of
Polish
society. Beginning in the late 1970s, public interest in
past
Polish-Jewish relations increased significantly despite
the
dwindling of the Jewish population. Social observers
attributed
this partly to nostalgia for prewar times, when the Jews
had made
a dynamic contribution to Poland's diverse urban cultural
environment. Another source of renewed interest was a need
to
finally understand the long and tangled historical
connection of
the Poles and the Jews. That connection was formed most
prominently by the Holocaust, which had wrought havoc upon
both
Poles and Jews, and by the role of antisemitic elements in
Polish
society before and after World War II. In the early 1990s,
these
issues still provoked deep emotional responses as well as
intellectual contemplation.
When communist rule ended, the phenomenon of
"antisemitism
without Jews" came under renewed scrutiny. In the first
national
elections of postcommunist Poland, candidates frequently
exchanged charges of antisemitism and, conversely, of
undue
Jewish influence in policy making. In 1991 Solidarity
leader Lech
Walesa apologized personally before the Israeli
parliament, the
Knesset, for antisemitic statements by some of his
supporters
during the presidential campaign. According to a 1992
survey, 40
percent of Poles estimated the current Jewish population
in
Poland at above 750,000 people; 16 percent believed the
Jews were
a threat to Poland's political development in the 1990s;
and 26
percent said the Jews exerted too much influence in Polish
society. On the other hand, 81 percent said that the
memory of
the Holocaust should be preserved indefinitely to prevent
a
recurrence. Extreme right-wing parties with antisemitic
platforms
gained no seats in the parliamentary elections of 1991.
Data as of October 1992
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