Poor Poles Look at the Getto in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XIX

Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto

Błonski analyzes and comments on two poems, “Campo dei Fiori” and “Poor Christians Look at the Ghetto,” written by Czeslaw Milosz in 1943 during the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto and discusses the implication of Poles’ moral responsibility for the Holocaust, meaning their lack of appropriate reaction and their indifference. This problem has not been properly discussed in Poland since the war, and those who have related to the past want to be cleared of guilt, viewing themselves merely as victims. See the reactions to this article which appeared in Tygodnik Powszechny, especially the articles by Stanislaw Salmonowicz, Wladyslaw Sila-Nowicki, Janina Walewska, Kazimierz Dziewanowski, and Jerzy Turowicz.