This article was originally published as part of a Passover booklet printed in Camp Douglas, Isle of Man. To read more about the path to this booklet see a previous journal entry.
The Galician Jews are no better off here in the camp than they are elsewhere in life.
It is said of them that they are not to be taken culturally as equals and that they have no European education. A Galician Jew, however, gives the best lectures on German literature in the German camp.
It is said: that they abhor hard physical labor, but almost only Galician Jews go out daily for farm work, and in the brush factory as well as the tailor’s and shoemaker’s shop one sees the pale faces of Galicians from the London Whitechapel and Manchester ghetto. It is said: that they push their way in, shouting everywhere;
Galicians, however, form four-fifths of the camp Jewry, and until very recently they were ruled like a compliant herd in the camp institutions by the one-fifth of German Jews, often Jews who despised the “Polyaks.”
They are not religious, it is claimed, but they fill our synagogue every day. They know nothing of ancient Jewish culture – but we Galicians were the first to have raised interest in Jewish culture through our lectures and courses in the camp.
Finally, they laugh: the Galicians are physically degenerate, but one of the best boxers in the camp is a Galician Jew.
Then why the reproaches that are made against us? Why do people fancy looking down on us? What we Galicians lack, just as outside in life, also here in the camp, is the average culture of our community. From the material of Galician Jewry emerge individuals, equipped with the best Jewish and European knowledge, good spiritual and physical fighters, individualities which are not easily brought down under the most difficult living conditions – we are a reservoir of fresh, indestructible Jewish strength.
However, the history of our last 100 years weighs on us like a heavy burden. While the community of Western Jewry at this time had gained the possibility to appropriate the forms of the European culture – we were still until very recently behind the bars of the deepest ghetto, hermetically sealed from the bright rays of light of the rising new culture. This culture became the culture of the community of mankind, and not as before one of only selected individuals. With that, which has been happening in Western Europe for 100 years, we are only beginning today. The Galician Jewry opens its eyes and begins to lead a new, healthy life as a community, as a whole, and as a people (Volk).
Our mistakes? We do not deny them. But in return, we are not so colorless, uniformed, passive. With all their shortcomings, the Galician Jews of the camps are brimming with work enthusiasm, joy of life, humor, and wit. We do not allow ourselves to be brought down, not even in dark barracks and with hungry, growling stomachs of life as a prisoner.
But when Western Jews rant about the faults of the “Polyaks” in the camp, they must be answered: “You see the splinter in your brother’s eye, yet you are no longer aware of the wooden beam in your eye?”
The weaknesses and shortcomings of our community – these we know so very well;
we want to, and we will mend them. Through love, loyalty, and faith we will ignite the healthy primal life force of the millions of Eastern Jews into a blazing pillar of fire that will lead the whole of Jewry towards its new future.
