Tag #157472 - Interview #91690 (Umow Henryk)

I never personally experienced much anti-Semitism in Legnica. When someone tried making comments, I’d just shut his mouth for him. Only one time, when I was in Walbrzych visiting a woman and went to church with her, I heard a sermon where some bishop – I don’t remember where he was from – said that when Jesus was asked if he was a Jew, he had said no; but a week later the church was celebrating Jesus’s circumcision [Mr. Umow is referring to the celebration of Jesus being presented in the Temple on the eighth day after his birth.] And I didn’t personally experience anything when those events in 1968 took place [see Gomulka Campaign] 14. Just one Pole asked me why I didn’t leave the country. And he even proposed that we exchange ID papers, so that he could leave in my place. Another Pole told me that in the art school in Legnica, one of the teachers locked the Jewish students in a room and kept watch to make sure nothing happened to them. That was his duty as a human being. And I also heard about one Jew who left the country then – he came back to Poland later and wanted to put flowers on Gomułka’s grave, to thank him for kicking him out. Because he’s doing very well now.