Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Poland

Don Krausz, chairman of the Holocaust survivors of Johannesburg

I was incarcerated in German concentration camps for two and a half years. Most of my family were murdered there. Our group of 80 Jews from Holland, which included 20 children, from infants to 13 years of age, were also confined in the concentration camp for women, Ravensbruck, where 50 000 women were to perish.

This camp was established in 1939 and the female inmates had had no contact with their children since then. Our arrival caused a sensation. The women could not keep their hands off of our infants, some of whom were still in nappies. Out of our group of 20 children, I was the oldest at 13. Even the young Russian prisoners of war would go out of their way to celebrate a young child’s birthday by having a party, singing their Red Army songs and dancing. They would access the meagre materials at their disposal in their places of work to create a tartlet, consisting of a one-inch cube of bread, cover it with silver paper and decorate it with jam for the child.

In that place of hell and death, this was unheard of.

Eventually, we were transferred to a Polish barrack, only to find that these Poles were the worst anti-Semites in the concentration camp.

During the four and a half months that we were in that Polish barrack, I never once saw a kind or humane gesture made towards a Jewish child. Not a smile, not a word or a pat on the back. The only Polish expression that I learned from those Poles was: “Zhid pshakrev!” This is an insult – and it was said to children from infants to 13 years old!

I am chairman of the Holocaust survivors in Johannesburg, and in 2016 Tali Nates, the director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, asked me to accompany that year’s contingent of the March of the Living as a guide/instructor. With my memory of the Poles of Ravensbruck concentration camp I was reluctant, but realised that after 70 years there were not many survivors left who could adequately perform this task, so I acquiesced.

Since 1985 I have studied, researched and lectured to more than 500 audiences about the Shoah and have an extensive library on the subject. I did not expect that there would be much for me to learn on this trip.

I therefore concentrated on watching the Poles who we encountered on our tours of the country and who, after all, were two generations removed from those of 1944. I observed how most of those whom we passed averted their eyes and if they did not, did not look upon us favourably.

But perhaps I was still prejudiced and reaching the wrong conclusion, I thought.

We travelled in busses, accompanied by plain-clothed Polish policemen. I am not one to run with the herd, and so when we drove past some place of interest to me, I stopped the bus and alighted in order to have a closer look. After all, I was meant to be a guide/instructor. On one such occasion, the policeman told me that he could not stop me, but that I should “hide the Magen David on my clothes”. And this was after 70 years!

So, what had changed?