Colorful Tolerance

It is the eight time this event is taking place in Lodz. Mayor Jerzy Kropiwinicki took part in painting over the anti-Semitic graffiti on the city walls.

"Despite the fact that these insulting writings appear on the walls again and
again, we should continue our action called 'Colorful Tolerance',Kropiwnicki said about the effort, in which deputy mayor Wlodzimierz Tomaszewski, students from Lodz schools, their teachers and journalists also participated.

"I believe that the public awareness will be constantly awakened and developing. It is just damaging of private property. The graffiti like these is not only insulting to the people stigmatized by them, but is also highly discrediting to our city's dignity. I believe that gradually we will come to the point there will be no public approval for spraying graffiti over house walls, destroying private property.
When I see the writings like those, I feel deep sadness, because they do not reflect the public feeling in this city",Kropiwnicki told the Polish state news agency PAP.

According to the mayor, the anti-Semitic graffiti is "being spotted by people
disliking Lodz". "Our guests from Israel aren't hurt that much by them, since they saw the genuine soul of the people of Lodz, but they still do harm to us, the city and the Lodz people. A theatrical plays are being created using the images from city walls as their background" -
explained Kropiwnicki.

Teachers that brought their students to paint over the writings together with them also think that the "Colorful Tolerance" in Lodz should be continued. "It is really a great action the kids love to take part in", saidMalgorzata Wildner, one of the teachers from PS 110 in Lodz.

"Colorful Tolerance" was started by some journalists and local politicians in
2000. One of its this year's events was a debate about Polish-Jewish dialogue last Thursday with prof.Wladyslaw Bartoszewski , students from several Lodz schools and a youth group from Israel. Painting over the graffiti is taking place every year on March 21, the first day of spring.

Keeping sterotypes alive - The last Jew in Europe

Photo by Marcin Poznan

How to discuss with someone, who - while looking for anti-Semitism in Poland - finds only the things he wants to find?

I asked myself this question after watching a play entitled "The Last Jew In Europe" by Tuvia Tenenbom of Jewish Theater of New York at a small theatrical stage of Manhattan's Upper West Side. According to the author it is supposed to depict the phenomenon of primitive anti-Semitism, which Tenenbom came across during his visit in Poland.
Maria, a daughter of a female butcher in modern Lodz is to wed Jozef, who is hiding from her his Jewish ancestry. When at the end Jozef turns out to be a son of a genuine German Nazi, he becomes from then on a fanatic anti-Semite. Maria of course deeply wishes to marry a descendant of infamous Josef Mengele than a Jew. Finding out she is Jewish herself is a great personal tragedy to her that leads her into prostitution.
The play is started with some images of graffiti from the streets of Lodz carrying anti-Semitic notion. Among many "Jebać Żydzew" (translated as "Fuck Jews" - not appropriate though, as it is a game of words with Polish word "Żyd" and a name of a local soccer club "Widzew") and the Star of David written into an abbreviation of worker's sport association of Lodz (RTS Widzew Lodz). Writings like those, constantly faught against by Lodz authorities by painting them over - although obviously primitive anti-Semitic in their content - are part of a much more complex phonomenon of word fight by warring hooligans of two local soccer clubs.
The play is being advertised by a poster showing two miniature figurines made of plasticine material carrying a genuine natural sized Polish one grosz coin (like a penny). The name of this exhibit is supposed to be "Little Jews Carrying Money", but the audience doesn't know whether it is a part of any extended exhibition or such. (Perhaps was it also an artistic provocation by contemporary artists of Lodz, just as one may consider Tenenbom's play?). Point is, they fit into the climate created around the play. In a little leaflet handed out before the show there is also an anti-Semitic quote from Maciej Giertych's (Polish radical right-wing member of European Parliament) book that was issued in February carrying European Parliament's logo.
In the brochure Tuvia Tenenbom describes his impressions of travelling to Poland (one of two "exotic" countries he likes to visit occassionally, the other one being Jordan). He claims that anti-Semitic graffiti is seen on every street of Lodz and the Jewish postwar survivors live in hiding. He met a man in Lublin once totally obsessed with a vision of "all-present Jewishness", because of which the poor man cannot fall asleep. In a Radzyn village around Lodz Tenenbom - whose ancestors had been baptised after their death by Mormons - as he himself states, found the place his grandparents were buried. Today there is a private house and an apple orchard. According to the theater artistic director a woman named Basia is proud to have her apples grow so well on a fertilizer from Jews. And when her teenage daugther accidently came across a hand bone sticking out of the ground, her mother allegedly stuck it back into the earth and plowed the field. The picture of both - the woman and her daughter - are to be seen at the cover of the brochure. I wonder if they are aware of the fact, that they are starring in New York as an example of primitive anti-Semitism.
Because of descriptions like those - to be read on the theater's website - www.jewishtheater.org - Poland seems to be a superanti-Semitic country, although they are setting fires to synagogues and devastating Jewish cemeteries in France, and a seat of the Central Jewish Council in Berlin, Germany is regularly being overflooded by letters containing anthrax or anonymous threats. On the other hand it is true that still a lot needs to be done in Poland and a play like this one - although carrying exaggerated content at times - can stimulate the process.
Too bad that the whole atmosphere produced around the play makes its point vanish somewhere. This is why this very opinion concentrates on the frame rather than on the tragicomedy itself.
Finally it is good to remember, that "The Last Jew in Europe" is just art, and art likes to provoke and create discussion. It is aimed at people that are wise and aware of historical facts. Much worse, however, if for the people who naturally approve the term "Polish death camps", the images shown by Tenenbom will become the revealed truth.