A Polish Weininger? The Case of Julian Unszlicht (1883–1953)
The life of Julian Unszlicht (1883–1953) illustrates the case and process of the assimilation of Polish Jews. However, Unszlicht’s case is special as it shows that holding anti-Semitic views, which were to be a ticket to a Catholic society, guaranteed neither putting the roots down permanently nor gaining a new identity. The biography of a priest-convert allows to look closer at the processes of effacement and convergence of anti-Jewish rhetoric. The modern one, of the turn of 19th and 20th centuries, with Catholic anti-Judaism, which was constantly excused by religious reasons and at the same time, it often spread to the ethnic-racial mental grounds. Contrary to common definitions and distinctions, those two ways of thinking perfectly complemented and strengthened each other, both living using the other’s reasoning. The Holocaust added a tragic punch line to the embroiled story of the priest-convert