Anti-Semitism on Trial

The Madman

Indeed, in the first few days, all right-wing journalists appeared to be doing absolutely everything in their power in order to disassociate themselves from the murder and its perpetrator. Their condemnation of Niewiadomski was as scathing as it was unanimous. Gazeta Warszawska proclaimed that all Poles were “deeply touched by the heinous assassination.” ¹⁰ Similarly, Stanisław Stroński who had so recently branded Narutowicz as “Their [i.e., the Jews’] President” now claimed him for the entire nation. ¹¹ “Today, the whole nation sees in the murdered president of the Republic not a representative of their own or the enemy political camp,” he wrote in the Rzeczpospolita in a stunning reversal of his earlier position, “but a representative of the state and, even more so, the victim of a crime which calls for universal condemnation.” ¹²

Whether the sense of outrage expressed by right-wing publicists like Stroński was sincere or not may be debated, but there is no doubt fear of retribution from the Left played at least some role in their initial reaction to the murder. Left-wing newspapers were adamant in their claims that Niewiadomski was doing nothing more than acting out the calls of the right-wing publicists and that the latter bore true responsibility for the murder. “We will not stop talking about this,” wrote Stanisław Posner in Robotnik, “we will not let you forget that you are the guilty ones.” ¹³ Meanwhile, in Kurjer Poranny Piast Peasant Party deputy Antoni Anusz demanded that it was not the “blind instrument” but the “hand which directed it” that deserved punishment for the crime. ¹⁴

To deflect criticism of this sort, Rzeczpospolita expressed the hope that the “authorities” will lead a thorough investigation into the crime and reject the temptation to exploit it for political purposes. ¹⁵ Gazeta Warszawska also immediately attempted to distance itself from Eligiusz Niewiadomski, “a man whose state of mental health had been dubious for a long time.” ¹⁶ There was also a concerted effort to show that Niewiadomski was not to be identified with the National Democratic movement. Gazeta Warszawska pointed out he had once had a physical altercation with Antoni Sadzewicz, the editor of the fellow National Democratic newspaper Gazeta Poranna, in order to show that he should not be considered a National Democrat. ¹⁷

The right-wing press was correct on two accounts. First, contrary to what most of Narutowicz’s supporters initially assumed, it soon became clear that Niewiadomski acted alone and was not linked to a wider right-wing conspiracy. ¹⁸ Second, he was not a member of any of the National Democratic parties or organizations. While for the purposes of this article, Niewiadomski is interesting mainly insofar as his actions and character were evaluated, interpreted, and judged by other Poles, it is nevertheless important to briefly consider the trajectory of his life.

Though Niewiadomski was not actively involved in politics, he cannot be described as being unknown. In fact, the man who shook the very foundations of the Second Republic had enjoyed a distinguished career as a painter and art critic. Niewiadomski was born in Warsaw in 1869. His mother died when he was two years old, and thereafter he was raised by his older sister Cecylia. After finishing high school, he studied art in Warsaw before attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts in 1890. By all accounts, he was a distinguished student, and in 1892 he won a government fellowship to continue his studies, as well as a number of other prizes. In 1895, he spent a year in Paris studying fine arts and exhibiting his work. At that point, according to his own account, he strongly sympathized with socialism. ¹⁹

Upon returning to Warsaw, he continued painting, taught technical drawing at the Polytechnic, and became involved in art criticism, writing reviews for influential publications like Tygodnik Ilustrowany and Kurjer Warszawski. Like many painters of his day, Niewiadomski became an avid mountaineer. He hiked in the Tatra Mountains and painted numerous mountain landscapes. In 1898, he married Maria Natalia de Tilly. His son, Stefan was born in 1900, and daughter, Anna, in 1902.

Niewiadomski’s political views continued to move toward nationalism, and in 1897 he joined the National League. Returning from his trips to the Tatra mountains, he would smuggle issues of illegal National Democratic publications, Polak and Przegląd Wszechpolski, into Russian Poland. In 1900 he became involved in organizing the Towarzystwo Oświaty Narodowej (Association for National Education), a secret organization created by the National League in order to spread its ideas among workers and peasants. Thus, in many respects, Niewiadomski’s political involvement mirrored that of many of other National Democratic activists who would later rise to leading positions in the movement.

But this political trajectory was suddenly derailed. On the night of 2 April 1901, Niewiadomski was arrested by the Tsarist secret police, after issues of National Democratic publications were found during a search of his apartment. He spent a few days in the Pawiak prison, and then four months at the Warsaw Citadel. For many Polish political activists, especially though not exclusively among the Left, time in Russian prison was a constant occupational hazard. Yet, this relatively brief contact with the Russian penal system seems to have had a powerful effect on Niewiadomski. Although he was released after a relatively short time for lack of evidence, Niewiadomski immediately resigned from the National League. In fact, for all appearances, he gave up political activity altogether. From 1901 until 1918, he continued to teach, paint, and write. During this period, he became involved in a number of artistic and personal controversies and earned a reputation for being touchy and quick to anger. But, until Poland regained its independence, he was never again involved in politics.

In 1918, he played no role in the struggle for independence. Nor did he rejoin the National Democratic movement after the latter had been achieved. In March 1918, he secured a position as a civil servant with the Ministry of Religious Confessions and Public Education (Ministerstwo Wyznań Religijnch i Oświaty Publicznej) and continued to work as a civil servant. During the Polish–Soviet War he volunteered to join the army, and received a position in the Second Bureau of the General Staff, which dealt with counterintelligence. He promptly resigned from his position because, as claimed at his trial, he was shocked by the Second Department’s incompetence and inability to deal with subversive communist activity. ²⁰ He was then transferred to a reserve infantry formation (5th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Reserve Company in Chełm) and, upon his own request, sent to the front.

Following the end of hostilities, he returned to a position at the Ministry of Culture and Arts, but resigned in November of 1921 when funds for his department were cut, and returned to teaching. Again, he did not become involved in the National Democratic movement or in any other form of political activity. As an active and well-known painter, and a member of the Zachęta society, he had no problems gaining access to the exhibition where he would commit the fateful murder.

Therefore, the right’s disavowals of Niewiadomski could appear to be credible. He had not belonged to the National League or any of its affiliates since 1901, and had a reputation for being touchy and quick to anger. But while one might have expected the murder to provide an opportunity for the right to moderate some of its more extreme claims, especially those concerning the supposedly “illegitimate” nature of Narutowicz’s election, this was not to be the case.

In fact, the image of Niewiadomski as a “madman,” which proliferated in the right-wing press in the first days following the assassination, would soon undergo a profound transformation. Before the mechanics of this process are discussed, it is necessary to frame it in its political context. Indeed, discursive transformations cannot be understood without reference to political events. The rhetorical transformation of Niewiadomski from a “madman” to a hero of the nationalist Right must also be analyzed in this broader context.

The panic that appeared to have gripped many National Democratic writers after the murder of Narutowicz had a solid grounding in reality. The assassination had come at a particularly sensitive time. The previous government, headed by Premier Nowak, had already offered its resignation on 14 December. The new Premier, former Interior Minister Ludwik Darowski, had not yet formally assumed his post. As news of the assassination spread through the city, the streets became empty and quiet. People, it seems, did not know what would happen next: How would the Left react to the murder? For a number of days, persistent rumors that other important political figures had been murdered continued to circulate around the capital. ²¹ The administration and bureaucracy were thrown into utter disarray. A group of young but influential Followers of Marshall Józef Piłsudski (Piłsudczyks)—Miedziński, Matuszewski, Koc and others—met at the General Staff to discuss the situation. Miedziński recalls:

After numerous attempts to make contact by phone, we realized that the state institutions had ceased to function. There was no one at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, or the State Police Headquarters. We found out that no instructions [on how to deal with the crisis] had been issued by anyone to the provincial authorities, diplomatic missions, or the Polish Telegraph Agency. The government had ceased to function. . . . We sent a few officers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, and the State Police Headquarters. . . . We provided everyone with information about what had happened and assured them that we were in full control of the situation. No one asked us about our credentials—everyone took our actions as natural. ²²

According to Janusz Pajewski, for a few hours following the assassination, “power lay in the street.” ²³ And there was certainly a chance that “the street” would seize power. At a stormy meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the Warsaw Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjlalistyczna or PPS) Rajmund Jaworowski, head of the party’s Warsaw section, announced plans to lead a march of workers into the city to take revenge on the right and “kill the people responsible for the murder.” ²⁴ Jaworowski, was certainly the man to lead such an undertaking. A devoted Piłsudczyk, former member of the Organizacja Bojowa (“Military Organization”) of the PPS, and an intelligence officer in the Legions, he was a “half-idealist half gangster,” who ran the Warsaw PPS like a personal fief. ²⁵ Jaworowski was not only able to quickly mobilize large numbers of workers but, through his personal networks of patronage, had access to many organized criminal groups in the Warsaw underworld. According to Adam Pragier, who was intimately familiar with the Warsaw PPS organization, Jaworowski would not have proceeded with this initiative without direct backing from Piłsudski. ²⁶ In fact, while it is impossible to fully verify the truth of this assertion, it seems quite likely that while Piłsudski did not want to engineer a coup himself, he was hoping that his followers would arrange one for him, and that he would be able to seize power without getting his own hands bloody. ²⁷

The bloodletting that would inevitably have followed was stopped by the national leader of the PPS, Ignacy Daszyński. Daszyński, an excellent speaker and a sophisticated veteran of the Austrian parliament, represented a very different political tradition from Jaworowski’s violent and conspiratorial past. Having learned of Jaworowski’s plans, Daszyński followed him to the Central Executive meeting in order to bring them to naught. At the meeting, the socialist leader gave a “fantastic speech” arguing that the National Democrats had effectively committed “political suicide” and that inflicting violent punishment on them would amount to “turning them into martyrs.” At the same time, Daszyński threatened to bring down the full measure of party discipline against any individuals who disobeyed him. In the end, Daszyński’s mixture of “rhetorical magic” and threats prevailed and the Warsaw organization reluctantly followed his lead. Still, according to Pobóg-Malinowski, “working class anger continued to simmer in the suburbs.” ²⁸

Piłsudczyks from the former Polish Military Organization (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa or POW), which now constituted an informal and influential network, also made contingency plans for an armed showdown with the right. According to Tadeusz Caspeari-Chraszczewski, former members of POW were actively planning to undertake a “punitive action” against the right in cooperation with the PPS. Chraszczewski was in contact with the radical Piłsudczyk (and later Premier) Marian Kościałkowski, and the two discussed plans to punish the right and “deal with” General Haller for his “scandalous speeches.” However, when they learned that the PPS had unexpectedly cancelled its “action,” POW members decided that they could not move forward “without the backing of the masses” ²⁹

Daszyński’s intervention against a violent showdown with the NDs had an almost exact parallel in the Liberation. According to Stanisław Thugutt:

After returning home [from the funeral of Narutowicz] I barely had time to eat, when I was called to immediately go to the building of the Society for Hygiene, where a few hundred peasants had spontaneously arrived [from the country] and where the mood was somewhat dangerous. When I arrived, they were debating about how to take revenge for the murder. The mood was such that even the most radical measure would have been approved. All this took place with a grim and fearsome sense of focus, without any unnecessary gestures or yelling. I jumped up on the tribune and began to calm everyone down, promising that the crime would be punished by the rule of law. These were the days of my peak popularity within the party and therefore no one contradicted me and no one spoke after me; only occasionally it seemed that the whole room shivered and that I could hear some kind of deep and terrible groan of rage, and I wasn’t sure whether these people might in the end trample me with their feet. ³⁰

Therefore, just like in the case of the PPS, the anger of the rank and file was successfully restrained by the parliamentary leadership. As Bernard Singer writes, the dominant message delivered on 16 December by the parliamentary leaders of the Left to the rank and file was one of restraint: “Comrades, do not let yourselves be provoked!” ³¹ Many Piłsudczyks later expressed a sense of regret at the left’s failure to bring the spiritual authors of the president’s murder to justice. ³² Writing years later, even Thugutt himself wasn’t entirely sure if he had made the correct decision. ³³ According to Pobóg-Malinowski, admittedly not an unbiased observer, public opinion in Poland would have readily accepted a Piłsudczyk coup d’état on 16 December as a fully justified “restoration of public order” and an understandable response to “the unbearable provocations” of the right. ³⁴

But the window for an armed showdown with the Right was rapidly closing. Energetic attempts to resolve the looming constitutional crisis were being undertaken by Maciej Rataj, the young and capable Piast deputy and Marshall of the Sejm who, in accordance with the Constitution, temporarily assumed the position of Head of State. At 1:30 p.m., a mere two hours after the assassination, Rataj called a special meeting of the Council of Ministers. Piłsudski received a “special invitation” to attend the meeting despite no longer holding any official positions in the state. ³⁵ At the meeting, Rataj was able to forcefully resist the Marshall’s calls for Narutowicz’s choice for Premier, Darowski, to formally assume the post. Darowski, a decisive administrator with ties to the Piłsudczyk National Civic Union and no real power base of his own, seemed like an ideal candidate from Piłsudski’s point of view. However, Rataj demurred and announced that further decisions would have to be postponed until a formal communiqué announcing his own assumption of the position of Head of State was publicly issued. Thus, he left the question of the new government open and managed to avoid committing himself to Piłsudski’s demands. ³⁶

With the communiqué duly issued, Rataj appointed General Władysław Sikorski as Premier and communicated this choice to Piłsudski as a fait accompli. ³⁷ Impressively, Rataj was able to win Piłsudski’s assent for his choice of Premier, despite the Marshall’s reservations about his rival. ³⁸ Piłsudski himself assumed the position of Chief of the General Staff. Sikorski, who would go on to lead Poland’s government-in-exile during World War II, was perhaps the best military mind of the Polish army and had already distinguished himself in the Polish–Soviet War. He was considered to be a politically independent centrist—closer to Piłsudski than to the National Democrats, though not a Piłsudczyk. He also had a reputation as a decisive and strong-handed administrator. Now Sikorski and Rataj moved swiftly and efficiently to bring stability to the country and save the parliamentary system. By 10:30 p.m. on the day of the murder, when the Council of Ministers met again, Poland had a new government, and a state of emergency was declared in Warsaw. ³⁹ While Piłsudczyks remained in influential posts, the government that came into existence was not under their control and the window of opportunity for the Left to assume power and force a showdown with the National Democrats appears to have closed. ⁴⁰

In fact, both Sikorski and Rataj were centrists who clearly wanted to steer a middle course between the demands of the National Democrats and the Piłsudczyks, without being beholden to either group. They also worked hard to resist calls for revenge by the Left and not burn bridges with the NDs. In his first address to the nation, Sikorski railed against “criminal fanatics whose murderous actions have covered us with shame.” ⁴¹ But he also made sure not to antagonize the Right and ensured that the left would not use the murder as an opportunity to take matters into its own hands:

Despite the understandable anger with which society is reacting to the murder of the President, I demand that everyone unconditionally keep their peace. The government has fulfilled its duty. The ones guilty of this perfidious murder will meet just and lawful punishment. But at the same time, any kind of vigilante action will be stopped with full determination. ⁴²

On 17 December, the Prosecutor’s Office issued warrants for the arrests of parliamentary deputies and anti-Semitic activists Ilski, Dymowski, and Wyrębowski, but there were no large-scale arrests of right-wing politicians. ⁴³ There is no doubt that upon hearing Sikorski’s words, writers like Stroński and Nowaczyński, who were accused by the Left of inciting the murder, breathed a sigh of relief. Indeed, the National Democrats’ subsequent rehabilitation of Niewiadomski must be understood in the context of the left’s failure to take any decisive action against those responsible for fomenting the hatred against Narutowicz.

The right’s recovery of poise and reaffirmation of the principles that had led to the murder is extraordinary and can be traced through an analysis of the Niewiadomski’s depiction on the pages of Gazeta Warszawska, Poland’s leading National Democratic newspaper. On 17 December, in a front-page article titled “The Tragic Conflict,” Gazeta Warszawska presented a position that was significantly different from the fearful disavowals of Niewiadomski published a mere day earlier. ⁴⁴ To be sure, the paper reiterated that the murder “was in nobody’s interest.” However, it also acknowledged that the nation was governed by its own laws and subject to its own “actions and reactions,” which were beyond the control of any political forces or organizations. Since the election of the president, the key question facing all of Polish society was whether the nation would have its sovereignty “taken over” by the Jews. This new slavery now was not, like the Partitions, “external.” Rather, it had been created by the “willing compromise of the Poles with the enemy.” The President, according to Gazeta Warszawska, was a casualty of the nation’s “reaction” to this state of affairs, and “became a victim of this conflict not as a person but as a symbol.” ⁴⁵ Of course, Gazeta Warszawska still condemned the actual act of the murder. However, it was also moving toward portraying the latter as something natural and inevitable, beyond the active agency of any political party or actor.

Just as Narutowicz was being deprived of his individuality and rendered into a “symbol” of Jewish control, so Niewiadomski was also beginning to undergo a somewhat slower process of symbolic metamorphosis in the National Democratic press. In this process, his individual act and motivation would be imbued with, and eventually subsumed by, a broader and deeper symbolic meaning. Thus, a mere day after the murder, Gazeta Warszawska no longer portrayed the murder as the “irresponsible” reaction of a “lunatic,” but as the more or less natural “reaction” of society as a whole. ⁴⁶ The process of rehabilitating the murderer, and turning him into a symbol of Polish resistance to the Jewish threat, was beginning to take shape a mere day after the murder.

On 18 December, Gazeta Warszawska explicitly drew the “link between the murder and the election of the president [by the Jews].” ⁴⁷ Again the newspaper stopped well short of endorsing the action, but by positing a clear causal relationship between the two events it effectively accomplished two rhetorical goals. First, such a framing of the issue was a clever defense against the culpability of the nationalist movement. If the election of the president by the Jews would inevitably result in the nation “recoiling and expressing its outrage” in unpredictable ways, then the right-wing press and political class could not be blamed for the murder. Thus, it was a mistake for the Left to blame “everything on intermediary factors, such as the articles and speeches” of right-wing politicians and publicists. The latter were merely symptoms of public outrage, and not the causes of the murder— which was itself also a symptom of the public anger at the role played by the Jews in the elections.

Second, by portraying the murder as the natural result of the manner in which the president had been elected, rather than of its own agitation, the right also reconfirmed the rectitude of its own claims regarding the illegitimate nature of the minorities’ participation in the electoral process. It was as if the National Democrats were saying “we told you so.” Only a new president elected by the “Polish majority,” the article concluded, would be able to “pacify public opinion” and put everything back on the right track. ⁴⁸ Thus, Narutowicz continued to be portrayed as an illegitimate president, and the violence that accompanied his election was unfortunate but natural.

Rzeczpospolita was perhaps more circumspect about portraying the murder as “natural” but, if anything, it was even more forceful in its defense of the “Doctrine of the Polish Majority,” which was articulated to delegitimize the election of Narutowicz and claimed that the minorities had no right to play any role in Polish politics. As Stroński wrote on the day following the murder, “if the Right defends with its entire might this one simple and sacred rule, and defends it legally, openly, proudly, and uncompromisingly, then how dare [the Left] blame it for the covert actions of one unbalanced and unsound man?” ⁴⁹

To make good on their commitment to the Doctrine of the Polish Majority, the leaders of three right-wing parties issued a public communiqué signed by Głąbiński, Chaciński, and Dubanowicz to PSL-Piast, in which they called for a “conference with the goal of finding a Polish majority” for the election of the next president. Somewhat embarrassingly, the communiqué referenced Piast’s panicked statement from 11 December, in which the peasant party had done its best to disassociate itself from the election of Narutowicz and place itself in the camp of the “Polish majority.” ⁵⁰

Gazeta Warszawska’s ideological reaffirmation of the Doctrine came on 21 December 1922 in an article entitled “The Rule of the Nation State.” ⁵¹ According to the article, most likely written by Dmowski’s close collaborator Zygmunt Wasilewski, the fundamental conflict in Poland was not over socioeconomic questions or broadly understood political matters but over the role of nationality in politics. According to the author, the country could currently be divided into two camps. On the one side were those who believed that only Poles had the right to rule Poland. On the other were those who “currently openly proclaim the thesis that all citizens of the Polish state have the right to rule Poland, not only formally but even morally.” The author identified this second group with the “federal ideas” of Piłsudski (although the latter wasn’t mentioned by name) and various attempts to find a modus vivendi acceptable to both the Poles and the minorities. This was the key issue over which the battle lines were drawn in Polish politics since 1918. “The election of the president,” the article concluded, “was only an episode in this fundamental conflict,” the outcome of which would decide the nation’s future. ⁵²

The very same day, Stanisław Głąbiński delivered a “program speech” to the deputies of the National People’s Union (Związek Ludowo-Narodowy [ZLN]), the National Democrat’s primary electoral vehicle, in which he announced the party’s political priorities. The speech is fascinating, both in what it tells us about the absolute lack of impact that the Narutowicz assassination had on the ZLN and, more generally, on the role of identity in National Democratic political thinking. According to Głąbiński, the most important issue facing the country in the future was “that Poland remain a Polish and Catholic state, because this rule is the rock foundation upon which our entire future will be built.” To this end, Głąbiński announced that his party would ensure that all matters of fundamental state importance, such as changes to the constitution or presidential elections, would require the majority of Polish votes, regardless of the votes of “other nationalities.” In the same vein, he promised that the ZLN would fight to make Polish the official language in all state offices (which it de facto already was) and ensure that Poles were represented in state offices, concessions, and any business dealing with the state, “at least in proportion to their numbers in the country.” He left an open door for numerus clausus in higher education, without making a specific promise to implement it. ⁵³

The next critical issue facing Poland in the coming years was signing the Concordat with the Vatican. The high priority given to this proposal may seem somewhat surprising given the gravity of the economic and administrative challenges facing the country, but it most likely represented an attempt to reach out to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which may have been put off by the violence against Narutowicz. ⁵⁴ The third challenge was the full integration of the eastern borderlands or Kresy with “the fatherland.” In particular, Głąbiński promised to take better care of the “hitherto neglected” Polish population of the multicultural region. On a more ominous note, he also noted that “separatist propaganda masquerading as the call for territorial or national autonomy must be stopped.” This, then, was simply another venue of the continuing battle for the “Polish Majority.” ⁵⁵

Only after these three points did the speaker move to the question of foreign relations (he advocated a continued alliance with France). And only at the very end of his speech did he address economic questions and, to boot, did so in a rather vague manner. He promised increased credit for the parcellization of great estates and stressed a broad commitment to laissez faire economics. But even this late and brief economic expose ended up in the realm of identity politics. Rather than dwelling on tangible economic issues, Głąbiński ended his speech with promises of rectifying the “sickly state of our cities.” The problem with the cities, according to this moderate ZLN leader, was that the latter were “filled with a non-Polish element which is often the enemy of Poland.” ⁵⁶

Clearly, Hartglas’s and Daszyński’s hopes were misplaced—the Right had not committed suicide. In fact, judging from the reaction of the right-wing press and leading ZLN politicians, it is obvious that the assassination of Narutowicz had absolutely no impact on National Democratic thinking as far the Doctrine of the Polish Majority was concerned. Indeed, as we shall shortly see, even the qualified criticism of Eligiusz Niewiadomski would soon be replaced by quite a different attitude toward the murderer—one of reverence and respect.

The Trial

The trial of Eligiusz Niewiadomski would prove to be one of the most important and galvanizing judicial proceedings in the history of the Second Republic, as well as a test for the country’s still relatively new justice system. Ordinary Varsovians lined up for hours in the hope of getting tickets to the proceedings, but almost all had been given away to state officials. ⁵⁷ The Left, in particular, wanted to ensure that the trial would not be interpreted as unfair or biased against the accused. Sikorski’s government wanted to avoid “antagonizing the still agitated, though now somewhat calmed” society. ⁵⁸ To this end, Kazimierz Rudnicki, the prosecutor in the case, received special instructions from the Minister of Justice, Makowski, to avoid making any statements that could be interpreted as making the whole National Democratic movement culpable in the murder. ⁵⁹ The same considerations prompted Rudnicki and the Supreme Justice, Franciszek Nowodworski, to follow regular procedure and avoid bringing the case to trial immediately. Rudnicki believed that there could not be even “a shade of doubt . . . that the trial had taken place in conditions not in accordance with the law.” ⁶⁰

The trial was somewhat complicated by the fact that Leopold Skulski, Narutowicz’s friend and hunting companion who had become the ward of the latter’s children, brought forth a civil case against Niewiadomski. His attorney, Franciszek Paschalski, demanded the symbolic compensation of one Polish mark for Narutowicz’s children as a “recompense for the moral loss inflicted upon them by the murder of their father.” ⁶¹ In accordance with Polish law, the civil and criminal cases would be tried at the same time.

Niewiadomski demanded the death penalty for himself and initially didn’t want to take on a defense counsel. However, Stanisław Kijeński, a well-known Warsaw lawyer and National Democrat, was able to persuade the murderer to use his services. Kijeński, who as it turned out was highly sympathetic to Niewiadomski’s plight, persuaded the latter that he would act as an “advisor,” help him navigate the thicket of legal complexities, and allow the accused man’s own voice to be heard. ⁶²

The facts of the case were absolutely clear, and the examination of a number of witnesses and experts brought no new factual information to the proceedings. ⁶³ Niewiadomski readily acknowledged “breaking the law” and was ready to assume the consequences of this act. However, he did not acknowledge his “guilt.” ⁶⁴ Indeed, the historical significance of the trial, which is not readily acknowledged by historians, lies in the symbolic realm. The question around which the trial would revolve pertained to Niewiadomski’s motives and his guilt in the moral, rather than legal, sense. As all the sides realized, what was really at stake was not the legal verdict, which was never in doubt, but the interpretation and meaning of Niewiadomski’s act. For Niewiadomski, the trial provided an opportunity to explain his motivations to all Poles. For Rudnicki and Paschalski, it provided the opportunity to publicly and condemn discredit these very motivations. The judge in this symbolic trial, the only one that mattered, would be public opinion.

Niewiadomski was eager to explain his actions and “shed light” on the “genesis” of the murder. Rather than limiting himself to stating his guilt, he immediately launched, with the court’s permission, into an eloquent though occasionally rambling explanation of his decision to kill President Narutowicz. According to his testimony, Niewiadomski had originally intended to kill Piłsudski. The idea first occurred to him in 1918, when the Lublin Government of Piłsudski’s followers attempted to introduce radical social reforms in Poland, but it was further cemented in his mind by subsequent events. ⁶⁵

What were the reasons for Niewiadomski’s hatred of the man who was, even by many of his political enemies, acknowledged to have had an enormous impact on the “rebirth” of Poland? According to Niewiadomski, Piłsudski was “not without heroic qualities.” But he was also, and this was the reason for Niewiadomski’s hatred, the creator of “Judeo-Poland.” ⁶⁶ Indeed, Niewiadomski’s actions make no sense without reference to his pathological anti-Semitism. To understand the link between Piłsudski and the Jewish plot to undermine Poland, we must delve deeper into Niewiadomski’s worldview, which he proceeded to elaborate during his speech.

In brief, Niewiadomski faulted the Jews for creating and popularizing socialism, and infecting the latter with “materialism, the spirit of hatred, and lies.” The Jews and socialists, according to Niewiadomski always hated “the national idea.” Thus, it was no surprise, he claimed, that they hated Italian fascism, which he loved. ⁶⁷ The link between Piłsudski and the Jews was indirect. According to Niewiadomski, in 1918 Piłsudski had the power to do anything he wanted to in Poland. He should have, according to Niewiadomski, given the country a program of “work, battle readiness, discipline, and strong government.” Instead, the left-wing governments which Piłsudski had allowed to take power caused “social discipline to break down” and brought the country nothing but “anarchy.” Thus, instead of giving Poland “strong government,” he continued, Piłsudski allowed fully free elections which “put the fate of the country into the hands of cowherds and farmhands.” ⁶⁸ Niewiadomski adduced all these failures of Piłsudski and his fellow socialists to the fact that the Jews had imbued socialism with “their racial elements which led to the degeneration of moral values.” ⁶⁹

In other words, Piłsudski, who should have broken with socialism (and its pernicious Jewish influence) decisively, failed to do so. Quite the opposite, under his watch the Jews continued to increase their domination of Poland. That was his greatest sin. To illustrate his point, Niewiadomski proceeded to provide supporting evidence gathered from his own involvement in public service. He complained of corruption, inefficiency, and waste, and bemoaned “the thousands of officials” producing an “endless number of useless papers.” Piłsudski wasn’t “directly responsible” for all this, but he had “set the tone” for the “lack of creative will” that characterized the state apparatus. ⁷⁰

Niewiadomski proceeded to get somewhat more specific and drew an even more explicit link between Piłsudski and the Jews, based on the recollections of his service in the Polish Army’s counterintelligence unit. Here, he argued, Piłsudski’s responsibility was “direct.” In the army, Niewiadomski was shocked by the incompetence and ineptitude that surrounded him. His supervisor, Witecki, was “overweight and frequently late.” One of his colleagues, Szafrański, had “gold signet rings on his fat hands.” And another one was a Jew! Some of the typists and secretaries also were Jewish. And “some Jew from Białystok or Grodno” was in charge of going through potentially subversive correspondence written in Yiddish. ⁷¹ According to Niewiadomski, this man was a German spy—and yet the counterintelligence service was “powerless” and could not arrest him. ⁷²

The list of seemingly random grievances, many though not all of which involved Jews, went on. Some Jew who was a student at the Warsaw Polytechnic was caught with communist propaganda leaflets. Niewiadomski believed that he should have been shot on the spot. But his supervisor, Rotmistrz Dalewski (who was not Jewish) decided to confiscate the flyers and let him go. There was a shortage of pens and paper in the army. A certain Horowitz, apparently a high-ranking communist, was detained at the Citadel prison for a while. But then he was transferred to a POW camp, and was able to escape! One time, Niewiadomski was given an encrypted notebook to decipher, which turned out to be a list of communist sleeper agents in the Polish army. He deciphered it, but the notebook turned out to have been four months old and was no longer useful. And so he went on, with trivial anecdote following trivial anecdote. “Who was responsible for all this?” he asked rhetorically as he drew closer to the end of his speech. His answer was simple: “Piłsudski.” ⁷³

Narutowicz, Piłsudski’s successor, was to have a “lighter hand. “A light hand,” Niewiadomski concluded, is what is required by “thieves, speculators, bandits, embezzlers of public goods, peasants not wanting to pay taxes, Jews, plotters . . ., all enemies of Poland.” This, according to Niewiadomski, was why Piłsudski chose Narutowicz as his successor. “The rest is well known,” he declared and fell silent. ⁷⁴ The genuinely puzzled prosecutor Rudnicki retorted that on the basis of Niewiadomski’s remarks, he “currently understood less about the motives and causes of the murder than he did before.” ⁷⁵

According to his account, Niewiadomski was fully prepared to kill Piłsudski and had even chosen the time and the place for the deed. Specifically, he was planning to shoot Piłsudski during the opening of an art exhibition about Warsaw in the era of King Stanisław August, on 6 December. It was only that very morning that he learned that Piłsudski would not seek the presidency. He then realized that killing Piłsudski after he had just given up power would “weaken the nationalist idea,” and that his action would be interpreted as that of a criminal or madman. Still, he was aware, quite presciently as it turned out, that despite not having accepted the presidency, Piłsudski “will continue to occupy a central position in the state, that he will help direct its fate, and that during the decisive confrontation, he will stand at the head of street thugs, paramilitaries, and regular army units in the fight against the nationalist camp.” Thus, Piłsudski’s decision not to seek the presidency threw Niewiadomski into a state of despair. ⁷⁶

At any rate, the link between Piłsudski and the Jewish domination of Poland, as well as the reasons behind Niewiadomski’s plan to kill the Marshall, were established. But Skulski’s attorney, Paschalski, wanted to know more precisely how these motives eventually turned into the plan to murder Narutowicz, and he asked the accused about how he had come to that decision. ⁷⁷ Compared to his rant about Piłsudski and Jews in the army, his statement on Narutowicz was relatively brief and focused. In fact, Niewiadomski reiterated, almost word for word, the Doctrine of the Polish Majority, as it had been put forth by the mainstream right-wing newspapers. The murder, he claimed was:

One of the episodes in the fight for the nation, the fight for the Polishness of Poland. As such, my action is its own defense, and speaks for itself. . . . I believe that as a human being, as a professor, as husband, and as a father, Narutowicz was a good, noble, admirable person. . . . For me he existed not as human being but as the symbol of a certain political situation. . . . He was a symbol of shame. My shots removed this badge of shame from the forehead of Poland. Through my deeds spoke not partisan fury but the conscience and the offended dignity of the nation. ⁷⁸

Niewiadomski’s statement was virtually indistinguishable from the charges leveled against the president in the press. Terms like “the fight for the Polishness of Poland” (walka o polskość Polski) or the “shame” (hańba) supposedly inflicted upon the nation by Narutowicz’s election were staples of the right-wing press. There is absolutely no doubt that Niewiadomski’s language was virtually identical to that of Gazeta Poranna, Gazeta Warszawska, or Myśl Narodowa. His act was a defense of the Doctrine of the Polish Majority, as it had been defined and popularized by those papers.

Niewiadomski further reiterated these sentiments in his final remarks, which he was allowed before sentencing. He also framed his action in a larger political context, and expressed his hopes for the long-term consequences it would have:

I do not evince contrition. In fact, I evince a certain hope that the echoes of my shots will reach the most distant patches of Polish soil, that they knock to all homes, and all hearts, that they find their way to the camp of our opponents, those who are bewitched and do not know whom they serve, to noble and young hearts, and awaken in their consciences doubts as to whether they are serving the right cause. ⁷⁹

Given these self-incriminating statements, as well as the public nature of the murder, the final verdict was never in doubt. Niewiadomski was duly sentenced to death by firing squad (though one of the three judges dissented on technical grounds and argued for the penalty of life imprisonment.) What is interesting for our purposes, however, is how Niewiadomski was judged by society and, more specifically, by the National Democratic Right.

Reading his speeches today, it seems quite clear that aside from the moral valuation we place upon his beliefs, Niewiadomski’s thinking was not altogether sound. His rambling speech associating Piłsudski with the Jewish conspiracy to ruin Poland, in particular, raises serious questions. As Prosecutor Rudnicki aptly pointed out, from anecdotal evidence describing the shortcomings and failures of an admittedly imperfect state apparatus, Niewiadomski drew global and totally unsubstantiated conclusions. To cite one of the most ludicrous examples, the fact the Second Department employed Jewish typists did little to prove that Piłsudski was helping the Jews create a Judeo-Poland.

Those who knew Niewiadomski described him as overly sensitive, quick to take offense, and concerned with appearances. “An actor in his own life,” was how fellow painter Kazimierz Lasocki described him. ⁸⁰ Aside from speculation in the press, a full-length book appeared in 1923 claiming to analyze Niewiadomski’s mental health and concluding that he suffered from schizophrenia. ⁸¹ But while the right-wing press had initially dubbed Niewiadomski a “madman,” it greeted his remarks at the trial extremely favorably. In fact, despite their seemingly paranoid and outrageous claims, for the National Democrats, Niewiadomski’s speeches at the trial actually helped to refute charges that he was insane. Strange as it may seem to us, they marked the beginning of a process in which Niewiadomski would be turned from a “lunatic” into a “noble soul.”

The first person to publicly defend Niewiadomski was, not surprisingly, his defense attorney Stanisław Kijeński. The fact of this defense is not surprising since that was, obviously, Kijeński’s job. But Kijeński did not have to fully identify himself with Niewiadomski’s position. He could have defended the man even while acknowledging that his actions were misguided. But Kijeński did no such thing. In fact, the specific line the defense he took may give us a pause. In his closing remarks, the defense attorney argued that:

Narutowicz was the . . . victim of own his lack of knowledge of national life, and the lack of knowledge and understanding of the strange circumstance which propelled him to the most important position in Poland. . . . There had never been a deed such as [Niewiadomski’s] in the history of Poland. But then Poland had never found herself in circumstances as exceptional as those in which Niewiadomski saw her. Poland had never been sucked up by foreign elements in this manner. Niewiadomski saw that in every field we are being derailed and thrown out of the saddle. This is the tragedy of his deed, and the tragedy of his deep, loving, pained heart. . . . In his speech, Mr. Niewiadomski said that he saw that Poland was being turned into a Judeo-Poland, and that the government was creating favorable conditions for this development and its growth. . . . This fact also deserves consideration in the judgment of Niewiadomski’s deed. ⁸²

While questions concerning Niewiadomski’s mental health may never be conclusively answered, Kijeński was one of the best Warsaw lawyers, and there can be no doubts about his sanity. Moreover, Kijeński was fully aware that his words would reach a national audience and, no doubt, that they would put his reputation at stake. In this sense, the defense attorney’s words are more important than those of Niewiadomski in helping us to evaluate the reaction of the Right to the murder of Narutowicz.

In the above-cited speech, Kijeński made a number of claims that may be shocking to us today and that are virtually indistinguishable from those of Niewiadomski. First, Kijeński portrayed Narutowicz as the victim of his own ignorance. Had the President understood his nation better, the argument went, he would never have accepted the election under such circumstances. By “blaming the victim,” Kijeński was arguing the situation was such that something bad was bound to happen to Narutowicz. He was, therefore, subtly removing the agency from Niewiadomski and portraying the murder as the presumably natural result of Narutowicz’s acceptance of the presidency from Jewish hands.

Kijeński’s second claim is even more radical: Poland had never been controlled by “foreign elements to the extent that it was today.” Let us not forget that the defense attorney was making this claim a mere four years after the country had regained its national independence. Yet, according to Kijeński, independent Poland was actually less independent than under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian rule. This extraordinary argument prompted Prosecutor Rudnicki to ask whether this was “lapsus lingue” on the defense attorney’s part. ⁸³ But it wasn’t. As Kijeński explained, during the Partitions, people at least had the “ideal of Poland” to look up to. But today, he went on, that very ideal has been subjected to a “terrible shame.” Niewiadomski, according to Kijeński, felt this shame “along with millions” of other Poles. The battle against “external enemies” had been less serious than against the “internal enemy who has taken root among us.” ⁸⁴

Finally, Kijeński fully endorsed Niewiadomski’s claim that “Poland was being turned into a Judeo-Poland, and that the government was creating favorable conditions for this development and its growth.” Moreover, while this “fact” didn’t justify Niewiadomski’s action in the legal sense, it certainly had an impact on the moral judgment that society ought to pass upon the murderer. Niewiadomski had acted out against a genuine threat and dishonor to Poland. In doing so, he admittedly broke the law. But precisely in this very conflict between justice in the legal and in the moral sense lay “the tragedy of his deed, and the tragedy of his deep, loving, pained heart.” As we will see, this line of interpreting the motives behind the murder of Narutowicz would soon be taken further by the right-wing press.

The Tragic Hero

The coverage of the trial by the right-wing press speaks for itself. The day after the verdict was announced, Gazeta Warszawska reprinted the full text of Niewiadomski’s rambling first speech about the links between Piłsudski and the Jewish conspiracy against Poland. As we remember, among other accusations that can only be described as ludicrous, in his speech the murderer blamed Piłsudski for the fact that Jewish secretaries were employed by the army’s counterintelligence unit. Niewiadomski’s final words, in which he expressed a total lack of remorse for his deed, were reprinted. The defense attorney’s remarks, which fully endorsed Niewiadomski’s worldview, were also printed in full but those of Rudnicki and Paschalski were very briefly summarized. ⁸⁵

But perhaps the right-wing newspapers’ tacit endorsement of Niewiadomski’s outlandish claims should not be surprising. After all, while the evidence provided by Niewiadomski was spurious, the charges themselves were neither new nor outside the political discourse of the National Democratic movement. In the days preceding the presidential election, writing in the prestigious Myśl Narodowa, Father Kazimierz Lutosławski forcefully argued that Piłsudski was “a tool of international Jewry in its battle with the Polish nation.” ⁸⁶

Gazeta Warszawska’s commentary on the trial stopped short of praising Niewiadomski—that would come later. It defended his deed in an elliptical fashion, motivated in part by fear of censorship. ⁸⁷ Still, the message was clear:

Blood. The law has been satisfied and so is the law-abiding sense of a civilized society. The accused himself respected this sentiment by asking for the death penalty. But the dramas of national life do not die in the archives. They live in the minds of contemporaries, in their thoughts and imaginations, and become legends for future generations. . . . The relationship between the deaths [of Narutowicz and Niewiadomski] is one of action and reaction. Individuals are subsumed by the flow of life which flows over graves, but if nationalist [narodowa] thought does not pull out a vital lesson from this tragic conflict, then learning history is in vain. . . . Life knows no limits and from the grave it begets new life. ⁸⁸

The “vital lesson” in question was left to the imagination of the reader, but any reader of Gazeta Warszawska would immediately know what it was. Niewiadomski was descending from the national stage and into the realm of “legends,” but the lesson offered both by his death and that of Narutowicz was clear—Poland could not be ruled against the will of the Polish majority. The author’s reference to “action and reaction,” then, referred as much to the death sentence carried out against Niewiadomski being a reaction for his crime, as to the death of Narutowicz being the result of the nation’s reaction to his violation of its cardinal rules.

This point would be further elaborated in the coming weeks. But even before his execution, which would complete the process of turning him into a nationalist martyr, Niewiadomski was slowly being turned into a legitimate spokesman of the National Democratic idea. On 4 January 1923 Gazeta Warszawska fully claimed Niewiadomski’s views as its own:

Who cares that in his trail Niewiadomski had said [exactly] what the nationalist dailies were writing? What is important is that what the dailies were writing was what the Polish people were thinking and feeling. These dailies are the voice of the common people and not of [some] conspiracies. Niewiadomski, working on the basis of well-known and commonly accepted principles, came to a tragic and incorrect conclusion. . . . Nonetheless, those who refuse to see and understand the legitimate basis of this incorrect conclusion offer bad counsel. . . . [T]he nation brings its accusation against [Piłsudski and his followers] through the mouth of an individual [Niewiadomski]. It is true that . . . Niewiadomski reiterated in his speech many of the accusations made by the nationalist press. He reiterated them in circumstances which shook the nervous system of the entire society, which made an impression in the wide world, and which will be remembered by for many generations. ⁸⁹

In other words, Gazeta Warszawska now argued that Niewiadomski’s views were the same as its own and, even more important, the same as those of “the Polish people.” Similarly, the “moderate” National Democrat, Władysław Rabski, believed that “10 million Poles” shared Niewiadomski’s views. ⁹⁰ Even his deed was no longer a “heinous assassination”; it was merely a “tragic and incorrect” application of legitimate and praiseworthy principles. ⁹¹

Finally, Gazeta Warszawska, implicitly accepted Niewiadomski as its own spokesman. The extraordinary, dramatic, or “tragic”—to use the favorite adjective used by all right-wing papers—circumstances surrounding the murderer’s trial lent his message a gravitas capitalize that, it was hoped, would resonate in Poland and the world “for generations.” In other words, though it still disassociated itself from the actual act of the murder, the right accepted Niewiadomski as its spokesman and was grateful for the soapbox that the trial effectively provided for the spreading of its gospel. ⁹²

The same transformation could be seen among National Democratic intellectuals and highbrow publicists. Adolf Nowaczyński, the “artist-thinker” of the National Democratic movement, who had called Niewiadomski a “lunatic” in the days following the murder had radically changed his mind a mere three weeks later. ⁹³ Now, Nowaczyński argued, no one could possibly dare utter the epithets “madman, fanatic, or irresponsible,” in relation to Niewiadomski. Rather, he continued, “the spirit which [Niewiadomski] displayed [when taking it upon himself to kill the president] cannot but provoke admiration for its strength and capacity for sacrifice.” Niewiadomski’s speech given at the trial was “not only a historical document from the current political moment, but a monument to a man of great character. ⁹⁴

There seemed no end to Nowaczyński’s cloying praise for the murderer:

A hard soul, a noble soul! . . . A man as pure as a tear. A heroic character, unknown in our society, whose great soul renders all of us, on both the left and right, [moral] midgets. Today . . . sadness grips us not for the one who fell accidentally, this pedestrian president, with whom Poland had no emotional bond, and who had simply become one of the symbols of the titanic struggle between the Christian world and Jewry [but for Niewiadomski]. ⁹⁵

Nowaczyński also reiterated Niewiadomski’s hope that the murder would change the political landscape of Poland and bring the Piłsudczyks to understand certain aspects of the National Democratic critique. Specifically, Nowaczyński had high hopes that even Piłsudski, who he generously admitted also possessed a “noble soul,” would be moved by “what Niewiadomski had to say about the Semites.” At this point, Nowaczyński revealed what he believed was the main divide between the followers of Piłsudski and the National Democrats—the former’s lack of understanding for the latter’s anti-Semitism. Niewiadomski’s words, Nowaczyński hoped, would open the Piłsudczyks’ eyes to this issue. He wrote:

This isn’t about the national minorities with whom we all want agreement, peace, and harmony: the Germans, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. This is about that one national minority, the demon of humanity, this singular anti-Christian minority, the disease known as Jewry, the demon with which Europe and the entire world are now leading a struggle to the death. Hopefully, these commandments from [Niewiadomski’s] testament will etch themselves into the memory of Piłsudski and all who believe in Piłsudski. ⁹⁶

Needless to say, Nowaczyński’s hopes of Piłsudski’s imminent conversion to Niewiadomski’s gospel of anti-Semitism were dashed. The “artist-thinker” of the right promptly found himself under arrest, while his article was confiscated by censors. ⁹⁷ Nevertheless, his suggestion that a rapprochement between the National Democrats and the Piłsudczyks was possible if the latter embraced anti-Semitism seemed to anticipate the creation of the anti-Semitic Camp of National Unity (Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego or OZN) by some of Piłsudski’s followers in the late 1930s. What is more important for the present purposes is to note that, in Nowaczyński’s view, Niewiadomski’s anti-Semitic speeches at his trial fully rehabilitated the murderer and made it possible for the right to embrace him as a sort of tragic hero.

Still, the process by which Eligiusz Niewiadomski would become a fully fledged martyr of the Right could only be consummated by his execution. The right-wing press by and large accepted the death penalty as a legitimate punishment, and only Stanisław Stroński raised a mild legalistic objection on the pages of the Rzeczpospolita. ⁹⁸ But it was precisely the execution and the funeral that turned Niewiadomski into a martyr and a cause célèbre. Extensive details of the execution were reported on the front pages of right-wing newspapers with pathos that undoubtedly would have pleased the murderer himself.

The execution was scheduled for the morning of 30 January 1923. “At 6am,” Gazeta Warszawska reported, Niewiadomski enjoyed a conversation with Stanisław Kijeński, who reported that the murderer was “in excellent spirits” and “even joking around.” He then met with a priest, Father Sontak, and received him with “great warmth and gratitude.” At 6:30 am, a car with an armed escort left the Warsaw Citadel and proceeded to the execution place just outside the gates. As a precaution, the Citadel was encircled by a ring of troops. ⁹⁹

Somewhat comically, the car carrying the prisoner broke down, and Niewiadomski walked the last stretch of the way “in a firm stride.” He asked the guards not to hold him, since he “didn’t want people to think that he required being held down.” The murderer then spoke to another priest, was blessed and kissed the cross. Six soldiers were delegated to the execution, and Niewiadomski asked that he not be tied to the pole and that his eyes remain uncovered. His wish was granted. ¹⁰⁰ According to the Gazeta Warszawska relation:

He stood firmly, and asked the soldiers to aim at his head. Then he calmly took off his coat, hat, and glasses and tossed them aside. He stood erect, smiled, and held up a flower he had received from his family. ¹⁰¹

According to Rzeczpospolita, he left behind a little note asking that the funeral be simple “since he never liked to reach for distinguished places and would like to maintain this style.” ¹⁰² Just before the shots went off, he cried, “I die for Poland, which is being destroyed by Piłsudski!” These last words could not be printed due to censorship, and only emerged in subsequent days. After his body was laid to rest in a shallow grave, the gates of the Citadel were opened and a “pilgrimage” consisting of people who had waited outside the army cordon, most of them poor and working class, entered to pay their respects to the deceased. ¹⁰³

Gazeta Warszawska’s eulogy for Niewiadomski was written by Dmowski’s friend and collaborator Zygmunt Wasilewski. It marked the culmination of the astonishingly quick rhetorical transformation of the murderer from a “madman” to “a man of great character.” Wasilewski wrote:

He was righteous, idealistic and sensitive, but demanding and strict with himself. . . . His character was also described as straight arrow. He evinced great strength, openness, and courage. . . . During the trail he proved . . . that he governed his will precisely and with full awareness of his fate. We had before us the model of a strong character, imposing principles upon his actions. The deed, for which he met a terrible punishment, was a catastrophe. But the spiritual type which had manifested itself in the process must win admiration for its strong makeup and capacity for sacrifice. Even [non-nationalists] must marvel at his psychic state, in which the interests of the individual were completely subsumed by those of the nation. In this sense, his speeches at the trial will remain not only a historical document of the current moment, but the memento of a man of great character. ¹⁰⁴

It is important to further highlight the somewhat complicated strategy behind Wasilewski’s rhetoric. Wasilewski still condemned the murder itself as a “catastrophe.” But this catastrophe was the result of Niewiadomski’s spiritual purity, his identification with the nation, and his dedication to a moral standard that was ultimately higher than the law. Morally, Niewiadomski was in the right, even if from both the legal and tactical perspectives he had to be condemned. In this sense, Wasilewski and the National Democrats were simultaneously able to both claim Niewiadomski as one of their own and to disown him. They claimed him on the grounds of his moral purity and dedication to the nation, and disowned him on the grounds of the illegal and politically harmful character of his actions.

But ultimately, there was little doubt as to what their final judgment was. For Wasilewski, there was no doubt as to history’s verdict on Niewiadomski:

A child reading Niewiadomski’s words 100 years from now will not be able to understand why a man of these views, feelings, and character, was put to death in his own fatherland, by the will of the state, and with his own assent. . . . With his sacrifice he gave witness to the idea of the nation. ¹⁰⁵

In other words, if the right could not fully claim him today, Wasilewski intimated, it was for complicated legal and tactical reasons that future generations would not even be able to comprehend. But there was no doubt that in the long run, history would vindicate Niewiadomski. Stripped from its complicated legal and political context, and evaluated solely on moral grounds, the murder was ultimately an act of righteous sacrifice for the nation.

The fact that the authorities did their best to keep the funeral of Niewiadomski secret is an indicator that the government saw it is a potential source of embarrassment or, worse, a rallying point for the nationalist opposition. The date of the funeral, 6 February 1923, was announced late on the evening of the previous day. Permission for the funeral was given only on the condition that the body would be exhumed at 4 a.m. and the hearse would leave the Citadel by 6 a.m. If these conditions were not met, the funeral would not take place. Further, the hearse had to avoid main streets and proceed by a circuitous route outlined by the security services in order to avoid attention. ¹⁰⁶

The sympathetic proprietor of a large funeral parlor, a certain Seweryn Staniszewski, offered his services for free. According to Gazeta Warszawska, this was only one of the “many proofs that the public adequately appreciated the deceased’s greatness of soul and character.” ¹⁰⁷ Niewiadomski was laid in a closed coffin with two roses, one red the other white. At the gates of the Citadel, a large group of people awaited with wreaths and flowers. Before reaching the Powązki Church, horses were unharnessed from the carriage and a group of volunteer youths pulled the hearse into the Church. At the church, the crowd sang the nationalist anthem, Rota. ¹⁰⁸

According to Gazeta Warszawska, by the time the procession reached the Powązki cemetery it numbered some 10,000 people. The crowd, mostly made up of “poorer classes,” lined the entire path from the church to the gravesite. Numerous wreaths were carried in front of the procession, and flowers and fir branches was thrown in its path. One particular wreath singled out by the Gazeta Warszawska correspondent bore the encryption: “From the Polish Women of America—All Hail the Immortal.” In a further display of public respect for the murderer noted dutifully by the newspapers, one of the men present, a military veteran, took a medal (Cross of Brave or Krzyż Waleczynych, one of Poland’s highest military decorations) off his chest and tossed it into the grave. ¹⁰⁹ As the coffin was lowered into the ground, the Rzeczpospolita correspondent noted, “one thought grabbed everyone: a thought of this solemn and sad moment, and a sadness, which knows no words, united all hearts.” ¹¹⁰ Later in the day, the grave was visited by “throngs of mourners.” They brought flowers and wreaths, which were piled so high on the grave that they were visible from far away “among the trees and the cemetery statues.” ¹¹¹

The right’s fascination with the figure of Niewiadomski continued to the point where he became the object of a veritable cult. Masses for the murderer’s soul proliferated. On 11 February, less than a week after his funeral, the Polish Episcopate had to issue a statement calling on the clergy to cease abusing masses for the souls of the dead. ¹¹² Writing in the 1930s, Piast leader Wincenty Witos noted:

Even today . . . Niewiadomski’s grave is a place of pilgrimages and the anniversary of his death brings many of his admirers there. It is noteworthy that among them one can find members of all the social classes of Warsaw. . . . By the manner these people conduct themselves it is clear that they consider him to be at least a saint. ¹¹³

While awaiting his execution, Niewiadomski finished a book on art history and penned an “open letter to the nation.” Right-wing newspapers published the letter, which, for the most part, was a restatement of the paranoid views the murderer had expressed during his trial. ¹¹⁴ In the letter, Niewiadomski once again attempted to frame his act in a historical perspective:

My death is the necessary culmination of my deed. My deed will only flower once watered with my own blood. . . . I had to hit Poland with a lightning bolt to awaken those who believe that Poland was already a reality, that the time of sacrifices and striving is over, and that it is possible to put our weapons down. What our eyes are looking upon is not yet Poland. It is still the Poland of Piłsudski—Judeo-Poland. Real Poland still has to be built. This process is now starting. My hopes were not in vain. Whatever is Polish and healthy in the camp of the Left heard my voice. I die happy that the work of waking Polish consciences and unifying Polish hearts will be fulfilled.” ¹¹⁵

Niewiadomski’s hope that “whatever was Polish and healthy” in “the camp of the Left” would was eerily prescient in its anticipation of the acceptance of anti-Semitism by Piłsudski’s successors. But his impact on the Right was already evident at the moment of his death. As we have seen, the “Doctrine of the Polish Majority,” in the name of which Niewiadomski claimed to die, became enshrined in the program and politics of the ZLN. The murder of the president did not stop this process. Conversely, by reaffirming the doctrine even in the face of its most extreme and murderous implications, the Right emerged from the crisis with a renewed sense of its own righteousness.

Niewiadomski himself became a veritable hero to the Right. Maciej Rataj wrote that despite being executed, Niewiadomski was “not morally destroyed” in the public imagination. ¹¹⁶ This is an understatement. While the right initially recoiled at the act of the murder and attempted to distance itself from its perpetrator, that position changed very quickly. The very same Adolf Nowaczyński who had called Niewiadomski a “madman” on 23 December praised him “as a man of great character” less than two weeks later. It would not be an exaggeration to say that, in the eyes of National Democratic intellectuals like Nowaczyński or Zygmunt Wasilewski, Niewiadomski had undergone an apotheosis. In light of the right-wing newspapers’ praise of the murderer, the adulation heaped upon him by the masses of Warsaw should not be surprising either.

But perhaps the most amazing feature of this process is that it occurred because of, rather than despite, Niewiadomski’s paranoid and rambling speeches delivered during the trial. It was these speeches, in which the murderer supported his bizarre claim that Piłsudski was creating a Judeo-Poland with equally bizarre evidence, that won him the admiration of the right-wing intellectuals and the public. Clearly, the murder of Narutowicz was not an embarrassment or a setback for the National Democratic right. Scholars who have made this point seem to have been unduly influenced by the immediate reaction of right-wing newspapers and politicians to the assassination. But a mere three weeks after the fact, Niewiadomski and everything he stood for had been fully rehabilitated. Far from being ashamed of him, right-wing publicists openly expressed the hope that Niewiadomski’s deeds and words might even influence the Left and bring it around to accept anti-Semitism.