MAREK CHODAKIEWICZ (Interview #44) Accusations of Antisemitism in Polish-Jewish relations

MAREK CHODAKIEWICZ (Interview #44) Born and raised to a Catholic heritage in communist Poland, Marek Chodakiewicz came to the United States in 1982 in his late teens. He is a professor of history and Director of Intermarium Studies at the Institute of World Politics in Washington DC (a graduate school with a reputation for conservatism, national security, and international affairs). Formed by his experiences under totalitarian Polish communism, he is an ardent and outspoken critic of leftist ideology, reflecting “conservative” convictions, and this appears to be his principal lens in deciphering the political world. Appointed by President George Bush, he spent five years on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council (2005-2010 – the latter the year this interview was conducted). In recent times he has written articles defending Israel and critiquing “leftist antisemitism,” yet at various times he himself has been accused of bearing an antisemitic undertone. Within long-standing tensions between Jews and Polish Catholics about the Jewish Holocaust and Nazi atrocities against the non-Jewish Polish community, alleged endemic Polish antisemitism, and other issues, Chodakiewicz’s position about historical Jewish-Catholic relations was enough to solicit condemnation from some quarters. For example, in 2005 the Southern Poverty Law Center framed him thusly, in criticizing his appointment to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: “In a 2003 book, After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Relations [sic - Conflict] in the Wake of World War II, he argued that postwar violence directed at Jews in Poland was seldom due to anti-Semitism.” Resistant arguments against an endemic Polish antisemitism like this, of course, in contentious historical arguments about the Jewish status in Poland, have sometimes THEMSELVES been condemned – as inferenced here -- as a form of antisemitism. As Chodakiewicz remarks in this interview, “every act of violence or maliciousness and spite that happened to the Jewish people cannot be reduced to ideological antisemitism or theological anti-Judaism. It can't. There are human factors which override antisemitism. And oftentimes antisemitism is not THE most important thing in the world.” Here he also notes that “Norman Davies wrote in the New York Review of Books that in America you can be charged with antisemitism -- and this is a quote from memory -- for anything. Either if you criticize the foreign policy of Israel, or you don't like bagels. So that I think should exhaust this topic.” An article (originally published in 2010, the year I interviewed Chodakiewicz) subtitled “The Blacklisting of Prof. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, PhD,” and written by Polish-American historian John Radzilowski (University of Alaska), declared that Chodakiewicz “has been the victim of a systematic effort to destroy his career, deny him the ability to publish in his field, get him banned from conferences and speaking engagements at public institutions, and blacken his reputation all with the apparent goal of denying him the ability operate as scholar in his field. This effort has been conducted by colleagues in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as political opponents in his native Poland.” Books/monographs by Chodakiewicz include Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947; The Massacre in Jedwabne - July 10, 1941 -Before, During, and After; After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War Two; and co-author of Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold?: Studies on the Wartime Fate of Poles and Jews. This interview addresses Jews in the communist secret police of Eastern Europe – both the Soviet Union and Poland; controversies over the Polish town of Jedwabne and the book by Jewish author J. T. Gross that alleged an antisemitic 1941 mass murder of Jews by Polish Catholic neighbors; Chodakiewicz’s notions of the accusation of antisemitism; his conviction that many historical events defined as Polish antisemitism by Jewish convention were not so inspired; his animosity towards the political Left; the Holocaust; Jewish historian Raul Hilberg and his difficulties in publishing original research about the Holocaust in the era when no one was interested in it; the Polish-American community’s inability to publicize Polish history and its World War II experience; the 1960s changing of America from a (WASP) White Anglo-Saxon Protestant foundation to multiculturalism; Chodokawieciz’s notion that Leftist ideologues exploit Jews and the Holocaust for their political needs; and other issues. If you can help support this channel: https://www.givesendgo.com/GMRRD or https://www.givesendgo.com/GNDPM