“Zionists, to Siam!”
The Polish 1968 and the Jews
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The student protests in Poland in 1968, which were triggered by an attack on the freedom of national culture, were presented by the official propaganda as the work of “Zionist” enemies of the Polish People’s Republic. Anti-Semitism, masked as anti-Zionism – a phenomenon that was neither acknowledged nor understood by the students protesting in the West, who took up the cause of socialism – broke out in socialist Poland. Around 15,000 Polish Jews were forced to emigrate. Although in western and eastern Europe, the “68ers” shared a common generational experience, they remained distanced from each other.
(Osteuropa 11-12/2017, pp. 153–161)