CRB Associate Editor Joseph Tartakovsky on Polish Jews' Plight

In yesterday's New York Sun, Claremont Review of Books Associate Editor Joseph Tartakovsky's writes a book review of Jan T. Gross's Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz" (Random House, 336 pages, $15.95).

He writes about the plight of Poland's Jews.

In 1939, 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland; 90% were murdered. What happened to their homes, apartments, offices, factories, fields, silverware, furniture, books, jewelry? There were at least a half million Polish "successors" to "abandoned" Jewish real estate in small towns and villages alone. Millions of Poles stood to lose their plunder — in some cases the very roof over their heads — if restitutions were made. Postwar anti-Semitism, Mr. Gross persuasively argues, was grounded in an effort by Poles to protect real, material gains from Jewish survivors, numbering 200,000, many of whom returned to their homes to find them occupied by new and hostile residents. "Fear" is vividly told, intelligent, painful, and punctuated by understandable flashes of the author's indignation and disgust.

He seems to be suggesting for reparations for the injustices of the Poles' crimes against the Jews, but he never really makes the case.
I think this idea is problematic because it risks
1) reminding Poles of their awful history and therefore runs the risk of further balkanization.
2) perpetuating a culture of victim hood on the descendants of Polish Jews, many of whom have since become successful Americans, who neither need the money, nor the painful focus on that part of their past.
3) tying up the Polish courts with lengthy, confused court battles for records that may prove impossible or difficult to retrieve.

As bad as it may seem, the best solution is to let sleeping dogs lie. Remember the past, but recognize that it's not possible to render justice.

AEI Posts Foreign Affairs Review of Amity Shlaes

Amity Shlaes is coming to Claremont McKenna on October 8. I found a good Foreign Affairs review of her most recent book, The Forgotten Man, an intellectual indictment of the failed policies of the Roosevelt Administration.

This book took far too long in coming out. I can't believe that it's been over seventy years since the Great Depression and you still have people who believe the programs of the NRA (the bad NRA, not the good one) was the best thing that ever happened for the national recovery. Go figure. And, of course, it's the Right that have faith based government. Please.

As a newly-minted Junior Salvatori Fellow, (the only Freshman! woot! woot!) I'll be able to ask a few good questions of her before the packs come. Anything in particular need asking?