East Central Europe in Exile Volume 2 : Transatlantic Identities [1 ed.] 9781443852104, 9781443848916

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East Central Europe in Exile Volume 2: Transatlantic Identities

East Central Europe in Exile Volume 2: Transatlantic Identities

Edited by

Anna Mazurkiewicz

East Central Europe in Exile Volume 2: Transatlantic Identities Edited by Anna Mazurkiewicz This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Anna Mazurkiewicz and contributors Cover image Kuryer Polski editorial office in the Herold building at 435 Broadway Street, Milwaukee; credits: Roman Kwasniewski Collection, Archives, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries, courtesy: The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4891-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4891-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations and Tables .................................................................. ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................... xi Introduction ............................................................................................. xiii Part I: Transatlantic Transitions Chapter One ................................................................................................ 3 Polish American Literature: A Story of Exile, Emigration, and Adaptation Thomas J. Napierkowski Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 13 Croatian American Literature as a Transculturated Discourse Jelena Šesniü Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 31 Polish Immigrants in the Semi-Autobiographical Fiction of W. S. Kuniczak and Czesáaw Karkowski GraĪyna J. Kozaczka Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 47 Informal Communication Networks and Letter-Writing in the Polish Political Diaspora Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 65 Pavel Tigrid’s “SvČdectví”: A Forum for Dissidents and Exiles Francis D. Raška Chapter Six ............................................................................................... 89 Homo Viator: Janusz Pasierb on East Central European Intellectual Identity Piotr Koprowski

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Part II: Between Cooperation and Conflict Chapter Seven......................................................................................... 103 Ethnic Cooperation in Antebellum America James S. Pula Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 117 The Polish Voice on Slaves and Slavery in the United States in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Piotr Derengowski Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 133 Milwaukee’s Polish American and African American Neighbourhoods, 1960s Stephen M. Leahy Chapter Ten ............................................................................................ 147 Experience of Political Exile and the Nature of Ethnic Prejudice Ieva Zake Part III: Interethnic Exile Political Organizations Chapter Eleven ....................................................................................... 169 Petr Zenkl: The Leader of the Czechoslovak Exile in the United States Martin Nekola Chapter Twelve ...................................................................................... 177 Cooperation among East European Émigrés: The Socialist Case Anna Siwik Chapter Thirteen ..................................................................................... 193 The Cooperation of Peasant Parties from Central and Eastern Europe in Exile after 1945 Arkadiusz Indraszczyk Chapter Fourteen .................................................................................... 227 “The Little U.N.” at 769 First Avenue, New York (1956–1963) Anna Mazurkiewicz

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Chapter Fifteen ....................................................................................... 247 Estonians and the Stockholm Office of the Assembly of Captive European Nations Pauli Heikkilä Part IV: Exiles and Intelligence Services Chapter Sixteen ...................................................................................... 265 Tibor Eckhardt, Hungarian Émigré Politics and United States Intelligence, 1941–1955 Katalin Kádár Lynn Chapter Seventeen .................................................................................. 293 Attempts to Win and Break Up the Hungarian Emigration after 1956 Magdolna Baráth Chapter Eighteen .................................................................................... 311 The Polish Intelligence Service and the Polish Diaspora after the Imposition of Martial Law in Poland Patryk Pleskot Contributors ............................................................................................ 327 Index of Names....................................................................................... 333

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

Fig. 9-1: 1960 Census Tracts with 100+ Non-white Households and Plurality of Residents with Polish Ancestry Fig. 9-2: A Mental Map of Milwaukee: Advertisements in Ethnic Newspapers, 1960–1962 Tab. 9-1: Manufacturing Employment in Selected Milwaukee Census Tracts, 1960 Fig. 11-1: Petr Zenkl, 1966 Fig. 14-1: The ACEN House Fig. 15-1: The surviving members of the last constitutional Estonian government Fig. 16-1: Tibor Eckhardt

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The project: East Central Europe in Exile: Patterns of Transatlantic Migrations was made possible by the support of the

and of the following Organizations University of GdaĔsk City of Gdynia Port Authority of GdaĔsk S.A.

INTRODUCTION1

The idea of analysing east central European transatlantic migrations by assembling scholars from both sending and receiving countries followed from discussions in the Department of Contemporary History at the University of GdaĔsk, Poland. While researching American attitudes towards Poland in terms of the complex fate of the post-World War II exiles, we found that from the American perspective the countries between Germany and Russia remained to a large extent a terra incognita, dominated by the Soviets who flagrantly violated the international wartime agreements. The American government therefore considered the area, not a particular country, to be a single problem called: “eastern Europe.” Despite the obvious differences in the east central European wartime experience, there were many similarities in its historical encounters with foreign domination and struggles for freedom that paved the way for interethnic cooperation. While examining the Cold War émigré activities, we learned that there was much more to the story of east central Europe in exile than just the practical goal of lobbying western governments for liberation of the region. We found patterns in political leaders’ biographies, forms of political alignments in exile, acculturation problems and divisions between the exiles and “ethnics”, as well as many layers of regional cooperation (political internationals, federalist organizations). Establishing cooperation with scholars from other central European countries and the U.S. in order to see a broader picture seemed indispensable. With the help of the Visegrad Fund Project Partners—Slavomír Michálek, the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, Francis Raška (Charles University in Prague), Magdolna Báráth (the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security in Budapest)—we decided to organize a conference at the University of GdaĔsk, Poland. The response to our Call for Papers was truly impressive. Scholars from as many as thirteen countries came to GdaĔsk to discuss east central 1 This is a copy of an introduction originally printed in volume 1: Transatlantic Migrations of the East Central Europe in Exile series. It’s being reprinted here for those readers who decided to begin reading from volume 2. While each of the volumes can function independently, they serve the purpose of presenting diversified and multinational perspectives best when read together.

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European emigration from the perspective of their disciplines: history, sociology, political science, and literature. The four-day conference: “East Central Europe in Exile: Patterns of Transatlantic Migrations” took place at the Faculty of History at the University of Gdansk from 31 May to 3 June 2012. The financial support necessary for the organization of this project was provided by the Visegrad Fund (which fosters academic, cultural and scientific cooperation among the four Visegrad countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia); the two consecutive Deans of the Faculty of History of the University of GdaĔsk—Professor Zbigniew Opacki and Professor Wiesáaw DáugokĊcki (devoted to the advancement of the International Graduate Studies Programme in History at the University of GdaĔsk); the City of Gdynia (the founder of the Emigration Museum); and the Port of Gdansk Authority S.A. (which supports the cultural and scientific growth of the thousand-year-old city thriving on the Baltic coast). This publication was made possible by the said institutions as well as by the support received from the Pro-rector for Scientific Affairs of the University of GdaĔsk—Professor Grzegorz WĊgrzyn. Furthermore, in our effort to foster international collaboration, we enjoyed the support of many cultural and research institutions, for example: the Balassi Institute-Hungarian Cultural Institute in Warsaw, devoted to promotion of the Hungarian heritage and cooperation between Hungary and Poland in the arts and sciences; the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, which develops archives and promotes interdisciplinary research on international migration; and the above-mentioned Emigration Museum in Gdynia, which in its scientific and cultural activities transposes the problem of emigration to explore universal experiences of life-changing travels. Moreover, we had the privilege of receiving invaluable assistance from the Museum of the City of Gdynia, the GdaĔsk History Museum, and the University of GdaĔsk History Graduate Student Association. The Honorary Patronage of the Rector of the University of GdaĔsk, the Ambassador of Hungary in Warsaw, and the Voivode of the Province of Pomerania were extended over this event. Special mention must be made of the participation of the Polish American Historical Association (PAHA), the foremost academic association based in the United States devoted to the study and advancement of the history and culture of Polish immigrants in America and their descendants and the Polish diaspora elsewhere in the world. PAHA chose to hold its annual midyear meeting in Gdansk in conjunction with the conference, and numerous PAHA members made presentations and attended sessions.

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The conference theme offered an inspiring common ground for studying the history of east central Europe. Poverty, wars, political persecution and intolerance recurrent in the turbulent past of Europe’s heartland pushed millions of east Europeans overseas. To examine the nature of their transatlantic migration is to obliterate the classical migration typologies (political / economic, forced / voluntary, temporary / permanent) and analyse the movement of people simultaneously seeking bread and freedom. The conference sessions thus revolved around issues relating to the causes of transatlantic migration, the emigrants’ travel and adaptation experiences, assimilation and acculturation processes, the political activities of the émigrés, as well as east central European cultural and artistic manifestations in the Americas. It must be acknowledged, however, that it’s not the first time that such an initiative has been taken. In 1980 a conference of Croatian, Polish, and Hungarian, Slovene and Slovak scholars on north, central, and southern European overseas emigration was held in Bratislava. It ended with a call for a continuation of cooperation. Two more meetings were held: in Kraków (1981), and in Budapest (1984). The latter resulted in the publication of papers on the great peasant transatlantic migration: Overseas Migration from East-Central and Southeastern Europe 1880–1940 (ed. Julianna Puskás, Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1990). This important collection of “eastern European” essays—constituting the first step in fostering the regional approach and cooperation—necessarily focused mostly on theoretical approaches, i.e. methodology, historiography, models, and generalizations. The volume ends with a call for the continuation of exchanges, and announces an ensuing meeting in Yugoslavia. However, in the post-Communist reality, and most importantly, in light of the wars in Yugoslavia, it had by 1991 become impossible. Yet another inspiring international perspective on transatlantic migrations was offered by the participants of the Eighth International Economic History Congress in Budapest, which took place in 1982 (Ira A. Glazier and Luigi De Rosa, eds., Migration across Time and Nations. Population mobility in historical contexts (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986)). A collection of twenty-two essays dealing primarily with the problems of analysis of migration processes offers a relevant reference point (see section: “The Migration Movements to the United States and Argentina”). A more recent, modern approach signalling new research questions resulted from a year-long colloquium, “Anatomy of Exile”, and the two conferences held in conjunction with it (Peter I. Rose, ed., The Dispossessed: An Anatomy of Exile (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)). It discusses both the experience of the

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refugees, but also the problems of adjustments, as well as their cultural impact on the host country. In the 1990s and 2000s, with the new research opportunities available in east central Europe, including the opening of the Communist archives, many more conferences and seminars devoted to the study of transatlantic population movements were organized on both continents. Evidently, the focus of east central European migration research has shifted towards the study of the political emigration, also in a transnational context. Among the many scholarly initiatives at the turn of the century, one finds sessions and panels devoted to issues similar to those discussed in this volume. For example, during the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, which took place in Warsaw in 1995, scholars addressed the issue of the Communist policy towards the east central European émigrés and ethnic diasporas after the Second World War, emphasizing the need for a comparative perspective (see Adam Walaszek’s article in the “Przegląd Polonijny” (no. 2, 1996)). Furthermore, at a round table session during the Eighteenth International Congress of Historical Sciences (27 August–3 September 1995, Montreal 1995) the scholars from six states (Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, and Slovenia, the U.S. and Canada) discussed the transatlantic determinants of the east European struggles for freedom. The discussions, chaired by M. Mark Stolarik (the University of Ottawa, Canada), revolved around the impact of the émigré groups on the creation or resurrection of the states in east central Europe in the twentieth century. A complementary perspective was offered during a 2001 session: “Polish, Hungarian and Czechoslovak Political Emigration and the Origins of the Cold War”, held at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Washington, D.C. (see the articles by Piotr Stefan Wandycz, István Deák and Igor Lukes in the “Polish Review” (no. 47, 2002)). Recently, growing attention has been devoted to the study of interethnic cooperation and to the observation of the patterns of east central European transatlantic migrations. In 2008, Ieva Zake (AntiCommunist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) organized a seminar devoted to the study of anti-communism among the various ethnics in the U.S. Two years later, an edited volume devoted to the study of the intelligence uses of the exiles entitled: Secret weapon or the victims of the Cold War? Central and Eastern European political émigrés was published in Poland (Lublin: IPN, 2010). It was the result of an international conference organized in Lublin by Sáawomir àukasiewicz, who managed to gather esteemed researchers of political emigration from the east central Europe.

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Our volumes, undoubtedly inspired by the above-mentioned collections, are different in scope, character, and offer less specialized, but broader and more complementary perspectives: east central European and American. They are not theoretical studies; they do not examine contemporary migration trends. Neither one repeats the largely quantitative studies on continental and overseas emigration from east central Europe. Furthermore, neither tries to juxtapose east central European experience with that of other nations of the region, say Russia or Germany. It is not the sole fact of a life in exile, but the east central European heritage in transatlantic transition is the essential thread in both volumes. However, just like our predecessors, we share the conviction that international cooperation of the scholars of various disciplines, who work on east central European overseas migration, should continue. Moreover, we believe it to be of the utmost importance to publish our findings in English, which obviously has become the new lingua franca, thus allowing for the extended exchange of ideas and results of research. The list of contributors to our post-conference volumes is a vital sign that the seeds of effective international cooperation are already sprouting. The two post-conference volumes, published under the same heading: East Central Europe in Exile, contain a collection of chapters written by both esteemed, and well-known scholars, as well as young, aspiring researchers whose work brings a fresh, innovative approach to the study of migration. The volumes are not interdisciplinary in their character. Rather, they are multi-disciplinary in that each academic field retains its own methodology and unique vantage point. While some of the texts are based on thorough archival research, some synthesize the current state of research, whereas others—more impressionistic in character—offer inspiration, pointing the reader to new sources and approaches in studying migration. Altogether, there are thirty-eight chapters in both volumes focusing on the east central European émigré experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The very same experience which led to the formation of east central Europe in exile—a powerful ethnic conglomerate of people pushed out of the region by poverty, war, persecution, who maintained their transatlantic links in a variety of forms. The first volume, Transatlantic Migrations, focuses on the reasons for emigration from the lands of east central Europe; from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the intercontinental journey, as well as on the initial adaptation and assimilation processes. It consists of twenty chapters written by scholars from eight different countries, organized into four parts.

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The first part may be considered a broad introduction to the two volume series. Based on captivating individual stories presented against historical background, the authors demonstrate reasons for emigration from eastern Europe, look into its changing character, examine the nature of the preserved transatlantic links, and touch upon adaptation processes. Jože Pirjevec opens the section with a broad introduction to the changing nature of south-eastern emigration overseas. The theme of exile ties and activities carried out on behalf of the old country is further expanded in the chapter by Agata Biernat. In the next chapter Harriet Napierkowski describes how international conflicts uproot people from the moving, personal perspective of a single displaced family, which is representative of thousands more in the aftermath of the Second World War. It is followed by an examination of the post-war and anti-communist emigration routes, which in the case of north-eastern Europe often led through Sweden. Arnold KáonczyĔski describes both the factors pushing the Poles to leave their homelands, as well as the reasons for their subsequent departure from Sweden to America. The next chapter, by Slavomír Michálek describes the successful attempts to organize help for the cold war refugees—mostly from Czechoslovakia—in the second half of the twentieth century. Béla Nóvé’s chapter presents the dramatic plight of underage Hungarians escaping the country during and after the Hungarian Revolution. The first part of the volume concludes with Maja Trochimczyk’s study of Polish émigré musicians. The author examines the reasons for their migration overseas, their careers in the adopted homeland, and their new, negotiated identities—émigré, ethnic, or American—thus indicating the essential elements of “Polishness”. In the second part of the first volume, the reader will discover the various aspects of the transatlantic passage from the departure ports, types of vessels, conditions aboard to the difficulties involved in getting to America. Interestingly, the five contributors, from four different countries, describe the intercontinental crossing from different places and perspectives. Taken together, this helps the reader to visualize the various aspects of the international migratory network combining east central Europe with the Americas. This part opens with an examination of the emigrant traffic via the south-eastern European ports. Aleksej Kalc’s article focuses on the significance of Trieste, whereas Istvan Kornel Vida’s chapter mostly deals with Rijeka (Fiume). While the first one focuses on the volume and economic significance of the passenger traffic, the latter examines the humanitarian side of the transatlantic voyage. Two articles dealing with north-eastern European ports—GdaĔsk and Gdynia— complement this perspective. Again, however, both authors adopt quite a

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different approach. Whereas Oskar Myszor’s detailed study presents the volume of emigrant traffic through the Polish port of Gdynia, Jan Daniuk tells the story of the German emigration from the Free City of Danzig to Brazil. The difficulties faced by the settlers in the Brazilian jungle are further juxtaposed with the care east central European immigrants received in North America. Anne M. Gurnack offers a glimpse of how New York coped with the health-care needs of the scores of immigrants arriving in America via Ellis Island, and what medical services were available to them around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The third part, “Putting Roots Down”, focuses on processes of adaptation and acculturation. M. B. B. Biskupski’s article opens the discussion by posing questions on the nature of the transatlantic connection to the “old country”. The author observes changes in political consciousness and clearly demonstrates the detachment from the “ancestral Fatherland”. Mary Patrice Erdmans looks into the phenomena of “Polishness” in Connecticut over the course of a hundred and forty years. This broad perspective is then confronted with detailed studies of immigrant communities in other parts of the United States. Dorota Praszaáowicz’s article looks at the complex relations between the Poles and Germans in Milwaukee at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As both above-mentioned authors emphasize the central role of the parish in the ethnic community, their perspectives are complemented by Daniel ýerny’s case study of the struggle for the preservation of identity by a group of Slovak immigrants, the members of the Slovak Greek Catholic Church in Canada. The last part of the volume examines immigrant paths towards integration. The authors discuss the east Europeans’ entry into various labour markets (mostly in low-skilled jobs) as well as immigrant social mobility and career patterns. Pien Versteegh examines education and the career patterns of the Polish workers in Pennsylvania and compares them with that of the American workers. The American experience is then contrasted with an examination of various perspectives of the social mobility of the Polish immigrants in Europe. Brian McCook presents a detailed study of the education patterns in Great Britain during and after the Second World War. Silvia Dapía’s chapter characterizes the sociopolitical reasons behind Argentina’s decision to encourage immigration from east central Europe in the late twentieth century. The volume closes with an article by Maágorzata Patok, who looks into the contemporary relevance of the Polish immigrant stereotype in the West and examines the role it plays in ameliorating integration strategies.

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Undoubtedly, this compilation fosters the reader’s understanding of the transnational processes affecting the east central European migrants. It proves that patterns in the east central European transatlantic migration are easily discernible, and that seeing our history within the regional context is therefore crucial. The second volume is slightly different in scope, for it focuses on the aspect of negotiating new identities acquired in the adopted homeland. The authors contributing to the: Transtatlantic Indentities focus on the preservation of the east central European identity, maintenance of the contacts with the “old country”, and activities pursued on behalf of, and for the sake of the abandoned homeland. The first part of the volume opens with a study of east central European cultural activities in the U.S. and the importance of ethnic heritage in the artistic and literary creations. Thomas J. Napierkowski talks about the presence of the exile experience in Polish-American literature. In her chapter, Jelena Šesniü supports his perspective, which discusses Croatian literature as a transculturated discourse. The literary portrayal of immigrants based on semiautobiographical fiction is focus of in the article by GraĪyna J. Kozaczka. It examines the negotiated, or constructed, immigrant identity. Then, Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, using emigrant and exile written exchanges within their communities, looks into the internal development of the Polish political diaspora by analysing the informal communication networks within it. The Czech perspective on intra-diasporic exchanges is then offered by Francis Raška, who describes the debates involving the Czechoslovak intellectual elites. This section of the book closes with Piotr Koprowski’s examination of the thoughts on the east central European intellectual identity formulated by a Polish Catholic philosopher during his transatlantic travels. East central European émigré attitudes towards other ethnic minorities are discussed in the second part of this volume. This section opens with a study of Polish cooperation with other ethnic groups before the American Civil War, written by James S. Pula. It is followed by Piotr Derengowski’s article on the Polish opinions about slavery in the Civil War era. Stephen M. Leahy further expands this perspective in his article discussing the relationship between the Polish-Americans and African Americans during this era. Sociologist Ieva Zake’s article, concluding this section, offers a comprehensive, synthesizing approach to the problem of the nature of ethnic prejudice. The third part of the volume focuses on the political manifestations of the émigré overseas. Particular attention is directed towards interethnic cooperation among the east central European exiles during the Cold War.

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The section opens with Martin Nekola’s article, which focuses on political leadership of the Czech and Slovak exiles. Anna Siwik and Arkadiusz Indraszczyk discuss the interethnic cooperation of the east central European exiles based on their political views, the socialist and agrarian respectively. Anna Mazurkiewicz talks about the united exiles efforts to garner the attention of the United Nations for the cause of liberation of east central Europe. Pauli Heikkilä closes this section of the volume describing the multi-ethnic Assembly of the Captive European Nations as a U.S. based exile organization of noticeable importance in Europe. The last four articles therefore combine east central European exile political activities on both sides of the Atlantic. The last part of the second volume is devoted to an examination of the link between the Cold War exiles and the intelligence services—both American and Communist—thus exemplifying another transatlantic link. Katalin Kádár Lynn discusses the cooperation of the Hungarian leader— Tibor Eckhardt and Grombach organization, or “the Pond”. Magdolna Báráth supplements this perspective by describing Communist attempts to severely inhibit emigration from Hungary after the revolution of 1956. In keeping with the chronological sequence, the Hungarian case is supported by Patryk Pleskot’s study of the Polish intelligence service’s surveillance of the Polish diaspora in the 1980s. Taken together, these eighteen essays present the reader with a panorama of émigré co-operation and conflict in exile. The scholars from eight different countries thus present the results of their most recent research in the field of interethnic interactions of the émigrés which—had it not been for the GdaĔsk meeting—would otherwise only appear as part of their national historiographies. This publication was prepared for readers interested in European, as well as American, history (political, cultural, and economic). Furthermore, as the two-volume set offers diversified perspectives, cutting across disciplines and national borders, it may serve as a background for exciting discussions in academic courses and as an enjoyable inspiration to further research on both sides of the Atlantic. On behalf of the organizing committee, we would like to thank all of the conference participants, partners and sponsors. We would also like to express gratitude to Ewa Barczyk (Director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries) and to Daniel Necas (Research Archivist at the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota) whose personal efforts were instrumental in helping us locate and obtain copies and permissions to use the photographs on the covers. It ought to be recorded that the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee library, represented

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at the conference by Director Barczyk, houses the Roman Kwasniewski Photographic Collection, an extensive treasure trove of visual images of the Polish neighbourhood of Milwaukee in its heyday, the early decades of the 20th century. Last but not least, our thanks go to Peter Simon for his assistance in correcting the texts for both volumes. We hope that the volumes that resulted from our discussions at the University of GdaĔsk constitute an important step in the direction of closer international cooperation as well as a clear indication of the critical need for transnational research. —Anna Mazurkiewicz, Mieczysáaw Nurek

PART I TRANSATLANTIC TRANSITIONS

CHAPTER ONE POLISH AMERICAN LITERATURE: A STORY OF EXILE, EMIGRATION, AND ADAPTATION THOMAS J. NAPIERKOWSKI

The focus of this volume addresses one of the great migrations of human history—a phenomenon, actually a series of phenomena, in which millions of people left the lands of their birth and relocated in countries thousands of miles from home. Despite the magnitude of this migration, perhaps because of the magnitude, the phenomena are, as yet, inadequately studied and understood. In an effort to correct this situation, scholars from a wide range of disciplines—history, sociology, economics, political science, and others—and on both sides of the Atlantic have renewed their study of these migrations through the prism of their areas of specialization. It is the primary contention of this chapter that no examination of the phenomena can be complete without a study of the literature which the exiles and immigrants wrote and read. Surely all literature reflects the perspective of those who wrote it and the period in which it appeared. Even when the literature is poorly written or biased, it still provides valuable insights into its authors and its audience. As historian Richard Wunderli has noted, literature—like government documents, economic statistics, ship manifestos, private and official correspondence, and a myriad of others sources—and better than most—is crucial to the proper analysis of a phenomenon, an era, a community. He further comments that in literature we actually hear the voices of the past; indeed, he insists that if we read the literature with intelligence, we not only hear the voices of the subjects of our studies, we can actually “carry on a sort of conversation” with the authors of the literature, with their characters, and, to some degree, with the audiences of the literature. Wunderli concludes his comments with a personal observation:

4

Chapter One In any case, literature (i.e. fiction) ironically makes history more ‘real’ than mere historical narrative. When I think of the 18th century, I think of Tom Jones, just as I think of the Pardoner when I think of Late Medieval England and of Uncle Vanya when I think of the decline of Imperial Russia. They are ‘real’ and are inseparable from their ‘history.’ How can we comprehend ‘race’ in America without confronting Bigger Thomas in Native Son—or more recently the book and the movie The Help?1

All this notwithstanding, the literature of east-central European immigrants to the United States and Canada has been sorely neglected. Using Polish American immigrant literature as a case in point, this paper outlines the importance of recovering, preserving, critically analysing, and gaining recognition for this literature both in the United States and in Europe. These comments, however, are not intended to be restrictive or parochial. I focus on Polish American literature, but I believe that Polish American literature serves as a good representative model of the literary record of most of the national and ethnic groups addressed at this conference. As I have reported elsewhere, The definitive history of Polish American literature has yet to be written; but the general outline of that history is, by now, clear. And what it reveals is a level of literary activity that is in need of better appreciation and wider dissemination both because of its significance and merit and because of its implications for American literature, for the patterns of American cultural production, and for a better knowledge of the Polish identity in America. This is all the more remarkable because it was long assumed that the Polish American community—at least the generations of the stara emigracja (old immigration), the peasant immigrants of the period from roughly 1880 to 1920—were virtual illiterates who not only failed to produce literature but who, in their struggle to survive in a new land, took little pleasure in reading, much less in literature.2

Until relatively recently, even some prominent Polish American scholars contributed to such a mistaken impression; and this is perhaps the first important lesson to be gleaned from Polish American literature: a caution that even today a substantial body of immigrant/ethnic American literature—especially literature produced by early waves of immigrants— can go undetected.

1

Richard Wunderli, e-mail letter to author, 28 February 2012. Thomas J. Napierkowski, “Literature, Polish American,” in The Polish American Encyclopedia, ed. James Pula (Jefferson, NC: McFarland), 276.

2

Polish American Literature

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Despite recent expansions of the canon of American literature, a recognition that American literature is (and always has been) multilingual and a focus on multiculturalism and diversity, ethnic American literatures—apart from Hispanic American literature, Jewish American literature, and perhaps Irish and Italian American literatures—remain largely ignored in literary histories and in university curricula. And without deliberate effort, usually by scholars of ethnic background, such literatures can not only escape detection, they can be lost. As a result, the first task of any study of ethnic/immigrant literature is to define the very existence and extent of that body of literature—in effect, to establish a bibliography of literary production and, in many cases, to ensure the preservation of that body of work. In the case of Polish American literature, the ground-breaking efforts of Karen Majewski have achieved the initial phase of this work. In her 2003 book Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish American Identity, 1880–1939, Majewski has documented and studied over two hundred Polish-language novels, novellas, short stories, sketches, and anthologies of short fiction penned by and for the stara emigracja. Several aspects of her work are especially noteworthy. Not only is the body of fiction which she has identified larger than most would have expected, but her research points to a body of work still in need of cataloguing. She reports, for example, that if she had broadened her focus beyond fiction with a special emphasis on immigrant identity, her bibliography would have been significantly longer; and she estimates that a bibliography including poetry and drama would be three times as large. She also gives us an idea of the work required to recover this body of work: While university repositories facilitated the process, it still meant tracking down clues and half-clues about authors and titles buried in Polish language immigrant histories and memoirs, examining the catalogues and reading the shelves of Polish American organizational libraries and archives, sorting through knee-deep papers strewn on the floors of half– abandoned immigrant bookstores, and scanning hundreds of rolls of microfilmed newspapers.3

If the efforts of one determined scholar can recover so impressive a body of work, one can only wonder what a larger and better funded effort might discover. 3

Karen Majewski, Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish American Identity: 1880-1939 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2003), XIII.

Chapter One

6

Beyond this, Majewski’s critical examination of the prose fiction which she was able to secure reveals a sophisticated level of writing and a complexity of audience response well beyond her expectations. The detective fiction which she examined, for example, provides much more than suspense and actions; it addresses …the concerns of immigrants at multiple levels, touching simultaneously on personal issues of inheritance and property, on metaphorical concerns about family loyalty and ethnic continuity, and on powerful historical conceptions of a divided Poland betrayed from within, by its allies and its own people.4

Not only did the immigrant community generate and support a body of literature of considerable size and scope, it also produced a notable quantity of sophisticated works in response to audience concerns and demands. Two other points of special significance emerge from Majewski’s study. On a purely literary plane, this early Polish American fiction challenges commonly accepted paradigms of immigrant and ethnic American literature by diverging from commonly accepted models. Polish American romance novels of love, for example, treat marriage not as an avenue of assimilation and of the resolution of immigrant and nativist conflicts, but as a vehicle to preserve ethnic identity. In addition, Polish American sagas of immigration, although still chronicling the physical and psychological trauma of emigration as most immigrant literatures do, also hold out the prospect of a return to a free homeland. Furthermore, the literature uncovered by Majewski obliterates the image of the peasant immigrants held by host-culture writers and by many Poles and, for a long time, by many scholars. Even when sympathetically viewed, these Polish immigrants were generally regarded as “inarticulate, passive, almost primeval, as faceless symbols of a primitive life force and as voiceless victims of social injustice and economic exploitation”.5 But the characters in these novels and short stories, their authors, and their readers present a different reality. The picture which emerges from the novels and their reception reveals “an active, vibrant, and complex community… and the sound from within was not silence but conversation, argument, laughter”.6 These are voices and sounds which must be heard and considered as we study east and central Europe’s transatlantic patterns of migration. 4

Ibid., 64. Ibid., 13. 6 Ibid. 5

Polish American Literature

7

Early Polish American literature was not limited, however, to prose fiction. Although poetry and drama have not received the attention which Majewski has focused on fiction, several sources, both primary and secondary, document a large and significant body of literary production in these other areas. In the realm of poetry, the work of recovery and assessment is likely to be even more challenging than it was with fiction, but evidence suggests that the task will be worth the effort. The Antologia Poezji PolskoAmerykaĔskiej (The Anthology of Polish American Poetry) edited by Tadeusz Mitana and published in 1937 under the auspices of the Polish Arts Club of Chicago is a good indicator of the extent of poetic activity in Polonia before the onset of World War II. Mitana reported that once the Polish Arts Club approved the project, “Poems were solicited through a series of announcements in every Polish newspaper in the United States and Canada, and a great mass of poetry was received”.7 The final product of this competition was a volume containing 178 poems by 55 poets: 136 of the poems are composed in Polish and 42 in English. Interestingly, about one-third of the poems had been previously published, several in separate collections, but significantly most in a wide range of Polish language newspapers. Among the poets with multiple entries are Walery Fronczak, M.A. NiedĨwiecki, Janusz Ostrowski, Victoria Janda (later nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), and, interestingly, Mieczysáaw Haiman, arguably the leading Polish American scholar of his day. In his notes to the reader, Mitana rather prophetically proclaims: Przyszáy historyk poezji polskiej w Ameryce znajdzie obfity materiaá do arcyciekawego studium w obfitoĞci zbiorków indywidualnych i w wielkim bogactwie wierszy, rozrzuconych po áamach pism polskich w róĪnych czĊĞciach Stanów.8 (Future historians of Polish poetry in America will find a wealth of material for intriguing study, both in the number of Polish American poets and the great wealth of poetry generated in various Polish publications throughout the United States.)

Even more prophetically, Mitana could have been addressing the conference when he further wrote that the poems in the Anthology …are not only revealing to the understanding hearts of their readers a singular pathos of the process of adjustment, but are also lifting the curtain that for so long has hidden the very nature of the spiritual aspirations of the 7

Tadeusz Mitana, ed. Antologia Poezji Polsko-AmerykaĔskiej (Chicago: Polski Klub Artystyczny, 1937), 193. 8 Mitana, 7.

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Polish people in America. It is no exaggeration to say that between its covers, the Anthology gives for the first time, both an insight into the qualities of the Polish mind in America and a cross section of its emotional content.9

On a personal note, I might add that as someone who found his way to the study of Polish American literature through African American literature, I have long regarded the Antologia as a pioneering effort comparable to The Book of American Negro Poetry edited by James Weldon Johnson in 1922, a period when the Black American community was working to gain recognition for its contributions to American literature. One final comment on poetry: the Antologia and the few other studies of Polish American poetry from this era suggest that poetry may have been the preferred literary form of the stara emigracja. As I have suggested elsewhere, and on more than one occasion, the personal nature and relative brevity of most lyric poetry might have made it more appealing, manageable, and publishable than fiction or drama. Early in the twentieth century, there were hundreds of Polish-language newspapers and journals in the United States; and many, perhaps most, had poetry columns. Polish-language drama is well documented but inadequately studied and evaluated, and sorely neglected in scholarly studies of the Polish American community. As early 1890, only a few years into the period of the great migration, Polish literary historian Karol Estreicher authored an essay entitled Teatr polski za oceanem (Polish Theatre beyond the Ocean), published both in Europe and America, in which he provides valuable descriptions of performances and documents the vital role of the theatre in Polish immigrant life. Estreicher mentions scores of plays performed in Polish American communities ranging from New York City and Chicago to Winona, Minnesota, providing clear evidence that dramatic productions were not limited to large and culturally privileged centres of Polonia. Almost half a century later (1937), Natalie Kunka’s essay The Amateur Theatre Among the Poles focused on the Chicago area and documents a surprisingly large number of dramatic clubs and circles in the city. Kunka records that virtually every Polish Roman Catholic parish in the Chicago had a drama circle, and some more than one; she also identifies several secular dramatic societies. In the course of the article, she also comments on the tenth anniversary of the Alliance of the Polish Literary Dramatic Circles of America, a nation-wide federation of parish and independent dramatic clubs organized to promote friendly relations, support, and cooperation among member groups. 9

Ibid., 196.

Polish American Literature

9

In his 1983 essay Polish American Theatre, Artur Waldo advanced the study of dramatic activity in Polonia, further documenting the association of dramatic production with immigrant parishes (which frequently used productions as fund raisers), summarizing the careers of leading figures in theatrical circles, and analysing the eventual decline of Polish-language theatre. Most recently, in 1989, Emil Orzechowski’s book-length study Teatr polonijny w Stanach Zjednoczonych (The Polonian Theatre in the United States) was published in Poland by the prestigious Ossolineum Press. It is an ambitious work, which unfortunately seems to have attracted more attention in Poland than in American scholarly circles. The ethnic/immigrant literatures of the United States and Canada, despite recent efforts, remain sorely neglected on both sides of the Atlantic. Furthermore, what is known and studied about them—including about the literature of larger and more typically studied groups such as Hispanic and Asian minorities—is generally confined to the literature of the last forty or fifty years. It is for this reason that I have focused on the writings of the stara emigracja. I should like to point ever so briefly to developments in Polish literature in the decades since 1939, and to suggest some conclusions about the history and preservation of this and other immigrant literatures. First, there is the obvious point that these literatures, like all endeavours, fall into various phases influenced by the circumstances and conditions of the period of production. In the case of Polish American literature, perhaps the most obvious periods or divisions would be writings by Poles visiting the United States or resident there prior to the period of the stara emigracja: the very significant body of literature produced by the generations of immigrants and their children of the period between 1890 and 1939; the works generated during World War II and the half decade or so immediately following the War, literature produced by and about military and diplomatic figures, political refugees, and displaced persons; the literary production of the period of the Cold War (here names like Czesáaw Miáosz, Danuta Mostwin, and Wiesáaw Kuniczak come to mind); the writings by refugees from Martial Law; and, finally, the literature produced even today by immigrants and visitors from free Poland (e.g. Anna Frajlich, Henryk Grynberg, Tadeusz Chabrowski, Adam Lizakowski). The differences between these periods of Polish American literary history must be acknowledged, but what is also significant is the range of themes which cross these various generations: e.g. concerns about the obligations of Polishness, about the proper relationship with Poland, about the trial of exile and migration, and about the establishment of a new identity.

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It is, of course, worth noting that the vast majority of the literature that I have been reporting is written in Polish, about which more in a moment. There is also an English-language tradition of Polish American literature, and its development reveals much about the history and dynamics of Polonia. The years between the two World Wars saw the beginning of this English-language tradition in literature; but its development was slow and erratic for several reasons, the most important of which was both internal and external to the Polish American community. Internally, it now seems clear that the arrival of a new wave of immigrants from Poland during and after World War II slowed the movement toward English-language literature. With their native proficiency in Polish and generally superior education, the new arrivals rather quickly assumed roles of leadership in Polonia. There is no doubt that these recent immigrants and exiles reinvigorated the Polish roots of the community, but they somewhat artificially prolonged Polish as the “official language” of Polonia in most publications and in many forums, sometime insisting that proficiency with the Polish language was a necessary credential for identity not just as a Pole but as a true Polish American. Additionally, the focus of the recent immigrants on Poland seems to have distracted many members of the second and third generations of the mass immigration from focusing their literary imagination on their own American experience and that of their parents and their grandparents. Externally, by the mid-twentieth century there was developing in the United States a hostile attitude toward eastern and central European Americans and immigrants. The former were often regarded as super patriots, a very negative quality in the eyes of many of the élite; and the latter were frowned upon because their criticism of Marxism alienated many brokers of American culture in academic circles, in the media, in the entertainment industry, and in the political arena. This combination of factors seems to have discouraged members of the third generation of a literary bent from addressing Polish American topics and led them to look elsewhere for their vision and for their voice. Whatever the reason, Polish American literature in English was late in gaining momentum, but in the last quarter-century it has begun to flower. In the world of fiction, authors like Anthony Bukoski, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Brigid Pasulka, and Leslie Pietrzyk have achieved recognition and success by inviting readers into Polish American communities and homes and, in some cases, bringing them to Poland; and Polish American poets like John Guzlowski, Linda Nemec Foster, Cecelia Woloch, John Minczeski, and Oriana Ivy are making a name for themselves by mining their ethnic heritage or immigrant status.

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There is, then, a significant and impressive body of Polish American literature, in Polish and increasingly in English, which, despite its value, remains largely unacknowledged and unstudied. Furthermore, this body of literature covers at least five major and distinct stages of Polish immigration to the United States: the stara emigracja, the World War II and immediate post-War period, the years of the Cold War, the Solidarity period, and the recent decades of a free Poland. These stages have all produced literary records of their own, but they also have much in common. As suggested above, in one fashion or another, they all address the reasons for emigration, the trials of immigration, the necessary internal and external adjustments required for life in a new nation and culture, links with Poland, and, more recently, connections with family, friends, and neighbours who share their background. Put differently, this body of literature sorts through issues of identity, cultural nationalism, and ethnic heritage in a new society which has been both welcoming and antagonistic to exiles and immigrants. Such a body of literature is invaluable to the work to which all at this conference are committed. I have no doubt that immigrants and exiles from the all the nations of origin represented at this conference have also produced literature of a similar nature. If Polish American literature is any indicator, significant tasks of recovery, preservation, and accessibility remain before these literary materials can be properly assessed and mined for what they tell us about their authors and their audiences. Scholars of Hispanic literature have shown the way: among their goals for the recognition their literary record are efforts to compile the master bibliography of all works written and published (some 18,000 entries to date); to locate, preserve, index, and digitize portions of all the newspapers published by Hispanics (some 1,700 located to date); to examine index, and create access to important archives containing Hispanic materials; to fund scholars to research and write about works long forgotten, and to sponsor biannual international conferences on recovery.10

To achieve even a portion of this for the immigrant and exile groups represented here, scholars on both sides of our “trans-Atlantic migration” must be involved. A major point—indeed a plea—of this chapter is that American scholars alone will not be able to accomplish all that needs to be done. In every case, the literature of immigration and exile is, by its very 10

Nicolas Kanellos, Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 30–31.

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nature, trans-national, and I firmly believe that its recovery and examination will benefit both the United States and the original homelands of the groups in question. I believe that recognition and recovery of immigrant literature will enrich the canon of American literature and ensure that memory of my immigrant grandparents will not be lost.

CHAPTER TWO CROATIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE AS A TRANSCULTURATED DISCOURSE JELENA ŠESNIû

The term “transculturation” has meant different things in distinct fields of the humanities and social sciences. Since its original application in 1940 by the Cuban sociologist Fernando Ortiz with the specific task of explaining some formative processes in colonial and post-colonial Cuban society, the term has spread to other contiguous and far-flung fields, and has since continued to serve as a useful heuristic tool. I mean to use the term in an interdisciplinary inquiry that starts out primarily as a literarycritical endeavour. My argument, which I will then test on two texts, proposes to consider a range of non-fictional texts, mostly travelogues written by Croatian travellers, immigrants or exiles in the United States as instances of an intense and ambivalent process of communication that has for some time been designated as transculturation. A brief and handy definition is offered by Mary Louise Pratt, a scholar deeply engaged in proving the term’s viability in a set of transdisciplinary inquiries carried on in the humanities and social sciences: Ethnographers have used the term transculturation to describe processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or metropolitan culture.1

Mark Millington is correct in suggesting a more responsible use of the term but still praises the term’s wider appeal signifying “the reality of complex cultural interactions and their political and social freight”, especially as the strategy would seem to complicate the more static models

1 Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone” Profession 91 (1991): 33–40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469 (accessed 7 May 2012).

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found in colonial discourse analysis, postcolonial theory, social anthropology, ethnic studies, and political sciences, among others.2 At this point I refrain from asserting whether such a process is to be taken as a positive sign of accommodating difference or a negative sign of succumbing to certain cultural hierarchies, but will simply try to outline how the borderline of two cultures that have historically converged in specific and over determined ways functions as an instance of transculturated presentations of both societies in question, Croatian and U.S.-American. When relying on the concept of transculturation, however, we must also take cognizance of some other related concepts nowadays shared across the disciplines. I particularly have in mind the concepts of postcolonialism, othering (“Orientalism”, “nesting Orientalism”, “Balkanism”), the “national question”, and auto-ethnography, to mention but a few concepts that I will draw on in the ensuing readings.3 My examples that propose to place this generally marginalized textual production in its two most likely contexts, either Croatian or U.S.–American, are Ante Tresiü Paviþiü’s travelogue recording his longer visit to the United States in 1906, Preko Atlantika do Pacifika (From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1907); and Josip 2

Mark Millington, “Transculturation: Contrapuntal Notes to Critical Orthodoxy,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 26, no. 2 (2007): 264. 3 For these terms, see, respectively: Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978); Maria Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 453–82; Milica Bakiü-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 917–31; Janusz Korek, “Central and Eastern Europe from a Postcolonial Perspective,” Postcolonial Europe, http://www.postcolonial-europe.eu (accessed 7 May 2012); Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Said has offered an inviting framework for the discursive generating of an entity (the Orient); Todorova refines his reading by showing how it can only partly be applied to the study of southeastern Europe which lends itself better to a sub-species of orientalism that she designates “Balkanism.” Bakiü-Hayden takes up both Said’s model and Torodova’s interventions in order to consider how in the Balkans the orientalizing strategies get applied from one entity to another as we move further east in the region (in the case of ex-Yugoslavia). Besides the overarching question of othering through orientalizing stereotypes, there are currently debates as to the applicability of some facets of postcolonial paradigm in the study of eastern and central Europe, where Croatia could also be placed. The related questions are taken up by Korek’s article so that his queries could be seen as representative in this context. Finally, for the working definition of auto-ethnography, we should go to Pratt’s text. National question in nineteenth- and turn-of-the-century Croatia is presented, for example, in Nikša Stanþiü, Hrvatska nacija i nacionalizam u 19. i 20. stoljeüu (Zagreb: Barbat, 2002); Arnold Suppan, Oblikovanje nacije u graÿanskoj Hrvatskoj (1835–1918) (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1999).

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Novakovich’s late twentieth-century observations upon his visit to his former homeland (first, Yugoslavia, later on Croatia) after a number of years spent in voluntary exile in the States, Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys (2003). Once again, it is my specific contention that what enables the authors and their texts to vacate their fixed positions or to play hide and seek with the preordained categories is what we have come to understand under the heading of transculturation. That these texts are marginal, even despite their literary merits or demerits, goes almost without saying. My next contention is that this might also be due to the process of transculturation imbuing these works, namely that texts such as these thematically and formally outgrow their respective linguistic, cultural and social contexts. Next, Tresiü Paviþiü obviously intends his text for the Croatian audience at home, only secondarily perhaps for his displaced or diasporic compatriots in various communities in the States where he visits. His text is written in Croatian and was published in Croatia. Novakovich, on the other hand, starts with a different proposition in mind. Not only is his text in English, and published by a U.S. press, but is clearly intended for distribution in Anglophone markets as his narrator’s stance indicates. Even though there is a gap of some ninety years dividing the two texts, their authors and their respective conditions of emergence, there are nevertheless some productive and instructive parallels to be drawn between the two. These insights, however, still remain to be placed productively within either of the two most likely contexts, that of a U.S. ethnic (or unmarked, non-ethnic) production, or that of a Croatian (diasporic) context. It is precisely this somewhat elusive and intangible process of transculturation-asbiculturalism that has turned the texts into bipolar entities. I would like to make clear that what draws the texts together, over and against their different linguistic status, for instance, is the fact that they transculturate in every major aspect of their textualization, be it in terms of execution, of their content or of their circulation and reception. One of the starting points for my examination of the processes of transculturated textuality is offered, not surprisingly, by Mary Louise Pratt’s landmark study of travel narratives and their role in the colonizer’s mapping of the new reality he has come across.4 There is, however, an important twist occurring if we propose to turn the tables around and look at the way the non-dominant perspective re-colonizes the colonizer, so to speak. In other words, I will propose that the Croats Tresiü Paviþiü and 4 Mary Louise Pratt, Imperials Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, New York: Routledge, 1992), 1–14.

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Novakovich talk back by way of transculturating to both American society (clearly overpowering its Croatian counterpart in every respect) and other centres of dominance that encroach upon their lives. In Tresiü Paviþiü’s case it is the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, whose jurisdiction over his homeland (the region of Dalmatia and Croatia as a whole) he detests, but whose subject he nevertheless is. In Novakovich’s case it is, first, the communist Yugoslavia, later on the Serbia under Miloševiü that launches a war against Croatia, and, finally, in the last instance it is the Croatian war and post-war society that nettle him. So even if, as Pratt suggests, travel narratives ought to be read as powerful and consistent documents of colonizer’s superiority and utter domination of the colonized world, the processes of transculturation and their attendant dynamics suggest otherwise by creating a textual space where these historical and cultural givens reflecting long-term global processes of imperialism, colonialism, and totalitarianism are challenged.5 What these texts complicate, however, is precisely the extent to which any one discursive system, reflective of a certain regime out there, may presume to fix and capture an identity position, whether in the case of individual or even collective and group identities. This is particularly instructive for the Croats, since it has often been the case that the periods of self-definition(s) were occluded and displaced by much longer periods of imposed and imported definitions. It is not far-fetched in fact to claim the Saidian complex of “Orientalism”, when it comes to the ways the western and imperial centre has dispensed with its Croatian periphery, and which frames the conditions of emergence and reception for both these texts. Both authors are actively at work, however, to discount this preexisting archive. They resort to various instances of self-enhancement and self-authorization, while they draw on a culturally specific input that might baffle the outside reader while it bolsters both the author’s expertise and the author’s complicity with his own readership. However, it is important that the message be not only read monoculturally and monolingually but that it be continuously projected in several directions. Just as an example: the recipients of Tresiü Paviþiü’s politicized ruminations are not only the audiences at home but also various communities in the States, whom he is wont either to criticize for their uprooting or to praise for the enactment of the bond with the mother country. Similarly, Novakovich is casting himself as both what ethnography terms “native informant” and an “exile”, as he is carefully negotiating his place in the ambit of U.S.-American literature with his bicultural material and perspective. What seems to be 5

Ibid.

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indicative is that the processes standardized as transculturation seem to offer more sensitive descriptive tools to combine with the terms already proffered by other approaches (from literary to postcolonial theory, from ethnography to political sciences). A few sentences are also in order with respect to my very broad generic designation of the aforementioned texts as “literature”. This is meant here principally as a recognition that we are dealing with a text mediated by language, and in such conditions that foreground precisely the use and choice of language. Secondly, in this context I will put aside the category of the fictional as one other signature mark of literature, and will rather place emphasis on the category of narrativity and the instance of personalized, first-person narration imbuing these texts. It is this expanded notion of literature that colours the inclusion of these and similar texts in the purview of my reading. I will further suggest that the overarching category be recognized as auto-ethnography, which brings us back—by a roundabout way and relying on the notion of the semiotic turn in anthropology—to literature and the issues of (linguistic) mediation and representation. Before delving into the texts themselves, it is advisable to consider a definition of auto-ethnography’s generic potential, proffered by Mary Louise Pratt: …an autoethnographic text [is] a text in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with representations other have made of them. Thus if ethnographic texts are those in which European metropolitan subjects represent to themselves their others…, autoethnographic texts are representations that the so-defined others construct in response to or in dialogue with those texts. … [T]hey involve a selective collaboration with and appropriation of idioms of the metropolis or the conqueror. These are merged or infiltrated to varying degrees with indigenous idioms to create self-representations intended to intervene in metropolitan modes of understanding.6

She ends by suggesting how “Autoethnographic works are often addressed to both metropolitan audiences and the speaker’s own community. Their reception is thus highly indeterminate”.7 Let us keep the aforementioned elements simultaneously in mind since most of these devices and effects have been deployed, severally or cumulatively, by both authors in question.

6 7

Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Ibid.

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From the Periphery to the Centre: Ante Tresiü Paviþiü Tresiü Paviþiü is painfully aware of the foregoing constraints, which then justifies his motivation to dispense with them, especially so of the organizing metaphor of metropolis and periphery. His self-empowerment begins at home, in the periphery so to speak, since he loses no opportunity throughout his text to impugn the despised Austrian rule and to decry the apparently devastating results of the Austrian administration in Dalmatia.8 (The political situation at home is all but simple: the Austrians are Tresiü Paviþiü’s principal target since it is at this point that Dalmatia, Tresiü Paviþiü’s home region, is under the Austrian administration; however, when taking a broader view, as Tresiü Paviþiü is wont to do given his political colours, that of a Croatian nationalist politician, other regions of Croatia are in an uneasy alliance with the Hungarians, who thus deserve their share of Tresiü Paviþiü’s outrage.) These remarks alert us to the importance of at least several hegemonic contexts against and within which his text is situated, one being the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the other being the context of the industrialized United States. His background is important to consider before we move on to the mixed logic of his travel narrative. What predetermines his perspective is his political engagement in a staunchly nationalist political party at the turn of the century (the Croatian Party of Rights), as well as Croatia’s and Dalmatia’s clearly dependent and subordinate status, certainly not colonial in a classical sense, but also far from sovereign.9 Such imbrications mean that Tresiü Paviþiü will have to invest a lot of energy in order to project his political agenda onto an alien, defamiliarized context (in the United States) or a politically antagonistic one (in the Monarchy). The unresolved national question of various entities comprising the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy infuses his nationalistic stance. The more embattled the Croats in the Monarchy grappling with their right to self-determination are, the 8

Ante Tresiü Paviþiü, Preko Atlantika do Pacifika: život Hrvata u Sjevernoj Americi. Putopisna, estetska, ekonomska i politiþka promatranja (Zagreb: Dioniþka tiskara, 1907), 95–96, 125. All references will henceforth be provided parenthetically in the text. All translations are mine. 9 The volatile political status of the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia within, first, the Habsburg Empire (from 1527) and, subsequently, the AustroHungarian Monarchy (from 1867), deserves a study in itself. For an informed overview of manifold implications of Croatia’s semi-autonomous and semidependent position, cf. Stanþiü, Hrvatska nacija i nacionalizam, 9–20; Ivo Banac, Nacionalno pitanje u Jugoslaviji. Porijeklo, povijest, politika (Zagreb: Durieux, 1995), 22–45.

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more astringent Tresiü Paviþiü’s discourse becomes. Not surprisingly, given his “peripheral” perspective, his resistance to the colonial dictum comes about in a plethora of discursive strategies that contain instances of othering (defamiliarizing, demonizing, abjecting, racializing), while clearly deployed as transculturated strategies so that he might be able to empower both himself and his besieged audiences both at home and in the diaspora. The general observation is that transculturation at times includes the conveniently designated anti-colonial devices, while at times it makes use of the dominant perspective, as the narrator and traveller sees fit.10 In order to punctuate the flow of my argument, a synopsis of Tresiü Paviþiü’s trajectory in the United States should be provided. He starts out from the French port of Le Havre, booking a passage on La Touraine, flying French colours. After spending a few days in New York, his first port of call, he goes on a tour of the United States, most of it set down by the pattern and distribution of various pockets of Croatian communities in the country. His next destinations are Pittsburgh and Allegheny, Pennsylvania, alongside other smaller places. From there he proceeds to the next major centre of the Croatian diaspora in the United States, namely, Chicago. His next stops are smaller but successful northern colonies in Calumet, Michigan, and Ely, Minnesota, respectively, before he braves the Rockies in an attempt to get to the Croatian communities on the West Coast, where he visits Sacramento, Oakland, and San Francisco. On his way back to the East Coast, he stops at St Louis, Missouri, revisits Chicago and places in Pennsylvania, and makes a detour to the Niagara Falls before embarking on a ship in New York to take him home. Along the way, he not only describes the scenes before him, relating to his immediate surroundings in terms of man-made and natural geographies and landscapes, but he also continuously juxtaposes as a spectral backdrop his associations, reminiscences and experiences from his native land and 10

For above strategies, I only have room for a few examples: defamiliarizing means placing a known sign (for example, various moral and regional types of Croatian immigrants) into a new, American context and seeing what comes out of the encounter; demonizing refers mostly to the way Tresiü Paviþiü castigates the foreign ruling elites back home and their Croatian lackeys; abjection pertains to different taxonomies extant within Croatian community and with respect to the interaction of Croats and others in the melting pot; racialization is obvious in Tresiü Paviþiü’s extended, largely unsympathetic account of the black people in the United States, both in his dealings with them and in the dominant narrative that he simply incorporates into his text so as to “educate” the typical Croatian reader; or it might also refer to the racializing of Asian immigrants in California as he describes his visit there.

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from many European locations visited on his previous travels (91, 185, 192, 254, 260). This spectral cultural geography is a key instance of the way the strategy of transculturation destabilizes the extant hierarchies. He thus makes continuous comparisons between localities in the United States and back home, usually to the detriment of the former; or when not necessarily so, he always takes great care to point out a comparable facet of the home country not allowing himself to be unduly fascinated by different aspect of the United States, from society to nature. I have already made clear how the notion of transculturation accrues to several textual and contextual instances apprehended in the analysis. In relation to Tresiü Paviþiü’s travelogue, these moments refer to his status as an imposing, if somewhat controversial, political figure at home and among the diaspora; next, they testify to his ambitious project to reconnect and possibly re-unify the dispersed communities of Croats reflected in the succession of stops on his journey, and then reinforced by his political actions on the ground and further reiterated by way of his textual strategies. This repetition with variation testifies to a sense of political urgency that he would like to ascribe to the situation, but also to himself as a politician. The third point that contributes to the dynamics of transculturation that is central to the text is the shifting notion of diaspora as perceived by the participants in the very formation and by the observers from the outside, even if they come from the home country. Occasionally, we see that the participants have created their own modes of coping with the processes that require constant bi- and multicultural communication and negotiations. In many respects, though, Tresiü Paviþiü is correct in laying the blame on the Austrians, who even though perhaps not actively encouraging the mass emigration to the Americas at the turn of the century, still did nothing significant to prevent the exodus from some Croatian regions, Dalmatia among them. Tresiü Paviþiü’s rancour is directed at Austrians for other reasons as well, since as colonial administrators they have actively suppressed the emergence of, and effectively checked, any consolidation of Croatian national consciousness. It is interesting that even though Tresiü Paviþiü pointedly addresses parts of his text to numerous regionally diversified Croatian communities in the States, thus creating an imagined community of (national) readers, still he is painfully and precisely aware of the fragmentation, the lack of unity and self-respecting national awareness among those (51–53, 75–77, 113, 206 and 252). Thus it is hardly incidental that he would indict the Austrians with deliberately hindering the rise of a more self-conscious Croatian national body. It is here that colonial processes can be seen at work. Consequently, we are

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encouraged to employ some insights proffered by postcolonial theory as we examine the ways the imperial rule managed different nationalities in the multinational and multiconfessional entity under whose domination Croatia and its various regions had stood for centuries.11 In a number of places that Tresiü Paviþiü had originally intended to visit (for instance, Buffalo) the level of national self-awareness is almost non-existent to the extent that he cancels his engagements arguing that the people are not “mature” (252). Tresiü Paviþiü is, thus, a colonial subject of the Austro-Hungarian crown, but that is only a part of his multifaceted textual and narrative identities. In the text he is also a respected political representative touring the States and making speeches to the dispersed and fairly uprooted Croatian communities. On various occasions, in fact, he draws a clear line between the politically inept and nationally estranged body of the Croats in the States and his superior political insight and national consciousness. His preordained notion of the nation, and his prescriptive ways of enacting one’s membership in that collective imbue his remarks in the text and intensely colour all his public addresses to the Croatian diaspora, who might not see eye-to-eye with Tresiü Paviþiü on some of the foregoing issues. On a different level, however, Tresiü Paviþiü transculturates as he sheds the role of an Austrian subject and puts on a garb that he will continue to wear in his dealings with the American subject-matter in his travelogue. It is the garb of an educated, cultured, upper class and cosmopolitan intellectual, who precisely by reaping the fruit of an education obtained in the imperial, multicultural centres of learning (for instance, Vienna, Budapest, and Prague), can then cast himself as being superior in every single respect to the boorish, rude and materialist-minded Americans. Despite his brief and off-hand acquaintance with the sights of New York City, he will note with his characteristic wry tone the nation’s utter lack of aesthetic sense as he complains about a clutter of every possible architectural style on a single building creating a comic effect (27). His indictment finally comes to asserting that art is non-existent in America except as the imitation of European models (35). His self11 I hasten to add that the term colonial and, consequently, postcolonial is not favored by Croatian historians so its application must be restricted only to the understanding of cultural processes, and then only in comparative perspective (with respect to other contiguous or more distant countries). In historical terms, as pointed out by Stanþiü, it makes more sense to speak of the “dominant” and “subordinate” nations in the context of the Austro-Hungarian political entity (59– 62).

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creation from a second-rate Austrian subject into first-rate critic of the American ways is quite remarkable. It shows first-hand how the process of transculturation occurring in the textual space of a travelogue and reflecting the traveller’s experience on the ground complicates our received ideas of the regulatory power of the colonial discourse. Tresiü Paviþiü’s textual transformations are more remarkable still as we continue to observe his manifold roles. One such is played by him very early on as he arrives for the first time at the shores of the New World. As the ship approaches the New York harbour and passes by a landmark site—the Statue of Liberty—he sounds like an immigrant landing in a new country, hard pressed by circumstances (22–23). This is in stark contrast to the relative ease and comfort that he enjoyed as a cabin passenger, and even more so to abominable conditions suffered by Croatian steerage passengers during a long and tedious journey, that he records (15–16). It is just one of numerous instances in the text where his class and status privilege colour his remarks both of diasporic Croats and American citizens, suggesting itself as yet another fault-line cutting through the text. It comes to the fore in his patronizing and moralistic, even if possibly not far off the mark, comments castigating the lack of moral and social standards of the specific Croatian communities that he either witnesses or, more likely, hears about from his local informants. The most striking example of the defunct Croatian community, the only such instance in the text, is the one situated in St. Louis, Missouri, where, according to Tresiü Paviþiü, the Croats are almost beyond repair. It is difficult to say whether their degradation results from their “filthy” and “immoral” way of life conducted in numerous boarding-houses (termed “lairs” by Tresiü Paviþiü (229)) and brought from their home country or from the fact that it is in their new country that they slid down into the most despicable and deadend jobs (“cleaning sewers” (228)). That he uses his travel narrative as a strident political attack on Austrian and Hungarian malingering in Croatia is clear from the reception, either warm-hearted or reserved, that he receives at various conferences while delivering his speeches, but it is also the case that he needs the text to communicate with his Croatian audience, and to impress on them the need for a stronger and more thought-through idea of national consciousness. This is particularly poignant in the scene of his culminating address on his second visit to Chicago. Let us recall the many obstacles on his way, from geographical to political, not the least of them being the fuzzy boundaries of the entity of diasporic, emigrant Croats. As Tresiü Paviþiü finds out, there is simply no way to tell how many people constitute the body of the uprooted Croats: it can be anywhere from

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200,000 to half a million people that for the most part he considers lost to their nation and the mother country (77). He even makes a bleak but ultimately exaggerated prediction that in fifty years thence, there will be no more Croats in the United States (78). In his Chicago address, Tresiü Paviþiü summarizes his findings, observations and impressions gathered from his travels in the country and his acquaintance with the situation of varied Croatian communities. He has covered the country from east to west and has experienced both the impeccably well-run communities (Chicago, California, Calumet) as well as the broken or disorganized groups (St Louis, Crested Butte). He has seen the disunity and witnessed the programmatic solidarity of several immigration organizations of the Croats, as well as gauged the role and the limits of traditional organizations such as the Church, various fraternal organizations, the newspapers or a few Croatian-language schools. He has repeatedly inveighed against the fractions and regional divisions carried over from home as a result of the machinations of the ruling elites in the Monarchy, while invoking as an antidote both the idea of Croatian and Serbian closer alliance and the idea of pan-Slavic unity proceeding from the compatibility of the immigrants’ position on the ground (248). However, faced with the prospect of, at the time, unchecked emigration and the emptying out of many regions in Croatia, and with the dismal prospect of losing people who have yet to fight out for their political and every other (most notably, economic) form of independence, Tresiü Paviþiü resorts to a dramatic appeal for retaining the elements of national consciousness even as he sees them inevitably being shed by long-term immigrants or their descendants in their daily accommodation to the vortex of American life. So, even as he pleads with them not to forget their language and their ties with the mother country, he addresses them repeatedly as “my lost brothers” (235, 247). By using some forms of colonial discourse reality mapping, Tresiü Paviþiü manages to constitute an authoritative textual position from which to intervene into a fastchanging, politically, socially and economically challenging environment.

Return of the Native: Josip Novakovich Josip Novakovich’s case is best seen through an archive of theory, from postcolonial to literary and ethnographic, which acts as a foil to his writing and our reading of his text. Once again, if you read this text as a Croatian, you are in fact cheating, which puts me in an awkward position. Novakovich also has several roles to play when catering to AngloAmerican readership. First is his playing around with the concept of home

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and homeland, which might strike the reader from Croatia as odd, especially in the context of the fairly recently fought for and won independence. However, Novakovich is not committed to flat denunciation of his Croatian homeland, nor is he given to unconditional praise of his new homeland, the United States: “I may detour, but the thoughts come back to Croatia, as do I”, but even as he does so he is “perfectly happy to be an American in search of a lost place and time”.12 He thus deliberately keeps up the tension between being a nostalgic American and an exiled Croat. It would be useful to employ in this section of the analysis the notion taken from social anthropology, especially since the semiotic turn shaping up the discipline from the 1980s, with insistence on textuality, mediation and representation as integral to an ethnographic account. As we shall see, James Clifford’s convenient overview of some of the strategies of postmodern anthropology might be of use when considering Novakovich’s strategies of textualization and self-presentation. That his part-travelogue and part-memoir is more ambitious and more historical, however, transpires in the prologue where he sets up a temporal frame delimiting his observations. In the introduction it becomes clear how the space and time of America is transculturated through the space and time of the Balkans or, specifically, Yugoslavia and Croatia beginning with World War II and ending in Cleveland’s ethnic neighbourhoods in the contemporary United States. In the Prologue, the narrator establishes a link between Djeba and himself. Djeba is clearly a political exile in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War as a member of the defeated Croatian collaborationist army (15), while the narrator’s motives for emigrating are more complex—including political, familial and psychological factors—but this temporal arc extends the idea of diasporic mentality while simultaneously appreciating different notions of exile. (Novakovich is never entirely clear as to the factors that have directly or progressively triggered his decision to emigrate to the United States. At times, the motivation is clearly political—evading the draft, trying to escape less palatable aspects of the communist regime, while occasionally it boils down to his grandmother’s U.S. citizenship and to his intention to study in the States. Even at the point of his strategies of authorization, Novakovich is deliberately ambivalent.) In the Epilogue, Novakovich still refuses to align himself with either of the two systems, Croatian or U.S.American, or to ease out of the situation of in-betweenness that he has come to inhabit. He continues the imaginary link with Djeba and his 12

Josip Novakovich, Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys (Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2003), 12. All references will henceforth be provided parenthetically in the text.

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personal history, which to some extent continues to resonate with Novakovich and his story to carry it on to his own son, the next generation, in an on-going situation of transatlantic mobility. From Djeba to Josip and Josip’s son, we are faced with three types of diasporic, transcultural experience, which need to be articulated jointly. Secondly, Novakovich deftly uses some of the “orientalist” and wellrehearsed stereotypes, mostly in an ironic mode or to shake up his probably complacent western reader, especially in the mode of what Todorova calls “Balkanism”.13 The first of such stereotypes is connected to the idea of the Yugoslav communist regime under the president-for-life Josip Broz Tito, which was largely seen as a softer version of the Stalinist brand of communism as practiced behind the Iron Curtain. That is certainly the case, as Novakovich allows, but it doesn’t prevent his sense of “border terror” (11) induced by the life in a totalitarian society, even of a lighter kind, to permeate the whole first part of his childhood memoirs. His childhood memories are therefore far from idyllic, while he rehearses the impact that several intersecting regimes—that of the father’s indisputable power, that of the Baptist Church, and that of the communist state—exert over his sense of self and his drive for freedom. It is a telling irony that the first part of his memoirs is very bleak, while the sense proceeds from quite a different set of reasons than in part two, where the deflated tone is due to the war. Here, the bleakness, akin to the world created by the array of Russian realist masters, is due to repression, constraints and policing inherent in day-to-day workings of a totalitarian society, as Yugoslavia was before Novakovich decided to emigrate. In the first part, entitled “Sawdust Memories”, Novakovich takes on the persona of a memoirist, but still retains the aforementioned ambivalent stance and amplifies the use of narrative strategies to constantly foreground specific contextual and textual elements (reliability, memory, narrative transmission, choice of a subject matter). It is in this section that he grooms himself for his subsequent exiled status as he shows how several intersecting regimes have conspired to drive him into an interior exile where he resorted to cultivating an alternative world (41). Soon enough, such an interior construct would find an analog in the process of Americanization by proxy, through an intense and self-imposed process of acquiring the English language and American culture alongside it (27, 34). He is an exile even before he crosses the border and reaches his new destination.

13

Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” 453–55.

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In the childhood section of his memoirs the spectrality of America is juxtaposed with Novakovich’s years of growing up in Daruvar, a town in Western Slavonia. Even though the place could boast a fairly multicultural and multiethnic cast, those kinds of differences were not necessarily appreciated by the levelling required by the communist system, so that Novakovich’s family stands out in several ways: first, as a Baptist minority and, secondly, due to owning a small family business, “a residue of capitalism to be gotten rid of in socialism” (21). The third point of difference is the family shadow history of recurring migration to and from the States, which materializes as the narrator’s “transatlantic grandmother” (23), who turns out to be a key personage in his gradual assumption of an exilic consciousness. However, the process of self-Americanization is undercut by irony, one of Novakovich’s favourite devices, as he points out how he appropriately imbibed the meaning of American words from dollar bills: “The dollar bill was as clean as a starched bedsheet, self-confident, almost uncreasable, washable, unlike the Yugoslav bills” (25). Interestingly enough, at least for the way his exilic persona is fashioned, it is his grandmother and her foreign accent, but more so her detachments from the less palatable aspects of Yugoslav communist society, that point out to Novakovich ways out of his predicament: “For the time being I could not physically go to America, but mentally I could, through English—my grandmother’s tongue” (27); “My language of choice—if this was a choice—is matrilineal. Croatian as patrilineal I have rejected” (34). Elsewhere, I have pointed out how this gendering of exilic and diasporic experience is a major departure from the heavily patriarchal and masculine-styled set of symbols used to account for diasporic experiences in Croatian home and diasporic writing.14 Gendered images could find their way into the diasporic imaginary only as allegories of homeland, but rarely as viable and active proponents of mental and material change. Therefore, the way Novakovich explicitly posits the centrality of his grandmother’s image and, later on, her agency in facilitating his emigrant status, shows another facet that contributes to the overall idea of transculturation. He goes on in a similar vein during his first trip to the States, where he begins to see through a thick veneer of his imaginary America and its fabricated promises, and so ironically rewrites the inflated notions of the immigrants’ haven and the perfect society that he has harboured in the dingy socialist Yugoslavia (28). 14

Jelena Šesniü, “Croatian American Diasporic Literature: Two Cases of an Emergent Discourse,” Transatlantic Dialogues. Eastern Europe, the U.S., and Post-Cold War Cultural Spaces, eds. Rodica Mihaila and Roxana Oltean (Bucharest: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2009), 224–41.

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Transculturation, by way of several cultural procedures as outlined beforehand, begins to weigh more on him in parts two and three of his hybrid text, titled “Croatian Journal” and “Writing Home”, respectively. In part two, he presents the records of his several visits to Croatia during and after the Homeland War fought from 1991–95, and talks about the aftermath of the war, extending it also to the war in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina. As he gets more into a reportorial and journalistic mood, his perspective accrues some of the prerogatives ascribed to an ethnographic account. He is more likely to dispense general comments and deal out glib statements of the lay of the land in the Balkans (it is at this point that the concept is used more frequently). The problem for Novakovich is that he feels partly alienated and distant from the space and time of his erstwhile home, while still clearly evincing a lingering feeling for the place and the people especially as they grapple with the war and its aftermath. Still, he is no longer a native, even though in the second and, even more blatantly, in the third part of the text, he continues to play the role of a native informant (of course, this works only for his Anglophone readers). From a memoirist, however self-conscious and reluctant, and from a travel writer in the time of war and beset by doubts (125), Novakovich in this section takes up several prerogatives of an ethnographer. This perspective is both clearly empowering, but also carries specific types of constraints, as pointed out by James Clifford in his revisionist view of “ethnographic authority”.15 Clifford is clearly committed to re-examining the notion of researcher’s status in the production of ethnographic work, while some of his observations conducive to a poststructuralist and semiotic realignment within the disciplines of social anthropology and ethnography might be applicable to the plight of the narrator of non– fictional genres in a postmodern era. Clifford posits a figure of a baffled ethnographer, who needs to constantly raise questions of textuality, writing, representation of social facts, narrative authority, heteroglossia, and cultural translation, among others. This best explains Novakovich’s situation as he finds himself in Zagreb just before the collapse of communism in Europe and, in Yugoslavia, the onset of a bloody war taking place in the first half of the 1990s. He describes an uncanny feeling: “It felt strange for me to be guided, more baffled than a foreigner could be, in my home country after only two years of absence” (65); his frustration is obvious: “It was hard for me to get the real picture” (73). During his 15

James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, London: Harvard UP, 1988), esp. the chapter “On Ethnographic Authority,” 21–54.

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second and later visits to Zagreb and other parts of the country in the 1990s, the impenetrability is not only imagined but real, since the country is wrecked by war. Given these objective and subjective facets, suggests Clifford, the new procedure marking the production of an ethnographic account should rely on “participant observation”, which involves both intellectual and bodily reactions, requires constant translation, and signifies “an intense, intersubjective engagement” between the researcher and his environment.16 This is indeed the situation that Novakovich finds himself in, in parts two and three of his text, as we continue to consider it as an instance of auto-ethnography. Of course, the emphasis in the phrase “participant observation” is on the process by which a scholar must be responsive to his own position with respect to his object of study, always a dynamic entity (recall how Croatia has changed for Novakovich each time he visits, each time almost beyond recognition) in its own right, and attuned to his own involvement in the act. The idea of “participant observation” means that the scholar (here, narrator) renounces the idea that he can fully encompass his object of study (observation), while still retaining some capacities as a “cultural insider”.17 There are, in addition, other facets of “a new style of ethnography”18 applicable to Novakovich’s situation at this point in his text. Novakovich assumes the persona of the fieldworker, clearly established by short- and long-term stays in the field (Croatia and its different regions; adjacent regions; the Balkans in a wider sense). The next thing that empowers him as an ethnographer-as-participant-observer is an efficient use of vernacular. Novakovich plays around with his use of English and Croatian for different purposes, and he also makes clear that he is aware of Croatian’s different registers. The idea and reality of his expertise in both languages, for different purposes, is an important part of his ethnographic authority. As further pointed out by Clifford, as he lays out the contours of an ideal participant observer, there is “an increased emphasis on the power of observation”,19 which, among others, has the effect even of superseding the previously elevated “privileged informant” (a native, usually different guides, interpreters, relatives or acquaintances that Novakovich meets) in favour of participant observation undertaken by the ethnographer. Novakovich, with each new visit, builds upon an archive of old experiences and memories adding new findings to his on-going report as a 16

Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority,” 24. Ibid., 28. 18 Ibid., 30–32. 19 Ibid., 31. 17

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result of his “fieldwork”. Interestingly enough, as Clifford warns, it might be the case that an outsider participant observer is less tainted by bias than an insider. In section three, his post-war travelogue up to 9/11, another reversal occurs, almost imperceptibly. The “home” has become the States, while it is now Croatia that figures as a tourist destination or a theme of a journalistic report. Novakovich turns the perspective around and we are forced to readjust from the earlier notion of Croatia as homeland, as a location for the narrator’s “homecoming”. His self-definition, and consequently his tone, angle and the choice of themes in this section reflect this ultimate shift: he acknowledges his duality, and even identifies as an American against the Europeans (141). This alienated perspective is admittedly due to the narrator’s disaffection with the anomalies of Croatian post-war transition in both political and economic terms, and it is here that the notion of historical spectrality embodied in the invention of the Balkans with their specific historical pivots weighs oppressively on the narrator, effectively checking and stalling the flow of transculturation sustained through other sections. This energy, however, picks up in the final section of the travelogue where Novakovich revisits the uncontainable history of his transatlantic family on his mother’s side with its erratic path of migration extending through at least three generations. Not even historical and political exigencies, otherwise so overwhelming in the history of Croatia and the region, could have quenched the transculturating undercurrent permeating their lives and Novakovich’s text. Thus have the Croatian travellers and exiles in the politically stormy twentieth century shown various strategies in their texts testifying to a need to transculturate a host of tangled historical, cultural and linguistic conditions on the boundary lines of at least two cultures. By resorting to various postcolonial and anti-orientalising strategies, and by assuming a more informed “native” perspective over an arrogant imperialist discourse, they have produced texts that both conform to, and readjust, the latest theoretical insights into transcultural artefacts and processes. By intuitively or programmatically resorting to strategies that dynamically recast the relationship between different cultures, these writers and others like them have enriched the debates permeating the humanities nowadays.

CHAPTER THREE POLISH IMMIGRANTS IN THE SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FICTION OF W. S. KUNICZAK AND CZESàAW KARKOWSKI GRAĩYNA J. KOZACZKA

Immigrants are people who (speaking metaphorically) leave their own country in order to eat, and never mind how they present themselves later; tales of idealism (lost liberty, an ascent to freedom, sweet memories of martyrdom for a cause, a flight from oppression) are almost always an aftermath invention.1 Didn’t we have both employment and stability in Poland? Maybe not much stability, nevertheless we achieved some status and some balance in our lives. Yet, hundreds of thousands of us, including me, decided to leave it all and try the uncertainty… In the end, this uncertainty appeared more attractive than the certainty of the hopeless existence in Poland plagued by shortages, daily hardships, and no prospects for change to the irritating system…after all, we yearned just for normality, ordinariness. And that’s what we are looking for here in America, for stability, for return to the simple routine of everyday life.2

With striking similarity, W.S. Kuniczak (1930–2000), the author of the first fragment, and Czesáaw Karkowski (born in 1949), who wrote the second, articulate their positions on immigration. This common immigrant discourse, shared by two works of fiction separated by time, language and 1 W.S. Kuniczak, Century’s Child: An American Adventure, Manuscript, Author’s private collection, 228. 2 Czesáaw Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina (Lublin: Norbertinum, 2008), 144–145. Note: All translations from Polish have been completed by the author of this chapter.

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intended audience, bridges the generational divide between discrete immigrant cohorts and underscores the patterns inherent in human migration. A close analysis of two literary texts, W.S. Kuniczak’s unfinished manuscript of an English language novel, Century’s Child, and Czesáaw Karkowski’s Polish language novel, Kamienna Drabina (The Stone Ladder) will trace these emergent patterns, which seem to challenge some of the views, also strongly expressed in the novels, on the generational incompatibility of immigrant cohorts due to their narrowly perceived historical and political uniqueness. Even though the end results may differ, the literary rendering of the immigrant experience minimizes the importance of the Polish past while foregrounding a common human process of constructing a new identity within a new environment. Thus while each novel discussed in this study offers a generation specific view of immigration, they both cut through the myth of a heroic Polish-patriot immigrant, focus on the clash between the new American environment and the legacy of the Polish heritage, and illustrate the traumatic process of identity construction. Furthermore, both texts draw similar conclusions from their attempts to account for the relative lack of visibility of the Polish ethnic group on the American political, social and cultural scene. In each novel, the protagonist, to a large degree the author’s alter ego, offers an insight into one specific generation of immigrants. For Kuniczak, it is the post-World War II cohort, which unlike the late nineteenth and early twentieth century “for bread” peasant immigration, is socially heterogeneous, although according to Danuta Mostwin’s study conducted in 1970, the upper strata of the Polish society are more heavily represented. Among her respondents who achieved adulthood before the war, 83 per cent identified themselves as belonging to the upper class, upper middle class or middle class; 70 per cent achieved at least a high school education; and 62 per cent cited political situation as the reason for immigration.3 Demobilized soldiers and their families, Warsaw insurgents, and Displaced Persons whose personal past might have included armed resistance to both Germans and Russians, time spent in concentration camps, and finally in the Displaced Persons camps were all well represented in this group. For the most part, they matured in the inter-war free Poland, and large numbers of them identified themselves as members of the intelligentsia.4 Karkowski’s novel introduces immigrants whose 3

Danuta Mostwin, “Post-World War II Polish Immigrants in the United States,” Polish America Studies 26, no. 2 (Autumn 1969): 8–9. 4 See Helena Znaniecka Lopata with a New Chapter by Mary Patrice Erdmans, Polish Americans (New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers, 1994). See also Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission: The Polish Political

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formative years have been spent in communist Poland, and who arrived in the United States during the 1980s. They are often referred to as the postSolidarity wave, although this is rather a loose term since in addition to a relatively small number of political exiles expelled from Poland, this group also included many “consumer” immigrants. There were many such people among the emigrants from the 1980s, who represented relatively affluent social classes and whose standard of living was relatively good (considering the circumstances),5in Poland, often due to their professional status. Discouraged by the severe shortages of the 1980s, they sought to fulfil their consumer needs in the west.6 For both authors, immigrant narratives grew out of personal experiences with Kuniczak, a child of a high ranking Polish officer who spent the war years in England and arrived in New York in 1950 with a student visa, and Karkowski, a philosopher and journalist, member of the broadly defined post-Solidarity immigration who left Poland in 1982 to first spend two years in West Berlin, also finally settling in New York City in 1984.7 Even though Kuniczak’s manuscript, Century’s Child, and Karkowski’s novel, Kamienna Drabina, unquestionably include many autobiographical details, they are works of fiction and have to be treated as such. Jerzy KosiĔski, another Polish immigrant writer, cautions readers against an error of confusing literary fiction with fact. Using his own work as an example, he suggests that most of the time … what we remember lacks the hard edge of fact. To help us along we create little fictions, highly subtle and individual scenarios, which clarify and shape our experience. The remembered event becomes a fiction, a structure made to accommodate certain feelings.8 Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004). 5 Maágorzata Krywult-AlbaĔska, “Caught in a Fever? The Social and Economic Background of Emigration from Poland in the 1980s,” Polish American Studies 68, no. 2 (Autumn 2011): 114. 6 Helena Znaniecka Lopata with a New Chapter by Mary Patrice Erdmans, Polish Americans; Mary Patrice Erdmans, Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976–1990 (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). 7 From the archives of Józef Piásudski Institute of America, information provided by its executive director, Iwona Korga. 8 Jerzy Kosinski, “Interview: The Art of Fiction XLVI,” in Conversations with Jerzy Kosinski, ed. Tom Teicholz (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), 24–25. Kosinski provided this explanation in defense of his novel, The Painted Bird, when its autobiographical elements were challenged.

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KosiĔski’s ideas have clearly been influenced by the postmodern identity discourse privileging individual construction of self and reality championed by such twentieth century thinkers as Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault; sociologists like Antonio Gramsci and Eric Hobsbawm;9 or literary critics like Werner Sollors.10 Likewise, Eva Hoffman, in her critically acclaimed memoir, Lost in Translation, makes identity construction a central issue for her own immigrant struggle. She writes: You say what you are and everyone believes you? That seems like a confidence trick to me, and not one I think I can pull off. Still, somehow, invent myself I must. But how do I choose from identity options available all around me?11

It probably is not at all surprising that for both Kuniczak and Karkowski the postmodern identity discourse is a given. Karkowski identifies the source of all creative and innovative processes in the cyclically repeated patterns of “destruction and rebuilding, deconstruction and construction, anxiety and lack of fulfilment…which release the powers of creation”.12 Kuniczak reveals his concept of identity not through a narrator’s commentary but in a scene of a brief encounter between Johny, his protagonist, and a New York City policeman. ‘You some kinda Dee-Pee?’ [Asked the cop.] Johny nodded. But there’d be more to come. The question was: what should he claim to be? This cop was swarthy, could be an Italian, but what if he turned out to be a Turk or an Albanian? Johny once made the near fatal error of pretending to be Polish among Ukrainians. Generic Europe seemed like the best choice. ‘I’ve just come from Europe.’ ‘Jesus Christ!…I didn’t think you come from Africa!’13

This brief exchange suggests a clear distinction between two types of identity: ethnic and racial. And while ethnicity is definitely not a “fixed, 9

See Mary Cygan, “Inventing Polonia: Notions of Polish American Identity, 1870–1990,” Prospects 23 (1998); See also GraĪyna J. Kozaczka, “The Invention of Ethnicity and Gender in Suzanne Strempek Shea’s Fiction,” The Polish Review 48, no. 3 (2003); See also Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 10 Werner Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture (New York: Oxford UP, 1986). 11 Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (New York: Penguin Books, 1989), 160. 12 Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 8. 13 Kuniczak, Century’s Child, 195.

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or…self-evident category”,14 but can be manipulated depending on the circumstances, racial identity does not offer such freedom. According to David Roediger’s work within the area of whiteness studies, Johny arriving in America after the Second World War would find himself within the first European immigrant cohort, which was automatically classified as white.15 Both Kuniczak and Karkowski combine the identity discourse with the traditional mythos of the American Dream as the philosophical underpinning of the narratives, but also continue to (de)construct and (re)construct it as they provide an immigrant commentary on the Dream. Their protagonists seem to possess the critical tools necessary to construct their American identity almost before they reach the U.S. shores. They believe in the Dream as defined by Jim Cullen in his seminal work, The American Dream, where he posits that “[e]xplicit allegiance, not involuntary inheritance is the basis of American identity”.16 But this conviction undergoes rigorous testing on the ground with somewhat different results for each of the literary characters. The results of such a confrontation between myth and reality and their effects on the immigrant identity construct seem so important in both novels that their authors employ specific literary techniques to make them particularly visible to the readers. Karkowski’s essayistic narrative style with its multiple internal monologues and streams of consciousness clearly lays out his emigrant discourse while Kuniczak’s frequent use of meta fiction devices allows not only for an authorial commentary on the events but also blurs the division between fiction and reality, suggesting perhaps “the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text”.17 W.S. Kuniczak’s Century’s Child tells a story of twenty-year-old Johny Coleslaw, a Displaced Person from somewhere in Europe who, just like its author, arrives in New York City in 1950 in very dramatic circumstances involving a shipwreck within sight of Manhattan, thus allowing its protagonist to experience a symbolic rebirth in the waters of the New World. Johny, it seems, is a fortunate recipient of a student visa 14

Werner Sollors, introduction to The Invention of Ethnicity (New York: Oxford UP, 1989), xiii. 15 David R. Roediger, Working toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburb (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 136. 16 Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 6. 17 Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction (New York: Methuen, 1984), 2.

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sponsored by the Kuldesak Foundation, a Polish American organization. Upon his first visit to the foundation’s headquarters, he learns that the sponsorship has been discontinued, so is thus now an illegal alien on the run from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). His next few weeks of evading the authorities are filled with misadventures in which many of the representatives of the Old Polonia and the new émigrés are cast as villains. Johny, the naïve newcomer, falls for urban myths such as hunting for alligators in Manhattan’s sewers, meets with crafty but helpful Polish Jews, and seeks the company of a black prostitute with a heart of gold. Since such an illegal existence is unsustainable and deportation is not an option (Johny’s country of origin does not exist any more), he chooses the only available alternative: enlisting in the army and helping the war effort in Korea, “a child of Europe earning his right to be an American in Asia, if not yet in the United States”.18 A large portion of the manuscript is devoted to the Korean War plot and is of less interest to this discussion. Czesáaw Karkowski’s Kamienna Drabina traces a less dramatic story of Henryk, a middle aged Polish professional, who arrives in New York City with the wave of the post-Solidarity immigration and who constructs a new life and a new identity for himself beginning with a menial job, studying the language, coping with a life-threatening illness and doggedly continuing slow professional and social advancement to join the American middle class. This advancement represents to him personal satisfaction and becomes a tangible proof of the attainment of the Dream. Since the new beginnings and the process of self-construction are central in both novels, the plot of each focuses primarily on the American experiences of their protagonists. The pre-immigration story is filled in by brief references or flashbacks, which allow the readers to sketch just an outline of what Kuniczak calls “his everpresent European background”19 from somewhere “in his non-existent homeland, in Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Belarus, and the Ukraine which he crossed and recrossed in nine years of wondering”.20 For Johny, this background includes elements, which signify without any ambiguity, his class membership. There is a brief mention of a prosperous estate; of a long line of aristocratic ancestors—all military men—“one ancestor led Western Roman armies against Goths and vandals, another was hanged for throwing bombs at a Russian Tsar”;21 of a French mother; and finally of the General, his father. It is the General’s “notions about honor, duty, service to an entity greater 18

Kuniczak, Century’s Child, 65. Ibid., 40. 20 Ibid., 100. 21 Ibid., 231. 19

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than himself…”22 that still serve as Johny’s moral compass as do the General’s beliefs about social class: He was raised to truth, to honour and obedience, to manners, and to respect anyone older than himself. He was taught to keep his left palm down while spooning with his right, to keep his elbows tight against his sides and never to raise his hands above his shoulders during conversations. He was to keep his head uncovered when speaking to a lady, and to pay his debts…A gentleman always took the weight on his elbows when mounting a lady, or in his stirrups when jumping a fence. Because the future was unknown and open to doubt, a gentleman looked with confidence only to the past where a thousand years full of ancestors and history stood ready to advise him. Without at least a generation of authority behind him, a gentleman was not a gentleman but a peasant and to be a peasant was only a little better than being a horse.23

Class membership is without a doubt the most important element of Johny’s pre-immigration narrative as it is restated in numerous flashbacks throughout the manuscript and facilitates his othering of Polish immigrants and ethnics who do not share his background.24 The General’s tragic end, an execution by his own rebellious troops, serves as the beginning for Johny’s journey to America which leads him through the Warsaw Uprising and German camps to an Allied Displaced Persons’ Camp. Since for Johny the family estates and the lifestyle of the landed nobility are irretrievably lost, his desire to become a professional writer clearly marks his entrance into the ranks of Polish intelligentsia,25 which became the dominant force of post-war immigration. If Johny cannot return to his homeland because it does not exist any more owing to the military and political situation, Czesáaw Karkowski’s Henryk is in a similar situation. He is a political refugee of the 1980s, arriving in the USA legally with a one-way exit visa from Poland. He was staring at the paintings and their vibrant colours but thinking about himself, his beginnings when he came to America as an immigrant, a refugee, without a possibility of returning back to Poland. This door closed for him as soon as he crossed the immigration line at JFK.26

22

Ibid., 41. Ibid., 182. 24 See GraĪyna Kozaczka, “Cultural, Class and Ethnic Conflicts in Contemporary Polish American Fiction,” The Polish Review 49, no. 4 (2004): 1045–1064. 25 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 7. 26 Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 76. 23

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It is clear to Henryk that in order to construct a new identity he has to separate himself from the past so he deliberately chooses to forget his previous life as to “quickly put down roots in this soil”.27 True to this belief, the narrator provides minimal details about Henryk’s life in Poland. We do not learn anything about the extent of the political activities that prompted his expulsion from Poland. But we are led to believe that Henryk represents the best Polish society has to offer: he represents the Polish intelligentsia, the professional class, with deep and varied cultural interests for whom aesthetic needs are equally important to material desires. It would appear, then, that even though separated by the unbridgeable gap of thirty-five-years of post-World War II history, both characters, representing different generations of Polish political exiles, use the discourse of Polish social class to construct their new American identity while at the same time minimizing their Polish narrative. Ironically, in Kamienna Drabina, even though the time of action extends to the formation of a free Polish state, the immigrant’s separation from the country of origin is carried even farther. A common complaint heard from Henryk’s acquaintances at Polish social gatherings is about the pressure to spend precious vacation time visiting relatives back in Poland instead of enjoying trips to exotic tourist destinations. In both novels, the attitude towards the impact of Polish language and culture on the lives of immigrants and their engagement with what historians, such as Anna JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, identify as the exile mission is quite nuanced. According to JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann: The exile mission strongly emphasized both preservation and development of Polish culture in exile…The exiles felt particularly responsible for the protection and nurture of Polish high culture: the language, artistic expression, as well as intellectual thought and scientific achievement.28

However, neither novel develops a strong Polish cultural agenda abroad. On the contrary, in Kuniczak’s Century’s Child, Johny’s greatest pride is his nearly perfect English acquired in a DP camp, as well as his ability to converse fluently in several other European languages. His dream of cultural achievement is to become a writer, not a Polish or Polish 27

Ibid. Likewise, in his non-fiction text, Dziennik Jednego Roku (The Journal of a Year), Karkowski explains his lack of interest in the current political situation in Poland. Commenting on the presidential election in Poland, he writes, “I am not getting too excited…I did not go to vote at the Consulate. It is not my issue.” Karkowski, Dziennik Jednego Roku (New York: CreateSpace, 2012), 72. 28 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 14.

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American writer, but an American writer, a full participant in American culture. The excising of the exile mission from Century’s Child, by an author who after all devoted his entire writing career to promoting Polish topics through his World War II trilogy, The Thousand Hour Day, The March and Valedictory, and through his work as a translator of Sienkiewicz, might reflect Kuniczak’s late in life bitterness at what he perceived as hostility and lack of recognition of his accomplishments by the Polish American cultural and scholarly organizations. Just a year before his death, in a 1999 acceptance speech for a literary prize awarded by the London-based Union of Polish Writers Abroad (Związek Pisarzy Polskich na ObczyĨnie), Kuniczak said, “I realized too late, that it would have been much better for me if I never wrote even one word about Poles and Poland, but, of course, I could not do that.”29 The protagonist in Karkowski’s Kamienna Drabina, just like Johny, underscores a strong connection between language acquisition and the ability of an individual to enter the cultural sphere of English language heritage, especially literature. This literature first used as a tool in learning the language becomes one of the entry points for Henryk’s new identity construct as he continues to pursue the ideals of “humanistic education”30 espoused by the Polish intelligentsia. After a few months of such intense language training…the American world of words and sentences began to open for him. Soon he was able to delight in the audio version of “Under the Milk Wood” exceptionally performed by Dylan Thomas, the author himself; or he was deeply moved while listening to The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, by Peter Weiss masterfully produced by Peter Brook’s theatre.31

Henryk does attend Polish cultural events in New York, but only as part of his larger engagement with the life of the mind. It seems that the crucial elements of his new identity include an active search for diverse cultural experiences, fear of intellectual stagnation in a Polish exile community, and little interest in current political developments in Poland. Thus it might be necessary to redefine the exile mission for both Johny and Henryk in terms of, not so much as perpetuation of Polish culture in exile, but rather perpetuation of the ideals of the Polish intelligentsia 29

Jerzy R. KrzyĪanowski, “W.S. Kuniczak,” Archiwum Emigracji 3 (2000): 259. Ibid., 7. 31 Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 60. 30

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within their new American and even global context. The pattern of identity construction which emerges for these two immigrant characters cannot be complete without a discussion of how they situate themselves within the complicated context of the Polish Diaspora in the United States. Both novels clearly identify the well-documented and researched waves of immigration: the nineteenth and twentieth century “for bread” immigrants, the post-World War II émigré group and the postSolidarity cohort.32 In addition, Czesáaw Karkowski introduces the most recent arrivals, a comparatively small group who could be labelled as “the children of free Poland” since they reached maturity after 1989. Even though these two narratives differ in intensity of opinions, they both engage in othering of Polish immigrants by underscoring the differences, the impossibility of communication, and the lack of understanding among the different immigrant or ethnic cohorts and clearly position their protagonists not so much against other Americans, but rather against the Polish immigrant and ethnic “others”. In Century’s Child, Kuniczak asserts unequivocally, “Each immigrant generation fights for survival against the one before and becomes entrenched against the next.”33 Thus, the novel’s plot confronts his protagonist with the representatives of different immigrant generations and leads to a scathing, almost vitriolic critique of Polonia. The Polish American ethnics, the descendants of the “for bread” immigrants, are vilified as culturally backward and intellectually mediocre, who pervert the lofty ideals of the founders of the Kuldesak Foundation, which, without a doubt, signifies the thinly veiled KoĞciuszko Foundation. The Foundation’s headquarters, decorated with numerous portraits of Polish cultural and historical icons stands in stark contrast to the anti-intellectual attitudes of its president, Dr. Motchimorda and his staff. Not only is Johny informed that his promised scholarship has been cancelled due to general ingratitude of the Polish DPs, but he is also treated to a lecture by the inebriated Dr. Motchimorda. This lecture delivers a stark lesson on the Polish Diaspora and serves as an exposé of Old Polonia’s grievances against the post-war émigrés. Motchimorda identifies the lack of respect for the accomplishments of his generation and that of his parents as the cardinal sin of the émigrés:

32

See John J. Bukowczyk, A History of the Polish Americans (New Brunswick, USA: Transaction, 2008); See also Mary Patrice Erdmans, Opposite Poles; Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission; Helena Znaniecka Lopata, Polish Americans (New Brunswick, USA: Transaction, 1994); See also James Pula, Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995). 33 Kuniczak, Century’s Child, 538.

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Our folks came off the boats with labels around their necks like a load of shovels. My father was fourteen when he went down into the pits in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and he didn’t get to see the sun till he was past forty…and he never asked for anything he didn’t earn! My mother cooked for strangers and scrubbed office floors at night…She died on her knees so I could go to college and even then our whole family had to work. Nobody gave us any fancy scholarships, no sir. People laughed at us. They called us dumb hunkies…We were denied everything that America stands for. And just you wouldn’t believe the price my generation had to pay for our parents’ hunger to make something better for themselves.34

He accuses the émigrés of unrealistic demands and expectations that Polish Americans, just by the virtue of common ancestry, will secure for them the lifestyle they had been accustomed to in Poland. Motchimorda admonishes, “You don’t want jobs, you demand positions.”35 As Motchimorda rages, Johny ponders the irony of this situation as he gazes at the portrait depicting one of the Polish national heroes, his father—the General—which hangs on the wall behind the president. The narrow inward focus of the second generation of Polish Americans and the intellectual disconnect between the past ideals of the Foundation and its current decisions eliminate any possibility of the dialogue between the émigrés and the ethnics. Johny believes that Mochimorda’s pride in Polish American accomplishments is without much merit and despairs at what he judges to be the low achievement of the Foundation’s representatives: Motchimorda’s doctoral degree has been awarded by a mediocre university, and for others empty pretensions substitute for intellectual achievement. He thinks with sadness that for all their bluster, Polish Americans are well aware of their inferiority: But what really filled this building of his shattered hopes was a terrible suspicion that money might not buy respect even though it could apparently buy respectability, that mere possessions, or the ability to accumulate possessions, wouldn’t awe the exiles, or impress anybody else who mattered in America and bring them down to a common level, that priests, clodhopping peasant dances and colored Easter eggs weren’t enough to signify any kind of culture, and that nothing done here would make any difference.36

In Kamienna Drabina, Karkowski’s narrator picks up the same issue and further develops Johny’s criticism by commenting: 34

Ibid., 238. Ibid., 237. 36 Ibid., 244–245. 35

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Chapter Three Poles did not support education. The ‘For Bread’ peasant immigration did not respect knowledge and was deeply convinced that every dollar spent on education was a dollar irretrievably lost. After just a few years of compulsory education, they would take their children out of school and would force them to find paid work. The children’s earnings were necessary to supplement the family budget, always meager, always insufficient, because after all how much could such unskilled laborers earn.37

The weak impact that Polish Americans have had on the American cultural and political scene has been further exacerbated by what Bolesáaw WierzbiaĔski identifies as their “unwillingness to part with their money to support financially common goals and initiatives”.38 However, Polish Americans are not singled out to take the brunt of criticism, and both novels identify flaws inherent in the émigré generation, especially flaws which, the authors believe, prevent them from gaining the recognition in America commensurate with their talents and potential. Henryk, the protagonist of Kamienna Drabina, points to the single-minded devotion to the exile mission as the tragic flaw, which robbed the post-war generation, as a group, of achieving the American Dream on a large scale. Henryk considers attitudes expressed by members of two important New York organizations, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America and the Piásudski Institute, both founded by the émigrés who, even years after the war, continued to define themselves not as Americans or Polish Americans but as “Poles living in America out of necessity”.39 Henryk ponders the crippling effect of constructing one’s life and identity on the conviction that one’s only purpose consists of …a patriotic concern for Poland, a complete focus on Poland, and a certain disdain (caused by patriotism-as they explained) for America as a temporary place of residence, even though this temporariness soon became permanent.40

Henryk recalls with incredulity meeting a former Polish officer whose refusal to accept an American passport is prompted by the allied betrayal of Poland at Yalta. In Century’s Child, Kuniczak broadens Karkowski’s critical commentary on what he also sees as the failure of the émigré 37

Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 157. Bolesáaw WierzbiaĔski, Wybór Pism (New York: Bicentennial Publishing Corporation, 2007), 47. 39 Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 132. 40 Ibid., 133. 38

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generation. From the beginning, his character, Johny, sets himself in stark opposition to others of his generation, “He came to the United States because he couldn’t imagine where else he could exist; they came because they couldn’t think of anywhere else to go”.41 His decision is not that of failure of imagination or opportunity, but rather it is one based on a belief in the universal human right to freedom, embedded in the American Dream. Johny, though a child of Europe, believes himself to be the purest, the most authentic American. Thus without denying his cultural and historical roots, he soundly rejects his own generation’s exile mission and the whole baggage of prejudices and animosities brought back from Europe: He wanted nothing more to do with them nor any connection with what they represented. He wished them dead and buried in their apocalyptic Europe and their lives erased from the consciousness of mankind…[they were full of] this self-righteous bitterness and malice and carefully nurtured artificial hatreds, and the need to hurt.42

For Kuniczak’s Johny, there should not be any other mission for an immigrant that the one focused on the future. It’s not surprising then that he views other émigrés as irrelevant and pretentious relics of the dead past. Their self-esteem constructed on their notions of cultural and class superiority does not serve them well in contacts with Polish Americans and native-born Americans, Immigrants? Never. Jamais, mon ami. These were the émigrés, or exiles as they called themselves, desperate to assert their own faded superiority, plucking at their threadbare sleeves and fiddling with their collars, for whom eating had never been a problem and only a French word could sweeten dispossession.43

Johny’s conviction that the émigrés are incapable in making a meaningful contribution to American society and culture is further strengthened by his contacts with the intellectually limited academics representing the Displaced University Professors Association (the acronym of the organization’s name spells out a Polish language obscenity): a reference to the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. Since Kuniczak’s Century’s Child exists only as an unfinished manuscript, ending with Johny’s Korean War story, there is only one 41

Kuniczak, Century’s Child, 228. Ibid., 577–578. 43 Ibid., 229. 42

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textual reference that presages the book’s assessment of the 1980s wave of Polish immigrants whom the much older narrator characterizes as sharp-eyed opportunists…as greedy, ruthless and self-centred as invading locust; lofty in their pretensions, glib in their seductions; oblivious, as only Johny’s people know how to be oblivious, of their own ignorance; transparent, to all who see them, in their terrible mediocrity…44

Unfortunately, we will never know how the author planned to develop this characterization; it only foreshadows what he might have considered. In Karkowski’s Kamienna Drabina, the evaluation of the post-Solidarity immigrants seems less extreme, maybe because Henryk believes that …immigrants are a carbon copy of Polish society; it is Poland in a nutshell; they are compatriots not better, not worse, but identical to those back in Poland; it is a community characterized by the same demographic balance between the intelligentsia and the uneducated, the city and the country folk.45

Henryk identifies a two-step process in the construction of immigrant identity with selected Polish elements frozen in place and unchanging while new American items are added to the self-construct. For him, the newest generation of immigrants is refreshingly different and much better prepared for existence in American society. If the post-Solidarity immigrants have been “xenophobic, distrustful, and without much belief in their own success”,46 the children of free Poland have arrived full of optimism and conviction in their own ability to conquer America. After all, it is all about the American Dream. While, as Anna JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann writes, “Many exiles believed that their sojourn in foreign countries would be temporary”,47 such a conviction is missing for both Johny and Henryk, whose decision to settle in America is irreversible. Even though generational differences separate them, they converge on the common ground of the American Dream discourse albeit with diverse results. They share their understanding of the concepts of freedom, personal dignity and self-fulfilment and exercise their personal “sense of agency, the idea that individuals have control over the course of their lives”48 and can shape their future. They diverge though 44

Ibid., 258. Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 41–42. 46 Ibid., 102. 47 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 14. 48 Cullen, The American Dream, 10. 45

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on the ultimate goal of their American Dreams. For Kuniczak’s young and idealistic Johny, “America was a miracle impossible to comprehend”,49 and the imagery of love, both maternal and sexual, dominates the representation of his Dream. Thus America, in her guise of the bountiful earth mother, promises security and a sense of belonging, while America, the seductress, hints at untold pleasures only she can provide—she is a woman to be desired and possessed. Johny, in love with this woman, believes himself to be an extraordinary immigrant. His life will not tell a pedestrian story of “a comfortable middle class existence”,50 but a glittering one of fame and the highest intellectual achievement. Even though Kuniczak’s unfinished manuscript outlines only the first few months of Johny’s adventure, the narrator, privy to the character’s future, leaves no doubt that this is not a tale of fulfilment, but rather one of disappointment, of falling out of love with America. Johny loses his way, and “seeking heaven”51 he arrives in hell. Interestingly enough, Karkowski’s Kamienna Drabina engages in a polemic with Kuniczak’s unequivocal rejection of the American middle class values embedded in the Dream. Already, the first chapter of the novel confronts the mythos of the American Dream with the Polish perception of American success. In Poland, claims Karkowski, nothing short of an extraordinary achievement, which places an immigrant at the top of American society, matters. And, of course, this is what Kuniczak’s Johny yearns for. Anything less means failure. Karkowski’s protagonist strongly disputes that view. For him an immigrant’s success is measured by his ability to move into the American middle class, to function as an ordinary member of American society, to find a good job, solid social status, respect and of course all the material signs of success such as a good car, a nice house, etc.52

Thus the entry of an immigrant into the American middle class signifies failure to one and success to the other author. This brief analysis of two semi-autobiographical immigrant novels outlines a postmodern pattern embedded in the construction process of a new immigrant self and suggests that, contrary to the commonly accepted political and social differences between the post-World War II émigré generation and the post-Solidarity immigrant cohort, their fictional 49

Kuniczak, Century’s Child, 189. Ibid., 527. 51 Ibid., 590. 52 Karkowski, Kamienna Drabina, 13. 50

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representatives are surprisingly similar, even though Karkowski’s immigrants are permanently suspended over the Atlantic while Kuniczak sees Johny as a new American breed with a European education. In both cases they not only seek a clean break from their Polish past, even though they depend solely on the ideals of their social class as the basis for the new identity construct, but they also reject the Polish exile mission as unproductive in the new environment since it hinders the ethnic group’s success in America. They judge the concept of the exile mission as a failure of understanding that national cultures have to be constantly created and recreated even if it is done by a subjugated nation, while national cultures preserved in exile quickly become frozen in time and estranged from the homeland—just an interesting relic of the past. Both novelists situate their characters within the broader context of the Polish Diaspora and clearly identify Polish Americans or even Polish immigrants like themselves as “the other” thus calling into question whiteness studies’ claims that Polish immigrants automatically position themselves against the African American other; and, finally, they both use the American Dream mythos as a tool to construct their identity although each sees the ultimate success in different terms. Both texts, even though neither deserves a distinction of being the great Polish American novel, serve as an important commentary on Polish immigration to the United States.

CHAPTER FOUR INFORMAL COMMUNICATION NETWORKS AND LETTER-WRITING IN THE POLISH POLITICAL DIASPORA ANNA D. JAROSZYēSKA-KIRCHMANN

In July 1945, Aleksander Janta, a Polish exile writer and journalist, alone and ill in a shabby apartment in Manhattan, faced the prospect of yet another move to a cheaper and smaller place owing to his financial circumstances. Pondering what to take with him and what to abandon, Janta realized his inability to part with a collection of letters. He wrote: Letters particularly seem always a little portion of a person who wrote them. If I care about a person, how can I throw away his letters? In each [letter] there is one word, some bit of warmth, friendship or heart; here [is] a sentence full of unexpected wisdom, there an apt observation; letters– mementos, letters–jolts, letters–feelings.1

Janta was a member of the Polish wartime Diaspora. Like others, who during World War II and in its aftermath were scattered around the globe, he cultivated vigorous informal contacts with those outside of the homeland. This connectedness created the Diasporic culture and identity, giving dispersed Poles a sense of belonging. The informal communication networks bound immigrants and exiles into small communities, crucial for the internal cohesion of the Diaspora. Since such networks were created on the individual and personal level, they are usually both less visible than formal organizations and power centres, and much more difficult to explore. Although the communications within the Diaspora are no less important for the construction of the Diasporic identity and culture than

1

Aleksander Janta, Nowe odkrycie Ameryki (Paris: Libella, 1973), 63.

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the communications between migrants and their homeland, so far only the former had attracted systematic scholarly attention. I argue that particularly important to the internal development of the Polish post-war political Diaspora was the letter-writing culture, which created networks of active correspondents among emigrants and exiles. In order to adequately capture the role correspondence plays in migratory interactions and the Diasporic cultural discourse, we need, however, to significantly broaden the definition of migrant letters to include a greater variety of forms of communications, through which members of the Diaspora express and share concepts, ideas, and experiences. In the intra— Diasporic context, the traditional divisions into private versus public (official and published) correspondence do not reflect the fluidity and complexity of the communications, which in the most recent decades also include digital forms.2 Letters, which migrants exchange, undergo a process of adaptation in their form and function, and while crisscrossing the Diaspora in many directions they become bloodlines of the Diasporic connectedness. My venture into this topic is more exploratory than conclusive. It is also by necessity coming from just one vantage point—that of the Polish American experience—although it could, and in the future should, be pursued from a number of different angles. My interest in this topic was spurred by my own study of letters in the immigrant press, and further heightened by the noticeable increase in attention that the theory and methodology of work with immigrant letters have been recently receiving from historians of migration and ethnicity, particularly the exchange of personal correspondence between homeland and country of settlement.3

2

As David Barton and Nigel Hall indicate, “Letters are a common form of text, … letter writing is one of the most pervasive literate activities in human societies, … letter writing crosses informal and formal contexts, and … a wide variety of forms of letter can be found in most domains of life”. David Barton and Nigel Hall, eds., Letter Writing as a Social Practice (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1999), 1. 3 The Digitizing Immigrant Letters (DIL) project spearheaded by the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota (IHRC), for example, seeks personal letter collections from various migrant groups, translates and digitizes them. The description of the DIL project can be found at http://ihrc.umn.edu/research/dil/index.html (accessed 27 October 2012). The project’s leaders organized also a couple of special conference as well as sponsored a number of sessions during major social history conferences.

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Networks of Correspondents within the Diaspora In the context of migration movements from the Polish lands the concept of Diaspora barely requires a detailed explanation. The so-called “labour Diaspora”, the pattern of dispersal due to economic need and in search of economic opportunities, defined most of the migratory movements out of Poland throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century. The term “political Diaspora” has often been applied to the multidirectional migrations, which followed traumatic events; in the Polish case including the loss of nationhood or the oppression by the Communist regime.4 The division into the political and labour Diasporas cannot, of course, be treated rigidly. Economic migrants often adopted political agendas, and exiles had mixed motives of emigration, with economic need always being a powerful push factor.5 The Polish Diasporas developed specific internal structures, functions, and forms of communication. The awareness of the common past and the desire to reach common goals by the political Diaspora, which I previously termed the exile mission, had been reinforced by political and social organizations with international memberships, and centres of influence and control, which become responsible for the coordination and representation of the Diaspora.6 The 4

Classification into “victim”, “labour and imperial”, “trade”, and “cultural” Diasporas was coined by Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). In the history of migratory movements out of Poland, the post-World War II political Diaspora, and the 1980s post-Solidarity Diaspora had a predominantly political character consistent with “victim” characteristics. See also Adam Walaszek, “Polska Diaspora,” in Polska Diaspora, ed. by Adam Walaszek, 7–29 (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001). 5 For example, according to some scholars, groups such as Poles, Jews, and the Irish, who settled in the United States during the mass economic migration, developed a sort of “diasporic imagination” placing homeland in the central position of their ideological geographies, and creating specific political culture based on ideas of injury and displacement. Matthew Frye Jacobson, Special Sorrows: The Diasporic Imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish Immigrants in the United States (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1995), 2–3. Kirby Miller also noted that Famine- and poverty-stricken Irish interpreted their emigration as exile resulting from political oppression. Kirby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 6 Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission: Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004). For the post World War II period, the main centres of power became the Polish government-in-exile, political parties, veteran and some cultural organizations.

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labour Diasporas, on the other hand, lacked the same level of international coordination characteristic for political migrations, and relied more on the networks of national organizations and local communities. There is abundant evidence that throughout the centuries Polish immigrants actively maintained contact with the loved ones in the homeland through correspondence. We are very familiar with the Polish peasant’s letters sent from the United States to family and friends in Poland thanks to Thomas and Znaniecki.7 Witold Kula and others also edited a collection of letters from the years 1890–91, which were written to those in Poland by migrants in the United States, Brazil, and during different stages of the journey, including from Bremen.8 Prior to their emigration, many Poles also participated in the extensive and diverse letter-writing culture in the Polish press for peasants. The custom of writing to the press developed at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Poland, when Polish peasants wrote letters to the populist 7

William I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, vol. I (New York: Dover Publications, 1958). 8 Witold Kula, Nina Assorodobraj-Kula, Marcin Kula, eds., Listy Emigrantów z Brazylii i Stanów Zjednoczonych, 1890–1891 (Warszawa: Ludowa Spóádzielnia Wydawnicza, 1973), and its American edition in translation, Josephine Wtulich, ed. and trans., Writing Home: Immigrants in Brazil and the United States, 1890– 1891 (East European Monographs, Boulder; New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Most studies of immigrant correspondence by various other ethnic groups also pertain to the exchange of letters between immigrants and their loved ones in the homeland, and the majority of studies of such letters show relationships sustained between those that emigrated and those that stayed behind. See for example News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home, ed. by Walter D. Kamphoefner, Wolfgang Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia, ed. by David Fitzpatrick (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994); Sonia Cancian, Families, Lovers, and Their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2010); David A. Gerber, Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century (New York University Press, 2006); One Family, Two Worlds: An Italian Family’s Correspondence across the Atlantic, 1901–1922, ed. by Samuel L. Baily, and Franco Ramella (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988); Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in the Nineteenth Century America (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 1972); Theodore Blegen, ed., Land of Their Choice: The Immigrants Write Home (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota press, 1955); Pauline Farseth and Theodore Blegen, trans. and eds., Frontier Mother: The Letters of Gro Svendsen (Northfield, Minnesota: Norwegian American Historical Association, 1950).

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press, including “Wieniec i Pszczóáka”, “Zaranie”, “Przyjaciel Ludu”, “Gazeta ĝwiąteczna,” and others. Polish immigrants continued to write to these periodicals even after they had emigrated from Poland.9 Just as historians who work with letters from and to the homeland, historians who try to capture the intra-Diasporic interactions face serious methodological challenges. First, collections of private letters survived from the earlier periods of Polish migrations are hard to locate and the lucky discoveries such as Kula’s or systematic efforts at collecting such as those by Znaniecki may never be replicated. Second, historians need to be aware that the letters which do survive are often barely representative of the largest part of the immigrant population, who belonged to the less literate classes of average working class immigrants, women, children, and the less fortunate, who as a rule wrote less or not at all. The surviving samples might therefore be skewed towards the literate social and intellectual elites, who were not only more likely to maintain vigorous correspondence, but also more likely to keep their letters archived.10 And third, any collection of letters should raise questions about their completeness, credibility, and potential for manipulation through removing some letters or altering them for various reasons.11 The post-World War II Polish political Diaspora in particular generated waves of migrants, who engaged in intense letter writing. At the end of World War II about six million Poles remained outside Poland’s borders as a result of forced population movements from Nazi- and Sovietoccupied Poland. After the war was over, some civilian refugees were repatriated back to Poland, the Polish military forces were demobilized 9 Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, “‘Don’t Be Mute!’ The Culture of LetterWriting to the Press among Polish Immigrants in America,” Social and Cultural History 10, no. 3 (2013), forthcoming. 10 Wolfgang Helbich and Walter D. Kamphoefner, “How Representative Are Emigrant Letters? An Exploration of the German Case,” in David A. Gerber, Suzanne Sinke, and Bruce Elliott, eds., Letters Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 29–55. See also Dirk Hoerder, Creating Societies: Immigrant Lives in Canada (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1999), 18. 11 For a more recent discussion of scholarship on private letter-writing, see David A. Gerber, "The Immigrant Letter between Positivism and Populism: The Uses of Immigrant Personal Correspondence in Twentieth-Century American Scholarship," Journal of American Ethnic History 16, no. 4 (Summer 1997): 4–34; Idem, "Epistolary Ethics: Personal Correspondence and the Culture of Emigration in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of American Ethnic History 19, no. 4 (Summer 2000): 3–23; David A. Gerber, Suzanne Sinke, and Bruce Elliott, eds., Letters Across Borders.

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and mostly remained in the west, while other exiles stayed in the refugee camps in many places across the world. Both refugee Poles and other nationals were gradually resettled by international organizations on all continents, laying the foundations for the political Diaspora. About 400,000 exiles who settled in close to fifty countries formed the Polish Diaspora, with the largest groups going to the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Polish refugees also settled in greater numbers in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Venezuela.12 The process of resettlement itself produced much correspondence, which marked various stages of the refugee migration. In the United States, the law required that prospective immigrants had sponsors, who could procure for them affidavits of support guaranteeing jobs and housing. Such sponsors could be either private individuals or special resettlement agencies. Polish refuges in Displaced Persons camps in Germany, Austria, Italy, the Middle East, Africa, and India wrote their relatives in the United States and other places with news about their whereabouts and asked for help in emigration. They also wrote pleading their cases to the resettlement agencies established by the American Polonia and other organizations, introducing themselves and their families, sending photographs, and describing their lives prior to the war, as well as their wartime experiences. Despite the fact that these were mainly more formal letters written to official agencies, they often revealed very personal and emotional elements, establishing close relationships of trust, especially if several letters were exchanged.13 Collections of such letters provide a moving portrait of the refugees caught at a specific stage of their migration, and communicate a sense of their profound displacement. Although complete private letter collections are hard to locate, there are many testimonies, which confirm that personal contacts among the refugees from the post-war wave scattered all over the globe were 12

See Table 3.1 in JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission, 108. Between 1940 and 1953, 178,680 quota immigrants born in Poland arrived in the United States. United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Annual Report, For the Fiscal Years Ended June 30, 1942–1953. 13 Records of the American Committee for the Resettlement of Polish DPs contain numerous examples of letters from refugees, IHRC 158. On the letters and the state see also Alexander Schunka, “Immigrant Petition Letters in Early Modern Saxony,” in Letters across, 271–290; Vadim Kukushkin, “‘To His Excellency the Sovereign of all Russian Subjects in Canada’: Emigrant Correspondence with Russian Consulates in Montreal, Vancouver, and Halifax, 1899–1922,” in Letters across, 291–305.

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sustained through letter writing. For example, Tadeusz, a soldier in the Warsaw uprising in 1944, who was imprisoned in a POW camp in Germany, joined the Polish Second Corp in Italy, and then was transferred with it to Great Britain, kept in touch with his Polish friends there long after he had immigrated to the United States. During the resettlement process another refugee, Stefan, was separated from his three older brothers, who remained in London until the late 1970s. They all corresponded regularly until the family was eventually reunited in the United States. Roma kept in touch with her best friend, who was resettled in Argentina. Their families travelled to visit each other and Roma and her friend exchanged letters, as well as books on World War II.14 Such examples could doubtless be multiplied. Sometimes shared experiences established a foundation for the connection. For example both former inhabitants of the Santa Rosa Polish refugee camp in Mexico, and orphaned Polish children from a refugee camp in India kept in touch over the years, occasionally got together, and even eventually sponsored historical publications highlighting their common story.15 Former students from the Polish Displaced Persons schools in Germany resettled in the U.S., Canada, and Australia also maintained informal contacts and friendships through letter-writing, which lasted for decades. They even organized informal reunions of teachers and students from the Polish schools in DP camps in Germany and Austria, and maintained a mailing list, which once included close to 300 names from all continents.16 Other examples of informal correspondents’ networks come from more recent times. When in 1992, Instytut Gospodarstwa Spoáecznego Szkoáy Gáównej Handlowej (Institute of Social Economy at the Warsaw School of Economics) in Poland sponsored a contest for the memoirs by Polish emigrants from the years 1939–1990, one of the main awards went to Katarzyna SieraĔska-Syta, whose submitted work was a collection of private correspondence covering eleven years of emigration. SieraĔskaSyta left Poland in mid-1981, with her husband and a small daughter, and via a refugee camp in Austria travelled to Australia, to eventually settle in

14

Interviews by the author, The Exile Mission. These publications include for example ElĪbieta Wróbel, Janusz Wróbel, Rozproszeni po Ğwiecie: obozy i osiedla uchodĨców polskich ze Związku Sowieckiego 1942–1950 (Chicago: Panorama Publishing, 1992); as well as two works in progress by Wesley Adamczyk on the Polish children deported to Siberia, and by Aleksandra GruziĔska on the Polish refugees in Barcelona, Spain. 16 Phone conversation with Ewa Bielska, September 2000. 15

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Taiwan. She wrote frequent letters to her parents in Poland and her friends in the United States.17

Forms and Functions of Correspondence To fully appreciate the role correspondence played within the Diaspora, we have to look beyond the traditional forms of letter-writing. The intra-Diasporic correspondence took on diverse forms and performed varied functions, blurring boundaries between personal and public, intimate and communal. Some migrants even experimented with new modes of letter-writing that could create large networks of correspondents, proving the “social richness of letter writing”.18 An excellent example of an especially prolific and creative letter writer is Ewa KarpiĔska-Gierat, who in 1940 managed to leave German-occupied Poland as a young woman in her early twenties. After exile in France and Great Britain, she immigrated to the United States in 1951. Throughout those years, she wrote copious letters to her mother and sister in Brazil, and her father in Great Britain and then in Poland, and a large group of relatives and friends all over the globe. She later used those letters as a basis for her memoir Korzenie i owoce: wspomnienia i listy (Roots and Fruits: Memoirs and Letters), where many of the letters were reproduced in full.19 After a while, faced with the necessity to write to so many persons and perhaps predicting the multiple recipient functions of the Internet, Ewa devised a system of communications within her network of international friends, which she named Kulig. The idea was born in 1956, when Ewa clipped interesting articles from American and Polish press, added carbon copies of personal letters, some photographs, and sent all of it out to a friend with a request to pass the materials on to others with new 17

Katarzyna SieraĔska-Syta, Emigracja Blues (Warszawa: Polska Oficyna Wydawnicza BGW, 1994). The author noted that for legal reasons some of the names have been changed. Different stages of the emigration experience have also been captured in the letters to her parents in Poland by Anna Frajlich Zając and her family, who left Warsaw in 1969, pushed out by the anti-Semitic propaganda sponsored by the Communist government. Although the collection of letters, which were published contain those that were sent to Poland, the authors frequently refer to the correspondence with others who were scattered in other countries. About emigration from Communist Poland see Dariusz Stola, Kraj bez wyjĞcia? Migracje z Polski 1949–1989 (Warszawa: PAN/IPN, 2010). 18 Barton and Hall, 4. 19 Ewa Karpinska-Gierat, Korzenie i owoce: wspomnienia i listy (Colorado Springs: Language Bridges, n.d.).

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letters and clippings added. Gradually, the circle of “editors” participating in Kulig grew to a couple dozen addresses and Kulig itself began to resemble a sizeable, colourful magazine. Close to two hundred full issues of Kulig circulated until 1966; afterwards, in a more limited form, it appeared irregularly for more than a dozen years.20 Ignacy ĝwiĊcicki, a former pilot of Squadron 318, who after the war settled in York, Pennsylvania, also wrote letters to multiple recipients. He used a hectograph—a machine, which reproduced his letters in multiple copies, ready to be sent out to family and friends. ĝwiĊcicki adopted this method to deal with the large volume of correspondence more efficiently: he did not want to lose touch with others, but needed to accommodate letter writing into his busy schedule as a new immigrant.21 Exiled Polish intellectuals, artists, and scholars, who following World War II settled on many continents, also remained connected through intense letter writing. Some of the collections of their letters have been published, for example the correspondence of Zygmunt Hertz and Czesáaw Miáosz, and Jerzy Giedroyü and Witold Gombrowicz.22 Some large collections of unpublished letters were deposited, among other places, at the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences (PIASA) in New York. Beata Dorosz estimates that PIASA’s archival collections include evidence of 400 correspondents and 2,250 letters, which circulated among Polish intellectual elites in the United States, Great Britain, France, and other countries.23 They include the personal papers of Polish poets, such as Jan LechoĔ and Kazimierz WierzyĔski, writer and journalist Bohdan Pawáowicz, writer Andrzej Bobkowski, and scholars Oskar Halecki, Wacáaw Lednicki, and Ludwik KrzyĪanowski. 20

The term Kulig comes from an old Polish custom, when during Carnival, neighbours would visit each other by driving a horse-drawn sled and gathering more people from house to house. There would be a large party with food, drink and dancing in the last house visited. E. Karpinska-Gierat, Korzenie, 230–232, and passim. 21 Letters, which he later published in Warsaw, covered the period since 1949, especially from 1990 to 2004. Ignacy ĝwiĊcicki, Listy znad Susquehanny (Warszawa: by the author, 2006). 22 Zygmunt Hertz, Listy do Czesáawa Miáosza, 1952–1979, Renata GorczyĔska, ed., (Paris: Instytut Literacki, 1992); Hertz was an editor connected to Kultura, a literary and political journal published in France, and Miáosz was a poet and writer living in the United States; Jerzy Giedroyü, Witold Gombrowicz, Listy 1950-1969, ed. Andrzej Kowalczyk (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1993); Giedroyü was the editor-inchief of Kultura and Gombrowicz was a writer living in Argentina. 23 Beata Dorosz, ed., Mieczysáaw Grydzewski, Jan LechoĔ, Listy 1923–1956, 2 vols. (Warszawa: Biblioteka WiĊzi, 2006), vol. 1, 12.

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Using these archives, Dorosz edited two volumes of 475 letters exchanged from 1923 to 1956 between poet Jan LechoĔ in New York and Mieczysáaw Grydzewski, a journalist and editor in London. The two men wrote to each other very frequently: for example, in 1954 they exchanged 107 letters, an average of one letter every three days.24 The letters included a lot of updates on the whereabouts and life changes of common friends and acquaintances, discussions on artistic matters, as well as businessrelated negotiations about money, publication schedules, and edition of materials. At the same time the two friends included in their correspondence strongly personal elements and commented on their everyday lives, impressions of American and British societies and the role of Polonia in both, on their struggles with finances, work, health, and adjustment to the new environment. Other collections of private papers of individuals who immigrated to the United States in the post-World War II period include correspondence exchanged within the Diaspora among political activists. Such correspondence had often a decisively mixed character, blending elements of official organizational communications and personal relationships.25 A good example is Stanisáaw Gierat, a well-known political activist connected to the Polish Peasant Party in exile. His letters to others in America and Europe not only provided information on their political activities, but also often contained very personal elements, as friends scattered around the world struggled to maintain relationships born out of common pre-war and wartime bonds and ideals of the exile mission. Among Gierat’s extensive correspondence, letters to and from his pre-war friend Jan Kazimerski, living in Great Britain, are particularly interesting. Both men were involved in all kinds of political and veteran activities and regularly discussed them in writing. They also, however, exchanged more personal thoughts and updates, such as when Gierat complained about his

24

Ibid., 25. Many individual collections are housed at the Pilsudski Institute in New York, the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, and the Polish Museum in Chicago. The inventories to archival holdings are mostly available online, but see also Janusz Cisek, ed., Instytut Józefa Piásudskiego w Ameryce i jego zbiory (Warszawa: Biblioteka Narodowa, 1997); Wáadysáaw StĊpniak, Archiwalia polskie w zbiorach Instytutu Hoovera Uniwersytetu Stanforda (Warszawa: Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów PaĔstwowych, 1997); Malgorzata Kot et al., Muzeum Polskie w Ameryce: dzieje i zbiory–przewodnik (Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska, 2003).

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declining health and Kazimierski tenderly advised that he should slow down, save energy, and generally listen to his wife.26 The exchange of correspondence between political leaders and their families and others who settled on different continents is particularly interesting and provides an excellent example of mixed form letters, in which one part had been written by a husband and the other by a wife and directed either to the main addressee or to his wife, if the couples maintained social relationships. For instance, Stefan KorboĔski and his wife Zofia shared a letter to Mieczysáaw Thugutt and his wife Janina. The first part of the letter addressed to Mieczysáaw was authored by Stefan and dealt with political and organizational matters and included a personal update. The other part of the letter was written by Zofia and addressed to Mieczysáaw’s wife Janina, and focused on family news and vacation plans.27 Similarly, the letter to Feliks Gadomski from Marian Seyda included an addition by Seyda’s wife Marysia, who described prospects of vacations in Mexico.28 Such mixed form correspondence, blending political and organizational news with private elements, emphasized the significance of informal and individual ties among the Diaspora members. Personal and family news, reminiscences, emotions, nostalgia, information about friends and their whereabouts or about economic conditions in emigration, created the relationships of closeness despite the geographic distance and time elapsed since the last meeting in person.

26 Gierat’s correspondence is scattered among many places, including a large collection at the Pilsudski Institute. Letters to Kazimerski can be found at Central Connecticut State’s Polish American Archives. Correspondence about health highlighted in Piotr Kardela, Stanisáaw Gierat, 1903–1977: dziaáalnoĞü spoáecznopolityczna (Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Promocyjne “Albatros,” 2000), 379. 27 I appreciate Anna Mazurkiewicz sharing with me copies of the KorboĔski and Gadomski letters. Stefan KorboĔski to Mieczysáaw Thugutt, 25 June 1954, Hoover Institution Archives, Stefan KorboĔski papers, box 9, folder 6. Stefan KorboĔski was a Polish politician, historian, publicist and writer. He lived in the United States since 1947 and was active in the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN). Mieczysáaw Thugutt was a Polish politician, who since World War II lived in London. 28 Marian (Seyda) to Feliks Gadomski, 4 April 1965, private collection of Jadwiga Gadomska, Warsaw, Poland, copied for Anna Mazurkiewicz, December, 2010. Marian Seyda was a Polish politician and publicist, who settled in Argentina. Feliks Gadomski was a journalist and politician, who had lived in the United States since 1945 and was a prominent leader of ACEN.

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Communities of Letter Writers to the Press One overlooked aspect of intra-Diasporic communications is the networks of correspondents to the press among Polish immigrants. The Polish language press in the United States provided opportunities for the immigrants to write to the newspapers and encouraged them to do so. The majority of the Polish language newspapers printed letters, which communicated organizational activities and events within the communities, and provided occasional social commentary on life in Polonia. They also carried sections of letters to the editor, and following an example of the American press, especially the trend of personal service journalism, they used correspondence from the readers in advice sections, sections directed to the specific groups in Polonia, or in editorial essays. The sheer volume of letters which appeared in the Polish language press in the United States proves that the letter-writing culture in Polonia was vast, vigorous and well entrenched. The Polish American press often had worldwide circulation, giving the letter-writing culture Diasporic dimensions. For example, a weekly “Ameryka-Echo” had international circulation since the 1920s, and readers and subscribers both in Poland and in other countries. Most newspapers published news items about Polish immigrant communities around the world. During and after World War II, the Polish press in the United States frequently included information about the refugees, their resettlement, and new communities established in the Diaspora, and published correspondence from individuals and organizations, depicting local environments and conditions of living.29 Journalists and editors dispersed in many countries exchanged information freely. For example, Jan Lencznarowicz reports that new immigrant press in Australia frequently relied on the reprints of articles from other Polonian communities, including the United States.30 Exiled journalists often sent out their articles directly to other than Polish American newspapers and engaged in lively debates, for example on the pages of “Tygodnik Literacki” in New York, “WiadomoĞci Literackie” in London, and “Kultura” in Paris.31 29

Such sections existed for example in Dziennik Związkowy, Nowy ĝwiat, Boston Kurier, Dziennik dla Wszystkich, and others. 30 Jan Lencznarowicz, Prasa i spoáecznoĞü polska w Australii, 1928-1980 (Kraków: KsiĊgarnia Akademicka, 1994), 111–113. 31 See for example JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission, 33-5; Rafaá Habielski, Niezáomni, nieprzejednani: emigracyjne “WiadomoĞci” i ich krąg, 1940–1981 (Warszawa: PIW, 1991); Andrzej Stanisáaw Kowalczyk, Giedroyü i “Kultura” (Wrocáaw: Wydawnictwo DolnoĞląskie, 1999).

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An example of the long-lasting section of letters to editor, whose participants created a unique community of reader-writers was Kącik dla Wszystkich (A Corner for Everybody), which ran in the weekly “AmerykaEcho” for nearly five decades, from 1922 to 1969. With little editorial intervention, the letter-writers to the Corner engaged in dynamic interactions among themselves. They came from various social classes and occupations, and represented different genders, immigration waves, religious affiliations and political views, and voiced their opinions on a great variety of topics. In the post-war period, the Corner discussions included letters from numerous countries of the Polish Diaspora. In the 1940s and 1950s, letters included descriptions of wartime experiences in far-away places, as for example a letter from Wáadysáaw Sielski, who was a prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines for three years.32 Other letters brought news from the new Polish colony in Parana, Brazil, and from a group of Polish farmers resettled in Venezuela.33 Former soldiers of the Polish Armed forces in exile wrote from England, sharing their grief and anger because of unfair treatment by the British authorities.34 Polish exiles also wrote about their experiences in German concentration camps, Diaspora politics and Poland’s history, as well as adjustment to the life in exile, local conditions, and activism on behalf of the Polish cause. The correspondents to the Corner created a long-lasting community, which shared information and opinions, but also feelings, emotions, and personal experiences. They engaged each with other directly, responded to, and challenged, views and beliefs, but also offered support and understanding. Occasionally, the letter-writers also corresponded privately and developed relationships off the pages of the newspaper. They proved how much they valued the forum by negotiating hard with the editors to keep control over the section, which became a public space for letter writing, self-expression and relationships within the Diaspora.35

32 Wáadysáaw Sielski, “God Bless United States of America,” Ameryka-Echo, 13 May 1945, 14. 33 Antoni Pietras, “Greetings from Brazil,” Ameryka-Echo, June 17, 1945, 14; Stanisáaw Synowiec, “Poles in Venezuela Are Appealing for Justice,” AmerykaEcho, February 22, 1948, 14. 34 Wacáaw KwaĞniewski, “‘Resistant’–‘Undecided’–‘Recalcitrant,’” AmericaEcho, 2 November 1947, 14. 35 Anna JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, “‘Everybody Writes’: Readers and Editors and their Interactions in the Polish-Language Press, 1922–1969,” Journal of American Ethnic History 33, no.1 (Fall 2013), forthcoming.

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Changing Technology and the Internet In more recent periods historians noticed new forms of communications among the immigrants, who use available technology to “write letters” to their families. Examples include tape recordings and video tapes sent by mail, which either supplemented or replaced paperand-pen communications of the earlier eras, but often remained true to the form and function developed by traditional correspondence.36 Nothing, however, changed our lives and the way we communicate more than the Internet. It is still difficult for historians to fully assess the impact of the Internet and social media on the communications within the Diasporas. This area of study is developing dynamically and, hopefully, students and scholars of media communications will undertake exploration of the ethnic media on the one hand, and the effect of electronic media on ethnic identity and internal functioning of the Diaspora on the other.37 In the 1990s, the frequency of intra-Diasporic communications through the Internet grew significantly, and email revolutionized letter-writing, replacing pen-and-paper with the electronic medium. Although early on many were left out, and some still are due to lack of access, age, or antitechnological attitudes, in general both the frequency and immediacy of contacts increased. For example, Ewa Gierat, an inveterate letter-writer, by 36

See for example Aleksej Kalc, “Letters and tapes as Communication Means and Sources for Migration Studies. The Case of a Trieste Family in Australia,” an unpublished summary of a conference presentation, Ottawa, 2005; I appreciate the author’s willingness to share it with me. There are also numerous examples of migrants sending video tapes. There are also numerous examples of migrants sending video tapes; see for instance a documentary “Letters from the Other Side,” produced and directed by Heather Courtney, New Day Films/ Front Porch Films (c. 2006). 37 Andoni Alonso and Pedro J. Oiarzabal, editors of Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2010) present a number of essays which attempt to sort out terms and definitions and mark out theoretical and methodological framework of study, while other chapters focus on empirical cases of Cape Verdians, Eritreans, Jamaicans, Caribbeans, Brazilians, Salvadorans, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Basques, and Galicians. In 2009, the Immigration History Research Center launched a special project, which “aims to document and understand how 1.5 and 2nd generation Mexican, Somali, and Hmong youth use social networking sites to express their emerging sense of identity and social connection—to Minnesota and the U.S., to their parents and communities, to each other, and to the homelands from which their families arrived”, http://www.ihrc.umn.edu/research/vitrage/all/ma/ihrc3908.html (accessed 15 August 2012).

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then already in her seventies, turned out to be an early adopter of the technological innovations and began to send out electronic letters to her network of friends.38 In the 1990s, especially noteworthy were the new and exciting forums of the so-called moderated discussion groups, which connected people of similar interests. Participants from all continents created virtual communities, who engaged in the discussion and commentary about things Polish from the points of view of different generations, geographical locations, occupations, and genders. A large group of participants belonged to the post-war wave of Polish political Diaspora. POLAND-L, self-described as Discussion of Polish Culture List, was a large and diverse forum, which often erupted in quite heated debates, despite continuous pleas for civility. An off-shoot of POLAND-L became an exclusive invitation-only group PAPYRUS, where discussions were carried out in the English language and often centred on issues of Polish art and culture and particularly Polish history, specifically aspects of World War II. FRIENDS OF POLAND, another smaller group founded in 2000, and with an open membership, also adopted English as its language of communication, although many participants came from the first generation of Polish immigrants scattered around the world. It currently still lists over 300 members. Since the role of the moderators of the groups was usually limited to maintaining civility in the debates, the range and variety of topics in some ways resembled the Corner discussions in “Ameryka-Echo”. Participants wrote in to comment on political news, artistic and cultural events, as well as to reminisce about the war, Solidarity and martial law experiences, and, characteristic of all communications among Poles, to challenge and debate history. The posts were often directed to specific persons and virtual alliances were soon formed. The exchanges sometimes had a very personal character and became foundations of close relationships. The participants exchanged favourite recipes, as well as favourite poems, shared woes of walking unruly dogs, as well as personal health problems, issues with parents and children, bosses and unreliable friends, assimilation, adjustment and longing for homeland and family. Even trivial things sometimes gained significance when seen from the vantage point of nostalgia of emigrant existence, like, for example, a long debate about how to brew a perfect cup of tea the Polish way or locate in different countries the right-tasting strawberries, which would compare well to the obviously unsurpassed taste of the Polish fruit. Occasionally, participants of Internet 38 Gierat’s Christmas letter sent out in January 2012, included a note that it might be her last one.

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discussion groups organized private meetings or adjusted their travel schedules to include visits with friends with whom they corresponded online.39 Continuing the tradition of writing to the press in the Polish Diaspora, networks of correspondents developed also around web editions of Polish newspapers. As the Polonia press continues its steady decline, Polish immigrants participate in the intra-Diasporic communications centred on the strings of responses to the articles, for example, in “Gazeta Wyborcza” online. The writers come from many countries, and in addition to referring to the article, they often interact (although not always in the most civil way) with each other. It is again a community of readers which includes random as well as frequent or regular contributors. Although in a drastically changed form, if compared to the paper-andpen correspondence of earlier decades, the electronic letter writing in some ways still functions as glue that holds the Diasporic discourse together. However, it is obvious that much more research, and perhaps new methodologies, are needed to better understand the online communications patterns within the Diaspora, including the social media area, which continuously evolves and changes.

Conclusion The letter-writing culture has always played an important role within the Polish Diaspora. The immigrant letter writers created informal communities and networks which crossed borders, and connected immigrant waves and generations. In order to understand how the Polish Diaspora functions internally through letter writing, how it communicates and interacts, we need to broaden the traditional limited definition of correspondence. By going beyond the continuum of the homeland-country of settlement, and observing the letter–writing culture within the entire Diaspora, we find abundant evidence of the Diasporic interactions, whether within the same country, among migrants in many locations in the world, or at different stages of migration. Over the decades, migrant correspondence sustained the intra-Diasporic discourse and took on many different forms of communication. In some cases, writers fully expected that their letters would have multiple readers, and designed their correspondence to reach an entire group of addressees. Some letters exchanged between individuals carried out diverse functions and 39

The author participated in all these groups, and developed close personal friendship with at least two other members.

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combined informational, political, or business objectives with the elements of personal relationships. Similarly, correspondence in the circles of intellectuals and artists often blended aspects of intellectual exchange and private friendships. Some correspondence, which passed between organizations and migrants in the process of resettlement, also had a mixed character. At the same time, the Polish language press also actively participated in the letter-writing culture of Polish immigrants, facilitated its development and strengthened it. The press routinely published many diverse forms of communications, including letters from organizations and individuals from different parts of the world. Letters published in special Letters to the editor sections of the Polish language press in the United States often included highly personal accents, and their writers entered into individual relationships with both the editors, and the small communities of other reader-writers.40 In more recent decades, the functions of pen-and-paper correspondence have been gradually taken over by electronic communications. Email, international Internet discussion groups, blogs, online newspapers, texting, and social media intensify the communications within the Diaspora, but also make it more elusive, perishable, and, ironically, less accessible to contemporary and future researchers and historians.

40

Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, “As if at a Public Meeting: Polish American readers, Writers, and Editors of Ameryka-Echo, 1922–1969,” in Letters across, 200–222; Idem, “‘Don’t Be Mute!’”

CHAPTER FIVE PAVEL TIGRID’S “SVċDECTVÍ”: A FORUM FOR DISSIDENTS AND EXILES FRANCIS D. RAŠKA

The exile journal, “SvČdectví” (Testimony) is most closely associated with the name and activities of Pavel Tigrid. Tigrid, born in 1917 in the northern Bohemian town of Semily to fully assimilated Jewish parents, was a journalist who spent the Second World War working for the Czechoslovak service of the BBC. After the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia and worked as chief editor for the Christian Democratic Party journal “Obzory” (Horizons).1 After the Communist takeover of 1948, Tigrid found himself in exile yet again. He was instrumental in helping to establish Radio Free Europe (RFE) in 1950, and served as the director of the Czechoslovak Desk in Munich. In 1952, he was summarily dismissed by Ferdinand Peroutka, fellow Czechoslovak journalist exile and director of Radio Free Europe’s Czechoslovak broadcasting in New York, due to differences of opinion with older Czechoslovak exiles.2 After working in a number of part-time and freelance positions, Tigrid founded “SvČdectví” in 1956 in New York, together with fellow exiles Vilém Brzorád, Jan ýep, JiĜí Horák, Josef Jonáš, JiĜí Karnet, JiĜí KoláĜ, Emil Kovtun, Radomír Luža, Mojmír Povolný, and Emil Ransdorf.3 In 1960, Tigrid moved the journal’s operations to Paris, where he would remain throughout the rest of the Cold War. From the outset, most exiles of the 1948 generation distrusted those who settled in the west after 1968. After all, most of the post-1968 émigrés 1

Neil Stewart, “We did not want an Émigré Journal—Pavel Tigrid and SvČdectví,” in The Exile and Return of Writers from East-Central Europe, eds. John Neubauer and Borbála Zsuzsanna Török (Berlin, De Gruyter, 2009), 244. 2 Francis D. Raška, “Rada svobodného ýeskoslovenska, 1949–1956,” ýeský þasopis historický 4 (2007): 867. 3 Stewart, “We,” 246.

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who became actively involved in exile politics had held positions of privilege in Communist Czechoslovakia and had been actively involved in the events of the Prague Spring. Tigrid, however, saw the usefulness of involving post-1968 émigrés in the exile discussion, especially because they maintained contacts with dissidents in Czechoslovakia that most post1948 exiles no longer had.4 Already in the early 1960s, Tigrid maintained clandestine contacts with people in Czechoslovakia, a fact that led to the resignations of many members of the original editorial board of “SvČdectví”.5 This chapter aims to shed light on some of the issues discussed by dissidents and exiles alike on the pages of “SvČdectví” in the period between the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the collapse of Communism in 1989.

The “New Left” The west European Left, was shocked by the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Pavel Tigrid thought that it would be prudent to highlight this fact. Therefore, “SvČdectví” reprinted in 1970 the preface by Jean-Paul Sartre to Antonín Liehm’s book Generace (Generations). Sartre wrote: Listen to voices that speak to us about Czechoslovakia, collect documents, reconstruct events, and make attempts at deep analysis, not in relation to the present situation, but to reflect the structures of Soviet society and people’s democracies and their respective relations. These analyses should be utilized for the sake of an objective and unprejudiced reevaluation of the problems facing the western Left, its goals, tasks, possibilities, and varied organizational forms. All of this should occur in an attempt to answer the basic question of the era: How to unite and remove old entrenched structures and in what spirit to create new ones, so that the next revolution can spare future generations the danger of creating socialism as it exists in its present-day form.6

“SvČdectví” did look at new ways to tackle the problems in Czechoslovakia and, as mentioned above, dissidents and exiles alike were key to this effort. In the same issue of “SvČdectví,” the editorial column brings voluminous information on the situation in “normalizing” 4

Ibid., 251. Ibid., 253. 6 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Socialismus, který pĜišel z chladna,” SvČdectví 39 (1970): 359. Author’s note: Antonín Liehm belongs to the generation of post-1968 political émigrés. 5

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Czechoslovakia. Two notes about Alexander Dubþek, namely “The Hero of Myšík Street” and “Guilty” are worthy of mention.7 This enthusiastic appraisal of Dubþek’s heroism, however, failed to last over the following two decades. As late as 1988, when Dubþek was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Bologna, he missed the opportunity to plead actively for democracy and human rights at a time when Communist totalitarianism in Europe was already failing.8 “SvČdectví” provided accurate information on the situation in Czechoslovak culture and science. It described how attempts to create a “healthy nucleus” in the Party had failed: It took longer than expected, but a “good thing” has succeeded at last: A mid-level, healthy nucleus (in districts and local organizations) has been created from incompetent comrades, below average, defective as humans, police snitches, informers, and opportunists, who have realized that their time has come–and they are not mistaken […] The broadest dragnet involves the intelligentsia—it can be described as a pogrom […] Among writers and artists, the yield is hopelessly poor: Pavel Bojar, Ivan Skála, VojtČch Cach, JiĜí Hájek, and, on all four extremities, dragged in Vilém Závada.9

Information on trends in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences correctly predicted plans for mass dismissals. The future would show that the worst reprisals would mostly involve the leadership of the best institutes. Pavel Tigrid, himself, praised as “important” documents on the history of the Czechoslovak reform movement published by ex-Communist, JiĜí Pelikán: Panzer überrollen den Parteitag and the Report of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on Political Trials and the Completion of Rehabilitations. The first provides documents from the XIV Extraordinary Party Congress in 1968. The second is even more remarkable: “The factual, accurate text of archival documents will introduce the reader to graphic, conservative, murderous, and cynical structure of Czechoslovak “socialism” in the 1950s”.10 In 1971, “SvČdectví” published an essay by a young Czech essayist using the pseudonym of René Sidkar, devoted to the “New Left” in Czechoslovakia entitled Doprava nebo doleva (To the Right or to the Left) 7

“Redakþní,” SvČdectví 39 (1970): 324–325. Michal Reiman, Rusko jako téma a realita doma a v exilu (Prague: Ústav pro soudobé dČjiny AV ýR, 2009), 251. 9 “Redakþní,” SvČdectví 39 (1970): 329. 10 “Politický þin,” SvČdectví 39 (1970): 335. 8

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defending the philosophy of the “correct new Left”, which was being replaced by deviant usurpers. Inside the “new Left” exists a number of trends […] Assuming that these conflicting trends can unite, despite their sharp polemic, this heterogeneity of opinion confirms the lively character of the leftist movement. The future Czechoslovak Left will have to be alive not only to accept foreign concepts, but based on specific circumstances, also develop its own methods of local struggle.11

The next issue brought a detailed reply to Sidkar by Erazim Kohák entitled Co je nového na levici? (What is New on the Left?) In this text, Kohák disagreed with Sidkar and his concept of the “new Left”: Philosophy creates a framework within which the nation uses opportunities given to it by its history. Revolutionary fanaticism does not create the foundation for a free, democratic society: It creates only a basis for a new revolutionary rule by a new caste of true believers […] No, my friend Sidkar, the Czechoslovak problem was not caused by the fact that a change occurred from, in principle, a good government of true believers to the hands of deviationists or non-believers […] Our problem is true belief and “samodČržaví.” The new Left offers us only a “new belief” and a “new elite.” Today, it is an anomaly of intellectual radicals from “better families” and the proletariat of the Third World. That will not help us. We do not need to supplant wrong “true belief” by a “better belief,” an unreliable elite by a better elite, bad fanaticism by a better one […] We part with the principles of radicalism of the “new Left” based upon intolerance, dogmatism, and oppression, masked as “direct democracy.” A free society cannot be built on “true belief” and wantonness: its foundation rests on humanity, democracy, and the defence of human rights. I know that social conditions change, the same ideals need to find different programmes in different conditions. Yet, in principle, Masaryk and not Mao remains the basic truth of freedom.12

Already in 1971, “SvČdectví” published articles by “reform Communists,” who found themselves in exile. A proclamation by JiĜí Pelikán Jak dál? (How to proceed?) was reprinted from his periodical “Literární listy”. He defended the programme of the Prague Spring and hoped for attempts to renew a “truly revolutionary” Communist Party. He considered the possibility of

11 12

René Sidkar, “Doprava nebo doleva,” SvČdectví 40 (1971): 561–570. Erazim Kohák, “Co je nového na levici?,” SvČdectví 41 (1971): 173.

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…a brand new revolutionary party to unite the fighting opposition, particularly the youth […] which wishes to distance itself from the KSý [Czechoslovak Communist Party] and hopes to fight the current regime from leftist, socialist positions.13

He argued: There is only one response to the question: “What should we do”? Fight! Fight as the situation allows and, as soon as we start, we must not imitate other examples. Instead we must choose our own methods of attack and retreat and make compromises when necessary. We must always ceaselessly fight for our rights, our freedom, our independence, and our own path to socialism. Only then will we be morally entitled to international solidarity, which still exists and will grow in proportion with the development of our struggle.14

However, Tigrid immediately made it abundantly clear that, in his opinion, it was not in the interest of the Czechoslovak cause to come together in the form of some “national front” along the lines espoused by Pelikán. Tigrid wrote: Our goal is not to belittle the political programme of our Marxist colleagues or to deny them the right to propagate this programme to people at home. In the same spirit, however, we possess the right to criticize this programme, its dissemination, and purported justification without considering the impact of this criticism in Prague on either political elites or the broader masses. For all of this to make sense, a free decision of the people on whether to accept or reject this programme must therefore be strived for and guaranteed.15

Between Cooperation and Conflict: The Exiles of 1948 and 1968 Tigrid described the new wave of political exiles after August 1968 as individuals, who “for 30 months” were trying to explain past history. They had written articles in virtually all world newspapers and journals and had their books published by large publishing houses. They had been interviewed as individuals and together in groups on television and radio stations throughout the world. With few exceptions, post-1948 Czechoslovak 13

JiĜí Pelikán, “Jak dál?,” SvČdectví 40 (1971): 575–577. Ibid., 576. 15 Pavel Tigrid, “Dál, ale jak?,” SvČdectví 40 (1971): 583. 14

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exiles did not participate in the propaganda activities of the 1968-era émigrés. Tigrid agreed: the Prague Spring was undoubtedly a people’s movement, but it would not have happened without a revolt of the heads and limbs of the Party, that possessed all power in the country. We, the post-February exiles, felt that only direct participants in the Czechoslovak reform movement should speak, even more since they were responsible for much that preceded it and for what had become intolerable […] We feel the time is ripe to state publicly something about our relationship to our former political opponents, who are now also political émigrés. The basic question is whether they also became our political friends? If yes, then why, in what way, and to what extent.16

In the editorial comments of the same issue is an analysis and criticism of an open letter by Professor Eduard Goldstücker to the minister of interior in Prague, after his application for an extension of his exit visa was rejected, published in “Les lettres francaises” and in “The Times Literary Supplement”. The letter has been described in the chapter dealing with the “Literární Listy” Group. “The Times Literary Supplement” published a reply by Professor J. P. Stern of Cambridge, who questioned why Goldstücker remained a Communist after all his personal experiences and after all the crimes committed by the Communists. How dare he speak about freedom which was destroyed by the Communists in Czechoslovakia in 1948? What else, but chance of racial origin and fate caused that Goldstücker ended among the accused and not among the guilty? Goldstücker was defending himself that, as other Communists, he was guilty of replacing thought with blind trust, and that he suppressed criticism during Stalin’s rule […] Goldstücker also defended the Communist takeover in 1948 […] Professor Goldstücker has religious views of the world. He is neither Hussite, nor Lutheran, but Calvinist. Already in his youth, he saw the truth and was one of the chosen ones. Others are destined for damnation […] Chosen ones are allowed to do anything. Traumas and injustices suffered by the damned are not interesting; traumas and injustices suffered by the just ones (particularly Professor Goldstücker) are extraordinarily interesting [...] For Goldstücker, history begins and moral lows coincide with the time when he himself suffers injustices. He then offers a very selective view of the past. As we saw, only then was he willing to admit his own share of guilt. Such a confession belongs to an infantile universe, where a simple ‘I’m sorry’ erases damaging acts from the past and from the present responsibility for its consequences. It would not be fair, however, to underestimate Professor 16

Ibid., 578.

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Goldstücker’s attempts at atonement. By his arguments, he only documents that by his own decision he placed himself (perhaps forever) into a magic circle. This illustrates again the paradox that even genuine Communist reformers could not reform the Communist Party without denying its ideological basis and thus themselves.17

In 1972, several political trials took place in Czechoslovakia, twenty years after the trials of Rudolf Slánský and his co-defendants. This time, Milan Hübl, Karel Kyncl, and Jaroslav Šabata were among the accused. “SvČdectví” published a lengthy treatise by Ivan Sviták bearing the title Twelve Times about Trials.18 Sviták described both some well-known facts and some lesser-known details of the 1950s trials as well as the recent ones. Sviták characterized those involving Hübl, Kyncl, and Šabata as “strikingly political”. When the presiding judge, Dr. Kašpar, reprimanded Hübl (a Communist) for bringing politics to the trial, Hübl replied that, since three quarters of the prosecution is based on politics, the defence has to be political as well. Sviták also mentioned that the behaviour and presentations of the prosecutors and judges caused mixed impressions. At times, they threatened by mentioning other misdeeds and additional collaboration in criminal activities while, on other occasions, they admitted to the vagueness and shallowness of the presented evidence. The impression was that these prosecutors and judges wanted to frighten the defendants, but, at the same time, to avoid possible future accountability. Sviták learned that the explanations lay in the upper echelons of the Party apparatus. Both the case and its prosecution had not been adequately thought through. The arrest of the defendants occurred upon the decision of the Party and the prosecution was based on Party wishes as well. The trial had to proceed in harmony with the decisions and wishes of the Party. Before and during the trials, the disciplined judges asked for directives along Party lines. The Party leadership was trapped by this–the court asked for advice as to the severity of punishment. At a Party weekend retreat, Orlík [castle], active betting went on. The years of sentence were adjusted according to the behaviour of the accused during the trial. Who behaved reasonably and who was most particularly arrogant? It was complete chaos.19

In one or two cases, the court ordered a harsher penalty than that requested by the prosecutor. The judge was instructed at the last moment, 17

Klj, “OtevĜete, chci vejít,” SvČdectví 40 (1971): 513–515. Ivan Sviták, “Dvanáctkrát o procesech,” SvČdectví 44 (1972): 533–577. 19 Ibid., 573. 18

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but they failed to inform the prosecutor.20 In his treatise, Sviták also quoted from the conclusions of Pelikán’s publication, Report of the Commission of the Central Committee of KSý on Political Trials and Rehabilitation, which has been described above. The same issue contained personal reminiscences of Heda Margoliová-Kovályová, widow of the executed Communist functionary, Rudolf Margolius.21 In 1971, an interesting article by Ivan Pfaff was devoted to the issue of collaboration with the occupiers or the dictatorial regime in Czechoslovakia.22 Pfaff introduced his treatise by invoking post-war theories of “collaboration of the entire nation” and collective guilt of the identification of all Germans with Nazism. We laughed at statements that millions of Germans did not know about concentration camps located a few kilometres from their city domiciles and even less about torture and murders committed by Nazi sadists. Only tens of revelations of identical crimes in Stalinist camps and jails published during the Prague Spring in our domestic press and in a series of testimonies in books led us to doubts concerning the validity of the theory of collective guilt […] Only those affected knew the true extent, methods, and system of bestialities which met and often even exceeded Nazi practices.23

Pfaff asked whether the theory of collective guilt applied as well to Czechoslovaks. Was the theory of collective guilt merely a legend, myth, or a construction in a nation that did not resist dictatorship? The answer to this difficult question explains whether collaboration with the totalitarian system is an individual pathological deviation, or a phenomenon of the entire society […] Discussion of collaboration opened only after the occupation (1968), when it gained a broader parameter– collaboration not with the domestic totalitarian regime, but with the foreign occupying power.24

20

Ibid., 573. Heda Margoliová-Kovályová, “Ze vzpomínek ženy státního zloþince,” SvČdectví 44 (1972): 578–588. 22 Ivan Pfaff, “Kolaboranti mezi námi. Tradice nebo komplex?” SvČdectví 41 (1971): 45–58. 23 Ibid., 45. 24 Ibid. 21

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Pfaff compared the situation during Nazi occupation and after 1968. He concluded that what took Nazis two and a half years, the Soviets accomplished through Husák’s regime in thirteen months: .

Specific members of the pressure group pushing the “governments of realists” were then and now the “activist newsmen.” During the war Lažnovský, Krychtálek, KĜemen as well as Moc, SvČrþina, and Švestka today. “Revolver writers” appearing from nowhere [...] This is evidence of the porous bottom of the human reservoir available to the collaborationist regime. There is a difference: While in 1940, they usurped the press by a spontaneous putsch without the blessing of the leading group, during the spring and summer of 1969, the initiative came from above. Collaborating journalists during both occupations attacked moderate members of the leadership. Today, more than during the war, the press is the main platform of denunciation. Journalists also lead attacks against the political emigration [...] Both Nazis and Soviets prefer “realists” over fanatics. Hácha was more useful than Vlajka [Czech fascist organization]. What appears to be personal rivalry (the Husák–BiĎák conflict) is nothing, but a replay of a useful Nazi recipe [...] It is interesting that, after 1969, the most brutal collaborators control education and culture (Hrbek and BrĤžek). The main effort after the autumn of 1969 focused almost exclusively on the cultural front. Hrbek issued an imperative order for mass denunciations, by which he exceeded his master teacher, Emanuel Moravec.25

Pfaff did not limit himself to mere comparison and analysis of collaboration during the two occupations, but brings up collaboration in the nineteenth century, which moved within the confines of being police informers or denunciators. He provided examples of well-known personalities such as Václav Hanka, Karel Sabina, or one of the most prominent representatives of Slavic culture of the nineteenth century, the Slovak poet and protestant minister, Ján Kollár. He concluded, however, that the continuity of collaboration in Czech societal development over the last 120 years cannot be characterized as a tradition and that even the most sceptical defenders of the theory of “collective guilt” are not entitled to label this nation as one of collaborators. Collaboration never involved the majority, but only certain individual or ideological groups. Those often belonged to political or culture elites. In the context of the entire society, they remained, but an isolated minority.26

25 26

Ibid., 53. Ibid., 57–58.

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The Voice of the Dissidents Another matter covered in depth by “SvČdectví” was the systematic persecution of dissidents by the Communist authorities in Communist Czechoslovakia. Exile efforts on behalf of dissidents were aided by the signing of the Helsinki Final Act by both western and Soviet bloc countries in 1975. The Helsinki Final Act basically codified human rights in Europe into international law. “SvČdectví” not only pointed out the violations of the Helsinki Final Act by the Czechoslovak authorities, but also published dissident ideas on how to make Czechoslovakia a more pluralistic and tolerant society. In fact, several issues of the journal contained only contributions from Czechoslovak-based dissidents. A real breakthrough in the issue of human rights in Czechoslovakia was the establishment of Charter 77 by Czechoslovak dissidents. This organization included people from all walks of life and its main mission was to expose the Czechoslovak government’s violations of commitments it had made when signing the Helsinki Final Act. The founding document of the Charter was reprinted in “SvČdectví”.27 Charter 77 members managed to get their ideas published in “SvČdectví” thanks to an elaborate smuggling network organized by Tigrid in cooperation with other Czechoslovak exiles. “SvČdectví” also published some thoughts of Ludvík Vaculík depicting the repression against him and other Charter 77 signatories.28 Even Josefa Slánská (the widow of Rudolf Slánský) addressed an open letter to Gustav Husák, which read as follows: The campaign being waged in these days against Charter 77 and its signatories recalls the 1950s when it was possible to condemn anybody for anything, using the slogan ‘Have faith in the Party, comrades’, and over 10,000 resolutions were organized demanding death, including yours. And now people, from Socialist Youth members to pensioners, are expected to condemn Charter 77 and its signatories without knowing the Charter’s content. The first consequence of this campaign is arrests, searches of homes, dismissals from work, and other persecution. Would you really wish for people to have guilty consciences once again because, out of fear, they protest against something they do not know and thereby cause harm to citizens who want nothing other than to help keep the commitments that bind this country and its citizens. I therefore request that you do something to end this campaign of denunciation and repression.29 27

“Prohlášení Charty 77,” SvČdectví 53 (1977): 155–157. Ludvík Vaculík, “Nastal podzim,” SvČdectví 53 (1977): 46–52. 29 Josefa Slánská, “OtevĜený dopis generálnímu tajemníkovi ÚV KSý a presidentu ýSSR, Dr. G. Husákovi,” SvČdectví 53 (1977): 70. 28

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The financing of Charter 77 activities was handled by the Czechoslovak émigré physicist, František Janouch, who established the Charta 77 Foundation in Stockholm. In addition, the dissidents became so embarrassing for the Communist regime that many were pressured to emigrate in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. In exile, they continued to speak out on behalf of colleagues at home and their homeland in general. In this context, we should mention the 58th issue of “SvČdectví,” which brought contributions of several Charter 77 signatories entitled Chartists about Themselves and among Themselves.30 Tigrid reprinted articles by several key Chartists From Charter 77 Information, Volume 2, Number 2 (1979). Ludvík Vaculík wrote an essay Comments on Courage.31 He addressed the role of Charter 77 and its development and also addressed the issue of courage and bravery. He noted that the attack of the “normalization” regime in 1979 is not directed against “heroes”. According to Vaculík, the heroes of dissent were getting only “a measured dose of repression” that the regime felt obligated to use. Yet, the regime did not like doing that, not wishing “to elevate them to the status of heroes”. The war should remain under a pseudonym, without known faces or data. That is why explosives of a new type are placed into the game, without destroying anyone existentially or physically, only to change their internal norms (like neutron bombs): undamaged “empty suits” go to and from work.32

Vaculík’s essay received a critical reply from fellow dissident, Václav Havel, who pointed out the absurdity of the fact that Vaculík himself was not imprisoned for his novel Guinea pigs (Morþata), while JiĜí Gruša was in prison for his novel The Questionnaire (Dotazník). It could have been the other way. Havel agreed with Vaculík that oppression of thousands of anonymous people is worse than the imprisonment of a known dissident. He emphasized, however, that the dissident was sentenced because he had not been silent about the inconspicuous and anonymous oppression of thousands. Havel concluded: Some of us are in this hard and discouraging confrontation with the secret police for two years, some for ten years, and some for their entire lives. 30

“Chartisté o sobČ a mezi sebou,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 257–271. Ludvík Vaculík, “Poznámky o stateþnosti,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 257–259. 32 Vaculík, “Poznámky,” 258–259. 31

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Chapter Five Nobody likes it and none of us knows how much longer we can stand it. Every one of us has the right to retreat into the background, omit some things, have some rest, or even emigrate when we cannot stand it anymore. All of it is understandable, normal, human, and I am the last one to hold it against anybody. What I do not like is when people are not telling the truth and you, excuse me, are not telling the truth this time.33

The next contribution was by Petr Pithart, On the Back of Others.34 Two years ago, about one thousand people decided to claim the right of coresponsibility for conditions of human rights in this country. An active minority, if you wish. The purpose was to create an organization without party prejudice and corresponding mistrust. The purpose was proven even in the courage of signatories and also in their belief in the liberating effects of the honest word. Today, I think that a little hope for a constructive dialogue with the authorities (and that is what we hoped for!) started to fizzle out on our side when we could not and later even did not want to face the active minority now among us; the minority which took our worries on their backs. When a group of enthusiastic, selfless, risk-taking, hot, impatient, and often radical people usurped responsibility that should have been collective, we were afraid that our free union would change into a sect “of the last just ones”. We were afraid that we could close ourselves in a ghetto of pompous exclusivists who risked becoming comfortable; We could not prevent a groundswell of a self-informed group of activists who were in a hurry to take care of matters. They chose the style of addressing the world in the name of one thousand signatories.35

Pithart’s essay received a focused reply from Václav Havel.36 Havel admitted that activists are more active than passive people in all systems. He stressed, however, that this fact does not depend on the conditions in different societies. It does not matter what people think about this or that “active minority”: Hitler and his comrades were an active minority when they were striving for power in Germany. Professor Masaryk represented an active minority when fighting for the Czechoslovak Republic without anyone’s authorization. In the Protectorate, the active minorities were VlajkaĜi (a Czech fascist group) as well as members of the resistance. Activists always were, are, and will be more visible than passive people […] What always matters is what such people are doing and whether it is good or bad […] It 33

Václav Havel, “Milý pane Ludvíku,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 259–261. Petr Pithart, “Bedra nČkterých,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 261–264. 35 Pithart, “Bedra,” 262–263. 36 Václav Havel, “Milý pane Pitharte,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 265–268. 34

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matters whether they prepare the genocide of nations or, on the contrary, fight for greater freedom so that passive gardeners can tend their gardens in peace even in the event that they are, for example, Jewish […] A reader who knows nothing about Charter 77, can get the impression from your essay that the Charter consists of ten to thirty usurpers who do everything and nine hundred fifty passive signatories (in whose name you speak) who disagree with the usurpers […] I take your essay as an expression of disagreement you are trying to settle with somebody and you are camouflaging it into the veil of political science thought on active minorities.37

Havel’s criticism was somewhat verbose, but to the point. Luboš Dobrovský, who addressed all the participants of the discussion, summarized it: “…and we have a new unhelpful argument. It is Czech […] It does not make sense and demonstrates a lack of patience and uncontrolled passion”.38 Dobrovský analysed the individual contributions and brought out their positive aspects. He praised Vaculík for addressing courage and also his lament over the years people he admired had lost in prison…And Havel reprimanded him for it! Simply because Havel was angry, he even questioned Vaculík’s honour. Anger is a bad adviser… Why such an angry tone, Václav Havel? For us, when there is argument, hurrah! [...] Petr Pithart took upon his back the weight of argument […] Those most active among us want too much, but they accomplish less and less… So! [...] This argument does not bother me […] What bothers me, however, is not thinking matters through. Anger, too much affectation, purposeful or innocent inconclusiveness, short circuits, intolerance, invectives, and lack of self-criticism. This does not read well.39

This discussion illustrates the relations between important Charter 77 members. It testifies well on behalf of the Charter that arguing members published their disagreements openly. Tigrid reprinted the discussion without their permission.40 The next issue of “SvČdectví” was labelled a “Prague Issue”. The editor of the issue (referred to as M.) provided an introductory “explanation”.41 37

Havel, “Milý,” 265–266. Luboš Dobrovský, “Milým pĜátelĤm, Vaculíkovi, Havlovi a Pithartovi,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 268–271. 39 Dobrovský, “Milým,” 269–270. 40 “Chartisté,” 257. 41 “Na vysvČtlenou,” SvČdectví 59 (1979): 411–412. 38

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Chapter Five When the editorial office came with the idea of a Prague issue, they may have hoped for some unity among the domestic and foreign opposition. We have the first results here: the issue is a polemic with the emigration, and, in fact, a deliberation about whether to leave or stay. For émigrés and exiles, it is not encouraging reading. At best, it is an assurance that their decision was correct […] It is not merry reading for us [the domestic resistance] either. None of the contributions provides rational reasons why to live here. This decision rests, it appears, outside of reason. It is also debatable what requires more courage […] We do not concern ourselves with those who merely seek a better existence; such men bet on more favourable conditions, their own fitness, and luck […] But he, who seeks his participation in developments of national prosperity, moral improvement, and more national independence, bets on the great power of history and time. Are we saying that pessimists leave, whereas optimists stay? Here at home as well as wherever you are, the argument over allegiance to the native clod is laughed at […] We feel that our existence here is a continuing reproach of you over there. Our life is a vile compromise. Tigrid has fought against this vile compromise with honour; today it is already antique. MlynáĜ fights with “brand new” honour. They ganged up on us… You live off us, not only for us. What did the editors have in mind when planning this issue? Please answer only next time and do not spoil our issue! [...] We can read you like a book! [...] Dobrovský’s commentary, written in June, is not correct. It is not a description of reality, but only an exercise needed to calm the relationship between man and his nightmare when sitting by the fire in a cave. It represents the creation of a new reality through words […] When you were not discouraged by Švejk’s signature of Charter 77, would these few words of introduction do the trick?42

The Paris-based editorial board explained: The holders of power wanted to fence in “their” land of real socialism with ramparts that were broken. It is a contribution, no matter how modest, to wider knowledge that the divider between Eastern and Western Europe, between “those here” and “those over there” is a roadblock which is artificial, scandalous (and hopeless) as is the Berlin Wall […] It does not signify harmony and monologue, but, on the contrary, a dialogue, diversity, disagreement, and conflict.43

The article Charter 77 and Real Socialism deserves careful reading.44 The author, Miroslav Kusý, introduces Charter 77 as a child of 42

Ibid., 411–412. “Poznáma paĜížské redakce,” SvČdectví 59 (1979): 412. 44 Miroslav Kusý, “Charta 77 a reálný socialismus,” SvČdectví 59 (1979): 423–443. 43

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Czechoslovak real socialism, a forced union of the mighty and the powerless, not conceived in love: It is a product of rape, not acknowledged by its father. The authority labelled it as a loser, but this could not hide the conditions into which the child was born. It was born from the marasmus of post-August consolidation and the Normalization process, which is without perspective. This factual lack of perspective is perceived both by the representatives of power as well as the representatives of the powerless. The first created their concepts in “real socialism” and the latter in their draft of the Charter movement.45

Kusý continued: Real socialism is what we have here! But what do we have? For some, it is a price increase in stores for common folks and stability of symbolic prices for the elites in special shops. The central group of Soviet armies, incredible sums of money for the arms race, honorary degrees and decorations for the shah of Iran (ready for Khomeini as well), energy crisis, obsolete machinery, discrimination against entire large social groups, and a movement for the defense of human rights […] The realized ideal corresponds exclusively to “idealized reality.” The bigger the clash between the ideal and the reality is, it is necessary to cut and curtail the ideal and to praise the reality […] Charter 77 entered the political scene during the period of ideological resignation, political apathy, and moral nihilism of the nation. On the surface, nothing was going on that would gain the attention of the public. They arrested some young musician of whom nobody, but the young public cared […] Somewhere they ratified some international pacts: It meant nothing to the nation, as people knew nothing about it. Somewhere in Helsinki, we participated in some conference at the highest level: There was a loud campaign surrounding it [because of the Soviet initiative], but it did not attract the nation’s attention…And into this idyll exploded the bomb of Charter 77. It has ruined the reputation of the authorities, it damaged its facade of socialist consolidation, and that is why the authorities reacted against it with a wellknown hysterical campaign. It was no longer a manifestation of dissatisfaction by an individual that could be “taken care of” quietly. It was a public collective protest with significant, worldwide publicity […] Reservations of the nation with respect to the Charter are growing as the Charter indirectly reaches the nation’s conscience. This exclusive union of the Chartists decided to live in truth, in the struggle against evil, and injustice. Some may have it, but we (i.e. the overwhelming majority of the nation) cannot afford such a luxury. We have children, villas, and 45

Ibid., 423.

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summerhouses under construction, we have pending requests for a “valuta promise” [a foreign currency allowance for vacations abroad], mortgage, and we want to have a quiet old age. We could lose hunting licenses and rest and recreation in the Tatras. Of course, we want to be your fans and we want to keep our fingers crossed for you. But, through your challenge, you also step on these fingers and demand more from us. You are trying to demystify the game, but the game is between the authorities and us. We are involuntary participants, yet we are in it and we are used to it. You are telling us that it is dishonest to vote for resolutions we do not believe in […] When we silently accept all the dishonesty around us, which, from time to time, hits some of us. It is an agreed price for the fact that we are not overworked on the job, that we look for what we need on company time.46

Kusý then characterized the relationship between Charter 77 and the authorities. He admitted that the Charter declaration was insufficient for a political programme. “With such a programme, even the most loyal opposition of the government of His Highness in any constitutional monarchy would fail”. Why then was there such an irritated reaction by the authorities to it? The Charter’s demand to call things by their real name was viewed by the authorities as subversion. The request by Charter signatories for strict adherence to socialist legislation was equally subversive.47

All this served to confirm Kusý’s initial statement that Charter 77 represented an absurd reaction to absurd conditions. Likewise, it reflected a certain dose of purely Švejk-like features of the Czechs. This accurate description of Charter 77 and the reality in 1979 Czechoslovakia ended on an optimistic note: “History has shown many times the significance of moral power, and how the example of human courage, the ability to resist falsehoods, evil, and lawlessness have changed the public conscience”.48 As has already been stated, Tigrid advocated collaboration with the post-1968 wave of exiles. Many of them were reform-minded Communists, assembled around JiĜí Pelikán. After the Charter 77 declaration was made public, Pelikán and his “Literární Listy” Group were joined by former Communist functionary, ZdenČk MlynáĜ. MlynáĜ was not overly popular, but managed to become a spokesman for exiled “democratic socialists.” Tigrid’s attitude was not in harmony with the majority of post-1948 exiles, 46

Ibid., 427–436. Ibid., 437–438. 48 Ibid., 443. 47

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who did not wish to be tarnished by any association with ex-Communists. In 1979, “SvČdectví” printed an extensive conversation between MlynáĜ and Tigrid.49 Tigrid introduced the conversation as an exchange of opinions between two people who stand, or better stood, on opposing political and ideological positions. Because of the importance of this dialogue, extensive excerpts are included here. T.: When you were starting, I was practically at the end. You started on the ruins of our defeat, the ruins of the losing democratic generation. My public life is the First Republic, the war against Hitler (I spent it in the London resistance), and three years in the uncomfortable embrace of the National Front. Then came another emigration. I am in it thirty years. You, for about a year. How can we agree with each other when we project experiences from completely different backgrounds?50

MlynáĜ replied that his life began after the war and that he perceived the discontinuity of the development of Czechoslovakia brought by the year 1948 only much later, after the twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956. Only then did he start to change his opinion of the First Republic. Tigrid returned to the first three post-war years when a platform was presented for the stepwise liquidation of parliamentary democracy. T.: That attempt to work with the Communists was necessary. We had to provide evidence of truth: Living off of weakened democrats with a strong, power-usurping Communist Party was not possible.51

Tigrid pointed out that, before the war, democrats had many friends among the Communists, particularly in culture. Even in London, they worked closely with the Communists and returned home hoping that the National Front would signify true cooperation. They were wrong. MlynáĜ admitted that, after 1948, he joined the Communist sectarianism hook, line, and sinker. M.: I fell for the mentality of leftist radicalism. What mattered was defining the right goal, suppressing the enemy, and everything else would fall into harmony with utopian goals. 49

“Nad rozbitým džbánem jedné politiky. Rozmluva ZdeĖka MlynáĜe s Pavlem Tigridem,” SvČdectví 58 (1979): 233–255. 50 Ibid., 233. 51 Ibid., 235.

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T.: And it went fast. A year or two after the victorious February [1948– Communist putsch], the class struggle ruled and we saw the liquidation of entire classes of the nation unseen before in the Czech mentality, unseen also in other people’s democracies–they executed 300 political prisoners, even women! Tens of thousands of people ended in jail, in uranium mines, in miserable employment conditions. Confidantes and janitors terrorized the nation. How did so much hatred afflict the dove-like Czech nature? M.: That dove-like character perhaps belongs in Hanka’s Manuscript, rather than in every ordinary day of this century. Already after Munich and during the Nazi occupation, it became clear what hatred, lust for property, revenge, and various shades of human vileness could cause… T.: I will attempt a rapid Mr. Brouþek’s trip to the future. I can imagine that you, the Communists, who were chased into emigration by fate, will return. (You are young.) And that you will return to power–Why not? You will not be prevented from doing so in democratic conditions. That assumption upsets me. I am suspicious that you would attempt to trip the socialists and democrats again, so they would fall on their backs…And why not employ the old Bolshevik methods? From the point of view of a democrat: What are these boys, with whom we are in cahoots now, going to do to us? When are they going to trip us? M.: In politics, one has to be careful and not fall for various promises and phrases. After all, the Communists are not the first ones or only ones who swallowed their original allies in political alliances although they are masters of that craft in modern politics. But, ‘those boys’ today are not the same as they were years ago… In the past, ‘those boys’ were direct exponents of the Communist Party of the Leninist ilk, belonging to the international Communist movement directed from Moscow. Without all that, they are not those ‘same boys.’ T.: In other words: Right idea, wrong implementation. Let us try again? M.: Not at all. As far as I am concerned, and many reform Communists held this position at the very beginning of our reformism, sometimes in 1956, but not already in 1968… T.: What if the overwhelming majority of Czechs and Slovaks at the first possible opportunity would not want ‘socialism with a human face’ or even socialism at all for that matter? What if they would want something else? M.: Perhaps we can agree that the most important is that the overwhelming majority of people in Czechoslovakia would have a real opportunity to say what they want?52

MlynáĜ then defended the Prague Spring and stated that, without the Soviet intervention, conditions in Czechoslovakia would have been much better. In a discussion about pluralist democracy, Tigrid doubted that MlynáĜ appreciated that the Communist Party would have to abandon its 52

Ibid., 234–239.

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constitutionally-guaranteed leading position (hegemony) and that it no longer would be the avant-garde of the chosen class. T.: Frankly, we already trusted Gottwald, Slánský, Nosek once...Can we or should we trust the reform Communists who understood only when they lost their power? When they get it back, would they continue to be reformers? M.: The basic question is: What can we expect from the representatives of the movement that created the totalitarian system? Is it possible to believe that they would create a possibility to be put on trial in a “normal” general election? This is a matter that should not be based on or hidden in drivel as was the case in 1968. Dubþek’s leadership refused, and I agreed, even to ask this question much less to answer it. T.: How much Marxism-Leninism remains in your blood circulation? M.: I believe that the only road to escape totalitarianism is to give complete political freedom to the opposition, even to that which is politically and ideologically oriented differently than the regime. Perhaps as in the same framework of possibilities like Charter 77…Yet, without a change in the political system, I cannot imagine the implementation of such a system.53

Tigrid doubted the possibility that Stalinism could be reformed. It must be destroyed. He also expressed doubts about the depth of changes in the makeup of reform Communists. Tigrid wished to learn, so far unsuccessfully, who ZdenČk MlynáĜ was today? He pointed out that many of MlynáĜ’s colleagues were poisoning the minds of young people at western universities by painting “rosy pictures” of “true socialism”. Tigrid emphasized that he cared for the facts and their definitions, while MlynáĜ preferred tactics and procedures. He also emphasized that “real socialism” cannot be reformed and is incompatible with pluralist democracy. For one system to exist and survive, the other system has to be (internally) destroyed. T.: More research is needed in order to avoid a repetition of what happened after the war when we used the same language and terms, but each of us meant something different. Let us not play the National Front–game ever again and let us not pretend that there is strength in unity. Yet, something unbelievable has happened: Had someone told me twenty years ago that a joint political struggle would unite Jan Patoþka and JiĜí Hájek and that the fanatical Communist, ZdenČk MlynáĜ, would defend publicly the “musical underground,” or that Václav Havel and Gertruda Sekaninová-ýakrtová would go together to the Ministry of Justice in order to protest abuse, I

53

Ibid., 241–243.

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Chapter Five would have, without a doubt, advised him to see a psychiatrist. And it is so… M.: What matters is not that we embrace one another here…but to relay answers home that what we lived through in our lives and what we witnessed at different times as well as what wounded us, marked us, and forced us into exile cannot repeat itself.54

Milan Kundera’s Central Europe In 1984, the most internationally renowned Czech author, Milan Kundera, provoked a vigorous intellectual debate with remarks made in the article, The Tragedy of Central Europe, published on 26 April in the “New York Times Review of Books”.55 This article further developed Kundera’s thesis that Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania historically belonged to central Europe in contrast with the Byzantine civilization of eastern Europe, i.e. Russia. While central European values stressed democratic diversity, Russian culture leaned towards centralism, standardization, and imperial expansion. According to Kundera, Soviet Communism was thus the fulfilment of Russian history. Central Europe “disappeared” after 1945 and was seen as nothing but a province of the Soviet empire. “SvČdectví” responded to this assertion by initiating a discussion entitled Lot, Kidnap, Escape…? Europe, Russia, and We56 In the first part, entitled ýeský údČl (The Czech Lot), Kundera’s article, originally published in “Listy” on 19 December 1968, was reprinted. Kundera described the Prague Spring and lamented that it was the historical fate of the Czechs, who were sandwiched between and pushed by the Germans and the Russians. He argued that the Czech tradition of highly developed culture, intellect, and critical reflection compensated for their military weakness. He claimed that, during the Prague Spring, the Czechs had shaken off their legacy of a small mentality and got into the spotlight of world history. Their spirit was not broken by the Soviet invasion and “the Czechoslovak autumn” was even more momentous than the Prague Spring and gave every reason for optimism because the nation had finally realized “the Czech potential”.57 Václav Havel responded in February 1969 in the journal TváĜ in an article entitled The Czech Lot? Havel rejected Kundera’s optimism and characterized “the Czech lot” as 54

Ibid., 253–255. Milan Kundera, “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” The New York Times Review of Books, 26 April 1984, 7. 56 “ÚdČl, únos, únik? Evropa, Rusko a my,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 333–372. 57 Milan Kundera, “ýeský údČl,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 333–338. 55

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nothing but a self-adulating, pseudo-historical myth. Political realities demanded action and moral courage to stand up for universal human values rather than clichés about “tiny, unfortunately located, good, and intelligent Czechoslovakia suffering at the hands of its wicked neighbours”.58 Kundera’s indignant reply entitled Radicalism and Exhibitionism originally published in Host do domu in 1969 was also reprinted.59 Milan Šimeþka criticized Kundera in an article entitled Other Civilizations.60 Šimeþka stated: The spiritual Biafra after 1968 was decidedly a home-made affair … People who made life so miserable for my friends and myself over the last fifteen years…all spoke Czech or Slovak…Anyway, I would not try to convince Americans that the East is the radical negation of the West. Many of them think so anyhow…It certainly makes more sense to emphasize Russia’s European tradition.61

Émigré Czech historian, Milan Hauner, characterized Kundera’s article in the “New York Times Review of Books” as one-sided and as having “racist overtones”.62 “SvČdectví” also published commentaries by János Kis, Francois Bondy, and Georges Nivat reprinted from the French journal “Le Débat.” These comments were very critical of Kundera’s sweeping generalizations. This debate on Kundera concluded with a conversation between Philip Roth and Milan Kundera that had originally been published in the “Sunday Times Magazine” in May 1984. Its Czech translator, the dissident writer, ZdenČk Urbánek, commented: Now that my work is completed, I am not sure whether to offer it for reading. It is total rubbish. Roth should have silenced his partner after the second sentence. We need not grieve about some of those who have left.63

The 75th issue of “SvČdectví” brought a well-written article by Lord Chalfont, A Brief Guide to International Terrorism.64 For the reader, it is 58

Václav Havel, “ýeský údČl?,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 338–343. Milan Kundera, “Radikalismus a exhibicionismus,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 343– 349. 60 Milan Šimeþka, “Jiná civilizace?,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 350–356. 61 Šimeþka, “Jiná,” 354. 62 Milan Hauner, “Dopis redakci,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 357–359. Author’s note: This represents a Czech translation of Hauner’s letter to the editor of The New York Review of Books. 63 “Rozhovor Philipa Rotha a Milana Kundery,” SvČdectví 74 (1985): 363–368. 59

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interesting how this problem has grown since then, culminating in the attacks on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, and how international travel has changed since then. Whereas borders in Europe have virtually disappeared, passports are now required for travel between Canada and the United States. The twentieth volume of “SvČdectví” contains a review of Kundera as a “guru of Western society” by Milan Jungmann entitled Kundera’s Paradoxes. Jungmann acknowledged Kundera’s talent, but was disturbed by his catering too much to the taste of western audiences. It is this ‘unbearable lightness of writing’ that attracts the mass reader to Kundera’s novels–He sees in them an ideal kind of ‘philosophical’ prose that is accessible to him (with his superficial knowledge) and pleasant reading at the same time. There are no obstacles in his path…and his vanity is flattered.65

Jungmann also challenged Kundera’s assertions that Kundera was a totally unknown author at a time when he wrote his first novel. Kundera had been considered one of the leading intellectuals in the country ever since he entered Czech literature as a poet “who believed in Marx’s vision of a new man and a new society”. According to Jungmann, “Kundera has created a biographical cliché for the ignorant, foreign reader…” For Jungmann, Kundera’s writings resembled more “a witty charade rather than the accomplishment of a keen intellect”. Jungmann was also irritated by the prominence of sexual motifs in Kundera’s works verging on pornography and by his obsessive linking of eroticism with violence. Jungmann’s review was clearly unfair to Kundera. The next issue of “SvČdectví” contained contributions by KvČtoslav Chvatík, Ivo Bock, Petr Král, and Josef Škvorecký, all of whom defended Kundera and challenged Jungmann’s basic literary outlook: “It is unacceptable to identify an author’s opinion with the views of his characters”. Chvatík even suggested that Jungmann’s adherence to old-fashioned values indicated that he was still rooted in the rules of socialist realism.66

64 Lord Chalfont, “PrĤvodce po mezinárodním terorismu,” Svedectví 75 (1985): 557–568. 65 Milan Jungmann, “Kunderovské paradoxy,” SvČdectví 77 (1986): 135–162. 66 KvČtoslav Chvatík, Josef Škvorecký, Petr Král, and Ivo Bock, “JeštČ o románech Milana Kundery,” SvČdectví 79 (1986): 614–633.

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Conclusion: The Collapse of Communism In 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached and Communism collapsed in east central Europe. The fall of Communism was welcomed and analysed by Tigrid in the 23rd volume of “SvČdectví” in 1990. Tigrid wrote: What happened? Let us attempt to define it in three sentences. The pages of the 1989 calendar were marked red because they signalled: The end of Communism as a totalitarian ‘dictatorship of the secretariat,’ bureaucratic, often embarrassingly overage clique of leaders who based their claim to power on a onetime dynamic ideology, but proven by its implementation to be inconclusive, deceitful, and murderous…It is not possible to determine accurately the beginning of the end. It is clear that it was possible to postpone it, but not to stop it by anaemic reforms; The end of the Soviet imperium as the centre of world Communism. Defeat in the Cold War led by the USSR against the democracies. The end of a half century division of the world into East/West, and of the Iron Curtain and its ugliest symbol, the Berlin Wall; the weakening of the Soviet Union as a world power; The end of Marxism-Leninism as an ideology and as a social utopia. The end of foggy illusions about ‘the third way’ between real socialism and capitalism, about the aborted child called Eurocommunism, about ‘socialist market,’ and similar ideological abortions. - The end of illusions about bright futures and allegedly glorious past.67

A detailed and thorough analysis of the role of “SvČdectví” can be found in the article We did not want an Émigré Journal: Pavel Tigrid and “SvČdectví” by Neil Stewart.68 In 1990, Tigrid transferred the editorial office of “SvČdectví” to Prague. Its publication was terminated with Issue 93 two years later. Tigrid himself died in France in 2003.69 Pavel Tigrid summarized his life, experiences, and opinions in an interview with Petr Kotyk, entitled I was not Homesick, in Héricy, France, where he lived. In this interview, Tigrid stated that he considered this little village to be his home.70 Tigrid worked in exile with his wife, Ivana (neé Myšková), a journalist and activist in the 67

Pavel Tigrid, “V jaké dobČ to, holoubkové, vlastnČ žijeme?,” SvČdectví 91 (1990): 9. 68 Stewart, “We,” 242–267. 69 Jan ýulík, “ZemĜel Pavel Tigrid,” Britské listy, 1 September 2003, http://blisty.cz/art/15222.html (accessed 1 September 2012). 70 Petr Kotyk, Pavel Tigrid MnČ se nestýskalo (Prague: Labyrint, 2010).

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area of human rights. She worked for Amnesty International, founded the organization Help and Action for aid to people who had been discriminated against by the Communist authorities in Czechoslovakia, and the International Committee for the Support of Charter 77 in Paris. She died in France in 2008. It can be said that “SvČdectví” fulfilled its goal of providing a debate on various aspects of Communist Czechoslovak society and it helped both Czechoslovak dissidents and exiles by providing them with a forum to voice their opinions. Tigrid should be credited for rising above petty quarrels among different generations of exiles and working toward the common goal, namely the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Communist rule. After the fall of Communism, President Václav Havel officially recognized Pavel Tigrid for his work to free his homeland and Tigrid himself served for several years as Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, shortly after the split of Czechoslovakia into two separate states.

CHAPTER SIX HOMO VIATOR: JANUSZ PASIERB ON EAST CENTRAL EUROPEAN INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY PIOTR KOPROWSKI

Janusz Pasierb (1929–1993) was a Polish philosopher, priest, art historian, poet, and a keen and frequent traveller. His journeys, European as well as overseas (e.g. South America, India, Canada, the Holy Land) should be regarded not only as a search for personal experience of emotional and æsthetic value but also “an act of communicating ideas”.1 Pasierb aimed at determining the nature and specificity of the relationship between humanum/sacrum, culture/nature, elitism/consumerism, and— what is particularly interesting—the shape of the identity of central European intellectuals in the second half of the twentieth century. Pasierb was a professor at the Catholic Theological Academy in Warsaw and the Seminary in Pelplin, and an author of numerous scientific publications in the humanities (history of ideas, art history, theology, literature). His books are abundant both in their meaningful details as well as in interesting generalizations indicating his ability to properly balance facts and an analytic attitude, between documentarian “verve” and poetic sensitivity. Pasierb was an active participant in many conferences organized both in Poland and abroad, frequenting some of the most paramount lecture halls in Europe and the world.2

1

Kazimierz Nowosielski, “Ksiądz i znaki kultury,” Nowe KsiąĪki 5 (1997), 15. Henryk Mross, “Publikacje ks. Profesora Janusza St. Pasierba,” in Pomorskie drogi ks. Janusza Pasierba, Bogdan WiĞniewski, ed. (Pelplin: Bernardinum, 1994), 327-356; Wiesáaw Mering, “Powitanie uczestników i otwarcie sesji,” in Ksiądz Janusz Stanisáaw Pasierb. Kapáan, poeta, czáowiek nauki (Pelplin: Bernardinum, 1995), 5.

2

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During his numerous voyages, Pasierb—the author of Branches and Leaves—constructed his contemplations against the background of the cultural heritage of Europe. He wondered whether this “old” continent, primarily understood as one of a homogenous culture, still existed. Pasierb raised this question in the context of a cold war divided continent. He further inquired: can Poles feel European coming from a country behind the “Iron Curtain”? He formulated questions on what it meant to be a European, trying to find answers via examining the central European identity, or precisely speaking, that of central European intellectuals. My intention is to try to explain his findings based on selected works from the collection of his rich and compelling writings. His thoughts and ideas grew out of his travel to South America, which took place in July and August of 1962. They were published in the form of the essay The Southern Cross, which is a part of the collection Branches and Leaves, first published in 1985.3 Memories of his journey begin anecdotally. Pasierb describes crossing the Swiss-French border: Paris, Saturday, 21st July of 1962. Yesterday at 22:57 I got into a wagon with couchettes in Lausanne where I crossed the border undetected. I was sleeping on the bottom shelf and the customs officer didn’t notice me. Perhaps he noticed, but I must have looked European enough to him, so there wasn’t any need to wake me up, as Europeans need neither a visa nor a passport.4

Philosopher also adds that in the western part of the old continent, we quite frequently hear the question: “Have you been staying in Europe for a long time?” Pasierb—a humourist—used to reply by referring to a Swedish nudist. To this—not so rare—question I always reply with a sweet story of a Swede who when asked in a questionnaire ‘When did you become a nudist?’ answered: ‘I didn’t become one, I was born one.’5

Thus, one could be of a central European origin and feel European, but once in western Europe, he discovered that the countries of eastern Europe were not always considered to be European. As Leszek Koáakowski explains, the foundations of self-identification of people inhabiting certain 3

J. S. Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie (Pelplin: Bernardinum, 2002), 65–105. Ibid., 65. 5 Ibid., 66. 4

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geographical spaces rest on their history.6 In the 1960s, it seemed as though for the people of the West the historic European bonds became a kind of ballast preventing an opening for the new reality—closely related to the post-1945 division of Europe. There seemed to be a clear understanding that Europe consisted of two parts: a group of socialist countries associated with the Soviet Union, “integrating” within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact, and western Europe closely associated with the United States.7 Pasierb shared Winston Churchill’s conviction that the isolation of the European countries within the Soviet sphere of influence separated them from the world of genuine democracy and civil liberties.8 However, he did not seem to consider, in contrast to western opinion, that this fact was an evidence of the “inferiority” of the Europeans behind the “Iron Curtain,” or of the incomplete or limited Europeanism of east central Europeans. What is more, he believed it was the Europeans living in the western part of the old continent, who could be characterized by—at least in some sense—carelessness and helplessness in anticipation of what will happen. Indifferent, weary old heart beats the rhythm of Europe, Paris. It is still grey here, but the facades of the ministries on the Place de la Concorde have been washed and the same is being done with the Madeleine, the parish church of Chopin. […] one thing [...] seems [...] to be applicable: l' absence d' amour, the non–aligned, sad or cheerful indifference.9

The Southern Cross is a lesson in identifying oneself in a diversified cultural space. Everything that appears in it is an impulse to explore meanings, discover justifications or raise questions. Sunday before noon [in Paris]. Bus 84 from behind the Pantheon to Musée Jacquemart-André for an exhibition devoted to one book, more precisely, to the last book of the New Testament. Many people, even though the thing isn’t new. I mean that the Apocalypse was written by St. John on Patmos about the year 95, but also that this version, invented by the famous French publisher and bibliophile Joseph Foret, has already been shown in Paris 6

Leszek Koáakowski, Moje sáuszne poglądy na wszystko (Kraków: Znak, 1999). Timothy Garton Ash, Polska rewolucja. SolidarnoĞü 1980-1981 (Warszawa: Res Publica, 1990), 196–197. 8 Piotr Koprowski, “Europa jako wspólnota duchowa. SpostrzeĪenia i refleksje Janusza Stanisáawa Pasierba,” in Koncepcje integracji w Europie w XX i XXI wieku. MyĞl polityczna, ed. Hubert Stys (ToruĔ: Interdyscyplinarne Koáo Naukowe Doktorantów Uniwersytetu Mikoáaja Kopernika, 2008), 51. 9 Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 66. 7

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the atmosphere of extraordinary and light scandal that accompanies all art shows of Salvador Dali, who was pars magna in publication of this book.10 The unquestionable value of Pasierb’s thoughts represents erudition. He does not stop on mere reproduction of impressions and recreation of a particular ambiance, but also provides the reader with details indicative of his scientific approach. Pasierb vividly responded to the surrounding reality. Openness and admiration for the rich cultural environment, however, did not go in tandem with uncritical thinking of a “too strong”— in his belief—connection of western civilization with what was tangible, physical, devoid of spiritual depth and harmony. Why doesn’t the body… the body, now so adored, nurtured and developed, give people the expected joy? There have already been similar situations in history, when the body was as important as today. Greek ephebe’s cry: ‘I swear to the gods, I would rather have a beautiful body than the crown could still serve as a motto for a bodybuilding magazine.11 There are many indications that the Pasierb’s attitude can be seen as a manifestation of the crystallization of a new type of a whole—European citizenship of eastern European intellectuals. It was envisioned as a blend of the central European experience with the lack of a “shameful inferiority” and an intellectual “sophistication” that characterized the men in the west.12 Pasierb’s travels help him to develop new ways of interpreting this relationship. In the nineteenth century, as well as in the first half of the twentieth, the peoples of central Europe often shared the fate of the wanderer. Their journey was frequently a result of necessity associated with a natural 10

Ibid., 67. “The masterpiece clearly wants to make a man astounded. Binding— also Dali’s work—weights 210 kg, its format: 0, 78 x 0, 86. [...] The book was made from 1958 to 1961. It consists of 150 carefully selected parchments. The text was printed by the best French calligraphy; twenty-one illustrations were made by the greatest painters. Seven leading writers have left handwritten comments–in seven languages.” 11 Ibid., 70. 12 Ibid., 84.

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disaster, war, hunger, persecution leading to a tragic destiny or fate. “Travelling”—as Andrzej Stasiuk highlights—“never meant [for central Europeans] anything good [...] you fought in someone else’s war, you fled from different armies, you ran from poverty and war.”13 Meanwhile, throughout the nineteenth century, travelling in the western part of the European continent acquired a different connotation. It was when, for example, the figure of the flâneur was gaining increasing popularity. The birth of the flânerie is associated with boredom, a condition that makes an aimlessly strolling city dweller “throw himself” into a nothingness and emptiness that is felt within and around that person, filling him at the same time with impressions.14 Pasierb seems to have developed a new type of urban wandering. It is characterized by the ability, or even the art, of reading the signs of both the past and present realities from the: … human faces, shops’ windows, cafés terraces, roads, cars, trees [which] are turning into loud, equal letters, together forming words, sentences and pages of the ever new books.15

A philosopher travelling on his own never felt like a vagrant of the nineteenth century type. He was aware that there was a modern “type” of wanderer. He therefore concluded that: One could write a modern version of the Wandering Jew [...] to whom no country grants a visa and who is flying around the world, having the right to land only for few hours, drinking Coca-Cola or orange juice while sitting in transit lounges.16

The vanity that he had observed in western Europe and his eastern European background prompted the author of Branches and Leaves to reject the desire to adapt to western European cultural and civilizational realities. He did not believe in the western “superiority” over central Europe. There is no way–Pasierb seems to be pointing out–to adapt to a

13

Andrzej Stasiuk, Moja Europa: dwa eseje o Europie zwanej ĝrodkową (Woáowiec: Czarne, 2000), 101. 14 Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska, “Dryfujący flaneur, czyli o sytuacjonistycznym doĞwiadczeniu miejskiej przestrzeni,” in Ewa Rewers, ed., PrzestrzeĔ, filozofia i architektura: osiem rozmów o poznawaniu, produkowaniu i konsumowaniu przestrzeni, Studia kulturoznawcze, vol. 12 (PoznaĔ: Wydawnictwo Fundacji Humaniora, 1999), 124. 15 Ibid., 125. 16 Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 75.

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world that does not appreciate the “high” values, privacy and rejects the “sense of mystery.” Western Europe is raising a generation [...] of very well informed simpletons, nearly as well as the reporters of ‘France Dimanche’, who give the impression of never having gotten out of their beds or from under those of sovereigns and movie stars. The generation [...] that can observe the whole world sitting in front of the TV, without moving a toe in their shoe, communing with illustrated magazines and replicas, reaching for the Pantheon, Rembrandt and Bach without a slightest effort, lacking the respect for the values that should not be vulgarized and recognized as a form of digest.17

The Catholic philosopher is therefore in favour of promoting a greater appreciation of the countries and peoples of east central Europe, with an emphasis on their achievements and successes. At the same time, he encourages further effort and work for those who are behind the “Iron Curtain”: Do not await any credence from Paris [...]. Europe [Western] will report itself when there is something for it, just like all major cities, being in fact empty suction and pumping systems greedily adapting young, vivid and creative provincial forces.18

Pasierb never doubted that east central Europe is a structure that falls within the precinct of one European civilization. While writing about “young, vivid and creative provincial forces” he expressed his belief in the peculiar genius of east central Europeans. What is interesting, he became the exponent of the characteristic belief that they are residents of the European province. By doing so, the Polish philosopher inscribed himself into the debate over the central European identity. The discussion was triggered in 1984 by an essay written by Milan Kundera The Stolen West or The Tragedy of Central Europe,19 which aroused the interest of many representatives of European science and culture.20 Aleksander Fiut 17

Ibid., 80. Ibid., 84. 19 Milan Kundera, “Zachód porwany albo tragedia Europy ĝrodkowej,” Zeszyty Literackie 5 (1985): 1. 20 Josif Brodski, “Dlaczego Kundera myli siĊ co do Dostojewskiego,” Zeszyty Literackie 11 (1985): 1; Czesáaw Miáosz, “O naszej Europie,” Kultura 4 (1986): 1; Timothy Garton Ash, Pomimo i wbrew. Eseje o Europie ĝrodkowej (Londyn: Polonia, 1990); Danilo Kiš, “Wariacje na tematy Ğrodkowoeuropejskie,” Res Publika 1 (1989): 28; Bohdan CywiĔski, Mój kawaáek Europy (Warszawa: 18

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summed up this discourse at the end of the 1990s.21 In his writings, we find a collection of the typical characteristics of the central European intellectual: The Central European intellectual is in a slightly better, but also somewhat worse situation than his Western colleagues. He neither conveys any sentiments for the culture of the Mediterranean Sea nor seeks to oppose cultures that have grown anywhere else. But at the same time—while remaining within—he can more clearly claim the right to his own diversity and uniqueness. [...] He may also more loudly demand equality for cultures of small communities, small ethnic or religious groups. His duty should become the defence of hierarchy and restoring of axiological order. [...] the choices of an inhabitant of this part of Europe are not simply driven by the principle of pleasure. Culture remains a serious thing for him, for its defence he has already paid too much and has surely seen too many of the consequences of its trivialization and usurpation by the [communist] ideology. His respect is mixed with keeping his distance and a hint of irony –he knows why he needs it, and how unstable it can be. Thus, there is dormant, almost acquired by the law of inertia, the need for distinctions within him, a tendency for evaluation. At the same time, there is a sceptical attitude toward all authority and clear decisions.22

Even if we do not agree with Fiut’s judgments, there are many similar observations regarding the characteristics of a Central European intellectual that we can find in Pasierb’s works. The author of Branches and Leaves was–after all–a great admirer of the Mediterranean culture, yet without deferential obsequiousness. He never demonstrated provincial complexes when facing the Mediterranean culture and mentality. Roma–amor. I felt the breath of this love that at the Mediterranean Sea binds people and stones, history and life. […] I never expected that […] I love this City so much. I felt at home. It was a matter not so much of the physical as spiritual closeness of Poland, which feels better by the Mediterranean Sea than anywhere else. […] Poland is a Mediterranean country.23

Presspublica, 1994); Josef Kroutvor, Europa ĝrodkowa: anegdota i historia (Izabelin: ĝwiat Literacki, 1998). 21 Aleksander Fiut, Byü (albo nie byü) ĝrodkowoeuropejczykiem (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1999). 22 Ibid., 31–32. 23 Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 103–104.

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The “Mediterraneaness” of Poland, or east central Europe, is—in Pasierb’s thinking—something essentially undisputed mainly due to their spiritual connection. This is reflected in the spirit of East Central European nations, containing great ethical qualities. For instance, Pasierb writes: Polish culture is a key to world culture. The key is so great that by its pluralism it prepares one quite well to living in a culture of one thousand names. Polish culture was and still is a culture of ‘one thousand open roads’, a culture of the windrose, in essence, foreign to xenophobia, racism, chauvinism. Contrary to the geopolitical conditionality, it has not become a stronghold, but a house without walls, which is why it is so hard to destroy, so it could defend its people and their identity, so it can accompany us wherever we are, wherever we are going.24

Western Europeans are increasingly cut off from the ancient Christian tradition, while central Europeans, according to Pasierb, remember it, cultivate it, listening to the regular, calming rhythm of Mediterranean Sea and the Word of God. In 1991, right after the fall of “real socialism” in countries of Central Europe, this philosopher wrote: The defeat of theoretical and abstract Marxism in the East coincides with the triumph of practical Marxism in the West: the primacy of economics, materialism, redundancy of God (no longer needed as an anaesthetic for poverty), societies are [...] international, transnational, global: egalitarianism reigns, one model of life, uniformity of mass culture, liberation from the old morality has brought permissiveness, the utopia of progress still persists.25

In the early 1990s, Pasierb asserted an “advanced disease” of western civilization, a disease with symptoms such as: laicization, dechristianization, moral permissiveness, capitalism devoid of humanity or the relativization of culture. In The Southern Cross, the philosopher pointed out that the west, although being in the state of crisis, still continues to offer its fading charm to many nations outside of Europe, for instance Southern American ones. You still [western Europe] do not give up, teasing only with fatigue and the grey glow of apocalyptic anxiety. [...] Despite all the declarations of making their own way, despite the aloofness from European magic, how

24 25

Idem, SkrzyĪowanie dróg (Pelplin: Bernardinum, 1994), 94. Idem, Obrót rzeczy. Rok 1991 (PoznaĔ: Pallottinum, 1993), 179.

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they, South American intellectuals, are staring at Europe. This is not just an orientation, it is a fascination.26

Therefore, on the one hand Pasierb writes about the “weak points” of the western European civilizational space with its self-destructiveness and erosion, and on the other, he never ceases to think of himself as European, consistently building for himself—as well as for the rest of inhabitants of the old continent—“a cultural house.” For him this “house” is a synthesis of ideas, thoughts, scientific and artistic notions of western and central Europe, and therefore—using Fiut’s term—“a serious thing”. Pasierb’s thoughts, extremely insightful, are far from the superficial relations of travellers. He sees the reality of Europe “from within” and, most importantly, understood. It seems that no matter the condition of the European citizen “being” in a given place, predominantly means its cognition. Pasierb recommends specific ways to begin the process of “familiarizing”: World should be observed in the morning. The sooner the better. Then it is still vulnerable after a dream, not combed, without lipstick. It still doesn’t have a facial expression; it’s just the way it is. The day is too formal; evening enchants and beautifies everything. [...] A day revs up slowly like a spring in a watch. It is quiet and peaceful. [...] This attracts people who look for tranquillity.27

The author of Branches and Leaves probably finds the morning peacefulness and slow “revving,” the particular “leisure,” an antidote to the superficiality of the modern, western lifestyle characterized by the constant rush for what is new, technologically advanced.28 Pasierb’s exploration of his European citizenship was not merely a result of a deliberate search but also of a fascination with the heritage of this part of the world, especially the arts. “Art—the homeland of all people! Each museum is your embassy where one can feel at home for a while.”29 Works by European artists, both western and east central European alike, need to be appreciated. An equally rich collection of symbols and cultural values are also carried by European landscapes, which are a part of the civilization, a testimony of human activity, corresponding to its tastes and needs. “Someone once created a guide to 26

Idem, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 104–105. Ibid., 77–78. 28 Ibid., 79. 29 Ibid., 101. 27

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Rome describing how to walk around the city before and after noon in order not to leave the shade”.30 For Pasierb, such a possibility of not leaving the shade during the summer stay in the Italian capital was an example of the “denial of nature, [...] a denial which is a requirement for every art and every action of a man, who is opposed to nature and transforms it, subdues it”.31 European art and culture make an area within which Europeans can look for a stable place to settle down, prioritize their own meanings and behaviours. Pasierb read them in a horizontal dimension involving the temporal nature of human existence “here and now”, as well as in a vertical dimension expressing the destination of man’s earthly pilgrimage.32 Pasierb described the “massification” of culture as a clearly horizontal occurrence. He added, however, that the mass culture “implies some vertical changes in the same cultural phenomena”. He said that it might— due to the present paradigm of “inventiveness,” energy, vividness— “snatch” the European out of the circle of boredom, despair and pessimism. The amplitude of fluctuations in the cycle of horizontal (“up”)—vertical (“down”) can extend in both directions. In the future, however, the fluctuations down will not necessarily have to outweigh fluctuations up. The masses (it is a shame to call people that, but what to do) read Kafka in ‘Przekrój’ and this is a very significant phenomenon.33

Janusz Pasierb certainly would share Antoni KĊpinski’s opinion that “there is no ideal model of culture [and] it is difficult to determine which provides better conditions for the development of individuals”.34 The author of Melancholy points out that the “experiencing” of living space as a condition allowing the optimal development of a human being within a given model of culture. He adds that there is so-called “real space” and “experienced space”. The former does not depend on the actual experiences of a man—it is always the same, whereas the latter changes 30

Ibid., 98. Ibid., 101. 32 Piotr Koprowski, “Horyzontalny i wertykalny wymiar kultury w ujĊciu Janusza Pasierba,” in WielokulturowoĞü w dziedzictwie kulturowym polskich spoáecznoĞci regionalnych i lokalnych, ed. Samanta Kowalska, (PoznaĔ-Kalisz: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. Wydziaá Pedagogiczno-Artystyczny, 2011), 321–345. 33 Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 80–81. 34 Antoni KĊpiĔski, Melancholia (Warszawa: Muza, 1996), 95. 31

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according to the nature of experience, especially from an emotional attitude to the environment.35 Pasierb, a Catholic philosopher of Polish origin, travelling from a country located behind the “Iron Curtain”, who had many typical features of an east central European intellectual, never ceased to feel European. With regard to European civilization, particularly western, he was not uncritical, recognizing its weaknesses, frailties and “limitations”. His criticism, at times very strong and forceful, resulted from the love for Europe and Europeans, combined with an ardent desire for the European continent to remain a cultural community, a community influenced by Antiquity and Christianity. The trip to Latin America provided the philosopher with a “distorting mirror”.36 One can say that during the South American journey, he, a European, “experienced space” and was touched by specific, not yet known, feelings and emotions. Nothing can kill fascination that you [Europe] make on your young lovers [from South America]. Don’t be afraid, they won’t rebel. Don’t worry, nobody can take your kingdom and give it to the non–European countries of the New World, for which you were a great symbol, the sum of aspirations and yearnings.37

However, this detached perspective does not affect in any way the importance and value of Pasierb’s studies. On the contrary, they gain the full spectrum of meaning in the confrontation with the European Community to which they relate. This interactive orientation of the Polish philosopher can be seen as an important determinant of his European citizenship.

35

Ibid., 93. Pasierb, GaáĊzie i liĞcie, 104. 37 Ibid., 105. 36

PART II BETWEEN COOPERATION AND CONFLICT

CHAPTER SEVEN ETHNIC COOPERATION IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA JAMES S. PULA

Immigration has always been a major theme in the history of the United States. During its first century of national existence, the two largest groups arriving on its shores came from Ireland and Germany. On the surface, these were quite different migrations. The Irish were predominantly poor, rural agricultural labourers, with a high percentage of people possessing little or no formal education. Their principle motive for migration was economic including such prompts as the enclosure movement which placed severe limitations on the public use of land and the great famine. Because they were so poor, most settled initially in the eastern cities where they landed, taking the lowest paying menial jobs and living in the least desirable overcrowded slums. German migration, on the other hand, reflected a much broader spectrum of society including small farmers, factory workers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, and literary figures. More affluent when they arrived, many moved quickly west where they purchased their own land to settle down as independent farmers. Others gravitated to the cities. Some carved out ethnic enclaves among the growing eastern municipalities, while many helped to found distinctly German communities within emerging western cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.1 Politically, the Irish immigrants were largely ambivalent toward issues like women’s rights, opposition to slavery, and other reform movements 1

On early Irish immigration, see Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1941); on early German immigration, see Carl Wittke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840– 1875,” Ohio Historical Quarterly 66 (1957): 339–54. These provide a good comparison of the socioeconomic status of the early nineteenth century Irish and German immigrants.

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that captured increasing support throughout America between 1820 and 1860. They were generally too poor for concerns beyond economic survival. In fact, if anything, the Irish preferred to leave slavery in place. Not that they supported it, but they feared that if it were eliminated the freed slaves would flood Northern cities competing with them for jobs, housing, and influence. They, like the early conservative Catholic German immigration, preferred the Democratic Party over the somewhat antiimmigrant stance of the Whigs and the later virulent anti-foreign and antiCatholic Know-Nothings. On the other hand, the later German political émigrés of the late 1840s and 1850s not only embraced the liberal reform movements of the time, but provided visible national leadership for all of them, with the possible exception of temperance. They were ardent advocates of women’s rights, education, and the anti-slavery crusade, where they were numbered among its most strident supporters. When the Republican Party was formed in 1854 as a largely anti-slavery party, many migrated there in preference to the Democrats, who generally fell somewhere between pro-slavery and accommodationist on the issue.2 Among the smallest antebellum immigrant groups were the Poles, who probably numbered no more than about 8,000 by 1860. Unlike the Irish and Germans, they consisted of a scattering of individuals and families across many states. The only recognizably Polish groups were the Silesian farmers brought to Texas by Rev. Leopold Moczygemba beginning in 1854, and the political exiles of the revolutions of 1830 and 1846, but the latter soon scattered throughout the country, thus preventing the formation of a real community. The political émigrés were a recognizable group only in that they kept in touch with one another and publicly promoted the cause of Polish independence despite their geographic dispersion. Initially, the political exiles were interested only in European affairs that might influence conditions in Poland, although between 1840 and 1860 some began to take an interest in those American reform movements that they could equate with their struggles in Poland.3

2

For general studies of the antebellum Irish and German communities, see Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Margaret M. Mulrooney, ed., Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845–1851 (New York: Praeger Publishers, 2003); Carl Wittke, Refugees of Revolution: The German FortyEighters in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952). 3 On the early colony in Texas, see T. Lindsay Baker, The First Polish Americans: Silesian Settlements in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1979).

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Yet, despite the many differences, there were also similarities between some of the Irish, Germans, and Poles that led them to a close cooperation that might otherwise have appeared unlikely. These similarities were political: Ireland was occupied by England, leading to the development of Irish revolutionary movements in Europe and North America, much like the Poles who sought an end to the subjugation of their nation and the German revolutionaries who sought liberal reforms in their own lands. For the Irish, political aspirations manifested themselves in the creation of the Young Ireland movement leading to the unsuccessful Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848. In the United States, the Ancient Order of Hibernians was established in 1836 to protect Irish interests.4 It was later joined by the more activist and radical Fenian movement founded by John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny.5 Regardless of the specific Irish organization, throughout the period between 1830 and 1860 Irish nationalist leaders frequently migrated to America, bringing with them their goal of working for Irish independence. Similarly, German immigration to America contained an active cadre of educated political leaders. The Dreissigers (Dreißiger (Thirtiers)) were a group of largely conservative Catholics who migrated during the 1830s because of political repression at home. Led by Paul Follen and Friedrich Münch, they established the Giessan Emigration Society (Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft) to assist other Germans interested in migrating in the hope of establishing a free German state in the America until such time as Germany could be reformed. The Dreissigers were later joined by the Forty-Eighters (Achtundvierziger), the more liberal refugees of the 1848 revolutions, who fled following the collapse of those nationalistic and democratic movements. Among their most notable leaders were Franz Sigel, Karl Schurz, Karl Heinzen, Friedrich Hassaurek, and Oswald

4

On the Ancient Order of Hibernians, see Mike McCormack, “The Ancient Order of Hibernians in America,” http://www.aohlycoming1.com/WebPages/AOHHistory.html (accessed 10 September 2012). On Irish refugees of the 1848 revolt see Denis Gwynn, “The Rising of 1848,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 37 (Mar. 1948), 7–17, 149–60; Carl Wittke, The Irish in America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1956). 5 John Francis O’Mahony was a Gaelic scholar and a founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in America. On the Fenian Movement, see William D’Arcy, The Fenian Movement in the United States, 1858–86 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947); Brian Jenkins, The Fenian Problem: Insurgency and Terrorism in a Liberal State, 1858–1874 (Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2008).

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Ottendorfer.6 All of these cherished the hope of further German revolutions and worked toward that end while in America. Among Poles, many exiles from the November Uprising of 1830–31 and the failed Mierosáawski Uprising of 1846 also migrated to the United States, where they continued to work for Polish independence. What all of these groups had in common was a shared ethnic consciousness of the experience of national subjugation in Europe. In fact, Germans and Poles often fought alongside one another in their revolts as well as those in Hungary and the Italian states. Some knew each other personally. Though fewer in number on the continent, there were even some Irish among the Forty-Eighters. Further, in each group there was a cadre of liberal, welleducated political activists interested in continuing in America their struggle for change in their homelands. Because of their European experiences, and the sometimes hostile reception they received in America, all of the groups held, in varying degrees, a distinct fear of denationalization. This, together with the wish to organize to help their homelands, prompted them to promote efforts to build and maintain ethnic consciousness. The Irish began to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day to promote Irish pride and solidarity, while publications such as “The Irish World” (New York) and “The Pilot” (Boston) carried the latest news from Ireland along with reports from the Irish community in America. Political aspirations were also promoted by the Young Ireland movement, which enjoyed great support in the United States in the late 1840s, as well as the nationalist and revolutionary Fenian Brotherhood. Germans established a wide variety of organizations, especially the very popular gymnastic Turnverein which had heavy political overtones. A host of German language newspapers not only provided information on American reform movements, but also linked many of them to the causes the Forty-Eighters fought for in Europe. Some, like the “Deutsche Schnellpost” and the “New-Yorker Staatszeitung”, regularly reported on political news from Europe and the activities of German nationalists in America. For nineteenth century Poles, there was an annual public remembrance of the November Uprising which served to solidify ethnic ties and remind them of the cause of Polish independence. Similar also to the other groups, exiles from the November Uprising formed the Stowarzyszenie Polaków w Ameryce (Association of Poles in America) to lobby on behalf of 6

On the Forty-Eighters, see Carl Wittke, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952); Adolf Eduard Zucker, The Forty-Eighters: Political Refugees of the German Revolution of 1848 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950).

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Poland in America, while émigrés from the failed revolution in 1846 organized the Democratic Society of Polish Exiles in America (Towarzystwo Demokratyczne WygnaĔców Polskich w Ameryce) to maintain contacts with its parent organization in Paris and to engage in planning, lobbying, and raising funds to support continuing revolutionary movements. Although too small to support a regular newspaper before 1860, many of the early Polish exiles came from the Prussian and Austrian partitions and thus understood German and often used German language newspapers to promote their events and their political positions. A good example of this was the “Deutsche Schnellpost” which was co-edited by the celebrated German radical revolutionary Karl Heinzen and the Polish activist Jan Tyssowski. A liberal publication promoting democratic principles, the newspaper published a long string of editorials and news stories supportive of the Polish cause. When Heinzen left for Europe, Tyssowski, as sole editor, promised that his editorial policies would be “democratic and revolutionary, or speaking in Polish terms, to stir up all of Europe”.7 While there was no close coordination between the Irish, German, and Polish nationalist movements, there were numerous and recurring mutual expressions of support. Poles generally supported Irish aspirations for national independence and German desires for more democratic forms of government by taking part in their events. The Irish and Germans, for their part, demonstrated similar support for the Poles. For example, when the exiles of the November Uprising arrived in America they met with a generally favourable response among the American populace, and especially among the intellectuals who shared their concern for national self-determination. Among the foremost ethnic advocates for the Poles were the American Irish. According to the “Washington Globe”, P. O’Hagan worked enthusiastically to raise money for exiles in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., assisted by a Mr. Hallahan.8 In Philadelphia, Matthew Carey, a leader in the Irish community and publisher of Columbian Magazine, chaired a committee to raise funds to assist Poles, 7 Florian Stasik, Polish Political Émigrés in the United States of America, 18311864 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2002; transl. Eugene Podraza; ed. James S. Pula), 115-16; Sister M. Neomisia Rutkowska, Jan Tyssowski (Chicago: Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, 1943; vol. VIII, Annals of the Polish Roman Catholic Union Archives and Museum), 55–56; Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, 80; letter, Jan Tyssowski to the Polish Central Committee, 24 March 1848, Polish Museum of America, Ms 2311, 1. 8 Washington Globe, 24 October 1831; Jerzy Jan Lerski, A Polish Chapter in Jacksonian America: The United States and the Polish Exiles of 1831 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), 22.

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as well as finding employment for them and obtaining the assistance of instructors to teach them English.9 Beginning in the 1830s, Polish exiles in America sponsored an annual commemoration of the November Uprising which was regularly attended by representatives of the Irish and German communities. One event, at the Stuyvesant Institute in New York on 29 November 1844, was attended by around a thousand people, including representatives of Irish, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European immigrant communities. With the beginning of the Polish revolt in 1846, German organizations offered their political and financial support, as did several of the other groups.10 Exiles arriving in America were assisted wherever possible; for example, when the Polish revolutionary Appolonia Jazella arrived in New York in 1849 with a group of Hungarians, a German singing society serenaded her and offered its assistance.11 In the antebellum era, liberal German political leaders in America made little distinction between Poles speaking German and their fellow Germans, since both had been involved together in a variety of European revolutions. Poles generally felt a similar bond to their co-revolutionaries. By the early 1850s, the newly created Democratic Society of Polish Exiles in America established close cooperative ties to the Deutscher Demokratie Bund, the Freie Arbeiter Gemeinde, the French La Montagne organization, and various Irish leaders.12 A good example of this inter-ethnic cooperation was in the spring of 1848 when news arrived in the United States that Paris was in revolt and Louis Philippe in flight. A planning meeting was immediately called to prepare a major fund-raising event, with the committee including representatives of German, Irish, Polish, French, and American groups. Tyssowski and Henryk Kaáussowski quickly formed a Polish committee to organize efforts to participate along with the other groups. On 24 March, a meeting convened in Hildebrand Hall on Hester Street during which there were calls for the creation of a “Revolutionary Union of Europe” to unite the efforts of the various groups seeking to redeem their homelands.13 9

Matthew Carey, To the Polish National Committee in the United States (Philadelphia: n.p., September 30, 1835); Lerski, Jacksonian America, 113–14. 10 Stasik, Polish Political Émigrés, 100-01, 116; letter, Jan Tyssowski to the Polish Central Committee, 24 March 1848, Polish Museum of America, Ms 2311. 11 Westbote, 28 December 1849. 12 Stasik, Polish Political Émigrés, 166; Report of Democratic Society of Polish Exiles in America, 15 May 1853, Polish Museum of America, Ms 1178. 13 New York Daily Tribune, 24 March 1848; New York Herald, 18 April 1848; Rutkowska, Jan Tyssowski, 60.

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What historian Carl Wittke referred to aptly as a “Revolutionsfest” opened in a French church in New York with a 100-gun salute and requiem mass in remembrance of the Parisians who had lost their lives. Following the church services, a parade lasting well over an hour marched down Broadway featuring French, German, Irish, Italian, English, Swiss, Polish and American groups all marching behind their respective flags. Jakob Uhl of the “New-Yorker Staatszeitung” led a series of fifteen speakers who used four different languages.14 Among them was Jan Tyssowski, representing the Poles, who began: The world is resounding with a new call, with a happy cry. It is not the call of a single individual or demagogue, but of thirty-two millions of people who want to spread the banner of liberty over every land. France has once more proved that all nations in all lands, have the same inherent rights. Stupendous is the work she has done, and greater far that which is to follow. A corner stone of the great edifice of universal freedom and happiness is but laid.

His remarks were met with wild applause and cheers which continually interrupted his speech. He closed: I will recall that Polish saying: ‘Man may die, but a people never die. They live!’ And if overthrown, like Christ crucified and buried, rise again, surrounded with a halo of superior glory.15

German language newspapers reported that the festivities continued until after midnight, ending with “the shooting of rockets from the balcony of the City Hall”.16 On May 8, thousands participated in another New York parade on behalf of the French revolutionaries. Arranged by several German societies, it included Italian, French, Polish, Swiss and Jewish organizations.17 When a serious cholera epidemic required cancellation of the annual 4 July celebrations in New York, Germans, Hungarians, French, Italians and Poles met anyway to listen to speeches and raise money. At one such meeting a German speaker received a standing ovation when he referred to Europeans who had served in the American Revolution in an appeal for a 14

Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, 29, 32–33; Rutkowska, Jan Tyssowski, 59–60; New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 25 March, 2 April, and 22 April, 1848; Westbote, 14 April 1848. 15 New York Daily Herald, 4 April 1848. 16 New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 22 April 1848; Westbote, 14 April 1848. 17 New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 13 May and 10 June, 1848.

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common brotherhood to prove that “America has not forgotten Montgomery, Lafayette, Kosciuszko, Pulaski, von Steuben and DeKalb.”18 Nor were all of these efforts confined to the large ethnic presence in New York. In St. Louis, Missouri, a massive demonstration took place in April 1848 that included French, Polish, Irish, Italian, German, and American groups. A local newspaper marvelled at seeing representatives of all the various groups marching in a lengthy procession with German military companies and singing societies interspersed with Irish Catholic organizations in complete harmony. An impressive evening torchlight procession brought the event to a memorable close.19 Contacts between the various groups, and appearances at each other’s events, continued on a regular basis through the 1840s and 1850s. In October 1853 the German Hermann Schofield arrived in New York where he twice met with Fenian leader John O’Mahony, a prominent friend of the Poles. Although the exact content of the meetings is unknown, and Schofield eventually betrayed O’Mahony to the British authorities, it is interesting to note that Schofield travelled to Dublin, Ireland, where he delivered a series of lectures on the Polish situation, comparing it favourably to the suffering of the Irish under British rule.20 But, the greatest manifestation for support of the Poles came with the arrival of news of the outbreak of the January Insurrection in 1863. As historian Joseph Wieczerzak noted in his seminal study of American reactions to the revolt, the New York French language newspaper “Courrier des ÉtatsUnis” was among the first to publish accounts of the uprising. Its editorials and emotional accounts from its correspondent in Warsaw clearly supported the Polish struggle, while it also criticized the American government for not immediately issuing a statement backing the insurrection.21 The German press also lent its unqualified assistance. Oswald Ottendorfer, editor of the “New-Yorker Staatszeitung”, lashed out uncompromisingly with belligerent rhetoric critical of Russian oppression in Poland, reserving some invectives for a similar attack on Prussian despotism. As a popular German newspaper with a wide circulation, 18

New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 7 July 1848; New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 30 June 1849. 19 New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 6 May 1848; New-Yorker Staatszeitung 15 July 1848; Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, 35 20 “The Fenians in America. Curious Developments,” Pall Mall Gazette, 1 December 1865. 21 Joseph W. Wieczerzak, A Polish Chapter in Civil War America (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1967), 134; Courrier des États-Unis, 30 March 1863.

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Ottendorfer’s editorials were copied in smaller publications, spreading positive information on the Polish revolt throughout the German-American community. So forceful were his editorials in support of the Polish cause that Henryk Kaáussowski, the American representative of the Paris-based Polish Democratic Society, sent Ottendorfer a letter of appreciation. The editor printed the letter in the next issue of the newspaper, using the occasion to lash out once again at the Russian and Prussian governments and to review the joint participation of Poles and Germans in the European democratic revolutions.22 With the American Civil War entering its third year, many ethnic leaders found themselves in the U.S. Army fighting against the Southern rebellion. Despite their many responsibilities, German Generals Franz Sigel and Karl Schurz, who were also extremely popular GermanAmerican political leaders, spoke at several Polish-sponsored events and made it a point to mention the cause of Poland when addressing German audiences. Sigel spoke on behalf of Republican political candidates in a well-publicized tour through New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and on each occasion asked his audience to assist the Polish cause and oppose any U.S. alliance with Russia. Schurz attended Polish meetings in New York City where he spoke eloquently of the cause of freedom and democracy. Interestingly, his support of Poland can also be seen even when engaged in active military campaigning. While camped in Virginia he noted one evening in his diary that he had attended a dinner party hosted by General Wáodzimierz KrzyĪanowski to commemorate the November Uprising.23 Once again, the Irish also responded favourably to the new Polish revolt. In fact, Joseph Wieczerzak called the Irish “the staunchest of the staunch” for their continuing support of Polish independence.24 As soon as news arrived of the new uprising, the New York newspaper “IrishAmerican” quickly wished the insurgents every success, while Boston’s Irish newspaper, “The Pilot,” editorialized that revolution was completely acceptable when directed in opposition to tyranny. Pro-Polish sentiments abounded at Irish meetings, and “The Pilot” asked its readers a pointed question: “Why do not the Irish imitate the Catholic Dalemations? Britain 22

Wieczerzak, Civil War America, 134; Stasik, Polish Political Émigrés, 193; New-Yorker Staatszeitung, 4 July 1863. 23 Stasik, Polish Political Émigrés, 193; letter, Henryk Kaáussowski to the Polish Committee in Paris, 28 March 1864, Polish Museum of America, Ms 423; Carl Schurz Papers, Diary for 1862, Library of Congress, under the date Saturday, 29 November 1862, the entry reads: “Polnisches Revolutionsfest. Diner und Reden bei Krzyzanowski. Grosse Heiterkeit.” 24 Wieczerzak, Civil War America, 135.

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is worse than the Czars and Irish rights are as sacred before heaven as Polish rights”.25 Echoing the Boston newspaper’s sentiments later that year, New York’s “Irish-American” informed its readers that the Poles understood the Irish plight and were not taken in by British professions of friendship. Speaking of England, the newspaper asserted that the Poles “are not deceived by her [England’s] specious affection of love and liberty, and see in her helpless victims only the counterpart of their own enslaved condition”. The Poles and the Irish suffered the same oppression, which both recognized. There was only one significant difference, the newspaper opined. “But more fortunate than our unhappy race, they [the Poles] are united—noble and peasant, priest and layman”. The implication was clear; the Irish ought to unify if they hoped to throw off the chains of subjugation.26 A Congress of the Fenian Brotherhood, which had convened in Chicago in November, 1863, took time out from its own agenda to discuss the situation in Poland. After some remarks, a resolution of sympathy and support for the Polish cause was adopted unanimously. The declaration included a challenge to fellow Fenians to let the Poles serve as an example to them and a motivation for their own liberation from English rule. A fund-raising campaign brought in donations for the Polish cause which were collected in the offices of the “Irish-American”, then sent to the Polish Central Committee in New York (Komitet Centralny Polski w Nowym Jorku).27 On 30 November 1863, the annual commemoration of the November Uprising was held in the famous Cooper Union in New York City. Decorated with American, Irish, French, German, and Polish flags, the meeting place was filled to overflowing with representatives of a wide variety of organizations and ethnic groups, most notably the Irish. When the meeting began, the band struck up Jeszcze Polska nie zginĊáa and The Third of May, but then changed to The Harp of Tara and St. Patrick’s Day in honour of the Irish representatives. In return, John Harrington rose to condemn Russian barbarity and William Lyons of the Knights of St. Patrick spoke of the close parallel between the Polish and Irish causes. John O’Mahony promised that the Fenian Brotherhood would labour as hard for Poland as it did for Ireland. John Hughes presented a flag bearing

25

Wieczerzak, Civil War America, 60–61; The Pilot, 11 April 1863. “Dalemations” was a lyrical term used in poetry, but the correct term of reference should have been “Sarmatians.” 26 Irish-American, 8 August 1863. 27 Irish-American, 11 November 1863.

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the motto “Independence or Death!” to Henryk Kaáussowski, who accepted it on behalf of the Polish revolutionary government.28 Richard O’Gorman, a distinguished Irish refugee of 1848, delivered the main address. In it, he chronicled Poland’s long history of contributions to world civilization before launching into a catalogue of the abuse heaped upon the Polish people by their neighbours. “For Ireland, for her children scattered all over this continent—for them and in their behalf I venture to speak tonight,” he declared. And, on their behalf he wished that “God speed the White Eagle of Poland wherever it soars; may victory light on the banner of Sobieski wherever it waves in the breeze.”29

Perhaps the most eloquent and influential of the Irish who supported Poland was William Smith O’Brien, if for no other reason than that he had observed the plight of Poland through first-hand experience. Returning from a trip to Constantinople in 1863, he diverted his itinerary at Vienna to travel east through Poland to see what was really happening, or as he wrote …to ascertain what is the true character of the Polish insurrection, and by what means those who sympathize with the cause of Ireland can most effectively assist the gallant nation which is contending for its liberty with a heroism that excites and deserves universal admiration.30

What he saw convinced him that there was indeed a widespread revolution that merited assistance. Returning to the United States, he penned an appeal for the July 4 edition of the “Irish-American”: Shall America, once the advocate of universal liberty—shall America do nothing for the cause of Poland? I will not believe that the generous friends of liberty, who welcomed me to the States and to Canada, are insensible to the sufferings of the Poles. … Now, now is the time to save Poland! Not an hour is to be lost! When the snows of winter shall arrive the forests will be no longer tenable, and the noble defenders of their country must be prepared to suffer death or exile if their work be not accomplished before the end of October; and even though the struggle be renewed from year to year, and from generation to generation, still incalculable suffering would 28

Irish-American, 5 December 1863. Ibid. 30 Irish-American, 4 July 1863; Wieczerzak, Civil War America, 135. 29

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Four months later he was still writing to the newspaper on behalf of Poland: I trust, also, that our fellow-countrymen who are settled in America will cooperate in aid of the Poles with all who love national freedom. I find it difficult to believe that native Americans, who were formerly the devoted friends of liberty—that the men who welcomed Kossuth to America with so much enthusiasm—are now indifferent to the fate of Poland. However this may be, we have a right to expect that the Irish inhabitants of America will not be wanting in the duty which they owe to the cause of human freedom.32

Clearly, the liberal leaders of the various immigrant groups in America truly believed in the motto of General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski’s Polish Legions: Free Men Are Brothers (Gli uomini liberi sono fratelli). That they cooperated in helping one another is evident from the extraordinary assistance they rendered to the Poles, one of the smallest of the exile groups. But what happened? With all of this good will, communication, and mutual aid, how did these bonds suddenly dissolve during the latter half of the same century? The answer is quite simple: Polish, German, and Irish leaders in antebellum America shared liberal democratic and nationalistic philosophies, as well as the compelling goal of liberating their homelands. Since they were all working toward the same goal within the context of their own separate geographic spheres, they could be mutually supportive without fearing that support of another group might somehow harm their own agenda. Rather, it was an opportunity to further publicize their own cause. The political leadership of each group was united in their ultimate goal and saw in each other kindred spirits who could be called upon for support of their own efforts. Following the American Civil War, rapid industrialization brought tens of thousands of economic migrants to America. Among these were Poles who had suffered under Chancellor Bismarck’s Kulturkampf and had no interest in working with German groups any more than absolutely necessary in the years before their numbers allowed them to establish 31 32

Irish-American, 4 July 1863. Irish-American, 17 October 1863.

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separate communities. Lacking any real connection to the previous political immigration, they generally shunned close cooperation with German groups because of their European experience of oppression and their wish to preserve their own national heritage. Similarly, when the Polish economic immigration arrived and began to establish their own Catholic parishes, they found that the Church they had counted on for support in Poland was dominated by an Irish hierarchy that was all too often hostile to Polish cultural demonstrations. It was not long before the Poles began to derisively refer to the American Catholic hierarchy as “One, Holy, Irish, and Apostolic Church”. Some broke entirely to form the independent Polish National Catholic Church, while the majority carried on a lengthy agitation within the Catholic Church for the creation of Polish ethnic parishes led by Polish priests. The Irish became equated with the forces of denationalization and repression. The altered nature of Polish migration from political to economic in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, and with it the transformed goals of the immigrants, led to the rapid dissolution of the interethnic bonds that existed during the era of the antebellum political migration. Thus, the positive mutual support built between the liberal political leadership of the various European immigrant nationalities before the American Civil War gave way to mutual suspicion, competition, and occasionally even hostility in the following years.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE POLISH VOICE ON SLAVES AND SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY PIOTR DERENGOWSKI

Today, when we look back, it is astonishing that in the United States of America, the land of Washington, where people fought for such principles as freedom and liberty, and where the assertion that “all men are created equal” was not just a cliché, slavery or the “peculiar institution”, as Southerners called it, was not abolished until the Civil War. However, in the nineteenth century, men thought quite differently. Even those who opposed slavery in most cases thought that black men were a far inferior race to whites. Polish historiography, especially in the beginning of the twentieth century, tried to build an image of Poles always opposed to any kind of bondage, and always willing to fight for freedom. As father Wacáaw Kruszka wrote in his book: Poles, even before they stood at the battlefields of the Civil War, had always been saying and propagating the watchword of freedom for Negroes. Since they were missing the freedom of their own homeland, how could they desire to oppress their neighbour, even if of a different race? And even if some of the Poles were, like Southerners, in favour of slavery, it was mainly because they were living among the Southerners and they simply could not sing about freedom…1

But the facts are different and undeniable. Many Poles, who had lived in the South before the outbreak of the Civil War, especially political exiles, eventually became Southerners, lived like Southerners, thought like Southerners and in many cases acted like Southerners. And thus, whether 1 Wacáaw Kruszka, Historja Polska w Ameryce. Od Czasów Najdawniejszych AĪ Do Najnowszych, vol. 1 (Milwaukee: Kuryer Polski, 1937), 397.

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we like it or not, that was also the way they spoke about slavery and racial issues. Some of them, like Ignatius (Ignacy) SzymaĔski, were even planters and had their own slaves. In this paper, I would like to present the opinions and arguments of both sides. Though we do not have many Polish sources from the period under discussion, those available are quite representative.

The Polish Voice against Slavery The main organization that expressed Polish objections to slavery was the Democratic Society of Polish Exiles (Towarzystwo Demokratyczne WygnaĔców Polskich), established in 1852 by Henryk Kaáussowski and Ludwik Szpaczek, but Poles also propagated such opinions outside the ranks of that organization. Among the first Poles to take up the issue of this “peculiar institution” was Thaddeus (Tadeusz) KoĞciuszko, who in his will of 1798, authorized Thomas Jefferson to sell his property in Franklin County, Ohio, and with the obtained money liberate, educate, and train slaves as worthy citizens.2 It is also worth mentioning that most of our 2

Joseph A. Wytrwal, Polish Black Encounters. A History of Polish and Black Relations in America since 1619 (Detroit: Endurance Press, 1982), 29–30; Mieczysáaw Haiman, Historja udziaáu Polaków w amerykaĔskiej wojnie domowej (Chicago: Dziennik Zjednoczenia 1928), 8. Jefferson did not want to be the administrator of the fund, so the Court appointed Benjamin Lear to the position. Unfortunately, he did not fulfill KoĞciuszko’s will. In 1823, the courts declared KoĞciuszko’s will invalid. At that point, the Polish relatives of KoĞciuszko, the families of Estko and ĩóákiewski, began to take the money for themselves. After years of stagnation, in November 1845 they finally authorized Gaspard Tochman to represent them before the courts. Under the authorization of KoĞciuszko’s heirs, who were represented by Ladislaus (Wáadysáaw) WaĔkowicz, the great-grandson of the Naczelnik’s sister, Tochman began efforts to carry this case through. Unfortunately, Alexander de Bodisco, Russian Ambassador in the United States, sabotaged Tochman’s actions, refusing him the right to conduct this case, because the Russians considered him, as a participant of the November Uprising, to be a criminal. Besides that, he also claimed that Ladislaus WaĔkowicz was at that time a subject of the Russian Tsar. De Bodisco’s intervention was effective enough to force the American authorities to take the case away from Tochman and devolve it into the hands of two American attorneys who had been previously selected by the Russian Ambassador. Finally in 1853 the relatives of KoĞciuszko received the money; including the capital and interest it came to almost $65,000. Bogdan GrzeloĔski and Izabella Rusinowa, Polacy w wojnach amerykaĔskich 1775–1783, 1861–1865 (Warszawa: MON, 1973), 173–174; Roman àyczywek, “Tochman,” in Sáownik biograficzny adwokatów polskich, vol. 1, ĩyciorysy adwokatów zmaráych do 1918 r., no. 4 (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Prawnicze, 1983), 441–442; Florian

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fellow countrymen in nineteenth century United States of America thought that slavery was disgusting, disgraceful and immoral, and thought that in fact it was the only deformity of the American institutions.3 Well before the outbreak of the Civil War, there were few figures among the Polish immigrants who had taken up the slavery issue, so to say, “professionally”. Among the Polish abolitionists, we certainly must mention such an amazing personality as Ernestine (Ernestyna) PotowskiRose. The daughter of a Polish rabbi, from the very beginning she differed from the vast majority of women at that time. When she was sixteen, she represented herself before the court to nullify a marriage contract, which she did not want to fulfil, and what is important, she won. At the age of seventeen she left her home, first to study in Berlin, and later to go to England where she embraced socialism, then finally, to the United States where she broke new ground for radical women’s rights reform.4 Of course, we have to mention Count Adam Gurowski as well. He was one of the most controversial personalities among the Polish political emigration, not only in the United States. He often changed his political views (he was a member of the Piotr Wysocki Conspiracy; on emigration he was one of the founders of the Polish Democratic Society; but later he accepted the Tsar’s amnesty and propagated pro-Russian and Pan-Slavic opinions, for Stasik, Polska emigracja polityczna w Stanach Zjednoczonych Ameryki 1831–1864 (Warszawa: PWN 1973), 159–160; Sigmund H. Uminski, “Two Polish Confederates,” Polish American Studies 23, no. 2 (1966): 66–69. For more about the case see Mieczysáaw Haiman, Z przeszáoĞci polskiej w Ameryce. Szkice historyczne (Buffalo: Telegram, 1927), 125–147. 3 Julian JuĨwikiewicz, Polacy w Ameryce czyli PamiĊtnik PiĊtnastomiesiĊcznego Pobytu (ParyĪ: KsiĊgarnia Polska, 1836), 47; Wáodzimierz KrzyĪanowski, Wspomnienia z Pobytu w Ameryce Gen. Wáodzimierza KrzyĪanowskiego Podczas Wojny 1861–1864 (Chicago: Polish Museum of America, 1963), 49; Kalixt Wolski, Do Ameryki i w Ameryce. PodróĪe, szkice obyczajowe i obrazki z Īycia mieszkaĔców Ameryki (Lwów: Jan Paweá Piller, 1876), 161, 199, 202; Wytrwal, Polish Black Encounters, 32. 4 Edmund L. Kowalczyk, “Jottings from the Polish American Past,” Polish American Studies 7, no. 3-4 (1950): 80. For more about this incredible woman see Charles Conrad, “Ernestine Potowski Rose (1810–1892), unfolding the rhetoric of identity,” in Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800–1925. A BioCritical Sourcebook, ed. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (Westport-London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1993), 350–368; Carol A. Kolmerten, The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999); Paula DoressWorters, ed., Mistress of Herself. Speeches and Letters of Ernestine L. Rose, Early Women’s Right Leader (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2007).

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which he was condemned by the majority of Polish emigrants), but, practically, for his entire life, he was constant in his opinions about the necessity of social reforms. In the United States, it was, of course, the abolition of slavery for which he advocated almost from the beginning of his stay in America.5 In a way, we can also include Wáodzimierz (Wladimir) KrzyĪanowski in that group. Although he did not belong to any abolitionist organization, he was a member of the Republican Party, and his opinions on the slavery issue (published in post-war memoirs) brought him closer to the so-called “black republicans”.6 Admittedly, Potowski-Rose did in fact take up the subject of slavery well before Gurowski, probably already circa 1847, but, nonetheless, in Polish consciousness, it is the Count, the author of comprehensive works treating slavery, such as “America and Europe”7 and “Slavery in History”,8 who was recognized as the most distinguished Polish abolitionist. Gurowski, despite a generally positive opinion of American institutions, admitted, not without sadness, that unfortunately even “the noblest realization of freedom […] can be marred, distorted and prostituted,” and 5

For more about Adam Gurowski see Florian Stasik, Adam Gurowski 1805–1866 (Warszawa: PWN, 1977). 6 For more about KrzyĪanowski see Piotr Derengowski, “Wáodzimierz KrzyĪanowski i Legion Polski (58 puák piechoty z Nowego Jorku),” Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy 3, no. 218 (2007): 5–26; James S. Pula, For Liberty and Justice. A Biography of Brigadier General Wáodzimierz B. KrzyĪanowski, 1824– 1887 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008). Admittedly, in Polish historiography, there is also mention of Tadeusz LewiĔski; however, beside the fact that he was a coeditor of the “True American” (an abolitionist newspaper; later under the title “The Examiner”) issued since 1845 in Lexington, Kentucky by Cassius M. Clay, we practically have no further information about this figure. Even Cassius M. Clay in his own memoirs mentioned the name of LewiĔski once. “The names of my colleagues I have never given, as it would have subjected them to severe persecution; […] One, however, who is now dead, I may mention with honor: T. Lewinski. He was a Polish emigré, a man of general education, speaking French and English, and an engineer. When I was Colonel of the Fayette Uniformed Legion, he acted as my adjutant, and formed quite an attachment for me. He married a Kentucky woman; and was the faithful and efficient architect who built the addition to my residence, during my absence in Russia.” Cassius M. Clay, The Life of Cassius Marcellus Clay, Memoirs, Writings and Speeches, Showing His Conduct in the Overthrow of American Slavery, the Salvation of the Union, and the Restoration of the Autonomy of the States, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: J. Flecher Brennan & Co., 1886), 107; Wytrwal, Polish Black Encounters, 32–33. 7 Adam Gurowski, America and Europe (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1857). 8 Idem, Slavery in History (New York: A. B. Burdick, 1860).

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the most emphatic example of such degradation and depravity was in the Count’s opinion of slavery. Probably the best representation of his ideas is found in this quote: At the side of the highest solutions attainable by society in its present stage, as manifested in democracy, in self-government, in the elevation and consecration of labour [sic] in its all-embracing sense, as the loftiest social function, there stands Slavery, with its degrading, agonizing contradictions. There it stands, bidding defiance to the moral sense of humanity, to religious conceptions, to civilization, to social progress; bidding defiance to the universal condemnation transmitted by past ages, and repeated more and more loudly by the European, that is, by the civilized world. There it stands, perverting and debasing all cardinal notions of American social and political association; notions which alone constitute its intrinsic worth.9

At the same time, Gurowski pointed out that American slavery was entirely different from that which had been present in the past in Asia or Europe, mainly because slavery had never been perceived there as a superior value in the social or political structure, while the political atmosphere in America had been fully overloaded and absorbed by the slavery issue. In her opinions, Potowski-Rose went even further and called slavery “an eternal crime against humanity”, and at the same time expressed her astonishment at how it could function in a country which calls itself a Republic.10 Yet, at the same time, we cannot pass over the opinions of the Poles, who lived in the South, who, understandably, represented somewhat different opinions.

“Slavery was a blessing to the Negro” Gaspard (Kacper) Tochman was one of the most distinguished representatives of the Polish so-called Great Emigration in the United States. He became renowned as early as the 1840s in connection with his great lecture tour through which he popularized the Polish cause as well as with the case of Thaddeus KoĞciuszko’s estate. In the early 1850s he moved to Virginia, where he became friends with the future President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis.11 Though he was opposed to 9

Idem, America and Europe, 169. Ibid., 170; Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 188. 11 For more about Gaspard Tochman see Piotr Derengowski, “1 i 2 puák piechoty Brygady Polskiej w wojskach Konfederacji 1861–1865 (14 i 15 puák piechoty z Luizjany),” Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy 2, no. 235 (2011): 25–74; Edmund L. 10

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slavery in Europe, in the United States he embraced Southern views and openly wrote about his admiration for “the wisdom of that Constitution, in settling here this question [slavery]”. Tochman believed that the law, which existed at that time in the United States, was favourable to blacks, and in a way it elevated their status, for example, by introducing the concept of “persons bound to service” instead of “slaves”. Sophie Sosnowski, the widow of a Polish officer, and founder of a school for girls in South Carolina,12 in turn, although she also thought that slavery was in fact a blessing for blacks, at the same time leaned toward the opinion that the whole institution was antagonistic to the spirit of the time, and therefore it had to fall.13 It is also worth mentioning, that then (i.e. in 1857), even Gurowski was not a supporter of the immediate and absolute abolishment of slavery. “Neither in any way do I intend to advocate an immediate, direct, absolute emancipation of the enslaved race”.14 As he admitted, such a drastic and brutal transition from the current state could be destructive to the American economy, especially for the South where agriculture was concentrated. He also claimed that the systematic, generations-long degradation of blacks presently caused them to be totally unprepared to receive full freedom and the privileges which came with it. He also admitted that this problem could not be left alone, simply because it would only grow and become even more difficult to solve.15

Kowalczyk, “A Polish Family in the South,” Polish American Studies 3, no. 3-4 (1946): 105; Hieronim Kunaszowski, ĩyciorysy uczestników powstania listopadowego zebrane na pamiątkĊ obchodu jubileuszowego piĊüdziesiĊcioletniej rocznicy tego powstania, (Lwów: Związkowa Drukarnia, 1880), 151; àyczywek, “Tochman,” 441–442; Studenci Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego 1808–1831: sáownik biograficzny, (Wrocáaw: Zakáad Narodowy im. OssoliĔskich, 1977), 219. 12 Matthew P. Andrews, The Women of the South in War, (Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1920), 257; Kowalczyk, “A Polish Family in the South,” 104–107; Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Confederacy, (Chapel Hill-London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 323–324; Sophie Sosnowski, “Burning of Columbia,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 3 (1924): 195; Celia Wong, “Two Polish Women in the Confederacy,” Polish American Studies 23, no. 2 (1966): 97–98. 13 Gaspard Tochman, “Dr. Tochman’s Letter to the Polish Democratic Societies,” Southern Literary Messenger. A magazine devoted to literature, science and art 34, no. 5 (1862): 322–323; Sosnowski, “Burning of Columbia,” 213. 14 Gurowski, America and Europe, 171. 15 Ibid., 171–172.

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Polish Discussion on the Superiority of the White Race According to the Polish Count, to judge the black race through the prism of slaves falsified the general image. Starting from this assumption, Gurowski tried to disprove the assertion that the African race was inferior, and thus, predestined to be enslaved. As support of his opinions, he adduced several examples. First of all, slaves, who eventually arrived in America, had not been conquered by white people; they were only sold to them by other “victorious Africans”. Secondly, the fact that Africa at that time had still, in vast majority, resisted the penetration of whites also stood in contradiction to the thesis on the inferiority of the blacks. What is more—as the Count wrote—“the African speaks, thinks, believes, loves, hates, reasons, comprehends, and therefore, he is capable of being initiated into a higher life”. Moreover—as this Polish exile argued—Africans, like whites, loved their land and were able to fight for their own independence. As an example, Gurowski invoked the history of Haiti.16 On the same example, Potowski-Rose tried to prove that the African race “has shown to the world that the [blacks] are not only capable of taking care of themselves, but are capable of enjoying peacefully as much liberty and as much freedom as the white men”.17 Potowski-Rose had also spoken in strong words on the subject of equality between races: Humanity recognizes no colour [sic], mind recognizes no colour [sic]; pleasure or pain, happiness or misery, life or death, recognizes no colour [sic]. Like white man, the coloured [sic] man comes involuntarily into existence. Like him, he possesses physical, moral, and mental powers, upon the proper cultivation of which depends his highest happiness. Like him, he is subject to all the vicissitudes of life. […] Like him, he ought to enjoy or suffer–but he only suffers–with the prosperity or adversity of his country; and therefore, like him, he ought to have all the rights and all the privileges that the country can bestow.18

Wáodzimierz KrzyĪanowski also considered the thesis on the superiority of whites unfounded. We must mention here that Polish Southerners had also a diverse opinion on this matter. Sosnowski thought that “to place the Negro on the same level with the Caucasian race, must be considered by every reflecting mind a great political blunder”. While Gaspard Tochman, once more referring to the authors of the American law, in this particular case to the Constitution of the United States of 16

Ibid., 172–174, 177, 179–180. Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 149. 18 Ibid., 190. 17

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America, issued an even stronger statement on this matter, claiming that the framers of the Constitution had formulated the slavery matter in such a way as: to preserve our own race from amalgamation, which the law of nature punishes with deterioration and extinction of the superior race, in the gradually weakening progeny of mulattoes. That the elimination of the black’s blood is inconsistent with nature, and ends in the deterioration and such extinction of the superior race, has been practically and scientifically proved…19

In Polish historiography, we can find assertions that these words “were a great shadow on his [Tochman’s] biography”. But we have to remember that the issue of equality of the white and black races in the mid-nineteenth century was not so obvious as today. Even Abraham Lincoln, who after all issued the Proclamation of the Emancipation, claimed that there would never be equality between these two races, and he is “as much as any other man in favour of having the superior position assigned to the white race”.20 Gurowski had also taken the floor regarding the, so-called “scientific researches” on race. He claimed that their results greatly depended on who was carrying them out. The Count noticed, not without irony, that exactly the same instruments worked quite differently in America and in Europe. “Thus, [even] the microscope represents different minutiæ there and here”.21 While European naturalists, after St. Hilaire, had already acknowledged that the white man came from the apes to the same extent as the black, at the same time in America “scientists” were still stubbornly trying to find new “substantial” differences between these two races. Jacob Gordon, a Polish diarist and traveller, who was in the United States from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s, also pointed out this problem: ”It was endeavoured to convince that having skulls and brains shaped differently, like orangutans, as creatures from nature defected and incompetent, they could not stand on par with Europeans”.22 Gurowski admitted that some differences did in fact exist, but he did not consider them significant, and for him, they certainly could not determine the inferiority of the African 19 Tochman, “Dr. Tochman’s Letter,” 322–323; Sosnowski, “Burning of Columbia,” 214; Wong, “Two Polish Women in the Confederacy,” 98. 20 Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial. Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York-London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), 107–108; GrzeloĔski and Rusinowa, Polacy w wojnach amerykaĔskich, 181. 21 Gurowski, America and Europe, 182. 22 Jakub Gordon, PodróĪ do Nowego Orleanu (Lipsk: F. A. Brockhaus, 1867), 44.

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race. Simultaneously, he emphasized that the “absolute necessity” of maintaining the whole coloured population of America in slavery was based on completely wrong assumptions. It is asserted that whenever a superior race comes in contact with an inferior one, the second must inevitably become enslaved by the former. Never was a greater fallacy brought forward. […] Nearly all the conquests, and thus the contacts, of different races recorded in history, were made by nations inferior in civility, by mere barbarians, over other more developed. […] The prisoners of war, the populations of cities taken by storm, became transformed or were sold into slavery; but nowhere have whole races or nation been subjected to domestic bondage.23

The Evils of Slavery An additional source of the Pole’s indignation was the fact that in America, especially in the slave states, the laws which were in force at that time forbade under the threat of severe penalty to educate blacks, both those remaining in slavery and those freed.24 Gurowski noted also that, at the same time in Europe, even the aristocracy was not opposing the education of the poorest, seeing in it the chance to improve their misery. Meanwhile, as he noticed: … the legislation of the slave States increases from year to year in stringency, ferocity, and contempt for the claims of humanity. They aim uninterruptedly at making darkness darker, the yoke heavier, the chains tighter, the oppression more shocking, bondage and chattlehood more inhuman and indestructible. The aim of their legislatures is to destroy all the germs of human feeling and capacity in the slaves.25

According to the official proslavery propaganda, the slaves were well compensated for all these “inconveniences”. They were supposed to be better fed and clothed than free proletarians and daily labourers, and their needs did not escape the attention of their masters. Gurowski was even willing to admit that on plantations, the situation of the slaves was indeed not so dramatic. He also claimed that the majority of Southern masters avoided, as far as possible, using violence toward their slaves. Unfortunately, according to Gurowski, the vast majority of slaveholders 23

Gurowski, America and Europe, 183–184. Wladimir KrzyĪanowski also took up the stand upon this issue. See KrzyĪanowski, Wspomnienia, 20–21. 25 Gurowski, America and Europe, 195. 24

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could barely meet their own needs, let alone those of their slaves.26 The Count could not pass indifferently over the assertion that “the enslaved populations are satisfied, and cheerfully support their bondage”. The Pole asked sarcastically: if slaves were thus satisfied, what was the purpose of enforcing more and more strict laws to preserve slavery and make it almost indestructible? If slaves were thus satisfied, why then in Southern newspapers, from all states, were there constantly announcements about fugitive slaves? As Gurowski said, these were “strange evidences of the felicity and satisfaction of the oppressed”.27 The “peculiar institution”, in the opinion of the Poles, had a destructive influence not only on blacks, but also on their masters, and therefore, also on the whole South. The Count, in his book, claimed that the material status of most of the white population in the South was rather pitiful. He also described the disastrous condition of education in the slave States. As he claimed, only planters could allow themselves to send children to the Northern schools, meanwhile among ordinary citizens, in almost every part of the South, the number of illiterates was growing. Yet the worst thing, in Gurowski’s as well as Potowski-Rose’s opinion, was that slavery led to the degeneration of the master’s mind, and as such, was, in fact, even more damaging for the slave owner than his victim. A slave-owner is a good master, kind-hearted, patient, full of forbearance and care as long as the slave is abject, fawning, crawling, and submissive, as long as he licks his chains, and the hand which forges them. But the slightest breath of manhood raises the anger of that kind master, in whose opinion the slave deserves condescension, good treatment, as long only as he acquiesces in being brute, but becomes highly condemnable and is to be ferociously repressed as soon as he feels himself to be a man.28

Gurowski was greatly astonished that the planters were aware of the evil which slavery carried with it, and still they did not take any action to 26

Jacob Gordon also referred to this problem. At the same time, he called attention to the fact that the majority of opinion about the misery of blacks came from people who did not see them with their own eyes. “However, all their drama disappeared for the traveller, when he met the real actors. If there was inveigh against negligence of Negro’s moral side, I agree to that—but if it goes about the material one, indeed it was not worse than that of European peasants in the Middle Ages. Many of them would even be jealous of it”. Gordon, PodróĪ do Nowego Orleanu, 44. 27 Gurowski, America and Europe, 196–199. 28 Ibid., 200–203; Idem, Slavery in History, 252; Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 187–188, 191.

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oppose it. He also claimed that the South, which perceived itself as a region predestined for agriculture, obviously did not understand that the continuation, or even worse, the expansion of slavery would lead to a stoppage of both investments and the implementation of innovations, and because of that lead to further deterioration of the economy. Gordon and Potowski-Rose spoke in a similar tone, and at the same time they called attention to the fact that slavery was leading to the degradation of the value of labour itself. Gurowski was pleased that the South had noticed its economic backwardness and commercial dependence on the North, but the way it tried to remedy it did not gain his approval. Not conventions and resolutions, but freedom has made New York, Boston, Philadelphia, the centres of the commercial wealth of this hemisphere. Freedom erects cities as Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, and others, which, emerging as by a spell from nothingness, teem with industry and trade, grow with an unheard of rapidity; while Charleston and Savannah, old already by centuries, backed by the cotton-growing and slave-whipping South, situated near the ocean, see the grass growing in their desolated streets.29

In Gurowski’s opinion, both free and slave states began their development from the same point. However, the South, by recognizing slavery as a permanent and indestructible element of socio-political life, lost its former glory and position for the benefit of free states, which now constitute the greatness of America.30

Call for a Change As time went by, opinions presented mainly by Polish abolitionists on the subject of how to solve the slavery issue became more and more pronounced. Ernestine Potowski-Rose was the first to take a stand. Already in 1854, that is to say, four years before Abraham Lincoln’s 29

Gurowski, America and Europe, 211–212. Ibid., 191; Gordon, PodróĪ do Nowego Orleanu, 46; Gurowski, America and Europe, 205, 208, 211–212, 216, 219–220, 229. Adam SáoĔski, who accepted the “Southern” point of view, expressed himself differently on this matter. He claimed that it was the North and her aggressive economic policy that was the cause of all misfortunes and underdevelopment of the South. Adam SáoĔski, Pogląd na Stany Zjednoczone Póánocnej Ameryki, oraz na wojnĊ toczącą siĊ obecnie w tym kraju, i przyczyny, które są gáównym jej powodem (Warszawa: Drukarnia Gazety Polskiej, 1864), 11–13. 30

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famous “House Divided” speech, she brought up the problem of the possibility of dissolving the Union. Potowski-Rose would rather see not only the North separate from the South, but state from state, and city from city, if only then slavery could be abolished. A year later, in her speech “All Free or All Slave”, she again pointed out that the coexistence of two values in contradiction to each other, such as freedom and slavery, could not last and sooner or later conflict must arise. “Freedom and slavery can no more exist together than truth and falsehood […] any more than fire and water […] Disunion must come. There can be no Union between freedom and slavery.”31 And in 1859, when, after an unsuccessful raid on Harper’s Ferry, John Brown was captured, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, one of the most distinguished Polish poets, stood up in his defence, predicting that the death of this “Moses of Negroes” would become the beginning of the new, and the end of the old world. Then, before KoĞciuszko’s phantom and Washington’s Quake—accept the beginning of the song, oh! John… For while the song matures, sometimes a man will die, But before the song dies, a nation will first arise.

However, when the sentence was carried out, Norwid in his next poem asked, as it turned out, a prophetic question, if “in Brown America there is hanging?”32 The course of events started to pick up steam. The turn of 1860 and 1861 seemed to be crucial. Poles were also unanimous that the presidential elections in November 1860 and Lincoln’s victory in them, as well as the secession wave, which had already started in South Carolina in December 1860, constituted the beginning of a new phase in the slavery issue. But they differed upon the solutions which they had proposed to solve this swollen conflict. Potowski-Rose noticed that the problem was not the secession of South Carolina (“for my part, I would give her a passport to Heaven to keep her away from us”), but the threat of the secession of the North from herself, from the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In the meantime, Gurowski, who not so long before had been advocating for rather peaceful methods, was currently leaning more and 31

Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 178, 192–193. Józef Fert, Norwidowskie inspiracje (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 2004), 70–71; Cyprian Norwid, Poezye Cypriana Norwida (Lipsk: F. A. Brockhaus, 1863), 54; Idem, Wiersze wybrane, ed. Mieczysáaw Inglot (Wrocáaw-Warszawa-Kraków: Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1991), 75. 32

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more toward forcible solutions. KrzyĪanowski, in his own memoirs, clearly indicated that “the degrading institution of slavery, which was oppressing millions of people, could not exist in a country founded on civil liberty; this only stain of the American society, this abscess rather, which was spreading putridity around it, had had to be removed and rooted out”. He emphasized at the same time that the Civil War was, in fact, the struggle “for the emancipation of the Negroes”. But not all Poles agreed. For example, Adam SáoĔski, who spent a few years in the United States in the 1850s (most of them in the army, serving in the 2nd U.S. Dragoons and Recruitment Office), claimed that the black population was “totally indifferent to what was going on around them”. He added, “after all, at the beginning of the transaction, Negroes were mentioned neither in the North nor the South. And how could this war be considered a war waged for the emancipation of the Negroes?”33 but the first part of this assertion is rather exaggerated. As we know, during the war almost one hundred and eighty thousand blacks served in the U.S. Coloured Troops. It is also worth mentioning that there were several Poles among the commanders of USCT regiments, such as Albert Rogall, Arthur Wrotnowski, and Ladislas Zulavsky. But not all Polish soldiers were willing to join and command those regiments. For example, John Sobieski, who served in the 2nd U.S. Artillery during the Civil War, was disappointed when he received a commission as colonel in USCT. “Had I received the commission of second lieutenant with the white troops I 33

Gurowski, Slavery in History, 253–255; KrzyĪanowski, Wspomnienia, 48–49; Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 293–294; Frank Mocha, Poles in America. Bicentennial essays (Stevens Point: Worzalla Publishing, 1978), 48, 209–210; SáoĔski, Pogląd na Stany Zjednoczone, 18–19. What is interesting, even those Poles who called the Civil War a laurel wreath in the history of the United States, practically ignored the Indian issue. Tochman noticed that they never constituted a part of American society. Meanwhile, which is a bit surprising, it seems that KrzyĪanowski, supporter of equality between the races, defender of human rights, did not notice such problems as depriving Indians of their lands, enclosing them in reservations, or in extreme situations even their extermination. “Thus when diligent farmers will push out these ancient Americans, they, confined to even tighter frames, deprived of hunting and running across the steppe, also will have to get to work. Let no one think, that the aim was the extermination of these ancient natives; because settlement of such an uninhabited and uncultivated areas would affect them beneficially. Driven from the lush vegetation-covered steppes, they would see themselves forced to abandon the life of savage nomads, for whom today, in the history of the nineteenth century, there is no longer place.” See Tochman, “Dr. Tochman’s Letter,” 321; KrzyĪanowski, Wspomnienia, 16–17, 19– 20.

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would have been delighted; but with the prejudice I then had, if I had received the commission of major-general in the coloured troops, I would have hesitated”. Eventually, he declined to take command and returned his commission.34

Did the Proclamation of Emancipation Solve the Problem of Slavery? There is no doubt that, as the conflict lasted, the slavery issue become more and more important. Regardless of the motives upon which it was dictated, the Proclamation of the Emancipation, announced in September 1862, and implemented on 1 January 1863, was recognized by part of American society as the turning point of the Civil War. KrzyĪanowski claimed, rather naively, that “everyone felt more than enough, that it was a big step, which laid the foundations for freedom and liberty for those, who so far had been the only ones to be treated with neglect under the benevolent American sky”. He was unable to understand that the abolition of slavery was simply a great achievement of the war but not the purpose of it, and that it was a kind of punishment for Southern secessionists rather than a reward for the slaves.35 At the same time, Polish abolitionists were not so enchanted with the Proclamation. Of course, they agreed with the idea of the emancipation of the slaves itself, but the way of implementing it raised their doubts. Potowski-Rose rebuked Abraham Lincoln for the fact that blacks were still stuck in slavery, simply because they could not be liberated by a pen. The second objection concerned the fact that the proclamation was limited only to the territory of the Confederacy. “Slavery is as great a curse to the slaveholder as it is wrong to the slaves; and yet while we free the rebel slaveholders from the curse, we allow it to continue with our Union-loving men in the Border States”.36 But there were also others who perhaps were not against the abolition of slavery, but tried to predict the consequences of that decision. One of them was without doubt Adam SáoĔski. 34

Frank Levstik, “The Civil War Diary of Colonel Albert Rogall,” Polish American Studies 27, no. 1-2 (1970): 33–79; John Sobieski, The Life-Story and Personal Reminiscences of Col. John Sobieski (A Lineal Descendant of King John III, of Poland) (Shelbyville: J. L. Douthit & Son, Publishers, 1900), 108–109; Wytrwal, Polish Black Encounters, 40–42. 35 KrzyĪanowski, Wspomnienia, 74. 36 Gurowski, Diary from November 18, 1862, to October 18, 1863 (New York: Carleton, 1864), 61, 69–70, 75–76, 97; Doress-Worters, Mistress of Herself, 305, 309–310.

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The main obstacle still standing in the way of the imminent abolition of slavery in the South is the future fate of the Negro. It is not enough to give him personal freedom: you must still give him certain rights as a citizen of the land on which he was born, that is the right to buy land, to apply in all professions, to free education, and at last the right to elect and be elected for public office. And so, I ask whether the Negro so suddenly endowed with freedom will be capable of using the rights granted to him? I can safely say that no, and certainly every impartial researcher of nature will agree with me on that. Admittedly, with time the Negro, in the course of his enlightenment, will be able to gain education and take an appropriate place in society, and be useful for it and exercise the rights of citizenship. But I ask, will he ever be able to rid himself of that, which makes him intolerable for whites, and which will forever separate him from their company? That is: the physical deformity both of the body and the face and unpleasant odour, resembling that of a goat. […] I do not speak of this with derision, on the contrary, I grieve it; however I must admit that it is not pleasant and it raises a natural repulsion in the white man toward the black race. So I ask, if 4 million Negroes, who still remain today enslaved in the South, deprived of any rights, then elevated by civilization to the dignity of the human and the citizen, will start to exercise their right on par with the eight million whites, who will not be able to overcome their natural derision toward the Negro, whether a slave, or civilized: what future will both these races give to each other? Will the Negro, being civilized, not notice that he is being avoided? Will his love of himself not suffer because of that? And what is even worse, will it not raise in him a far worse hatred toward the white men than he can possess today? Being civilized and not allowed into whites company and not related with them by any family bonds […] will he not gather in his own circles, creating stronger and stronger associations, hostile to whites.37

SáoĔski also asked: What has the North, which is supposedly fighting today in the name of humankind, done for the Negroes, who were born on her soil since they were freed, that is during the last 80 years?

He immediately gave an answer: “In one word, nothing”. He accused the North of the complete bestialisation of blacks. He claimed that they were marginalized and deprived of fundamental rights (they were not allowed to buy land, nor to vote, nor even to hold the rights of citizenship). The problem of segregation was also pointed out by Jacob Gordon and Kalixt Wolski (a Polish traveller in America in the 1850s). The former had 37

SáoĔski, Pogląd na Stany Zjednoczone, 22–24.

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written that if a character like Uncle Tom, of Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, upon whose fate the North used to sentimentalize, had come to Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, he would probably not even have been let in to the vestibule. Meanwhile, Wolski, not without astonishment, commented on the fact that blacks and whites even possessed separate cemeteries. So even death itself, which makes all equal, cannot […] exterminate this Cain’s stigma, engraved in black colour upon the bodies of this race which was ill-treated for so long.38

Conclusion The assertion that all Poles were always against slavery, and their motivation to participate in the Civil War was the will to fight for black freedom is false. As we see, based on the available sources, Poles differed among themselves both on slavery (presenting opinions decidedly against the “peculiar institution” as well as supporting, in moderate ways, its preservation) and racial issues (propagating absolute equality of the white and black races on the one hand, and presenting theses on the inferiority of the black race on the other). It is necessary to underline that at the same time, similarly, as among the other nationalities in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, Polish opinions against slavery came mainly from the North, while those in favour of its preservation from the South. In this context Adam SáoĔski, who as we saw expressed strong feelings for the South, deserves special mention. His statements are almost prophetic. Still, during the Civil War, he could see that the abolishment of slavery would not solve the problems that had grown for generations, and that neither blacks nor whites were ready for such a change. Already after the freeing of all slaves in the United States, we can see how “all men are created equal” evolved into “separate but equal”, and how black people continued to suffer, due to segregation.

38

Ibid., 24–26; Gordon, PodróĪ do Nowego Orleanu, 46-48; Wolski, Do Ameryki i w Ameryce, 209.

CHAPTER NINE MILWAUKEE’S POLISH AMERICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN NEIGHBOURHOODS, 1960S STEPHEN M. LEAHY

The Civil Rights movement in Milwaukee culminated in Fr. James E. Groppi successfully agitating for an Open Housing ordinance in 1968.1 Observers often singled out Polish Americans as the bulk of Fr. Groppi’s

1

For a comprehensive review of Milwaukee Civil Rights historiography during the 1960s, see Jack Dougherty, “African Americans, Civil Rights, and Race-Making in Milwaukee,” in Perspectives on Milwaukee’s Past edited by Victor Greene and Margo Anderson (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009). Key works include: Frank Aukofer, City with a Chance: A Case History of the Civil Rights Revolution (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1968); William J. Thompson, The History of Wisconsin: Continuity and Change, Volume 6, (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1988), 6: 312–392; Henry W. Maier, The Mayor Who Made Milwaukee Famous: An Autobiography (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1993); James S. Pula, Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community (New York: Twayne, 1996), 128–132; John T. McGreevey, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in Twentieth-Century Urban North (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 196–207; John Gurda, The Making of Milwaukee (Milwaukee: Milwaukee County Historical Society, 1999), 360; Stephen Grant Meyer, As Long as They Don’t Move Next Door: Segregation and Racial Conflict in American Neighborhoods (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publisher’s, Inc., 2000), 189-196; Stephen M. Leahy, The Life of Milwaukee’s Most Popular Politician, Clement J. Zablocki: Milwaukee Politics and Congressional Foreign Policy (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 94–96, 105–108; Patrick D. Jones, The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009); Jack Dougherty, More Than One Struggle: The Evolution of Black School Reform in Milwaukee (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

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opponents.2 George Wallace claimed that Milwaukee South Side Polish Americans strongly supported his presidential bid in 1964.3 Politicians with Polish American surnames like Richard C. Nowakowski and Casimir Kendziorski opposed Open Housing legislation. During the famous 1967 Open Housing marches into the heart of the Polish American neighbourhoods, counter-protesters held sign signs saying: “Polish Power”. However, I will argue in my forthcoming study that Milwaukee was a pervasively racist city. In this paper, I will show how the popular perception of local geography contributed to how people thought about the protests. Meanwhile, statistical data clearly showed the effects of housing and employment discrimination that led to the protests. Geography helped create the perception that Polish Americans opposed civil rights. The “New York Times” reported that local lore described Milwaukee’s Sixteenth St. Viaduct as the world’s longest bridge, since it connected Africa and Poland.4 Milwaukee residents thought that this bridge connected the North Side “Inner Core” African American neighbourhood with the Polish American community in the South Side of Milwaukee. During the 1967 South Side protests, Fr. Groppi, his Youth Commando leader Prentice McKinney, and even the “New York Times” referred to this bridge as “the Mason-Dixon line”, representing the boundary between the African American north and the white south.5 This local in-joke captured the “mental map” of many Milwaukee residents. In the minds of supporters, Civil Rights protest in Milwaukee became a conflict between interracial activists confronting racist Polish Americans. In the minds of opponents, clean, white residents defended their neighbourhoods from a state-sponsored invasion of dirty African Americans incapable of maintaining a home. 2

James S. Pula, Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), 131. Pula gives specific instances of Polish Americans being described as racists in “Polish-Black Relations: Ethnic Tensions During the Civil Rights Movement,” the Fiedorczyk Lecture, Central Connecticut State University, 1992, 9. 3 Richard Carlton Haney, “Wallace in Wisconsin: The Presidential Primary of 1964,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 61, no. 4 (1977–1978). 4 New York Times, 17 September 1967. This joke has been told many times to the author. 5 Tape 33, segment 2, 23 August 1967, WTMJ-TV News Records, Area Research Center, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tape 34, segment 11, 29 August 1967, Ibid.; New York Times, 15 September 1967. During a 1966 South Side protest at Representative Clement J. Zablocki’s home, protesters spontaneously began singing “Dixie.” See Milwaukee Journal, 3 September 1966.

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The longest bridge joke suggested that South Side was literally Polish land while the North Side belonged to Africa. A map comparing Milwaukee County Census Tracts with a plurality of Polish Americans and Tracts with 100 non-white (mostly African American households) provides a shred of truth for the joke. Fig. 9-1: 1960 Census Tracts with 100+ Non-white Households and Plurality of Residents with Polish Ancestry

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Milwaukee residents often thought in these terms. A “Milwaukee Sentinel” page documenting the history of Poles in Milwaukee stated: “In Milwaukee, Polish has been synonymous with the Democratic party, Roman Catholic religion, and the [S]outh [S]ide”. In the Fourth Congressional District, which encompassed the southern half of Milwaukee County, Polish Americans constituted 35 per cent of the population.6 In 1962, the Allen-Bradley Corp. built the “Polish moon”, at that time the world’s largest four-sided clock tower at its S. Second St. factory. Its brightly lit clock faces illuminated the South Side.7 Yet Fig. 9-1 is a classic case of how maps can lie. Unlike most cities, Milwaukee retained its German ethnic heritage after World War I.8 According to the 1960 Census, foreign stock—even in the African American neighbourhoods—constituted a significant presence in almost every Tract. In all of the thirty-seven Census Tracts with a plurality of Polish stock, there were at least one hundred persons (and often quite more) from Germany. In nineteen of these Census Tracts with a plurality of Polish ancestry, there were over three hundred descended from Germany. In eight other Census Tracts out of these thirty-seven Tracts, there were at least hundred others descended from Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Canada, or the United Kingdom.9 Even in the South Side Fourth Congressional District, Germans represented the largest ethnic group at 38 per cent.10 Historian John Gurda correctly observed that Milwaukee County neighbourhoods––even those reputed to be African American or Polish American—contained a mosaic of ethnic groups.11 6

Milwaukee Sentinel, 2 May 1964. Molly Snyder, “Greetings from the Top of the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower,” 13 February 2012, OnMilwaukee.com, http://onmilwaukee.com/living/articles/allenbradleyclocktower.html (accessed 20 May 2012). 8 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, United States Census of the Population, 1950: Milwaukee, Wis., 7. According the definitions of the 1950 census, Germans constituted the largest group of foreign-born, 18,259. (Poles constituted the second largest group at 10,989.) See Ibid. 9 Table H-1, Occupancy and Structural Characteristics of Housing Units By Census Tracts, 1960, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961. 10 Milwaukee Sentinel, 2 May 1964. 11 Table P-1, General Characteristics of the Population by Census Tracts, 1960, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961; Gurda, Making of Milwaukee, 180. 7

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Fig. 9-2: A Mental Map of Milwaukee: Advertisements in Ethnic Newspapers, 1960–1962.

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Regardless of the ethnic composition of neighbourhoods, statistics suggest that those living in reputed African American areas suffered in housing and employment, while those living in heavily Polish American places thrived. Heavy industry (the manufacture of machinery for other businesses) dominated the local economy. In 1960, 39.3 per cent of the labour force of men and women worked in manufacturing. The manufacturing of machinery drew 15.4 per cent. Metal manufacturing and the manufacturing of transportation equipment drew 5.6 and 4.6 per cent respectively. For men, the unemployment rate in the Milwaukee County was 4 per cent. For women, it was 4.6 per cent. When compared to the national rate of 5.2 per cent, the statistics show that Milwaukee was a thriving community.12 Milwaukee deserved its other nickname, “the Machine Shop to the World”. Tab. 9-1: Manufacturing Employment in Selected Milwaukee Census Tracts, 1960 Location

Milwaukee County County % Tracts with Plurality Polish % of Polish Tracts Employed Tracts with 100+ Non-white Households % of Tracts with 100+ Non-white Households Employed

Total Labour Force, male and female, 14+ 431,746 66,917 100 41,991 100

Manufac– turing

169,598 39.3 31,742

Mfg. metals

Mfg. machinery

Mfg. transportation equipment

24,138 5.6 5,524

66,520 15.4 14,740

19,742 4.6 2,324

47.4

8.3

22.0

3.5

14,771

2,696

3584

2,985

35.2

6.4

8.4

7.1

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., Table P-3, “Labour Force Characteristics of the Population, By Census Tracts: 1960.

12 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., Table P-3, “Labor Force Characteristics of the Population, By Census Tracts: 1960; “National Unemployment Rate Chart,” Forecastchart.com, http://www.forecast-chart.com /chart-unemployment-rate.html (accessed 23 August 2009).

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For the residents of Polonia (or defined in this work as roughly the 37 Tracts that had a plurality of Polish Americans), heavy industry supplied jobs. Table 9-1 shows that people living in the areas inhabited by Polish Americans found jobs mostly in manufacturing. For these reasons, employment in these South Side Census Tracts was almost always above the Milwaukee County Average. In the selected industries, African Americans only did better than the County Average and plurality of Polish American Census Tracts in automobile manufacture. However, it should be noted that the automobile manufacturing centres were closer to African American neighbourhoods. In two-thirds of these Census Tracts with a high Polish American population, the unemployment rate for men was below the Milwaukee County average. For women, in just under half of the Tracts were below the average.13 One firm intentionally sought out Polish American workers, the AllenBradley Corporation which produced electrical components for other manufacturers. According to the records of the Wisconsin State Industrial Commission, Allen-Bradley preferred to hire relatives of its current employees, which often were German Americans and Polish Americans. From 1952 to 1964, the Allen-Bradley workforce more than doubled, from about 2700 to 7000. The State Industrial Commission estimated that about half of the workers were Polish American. Allen-Bradley stated that it subscribed to the principles of “Americanism” in welcoming Polish and German Americans, but it shut its door on African Americans. Internal documents from the Wisconsin State Unemployment Service stated that the firm lied to it about the number of its African American employees. These deliberate obstructions of the law allowed the firm to employ less than five African Americans while hiring over 4,000 people.14 Not surprisingly, Allen-Bradley was a leading contributor to conservative Republican groups opposed to government regulation of business.15

13

U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., Table P-3, “Labor Force Characteristics of the Population, By Census Tracts: 1960. 14 Affidavit, Ulysses D. Jenkins, 20 December 1952; Virginia Huebner to Matthias Schminenz, 29 April 1960, folder “Fair Employment Complaints against AllenBradley, 1950-1962,” box 157, Department of Industry, Labor & Human Relations, Wisconsin, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Clipping, Milwaukee Journal, 13 February 1964, s.v. “Allen-Bradley,” Clipping File, Milwaukee Public Library, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 15 Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Businessman’s Crusade against the New Deal (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), Kindle edition, location 1249.

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The auto industry did actively hire African Americans. Within Milwaukee, 39.3 per cent of the total labour force over 14 years age worked in manufacturing, including 4.6 per cent making transportation equipment. In the tracts with over 100 non-white households, 35.2 per cent worked in manufacturing, but 7.1 per cent made transportation equipment.16 Auto framer maker the A.O. Smith Corporation—which employed about 6,000 people in 1968—was the most aggressive. Cited by the Fair Employment Practices Commission in 1941 for racism, it soon became one of the most integrated employers in Milwaukee. The company credited its “live and let live” policy for helping keep labour peace among the races. Newspaper photos of its employees often showed a work force split in half between whites and African Americans. They also showed African American inspectors supervising other African American employees.17 American Motors, the state’s largest private employer of about 10,000 people, also employed many African Americans at its North Side Rambler station wagon plant.18 Others did not hire and/or promote African Americans. Milwaukee’s construction unions rarely had any African American members. In hiring apprentices, the unions selected the relatives of union members. Seniority clauses insured that if any African Americans would be hired, they would be the first to be let go. In 1960, Milwaukee’s plumbing union had two African American members, but only because they transferred in from outof-town. In 1960, Operating Engineers’ Union Representative Marshall Whaling stated that his 4,000-member unit had no African Americans because they could not do the job. Out of 1,524 apprentice bricklayers in 1963, there was one African American. African American labour activist Calvin Sherard remarked: “There are more Negro Ph.D.s than electricians and plumbers.”19 African American and Polish American neighbourhoods saw strikingly different outcomes in housing. In the Census Tracts in which Polish Americans were a plurality, 64.4 per cent of the residents owned their housing units in comparison to 46.3 per cent for the City of Milwaukee. 16

Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961, table P-3, Labor Force Characteristics of the Population, By Census Tracts: 1960; table H-3, Characteristics of Housing Units with Nonwhite Household Heads, For Census Tracts with 100 or More Such Units: 1960, ibid.; Milwaukee Star, 23 June 1962. 17 Clipping, Milwaukee Journal, 26 September 1968, s.v. “A.O. Smith,” Clipping File, Milwaukee Public Library; Trotter, Black Milwaukee, 168–169. 18 Milwaukee Sentinel, 15 September 1964; Frame 13870, s.v. “American Motors,” Microfilmed Clipping File, Milwaukee Public Library. 19 Milwaukee Journal, 26 May 1960, and 11 August 1963.

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Only 24 per cent of non-white households did. Within the Census Tracts which had over 100 non-white households, only 11.5 per cent owned their own housing units.20 These Polish American plurality Census Tracts also tended to have higher averages (though not by much) of homes described as sound with all plumbing facilities. They were also less likely to be dilapidated.21 In 1965, Polish American Common Council Members Robert J. Jendusa and Richard Sulkowski dismissed any thoughts of urban renewal in the South Side of Milwaukee. They told a group of Catholic and Protestant clergy that urban renewal programmes only created the reputation of blight when there was none.22 In contrast, the northern end of this “longest bridge” was the home of the growing African American population. Milwaukee leaders were well aware of the housing problems in the Inner Core. A committee examining living conditions for African Americans found that the overcrowded Core contained obsolete buildings full of rats.23 The 1960 Census documents characterized described 85 per cent of all Milwaukee County homes as sound with all plumbing facilities (including hot water). Census Tracts with at least one hundred non-white households had only 60 per cent sound homes with all plumbing facilities. Tract 29 possessed a low of 18.5 per cent of homes with sound plumbing. Tract 36, with the largest African American population of 5746 had only 46 per cent!24 The “Milwaukee Journal” routinely ran photos suggesting the dilapidated nature of the Inner Core. According to Census documents, 41.6 of all dilapidated countywide housing units were found in the Census 20

Table H-3, Characteristics of Housing Units with non-white Household Units, For Census Tracts with 100 or More Such Units, 1960, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961. There were only 102 nonwhite households outside of the City of Milwaukee in 1960. 21 Occupancy and Structural Characteristics of Housing Units By Census Tracts, 1960, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961. Selected tracts possessed a plurality of foreign born from Poland. In those Census Tracts with a plurality of Polish foreign born, 86.1 per cent of housing units had sound homes with all plumbing facilities. See ibid. 22 Milwaukee Journal, 17 June 1965. 23 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mayor’s Study Committee on Social Problems in the Inner Core Area of the City, Final Report, 15 April 1960, 1–11. 24 Table H-3, Characteristics of Housing Units with Nonwhite Household Units, For Census Tracts with 100 or More Such Units, 1960, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961.

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Tracts containing 100 or more non-white households. Within the city limits, the number grew to 47.7 per cent. Almost six per cent of these Inner Core houses were called dilapidated as opposed to a citywide average of 1.7 per cent. Almost 98 per cent of all non-white households lived in housing units built before 1939. Compared to the 71.1 per cent for the city of Milwaukee suggests that African Americans were marginalized into lower quality housing stock.25 Expressway construction contributed to the housing problems facing African Americans (and Polish Americans). The “Milwaukee Journal” reported that the new four lane highways would displace 16,000 people. The builders especially selected a route going through neighbourhoods with old housing stock. These new roads required the demolition of many homes in Polish American and African American areas. According to the City of Milwaukee, 38 per cent of the 6600 homes to be “relocated” were “non-white households”. While the city projected that there would be no problem for displaced whites to find adequate housing, the city was “doubtful” that the market would meet the demands for medium-rent and low-rent homes. It called for “special means” to meet this new demand.26 Politicians made it unlikely that such special means would be available. Powerful South Side State Senator Casimir Kendziorski opposed public housing in his District to prevent African Americans from coming to the South Side.27 The suburbs, especially the western suburb of Wauwatosa, exhibited hostility against African American migrants.28 In one telling 1965 incident, Whitefish Bay resident Ruth Sklar announced that if the posh North Side suburb did not resolve a property dispute in her favour, she would have her revenge by selling her home to an African American.29 Inner Core residents did not have access to financial services necessary to purchase and maintain homes. Policies created by Realtors and then 25 Table H-1, Occupancy and Structural Characteristics of Housing Units by Census Tracts, 1960, U.S., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses of Population and Housing: 1960: Census Tracts, Milwaukee, Wis., 1961. 26 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Department of City Development, Report: Milwaukee’s Community Renewal, 1963, 29-30, folder 8, box 46, Henry S. Reuss Papers, Area Research Center, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Milwaukee Journal, 4 May 1960. 27 James DeWitt to John W. Reynolds, 8 June 1963, folder 35, box 41, Reynolds Records. 28 Carolyn L. Wilson to Jerris Leonard, 8 September 1961; Leonard to Wilson, 13 October 1961, folder 4, box 3, Jerris Leonard Papers, Area Research Center, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 29 Milwaukee Journal, 20 May 1965.

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instituted by Federal Government reinforced segregationist tendencies.30 Newspaper letters to the editor contained examples of individuals confronting segregation. Beverly Knebel and her husband owned a duplex on N. Eighteenth St. When they tried to borrow money for an addition, their Savings and Loan told them that they did not loan money on property east of N. Twenty-Seventh St., Donald M. Gorectke, a lawyer representing an Inner Core property owner, complained to State Senator Jerris Leonard that his client could not obtain insurance even though he never had a claim on his W. North Ave. property. Charles Manson of the State Insurance Commission described this as “probably practicing sound underwriting rather than discrimination.” According to the “Milwaukee Journal”, banks wrote few mortgages south of W. North Ave.31 To overcome these financial obstacles, Inner Core home sellers used land contracts. In this variant of “rent to own”, buyers paid higher interest rates while not acquiring equity until the completion of the sale. The owner kept the money and the property in case of default. Sellers and buyers had no incentive to maintain the property. Land contract purchasers often took in tenants—often in excess of the building’s capacity––to help pay mortgages.32 The “whites only” reputation of a slab of real estate possessed value in the market. Building owner Ervin Heinrichs told State Assembly Member Glen E. Pommerening that whites would move out if an African American rented one of his units. Lawyer Theodore R. Baer told Pommerening the same thing about his tenants.33 “Formerly Fourteenth St.” complained that new African American residents destroyed his/her home’s value.34 Marguerite Orth, a resident of N. Eighteenth St., complained how her home had lost its value after African Americans moved into the neighbourhood. She claimed that her neighbours lost over $5,000 on the sale of their homes.35 “A South Sider” reported that having a home in the 30 Jeffrey M. Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the TwentiethCentury American Middle Class (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 105–108, 150–152; Amy Hiller, Redlining in Philadelphia in Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History edited by Anne Kelly Knowles, (Redlands, California: ESRI Press, 2002), 79–92; Trotter, Black Milwaukee, 182–183. 31 Milwaukee Journal, 2 June 1960. 32 Milwaukee Journal, 25 May, and 1 June 1960; Milwaukee Star, 19 October 1963, Donald M. Gorectke to Charles Manson, 26 September 1963, folder 5, box 3a, Leonard Papers. 33 Ervin W. Henrichs to Glen E. Pommerening, c. November 1963; Theodore R. Baer to Glen E. Pommerening, 29 March 1963, folder 9, box 1, Glen E. Pommerening Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. 34 Milwaukee Journal, 12 November 1961. 35 Milwaukee Journal, 16 June 1963.

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“wrong neighbourhood” led to someone losing $15,000 on a property.36 Beverly Knebel’s N. Eighteenth St. duplex lost over half of its $15,000 value.37 Milwaukee was a city at or near full employment in 1960. The plentiful manufacturing jobs created a need for unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled labour. The city’s white people, including its Polish American residents, thrived in this labour market. People living in areas with a plurality of Polish Americans most likely lived in a better home. Those who lived in Census Tracts with one hundred or more non-white households most likely lived in poor living conditions. By the early 1960s, the de facto racist nature of Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee was abundantly clear. Milwaukee leaders had access to almost all of this information. It did not require an Internet connection or a sophisticated computer software package to see the inequalities (though a photocopier would have come in handy). The Sixteenth St. Viaduct was not a long bridge in terms of length; however, it would have taken a much longer bridge to close the gap of housing and employment. The City of Milwaukee later paid for its failure to confront discrimination. These housing and working conditions provided the framework for discussing Civil Rights. The hate mail to African American politician and Civil Rights activist Lloyd A. Barbee provided excellent examples of what people thought. A letter written by “A Taxpayer” (who stressed that she was a woman) declared that African Americans were not welcome on the South Side since they had ruined the North Side neighbourhood of her childhood. She noted that German and Polish Americans kept up their homes.38 Meanwhile, a Mrs. Adamkiewicz decided to educate Barbee about Polish Americans: First of all they fight their own battles, [sic] they do not need other people to do it for them. The Polish race is a very hard working, clean God-fearing race. Their parents do not spend their money and time in saloons. They spent it on educating their children. Colleges are full of our boys and girls. We teach our children to respect law authority, elders, other people's property, to fear God and obey His commandments. ... The Polish race deprives themselves of many luxuries in order that their children have a happy clean home. They do not make slums, run to Washington all the

36

Milwaukee Journal, 12 September 1960. Milwaukee Journal, 1 June 1960. 38 A Tax Payer to Lloyd A. Barbee, 7 May 1966, folder 15, box 33, Barbee Papers. 37

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time complaining. We do not expect everything for nothing. We work for it.39

Prior to the 1967 Open Housing marches, Fr. Groppi’s Youth Commandos made derogatory comments about Polish Americans on television and during their marches. South Side residents then defended Polish Americans during and after the protests. Seven racist letters to Fr. Groppi contrasted the perceived cleanliness and hard work of the Polish Americans with the perceived dirty, dangerous, African American neighbourhoods.40 One correspondent partially wrote in Italian to Groppi, who was of Italian descent. “Disgustato” argued that white ethnic groups preserved their neighbourhoods to preserve their culture, rather than “disintegrate it.”41 The racial and ethnic attitudes of Milwaukee shaped how residents and later scholars later saw the protests. It was an imagined confrontation between two peoples who lived continents apart, not a textbook case of a city and its residents oppressing an ethnic minority.

39 Mrs. Adamkiewicz to Lloyd A. Barbee, c. 1964, folder 15, box 33, Barbee Papers. 40 Mrs. R. L. McCoy to Groppi (JG), 1 September 1967; “A Housewife” to JG, 1 September 1967, folder 4, box 6, James E. Groppi Papers, Area Research Center, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Groppi Papers); “A working, self-providing, Polish South-sider,” 6 September 1967, folder 5, box 6, Groppi Papers. The same correspondent wrote on 8 September, accusing Fr. Groppi of using Communist tactics in ransacking the Mayor’s Office. See idem, 8 September 1967, folder 6, box 6, Groppi Papers; “A German Polish Catholic Family to JG,” 6 September 1967, folder 5, box 6; Tony Mulling to JG, 8 September 1967; “A Catholic” to JG, 12 September 1967, folder 6, box 6. 41 “Disgustato” to JG, 30 August 1967, folder 3, box 6, Groppi Papers. [Emphasis in text]; “South Sider to JG,” 5 September 1967, folder 5, box 6, Groppi Papers.

CHAPTER TEN EXPERIENCE OF POLITICAL EXILE AND THE NATURE OF ETHNIC PREJUDICE IEVA ZAKE

More than once my previous research on the political activities and statements of eastern and central European émigrés in the U.S. during the post-World War II period has turned up materials with explicit themes of anti-Semitism and racism. This has left me with questions about the connections between the experience of exile and certain attitudes. It may appear surprising that a refugee community would say and do things that were nationalist, ethnocentric, prejudiced and ultimately unacceptable; and it may be supposed that those who have suffered so much as refugees and exiles would be the most tolerant and understanding of other ethnic groups who are marginalized minorities in the host country. Unfortunately, this was not always the case. Then, maybe, it was only a few select individuals who exhibited ethnic prejudice, but was this not characteristic of their exile community as a whole? Unfortunately, the regularity with which ethnic prejudice revealed itself among exiles speaks to the contrary. There appears to be a “darker” side of the exile experience that is often overlooked, not only in studies originating from within the refugee groups, but also in research by neutral and otherwise objective scholars. This sort of omission might be explained with the desire to avoid blaming the victim and to protect from criticism communities that undeniably had experienced ethnic prejudice and xenophobia aimed at them. I am, however, not convinced that such silence on the controversial issues inside refugee communities does any good. I propose instead that it is important to take an honest look at the connection between exile and ethnic prejudice if we are to understand the sociological effect of dislocation. It is important to explore more deeply whether the experience of exile exacerbates or creates new ethnic prejudices. It is also important to understand how ethnic prejudice affects the ways in which exiles and refugees design their relationship with the host country and what happens

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to these perceptions over time. In all of this, I see ethnic prejudice in exile communities as a significant part of their political, social and cultural life. In other words, ethnic prejudices play a notable, if not crucial, role in how these communities think of themselves and interpret the host society’s attitudes toward it. The present article puts forward some conceptual suggestions for how to approach the issue of ethnic prejudice in exiled communities. It is not meant to give a conclusive answer about its causes and outcomes. My intention is to provoke a discussion using post-World War II groups of refugees from eastern and central Europe in the U.S. as examples. I do hope that the analytical suggestions offered here are useful in understanding ethnic perceptions and behaviours of other refugee groups as well. Finally, it has to be noted that I am using the terms exiles, émigrés and refugees in a somewhat interchangeable manner to describe populations that had been made to flee their homes and seek havens in other countries for primarily political reasons.

Sociological Theories of Exiled Communities Where is the pattern of how a certain ethnic community reacts to the host society coming from? An answer to this question points us in the direction of finding the roots of ethnic prejudice in exiled communities. Available research fundamentally disagrees on the source of political, social or cultural ideas in an exile community. One perspective suggests that the internal environment of the exile community is shaped by external forces, while the second focuses on the internal “logic” of the community. The externally focused perspective looks at exiled communities as essentially products of historical, political and social influences that exist outside of them, yet have significant power to shape their internal realities. Thus, Peter Rose recommends developing a sociology of exile that analyses the condition of exile and shows how it has evolved in the context of the host society’s treatment of the refugees and systematic xenophobia, racism and attempts to keep them out.1 External forces can create a community that never existed before and that could never fully return to its pre-exile condition. For example, it has been shown that living in exile changed Greek-Cypriot refugees so profoundly that they could not

1 Peter Rose, “Tempest-Tost: Exile, Ethnicity, and the Politics of Rescue,” Sociological Forum 8 (1993): 5–24.

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envision going back to their previous lives even if they returned.2 This perspective also argues that external forces determine the internal politics of an exiled community. Political refugees who find themselves in exile awaiting the end of an oppressive regime in their home country are not interested in assimilating or participating in ethnic cleavages of the host country. However, as soon as they begin to venture outside of the borders of their group and compete for resources with others, their community begins to become more self-centred, concerned with community mobilization and protection of its image and identity. So, high internal political activity, concern with ethnic relations and ethnic prejudice are not something that exiles brought along. It gets produced by a “breakdown of isolated ethnic communities as opposed to their maintenance”.3 The reason for such vulnerability of exile communities can be found in their historical roots. As exile historically evolved into a mass phenomenon, it was fully shaped by processes such as political institutionalization and deinstitutionalization, and changing political rules. Exiled communities are products of political battles that take place outside of them and thus they do not really have anything much of what could be identified as their own, subjective nature.4 The second perspective disagrees and argues that refugee groups do not all pursue the same political activities or hold the same political sentiments just because they all have been dislocated for political reasons. The most influential factors shaping these communities are internal such as their origins in the home country, their members’ relationship to the conflict that pushed them to flee, refugees’ political perceptions and social and cultural positions inherited from the home country. This perspective argues that external influences are always filtered through the community’s own lens, which determines the exiled community’s response. Community’s reactions are not instinctive or unmediated, but pre-conditioned or framed by the exiled community’s subjective nature. It is therefore a mistake to perceive exile communities as fairly uniformed groups that had been created by the same political entanglements. In reality, they are controversial and have active internal 2

Roger Zetter, “The Greek-Cypriot Refugees: Perceptions of Return under Conditions of Protracted Exile,” International Migration Review 28 (1994): 307– 322. 3 Alejandro Portes, “The Rise of Ethnicity: Determinants of Ethnic Perceptions among Cuban Exiles in Miami,” American Sociological Review 49 (1984): 383– 397. 4 Mario Sznajder and Luis Roniger, “Political Exile in Latin America,” Latin American Perspectives 34 (2007): 7–30.

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politics that make them act as basically non-nations “governed by internal and external power relationships with their own rules and regularities”.5 The idea of returning home remains the core of their self-understanding “with all other identities being subordinate to it” and, in fact, they feel more closely connected to refugees from their home country anywhere else in the world than members of the host country whom they live next to.6 This parallel political world of the exile community has its own nature and guiding principles that shape its members’ behaviour, attitudes and relations with the host country. For Palestinian exiles in Australia, it is their communal sense of political injustice of not being able to return to their homeland and nationalism that holds them together as a community7 and shapes their relations with and attitudes toward the host society. Similarly, the group of Brazilian exiles in Europe during the mid-twentieth century created their own “ghetto” of sorts, which was isolated from European society and disconnected from the reality around it.8 Where do these highly influential internal characteristics of the exile community come from? Danièle Joly answers the question by exploring the exiles’ subjective relation to the political conflict that led to them to flee.9 In order to understand refugee populations’ political behaviour in the land of exile it is crucial to account for their consciousness and commitments as actors in the processes that made them into exiles. She therefore proposes distinguishing between what she calls Odyssean and Rubicon types of refugees. Their main difference centres on their relationship with the structure of the conflict in their home country. Odyssean refugees are connected to large collective projects that they take with them into exile. Usually, these are political and national projects that they were in charge of implementing in their home country and thus feel strongly attached to.10 This type of exile community is deeply invested in asserting the 5

Cheryl Benard, “Politics and the Refugee Experience,” Political Science Quarterly 101 (1986): 617–636. 6 Ibid., 635. 7 Jeremy Cox and John Connell, “Place, Exile and Identity: the Contemporary Experience of Palestinians in Sydney,” Australian Geographer 34 (2003): 329– 343. 8 Denise Rollemberg and Timothy Thompson, “The Brazilian Exile Experience: Remaking Identities,” Latin American Perspectives 43 (2007): 81–105. 9 Danièle Joly, “Odyssean and Rubicon refugees: Toward a Typology of Refugees in the Land of Exile,” International Migration 40 (2002): 3–23. 10 Ibid., 8.

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boundaries of group exclusion/inclusion to make sure that those who belong are participants in the larger project from the home country.11 For these exiles, “us” are all those who are oppressed by the homeland regime due to the participation in their common project. “Them” is the homeland regime. The main factors that will influence these refugees will be the viability of their political project in the homeland and only partially the circumstances in the host society. Odyssean refugees usually do not like to be perceived as “minorities” in the host country because their main point of reference is their position in the home country.12 Rubicon refugees represent an ethnic or social group that was a minority in the home country’s conflict. There is no political or collective project that holds them together. They have left the home country because they were marginalized and oppressed and, consequently, they have no deep-seated sense of loyalty or commitment to it. They are more likely to assimilate or seek acceptance in the host society. They preserve a community in exile and create a clear boundary between “us” and the host society. In other words, the regime or injustice that happened or still goes on in the home country no longer has importance in how this community defines itself in exile.13 The Rubicon exiles see exile as definitive and permanent. They do not make plans for the return and so their organizations are primarily oriented toward helping in the settlement process.14 The two groups have distinct positions vis-à-vis the conflict in their home country and attitudes toward being in exile, which result in two different patterns of organizing their communities and building relations with the host society. These differences cannot be explained by looking at external pressures. The two groups are affected by the same sorts of policies and attitudes of the host country, but they end up having little in common as far as their social structure and political goals in exile are concerned. This distinction is helpful in understanding the role of ethnic prejudice in the life of different groups of exiles as well. It enables us to see that ethnic prejudice can serve a different purpose. For Odyssean exiles, ethnic prejudice is rooted in ethnic relations of the home society. They do not see themselves as minorities in the host society and are not interested in its ethnic conflicts as long as they do not touch on some reference to the political situation in their homeland. Rubicon exiles are likely to forget 11

Ibid., 9. Ibid., 11. 13 Ibid., 17–18. 14 Ibid., 19. 12

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ethnic conflicts from the home country and instead engage in active competition with ethnic groups in the host society. Going back to the distinction between the two conceptual perspectives of forces that shape exile communities, I argue that the second perspective, especially the insights offered by Joly, is more helpful for the purposes of the study of ethnic prejudice in exile. While the first approach sees ethnic prejudice as the exiled community’s response to outside pressures, the second looks for its roots in characteristic features of the community itself. Only by using the second perspective, we can see that ethnic prejudice is actually closely related to the subjective nature of the community and perspectives of their members.

Eastern and Central European Émigrés as Odyssean Exiles For the most part, the groups of émigrés that I am using as an example are post-World War II eastern and central European refugees, most of whom arrived in the U.S. under to the DP Act. By country of birth, the refugees who were brought in under the DP Act were from Poland (34%), Germany (15%), Latvia (9.3%), USSR (8.7%), Yugoslavia (7.9%), Lithuania (6.4%), Hungary (4%), Estonia (2.6%), Czechoslovakia (2.7%), Greece (2.5%), Romania (2.5%), Austria (2.15%) and others (2.3%).15 They were a diverse group, yet they shared certain important characteristics. First, a notable feature of these refugees was their educational attainment. For example, the first wave of Polish exiles arrived between 1939 and 1945, and they were predominately representatives of the Polish intelligentsia—intellectuals, artists, politicians and professionals. Those who immigrated after 1945 came from the Displaced Persons camps and included families with children. Intellectuals comprised about 5–10 per cent of this group. Most of the Displaced Persons were peasants, although the number of skilled workers among them was substantial. And, for the most part, they were educated with close to one third of them having a university degree.16 Similarly, most of the Baltic and other DP populations were educated people representing the middle and upper-middle classes.17 15 Haim Genizi, America’s Fair Share: the Admission and Resettlement of Displaced Persons, 1945–1952 (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993). 16 Anna JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, The Exile Mission: The Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939-1956 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004), 9–10. 17 For example, about 75 per cent of Lithuanian university, high school and grade school teachers and 80 per cent of doctors became DPs. There was also a very high percentage of educated engineers and lawyers among Ukrainian DPs. See Mark

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Because of the regulations built into the Displaced Persons Act they were incorrectly identified as farmers and settled into small rural communities. Unsurprisingly, within a few years, only a few of the World War II refugees had remained in the countryside. Most of them had moved to the urban centres because in reality they were educated professionals.18 Second, these refugees had strong and distinct political attitudes. They ultimately identified with the national political agendas of their pre-World War II countries and explained their flight as being for political reasons. Many of them had been deeply involved in the building of national governments in the period after World War II. Unsurprisingly, they often thought that it was of paramount importance to create governments in exile, just as many of them had done during World War I. Third, although this refugee population consisted of different social classes, most of their political organizations tended to be led by pre-war activists and high-ranking politicians who were deeply connected to the pre-war political projects in their home countries.19 Fourth, these refugees strongly identified with their life in their independent pre-war countries and thus did not see themselves as immigrants, but political refugees. They believed that their journey into exile had a much nobler or more legitimate cause than that for the economic immigrants. The political nature of their flight made them different and more respectable because they had a mission–reinstatement of their home countries’ independence.20 Fifth, these émigré groups were excellent at organizing themselves upon their settlement. A large proportion of them had gone through Displaced Persons camps in Europe, where they had developed unique communities. With that experience in hand, immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. they began establishing Saturday schools, newspapers and cultural centres as they had done in refugee camps. Importantly, they tended to organize around their wartime or pre-war experience and suffering, not their refugee experience. So, for example, there were organizations such as the Association of Ukrainian Former Combatants Wyman, DP’s: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 119. About 50 per cent of all inter-war Latvian intelligentsia became DPs after World War II. See Ieva Zake, American Latvians: Politics of a Refugee Community (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2010), 43, 119. 18 Genizi, 206. 19 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 15; Francis Raška, Fighting Communism from Afar: The Council of Free Czechoslovakia (Boulder, WI: East European Monographs, 2008). 20 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 13.

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and Daugavas Vanagi (war veterans’ groups), while there were no large organizations of the former inmates of the DP camps. There were occasional reunions that were not stand-alone events, but rather took place during one or another ethnic festival or gathering.21 This signifies the lack of importance that these refugees placed on their experience of the flight. Instead, they invested in reasserting their social, cultural and political positions before the flight. The refugee experience had been filled with fear, humiliation, degradation and shame, while the pre-flight society had given them respect and sense of self. This was the self that they strived to rebuild in exile. Sixth, although these émigrés were deeply loyal to their past identities, which made them strongly anti-Communists, they were also committed pro-Americans. They believed that the DP act that had allowed their entrance into the U.S. represented the very best of America,22 even if with time they began feeling that the American political establishment had become increasingly anti-American. They often thought of themselves as the only true Americans, even if they decided not to have American citizenship, which helped them resolve the controversial issue of how to express loyalty to their new country while feeling deeply committed to the old one. By claiming to be real Americans, they reinforced America’s immigrant roots where one is not expected to completely relinquish one’s ethnic identity, but can benefit from the American acceptance of uniqueness. This explains why, for example, although Latvian and Estonian DPs were brought to the U.S. with the assurances from the Lutheran Church of America, they were not eager to become members of this religious organization. Instead, they set up separate, ethnically-based congregations with their own pastors. The DPs insisted on running their own churches to preserve their language, heritage and traditions. But– they did not see these efforts as anti-American as the American Lutherans interpreted it.23 For example, Harry Lielnors, president of the Latvian Relief organization explained that making Latvians go to American Lutheran churches just would not work, but this did not mean that they were unwilling to become Americanized: “Americanization means to make the newcomer love and appreciate America and make him a good citizen, but don’t try to kill something in him!”24—Estonian and Hungarian DPs maintained a similar position.

21

Wyman, 207–208. Ibid., 208. 23 Genizi, 152. 24 Ibid., 153. 22

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To sum up, eastern and central European émigrés were for the most part educated and politically engaged groups that were under the political leadership of the best cultural and political minds of the interwar period in their home countries. They were politically engaged and mobilized in order to fight Communism and liberate their homelands. In this sense, they were more looking back at the home country as opposed to integrating into the political realities of the host country. Meanwhile, their involvement with the host country centred on expressing their loyalty and appreciation for having been accepted as refugees. As an increasing number of them became naturalized, they began exploring possibilities of how to have impact on the American political scene. Nevertheless, most of the time they remained predominately interested in American foreign policy toward Communist regimes. Based on these socio-political characteristics, I suggest that eastern and central European exile communities in the U.S. after the World War II were Odyssean refugees. This left a significant impact on their ethnic attitudes and relations with other ethnic groups.

Émigrés’ Ethnic Attitudes I suggest that Eastern and Central European exiles’ ethnic attitudes could be grouped in two large categories—those relating to the ethnic issues in their home country, and those relating to the ethnic issues in their adopted country.

Inherited Ethnic Attitudes The first category contains ethnic attitudes and conflicts that seemingly should have been left behind in the old country, but nevertheless continued to brew and complicate relationships among ethnic groups in the U.S.. These ethnic and nationalistic convictions remained alive in exile due to two forces: first, old grudges that had become foundational blocks of the exiles’ sense of ethnic identity, and, second, rivalries with other refugee groups for the attention of American authorities. During the early Cold War period, exiled eastern and central European groups competed for the attention and funding from the American authorities such as the support that came via the National Committee for a Free Europe. This organization was intended to coordinate relations with various post-World War II émigré groups and the U.S. government. It sponsored liberation committees in most émigré groups, paid for their publications, ran Radio Free Europe, and kept on the payroll a number of émigrés as researchers and activists. In return, the émigrés prepared

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regular reports about the situation behind the Iron Curtain, organized political and educational events and gave foreign policy recommendations.25 Unfortunately, as far as the funding was concerned, the ethnic groups did not always feel that they were treated equally. They sensed that they had to prove themselves and fight for their American sponsors’ appreciation, which led to inter-group conflicts and added more strain to already difficult relations between the various eastern and central European ethnicities. For example, although inherited disagreements characterized the relationship between Czech émigrés who supported a unified Czechoslovakia and exiled Slovaks who fought for an independent Slovak state, living in the U.S. did not help them find a compromise. This was not only due to past conflicts, but also to the treatment of Slovaks by the American authorities. From the American point of view, Slovak exiles were too closely affiliated with World War II war criminals and Nazi collaborators. The National Committee for Free Europe was not therefore supportive of the Slovaks and there were no separate Radio Free Europe broadcasts for the Slovaks although they regularly demanded it.26 Slovak émigrés were hurt by the lack of American support and they continuously made it clear that the Czech-dominated émigré organizations in the U.S. were not representative of the interests of the whole Czechoslovakian nation.27 Similarly difficult was the relationship between the Czech émigrés and organizations that represented Sudeten Germans (a large ethnic group that was displaced from Czechoslovakia to Germany after World War II), Hungarians and a small ethnic group of Ruthenians. Although all of these groups had called Czechoslovakia their homeland, they were hardly a united group in exile. The Council of Free Czechoslovakia set aside one seat on its leadership for a representative of the Ruthenians, but not the Hungarians. The latter then voiced loud protests, trying to get the Americans’ attention, against the ethnic exclusivity of Czechoslovak émigré organizations.28 The Sudeten German issue was even more complicated. Some of the prominent leaders of Czechoslovak émigré organizations had been either the architects or active supporters of the

25 On ACEN see Anna Mazurkiewicz, “‘The Voice of the Silenced Peoples’: The Assembly of Captive European Nations,” in Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, ed. by Ieva Zake. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 176–185. 26 Raška, 116–7. 27 Ibid., 110. 28 Ibid., 137.

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transfer of Sudeten Germans.29 At first, therefore the Czechoslovak émigré leaders made it very clear that in their minds the relocation of Germans from Sudetenlands was irrevocable. This position was actually so strict and significant to all émigré Czechoslovaks that it managed to unify some of their otherwise disparate groups. In addition, the commitment to treating the transfer of Sudeten Germans as a fact of historical justice was important because it gave the Czech émigré leaders legitimacy in the eyes of their compatriots back home.30 But in the mid-1950s the position of some of the Czechoslovak émigré leaders began to change, and they opened up a discussion about the need to understand the devastation of the transfer to the Sudeten German population. They even proposed entertaining a possibility of a German return to Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, German and Czech émigrés did not develop any sort of a close relationship in exile. Overall, strikingly little ethnic cooperation developed among all the ethnic groups of refugees from the independent Czechoslovakian state. Ethnic conflicts that had characterized this political entity remained significant, and they did not get closer to being resolved in exile, whether inside the National Committee for Free Europe or outside of it. This was partially due to the mistaken assumption, at least on the part of the Czechoslovak émigrés, that ethnic disagreements were a result of the Communist regime.31 Ethnic conflicts plagued the relationships between émigré Hungarians and Romanians. One of the biggest issues of contention for them was the so-called “Transylvania issue”—a question about a territory that had been largely inhabited by Romanians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and which after World War I was declared to be a part of Romania, although a substantial number of Hungarians continued to reside there. In as late as 1976, some Hungarian exile activists began a public campaign complaining about the treatment of the Hungarian minority by the Romanian socialist authorities and demanding the return of Transylvania to Hungary. In response, representatives of Romanian community, such as Valerian D. Trifa, Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America, wrote a long letter to Zoltan Beky, the President of AmericanHungarian Federation. Trifa argued that both Hungarians and Romanians were equally oppressed by the Communist regimes in their homelands, but by demanding the return of Transylvania to Hungary, the American Hungarian community was allowing itself to get pulled into a dangerous 29

Ibid., 118. Ibid., 102–1. 31 Ibid., 137. 30

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ethnic disagreement that would be destructive to both Hungarians and Romanians in exile. Trifa stated that the Transylvanian issue had been settled and history could not be turned back. It was not the fault of Romanians that the human rights of Transylvania’s Hungarians were being violated. It was the fault of the Communist regime and the two ethnic groups would do much good to themselves by fighting Communism together.32 In the case of Baltic émigrés, their explicit hatred of Soviet Communism was often an expression of their much older and deeper dislike of ethnic Russians. This ethnic hatred was hardly diminished by the experience of exile. Some Latvian émigré publications explicitly stated that …today Russification and the concentration of the masses of Russians in Latvia are to be considered a much bigger threat to the existence of our nation than Communism—the world view that they are trying to impose upon us. (…) The system of Communism was born and developed in Russia. No other country from the outside forced it upon the Russians. Therefore we cannot consider Russians to be a captive nation in the same sense as those nations whom they have militarily enslaved thus becoming their active dominators.33

According to this argument, Communism alone was not to blame for the plight of the Latvian nation—it was the fault of Russians as an aggressive and expansionist ethnicity. To these émigrés, freedom from Communism essentially meant freedom from Russians, which then equated their political project of anti-Communism to a nationalist fight for independence thus making it into an ethnic anti-Communism. As proclaimed in American Latvian émigré literature, the goal of the exiled Latvian community was to preserve ethnic difference34 and resist assimilation by fighting Russification in Latvia by proxy.35 In addition, on numerous occasions, post-World War II émigrés displayed notably anti-Semitic beliefs. The most controversial context for this was the hunt for Nazi war criminals in the U.S. during the 1970s and 32

Valerian Trifa, Letter to the Right Rev. Zoltan Beky, 9 July 1976, Gerald R. Ford Library, Grand Rapids, MI (GRFL), Myron Kuropas Files 1976–1977, box 5, folder Romanian Ethnic Groups; Letter to Dr. Myron Kuropas, 10 July 1976, GRFL, Myron Kuropas Files 1976–1977, box 5, folder Romanian Ethnic Groups. 33 Rita Liepkalne, “MƝrƷi un ceƺi,” Daugavas Vanagu MƝnešraksts 5 (1977): 3–5. 34 Alberts EglƯtis, “Tumsa un gaisma skan novembrƯ,” Daugavas Vanagu MƝnešraksts 5 (1975): 1–2; Vilis HƗzners, “NƗkotnes nacionƗlie uzdevumi,” Daugavas Vanagu MƝnešraksts 3 (1972): 1–4. 35 Irma Dankere, “LatvietƯba,” Daugavas Vanagu MƝnešraksts 98 (1982): 1–3.

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1980s. Under public pressure, U.S. Immigration and Naturalizations Services began investigating potential cases of World War II criminals who might have entered the United States together with other DPs by lying on their immigration paperwork. A number of such cases were brought before the American civil courts. The situation where some of the émigrés had to stand in front of the American court and talk about what they had done during World War II and the “evidence” that was often used against them had originated in the Soviet Union, struck an incredibly sensitive chord of ethnic prejudice for them. It brought out some of the worst ethnic prejudices from the old country and displayed them in the public view not only in the émigré communities, but also the larger American society. One of the first cases of eastern and central European émigrés accused of having lied on their immigration application about their involvement in World War II war crimes, involved a Latvian émigré Vilis HƗzners. He was brought before the civil court in Albany, New York, in 1976, and the hearing of his case garnered quite a bit of public interest. The court case was a very unpleasant experience for him and he let his anger loose in his memoirs and other publications in the émigré press. His accusations turned primarily against the Jews. He first implied that the search for Nazi war criminals in the U.S. was solely the idea of Jews both in America and Israel. He wrote: I cannot not mention the naiveté of judges, lawyers and organizations of Jewish ethnicity in their understanding of the accusations and their certain lack of consciousness when performing various acts of terror that had been experienced more or less by every single one of the accused. […] But there is a certain ethnicity in the West that blames Latvians for fighting in the Latvian Legion although there is plenty of historical information about the motives of our soldiers.36

Then he made a number of anti-Semitic statements about “Jewish lies and money” being behind the whole campaign of finding and prosecuting Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. HƗzners blamed his prosecution on the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, whom HƗzners described by quoting an article filled with vintage Soviet anti-Zionist rhetoric from the Soviet journal “Sovetskaya Kultura”.37 These statements did not reflect just one person’s biased and somewhat vengeful perceptions. The ease with which HƗzners published his views in 36

Vilis HƗzners, “PatiesƯbas Fonds un mƝs,” Daugavas Vanagu MƝnešraksts 6 (1982): 5. 37 Vilis HƗzners, VarmƗcƯbas torƼi II (Lincoln: Vaidava, 1985), 30–5.

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the Latvian émigré community was a testimony to how acceptable they were. At least partially because of this, the conversations between Latvian émigré organizations and American Jewish groups in regard to the use of Soviet evidence in American courts did not lead to any collaboration. In sum, the inherited ethnic prejudice remained strong in the émigré communities in the U.S. The reason for this is not that the émigrés were more prejudiced than other immigrant groups. The persistence of ethnic prejudice among the émigrés was largely due to the fact that such beliefs were deeply invested in the maintenance of émigrés’ political projects. These prejudices were not only linked to notions of national liberation, but they also underscored émigrés’ understanding of themselves as aliens in the host country. Émigrés could not afford to give up or feel guilty or inappropriate about their beliefs because these sentiments served as a cultural and political currency necessary for sustaining their ethnic politics and identity.

Ethnic Conflicts Developing in the American Context Similarly complex was the émigrés’ relationship with ethnic minorities in the U.S. Many émigrés perceived it as their mission to guard their communities from influences of the American society by, for example, demanding that women stop working outside the home and instead fully devote themselves to teaching ethnic culture and language to their children.38 Although strongly opposed to outside influences, eastern and central European émigrés were open to political collaboration with groups that represented captive nations.39 Importantly, however, émigrés accepted ethnic cooperation only in the context of a common political struggle. Groups that did not partake in the shared political agenda were seen as untrustworthy and any alliances with them as impossible. Consequently, eastern and central European émigrés were often unfriendly toward American ethnic groups that were not involved in the captive nations’ anti-Communist struggle. Although it may seem that eastern and central European émigrés could have easily found allies among other minorities (African Americans and Hispanics) as they all shared the status of marginalized groups, this did not happen. Eastern and central European émigrés did not see themselves as similar to or as having 38

Arnolds RuƼƧis, “Aknjta nacionƗla problƝma,” AkadƝmiskƗ DzƯve 4 (1961): 15– 17. 39 Olafs “Degošais krasts” in Latvijas Sapnis, by Aldis, Ɯriks, Gunta, Inta, JƗnis, KlƗvs, Mikus, Olafs, PƝteris, Šrekhubers, Viesturs, (Zviedrija: Imants Alksnis, 1967), 19–48.

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anything in common with American minorities. They perceived the minorities as anti-American, needy and dependent on the government. And the minorities did not understand that essential political drive of the émigré communities. They did not perceive the same issues as politically relevant and they certainly did not seem to agree about the root-causes of these problems. While the émigrés were deeply committed to ensuring that American foreign policy moved in the direction of eradicating world Communism, minorities were much more invested in the civil rights struggle. In addition, the émigrés saw themselves as superior to the American minorities. They were better educated and organized. They were ambitious and self-assured. They worked hard to push the Republican Party to realize the value of creating a Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council, run by ethnic émigré volunteers. They joined the American political scene all by themselves without the help of or coalitions with American minority groups. They pursued American political parties, particularly the Republicans, directly and without hesitation, armed with a sense that they fully understood the American historical, social and political “project”. In their minds, they were the true Americans. For example, Czech ethnic activist Sonia Havelka wrote to the Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council in the Republican National Committee that exiles and refugees who had arrived to the United States were “fully aware of the following facts: 1. This is an Anglo-Saxon country (majority of population, laws, customs, etc.); 2. The one and only official language is English”. A refugee, according to Havelka, “did not become an ethnic-American or any other kind of hyphenated American. He becomes an American. A citizen of the United States of America”. Therefore, from Havelka’s point of view, ideas such as bilingual education or Spanish as the second official language or ethnic and racial groups refusing to celebrate the Bicentennial of the United States were appalling travesties.40 Havelka’s note was particularly aimed at those groups that who had voiced a sentiment that they could not “celebrate”, but only “commemorate” the Bicentennial during the large-scale Bicentennial Ethnic/Racial Council Conference. Those kinds of attitudes were explicitly un-American from the point of view of the exiles, because racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S. was not in conflict with the basic facts of the American nation and form of government. Therefore, eastern and central European émigrés expressed loud criticism regarding legislative ideas such 40 Sonia Havelka, Additional Notes, 15 August 1975, GRFL, President Ford Committee Records, Folder “DeBolt Subject File–Eastern Europeans,” box A13.

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as affirmative action and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. For example, they adopted a resolution during the Annual Convention of the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council in May of 1975 stating that: We especially deplore the practice, which introduces a peccant [sic!] interpretation of that Act, of categorizing in practice certain groups as ‘minorities,’ other as ‘nationalities,’ while almost totally favouring the former. We ask the President to order all appropriate Governmental agencies to be vigilant of the right of ALL minorities, or better, ALL ETHNIC groups.41

From the émigrés’ point of view, the American system was set up to acknowledge and incorporate everyone’s ethnic uniqueness and so they resented the special treatment that the undeserving minorities were demanding. Another factor preventing alliances between the émigrés and American minorities was a sense of competition among them. For example, the nationality groups organized the National Confederation of American Ethnic Groups in 1956. The idea originated among the émigrés from the captive nations who were deeply dissatisfied with the Republican administration’s inability to respond to the suppression of the Hungarian uprising. They felt that the Republican promise of delivering freedom to the captive nations had not been fulfilled and planned to exert pressure on the decision-makers directly without the mediation of any political parties. Apart from this goal, the Confederation also aimed to unify the ethnic groups representing the captive nations because, as stated in the Confederation’s documents: … the Irish and Jewish groups—and now the Negroes—have learned the effectiveness and prestige that can be achieved through collective, unified action—and they are forging ahead. The many benefits that these groups have derived from such action are self-evident. Have you ever stopped to think where this leaves the Nationality groups?42

41

National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council. Resolutions Adopted at the 5th Annual Convention of the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council, 18 May 1975, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota (IHRC), Estonian Republican Club NY Papers. 42 Quoted in Perry Weed, The White Ethnic Movements and Ethnic Politics (NY: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 207.

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In other words, the émigré-led groups perceived the success of American minorities as a signal for competition for political respect and notice. As noted earlier, émigré groups were not too interested in the ethnic relations, issues and conflicts that characterized the American social, political and cultural context. For the most part, concerns raised by the minorities did not seem important to the émigré groups. They perceived themselves as fighters and advocates of freedom for all ethnicities oppressed by Communism worldwide, and so they had little or no interest in what this activism meant for ethnic relations in the United States. For example, anti-communist committees of activists that united under the umbrella of the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN) explicitly stated that their mission was to bring up the facts of ethnic oppression of all nations that suffer under the Soviet (usually also identified as Russian) control.43 With the same understanding in mind, the Polish émigré community (together with Polonia—the Polish Americans) organized a campaign to help the Hungarians suffering under the Soviet pressure in 1956. They collected money, medication and clothing that were handed over to the Red Cross, as well as participating in the resettlement of Hungarian freedom fighters in the U.S.44 But, importantly, they were not raising funds or collecting clothing for the poor inner-city residents. As noted earlier, this was primarily due to the émigrés’ conviction that in order to develop an ethnically-based collaboration, there had to be a shared political agenda, that is, anti-Communism. Therefore, for example, representatives of the three Baltic nations were able to collaborate with each other based on their common experience of the Soviet oppression and their struggle against the Soviet propaganda for the cause of reinstating the independence of their three nations. It found many different forms, such as issuing joint political statements, creating collaborative organizations such as the ACEN in the 1950s and the Joint Baltic American Committee of the Baltic Appeal to the United Nations in the 1960s. But they did not build connections with any African American or Spanish-speaking minority groups in the U.S. In fact, some representatives of eastern and central European nationalities expressed disagreement with the inclusion of “Hispanic” groups in the Republican National Committees Heritage Groups Council. To them, there was nothing politically relevant that

43

See for example, documents by Committee for Free Latvia (CFL), Press release, 23 July 1959, IHRC, Vilis Hazners Papers, Folder ALA/CFL, box 2. 44 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann, 217.

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warranted the inclusion of Hispanics, just as there was no need for “Asian Groups, Northern Europe groups or Mediterranean Groups”.45 The only Spanish-speaking group with whom eastern and central European émigrés wanted to collaborate was Cubans. For example, in late 1975, Anathole Bedriy, the chairman of the Ukrainian Information Center in a Washington, D.C.-based organization called the American Friends of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, wrote a letter to a Cuban-American political activist Nohemi Labrada.46 He stated that Cuban-Americans and eastern and central European émigrés had one common enemy, which was Communism, and they were all equally disappointed with the American foreign policy vis-à-vis the Communist regime world-wide. Therefore Bedriy invited Labrada to join the foundation of the “third political force” outside of the two main parties, which would be “composed of all these nationalities, whose homelands are enslaved by Russia and communism”.47 In sum, eastern and central European émigrés did not perceive themselves as an ethnic minority. As Odyssean refugees they had arrived with a strong sense of representing the ethnic majority in their homelands and acting on behalf of what they perceived as a national project. In the U.S., they did find themselves to be on the political margins, yet they actively resisted this position through their involvement in the Republican Party and their hyper active inter-community life. On a certain level, Eastern and Central European émigrés harboured certain ethnic or in this case–racial–prejudices against American minority groups. Émigrés strongly identified with what could be called “the white” or as they presented it “the real” America. Moreover, émigrés were not interested in collaborating with the minorities because they felt they had little in common politically. Ethnicity and politics were too deeply intertwined in the minds of the émigrés that without a shared political agenda, there was nothing that would bring the émigrés together with American minorities.

Conclusion The way in which political, Odyssean émigrés develop and maintain their beliefs about other ethnic groups in a new country is deeply rooted in their past and subjective experiences of pre-exile. Ethnic convictions and attitudes are not merely outcomes of external realities. They are rather a 45 Wrap up Report, SVG Seminar Washginton, D.C., Heritage Groups Breakout Session, 10 October 1975, GRFL, Gwen Anderson Files, box 20. 46 Anathole Bedriy, Letter to Nohemi Labrada, 30 October 1975, GRFL, Myron Kuropas Files 1976–1977, box 6, folder Ukrainian Ethnic Groups, File 3. 47 Ibid.

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luggage that is brought along, and it is not easy to discard. It is resistant to change even if these traditional perceptions are in stark contrast to the expectations and norms of the new country. As outdated and inappropriate as they may seem in the context of the host society, they are valuable, almost sacred, to the Odyssean émigrés. The main reason for this is that these refugees are unable to separate their politics from their perceptions about other ethnic groups. Their ethnic attitudes are consistently filtered through their political plight and their sense of mission in exile, which is the basis of their ethnic identity. To give up their prejudices means giving up on their self-understanding. Therefore, in order to make sense of the prejudiced behaviour and attitudes of Odyssean émigrés, one needs to first understand the political project from the past that continues to hold this community together. Consequently, nationalism, isolationism and self-centredness are typical features of communities of political refugees. Political exiles are deeply committed to themselves and their goals and little of what happens in the surrounding society is of interest to them unless it directly affects their mission. This is why political émigrés may remain unaware of the unacceptable nature of their ethnic perceptions for decades. They just simply do not have the desire to evaluate their ideas against the host society’s norms. For the same reason, political and social collaboration with ethnic groups of the host society is almost always built in a way that benefits the inherited project of the émigré group, but offers little in return.

PART III INTERETHNIC EXILE POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHAPTER ELEVEN PETR ZENKL: THE LEADER OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK EXILE IN THE UNITED STATES MARTIN NEKOLA

Petr Zenkl was a teacher by original profession, a participant in the anti-Habsburg resistance, then mayor of Prague’s district of Karlín, a long time social worker, Lord Mayor of the Czechoslovak capital city, for a few weeks a minister in two pre-war Governments, a devout follower of the humanistic philosophy of Czechoslovak presidents T. G. Masaryk1 and Edvard Beneš,2 a prisoner at Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II, Chairman of the National Socialist Party3 in liberated postwar Czechoslovakia, deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government, a tireless fighter against Communism.4 After the “Victorious February”,5 as the Communists labelled their successful 1948 coup, there began another, equally important and fruitful era in Peter Zenkl’s life. Although closely guarded by the secret police, on 7 August 1948 he managed to flee abroad, together with his wife Pavla, with help from his friends and the U.S. Embassy in Prague. After a short 1 George J. Kovtun, ed., The Spirit of Thomas G. Masaryk: 1850–1937 (Houndmills: Macmilliam, 1990). 2 Igor Lukeš, Czechoslovakia Between Hitler and Stalin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 3 National Socialist Party (ýSNS) was established in 1897 under the name Czech National Social Party. Socialist and Liberal nationalist movement, despite of the similar name not affiliated to NSDAP, the German Nazi Party. Zenkl became its Chairman in May 1945. 4 Brackett Lewis, Peter Zenkl: Champion Anti-communist (Chicago: Beseda J.V.Friþ, 1956). 5 Hugh Agnew, The Czechs and the Land of the Bohemian Crown (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2004), 233–242.

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stay in London, he settled in the United States, where he met a number of other former politicians, colleagues and partymen.6 They had already built the pillars of the “post-February” exile and they were waiting for a leader, for somebody capable of uniting the splintered opinion groups, to gain support from the western powers and to organize effective political action, the core of anti-communist resistance abroad. Once Zenkl appeared in the U.S., the leader issue appeared to have been settled.

Fig. 11-1: Petr Zenkl, 19667 6

Secretary General of the National Socialist Party Vladimír Krajina, former ministers Jaroslav Stranský, Hubert Ripka, deputies Ota Hora, Alois ýižek or Ladislav Feierabend, chief editor of the Svobodné slovo newspaper Jullius Firt etc. 7 Author’s private collection.

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He should have been the “chosen one”. He was the oldest and the most experienced politician among the exile. As a relentless opponent of the Communists, he was popular and had a reputation abroad. Moreover, he had the aura of a hero who had survived the hardships of the concentration camp. Most importantly, he represented continuity with the idealized Masaryk republic. Zenkl’s exile lasted for twenty-seven years. He left Czechoslovakia at sixty four, the usual retirement age. Instead of enjoying a steady pension and receiving rewards for his lifetime of work for the Czech nation, Zenkl faced many challenges, along with the hopes of Czechoslovak refugees and his countrymen at home. On 25 February 1949, exactly a year after the Communist coup on 25 February 1948, the Council of Free Czechoslovakia was established in Washington D.C., and Peter Zenkl became its chairman.8 The governments of twenty-one countries took note of the establishment of the Council, the American administration ensured financial support and helped the establishment of the Council, as it did similarly with committees or councils of Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians and other eastern European exiles. In the event, the Council initially claimed to be a kind of unifying umbrella ruling body of the exile, but the idea proved unworkable very quickly. Many different political streams were represented among the exiles and it was almost impossible to unify them with a single platform. Naturally, disputes about concepts and objectives among the exile soon appeared, as well as attempts to rehash post-war developments in Czechoslovakia and to bring a new point of view to controversial topics, such as the expulsion of Sudeten Germans9 or the future of the Slovak nation within Czechoslovakia.10 After a promising start, it quickly developed that the Council, especially its twelve-member Executive Committee, suffered from such fundamental fragmentation and contradictions that it could not perform its position of leadership. Throughout the fifties and sixties, the Council floundered in crises; it crumbled and united again. Sadly, it rapidly lost public support from the exile community and its American patrons. It should be noted that even Zenkl has his share of blame in the deplorable shape of the council. In Czechoslovakia, he had been a deft politician, but he lacked 8

Francis D. Raška, Fighting communism from afar: The Council of Free Czechoslovakia (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2008), 43–50. 9 Idem, The Czechoslovak exile government in London and the Sudeten German issue (Praha: Karolinum, 2002). 10 Nadya Nedelsky, Defining the Sovereign Community: The Czech and Slovak Republics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

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strong leadership and organizational or statesmanlike abilities. This lack fully showed itself among the exiles. Instead of becoming the most experienced conciliator and peacemaker who could calm the others and try to find consensus, he was more often the source of conflicts. Zenkl displayed a great belligerence, intransigence, perhaps sometimes even stubbornness, combined with admirable diligence and industriousness. He quickly accepted the position of informal leader of the exiles, and even though he was a fervent democrat who allowed explanations and discussion, he also seemed to believe that his own opinions would have such power that the others would of necessity accept them. Any who refused to obey were considered a threat to his leadership, and thus as an enemy. As can be seen in the correspondence of Zenkl’s council colleagues, if it seemed likely that Zenkl’s group would be outvoted, the chairman would go to unbelievable extremes to block the council’s activities. The foolish squabbles that dragged on from the first split of the council in January 1951 until the revival of the Council by the younger generation of exile in early 70s, fill hundreds of pages of letters, memoranda and speeches in which the quarrelling camps accuse one another of various manipulations and obstructions. This rather sad picture of the exile politicians, who should have formed one strong team, is not dissimilar from the situation of other exile political parties. The Social Democrats and Christian Democrats were fragmented into varied factions, and only the National Socialists, after March 1952 working under the name “Czechoslovak National Social Party in exile”, held together largely thanks to the credit and authority of its Chairman Peter Zenkl. However, the model worked only on this party basis, not in the Council of Free Czechoslovakia. Zenkl’s behaviour as the self-styled leader of the exile could be considered controversial, but it does not diminish his great merit. I must stress again he was a great Czechoslovak patriot. He was never focused on anything other than the return of freedom and democracy to his homeland, shrouded into its red fog. Zenkl had several lucrative lectureship offers, for example, from American universities. However, he followed his political activities until his late eighties, with only a very long shot at tangible success. Beyond his activities within the Council he wrote articles, financially supported by the more fortunate Czechoslovak refugees, who had received asylum in the U.S. Zenkl, helped them to find jobs, lectured, met with western officials, travelled round the U.S., Canada and Europe. In September 1959, he was elected Chairman of the Assembly of Captive European Nations. In addition, he published frequently. He authored

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numerous historical and political studies and prepared regular papers on Czechoslovakia for the U.S. Senate. It is important to remember that Peter Zenkl was the number one enemy in Communist propaganda for more than two decades. In a number of seditious propaganda articles in the “Rude Právo” newspaper, the name Zenkl was the embodiment of the “villainous third exile” and became a synonym of the worst kind of traitor. If we look back at the Czechoslovak press in the early 50s, almost every day we can find colourful expressions like “gang of Zenkl’s mercenaries”, “Zenkl and his crew of reactionary emigrants”, “Zenkl servant of world imperialism”, etc.11 This sort of “popularity” and “glory” was an inseparable part of the lives of exile leaders. If we focus on the political career of Peter Zenkl in exile, it may be possible to find parallels with Stefan KorboĔski, Tibor Eckhardt, Georgi M. Dimitrov, Vladko Maþek and other leaders of the democratic exile groups from central and eastern Europe and the Balkans. Many authors speak of the post-war exile as “exile of unfulfilled hopes”. Fighters against the Habsburgs during World War I had to wait four years for their freedom; those fighting the Nazis struggled for the five or six years of World War II; but the post-war exile resistance against the criminal communist regimes behind the Iron Curtain lasted more than four decades. The first generation of exiles, except for a lucky few, did not live to see the liberation and the fall of the Soviet empire. Such a long-lasting exile should be researched and analysed from a different angle. It could be likened to the isolated greenhouse or soap bubble where politics varies widely from politics at home. The events of exile politics are not elections, pre-election promises, political party conventions or programmes, but rather backstage negotiations, unfulfilled ambitions, and personal animosities. Disagreements between individuals automatically became basic conflicts between groups or ideological streams. The collapse of negotiations had a devastating impact in the form of break-ups of exile organizations and long periods of inactivity and squabbling. Exile political parties were more like interest groups; the politicians lacked feedback from voters and supporters, terms in office and were practically permanent fixtures in their functions. We can consider that interpersonal relationships, tolerance and the ability to compromise were the key to the major part of the exile issues. Disputes and long running squabbles emerged often and had a 11

Czech National Corpus–collection of texts in electronic form, used for linguistic research. Project of Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University Prague, collection: Rudé právo, vol. 1952, http://ucnk.ff.cuni.cz/verejny.php (accessed 12 October 2012).

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harmful effect on the functioning of organizations and the general mood among exiles, as in the Czechoslovak case. Of great important to the exile was the role of strong leaders, capable of putting down all irrelevancies and of getting rival factions to the negotiating table. Fortunate were the exile communities that were led by such respected personalities, who enjoyed the general support of exiles and Western governments, and were also able to gain access to sufficient funds. They could afford to play the role of impartial judges, to settle disputes or make decisions on personnel issues. How many such leaders were there, in fact? To some degree, perhaps kings Michael of Romania and Simeon of Bulgaria were able to assist exiles over the long-term and were able, from time to time, to step in as mediators. However, the vast majority of so-called exile leaders were not charismatic leaders, around whom it was possible to unite. They were more commonly perceived as protectors of certain traditions, as symbols of previous regimes, deposed by communists. Chairman of the Council of Free Czechoslovakia Petr Zenkl was an uncompromising advocate of humanitarian ideas of socialism and Czechoslovakism, continuing the philosophical line of presidents Masaryk and Beneš. During battles with his political opponents, Zenkl sacrificed a great deal to maintain these ideals, and in the end, probably wasted power and resources needed for other, more important clashes. Moreover, Masaryk’s tradition of humanitarian and liberal democracy became an abstract notion, foreign to the younger generation of Czechoslovaks in exile or at home. It was a laudable aim to commemorate and maintain it in the minds of the emigrants, but it could not be regarded as a central political programme of exile in the second half of the twentieth century. Of course, Zenkl’s case was not the only one. Some Romanian supporters of king Michael I maintained an uncritical admiration of the monarchy; others, like Georgi M. Dimitrov and Ferenc Nagy, continued to base their policies on the international peasant movement, celebrating the ideology of agrarianism, of little use in the post-war world. Those who came to understand the new distribution of power in the world, divided by the Iron Curtain, and rid themselves of old-fashioned political opinions, had a great advantage. Unfortunately this was not Petr Zenkl’s case. Given his age, it was not to be expected that he could easily adapt to new conditions. In February 1950, the State Department sent a questionnaire to the Council of Free Czechoslovakia. Its leaders were asked how they would build the political system in Czechoslovakia in the event of an eventual defeat of the communists and a return to the

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homeland.12 Zenkl as a socialist, even after his experience with running society and politics in the United states, remained within the limits of the post-war system in Czechoslovakia and did not present significant reform proposals. He continued to insist on a limited pluralism and the reduction of political parties, on state control over industry, agriculture, trade unions, and on a partial nationalization of factories. He also kept his conservative views on ethnic issues. According to him, Czechs and Slovaks were a single nation, and he rejected any cultural or political divergence. With regard to Germans and Hungarians he remained suspicious, and justified their post-war expulsion as a prevention to future conflict. In Chicago in 1953, Zenkl issued a brief theoretical study on the possible federalization of Europe,13 reducing the role of nation states, but he knew by himself that his generation had not yet been prepared for that. A well-known American historian and political scientist James MacGregor Burns describes several basic types of leadership in his book Leadership.14 In the chapter on the most ideal leadership, the so-called “positive leadership”, lists several conditions that a positive leader should meet: x x x x

Look to the future not the past; Focus on action, not analysis; See possibilities, not problems; Create new opportunities instead of accepting the status quo.

Zenkl and many other exile leaders would probably not have met these criteria. In conclusion, how do we evaluate these personalities? The importance of exile politicians did not lie in the originality of their agenda or ideas, nor in the real impact of their actions on the international scene and the evolution of the Cold War. They served rather to maintain the national awareness of their fellow citizens, who had, like them, fled from communist rule to the west. The U.S. government supported them financially and used them as an instrument of propaganda against the Soviet Union and its satellites when necessary. 12

Petr Zenkl, The questionnaire of State department, 23 February 1951, Security Services Archive Prague, Personal File: Dr. Petr Zenkl, collection number 033038/03, folder 1, 140–151. 13 Petr Zenkl, T.G. Masaryk and the idea of Federalization of Europe and the world (Chicago: Kruh pĜátel þs. Knihy, 1953). 14 James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York City: HarperCollins, 2010), 105–141.

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The speeches, publications and tours of exile leaders irritated the intelligence services behind the Iron Curtain and raised the hopes of the “captive nations” that Communist supremacy would collapse one day. That supremacy lasted for more than four decades, longer than anyone within the National Committee for Free Europe or the Assembly of Captive European Nations could have imagined. The importance of the exile organizations gradually declined, and their leaders disappeared into retirement. The archives yield valuable step-bystep testimony about the activities of these people, and about their sincere endeavour for remote, if not impossible, goals. Many of them were forced to leave their homelands at an age when most people are thinking of retirement. Without financial backing or knowledge of the language, they suddenly found themselves in unfamiliar cities and countries. They had to fight for a bare livelihood. They had to overcome the painful loss of home, family and friends. They had to start a new life. As honest patriots longing for freedom, not only for themselves but also for their entire nations, they never lost that hope. They resigned themselves to lost battles, they founded organizations without influence, they spent time at endless meetings and quarrelled with political opponents about imaginary positions. As mentioned, the Czechoslovak post-war exile has been also called the exile of unfulfilled hopes. Its leaders aged and disappeared, their hopes of a return to their homeland had slowly melted away. Petr Zenkl, the oldest among them, remained remarkably vital and active, and for several generations represented the embodiment of a tireless freedom fighter, carrying the banner of Czechoslovak democratic tradition, in spite of international development and the lack of interest in the exile community.15 He died on 3 November 1975 in North Carolina, at 91 years of age.

15 Archival collections on Petr Zenkl’s exile career are deployed in The National Archives of the Czech Republic, Prague; The Archives of Czechs and Slovaks Abroad, Regenstein Library, Chicago; The Czech Heritage Collections, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; The Center of Czechoslovak Exile Studies, Palacký University, Olomouc.

CHAPTER TWELVE COOPERATION AMONG EAST EUROPEAN ÉMIGRÉS: THE SOCIALIST CASE ANNA SIWIK

Europe was divided in the aftermath of the Second World War. Central and Eastern Europe fell under Soviet influence as the Communists took over. Political opponents of the new regimes had to emigrate to avoid arrest, or even the death penalty. A large number of socialist activists, most of whom had been members of parliaments, found themselves in the west. In 1949, they set up the Socialist Union of Central Eastern Europe (SUCEE). Its executive committee was composed of the chairman, Vilém Bernard (Czechoslovakia); the vice-chairman, Živko Topaloviü (Yugoslavia); and the secretary-general Zygmunt Zaremba (Poland).1 In 1951, during a conference in Frankfurt (30 June–3 July 1951), the western social democratic parties decided to rebuild the Socialist International. Consequently, the parties clustered around the SUCEE joined the Socialist International, though not as members with full rights. The task of the SUCEE was to cultivate the tradition of the socialist movement in central and eastern Europe and to work on the development of socialist thought, taking into account the new trends appearing in the west. Furthermore, SUCEE tried to direct the attention of the west to the problem of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, which were completely 1

SUCEE was funded by representatives of Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Polish and Yugoslav social democratic parties: parties from the Baltic countries, Ukraine and Romania joined later. Cf. Anna Siwik, “Together or Apart. Organizational Cooperation between Refugees from behind the Iron Curtain,” in The Polish Diaspora in America and the Wider World, Adam Walaszek, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-BieĔkowska, Janusz Pezda, eds., (Kraków: Polish Academy of Sciences, 2012), 111–134.

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dependent on the Soviet Union and deprived of any opportunity to build a democratic system of government. Nevertheless, the attitude of western Europe—as well as that of the social democratic parties–was the result of the relationship between the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the United States and its western allies on the other. The west treated the Soviet Bloc countries instrumentally, as an element of its contest with Moscow. Lacking an alternative course of action, the parties forming SUCEE did, nonetheless, strive to take full advantage of the political conjuncture in order to “keep the central and eastern European affairs at the centre of attention”, even though, as they themselves admitted, it came with great difficulty. In the second half of the 1950s, international relations saw the beginning of the so-called détente, formulated during the post-Stalin thaw. The idea of peaceful coexistence presupposed the possibility of a political compromise with capitalist countries and the establishment of multilateral economic, cultural and other relations. It is also worth mentioning that the Socialist International adopted a resolution emphasizing the importance of the policy of peaceful coexistence for mankind as early as during its fourth congress, 12–16 May 1955. The resolution stated: “The development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes holds out the possibility of a new standard of welfare for humanity”.2 It was during that time that ideas of forming a neutralized belt in central Europe (including the Gaitskell plan3) began to appear. They were strongly supported by the SUCEE, which sent a draft resolution on the matter to the Socialist International. The document contained demands for the creation of a neutral belt in central and eastern Europe, including the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania. These countries were to be exempt from all military pacts, which meant they would also leave the Warsaw Pact. The SUCEE declaration proclaimed: The removal of the threat of Soviet armed intervention—whether based on the presence of Soviet troops or on the Warsaw Pact–would not only limit

2

“The Socialist International on The International Situation, Resolution adopted by the Fourth Congress of the Socialist International” (London, 12-16 July, 1955), Yearbook of the International Socialist Labour Movement 1956-1957, ed. Julius Braunthal (Linkolns-Prager International Yearbook Publishing Company Limited London), 61. 3 Hugh Gaitskell, “Such a Policy Might Pay” in Western World (Spring 1958), 36– 44; Roger Broad, Labour’s European Dilemmas Since 1945: From Bevin to Blair (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 30.

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the interference of the USSR with the internal affairs of these states but 4 open new prospects for the restoration of freedom within their borders.

Despite improvement in international relations after October 1956 and the Kremlin’s declaration of the peaceful coexistence of states, the central and eastern European countries under Soviet domination had no chance of rebuilding their independence. The USSR treated the matter of the political systems in these countries as sealed, just as it refused to discuss the issue of human rights. The west accepted this attitude “with understanding”, acknowledging the presence of many other more serious and yet unresolved matters, such as the problem of disarmament and the German question. Social democratic leaders, regardless of whether they held power or belonged to the opposition, were subject to the same mechanisms of power and political priorities. Demanding that the USSR grant Soviet satellite states the right to self-determination was also an uncomfortable topic for them, and they carefully avoided it. The principle in force was, “Do not irritate Moscow”. A drastic example of this approach was Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to France in March 1960, when the French authorities ‘prophylactically’ arrested and deported—to Corsica and other islands—a few hundred political refugees from central and eastern Europe, including Virgil Veniamin (Romania), T. Jarev (Bulgaria), Eduardas Turauskas (Lithuania) and Kornel Filo (Czechoslovakia). More than 30 people—among them the activists of the Assembly of Captive European Nations, including Zygmunt Zaremba, the chairman of SUCEE—were deported to the island of Belle-Île-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany.5 Such an attitude bred bitterness among the social democratic parties in exile, who did all they could to get through to public opinion. The recognition by the west of the permanence of the division of Europe was unacceptable to them. Protesting against European acceptance of the postwar status quo on the international stage, Anna Kéthly6 employed a certain analogy:

4 SUCEE Draft Resolution, n.d., The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) Archive, New York, Zygmunt Zaremba Papers, ZZ2/1. 5 The Polish Workman (Robotnik Polski), New York, 3 April 1960. 6 Anna Kéthly: chairman of the party, member of the Hungarian Revolutionary Government 1956.

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Other social democrats from behind the Iron Curtain spoke in a similar tone, protesting that central and eastern Europe “shall not be sacrificed.” The émigré parties saw the politics of détente as both a threat and as an opportunity, the former the result of their distrust of Khrushchev. Thus, while he declared his willingness to make an agreement with the West, the émigré parties did not believe in his integrity. According to Brnjno KalniƼš; Khrushchev’s policy had disposed of the fundamental thesis of the inevitability of world wars during the capitalist era. A new approach— peaceful coexistence—was adopted. But the aim of Soviet policy remained the same.8

Georgi Petkoff, a socialist from Bulgaria, added: In spite of some modifications the Policy of Moscow was consistently one of international Communist aggression. Moscow’s colonial policy was not confined to the Central and Eastern European countries, but was spreading to the newly liberated colonies from the Middle to the Far East, to Africa, and lately, one might say, even to South America.9

Émigré socialists saw their chance in the creation of a new political model for the countries of central and eastern Europe. The most important document in the history of the SUCEE—the “Socialist Alternative”— described the future political system, which was to be neither a facsimile of the western model, nor, especially, a form of “real socialism”. It was believed that the interests of central and eastern European countries differed from both the interests of the Soviet Union and those of the west. The countries of central and eastern Europe should, according to these socialists, seek solutions to their socio-economic and political problems in a manner consistent with their national traditions and in response to the international balance of power. 7

Anna Kéthly’s speech at the conference on 10 July 1959 in Hamburg, Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe Tenth Conference, Hamburg, 11 and 12 July 1959, Library of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Bonn (FEFL), INT 1195/22, 7. 8 Brnjno KalniƼš’ speech at the conference on 10 July 1959 in Hamburg, Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe Tenth Conference, 2. 9 Ibid., 10.

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The so-called “real socialism” was merely a modification of the Soviet Communist model, which had little to do with democratic socialism. The “Socialist Alternative” was directed both against Communism and against any return to the past. According to the socialists in exile, the masses, who had tried to overthrow Communism in East Germany, in Berlin, in Poland and in Hungary, wanted to follow the ideas of democratic socialism rather than tread the reactionary path. The “Socialist Alternative” was the result of a careful observation of the situation in central Europe. A breakthrough came in 1956. The bloody suppression of the protests of the working classes in PoznaĔ in June that year, followed by the drama of the Hungarian Revolution, exposed the failure of the Soviet state-building experiment, the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Not only did societies call for freedom, but they also showed a favourable disposition towards “socialism with a human face”. This reassured the socialists in exile that the idea of a true, democratic socialism was alive in the societies of central and eastern Europe. Before SUCEE adopted the “Socialist Alternative”, there was a wide discussion of the shape it would take. The most important meeting in this respect took place in Hamburg on 11–12 July 1959. The delegations comprised: the Bulgarian Socialist Party—Dr. Georgi Petkoff (chairman of the party and former Member of Parliament) and Milka SimeonovaKrauss; the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party—Vilém Bernard (secretary of the SUCEE, executive member of the party and former Member of Parliament) and Miloš Vanek (executive member of the party and former editor of “Pravo Lidu”); the Estonian Socialist Party— Johannes Mihkelson (chairman of the party and former secretary of the Estonian Trade Union Council) and Raimond Kolk; the Social Democratic Party of Hungary—Dr. O. Benjamin, Anna Kéthly and Imre Szélig (secretary of the party, treasurer of SUCEE, former Member of Parliament); the Social Democratic Party of Latvia—Dr. Brnjno KalniƼš (chairman of the party, vice-chairman of SUCEE and former Member of Parliament), Dr. Emils Orgins (vice-chairman of the party) and Rudolf Pakalns; the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party—Jonas Glemza (executive member of the party, chairman of the Executive of the Lithuanian Nationals Committee) and Juozas Vilcinskas; the Polish Socialist Party—Zygmunt Zaremba (chairman of SUCEE, chairman of the central council of the party, former Member of Parliament) and Dr. Otton Pehr; the Romanian Socialist Party—Eftimie Gherman (executive member of the party, former secretary of the Romanian Mineworkers’ Union) and Serban Voinea (executive member of the party); the Ukrainian Socialist Party—Panas Fedenko (chairman of the party) and Bohdan Fedenko

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(executive member of the party); the Yugoslavian Socialist Party—Dr. Živko Topaloviü (vice-chairman of SUCEE, chairman of the party, former Member of Parliament) and Militza Djurich-Topaloviü. Alsing Andersen, the chairman, represented the Socialist International. Willy Eichler, from the German SPD and Stephan Thomas also attended the meeting.10 The main topic of discussion during the two-day proceedings was the evaluation of the Communist system and the role of socialists in the context of the politics of détente between the east and the west. The outcome of the discussion can be reduced to the following conclusions; a) The aim of socialism is to ensure that scientific and technological achievements are used for the benefit of all people, so as to raise the standard of living of those whose economic development has been arrested and to save the world from the catastrophe of a new war; b) In working for the attainment of this objective, socialism opposes Communism as well as capitalism. Communism has introduced new forms of exploiting the working class. It has used physical and moral terror as the main instruments for keeping power in the hands of the Communist party and state bureaucrats. Under the pressure of organized labour and social needs, capitalism is forced to make concessions for the benefit of all. Nevertheless, it remains a powerful brake on a general, balanced progress by endeavouring to exploit all scientific and technological achievements for the purpose of satisfying the selfish profit motive, and enriching the privileged social groups; c) Democratic socialism stands for the ideals of lasting peace, freedom, and social justice. In contrast to Communism, it rejects all kinds of ideological dogmatism, realizing, through its work and the internal life of the labour movement, the principle of the full intellectual and spiritual freedom of man; d) The goal of socialism is to abolish the system of private as well as state monopoly by socializing the means of production as well as to achieve a full democracy, so that the ownership of industrial, trading, and financial establishments can cease to be an instrument of power for a few over many, and so that the pattern of life in each society can be shaped by the will of free people as opposed to the will of the Communist or capitalist oligarchy; 10 “Labour’s Call from behind the Iron Curtain,” Bulletin of the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe, October 1963.

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e)

Socialism uses those means and methods, which are best-suited to the general conditions of each country, its level of development, and the degree of political consciousness attained by the working masses.11 The socialists attending the meeting made many remarks about the social democrats from the West. One important matter was the question of consulting the socialists in exile about the visits of representatives of western social democratic parties to the Soviet Bloc countries. As Brnjno KalniƼš said: Communist propaganda immediately exploits any statements made by comrades from the West. […] It would also be of value to the western socialists if they were to talk to us beforehand.12

This demand was partly met later. For instance, before the visit of the Labour Party leader, Hugh Gaitskell, to Poland in 1962, the Polish Socialist Party in exile was invited to write an evaluation of the situation in their country.13 It is also worth emphasizing that after the war, as the years went by, the situation in the international labour movement underwent serious changes. These were related to a significant transformation at the heart of capitalism itself. According to some, capitalism was losing its exploitative character and the working classes were becoming a “nation,” their anticapitalist edge getting blunt. This view was reflected in the programmes adopted by the socialist parties in the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Holland and Sweden and in the discussions that took place in other western European countries. The phenomenon was termed “revisionism”. The debate was spurred by Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism (1956), regarded as one of the most influential books in the post-war British Labour Party thinking. Crosland wrote that: The most characteristic features of capitalism have disappeared—the absolute rule of private property, the subjection of all life to market influences, the domination of the profit motive, the neutrality of

11 Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe Tenth Conference, Hamburg, July 11 and 12, 1959, FEFL, INT 1195/22, 1–23. 12 Ibid., 3. 13 Letter of David Ennals to Kazimierz Mojkowski, 14 August 1962, Private Archive of K. Mojkowski, London.

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Crosland believed that western socialists made programme changes not for electoral (tactical) reasons, but because the situation had changed with respect to the period when the socialist movement introduced its first political programs, which were based on the Marxist analysis of social phenomena. After 15–20 years, Europe witnessed processes opposite to those predicted by Marxist analysis. They went so far that, in the United States and in the developed countries of western Europe, the number of “white collar” workers was greater than the number of manual workers. “Is this still capitalism?” remained a valid question.15 The socialists in the Union held a different view, though. Not only did they reject the possibility of restoring capitalism in any form in their countries, but they also believed in the importance of mobilizing public opinion for the solution of constitutional issues on the basis of democratic socialism. These countries had, in fact, undergone changes referred to as the “socialist transformation”, but they had little to do with true socialism. Zygmunt Zaremba wrote extensively on this topic, presenting the position of SUCEE. In his opinion, the differences in the traditions of the socialist movement between central eastern and western Europe created differences in socialist ideology. Central and eastern European countries had been violently forced into the “orbit” of Moscow’s interests. Over the period of nearly twenty years, these countries underwent profound transformations, which had their effect on the nature of their socialist movements. According to Zaremba, the accumulation of capital, which in the west continued throughout the whole of the nineteenth century, occurred in central and eastern Europe over a period of fifteen years. The latter’s accumulation of capital was accompanied by the same methods of exploitation and impoverishment of the masses as those applied by the capitalists in the west, the crucial difference being that the control over the whole economy fell into the hands of the state. What is more, in the case of Communism, the process of accumulation took place under conditions adverse to spontaneous economic development, because the government 14 Anthony Crosland, The Future of Socialism. The book that changed British politics, foreword by Gordon Brown (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2006). 15 Crosland, “The Transition from Capitalism” in New Fabian Essays, R. H. Grossman (London: Turnstile Press, 1951), 42. Cf. Anthony Arblaster, “The Old Left, The Struggle for Labour’s Soul,” in Understanding Labour’s political thought since 1945, ed. by Raymond Plant, (London and New York: Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson, Routledge, 2004), 17.

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replaced economic rights with decrees and administrative pressure. Last but not least, relying on Soviet military strength, Communist rule was treated by these countries as a sign of Soviet conquest.16 The socialist movement of central and eastern Europe saw these facts as the basis for its two goals: the restoration of full independence and the building of socialism in the conditions of full freedom, equality and universal prosperity, the point of departure for this process being the social and economic changes which had already taken place. One of the distinguishing features of the socialist programme of central and eastern European countries was the joining of nationalization and the democratization of social relations. Aim one—the restoration of independence—was the priority, although the socialists realized the difficulty of this task. They rejected war as a means of settling international disputes. Aim two was the reconstruction of the social system in the spirit of socialism. According to Zaremba, the societies of central and eastern Europe were ahead of the west in the process of abolishing capitalism, but behind with regard to the development of democracy. As part of the work involved in preparing the “Socialist Alternative”, a series of eight brochure-studies was issued, prepared by members of SUCEE.17 In his work, Trade Unions and Workers’ Councils, Imre Szélig, the leader of the Hungarian socialists in exile and a former activist in the Hungarian trade union movement, examined the latter’s dependence on the Communist party and state administration, concluding that in these conditions the trade union movement had lost its significance and that the first condition of the restoration of trade unions as the defenders of the interests of both the working class and employees in general had to be the regaining of independence. In favour of keeping the majority of the means of production in the hands of the state, Imre Szélig emphasized that the task of democratic 16

Zygmunt Zaremba, Przemiany w ruchu komunistycznym, (Paris: Wyd. ĝwiatáo, 1965), 177–201. See also Zygmunt Zaremba, Power politics and communist doctrine, (London: SUCEE, 1960). 17 The eight brochures published in London in 1960 were: Imre Szélig, Trade Unions and Workers’ Councils and Živko TopaloviĪ, A Draft Programme for Agriculture, (1/2); Zygmunt Zaremba, Democratic Opposition in the Communist Camp and Serban Voinea, Western Socialist Thought and Eastern Europe, (3/4); Vilem Bernard, The Relevance of Democracy and Brnjno KalniƼš, DeStalinisation: Its Extent and Consequences, (5/6); J. Winnicki, Economy in the Service of Society and Zygmunt Zaremba, Power Politics and the Communist Doctrine, (7/8).

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socialism should be to “eliminate the sovereignty of the state, not only by introducing a system of parliamentary democracy in place of a one-party Communist system, but also through the democratization of economic relations”. Political democracy did not solve the problem. The fact that the worker was confronted not by a single capitalist, but by the state as the owner of the instruments of labour, indicated that workmen had before them an entrepreneur much stronger than ever. Hence, the need to strengthen the means of safeguarding the interests of workers arose. Only fully independent trade unions could cope with this task.18 This opinion fundamentally opposed that part of the Communist phraseology, which concerned the worker-business owner and thus the disappearance of the separate interests of hired labourers. The bureaucrat managing the state means of production was no less foreign to the interests of the worker than the director of a capitalist enterprise. The experience of years of Communist dictatorship had set the truth before the eyes of anyone who wanted to see it. What is more, Szélig’s study emphasized two other important matters; one was the issue of entrusting social insurance to an independent institution, run by state representatives and by freely chosen representatives of the trade unions, whereas the other was the problem of economic democracy. In formulating their aim of attaining a new organization of society, socialists pushed the idea of the socialization of the means of production to the forefront. However, the concept of socialization had not been formulated clearly enough. The daily tasks of the workers’ movement aimed at improving the material and moral conditions of life for the workers let the matter retreat into the background, from which only a social revolution would retrieve it. The Russian Revolution wiped out private ownership of the means of production through a number of decrees. But perhaps precisely because of the lack of a clear vision of what socialization would be, as well as the lack of awareness on the part of the working classes, it led only to a general nationalization of the means of production, the theoretical assumption being that the state under the dictatorial power of the party would be a good patron, catering to the interests of the workers it employed in its companies. In fact, a period of “socialist accumulation” began, carried out by means no more drastic than “the first accumulation of capital” described by Karl Marx. And the time had come, said Szélig, when socialists—considering the general nationalization of the means of production which was part of the Bolshevik experiment and the partial nationalization carried out in capitalist countries—should ask themselves: 18

Imre Szélig, Trade unions and workers’ councils, (London: SUCEE, 1960), 3.

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was nationalization synonymous with socialization? Experience suggested a negative answer to this question. Neither does nationalization do away with labour trafficking, nor does it give the public a real influence on the economy. In the relationship between capital and labour, nationalization only enhances the advantage of the former over the latter, and when combined with a system of dictatorship, even blurs the boundary between paid employment and slavery. Imre Szélig considered this matter from two points of view: political— the omnipotence of the state, and social—ensuring that the workers and the general public have a real influence on companies. Szélig stated that even the attainment of full independence by the trade unions did not necessarily mean reducing the omnipotence of the state, especially the state as an employer. An effective tool in this respect could have been the workers’ councils. Szélig believed that the crux of the matter laid in who owned the means of production. In the so-called people’s republics, even after their return to genuine democracy, the state would remain the owner of these means. But even in these circumstances, individual citizens experienced ownership remotely and indirectly so they had no awareness of their participation in shared ownership. Szélig ascertained that putting the right of ownership in the hands of workers’ councils could satisfy the employees of a particular workplace, but that it would also mean that the means of production had been seized by a group of people, with the rest of society having no control over their country’s economy. Justice required that the entire society be involved in the social ownership of the means of production. It was the way that Szélig reached the definition of the socialization of the means of production. He suggests replacing workers’ councils with “operating councils”, the latter to be organized according to two variants: the councils would either consist of the representatives of the workers’ council joined by the representatives of the parliament or selfgovernment (in the case of a business owned by the self-government), or else society in general would select some of the members of these councils. The former solution would be better suited for implementation during a period of transition, whilst the latter had to be the final goal. Furthermore, the operating council had to be a completely independent body, endowed with full authority and full responsibility for running the company.19 Clearly, the idea of organizing the industrial life of a country as an alternative not only to the Communist model but also to the liberal capitalist model, presupposed a wide social participation. Szélig’s 19

Ibid.

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arguments formed the basis for developing the final version of the “Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe.”20 The conference of the Socialist Union of Central Eastern Europe took place in Rome on 20 and 21 October 1961, and adopted the “Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe”. The document was a result of an extensive discussion among the representatives of various central and eastern European countries gathered in SUCEE. In response to the challenges of the time, in the form of a declaration— the “Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe”, the socialists created a programme of struggle against the Communist regime in central and eastern Europe, containing objectives and principles. The members of SUCEE listed their goals: a) To keep socialist thought alive in central and eastern Europe and to stimulate discussion; b) To restore the ideals of true socialism, cleansed of the distortions to which the Communist regimes, appropriating the language of socialism for propaganda purposes, had subjected it. The Communists had warped the meaning of many socialist concepts—such as “socialist democracy” and “the people’s government”; c) To facilitate the evaluation of economic and social changes in central and eastern Europe in the light of socialist principles; d) To maintain the ideological ties between central, eastern and western European socialists; e) To support the principles adopted by the Socialist International, with which SUCEE was affiliated. The “Socialist Alternative” was also a kind of compromise between the positions occupied by the parties forming SUCEE. One of the document’s most glaring features was the omission of Marxism as the basis of socialist doctrine—a reflection of western tendencies. Marxism’s most ardent supporter within SUCEE was the Polish Socialist Party. The document consisted of eleven paragraphs. The first—“Socialism and Freedom”—began with the statement that: The Communist economic and social system was imposed on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe against the will of their peoples.21 20 Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe, statement adopted by the Conference of the Socialist Union of Central Eastern Europe, Rome 20-21 October 1961, The Polish Library, Polski OĞrodek Spoáeczno-Kulturalny (POSK) in London (unorganized collection). 21 Ibid., 4.

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National independence had been abolished, and some of the previously independent states had been forcibly incorporated into the USSR. The Communist system denied individual rights and political freedoms. It was characterized by the rule of party oligarchy controlled by the politburo. The Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe calls for national independence, the self-determination of peoples and democracy in the fullest sense—comprising the republican forms of government, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, a free exchange of ideas and criticism, the freedom of association and assembly, effective safeguards against police terror, and, above all, a free parliament elected in free elections and able to submit all government activities to constant scrutiny; democracy to eliminate the state-capitalist features of the present social system which prevent an evolution towards true socialism; free political parties to support a variety of programmes and policies; the transformation of political parties into a variety of programmes and of people holding the same views; safeguards to protect democracy against the danger of totalitarianism and against any of the political parties usurping power in order to direct the whole life of the nation; the freedom of learning and teaching, opportunities for education at all levels without discrimination on the grounds of religion, political views, or social status; free creative activity of writers, artists and scientists without condition or restriction, and without being subjected to direction by the State or a political party; religious freedom ensured by the separation of the state and the churches, without state intervention in the affairs of the churches and vice versa. Freedom to express and to spread information and ideas must be secured without discrimination and by protecting the means of information–the press, printing houses, publishing houses, radio and television–against abuse by those who control them. Access to the means of information must be secured in the spirit of free discussion and tolerance, so as to make possible the presentation of varying ideas, including criticism of the government.22

This rather long quotation contains the gist of the social democratic system, its essence previously expressed in one of the fundamental documents of social democracy, The Aims and Tasks of Democratic Socialism—a declaration of the Socialist International adopted at its First Congress in Frankfurt on 30 June–3 July 1951.23 It was in this way that the

22

Ibid. “Aims and Tasks of Democratic Socialism” a declaration of the Socialist International adopted at its First Congress in Frankfurt on 30 June–3 July 1951, (accessed 21 July 2012). 23

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socialists from behind the Iron Curtain stressed their ideological identity with the social democratic doctrine. The second paragraph, “Planning for the People”, referred to the principle of planning, which was fundamental to the Communist system. The socialists did not reject the principle, but emphasized that the economic planning system should ensure a balanced development of all sectors of the economy. The accumulation of capital could not lead to the exploitation of the working masses—they preached—and accumulated national savings should be used to meet essential social needs, such as housing, transport networks and public services. The third—“Democratic Control”—emphasized the importance of democratic control, particularly in such areas as economic planning and the division of national income. The authorized bodies would be the parliament and the representatives of various economic sectors and local government bodies. The fourth was entitled: “Public Ownership”. According to the socialists, the root of all evil in the prevailing system of state capitalism was not public ownership, but its utter disfigurement under Communist oligarchic rule. The means of production should, therefore, be fully socialized and pre-war capitalism not to be returned to: “A return to a capitalist economy is neither possible nor desirable”.24 The fifth, “Market Economy”, said that the economic planning was supposed to be limited to determining the basic directions of development. The government should perform the function of regulator and controller of the nation’s economic development. However, it should not perform this function with the aid of administrative rules and directives, but by the means of economic measures, and primarily through rational investment, fiscal and credit policies. The sixth part—“The Function of Co-operatives”—proposed that the producer and consumer co-operatives had to be independent of the government and based on the principles of democratic control. The consumer co-operatives were to become principal agents in the distribution of goods. Only direct action and control exercised by democratically organized consumers could have ensured the efficient functioning of the national income distribution system. “The Land to the Farmers” opened the seventh section, which called for the land to belong to the farmers who tilled it. State farms would be preserved only in so far as they were indispensable to specialized branches of agriculture as well as to scientific research. All mandatory deliveries 24

Socialist Alternative for Eastern Europe, 6.

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were to be abolished, and farmers had to be able to freely buy and sell their products. Eighth: “Trade Unions Protecting the Wage-Earner”. Wages had to be established through agreements between trade unions and employers both in public and private companies. Trade unions had to be transformed into voluntary associations of employees, independently of the government and of political parties, and their main task should be to constantly strive to improve the working and living conditions of their members. The right to strike must be guaranteed. Any form of forced labour had to be rejected. To effectively perform their task—that is to fight for fair wages and proper working conditions—trade unions had to be able to influence the economic policy. They should not have been linked organizationally with the workers’ councils, whose function in factories and companies was that of the workers’ self-government. Neither could they identify with the company management. Ninth: “Industrial Democracy”. To take the first steps from state ownership towards socialization, the workers’ council—freely elected by all wage earners—had to become the organ of the full workers’ selfgovernment in all businesses. Workers had to be given a share in the profits of the companies for which they worked. Special boards should be set up in place of the bureaucratic management in every branch of industry. Representatives of trade unions, technical staff, representatives of the government, the self-government, consumers, co-operatives, and the private sector would form these boards. Tenth: “The Prospects”. The members of SUCEE emphasized that the centre of the struggle for freedom was in Central and Eastern European countries. Thus, the parties associated in the Union might only perform a secondary, but important, role: to uphold the Socialist Alternative as a challenge to the Communist doctrine and the Communist regimes as long as the free activity of the socialist movement was banned in the police states of Eastern Europe; to spread understanding of the trends behind the Iron Curtain; and to seek moral and political support for the cause of the freedom of the nations subjugated to the Communist totalitarian rule. Eleven: “International Co-operation”. SUCEE welcomed the progress towards integration with the free part of Europe. The great idea of a United States of Europe strongly appealed to the nations of eastern Europe, who had been forcibly separated from the west. A new empire had been created in eastern Europe in which nominally independent states were degraded to the status of colonies, exploited in every way for the benefit of the USSR. The Socialist Union of Central Eastern Europe believed that, on regaining

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their freedom, the countries of eastern Europe would establish the closest of links with the common European institutions. At the same time, close co-operation between Eastern European countries and the USSR should be preserved, freed from all elements of colonial domination and based on equality and non-interference in internal affairs.25

The “Socialist Alternative” was SUCEE’s most important joint document. It constituted a coherent doctrine of democratic socialism adapted to the unique conditions in central and eastern Europe. Socialists rejected both Communism and capitalism, comparing the Communist system to state capitalism. Accepting public ownership and elements of economic planning, they stressed socialization and the subjectivity of the individual. After the collapse of Communism in 1989, the role of the socialists in exile came to an end. The Socialist International was now composed of central and eastern European social democratic parties, mostly the heirs of former Communist parties—a development which could be seen as a historical irony. These countries rejected the social democratic model and neoliberalism that was becoming popular in Europe. Nevertheless, after more than twenty years since the fall of Communism, when Europe is in crisis, what remains valid is the question of an appropriate political model for Europe—one that would reconcile tough market rules with social conscience, and one, which dominated the “Socialist Alternative”.

25

Ibid., 9.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE COOPERATION OF PEASANT PARTIES FROM CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE IN EXILE AFTER 1945 ARKADIUSZ INDRASZCZYK

After the Second World War, through physical, administrative and psychological terror, the surveillance of parties and social organizations, and thanks to the use of electoral fraud, the communists subjugated the countries in east and central Europe. As the peasant parties in the region opposed the Soviet ascent to power, many of the prominent agrarian politicians were targeted as enemies and some paid for their convictions with their lives, among them Nikola Petkov in Bulgaria, Iuliu Maniu in Romania, Bolesáaw ĝcibiorek and Wáadysáaw Kojder in Poland, and Jan Masaryk in Czechoslovakia. For the defeated, it remained to accept the new rules and be subdued before the communists, or, threatened with arrest and show-trials ending in sentences of death or long periods of imprisonment, attempt a flight to the west.1 In exile, politicians and peasant activists set about reconstructing the peasant parties and conducting further activity for independence. Present in the United States by 1947 were Georgi M. Dimitrov from the Bulgarian National Agrarian Union (BNAU), Vladko Maþek, the pre-war leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (CPP), Milan Gavriloviü, the chairman of the Yugoslav-Serbian Agrarian Union (YSAU) and Ferenc Nagy, the former Prime Minister of Hungary and chairman of the Hungarian Peasant 1

Deklaracja MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej w sprawie przeĞladowaĔ dziaáaczy opozycyjnych przez reĪimy komunistyczne w krajach Europy ĝrodkowej, 19 January 1948, Washington, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ nad dziaáalnoĞcią MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, vol. 1, MiĊdzynarodowa Unia Cháopska 1947– 1956, BoĪena Kącka-Rutkowska and Stanisáaw StĊpka, eds. (Warszawa: Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 2007), 23–25.

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Association (HPA). It was then that Dimitrov presented the idea of reestablishing the Green International,2 which was accepted. On 4 July 1947—American Independence Day—the four peasant leaders informed the public of their goals and appealed to other peasant parties to join the activity aimed at restoring independence to the states behind the Iron Curtain, consolidating democracy there and building social and economic systems taking into consideration the agricultural nature of these states and the peasantry as the hosts of the states. The creation of the democratic International Peasant Union (IPU) was announced, along with the aspiration of forming a United States of Europe.3 The four peasant leaders established the Central Committee, the tasks of which were organizing the IPU and enlisting further peasant parties, propagating the idea and goals of the IPU, informing the public of the actual situation in the states subject to the USSR and demanding that action be taken aimed at restoring sovereign and independent status to these states. In January 1948, the Polish Peasant Party (PPP) and Romanian National Peasant Party (RNPP) entered the Central Committee, which, as was recognized, concluded “successfully the organizational phase of the efforts undertaken by the European peasant parties”.4 The IPU formation process ended definitively at the first Congress of the IPU, which took place in Washington on 24–27 May 1948.5

2

The Green International was the name given in the interwar period to the International Agrarian Bureau, which operated in Prague in the years 1921–39. For more on this see Arkadiusz Indraszczyk, Zielona MiĊdzynarodówka. Wspóápraca partii cháopskich z paĔstw Europy ĝrodkowej i Wschodniej (Warszawa: Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 2008), 47–92. As early as 1945, Dimitrov, then still in Rome following the escape from Bulgaria, put forward the idea of reestablishing the Bureau. He contacted Prof. Stanisáaw Kot, an ambassador of the Republic of Poland, who made a special journey to Warsaw to present Dimitrov's proposals to Mikoáajczyk, but political conditions in Poland and the excessive surveillance of the president of the PPP meant that a full and free discussion on the subject did not occur. Tadeusz P. Rutkowski, Stanisáaw Kot 1885–1975. Biografia polityczna (Warszawa: DiG, 2000), 388; Roman Buczek, Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk, vol. II, (Toronto: Century Publ. Co., 1996), 253. 3 “Deklaracja na dzieĔ niepodlegáoĞci” in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 19– 21. 4 Deklaracja Cháopska, Jutro Polski 2, 31 January 1948. 5 “Sprawozdanie z przebiegu I Kongresu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Washington, 24–27 May 1948, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ..., vol. 1, 27–29.

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The Organizational Structure of the IPU Central Bodies The highest authority of the Union was the Congress, which passed the statute, doctrine and programme of activities, accepted new members and conducted elections to the bodies. It was composed of delegates of the member organizations (the peasant parties), with each delegation having a single vote. The statute did not precisely define all forms of voting and means by which decisions were taken by the Congress, but on the basis of those to be found in the statute relating to membership matters, it may be supposed that the Congress took a decision with a majority of two thirds of the votes.6 The next body in the IPU hierarchy was the Central Committee (CC), within which a representative of each affiliated organization had a seat, with the leaders of the peasant parties chosen for this. It was composed of the president, vice presidents and secretary general of the Union. Each of the members had a deputy, who was to take on the duties in the event that obligations could not be met or a meeting attended. In exceptional circumstances, the Committee could undertake tasks reserved to the Congress, on the stipulation that decisions taken were presented for the approval of the Congress at the next session. The Committee could appoint and maintain bodies for “international relations” and was authorized to “undertake those efforts which it considers necessary to increase the international cooperation of all democratic forces opposing the international objectives of communism.” In addition, Art. 30 of the statute stated that “any matter relating to the activity of the Union not provided for by the statute lies entirely within the competence of the Central Committee”. A further body was the Executive Committee (EC), defined as the executive authority of the Union. It was composed of a president, four vice presidents and a secretary general chosen by the Congress. Oddly, the statute did not define for it any tasks and competences, the exception being the ability of the EC to appoint, at the application of the secretary general, clerks for the Union offices. Taking into consideration the prerogatives of the Central Committee and comparing its composition with that of the Executive Committee, the latter appeared to be more a Presidium of the CC. 6

Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego (The Museum of the Polish Peasant Movement, MHPRL), MHPRL 10510, Statut MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Waszyngton, 24–27 May 1948.

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Additional bodies were the Permanent Commissions of the Union, these being the Review Commission, Executive Commission, Commission for Internal Affairs, Commission for International Affairs, Commission for Aid and Welfare for Political Refugees, and Publishing Commission, and from 1952 also the Commission for Youth Affairs and Commission for Women’s Affairs.7 The IPU statute distinguished two one-man bodies, those of the president and secretary-general, chosen by the Congress. The tasks of the president included calling and chairing meetings of the Central Committee and Executive Committee, managing the general affairs of the Union and representing the Union in relations with other organizations and the governments of democratic states, as well as with public institutions of an international nature. In special and pressing circumstances, the president could take decisions alone, with the approval of the members of the CC present. Such decisions, however, were to be presented for approval at the next CC session. In its history the IPU had three presidents: Ferenc Nagy (1947–48 and 1964–77), Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk (1948–64, and 1964–66 as honorary president) and Stanisáaw BaĔczyk (1979–88). Among the competences of the IPU secretary general were running the office and administering the Union, assisting the president of the Union, and signing, beside the president, official Union documents. The secretarygeneral was, in turn, to have secretaries for assistance, one assigned by each affiliate organization.8 For almost the entire period for which the IPU existed, the secretary-general was its initiator, Georgi M. Dimitrov (in the years 1947–72). From 1979 this function was assumed by Iskar Szumanov.

IPU Members Only a democratic peasant party which was in favour of a system based on parliamentary democracy could be a member of the Union. Also adopted were the principles that, first, the IPU is an organization solely associating peasant parties from states behind the Iron Curtain being “under communist occupation”, and, second, that each nation could be represented by only a single organization (political party). In the event that two organizations representing the same nation attempted to gain admission to the Union, the Congress was to decide, with a majority of 7

“The Third Congress,” The Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, 5 March 1952, 6. 8 Statut MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Waszyngton 24–27 V 1948, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 10510.

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two thirds of the votes, which would be admitted. It should be underlined that this principle related to representation of nation, not state. The influx of parties to the IPU lasted several years, from 1947 to the early 1950s, when almost all of the agrarian parties operating in exile from states behind the Iron Curtain had entered. These were the Albanian Democratic Agrarian Party (ADAP), the Bulgarian National Agrarian Union (BNAU), the Croatian Peasant Party (CPP), the Czechoslovak Republican Agrarian Party (CRAP), the Estonian United Peasants and Smallholders Party (also known as the United Farmers and Smallholders Party of Estonia, EUPSP), the Yugoslav-Serbian Agrarian Union (YSAU), the Populist Peasant Union of Lithuania (PPUL), the New Farmers and Smallholders Party of Latvia (NFSPL), the Polish Peasant Party (PPP), the Romanian National Peasant Party (RNPP), the Slovakian Democratic Agrarian Party (SDAP), and the Hungarian Peasant Association (HPA).9 From the mid-1950s to the beginning of the 1960s, the Slovenian Peasant Union was also part of the IPU. In addition, the Ukrainian Peasant Party proposed accession to the IPU, but appeared as a member only in the mid-1960s.10 (Names of parties are given according to the nomenclature used by the IPU).

IPU Territorial Structures Local Union structures appeared where the most dynamic activists of IPU member parties operated. The headquarters was situated in two offices in the USA. The president of the IPU was based in Washington, with the administrative headquarters in New York. The staffing of the offices was not large, with several secretaries and typists working at the two, along with the editorial staff of the Union organ. The office in New York was run by an office head whose duties covered arrangements with the Free Europe Committee (FEC), as an institution coordinating and financing the activity of such organizations as the IPU, and matters linked with the activity of the Union and its individual members, and with office administration and staff. One long-standing office head was Bela Bokor, a Hungarian.11 9 “The Third Congress,” The Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, 5 March 1952, 6. 10 “Member parties of the IPU,” The Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, 1 January–30 June 1966, 2. 11 Tadeusz Nowak Cieplak, W cieniu historii. Wspomnienia, Olsztyn 2003, 167– 174. Initially, the IPU had at its disposal only a single office in Washington. However, when the Free Europe Committee requested that the Union move to New

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The Regional Representations were local structures formed at the beginning of the 1950s, composed of a Regional Council and Regional Executive Office. Councils were tasked with analysing the situations in countries behind the Iron Curtain and the press in both Council states and, as far as possible, countries subject to the USSR, as well as cooperating with organizations in exile, recommending work to the Central Committee, coordinating Union activities on a given territory, and conducting activity related to propaganda and information in accordance with the Union programme. The Offices fulfilled the role of administrative centres, secretariats and liaisons between headquarters and region, and between the Union and the external environment.12 They were located in: London (directed by Franciszek Wilk, PPP); Bonn (since 1958, Vilem Svoboda, CRAP); Munich (Josef Nemecek, CRAP, also Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, PPP); Paris (Tsenko Barev, BNAU); Rome (Halil Meniku, ADAP), Stockholm (Johannes Sikkar, EUPSP) and in Switzerland without the office seat. Over a short period of time (the years 1951–1953), there was also a representation in Canada.13 In later years, it was hoped that more offices would open in Europe (Turkey, Benelux), Asia and Australia;14 this did not happen, however. In 1958, a branch of the IPU opened in Chicago; the Midwest was its area of activity. The President from 1958 to 1966 was Borislav Trifkoviü

York, the IPU responded negatively. Following long discussions, it was established that a single office would remain in Washington for the operations of the president and Central Committee, and in New York a second office would be formed with the administrative headquarters. Cf. Indraszczyk, Zielona MiĊdzynarodówka…, 127–128. 12 Zasady regulujące funkcjonowanie przedstawicielstw MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Waszyngton, 10 July 1950, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ..., vol. 1, 91–94; Rules and Regulations for the Representations of the Interantional Peasant Union, Washington, 10 July, 1950, Archiwum Akt Nowych (Central Archives of Modern Records, AAN), Stanislaw Mikoáajczyk Papers 1899–1966 (SMP), International Peasant Union (IPU), mf. HI/VI/139, file 64. 13 They were created by: Dr. V. Dostal (CRAP), Dr. Brkovic (Y-SAU), Dr. O. Loevi (EUPSP), B. Wyganowski (PPP), Dr. J. Smerek (SDAP). Report about the activities of the IPU in February 1951, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, file 97. 14 AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, IPU, The Representations of the International Peasant Union, file 88; “Report of the Secretary General of the International Peasant Union,” IPU, Fourth Congress, October 1–3 1954, (New York: IPU, 1954), 22–23; Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk to Vilem Svoboda, Letter [on the opening of offices in Bonn], Washington, 20 February 1958, MHPRL.

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and from April 1966, Secretary Bolesáaw Krakowski, was the President of the Branch.15 The IPU also delegated individuals for political representation in Europe. In 1955, for example, these were Prof. Stanisáaw Kot, representative in France and Strasbourg (the European Parliament and Paneuropean Movement) and in the Benelux countries, Dr. Augustyn Juretic, in Sweden, Turkey and Greece, Franciszek Wilk, in Great Britain, and Josef Nemecek, in Germany and Austria.16 In the 1950s, the IPU also maintained permanent points of correspondence: in Europe (Athens, Bonn, Geneva, Constantinople (Istanbul) and Strasbourg), in Asia (Beirut, Hong Kong, Karachi and New Delhi), and in South America (Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela).17 This was actually the only permanent contact with activists of individual member parties scattered around the world, their task being the provision of information to headquarters on events in individual areas of the world and promotion of the ideology, goals and activities of the IPU. Permanent cooperation did not last long, ending in the second half of the 1950s, although in certain places it did last longer (Greece, Germany, Switzerland and India).

Financing According to the statute, the IPU was to be financed by a joint fund of payments from affiliated organizations and the donations and subventions of other organizations and private persons.18 It is difficult to state unequivocally what portion of the Union budget could have been formed of its own resources and donations, although it may be supposed, taking into consideration the constant lack of financial resources of the peasant parties, that this was rather small. The financial basis for the IPU was provided by subventions from the Free Europe Committee, as well as the United States Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency, which was a cause for derision of the IPU by its political opponents. As a result, Union politicians attempted to deny the rumours of money from the CIA, while at the same time pointing to academic work (lectures, articles etc.) 15

“Powstanie Oddziaáu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii w Chicago,” Orka 1-2, 1959; “Zebranie Oddziaáu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Orka 5-6, May–June 1966, 40. 16 IPU Officers–1955, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, 197. 17 The International Peasant Union Monthly Bulletin 4 (1953). 18 Statut MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Washington, 24–27 May 1948, MHPRL, sygn. MHPRL 10510.

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as a means of acquiring funds.19 However, this could only be an auxiliary activity, supporting those funds. As was the case with many other organizations in exile, the IPU made use of subventions of the United States Department of State.20

The Doctrine, Programme and Methodology for Action Doctrinal Assumptions The doctrine of the IPU was based on the ideology of agrarianism. It was thought that “the human being and the individual nature of his personality are the highest values of the social order: the spiritual, intellectual and material needs of the human being are the highest goal”. They regarded “freedom” as not only a need, but also the most important value. The social order and state organization are but a means to provide the human being–the individual–with freedom and all of his needs. For this reason, the possibility of restrictions being imposed on the individual is permitted, although they must guarantee a harmonious human existence in keeping with principles of equality. Society should be based on social justice, taking into account the equality of citizens before the law, guaranteeing an equal start to all regardless of their material and social status, with this to be provided above all by free education available to all citizens at all levels. Similarly, each citizen was to be covered by a free health service and social welfare. In the idea of social justice, the peasant activists also saw responsibility for just distribution of goods between employers and employees, expressed in a just remuneration for work performed, allowing the individual to earn a dignified living. In this thinking, the state was to be a parliamentary democracy of very broadly extended local government, to be built on a two-stage administrative structure—district and province—within which local authorities were to determine and manage a majority of the public activity. The programme for the state economy was created by the IPU on the basis of the economic and demographic conditions of central and eastern Europe of the first half of the twentieth century. Their proposal— agrarianism—was a synthesis of socialism and capitalism, a so-called third 19

“Archiwum polityczne. Wywiad z Dimitrowem,” Kultura (Paris) 2 (1949). Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk received a subvention for political activity of $50,000 from the Department of State immediately following the election for the IPU president. Andrzej Friszke, ĩycie polityczne emigracji, Druga wielka emigracja 1945–1990, vol. I, (Warszawa: Biblioteka WiĊzi, 1999), 100. 20

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path of development. A social market economy was called for, based on private ownership, but with great significance given to state interventionism. Under the control of the state were to be placed natural goods (forests, waters, minerals and ores) and strategic industry. Very great significance was attached to the development of every type of cooperative movement, which were to constitute the organizational basis of the national economy, the agrarians’ response to the large concerns of capitalism and communist collectivization. International relations, according to the Union, should be based on the assumptions of the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations. Emphasis was placed on the right to the self-determination of nations, along with a need for the integration of European and world states. Proposed in this regard was the formation of regional federations, e.g. a Central European federation, which only later, following the alignment of developmental levels, would combine to form a larger, e.g. a single continental European federation.21 The idea of integration in the political thought of the IPU was derived from historical experience and the political goals of the Union. It was argued that the states of Central and Eastern Europe had no chance of survival when divided, as demonstrated by the aggression of the Third Reich and the descent into dependence on the USSR after the war. This trend was a continuation of the integrationist thinking of the peasants in the years 1919–45, represented, among others, by Milan Hodža and the International Agrarian Bureau, and Jerzy Kuncewicz.

Programme of Action The realization of the doctrinal assumptions was conditional on the states subject to the USSR regaining their independence and the peasant parties taking power there. The IPU programme of activity was subordinated to these goals: a) bringing about the “restoration of independent status to the nations of Central and Eastern Europe”; b) acting for and according to the principles of independence and freedom of the nation and individual; c) introducing and consolidating democratic systems in countries liberated from the yoke of communism; d) preparing and introducing the people's state systems to free homelands, based in

21

“Program uchwalony na I Kongresie MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Washington, 27 May 1948, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 41–52. Analysis of the doctrine: Indraszczyk, Zielona MiĊdzynarodówka, 131–136.

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large part on the system of agrarianism; and e) building foundations for a future European federation through international cooperation in exile.22 This programme divided tasks into those which the Union was to perform in exile, and those to be introduced immediately after the Central European states regained independence. The overriding purpose of Union activity was thus the struggle for the freedom of the nations and independence of the states subject to the USSR, including those states incorporated into the Soviet Union as republics (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia). Armed struggle with the Soviet empire was rejected as a method, for this could be conducted solely with the support of western states. Spontaneous national uprisings against the USSR had no chance of success. War with the USSR, however, even if it were possible, would have led to enormous loss of human life, as well as economic loss, in the states subject to the USSR. The Union did not want this. Rejection of the option of armed confrontation led to the adoption of a path by which freedom would be regained gradually, by exposing the “malevolent” actions of the communists, sustaining a spirit of resistance in the nations and supporting their anti-communist attitudes, and demanding that action, political and economic, be taken by “the free world,” aimed at the rejection of communism and its expulsion from Europe. The emphasis on working for democracy on the basis of democratic principles was designed to show for public opinion that the IPU was a democratic organization, basing its activity and ideas on the Atlantic Charter and Charter of the United Nations Organization, and aspiring to restore democracy in the Central European states.

Methods of Operation The methods of operation developed by the IPU circumstances were determined by what functioned in exile. Hence, the range of methods of operation used by the Union was as follows: 22

Cf. “Deklaracja MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej w sprawie przeĞladowaĔ dziaáaczy opozycyjnych przez reĪymy komunistyczne w krajach Europy ĝrodkowej,” Jutro Polski 2, 31 January 1948; Przemówienie Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka, prezesa MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, wygáoszone na III Kongresie MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej w Waszyngtonie 26–28 April 1952, MHPRL, fond MHPRL-AN 1777, 1; International Peasant Union Working program Year 1955–1956, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, 235–241; Outline of IPU activities for the year 1956/57, Ibid., 302; Working Program of the International Peasant Union 1958/1959, Ibid., 522; “Congress resolutions,” The Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, January–May 1969, 10.

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In terms of internal consolidation and inter-party cooperation: organizing their own congresses, conferences, participation in conferences and congresses of the members party; activities’ coordination and information centres in the U.S., and regional representations in western Europe. In terms of the objectives of the IPU, except for the above: a) Representation at international forums such as the United Nations, the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), Free Europe Committee (FEC), the Committee of Central and Eastern Europe (CCEE), Radio Free Europe (RFE), the European Congress (Congress Pan–European Movement, CPEM), Refugee Labor Committee in New York (RLC), Congresses of the international Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe (CDUCE), the conferences on Central and Eastern Europe, the International Congress of Catholic Rural Life (CCRL), Congress of the European Federation of Agriculture (CEFA), and others; b) Resolutions published in the media (including, among others, RFE and the BBC, and their own, and foreign, newspapers); c) Publishing—publishing their own journals and popular scientific works; d) Meetings with politicians at all levels, from heads of state to local politicians; e) Union politicians’ (president, vice president, secretary general, etc.) trips to different countries, during which they shared information about the situation in the countries behind the Iron Curtain e.g. trips to European countries, Japan, India, South Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan. Politicians and activists of the Union were also invited, as agricultural experts for the People’s Democracies; f) Participation in conferences, scientific sessions, organized by various actors: political parties, social organizations, scientific institutions, such as the Polish American Congress, the French Congress of the Independent Peasant Party, conventions, conferences and congresses of the Labour Party, the Polish Socialist Party, the Polish National Committee of the Democratic Peasant Party of India, Federation of Farmers in the Philippines.23 23

The methods of operation established on the basis of available documentation and archives of the IPU and individual member parties: Outline of IPU activities for the year 1956/1957, Project by St. Mikolajczyk, New York, 28 June 1956, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, 214–218; Ibid., Outline of activities, 242–243; International Peasant Union, Dr W. Soroka, Kilka uwag do programu MUCh na

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The Activity of the IPU The International Peasant Union existed for almost the whole of the Cold War. It conducted its activity with varying intensity, the greatest being in the period to the middle of the 1950s, possibly the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s. In this time, the Union made use of the financial support of the United States (including the Central Intelligence Agency), its activity becoming part of the American strategy, at the time, of rivalry with communism. Following a change in this strategy, the Americans drastically cut subventions for émigré organizations, including the IPU, which translated into reduced activity. The international travel of Union politicians and the publishing work, which was slight, were affected most of all, while the budget cuts also led to a reduction in the number of staff at the central and local offices, exerting a negative influence on dynamism of operation. A certain revival in level of activity occurred at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. This was linked on the one hand with events in the Eastern Bloc—the Prague Spring and Polish March of 1968 and the Polish Coast of 1970—which electrified the émigré community anew, the issues of the subjugated nations becoming again, briefly, more popular (today we might use the word “mediagenic”), but also with the development of the process of dialogue, détente, between east and west.24 The Union opposed the possibility of an agreement without the communists having withdrawn from central and eastern Europe. For this reason it also opposed the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, in which it saw a threat to the central European nations, since the outcome was to be the approval of the political status quo in Europe. Soon, however, as early as the first half of the 1970s, there occurred another lapse in the activity of the Union. This was linked, beyond the constant scarcity of financial resources, with the passing of Union leaders. najbliĪsze lata, AAN SMP, mf. HI/VI/140, fold. 2; The International Peasant Union File, resolutions, reports, unorganized collection, in Archiwum Zakáadu Historii Ruchu Ludowego (Archives of the Department of the History of the Peasant Movement, AZHRL), MHPRL, archival provenance PPP in exile; “IPU accomplishments. Report of the Secretary General, Dr. G. M. Dymitrov, to the Ninth Congress,” The Bulletin of the International Peasant Union (January–May 1969): 6. 24 The revival in activity was no doubt also influenced by the general global sociopolitical situation. The waves of activity of grassroots movements fighting for civil rights, democracy or, in the student revolts, a new model for the system or for life itself, must have had a stimulating effect on the émigré freedom fighters.

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The period from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s saw the deaths of all of the leaders of the member parties (Maþek in 1964, Bokor in 1964, Mikoáajczyk in 1966, Lettrich in 1968, Dimitrov in 1972, R. B. Soumar in 1975, Gavriloviü in 1976 and Nagy in 1979). Missed above all was the Union originator and organizer, Dimitrov, while the health of the Union president, Nagy, deteriorated greatly. Biological determination touched all party members, and by the late 1960s the problem was increasingly evident. The Party ranks held aged activists who had begun their political activity in exile in the 1940s. The young were few. The Union was growing old. The chief activists had seen about 30 years of difficult, thankless work, largely incomprehensible to onlookers. They themselves were partly responsible for the state of affairs, having in general been unable to pass their struggle on to their children. The hope that success could be realized came to an end. The free world was developing relations with the communist east. The lack of assistance from the West for those fighting in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 implied that the ideas of the exiles were of significance to them alone. Nevertheless, these old activists did not give up. At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, they once again attempted to revive the activity of the IPU. This ended, however, in only rare contact between member parties, without even the organization of a Union congress. It is difficult to determine unequivocally the date at which the activity of the Union ceased. After 1981, there was almost none. But IPU representatives continued to participate in, for example, congresses of the Confederation of European Agriculture, and in 1988 a greater exchange of correspondence took place with regard to the organization of a congress. It may be said that the activity of the Union ended with the process of political transformation in central and eastern Europe, with a majority of émigré politicians recognizing from the mid-1980s that the sole effective method by which freedom could be regained was the internal struggle of the nation with communism. There is not space within this article to discuss the activity of the IPU in detail. Below therefore, certain areas of action undertaken will be characterized briefly.

Congresses Most important for the activity of the IPU from a legal and organizational perspective were its congresses. The first occurred in 1948 (Washington), the second 1950 (Washington), the third 1952 (Washington), the fourth 1954 (New York), the fifth 1956 (Paris), the sixth

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1959 (Washington), the seventh 1961 (Washington), the eighth 1964 (Washington) and the ninth 1969 (New York). Whether or not a tenth occurred is unknown. It was planned as early as 1979, with the final date mentioned in the correspondence of the peasant activists being 30 September 1989.25 Most likely, however, it never took place. Discussed and debated at each congress were matters both organizational and linked with the substantive goals of IPU activity. Fixed elements of the reports and resolutions in which the constitutive goals and characteristics of Union activity were confirmed at each congress were condemnation of communism, declaration of the struggle for the liberation of the states behind the Iron Curtain, emphasis of the heroic conduct of the nations fighting communism, the demand that the USSR withdraw from the states which it occupied, a constant democratic cooperation between states and organizations, and the promotion and preparation of a Central European federation (or several federations in the region). Beyond these constant positions, a position was taken at each Congress on the current political situation, both in the states of central and eastern Europe and around the world. The IPU expressed its view in this respect in the form of resolutions.26 25 Józef Rzemieniewski to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Brussels, 8 September 1989, MHPRL, file MHPRL 10886. 26 “Konferencja Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 11, 12 June 1948, 2; “Uchwaáy i rezolucje,” Ibid.; “Kongres Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 10, 28 May 1950, 1; Uchwaáy II Kongresu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, 10 May 1950, Waszyngton, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 82–91; “The Third Congress,” Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, 3 May 1952, 44–49; “Po IV Kongresie M.U.CH.,” Jutro Polski 19, 15 October 1954, 1, 4; “Piąty Kongres M.U.Ch.,” Jutro Polski 18, 18 November 1956, 2–3; Uchwaáy V Kongresu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Paris, 28–30 October 1956, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 209–215; VI Kongres MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, AZHRL, MUCh, unorganized collection; Resolution of the International Affairs Commision, Ibid.; Resolution on agrarian affairs behind the Iron Curtain, Ibid.; “Kongres MiĊdzynarodówki Cháopskiej w Waszyngtonie,” Jutro Polski 10–11, 28 June 1959, 2; “VII Kongres MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 15, 15 September 1961, 1–2; Opening speech of Stanislaw Mikolajczyk to the Eighth Congress of the IPU, Sheraton Park Hotel, Washington, D.C., 5 September 1964, AZHRL, MUCh, unorganized collection; Report by Mr. Stanisáaw Mikolajczyk to the Eighth Congress of the IPU, Sheraton Park Hotel, Washington, D.C., 5 September 1964, Ibid.; Komunikat prasowy VIII Kongresu MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Washington, 5–6 September 1964, Ibid.; “VIII Kongres MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 14-15, 11 October 1964, 1–2; Sprawozdanie z udziaáu delegacji PSL w IX Kongresie MUCh, New York, 1– 2 March 1969, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 11638/2. Congresses have been widely

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IPU Conferences Their chief task was conveying the IPU position on topical matters and promoting Union goals. In periods of intense activity, several dozen conferences large and small were organized annually, conducted by IPU headquarters or the European structures.27 Enumerating all of these presents significant difficulties, chiefly on account of deficiencies in source material, and is also unnecessary for a depiction of this type of Union activity. Below are several examples: a)

On 1 October 1949, in London, a conference was held at the premises of “Jutro Polski,” its nature being provision of information on the goals and principles of IPU activity;28 b) In 1951 members of the Office in London, together with activists of IPU member parties present in Great Britain, organized 16 conferences, 38 public meetings, 19 closed meetings, 80 meetings with members and 189 other meetings, with 20 books being sponsored and 30 articles written;29 c) On 15–16 December 1953, in New York, an IPU conference on the subject of crisis and failure in collective agriculture in the communist system saw an attempt at substantiation of the idea that this agricultural policy had no chance of economic and ideological survival; this was argued with the use of peasant discussed in Indraszczyk, Zielona MiĊdzynarodówka, 140–145; L. B. Paszkiewicz, “‘Wolni cháopi Europy’ DziaáalnoĞü MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Roczniki Dziejów Ruchu Ludowego 33 (2004), 340–349. 27 Resume of Activity Reports for April 1956, AZHRL, MUCh, International Peasant Union Regional Offices; Monthly Activity Report of the International Peasant Union, February 1962; Activity reports IPU Office in London for the years 1954–1964 (e.g. Report on the activities of the International Peasant Union Office in London during the period 26 September 1956–25 October 1956; Report on the activities of the International Peasant Union Office in Londyn during February 1964); The Secretary General’s Report on the 1971 IPU European Trip, 3 December 1971, unorganized collection and The Bulletins of the International Peasant Union 1949–1971. 28 The conference was attended by: S. Mikoáajczyk, S. Wójcik (PPP), dr. J. Krniewiü, dr. E. Jukiü, (CPP), J. Srpa, dr. W. Linhard (Czechoslovak Republican Agrarian Party, CRAP), dr. M. Gavriloviü, dr. M. Tupanjanin (Y-SAU), F. Nagy (HPA), dr. G. Dymitrov, T. Barev (BNAU), K. Popiel, dr. H. Strasburger (Polish Labour Party), “Konferencja M.U.CH.,” Jutro Polski 17, 9 October 1949, 4. 29 “The report of secretary general Dr. G. M. Dymitrov,” The Monthly Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, March–May 1952, 20–21.

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ideology, an attachment to the soil, religion, tradition and democracy;30 d) On 8–9 May 1958, in Rome, a conference—a so-called IPU forum—was devoted to issues of the position of peasants and agriculture in the countries of east and central Europe, organized in collaboration with the Italian National Confederation of Farmers (Confederazione Nazionale dei Coltivatori Diretti). Also participating, apart from Union member parties, were representatives of the Italian Workers’ Catholic Action and the Italian European Movement. Following the conference, the IPU published the pamphlet Como vivono i contadini nei regimi Comunisti, or How Peasants Live under the Communist Regime;31 e) On 8–9 October 1958, in Brussels, a conference, another IPU forum, focused on the subject of agriculture in the communist system, explaining the motives for the agrarian reforms in the USSR announced by Nikita Khrushchev and their true dimension. The conference coincided with a Congress, also in Brussels, of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (it was hoped that in this way there would be a greater chance of reaching farmers in Europe and generating media interest). Participating in the conference, beyond Union members, were representatives of the French National Institute of Scientific Research, Christian International, Farmers’ Union in Belgium, International Federation of Agricultural Producers, French Academy of Agriculture, an Italian Institute for Agricultural Reform and representatives of peasant organizations from France, Italy, Switzerland and China (Taiwan), as well as the EEC.32 A series of meetings and conferences which occurred in western Europe at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s represented a revival in Union activity, one with its origin in the events of the Prague Spring in 1968. At the ninth IPU congress in 1969, a decision was made to 30

“Forum Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 24, 31 December 1953, 4; “Forum Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 1, 17 January 1954, 1. 31 “Sprawozdanie z konferencji MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, poĞwiĊconej poáoĪeniu cháopów i rolnictwa w krajach Europy ĝrodkowo-Wschodniej,” Rome, 8–9 maja 1958 in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 2, MiĊdzynarodowa Unia Cháopska 1957–1968, BoĪena Kącka-Rutkowska and Stanisáaw StĊpka, eds., (Warszawa: MHPRL, 2011), 43–46. 32 Sprawozdanie z przebiegu Forum MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, Brussels, 8–9 October 1958, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 2, 59–63.

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intensify activity, to which end the European structures were tasked with the organization of the series. The series began with a conference in Brussels (7–8 June 1969) devoted to the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and problems of the struggle for democracy in countries behind the Iron Curtain. The agrarians condemned the behaviour of the Soviet Union and the Brezhnev Doctrine, turning attention to its assumption of the use of force by the USSR and also in future instances of destabilization of the system. The IPU announced the formation of the Common Resistance Front against communist aggression. The resolution also held the demand that space be guaranteed in the European Community for nations from central and eastern Europe, and that until such time as these nations gained freedom, they should be represented by leaders in exile.33 These were constant points in the actions and claims of the Union, articulated throughout the period of IPU activity. Further conferences came in 1970. The IPU authorities were represented by Augustin Popa, a vice president of the Union, G. M. Dimitrov, the secretary-general, and Soumar, the editor of “Bulletin” and the organizer and coordinator of every conference in cooperation with the European missions of the Union. For personal and health reasons the IPU president, Nagy, did not participate. The conferences were organized in London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rome, Strasbourg and Paris, with discussions on security in Europe and agricultural relations in central and eastern Europe.34 The next conference took place in May 1971, in Paris. It discussed the situation of agriculture and the peasantry in central Europe, the events of December 1970 in Poland, and issues of security in Europe. For in this period a series of European meetings and conferences—the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)—also commenced, on a Soviet initiative. Union politicians and activists saw in this an attempt by the communists to sanction prevailing political conditions—the division of Europe—and were thus against accepting the initiative and such a conference being held.35 In this they did not win public recognition, for 33

“Brussels conference,” The Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, June– December 1969, 4–14. 34 “IPU meetings in Europe,” The Bulletin of the International Peasant Union, 1970, 8–10; Franciszek Wilk’s letter [likely to the members of the Executive Committee of the PPP], London, 1 May 1970 MHPRL, fond MHPRL 11712. 35 The Secretary General’s Report on the 1971 IPU European Trip, 3 December 1971, AZHRL, MUCh, unorganized collection; Paszkiewicz, “’Wolni cháopi Europy,’” 350.

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their position was in opposition to the expected normalization of east-west relations in the spirit of détente. The CSCE was in session at the time of U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and the development of relations in Europe (e.g. the conclusion of agreements by the Federal Republic of Germany with the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.). Its goal was the creation of an order enabling the peaceful development of Europe. In a political sense, the CSCE unofficially performed the role of a peace conference following the Second World War, sanctioning the political changes and thus the existence of the people’s democracies. Speaking out against precisely this were activists of the IPU, against acts being signed on the strength of which the Yalta agreements would be further sustained and legalized. While not denying the need for peace in Europe, they did not believe that it would be achieved as long as the communists oppressed the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, leaving these nations unable to freely and democratically express themselves with regard to their future. In subsequent years, similar conferences and meetings became increasingly less frequent. Their number should be interpreted here, particularly data indicating the several dozen conferences and meetings occurring in the course of a year, as given in the case of those organized by London IPU structures in 1951. There were over 200 of them, larger and smaller meetings. Within this number were to be found not only those initiated by the IPU, but also those, which the Union joined, organized by member parties. In this way every opportunity, which arose to promote the programme and goals of the Union, was used, even where a majority were of a local nature, or simply compact. This state of affairs was due to the constant lack of financial resources. Politicians and activists of the IPU thus participated in various types of meetings, both academic and popular, party celebrations and national, public rallies etc., organized by the IPU, member parties, national exile communities, the communities of the states in which they lived and international organizations. The most frequent form of participation was the spoken address. For academic meetings, papers were, of course, written, as they were for international meetings and the like. In the event of an inability to take part in a meeting or conference in person, appeals and memoranda were written with information on the situation in states behind the Iron Curtain, and demands that international executive bodies take action to change this situation.36

36

Description is based on the analysis of materials from the London office files. Report on the activities of the International Peasant Union Office in London during the period 26 September–25 October 1956, and September 1956–October 1964, AZHRL, MUCh, unorganized collection.

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Appearances at International Forums The political and social resonance of the congresses and conferences was slight, dependent on the information conveyed about them in the media (émigré and “foreign”) and whether the subject of Central and Eastern Europe was fashionable at the time. It was when public demonstrations occurred behind the Iron Curtain, but the moment passed rapidly. The information and propaganda of the congresses and conferences reached members and supporters of Union member parties above all, and public opinion more weakly around the world. Addresses and resolutions at international organizations had greater power as propaganda. Leaders of the IPU sought every opportunity to speak at a UN forum, usually without effect, their applications ending at secretariats and with a friendly reception by UN officials. Nonetheless, several examples may be given of the IPU reaching the organization: a) September 1947—the first memorandum submitted to the UN, on attention being turned to living conditions in countries behind the Iron Curtain;37 b) The second memorandum submitted to the Security Council, the content as before, leading the Soviet delegate to raise objections;38 c) October 1948—a memorandum submitted during UN deliberations in Paris, describing the Sovietization of countries and providing detailed information on living conditions and the terror being applied;39 d) 2 February 1949—a protest with regard to the arrest and trial of cardinal József Mindszenty;40 e) 7 April 1949—a letter submitted by Mikoáajczyk and Dimitrov to the president of the General Assembly and UN secretary–general on the increased pace of Sovietisation in states behind the Iron Curtain and preparations for war by the USSR;41 37

“Sprawozdanie z rocznej dziaáalnoĞci MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej, przedáoĪone uczestnikom I Kongresu przez sekretarza generalnego dr. Georga M. Dimitrova,” Washington, 24 May 1948 in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 29– 33; “Archiwum polityczne,” Kultura 2, 1949. 38 “Sprawozdanie z rocznej dziaáalnoĞci MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 1, 29–33. 39 International Peasant Union, Meting of the Central Commite of the IPU, 8 October 1948, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, 32. 40 “Protest Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 4, 27 February 1949, 1. 41 “Memoriaá Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 8, 30 April 1949, 1.

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f)

The second half of 1950—a memorandum on the International Red Cross intervening on behalf of political prisoners in satellite states of the USSR, with Union politicians also demanding that the International Bar Association gain the right to defend political prisoners in these countries;42 g) 18 December 1952—a memorandum on the situation in the states behind the Iron Curtain with information relating to each country, in it the Union demanding that the UN General Assembly adopt resolutions stating that the Soviet Union systematically depriving nations of freedom and independence created a risk of war, and which aim at restoring independence to the subjugated nations, condemning the Soviet Union for the Sovietisation of dependent states, as well as Soviet agents illegally representing subjugated countries at the UN, expelling them from the organization, and forming a special UN Commission, which, having examined the situation, would draw up effective means to restore freedom to the nations;43 h) 1956—a protest against the murders committed against Hungarian leaders;44 i) 24 June 1957—an address by IPU president Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk at a meeting of the UN Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary.45 It is worth pondering what purpose these memorials and protests were to serve. For it is difficult to accept that the politicians of the IPU, with their immense political experience, were counting on a “miraculous” awakening of “the conscience of the world”, and a real reaction from the UN. After all, the very procedure for decision-making at the Security Council effectively prevents such action being taken. The Union was aware of this. The memoranda and protests sent to the UN were realizing its propaganda goals, the pursuit of a programme of struggle with the USSR based on the assumption that the IPU would continuously, at every opportunity, inform public opinion of the situation in states behind the

42

“Kronika polityczna,” Jutro Polski 17, 29 October 1950, 1. “Memorandum Unii Cháopskiej,” Jutro Polski 1, 11 January 1953, 1. 44 Protest MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej z powodu mordu dokonanego na przywódcach wĊgierskich, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, International Peasant Union, 566–567. 45 “Przemówienie prezesa MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka, wygáoszone na zebraniu Komitetu Specjalnego ONZ w sprawie WĊgier,” New York, 24 June 1957 in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 2, 21–28. 43

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Iron Curtain, the methods by which the communists operated and their violation of civil and human rights. Statements by IPU politicians were always tough, explicit and unyielding to the USSR and its satellite states and to the communists. Speaking at various international organizations at which representatives of governments or other bodies of satellite states had seats, Union activists demanded the dismissal of “these usurpers” as not possessing the legitimization of power provided by a nation in free elections. Those in office in states behind the Iron Curtain named minions and native communists, and made accusations of political murder. The use of such terminology was intentional, not the result of a lack of refinement; the scathing words were intended to bombard listeners, incense public opinion, and thereby reach the consciousness of the western world. Information and propaganda activity intensified following each IPU congress or larger conference. Among its fixed elements was also the publication of resolutions adopted in the Union, party and national press, and in the press and media of individual states. Above all, however, there was information on and the publication of dispatches from politicians, including presidents of the USA, their addresses at IPU forums and any actual participation in IPU undertakings. This was to show the world, but also members and émigré communities, how the IPU was perceived by the establishment of the free world, and to indicate that the activity of the Union was important, justified and recognized.

Academic and Publishing Activity The activists of the IPU had to persuade the world not only of the poor situation of those living in states subject to the USSR, but also of the negative influence of communism on international relations. Indispensable in conducting propaganda and information campaigns were thus current data on the state of agriculture and the position of peasants under the yoke of communism, as well as analyses of the politics of the USSR. Undertaken for this reason was historical research showing the influence and involvement of peasant movements and organizations in the process of democratization in the societies and states of central and eastern Europe. The historical research was also to provide evidence for the ability of the peasants to build a democracy and their readiness to manage a state, and thus to assume power from the landowning and bourgeois classes. The research was to be coordinated by the Central Administrative Office. In the years 1955–56, this body conducted a review of work to date, resulting in the elaboration of research instructions and formulation

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of new goals and programmes: a) research linked with the current struggle with communism—statements, information and data on economic, social, cultural and political issues; and b) long-term research, above all historical research on the situation of peasants in individual eras and research into peasant culture, social transformations in the countryside and the problem of correlations between the activity of agricultural organizations and the process of both industrialization and civilizational progress in general in the countryside.46 Research trends may have undergone certain fluctuations, but in broad outline research was performed (with varying intensity and effect) throughout the existence of the IPU. Research results were presented in pamphlet form and through the publication of books, articles and papers for academic conferences. Also utilized were results of research performed by various academic and research communities beyond the IPU, since the Union had neither sufficient resources for the conduct of academic work, nor sufficient numbers able to undertake it. Research was performed by academics, by doctors and professors involved in this professionally, in which regard we mention Prof. Stanisáaw Kot, Prof. Tadeusz Nowak Cieplak, Dr. Wacáaw Soroka, Dr. Georgi M. Dimitrov and Dr. Vilem Svoboda. By way of example, several items may be listed: The Battle of the Peasantry for Freedom and Independence, The Red Meaning of Communist Agriculture and The Failure of Communist Agriculture, 1963. Also issued were source and documentary publications: The Red Peasant International, The PoznaĔ Uprising and The Hungarian Revolution.47 The acquisition of information also occurred by other means, and perhaps not so much also, as above all. Union politicians turned to sympathetic politicians of western states with requests that, as far as possible, information acquired by their embassies which was able to incriminate the communists be made available.48 They also received such information from the United States Department of State and CIA.

46

Research directions were reconstructed on the basis: AZHRL, PSL [U], Suggestions Concerning the reorganization of research of the IPU material for discussion before the Meeting of the IPU’s Central Committee; Ibid., Instructions Concerning Research, unorganized collection. 47 IPU, Outline of the IPU activities–past and future, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/140, folder 3. 48 “Notatka dotycząca rozmów Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka z prominentnymi politykami francuskimi,” Warsaw, 25 April 1955, in Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk w dokumentach aparatu bezpieczeĔstwa, vol. 2, DziaáalnoĞü w latach 1947–1958, Witold BagieĔski et al., eds., (Warszawa-àódĨ: IPN, 2010), 444–445; “Notatka

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Cooperation with Other Organizations In order to operate effectively and realize its programme, the IPU had to enter into cooperation with other institutions and organizations. These may be divided into several groups; a) Émigré organizations of states subject to the USSR—the FEC, CEEC, ACEN, RFE, CDUCE (International Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe), Socialist Union of Central Eastern Europe (SUCEE) and RLC; b) Parties in exile, e.g. the Labour Party and Polish Socialist Party; c) International organizations, including the United Nations, CPEM, Confederation of European Agriculture (CEA), Catholic Rural Life Congress and International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP); d) National parties and organizations in individual states—the Polish American Congress, French Independent Peasant Party and peasant parties and organizations from Italy, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, India, Thailand and Japan (the Japanese Peasant Union, Union of Japanese Farmers for International Cooperation and Japanese Institute for International Cooperation). At this point, it is worth emphasizing that the IPU leaders participated in two international campaigns aimed not only at presenting to the world the goals of the activity of émigré organizations fighting for the liberation of states and nations from communism, but above all at showing the unity and strength of the exiles. These were the signing of two declarations, the Philadelphia and the Williamsburg. Both were prepared by U.S. political structures to enable émigré organizations to establish cooperation and to provide them with identical ideological foundations. A mass meeting of about 200 exile activists was organized to this end, on 11 February 1951 in Philadelphia, a result of which was the signing of the joint Declaration of Liberation (also named the Philadelphia declaration) speaking of the goals and principles of the liberation of nations in the Soviet area of influence. It was signed by figures including Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk, the leader of the Polish National Democratic Committee and the IPU.49 The Americans repeated this manœuvre on 12 June 1951, in Williamsburg, when the representatives of nine national groups signed a joint declaration on human

informacyjna dotycząca rozmów Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka z Paulem Heno i Spakiem i Camille’em Huysmansem,” Warsaw, 30 April 1955, in Ibid., 446–447. 49 Friszke, ĩycie polityczne, 218; Zygmunt Stypuákowski, “Deklaracja filadelfijska,” Biuletyn Polityczny 4, 3 March 1951, 1–3.

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rights and basic freedoms. Mention was even made of their countries joining a United States of Europe.50 Cooperation with organizations occurred in various ways. Often it took a declarative form, consisting almost exclusively in the mutual use of names as co-organizers or partners. Where contact was deeper, was due to the fact that the same people were members of (and performed steering functions in) both the IPU and another organization. The model for cooperation between the Union and the FEC differed from this characterization, owing to the nature of the Committee. It was established by the Americans on 1 June 1949 … with the task of coordinating the activity of political émigrés, providing them with financial assistance and including them as an anti-Soviet factor in the orbit of American politics.51

The basic work of the Committee was the assignment of subsidies for the activity of individual organizations. In the IPU, the FEC was on the whole treated coolly, although its subsidies, as a basic source of financing for activity, were eagerly used and sought. Radio Free Europe reached the nations lying behind the Iron Curtain. Union activists took to the air at national broadcasting stations, simultaneously representing the Union and their peasant parties. The intensity of these appearances depended not only on the willingness of Union politicians, but also on the position of individual member parties in their national émigré community. Taking the example of the RFE Polish Service, run by Jan Nowak-JezioraĔski, it may be said that RFE was a further front in a political battle being fought in the Polish exile community. JezioraĔski saw the peasant activists unfavourably, meaning that appearances by Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk for the PPP and IPU came as part of the broadcasts for farmers, which were conducted by a PPP member and friend of Mikoáajczyk, Chciuk-Celt, a.k.a. Michaá Lasota. Rare, however, were visits to political programmes. The IPU was also present at the ACEN, of which it was an associated member. The ACEN was to be the most important organization of the central and eastern European émigré community, determining goals and

50

Friszke, ĩycie polityczne, 218. Piotr Stanek, “Powstanie i dziaáalnoĞü Zgromadzenia Europejskich Narodów Zjednoczonych (ACEN) w Ğwietle Archiwum Feliksa Gadomskiego,” in Anna Filipczak-Kocur, ed., Prace uczestników studium doktoranckiego (Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego, 2007), 69–99. 51

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directions for action, a space for international cooperation in exile.52 The constant presence of the Union in the works of the Assembly resulted chiefly from the fact that its leaders performed steering functions at the ACEN. Chairmen of the General Committee of the Assembly were Nagy (1961–62), G.M. Dimitrov (1967–68) and Jozef Lettrich of Czechoslovakia (1968–69). Stefan KorboĔski, who after 1968 was again to be found in the ranks of the PPP, may also be included in this group, as president of the ACEN in the years 1958–59, 1966–67 and 1971–85. IPU activists also managed ACEN posts in Europe, specifically Svoboda in London and Barev in Paris. Remaining beyond the structures was IPU president Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk, who initially disregarded the significance of the ACEN, not attempting to play a larger role in its establishment and organization. Later, the state of affairs could not be changed. The fact that one of the chief initiators and organizers of the ACEN, Stefan KorboĔski, a political opponent of Mikoáajczyk from 1951, returning to the PPP and the IPU only in 1967, was also undoubtedly influential. The IPU leader was, however, present at ACEN sessions, initially on behalf of the Polish delegation, and later as IPU president. Cooperation between the IPU and the ACEN was multifaceted at all levels of the structures of both organizations. It may be said that the two operated in a very similar manner, their chief goal being the same. However, the ACEN brought together nations and the IPU peasant parties, and this led to differences in approach to various issues of politics etc. That said, at the level of the struggle with communism and the aspiration to liberate the subjugated nations, both organizations complemented each other. IPU politicians also attempted to play an active part in the Paneuropean movement. G.M. Dimitrov and Miloš Tupanjanin, among others, travelled to Congresses and conferences of the movement, presenting a Union perspective on issues of European integration.53 The IPU supported the 52

On the subject of the ACEN, see Ibid. A concise description of the activity of the ACEN has also been drawn up by Feliks Gadomski, a long-standing secretary of the organization. His archive was deposited to the OssoliĔski Archive in Wrocáaw, Poland. Zakáad Narodowy im. OssoliĔskich we Wrocáawiu, Archiwum Feliksa Gadomskiego, fond 108/02/1; Gadomski, Z moich wspomnieĔ. Fragmenty dot. lat 1939–1965 (manuscript), Ibid., fond 108/02/02; Gadomski, Zgromadzenie Europejskich Narodów Ujarzmionych. Krótki zarys, Nowy Jork 1991 (manuscript), Ibid., 1–83. The ACEN was also described by KorboĔski. Stefan KorboĔski, W imieniu Polski walczącej (London: B. ĝwiderski, 1963), 240–246. 53 Charles A. Moser, Dimitrov of Bulgaria. A political biography of dr. Georgi M. Dimitrov (Carolin Hause: Ottawa, Illinois 1979), 288; “Raport z konferencji MiĊdzynarodowej Unii Cháopskiej,” Paris, 24 April 1958, in ħródáa i materiaáy do badaĔ, vol. 2, 33–34.

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establishment of further European Communities, although it always underlined that this process could not be centred solely on the states of western Europe, that it had also to take into consideration eastern Europe and could be complete only when states from this region entered a commonly integrated structure. It should be emphasized here that the Union accomplished its presence in the Paneuropean movement also via the participation of peasant party members in the Commission for nations unrepresented at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, with which the ACEN was also affiliated. Cooperation with the remaining organizations in this group occurred at the level of mutual participation in organized rallies, congresses and conferences. Together, they span visions of the building of a free central and eastern Europe, each persuading the other as to their arguments. Attempts were also made to refer jointly to current events around the world. By way of example, in 1960 three organizations—the CDUCE, IPU, and SUCEE—submitted a letter to leaders of western powers— Eisenhower (USA), Macmillan (Great Britain) and De Gaulle (France)— in advance of a summit meeting. It appealed for consideration of the situation in the subjugated states, the taking of action aimed at improvement for societies residing there and activity aimed at these states gaining sovereignty and independence.54 Politicians of the IPU were frequent guests at Congresses of the Confederation of European Agriculture.55 They appeared with political papers in which they described the situation in agriculture in states subject to the USSR and communist activity. They also engaged with issues relating to the advantage of individual agriculture over collective, arguing this with reference to the decline and backwardness in agriculture in communist-ruled states. Union delegates at CEA congresses included S. 54

IPU, Letter to Messers Eisenhower, Macmillan and De Gaulle, 1960, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/140. 55 Franciszek Wilk, president of the PPP in Great Britain and manager of the IPU Office in London, explained the presence of the IPU at CEA congresses in this way: “Given that in countries behind the Iron Curtain there are no free, independent and democratic agricultural organizations, since these […] have been totally destroyed by communist regimes, there is thus an urgent need for the invitation of a delegation of the International Peasant Union to CEA congresses, who could in the name of enslaved farmers […] speak to their free brothers in the West.” See Franciszek Wilk, “Problemy Europejskiego Rolnictwa na XV Kongresie CEA w Cannes,” Orka 1-3, 1964. It appears that Wilk overestimated the role of the IPU at the forum of the CEA as a representative of independent agriculture in states subject to the USSR.

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Mikoáajczyk, Chciuk-Celt, Wilk, G. M. Dimitrov, Svoboda and František Vohryzka.56 Union activists participated with similar themes in Catholic Rural Life Congresses. There they also provided information on the peasant attachment to religion, the significance of religion in peasant culture and the threats to religion from communist governments. In a similar way, IPU politicians participated in rallies of the Polish American Congress and peasant parties around the world. In the mid1950s, leaders of the Union (Mikoáajczyk, Dimitrov and Nagy) made journeys to India, Japan, South Vietnam and Thailand. In 1955, IPU vice president Nagy participated in a conference in Bandung at which countries of Africa and Asia discussed methods of decolonization, individual countries gaining independence and cooperation among them. Beyond the support from the IPU for expectations of independence, Nagy no doubt warned the newly emerging states and societies against communism. In 1961 and 1962, the IPU submitted manifestos to the peasants of Africa and Latin America, written in a spirit of warning against communism. Their audience was cautioned against communist reality, that communist governments, rather than caring for the interests of peasants, conducting real agricultural reforms consisting in a parcelling up and sharing out of land to create a strong network of individual and family farms, were introducing a communist feudalism. They were warned that communism brought with it threats not only to freedom and sovereignty, but also to humanistic principles, which would be violated to hold societies in fear and obedience.57 IPU participation in the works and conferences of international organizations consisted in more than an active role for delegates appearing with papers. The Union made use of its presence at the forums of these organizations to conduct a broad campaign of information and propaganda. Prepared for participants to this end were special pamphlets,

56 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk to Franciszek Vohryzka (Chair of the IPU delegation to the European Agricultural Confederation Congress), Letter, Washington, 8 July 1986, MHPRL, Correspondence of the activists of the PPP in exile and the IPU, fond. MHPRL 11474. 57 Manifest to the Peasants of Africa, Washington, April 1961, AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/140, IPU; Outline of the IPU activities–past and future [no date and no pagination], Ibid.

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leaflets, memoranda, political and agrarian resolutions of the IPU, a study on the situation of agriculture in countries subject to the USSR etc.58 A certain measure of the significance of the IPU among supranational organizations, particularly émigrés, but not solely, were the guests and participants of IPU Congresses and conferences. Taking part were not only member party politicians, as would be expected, but also other politicians: chairmen or individuals from the principal executive of the National Committees, supranational organizations and journalist organizations, representatives of the diplomatic world, White House politicians, U.S. senators and congress people, politicians, presidents and activists of political parties from western European states and other parts of the world and members of governments (in particular ministers of agriculture).59 Lists of guests and participants indicate that the IPU was an organization that was noticed, an effect of the work of IPU members, the politicians of the individual parties who reached political communities in individual states. It should be emphasized, however, that the participation in Union work of representatives of the establishments of western states was a matter more of courtesy, and often procrastination as well. This was particularly evident in the United States. The participation of U.S. Congress people and senators (from émigré communities) in IPU activity was to a large extent dictated by electoral politics, the need to consider the electorate who determined their political careers.

The Decline of the IPU’s Activity In the decade from 1966 to 1975, that is, from the death of the first President of the Union, S. Mikoáajczyk, to the death of the editor-in-chief of the “Bulletin of the International Peasant Union”, Soumar, almost the entire Central Committee of the Union passed away. Out of necessity the Office in New York was closed.60 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk, president of the PPP and one of the IPU vice presidents, wrote in a letter to Chciuk-Celt in 1977 that the “IPU is in fact inactive, many people have passed on and there is no one with whom to work”.61 There was no youth able to add dynamism and replace the senior. This was due to the chief Union activists 58

Stanisáaw StĊpka, “DziaáalnoĞü Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka na forum organizacji miĊdzynarodowych,” in Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk–w sáuĪbie Polski, ed. Kazimierz Robakowski (PoznaĔ: WBP, 2000), 119–122. 59 Folder with Congress materials, AZHRL, MUCh, unorganized collection. 60 Nowak Cieplak, W cieniu historii, 184. 61 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Washington, 18 August 1977, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 10929.

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having raised their children in contradiction, as it were, to their own work in exile: in the spirit of the new home countries, to assure them of an equal start to adult life, with their peers. They were thus unprepared ideologically to continue the struggle for the independence of the homeland of their fathers. They were no longer émigrés, and the ‘old’ country of their parents was becoming an ever more exotic and mythic world. The freezing of IPU activity was also influenced by personal conflicts and animosities between Union leaders. One activist, Dimitre Matzankieff, even accused it of being less a union of parties than a Union of Personalities.62 BaĔczyk offered the behaviour of President Nagy as one reason for the cessation of Union work, claiming that he was not inclined to call meetings of the executive and central committees. It should be emphasized, however, that BaĔczyk attempted to excuse Nagy for the very poor state of his health (he lost his sight) and of his wife’s (she spent time at a mental health hospital.)63 In 1978, the Bulgarians and Poles made an attempt to revive the work of the IPU. On 30 March 1979, at a meeting of the Central Committee in New York, a new president and secretary general were chosen, Stanisáaw BaĔczyk of the PPP and Iskar Szumanov of the Bulgarian National Agrarian Union, respectively.64 However, the activity was sustained chiefly by the Bulgarians, and less so by the Poles, despite the fact that among the IPU members were peasant parties from all of the central European states subject to the USSR and the Baltic republics which it had incorporated.65 Offering a picture of the condition of the IPU at this time is the fact that in the mid-1980s some peasant party members were already referring to it as if to a former organization, one having concluded its activity.66 The Union was still participating in CEA congresses; it is known that in 1986 an IPU delegation participated in 38 of these, and was led by František Vohryzka.67 62

What is wrong the International Peasant Union by D. Matzankieff, n.d., AAN, SMP, mf. HI/VI/139, 367–368. 63 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Washington, 18 August 1977, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 10929. 64 “MiĊdzynarodówka Cháopska,” WieĞci 9, June 1979, 11–12. 65 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Washington, 18 July 1986, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 11475/1-3. 66 Marceli Stachulec to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Courtivron (France), 17 October 1984, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 12681. 67 Stanisáaw BaĔczyk to Franciszek Vohryzka, Letter, Washington, 8 July 1986, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 11474.

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Establishing a precise date at which the IPU ceased to exist is difficult. A Czech researcher has determined that it came in the mid-1980s,68 although in 1988 and 1989 a Union congress was being prepared, to have occurred in September 1989.69 This never took place, however. At this time, the activity of the IPU undoubtedly froze once more, led still within the old circle of elder activists.70

Summary and Appraisal of IPU Activity The IPU conducted its activity in extremely difficult conditions. It was an émigré political organization the goal of which was the restoration of freedom to nations and states subjugated by communists in Europe. The problem of the IPU was its inability to attract a younger generation, the children of emigrants. This meant that with the death of the most active individuals, the activity of the entire organization began to cease. It is also possible that the politicians of the Union committed an error in enclosing themselves within the sphere of peasant parties from European states subjugated by the USSR. The opportunity to form a larger and more powerful organization of a global nature was lost. The Union adopted a number of methods appropriate for international organizations. In the geopolitical conditions which arose, the methods chosen were justified, although they exuded pathos. Politicians and activists of the IPU condemned themselves to “knocking on doors”, making requests of the politicians and organizations of the free world. The Union was not an organization of free states, the representatives of recognized governments, and as such its appeals and resolutions were unable to yield an adequate political resonance. Despite this, the range of methods employed by the IPU allowed it to achieve a basic goal, that of informing the free world of the reality of life in states subject to the USSR and exposing the nature of communism. The participation of the IPU in the political life of the world could undoubtedly have been greater, and better (more frequent) use could have been made of the western media. This was dependent, however, on the financial condition of the organization, which required, in turn, FEC 68

Vladimir V. Dostál, Agrární strana. Její rozmach a zanik (Brno: Atlantis, 1998), 261. 69 Józefa Rzemieniewski to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, Brussels, 8 September 1989, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 10886. 70 Marceli Stachulec to Tadeusz Chciuk-Celt, Letter, France, 20 September 1988, MHPRL, fond MHPRL 11096.

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subventions and potential membership fees and donations. Considering the fact that Union activists were not wealthy people, member parties did not have extensive budgets and political émigré communities also complained continually of a lack of resources for the conduct of activity, the activity of the IPU actually depended on FEC subsidies. It is possible that better results would have been achieved had the Union been more internally consolidated, without its political and personal quarrels. This was, however, a feature which characterized the entire community of European political émigrés, owing to the fact that to be found in exile were representatives of various political options, who had brought with them the political atmosphere and culture of their countries. The émigré activists themselves made their own quarrelsomeness almost one of the dogmas of democratic operation. For this reason, they were often poorly understood and received by the Americans, British and French, who could not comprehend that in the face of a common foe the exiles did not unite, but divided. It is worth here quoting a response to such charges, noted by KorboĔski: The differences in convictions, methods and actions are a product of that democracy which we profess in our exiled bodies, hence disputes are inevitable. Absolute unity is only possible in communist and fascist systems, where that group which has attained power subordinates the strength of all others and deprives them of a voice. […] The essence of the matter lies in the fact that those from differing centres work for the same goal, and in this respect there prevails absolute unity.71

The Significance of the IPU Evaluating an organization, which in the light of grand, global politics is of no significance, is extremely difficult. When the Union began, its leaders saw it as a great force composed of representatives of the most numerous of the social classes of their nations, which may be seen in the words of Josef ýerný:

71

It does not matter whether the statement noted by KorboĔski is authentic, or whether it is his opinion on the subject of the community. It is important that it conveys the essence of the nature of that community. KorboĔski, W imieniu Polski, 91.

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This potential was perceived also by opponents of the peasant activists, who underlined that “the Peasant International represents a natural and popular force which the West has lacked in its struggle with the East”.73 History has shown, however, that such organizations are of marginal significance. This had been perceived by contemporaries of Union activity. George D. Jackson wrote in the mid-1960s that it consisted of a handful of people deprived of power and expelled from their countries, in whose work he saw pathos and the end of a dream.74 The IPU has been seen similarly by historians. Andrzej Paczkowski wrote in its appraisal that the IPU’s influence was small in reach, and that it did not make attempts at direct activity on the societies of the mother countries. He drew attention, however, to the fact that it played a certain role in the policy of halting communism, which the USA was pursuing. He also underlined the fact that the role of the Union and similar internationals was, de facto, limited to the issue of resolutions and declarations, and submission of memoranda to the UN or western governments.75 In a grand political sense, admittedly, these views are correct. In the world of the political émigré community, however, the IPU was of great significance, which should be sought on the sociological dimension, above all for that part of the community taken from the rural and peasant milieus. The IPU offered a chance for an extension in the political life of the peasant party leaders for whom, owing to conflict, whether personal or doctrinal, there was no place in other émigré structures. In addition, the broadcasts via Radio Free Europe had an influence in sustaining resistance to the communization of rural communities, particularly in Poland. The Union achieved the goal of providing anticommunist propaganda, accomplishing this indomitably for several 72

“Czeski ruch agrarny. (Rozmowa z Józefem Czernym)” Jutro Polski 3, 13 March 1949, 2. 73 “Unia Cháopska,” Jutro Polski, 15 May 1948, 1. 74 George D. Jackson, Comintern and Peasant In East Europe 1919–1930 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966); Zygmunt Hemmerling, Ruch ludowy w Polsce, Buágarii i Czechosáowacji 1893–1930 (Warszawa: Ludowa Spóádzielnia Wydawn., 1987), 427. 75 Andrzej Paczkowski, Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk czyli klĊska realisty: zarys biografii politycznej (Warszawa: Omnipress, 1991), 251; Idem, “DziaáalnoĞü polityczna Stanisáawa Mikoáajczyka w latach 1947–1966,” in Stanisáaw Mikoáajczyk w sáuĪbie, 110.

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decades, when the world had already hardened and grown accustomed to a bipolar division of the globe. The activists of the IPU were not discouraged by this, and with a peasant obstinacy they hammered constantly on various doors, bearing testimony to the misery of the nations closed behind the Iron Curtain. For this stance they undoubtedly deserve recognition. The IPU accomplished a task, a highly important one. The organization became a bridge, a relay, a storehouse in preserving the unhindered thinking of central European peasant activists and agrarians. It could, thanks to this, be revived at the time of transformations in 1989, and in the years to come.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN “THE LITTLE U.N.” AT 769 FIRST AVENUE, NEW YORK (1956–1963) ANNA MAZURKIEWICZ

After the Second World War, many east European political exiles escaping Communist persecution found asylum in western Europe and in the United States. In America, their presence was noticeable mostly in New York and Washington. The choice was not accidental for they wanted to continue their struggles against Soviet domination seeking help from both the United States and the United Nations. The exiles were quick to organize themselves in exile into committees or councils clustered around former prime ministers, diplomats, members of parliaments, and political party leaders. Some of their organizations were established in Europe, a few were created in America, at times with the help of the American National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE). Efficient cooperation with the numerous organizations, which tended to waste their potential on infighting with fellow exiles, proved to be difficult for the Americans. Regardless, from 1949 to 1954 the NCFE tried to effectively employ the exiles in the common struggle against the communist menace. Finally, a united exile organization was created in New York in 1954—the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN).1

1

I would like to thank the KoĞciuszko Foundation for making possible the research at the Immigration History Research Center (University of Minnesota). For earlier publications on the ACEN origins, and a general overview of the ACEN activities see Anna Mazurkiewicz, “’Join, or Die’—The Road to Cooperation among East European Exiled Political Leaders in the United States, 1949–1954,” Polish American Studies 69, no. 2 (2012): 5–43; Mazurkiewicz, “Assembly of the Captive European Nations: ‘The Voice of the Silenced Peoples’” in Anti-Communist Minorities: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, ed. Ieva Zake (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2009), 167–185.

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It was at 29 W. Fifty-Seventh Street in New York, that a peculiar east central European information centre, discussion forum, “quasi parliament,”2 and political lobby speaking on behalf of the captive nations, established its seat. The ACEN was financially assisted by the Free Europe Committee (formerly called NCFE).3 This article examines one of the forms in which the ACEN tried to promote their activities and advance their goals, namely by establishing a “Captive Nations Centre” in New York. A group of representatives of nine East European nations, who proudly proclaimed that their legitimacy was derived from the mandates they received in the last free elections before the war, or before the Communist takeover, was soon branded the “Little U.N.”4 It was the United Nations indeed that they strived to address with their call for liberation of their homelands. Being denied seats5 in the elegant and modern high-rise building, opened in 1952, the exiles planned to express their opinions and formulate their pleas from a building located at 769 First Avenue—directly across from the new seat of the United Nations in Manhattan.

The ACEN and the UN Founded in 1945, the United Nations was one of the most important arenas of the ACEN activities. The main goal of the ACEN was to work towards the liberation of the European captive nations from Communist dictatorship and Soviet domination. Article One of the charter listed the aims of the organization, among which we find the drive to

2

Interview with Dr. János Horváth, Budapest, 14 October 2010. Katalin Kádár Lynn, “At War While at Peace: United States Cold War Policy and the National Committee for a Free Europe” in Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare: Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe, ed. Katalin Kádár Lynn (St. Helena, Budapest: Helena History Press, 2013–distributed by Central European University Press, New York, Budapest), 9. 4 “The ‘Little U.N.,’” New York Times, 21 September 1961, 34. 5 Of the nine “Captive Nations” only Czechoslovakia and Poland were the original members of the United Nations i.e. before the Communist conquest of these countries was completed in 1948 and 1947 respectively. In December 1955, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania were admitted to the UN on the basis of the so-called “package deal”. The incorporation of the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) by the USSR, although not recognized by the U.S., prevented their membership in the UN. 3

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… affirm and sustain the right of the captive European nations to be represented in the United Nations only by their own legitimate governments, responsive to the will of the respective peoples.

ACEN declared its will to co-operate … with all free nations represented in the United Nations, with the view of attaining the effective and universal implementation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.

Furthermore, the “Purposes and Principles” included the provision …to furnish the United Nations and its specialized Agencies, as well as its free member nations, with all available information concerning conditions in our respective countries that in any way run counter to the aims and principles of the United Nations.6

Throughout its existence (1954–1971, and from 1972 to 1989 as ACEN, Inc.), the exile assembly uninterruptedly submitted appeals for help addressed to the United Nations. Numerous resolutions, reports, memoranda, and letters were sent. Some of them produced little more than sympathetic interest, while some others proved to be quite influential— like the reports prepared on the Hungarian Revolution, or the “New Colonialism” brochure.7 At times, the ACEN delegations met with the UN delegates, some of whom even accepted invitations to address the ACENorganized meetings. In its formal organization structure, the ACEN resembled the United Nations, too. The exile assembly comprised the General Assembly, the Secretariat, working committees (six to begin with: political, social, cultural, economic, legal, and information). The ACEN was headed by a Chairman elected by a General Assembly for a one-year term. The Secretary-General headed the administration. From 1954 to 1965, this post was held by a Romanian diplomat, Brutus Coste. All of the national delegations within the ACEN (councils or committees in exile) had the right to nominate sixteen delegates to the General Assembly. Each 6

Charter of the Assembly of Captive European Nations, 20 September 1954, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, f. 2. 7 ACEN Papers, IHRC, box 89, folders 4–6; ACEN News 18-20 (Sept.–Nov. 1956); ACEN News 21-24 (Dec. 1956–March 1957); Hungary under Soviet Role, 7 Vols., (ACEN, American Friends of Captive Nations: New York, 1957–1964). See materials related to the preparations of the New Colonialism brochure in IHRC, ACEN, box 152, folder 5.

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national delegation had one, single ballot at their disposal.8 By purposefully adopting such a similar organizational structure, the ACEN presented itself as an authentic and democratic “voice to the silenced peoples”,9—the nations which were deprived of genuine and legitimate representation in the free world. Throughout its history, the ACEN bureaux were located on the ninth and tenth floors of an elegant, fifteen-storey building in Manhattan. This 1920s office building at West Fifty-seventh Street, just two blocks from Central Park, was a prestigious location indeed.10 However, the meeting space was limited and prevented the organization of any public meetings, including the organization’s own plenary meetings.11 The need for a meeting centre to advance and popularize the Assembly goals was obvious. From the outset of its activities, the ACEN coordinated its public events and General Assembly meetings with the schedule of the United Nations.12 Its yearly plenary sessions began concurrently with the UN Sessions. They were organized in the Carnegie International Center located at the corner of First Avenue (UN Plaza) and Forty-sixth street.13 8

In addition to the national delegations, there were delegates of the international party organizations among the members of the ACEN (Christian-democratic, liberal, socialist, agrarian, and trade unionists). Their status within the Assembly was described as Associative Member Organizations. In practice it meant that they could take part in the plenary meetings but did not have the right to vote. Moreover, the ACEN Charter provided for yet one more type of membership, the Consultative, which allowed participation only in certain ACEN meetings (without the right to vote) by the members of East European exile organizations which were established to “defend the rights, or to represent, the captive nations”. Charter of the Assembly of Captive. 9 Vilis MƗsƝns, Speech of 15 March 1957, Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), ACEN, box 23, folder 3. 10 This was the address used on the ACEN letterhead. Due to the organization of the press conferences in the ACEN offices this address was also sporadically mentioned by the press e.g.: “Exiles Urge U.N. Condemn Soviet”, New York Times, 26 October 1956, 15. 11 See the photographs of the ACEN meetings at the Institute for National Remembrance “Stefan KorboĔski,” http://korbonski.ipn.gov.pl/portal/kor/1116/8545/Polityk_na_emigracji.html, (accessed 31 December 2011). 12 ACEN held a number of special sessions in Strasbourg in concurrence with the Council of Europe (July 1955, April 1956, April 1957, April 1958, October 1961), Feliks Gadomski, Zgromadzenie Europejskich NarodówUjarzmionych (New York: Bicentennial Publishing Corporation, 1995), 32–34. 13 The building at 345 East 46th street no longer exists.

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For more than ten years these meetings were met with the undiminishing interest of American and foreign journalists.14 However, for the Assembly that strived to be perceived as an alternative, and the only genuine, representation of the captives, its constant and visible presence to the United Nations was a must. When in 1955, the entire group of representatives from the Soviet Bloc countries of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary was admitted to the United Nations, the ACEN was provoked to take major action in order to emphasize its role, significance, and mission.

The Plan to Create a Captive Nations Centre On 31 May 1956, the ACEN leadership released a memorandum “Captive Nations and the UN”, which called for the creation of a “concrete symbol of their [Captive Nations] fictitious representation in the world organization”.15 Obviously addressed to the ACEN sponsors, this document outlined the purpose behind the creation of the Captive Nations House opposite the UN. The exiles said that if they could “operate dramatically from the immediate neighbourhood of the UN headquarters in New York” it would “greatly enhance” their efforts to assure the peoples behind the iron curtain that “their rights and aspirations are constantly being brought to the fore in the free world”.16 The above-mentioned memorandum listed three practical goals that the 769 First Avenue building would serve: a fixed picket opposite the UN, the seat of the ACEN and its member organizations, and an exhibition hall. 14 ACEN meetings in Carnegie International Center in New York Times were described e.g.: Kathleen McLaughlin, “Exiles Challenge 2 in U.N. Red Bloc. New Organization Protests Against Seating of Czech and Polish Delegations,” New York Times, 21 September 1954, 11; “Exiles Seek Link to Europe Council. Assembly of Captive Nations Backs Affiliation Plan at Meeting Here,” New York Times, 20 December 1954, 2; “Exile Body Warns of More ‘Yaltas,’” New York Times, 12 February 1955, 4; “Exiles Say Smile of Soviet is Mask,” New York Times, 30 September 1955, 3; “Exiles Bid Western Big 3 Insist on Free Vote in Soviet Satellites,” New York Times, 1 October 1955, 3; “Warsaw Assailed by Red Bloc Exiles,” New York Times, 28 September 1956, 3; “U.N. Expulsions Urged,” New York Times, 25 September 1958, 3; “Exiles in Appeal to U.N.,” New York Times, 23 October 1959, 3; “National Candidates Hail Assembly of Captive Nations,” New York Times, 21 September 1964, 31. 15 Memorandum: The Captive European Nations and the U.N. Necessity of a concrete symbol of their fictitious representation in the world organization, 31 May 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10. 16 Ibid.

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In order to attract the attention of both the UN Delegates and tourists the Captive Nations House had to be remodelled and visual signs of their presence there had to be displayed. The ACEN envisioned a huge (24 x 8 feet) electric billboard with slogans addressed to the UN, or an electricbulb journal featuring news from behind the Iron Curtain installed on the façade. Also, flagpoles were to be installed on the roof in order for the exiles to perform flag-raising ceremonies in concurrence with identical daily routines carried at the UN. The exiles envisioned an extensive campaign providing information about their activities, and on the situation in the Captive Nations as well as promotion of the émigré intellectual and artistic achievements.17 The plan was very ambitious given the fact that the building they were renting was in very bad shape. Until September 1956, the 769 First Avenue building accommodated a garage and small print shop. Similar to a good number of buildings situated on the west side of First Avenue, this construction resembled a warehouse rather than an office building. It was a relic of the earlier period when this part of the Manhattan Island was dominated by slaughterhouses, light industry, a railroad barge landing, and some tenant housing.18 The good news was that the building owner, Irma M. Tomich, asked reasonable rental rates. Consequently, a five year lease was signed, renewable for another five, and the ACEN committed itself to a pay a fee of 8,000 dollars a year.19 During the course of the contract, the owner even offered not to increase the rent despite rising taxes. The Tomich House—as it was called in the correspondence—was a two-storey structure with a spacious basement. The usable floor area was about 4,780 sq. ft, the ground floor offering more space (120 x 24 ft). Although its poor technical condition prevented the immediate move of the routine ACEN operations, it was located in a spot that simply could not have been missed en route to the United Nations headquarters. The ACEN members agreed that remodelling, soon worded as reconstruction, was urgently needed, as “the foundation, the outside walls,

17

See Proposed remodeling the 769 First Avenue New York City Building for the Assembly of Captive European Nations, A.J. Varnas, a.i.a. architect, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10, 3. 18 History of the United Nations Headquarters, Public Inquiries, Visitors Services, United Nations Headquarters http://www.un.org/wcm/webdav/site/visitors/shared/documents/pdfs/FS_UN%20H eadquarters_history_rev2011.pdf (accessed 31 December 2011). 19 Brutus Coste, Memorandum: ACEN display room across the street from the United Nations, 16 March 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10.

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and some of the ceilings, are the only parts which need no repair”.20 The building needed new heating and plumbing systems, new electrical wiring, and the installation of air-conditioning. At first, the estimated cost of such a complete renovation, which would allow for the creation of an elegant Captive Nations Centre, was 100,000 dollars.21 However, an architect working on the preliminary construction project soon presented new estimates, which were two and a half times higher. His estimate included not only construction work ($150,000, plus $30,000 for air conditioning) but also the cost of the electronic billboard to be installed on the rooftop, and the interior furnishings ($70,000).22 Except for the regular office space, his plan envisioned i.a.: a plenary meeting room (ground floor), an exhibition hall (first floor), and even offices for visiting journalists (basement).23 The early designs of the Captive Nations Center proposed a simple but modern form—one that would imitate the UN buildings style—“glass and metal.” East European exiles asked that their centre be easily discernible from the adjacent, redbrick buildings. They explicitly stated that the façade should be “modern, simple, refined, and in harmony with the UN building”.24 At first, the ACEN assumed that the necessary work could be completed before the autumn and that the inauguration would be possible before the opening of the twelfth session of the United Nations. This excessive optimism clearly shows how great were the hopes and expectations of the ACEN members associated with the Captive Nations Centre. Obviously, the most important question was the money needed for the reconstruction. The ACEN members were quite convinced that it should not pose great difficulty: The educational potential of the projected ACEN house and the propaganda value of the proposal undertaking are so obvious that the most optimistic expectations seem to be justified as regards the securing, from private sources, of the funds necessary to cover the cost of remodelling the building.25

20

Memorandum: The Captive European Nations and the U.N. Ibid. 22 Proposed remodeling the 769 First Avenue New York City Building, 2. 23 Ibid. 24 Memorandum: The Captive European Nations and the U.N. 25 Proposed remodeling the 769 First Avenue New York City Building, 4. 21

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However, to begin with, the ACEN members addressed their request for financial support to the highest level of American administration. In the ACEN archival collection, held in the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), there was a letter signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower’s assistant in which he informs the ACEN Secretary-General that C.D. Jackson (a psychological warfare expert) had promised to discuss the Captive Nations Centre with Nelson Rockefeller—the presidential adviser on psychological warfare. Moreover, the Captive Nations Center project was passed on to the U.S. Information Agency with the aim of discussing possible cooperation.26 Surely, the project to create a centre was closely coordinated with the organization which was responsible for assisting and overseeing its activities—the Free Europe Committee (FEC).27 In cooperation with the FEC, the exiles conducted an architectural competition, which was attended by experts from various countries in central and eastern Europe.28 A Lithuanian-born architect, Antanas J. Varnas, was selected the winner.29 In the meantime, the ACEN sought financial and political support on Capitol Hill and among private sponsors. Already in June 1956, however, the exiles faced their first major disappointment. Nelson Rockefeller denied any financial assistance to the Captive Nations Centre.30 To make things worse, as the ACEN did not own the building, it became impossible to organize a public fund-raising campaign to offset the reconstruction costs. It, therefore, had to rely on institutional (i.e. FEC) support. From this moment on, financial problems continued to mar the entire project. The ACEN couldn’t save money by terminating its current lease contacts

26

E.[Elias] Lewis Revey (Assistant to the Special Assistant on Information (William Jackson), White House Executive Offices) to Brutus Coste, 19 June 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10; B. Coste to William F. Knowland, 8 June 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 10, folder 10. 27 Copy of Brutus Coste letter to Earl Packer, 5 July 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10; B. Coste to E. Packer,16 August 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10. 28 The ACEN House Progress Report and an Outline of Alternative Solutions, Second half of 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10. 29 The ACEN General Committee members sat on the competition jury. The final decision was made in consultation with the FEC and two prominent American architects: Lawrence White and Gordon Bunshaft. The second runner up was George Rusu (Romania), the third place went ex aequo to Tadeusz Leski (Pole) and two Hungarian architects: Leslie Ascay and George de Masirevich. The financial awards were largely symbolic. See IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10. 30 Stacy May (Rockefeller Plaza, NY) to B. Coste, 19 June 1956, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10.

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regarding the Fifty Seventh street offices as under the contract terms it would face financial penalties.31 Awaiting the financial decisions of the FEC sponsors, the ACEN began its operations at the 769 First Avenue “ACEN House” within its available means. First, it installed ten flag posts on the roof of the building. Nine of them were the flags of the captive nations which, as a sign of mourning, were regularly raised half-mast only. Only American flag was flown high. In November 1956, a huge canvas was installed on the ACEN House. The 19 x 24 ft white poster said: United Nations—We demand the withdrawal of all Soviet forces and free elections. Help Us! The Peoples of: Albania, Hungary, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Romania. The Assembly of Captive European Nations.32

Coinciding with the dramatic developments in Hungary, this first banner gained tremendous interest from both the American and foreign media. Therefore, beginning in autumn 1956, the exile hopes that none of the visitors arriving at the UN would miss the ACEN House poster,33 were materializing. Photographs of the posters and flags were published in New York, American and foreign press.34

The ACEN House Underlining the common fate of the Captive Nations, all the posters that were displayed on the ACEN House were signed either: “The Peoples of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania”, or simply as “Assembly of Captive European Nations”. Indisputably, throughout its seven year-long history, Khrushchev was the single person who dominated the images reproduced on the façade of 769 First Avenue.35 The ACEN message was simple: although he was no 31

Professional help was offered to the ACEN by a public relations firm Harold L. Oram Inc. Unfortunately, this idea could not be implemented due to the fact that the ACEN did not own the building and the lease was signed for a few years only. 32 ACEN News 21-24 (December 1956–March 1957): 38. 33 The ACEN House Progress Report. 34 The photograph showing the ACEN House taken from one of the windows of the UN building was very popular with the American and European press. For the original see IHRC, ACEN Papers, box 1, folder 10. Cf. Daily Telegraph, 13 March 1957, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, 3 March 1957. 35 ACEN News 64-66 (Jul.–Sept. 1960): 6; ACEN News 49 (Apr. 1959): 24; ACEN News 68 (Nov. 1960): 6; ACEN News 77-78 (Aug.–Sept. 1961): 9.

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Stalin, there was nothing jovial or likeable about the Soviet leader whose power rested solely on brutal force and deception. On 16 September 1958, in concurrence with the opening of another UN session, the poster on the ACEN House showed Khrushchev walking in front of a military vehicle, surrounded by soldiers of various formations, signed: “I freed Hungary. I will ‘liberate’ all nations”.36 As the ACEN activities carried on at the ACEN House coincided with his reign,37 Khrushchev’s dominance on the posters should not come as a surprise. Interestingly, however, I have not been able to find even a single poster criticizing any of the leaders of puppet regimes installed by the Soviets in the captive nations. Apparently, the ACEN adopted a method of presenting a single source of the Communist threat—the Soviet empire. Naturally, Khrushchev was not the only recognizable person depicted by the exiles. Two months after Boris Pasternak was forced by the Soviet authorities to reject the Nobel Prize for Literature, the ACEN prepared a poster which connected this incident with the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Human Rights. On 10 December 1958, ACEN House was decorated with a poster depicting Pasternak. His bust was accompanied by a comment: 1948: Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed freedom of thought, speech, press; 1958: Noble Prize Winner Boris Pasternak— muzzled, Communist-enslaved peoples—silenced; United Nations: stand up for their freedom! Assembly of Captive European Nations.

Judging by the press clippings collected by the ACEN Secretariat, this was the most popular among all the posters ever prepared by the exiles. Photographs showing the façade of the ACEN House covered with the Pasternak poster were widely reproduced in the U.S. and in Europe.38 The significance of actions carried in front of the ACEN House was further increased in 1959. As the U.S. President Eisenhower proclaimed the third week in July a “Captive Nations Week”, any exile-organized events associated with the proclamation commemorating the victims of communism drew renewed attention to the ACEN House. New Yorkers, 36

ACEN News 42-44 (Sept.–Nov. 1958): 1; ACEN News 40-41 (Jul.–Aug. 1958): 1. Nikita Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1953, and the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union in 1958. He remained in power until 1964. Cf. William Taubman, Khrushchev: the Man and His Era (New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004). 38 ACEN News 45 (Dec. 1958): 1. Cf. IHRC, ACEN, box 162: Scrapbooks. 37

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tourists, but also UN delegates, American politicians, as well as members of various anti-communist and exile organizations came to meet with the ACEN members and invited speakers. One of the most popular posters accompanying the ACEN-organized demonstration showed a map of Europe signed with a paraphrased quote of Abraham Lincoln: “Europe cannot live half-slave and half-free!” Four years later, ACEN quoted another famous American president—John F. Kennedy: “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free”.39 The presidential proclamantion, repeated yearly ever after, was naturally a constant publicity event in ACEN schedule throughout its existence.

Fig. 14-1: The ACEN House40

Besides quotations, or calls for actions addressed to the UN, the posters installed on the ACEN House often contained reproductions of political cartoons. In 1963, the poster even included a copy of a Soviet propaganda drawing saying: “Moscow do what you say: world without colonies. 100 million people in East Central Europe, 95 million non-Russians in the USSR”.41 According to the information found in the IHRC, the ACEN made slight changes in the graphic materials that were reproduced on the huge 39

Javits Reassures Red Satellites, New York Times, 21 July 1959, 12; ACEN News 52-54 (July-Sept. 1959): 6. Abraham Lincoln delivered the “House Divided” speech in Springfield on 16 June 1858. J.F. Kennedy’s words were extracted from his West Berlin speech of 26 June 1963. 40 Used by permission of the Stefan KorboĔski Foundation, Warsaw. 41 Acen News 102 (October 1963): 5.

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posters. For example, the original title below Khrushchev’s photograph said: "I will free all small nations!”42 The illustration ideas were most commonly derived from newspapers or magazines. A cartoon depicting three nations (Uncle Sam (the U.S.), Marianne (France), and John Bull (the United Kingdom)) following Khrushchev to the summit meeting was reprinted from the “National-Zeitung” (Switzerland),43 whereas the image showing Khrushchev enslaving East European nations was copied from “Die Brücke” (Federal Republic of Germany).44 Sometimes, the ACEN directly contacted the authors of the cartoons asking for the copyright permission, at other times asking if slight changes were possible. The ACEN House posters indicated the authors of illustrations, e.g. Herblock. However, titles of magazines or newspapers were carefully avoided in order not to be regarded as a masked form of advertising.45 In the beginning of the 1960s, the ACEN House posters changed in both their content and æsthetic tone. The change is observable by the use of a plain, black background (indication of mourning), and short, bitter slogans (showing disappointment with the conciliatory policies of the West). Among some of the catchwords of this period we find, e.g. “United Nations: Self-determination? Human Rights? Take a hard look at Eastern Europe!”; “Freedom for the Captive Nations”; “United Nations: We Demand Freedom and Independence”; “Free Nations: Don’t let the UN convicted Soviet aggressors who have enslaved our countries pose as champions of national freedom”; and on the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution:

42

IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 1. ACEN News 49 (Apr. 1959), 24; National-Zeitung (Switzerland), 23 April 1959. 44 “Los, alle ganz laut: ‘Nieder mit dem Imperialismus,’” Die Brücke (München), 27 August 1960. 45 For example, when Time gave permission to ACEN to use its 31 August 1962 cover, it did not allow any changes. The image used by Time showed a bleeding arm of a man trying to cross the Berlin Wall. As the ACEN wanted to enhance the dramatic message conveyed by the picture (more blood, cruder portrayal of the wall) it contacted the author directly. Indeed, the picture presented on the ACEN House was slightly different from the Time cover. The byline criticized the idea of building a “wall of shame”, an iron curtain, in order to build peace. James Donley to Paul Vajda, 6 September 1962, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11; Paul Vajda to Boris Artzybasheff, 7 June 1962, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11; http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19620831,00.html (accessed 30 December 2011); Lawerence O’Kane, “Pickets are busy as U.N. Reopens,” New York Times, 19 September 1962, 17. 43

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Free Nations: Remember! Lenin warned you: ‘We are not pacifists. Conflict is inevitable. Great historical questions can be solved only by violence.’ Khrushchev told you: ‘We will bury you’” “Reminder on Human Rights Day: Self-determination, Human Rights and freedoms, basic principles of UN Charter and surest foundations for peace are denied to nine once-free European nations.46

However, it was not only the façade of the ACEN House that served as a great billboard. The flag-raising ceremonies also captured media attention. On the first anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, the “New York Post” printed a photograph showing Stefan KorboĔski (the leader of the Polish delegation in the ACEN) and Vilis MƗsƝns (a Latvian diplomat and long-time ACEN Chairman), standing on the roof of the ACEN House during the flag-raising ceremony. This photograph shows, in a very suggestive way, the dignity and solemnity of both east European leaders. The readers of a popular New York daily were able to see two proud exiled politicians meaningfully starring at the UN headquarters from behind of the row of captive nations flags raised half-mast. A percipient observer would also pay attention to the young, handsome trumpet player, wearing a military uniform posed against the background of the American flag raised to the top of the flag-pole.47 Moreover—a new idea born in the late 1950s—the ACEN decided to organize exhibitions in the show windows that were available at the street level. The original idea was that every week a different national committee or council would display a new show of books, photographs and other visual materials promoting their country’s artistic, literary, scientific, and historical heritage. Furthermore, it was also meant to serve as a means of promotion of the recent achievements of the exile and ethnic communities, including the publications in their national languages. Detailed lists of national holidays and anniversaries worth commemorating were prepared in order to be used for publicity purposes.48 46

ACEN News 117 (Jan. 1965): 4; ACEN News 40-41 (July-August 1958): 1; ACEN News 111-113 (Jul.–Sept. 1964): 4; ACEN News 102 (Oct. 1963): 5; ACEN News 89-90 (Aug.-Sept. 1962): 5. ACEN News 79 (Oct. 1961): 6; ACEN News 57 (Dec. 1959): 15; ACEN News 55 (Oct. 1959): 8; ACEN News 52-54 (Jul.–Sept. 1959): 6; “Poster Warns Free Nations,” New York Times, 8 November 1957, 5. 47 New York Post, 23 October 1957, IHRC, ACEN, box 160: Scrapbooks. 48 The show windows were not really big (about 2 x 1 m). ACEN Secretariat to General Committee, Memorandum, 8 September 1958, IHRC, ACEN, b.1, f.11; ACEN News 48 (Mar. 1959): 13–14.

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Additionally, on numerous occasions, the ACEN organized demonstrations and public speaking events in front of the building. The speakers included both the exiles and well-known politicians. The latter made reporting on the ACEN House almost an integral part of journalists’ reporting on the United Nations’ deliberations pertaining to eastern Europe.49 Considering the fact that the doors of the Captive Nations Center remained closed this should be considered a major success. Unfortunately, by the early 1960s many members of the ACEN General Committee had already realized that the money needed for reconstruction of the warehouse was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to secure. Already in July 1957, the ACEN assumed that the original plans would require some alterations. At first, it envisioned renting some of its office space thus providing the funds needed to pay its own future rental fees.50 However, as the hopes for a fancy international centre continued to fade away, the exiles focused their activities on efficient usage of the ACEN House as it was for the sake of exposing and denouncing Soviet polices in eastern Europe. The members of the ACEN were not the only ones who tried to get UN attention by organizing public events at its doorstep. The American press reported that as much went on inside the UN building as outside of it. All sorts of pickets, demonstrations, and organized protests taking place at the UN Plaza made some of the policemen complain that their job became one of pavement “booking agents”. However, no matter what group organized the protest, the huge posters and the flags displayed on the ACEN House were repeatedly mentioned by the press.51 This attention was further intensified by the news that the Soviet leader—Nikita Khrushchev had been invited by President Eisenhower to visit the U.S.52 Actually, Khrushchev had visited America twice. He returned in 1960 as a self-nominated Soviet delegate to the UN.

49

Christopher Rand, “A Reporter at Large. A Pageant in Sack Suits,” The New Yorker, 19 January 1957, 68; Sydney Gruson, “Riot Anniversary Solemn in Poznan,” New York Times, 29 June 1957, 3. 50 Memorandum: A ‘Captive Nations’ House across the street from the U.N., 23 July 1957, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 10. 51 Kathleen McLaughlin, “Hungarian Exile’s Plea to U.N. Warns of a Reprisal on People,” New York Times, 29 October 1956, 8; J. Febon, “Picketing at U.N. Well Organized,” New York Times, 3 April 1960, 2. 52 “Captive Nation Unit Raises Black Flag,” New York Times, 16 September 1959, 19.

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Each time the ACEN carefully prepared information campaigns aiming at discrediting Khrushchev.53 Obviously, the exiles were not going to waste the opportunity to confront him in New York. A special welcoming message was already awaiting him in a form of a July poster inaugurating the Captive Nations Week which contained a quote from Khrushchev’s visit to Indonesia of February 1960: “We feel bound by close ties to the colonial peoples”.54 It depicted the Soviet leader riding in a sedan-chair carried by nine East Europeans. However, on the day of Khrushchev’s arrival to New York the façade of the ACEN House was covered with a plain, white sheet.55 The ACEN’s activities were censored. The other part of the exile effort to confront Khrushchev was a demonstration planned in front of the ACEN House. Owing to increased security concerns, no permission for it was granted. Nevertheless, the planned event did take place. It was moved to the nearby corner of 46th street. A photograph printed in the “ACEN News” shows the exiles standing on the street corner with the national flags in their hands, with the UN building in the background. It also shows Senator Thomas J. Dodd addressing the exiles on behalf of the presidential candidate—John F. Kennedy.56 Soon after Khrushchev’s departure from New York, the ACEN House was successfully decorated with a new poster. The passers-by could see the Soviet leader poised as a prison guard ordering the captives to shout: “Down with imperialism”, while the prison cells marked British, French and Belgian were already emptied, their doors being wide open. The byline said: “UN: Open all the doors”.57 Last but not least, one way the ACEN tried to promote its case with the United Nations was to enlist the support of the various UN delegates visiting New York. Among the prominent American politicians who attended the ACEN organized meetings, either in the Carnegie International 53

Foster Hailey, “Exiles’ Assembly to Meet Near U.N.,” New York Times, 16 September 1960, 11; “‘Captive European Nations’ Make Plea to the West,” New York Times, 18 July 1960, 30. A detailed account of the ACEN activities during Anastas I. Mikojan’s, Frol R. Kozlov’s, and Nikita Khrushchev’s visits in 1959 and 1960 were described in Mazurkiewicz, “Relationship between the Assembly of Captive European Nations and the Free Europe Committee in the Context of U.S. Foreign Policy 1950-1960” in The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare, 91–130. 54 ACEN News 64-66 (1960): 6. 55 “What Khrushchev Won’t See,” New York Herald Tribune, 23 September 1960. 56 ACEN News 67 (1960): 9. Cf. Mazurkiewicz, “Relationship between the Assembly of Captive.” 57 ACEN News 68 (1960): 6.

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Center, or in front of the ACEN House, were: James J. Wadsworth (U.S. representative to the UN), Bourke B. Hickenlooper (U.S. representative to the UN, a Republican senator from Iowa), Jacob K. Javits (Republican senator from New York), Thomas J. Dodd (Democratic senator from Connecticut), Emanuel Celler and Samuel S. Stratton—both Democratic Congressmen from New York—and others.58 Their public appearances in support of the captive nations were recorded by the press and repeatedly mentioned by the ACEN in their publications.

The End of the ACEN House Project The continuation of the ACEN House operations on the basis of temporary provisions was impossible in the long run. The original lease contract was signed for five years, so it was due to expire on 30 April 1961. In March 1961 the ACEN asked the FEC permission to either prolong it for another year, with a provision for a five-year renewal, or to buy the building.59 Due to the lack of funds, the latter proposal was almost automatically rejected. In order to convince the FEC that the new lease would not cause much budgetary strain, the ACEN decided to rent the ground floor of the ACEN House to the East Highway Auto Repairs for 3,000 dollars a year. In addition, the garage workers were obliged to take care of the proper technical condition of the building and raise the flags on the rooftop on a daily basis. According to the ACEN estimates, this could save as much as 1,140 dollars a year. Furthermore, the ACEN leadership considered renting the first floor as well, beginning on 1 July, for as much as 4,800 dollars a year. Consequently, the exiles asked the FEC that a financial support of 4,700 dollars be allotted for the purpose of paying the rent and taxes involved, and for 2,400 dollars needed to pay for 3 façade posters a year.60 Based on these estimates, the ACEN believed that much 58

Among the ACEN friends one also finds i.a.: Alvin O’Konski; R. Madden, Edward J. Derwinski, William O. Lipinski, Daniel J. Flood, Karl E. Mundt, William F. Knowland, Paul H. Douglas. “Wadsworth in Warning. Sees Dangers in ‘Premature’ U.N. Session on Hungary,” New York Times, 29 June 1957, 3; ACEN News 67 (1960), 9; “Senator Visits Rally,” New York Times, 21 September 1960, 5; “Support of Captive Lands Urged,” New York Times, 11 December 1958, 3; ACEN News 77–78 (Aug.-Sept. 1961): 9; “Javits Reassures Red Satellites,” New York Times, 21 July 1959, 12. 59 ACEN Chariman and Secretary General to FEC President, Memorandum: ACEN House opposite the United Nations, 24 March 1961, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11. 60 Ibid.

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more than the requested 7,100 dollars was needed per year in order to maintain the operations connected to the ACEN House—the plans for its remodelling no longer even being considered. However, as they were struggling to collect the money, the First Avenue from the Forty-second to the Forty-eight streets was subjected to the area “revitalization” plan; What only ten years ago was an ugly row of old tenements, garages, small businesses and dingy food shops—suitable complement to the slaughterhouse that formerly occupied the United Nations site—has blossomed into a handsome line of modern office structures.61

In fact, a decade after the UN headquarters were opened the district was not truly presentable and it had to be “rejuvenated”. The January 1962 article published by the “New York Times” devoted to the area remodelling plans provided a detailed description of the buildings surrounding the UN Plaza, including the ACEN House. The southern half of the block between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Street is the sole spot that is not yet committed to present or future construction. It has two tenement buildings, a restaurant and a tenement remodelled into a modern apartment building. Also on the southern part of this block are a garage that has an office of the Assembly of Captive European Nations, which flaunts anti-Communist banners across from the United Nations, and the national headquarters building of the Boys’ Clubs of America.62

The façade of the Boys' Clubs of America building, which was opened a year and a half earlier, was made of glazed brick and marble. Previously, this six-storey building hosted a truck-servicing station. The new owners used the original steel construction frame and built a modern, five-storey building—to the obvious delight of the journalist. The ACEN House stood out. Initially, when the Boys’ Clubs considered moving to First Avenue, they were hoping to buy the Tomich/ACEN House.63 During a meeting with the FEC, which took place on 14 October 1958, the ACEN leaders were informed that if they would agree to terminate their lease agreement—thus allowing the Boys’ Clubs to buy the Tomich House—the 61 Edmond J. Bartnett, “U.N. Plaza Gains in 10-year Span. Shabby Six Blocks Across Street Now Rejuvenated,” New York Times, 21 January 1962, 2.28. 62 Ibid. 63 B. Coste, Memorandum for the Record: ACEN House, 769 First Ave, NYC, 17 October 1958, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11,

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ACEN would be entitled to rental of offices in the reconstructed and modernized building. However, the new construction would carry the name of former president Herbert Hoover, who was the honorary chairman of the Boys’ Clubs. Moreover, the ACEN would have to cease their poster and flag displays.64 Unsurprisingly, the ACEN Chairman rejected this proposal. His decision was made easier by the behind the scenes activities of the Boys’ Clubs leadership. According to the ACEN documentation, the new owners of the adjacent building tried to persuade the exiles by harassing them through delegations to the city authorities, or by partially covering the ACEN House façade with scaffoldings.65 During the next few years only a few posters captured media attention. By 1963, financial strains had forced the ACEN to terminate their lease of the ACEN House. However, judging by the content of the posters, they were still displayed in 1964. For example, a photograph printed in the “ACEN News” shows a banner on the ACEN House citing President Johnson’s speech of 18 June 1964: “This country is firmly committed to the cause of freedom and justice everywhere”.66 U.S. Representative Samuel S. Stratton is shown addressing the crowd in front of the ACEN House. The photos showing the earlier displayed posters with dramatic pleas for help directed to the United Nations were published in the “ACEN News” and the American press until 1965. Unfortunately, by the mid1960s the funds for the ACEN operations had been radically cut in half. This, of course, influenced all areas of the ACEN operations.67

64

Ibid. The Boys’ Clubs of America rendered more than occasional inconvenience to the ACEN, especially during the construction of their newly purchased quarters. When Brutus Coste tried to intervene with a claim that the scaffoldings were covering the facade of the ACEN House (the flags and the posters) for more than a month, he was rebuked with a laconic reply that the works could not be sped up, the construction company obeyed the law and did not feel like it had to cover the scaffoldings with a net which would make it less irksome. Naturally, it had the potential of ruining the ACEN plans connected with the commemoration of the Human Rights Day (10 December). However, judging by the photograph printed in the ACEN News the poster was successfully mounted in time. B. Coste to Turner Construction Company, 4 November 1959, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11; R.M. Hettem to B. Coste, 5 November 1959, IHRC, ACEN, box 1, folder 11; ACEN News 57 (1959): 15. 66 ACEN News 111-113 (Jul.–Sep. 1964): 4. 67 A. Mazurkiewicz, “Assembly of the Captive European Nations.޵ 65

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Conclusion The apogee of the ACEN actions involving the building at the 769 First Avenue and the zenith of media attention directed to it came in 1956 (after the Hungarian Revolution) and lasted until 1960 (Khrushchev’s second U.S. visit). In the above-mentioned ACEN memorandum of March 1961, the exiles summed up the five years of events organized with the means of the warehouse, proudly referred to as the ACEN House.68 According to this document, the building became one of the landmarks in Manhattan and brought a significant increase of attention directed to the ACEN—both on the part of the U.S. media and UN delegates who arrived to deliberate in the building across the street. Even though the exiles never fulfilled their dream of a “Captive Nations Center,” they mentioned in the report that at times they were introduced to the new UN delegates as “delegates from that building”.69 Therefore, the ACEN House did in fact play the symbolic role of an alternative representation of the captive nations. It was living proof that the ACEN was more than one of many East European pressure groups, but that it aspired to be perceived as a genuine and legitimate representation of the subjugated nations. Today the Tomich/ACEN House no longer exists. The address, 769 First Avenue, points a visitor to one of the entrances to a six-storey building in a block stretching from Forty-fourth street to Ralph J. Bunche Park (the corner of the Forty-third). However, it is worth remembering that for eight years the exiled political leaders from nine East European countries were able to efficiently carry out their public information campaigns from an unimpressive warehouse located directly across from the world organization. Their actions were unprecedented, and not thereafter repeated.

68 69

Memorandum: ACEN House opposite the United Nations. Ibid.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN ESTONIANS AND THE STOCKHOLM OFFICE OF THE ASSEMBLY OF CAPTIVE EUROPEAN NATIONS PAULI HEIKKILÄ

After the Second World War, approximately 70,000 Estonians escaped the Soviet invasion by fleeing to the west.1 Although this number is among some of the smallest of the central and eastern European émigré populations, the Estonians managed to successfully integrate into their receiving countries and, furthermore, create political centres to promote the case of their independence. The most important centres established were the Estonian National Council (Eesti Rahvusnõukogu), (ENC) in Stockholm and the National Committee for a Free Estonia in New York. This article is an attempt to increase the research of both the social and political aspects of the Estonian Cold War diaspora, which is only now gradually taking shape.2 Its aim is to examine the transatlantic dimension of emigrant Estonian activities, focusing on the Assembly of Captive European Nations (ACEN), which was the most prominent political emigrant organization in the U.S. Many Estonians joined its activities in New York, but this article specifically concentrates on its extension in Scandinavia, where a local office was established in Stockholm. Here, the 1

This paper was written within the framework of the MOBILITAS Postdoctoral Research Grant “Välis-Eesti välispoliitika 1944–1972” (Estonian emigrants in international organizations) MJD259. 2 James T. McHugh and James S. Percy, Diplomats without a country. Baltic Diplomacy, International Law and the Cold War (Westport: Greenwood Papers 2001); John Hiden, Vahur Made, David Smith, eds., Baltic Question during the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2008); Jonathan L'Hommedieu, Exiles and Constituents. Baltic Refugees and American Cold War Politics, 1948–1960 (Turku: University of Turku, 2011); Olaf Mertelsmann, Kaarel Piirimäe, eds., Baltic Sea Region and the Cold War (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2012).

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emigrants were forced to find a way to peacefully cooperate with each other, as well as to withstand evident political disputes. The idea behind directing the researcher’s attention to a certain national group is to use them as a case study for further research in finding the common features for all eastern and central Europeans. The article is based on the largest Estonian newspaper in Sweden, “Teataja”, as well as Aleksander Warma’s files in the Baltic Archives within the Swedish National Archives in Stockholm. Warma was the former Estonian envoy in Kaunas and Helsinki, and the actual head of foreign relations of the ENC. The files are not entirely personal, as he collected administrative material while serving as chairman of the Stockholm Office of the ACEN. There is an evident danger of biased selection. However, even a brief introductory glimpse of the material related to the ACEN headquarters in the Immigration History Research Centre confirms the overwhelmingly important role that Warma played in Stockholm.

Estonians Find the ACEN The protracted dream of European unity recurred with a new strength after World War II as a way of preventing future wars. For most Europeans, it also appeared as a device to end the post-war occupation and restore the national independence of the countries subjugated to a foreign rule. The European Movement (EM) was an umbrella organization of various groups from western Europe who shared these aspirations. It emphasized the federalist approach pleading for the leading politicians to meet and decide on the founding of the union. Such a meeting was organized in the Hague in May 1948; Arvo Horm, secretary of the ENC, attended as the Estonian delegate.3 One of the main results of this Congress was the founding of the Council of Europe a year later. However, when the actual integration started within the European Coal and Steel Community, both the Council and the Movement rapidly lost their relevance. Meanwhile, however, the EM had managed to intensify its attitude towards eastern Europe and created the Central and Eastern European Commission for émigré politicians. In January 1952, the London Conference, its flagship event, 3

Pauli Heikkilä, “The Finn Hjalmar Procopé and the Estonian Arvo Horm at the Congress of Europe” in Publication des Actes du Colloque sure le Congrès de La Haye (1948-2008)—Proceeding of the symposium on the Hague Congress (19482008), edited by Jean-Michel Guieu and Christophe Le Dréau, (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009), 253–262.

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had 160 participants, one tenth of them Estonians. Soon afterwards, however, most began to look into other ways to participate in international politics and sought alternative means of channelling information to the west about the situation behind the Iron curtain.4 The disappointed Estonians found this forum in the ACEN, which was the American umbrella organization for emigrants from central and eastern Europe founded in September 1954. The United States wanted to use it primarily as a propaganda tool, secondly, as a source of information and, thirdly, to gain support in western Europe for its policy toward eastern Europe. Its actual aims were thus quite humble compared to the full liberation preached and desired by the emigrants. The CIA and the Department of State exercised control over the ACEN, and since they funded the organization, they could easily connect it with the official U.S. foreign policy of maintaining the status quo. For the emigrants, changing the status quo was the ultimate goal of their activities. This gap between the two ideals was evident from the beginning, and it gradually increased during the first ten years of the ACEN.5 Thus the ACEN was, despite its name, purely an emigrant organization. They would have preferred to work with the EM, an organization including politicians from both the west and the east. Nonetheless, this transfer was relatively unproblematic, in part because they shared a common goal: as the founding ACEN session declared, Captive Nations …fully realize that their national survival hinges on their integration into an all-European community. Their freedom can only be secured within a continental federated unit.6

To execute this, the ACEN made contact with the Council of Europe, which it hailed as the first step towards a European federation. In an attempt to establish a meeting place that would be acceptable to the whole of Europe, not merely the liberal west, in August 1949, the Council 4

Pauli Heikkilä, “Unifying the Divided Continent. Estonian National Committee of the European Movement,” NordEuropa Forum 1/2 (2010): 135–161. 5 Feliks Gadomski, Zgromadzenie Europejskich Narodów Ujarzmionych. Krótki zarys (New York: Bicenntenial Publishing Corporation, 1995); Anna Mazurkiewicz, “’The Voice of the Silenced Peoples’ The Assembly of Captive European Nations” in Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, ed. Ieva Zake, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 167–185. 6 Assembly of the Captive European Nations. First Session, 20 September 1954 – 11 February 1955. Organization, Resolutions, Reports, Debate (Carnegie Endowment International Center: New York 1955), 125–128.

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resolved that empty seats in their meetings would represent the absent eastern Europeans. This decision was never implemented, however, and the ACEN was forced to repeatedly ask the Council to fulfil its promise. As a way of pressuring the Council of Europe, the ACEN scheduled European sessions in Strasbourg to coincide with the meetings of the Council of Europe. In 1955, Estonians tried to convince the EM to cooperate with this tactic underlining that this joint action would “form a more powerful and certainly also more significant manifestation for the benefit of the peoples behind the Iron Curtain”. Claiming administrative difficulties, the EM declined to participate.7 After this, Estonians appealed to the ACEN to postpone their conference until the autumn; however, this was also in vain.8 The blame was placed entirely on the EM. For the Estonians, this was another example of their inability to effectively demonstrate against the oppression of eastern Europe. Only with American assistance had a joint meeting been possible and this further highlighted “the weakness of the European exiles”.9 Although the organizational chart of the ACEN indicates its New York offices as the most important in its operations, the Assembly also founded special offices in Europe; in Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm to gather and distribute information. The ACEN European delegations were relatively free to organize themselves. Their rule was: The member organizations appoint delegates and ACEN headquarters assigns to one of those persons the task of convening the constitutive meeting of the new ACEN Delegation, which then freely elects its officers.10

It took rather a long time to organize the Stockholm Delegation, which—due a large number of Estonians who had settled in Sweden—was of special interest to the Estonians. The founding meeting took place as late as January 1959. In quarrelsome elections a Pole, Wiesáaw Patek, became the chairman after a Lithuanian (Irvis Scheynius) had declined. His compatriot Jonas Pajaujis assumed the duties of secretary. Others present in the meeting were Latvians: KƗrlis Dziƺleja, JƗnis Breikšs and 7

ENCEM to Central and Eastern European Commission, 21 January 1955, Baltic Archives (BA), Warma 10; CEEC to ENCEM, 5 February 1955, Ibid. 8 Letter from Rei to MƗsƝns, 15 March 1955, BA, Warma 8; Letter from ENCEM to ACEN, 19 April 1955, BA, Warma, 10. 9 Letter from Warma to Torma, 21 May 1955, BA, Warma 10. 10 Letter from Coste to Warma, 13 August 1958, BA, Warma 7.

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Brnjno KalniƼš, although the latter individuals represented The Liberal Union and Socialist International, respectively. The Bulgarian and Czechoslovak delegates were unable to attend the meeting.11 The following year, an Estonian, Aleksander Warma was elected chairman. He had established a career in the Estonian Foreign Ministry as minister in Kaunas and in Helsinki, having refused to return to Estonia after the Soviet incorporation in 1940. Instead, he became one of the most distinguished politicians among Estonian emigrants. Ella Dickinson, who was married to a Hungarian, was appointed secretary.12 Dickinson was chairwoman for a time, as was Dziƺleja; however, she moved to London in 1962. At the same time the ACEN gave up the rule of obligatory annual change and allowed the delegation leadership to continue “in order to facilitate the situation of some delegations and to help in safeguarding the continuity of their work”.13 It remains unclear whether the change had been introduced for Stockholm only, but by this time Warma had become the personification of the office. Warma, whose activities had not been bound to this position alone, remained the ACEN Stockholm Delegation chairman. After Dickinson’s departure, a Latvian—JƗnis Rutkis—became its secretary. The leading circles of the office remained rather small.

National Rivalries and Political Disputes National prejudice created problems for the ACEN joint political action, which naturally resonated in the Stockholm office. However, in Stockholm the Estonian group was clearly dominant as it was simply the most numerous among the exiles. In the elections for the delegation in January 1959, Patek admitted, “it’s evident that a representative of the Estonian national group should have been elected chairman of the delegation”.14 Estonians naturally agreed. At the same time Arvo Horm wrote to Warma, “the ACEN delegation does not practically start moving, before the whole question is in the hands of the ENC and you are the Chairman”.15 11

Report on Elections of the ACEN Swedish Delegation Board, 7 January 1959, BA, Warma 7. 12 Letter from Warma to Coste, 10 December 1959, BA, Warma 7. 13 Letter from Dimitrov to Dickinson, 9 October 1962, BA, Warma 7; “ACEN esindusele Stokholmis uus juhatus,” Teataja, 7 January 1961, 3. 14 Report on Elections of the ACEN Swedish Delegation Board, 7 January 1959, BA, Warma 7. 15 Letter from Horm to Warma, 21 September 1959, BA, Warma 8.

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The Estonian agenda was not purely a nationalist one though, and the Stockholm office delegated a lot of work to the Baltic Committee, which was an organization cooperating with the Baltic exiles and the Swedish anti-communist sympathizers. Warma pointed out several times that the delegation did not have its own bureau or staff and was therefore unable to carry out its tasks independently; rather it was forced to turn to the Baltic Committee for help.16 Additionally, Estonians, and to a lesser extent Latvians, could use their old, ethnic channels to spread the word about the ACEN’s activities.17 Despite their intentions, the Estonian domination alienated other nationalities from the delegation. And after a few years, Warma complained to Aleksander Kütt, the new chairman of the Committee for Free Estonia, and consequently the chairman of the ACEN, about the weariness of the entire delegation, as often delegates did not show up to meetings and all the tasks were piled upon the Estonians and the ENC. Other nationalities accused the Estonians of being autocratic. What is more, the Estonians, in fact, did not approve of using their resources for a common cause.18 When Dickinson resigned from the delegation, there were difficulties finding a replacement for her, as the Hungarian Committee in New York did not send her a list of suitable candidates before she left Stockholm.19 Even five years later, Warma regretted the absence of a Hungarian, as well as Czechoslovak and Romanian representatives in the office.20 Political disagreements also contributed to the slow start of the delegation and to the Estonian involvement. Patek explained that the need to elect an Estonian chairman was not self-evident, because the “divergence of opinion among Estonians themselves constituted a hindrance”. He was following the directives from New York, which was “based upon the standpoint of the Estonian delegation in New York”. As there was not a clear agreement between the Estonians, Patek could not agree to nominate an Estonian representative.21

16

For example: Letter from Warma to Butariu, 13 October 1960, BA, Warma 7. Letter from Warma to Coste, 20 January 1960, BA, Warma 7. 18 Letter from Warma to Kütt, 20 December 1962, BA, Warma 8; Letter from Warma to Sidzikauskas, 6 December 1965, BA, Warma 9. 19 Letter from Warma to Dickinson, 10 November 1962, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Dickinson to Warma, 11 December 1962, BA, Warma 7. 20 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 1967, BA, Warma 7. 21 Report on Elections of the ACEN Swedish Delegation Board, 7 January 1959, BA, Warma 7. 17

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Leonhard Vahter, the chairman of the Estonian delegation in the ACEN, revealed to Warma that the appointment of an Estonian chairman for the Stockholm Delegation was out of the question given the polarized situation. “In our opinion, a chairman ought to be elected from another nation”. He feared that if two Estonian representatives were to compete for that position, the other nationalities would be placed in the embarrassing position of choosing between them.22 When August Rei, the chairman of the ENC, expressed his satisfaction with the decision to establish the Stockholm delegation, the ACEN Secretary General, Brutus Coste, expressed appreciation for the “fine spirit of cooperation” among the emigrants in Stockholm.23 On the other hand, in New York the disputes between Estonians did not go unnoticed. In February 1957, the headquarters tried to solve this problem by appointing two Estonian representatives from both political centres if they could not come to an agreement about sharing the seats between themselves.24 Due to the Estonian situation, the ACEN decided to postpone establishing the delegation and discuss the matter with Warma in the general meeting.25 Even earlier, in March 1955, the ENC had contacted the ACEN and listed the reasons, why they should be entitled to representation in the general assembly, although they acknowledged their distance from Sweden. According to them, the Estonian representation was currently a “completely incidental composition” and an embarrassing exception among exile groups. The Committee for a Free Estonia was, in their estimation, merely an extension of the Free Europe Committee, a working organ rather than a national committee. They presented the ENC as the only coherent Estonian political organization in the west that could speak for political parties active in a democratic Estonia, as well as for new parties founded in Sweden. Furthermore, it consisted of former parliamentary leaders and diplomats—exactly what the ACEN bylaws desired. ACEN Chairman, Vilis MƗsƝns, even visited Stockholm while trying to solve the problem.26 George M. Dimitrov, Secretary General of the International Peasant Union, assured his Estonian colleague, Johannes Sikkar, that the Stockholm Delegation should act independently of New York.

22

Letter from Vahter to Warma, 14 April 1959, BA, Warma 9. Letter from Coste to Rei, 20 February 1958, BA, Warma 7. 24 Letter from Kütt to Rei, 28 February 1957, BA, Warma 9. 25 Letter from Sidzikauskas to Rei, 15 march 1958, BA, Warma 9. 26 Letter from Rei to MƗsƝns, 15 March 1955, BA, Warma 8; Letter from ENC to ACEN, 24 October 1956, BA, Warma 9. 23

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Chapter Fifteen But sometimes (sic!), they try to mix up in the elections. As I understand, Mr. (Johannes) Klesment (the chairman of the Committee for a Free Estonia) wants another fellow for president of the delegation.27

The “other fellow” was Heinrich Laretei, Estonian envoy to Stockholm before the Soviet annexation. He had cooperated closely with Rei and Warma, when they founded the foreign delegation in August 1940 to act as government-in-exile, but they had departed in the late 1940s. One reason for disagreements was the largely European scope of the Estonian foreign efforts. Rei revealed the schism to another Baltic politician, Vaclovas Sidzikauskas. According to Rei, Laretei’s election …would cause insurmountable difficulties and a downright confusion in the ACEN activities here, especially regarding the collaboration of the Baltic central organizations here, which up to now has been very friendly and fertile.28

In the founding meeting, Warma pointed out the actions and traditions of his organization, which were much more distinguished compared to Laretei’s Estonian National Congress (Rootsi Eesti Esindus), especially in light of the fact that Laretei had chosen not to attend the meeting.29 Nevertheless, he was given the other remaining Estonian seat in the leadership of the Delegation. But he continued to refuse to cooperate with the ENC and with the Stockholm office. All in all, he attended only one of the delegation meetings.30

Activities of the Office As soon as Warma was elected chairman, he started to not only execute his ideas but also to test the limits of his authority. He asked headquarters for more space to manœuvre in “matters of an urgent and local character”. At the same time, he made assurances that these measures would not oppose the general directives of the organization. Coste replied by repeating “the fullest measure of freedom to elaborate and carry out the programmes of activities best suited to serve our purpose”. However, he

27

Letter from Dimitrov to Sikkar, 8 April 1958, BA, Warma 7. Letter from Rei to Sidzikauskas, 3 February 1958, BA, Warma 9. 29 Report on Elections of the ACEN Swedish Delegation Board, 7 January 1959, BA, Warma 7. 30 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 2 May 1968, BA, Warma 7. 28

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stressed the necessity of joint actions when addressing foreign governments.31 The largest action of the ACEN was the worldwide exhibition tour titled “Soviet Empire 1917–1958”.32 The idea of bringing the exhibition to Sweden was first discussed in late February 1960 and the following month it opened in Stockholm. In Sweden, the title was changed to “This is why we escaped”. The Baltic Committee paid half of the organizing expenses and the ACEN covered the rest. The swift arrangement was evidence of the excellent contacts between the Estonians and Swedish politicians. Warma was more than pleased with the turnout of approximately 8,000 visitors. In a similar fashion, the General Committee was satisfied with the results and allowed the exhibition to expand its visit to other Swedish towns.33 In the summer of 1960, the exhibition toured nine other Swedish towns. In total, 23,600 spectators visited it. In August 1964, after a long break, the exhibition was taken to Oslo.34 Another major event was the World Festival of Youth and Students organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students in Helsinki in July–August 1962. For Warma, a massive meeting of the Communist youth taking place in a neighbouring, neutral country sounded too good to be true; “The ACEN cannot possibly stay outside that action”.35 This was a perfect opportunity to contact the population behind the Iron Curtain and inform them about life in the west out of reach of Soviet propaganda. Warma had such a strong conviction that he started to prepare actions even before receiving any response from New York. According to him, the preparation needed to begin as early as possible.36 Although the ACEN was interested in hearing

31

Letter from Warma to Coste, 18 December 1959, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Coste to Warma, 22 December 1959, BA, Warma 7. 32 Mazurkiewicz, “The Voice of the Silenced,” 177-178. 33 Letter from Warma to Sidzikauskas, 23 February 1960, BA, Warma 9; Letter from Coste to Warma, 7 March 1960, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 11 April 1960, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 11 July 1960, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Coste to Warma, 29 July 1960, BA, Warma 7; “Ikestatute nädal Stokholmis,” Teataja, 6 May 1960, 1. 34 Letter from Coste to Warma, 3 October 1963, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 14 October 14 1963, BA, Warma 7; “Kokkuvõte põgenikenäitustest,” Teataja, 7 January 1961, 1. 35 Letter from Warma to Coste, 18 May 1961, BA, Warma 7. 36 Letter from Warma to Coste, 9 August 1961, BA, Warma 7.

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the plans of the Stockholm delegation, in April 1962 they could not find the funding to execute them.37 Finally, in July 1962, the ACEN regretfully withdrew from funding Helsinki. According to Coste, the festival was not among the main functions of the ACEN, which was “to influence the policy of government and the views of the shapers of public opinion”.38 The ACEN obviously knew about the Scandinavian Youth Service, a joint organization of the Estonians and the CIA, which was founded with the purpose of counteracting communist actions in Helsinki, and did not want to intervene. Because of its secret nature, only a few documents related to the festival can be found in Warma’s collection. His report to the ACEN only stated that “my younger collaborators took an active part there”.39 The counteractions included, among others, a leaflet Helsinki Youth News and other small publications and exhibitions on western youth culture.40 After the festival, it was time for the ACEN to congratulate Warma, “In the case of the Helsinki festival, Estonians conducted such marvellous work, which deserves all the recognition”.41 Furthermore, Warma wanted to expand the Captive Nations Week to Scandinavia. “This is regrettable and unnatural that an action of so great an importance takes place in the USA, at the same time as practically nothing is known about it in Europe itself where the Captive Nations are located”. Coste referred to the bureaucracy and the difficulty in finding the proper funding, but came up with a counter-proposal in a special issue of the “ACEN News”. He could even promise extra funding for this.42

37

Letter from Gaspar to Warma, 14 August 1961, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Gaspar, 10 March 1962, BA Warma 7; Letter from Gaspar to Warma, 3 April 3 1962, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Kütt to Horm, 15 February 1962, BA, Warma 8. 38 Letter from Coste to Warma, 10 July 10, 1962, BA, Warma 7. 39 Letter from Warma to Coste, 20 August 1962, BA, Warma 7. 40 Joni Krekola, Maailma kylässä 1962. Helsingin nuorisofestivaali (Helsinki: Suomen rauhanpuolustajat and Like, 2012), 187–209; “Helsingi festivalile oodatakse kuni 15'000 osavõtjat,” Teataja, 14 July 1962, 1; “Mõjuvad vastudemonstratsioonid Helsingi kommunistlikule noorsoofestivalile,” Teataja, 11 August 1962, 1; “Kaose ja kontrolliga ei võideta maailma noorust,” Teataja, 25 August, 1962, 1. 41 Letter from Kütt to Warma, 22 August 1962, BA, Warma 8. 42 Letter from Warma to Coste, 10 July 1961, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Coste to Warma, 28 July 1961, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Coste to Warma, 3 August 1961, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 9 August 1961, BA, Warma 7.

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The publishing and translating of the newsletter “ACEN Bulletin” was indeed a more consistent activity of the Stockholm office. Between 1960 and 1964, they published the quarterly newsletter mainly in Swedish, but during the youth festival in Helsinki, it was published in English (1962:3) for foreign visitors. Additionally, there were at least two newsletters published in Finnish (1961:3 and 1965:1). Both the ACEN and the ENC paid for the former. The first 2,000 copies sold out rapidly, so there had to be an additional 500 copies printed.43 Warma had to explain why this bulletin was also published in Finnish. He held his ground and explained that the purpose of the bulletin was to keep all of Scandinavia informed. Because most Finns could not read Swedish, it was necessary to publish the latest volume in Finnish. Secondly, in November 1961, the Soviet note, “which perhaps is difficult to understand and appreciate in the USA”, demanded full focus on Finland. The Soviet Union called for consultations for mutual Finno– Soviet defence, and the peaceful solution to this ‘note crisis’ in large part decided the presidential elections in Finland few months later. Warma was so pleased with this arrangement that he proposed to have one volume published in Finnish, one in Norwegian and two in Swedish on an annual basis.44 Warma remained attached to Finland and maintained contact with Finnish politicians. He also considered it to be a potential destination for the ACEN actions. He proposed paying greater attention to Finland by recruiting informants and publishing articles about the country. According to Warma, this would decrease feelings of isolation in Finland and increase the self-confidence of the Finns. Headquarters in New York calculated the risk to be too high compared with any potential achievements. The whole matter is of an extremely delicate character and nothing should be done which would in any way embarrass the Finnish Government.45

Warma nevertheless refused to drop the idea right away and placed it to a vote within the delegation, which allowed the chairman to continue

43 Letter from Warma to Butariu, 14 December 1961, BA, Warma 7; “Ilmus ACEN rootsikeelne bülletään no. 2,” Teataja, 13 May 1961, 2; “Uus ACEN rootsikeelne bülletään,” Teataja, 12 January 1963, 5. 44 Letter from Warma to Coste, 12 January 1962, BA, Warma 7. 45 Letter from Zenkl to Warma, 16 March 1960, BA, Warma 9.

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investigating possibilities in Finland.46 He visited Finland at least in April 1961.47 As the result of the publications, Warma was confident of the change in the public atmosphere. In 1960, he complained, “The Scandinavian press and public are so far not at all informed on the activity, strivings and tasks of the ACEN”. Two years later, he declared, “Owing to the work done in the last few years, the name of the ACEN is now well known and highly appreciated in the whole of Scandinavia”.48 On a more general level, General Secretary Coste assured Warma in July 1960 that his record of activities …proves without any shadow of doubt that the exile community in Sweden is second to none in the championing of our cause. I wish we had such communities in the other free nations.49

Coste’s successor Feliks Gadomski gave similar appreciation in 1968, “I am full of admiration for your initiative and your energy in promoting the activities of the ACEN”.50 Despite this praise, Warma occasionally felt abandoned, relegated to a remote northern outpost. In 1967, for example, he noticed, how the leadership of the ACEN had not found time to extend their European trips to Stockholm. He concluded that Stockholm was considered less valued in New York than other locations.51

The Long Final Years In 1965, the gap between the U.S. foreign policy of co-existence and the emigrant zeal for liberation finally became intolerable, and the ACEN budget was cut in half. This shockwave reached Stockholm, and they cancelled budget for the “ACEN Bulletin” in Swedish, and eliminated the

46

Letter from Zenkl to Warma, 18 February 1960, BA, Warma 9; Letter from Warma to Zenkl, 25 February 1960, BA, Warma 9; Letter from Warma to Zenkl, 28 March 1960, BA, Warma 9. 47 Letter from Warma to Coste, 27 April 1961, BA, Warma 7. 48 Letter from Warma to Coste, 20 January 1960, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 12 January 1962, BA, Warma 7. 49 Letter from Coste to Warma, 29 July 1960, BA, Warma 7. 50 Letter from Gadomski to Warma, 8 October 1968, BA, Warma 7. 51 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 1967, BA, Warma 7.

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monthly allotment of $50 for the expenses of the delegation.52 In comparison, the annual budget in 1959for information alone had been $1,400. And only recently, in 1964, the delegation had calculated a budget of $2,880, which was mostly for the costs of the chairman: $600 for office expenses, and $480 for rent.53 At first, Warma was not worried about the cuts, since the emigrant organizations could provide compensating channels to convey information, thus assuring that the delegation would continue its action albeit in a limited capacity.54 These difficulties were nothing new, and money was not the biggest problem. Earlier, in March 1963, Warma grieved, “I am afraid that it will be more and more difficult year by year to find people who are willing to do the delegation's actual work”.55 Three years later the tone was the same, “It is difficult to find a programme which could carry along people in neutral and easy-going Sweden”. There were also other similarly desolate letters expressing this feeling of paralysis.56 Nevertheless, in July 1966, the meeting of the Stockholm delegation unanimously found that “the existing ACEN organizations must at all events be kept active and fit for work”.57 Warma’s enthusiasm was not curbed by these budget cuts. For example, in 1965, he proposed an extraordinary colloquy in Strasbourg to promote the ideological warfare against the slogan of co-existence, which was promoted by both superpowers. However, the idea was given up due to lack of funds The ACEN would continue to meet in Europe following the meeting of the Council of Europe. Warma could not see any benefit in collaborating with the Council and feared, once again, unsatisfactory results.58 Additionally, as late as June 1969, Warma proposed a special folder for Western politicians and universities against Soviet propaganda and, most recently, against Nixon’s policy of détente. The headquarters in 52

Letter from Germenji to Warma, 8 July 1965, BA, Warma 7; Mazurkiewicz, “The Voice of the Silenced,” 178. 53 Letter from Warma to Coste, 20 January 1960, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 12 October 1964, BA, Warma 7. 54 Letter from Warma to Germenji, 23 July 1965, BA, Warma 7. 55 Letter from Warma to Gaspar, 7 March 1963, BA, Warma 7. 56 Letter from Warma to Gaspar, 14 March 1966, BA, Warma 7; Also Letter from Warma to Sidzikauskas, 6 December 1965, BA, Warma 9. 57 Letter from Warma to Gaspar, 4 July 1966, BA, Warma 7. 58 Letter from Warma to Coste, 30 January 1965, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 19 March 1965, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Coste to Warma, 9 April 1965, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Warma to Coste, 14 April 1965, BA, Warma 7.

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New York replied with a kind letter, however nothing came from this proposal.59

Fig. 15-1: The surviving members of the last constitutional Estonian government (August Rei, 1886–1963, sitting in the middle), fulfilled the seats of the government to act as the Estonian representation in exile on 12 January 1953. After Rei’s death, Aleksander Warma (1890–1970; sitting on the right), who initially acted as Foreign Minister, became the Prime Minister in duties of the President of the Republic of Estonia. Johannes Sikkar (1897–1960; sitting on the left) acted as Minister of Interior 1953–1960.60

In June 1967, Warma grieved that the delegation was only reactive “for reasons of an economic nature”. The response from New York was far from what Warma had anticipated. The ACEN stated that it was forced “to discontinue further financial support of your activities”. Furthermore, they asked that no more requests be issued because “there will be no further checks sent”.61 Warma again raised the question of liquidating the delegation but Gadomski denied any such intentions stating, “on the contrary, we would like you to continue although in such a way as not to involve us in expenses which we would not be able to meet”.62 A year later the delegation independently discussed liquidating the setting, ultimately deciding to maintain only the appearance of functioning “and that efforts should be made to maintain its activities as far as possible, in

59 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 11 June 1969, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Gadomski to Warma, 26 June 1969, BA, Warma 7. 60 National Archives of Estonia (ERA.4969.1.89.4). 61 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 19 June 1967, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Gadomski to Warma, 20 July 1967, BA, Warma 7. 62 Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 4 August 1967, BA, Warma 7; Letter from Gadomski to Warma, 23 August 1967, BA, Warma 7.

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case any future development of foreign political events might make its existence necessary”.63 In September 1968, Warma again complained about the abnormality of moving the activities to other organizations, “The activities of our Delegation are paralyzed due to lack of funds [...] The Delegation has no resources”.64 The financial situation was not getting any better and Warma wrote to the ACEN Chairman in March 1969, stating “The Stockholm Delegation does not even have funds at its disposal to pay for postage stamps”.65 Quite tellingly, this was the last letter from the Stockholm delegation. Although the Baltic Committee organized a Captive Nations Day on 28 October 1969, it had nothing to do with the ACEN.66 All funding of the ACEN was ended in December 1971,67 although its actions in Stockholm had already faded away.

Conclusion: Assistant Office The Stockholm Office of the Assembly of the Captive European Nations had a difficult beginning. It took several years to found, due to bureaucratic problems, but also to political disagreements among the Estonians, who were the dominant émigré group in Sweden. When the Estonians could not choose a chairman among themselves, the headquarters in New York tried to bypass the problem by granting the post to someone else. The attempt failed, as the selected chairman, Pole Wiesáaw Patek, did not have the support of either of the Estonian groups. It was only when Aleksander Warma was elected chairman a year later, in December 1959, that the office began to function. Warma had ambitious plans to expand the office not only in Sweden, but to the whole of Scandinavia. He took the Soviet Empire exhibition to Norway and, more importantly, translated ACEN publications into Finnish. By expanding the office's area of influence, he was also trying to increase its prestige. Even after drastic budget cuts, Warma continued to propose new initiatives for action. Warma could quite independently plan the action of the office without waiting for confirmation from New York 63

Letter from Warma to Gadomski, 2 May 1968, BA, Warma 7; Also Letter from Kütt to Warma, 19 June 1967, BA, Warma 7. 64 Letter from Warma to Dimitrov, 18 September 1968, BA, Warma 7. 65 Letter from Warma to Lettrich, 17 March 1969, BA, Warma 8. 66 ”Ikestatud rahvaste päev Stokholmis,” Teataja, 4 October 1969, 1; “Suur manifestatsioon ikestatute päeval,” Teataja, 1 November 1969, 1 and 3. 67 Mazurkiewicz, “The Voice of the Silenced,” 178; “ACEN likvideerimisel,” Teataja, 22 January 1972, 2.

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because he could execute them via other channels as was often necessary. Just as the Stockholm office was merely a Northern extension of the ACEN, it was also a replaceable entity for Warma. Warma’s dominant position and his inclination to use existing Estonian or Swedish channels to execute the duties of the office unfortunately alienated other nationalities. Although there were not many international glitches, those aloof simply abandoned the office. Similarly, there was not much friction among Estonians after the initial disagreements were settled. The absence of correspondence after the late 1950s alludes to the fact that it was easier for Estonians in Sweden to work under the auspices of the ACEN office rather than directly as a national group. The immediate effects of the Stockholm Office are hard to demonstrate, but the real goal was to affect a more subtle influence, which ultimately became more important in the long-term. While proving these enduring outcomes is more difficult, at least working with the ACEN provided the actors with assurances of remaining in the west. This was important for the Baltic emigrants, whose country, unlike those in central and eastern Europe, was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

PART IV EXILES AND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN TIBOR ECKHARDT, HUNGARIAN ÉMIGRÉ POLITICS AND UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE, 1941–1955 KATALIN KÁDÁR LYNN

Although Tibor Eckhardt’s name has now been largely forgotten, he was an important, and in many ways a pivotal, figure in the political life of the Hungarian nation from the 1920s to the 1940s; and after his post-1941 involuntary exile in the United States during World War II, he remained a strong influence within the Hungarian émigré community and with the political decision-makers in his homeland. While biographical information on Eckhardt was known among political insiders in Hungary and in Hungarian American circles, the scope of his extensive activities in collaboration with United States intelligence services was definitely not part of his public profile, and still remains unknown to scholarship. Yet Eckhardt devoted a major part of his time after his arrival in the United States in 1941 to his intelligence activities with the Grombach Organization, also known as the Pond. These began in 1942, and lasted officially until 1955, but unofficially he continued his relationship with Grombach and with other branches of American intelligence until his death in 1972. He was a central, if not public, actor in many of the covert struggles of World War II and the early Cold War that involved Hungary and the other countries of central and east Europe that became Soviet Satellites. While discovery of his unpublished memoirs by this author in 1999 shed some light on his intelligence activities, Eckhardt wrote them with circumspection and left it to future scholars to research the details. When he passed away in 1972, the history of the Pond’s activities was still

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classified, and it is only recently that a portion of that material was declassified and released through the National Archives.1 The release of this new material revealed more fully the extent of Eckhardt’s work with the Grombach Organization, work that, ironically, was indirectly made possible because of the fallout from a vicious smear campaign conducted against Eckhardt beginning in 1941. The campaign by an alliance of the Czech government in exile in league with the Soviets, British intelligence and rival Hungarian exiles forced Eckhardt to quit his position as head of the Movement for Independent Hungary, which he founded in 1941, and move from New York City to Washington, DC, where he met John V. Grombach. Eckhardt entered into collaboration with Grombach’s intelligence organization, known as the Pond, and, by extension, with U.S. intelligence.

Eckhardt’s Relationship with the United States during the Inter-War Period Eckhardt might, at first, seem an extremely unlikely figure to have ended up in the secretive world of U.S. Cold War intelligence. He spent the first thirty-two years of his life living under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. He was first elected to Parliament in 1922 as a representative of the Independent Smallholders Party. From 1926–31 he was out of Parliament but remained in politics as, among other things, Executive Vice President of the Revisionist League. He participated in the reorganization of the Smallholders Party, became its President in 1932, and led the opposition in the Hungarian Parliament from 1935 until his departure for his fourth and final trip to the United States in 1941. During 1934–35 he served as Chief of Hungary’s delegation to the League of Nations. Eckhardt was not by any means a provincial politician. A polished orator, he spoke fluent English, French, German and Romanian, linguistic skills unusual for a political figure from central or east Europe who represented a rural, agrarian constituency. He travelled a great deal on assignment for the inter-war Horthy government from the early 1920s through the end of the 1930s. During those years, Eckhardt established a 1

Historian Mark Stout, formerly a CIA analyst, wrote a short history of the Grombach Organization, “The Pond, Running Agents for State, War and CIA,” which was published in the CIA publication Studies in Intelligence 48/3 (2004). He is currently working on a more comprehensive history utilizing the recently declassified material at NARA, the United States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.

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good relationship with the first United States Minister to Hungary, Nicholas Roosevelt (1928–1933). When the second man to hold that post, John Flournoy Montgomery (1933–1941), arrived with his wife in Budapest, Eckhardt and his wife became their closest friends. In fact, during his posting the American diplomat considered Eckhardt his closest adviser, not just on matters related to Hungarian political issues but on European politics as well.2 For the better part of a decade this relationship enabled Eckhardt to have access far beyond that of most European politicians to American politics and its workings and develop an understanding of how the U.S. political system functioned. Eckhardt made three trips to the United States prior to 1941, the first two at the invitation of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, headed by Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. These visits were on behalf of the Hungarian Revisionist League, for which Eckhardt served as international spokesman. He travelled to the U.S. in 1928 and then in 1929/1930 on a lecture tour for the Endowment.3 A third lengthy trip was made in 1940 on assignment from the Hungarian government, which was then searching for a way to avoid being drawn into a pact with Nazi Germany. Eckhardt had access to political decision makers in Europe, and just a few months before this trip he met with Churchill in London and with key members of the French cabinet in France on behalf of the Hungarian government. In the U.S. he was granted a personal interview with President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 30 April 1940, at the request of John Pelényi, the Hungarian Ambassador to the United States, to discuss Hungary’s dilemma.4 At the conclusion of the interview, it was Roosevelt’s suggestion that if Hungary was forced into the Nazi camp, Eckhardt should continue Hungary’s fight for freedom from a base in the United States.5 2

Tibor Frank, ed., Discussing Hitler: Advisers of U.S. Diplomacy in Central Europe 1933-1941 (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2003), 46. 3 Eckhardt’s travels for the Horthy government first took him abroad when headed the Hungarian Press Office in the early 1920’s and later as Executive Vice President of the Hungarian Revisionist League founded to lobby for revision of the much hated borders imposed upon Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon, which ended WWI. With the Treaty of Trianon, 4 June 1920, Hungary lost 72% of its territory and 64% of its population. The principal beneficiaries were the Successor States of Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 4 Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day, www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday (accessed 6 April 2012). 5 Tibor Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt in his Own Words, ed. Katalin Kádár Lynn (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2004), 81.

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Fig. 16-1: Tibor Eckhardt6

Eckhardt in the U.S., 1941: Exile and the Start of the Anti-Eckhardt Campaign Eckhardt left Hungary on his fourth trip to the United States on 7 March 1941. His nearly six–month-long journey took him through Yugoslavia, Greece, Egypt and then South Africa, as he was not able to travel through German-occupied western Europe. Eckhardt arrived in the United States on 8 August 1941 as the unofficial representative of the Hungarian government. In his own words, his overarching goal was “to continue the fight against Nazism which had become impossible in Hungary”, the immediate goal being “to bring over at the earliest opportunity Hungary and her armed forces to the Allied

6

Author’s private collection.

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side”.7 Unfortunately, during his long journey, circumstances in Hungary had changed dramatically. The suicide of Prime Minister Pál Teleki— who, along with Hungary’s regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, had assigned Eckhardt his mission to the U.S.—effectively changed Hungarian foreign policy.8 Eckhardt denied that he was in the U.S. on an official mission. This arose from the need to disassociate himself and his efforts from the government of Hungary, which had allied with the Germans. The U.S. Department of State accepted Eckhardt’s characterization of his position; in fact, he received a considerable amount of official support immediately after his arrival in the United States. At the request, and with the support, of the American Hungarian Federation (AHF), the umbrella organization of Hungarian fraternal, religious and cultural groups in the United States, soon after his arrival Eckhardt launched the Movement for Independent Hungary on 27 September 1941. Although the organization’s proclamation was not seditious— the organization did not form a government in exile nor did it call for the overthrow of the Hungarian government—it did call for a movement for “independent Hungary” to be organized outside of Hungary. In response, Hungarian Prime Minister László Bárdossy’s government stripped Eckhardt and his supporters of their Hungarian citizenship on 8 October 1941.9 Unfortunately, any chance the Movement for Independent Hungary— also called variously, the Free Hungary Movement Szabad Magyar Mozgalom, Szabad Magyarországert Mozgalom and Független Magyarországert Mozgalom—might have had for success was doomed from the start. The opposition came from those European leaders who were concerned that neither Austria nor Hungary re–establish any power base in central Europe. They also feared a Habsburg restoration in central

7

Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt in His Own Words, 146. László Bárdossy was appointed Prime Minister after the suicide of Teleki on 3 April 1941. The Eckhardt journey had been planned by Teleki, István Bethlen (former prime minister) and Regent Miklós Horthy in collaboration with John Pelényi, former Hungarian Ambassador to the United States. Bárdossy, however, was pro-German and very right wing, and he did not support the mission or its goals. 9 Magyar Külügyminisztérium (Hungarian Foreign Ministry), fond 7.210/1941, MK Minisztérium Szamü hátarozta (Hungarian Royal Ministry: Numbered Decisions), Magyar Országós Levéltár (Hungarian National Archives). 8

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Europe, an idea that Roosevelt was publicly known to have considered.10 The leader of the anti-Hungarian faction was Edvard Beneš, president of the Czechoslovakian government in exile and a powerful political force. Based in London, he was a shrewd politician and quite influential in western European circles, and his ambition was clearly for Czechoslovakia and its interests to assume a dominant role in central European affairs. He and his allies understood that any Hungarian government in exile that had royalist ties and potential populist support had to be discredited. It was public knowledge at the time that Beneš had close ties to Moscow. Recently revealed documents corroborate that the USSR encouraged and monitored the Czechs’ efforts to discredit any strong exile movement that could form or influence Hungary’s post war government. Moscow had its own plans for that region.11 That Moscow itself had Eckhardt in its sights as an anti-communist force that needed to be neutralized is evident in an article written by Ralph Parker, Moscow correspondent for the “New York Times”, which appeared in that paper on 25 July 1942. Parker deals at length with the Movement for Independent Hungary and writes, …it causes surprise here that such a Hungarian as Tibor Eckhardt should find any support in the United States as a representative of ‘Free Hungarians’, who, in Soviet eyes are better represented by true democrats driven from Hungary, such as Rustum [sic] Vambery, Professor Jaszi or Matyas Rakosy [sic].12

Vámbéry and Jászi,13 both with reputations as scholars, can be regarded as democrats, but Mátyás Rákosi, who was then living in exile in 10

The Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled by the Habsburg dynasty was dismantled as a result of the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I. Roosevelt had a strong personal relationship with Archduke Otto von Habsburg, the heir to the AustroHungarian throne, and with Otto’s brothers and their mother, Empress Zita. 11 John Flournoy Montgomery, Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite (New York: Devin-Adair Company, 1947), 94–98; Mario D. Fenyö, Hitler, Horthy, and Hungarian-German Relations 1941–1944 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), 112–113. 12 Ralph Parker, New York Times, 25 July 1942. 13 Commentators writing on Jaszi’s association with Michael Károlyi’s movement speak of his support for it. See Paul Nadanyi, The “Free Hungary” Movement (New York: Amerikai Magyar Népszava, 1942) and Fenyö, Hitler, Horthy, and Hungary-German Relations 1941-1944); Stephen Béla Vardy, however, writes in The Hungarian Americans (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985), 111; “Moreover, Károlyi’s London based movement was so pro-communist and pro-Soviet that it

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the Soviet Union after being released from prison in Hungary, was Moscow’s Hungarian politician of choice. Few individuals would have been so misguided as to refer to him as a “true democrat”.14 The British, too, were deeply involved in undermining the Movement. From the onset of Eckhardt’s 1941 trip, British intelligence in particular viewed him, his purpose and his followers as pro-fascist, and their scepticism as to his motives helped fuel the anti-Eckhardt campaign.15 They were also concerned about the prospect of a Habsburg restoration or a Danubian federation. They mention Archduke Otto von Habsburg regularly in their Special Operations Executive (SOE) communications.16 An internal SOE memorandum of 16 January 1942, sent by Major Peter Boughey, the head of the Hungarian desk in London, stated, “Otto now making propaganda for Eckhardt, and it seems all the more important that Eckhardt’s influence should be combated in some way”.17 Thus, the organized, virulent and systematic slander campaign against Eckhardt and the Movement for Independent Hungary was orchestrated on many fronts. And one reason it could be launched so quickly is that the plans were put in place immediately after he left Hungary, as is evidenced was even rejected by his longtime friend and political ally, the noted progressive liberal sociologist and ex-politician Oscar Jaszi.” 14 Hungarians would learn the nature of Rákosi’s leadership when he served first as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945), and then as the undisguised communist ruler of Hungary in 1948. 15 It is worth examining why Eckhardt’s position with the British changed so dramatically between 1939, when he had a personal audience with Prime Minister Churchill on behalf of the Hungarian government, and 1941, when he was labelled pro-fascist by British intelligence agencies. Perhaps that change can be attributed, to a degree, to the fact that Basil Davidson’s SOE aide was James Klugmann. Klugmann became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain beginning in 1933 and was a friend and classmate of Donald Maclean one of the Cambridge Five Soviet spies. 16 Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British World War II organization formed on 22 July 1940. It consolidated three existing secret agencies to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance operations in occupied Europe against the Axis Powers and to aid resistance movements. The existence of the SOE was little known, and its interagency conflicts with the Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) were similar to those experienced by the Grombach Organization with OSS and later with the CIA. A strong proponent of SOE’s establishment, Prime Minister Churchill said the mission of the new clandestine agency was to “set Europe ablaze”. See Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years: Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Muller, 1957), 366. 17 Special Operations Executive (SOE) Records, HS/4/95, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew, England.

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by the fact that articles attacking him appeared while he was in transit.18 The attacks started on 21 July 1941 in an article by Ludwig Lore published in the “New York Post”. It alleged that Eckhardt, who was still en route, was coming to the U.S. as an ally of “Mr. Hitler and his Hungarian accomplices”.19 While the official reasoning that launched the campaign against Eckhardt may never be made totally clear, it is evident from the available SOE archival documents that Major Basil Davidson and George PálóczyHorváth were both very much in the forefront of the anti-Eckhardt campaign. Davidson had been posted to Budapest in December 1939 by British intelligence (the Secret Intelligence Service of MI6) and was later posted to SOE. The SOE files show that he was quite influential in formulating policy and was consulted on any action to be taken toward Hungary. Pálóczy-Horváth was a Hungarian who had been recruited by British agents in Budapest prior to the war and remained with SOE as an operative throughout the war. As early as the 1930s the Hungarians already regarded him as an agent of the Soviets who operated as a double or perhaps even triple agent. Major Boughey, makes the British role in the anti-Eckhardt campaign clear in a 15 November 1941 cipher telegram: “Exposure of Eckhardt our main card”.20 Why was exposure of Eckhardt the SOE’s main card? Is it possible that the British knew of Eckhardt’s ties to the leadership of the Polish underground and were aware he had organized an intelligence network operating in Europe? If Eckhardt’s efforts were viewed as working against British and Soviet interests, that could certainly explain the ferocity of the SOE campaign against him. In the long-term, the scope of the SOE’s work went well beyond its campaign to discredit Eckhardt. Writing as Nigel West, former British 18

Tibor Eckhardt Papers, box 1, file Attacks Against Tibor Eckhardt, 11 February 1942, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA; Ludwig Lore, New York Post, 21 July 1941; Rusztem Vambéry to Jan Masaryk, 13 July 1941, Rusztem Vámbéry Papers, box 2, file Jan Masaryk 1941, Hoover Institution Archives. 19 State Department Memo 4, Tibor Eckhardt Papers, box 1, file Attacks Against Tibor Eckhardt, Hoover Institution Archives. A former discredited member of CPUSA and a writer for the New York Post beginning in 1934 Lore was recruited by the KGB and work for the Soviet Union as a “talent spotter, recruiter and agent handler” until the late 1930s. John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies, The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 2009), 155–159. 20 SOE Records, HS/4/95, National Archives of the U.K.

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intelligence officer and former member of Parliament Rupert Allason points out in the introduction to Secret War that the SOE, …a small covert sabotage service, financed from the British Government secret vote and a mining magnate’s private fortune, was transformed into a global organization that actively assisted despotic tyrannies to seize power in so much of Eastern Europe [after World War II].21

But in 1941 the SOE was just cutting its teeth when it got involved in the anti-Eckhardt campaign along with the Czechs, who were collaborating with the Soviets, and with a third party, Michael Károlyi’s Free Hungary movement, which was also based in London. All of them played their most significant roles as “spoilers”22 bent on discrediting and destabilizing the AHF, the Free Hungary movement and Eckhardt.

The Anti-Eckhardt Faction among Hungarian Émigrés There were other Hungarian émigrés in addition to Eckhardt who aspired to lead a “free Hungary” movement, and the most prominent among them was Count Michael (Mihály) Károlyi, president of the short lived Hungarian Republic after the First World War, who attempted to form such a movement in London in the late summer of 1941. His American supporters included Rusztem Vámbéry, a great advocate of liberal social change in Hungary and a former head of the criminal law department at the University of Budapest. In addition to supporting Károlyi, Vámbéry was also an early antiEckhardt collaborator with the Czech government in exile in London. In a letter dated 13 July 1941 (again, several months before Eckhardt’s arrival in the U.S.) Vámbéry asked Czech Foreign Minister in exile Jan Masaryk for $1,000 a month to establish a fortnightly publication to discredit the Eckhardt Movement in the United States.23 Subsequently, “Harc!”, an “anti-fascist” paper, was funded and began publishing scathingly critical 21

Nigel West, Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain’s Wartime Sabotage Organisation (Great Britain: Coronet Books, 1992), 8. 22 Michael (Mihály) Károlyi, Prime Minister of the Hungarian Democratic Republic, was in office from 31 October 1918 to 11 January 1919. 23 Rusztem Vámbéry to Jan Masaryk, 13 July 1941 Rusztem Vámbéry Papers, Hoover Institution Archives. Marked “Confidential,” this letter was written to Masaryk in his capacity as Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in the London-based exile government. It was sent several weeks before Eckhardt reached the U.S.

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views of Eckhardt, the Free Hungary Movement and its American supporters.24 The Vámbéry-orchestrated campaign wasn’t limited to publications that targeted only Hungarian émigrés. Ignác Schultz, a Czechoslovak member of the Vámbéry committee, had an article in The Nation on 27 September 1941 titled Budapest’s Fake Mission.25 A week later, an editorial in “The Nation” attacked Eckhardt and the U.S. State Department. The Vámbéry organization also covertly published a virulent anonymous newsletter called “Igazmondó”, which was funded by the British Centre of Information. That publication was SOE’s idea, and the organization was very proud of its effectiveness as a propaganda tool.26 The British Centre of Information was a public propaganda arm for the United Kingdom, but it was also an intelligence arm of the SOE. The SOE also had agents in the United States who monitored not only Eckhardt’s activities (submitting reports even from some of his more private meetings) but also the secret sessions of the AHF Board. For their part, the Hungarian Americans had no idea the SOE even existed, nor that their organizations or activities might be of interest to British intelligence.27 The SOE records clearly attest that the British infiltration was not only widespread but also served a purpose beyond simple observation. SOE 24 Beginning with its initial issue on 25 December 1941, Harc! made Tibor Eckhardt one of the prime targets of its propaganda campaign. One of the ironies of the attacks was their transparent inconsistency. The first issue declared on page 12 that “it is with Jewish money that he [Eckhardt] supports his party and his own propaganda.” Having exhausted that accusation, which seemed not to have any negative impact on Eckhardt’s efforts, six months later, 25 July 1942, Harc! branded Eckhardt as an ardent anti-Semite. Eckhardt’s accusers were to obtain a great deal more mileage from this accusation in their campaign to discredit him. 25 The Nation, 27 September 1941 and The Nation, Letters to the Editor, 10 October 1941, Rusztem Vámbéry Papers, box 8, file Eckhardt, Tibor, Hoover Institution Archives. 26 The Monthly Hungarian Report, New York to London, dated 25 November 1941, states, “it [Igazmondó] is undoubtedly beginning to exert and influence in Hungarian circles here. Articles have been reprinted in as many as thirty Hungarian language papers.” SOE Records, HS 4/95, National Archives of the U.K. By then Igazmondó had been publishing for four months; its organization also clearly pre-dated Eckhardt’s arrival. 27 Like the OSS, whose activities were not known to Americans during the war, the activities of SOE agents seem not to have been a concern to the U.S. government. It appears that very few in the U.S. outside the intelligence community knew of the SOE’s existence or of the extent of its intelligence operation within émigré communities in the U.S.

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agents were actively involved in the spread of disinformation and propaganda.28 Some of the articles exceeded even the expectations of the intelligence operatives. Basil Davidson then posted with SOE in Istanbul reported to SOE Cairo on 7 August 1942 that he had placed an article in a local French language paper and that I am afraid that the editorialist, in rewriting the piece I gave him, has rather overdone himself, and painted Eckhardt in colours a good deal blacker than he deserves; but the general effect is perhaps not an inaccurate one.29

The Vámbéry campaign took a new tack at the beginning of 1942, when it became evident that it was not succeeding in changing the viewpoint of mainstream Hungarian-Americans. According to an article in the 6 January 1942 issue of the New York publication “Dennik”, a Czech Centre of Information similar to the British Centre of Information had been established in New York under the direction of Dr. Jan Pápánek, a “personal envoy of Mr. Beneš.”. The centre’s purpose was to “counterbalance German and Hungarian propaganda” in the United States, with its chief task being “to disrupt the Hungarian and Austrian Free Movements constituted in America”.30 It wouldn’t seem possible that a few propagandists could easily spread the discrediting information that supporters of Eckhardt and the Movement for Independent Hungary were all fascists, reactionaries, Nazi sympathizers and subsidized agents of Nazism. But because Hungary’s political situation was little-known, and it was now a German ally, it actually proved relatively easy. In the chaos of those days, it was difficult to separate the truth from the carefully crafted fiction.

The Results of the Disinformation Campaign The many-pronged propaganda campaign escalated soon after the Movement for Independent Hungary published its six-point programme, 28

Igazmondó issues dated 5 August 1941, 8 September 1941, 29 September 1941, 6 October 1941, 20 October 1941, 27 October 1941, 17 November 1941, 21 November 1941, 1 December 1941, and 24 December 1941, Tibor Eckhardt Papers, Box 1, Folder: Igazmondó, Hoover Institution Archives. 29 SOE Records, HS/4/96, Independent Hungarian Movement, National Archives of the U.K. 30 Eckhardt Memorandum, 7, Tibor Eckhardt Papers, box 1, file Attacks against Tibor Eckhardt, Hoover Institution Archives.

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which included reconstruction of the Danubian area, on 28 November 1941, when the Movement was just a few months old. The campaign did its dirty work quickly and efficiently, opposing the Movement even as it was organizing and unifying. Influential American supporters such as Nicholas Roosevelt, John Flournoy Montgomery and Anne O’Hare McCormick, as well as prominent Hungarian Americans were kept busy writing letters to the editors throughout the country refuting the allegations and explaining the Movement’s true purpose.31 However, despite Eckhardt’s excellent command of English and his undoubted public relations skills, he himself would not counterattack. Eckhardt’s contemporary, journalist and political writer Paul Nadanyi, reports that when asked why, Eckhardt replied, I regard myself as a guest of America, I deem it my duty to behave as such. I came to America to further the interests of a truly Free Hungary, to help promote the victory of the democracies as a means of attaining it. In my estimation Hitlerism spells enslavement for Europe and the world and I watched its growth and spread [...] Nationals of other countries who come to America owe it as a duty to the country which extends its hospitality to do everything in their power to promote the unity which America needs in its most crucial hour if it is to save Europe and the world from barbarism. If others in my position choose to do otherwise, that is no reason why I should violate America’s hospitality. I have utmost confidence that truth will prevail.32

Eckhardt believed that the Czechs were leading the campaign, for although he was aware that the British were involved, he never realized the extent and complexity of the web of activities they mounted. By the middle of 1942, Eckhardt realized that if the Movement for Independent Hungary was to survive, he would have to step down from its leadership. The war of words had been a success—at least against Eckhardt. As a result of the on-going agitation and behind the scenes pressure from their British allies, the U.S. State Department felt compelled to express its official view toward so-called “free movements” in the United States, stating that they did not operate with the U.S. government’s approval.33 31

Anne O’Hare McCormick was the noted British-born European correspondent for the New York Times during the inter-war years and in 1937 was the first female recipient of a Pulitzer Prize. 32 Paul Nadanyi, The “Free Hungary” Movement, 40. 33 “U.S. Recognition Denied: Welles Says ‘Free’ Hungary Has No Official Status,” New York Times, 10 April 1942. According to the article, the “…State Department

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Thus, the disinformation campaign led to the de facto suspension of the Movement and Eckhardt’s retirement from political activities until after the war. Historian Béla Vardy observed, “Deprived of Eckhardt’s leadership, the same political orientation continued to be represented by the AHF, although with few tangible results”.34 Just one year after his arrival in the United States, Eckhardt realized that he “had to vanish to escape constant harassment by the communists and their protagonists”. Eckhardt notes in his memoirs that he then “went underground” and left New York City for Washington, D.C. He remained there until the end of the war, mistakenly thinking that by doing so he was removing himself as a target of a Red conspiracy.35 For its part, after Eckhardt left the leadership of the Movement for Independent Hungary, Britain’s SOE was left with the Vámbéry organization, which it and the Czechs had so avidly supported. By then, however, their enthusiasm for Vámbéry and his group had evaporated. In a private SOE cipher sent from London to Cairo and Istanbul on 8 October 1942, the writer notes that “all are in agreement that Károlyi and Vambery should not (repeat. NOT) appear as successors to Eckhardt”.36

The Beginning of Collaboration with U.S. Intelligence and the Department of State In 1942, after Eckhardt had moved to Washington DC, he was invited along with Archduke Otto von Habsburg to a conference at the Pentagon. Although both men were wary of the meeting’s intent, they nevertheless attended. There they met for the first time with about a dozen professional military officers of the General Staff and were asked if through their contacts they could provide current, reliable information regarding central Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force in Africa. Eckhardt writes in his memoirs, “We were asked point-blank to submit the names and addresses or our friends and acquaintances who could be contacted there to fill the intelligence gap”.37

has not extended any form of recognition, formal or informal to the Independent Hungary Committee headed by Dr. Tibor Eckhardt or to any other ‘free movements.’” 34 Steven Béla Vardy, The Hungarian-Americans 110–112. 35 Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt in His Own Words, 157. 36 Private Cipher London to Istanbul 8 October 1942, SOE Records, HS 4/96, National Archives of the U.K. 37 Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt in His Own Words, 442.

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As the request for the meeting was unexpected and neither Eckhardt nor Archduke Otto knew the individuals involved, they were extremely reluctant to proceed, even though this was the chance they had been looking for to establish political cooperation with America and to liberate their homelands from Nazi domination. They were both aware that the requested information could never be divulged at a meeting, when the slightest or indiscretion could endanger the life of their European collaborators. At a subsequent private meeting, Major John Valentine Grombach of the G-2 Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence was able to allay their fears. Both Eckhardt and the archduke were convinced that Grombach, the son of the former French consul-general posted in New Orleans, understood the European mindset and had a proper understanding of European affairs. The Americans were aware that despite the war Eckhardt and his suspended Movement maintained good lines of communication to the leadership in Hungary and other European countries. (President Roosevelt was later to aid that communication effort by providing Archduke Otto with U.S. Naval codebooks for use in communicating with his brother Charles in Lisbon.38) The Americans were unaware, however, that Eckhardt had long since anticipated the need for an intelligence network in what was to be Nazi-controlled Central Europe and …had organized [it] prior to his leaving Hungary in 1941, and which he controlled exclusively. This intelligence system covered in enemy territory Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Poland, Austria, Italy and Germany. It also provided reliable information on Soviet activities and policies, mainly in those countries.39

The network was initially composed of Hungarian diplomatic couriers and legations, the Polish underground and even the Hungarian and Polish Scouting network. After the meetings with Major Grombach, the War Department accepted Eckhardt’s offer to utilize his network on their behalf. Major Grombach was appointed to “handle and guide” this intelligence network, which Eckhardt ran and whose directives were carried out by its members.

38 Katalin Kádár Lynn, Tibor Eckhardt His American Years, 1941-1972 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 2007), 107. 39 Report, May 7, 1954 by Tibor Eckhardt, Records of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Group 263, Records of the Grombach Organization, Box 1, National Records and Archives Administration (NARA).

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Eckhardt and Archduke Otto’s decision to throw in their lot with Grombach and American Military Intelligence was contingent on a single pledge, namely on complete secrecy, not only toward the Bolsheviks and the British but also concerning American Governmental Agencies, particularly the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Office of War Information (OWI). We had to insist that no subversive activities and no revolutionary policies be promoted through our channels to our homelands. We accepted a future change of the regime in Hungary, but only if carried out by orderly, constitutional process. If this basis for cooperation was accepted, we were prepared to immediately contact three factors in Hungary 1) the anti-Nazi political and religious leaders 2) properly selected chiefs in the Foreign Office 3) reliable high ranking officers in the Army and in the Police. While serving our country we also wished to serve America well. We never deviated from this firm resolve.40

Archduke Otto shared the news of their secret cooperation with President Roosevelt, who was one of the few individuals made aware of the arrangement. Eckhardt and Archduke Otto’s network was set up during several meetings held at the Pentagon with the General Staff between 11 and 18 March 1943, at which time Major Grombach became the permanent collaborator and liaison between the network and the U.S. General Staff. On 18 March, after a meeting with Pentagon staff at the Statler Hotel, Eckhardt’s collaboration plan was approved and then passed on to the Commander in Chief for approval, which was granted. The network’s role was not only to furnish current information to the Americans regarding central Europe but also to advise the anti-Nazi groups and forces in Hungary in preparation for bringing Hungary over to the allied side at the proper time. That Eckhardt and Archduke Otto respected their military partners, and that they all had a good working relationship is clear from Eckhardt’s comments in his memoirs: My experience with the American military was always a happy one. These officers were trained as realists. They did not lose themselves in abstractions. They were eager to reach decisions and did not shun their share of the responsibility. What a difference in favour of a West Point education against hesitant liberal education, which disabled even highly placed bureaucrats in making political decision and carrying them out.41

40 41

Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt in His Own Words, 444. Ibid., 445.

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In its early years (1942–1946) reporting to the War Department, the Grombach Organization operated completely independently of the traditional State Department and OSS intelligence apparatus. That was also a criterion set forth by Eckhardt and Archduke Otto, as there had already been innumerable examples of breach of tradecraft and security that cost the lives of agents and their supporters both in the OSS (often mocked for its amateurism and the “oh so social” background of many of its members) and its British counterpart, the SOE. Eckhardt mentions in his memoirs how General Radescu, the last constitutional Prime Minister of Romania, found this out … as an exile in the most grievous way. The list of his most reliable friends back home, delivered to ‘for eyes only of’ to the Under-Secretary of State was soon found in the handbag of an American spy and the judge [trying the case against the spy] in New York, against the warning of the prosecution, had the list read out at the trial.42

There were disastrous consequences for the individuals revealed to be collaborating with the Allies. In April 1944 a high ranking OSS official called on Archduke Otto requesting that he “exert his influence on Upjack [Eckhardt] to persuade [same]…to form an Opposition Hungarian Government”. John F. Montgomery was also approached by his son-in-law, a Major serving in the OSS, to do the same. 43 It is not surprising that after the debacle of the Movement for Independent Hungary, Eckhardt had no intention of participating with the OSS in their European intrigues. Working under the auspices of the Grombach Organization, Eckhardt’s intelligence system continued to function throughout the war and was not terminated until spring 1946. Eckhardt recapped his intelligence organization’s achievements as follows, referring to himself in the third person: It supplied both intelligence and counterintelligence material, valuable military reports, OBs [operational bases] industrial, economic and production data, high level political and diplomatic information and etc. and rendered, in several instances, remarkable services”. Information received from this system was generally well received by G2 and other government agencies. Reports were also on several occasions submitted directly to the President of the United States. Eckhardt took no 42

Ibid. Report of 10 April 1944, OSS Interference in Hungarian Situation, Records of the CIA, Group 263, Grombach Organization, entry 13, box 4, NARA. 43

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salary or compensation for his services during the entire time he collaborated with Grombach, nor did his sources, among them his personal friends who risked their lives…performing it purely as a patriotic duty.44

Eckhardt translated, edited and commented on the material relayed to him by his sources and during the four years devoted full time to the cause. Eckhardt’s personal connections with heads of states and dynasties in Europe were also put at the service of the U.S. Government. At the request of President Roosevelt, Jeff [Eckhardt] repeatedly relayed the President’s messages to Regent Horthy in Hungary.45 Eckhardt explains in his report that the network was operated at no cost to the United States government, and that his involvement was unknown except to a small group of insiders. Eckhardt received letters of commendation from Brigadier General Hayes Kroner and Major General Stephen J. Chamberlain, both Directors of Intelligence in the War Department, and in these letters his service without financial compensation is lauded.46 Eckhardt’s activities on behalf of the Grombach organization remained unknown until his memoirs were found by this author in the late 1990s. Eckhardt never shared details of any of his intelligence activities with his son, Tibor Eckhardt Jr., who was able to join his father in the U.S. shortly after the war ended, and who was the family member to whom the senior Eckhardt was closest. While the Eckhardt network conducted a large portion of the activities of the Grombach Organization under G-2, the resources developed by Eckhardt were hardly the only fire power in its arsenal. “Grombach’s claim was that by the end of October 1945, he had operatives in 32 countries”.47 Despite Eckhardt’s efforts to keep his work and his self–exile in Washington a secret, the Soviets continued throughout World War II and into the Cold War years to support the Czechs’ efforts to discredit what the USSR viewed as the Hungarian establishment. In Eckhardt’s view, U.S. government agencies that had been infiltrated by communists were aiding these efforts. The routeing path taken by a damaging message titled “Document on Free Hungarian Plans” seems to substantiate his view. 44 Report of 7 May 1954 by Tibor Eckhardt, Records of the CIA, Group 263 Grombach Organization, entry 13, box 4, NARA. 45 Ibid. Eckhardt used Upjack and later Jeff as his code names in the Grombach Organization. 46 Kádár Lynn, Tibor Eckhardt: His American Years, 214, 217. 47 Records of the CIA, Group 263, Grombach Organization, entry 12, box 4, NARA.

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“Document on Free Hungarian Plans” was a six-part message sent from the KGB New York Resident to Moscow on 29–30 November 1944. Its routeing provides substantive proof of the Czech–Moscow connection with regard to Hungary; and the text indicates that Eckhardt himself continued to be a subject of interest. The information it contained was first sent to Soviet agent Vladimir Sergeevich Pravdin (“Sergej”) in New York by Dr. Pápánek of the Czech Centre of Information, who received it from the Vámbéry organization, which had been entrusted by the FBI to translate documents that were written in Hungarian. The KGB Resident states to Moscow that notes in Eckhardt’s handwriting had been found left behind in a taxi and they provided an outline of his recommendations to the Hungarian government as to their actions in the critical days of November 1944.48 Having received the notes from the Czechs, the Soviets analysed the contents, and as a result Hungarian members of Eckhardt’s anti-communist, anti-fascist group within and outside Hungary were identified; a fact of which Eckhardt and the Grombach Organization were never aware. The fact that the campaign against Eckhardt continued until Hungary became a Soviet satellite indicates that while it was in the Czechs’ interests to prevent Eckhardt from returning to Hungary to lead the Smallholders Party once again (his party having won a sizeable majority in the 1945 elections), discrediting Eckhardt and keeping him in America also served the Soviets’ interest in consolidating their power in central Europe.49 Thus the “evidence” of Eckhardt’s “fascism” and all the damaging information about him that began to appear in 1941 were no coincidence.50

48

The Soviet Army crossed the border into Hungary in September 1944 and the siege of Budapest began on 29 October 1944. 49 Eckhardt’s party, the Independent Smallholders, was the strongest democratic anti-government party in Hungary. In 1945, the Smallholders won a majority of 57% in the first free election, held on 4 November. 50 Document on Free Hungarian Plans, 29–30 November 1944, New York to Moscow #1669–1672, 1674–1675, VENONA Program, www.nsa.gov/publicinfo/declass/venona/nov_1944.shtml (accessed 4 July 2012). The VENONA Program originated with the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, the precursor to the National Security Agency, which began a secret program in February 1943 that was later code named VENONA. This small programme’s mission was to examine and exploit Soviet diplomatic communications, but after the programme began, the message traffic included espionage efforts as well. It took American cryptologists almost two years to start to break the KGB encryption. Thereafter, the information gained provided the U.S.

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The intent of the Soviets’ anti-Eckhardt campaign became clear in the light of post-war events. The Soviets wanted to neutralize anyone who had the potential to be a strong post-war political leader, particularly one with close ties to the Habsburgs and the Roman Catholic Church. A secret intelligence report from the Grombach Organization deals with information from Hungary on 30 August 1945 which states: “the Communist Party seems to resent violently the appreciation expressed in Hungary of two of its former political leaders, Tibor Eckhardt and Charles Rassay”. On April 10 the Budapest Communist daily “Szabad Nép” attacked the Small Holders Party [sic] for holding a meeting in Debrecen, where Mr. Vasari and Mr. B. Szabo spoke in praise of Eckhardt as their far sighted leader. Revai [author of the “Szabad Nép” article] expressed the opinion that the speakers did not do the Small Holders Party a favour in mentioning Eckhardt’s name, since the latter, although an opponent of Nazism was also opposed to the Soviet Union.51 The above is a vitally important admission that the Soviets and Hungarian communists knew Eckhardt was an opponent, not a proponent, of Nazism in addition to being an avowed anti-communist, thus confirming that the disinformation campaign painting him as a fascist was simply propaganda. Having lived in the Soviet Union from 1934–1944, the author of the article, József Révai, was one of the founders of the Communist Party of Hungary and editor of “Szabad Nép” from 1945– 1950. He was known to control all aspects of Hungarian cultural life from 1948–1953, after which time his influence decreased. With the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency as a result of the National Security Act of 1947, the Grombach Organization—or as it had become known, “the Pond”—was secretly transferred to the Department of State as a private organization. This occurred despite the fact that the Director of the CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, had ordered the organization terminated. The Pond continued to operate under State’s auspices until 1951, when CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith ordered State “to end its connection with the organization because CIA was supposed to be handling all such intelligence activities”.52 The organization became an unwilling contractor to the CIA until the CIA terminated the contract on 1

leadership with insight into Soviet intentions and treasonous activities by U.S. government employees until the programme was cancelled on 1 October 1980. 51 Secret Intelligence Report: Survey of Developments in Hungary up to July 1945/ Second Survey Political Events “A” dated 30 August 1945, Records of the CIA, Group 263, Grombach Organization, entry P16, box 1 Project 1641 Files, NARA. 52 Ibid.

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August 1954, although the organization took until 1955 to close out its activities, and some contacts with the field continued until 1956.

Formation of the Hungarian National Council (Magyar Nemzeti Bizottmány) and its U.S. Umbrella In 1947, while continuing to work with the Grombach Organization setting up networks and reviving networks in South America and in Europe, Eckhardt also became the driving force in establishing the Hungarian National Council. As the communists consolidated their power in Hungary, the former trickle of emigrating Hungarian political figures became a flood that included Prime Minister Ferenc Nagy, Msgr. Béla Varga (speaker of the Hungarian parliament) and many others. Many of these departures were facilitated by the American intelligence officers and staff: 74 of them were arranged by James McCargar, who was posted with the U.S. Department of State in Budapest for 18 months, beginning in 1946.53 McCargar, whose title was Secretary of Legation, Chief of the Political Section, was also a Grombach Organization (Pond) operative, unbeknownst to the CIA, which he also served. Once in the U.S., the newly arrived Hungarian leaders joined their counterparts who had left Hungary in 1945 in anticipation of the Soviet takeover. With the arrival in the United States of Hungary’s most important political leadership, the stage was set for the Hungarian National Council to announce its formation on 18 November 1947.54 The political groups in the United States from the other nations behind the Iron Curtain soon followed suit.55 Eckhardt wrote the Hungarian council’s mission statement and proclamation, and for several years he was the voice of the council, as neither its president, Msgr. Béla Varga, nor Executive Committee member Ferenc Nagy, spoke English. (The U.S. intelligence service assigned Nagy a “minder” whose native language was Hungarian.) When the Cold War that Winston Churchill had predicted became a reality, American political leaders sought to engage resident exile 53

Christopher Felix (James McCargar), A Short Course in the Secret War, 4th ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Madison Books, 2001), 261. 54 Founders and members of the Executive Committee: Tibor Eckhardt, Ferenc Nagy, Béla Varga, Dezsö Sulyok, Zoltan Pfeiffer. 55 The Hungarian National Council, The Council of Free Czechoslovakia and the Rumanian National Committee were all founded in 1947–48. The councils of Poland and Yugoslavia were founded after the NCFE was established, and those of Albania and the Baltic nations were established at the time of the formation of the ACEN in 1954.

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politicians and their organizations in the fight. The CIA had the idea of forming an umbrella organization for their Cold War propaganda activities that would ostensibly be a private organization of citizens against communism. The National Committee for Free Europe, Inc. was formed in June 1949 by the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination, and it took the various eastern European national councils in under its wing.56 There is not space in this article to provide even a short recap of NCFE activities, but suffice it to say that in its 22 years of operation, the NCFE funded well over a hundred different exile political, cultural and sports organizations in addition to providing the resources for the national organizations to support the refugees who fled from the satellite nations of Europe. One can only imagine the jubilation in these émigré organizations, which had shoestring budgets, when bountiful funding was provided, including for salaries, offices and travel. With NCFE funding, the Hungarian National Council, with Msgr. Béla Varga at the helm, continued its activities until 1971. At the peak of its influence, in 1954, it had 76 members, including two former prime ministers and many former ministers, and offices and affiliates in twenty countries. Several of the national councils continued their operations for many years after the Free Europe Committee, Inc. was disbanded in 1972 and stripped of its CIA funding.

Eckhardt’s Statecraft from the 1950s to 1976 Eckhardt continued to work with the Grombach Organization as it was shifted from the Department of War to the State Department and later to the CIA, and if the available archival records are an accurate indication of the level of his contribution, he became an increasingly important partner to Grombach in the Organization’s administration. He was the chief editor of the intelligence reports that arrived from operatives, and he evaluated them as to their importance. He ran several important agents with their own networks in Latin America and in Europe and retained for himself the networks in his homeland and Romania. These networks were extensive,

56

On 11 April 1950 an “a” was added and the National Committee for Free Europe, Inc. became the National Committee for a Free Europe, Inc. On 5 March 1954 its name was changed again and it became the Free Europe Committee, Inc. and remained so until its operations were discontinued in 1971.

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and each had dozens, sometimes hundreds, of individuals involved in their activities.57 The Department of State valued the intelligence it received from the Grombach Organization, but things changed once it came under the supervision of the CIA, which often rejected its reports or found their quality wanting. The Grombach Organization–CIA liaison officers had their job cut out for them, as Grombach himself was out to prove that the Pond could be more effective than the CIA. To say the competition was keen would be an understatement. In the archival materials, one CIA official expressed his one word opinion of the Pond’s output: “crap”.58 It is hard in retrospect to evaluate the body of intelligence produced by the Pond without having access to all the reports, but suffice it to say that their networks were large and comprehensive, and at least some of the material produced during this period had to have had value, for the organization continued to receive support and funding. Mark Stout in his work also makes the point that the Pond clearly had allies and patrons which kept it 59 alive after the CIA wanted to liquidate it. In the 1950s, the Pond had a network of radio transmitters placed with their agents in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain, something McCargar had earlier requested and been denied.60 The radio transmission reports for Hungary and Romania show transmissions there three to four times a week to monitoring stations in East Africa, Spain and Switzerland. Hungary had seven locations reporting, Romania five. We know two of the locations in Hungary were transmitting from Budapest, the rest were from Debrecen, Veszprem, a site south of Lake Balaton and the Szeged region. In Romania we know of locations in Arad, Brassov, Bucharest and Craiova. Pond communication to networks in Hungary and Romania dated 3 November 1954 states that “crystals to go with your present equipment were delivered to the radios”, and notes that the crystals were sufficient to last through 1955(!)61 57

Network Reports, Records of the CIA, Group 263, Entry P12 Grombach Organization, NARA, box 7, folder 9. 58 Mark Stout, “The Pond: Running Agents for State, War, and the CIA,” 5, http://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intell (accessed 25 August 2012). 59 Mark Stout: “Contracting for Espionage: The Case of John Grombach and the Pond,” 9, Presented at International Studies Association International Convention, San Diego, CA, April, 2012. 60 Christopher Felix, A Short Course in the Secret War, 199. 61 Map of Radios in Europe, Records of the CIA, Group 263, Grombach Organization, box 3, folder: Wick, NARA.

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While the effectiveness of these radios and networks is yet to be evaluated, the simple fact that they were operating and transmitting on a weekly basis from the heart of two Soviet satellites provides evidence that, while only a single CIA officer was said to be operating in Hungary at the time of the 1956 Revolution,62 there was a sizeable network of Pond sources in place. The network was communicating with the west and receiving information, support and encouragement for their activities through the Pond on a weekly basis. That some of the Pond network operating in the Soviet Satellites had been turned is very much in the realms of possibility, considering the extensive internal intelligence networks instituted in the countries under their control. As each of the Pond networks had dozens, sometimes hundreds of operatives, the degree which they were infiltrated or turned remains to be researched. After the Grombach Organization was dismantled, Eckhardt served in 1954 as head of the first Hungarian delegation to the Assembly of Captive European Nations, another NCFE/FEC sponsored organization. In 1955 he became a U.S. citizen. In 1956, when news of the Hungarian uprising shocked the world, he organized First Aid for Hungary, an interim aid organization that operated for the first six months of the emergency. Within five days of the outbreak of the revolt, it was operating aid stations on the Hungarian border with Austria. First Aid had as its Honorary Chair former President Herbert Hoover, who was asked by President Eisenhower to take the role and collaborate with Eckhardt and his board. Eckhardt continued to be active for another fifteen years as the grey eminence of the American-Hungarian community. He convinced Countess Gladys Vanderbilt Széchényi to provide the principal funds to buy the building that houses Hungarian House in New York City, and he also headed the Piarist Father’s Association and was Honorary Chair of the Hungarian Scouts. He passed away in New York City on 3 September 1972. Upon being informed of his father’s death, Tibor Jr. immediately went to his apartment on West End Avenue, only to find workmen there dismantling the wiring that ran from it to the apartment below. The comment they made to Tibor Jr. was, “We have to monitor what he has to say, after all he is an old The Pond also had radios operating in Hungary during World War II, as evidenced by a SECRET memo of 25 March 1944 (Hungarian Support for Polish Underground Activities) that refers to delivery of spare parts for the radios. Ibid., Box 3. 62 Charles Gati, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 93.

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man.”63 By the time he arrived, the manuscript of his father’s unpublished memoirs and his diary were already gone64. Tibor Jr. was never informed who removed them or under what authority they had been taken. After Eckhardt’s death, President Richard Nixon sent Tibor Jr. a telegram of condolence saying: Not just Americans of Hungarian descent, but countless others throughout the nation, mourn the death of your father. Dr. Tibor Eckhardt was a man of the highest principle and staunchest dedication to the cause of human freedom and social justice. We gratefully acknowledge the wisdom and experience he brought to his many contributions to our American way of life, and we hope that our remembrance of his accomplishments will always be a source of strength and comfort to you, your family and his many friends.65

In the end, Tibor Eckhardt served the United States with the same dedication and wisdom that he demonstrated when serving his native land.

The Legacy of Disinformation and New Opportunities for Historians The Soviet-led disinformation campaign did not succeed in erasing the memory of Eckhardt in the west, although it severely damaged his legacy. In Hungary, however, the Soviets virtually obliterated any memory of Eckhardt and his legacy. Even in circles where he is remembered after the downfall of communism, the seeds of disinformation so carefully planted long ago continue to crop up in scholarship to this day. For example, Eckhardt’s involvement with the Grombach Organization was discussed in Blowback: America’s recruitment of Nazis, and its disastrous effect on our domestic and foreign policy by Christopher Simpson (New York: 63

Kádár Lynn, Tibor Eckhardt: His American Years, 13. Kádár Lynn uncovered a copy of his memoirs while doing research at the American Hungarian Library in New York City that Eckhardt founded and which houses a small collection of Eckhardt’s papers, his principal papers having been sent to the Hoover Institution. The memoir was in draft form with handwritten corrections in Eckhardt's hand. She received permission to publish the memoirs from Tibor Eckhardt Jr. who was unaware until then that a copy of the work existed. The library had a copy as it was originally the intention of the library board to publish the work after Eckhardt’s death, but they were unable to obtain funding to underwrite the costs. The work was then forgotten until Kádár Lynn discovered the manuscript. 65 Document in this author’s possession. 64

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Collier/Macmillan, 1988). Unfortunately, the author perpetuated the image of the Pond as an extremist organization, calling it a “foreign espionage agency for the far right”, and going on to say that “a second primary component of Grombach’s intelligence apparatus was a large group of Hungarians loyal to the former royal privy councillor Tibor Eckhardt” (234).66 He labels the east European operatives of the National Committee for Free Europe, Inc. as “right wing extremist émigré politicians” (217) and “former Hungarian Axis Quislings” (234). His labelling is wholly inaccurate, and it would have been useful to scholarship had Simpson delved into the sources of his “fascist” accusations. As it stands, his work perpetuates in U.S. historiography the impact of the disinformation campaign. New awareness of the extent of Eckhardt’s activities with the U.S. intelligence community may help future historians cast the campaign against him in a new light. It was thought at the time that the campaign against Eckhardt and his supporters during World War II was designed to make certain that Hungary’s pre-war political leaders would not regain power after the war. But today one can speculate that the campaign, which was so much more virulent and long-lasting than efforts against any other Hungarian émigré, also involved attempts to neutralize his intelligence work as well. Newly emerging information from the Grombach material may also help historians understand Grombach’s role and contributions with more clarity—for at this point, a most contradictory set of portraits has been painted. For their part, both Eckhardt and Archduke Otto clearly endorsed him. We know that Eckhardt was a man of the world and his memoirs certainly reveal him to have to a realistic and unsentimental view of world politics, diplomacy and the dynamic of world affairs in the grip of the great powers. It must be remembered that he and Otto von Habsburg chose to associate themselves with Grombach and the War Department because they had little faith in the then American intelligence apparatus, which had only recently been organized and was untested. They simply felt that trained military intelligence officers were more professional and disciplined and refused to aid or collaborate with the OSS. Had the Pond been the semi-private operation it later became, their initial choice might have been different. By the time the Pond was no longer associated with the War Department, Eckhardt had established a working relationship with Grombach and was willing to continue with him. It also must be 66 There was no position in pre-war Hungary analogous to that of the British royal privy councilor.

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remembered that long before the United States or Great Britain wanted to admit that they had formed an alliance with the Soviets, whom they could not control, Eckhardt was insisting that the Soviet Union was planning to colonize central and east Europe. Like Eckhardt and Archduke Otto, Grombach understood the Soviet threat early on, and it would have been impossible for Eckhardt to deploy his intelligence assets in an agency that did not share his perspective on the Soviet Union. We only need to read articles written at war’s end by Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the U.S. president, to know that much of the American establishment saw the Soviet Union differently than did the Europeans working with Grombach/Eckhardt, particularly the Hungarians who had experienced the 1919 Béla Kun communist regime in Hungary.67 The more widely known picture of Grombach has been painted by contemporary historian Christopher Simpson as far right and pro-fascist. Mark Stout takes a more balanced perspective and paints him as a rather unrefined and unprofessional individual who made uneducated choices of operatives and information sources. He is characterized as a headstrong, shoot-from-the-hip intelligence operative prone to use dirty tricks and the “dirty linen” that he collected in the Pond.68 Yet Eckhardt and Archduke Otto, certainly both good judges of character, chose to work with him. Eckhardt wrote just as positively about Grombach from their first meeting until shortly before his death, often mentioning Grombach’s European sensibility and his integrity, and there is no record of his ever questioning Grombach’s methodology or personnel choices in his administration of the Pond. Grombach was apparently also found socially acceptable enough to be elected Secretary-General of the Federation International d’Escrime (FIE)69 at a time when fencing was still an aristocratic and exclusive sport.

67 In her syndicated column of 22 June 1945, “The Communists,” Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, “I want to make it absolutely clear that my whole desire in writing this column on the American Communists was to show how it is possible to work with the USSR and the people of that great country and why we need have no fear of them. Those of us who take the trouble to understand it know what Communism in Russia is,” www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/ (accessed 9 April 2012). 68 Christopher Simpson, Blowback, 234. 69 The international federation of the world-wide sport of fencing, based in Paris France which he headed from 1960–1964.

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Which, then, was the real Grombach? Is the fact that he graduated from West Point with so many demerits that he did not receive a commission to be considered a negative, or does it indicate that he was simply an individualist from the start of his career, a leader not a follower? All the traits for which historians criticize him can just as easily be lauded as signs of independent leadership, non-conformity and individualism—all positive values in U.S. society. The Grombach Organization records that are available for research may contain many revelations that will refocus historians’ perspectives on the Organization’s leader, its operatives and its era. Some of the most important finds this author has made in the NARA files indicate that the history of the years leading up to the Hungarian Revolution needs to be reevaluated in light of new information. Convention dictates that the Hungarian revolt in 1956 and the uprisings in the other Soviet satellites were organic in nature; they emerged from the frustrations and unhappiness of the local populations and did so without intervention or encouragement from the west—with the exception of the already welldocumented role played by Radio Free Europe. However, factoring in the Pond network’s weekly involvement in Hungary and Romania pre-1956, the extensive reporting from Eckhardt’s network on military installations, troop movements and military materials built up, it is no longer much of a reach to conclude that the West was in communication—perhaps a great deal of it—with disaffected populations chafing under Soviet control. It is worth examining with more care the history of the Hungarian uprising. As Tibor Eckhardt’s biographer, I have waited for over a decade for the release of the Grombach Organization material, as it provides us with an insight into Eckhardt’s involvement with the Pond and the workings of that most unusual intelligence organization and offers at the very least a portion of its history. Release of the Grombach information is to be applauded, and it definitely fills a void in the history of the Cold War and of the Hungarian emigrants’ activities on behalf of their occupied nation. More such voids could be filled if the CIA were to release other documents from that era. More importantly, the release of CIA papers related to the National Committee for a Free Europe, Inc. (Free Europe Committee) would document a story that deserves to be told. The United States spent over twenty-two years providing financial support to the NCFE/FEC as a major player in its Cold War strategy. While the material from Radio Free Europe, a division of NCFE/FEC, has been released, documents on its

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parent organization remain largely unavailable70. And that is a disservice to history.

70

Since this work has been typeset, documents released as a result of A. Ross Johnson’s research on the history of Radio Free Europe have shed light on some key aspects of the history of the parent organization and are available on line through the Cold War International History Project at the Wilson Center.

(accessed 30 March 2013).

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ATTEMPTS TO WIN AND BREAK UP THE HUNGARIAN EMIGRATION AFTER 1956 MAGDOLNA BARÁTH

The official analyses made after the suppression of the revolution in 1956 divided Hungarian emigration into three groups: the so-called “progressive” emigration (left wing émigrés—those who who left Hungary in the interwar period); the neutral/indifferent or loyal emigration (the majority of the Hungarian emigration, leaving at the turn of the century for the U.S. or Canada); and the “hostile” emigration. Owing to their social position and political opinion there were significant differences between these groups. Their attitude to the fatherland was also different.1 According to official estimates the number of the so-called “old emigration” (people who left Hungary before 1956) was 1,381,700, approximately one-third of whom lived in the United States. A great number of Hungarians settled in South America, Canada and Israel as well.2 Hungarian foreign representations normally had good relations with the “progressive” associations, while the “hostile” emigration was one of the main targets of the Hungarian intelligence services after the Second World War. The Hungarian state security services deliberately took

1

On the formation and stratifiacion of the Hungarian emigration after the Second World War see Julianna Puskás, “Magyar menekülĘk, emigránsok–‘DP-k’ és ‘56osok’ 1944–1957,” (Hungarian refugees, emigrants, DPs and “fifty-sixers”), Aetas 2–3 (1996): 67–100. 2 The distribution of the Hungarian emigration by countries, 1960, Magyar Országos Levéltár (Hungarian State Archives), Budapest, (MOL) M-KS MSZMP KB, Titkárság (Secretary of the Central Committee Hungarian Socialist Workers Party CC HSWP), 288, fond 7, box 78, file 23.

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advantage of the conflicts among the emigrants and intensified, or even createdthem.3 During the revolution in 1956 and immediately thereafter, approximately 200,000 people left Hungary. This created a new situation for the “old emigration” as well as for the Hungarian political leadership. A significant part of the “new emigration” found their new home in North America, and a great number also settled down in European countries and Australia. Their appearance had an effect on the lives of the “old emigration”. In some cases, they took over the leadership of the old associations, or ceased its activity, and broke off the official relations with Hungary. In order to differentiate the emigration of 1956 from the old emigration, documents called them “dissidents”—a pejorative connotation.4 In the first phase, the Hungarian political leadership regarded them as a dangerous enemy, because it was feared that the western propaganda could make use of “dissidents” to influence the public opinion in western countries and the official policy of these states towards Hungary. For this reason, to begin with, dealing with emigration was a question of internal affairs. The proposal made for the session of the College of Foreign Affairs in October 1957 predicted: …those, whom we cannot win for the sake of the old country, or we cannot neutralize either, will get on the moving belt of imperialistic spy organizations, will serve their propaganda machine and will be used in numerous cases against us.5

The official emigration policy of the Hungarian organs can be characterized by two simultaneous efforts: they tried to induce those who 3

For more details see Magdolna Baráth, “Támogatni vagy bomlasztani? Adalékok a magyar hivatalos szervek emigrációs politikájának változásához.” (Undermaining or supporting? Contributions to the emigration policy of the Hungarian offical organs), BetekintĘ 3 (2011), http://www.betekinto.hu/2011_3_barath (accessed 12 October 2012). 4 According to the official argumentation the “émigrés” left the country due to economic reasons, or took refuge escaping fascism, but the “dissidents” left People’s Democracy. 5 A Külügyminisztérium Kollégiumának 1957, október 15-ei ülése (Session of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 15 October 1957), MOL Külügyminisztérium [Ministry of Foreign Affairs], XIX-J-1-o. 5. d. Quoted by Szabó Juliet, “Fellazítási politika a Kádár-rendszerben. Az MSZMP propagandatevékenysége 1958 és 1963 között.” (Subversion policy in the Kádárera. The propaganda-activity of the HSWP between 1958 and 1963), Múltunk 54, no. 2 (2009): 184–185.

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were considered by official propaganda as vulnerable to be deceived into returning home, and on the other hand discredit the emigrants and emigrant groups who were considered as the enemy of Hungary in order to reduce their influence in the emigrant circles. The 10011/1956 Government Decree of 19 November 1956 included the decision that a “Coming Home Office” was to be set up in Vienna to help those wanting to return to Hungary. The members of this committee arrived in Vienna on 15 January 1957. In his report of 24 January 1957, Frigyes Puja, the Ambassador in Vienna, wrote that helping the work of the Coming Home Committee, finding the whereabouts of more prominent Hungarians and helping their return home were among the main tasks of the Embassy.6 The Hungarian government in its session on 6 December 1956 adopted a resolution which had the aim of making the return easier for those who had taken refuge during and after the revolution. At the government session, István Sebes, deputy minister of the Foreign Affairs suggested granting amnesty to those who had left the country illegally after 23 October 1956, and proposed measures to facilitate their return to their previous work places.7 These proposals were not adopted, mainly because of the Number 27 law decree of the Presidential Council, which was published on the 1 December 1956, granting amnesty to those who left the country before 29 November 1956 and would return before 31 March 1957.8 In order to accelerate their return, the diplomatic organs were instructed to help emigrants.9 On the basis of government decisions, it seems that the official organs regarded it main task to help to bring people home, who took refuge abroad for various reasons, but who later wanted to come back. In practice, the people who wanted to return were under strict supervision, and many applications were refused. The main reason for these refusals was the fear that western intelligence services might send their agents to 6

Iratok Magyarország és Ausztria kapcsolatainak történetéhez 1956–1964 (Documents Concerning Austro-Hungarian Relationships 1956–1964), Lajos Gecsényi, ed. (Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 2000), 49. 7 Kádár János elsĘ kormányának jegyzĘkönyvei 1956. november 7–1958. január 25, (Minutes of the Kádár János’s first government 7 November 1956–25 January 1958) Magdolna Baráth, ed. (Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 2009), 107– 109. 8 Magyar Közlöny, December 1956, 1.98. 9 Baráth, Kádár János elsĘ kormányának, 137. According to the official data 11,447 persons returned home before 30 April 1957. Probably the true number was higher.

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Hungary along with people returning home. On the basis of state security documents kept in the Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security, it is difficult to answer the questions: was it a real danger or not. We do not know the exact number of people returning home with such aim. We know of some cases where the Hungarian emigrant organizations tried to send refugees back to Hungary to organize anti-communist resistance there. The best known among them was Peter Renner. He left Hungary on 26 November, 1956 and escaped to Austria. In Vienna, Renner got in touch with representatives of the Hungarian Revolutionary Council.10 He returned home on 9 February 1957 and immediately got in touch with a member of the Workers’ Councils. His aims were to create illegal organizations to distribute handbills, make antistate propaganda and hide weapons sent to Hungary from abroad. The agent of the Hungarian intelligence, Miklós Szabó, the former Smallholders Party politician and the key figure of the Hungarian emigration in Vienna at that time informed the Hungarian state security services about Renner’s returning home and his plans. On 27 February 1957 Renner was captured, accused of anti–state activity and executed.11 When the question of dealing with emigration appeared on the agenda of the meeting of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 15 October 1957, the participants urged public clearance of the official opinion of the political leadership. The representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs, who were also present at this meeting, stated that only the criminals and the active participants of the ”counterrevolution” were refused entry. Nevertheless, these refusals were in contradiction to the statements of the Hungarian representatives in the international organizations. The leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not agree with the opinion of the Ministry of Home Affairs that the case of emigrants or “dissidents” was only a case of internal affairs. They believed

10

First efforts to create a union of Hungarian émigrés were made in the beginning of 1957 in Vienna by Anna Kéthly, Béla Király and József KĘvágó. Their discussions were followed in March 1957 by the creation of the Hungarian Revolutionary Council in Strasbourg. The organizational congress of the Hungarian Revolutionary Council opened on 5 January 1957 under the presidency of Béla Király. The participants confirmed main principles of the revolution; the demands for independence, freedom and self-government, and for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. 11 Szabó Miklós, Csendes háború (Still War), (Budapest: Zrinyi, 1984), 314–322.

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that the main task of the Hungarian diplomatic missions abroad must be to help to solve the problem of those who wanted to return home.12 The questions concerning the Hungarian emigration appeared on the agenda of the meeting of the diplomatic mission leaders on 8–11 July 1958. The proposal of this meeting promised to work out a detailed plan to create progressive associations, organizations, and clubs among the emigrants and asked the leaders of foreign representations to help in this work. The speakers emphasized that dealing with the problems of the emigrants and “dissidents” was a matter of the principle questions of the diplomatic work. “It is a first-rate foreign affairs task and must be handled as such”, stated the Hungarian ambassador in Stockholm. “A definite project should be in the hand of the ambassadors with regard to which policy should be followed in this field”. The diplomats serving in western countries were of the opinion that the majority of “dissidents” were not conscious enemies, but if they were left alone, “they would be dragged into the conscious counterrevolutionary part”, and ”we serve them to the enemy—so to say—on a plate. This also has an impact on their relatives and friends in Hungary”.13 At this time the leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs again urged a political decision concerning the emigrants and “dissidents”. On the other hand, the head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party (HSWP) present at the meeting expressed his lack of comprehension, because this question came up so strongly. The case of counter-revolutionists is not the central problem of our government and party. It surprises me, that our comrades raised this question so sharply, which is not a practical problem for us to be discussed for hours. The line of the Hungarian dissident press is sending home people. Do you want to liberate Hungary? It is feasible only at home. It is their slogan. We have no right to neglect it. We paid a lot in October [1956], because we were so naive. Increasing the class struggle is not in the interest of our party... There are a lot of recruited elements that try to

12

A Külügyminisztérium Kollégiumának 1957, október 5-ei ülése (Meeting of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 5 October 1957), MOL Külügyminisztérium, XIX-J-1-o. 5. d. 13 A Magyar Népköztársaság Külügyminisztériuma követi értekezletének jegyzĘkönyve 1958 július 8–11 (Minutes of the meeting of the Hungarian diplomatic mission leaders on 8–11 July 1958), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 32, box 1958, file 7.

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This attitude, similar to the view of the leaders of the Ministry of Home Affairs, was for years a determining factor in dealing with the emigrants, and also supported by several members of the Hungarian political leadership. Whereas it was not a central problem, the Political Committee of HSWP on four occasions discussed the propaganda of the emigration between 1958 and 1963, which indicated the importance of this question. In the first period, the “target groups” of this propaganda were exclusively the so-called “fifty-six” emigration. So, the emigration question was narrowed down to “dissident”. In July 1958 the official organs dealing with the emigration (mainly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Department of the Central Committee of HSWP) calculated that “the situation among the emigration can be surveyed most truly by analysing the situation, influence, and trends of the counter-revolutionary dissidents” and pointed out the tasks.15 When the political leadership began dealing with the emigration practically, it became evident that it was not 180,000 “dissidents”, but more than one million Hungarians living abroad. It is not true that the majority of them are the enemy of the Hungarian national democracy concerning its composition, moral and political attitude.16

The propaganda activity among the neutral emigrants gradually gained more importance in official policy. Ultimately, the nature of the political attitude and the practical activity of all the emigration became more important. “Their behaviour directly or indirectly helps or influences

14

Ibid. ElĘterjesztés az MSZMP KB Politikai Bizottságához az emigráció felé irányuló propagandatevékenység tárgyában (Proposal for the Political Committee of CC HSWP concerning the propaganda-activity towards emigration), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 5, box 88, file 33–38. 16 Szilágyi DezsĘ hozzászólása az MSZMP KB Politikai Bizottságának 1959 február 3-ai ülésén (Szilágyi DezsĘ’s contribution at the session of Political Committee of CC HSWP on 3 February 1959), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 5, box 116, file 9–10. 15

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disadvantageously the implementation of the aims of our country”.17 The Political Committee of HSWP at its session on 29 July 1958 analysed and surveyed for the first time the situation of the Hungarian emigration and pointed out the aims and principles of the propaganda activity towards it. At that time, the political leadership had already taken into consideration the fact that the majority of the emigrants would stay abroad for a long time, or indefinitely. For this reason, they strove to make the mass of emigrants loyal to Hungary. The foreign diplomatic missions and the World Federation of Hungarians had to carry on their propaganda activity in such way as to draw in the “dissidents” to the progressive organizations and to narrow down that layer of the emigration that “can become the basis of the intelligence services working against us and the instigation of the right wing emigration”.18 The Hungarian political leadership considered preventing the formation of a well organised and unified hostile block as their main task. Their most important objective was to prevent a union between members of the former state apparatus of the Horthy regime and the groups of emigrants who opposed fascism but also rejected the existing Hungarian regime. Their way of demoralising the members was to discredit certain leaders of the émigrés and breed hostility. They searched for compromising data in people’s pasts and sent them through the appropriate channels to the members of the opposing party or the emigration media. In addition, they wanted to improve the propaganda in a way so as to stimulate the emigrants to return home. At this session the Political Committee made a decision that a committee must be set up with the representatives of the most important territories (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Department of Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (CC HSWP), the Ministry on Home Affairs, Hungarian Radio, the Red Cross, and the World Federation of Hungarians). This committee had to make a detailed plan of how to manage the emigration. It had to take into consideration the fact that the majority of the émigrés who left Hungary after the 1956 Revolution were “honest people who were deceived; so it is 17

Kollégiumi elĘterjesztés az emigrációs munkáról (Proposal of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning the emigration work), MOL Külügyminisztérium XIX-J-1-o 00542/1964, (10. d). 18 A kapitalista országokban élĘ magyarok helyzete és az azok között végzendĘ társadalmi és politikai munka. ElĘterjesztés a Politikai Bizottsághoz (Situation among the Hungarians living in capitalist countries and the social and political work among them), 24 November 1958, MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Külügyi Osztály 288, fond 32, box 1958, file 11, 299–308.

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important to find the possibility of giving financial help to their homecoming.” At the same time, they also had to consider what state measures had to be taken against the “well-known counter revolutionary elements” (like depriving them of their Hungarian citizenship, or judgements delivered by default).19 The question of the financial support was raised by the Hungarian foreign missions, and its necessity was also underlined at the session of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October 1957. At that time, the participants proposed a special financial fund for this aim. In János Kádár’s opinion: …the disorganization is a normal process in the emigration, and it is our own policy that disorganizes them. [...] Putting into action the question of returning home and providing the possibility are the greatest dissolving things.20

However, the political leadership was not only a passive onlooker of the disorganization of the emigration, they made efforts to accelerate and assist this process. At the meeting of the Political Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, on 2 July 1957, the body set an important task for the State Security Organs: to infiltrate the hostile organizations of the émigrés. Lajos Czinege suggested infiltration into emigration centres, referring to the fact that the emigrants were in close contact with their relatives and friends at home, and that “they can carry out demoralising activity in their correspondence”.21 The subdivision 19

ElĘterjesztés az MSZMP KB Politikai Bizottságához az emigráció felé irányuló propaganda tevékenység tárgyában (Suggestions to the Political Committee of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party on propaganda activity aiming at the Hungarian emigration), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága, 288, fond 5, box 88, file 32–38. 20 Kádár János hozzászólása az MSZMP KB Politikai Bizottsága 1958 július 29-i ülésén, MOL M-KS MSZMP KB Politikai Bizottsága (János Kádár’s contribution at the session of Political Committee of CC HSWP on 29 July 1958), 288, fond 5, box 88, file 14. János Kádár was of the opinion that the retur of certain groups of people (skilled workers, doctors, engineers, agronomists) had to be supported financially, i.e. the Hungarian state would pay in advance to cover their expenses. Kádár contribution is quoted by Szabó Juliet: “’...s várja eltévedt fiait is’ Az MSZMP repatriálási és hazalátogatási politikája 1956 és 1963 között” (“’...waits for their missed sons as well’ The repatriation and visiting home policy of the HSWP between 1956 and 1963”) Múltunk 52, no. 1 (2007). 21 Baráth Magdolna and Feitl István, eds., A Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt Politikai Bizottságának jegyzĘkönyvei 1957 július 2-december 28 (Minutes of the

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dealing with the emigration was reorganised within the II/8 (Intelligence) Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which was in charge of reconnoitring and preventing the hostile activity of “reactionary” emigrant organizations against Hungary, to chart the changes inside the emigration circles, and infiltrate into the leading bodies of the emigration. The subdivision also had to deal with those well-known emigrant leaders who “wanted to return home or forcibly brought home”.22 Parallel to the consolidation of the Kádár regime, the possibility of the “political consumption” of the “dissidents” gradually diminished, their “freedom-fighter” glory dispelled—it also strengthened the disorganization of the emigration. József Galambos, the head of the II/3 (Intelligence) Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs at the session of the department on 6 March 1959 stated: “We had to use this process well, we had to infiltrate [the emigration] and deepen this process of disorganization”.23 The ad hoc committee organized in July 1958 focused on six main questions: 1) the problems of the Hungarian citizens, who left the country after the 1956 revolution; 2) the loyal emigration; 3) the “right wing” emigration; 4) the principle questions of the propaganda towards the different groups of the emigration; 5) the activity of the World Federation of Hungarians; and 6) the emigrant press.24 Concerning the first question, the main emphasis was on the financial support of those returning home and the solving of the social problems of those who did so. At the same time, the committee suggested revising the decrees and orders regulating the return home, and clarifying the questions connected with citizenship. The main aim relating to the loyal emigration was taking account of the situation inside the Hungarian associations working in different countries, and on the basis of these surveys specifying the tasks. The ad Political Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party 2 July–28 December 1957), (Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 2006), 81. 22 Osztályértekezlet 1958 június 2-án. Móró István osztályvezetĘ beszámolója. (Meeting of the Department on 2 June 1958. István Móró’s report) Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára (Historical Archives of Hungarian State Security, ÁBTL), Budapest, 1.6. 14. d. 23 A II/3 osztály 1959 március 6-án megtartott osztályértekezletének jegyzĘkönyve (Minutes of the sitting of the II/3 Department on 6 March 1959) ÁBTL, 1. 6. 14. d. 63-521/1959. 24 Külföldi Magyarok Önálló Referatúrája feljegyzése, 1958 augusztus 26 (Memorandum of theIndependent Departement of the Hungarians abroad), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Külügyi Osztály, 288, fond 32/1958/1, file 67–71.

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hoc committee was also in charge of working out proposals concerning the financial support of loyal associations. The appearance of the “dissidents” did not change the attitude of the Hungarian official organs towards the so-called “right wing” emigration. The committee had to examine, which way the Hungarian government should deal with the right wing emigration and its leaders, and which steps the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could take in order to restrict the activity of the “hostile” emigration. The members of the political leadership were of the opinion that the World Federation of Hungarians must be reorganized in order to more effectively assist the loyal emigrants. The committee regarded as a primary condition the increase of the prestige of the World Federation and improvement of its propaganda activity.25 The proposals of the ad hoc committee were discussed at the Political Committee session on 3 February 1959. The main objects of the emigration propaganda were unchanged: it attended to the social and political stratification of the emigration; made the loyal and honest emigrants mistrustful toward the influential leaders of the emigration; made things easy for those who wanted to return home with good intentions; kept in good contact with those who wanted to finally settle down abroad. The increased conflict among the emigrants, undermining those emigration organizations regarded as reactionary, was not only a task of the propaganda, but the Hungarian political leadership also took active measures to help to disorganize these associations using personal contacts.26 The Political Committee set the International Department of the CC HSWP the task of informing the twin parties in western countries about the principle of its emigrational policy and asking them to help the mislead but honest” in settling down and adapting themselves to the new milieu. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was charged with the working out of proposals about reorganizing the Hungarian associations abroad. A new idea also came up: to provide a grant in Hungarian universities for the worthwhile children of Hungarian families living abroad.27 According the

25

Ibid. ElĘterjesztés a magyar emigráció felé irányuló propagandamunkára (Proposal concerning the propaganda work aiming at the Hungarian emigration), MOL, MKS 288, fond 5, box 116, file 35–38. 27 ElĘterjesztés a Politikai Bizottságnak az emigrációs munka helyzetérĘl és feladatairól (Proposal to the Political Committee concerning the situation of emigration work and its task), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottság, 288, 26

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permission to return home, the official organs gave preference to skilled workers, technical intelligentsia, doctors and “public figures to be used constructively from a political point of view”.28 On 17 May 1960, at the session of the Secretary of the CC HSWP, and a day later at the meeting of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they discussed the course of fulfilment of the resolution of the Political Committee and the results of the work concerning the emigration. By that time, the reorganization of the World Federation of Hungary was finished, and the new president was elected. Regarding its activity and tasks the proposal made for the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: The World Federation of Hungarians had to popularize the popular front policy among the Hungarian living in capitalist surroundings from the stand point of the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to restrict, by every possible means, the basis of the hostile front among the Hungarians living abroad.29

By spring 1960, the Association was in constant touch with 40,000 persons among the “old” and “new” emigration, which strengthened the contact between them and the homeland. The journal “Magyar Hírek” (Hungarian News) intended for the emigration was also renewed: its outlook and content improved, its circulation increased from 7–8,000 to 30,000. For the Hungarian intelligentsia living abroad, a new periodical, called the “Hungarian Quarterly” was launched in the English language.30 But the Hungarian political leadership had to take notice of approximately 150,000 “dissidents” who did not want to return home. In connection with this, it was necessary to deal with the problem of maintaining relations between the emigrants and their relatives. János Kádár, the First Secretary of the HSWP was of the opinion that it was not necessary to give permission for everybody to visit their relatives in fond 5, box 116, file 43–46. Between 1959 and 1967 only 8 persons took advantage of it. 28 MOL M-KS, 288, fond 5, box 116. 29 A Külügyminisztérium Kollégiumának 1960 május 18-i ülése (Sitting of the College of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 18 May 1960), MOL Külügyminisztérium XIX-J-1-o 7.d. 30 ElĘterjesztés az MSZMP KB Titkárságához a magyar emigráció felé irányuló propaganda tevékenységre vonatkozó politikai bizottsági határozatok végrehajtásáról 1960 május 13 (Proposal to the Secretary of the CC HSWP about the fulfilment of the resolutions of the Political Committee aiming at the Hungarian emigration of 13 May 1960), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Titkárság, 288. fond 7, box 78, file 17–22.

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Hungary; nevertheless, he worked out measures, which were “acceptable and practicable for us, …[and] would be a kind of solution of this question”.31 The solution: the launching of a new type of passport, the so-called consular passport. “This measure is a part of that work in the long run, which we do in order to undermine the Hungarian emigration and win its majority, –stated the proposal made by the Political Committee. In accordance with the resolution, the plan was that those who left Hungary illegally (including the “dissidents”) and wanted to maintain Hungarian citizenship, would have to register within two years at the foreign representations of Hungary. The applicants (if they did not commit a crime or hostile activity against Hungary) received a Hungarian passport, and a year after making the application would have the right to visit their relatives in Hungary.32 However, the first protracted measures in the fulfilment of this resolution began only in spring 1961. The government decree concerning the passport and visa system was published in the official bulletin only on 28 March 1961. In accordance with it, those “dissidents” who gained foreign citizenship, asked to be released from Hungarian citizenship, or did not present themselves in order to maintain it, could get entry visas on the basis of personal judgment. The Passport Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs began to launch consular passports in the first months of 1961, the majority of them being launched in June–July 1961. Up to September 1961 only 60 persons had applied for consular passports and only 11 were issued. The number of applicants rose to 163 by the end of November.33 The Hungarian official organs accounted for the lack of interest as the result of counter-propaganda in the western countries. Rumours spread among the emigrants that those who returned home might be arrested and they would not be given a visa to go back, or that those who applied for

31 János Kádár’s contribution at the session of the Secretary of Central Committee of the HSWP on 17 May 1960 in Ibid., 14. 32 A Politikai Bizottság 1960 október 18-i ülésének határozata a Magyar Népköztársaság útlevél és vízumrendszerének néhány kérdésérĘl (Resolution of the Political Committee at 18 October 1968 about the passport and visa-policy of Hungarian People's Republic), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága, 288, fond 5, box 205, file 33–38. 33 The number of applicants by countries: France–68, England–32, Austria–18, West Germany–15. MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Adminisztratív Osztály, 288 fond 30/1961/2, file 58.

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consular passports would lose political asylum or citizenship.34 The emigrants may well have asked why, if the Hungarian authorities permitted them to visit Hungary, such a lengthy procedure was needed, and why they couldn’t use their old passports. The interest in going abroad was more intense. The Passport Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs received 1,527 applications to go abroad in the first half of 1961. Probably the applicants were not aware of the fact that they would receive a visa with the governmental aim of having them persuade their relatives/emigrants to return home. The representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs had an interview with all visa-applicants, and in the end, 850 of them got permission to travel abroad. In several cases the travel did not take place because the relatives were denied entry visas to the western countries. However, the report handed into the Political Committee of the HSWP in December 1961 stated that the resolution had achieved its aim: … the isolation of the reactionary counterrevolutionary groups and winning or at least neutralizing of the majority [...] is suited to undermine the emigration.35

The representatives of the Ministry of Home Affairs were of a different opinion: with regard to the return home and undermining of the dissidents, the resolution did not give the expected results, and the propaganda towards the emigration was not a spectacular success. The authors of the report suggested making the propaganda more thought-out and suitable to show the benefits of the resolution for the “dissidents” and their relatives. Several months before, on 6 June 1961, the Political Committee comprehensively discussed the problems of the emigration. By that time, the number of so-called old emigration (including the second and third generations) had exceeded 1,200,000 persons. The number of the “dissidents” (emigrants of 1956–57) was estimated to be 160,000. More than half of the old emigration (58 per cent) lived in the United States of 34 Jelentés a disszidensek hazalátogatásáról és hozzátartozóik kizutazásáról szóló PB-határozat végrehajtásáról, 1961 november 8 (Report on the fulfilment of the resolution of the Political Committee concerning visiting the homeland by emigrants and the leaving for abroad of their relatives, 8 November 1961), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Adminisztratív Osztály, 288, fond 30/1961/2. 35 Jelentés a disszidensek hazalátogatására és hozzátartozóik kiutazására vonatkozó politikai bizottsági határozat végrehajtásáról (Report on the fulfilment of the resolution of the Political Committee concerning visiting the homeland by emigrants and the leaving for abroad of their relatives), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 5, box 252, file 79–83.

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America, 65 per cent of them on the American continent. The old emigrants had already adapted themselves to the social and economic life of the recipient country, and the process of adaptation had also begun in the case of “dissidents”. The number of emigrants forming loyal associations exceeded 8– 10,000. The World Federation of Hungarians was in close connection with these associations and their press, and they received permanent material support through Hungarian foreign representations. The smaller and larger associations regarded as “reactionary” were active mainly in the U.S. (26 associations), West Germany (42), United Kingdom (17), France (22), Austria (19), Belgium (20), Sweden (17), Switzerland (8), Italy (12) and Canada (6). These organizations possessed more than 200 newspapers and journals published in Hungarian.36 According to the summary made for the party leadership the returning home of some important emigrants and their public statements in Hungary had a considerable influence on the activity of “hostile associations”. The state security organs also successfully discredited some of their leaders. Nevertheless, these actions were not well coordinated, and the intelligence and counterintelligence organs did not take advantage of the opportunity to undermine the emigration. The resolution about the emigration adopted at the Political Committee session on 6 June of 1961 stated that the coordination between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs concerning the working out plan and its fulfilment must be improved. The party leadership assigned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the task of analysing the activity of the “reactionary” emigration and discrediting their leaders in the eyes of western public opinion. In accordance with the party resolution, the Ministry of Home Affairs had to improve the intelligence and counterintelligence activity in order to obtain more exact information about the attempts and plans of the emigrants to prevent them from provocative actions against Hungary and against other socialist countries.37 1963 was a turning point in the history of the Hungarian emigration. The 1963, Number 4 law, decree of the Presidential Council, supported Hungarian citizens, who left the country illegally, in returning to Hungary either for a visit or to settle down. The decree involved those who left the 36

Jelentés az emigráció életének fĘbb vonásairól és a javaslatok az emigráció felé irányuló propaganda javítására 1961 május 31 (Report on the main features of the life of the emigration and suggestions for the improvement of the propaganda towards emigration, 31 May 1961), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága, 288, fond 5, box 232, file 35–45. 37 Ibid.

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country between 4 April 1945 and the date of the decree, the 22 March 1963. They did not want the hostile emigration to come under the ruling of the decree.38 According to the order of the Minister of Home Affairs (No. 005, 21 March 1963), which regulated the cases of those wishing to come home, permission to return home had to be refused for those who were still exercising hostile activity against Hungary. The applications of emigrant politicians and leaders, who were in an exposed position, were referred to the leader of the Main Division III himself. The Minister of Home Affairs wanted to compromise, detect and document the hostile Hungarians living abroad. Division III/I was commissioned with this task; in this way, they had to filter out the people who “did not deserve” to come home and to refuse their applications.39 Different organizations of the Ministry of Home Affairs took an active part in spreading abroad the news of the 1963 amnesty decree. They published by authority a temporary paper of a made-up emigrant organization, in which they dealt with a lot of important problems of the emigration. The articles and statements that were published in “Magyar Hírek”, the paper of the World Federation of Hungarians, were duplicated in the publications of the Free Europe Committee. The latter commented on them, but—unintentionally—in this way, they rendered a wider publication. The organizations of the Ministry of Home Affairs got in touch with several suitable emigrant writers and journalists who came to Hungary and were also willing to report on their experiences there in a loyal tone after returning to their chosen countries. The 14 May 1963 session of the Political Committee assessed the effectuation of the Party Decree of June 1961. They stated that the number of those emigrants who were loyal to, or at least not hostile to, Hungary increased and meanwhile disorganization and inside conflicts in right wing emigration organizations continued. The organizations dealing with the 38

ÁBTL, 1.11.3.7.d. The Ministry of Home Affairs report of 29 October 1964 stated that there was a slight increase in the number of applications for consular passports after the 1963 Amnesty Act, especially among those who left the country illegally in 1956. The number of people applying for a consular passport was 103 in 1960, 192 in 1961, 513 in 1962 and 555 in 1963. This number rose to 942 between January and September 1964. The consular passport was accepted in most capitalist countries (England, Italy, France, Belgium, and Austria). However, in some countries (Switzerland, Sweden, USA) the authorities harassed its holders in various ways, at times even threatening that they would be deprived of their refugee rights if they used their consular passports to travel to Hungary. ÁBTL, 1.11.3.1.d. 39

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emigration policy managed to carry out activities to compromise certain emigrant leaders and to create deeper conflicts between emigrant political leaders. 12 well-known emigrant personalities were persuaded to return home of their own free will and to collaborate with the Hungarian organizations. The fact that two editors of “Látóhatár,” an emigrant periodical, returned to Hungary, publishing it there and even carrying, with the consent of the authors, articles by Hungarian writers living abroad, caused an upheaval in the circle of the political leaders of the emigration.40 In 1963, the so-called “Hungarian case” was removed from the agenda of the United Nations paralleling the decreased importance of the Hungarian émigrés. Consequently, more realistic analyses of the political situation in Hungary became dominant among the émigrés and they began to search for the possibility of a “compromise”. At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the World Federation of Hungarians started to create Hungarian associations in countries where there were no loyal Hungarian organizations, and supplied the already existing Hungarian organizations with propaganda material. The Hungarian artistic companies during their appearance abroad in Vienna, London, Brussels, Stockholm and Rome also appeared in the presence of emigrants. The members of the Political Committee were of the opinion that the line of the propaganda towards the emigration should remain unchanged. Nevertheless, they regarded it necessary to continue the work more intensively and to take advantage of the favourable political opportunities. In the light of the new circumstances, those who prepared the report suggested that a committee had to be set up to control the political work among the Hungarian émigrés living in western countries. The 3204/1963 Government Decree set up the “Committee for dealing with the problem of Hungarians living abroad”. The leader of this committee was János Péter, Minister of Foreign Affairs and a representative of the Ministry of Home Affairs was also one of the members. According to the decree, the committee had to coordinate the political work among the Hungarians who had emigrated to western countries. They were also responsible for helping them join progressive organizations and making it easier for them 40

Jelentés az emigrációs propagandáról szóló 1961 június 6-i politikai bizottsági határozat végrehajtásáról 1963 május 6 (Report on the fulfilment of the resolution of the Political Committee at 6 June 1961 about the propaganda aiming the emigration), MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 5, box 300, file 35–47. Cf. Soós Mihály, “Látóhatáron innen és túl. Beépülés és bomlasztás: mintha folyóiratból olvasták volna,” Múlt-kor (Spring 2011): 81–83.

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to return home.41 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strengthened control over the activity of the diplomats concerning the emigration, and in some of the embassies special diplomats were nominated to deal with the problem of emigration. In some cases, diplomatic steps were taken to fight off attacks of the right wing emigration. At the session of the Political Committee on 14 May 1963, all speakers without exceptions were of the same opinion concerning the need for a new resolution with regard to the emigrational work. At the same time, the general secretary of HSWP, János Kádár, urged a change in the attitude towards emigrants returning home: in his opinion, if somebody wanted to return home “further research work and analysis is not necessary”. Kádár touched upon the heart of the emigration policy, when he stated that the policy declared by the government was different from the practices that “nothing we proclaim, whatever policy we make, is consistent with the practice.”42 However, the changes also slowly became noticeable in practice. Parallel to the relaxation of the situation at home, keeping contact with Hungarians abroad had become part of the policy of the Government. After 1963 the Kádár regime also made concessions in the judgement and handling of the emigration and some differentiation also started within it. Owing to the amnesty decree and other orders making travelling abroad easier, relations between the homeland and the emigration became closer. In 1963, a total of 27,000 emigrants visited their relatives in Hungary. In 1966, their number increased to 73,000. From 1963 to the end of 1967, 5,123 persons repatriated (2,628 of them left Hungary after 1956). But it took almost the fourth quarter of the century for the returnees to become “compatriots”, in everyday parlance.

41

MOL XIX-A-83-b-3204/1963. Kádár János hozzászólása a Politikai Bizottság 1963 május 14-i ülésén (János Kádár’s contribution at the session of the Political Committee on 14 May 1963) MOL, M-KS MSZMP KB, Politikai Bizottsága 288, fond 5, box 300, file 21.

42

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE POLISH INTELLIGENCE SERVICE AND THE POLISH DIASPORA AFTER THE IMPOSITION OF MARTIAL LAW IN POLAND PATRYK PLESKOT

The 1980s marked another wave of mass Polish exodus—yet another in the country’s long and turbulent history. It is estimated that some one million people left Poland in the eighth decade of the twentieth century. The majority of them left during the “Solidarity” era (1980–1981) and during the period of liberalization of 1987–1989. Among the most commonly selected destinations were the United States, the Federal Republic of Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Great Britain and France. The vast majority of emigrants left the country for economic reasons. Nevertheless, among them, we also find less numerous but very important members of the Polish anti-Communist opposition, who left Poland faced with political persecution.1 This group was of special interest to the intelligence services of the Polish Peoples’ Republic (PRL). Although, the picture of the Solidarity émigré structures presented in the communist intelligence sources is usually incomplete and distorted, Polish historians find it an important source to supplement their research on the emigration activities.

Establishment of Émigré Pro–Solidarity Structures A significant number of Solidarity activists, whom the imposition of martial law caught by surprise in various countries, did not remain passive 1

See Dariusz Stola, Kraj bez wyjĞcia? Migracje z Polski 1949–1989 (Warszawa: IPN, 2010), 303–333.

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and reconciled to their lot. Soon, various movements, committees, associations and printing and cultural initiatives began to sprout up around the world in support of the Solidarity movement—both abroad and in the homeland, where it operated underground. These initiatives were often created in collaboration with local trade unions, which provided help to their Polish colleagues. In a given country, such enterprises provided information, lobbies (governmental and public opinion) and also collected money for members of Solidarity (and other opposition organizations) who remained in the country, particularly to the interned and their families. Soon, there appeared natural tendencies to cooperate and coordinate the activities of these institutions.2 But general coordination and centralization were impossible, owing to the political disputes and great diversity among the December emigrants. Consequently, in the 1980s, there were numerous parallel organizations independent of one another, and often divided as a result of disputes inspired and used by the Security Service (SáuĪba BezpieczeĔstwa, SB) of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL).3 The SB was sceptical about the possibility of development of émigré Solidarity structures. Here is a fragment of a memo sent on 6 January 1982 from the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstwo Spraw WewnĊtrznych, MSW) to the most important figures in the country: Due to the use of internal forces to set the country in order, the attempts to create political emigrant structures on the basis of Solidarity (which was considered in case of an outside intervention) might result in far–reaching negative political propaganda consequences for the Solidarity itself. Consequently, the NSZZ “Solidarity” [Independent Self-Governing Trade Union “Solidarity”] members in the West do not have a full concept of its political and union activity outside the country and their activity concentrates mainly around the so-called Solidarity Action Committees created in certain Western countries.4 2

See Idesbald Goddeeris, “Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych ‘SolidarnoĞci’. Biuro Koordynacyjne NSZZ ’SolidarnoĞü,’1982–1989,” part 1, PamiĊü i SprawiedliwoĞü 2 (2006): 315. 3 More on this topic see Patryk Pleskot, SolidarnoĞü, Zachód i WĊĪe. SáuĪba BezpieczeĔstwa wobec emigracyjnych struktur SolidarnoĞci 1981–1989 (Warszawa: IPN, 2011). 4 Informacja dotycząca przejawów aktywnoĞci dziaáaczy NSZZ „SolidarnoĞü” na Zachodzie po 13 grudnia 1981 r. (Information on the Manifestations of the NSZZ Solidarity Activists’ Activity in the West after 13 December 1981), 6 January 1982, Archiwum Instytutu PamiĊci Narodowej (Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance, AIPN) 1585/3871 (envelope with microfilm), 25.

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It seems that that evaluation was—from the point of view of the authorities—too optimistic. The first meetings of the emigrant Solidarity groups were held as early as December 1981 in Brussels, and in January 1982 in Zurich.5 On 22 December 1981, Krystyna Ruchniewicz created a Solidarity structure in Brussels. Similar initiatives spawned in other countries, not only in Europe. But the two meetings held at the turn of 1981 and 1982 remained the most important from the organizing point of view. During these meetings, it was agreed that due to the specificity of the emigrants’ situation there would be no uniform, centralist institution like “Solidarity-in-exile.”6 Instead, each country with significant clusters of the new Polish political emigration was to have an institution to coordinate the local Solidarity activities. Indeed, such coordinating bureaux soon began to appear—but perhaps not in the envisioned number and form.7 The 12-member Group of Delegates to the First National Congress of NSZZ “Solidarity” in Exile was formed in February 1982 in Paris. The name of the congress was a reference to the only national congress of Solidarity held in the autumn of 1981. The Group soon moved to Brussels. The Group’s Secretariat headed by Jerzy Milewski and Krystyna Ruchniewicz began to operate on 1 March 1982. They both argued during their May 1982 interview on the Voice of America that the Group was a representation of the trade union in accordance with the NSZZ “Solidarity” statute. It did not, however, at least not expressis verbis, claim the right to subordinate other Solidarity initiatives. On the contrary, it stressed its ancillary role in relation to the domestic leadership of the underground Solidarity. The Group’s main objective was to establish and tighten the contacts with the international trade union centres: the

5 Goddeeris, “Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych,” 315–316; Idem, “Western Trade Unions and SolidarnoĞü: a Comparison from a Polish Perspective,” The Polish Review 3 (2007): 305–306. Piotr Naimski gave different dates during his interview to Voice of America in June 1982. He claimed that the conference in Zurich was held on 19 December 1981. See Stenogram wywiadu Andrzeja Holika z Piotrem Naimskim, “Gáos Ameryki” (Stenographic Record of Andrzej Holik’s Interview with Piotr Naimski, Voice of America), 8 June 1982, AIPN, 1242/41, 55–57. 6 Gregory F. Domber, “The AFL-CIO, The Reagan Administration and SolidarnoĞü,” The Polish Review 3 (2007), 285. 7 Goddeeris, “Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych,” 315–316; Idem, “Western Trade Unions,” 305–306.

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International Trade Union Confederation and the International Labour Organization.8 Not long afterwards, on 22 April 1982, Zbigniew Bujak, Wáadysáaw Frasyniuk, Wáadysáaw Hardek and Bogdan Lis—local Solidarity structures leaders, who managed to avoid internment—set up the Temporary Coordinating Commission (Tymczasowa Komisja Koordynacyjna, TKK). At the same time, they called for trade union activists abroad to create one exclusive representation of Solidarity in the west. The appeal occasioned certain confusion, since, as we know, a few months earlier it was agreed that no superior structure would be created. What is more, some of the coordinating bureaux created had instead already begun their own, independent activity (particularly in Brussels, Paris and Bremen)—not to mention the other, even more independent initiatives. Nevertheless, ignoring these circumstances—or not understanding them—the TKK continued to force its initiative. In his letter of 8 May 1982 smuggled to a few centres of Polish emigrants and to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Bogdan Lis appointed Jerzy Milewski— formerly Solidarity’s GdaĔsk Region Board member, who had been in Brussels since March 1982—the head of the postulated coordinating centre at that time called the Foreign Bureau. In July 1982, the TKK once again explicitly called for the Solidarity activists abroad to create one overall structure—at that time it was called the NSZZ “Solidarity” Coordinating Bureau Abroad (Biuro Koordynacyjne NSZZ “SolidarnoĞü” za Granicą).9 From 17 to 19 July, a few dozen representatives of various Solidarity committees and organizations came to Oslo on the TKK’s initiative. They reluctantly agreed to the creation of the Coordinating Bureau and to Milewski’s appointment as its chairman. It was also agreed that the Bureau would be in Brussels (on the ACV/CSC10 trade unions’ premises) because many important international institutions were located there (first and foremost, NATO, the European institutions like European Economic Community and the two international trade union centres: the ICFTU and the World Confederation of Labour). The Bureau soon opened, on 29 July, 8

Stenogram z wywiadu Wacáawa BniĔskiego z Krystyną Ruchniewicz i Jerzym Milewskim, “Gáos Ameryki” (Stenographic Record of Wacáaw BniĔski’s Interview with Krystyna Ruchniewicz and Jerzy Milewski, Voice of America), AIPN, 1242/41, 21 May 1982, 41–42. 9 Goddeeris,”Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych,” 316–317. 10 ACV/CSC (Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond/ Confédération des Syndicats Chrétiens)–Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, a national trade union federation in Belgium, formed in 1904.

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on the basis of the Delegates’ Group.11 The Brussels centre became the target of attacks by the Polish press almost immediately after its creation. One of the manifestations of the campaign against the centre was when on 6 September a group of armed men attacked the PRL embassy in Berno, and the Polish regime press attributed the attack to “Solidarity extremists”.12 The Coordinating Bureau organized its branch in Paris (the so-called Solidarity Coordinating Committee) located on the CFDT (la Confédération française démocratique du travail, French Democratic Confederation of Labour) trade union centre premises based on the principle of equality. But in fact it was a totally independent centre. Its director was Seweryn Blumsztajn, who was replaced briefly by Jacek Krawczyk followed by Piotr ChruszczyĔski in February 1985.13 Initially, the Bureau leadership acknowledged the seven institutions present at the Oslo congress, excluding the Paris committee. Consequently, they began to be called the branches of the Bureau. And so there were: the Solidarity Bureau of Information (BI) in Amsterdam (Jan Minkiewicz); the Bremen BI (Henryk Jagielski, Marek Mikoáajczuk); the London BI, initially called the NSZZ Solidarity Working Group (Marek Garztecki); the BI in Stockholm (Stefan TrzciĔski, Marek Michalski), which covered the whole of Scandinavia; the BI in Toronto (Wojciech Gilewski); the NSZZ Solidarity Delegation in Zurich (Jerzy GrĊbski, Józef Chwaáa); and the Committee of Solidarity with “Solidarity” in Rome (Tadeusz Konopka). There were also an unspecified number of minor committees that were not represented in Oslo but which acknowledged— more or less rigorously—the superiority of the Brussels office (e.g. the committees in New York, Austria and Denmark).14 However, it should be said again that in most western countries there were also other independent Solidarity structures besides the Bureau branches. In West Berlin there were, for example, the Solidarity Working 11

Struktura, organizacja i wydawnictwa emigracji prosolidarnoĞciowej na Zachodzie (Structure, Organization and Publications of the Pro-Solidarity Emigration in the West), AIPN, 1585/800, second half of 1986, 1í18. Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci”, 316–317; Gregory F. Domber, The AFL-CIO, The Reagan Administration and SolidarnoĞü, 285. 12 Marek Pernal, Jan SkórzyĔski, Kalendarium SolidarnoĞci 1980–1989 (Warszawa: Omnipress, 1990), 70, 74. 13 Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci”, 318. See “Wywiad z Jerzym Milewskim,” Pogląd 82 (1985), 12–13. 14 Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci”…, 318– 319.

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Group, Polish Social Council and Solidarity Protection Committee.15 The leftist Solidarité avec Solidarité, the Trotskyist-communist Polish Solidarity Campaign and Solidarité France–Pologne were some of the French organizations that did not recognize the Bureau’s “authority”. In turn, in New York there was the independent Committee in Support of Solidarity headed by Irena Lasota. The latter organization criticized Milewski’s activity in its periodical “Committee in Support of Solidarity Reports”.16 The Brussels Coordinating Bureau “anointed” by the TKK had a coherent structure, and it enjoyed international recognition. Nevertheless, it never gained a monopolistic position in the emigrant Solidarity milieu. Yet, the Bureau and the Coordinating Committee in Paris surely became the two most important institutions of the emigrant Solidarity. The Bureau was also a major object of PRL security apparatus activities. The conflict among various emigrant Solidarity institutions stemmed mostly from the differences in the vision of the Solidarity movement abroad. Milewski wanted it to be as centralized and legitimate as possible because he regarded uniformity as the trump card in the struggle against the communist intelligence. By contrast, his critics, e.g. Lasota and Andrzej Kowalczyk, saw decentralization as the most effective weapon in the struggle against the communists. There were also ideological differences: for instance, not everybody liked Milewski’s gestures of sympathy toward the leftist opposition in South Africa or Chile.17 Local Solidarity bureaux emerged (often for short periods of time) in the farthest corners of the world. Indeed, at the moment of its creation, Solidarity was even trying to develop contacts with distant countries. Poland-based WaáĊsa spoke with the Chileans and went to Japan, while Bronisáaw Geremek became a member of the International Labor Organization’s anti-apartheid commission. After 1981, Solidarity tried to continue and develop this “exotic” activity. For instance, a permanent Solidarity bureau was opened in Japan (Polish Information Centre) and Jerzy Milewski travelled to Mexico, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya.18 The emigrant Solidarity initiatives were not limited to the creation of more-or-less ephemeral institutions. The establishment of printing houses 15

Ibid., 317–321. Ibid., 321, ”Letter to Editor,” Kultura 478í479 (1987): 165–166. 17 Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci,” 316, 321. 18 SolidarnoĞü News 1 (1983), 1; Edward de Virion, “List otwarty do Pana J. Milewskiego,” Kultura 429 (1983): 170–171; Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci,” 332. 16

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and periodicals, which were usually associated with given organizations or which represented one of the competing milieus, was an equally important and basic form of activity. Not surprisingly, such periodicals and their editorial staffs became one of the major objects of surveillance carried out by Polish special services. The publishing initiatives in France, where reputable periodicals, such as “Kultura”, already being issued, were especially numerous and important. The first issue of “Kontakt”, a quarterly edited by NSZZ “Solidarity” activists and sympathizers, went out in Paris on 1 April 1982.19 “Biuletyn Informacyjny”—the Coordinating Bureau’s official organ—was one of the most important Solidarity periodicals in France. Seweryn Blumsztajn, the Paris Bureau head, was the editor-in-chief of the periodical, which began to be issued in mid-1982. Other branches of the Bureau issued similar periodicals. “SolidarnoĞü News”—another periodical edited by Milewski’s group—printed (in English) e.g. pro-Solidarity declarations by western trade unions.20 These periodicals were the primary information base for foreign journalists.21 Similar initiatives multiplied outside France, too. For example, in West Berlin there was the “Pogląd” biweekly associated with the local Solidarity Society (Solidarity Protection Committee). It based its reporting on the Radio Free Europe materials, and it also had a German version (“Meinung”). The “Przekazy” monthly was another West German periodical published by the Solidarity Working Group in West Berlin.22 In the United States there was “Biuletyn SolidarnoĞci,” which was published in English. Published by the New York Committee in Support of Solidarity it was meant to inform American politicians and journalists about the Polish opposition’s activity and about the situation in Poland.23

19

Marek Pernal, Jan SkórzyĔski, Kalendarium SolidarnoĞci, 64. Idesbald Goddeeris, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych „SolidarnoĞci,” 317, 327. 21 Marcin Frybes, DziĊkujemy za solidarnoĞü = Merci pour votre solidarité! (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Instytutu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2005), 31. 22 Struktura, organizacja i wydawnictwa emigracji prosolidarnoĞciowej na Zachodzie (Structure, Organization and Publications of the Pro-Solidarity Emigration in the West), 2nd half of 1986, AIPN, 1585/800, 1–18; Raport naczelnika Wydziaáu XI Departamentu I, dotyczący sprawy kryptonim „Forkida” nr 15597 (Report of Department’s I Section XI Head Regarding Case Codename “Forkida” no. 15597), AIPN, 01593/831, 3–10. 23 Stenogram wywiadu Andrzeja Holika z Piotrem Naimskim, “Gáos Ameryki” (Stenographic Record of Andrzej Holik’s Interview with Piotr Naimski, Voice of America), AIPN, 1242/41, 8 June 1982, 55–57. 20

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The Object Case “West” The PRL special services’ interest in the Solidarity structures abroad was realized in a way that was typical of their methods—mainly through object cases and the use of the existing/developing network of agents. Since the services had been carrying out surveillance of the domestic opposition, it was only natural that they also took interest in its activity abroad. These Solidarity structures operated outside the PRL, but they tried to maintain communication and cooperation with the homeland. Hence, they aroused the interest of both the MSW Department I, which was primarily interested in the activity abroad, and the MSW Department V, whose basic task was to crush the opposition in factories (including Solidarity at home). Generally speaking, the surveillance of this form of anti–communist activity was carried out within the framework of two major object cases codename: “Snakes” (WĊĪe) and “West” (Zachód). The first one was conducted by the intelligence service. Unfortunately, practically no traces of that complex and multi-threaded enterprise have survived. The materials of this object case regarding “the emigrant organizations in the west after 13 December 1981” were entirely destroyed in September 1989.24 Fortunately, it is probable—as the patchy, and necessarily intuitive, search query has shown—that at least some of the documents produced within the framework of the “Snakes” case were included in the “West” case file. A vast part of the materials collected within its framework came from the intelligence. The case was formally opened on 11 May 198225—right after the TKK’s call for the creation of a central Solidarity office abroad. The sprouting emigrant Solidarity structures occasioned a fast reaction by the security service. The case became the responsibility of Section III of Department V of the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstwo Spraw WewnĊtrznych, MSW). The Department was a new unit—it was created only on 7 November 1981, not long before the martial law imposition, on the basis of Department III A.26 Department III A investigated mostly serious, extraordinary incidents in industry (thefts, explosions, fires, catastrophes, etc.) and analysed disruptions in the 24

Protokóá brakowania Departamentu I nr OCJ-02963/89 (Department I Missing Items Report No. OCJ-02963/89), 19 September 1989, AIPN, 01746/3/125. 25 Sprawa obiektowa “Zachód” Karta tytuáowa (Zachód Object Case, Title Page), 21 June 1988, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 1. 26 Aparat bezpieczeĔstwa w Polsce. Kadra kierownicza, vol. 3: 1975–1990, Paweá Piotrowski, ed. (Warszawa: IPN, 2008), 26.

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economy resulting from social conflicts. Eventually, it focused mostly on the latter. After the August 1980 strikes and the creation of Solidarity it became a unit that coordinated, planned and carried out the operational activities against the first independent trade union in PRL history. The evolution of its responsibilities contributed to the change of its name.27 Object Case “West” officially lasted until mid-1988, perhaps because the domestic opposition finally operated overtly and that it could be felt that the regime was about to collapse. The whole enterprise was discontinued on 14 June that year.28 The activity of emigrant Solidarity structures in Canada and the United States was one of the threads that often appeared in the “West” Object Case documents. The Polish services considered these countries—together with France, Great Britain and the FRG—the main centres of proopposition activity of the Polish Diaspora.

Canada The MSW Department I (intelligence) director claimed in the December 1982 report on the Polish Diaspora political activity throughout that year that the two most important pro-Solidarity structures in Canada were: the Solidarity Information Bureau headed by Zygmunt Przetakiewicz (later replaced by Wojciech Gilewski) and the Polish Canadian Action Group section—part of the Polish Canadian Congress already in place in 1980. The group had offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and even in London. Its head was Leszek PrusiĔski.29 Przetakiewicz began his activity in New York, but he moved to Toronto after a few months perhaps due to rather opaque disputes he had

27 Ibid. See Zakres dziaáania Wydziaáu Departamentu IIIA MSW (Scope of Activity of MSW Department III A Section), 26 November 1979, AIPN, 0236/277, vol. 2, 68. 28 Notatka informacyjna z przekazania sprawy obiektowej kryptonim “Zachód,” nr ewidencyjny 71242, do Archiwum MSW (Informative Memo Regarding the Transfer of Object Case Codename “West,” no. 71242) to the MSW Archive), 21 June 1988, AIPN 01419/378, vol. 1, A. 29 Informacja dyrektora Departamentu I MSW Fabiana Dmowskiego na temat przerzutu z Kanady Ğrodków finansowych dla podziemia w Polsce (Information of MSW Department I Director Fabian Dmowski Regarding the Transfer of the Financial Means to the Polish Underground), 17 December 1982, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 71–72.

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with Jerzy Milewski.30 They were probably the reason that a year later Przetakiewicz was removed from the position as the head of the Bureau, which gradually began to lose importance. In 1982, he cooperated with the Canadian Labor Congress trade union centre (which provided him with an office) and participated in demonstrations organized in Toronto. The attempts to organize strikes on Polish fishing boats calling at the port of Vancouver were less successful.31 In turn, Leszek PrusiĔski organized the Solidarity and Independence (SolidarnoĞü i NiepodlegáoĞü, SiN) initiative already in spring 1981. He headed it until 1990. The organization’s programme goals (as interpreted by the SB) included: “activity aimed at Poland’s regaining its independence,” “pressuring the Canadian authorities to support the Solidarity movement politically and materially,” “organization of cooperation between the Canadian trade unions and the Solidarity,” and “propaganda and diversion against the Polish authorities and their representatives in Canada.” The goals were achieved mostly by means of demonstrations and articles in the Polish community press. Aside from his involvement in the Action Group, in 1983 PrusiĔski engaged in the coordination of the activity of the Conference of Solidarity Support Organizations (CSSO)32 on the Canadian territory, which began to operate (but on very loose terms) in January 1983.33 The importance of these two organizations—the SiN and CSSO— was systematically growing.

30

Protokóá przesáuchania Ğwiadka Andrzeja Zająca w ramach Ğledztwa w sprawie dziaáalnoĞci Biura Koordynacyjnego SolidarnoĞci w Brukseli (Typescript of Interrogation of Witness Andrzej Zając within the Framework of the Investigation Regarding the Activity of the Solidarity Coordinating Bureau in Brussels), 10 October 1984, AIPN 01920/49, vol. 3, 107–123. 31 Informacja dyrektora Departamentu I MSW Fabiana Dmowskiego na temat dziaáalnoĞci emigracyjnych struktur solidarnoĞciowych na Zachodzie (Information of MSW Department I Director Fabian Dmowski Regarding the Activity of the Solidarity Structures in the West), 3 March 1982, AIPN, 0449/6, vol. 6, 254–256. 32 Ibid. 33 In 1989 the CSSO associated almost 50 organizations from the whole world, cf. Mary Patrice Erdmans, Opposite Poles: Immigrants and ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976–1990 (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). The permanent secretariat of the organization operated in a Swedish city of Lund, but the January 1983 founding meeting was held in the USA in Buffalo, Marcin Frybes, Spoáeczne reakcje Zachodu na fenomen „SolidarnoĞci” i rola emigracyjnych struktur związku 1980–1981 in NSZZ „SolidarnoĞü” 1980–1989, vol. 2: Ruch spoáeczny, ed. àukasz KamiĔski, Grzegorz Waligóra (Warszawa: IPN, 1980), 569.

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According to intelligence files, throughout 1982 the Information Bureau and the Action Group were to deliver the sum of approx. US$27,000 to Poland, collected mostly among members of the Polish Diaspora. The funds were transferred within the framework of the transports with Canadian aid sent by the agency of the International Red Cross and through church channels. Two couriers were hired in Montreal. The Polish services established the personal data of one of them: it was Father Henryk Pieprzycki, a Franciscan, chaplain of the Polish Canadian Congress and an Action Group co-founder. He supposedly brought US$10,000 to Poland in the summer. The sum was handed to the underground Solidarity with the help of the Warsaw Franciscan monks.34 In subsequent reports, the PRL intelligence noticed the activity of another major structure: the Committee in Support of Solidarity in Toronto with Polish community activist Ryszard Kolasiewicz as its head. Yet the intelligence had no details on their activity aside from the fact that it “participated in preparation of most propaganda actions against Poland and outside the Toronto Consulate General of the PRL”.35 By contrast, the knowledge about the Polish-Canadian Action Group (PCAG) systematically deepened. According to the secret service’s information, obtained at the end of 1984, the most important activists of the structure were: Alicja Gettlich (who replaced PrusiĔski), Edyta Wolska, Marek Malicki and Zbigniew Farmus. Section III of Department V of the MSW considered the PCAG to be a “political organization of a radically rightist and paramilitary profile”, but this should be approached with a great deal of scepticism. The SB functionaries were also worried about the intensification of the contacts between the Polish community activists and Canadian politicians (mostly local) whom the former tried to influence to support the Polish opposition. That lobbying also made use of the Polish community periodicals such as “Echa Tygodnia” and “Gáos Polski,” and the local radio programme “Echo Ojczyzny” hosted by Karolina KĊsik.

34 Informacja dyrektora Departamentu I MSW Fabiana Dmowskiego na temat przerzutu z Kanady Ğrodków finansowych dla podziemia w Polsce (Information of MSW Department I Director Fabian Dmowski Regarding the Transfer of the Financial Means to the Polish Underground), 17 December 1982, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 71–72. 35 Ocena kontaktów oĞrodków SolidarnoĞci na Zachodzie z jej strukturami w Polsce w 1984 r. sporządzona przez Departament V MSW (Evaluation of the Contacts between the Solidarity Centers in the West with its Structures in Poland in 1984 Prepared by MSW Department V), 12 December 1984, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 1, 60–78.

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The Polish intelligence services were even more worried about émigré attempts to coordinate the Polish community organizations’ activities in support of Solidarity. The First Conference of Pro-Solidarity Organizations from all of Canada was held from 5 to 6 April 1986 in Calgary on the initiative of Solidarity and the Independence organization headed by PrusiĔski. The Conference was attended by representatives of various branches of the Action Group; the Polish Political-Social Group Solidarity and Independence in Calgary (Polskie Ugrupowanie Polityczno-Spoáeczne SolidarnoĞü i NiepodlegáoĞü (PUPS SiN—this was the full name of the organization)); as well as representatives of minor, local milieus, such as Emigrants’ SolidarityíSolidarity Emigration (SolidarnoĞü Emigracji– Emigracja SolidarnoĞci) from Edmonton, Friends of Solidarity from Kitchener, Solidarity Friends’ Association from Vancouver and a similar organization from Red Deer. Members of the Solidarity Association from Winnipeg did not attend the conference because they opposed the centralization tendencies. The function of the observers was performed by Wojciech Gilewski (representative of the not too influential Solidarity Information Bureau in Toronto), the CSSO delegation under the leadership of Andrzej BáaszczyĔski and Louis Lenkinski––Canadian Labour Congress trade union centre representative. The actual result of the discussion was that the institutions represented in Calgary joined the CSSO. According to the intelligence reports, the flickering conflict between the Action Group and the Information Bureau was resolved during the talks. The official communiqué announced at the end of the conference was a declaration of willingness to cooperate with the Coordinating Bureau in Brussels, the Polish Canadian Congress and other “organizations of Polish emigration”. Separate letters were sent to the London-based Polish government-in-exile, the TKK, and the Canadian Prime Minister.36

The United States The pro-Solidarity initiatives of the Polish community in the U.S. aroused the particular interest of the Polish intelligence services—due both to their number and the strict line adopted by Washington diplomacy after

36

Informacja dyrektora Departamentu I MSW Zdzisáawa Sarewicza na temat I Konferencji Organizacji ProsolidarnoĞciowych z terenu Kanady (Information of MSW Department I Director Zdzisáaw Sarewicz Regarding the First Conference of Pro-Solidarity Organizations from Canada), 8 May 1986, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2.

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the imposition of martial law in Poland.37 On 21 December 1981, the biggest American trade union centre renowned for its support of Solidarity (the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, AFL-CIO) had already created a working group for Polish affairs within its Secretariat. The group was composed of Polish American Congress representatives (Zdzisáaw DziekoĔski, Jan Nowak), the Solidarity Friends’ Association and the Polish Watch Centre (created in 1980). The group’s operation was directed by Tom Khan—influential AFL-CIO activist. According to the information of the Polish intelligence, the group cooperated with the American administration and with the International Communications Agency (ICA), which was responsible for the Voice of America radio programme.38 An agenda for the upcoming period was drawn up during the opening meeting. The group was to request Congress to impose economic sanctions on the PRL and USSR, exert pressure to bring up the problem of the Polish opposition in the Commissions of Foreign Affairs of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, organize a series of proSolidarity demonstrations, collect funds for the Polish trade union activists and gather and disseminate information on the actual situation in Poland.39 It is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives. It seems that the Reagan administration, which did impose the sanctions, did not respond, owing to pressure exerted by the AFL-CIO, even though trade union centre leader Lane Kirkland often publically tried to convince the President to undertake more energetic actions with regard to Poland. Around that time, the formation of the structures of the abovementioned Committee in Support of Solidarity began. The SB regarded the organization as the most influential centre of pro-Solidarity initiatives of the Polish Diaspora in the USA. As we know, the Committee, which operated in New York, issued the “Solidarity Bulletin” to inform American politicians and journalists about the activities of the Polish opposition, and about the situation in Poland.40 The most important 37

See Patryk Pleskot, “PotĊpienie czy… ulga? Reakcje paĔstw zachodnich na wprowadzenie stanu wojennego w Polsce,” Biuletyn IPN 12 (2011): 38–54. 38 Opracowanie Departamentu I MSW na temat niektórych aspektów dziaáalnoĞci prosolidarnoĞciowej za granicą (MSW Department I Report on Certain Aspects of the Pro-Solidarity Activity Abroad), 27 March 1982, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 31– 67 (the same document in AIPN, 0449/6, vol. 6, 108–144). 39 Ibid. 40 Stenogram wywiadu Andrzeja Holika z Piotrem Naimskim, „Gáos Ameryki” (Stenographic Record of Andrzej Holik’s Interview with Piotr Naimski Broadcast, Voice of America), 8 June 1982, AIPN, 1242/41, 55–57.

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activists of the organization—Mirosáaw Chojecki, Piotr Naimski and Jakub KarpiĔski—supposedly made “scornful” comments about Lech WaáĊsa.41 It seems that the PRL intelligence overrated the scale of that criticism. During the following months and years, the Committee maintained its influence, despite internal disputes and personnel problems: Piotr Naimski decided to return to the country, Irena Lasota and Jakub KarpiĔski moved to Great Britain for some time. Agnieszka Koáakowska–daughter of a famous Polish philosopher, Leszek Koáakowski in exile since 1968, began to play an important role in the organization after these “depletions.” The organization’s board of honour was composed of Stanisáaw BaraĔczak, Zbigniew BrzeziĔski, Vladimir Bukowski, Lane Kirkland, Leszek Koáakowski, Leopold àabĊdĨ and Senator Daniel Moynihan42—these names perfectly reflecting the importance of the Committee. Informing about the instances of human rights violation in Poland was one of its major areas of activity. They were listed in an extensive 1984 report entitled “Appendixes on the Human Rights Situation of the Polish People”. The Polish services regarded the organization as “radically anticommunist.” The statement that it was “treated with a certain dose of suspicion by the emigrant milieu due to the Jewish origin of some of its activists”43 said more about the SB itself than about the actual perception of the Committee. Another important emigrant Solidarity structure in the USA, aside from the Committee, was the Solidarity Friends’ Association in Washington. Its head was physician Krzysztof Michejda, who had lived in the U.S. since the 1950s. After the wave of interest in Poland, visible during the first months after the imposition of martial law had subsided, the structure—as the intelligence stressed—had organizing, financial and mobilizing difficulties. In 1984 it had about 100 activists, who were mainly involved in the lobbying activity (e.g. preparation of the exhibition about Solidarity in Congress at the end of 1983). The association managed 41 Opracowanie Departamentu I MSW na temat niektórych aspektów dziaáalnoĞci prosolidarnoĞciowej za granicą (MSW Department I Report on Certain Aspects of the Pro–Solidarity Activity Abroad), 27 March 1982, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 31–67 (the same document in AIPN, 0449/6, vol. 6, 108–144). 42 Ocena kontaktów oĞrodków SolidarnoĞci na Zachodzie z jej strukturami w Polsce w 1984 r. sporządzona przez Departament V MSW (Evaluation of the Contacts between the Solidarity centers in the West with its Structures in Poland in 1984 Prepared by MSW Department V), 12 December 1984, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 1, 60í78. 43 Ibid.

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to gather a few dozen people during the monthly demonstrations organized outside the White House to commemorate the imposition of martial law. Its activists also tried to print leaflets and help new emigrants get acclimatized.44 Solidarity International, established in 1982 in New York, played a significant role during the first months of martial law. It was founded by Jerzy Milewski, who soon moved to Brussels. Solidarity International (and other structures of that type) was created to help the Polish opposition, lobby for the Polish cause and prepare demonstrations and petitions.45 The Pomost, a periodical milieu, closely cooperated with Solidarity institutions, which regularly sent financial aid to Poland.46 “Pomost. Kwartalnik Spoáeczno-Polityczny” began to be issued in 1979 at the University of Illinois by the “Bridge” (Pomost) research group within the framework of the North American Study Centre for Polish Affairs. In 1981, the group changed its name to the Bridge Socio-Political Movement (Ruch Spoáeczno-Polityczny “Pomost”). In 1985, the quarterly was transformed into a monthly.47 Plans to coordinate the activities of various organizations appeared not only in Canada but also in the United States. But little success was achieved there. At the end of 1983 the Committee in Support of Solidarity and the Solidarity Friends’ Association made an effort to create a common field of activity. But it did not lead to institutionalization of that form of activity.48

44

Ibid. Opracowanie Departamentu I MSW na temat niektórych aspektów dziaáalnoĞci prosolidarnoĞciowej za granicą (MSW Department I Report on Certain Aspects of the Pro–Solidarity Activity Abroad), AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 27 March 1982, 31–67 (the same document in AIPN, 0449/6, vol. 6, 108–144). 46 Charakterystyka komitetów i biur informacyjnych SolidarnoĞci w krajach zachodnich, sporządzona przez Departament V MSW (Characteristics of the Solidarity Committees and Information Bureaus in the West Prepared by MSW Department V), 14 January 1983, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 1, 36–59. 47 See Wiktor A. ĩóáciĔski, “Ruch Spoáeczno-Polityczny ‘Pomost,’” Videofact International Documentary, www.videofact.com/pomost2 (accessed 13 August 2012). 48 Opracowanie Departamentu I MSW na temat niektórych aspektów dziaáalnoĞci prosolidarnoĞciowej za granicą (MSW Department I Report on Certain Aspects of the Pro-Solidarity Activity Abroad), 27 March 1982, AIPN, 01419/378, vol. 2, 31– 67 (the same document in AIPN, 0449/6, vol. 6, 108–144). 45

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Conclusion The surveillance of the political activity of emigrant opposition structures and their channels of communication with the homeland was the main, but not the only, task of the Polish services within the framework of the “Zachód” Object Case and other similar cases. To some extent, the issues of western help provided to Solidarity, the life of Polish emigrants and the functioning of the underground opposition in Poland were raised up in an off-hand manner. This is why the surviving documents collected within the framework of the case are a valuable supplementation of the image of the milieu of Polish emigrants and the Polish Diaspora in the 1980s, even though they were subjective, incomplete and sometimes very inexact. It turns out that the SB could sometimes collect very detailed materials on the functioning of a given Solidarity structure. At times, however, that knowledge was surprisingly shallow. The Polish intelligence service had been repeating for years the same, often incomplete information, listed the same examples, exaggerated the inability of the Polish emigration to integrate, and sometimes overestimated the significance of conflicts among them. Characteristic of the intelligence service’s approach, the activities of the exiles were considered secondary to the dangers posed by the activities of the Polish underground. To counteract foreign actions was logistically very difficult, and because of the large number of initiatives and their geographical scope, it basically made it impossible to monitor them thoroughly and efficiently.

CONTRIBUTORS

Magdolna Baráth (Head of Research Department, Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, Budapest, Hungary). Lecturer in history of Hungary, Lorand Eötvös University, Budapest, member of the editorial board of scientific periodical “Századok” (Centuries) and historical periodical “Múltunk” (Our Past). Ph.D. in History (2001). Research interests: History of Hungary after the Second World War, HungarianSoviet Relationships after 1945, Hungarian Political Emigration after 1945. Piotr Derengowski (History, University of GdaĔsk, Poland). MA in History, University of GdaĔsk (2006). Recipient of the Polish-American Research Fellowship (Garstka Program) at Notre Dame University, 2010– 2012, published a dozen articles, four bios in The Polish American Encyclopedia (2011) and one bio in Polski Sáownik Biograficzny. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation: Poles in the American Civil War 1861–1865. Research interests: Polish immigration in the United States after 1831, military history, U.S. Civil War. Pauli Heikkilä (Research Fellow in the Institute of History and Archaeology, University of Tartu, Estonia). He defended his doctoral thesis Imagining Europe, Imagining the Nation: Estonian discussion on European unification, 1923–1957 in contemporary history in the University of Turku, Finland, in 2011, and published numerous articles on the history of European integration from Estonian and Finnish points of view. He worked as visiting scholar in Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in the Herder Institute in Marburg, Germany, and in the Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany. He is currently affiliated with the post-doc project on Estonian Emigrants in International Institutions. Arkadiusz Indraszczyk (Institute of Social Sciences, University of Humanities and Sciences in Siedlce, Poland). Senior curator, Museum of the History of Polish People’s (Peasant) Movement (Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego). Board secretary, People’s Cultural and Scientific Society. Managing editor of periodicals “Rocznik MHPRL” and “MyĞl Ludowa” (People’s Thought). Ph.D. in History (2004). Research

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Contributors

interests: history and political thought of people’s (peasant) movements, parties and organizations in Poland and the world; European integration in Polish political thought; emigration of peasants from central and eastern Europe after World War II. Major publications: The Green International: Cooperation of Central and East European peasant parties (in Polish), 2008; Adam BieĔ 1899–1998: Social and political activity (in Polish), 2005. Anna D. JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann (Professor of History in the Department of History at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, USA). She is the author of The Exile Mission: Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956 (Ohio University Press, 2004), and an Associate Editor of The Polish American Encyclopedia (McFarland, 2011). She is past President of the Polish American Historical Association and serves on the editorial board of the Polish American Studies. Her current research project involves a study of Polish American press and the immigrant letter-writing culture. Katalin Kádár Lynn (Senior Researcher, Faculty of Humanities, Etövös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary). Ph.D. in History, ELTE BTK; Master in Liberal Arts, Washington University in St. Louis. Major publication: Tibor Eckhardt: His American Years 1941-1972. She also edited and published his memoir, Tibor Eckhardt: In His Own Words (in English and in Hungarian). Founder (2012) and editor of Helena History Press, a publisher specializing in scholarship related to central and east European history. In March 2011 she was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit by the President of Hungary. Research area: World War II and the Cold War era, with an emphasis on central and east European exile leaders, their organizations and activities. Piotr Koprowski (Institute of History, University of GdaĔsk, Poland). Ph.D. in History (2005). He has published two works on the ideas of Ivan Turgenev: Pozytywista, ale jaki? ĝwiatopogląd Iwana Turgieniewa w latach 1848-1883, 2009; W krĊgu romantyzmu. Ksztaátowanie siĊ struktur Ğwiatopoglądowych Iwana Turgieniewa, 2008. Research interests: twentieth century history of the Catholic Church; Russian nineteenth century political and philosophical thought; humanistic philosophy. GraĪyna J. Kozaczka (Professor of English in the Division of Humanities and Natural Sciences and the Director of the All-College Honors Program at Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, New York, USA). Named Distinguished

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Faculty Member. In 2007, she taught as a Visiting Professor at Canterbury Christ Church University in Canterbury, U.K. She is the author of William Dean Howells and John Cheever: Their Views on the Failing of the American Dream, and numerous book reviews and articles. Her most recent article is “The Neighborhood of Memory: Stuart Dybek’s Chicago”. She has also published short fiction in English, and Polish language articles on Polish American literary topics. Cazenovia College awarded her a sabbatical, and a grant for the Spring 2012 Semester in support of her research. Her research interests include American ethnic literature, nineteenth and twentieth century American fiction, literature of the Holocaust, and the representation of gender in American literature. Stephen M. Leahy (Centre for the International Studies, Shantou University, China). Associate Professor of World History, teaches World History, Business History, and Leadership Studies. Past Second VicePresident of the Polish American Historical Association. Ph.D. in History, Marquette University; MA in History, Arkansas State University. Author of The Making of Milwaukee’s Most Popular Politician. Clement J. Zablocki: Milwaukee Politics and Congressional Foreign Policy (2002). This work has won the Halecki Award from the PAHA. He has also won the Amicus Poloniae Award from the same organization. His research interests are: historical mapping, Milwaukee history, and race and ethnic issues. Anna Mazurkiewicz (Institute of History, University of GdaĔsk, Poland.) Ph.D. in History 2006, award of the Polish National Centre for Culture. Books and articles on U.S. policy towards Poland; Dyplomacja Stanów Zjednoczonych wobec wyborów w Polsce w latach 1947 i 1989 (Warsaw: Neriton, 2007) and Prasa amerykaĔska wobec wyborów w Polsce w latach 1947 i 1989 (GdaĔsk: University Press, 2009). Recipient of the Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowships and grants from the Foundation for Polish Science and the Visegrad Fund. Currently writing a book about the Assembly of Captive European Nations—U.S. based émigré organization of east European exiled political leaders. Thomas J. Napierkowski (Professor of English at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs). His scholarly focus is medieval English literature. His research interests, however, also include African American, Russian, Polish, and immigrant American literatures—most particularly, Polish American literature. In this last area, Napierkowski has worked for four decades—in dozens of articles, reviews, personal letters, and

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Contributors

professional contexts—to achieve three goals: to promote the recognition, preservation, and critical evaluation of Polish American literature; to encourage Americans of Polish background to give voice to the Polish American experience in their works; and to secure a place for Polish American literature in the canon of American literature. He is presidentelect of the Polish American Historical Association. He has accepted an appointment as a Fulbright Specialist to teach and lecture for the autumn semester of 2012 in Romania. Martin Nekola (Department of Political Science, Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University, Prague). He has authored a number of articles to popular science magazines. (Ph.D. 2010) He has published books about the Third Reich (Vyslanci hákového kĜíže, 2011; Mocní TĜetí Ĝíše, 2010; Hitlerovi satrapové, 2008) and one on Latin American dictatorships during 1970s (Operace Kondor, 2012). His research is focused on nondemocratic regimes, the era of Communism and the east European anticommunist exiles in the USA during the Cold War. Mieczysáaw Nurek (Professor of History, Chair of the Department of Contemporary History, University of GdaĔsk, Poland). His recent book (2009, reprint 2011), Gorycz zwyciĊstwa: Los Polskich Siá Zbrojnych na Zachodzie po II wojnie Ğwiatowej 1945–1949 on the fate of the Polish armed forces in the west after World War II received wide acclaim, winning the Grand Prix in the Jan Dáugosz Competition organized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Cracow Book Fair; Oskar Halecki Competition—History Book of the Year (organized by the Polish Public Television, the Polish Radio and the Institute of National Remembrance); award by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education; nominated for awards in Kazimierz Moczarski and the “Polityka” magazine competitions. Research interests: international relations in the Baltic area, British-Polish relations. James S. Pula (Professor of History at Purdue University, Indiana, USA). A specialist in Ethnic and Immigration Studies and the American Civil War and Reconstruction, he is the author of Thaddeus KoĞciuszko: The Purest Son of Liberty; The Sigel Regiment: A History of the 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862–1865; Polish Americans: An Ethnic Community; United We Stand: The Role of Polish Workers in the New York Mills Textile Strikes, 1912 and 1916; and For Liberty and Justice: The Life and Times of Wladimir KrzyĪanowski. He is also the editor of the scholarly journal Polish American Studies and editor-in-chief of The

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Polish American Encyclopedia. He has been honored with the Rudewicz Medal for Distinguished Service to Polonia, the Gambrinus Prize in History, and was a three-time recipient of the Oskar Halecki Prize for the best book on Polish American history and culture. Patryk Pleskot (Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw, Poland). Graduated from the University of Warsaw (Ph.D. 2007) and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Recent publications: SolidarnoĞü, zachód i wĊĪe. SáuĪba BezpieczeĔstwa wobec emigracyjnych struktur SolidarnoĞci 1981-1989 (2011); Tarcza partii i narodu. Kontrwywiad Polski Ludowej w latach 1945–1956. Zarys struktur i wybór Ĩródeá (2010); SpĊtana Akademia. Polska Akademia Nauk w dokumentach wáadz PRL, 2 vols. (2009 & 2012); Naukowa szkoáa przetrwania. Paryska Stacja PAN w latach 1978–2004 (2008); Wielki maáy ekran. Telewizja a codziennoĞü Polaków lat 60. (2007); Na przekór rzeczywistoĞci. Ideologia Komunistycznej Partii Francji wobec upadku ZSRR (2006). Research interests: French history and historiography; political, cultural and social history of communist Poland; activity of the Polish counter-espionage apparatus. Francis D. Raška (Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic). Habilitation in Modern History (2009); Ph.D., Charles University; MPhil, University of Dundee (1998); MA in Central European Studies, London School of Slavonic and East European Studies (1995); B.A. in Political Science, Le Moyne College (1993). Major publications: The Long Road to Victory: A History of Czechoslovak Exile Organizations (2012); Opuštení bojovníci: Historie Rady svobodného ýeskoslovenska, 1949–1961 (2009); Fighting Communism from Afar: The Council of Free Czechoslovakia (2008); The Czechoslovak Exile Government in London and the Sudeten German Issue, (2002). Research interests: Czechoslovak diasporas; Czech-Sudeten German relations; social and cultural history of the United States, 1960s– 1970s; American national security policy. Jelena Šesniü (Department of English at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia). She teaches courses in American literature and culture, while her research encompasses recent methodologies in American studies, feminist and gender theory, and psychoanalytic theory. Ph.D. in Philology, 2005, Associate Professor 2012. She is the author of From Shadow to Presence: Representations of Ethnicity in Contemporary American Literature (Rodopi, 2007) and, in Croatian,

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Contributors

Mraþne žene. Prikazi ženstva u ameriþkoj književnosti, 1820–1860 (Dark Ladies: Figures of Femininity in American Literature, 1820–1860, 2010), and the editor of “Siting America/Sighting Modernity” (2010). She is a cofounder and secretary of the Croatian Association for American Studies, and serves on editorial board of two journals of literary criticism and theory. Anna Siwik (Professor of History, Head of Department of Political Science and Contemporary History, AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland). First dean of the Faculty of Humanities AGH (2001–2008); Vice-Rector for Student Affairs (2012–2015). Monographs related to emigration studies: PPS na emigracji w latach 1945-1956 (1998); Polskie uchodĨstwo polityczne: socjaliĞci na emigracji w latach 1956–1990 (2002). 1994 Research Fellow at PIASA in New York (Kosciuszko Foundation Scholarships). Between 1999–2006 was a member of the Committee on Research into Polish Communities Abroad of the Polish Academy of Sciences; from 2008 to date, a member of the Commission on Research on the Polish Diaspora by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professional interests: political, societal and cultural transformation of Polish society after World War II, the Polish political diaspora after World War II, the social democratic movement. Ieva Zake (Associate Dean of College of Science and Mathematics, Rowan University, USA). Ph.D. in Sociology 2004, University of Massachusetts. Author of numerous articles published in, for example, “Journal of Baltic Studies”, “Journal of Cold War Studies”, “Historical Sociology”, and “Nationalities Papers”. Recently published a monograph American Latvians: Politics of a Refugee Community (2010), and an edited volume New Directions in Sociology: Essays on Theory and Methodology in the 21st Century (2011). Research interests: historical sociology of political movements and intellectuals, with an emphasis on ethnic and Cold War politics. Current research: the role of immigrant groups in American politics after World War II, and the Soviet policy of tourism towards the west.

INDEX OF NAMES

Allason Rupert, 273 Andersen Alsing, 182 Bach Johann Sebastian, 94 Baer Theodore R., 143 BaĔczyk Stanisáaw, 196, 220, 221 BaraĔczak Stanisáaw, 324 Barbee Lloyd A., 144 Bárdossy László, 269 Barev Tsenko, 198, 217 Bedell Smith Walter, 283 Bedriy Anathole, 164 Beecher-Stowe Harriet, 132 Beky Zoltan, 157 Beneš Edvard, 169, 174, 270, 275 Benjamin O., 181 Bernard Vilém, 177, 181 Bismarck Otto von, 114 BáaszczyĔski Andrzej, 322 Block Herbert Lawrence (Herblock), 238 Blumsztajn Seweryn, 315, 317 Bobkowski Andrzej, 55 Bock Ivo, 86 Bojar Pavel, 67 Bokor Bela, 197, 205 Bondy Francois, 85 Boughey Peter, 271 Breikšs JƗnis, 250 Brezhnev Leonid, 209 Brook Peter, 39 Brown John, 128 BrzeziĔski Zbigniew, 324 Brzorád Vilém, 65 Bujak Zbigniew, 314 Bukoski Anthony, 10 Bukowski Vladimir, 324 Bunche Ralph J., 245 Butler Nicholas Murray, 267 Cach VojtČch, 67 Carey Matthew, 107

Celler Emanuel, 242 ýep Jan, 65 ýerný Josef, 223 Chabrowski Tadeusz, 9 Chalfont Lord, 85 Chamberlain Stephen J., 281 Chciuk-Celt Tadeusz, 198, 216, 219, 220 Chojecki Mirosáaw, 324 Chopin Fryderyk, 91 ChruszczyĔski Piotr, 315 Churchill Winston, 91, 267, 284 Chvatík KvČtoslav, 86 Chwaáa Józef, 315 Clifford James, 24, 27, 28, 29 Coleslaw Johny, 35 Coste Brutus, 229, 253, 254, 256, 258 Crosland Anthony, 183 Cullen Jim, 35 Czinege Lajos, 300 Dąbrowski Jan Henryk, 114 Dali Salvador, 92 Davidson Basil, 272, 275 Davis Jefferson, 121 De Gaulle Charles, 218 DeKalb Johann, 110 Derrida Jacques, 34 Dickinson Ella, 251, 252 Dimitrov Georgi M., 173, 174, 193, 194, 196, 205, 209, 211, 214, 217, 219, 253 Djurich-Topaloviü Militza, 182 Dobrovský Luboš, 77, 78 Dodd Thomas J., 241, 242 Doheny Michael, 105 Dorosz Beata, 55 Dubþek Alexander, 67, 83 DziekoĔski Zdzisáaw, 323 Dziƺleja KƗrlis, 250, 251

334

Index of Names

Eckhardt Jr. Tibor, 281, 287, 288 Eckhardt Tibor, 173, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291 Eichler Willy, 182 Eisenhower Dwight D., 218, 234, 236, 240, 287 Estreicher Karol, 8 Farmus Zbigniew, 321 Fedenko Bohdan, 181 Fedenko Panas, 181 Filo Kornel, 179 Fiut Aleksander, 94, 95, 97 Follen Paul, 105 Foret Joseph, 91 Foucault Michel, 34 Frajlich Anna, 9 Frasyniuk Wáadysáaw, 314 Fronczak Walery, 7 Gadomski Feliks, 57, 258, 260 Gaitskell Hugh, 178, 183 Galambos József, 301 Garztecki Marek, 315 Gavriloviü Milan, 193, 205 Geremek Bronisáaw, 316 Gettlich Alicja, 321 Gherman Eftimie, 181 Giedroyü Jerzy, 55 Gierat Ewa, 60 Gierat Stanisáaw, 56 Gilewski Wojciech, 315, 319, 322 Glemza Jonas, 181 Goldstücker Eduard, 70, 71 Gombrowicz Witold, 55 Gordon Jacob, 124, 127, 131 Gorectke Donald M., 143 Gottwald Klement, 83 Gramsci Antonio, 34 GrĊbski Jerzy, 315 Grombach John V., 265, 266, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291 Groppi James E., 133, 134, 145

Gruša JiĜí, 75 Grydzewski Mieczysáaw, 56 Grynberg Henryk, 9 Gurowski Adam, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 Guzlowski John, 10 Habsburg Otto von, 271, 277, 278, 279, 280, 289, 290 Haiman Mieczysáaw, 7 Hájek JiĜí, 67, 83 Halecki Oskar, 55 Hanka Václav, 73 Hardek Wáadysáaw, 314 Harrington John, 112 Hassaurek Friedrich, 105 Hauner Milan, 85 Havel Václav, 75, 76, 77, 83, 84, 88 Havelka Sonia, 161 HƗzners Vilis, 159 Heinrichs Ervin, 143 Heinzen Karl, 105, 107 Hertz Zygmunt, 55 Hickenlooper Bourke B., 242 Hillenkoetter Roscoe, 283 Hitler Adolf, 76, 81, 180, 272 Hobsbawm Eric, 34 Hodža Milan, 201 Hoffman Eva, 34 Hoover Herbert, 244, 287 Horák JiĜí, 65 Horm Arvo, 248, 251 Horthy Miklós, 266, 269, 281, 299 Hübl Milan, 71 Hughes John, 112 Husák Gustav, 73, 74 Ivy Oriana, 10 Jackson C. [Charles] D., 234 Jackson George D., 224 Jagielski Henryk, 315 Janda Victoria, 7 Janouch František, 75 Janta Aleksander, 47 Jarev T., 179 JaroszyĔska-Kirchmann Anna, 38 Jászi Oskár, 270

East Central Europe in Exile: Transatlantic Migrations Volume 2 Javits Jacob K., 242 Jazella Appolonia, 108 Jefferson Thomas, 118 Jendusa Robert J., 141 Johnson James Weldon, 8 Johnson Lyndon B., 244 Joly Danièle, 150, 152 Jonáš Josef, 65 Jones Tom, 4 Jungmann Milan, 86 Juretic Augustyn, 199 Kádár János, 265, 300, 301, 303, 309, 328 Kafka Franz, 98 KalniƼš Brnjno, 180, 181, 183, 251 Kaáussowski Henryk, 108, 111, 113, 118 Karkowski Czesáaw, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45 Karnet JiĜí, 65 Károlyi Michael (Mihály), 273, 277 KarpiĔska-Gierat Ewa, 54 KarpiĔski Jakub, 324 Kazimerski Jan, 56 Kendziorski Casimir, 134, 142 Kennedy John F., 237, 241 KĊpinski Antoni, 98 KĊsik Karolina, 321 Kéthly Anna, 179, 181 Khan Tom, 323 Khomeini Ruhollah, 79 Khrushchev Nikita, 179, 180, 208, 235, 236, 238, 239, 240, 241, 245 Kirkland Lane, 323, 324 Kis János, 85 Klesment Johannes, 254 Knebel Beverly, 143, 144 Kohák Erazim, 68 Kojder Wáadysáaw, 193 Koáakowska Agnieszka, 324 Koáakowski Leszek, 90, 324 KoláĜ JiĜí, 65 Kolasiewicz Ryszard, 321 Kolk Raimond, 181 Kollár Ján, 73

335

Konopka Tadeusz, 315 KorboĔska Zofia, 57 KorboĔski Stefan, 57, 173, 217, 223, 239 KoĞciuszko Thaddeus (Tadeusz), 110, 118, 121, 128 KosiĔski Jerzy, 33, 34 Kossuth Lajos, 114 Kot Stanisáaw, 199, 214 Kotyk Petr, 87 Kovtun Emil, 65 Kowalczyk Andrzej, 316 Krakowski Bolesáaw, 199 Král Petr, 86 Krawczyk Jacek, 315 Kroner Hayes, 281 Kruszka Wacáaw, 117 KrzyĪanowski Ludwik, 55 KrzyĪanowski Wáodzimierz, 111, 120, 123, 129, 130 Kula Witold, 50, 51 Kun Béla, 290 Kuncewicz Jerzy, 201 Kundera Milan, 84, 85, 86, 94 Kuniczak W.S., 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 Kuniczak Wiesáaw, 9 Kunka Natalie, 8 Kusý Miroslav, 78, 79, 80 Kütt Aleksander, 252 Kyncl Karel, 71 àabĊdĨ Leopold, 324 Labrada Nohemi, 164 Lafayette Marie Joseph de), 110 Laretei Heinrich, 254 Lasota Irena, 316, 324 LechoĔ Jan, 55, 56 Lednicki Wacáaw, 55 Lencznarowicz Jan, 58 Lenin Vladimir I., 239 Lenkinski Louis, 322 Leonard Jerris, 143 Lettrich Jozef, 205, 217 Liehm Antonín, 66 Lincoln Abraham, 124, 127, 130, 237

336

Index of Names

Lis Bogdan, 314 Lizakowski Adam, 9 Lore Ludwig, 272 Luža Radomír, 65 Lyons William, 112 Maþek Vladko, 173, 193, 205 MacGregor Burns James, 175 Macmillan Harold, 218, 289 Majewski Karen, 5, 6, 7 Malicki Marek, 321 Maniu Iuliu, 193 Manson Charles, 143 Marat Jean-Paul, 39 Margoliová-Kovályová Heda, 72 Margolius Rudolf, 72 Marx Karl, 186 Masaryk Jan, 193, 273 Masaryk Tomáš Garrigue, 68, 76, 169, 171, 174 MƗsƝns Vilis, 239, 253 Matzankieff Dimitre, 221 McCargar James, 284, 286 McKinney Prentice, 134 Meniku Halil, 198 Michael of Romania, 174 Michalski Marek, 315 Michejda Krzysztof, 324 Mierosáawski Ludwik, 106 Mihkelson Johannes, 181 Mikoáajczuk Marek, 315 Mikoáajczyk Stanisáaw, 196, 205, 211, 212, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220 Milewski Jerzy, 313, 314, 316, 317, 320, 325 Millington Mark, 13 Miloševiü Slobodan, 16 Miáosz Czesáaw, 9, 55 Minczeski John, 10 Mindszenty József, 211 Minkiewicz Jan, 315 Mitana Tadeusz, 7 MlynáĜ ZdenČk, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83 Moczygemba Leopold, 104 Montgomery John F., 267, 276, 280 Montgomery Richard, 110

Moravec Emanuel, 73 Mostwin Danuta, 9, 32 Moynihan Daniel, 324 Münch Friedrich, 105 Myšková Ivana, 87 Nadanyi Paul, 276 Nagy Ferenc, 174, 193, 196, 205, 209, 217, 219, 221, 284 Naimski Piotr, 324 Nemec Foster Linda, 10 Nemecek Josef, 198, 199 NiedĨwiecki M. A., 7 Nivat Georges, 85 Nixon Richard M., 259, 288 Norwid Cyprian Kamil, 128 Nosek Václav, 83 Novakovich Josip, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Nowak Cieplak Tadeusz, 214 Nowak-JezioraĔski Jan, 216, 323 Nowakowski Richard C., 134 O’Brien William Smith, 113 O’Gorman Richard, 113 O’Hare McCormick Anne, 276 O’Mahony John, 105, 110, 112 Orgins Emils, 181 Orth Marguerite, 143 Ortiz Fernando, 13 Orzechowski Emil, 9 Ostrowski Janusz, 7 Ottendorfer Oswald, 106, 110, 111 Paczkowski Andrzej, 224 Pajaujis Jonas, 250 Pakalns Rudolf, 181 Pálóczy-Horváth George, 272 Pápánek Jan, 275, 282 Parker Ralph, 270 Pasierb Janusz, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 Pasternak Boris, 236 Pasulka Brigid, 10 Patek Wiesáaw, 250, 251, 252, 261 Patoþka Jan, 83 Paviþiü Tresiü, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 Pawáowicz Bohdan, 55

East Central Europe in Exile: Transatlantic Migrations Volume 2 Pehr Otton, 181 Pelényi John, 267 Pelikán JiĜí, 67, 68, 69, 72, 80 Peroutka Ferdinand, 65 Péter János, 308 Petkoff Georgi, 180, 181 Petkov Nikola, 193 Pfaff Ivan, 72, 73 Philippe Loius, 108 Pieprzycki Henryk, 321 Pietrzyk Leslie, 10 Pithart Petr, 76, 77 Pommerening Glen E., 143 Popa Augustin, 209 Potowski-Rose Ernestine, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126, 127, 128, 130 Povolný Mojmír, 65 Pratt Mary Louise, 13, 15, 17 Pravdin Vladimir Sergeevich, 282 PrusiĔski Leszek, 319, 320, 321, 322 Przetakiewicz Zygmunt, 319, 320 Puja Frigyes, 295 Puáaski Casimir (Kazimierz), 110 Radescu, 280 Rákosi Mátyás, 270 Ransdorf Emil, 65 Rassay Charles, 283 Rei August, 253, 254, 260 Renner Peter, 296 Révai József, 283 Rockefeller Nelson, 234 Roediger David, 35 Rogall Albert, 129 Roosevelt Eleanor, 290 Roosevelt Franklin D., 267, 270, 278 Roosevelt Nicholas, 267, 276 Rose Peter, 148 Roth Philip, 85 Ruchniewicz Krystyna, 313 Rutkis JƗnis, 251 Šabata Jaroslav, 71 Sabina Karel, 73 Sartre Jean-Paul, 66 Scheynius Irvis, 250

337

Schofield Hermann, 110 Schultz Ignác, 274 Schurz Karl, 105, 111 ĝcibiorek Bolesáaw, 193 Sebes István, 295 Sekaninová-ýakrtová Gertruda, 83 Seyda Maria, 57 Seyda Marian, 57 Sherard Calvin, 140 Sidkar René, 67 Sidzikauskas Vaclovas, 254 Sielski Wáadysáaw, 59 Sienkiewicz Henryk, 39 SieraĔska-Syta Katarzyna, 53 Sigel Franz, 105, 111 Sikkar Johannes, 198, 253, 260 Šimeþka Milan, 85 Simeon of Bulgaria, 174 Simeonova-Krauss Milka, 181 Simpson Christopher, 288, 290 Skála Ivan, 67 Sklar Ruth, 142 Škvorecký Josef, 86 Slánská Josefa, 74 Slánský Rudolf, 71, 74, 83 SáoĔski Adam, 129, 130, 132 Sobieski Jan, 113 Sobieski John, 129 Sollors Werner, 34 Soroka Wacáaw, 214 Sosnowski Sophie, 122, 123 Soumar R. B., 205, 209, 220 Stalin Joseph, 70 Stasiuk Andrzej, 93 Stern J. P., 70 Steuben Friedrich von, 110 Stewart Neil, 87 Stout Mark, 286, 290 Stratton Samuel S., 242, 244 Strempek Shea Suzanne, 10 Sulkowski Richard, 141 Švejk Josef, 78, 80 Sviták Ivan, 71 Svoboda Vilem, 198, 214, 217, 219 ĝwiĊcicki Ignacy, 55 Szabó Miklós, 296

338

Index of Names

Szélig Imre, 181, 185, 186, 187 Szpaczek Ludwik, 118 Szumanov Iskar, 196, 221 SzymaĔski Ignatius (Ignacy), 118 Teleki Pál, 269 Thomas Dylan, 39 Thomas Stephan, 182 Thomas William I., 50 Thugutt Janina, 57 Thugutt Mieczysáaw, 57 Tigrid Pavel, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 87, 88 Tito Josip Broz, 25 Tochman Gaspard (Kacper), 121, 122, 123, 124 Todorova Maria, 25 Tomich Irma M., 232 Topaloviü Živko, 177, 182 Trifa Valerian D., 157 Trifkoviü Borislav, 198 TrzciĔski Stefan, 315 Tupanjanin Miloš, 217 Turauskas Eduardas, 179 Tyssowski Jan, 107, 108, 109 Uhl Jakob, 109 Urbánek ZdenČk, 85 Vaculík Ludvík, 74, 75, 77 Vahter Leonhard, 253 Vámbéry Rusztem, 270, 273, 274, 275, 277, 282 Vanderbilt Széchényi Gladys, 287 Vanek Miloš, 181 Vardy Béla, 277 Varga Béla, 284, 285 Varnas Anastas J., 234

Veniamin Virgil, 179 Vilcinskas Juozas, 181 Vohryzka František, 219, 221 Voinea Serban, 181 Wadsworth James J., 242 Waldo Artur, 9 WaáĊsa Lech, 316, 324 Wallace George, 134 Warma Aleksander, 248, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262 Washington George, 117 Weiss Peter, 39 West Nigel, 272 Wieczerzak Joseph, 110, 111 WierzbiaĔski Bolesáaw, 42 WierzyĔski Kazimierz, 55 Wiesenthal Simon, 159 Wilk Franciszek, 198, 199, 219 Wittke Carl, 109 Woloch Cecelia, 10 Wolska Edyta, 321 Wolski Kalixt, 132 Wrotnowski Arthur, 129 Wunderli Richard, 3 Wysocki Piotr, 119 Zaremba Zygmunt, 177, 179, 181, 184, 185 Závada Vilém, 67 Zenkl Pavla, 169 Zenkl Petr, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176 Znaniecki Florian, 50, 51 Zulavsky Ladislas, 129