Forced Out: The Fate of Polish Jewry in Communist Poland

Rating:
Summary: A well-researched and plainly presented account
Review: Growing up in Canada as the son of Holocaust sruvivors, Arthur Wolak has traveled and studied extensively in a post-Commu-nist Poland. Forced Out: The Fate Of Polish Jewry In Communist Poland is a meticulously, informative, and insightful history of those political, economic, and foreign policy issues and circumstances that led to the post-World War II and holocaust era exodus of most of Poland's remaining Jews. Chapters discuss anti-semitism in Poland, including Communist government propaganda that targeted Jews as scapegoats to distract the population from economic troubles and other systemic failings, as well as the post-communist era future and the relationship between Poland, Poland's Jews, and Israel. A thoughtful, literate, well-researched and plainly presented account, as accessible to the lay reader as it is to sociologists and historians. Highly recommended for Judaic Studies and 20th Century European History academic reference collections.


Rating:
Summary: Don't balme the communists for it
Review: Poland has always been anti-semitic, and its atrocities before and during the Second World War, are now being brought to light.

Till this day, the Polsh Gevernement is still playing that [...] "I am the victim" game, and has not owned up to its crimes against humanity, and should be condemned for that.

Rating:
Summary: Politics, Culture, and Anti-Semitism
Review: The late 1960s was a tumultuous period in many countries around the world. Not only were there student uprisings in France and Czechoslovakia, but also in the US and Japan. Before all of them, there was the student protest in Poland. What happened in 1968 marked the beginning of the end for communist rule in Poland long before the Berlin Wall was torn down. But how the experience in Poland differed from the rest was in the treatment of the Jewish community. Unlike other countries that tried to reduce or at least conceal the existence of anti-Semitism after WWII, in Poland it nearly became official policy. Thousands of Polish Jews who had stayed in Poland after the Holocaust were driven out by a tyrannical regime on the brink of total collapse. How and why the Jews were scapegoated by Poland's political leaders is one of the least discussed, least known, and certainly least understood episodes in 20th-century European history.

This is a very interesting and important book that covers the period exceptionally well. It should be read by everyone who wants to know what happened in Poland in the late 1960s. What happened to the Jews shows how destructive the misuse of political power can be for minority populations everywhere.