POGROM

I

N EVERY CATHOLIC CHURCH in Poland, at every Mass on Sunday the 20th of January 1991, the regular sermon was replaced by the reading of a letter. It was a long letter and the reading of it took some twenty-five minutes. The letter, signed by all the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops of Poland, concerned the relationship between Jews and Poles: it recognised their common religious bonds and their common history; it observed that the fate of the Jews at Nazi hands had been just a foretaste of what was to be the fate of all Poles had Hitler's regime lasted longer. It noted that thousands of Poles had helped Jews during the German occupation, but if the actions of any Catholics had led to the death of Jews, then it apologised on behalf of the Church. Anti-Semitism, concluded the letter, was counter to the teachings of Christianity.

The Parish Priest celebrating Mass in the beautiful baroque church of the town of K. did his duty and read the letter to his parishioners. They responded well. They had no problem with Jews – there are no Jews in K. today. But the Parish Priest was privately angry at having been made to abandon his sermon; the Bishops who had signed the letter were complete idiots. Why this sudden urgent need to apologise? True, some of the townspeople may have taken advantage of property confiscated from Jews by the Nazis and may possibly have been a little too reluctant to give it back. But had not the postwar Communist government been run by Jews with the clear intention of destroying Poland, its culture and its people?

Unlike some of his parishioners who, as they streamed out of the church, were reminding each other of long ago events, the Parish Priest of K. had chosen to forget what had happened in his Parish only 45 years before; something which had so shamed the nation that governments and the ruling party had worked hard at suppressing its memory and had largely succeeded in erasing it from the national self image.

But there are still people in K. who remember well that on the 1st of July 1946, a hot and cloudless Monday, seven year old Henryk B. disappeared from his home in a residential district of the town.

Nowhere is his mother's immediate reaction recorded. We can imagine her watching him wolf down his breakfast early and run out of the house, calling out on the way that he was off to play with a friend. It was the school holidays so she would have no objection; she surely expected him back for lunch. But Henryk doesn't return for lunch, nor later. As the afternoon wares on, she becomes ever more worried, stepping out of the front door at least six times without even taking off her apron, and looking up and down the street and see if he is coming. He isn't.

By the evening, she must be frantic. Henryk's brother, who works at the steel mill in the town, comes home just after six and finds her hunched over the kitchen table her head in her hands, sobbing. When her husband gets back from his job on the railway an hour later she is almost hysterical. Her husband, who hates scenes of any kind, tries to calm her. ‘Perhaps the boy hitched a ride to J. and has gone see his cousin. Perhaps he's finding it difficult to get back.’ He could think of a thousand reasons why Henryk hadn't come home. His complacency drives her wild.

‘What kind of a father are you?’ she screams. ‘Don't you even care what happens to your children?’

‘You'll see,’ he tries to assure her, ‘any minute now he'll turn up hungry and asking for supper.’

If she is like any other mother, she doesn't let herself be consoled. And certainly not by such trite answers. The country is only just beginning to recover from the war. Thousands, even hundreds of thousands of refugees, displaced persons, even criminals are tramping the roads across the country. Henryk is only seven years old and a very trusting child. Who knows what kind of person he might have met up with and been taken in by? Haven't they heard enough stories of the kinds of men who like to do things to little boys? Perhaps he is already lying dead in a ditch somewhere, his innocent little body torn and bloody. For Jesus' and Holy Mary's sake, why doesn't his father get up and do something?

‘Like what?’

‘Go out and look for him.’

‘Where?’

‘How should I know? Everywhere.’

Just before eleven o'clock Henryk's father goes out to look for his son. He walks the streets for an hour but sees no-one. He sits up all night in the kitchen in case Henryk comes home, listening out for every footstep in the street but hearing only his wife crying herself to sleep upstairs. First thing in the morning he goes to report his son missing at the local militia post, where he is interviewed by a uniformed Captain who laboriously writes down the full details of Henryk's disappearance. It takes two and a half hours to finish filling in all the necessary documents and to complete all the formalities. By then he has decided not to go to work but instead to spend the day asking everyone he can find if they have seen his son or have any idea where he might be.

We know that for the next two days, people spoke about little else in the town of K. We can imagine them gathering at street corners and in bars, talking about it at work and in the market place. Perhaps the Parish Priest holds a special service to pray for Henryk's return. Suggestions and proposals are surely made for finding him. A group of women from the Central Bakery go out to look in the fields around the outskirts of the town. A team from the Building Workers' Union cycle all the way along the main road to R. and in the other direction down to J. looking in the ditches by the side of the road. No sign of the boy anywhere. The weather continues fine; it is weather for swimming, for walking in the woods, for picnicking in the fields. But instead, gloom settles over the town. Haven't they suffered enough in six years of war, only to have their children taken from them now?

But early on Thursday the 4th July, Henryk B. returned home. The records show that, faced with an enraged father and a weeping mother, he told the following story:

He had been walking towards his friend's house when he was approached by a middle aged man – a Jew. The man had given him a parcel, a piece of paper and some money. ‘Take the parcel to the address on the paper,’ the man said, ‘and the money is for you.’

Henryk had considered throwing the parcel away and keeping the money, but was afraid that the man might come looking for him. So he went to the address written on the paper. It was in a large apartment building by the side of the narrow road which runs alongside the Silica river. Next door was the building site for a new school, set back from the road and with a large open space in front of it. Beside that, forming the third side of a square, was the Building Trades Technical Institute.

Henryk explained that when he had knocked on the door, another man – also a Jew – had opened it, grabbed him by the arm, dragged him inside, forced him down into the building's cellar and locked him up. He had stayed in the cellar for three days, without food, water or even light, until, on the fourth day, he had managed to pick the lock on the door with a splinter of wood. Having escaped, he had run all the way home.

Perhaps Henryk's father believed his son's story straight away; perhaps he only decided that the account was true when Henryk stuck doggedly to his tale. He certainly must have cross-questioned his son. Why did the Jew lock him up? Did the Jew say what was to be done with him? Had Henryk seen anyone else in the house?

Somehow, Henryk had come to know that he was to be killed and that his blood used for making Jewish food. That seems to have been enough to convince his father, who as a child must himself have heard similar tales from his own grandmother. She had surely warned him to keep away from Jews. Half an hour later he told his wife to stay at home and took Henryk to the militia where he made him repeat the story to the same Captain as before. The Captain picked three uniformed men and told the boy to lead them to the house.

So five men and a child walk purposefully out of the militia post. Townspeople who know Henryk rush up, delighted to see him alive and well. ‘Where have you been, whatever happened to you, how are you, are you all right?’ Henryk's father tells everyone he sees that the boy was kidnapped by Jews who were going to kill him and that he and the militia unit are on their way to the house to arrest those responsible. A crowd gradually begins to join up behind.

As they walk, the Captain tries to find out more details from Henryk: had he ever been to the house before? Not inside, Henryk says. But he had been there? Yes, Henryk and his friend Josef had often played in the river outside it and watched the Jews come and go. How did he know they were Jews? Because they were speaking Russian. And was Henryk with Josef that morning? Henryk hesitates. No he wasn't, not with Josef. Well what about the man who gave him the parcel? Can he really not remember more clearly what this man looked like? It happens at this moment that they see a man in shirtsleeves walking towards them; a man with a Jewish look. Henryk suddenly brightens up. He points to the man: ‘That's him.’

The Captain pulls his revolver from its holster and points it at the man. ‘Put your hands in the air.’

‘What?’

‘You are under arrest,’

‘Arrested? What for?’

‘Kidnapping.’

The crowd which has gathered starts to shout angrily at the man, who is struck dumb with amazement and shock, standing as if frozen in front of the Captain. One of the uniformed men roughly handcuffs him and marches him as if sleepwalking back to the militia post.

The unusual commotion in the street begins to attract wider attention. Henryk's story quickly spreads from person to person through the all the districts of K. Soon there are few who haven't heard that a number of children have been kidnapped by Jews and that the militia are on their way to arrest them. By the time Henryk has led his father and the militia men to the house by the Silica river, the crowd behind and around them has grown to number many hundreds. Men and women have come from all directions: out of shops, out of their homes, out of their workplaces. They gather in the road and in the open space in front of the school construction site next door. They ask each other what is going on.

And they tell each other: ‘The Jews have got Christian children locked up inside.’

‘They are murdering our babies in there.’

‘What for?’

‘You know that Jews need Christian children's blood for their kosher food.’

One man, a pharmacist with half moon glasses, says: ‘I always discounted such stories as old wives tales. To think that it was true all the time.’

Another says: ‘Here is the proof. They should all be killed for fooling us for so long.’

The militia Captain takes Henryk in through the peeling green metal front door while his men stand guard outside. The building is a transit hostel for Jews, survivors of the camps mostly, some returning to the area and waiting to be permanently housed, some waiting to make their way to Palestine. On the first floor, there is the office of a Zionist organization which arranges transport to the Middle East. On this 4th of July, there are some 200 people in the building.

After a few minutes the two reappear at the door. There is a problem. Henryk had said that he was kept prisoner in the cellar; but the building has no cellar. ‘I only saw it from inside,’ Henryk says, ‘maybe it was a storeroom.’

‘Didn't you see what kind of a place it was when you got out?’

‘I was frightened. I just ran away.’

Confident that he has the crowd behind him, Henryk's father starts to bluster at the Captain: ‘What are you going to do about it? You're not going to let them get away with it just because the boy made a mistake about the cellar?’

The Captain hesitates. ‘We must proceed according to the law.’

‘Is there a law which allows Jews to kidnap Christian children and lock them in cellars?’

‘There isn't a cellar.’

‘Then look for a storeroom.’

‘Of course. In good time’

They turn at the sound of military vehicles. Three jeeps race up the street, slam on their brakes and discharge a contingent of army cadets. The officer in command, holding a swagger stick, strides forward to the group in front of the doorway. ‘Has anyone disarmed them?’

The Captain looks taken aback. ‘Who?’

The Officer says: ‘What on earth are you waiting for?’.

Then he orders his cadets: ‘Form groups of five. We're going in.’

Two miles away in the K. steel mill, work is about to stop for the midday meal break, when a breathless Josef runs in through the gates to bring Henryk's brother the good news that Henryk is back.

‘What happened to him?’ Henryk's brother wants to know.

‘Some Jews kidnapped him and were going to kill him.’

‘Who says?’

‘Henryk. The Jews were going to drink his blood.’

‘The bastards! Have they been locked up?’

‘I don't know. I don't think so.’

‘We'll soon see about that!’ He turns to his work mates. ‘Who's going to come and help me sort them out?’

Henryk's brother gathers together a group of workers and they immediately go to tell the manager that they are taking a few hours off work. It is their meal break anyway. But the manager won't hear of it.

‘Agree or not, we're going.’

‘I forbid it.’

‘Try and stop us.’

The manager picks up the telephone and orders the factory gates to be shut and locked. Some of the men run out of the office and try to prevent the factory guards from carrying out the manager's instruction. The others follow. There is a fight and the gates, which are worn and not securely fixed, are pushed off their rusty hinges to the ground. The workers stream out over them onto the street.

By the time Henryk's brother and the factory workers arrive at the house by the Silica river, the crowd outside has grown to many thousands. The men are in shirtsleeves, in worn suits and hats, in sweat stained working overalls, even in their undervests; the women wear dresses and aprons, kerchiefs on their heads; a group of girls has come straight from bathing in the river and are still in their swimming costumes. There are five different groups of uniformed men: the militia led by the Captain, the army cadets, two other military units from outlying districts and the black cars of the secret police. Most of those in uniform are standing around. Some are going in and out of the building while others have taken up defensive positions in the street and in the open space next door. There is no overall command. Nobody is in charge.

It is noon, the sun burns overhead in a cloudless sky and it has become very hot. The crowd is getting bored, restive and ill-tempered. The door of the building is closed. Suddenly a shot rings out. There is a cry. The crowd stirs.

A man in brown overalls shouts: ‘What's going on in there?’

A youth in a vest pushes forward: ‘Why don't we find out?’

A third voice: ‘Let's get inside and see.’

Agreement comes from all sides and the crowd surges up to the door, overpowering and engulfing the uniformed soldiers and militia who are standing guard. But the door is locked from the inside. The crowd's movement stalls.

The records show that at that moment, as if in some bitter farce, with a ringing of bells the fire service arrived. We now know that the firemen were under orders to disperse the crowd – the town authorities were getting anxious – but at the time nobody present was aware of their purpose. The firemen were well practiced and made their preparations so quickly that nobody was quite sure what they were there for.

Until, that is, they turn their hoses on the people in the square. The crowd gets angry. The firemen turn up the pressure. But they are too few and crowd is too many. Men and women pick up tools from the building site: trowels, axes, wrenches. The fire engine is quickly surrounded, the firemen chased off and the hoses cut. Great volumes of water gush harmlessly onto the ground.

And now, with the confidence of an easily won victory behind them, the crowd storms the green door. It takes no more than a few moments to break it down. One man shouts: ‘We're in!’ and a dozen others follow him.

Nobody is quite sure of what happened next. Those who were there tried hard to forget; and the authorities later developed their own more acceptable version of the afternoon's events.

But after the storming of the entrance door the crowd must have gone suddenly quiet – thousands of people straining to hear anything, any sound at all, coming from inside the building. They would not have had to wait for long. After less than two minutes the sound of firing comes from somewhere on the second floor.

The excitement of the crowd is growing. It is almost roaring. Moments later one of the men runs out of the building shouting: ‘A soldier's been hit.’

Behind him comes another man with his arm around the throat of a struggling figure whom he is dragging outside. ‘And this fucking Jew's the one who did it.’

The captured figure, a doctor, tries to shake its head, but its captor's grip is too tight. A voice from the crowd screams: ‘Throw him in the river!’

‘Yes. Give the dirty Jew a bath!’

The crowd parts. The Jewish doctor is manhandled across the road to the riverbank, his heels scraping across the pavement. As he is dragged past, people hit out at him with tools, bricks and stones picked up from the school building site. By the time he reaches the river bank he is unconscious and covered in blood. As his limp body hits the shallow water it is struck by a hail of rocks and stones thrown by the crowd. He dies quickly.

Another person is dragged out of the building and then another. By now more members of the crowd are running into the house and not coming out till they have caught a Jew to come out with. One after another, 42 Jews – men, women and children – are dragged out of the door, beaten across the road and thrown senseless into the river, where they are stoned to death.

Later, even the town authorities admitted that the killing fever had spread. In other parts of K. men with a Jewish look were made to drop their trousers and underpants to prove that they weren't circumcised. If they were, they were beaten. There was not even any reason except hate for the number of Jewish looking girls, most of whom were not actually Jewish, who were publicly humiliated in the streets by being forced to lift their skirts and drop their knickers. In a train travelling from K. to R. three men thought to be Jews were thrown off at full speed onto an embankment.

The central authorities were frightened at the scale of the pogrom and quickly sent well armed and organised troops to the region of K. to stop the violence. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. And then the reckoning began.

Out of a large, well integrated and prosperous Jewish community in K., ninety people had survived the war. Of these, forty-two were killed on the afternoon of the 4th of July. A few from among the dead: a doctor, a partisan hero, a grandmother, a child. The entire town was shocked at the dark stain they had found within their own hearts. Ringleaders were quickly arrested, tried and summarily executed. But how can a crowd of thousands be punished? Or a boy of seven?

Where had Henryk really been? We now know that on the 1st July 1946, Henryk B. went off with a friend, not Josef, to play in a deserted summer cottage in the country near K. Why did he lie? Perhaps because he was too frightened of his father's reaction to tell the truth? Why did he invent the story of the Jew, the parcel and the cellar? Maybe because it was a story he thought people would believe. Henryk is still alive and living in K. How does he feel now about what he did?

Not long ago, an American rabbi, a relative of one of those who died, visited Henryk at his home. He was received courteously and the two spent an hour talking about those events of long ago. At the end of their conversation, the rabbi asked Henryk: ‘Do you realise that everything which happened was the result of the lie you told?’

‘So it seems,’ Henryk said, and shrugged.