 of these groups. And when the Nazis finally came for him, there was no one left to protest.
I;	Niemoller s statement serves as a powerful re-
; ? minder for all peoples today, including Polish (i	Americans, of two basic realities. The first is the
J	critical importance of establishing networks of in-
tergroup bonding and support in times of relative < social tranquility. There is little hope of developing ]	such ties in times of acute social crisis if they have
*	not been nurtured in more peaceful moments. And
J we never know when and where such can suddenly ! become vital. Only recently two U.S. cities, Billings, Montana and Eugene, Oregon have experienced j sudden challenges from neo-Nazi elements. Both ; have responded in exemplary fashion. One lesson that emerges from a study of the Holocaust for Pol; ish Americans (and I dare say for Poles as well) is that the Polish nation stood pretty much alone when it was attacked by the Nazis in 1939. The
i 210 d i' i.il -
nation was more or less abandoned by th countries, despite certain military alliance isted on paper, and even to a significant the Vatican.
This abandonment has generated deca ger within Polonia. I do not wish to su; this anger has been without any foundat do want to urge Polish Americans to take look at the matter, to see whether a cer gerated nationalism which in turn bred ism might not have contributed to the re of effective alliances in the inter-war per Poles in Poland will need to re-examli tion s set of alliances in this new hopefi tentially threatening, era in Europe. It role to enter into that discussion here. J Americans will also need to seriously r their ties to other groups in our societ establishing effective relationships with 1 ity groups, especially Hispanics and Afrit cans with whom Polish Americans often urban landscape, becomes an importar Equally so do ties with American Jewry historic linkage between the two co stemming from Poland itself. While Poli relations have been marked by tensions ' ous occasions here in America,15 we hav nessed reasonably successful efforts lasting coalitions, both in several local co such as New York, Chicago, Buffalo and and through the National Polish Americ American Council based in Chicago. Thr< channels Poles and Jews have begun no discuss and study our past mutual histc we continue this process, to work coope mutual support of each other s social   well as joint action on issues of importai our communities (e.g. foreign aid legisla efforts need expanded support both fror ership of American Polonia as well as grass roots. The Holocaust has taught and Polish Americans that safety exists c darity with others.
The second implication emerging fror general notion of solidarity is the im[ standing up for the basic rights of all p< must answer the challenge of dis< whether directed against them or others one group is singled out for attack, the evitably enters the bloodstream of sock gins to claim other victims as well. Thl clear in the Holocaust. The experience c tion under the Nazis, then, should p Americans in the forefront of the strug man rights and human equality for all. which Polonia becomes identified with to human rights and human equality is
40. Polish Americans
which it has lost all sense of its own victimization under the Nazis.
Responding to the Holocaust in the constructive ways I have suggested above, particularly the commitment to improve bonding with the Jewish community with whom we share a history of Nazi victimization, will not prove easy. But I know from my own experience of my grandmother s very human and personal interaction with Polish Jews in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago where Iwas reared, as well as from my experience of seeing firsthand the profound welcome accorded the first group of Israelis to revisit Poland in twenty years (a professional dance company), Jews and Poles both have roots in the soil of Poland that can never be totally erased. It will take the courage and tenacity of the soldiers who tried to defend Poland against impossible military odds and the partisans who kept the spirit of freedom alive; it will take the resolve of the courageous men and women of Ze-gota. We should not expect it to be otherwise. Nothing worthwhile ever is.
Notes
1.	Richard C. Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation 1939-1944. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. 1986.
2.	Cf. Eugeniusz Duraczynski, Wojna i Okupacja: Wrzesien 1939-Kwleclen 1943. Warsaw: Wledza Powszechna, 1974, 17. Also Jewry 1933-1945. New York: Schocken, 1973, 163; 193 and Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe (New York: Holocaust Library. 1979), 263.
3.	Cf. Janusz Gumkowski and Kazimierz Leszczynski, Poland under Nazi Occupation. (Warsaw: Polonia Publishing House. 1961), 59.
4.	Cf. Karol Pospleszalski, Polska pod Nlemiecklm Prawem. (Poznan: Wydawnlctwo Instytutu Zachodnlego, 1946), 189.
5.	For a discussion of the elimination of the handicapped and the Gypsies relative to the extermination of the Jews, cf. Sybil Milton,  The Context of the Holocaust," German Studies Review, 13:2 (May 1990), 269-283.
6.	Cf. John T. Pawllkowski,  The Auschwitz Convent Controversy: Mutual Misperceptions," in Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (eds.). Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy. (New York, Westport, CT., London: Praeger, 1991), 63-73. Also cf. Wladyslaw T. Bartoszewski, The Convent at Auschwitz. (New York: George Braziller, 1990).
7.	John T. Pawllkowski,  The Auschwitz Convent Controversy,  65.
8.	Cf. Stanislaw Krajewski,  Carmel at Auschwitz: on the Recent Polish Church Document and Its Background,  SIDIC 22 (1989), 16.
9.	Richard Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, 16.
10.	John Morely, Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust: 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav. 1980), 140; 146.
11.	Cited in Richard Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, 16-17.
12.	Edward J. Moskal,  The Polish Victims of the Holocaust,  Zgoda (February 15, 1994), 5.
13.	Thaddeus V. Gromada,  Polish Americans and Mainstream America,  unpublished lecture, Polish Apostolate Seminar, Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, Doylestown, PA, September 27, 1992, 4.
14.	Cf. John T. Pawllkowski,  The Holocaust: Its Implications for Contemporary Church-State Relations in Poland," Religion in Eastern Europe, XIII:2 (April 1993), 1-13 and  Ka-tollcyzm a zycie publiczne najnowsze doswladczenla amerykanskle," WIEZ 35:2 (Luty 1992), 93-110. Also cf. Part IV,  The Church,  in Janine R. Wedel, (ed.). The Unplanned Society: Poland During and After Communism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, 188-219.
15.	The tension over the Auschwitz convent situation Is certainly not the first instance of Pollsh-Jewlsh controversy In the United States. For an earlier example, cf. Andrzej Kaplszewskl,  Pollsh-Jewlsh Conflicts in America During the Paris Peace Conference: Milwaukee as a Case Study,  Polish American Studies, XLIX:2 (Autumn 1992), 5-18.
211
Article 41
Jerusalem Journal
A Riddle: What Is Catholic, Jewish and Stateless?
SERGE SCHMEMANN
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 In 1990, Regina and Alexander Deriev and their son, Denis, took advantage of the new religious freedoms in the Soviet Union and were baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. In 1991, they immigrated to Israel.
That combination in itself would not make the Derievs different from many other Soviet immigrants in Israel. It is common knowledge here and a source of some resentment among Israelis that tens of thousands of the immigrants the exact figure is impossible to ascertain have questionable Jewish credentials.
Some are Christians, while some others have little or no Jewish ancestry, and many of those who are Jewish have little interest in observing Jewish customs and law.
The difference is that Mrs. Deriev, a Jew by birth, insisted when they arrived in Israel on telling authorities that she is Christian, instead of simply maintaining that she is a non-believer as many other Soviet immigrants have done. That thrust the Derievs smack into the heart of the fundamental Israeli debate over who is a Jew, and for five years it left them in a singular state of limbo.
Last Friday, the Israeli High Court rejected the Derievs  application for citizenship, noting that the Law of Return, which governs the right of Jews to settle in Israel, excludes Jews who have adopted another faith. Under the
law, spouses and immediate family of someone who is accepted as Jewish are allowed to qualify for Israeli citizenship.
The country from which the Derievs came, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. So they cannot be deported, and they cannot go to some other country because they have no passports. Kazakstan, where they last lived when it was part of the Soviet Union, will not take them back because they are not Kazaks. Russia will not take them because they are not Russians Mr. Deriev, a non-Jew, is Ukranian and Mrs. Deriev, by Russian standards, is still a Jew. Ukraine would not take them because Mr. Deriev does not speak Ukrainian.
The Derievs have been living in a small, one-bedroom apartment in an Arab suburb of Jerusalem. Mr. Deriev works as an engineer recording liturgical music and their son attends an Arab Christian school.
Back in 1991, when the Derievs decided to emigrate, they had no idea it would be like this. In the Soviet Union, being Jewish was a matter of nationality like being Ukranian, Chechen or Russian and had nothing to do with religion. In fact, the Russian language, unlike English or Hebrew, has separate words for Jewish nationality  Yevrei  and the Jewish religion  ludeistvo. 
So Mrs. Deriev who like many other Soviet Jews had never practiced
Judaism, but whose nationali listed in their passport as Je\ not think she was changing 1 ality, much less betraying he tage, when she adopted Cath Nor would most Soviet Jews the father of Yuli Edelstein-Soviet refusenik who is now of Absorption and thus charg bringing Jews to Israel is a Orthodox priest in Russia.
 My father and mother wi Jewish in their passports, but were staunch Communists, ai put any significance on bein; ish,  Mrs. Deriev said.  In ft ther was a professor of Marxism-Leninsim. 
A FAMILY SINKING RELIGIOUS AND ETI QUICKSAND.
 I was different I wrote the authorities didn t like. Th kept tabs on me, my poetry ' never published, and I was oi cepted into the Union of Wri  glasnost    the new policy ness introduced by Mikhail C bachev after 1985.
From the New York Vmes, November 25, 1996, p. M.   19q_ . _
by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.
212
41. A Riddle
But Mrs. Deriev s poetry did at-nact the attention of Joseph Brodsky, ihe exiled poet, and he urged her to leave the Soviet Union. Israel seemed a logical choice. The Derievs were living in the remote Kazakstan city of Karaganda, the Soviet Union was falling apart, thousands of Soviet Jews were leaving and many of their friends were already in Israel.
 We presumed that Israel was a Western, democratic country, where [would finally be published,  Mrs. Deriev said.
So Mr. Deriev went to distant Moscow to fill out the forms at the Dutch Embassy, which represented Israeli interests at a time when there were no diplomatic relations.
 The form had blanks for  nationality  and  faith,  and I asked the Israeli official what I should put for my wife, if she s Jewish and Catholic,  Mr. Deriev said.  He said for  faith,  put either  Jewish  or  non-believer.  I put  non-believer.   
On arrival in Israel, Mrs. Deriev was given another form. On this one, she put  Catholic.   I thought it was shameful to hide my faith,  she said. It was the only important choice I wer made, and I didn t hide it even from my father. 
What Mrs. Deriev did not appreciate at the time was that the issue she raised went to the very identity of the state of Israel. Ever since the found
ing by secular Zionists many of them socialists from Russia the question 