I am writing this on the eve of Yom HaShoah which I usually avoid and never attend its remembrance ceremonies. Growing up in post-WW 11 Poland with my holocaust survivor par­ents was enough to relive the horrors through their stories. Beside their own endless recalls of anti-Semitism, I had experienced an overwhelming dosage of it myself as a Jewish child in a small town in Poland in the 50's and 60's. I was always the JEW and never, not in a million years, would anyone ever call me Polish. Not until I came to this country that is (in 1969). Because Americans have such limited understanding of ethnicity and extend their notion of what it is to be an American to other countries, I have grown exhausted trying to explain that if you were a Jew in Poland, you were not Polish. To my astonishment, upon my arrival in the U.S. people would say:

"Oh, you're from Poland ....   you're Polish." When I hear that I literally feel my blood boil with rage as I have no trace of Polish DNA in my ethnic makeup. We were Jews living in Poland; yes, we were Polish citizens but never Poles ... never! Perhaps the rest of this essay will explain some reasons behind my rage.

Just a few weeks ago, I came across a review of a book (in Newsweek) written by Jan Gross, a Jewish professor of politics and international studies who came to this country from Poland at the same time as I did, along with other 30,000 Jews who left in the late 60's and early 70's. It was a massive exodus of post-war Jewry from Poland and other east European countries. His book, Neighbors: The Destruction Of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne is an impeccably researched and written account of a massacre of Jews by Poles -- not Germans -- in a small town in eastern Poland, Jedwabne, in 1941. Reading about it was an emotional torture as I still try to forgive people I grew up with who would call me "dirty Jew .... you killed Christ" in school or playgrounds.

The event Dr. Gross writes about was even more indigestible than the concentration camps, as this massacre of about 1,600 Jews was performed by their Polish neighbors. The two groups co­existed relatively harmoniously, but often distant, in prewar times - that was a fact of life in prewar Poland of 3.5 million Jews (about 10% of the population). But fanatic religious intolerance and seething economic jealousy stewing perpetually in the darkness of the Polish psyche were unleashed in July of 1941. Hundreds of Jews were forced to assemble in the town's square by the Poles who were armed with whips, clubs, axes and knives. The massacre took a demonic twist when Jews were beaten, clubbed, drowned, their eyes taken out while still alive. Some were decapitated while the murderers laughed and screamed playing soccer with the heads. The remaining hundreds were herded into a barn that was doused with fuel and set on fire. It is unknown the exact role of the Germans in this massacre but it was minimal. The book was first published in Poland last year and stirred up an immense controversy among Poles, some disputing the authenticity and accuracy of the author's research. Others accused Dr. Gross of attempting to make money by publishing the book while shaming the Polish society in the world arena.

Poland's leadership wants to settle the country's horrid history with the Jews. "There are indeed black stains on our history and we will no longer be able to ignore them." President Aleksander Kwasniewski told an Israeli newspaper recently. The only explanation that I have been able to construct as God's intent through the Holocaust is that "next year in Jerusalem" would have never have happened otherwise.