Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946
Encyclopedia
Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1944–1946 refers to a series of violent incidents that immediately followed the end of the Second World War
in Poland
and influenced postwar history of Jews as well as Polish Jewish relations. The exact number of Jewish victims is a subject of debate, but the range is estimated as 1,000 to 2,000 (with 327 documented cases). Jews constitued between 2% and 3% of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country, including the Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust on territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. The incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogrom
s. Partly as a result of this violence, but also because Poland was the only Eastern Bloc
country to allow free Jewish aliyah
to Israel
, the number of Jews in the country changed dramatically. Uninterrupted traffic across the Polish borders intensified with many Jews passing through on their way to the West. In January 1946, there were 86,000 survivors registered at CKŻP
. By the end of summer, the number had risen to about 205,000–210,000 (with 240,000 registrations and over 30,000 duplicates). About 180,000 refugees came from the Soviet Union due to the repatriation agreement. Most left without visas or exit permits thanks to a decree of Gen. Spychalski
. By the spring of 1947 only 90,000 Jews remained in Poland.
Reasons for violent deaths have been attributed to rampant and often indiscriminate postwar banditry as well as the raging civil war against the communist takeover, which cost the lives of tens of thousand of people on Polish lands. Among the Jewish victims of violence were numerous functionaries of the new Stalinist regime, assassinated by the anti-communist underground
without racial motives, but simply due to their political loyalties. Jan T. Gross
noted that "only a fraction of [the Jewish] deaths could be attributed to anti-semitism
", but sometimes Jews were indeed targeted due to their ethnicity, because of the pre-war and Nazi German propaganda, including the blood libel
rumors. The resentment towards returning Jews among some local Poles included concerns that they would reclaim their property. They were being seen as supporting the consolidation of power in the hands of Soviet and Polish Stalinist regimes, and were overrepresented in the new puppet government responsible for the repressions against the Polish civil society since 1939.
worsened after the Soviet takeover
of Poland in 1945. Polish Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust returning home were confronted with fears of being physically assaulted, robbed and even murdered by certain elements in the society. The situation was further complicated by the fact that there were more Jewish survivors returning from the Soviet Union than those who managed to survive in occupied Poland, thus leading to stereotypes holding Jews responsible for the imposition of Communism
in Stalinist Poland
.
Members of the former Communist Party of Poland
(KPP) were returning home from the Soviet Union as prominent functionaries of the new regime. Among them was a highly visible number of Poles of Jewish origin, who became active in the new Polish Communist party and the Ministry of Public Security of Poland
, among them Hilary Minc
, the third in command in Bolesław Bierut's political apparatus and Jakub Berman
, head of State Security Services (UB, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) considered Joseph Stalin's right hand in Poland between 1944 and 1953. Jewish representation in Bolesław Bierut's apparatus of political oppression was considerably higher than their share in the general Polish population. Hypothesis emerged that Stalin had intentionally employed some of them in positions of repressive authority (see Gen. Roman Romkowski
, Dir. Anatol Fejgin
and others) in order to put Poles and Jews "on a collision course." Study by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
showed that between 1944 and 1954 out of 450 people in director positions in the Ministry
, 37.1% (or 167) were Jewish. The underground anti-communist press held them responsible for the murder of Polish opponents of the new regime. Historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz
estimates that in the first years after the war, the Jewish denunciations and direct involvement in the pro-Soviet wave of terror, resulted in the killing of approximately 3,500 to 6,500 non-Jewish Poles including members of the Home Army and National Armed Forces.
(communist state police), UB and NKVD
employing numerous Jewish functionaries (up to 80% officers and 50% militiamen in Lublin alone). In May 1945, public security offices were destroyed in Krasnosielc
and Annówka
(May 1st), Kuryłówka (May 7), Grajewo
and Białystok (May 9), Siemiatycze
and Wyrzyki (May 11), Ostrołęka and Rembertów
(May 18–21), Biała Podlaska (May 21, May 24), Majdan-Topiło
(Białowieża Forest, May 28), Kotki (Busko-Zdrój)
(May 28). Political prisoners were freed – sometimes up to several hundred or more (see, e.g. the attack on Rembertów
) – many of whom were later recaptured and murdered. The human rights law violations and the abuse of power by the Ministry only strengthened the anti-Jewish sentiments in Poland, adding to the myth of "Żydokomuna
" among ordinary Poles who in general had anti-Communist and anti-Soviet attitudes. Accusations that Jews are being supportive of the new communist regime, and constituted a threat to Poland, came also from some high officials of the Roman Catholic Church
.
The provisions of Yalta agreement allowed Stalin to forcibly repatriate Jews along with all Soviet nationals back to USSR "irrespective of their personal wishes". The former Polish citizens, second largest refugee group in the West, did not even began to return until late 1946. Polish–Jewish DPs (25% of their grand total in the beginning of 1947) were declared nonrepatriable – due in part to the US pressure – which forced the British government to open the borders of Palestine. By the spring of 1947 the number of Jews in Poland – in large part arriving from the Soviet Union – declined from 240,000 to 90,000 due to mass migration and the post-Holocaust absence of Jewish life in Poland. "The flight" (Berihah
) of Jews was motivated by the raging civil war on Polish lands, in as much as the efforts of strong Polish-Jewish lobby at the Jewish Agency working towards the higher standard of living and special privileges for the immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak Raphael, director of the Immigration Department – who lobbied on behalf of Polish refugees – insisted on their preferential treatment in Israel.
accusations against Jews in a dozen Polish towns – Kraków
, Kielce
, Bytom
, Białystok, Bielawa
, Częstochowa
, Legnica
, Otwock
, Rzeszów
, Sosnowiec
, Szczecin
, Tarnów
Acts of anti-Jewish violence were also recorded in villages and small towns of central Poland, where the overwhelming majority of attacks occurred. According to Szaynok, the perpetrators of the anti-Jewish actions were seldom punished. Shortly after the Kielce pogrom, violence against Jews had ceased.
The Kraków pogrom
of August 11, 1945, was the first anti-Jewish riot in postwar Poland, resulting in one death. The immediate pretext for it were rumours of alleged attempt by a Jewish woman to kidnap and murder a Polish child, and the alleged discovery of thirteen (or even eighty) corpses of Christian children that supposedly had been found in Kupa Synagogue
. During the riot, Jews were attacked in Kazimierz
, and other parts of Old Town. Fire was set in Kupa Synagogue.
(the causes of which are still somewhat controversial), coupled with accusations of ritual murder against Jews, erupted in Kielce on July 4, 1946. The rumour that a Polish boy had been kidnapped by Jews but had managed to escape, and that other Polish children had been ritually murdered by Jews – according to Pynsent – ignited a violent public reaction directed at the Jewish Center. Attacks on Jewish residents of Kielce were provoked by units of the communist militia and the Soviet-controlled Polish Army who confirmed the rumors of the kidnapping. Police and soldiers were also the first to fire shots at Jews – according to Szaynok, thus "giving civilians a pretext to join the fray."
Analyzing Kielce pogrom for years, author Krzysztof Kąkolewski (Umarły cmentarz), came to the conclusion that Russian NKWD had planned the pogrom in Kielce ahead of time. As he pointed out, there were two very important occasions to be considered that day. In the Nuremberg tribunal, the Katyn massacre committed against the Polish officers was being investigated, a Russian war crime which the Russians held Germans responsible for. Also, there was a celebration of the United States Day taking place, attended in Warsaw by many foreign officials and journalists. It was a perfect time for the NKWD to paint a picture of Poland as being antisemitic, and to blame the Home Army (AK) for the violence. At the time of the pogrom in Kielce, Kąkolewski was 16 years old and lived just few hundred meters from the crime scene. He claims that it was impossible for people to gather out on the street; the police immediately approached any group of 3-4 persons for identification. Furthermore, Kąkolewski claims that the ordinary people were turned away by an army unit that set up a street blockade. The second part of the same building housed members of the communist party, most of them of Jewish origin, who were not attacked at all. Kąkolewski emphasized also that there were more than 300 members of the secret police and army, present at the scene, of whom many were wearing civilian clothes, not to mention some Russian-speaking soldiers that participated in the pogrom. The fact that the high ranking officials from NKWD were in the town at the moment would also support this theory. Of the 12 persons who faced trial, 9 were sentenced to death. According to Kąkolewski, none of them was responsible for the crime; they have been picked up from the watching crowd by the secret police.
The pogrom in Kielce resulted in 42 people being murdered and about 50 seriously injured, yet the number of victims does not reflect the impact of the atrocities committed. The Kielce pogrom was a turning point for the postwar history of Polish Jews – according to Michael R. Marrus, as the Zionist underground concluded that there was no future for Jews in Europe. Soon after, Gen. Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits; and the Jewish emigration from Poland increased dramatically. Britain demanded from Poland (among others) to halt the Jewish exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.
the Yad Vashem
Shoah
Resource Center's International School for Holocaust Studies. The study used as a starting point a 1973 report by historian Lucjan Dobroszycki
, who wrote that he had "analyzed records, reports, cables, protocols and press-cuttings of the period pertaining to anti-Jewish assaults and murders in 115 localities" in which approximately 300 Jewish deaths had been documented.
A number of historians, including Antony Polonsky and Jan T. Gross
cite the figures originating from Dobroszycki's 1973 work. Dobroszycki wrote that "according to general estimates 1500 Jews lost their lives in Poland from liberation until the summer of 1947", but Jan Gross, the author who cites Dobroszycki, says that only a fraction of these deaths can be attributed to antisemitism and that most were due to general post war disorder, political violence and banditry. David Engel of New York University
stated that Dobroszycki "offered no reference for such 'general estimates'" which "have not been confirmed by any other investigator" and "no proof-text for this figure" exists, not even a smaller one of 1000 claimed by Gutman. Engel wrote that "both estimates seem high." Other estimates include those of Anna Cichopek claiming more than 1000 Jews murdered in Poland between 1944 and 1947 while Dr Lidiya Milyakova of Russian Academy of Sciences
placed that number at 1500-1800. Similarly, according to a Jewish historian Stefan Grajek around 1000 Jews were murdered in the first half of year 1946. Polish historian Tadeusz Piotrowski
cites 1500-2000 victims between the years 1944 and 1947 due to general civil strife that came about with Soviet consolidation of power, constituting 2 to 3 percent of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country.
In the Yad Vashem Studies report, Holocaust scholar David Engel
writes
The data from the Yad Vashem study are reproduced in the table below.
Engel wrote that the compilation of cases is not exhaustive, suggesting that cases of anti-Jewish violence were selectively reported and recorded, and that there was no centralized, systematic effort record these cases. He cites numerous incidental reports of killings of Jews that for which no official reporting has survived. He concludes that these figures have "obvious weaknesses" and that the detailed records used to compile them are clearly deficient and lacking data from Białystok region. For example, Engel cites one source that shows a total of 108 Jewish deaths during March 1945, and another source that shows 351 deaths between November 1944 and December 1945.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and influenced postwar history of Jews as well as Polish Jewish relations. The exact number of Jewish victims is a subject of debate, but the range is estimated as 1,000 to 2,000 (with 327 documented cases). Jews constitued between 2% and 3% of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country, including the Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust on territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. The incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s. Partly as a result of this violence, but also because Poland was the only Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
country to allow free Jewish aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, the number of Jews in the country changed dramatically. Uninterrupted traffic across the Polish borders intensified with many Jews passing through on their way to the West. In January 1946, there were 86,000 survivors registered at CKŻP
Central Committee of Polish Jews
The Central Committee of Polish Jews also referred to as the Central Committee of Jews in Poland and abbreviated CKŻP, was a state-sponsored political representation of Jews in Poland at the end of World War II...
. By the end of summer, the number had risen to about 205,000–210,000 (with 240,000 registrations and over 30,000 duplicates). About 180,000 refugees came from the Soviet Union due to the repatriation agreement. Most left without visas or exit permits thanks to a decree of Gen. Spychalski
Marian Spychalski
Marian "Marek" Spychalski was a Polish architect, military commander, and communist politician.Born to a working-class family in Łódź, he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology in 1931...
. By the spring of 1947 only 90,000 Jews remained in Poland.
Reasons for violent deaths have been attributed to rampant and often indiscriminate postwar banditry as well as the raging civil war against the communist takeover, which cost the lives of tens of thousand of people on Polish lands. Among the Jewish victims of violence were numerous functionaries of the new Stalinist regime, assassinated by the anti-communist underground
Cursed soldiers
The cursed soldiers is a name applied to a variety of Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and afterwards. Created by some members of the Polish Secret State, these clandestine organizations continued their armed struggle against the Stalinist government of Poland...
without racial motives, but simply due to their political loyalties. Jan T. Gross
Jan T. Gross
Jan Tomasz Gross is a Polish-American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society and Professor of History at Princeton University.- Biography :Jan T...
noted that "only a fraction of [the Jewish] deaths could be attributed to anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
", but sometimes Jews were indeed targeted due to their ethnicity, because of the pre-war and Nazi German propaganda, including the blood libel
Blood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
rumors. The resentment towards returning Jews among some local Poles included concerns that they would reclaim their property. They were being seen as supporting the consolidation of power in the hands of Soviet and Polish Stalinist regimes, and were overrepresented in the new puppet government responsible for the repressions against the Polish civil society since 1939.
Background
After the war, Poles and Jews constituted two communities with two different but tragic war experiences, however the relations between Polish and Jewish communitiesHistory of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
worsened after the Soviet takeover
History of Poland (1945–1989)
The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Soviet Communist dominance imposed after the end of World War II over the People's Republic of Poland...
of Poland in 1945. Polish Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust returning home were confronted with fears of being physically assaulted, robbed and even murdered by certain elements in the society. The situation was further complicated by the fact that there were more Jewish survivors returning from the Soviet Union than those who managed to survive in occupied Poland, thus leading to stereotypes holding Jews responsible for the imposition of Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
in Stalinist Poland
People's Republic of Poland
The People's Republic of Poland was the official name of Poland from 1952 to 1990. Although the Soviet Union took control of the country immediately after the liberation from Nazi Germany in 1944, the name of the state was not changed until eight years later...
.
Members of the former Communist Party of Poland
Communist Party of Poland
The Communist Party of Poland is a historical communist party in Poland. It was a result of the fusion of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the Polish Socialist Party-Left in the Communist Workers Party of Poland .-1918-1921:The KPRP was founded on 16 December 1918 as...
(KPP) were returning home from the Soviet Union as prominent functionaries of the new regime. Among them was a highly visible number of Poles of Jewish origin, who became active in the new Polish Communist party and the Ministry of Public Security of Poland
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
, among them Hilary Minc
Hilary Minc
Hilary Minc – born into a middle-class Jewish family of Oskar Minc and Stefania née Fajersztajn – was a communist politician in Stalinist Poland and pro-Soviet Marxist economist. Minc joined the Communist Party of Poland before World War II...
, the third in command in Bolesław Bierut's political apparatus and Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman was born into a middle-class Jewish family. Berman first became a prominent communist in prewar Poland. Toward the end of World War II he joined the Politburo of the Soviet-formed Polish United Workers' Party...
, head of State Security Services (UB, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) considered Joseph Stalin's right hand in Poland between 1944 and 1953. Jewish representation in Bolesław Bierut's apparatus of political oppression was considerably higher than their share in the general Polish population. Hypothesis emerged that Stalin had intentionally employed some of them in positions of repressive authority (see Gen. Roman Romkowski
Roman Romkowski
General Roman Romkowski born Natan Grünspau [Grinszpan]-Kikiel, was a Polish-Jewish communist, second in command in Berman's Ministry of Public Security during the late 1940s and early 1950's. Along with several other high functionaries including Dir. Anatol Fejgin, Col. Józef Różański, Dir...
, Dir. Anatol Fejgin
Anatol Fejgin
Anatol Fejgin was a Polish-Jewish communist before World War II, and after 1949, commander of the Stalinist political police at the Ministry of Public Security of Poland, in charge of its notorious Special Bureau...
and others) in order to put Poles and Jews "on a collision course." Study by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
showed that between 1944 and 1954 out of 450 people in director positions in the Ministry
Ministry of Public Security of Poland
The Ministry of Public Security of Poland was a Polish communist secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage service operating from 1945 to 1954 under Jakub Berman of the Politburo...
, 37.1% (or 167) were Jewish. The underground anti-communist press held them responsible for the murder of Polish opponents of the new regime. Historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is a Polish-American historian specializing in East Central European history of the 19th and 20th century. His historical works include: After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Relations in the Wake of World War II, and Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland...
estimates that in the first years after the war, the Jewish denunciations and direct involvement in the pro-Soviet wave of terror, resulted in the killing of approximately 3,500 to 6,500 non-Jewish Poles including members of the Home Army and National Armed Forces.
The anti-communist armed resistance
As the victory over Germany was celebrated in the West, in May 1945, Polish partisans attacked country offices of the PUBP, MOMilicja Obywatelska
Milicja Obywatelska was a state police institution in the People's Republic of Poland. It was created in 1944 by Soviet-sponsored PKWN, effectively replacing the pre-war police force. In 1990 it was transformed back into Policja....
(communist state police), UB and NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
employing numerous Jewish functionaries (up to 80% officers and 50% militiamen in Lublin alone). In May 1945, public security offices were destroyed in Krasnosielc
Krasnosielc
Krasnosielc is a village in Maków County , on the river Orzyc, in east-central Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Krasnosielc. It lies approximately north of Maków Mazowiecki and north of Warsaw. Previous names include: Sielc, Siedlec and in...
and Annówka
Annówka, Lublin Voivodeship
Annówka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kock, within Lubartów County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately north-east of Kock, north-west of Lubartów, and north of the regional capital Lublin.-References:...
(May 1st), Kuryłówka (May 7), Grajewo
Grajewo
Grajewo , is a town in north-eastern Poland with 23,302 inhabitants .It is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship ; previously, it was in Łomża Voivodeship...
and Białystok (May 9), Siemiatycze
Siemiatycze
Siemiatycze is a town in north-eastern Poland, with 15,209 inhabitants . It is situated in the Podlaskie Voivodeship ; previously it was in Białystok Voivodeship . It is the capital of Siemiatycze County....
and Wyrzyki (May 11), Ostrołęka and Rembertów
Rembertów
Rembertów is a district of the city of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Between 1939 and 1957 Rembertów was a separate town, after which it was incorporated as part of the borough of Praga Południe. Between 1994 and 2002 it formed a separate commune of Warszawa-Rembertów...
(May 18–21), Biała Podlaska (May 21, May 24), Majdan-Topiło
Majdan, Hajnówka County
Majdan is a settlement in the administrative district of Gmina Hajnówka, within Hajnówka County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland, close to the border with Belarus. It lies approximately south of Hajnówka and south-east of the regional capital Białystok.-References:...
(Białowieża Forest, May 28), Kotki (Busko-Zdrój)
Busko-Zdrój
Busko-Zdrój is a town in Poland, in Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. It is the capital of Busko County. As of 2004, its population is 17,363.-History:...
(May 28). Political prisoners were freed – sometimes up to several hundred or more (see, e.g. the attack on Rembertów
Attack on the NKVD Camp in Rembertów
On May 21, 1945, a unit of the Home Army , led by Colonel Edward Wasilewski, attacked a Soviet NKVD camp located in Rembertów on the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The Russians incarcerated there many hundreds of Polish citizens; members of the Home Army and underground fighters, whom they were...
) – many of whom were later recaptured and murdered. The human rights law violations and the abuse of power by the Ministry only strengthened the anti-Jewish sentiments in Poland, adding to the myth of "Żydokomuna
Zydokomuna
Żydokomuna is a pejorative antisemitic stereotype which came into use between World Wars I and II, blaming Jews for the rise of communism in Poland, where communism was identified as part of a wider Jewish-led conspiracy to seize power....
" among ordinary Poles who in general had anti-Communist and anti-Soviet attitudes. Accusations that Jews are being supportive of the new communist regime, and constituted a threat to Poland, came also from some high officials of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
The provisions of Yalta agreement allowed Stalin to forcibly repatriate Jews along with all Soviet nationals back to USSR "irrespective of their personal wishes". The former Polish citizens, second largest refugee group in the West, did not even began to return until late 1946. Polish–Jewish DPs (25% of their grand total in the beginning of 1947) were declared nonrepatriable – due in part to the US pressure – which forced the British government to open the borders of Palestine. By the spring of 1947 the number of Jews in Poland – in large part arriving from the Soviet Union – declined from 240,000 to 90,000 due to mass migration and the post-Holocaust absence of Jewish life in Poland. "The flight" (Berihah
Berihah
Bricha was the underground organized effort that helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post-World War II Europe to the British Mandate for Palestine in violation of the White Paper of 1939...
) of Jews was motivated by the raging civil war on Polish lands, in as much as the efforts of strong Polish-Jewish lobby at the Jewish Agency working towards the higher standard of living and special privileges for the immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak Raphael, director of the Immigration Department – who lobbied on behalf of Polish refugees – insisted on their preferential treatment in Israel.
Blood libel
Sporadic public anti-Jewish disturbances or riots were enticed by spread of false blood libelBlood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
accusations against Jews in a dozen Polish towns – Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Kielce
Kielce
Kielce ) is a city in central Poland with 204,891 inhabitants . It is also the capital city of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship since 1999, previously in Kielce Voivodeship...
, Bytom
Bytom
Bytom is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The central-western district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of 2 millions. Bytom is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Bytomka river .The city belongs to the Silesian Voivodeship since...
, Białystok, Bielawa
Bielawa
Bielawa is a town in south-western Poland with 31,988 inhabitants . It is situated in Dzierżoniów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship ; previously it has been a part of the Wałbrzych Voivodeship ....
, Częstochowa
Czestochowa
Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 240,027 inhabitants . It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship since 1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship...
, Legnica
Legnica
Legnica is a town in south-western Poland, in Silesia, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the plain of Legnica, riverside: Kaczawa and Czarna Woda. Between 1 June 1975 and 31 December 1998 Legnica was the capital of the Legnica Voivodeship. It is currently the seat of the county...
, Otwock
Otwock
Otwock is a town in central Poland, some southeast of Warsaw, with 42,765 inhabitants . It is situated on the right bank of Vistula River below the mouth of Swider River. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Swidermajer....
, Rzeszów
Rzeszów
Rzeszów is a city in southeastern Poland with a population of 179,455 in 2010. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River, in the heartland of the Sandomierska Valley...
, Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a combined population of over two million people located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Brynica river .It is situated in...
, Szczecin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....
, Tarnów
Tarnów
Tarnów is a city in southeastern Poland with 115,341 inhabitants as of June 2009. The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarnów Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east-west connection...
Acts of anti-Jewish violence were also recorded in villages and small towns of central Poland, where the overwhelming majority of attacks occurred. According to Szaynok, the perpetrators of the anti-Jewish actions were seldom punished. Shortly after the Kielce pogrom, violence against Jews had ceased.
The Kraków pogrom
Kraków pogrom
The Kraków pogrom refers to the events that occurred on August 11, 1945, in the city of Kraków, Poland, which resulted in one dead and five wounded victims.-Background:...
of August 11, 1945, was the first anti-Jewish riot in postwar Poland, resulting in one death. The immediate pretext for it were rumours of alleged attempt by a Jewish woman to kidnap and murder a Polish child, and the alleged discovery of thirteen (or even eighty) corpses of Christian children that supposedly had been found in Kupa Synagogue
Kupa Synagogue
Kupa Synagogue is a 17th century synagogue in Kraków, Poland. It is located in the former Jewish quarter of Kazimierz developed from a neighborhood earmarked in 1495 by King Jan I Olbracht for the Jewish community, which has been transferred from the budding Old Town...
. During the riot, Jews were attacked in Kazimierz
Kazimierz
Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków , best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 14th century until the Second World War.-Early history:...
, and other parts of Old Town. Fire was set in Kupa Synagogue.
Kielce pogrom
A pogromKielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, Poland on July 4, 1946, perpetrated by a mob of local townsfolk and members of the official government forces of the People's Republic of Poland...
(the causes of which are still somewhat controversial), coupled with accusations of ritual murder against Jews, erupted in Kielce on July 4, 1946. The rumour that a Polish boy had been kidnapped by Jews but had managed to escape, and that other Polish children had been ritually murdered by Jews – according to Pynsent – ignited a violent public reaction directed at the Jewish Center. Attacks on Jewish residents of Kielce were provoked by units of the communist militia and the Soviet-controlled Polish Army who confirmed the rumors of the kidnapping. Police and soldiers were also the first to fire shots at Jews – according to Szaynok, thus "giving civilians a pretext to join the fray."
Analyzing Kielce pogrom for years, author Krzysztof Kąkolewski (Umarły cmentarz), came to the conclusion that Russian NKWD had planned the pogrom in Kielce ahead of time. As he pointed out, there were two very important occasions to be considered that day. In the Nuremberg tribunal, the Katyn massacre committed against the Polish officers was being investigated, a Russian war crime which the Russians held Germans responsible for. Also, there was a celebration of the United States Day taking place, attended in Warsaw by many foreign officials and journalists. It was a perfect time for the NKWD to paint a picture of Poland as being antisemitic, and to blame the Home Army (AK) for the violence. At the time of the pogrom in Kielce, Kąkolewski was 16 years old and lived just few hundred meters from the crime scene. He claims that it was impossible for people to gather out on the street; the police immediately approached any group of 3-4 persons for identification. Furthermore, Kąkolewski claims that the ordinary people were turned away by an army unit that set up a street blockade. The second part of the same building housed members of the communist party, most of them of Jewish origin, who were not attacked at all. Kąkolewski emphasized also that there were more than 300 members of the secret police and army, present at the scene, of whom many were wearing civilian clothes, not to mention some Russian-speaking soldiers that participated in the pogrom. The fact that the high ranking officials from NKWD were in the town at the moment would also support this theory. Of the 12 persons who faced trial, 9 were sentenced to death. According to Kąkolewski, none of them was responsible for the crime; they have been picked up from the watching crowd by the secret police.
The pogrom in Kielce resulted in 42 people being murdered and about 50 seriously injured, yet the number of victims does not reflect the impact of the atrocities committed. The Kielce pogrom was a turning point for the postwar history of Polish Jews – according to Michael R. Marrus, as the Zionist underground concluded that there was no future for Jews in Europe. Soon after, Gen. Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits; and the Jewish emigration from Poland increased dramatically. Britain demanded from Poland (among others) to halt the Jewish exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.
Number of victims
A statistical compendium of "Jewish deaths by violence for which specific record is extant, by month and province" was compiled bythe Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
Shoah
Shoah
Shoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...
Resource Center's International School for Holocaust Studies. The study used as a starting point a 1973 report by historian Lucjan Dobroszycki
Lucjan Dobroszycki
Lucjan Dobroszycki was a Polish scientist and historian specializing in modern Polish and Polish-Jewish history. A survivor of the Łódź Ghetto and Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz, Dobroszycki lived in Poland after World War II where he obtained his education and worked as a historian...
, who wrote that he had "analyzed records, reports, cables, protocols and press-cuttings of the period pertaining to anti-Jewish assaults and murders in 115 localities" in which approximately 300 Jewish deaths had been documented.
A number of historians, including Antony Polonsky and Jan T. Gross
Jan T. Gross
Jan Tomasz Gross is a Polish-American historian and sociologist. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society and Professor of History at Princeton University.- Biography :Jan T...
cite the figures originating from Dobroszycki's 1973 work. Dobroszycki wrote that "according to general estimates 1500 Jews lost their lives in Poland from liberation until the summer of 1947", but Jan Gross, the author who cites Dobroszycki, says that only a fraction of these deaths can be attributed to antisemitism and that most were due to general post war disorder, political violence and banditry. David Engel of New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
stated that Dobroszycki "offered no reference for such 'general estimates'" which "have not been confirmed by any other investigator" and "no proof-text for this figure" exists, not even a smaller one of 1000 claimed by Gutman. Engel wrote that "both estimates seem high." Other estimates include those of Anna Cichopek claiming more than 1000 Jews murdered in Poland between 1944 and 1947 while Dr Lidiya Milyakova of Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
placed that number at 1500-1800. Similarly, according to a Jewish historian Stefan Grajek around 1000 Jews were murdered in the first half of year 1946. Polish historian Tadeusz Piotrowski
Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)
Tadeusz Piotrowski or Thaddeus Piotrowski is a Polish-American sociologist. He is a Professor of Sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire at Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he lives....
cites 1500-2000 victims between the years 1944 and 1947 due to general civil strife that came about with Soviet consolidation of power, constituting 2 to 3 percent of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country.
In the Yad Vashem Studies report, Holocaust scholar David Engel
David Engel
David Engel is an American historian and Professor of Holocaust and Judaic Studies at New York University. Dr. Engel holds a Ph.D...
writes
"[Dobroszycki] did not report the results of that analysis except in the most general terms, nor did he indicate the specific sources from which he had compiled his list of cases. Nevertheless, a separate, systematic examination of the relevant files in the archive of the Polish Ministry of Public Administration, supplemented by reports prepared by the United States embassy in Warsaw and by Jewish sources in Poland, as well as by bulletins published by the Central Committee of Polish Jews and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, has lent credibility to Dobroszycki's claim: it has turned up more or less detailed descriptions of 130 incidents in 102 locations between September 1944 and September 1946, in which 327 Jews lost their lives."
The data from the Yad Vashem study are reproduced in the table below.
Engel wrote that the compilation of cases is not exhaustive, suggesting that cases of anti-Jewish violence were selectively reported and recorded, and that there was no centralized, systematic effort record these cases. He cites numerous incidental reports of killings of Jews that for which no official reporting has survived. He concludes that these figures have "obvious weaknesses" and that the detailed records used to compile them are clearly deficient and lacking data from Białystok region. For example, Engel cites one source that shows a total of 108 Jewish deaths during March 1945, and another source that shows 351 deaths between November 1944 and December 1945.
| Białystok | Kielce | Kraków | Lublin | Łódź | Rzeszów | Warsaw | Other | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept 1944 | . | . | . | . | . | . | 1 | . | 1 |
| Oct Nov Dec |
. . . |
. . . |
. . . |
6 . . |
. . . |
. . . |
. . . |
. . . |
6 0 0 |
| Jan 1945 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 0 |
| Feb Mar Apr May |
. . . . |
. . 15 1 |
. . . 1 |
. 7 3 2 |
. . . 8 |
. . . . |
. . 3 3 |
. . 2 . |
0 7 23 15 |
| End of World War II in Europe End of World War II in Europe The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Western Allies and the Soviet Union took place in late April and early May 1945.-Timeline of surrenders and deaths:... |
|||||||||
| Jun Jul Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec |
. . . . . . . |
17 3 8 3 . . . |
. . 1 . . . . |
15 . 3 . . . 3 |
3 5 1 . . . . |
4 . 19 . . . . |
6 . 11 . . . . |
7 . 4 . . . . |
52 8 47 3 0 0 3 |
| Jan 1946 | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 1 | 1 |
| Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sept |
. . 3 . . . . . |
2 . 2 2 . 51 . . |
4 . 20 11 9 . . . |
7 12 . . 5 . . 3 |
5 . 2 . 1 . . . |
. . . . . . . . |
. . . . . 3 . . |
5 . 5 2 3 . . 1 |
22 16 32 15 18 54 0 4 |
| Total | 3 | 104 | 46 | 66 | 28 | 23 | 27 | 30 | 327 |