Norton Taichman

The “Scandal in Ivansk”: The Full Story Was Not Revealed in the Film The Scandal refers to the uproar that occurred in Poland in response to the word “collaborators”, which had been inscribed on a monument in the restored Jewish cemetery outside the town of Iwaniska (Ivansk in Yiddish). The memorial was erected by descendants of Ivansk to commemorate the lives of the Jewish inhabitants who were murdered during the Holocaust. I was the leader of the group that restored the cemetery. The Blumenfeld film does not adequately document the spark that fueled the scandal. To reclaim the Jewish cemetery in Ivansk we commissioned a U.S.-based Jewish charity to carry out the project. They appointed a “Project Manager” to oversee the nuts and bolts of the job. Based in Warsaw this man became the key player in triggering the scandal. When it was time to inscribe the memorial on the monument, we were required to submit a draft of the text to the authorities for their review and approval. The draft included the following: “ "the Nazis and their collaborators brutally transported the town’s Jews to their deaths in Treblinka.” The Project Manager was paid to present the proposal on our behalf. About two weeks later he announced that the text had been fully approved without any alterations. We went ahead and installed the monument, and in October 2006 the cemetery was rededicated. In July 2007 rumors began to circulate that there was a problem with the word “collaborators". The media picked up the story and the scandal gained momentum with frenzied accusations that we had denigrated Poland. We were at a loss to explain what went wrong because we had apparently secured formal approval of the text from the authorities. Then, one of the organizations representing the interests of the Polish-Jewish community revealed that the Project Manager never submitted nor received consent for the wording on the monument. And now the authorities were demanding that we erase “collaborators” or take down the monument. Had we been told that “collaborators” would create problems we would have omitted it from the memorial. In November 2007 my daughter and I appeared before provincial authorities in Kielce and the newly elected Mayor and his staff in Iwaniska. Accompanied by representatives from Jewish communal organizations, we apologized for our ignorance about the sensitivity of the word. We offered to install a plaque on the obelisk to honor Poles who had risked everything to help their Jewish neighbors. But I was naïve in thinking that we could change anything. We were forcefully reminded that the “collaborators” had to be completely erased or the monument would be destroyed. Throughout all this there was no acknowledgement that the Project Manager was guilty of any wrong doing. Officials who were responsible for protecting Poland’s honor never disciplined or prosecuted him for what he had done. Only the descendants of the destroyed Ivansker Jewish community were held to account for what happened. I decided that it would be futile to pursue any compromise with the authorities. The monument and the word are still standing in the abandoned Jewish cemetery. We no longer feel welcome in Iwaniska. The graveyard is neglected, and the entrance is locked. The site is overtaken by nature. Soon, it will disappear forever.