KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
attitude toward Jews, but with his death the anti-Semitic Endecja movement was embraced by formerly moderate leaders and the wealthy class. The Catholic Church contributed significantly to the reactionaiy climate, publishing Jew-baiting literature and allowing anti-Semitic sermons. Vicious propaganda was published by Pol- ish schools and newspapers, and pamphlets that portrayed Jews as harmful to Poland’s economic interests, corruptors of moral health, and agents of communism were everywhere. Because of well-es- tablished links with Russia and socialism, “for the self-professed anti-Semites, the Jew was no longer only the Other, but the internal enemy, the serpent within.” 6 As increasingly violent pogroms ravaged Eastern Europe, the Polish movement “Don’t buy from the Jew and don’t sell to the Jew” or “Ours to Ours” spread, with Polish merchant and trade cooperatives initiating and physically enforcing boycotts of Jew- ish businesses. The Polish prime minister announced that the gov- ernment endorsed “economic struggle by all means (owszem), but to do harm, no,” which was widely interpreted to sanction eco- nomically motivated violence. 7 Among the laws passed to restrict Jewish business, kosher slaughter was outlawed by the Sejm in March 1938, although this was not strictly enforced. As Nazi propaganda circulated, the movement to bar Jews from Polish universities gained adherents and to force those already matriculating to sit separately at “ghetto benches.” Some liberal Poles joined Jewish students who refused to go to the benches and, in protest, stood up during lectures, and a small number of intel- lectuals resigned from their posts in protest of anti-Semitic aca- demic policies, but Jewish enrollment and matriculation dropped dramatically. During these years in Ludvipol, Jewish homes and towns were set on fire by local Ukrainians, according to Arje Katz. Katz said that family members would try to save their precious belongings from burning by throwing them out of the windows and doors. The villagers who set the fires knew this, and waited outside to seize and steal the belongings. reactionary
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