es between the Catholic church and Polish nationalism over the centuries, the Nazis realized they would have to break the
207
7. ETHNIC LEGACY
back of the church if their plan of national annihilation was to succeed. When the Nazis partitioned Poland after the invasion, they seriously undercut the church s own territorial structures by dividing up historic dioceses. Thus weakened, the Polish church, especially in the annexed areas, lost most of its hierarchy and clergy: Wroclaw, 49.2 percent; Chef mo, 47.8 percent; Lodz, 36.8 percent; and in Poznan, 31.1 percent. Overall 1,811 Polish diocesan priests perished under the Nazis out of the total of 10,017 in 1939. Many church buildings were also destroyed. In Poznan, for example, only two out of the pre-war thirty churches remained at the end of the war.
Polish Catholics, in addition to suffering the internal destruction of their church, also felt abandoned by the Catholic leadership. The Holy See basically followed a policy of reserve even after it received strong appeals from Polish bishops to denounce Nazi atrocities against Polish Catholics as well as in the case of the Third Reich s  euthanasia campaign  and the Italian attack against Greece. The London-based Polish government-in-exile also frequently expressed discontent with the Vatican s unwillingness to denounce the Nazi atrocities against the Polish nation in a more public and detailed fashion.
Richard Lukas addresses this issue in his writings on the Nazi era. He recognizes the practical difficulties the Vatican faced with respect to Poland, in part due to the flight of Cardinal Hlond from the country which caused great disruption in the Polish church. He likewise acknowledges that Pius XII s rather cold reception of Hlond in Rome is considered by Poles one saving feature of the overall papal approach to their national suffering under the Nazis. Yet, for Lukas, the balance sheet does not read well, an evaluation he supports with references to concrete reactions by Poles during the period.
 In the face of the.persecution of the church of Poland,  says Lukas,  the Vatican pursued a timid, reserved attitude. 9 This was likely the result of a constellation of forces a sentimentality about Poland on Pius  part, a tinge of Germanophilism, and fears that public denunciations would make matters worse for the Poles. It was not until June 2, 1943, that the Pope finally issued the long awaited statement denouncing the attack against Poland. Just as in the case of the Jews, Pius XII shied away from explicit condemnation of the Nazis.
The 1943 statement, which admittedly did ease Polish-Vatican tensions to some degree, was an effort to counteract the wide-spread criticism that had grown up within clerical ranks because of the Vatican s seeming hesitancy on the Polish question. There were even Polish voices calling for the severing of ties with the Vatican. Some Poles, according
to Lukas, were so upset at Rome that church at the mention of Pius  name. Th of Warsaw were so concerned about the that they published a defense of Vatican in behalf of Poland. And Catholic historiar Morley, who also raises the Polish que; sees Vatican inaction as resulting from th< accorded by the Holy See to its relations many, relates how Rome explicitly insti nuncios on ways to counter the mountii isfaction with its approach to Poland.10
The political opposition forces in Poland highly critical of Pius  stance. An undergroi published by the Polish Socialists accusec of  walking hand in hand with the Hitlerit cists.  Glos Pracy, another underground per, declared that the Pope had shut him the Vatican without bothering to defenc people. And the Polish Minister of Interioi  the people would be relieved by official n the protest of the Holy See and the Polis ment, given the flagrant and never hithei enced persecution of the church in Pola
Contemporary Implications of P< Victimization Under the Nazi
As we reflect today on the continuing si of the determined effort by the Nazis to i land to perpetual servitude by totally des national identity, and perhaps even, if th ity had presented itself, to eradicate the ] as such, the first responsibility that loot remembrance. Nobel prize author Elie 1 said that to forget the victims of the H< to kill them a second time. Yet, I mus say, that in working on Holocaust-relatei scholarly and public circles for well ove ades my judgment must be that both P Poland itself has fared poorly up till n duty of remembrance. We have been far in criticizing Jews for not including rer of Polish victims in programs under the than we have been active as a comma ganizing our own. My own efforts over t generate interest within Polish organizat regard has generally met no response. W be quite proper to criticize the exclusio victims in public Holocaust ceremonies lar, such criticism will inevitably lose it less it is accompanied by internal e. within Polonia and within Poland. For 1 I was pleased to read several months ag a call by PNA President Edward J- Mos hanced commemoration of the Polish vic Nazis coupled with a willingness to ex
208
40. Polish Americans
example, in recording his personal testimony of prison life under the Nazis for the Museum is vital for preserving the story of Polish victimization for future generations. So is the witness of Ambassador Wfadysfaw Bartoszewski, a leading figure in Zegota and now Polish Ambassador in Vienna, who was honored along with Zegota at a public ceremony at the Holocaust Museum on March 22nd.
All is not perfect in terms of the Polish story at the Holocaust Museum. But it is far better than many have made it out to be in public comments in the press. I might add that a recent professional poll of Museum visitors which included a question on attitudes towards Poles and Poland revealed little or no  anti-Polish  feeling among such visitors.
The second major implication I see for Polonia and Poland today from a reflection on the Holocaust is the importance of cultural preservation and enhancement. This does not mean that I advocate cultural isolationism on the part of Poles or Polish Americans. Quite the contrary. I am totally in support of my colleague Dr. Thaddeus Gromada, Director of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, who insisted, in a major address at the Shrine in Doylestown, PA in September 1992, on efforts to integrate the authentic Polish and Polish-American experience into the mainstream of American culture.13 But we have seen from the example of th Nazi period that destruction of a culture goes handin-hand with the physical disappearance of a peo-
=^s^so=s tO^eS^Ttaph?atio^PoSf the Holocaust concerns
Th Vailed issue of Church-State relations, the much  central constitutional question for This remains a central	anew, albeit in
poland	here ta the United States
and Catholic scholarhow the Professor Gordan Zahn^	church
desire on tiie par  	Hitter muffled its
t0	Xue of Nazism developed by
original P 1^. Qat their Fulde meeting in the German Bishops ar	Holocaust for
1934. Formalntalnbrg a the state for the sake of the church s
own integrity- Americans continue to weigh Ihe^ " th church-state rela-
: the failures in this regard to the Polish commu-01 as well.12 My fervent hope is that this plea by Sent Moskal will be taken seriously and im-lemented by Polish religious groups, fraternal or-Lizations, and academic associations.
S Let me add here that in addition to remembering the Polish victims, we must also pay greater honor to the Polish righteous, especially the heroic members of Zegota, the only group in Nazi occupied Europe dedicated specifically to saving Jews. I am well aware of some of the political complications with respect to certain members of this movement. But we must put that aside and honor them here in North America as well as in Poland for their courage during the war itself. So far the only film or video that I know of on Zegota was produced by a Jewish film maker from Washington, Sy Rotter. Where are the Polish efforts in this regard?
At this point let me introduce an issue which has produced considerable controversy within Polonia, namely, the presentation of Polish victimization and the Polish righteousness in the new U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. As a member of the federal Holocaust Commission since its creation by Congress in 1980, I feel quite justified in standing before you and saying that the initial goals for this museum with respect to Poland have been realized to a significant extent. The stories of Polish victimization, as well as of Polish rescue efforts, have been fully integrated into the museum s main exhibit. They are not just off somewhere in a side room. And the stories are told with fundamental accuracy. While some legitimate questions have been raised about certain portions of the text, and while I certainly believe the exhibit needs amplification and expansion, the museum graphically portrays the Nazi attack on the Polish nation, depicts the incarceration and extermination of e elites,  and even includes (prominently displaye 1  ne of the key texts regarding future Nazi plans or mass annihilation of Poles. And the special exhibit  n Zegota, as well as the official lists of Righteous from Yad Vashem in Israel, clearly give visitors (the vast majority of whom are non-Jewish) an understanding of the extent to which Poles attempted to rescue Jews under the most trying of conditions.
Clearly there are issues in the Museum (e.g. e Kielce pogrom) that need further review. I am com-^itted to such an effort, along with additional Pol's11 representatives on the Council who President tinton will hopefully soon appoint. I look 0 continued collaboration with interested o s academics and groups, such as the Holocaust u Ration Committee of the Kosciuszko Foundation ^ York, who have proven so helpful in generating aterials and testimonies from Polish su y r   tie witness of Joseph Wardzala of Derby, CT,
209
7. ETHNIC LEGACY
tions today in both our countries, the Holocaust can teach us that it seems in the best interests of the Church itself to keep a distance from the state. Official recognition may well mean official cooperation which can easily degenerate into co-option by the state authorities for their own ends, thereby muting the Church s prophetic mandate in any society. In light of the Holocaust experience it is important for Poles to listen to such voices as Jerzy Turowicz, Jozef Tischner and Bishop Jozef Zycinskl, who in varied ways have urged restraint with respect to the Church s direct role in public affairs.14 And Polish Americans should support such a perspective in Poland rather than giving encouragement to the I	forces of excessive religio-nationalism. The Polish
/ i American community can also assist Poles in better understanding the American experience in Church-
' | State separation, even though they recognize that no simple transfer of perspective is possible or de-
 	sir able. As in other central areas of Polish national
life, Poland must be allowed to be Poland even though it can surely profit from contact with the U.S. experience. I have in fact found many Poles JI significantly interested in such interchange on the |'	Church-State question, as a number of recent col-
f	loquia, including one sponsored by the Marshall
['	Foundation to which I was invited, bear witness.
The final implication of the Polish experience of
i	the Holocaust that I would like to raise this evening
1 (	is that of solidarity. On one of the walls of the Holo-
-	caust Museum in Washington we have a portion of
the famous quote attributed to Lutheran Pastor Niemoller who eventually died for his opposition to Hitler. Pastor Niemoller said, if I may paraphrase his remarks, that when the Nazis came for the trade unionists, the homosexuals, the Commu-I nlsts, the Jews, and the Catholics, he did not protest because he was not identified with any