More than 60,000 Palestinians have been reported killed since October 7th, 2023. Israel claims self-defence, or something like it. I don’t believe them. That Israel is committing a genocide is not the argument of this essay; it is a premise. Among those who agree with that premise, there has been an increasing sense over the last 22 months that it is a Jew’s responsibility to denounce the state of Israel. Many handwave this as the irrational cry of the most extreme constituents of the movement. In truth, for me, this sense of responsibility runs deeper.
When my grandfather was nine years old, a maid barked down at him from the window of an apartment across the street: “Run away, Jew, to Palestine, because Hitler is chasing you!” His name was Walter Plywaski, and this was 1938 in Łódź, Poland.
In 1939, Łódź would be seized by German forces, my grandpa’s hometown becoming the second-largest ghetto in all of Nazi-occupied Europe. Walter, his parents and his sort-of–brother Bill were eventually transported from Łódź to the Dachau concentration camp, then later from Dachau to Auschwitz. His mother, Regina, was an Orthodox Jew with a liberal soul. She starved to death on the train. His father, Max, was a secular Jew and a political radical. He was beaten to death by an Auschwitz guard. Walter and Bill survived, and would one day make it to America, where their names were Anglicised and their freedom secured.
He was an atheist, my grandpa, and always saw Israel as inherently stupid, the same way he saw any state founded on religion as stupid. As a survivor, he was entitled to a free trip to Israel (sort of like Birthright), and took it some time during the early 2000s. He attended a ceremony where they had wheeled out a selection of historical objects and documents, which on this particular day happened to include a book of census data from the Łódź ghetto; call it destiny. He looked through it, and found his name, in the original Polish: Władysław Pływacki.
There is a place, to be sure, for Holocaust remembrance. There is a place for grieving the loss, and reflecting on the evil, and revering those who lived and those who died. We must acknowledge, however, that these sorts of ceremonies serve the additional function of Israel’s infinite exoneration. It is not just the ceremonies, either, but the whole machine of remembrance, of Jewish grief, of historical reflection. Even without intention, these things are inexorably folded into a PR campaign, contorted and exploited to keep Israel sheltered from criticism. Adolf Hitler keeps Israel sheltered. The six million Jews who died at his hand—Max and Regina—keep Israel sheltered. My grandfather—alongside every other survivor—keeps Israel sheltered. Israel’s violence is unconditionally couched in a self-defence claim that could only be opposed by the time traveller who prevented the Holocaust. How can one scorn the Jew in Palestine, when it is Hitler who chased him there?
That census book was a part of it. Pływacki was my grandfather’s name. Plywaski is my mother’s name. Mannell is my name, but Pływacki is still there, and still mine. When Israel bombs a hospital, it is in my name. When Israel deprives Gaza of food and water and power, it is in my name. When Israel murders civilians at aid distribution sites, it is in my name.
It’s all well and good to say that Jews are not responsible for the actions of Israel. In basic fact, it is true. I believe, however, that many Jews share my sense of guilt, and I do not think this feeling should be ignored, or repressed, or assuaged with platitudes and infographics. A feeling comes from somewhere.
I recently visited my grandfather’s grave. He died in 2021, but I hadn’t been to the States since 2016. He is buried at the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado, courtesy of his four years served in the United States Air Force. A military graveyard is something of a surreal sight: green, green grass, and white, white stones, standing stoic and upright and in long, endless rows and columns, like swathes of disturbingly apt single files stretching across the gentle rolls and dips of the land. Each is emblazoned with the name of the deceased, the dates of their birth and death and their military ranks and conflicts, plus a few biographical lines of text, usually about who they were to others (Beloved Father and Devoted Husband and such). Most of them are stamped also with a religious symbol: a cross, a star and crescent, the trumpeting angel Moroni, etc.
As my family and I meandered our way to Walter’s plot, I wondered if he had opted for the Star of David, secular Jew that he was. I wondered if he had wanted some mention of his survivorship, a signpost of his struggle, a middle finger to Hitler from the grave; after all, in life he basked in the attention his trauma afforded him, regaling friends and family with stories of hardship and hardness and malnutrition and martyrdom.
We came upon his grave and there was no star, and as I read what was there, over and over again through teary eyes, I was completely unsurprised.
WALTER PLYWASKI
SSGT
US AIR FORCE
KOREA
VIETNAM
AUG 10 1929
JAN 28 2021
CHAMPION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
I will not accept the weaponisation of my pain by extremists and despots. I will not mistake my empathy for internalised bigotry. I will not ignore the part I play, even if I have no power to stop it. I am implicated in the crimes of Israel, and I will not let it go unspoken.
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