opinion
For a Polish Jew Like Me,
the War on Ukraine Is About
Our Shared Futures
BY KONSTANTY GEBERT
A s a Jew growing up in Poland,
I participated in the Polish
democratic opposition of the 1970s,
then the pro-democracy Solidarity
movement and finally the anti-
Communist underground of the 1980s.

I was very painfully aware that
some of my fellow militants were
antisemitic, and that at times this
antisemitism, not a love of freedom,
could be the main motivation of their
actions. Yet I had no doubt that if we won
and secured freedom for all, antisem-
ites included, it would have been
well worth it. Thirty years of an inde-
pendent and free Poland have given
me no reasons to question that com-
mitment, even though antisemitism
remains a visible presence, occasion-
ally threatening and always obscene.

When Russia first invaded our
eastern neighbor one month ago,
some around the world were puz-
zled about how Jews could so easily
support Ukraine, given what Jews
suffered there during the Shoah.

Neither have Poles forgotten about
the fierce Ukrainian-led massacres of
World War II, which claimed the lives
of 120,000 Poles, and even if they
remember the Russian occupation up
to World War I and after World War II.

But here in Poland, and in neigh-
boring countries in Central Europe,
there was no question about sup-
porting Ukraine. Figures and institu-
tions like the chief rabbi, the Union
of Jewish Religious Communities,
the Polin Museum and local Jewish
community centers, as well as other
Jewish institutions and organiza-
tions, immediately expressed soli-
darity with Ukraine.

To understand this, you need to
consider the value of freedom.

Freedom is something many out-
side observers take for granted, hav-
ing, like their parents, enjoyed it
all their lives. Even I, though I have
spent more than the first half of
my life deprived of its blessings,
no longer think twice about writing
and publishing what I think, under
my own name, and without fear of
repression. Similarly, the Ukrainians, despite
the dysfunctional, heavy-handed
and corrupt state that emerged after
independence, eventually won their
freedom at the price of blood, during
the Maidan Revolution of 2013–14.

This is the freedom Russia would
now take away from them.

The yearning for freedom is why
I publicly endorsed the Ukrainian
Orange Revolution of 2004. Some
other Jewish observers, no less
knowledgeable about East Central
Europe, criticized me by stressing
that “Ukraine is not Poland.” In other
words, they reasoned, the Polish
experiment in democracy could not
be expected to succeed in its east-
ern neighbor — and, given the heavy
legacy of Ukrainian antisemitism, did
not deserve to be supported there.

Their fear was legitimate, but has
proven unsubstantiated: There is
less antisemitism in Ukraine today
than in Poland, even if the orga-
nized presence of extreme national-
ists there gives grounds for serious
concern. Set aside the fact that Jews and
Poles taking a common position on
anything since World War II — or
1989, to be more generous — is in
itself a stunning development. Those
who do not understand our support
for Ukraine overlook another funda-
mental thing: This is not about the
past. It is about the future.

As Marta Kubica, executive director
of the Poland office of the European
Leadership Network, an NGO ded-
icated to strengthening European-
Israeli relations, has said: “Political
quarrels have been set aside, and
we’re finally looking in the same
direction: the future. It’s regrettable
that it took a war for this to happen,
but hopefully we can remember this
feeling and use it to strengthen our
future relationship.”
To be sure, Ukrainians have not
yet fully owned up to the unspeak-
able suffering they inflicted on Jews
and Poles alike, if not equally, during
World War II. But Poles, too, have yet
to fully acknowledge their own role
in the violence against Ukrainians
and Jews before, during and after
the Second World War. Ukrainians,
Poles and Jews who lived under
the former Soviet Union will, like the
Russians, have to make a reckoning
of their roles as both victims and ser-
vants of the bloody Soviet system.

This is not to say that history is just
a cruel mess, full of unacknowledged
and unpunished crimes everybody
is guilty of. We can make sense of
history, and different crimes are not
equal to each other. But in order for
this reckoning to take place at all, we
need freedom.

And freedom is what the war is all
about. You might have seen the brief
scenes, bravely recorded on smart-
phones in occupied territory, of a
Ukrainian woman in Sumy explaining
to the Russians manning a military
checkpoint that, under the Ukrainian
constitution and the country’s pri-
vacy laws, she is not obligated to
show them her ID. Or unarmed civil-
ians in Melitopol blocking the way
of a Russian army convoy, chanting
“Go home! Go home!” — and not
stopping or scattering even as a
nervous infantryman starts firing into
the air. Or elderly ladies singing the
Ukrainian national anthem in front
of the Russian-occupied city hall in
Berdyansk. Only after denying Russians their
freedom could Putin send his army
into Ukraine to deny Ukrainians
the same. Poles and Jews support
Ukrainians under the old Polish
revolutionary slogan, “For our free-
dom and yours.” The Russian army
could adopt a counter-slogan: “For
your oppression and ours.” Russia
had become a corrupt and lawless
dictatorship just as Ukraine was
ceasing to be one. Their smaller
Western neighbor was becoming,
to Russians, an alternative to their
dictatorial present. The only way to
protect that present was to destroy
the alternative. Hence the missiles
against Kyiv.

The Polish Jewish community
has prepared reception centers for
Ukrainian refugees near the bor-
der, and in Lublin, Łódź and near
Warsaw. Thousands of people have
already been assisted. “How many
of them are Jewish?” a journalist
from a haredi publication asked in a
phone interview with Poland’s Chief
Rabbi, Michael Schudrich. “I don’t
have the faintest idea,” answered
Schudrich, “but I know they were all
God’s children.” The journalist hung
up, and a minute later called again
– not to apologize, but to angrily
comment that he “doesn’t need to
be preached at.” “Oh, but he does,”
Schudrich told me.

Freedom is never given once and
for all. Shameful democratic back-
sliding, not just in Poland but in
Hungary and Slovenia, demonstrates
this all too clearly. And there is no
guarantee that Ukraine, if it man-
ages to repel the Russian onslaught,
will become a democratic showcase,
happily engaging in debate about
the sins of its past. It is legitimate to
be skeptical.

But there can be no doubt that if
Putin wins, freedom will not have a
chance. Just look at Russia today (or
at Russia Today, before it abruptly
shut down). Or imagine Poland after
such a victory, say, 10 years from now.

Between Putin’s brutal terror, and
our homegrown autocrats, freedom
would not stand much of a chance.

Should Jews care? If this were a
Monopoly game, and if there were
a “Get out of history free” card, I
wouldn’t blame those who would
grab it in order to show it to the next
jackbooted thug who came to break
down their door. But good luck to
anyone who thinks the men with
guns will play by the rules of the
game. Or believe it’s a game at all. JE
Konstanty Gebert is a veteran Polish
journalist, Jewish community figure
and former underground activist in
Warsaw. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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