Posted on 04/18/2005 12:42:34 PM PDT by lizol
Israelis lining up for Polish citizenship
By Joshua Mitnick THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TEL AVIV -- Nestled in a quiet residential neighborhood, the Polish Embassy building has become a site of pilgrimage for a growing tide of Israelis who are seeking to reclaim what under Polish law is their birthright.
Almost a year after Poland became part of the European Union last May, thousands of Israelis are eyeing the homeland of their parents and grandparents as a ticket to sharing in the prosperity of the new Europe.
Some just want the convenience of traveling on the Continent as an EU citizen. But others covet the economic and legal benefits to help them build careers and businesses.
For students, it could mean free tuition at internationally recognized universities. For businesspeople, citizenship means valuable access to a foreign market.
Polish Jewish immigrants streamed to Palestine before and after World War II, and more than 1 million Israelis could be eligible for Polish citizenship. But the bureaucracy is onerous.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
I would be willing to trade a few Mexicans for a few Israelis.
2. There's a whole lot of Polish that are still angry about the large percentage of surviving Polish Jews that helped run the Communist Polish State. Particularly, there's one female Jewish Polish judge that's currently being given sanctuary in Israel, after allegedly sentencing countless innocent non-communist Poles to death. That is, unless a lot of Poles are lying about her.
Remember, if we don't tell the whole truth, then we are no better than the other liars.
I wonder If they at least know a few words in Polish...
Thank you, I was confused because there are other Jewish Polish communists whom the non-Jewish non-communist Pole disagreed with.
Poland is being admitted to the EU, and it's a safe bet that Israel never will be.
"We want to leave something for our kids," said Shoshana, who declined to give her last name. The member of kibbutz Ma'anit said she has been encouraging her parents to visit Poland for years, but to no avail. Bringing her parents to the embassy took a bit of convincing as well.
"I am embarrassed that I need to ask for something like this," said Shoshana's father, who also refused to give his name. The resident of Hadera said that he spent most of World War II in Russia and then moved to Israel afterwards. "I've never been back. I know them, and they were worse than the Germans," he said.
Those who have re-established ties with Poland think the discrimination still exists.
Hana Viesbrot, a 71-year-old native of Hrubishov, Poland, has visited Poland twice, but thinks the country is not eager to give Israelis citizenship. "They are afraid because they think people will want their homes back."
" But not everyone is lining up at the embassy. Yehudit Re'em, who attended elementary school in Poland, lives near the embassy and sees crowds outside the entrance every day, rain or shine. But she's never joined them.
"After all that has happened, I'm not interested," she said.
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Years ago, I watched a TV program about Poland and the Holocaust and one part of it discussed a Holocaust surviver. He was a Polish Jew who returned to his home in a medium size Polish town several months or maybe a year after his liberation. Anyway, all his immediate family was dead.
He stated that he went to the old family homeplace hoping to find some photos or just some little items that had belonged to to his parents and his sisters. He just wanted something to cling to from their lives together. He said that he had no intention of staying there as he already decided to make his way to the USA where he had some cousins. They had promised to help him start a new life.
When he arrived at his old homeplace, he said that he was run off like a mad dog and called vicious names! Not a shread of human kindness at all was shown to him, he said. He commented that he would never return to Poland ever again.
From the comments by some of the Iraelis in this article, they too may have experienced that sort of brutal treatment OR WORSE in Poland.
This is common story. After WW2 many Jewish survivors went back to try and reclaim their homes and apartments in Poland. But their homes now had Polish living in them who could not be budged. These Jews were mostly run off by the anti Semites of Poland. They went to Israel, America, Canada and elsewhere. But could not stay in Poland
I know one story first hand. The man is 102 now
During the Holocaust Poland’s Jewish population shrank from 2.25 to 2.5 million to around 100,000, around 95%. Post WWII, it shrank from around 100,000 to 8,000 today, another 90%+. It’s fair to say there are plenty of stories like Lion’s and the father in the article’s out there. IMO, it’s probably not productive to extrapolate those stories to today. Poland seems to be making efforts to remember their former Jewish heritage. And no, 1,200 citizenship requests per year doesn’t mean Jews are flocking back to Poland.
I seriously doubt that a mass exodus of Jews will leave Israel to actually reside in Poland. Watch a copy of the multi-hour documentary "Shoah" and see why not. The director took his cameras back to Poland and interviewed some Polish citizens who were living in property that once belonged to Jews. The attitude of these Poles was, so what? It's ours now. There was no compassion for the victims of one of the biggest property grabs and monetary confiscations in history.
There was a made for TV film, Sobibor, made approx. 15 years ago, starring Alan Arkin as a Polish Jew who led a concentration camp uprising in Sobibor. Arkin's character survived the uprising, and after the war ended, made his way back to his home village...where he was murdered in an anti-Semitic attack.
According to the article, 1,200 a year (vs 2,200 for Germany). Most likely for the benefits of an EU passport.
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