Polish-Jewish
&
Jewish-Polish Links 


This page is was inspired by the work of Ed Milewski, web-master of www.stjoes.net, the St. Joseph's Church website, representing the predominantly Polish church that was the heart and soul of Camden's Whitman Park neighborhood for so many years. Ed has been sending me marvelous links about Polish-Jewish relations, Poles and Jews during the Holocaust, and other related subjects.... so many that the only responsible thing to do was to collate them, and post them on a single web-page. As I have e-mails scattered across 3 or 4 systems (my embarrassing secret is out!), look for more to be added to this page as time goes by.... and I know Ed will find more as well!

Relations between the Poles and the Jews have been problematic over the centuries. Religious and linguistic differences often got in the way of the fact that both groups were being oppressed, often by the same people! Human nature seems to dictate that different peoples trying to live in the same places at the same time will have their differences, even when cooperation and tolerance would benefit everyone. Still, Poland was a place where Jews lived, thrived, and survived for centuries before the Holocaust of the 1940s.  Although some would deny it, the Jewish people gained much from their years in Poland, and gave much back, to the villages, towns, and cities where they lived.

Once in America, both the the Jews and Poles quickly became dynamic parts of their communities wherever they went, their cultural contributions crossing all racial, religious, ethnic, and economic boundary. Possibly the most world-changing example would be twenty-or-so year association of two Polish-born Jewish brothers and a group of Black musicians in Chicago which gave us Chicago Blues, and served as a foundation for rock'n'roll and a great deal of Western civilization's popular music since the mid-1950s. 

On this page, then, will you find links to other sites on the Internet that tell of this, and also links of interest about Jewish people, Polish people.....for ALL people!

Phil Cohen


The Polish Heroes Remembrance Center is an institution devoted to 
Polish-Jewish dialogue and is one of the few organizations in Latin America dedicated to this topic

Letter sent to the
Polish Heroes Remembrance Center
by the
Presidency of the Republic of Poland
(Dyrektor Gabinetu Szefa Kancelarii Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej)

English translation by Ms. Gosia Zglinska

From: Dyrektor Gabinetu Szefa Kancelarii
           Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej
           Walentyna Jendrych

                                                                                                            Warsaw, July 26 2004

Dear Doctor Resnizky,

On behalf of the President’s Office I am writing to thank you for your letter notifying us of the creation of The Centre of Polish Heroes in Argentina and for informing us of its goals.

Your initiative is very much appreciated by the Head of the President’s Office, Minister Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz.

All activities directed against xenophobia and every other kind of prejudice deserve the utmost support. This is particularly important when it comes to relations between Poles and Jews, whose nearly 1000-year-old co-existence in the same country was brutally interrupted by the Holocaust. We are interested in spreading worldwide the truth about Polish-Jewish relations in its entirety. We fully share your view that it is essential to commemorate the deeds of those Poles who risked their own lives to help their Jewish compatriots during World War II.

Ms. Szymanek-Deresz has passed your letter to the President, who has expressed his deep interest in and recognition of your initiative.

On behalf of Ms. Szymanek-Deresz, I would like once again to thank you for all your achievements and wish you every success in your noble mission.

Yours sincerely, (signed)

 

The Righteous Among Us: The Courage of the Rescuers

Old Synagogue:
Tadeusz Kosciuszko Plaque.

http://ddickerson.igc.org/old-synagogue-plaque.html

The Story of the Chess Brothers

http://home.comcast.net/~cherhoyt/Czyz.htm

Creating American Jews

http://www.nmajh.org/exhibitions/caj/index.htm

OSCAR BIELASKI:
1st Polish Major Leaguer

http://www.woe.edu.pl/baseball/bielaski.html

American Polish Advisory Council Links Page

http://www.apacouncil.org/connections.html

The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Poland

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/vjw/Polandtoc.html

Association of Next Generation Townspeople in Poland

http://polish-jews.com/

http://www.polishjews.org/history1.htm

http://savingjews.info/index.htm

The National
Polish-American Jewish-American Council

http://npajac.org/index.html

  Polish Jews & the Blues
They came to the U.S. from Motele, Poland, in 1928, two Jews bearing
a name that cried out for some vowels, "Czyz". They gave their name a vowel, 'e', and gave the world the bulk of what we now call
"Chicago Blues".   
 http://home.comcast.net/~cherhoyt/Czyz.htm http://www.bsnpubs.com/chess/chesscheck.html
Yasef and Cyrla Czyz and their three young children lived in a close-knit Jewish community of Motele, Poland in the 1920s. They had three children: Malka, in 1915; Lejzor, in 1917; and Fiszel, in 1921. In 1922 Yasef came to America and settled in Chicago changing his name to Joseph Chess, all the better to fit into this new American life. http://hometown.aol.com/_ht_a/bookviewzine/issue141.html
The Bottom Line Many consider Motown Records to be the father of modern day Rock and Roll. If so, then Atlantic and Chess Records MUST be considered the Grandfather.
http://www.epinions.com/content_3686244484
These are achievements that few could have foreseen when the label was founded by Leonard and Phil Chess in the 1940s. http://nothinbutdablues.bizland.com/ReadingRoomMay01.chtml
Leonard and Phil Chess were already the proprietors of several Chicago nightclubs when they bought into the Aristocrat label in 1947http://www.rhythmandtheblues.org.uk/labels/chess.shtml
It’s a crisp, gray afternoon in south Chicago, and a resolute group of middle-aged tourists from Japan are stopping traffic as they snap photograph after photograph of the building that stands before me at 2120 South Michigan Avenue. The inconspicuous, two-story edifice is far from the mainstream of Michigan Avenue shopping, and they are not here by accident.
http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_36/chess.html

Nadine Cohodas
has been working on a book about
Leonard and Phil Chess and Chess records for 18 months
http://www.bluesaccess.com/No_37/letters.html

Chess Records
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_Records
Spinning Blues into Gold
The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records

http://www.semcoop.com/detail/0312261330
CHESS RECORDS
http://www.musicweb.uk.net/encyclopaedia/c/C111.HTM

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