I have written a lot about converts, and now I turn to the characteristics of the assimilationists’ representatives, who are now in the ghetto and with whom I had the opportunity to talk at length on the subject. First, I spoke to a doctor's wife, a prominent community worker and philanthropist. Before the war, as a member of the board of Zjednoczenie [Union] (the name of a political institution of the pre-war assimilationist milieux), she was very active on the board of the people’s library and in schools of the Wiedza-Daath639 association, as well as the nursing school board. She worked very honestly, while also contributing to charity, lending generous financial assistance to the poor individually, and supporting philanthropic and social institutions. She represented a very extreme faction of the assimilationist milieu. When I visited her after the bombing, and brought the news that Professor Dickstein640 had died, she said naïvely: “What a pity that there was no demonstration at his funeral. If he had died in normal times, his funeral would have been a powerful demonstration of Polish–Jewish relations.” I said that even before the war it would have been impossible because the atmosphere between Poles and Jews, which was very tense as a result of the heinous tactics of Ozon, would have made such an initiative impossible. The doctor's wife told me that there had been a pre-war democratic group. In response, I pointed out that this group was only a sparse layer of a small group of the Polish intelligentsia, and of little consequence. She gave me no answer. During the war, I met her several times, but we never discussed political matters, as she was absorbed with her husband’s illness. It was only after the ghetto had been established and she had left his old apartment that we began to talk about the Jewish issue. Her beliefs had changed profoundly. She began to appreciate Zionism, which used to bring a sneer to her face. She mentioned that after the war there would be a great emigration to Palestine and all the young people would go. “Palestine is the future,” said the doctor's wife. When I asked her how she imagined Polish–Jewish relations after the war, she gave no answer. I told her [9] about the Poles’ feelings about Jews Poles—inciting the occupiers against Jews in order to save themselves. She said I was right, but she added that there were still members of the Polish intelligentsia who did not approve of such heinous
