The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
was home to the largest and most significant
Ashkenazi Jew
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
ish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of
Jewish culture
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewi ...
, because of the long period of statutory
religious tolerance
Religious toleration may signify "no more than forbearance and the permission given by the adherents of a dominant religion for other religions to exist, even though the latter are looked on with disapproval as inferior, mistaken, or harmful". ...
and
social autonomy which ended after the
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
in the 18th century. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
there was a nearly complete
genocidal
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
destruction of the Polish Jewish community by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and its collaborators of various nationalities, during the
German occupation of Poland
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
between 1939 and 1945, called the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. Since the
fall of communism in Poland
Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( South ...
, there has been a renewed interest in Jewish culture, featuring an annual
Jewish Culture Festival
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, new study programs at Polish secondary schools and universities, and the opening of
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
's
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...
.
From the founding of the
Kingdom of Poland
The Kingdom of Poland ( pl, Królestwo Polskie; Latin: ''Regnum Poloniae'') was a state in Central Europe. It may refer to:
Historical political entities
*Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031
*Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom exist ...
in 1025 until the early years of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe.
Historians have used the label ''
paradisus iudaeorum'' (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "
Paradise
In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradis ...
of the Jews").
[Engel, David. "On Reconciling the Histories of Two Chosen Peoples." The American Historical Review 114.4 (2009): 914-929.] Poland became a shelter for Jews persecuted and expelled from various European countries and the home to the world's largest Jewish community of the time. According to some sources, about three-quarters of the world's Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century.
With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife (due to the
Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
and
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...
), Poland's traditional tolerance
began to wane from the 17th century.
After the
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
in 1795 and the destruction of Poland as a
sovereign state
A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a polity, political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defin ...
, Polish Jews became subject to the laws of the partitioning powers, including the increasingly
antisemitic Russian Empire,
as well as
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
and
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...
(later a part of the
German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
). Still, as Poland regained independence in the
aftermath of World War I
The aftermath of World War I saw drastic political, cultural, economic, and social change across Eurasia, Africa, and even in areas outside those that were directly involved. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old countries were abolished, ne ...
, it was the center of the European Jewish world with one of the world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million.
Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
was a growing problem throughout Europe in those years, from both the political establishment and the general population.
Throughout the
interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
, Poland supported Jewish emigration from Poland and, on the international arena, the creation of a Jewish state in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
. The Polish state also supported Jewish paramilitary groups such as the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
,
Betar
The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...
, and
Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
, providing them with weapons and training.
In 1939 at the start of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Poland was partitioned between
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
(see
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
, long_name = Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
, image = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H27337, Moskau, Stalin und Ribbentrop im Kreml.jpg
, image_width = 200
, caption = Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking ...
). One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in
The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.
Although the Holocaust occurred largely in
German-occupied Poland
German-occupied Poland during World War II consisted of two major parts with different types of administration.
The Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany following the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II—nearly a quarter of the ...
, there was little collaboration with the Nazis by its citizens. Collaboration by individual Poles has been described as smaller than in other occupied countries.
Examples of Polish attitudes to German atrocities varied widely, from
actively risking death in order to save Jewish lives, and passive refusal to inform on them, to indifference, blackmail,
and in extreme cases, participation in pogroms such as the
Jedwabne pogrom
The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom ...
.
In the post-war period, many of the approximately 200,000 Jewish survivors registered at
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, ( pl, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce, yi, צענטראלער קאמיטעט פון די יידן אין פוילן, trans ...
or CKŻP (of whom 136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union)
left the
Polish People’s Republic
The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near ...
for the nascent
State of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
or
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions,
post-war violence and the hostility of the Communist Party to both religion and private enterprise, but also because in 1946–1947 Poland was the only
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
country to allow free Jewish
aliyah
Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the Israel, State of Israel ...
to Israel,
without visas or exit permits.
Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in late 1968 as the result of the
"anti-Zionist" campaign. After the
fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized and those who were Polish citizens before World War II were allowed to renew Polish
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
. The contemporary Polish Jewish community is estimated to have between 10,000 and 20,000 members.
The number of people with Jewish heritage of any sort may be several times larger.
Early history to Golden Age: 966–1572
Early history: 966–1385
![Reception of Jews in Poland by Jan Matejko 1889](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Reception_of_Jews_in_Poland_by_Jan_Matejko_1889.png)
The first Jews to visit Polish territory were traders, while permanent settlement began during the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
. Travelling along trade routes leading east to
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
and
Bukhara
Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region.
People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...
, Jewish merchants, known as
Radhanites
The Radhanites or Radanites (; ar, الرذنية, ''ar-Raðaniyya'') were early medieval Jewish merchants, active in the trade between Christendom and the Muslim world during roughly the 8th to 10th centuries.
Many trade routes previously e ...
, crossed
Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
. One of them, a diplomat and merchant from the
Moorish
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or se ...
town of
Tortosa
Tortosa (; ) is the capital of the ''Catalonia/Comarques, comarca'' of Baix Ebre, in Catalonia, Spain.
Tortosa is located at above sea level, by the Ebro river, protected on its northern side by the mountains of the Cardó Massif, of which Buin ...
in Spanish
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...
, known by his Arabic name,
Ibrahim ibn Yaqub
Ibrahim ibn Yaqub ( ar, إبراهيم بن يعقوب ''Ibrâhîm ibn Ya'qûb al-Ṭarṭûshi'' or ''al-Ṭurṭûshî''; he, אברהם בן יעקב, ''Avraham ben Yaʿakov''; 961–62) was a tenth-century Hispano-Arabic, Sephardi Jewish t ...
, was the first chronicler to mention the Polish state ruled by Prince
Mieszko I
Mieszko I (; – 25 May 992) was the first ruler of Poland and the founder of the first independent Polish state, the Duchy of Poland. His reign stretched from 960 to his death and he was a member of the Piast dynasty, a son of Siemomysł and ...
. In the summer of 965 or 966, Jacob made a trade and diplomatic journey from his native
Toledo in Muslim Spain to the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
and then to the Slavic countries.
The first actual mention of Jews in Polish chronicles occurs in the 11th century, where it appears that Jews then lived in
Gniezno
Gniezno (; german: Gnesen; la, Gnesna) is a city in central-western Poland, about east of Poznań. Its population in 2021 was 66,769, making it the sixth-largest city in the Greater Poland Voivodeship. One of the Piast dynasty's chief cities, ...
, at that time the capital of the
Polish kingdom of the
Piast dynasty
The House of Piast was the first historical ruling dynasty of Poland. The first documented Polish monarch was Duke Mieszko I (c. 930–992). The Piasts' royal rule in Poland ended in 1370 with the death of king Casimir III the Great.
Branch ...
. Among the first Jews to arrive in Poland in 1097 or 1098 were those banished from
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
.
[ The first permanent Jewish community is mentioned in 1085 by a Jewish scholar Jehuda ha-Kohen in the city of ]Przemyśl
Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...
.
As elsewhere in Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
, the principal activity of Jews in medieval Poland
This article covers the history of Poland in the Middle Ages. This time covers roughly a millennium, from the 5th century to the 16th century. It is commonly dated from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and contrasted with a later Early Modern ...
was commerce and trade, including the export and import of goods such as cloth, linen, furs, hides, wax, metal objects, and slaves.
The first extensive Jewish migration from Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
to Poland occurred at the time of the First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
in 1098. Under Bolesław III Boleslav or Bolesław may refer to:
In people:
* Boleslaw (given name)
In geography:
* Bolesław, Dąbrowa County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland
* Bolesław, Olkusz County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland
* Bolesław, Silesian Voivodeship, ...
(1102–1139), Jews, encouraged by the tolerant regime of this ruler, settled throughout Poland, including over the border in Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
n territory as far as Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
. Bolesław III recognized the utility of Jews in the development of the commercial interests of his country. Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish economy. Mieszko III
Mieszko III the Old (c. 1126/27 – 13 March 1202), of the Piast dynasty, was Duke of Greater Poland from 1138 and High Duke of Poland, with interruptions, from 1173 until his death.
He was the fourth and second surviving son of Duke Bolesław I ...
employed Jews in his mint as engravers and technical supervisors, and the coins
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...
minted during that period even bear Hebraic markings.[ Jews worked on commission for the mints of other contemporary Polish princes, including ]Casimir the Just
Casimir II the Just ( pl, Kazimierz II Sprawiedliwy; 28 October 1138 – 5 May 1194) was a Lesser Polish Duke of Wiślica from 1166–1173, and of Sandomierz after 1173. He became ruler over the Polish Seniorate Province at Kraków and thereby Hi ...
, Bolesław I the Tall
Bolesław I the Tall ( pl, Bolesław I Wysoki) (born 1127 – died Leśnica (now part of Wrocław), 7 or 8 December 1201) was Duke of Wroclaw from 1163 until his death in 1201.
Early years
He was the eldest son of Władysław II the Exile by ...
and Władysław III Spindleshanks : ''This article refers to the 12th-century Polish monarch. For the 15th-century Jagiellon monarch, see Władysław III of Poland, and for other monarchs with similar names see Ladislaus III (disambiguation)''.
Władysław III Spindleshanks ( pl, W ...
.[ Jews enjoyed undisturbed peace and prosperity in the many principalities into which the country was then divided; they formed the middle class in a country where the general population consisted of ]landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the ...
s (developing into ''szlachta
The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...
'', the unique Polish nobility) and peasants, and they were instrumental in promoting the commercial interests of the land.
Another factor for the Jews to emigrate to Poland was the Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg rights (german: Magdeburger Recht; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within ...
(or Magdeburg Law), a charter given to Jews, among others, that specifically outlined the rights and privileges that Jews had in Poland. For example, they could define their neighborhoods and economic competitors and set up monopolies. This made it very attractive for Jewish communities to pick up and move to Poland.
The first mention of Jewish settlers in Płock
Płock (pronounced ) is a city in central Poland, on the Vistula river, in the Masovian Voivodeship. According to the data provided by GUS on 31 December 2021, there were 116,962 inhabitants in the city. Its full ceremonial name, according to the ...
dates from 1237, in Kalisz from 1287 and a Żydowska (Jewish) street in Kraków in 1304.[
The tolerant situation was gradually altered by the ]Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
on the one hand, and by the neighboring German states on the other. There were, however, among the reigning princes some determined protectors of the Jewish inhabitants, who considered the presence of the latter most desirable as far as the economic development of the country was concerned. Prominent among such rulers was Bolesław the Pious
Bolesław the Pious (1224/27 – 14 April 1279) was a Duke of Greater Poland during 1239–1247 (according to some historians during 1239–1241 sole Duke of Ujście), Duke of Kalisz during 1247–1249, Duke of Gniezno during 1249–1250, Duke o ...
of Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town
, image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...
, Prince of Great Poland
Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city ...
. With the consent of the class representatives and higher officials, in 1264 he issued a General Charter of Jewish Liberties (commonly called the Statute of Kalisz
The General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz, and the Kalisz Privilege, granted Jews in the Middle Ages special protection and positive discrimination in Poland when they were being persecuted in Western Europe. These r ...
), which granted all Jews the freedom of worship, trade and travel. Similar privileges were granted to the Silesian Jews by the local princes, Prince Henry Probus of Wrocław in 1273–90, Henry of Glogow in 1274 and 1299, Henry of Legnica in 1290 – 95 and Bolko of Legnica and Wrocław in 1295.[ Article 31 of the Statute of Kalisz tried to rein in the Catholic Church from disseminating ]blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mur ...
s against the Jews, by stating: "Accusing Jews of drinking Christian blood is expressly prohibited. If despite this a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews."
During the next hundred years, the Church pushed for the persecution of Jews while the rulers of Poland usually protected them. The Councils of Wrocław (1267), Buda (1279), and Łęczyca (1285) each segregated Jews, ordered them to wear a special emblem, banned them from holding offices where Christians would be subordinated to them, and forbade them from building more than one prayer house in each town. However, those church decrees required the cooperation of the Polish princes for enforcement, which was generally not forthcoming, due to the profits which the Jews' economic activity yielded to the princes.[
]
In 1332, King Casimir III the Great
Casimir III the Great ( pl, Kazimierz III Wielki; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) reigned as the King of Poland from 1333 to 1370. He also later became King of Ruthenia in 1340, and fought to retain the title in the Galicia-Volhynia Wars. He w ...
(1303–1370) amplified and expanded Bolesław's old charter with the Wiślicki Statute
Statutes of Casimir the Great or Piotrków-Wiślica Statutes ( pl, Statuty wiślicko-piotrkowskie) - a collection of laws issued by Casimir III the Great, the king of Poland, in the years 1346-1362 during congresses in Piotrków and Wiślica. I ...
. Under his reign, streams of Jewish immigrants headed east to Poland and Jewish settlements are first mentioned as existing in Lvov
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in Western Ukraine, western Ukraine, and the List of cities in Ukraine, seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is o ...
(1356), Sandomierz
Sandomierz (pronounced: ; la, Sandomiria) is a historic town in south-eastern Poland with 23,863 inhabitants (as of 2017), situated on the Vistula River in the Sandomierz Basin. It has been part of Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship (Holy Cross Provi ...
(1367), and Kazimierz
Kazimierz (; la, Casimiria; yi, קוזמיר, Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the ...
near Kraków (1386).[ Casimir, who according to a legend had a Jewish lover named ]Esterka
Esterka (Estera) refers to a mythical Jewish mistress of Casimir the Great, the historical King of Poland who reigned between 1333 and 1370. Medieval Polish and Jewish chroniclers considered the legend as historical fact and report a wonderful l ...
from Opoczno
Opoczno ) is a town in south-central Poland, in eastern part of Łódź Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Piotrków Trybunalski Voivodeship (1975–1998). It has a long and rich history, and in the past it used to be one of the most importa ...
was especially friendly to the Jews, and his reign is regarded as an era of great prosperity for Polish Jewry, and was nicknamed by his contemporaries "King of the serf
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...
s and Jews." Under penalty of death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
cemeteries
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
. Nevertheless, while for the greater part of Casimir's reign Jews of Poland enjoyed tranquility, toward its close they were subjected to persecution on account of the Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
. In 1348, the first blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mur ...
accusation against Jews in Poland was recorded, and in 1367 the first pogrom took place in Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
. Compared with the pitiless destruction of their co-religionists in Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
, however, Polish Jews did not fare badly; and the Jewish masses of Germany fled to the more hospitable cities in Poland.
The early Jagiellon era: 1385–1505
As a result of the marriage of Wladislaus II (Jagiełło) to Jadwiga
Jadwiga (; diminutives: ''Jadzia'' , ''Iga'') is a Polish feminine given name. It originated from the old German feminine given name ''Hedwig'' (variants of which include ''Hedwiga''), which is compounded from ''hadu'', "battle", and ''wig'', "fig ...
, daughter of Louis I of Hungary
Louis I, also Louis the Great ( hu, Nagy Lajos; hr, Ludovik Veliki; sk, Ľudovít Veľký) or Louis the Hungarian ( pl, Ludwik Węgierski; 5 March 132610 September 1382), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 and King of Poland from 1370 ...
, Lithuania was united with the kingdom of Poland. In , broad privileges were extended to Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas ...
including freedom of religion and commerce on equal terms with the Christians. Under the rule of Wladislaus II, Polish Jews had increased in numbers and attained prosperity. However, religious persecution gradually increased, as the dogmatic clergy pushed for less official tolerance, pressured by the Synod of Constance
A synod () is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word ''synod'' comes from the meaning "assembly" or "meeting" and is analogous with the Latin word meani ...
. In 1349 pogroms took place in many towns in Silesia.[ There were accusations of ]blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mur ...
by the priests, and new riots against the Jews in Poznań in 1399. Accusations of blood libel by another fanatic priest led to the riots in Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
in 1407, although the royal guard hastened to the rescue. Hysteria caused by Black Death led to additional 14th-century outbreaks of violence against the Jews in Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town
, image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...
, Kraków and Bochnia
Bochnia (german: Salzberg) is a town on the river Raba in southern Poland. The town lies approximately halfway between Tarnów (east) and the regional capital Kraków (west). Bochnia is most noted for its salt mine, the oldest functioning in Eu ...
. Traders and artisans jealous of Jewish prosperity, and fearing their rivalry, supported the harassment. In 1423 the statute of Warka forbade Jews the granting of loans against letters of credit or mortgage and limited their operations exclusively to loans made on security of moveable property.[ In the 14th and 15th centuries rich Jewish merchants and moneylenders leased the royal mint, salt mines and the collecting of customs and tolls. The most famous of them were Jordan and his son Lewko of Kraków in the 14th century and Jakub Slomkowicz of Luck, Wolczko of Drohobycz, Natko of Lvov, Samson of Zydaczow, Josko of Hrubieszow and Szania of Belz in the 15th century. For example, Wolczko of Drohobycz, King Ladislaus Jagiello's broker, was the owner of several villages in the Ruthenian voivodship and the soltys (administrator) of the village of Werbiz. Also, Jews from Grodno were in this period owners of villages, manors, meadows, fish ponds and mills. However, until the end of the 15th century, agriculture as a source of income played only a minor role among Jewish families. More important were crafts for the needs of both their fellow Jews and the Christian population (fur making, tanning, tailoring).][
]
In 1454 anti-Jewish riots flared up in Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
's ethnically-German Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
and other Silesia
Silesia (, also , ) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at around 8,000,000. Silesia is split ...
n cities, inspired by a Franciscan friar, John of Capistrano
John of Capistrano (''Italian'': San Giovanni da Capestrano, '' Hungarian'': Kapisztrán János, '' Polish'': Jan Kapistran, '' Croatian'': Ivan Kapistran) (24 June 1386 – 23 October 1456) was a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest from the I ...
, who accused Jews of profaning the Christian religion. As a result, Jews were banished from Lower Silesia. Zbigniew Olesnicki then invited John to conduct a similar campaign in Kraków and several other cities, to lesser effect.
The decline in the status of the Jews was briefly checked by Casimir IV the Jagiellonian
Casimir IV (in full Casimir IV Andrew Jagiellon; pl, Kazimierz IV Andrzej Jagiellończyk ; Lithuanian: ; 30 November 1427 – 7 June 1492) was Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1440 and King of Poland from 1447, until his death. He was one of the ...
(1447–1492), but soon the nobility forced him to issue the Statute of Nieszawa The Nieszawa Statutes () were a set of laws enacted in the Kingdom of Poland of the Jagiellons, Kingdom of Poland in 1454, in the town of Nieszawa located in north-central Poland. The King Casimir IV Jagiellon made a number of concessions to the Pol ...
, which, among other things, abolished the ancient privileges of the Jews "as contrary to divine right and the law of the land." Nevertheless, the king continued to offer his protection to the Jews. Two years later Casimir issued another document announcing that he could not deprive the Jews of his benevolence on the basis of "the principle of tolerance which in conformity with God's laws obliged him to protect them". The policy of the government toward the Jews of Poland oscillated under Casimir's sons and successors, John I Albert
John I Albert ( pl, Jan I Olbracht; 27 December 1459 – 17 June 1501) was King of Poland from 1492 until his death in 1501 and Duke of Głogów (Glogau) from 1491 to 1498. He was the fourth Polish sovereign from the Jagiellonian dynasty, the s ...
(1492–1501) and Alexander the Jagiellonian
Alexander Jagiellon ( pl, Aleksander Jagiellończyk, lt, Aleksandras Jogailaitis; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jagi ...
(1501–1506). In 1495, Jews were ordered out of the center of Kraków and allowed to settle in the "Jewish town" of Kazimierz. In the same year, Alexander, when he was the Grand Duke of Lithuania
The monarchy of Lithuania concerned the monarchical head of state of Lithuania, which was established as an absolute and hereditary monarchy. Throughout Lithuania's history there were three ducal dynasties that managed to stay in power—House ...
, followed the 1492 example of Spanish rulers and banished Jews from Lithuania. For several years they took shelter in Poland until he reversed his decision eight years later in 1503 after becoming King of Poland and allowed them back to Lithuania.[ The next year he issued a proclamation in which he stated that a policy of tolerance befitted "kings and rulers".][
]
Center of the Jewish world: 1505–1572
Poland became more tolerant just as the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, as well as from Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, thus stimulating Jewish immigration to the much more accessible Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Poland became the recognized haven for exiles from Western Europe; and the resulting accession to the ranks of Polish Jewry made it the cultural and spiritual center of the Jewish people.
The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with the reign of Sigismund I the Old
Sigismund I the Old ( pl, Zygmunt I Stary, lt, Žygimantas II Senasis; 1 January 1467 – 1 April 1548) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until his death in 1548. Sigismund I was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty, the ...
(1506–1548), who protected the Jews in his realm. His son, Sigismund II Augustus
Sigismund II Augustus ( pl, Zygmunt II August, lt, Žygimantas Augustas; 1 August 1520 – 7 July 1572) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the son of Sigismund I the Old, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548. He was the first ruler ...
(1548–1572), mainly followed his father's tolerant policy and also granted communal-administration autonomy to the Jews and laid the foundation for the power of the ''Qahal
The ''qahal'' ( he, קהל) was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society according to the Hebrew Bible. See column345-6 The Ashkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community or kehila from medieval Christian Europe ...
'', or autonomous Jewish community. This period led to the creation of a proverb about Poland being a "heaven for the Jews". According to some sources, about three-quarters of all Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century. In the 16h and 17th centuries, Poland welcomed Jewish immigrants from Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, as well as Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
and Romaniote Jews
The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes ( el, Ῥωμανιῶτες, ''Rhomaniótes''; he, רומניוטים, Romanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community native to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are one of the oldest Jewish comm ...
migrating there from the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
. Arabic-speaking Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
and Persian Jews
Persian Jews or Iranian Jews ( fa, یهودیان ایرانی, ''yahudiān-e-Irāni''; he, יהודים פרסים ''Yəhūdīm Parsīm'') are the descendants of Jews who were historically associated with the Persian Empire, whose successor ...
also migrated to Poland during this time. Jewish religious life thrived in many Polish communities. In 1503, the Polish monarchy appointed Rabbi Jacob Pollak
Rabbi Jacob Pollak (other common spelling Yaakov Pollack), son of Rabbi Joseph, was the founder of the Polish method of halakhic and Talmudic study known as the Pilpul.
Biography
He was born about 1460 or 1470 in Poland, and died at Lublin in ...
the first official Rabbi of Poland. By 1551, Jews were given permission to choose their own Chief Rabbi. The Chief Rabbinate held power over law and finance, appointing judges and other officials. Some power was shared with local councils. The Polish government permitted the Rabbinate to grow in power, to use it for tax collection purposes. Only 30% of the money raised by the Rabbinate served Jewish causes, the rest went to the Crown for protection. In this period Poland-Lithuania became the main center for Ashkenazi Jew
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
ry and its ''yeshivot
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish education, Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish p ...
'' achieved fame from the early 16th century.
Moses Isserles
). He is not to be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as "Ramah" ( he, רמ״ה, italic=no, links=no), nor with Menahem Azariah da Fano, known as "Rema MiPano" ( he, רמ״ע מפאנו, italic=no, links=no).
Rabbi Moses Isserles ( he, משה ...
(1520–1572), an eminent Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ist of the 16th century, established his yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are s ...
in Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
. In addition to being a renowned Talmudic and legal scholar
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, Isserles was also learned in Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
, and studied history, astronomy, and philosophy. The Remuh Synagogue
The Remah Synagogue ( pl, Synagoga Remu) is a 16th-century Jewish temple and the smallest of all historic synagogues in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, Poland. The synagogue is named after Rabbi Moses Isserles (c.1525–1572), known by the Hebr ...
was built for him in 1557. ''Rema'' (רמ״א) is the Hebrew acronym for his name.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: 1572–1795
After the childless death of Sigismund II Augustus
Sigismund II Augustus ( pl, Zygmunt II August, lt, Žygimantas Augustas; 1 August 1520 – 7 July 1572) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the son of Sigismund I the Old, whom Sigismund II succeeded in 1548. He was the first ruler ...
, the last king of the Jagiellon dynasty
The Jagiellonian dynasty (, pl, dynastia jagiellońska), otherwise the Jagiellon dynasty ( pl, dynastia Jagiellonów), the House of Jagiellon ( pl, Dom Jagiellonów), or simply the Jagiellons ( pl, Jagiellonowie), was the name assumed by a cad ...
, Polish and Lithuanian nobles (szlachta
The ''szlachta'' (Polish: endonym, Lithuanian: šlėkta) were the noble estate of the realm in the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who, as a class, had the dominating position in the ...
) gathered at Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
in 1573 and signed a document in which representatives of all major religions pledged mutual support and tolerance. The following eight or nine decades of material prosperity and relative security experienced by Polish Jews – wrote Professor Gershon Hundert
Gershon David Hundert (born 1946) is a Canadian historian of Early Modern Polish Jewry and Leanor Segal Professor at McGill University.
Biography
Born to a Jewish family in Toronto, Hundert is one of the three sons of Charles and Norma Hunder ...
– witnessed the appearance of "a virtual galaxy of sparkling intellectual figures." Jewish academies were established in Lublin, Kraków, Brześć (Brisk), Lwów, Ostróg and other towns. Poland-Lithuania was the only country in Europe where the Jews cultivated their own farmer's fields. The central autonomous body that regulated Jewish life in Poland from the middle of the 16th to mid-18th century was known as the Council of Four Lands
The Council of Four Lands ( he, ועד ארבע ארצות, ''Va'ad Arba' Aratzot'') in Lublin, Poland was the central body of Jewish authority in Poland from the second half of the 16th century to 1764. The first known regulation for the Council ...
.
Decline
In 1648, the multi-ethnic Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the country lost over a third of its population (over three million people). The Jewish losses were counted in the hundreds of thousands. The first of these large-scale atrocities was the Khmelnytsky Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising,; in Ukraine known as Khmelʹnychchyna or uk, повстання Богдана Хмельницького; lt, Chmelnickio sukilimas; Belarusian language, Belarusian: Паўстанне Багдана Хмяльніц ...
, in which Bohdan Khmelnytsky
Bohdan Zynovii Mykhailovych Khmelnytskyi ( Ruthenian: Ѕѣнові Богданъ Хмелнiцкiи; modern ua, Богдан Зиновій Михайлович Хмельницький; 6 August 1657) was a Ukrainian military commander and ...
's Ukrainian Cossack
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
s massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Catholic Poles in the eastern and southern areas of Polish-occupied Ukraine. The precise number of dead is not known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during this period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and ''jasyr
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was a lawful institution and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy and traditional society. The main sources of slaves were wars and politically organized enslavement expeditions in the Caucasus, Easte ...
'' (captivity in the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
). The Jewish community suffered greatly during the 1648 Ukrainian Cossack uprising which had been directed primarily against the Polish nobility and landlords. The Jews, perceived as allies of the Poles, were also victims of the revolt, during which about 20% of them were killed.
Ruled by the elected kings of the House of Vasa
The House of Vasa or Wasa Georg Starbäck in ''Berättelser ur Sweriges Medeltid, Tredje Bandet'' pp 264, 275, 278, 291–296 & 321 ( sv, Vasaätten, pl, Wazowie, lt, Vazos) was an early modern royal house founded in 1523 in Sweden. Its memb ...
since 1587, the embattled Commonwealth was invaded by the Swedish Empire
The Swedish Empire was a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries ( sv, Stormaktstiden, "the Era of Great Power"). The beginning of the empire is usually ta ...
in 1655 in what became known as the Deluge
The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre- creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the microc ...
. The kingdom of Poland which had already suffered from the Khmelnytsky Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising,; in Ukraine known as Khmelʹnychchyna or uk, повстання Богдана Хмельницького; lt, Chmelnickio sukilimas; Belarusian language, Belarusian: Паўстанне Багдана Хмяльніц ...
and from the recurring invasions of the Russians, Crimean Tatars
, flag = Flag of the Crimean Tatar people.svg
, flag_caption = Flag of Crimean Tatars
, image = Love, Peace, Traditions.jpg
, caption = Crimean Tatars in traditional clothing in front of the Khan's Palace
...
and Ottomans
The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922).
Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...
, became the scene of even more atrocities. Charles X of Sweden
Charles X Gustav, also Carl Gustav ( sv, Karl X Gustav; 8 November 1622 – 13 February 1660), was King of Sweden from 1654 until his death. He was the son of John Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg and Catherine of Sweden. Afte ...
, at the head of his victorious army, overran the cities of Kraków and Warsaw. The amount of destruction, pillage and methodical plunder during the Siege of Kraków (1657)
The siege of Kraków was one of the military conflicts of the Swedish and Transylvanian invasion of Poland, which took place in the summer of 1657. The royal city of Kraków, had been occupied for two years by a Swedish-Transylvanian garrison l ...
was so enormous that parts the city never again recovered. The Polish general Stefan Czarniecki
Stefan Czarniecki (Polish: of the Łodzia coat of arms, 1599 – 16 February 1665) was a Polish nobleman, general and military commander. In his career, he rose from a petty nobleman to a magnate holding one of the highest offices in the Commo ...
defeated the Swedes in 1660. He was equally successful in his battles against the Russians. Meanwhile, the horrors of the war were aggravated by pestilence. Many Jews along with the townsfolk of Kalisz
(The oldest city of Poland)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = ''Top:'' Town Hall, Former "Calisia" Piano Factory''Middle:'' Courthouse, "Gołębnik" tenement''Bottom:'' Aerial view of the Kalisz Old Town
, image_flag = POL Kalisz flag.svg ...
, Kraków, Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, Piotrków and Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...
fell victim to recurring epidemics.[Dariusz Milewski]
Szwedzi w Krakowie (The Swedes in Krakow)
''Mówią Wieki
''Mówią Wieki'' (meaning ''Centuries Speak'' in English) is a monthly popular science and history magazine published in Poland since 1958.
Editors in chief:
* Maria Bogucka (1958–1976)
* Bożena Krzywobłocka (1976–1977)
* Eugeniusz Du ...
'' monthly, 8 June 2007, Internet Archive.
As soon as the disturbances had ceased, the Jews began to return and to rebuild their destroyed homes; and while it is true that the Jewish population of Poland had decreased, it still was more numerous than that of the Jewish colonies in Western Europe. Poland continued to be the spiritual center of Judaism. Through 1698, the Polish kings generally remained supportive of the Jews. Although Jewish losses in those events were high, the Commonwealth lost one-third of its population – approximately three million of its citizens.
The environment of the Polish Commonwealth, according to Hundert, profoundly affected Jews due to genuinely positive encounter with the Christian culture across the many cities and towns owned by the Polish aristocracy. There was no isolation. The Jewish dress resembled that of their Polish neighbor. "Reports of romances, of drinking together in taverns, and of intellectual conversations are quite abundant." Wealthy Jews had Polish noblemen at their table, and served meals on silver plates. By 1764, there were about 750,000 Jews in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
. The worldwide Jewish population at that time was estimated at 1.2 million.
In 1768, the Koliyivshchyna
The Koliivshchyna ( uk, Коліївщина, pl, koliszczyzna) was a major haidamaky rebellion that broke out in Right-bank Ukraine in June 1768, caused by money (Dutch ducats coined in Saint Petersburg) sent by Russia to Ukraine to pay for t ...
rebellion west of the Dnieper
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and B ...
river in Volhynia
Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...
led to ferocious murders of Polish noblemen, Catholic priests and thousands of Jews by the Ukrainian Haidamaka
The haidamakas, also haidamaky or haidamaks (singular ''haidamaka'', ua, Гайдамаки, ''Haidamaky'') were Ukrainian paramilitary outfits composed of commoners (peasants, craftsmen), and impoverished noblemen in the eastern part of the ...
Cossacks. Four years later, in 1772, the military Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
had begun between Russia, Prussia and Austria.
The development of Judaism in Poland and the Commonwealth
The culture and intellectual output of the Jewish community in Poland had a profound impact on Judaism as a whole. Some Jewish historians have recounted that the word Poland is pronounced as ''Polania'' or ''Polin'' in Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, and as transliterated
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...
into Hebrew, these names for Poland were interpreted as "good omens" because ''Polania'' can be broken down into three Hebrew words: ''po'' ("here"), ''lan'' ("dwells"), ''ya'' ("God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
"), and ''Polin'' into two words of: ''po'' ("here") ''lin'' (" ou shoulddwell"). The "message" was that Poland was meant to be a good place for the Jews. During the time from the rule of Sigismund I the Old
Sigismund I the Old ( pl, Zygmunt I Stary, lt, Žygimantas II Senasis; 1 January 1467 – 1 April 1548) was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1506 until his death in 1548. Sigismund I was a member of the Jagiellonian dynasty, the ...
until the Nazi Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life. Many agreed with Rabbi David ben Shemu’el ha-Levi (Taz) that Poland was a place where "most of the time the gentiles do no harm; on the contrary they do right by Israel" (''Divre David;'' 1689).
Jewish learning
''Yeshivot
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish education, Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish p ...
'' were established, under the direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as gymnasiums, and their rabbi principals as rectors. Important ''yeshivot'' existed in Kraków, Poznań, and other cities. Jewish printing establishments came into existence in the first quarter of the 16th century. In 1530 a Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
Pentateuch
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...
(Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
) was printed in Kraków; and at the end of the century the Jewish printing houses of that city and Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...
issued a large number of Jewish books, mainly of a religious character. The growth of Talmudic scholarship in Poland was coincident with the greater prosperity of the Polish Jews; and because of their communal autonomy educational development was wholly one-sided and along Talmudic lines. Exceptions are recorded, however, where Jewish youth sought secular instruction in the European universities. The learned rabbis became not merely expounders of the Law, but also spiritual advisers, teachers, judges, and legislators; and their authority compelled the communal leaders to make themselves familiar with the abstruse questions of Jewish law
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws which is derived from the Torah, written and Oral Tora ...
. Polish Jewry found its views of life shaped by the spirit of Talmudic and rabbinical literature, whose influence was felt in the home, in school, and in the synagogue.
In the first half of the 16th century the seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
, particularly from the school of Jacob Pollak
Rabbi Jacob Pollak (other common spelling Yaakov Pollack), son of Rabbi Joseph, was the founder of the Polish method of halakhic and Talmudic study known as the Pilpul.
Biography
He was born about 1460 or 1470 in Poland, and died at Lublin in ...
, the creator of ''Pilpul
''Pilpul'' ( he, פלפול, loosely meaning 'sharp analysis'; ) is a method of studying the Talmud through intense textual analysis in attempts to either explain conceptual differences between various halakhic rulings or to reconcile any appare ...
'' ("sharp reasoning"). Shalom Shachna
Shalom Shachna ( 1510 – 1558) was a rabbi and Talmudist, and Rosh yeshiva of several great Acharonim including Moses Isserles, who was also his son-in-law.
Biography
Shachna was a pupil of Jacob Pollak, founder of the method of Talmudic study ...
(c. 1500–1558), a pupil of Pollak, is counted among the pioneers of Talmudic learning in Poland. He lived and died in Lublin
Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...
, where he was the head of the ''yeshivah'' which produced the rabbinical celebrities of the following century. Shachna's son Israel became rabbi of Lublin on the death of his father, and Shachna's pupil Moses Isserles
). He is not to be confused with Meir Abulafia, known as "Ramah" ( he, רמ״ה, italic=no, links=no), nor with Menahem Azariah da Fano, known as "Rema MiPano" ( he, רמ״ע מפאנו, italic=no, links=no).
Rabbi Moses Isserles ( he, משה ...
(known as the ''ReMA'') (1520–1572) achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the co-author of the ''Shulkhan Arukh
The ''Shulchan Aruch'' ( he, שֻׁלְחָן עָרוּך , literally: "Set Table"), sometimes dubbed in English as the Code of Jewish Law, is the most widely consulted of the various legal codes in Judaism. It was authored in Safed (today in Is ...
'', (the "Code of Jewish Law"). His contemporary and correspondent Solomon Luria
Solomon Luria (1510 – November 7, 1573) ( he, שלמה לוריא) was one of the great Ashkenazic ''poskim'' (decisors of Jewish law) and teachers of his time. He is known for his work of Halakha, ''Yam Shel Shlomo'', and his Talmudic commen ...
(1510–1573) of Lublin also enjoyed a wide reputation among his co-religionists; and the authority of both was recognized by the Jews throughout Europe. Heated religious disputations were common, and Jewish scholars participated in them. At the same time, the ''Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
'' had become entrenched under the protection of Rabbinism; and such scholars as Mordecai Jaffe
Mordecai ben Avraham Yoffe (or Jaffe or Joffe) ( 1530 – 7 March 1612; Hebrew: מרדכי בן אברהם יפה) was a Rabbi, Rosh yeshiva and posek. He is best known as author of ''Levush Malkhus'', a ten-volume codification of Jewish law tha ...
and Yoel Sirkis
Joel ben Samuel Sirkis (Hebrew: רבי יואל בן שמואל סירקיש; born 1561 - March 14, 1640) also known as the Bach (an abbreviation of his magnum opus BAyit CHadash), was a prominent Ashkenazi posek and halakhist, who lived in centra ...
devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the Chmielnicki Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising,; in Ukraine known as Khmelʹnychchyna or uk, повстання Богдана Хмельницького; lt, Chmelnickio sukilimas; Belarusian: Паўстанне Багдана Хмяльніцкага; russian: ...
and The Deluge
The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre- creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the microc ...
.
The rise of Hasidism
The decade from the Cossacks' uprising until after the Swedish war (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the people became accessible to a limited number of students only. What religious study there was became overly formalized, some rabbis busied themselves with quibbles concerning religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised and discussed; and at times these arguments dealt with matters which were of no practical importance. At the same time, many miracle-workers made their appearance among the Jews of Poland, culminating in a series of false "Messianic" movements, most famously as Sabbatianism was succeeded by Frankism
Frankism was a heretical Sabbatean Jewish religious movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, centered on the leadership of the Jewish Messiah claimant Jacob Frank, who lived from 1726 to 1791. Frank rejected religious norms and said that his f ...
.
In this time of mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
and overly formal Rabbinism came the teachings of Israel ben Eliezer
Israel ben Eliezer (1698 – 22 May 1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov ( he, בעל שם טוב, ) or as the Besht, was a Jewish mystic and healer who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism. "Besht" is the acronym for Baal Shem Tov, which ...
, known as the ''Baal Shem Tov'', or ''BeShT'', (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
and Poland in particular. His disciples taught and encouraged the new fervent brand of Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
based on ''Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
'' known as Hasidism
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
. The rise of Hasidic Judaism within Poland's borders and beyond had a great influence on the rise of Haredi Judaism
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
all over the world, with a continuous influence through its many Hasidic dynasties
A Hasidic dynasty is a dynasty led by Hasidic Jewish spiritual leaders known as rebbes, and usually has some or all of the following characteristics:
* Each leader of the dynasty is often known as an ''ADMOR'' (abbreviation for '' ADoneinu MOr ...
including those of Chabad-Lubavitch
Chabad, also known as Lubavitch, Habad and Chabad-Lubavitch (), is an Orthodox Jewish Hasidic dynasty. Chabad is one of the world's best-known Hasidic movements, particularly for its outreach activities. It is one of the largest Hasidic group ...
, Aleksander, Bobov
Bobov (or Bobover Hasidism) ( he, חסידות באבוב, yi, בּאָבּאָװ) is a Hasidic community within Haredi Judaism, originating in Bobowa, Galicia, in southern Poland, and now headquartered in the neighborhood of Borough Park, in Br ...
, Ger, Nadvorna, among others.
The Partitions of Poland
In 1742 most of Silesia was lost to Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
. Further disorder and anarchy reigned supreme in Poland during the second half of the 18th century, from the accession to the throne of its last king, Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski in 1764. His election was bought by Catherine the Great
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
for 2.5 million rubles, with the Russian army stationing only away from Warsaw. Eight years later, triggered by the Confederation of Bar
The Bar Confederation ( pl, Konfederacja barska; 1768–1772) was an association of Poland, Polish nobles (szlachta) formed at the fortress of Bar, Ukraine, Bar in Podolia (now part of Ukraine) in 1768 to defend the internal and external indep ...
against Russian influence and the pro-Russian king, the outlying provinces of Poland were overrun from all sides by different military forces and divided for the first time by the three neighboring empires, Russia, Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, and Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
. The Commonwealth lost 30% of its land during the annexations of 1772, and even more of its peoples. Jews were most numerous in the territories that fell under the military control of Austria and Russia.
The permanent council established at the instance of the Russian government (1773–1788) served as the highest administrative tribunal, and occupied itself with the elaboration of a plan that would make practicable the reorganization of Poland on a more rational basis. The progressive elements in Polish society recognized the urgency of popular education as the very first step toward reform. The famous ''Komisja Edukacji Narodowej
The Commission of National Education ( pl, Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN; lt, Edukacinė komisija) was the central educational authority in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created by the Sejm and King Stanisław II August on October 14 ...
'' ("Commission of National Education"), the first ministry of education in the world, was established in 1773 and founded numerous new schools and remodeled the old ones. One of the members of the commission, ''kanclerz
Chancellor of Poland ( pl, Kanclerz - , from la, cancellarius) was one of the highest officials in the historic Poland. This office functioned from the early Polish kingdom of the 12th century until the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonweal ...
'' Andrzej Zamoyski
Count Andrzej Hieronim Franciszek Zamoyski (12 February 1716 – 10 February 1792) was a Polish noble ( szlachcic). Knight of the Order of the White Eagle, awarded on 3 August 1758 in Warsaw.
He was the 10th Ordynat of the ''Zamość Ordyn ...
, along with others, demanded that the inviolability of their persons and property should be guaranteed and that religious toleration should be to a certain extent granted them; but he insisted that Jews living in the cities should be separated from the Christians, that those of them having no definite occupation should be banished from the kingdom, and that even those engaged in agriculture should not be allowed to possess land. On the other hand, some ''szlachta'' and intellectuals proposed a national system of government, of the civil and political equality of the Jews. This was the only example in modern Europe before the French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
of tolerance and broadmindedness in dealing with the Jewish question. But all these reforms were too late: a Russian army soon invaded Poland, and soon after a Prussian one followed.
A second partition of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
was made on 17 July 1793. Jews, in a Jewish regiment led by Berek Joselewicz, took part in the Kościuszko Uprising
The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794 and the Second Polish War, was an uprising against the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Pr ...
the following year, when the Poles tried to again achieve independence, but were brutally put down. Following the revolt, the third and final partition of Poland took place in 1795. The territories which included the great bulk of the Jewish population was transferred to Russia, and thus they became subjects of that empire, although in the first half of the 19th century some semblance of a vastly smaller Polish state was preserved, especially in the form of the Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
(1815–1831).
Under foreign rule many Jews inhabiting formerly Polish lands were indifferent to Polish aspirations for independence. However, most Polonized Jews supported the revolutionary activities of Polish patriots and participated in national uprisings.[Olaf Bergmann (2015), ''Narodowa demokracja wobec problematyki żydowskiej w latach 1918–1929'', Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, page 16. .] Polish Jews took part in the November Insurrection of 1830–1831, the January Insurrection of 1863, as well as in the revolutionary movement of 1905. Many Polish Jews were enlisted in the Polish Legions, which fought for the Polish independence, achieved in 1918 when the occupying forces disintegrated following World War I.
Jews of Poland within the Russian Empire (1795–1918)
Official Russian policy would eventually prove to be substantially harsher to the Jews than that under independent Polish rule. The lands that had once been Poland were to remain the home of many Jews, as, in 1772, Catherine II
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anha ...
, the ''Tzarina'' of Russia, instituted the Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
, restricting Jews to the western parts of the empire, which would eventually include much of Poland, although it excluded some areas in which Jews had previously lived. By the late 19th century, over four million Jews would live in the Pale.
Tsarist policy towards the Jews of Poland alternated between harsh rules, and inducements meant to break the resistance to large-scale conversion. In 1804, Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I (; – ) was Emperor of Russia from 1801, the first King of Congress Poland from 1815, and the Grand Duke of Finland from 1809 to his death. He was the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.
The son of ...
issued a "Statute Concerning Jews", meant to accelerate the process of assimilation of the Empire's new Jewish population. The Polish Jews were allowed to establish schools with Russian, German or Polish curricula. They could own land in the territories annexed from Poland. However, they were also restricted from leasing property, teaching in Yiddish, and from entering Russia. They were banned from the brewing industry
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cerea ...
. The harshest measures designed to compel Jews to merge into society at large called for their expulsion from small villages, forcing them to move into towns. Once the resettlement began, thousands of Jews lost their only source of income and turned to Qahal
The ''qahal'' ( he, קהל) was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society according to the Hebrew Bible. See column345-6 The Ashkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community or kehila from medieval Christian Europe ...
for support. Their living conditions in the Pale
The Pale (Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast st ...
began to dramatically worsen.
During the reign of Tsar Nicolas I, known by the Jews as "Haman
Haman ( ; also known as Haman the Agagite or Haman the evil) is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who according to the Hebrew Bible was an official in the court of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, commonly identified as Xerxes I ...
the Second", hundreds of new anti-Jewish measures were enacted. The 1827 decree by Nicolas – while lifting the traditional double taxation on Jews in lieu of army service – made Jews subject to general military recruitment laws that required Jewish communities to provide 7 recruits per each 1000 "souls" every 4 years. Unlike the general population that had to provide recruits between the ages of 18 and 35, Jews had to provide recruits between the ages of 12 and 25, at the qahal
The ''qahal'' ( he, קהל) was a theocratic organizational structure in ancient Israelite society according to the Hebrew Bible. See column345-6 The Ashkenazi Jewish system of a self-governing community or kehila from medieval Christian Europe ...
's discretion. Thus between 1827 and 1857 over 30,000 children were placed in the so-called Cantonist
Cantonists (Russian language: кантонисты; more properly: военные кантонисты, "military cantonists") were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "canton schools" (К ...
schools, where they were pressured to convert. "Many children were smuggled to Poland, where the conscription of Jews did not take effect until 1844."
Pale of Settlement
The ''Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
'' (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, , yi, תּחום-המושבֿ, , he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ) was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
in which permanent residency by Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern ''pale'', or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...
(later the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
) and with Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
.
The archaic English term ''pale'' is derived from the Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word , a stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary.
With its large Catholic and Jewish populations, the Pale was acquired by the Russian Empire (which was a majority Russian Orthodox
Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...
) in a series of military conquests and diplomatic maneuvers between 1791 and 1835, and lasted until the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. It comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and mostly corresponded to historical borders of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
; it covered much of present-day Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
, Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
, and parts of western Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
From 1791 to 1835, and until 1917, there were differing reconfigurations of the boundaries of the Pale, such that certain areas were variously open or shut to Jewish residency, such as the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
. At times, Jews were forbidden to live in agricultural communities, or certain cities, as in Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, Sevastopol
Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...
and Yalta
Yalta (: Я́лта) is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crimea ...
, excluded from residency at a number of cities within the Pale. Settlers from outside the pale were forced to move to small towns, thus fostering the rise of the ''shtetl
A shtetl or shtetel (; yi, שטעטל, translit=shtetl (singular); שטעטלעך, romanized: ''shtetlekh'' (plural)) is a Yiddish term for the small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jewish populations which existed in Eastern Europe before ...
s''.
Although the Jews were accorded slightly more rights with the Emancipation reform of 1861
The emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia, also known as the Edict of Emancipation of Russia, (russian: Крестьянская реформа 1861 года, translit=Krestyanskaya reforma 1861 goda – "peasants' reform of 1861") was the first ...
by Alexander II, they were still restricted to the Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
and subject to restrictions on ownership and profession. The existing status quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. W ...
was shattered with the assassination of Alexander in 1881 – an act falsely blamed upon the Jews.
Pogroms in the Russian Empire
The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called ''pogroms
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
'' (russian: погро́м;) throughout 1881–1884. In the 1881 outbreak, pogroms were primarily limited to Russia, although in a riot in Warsaw two Jews were killed, 24 others were wounded, women were raped and over two million rubles
The ruble (American English) or rouble (Commonwealth English) (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is the currency unit of Belarus and Russia. Historically, it was the currency of the Russian Empire and of the Soviet Union.
, currencies named ''rub ...
worth of property was destroyed. The new czar, Alexander III, blamed the Jews for the riots and issued a series of harsh restrictions on Jewish movements. Pogroms continued until 1884, with at least tacit government approval. They proved a turning point in the history of the Jews in partitioned Poland and throughout the world. In 1884, 36 Jewish Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
delegates met in Katowice, forming the Hovevei Zion
Hovevei Zion ( he, חובבי ציון, lit. ''hose who areLovers of Zion''), also known as Hibbat Zion ( he, חיבת ציון), refers to a variety of organizations which were founded in 1881 in response to the Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian ...
movement. The pogroms prompted a great wave of Jewish emigration to the United States.
An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, at least some of them believed to have been organized by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the '' Okhrana''. They included the Białystok pogrom of 1906 in the Grodno Governorate
The Grodno Governorate, (russian: Гро́дненская губе́рнiя, translit=Grodnenskaya guberniya, pl, Gubernia grodzieńska, be, Гродзенская губерня, translit=Hrodzenskaya gubernya, lt, Gardino gubernija, u ...
of Russian Poland, in which at least 75 Jews were murdered by marauding soldiers and many more Jews were wounded. According to Jewish survivors, ethnic Poles did not participate in the pogrom and instead sheltered Jewish families.
Haskalah and Halakha
The Jewish Enlightenment, ''Haskalah
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
'', began to take hold in Poland during the 19th century, stressing secular ideas and values. Champions of ''Haskalah'', the ''Maskilim
The ''Haskalah'', often termed Jewish Enlightenment ( he, השכלה; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Western Euro ...
'', pushed for assimilation and integration into Russian culture. At the same time, there was another school of Jewish thought that emphasized traditional study and a Jewish response to the ethical problems of antisemitism and persecution, one form of which was the Musar movement
The Musar movement (also Mussar movement) is a Jewish ethical, educational and cultural movement that developed in 19th century Lithuania, particularly among Orthodox Lithuanian Jews. The Hebrew term (), is adopted from the Book of Proverbs (1 ...
. Polish Jews generally were less influenced by ''Haskalah'', rather focusing on a strong continuation of their religious lives based on Halakha
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...
("rabbis's law") following primarily Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...
, Hasidic Judaism
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Judaism, Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory ...
, and also adapting to the new Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית, Romanization of Hebrew, translit. ''Tziyonut Datit'') is an ideology that combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as ''Dati Leumi'' ( "National Religiou ...
of the Mizrachi movement later in the 19th century.
Politics in Polish territory
By the late 19th century, ''Haskalah'' and the debates it caused created a growing number of political movements within the Jewish community itself, covering a wide range of views and vying for votes in local and regional elections. Zionism became very popular with the advent of the ''Poale Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
'' socialist party as well as the religious Polish Mizrahi
Jewish political movements refer to the organized efforts of Jews to build their own political parties or otherwise represent their interest in politics outside the Jewish community. From the time of the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans to the ...
, and the increasingly popular General Zionists
The General Zionists ( he, הַצִיּוֹנִים הַכְּלָלִיים, translit. ''HaTzionim HaKlaliym'') were a centrist Zionist movement and a political party in Israel. The General Zionists supported the leadership of Chaim Weizmann an ...
. Jews also took up socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, forming the Bund labor union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
which supported assimilation and the rights of labor
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, these rights influe ...
. The Folkspartei
The Folkspartei ( yi, ייִדישע פֿאָלקספּאַרטײַ, , Jewish People's Party) was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and ...
(People's Party) advocated, for its part, cultural autonomy and resistance to assimilation. In 1912, ''Agudat Israel
Agudat Yisrael ( he, אֲגוּדָּת יִשְׂרָאֵל, lit., ''Union of Israel'', also transliterated ''Agudath Israel'', or, in Yiddish, ''Agudas Yisroel'') is a Haredi Jewish political party in Israel. It began as a political party re ...
'', a religious party, came into existence.
Many Jews took part in the Polish insurrections, particularly against Russia (since the Tsars discriminated heavily against the Jews). The Kościuszko Insurrection (1794), November Insurrection
The November Uprising (1830–31), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution,
was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in W ...
(1830–31), January Insurrection (1863) and Revolutionary Movement of 1905 all saw significant Jewish involvement in the cause of Polish independence.
During the Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
period, there were several prominent Jewish politicians in the Polish Sejm, such as Apolinary Hartglas
Maksymilian Apolinary Hartglas (7 April 1883 – 7 March 1953) was a Zionist activist and one of the main political leaders of Polish Jews during the interwar period, a lawyer, a publicist, and a Sejm deputy from 1919 to 1930.
Biography
Maksymili ...
and Yitzhak Gruenbaum
Yitzhak Gruenbaum ( pl, Izaak Grünbaum, Hebrew and Yiddish: ; 1879–1970) was a noted leader of the Zionist movement among Polish Jewry in the interwar period and of the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine. Gruenbaum was the first Interior Minister ...
. Many Jewish political parties were active, representing a wide ideological spectrum, from the Zionists, to the socialists to the anti-Zionists. One of the largest of these parties was the Bund, which was strongest in Warsaw and Lodz.
In addition to the socialists, Zionist parties were also popular, in particular, the Marxist Poale Zion
Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century after ...
and the orthodox religious Polish Mizrahi. The General Zionist party became the most prominent Jewish party in the interwar period and in the 1919 elections to the first Polish Sejm since the partitions, gained 50% of the Jewish vote.
In 1914, the German Zionist Max Bodenheimer
Max Isidor Bodenheimer ( he, מקס בודנהיימר; 12 March 1865 in Stuttgart – 19 July, 1940 in Jerusalem) was a lawyer and one of the main figures in German Zionism. An associate of Theodor Herzl, he was the first president of the Zioni ...
founded the short-lived German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews
The German Committee for the Freeing of Russian Jews (German, 'Deutsches Komitee zur Befreiung der russischen Juden') was created in August 1914 by Max Bodenheimer with Franz Oppenheimer, Adolf Friedman and Leo Motzkin to lobby for the socio-poli ...
, with the goal of establishing a buffer state (''Pufferstaat'') within the Jewish Pale of Settlement, composed of the former Polish provinces annexed by Russia, being ''de facto'' protectorate
A protectorate, in the context of international relations, is a State (polity), state that is under protection by another state for defence against aggression and other violations of law. It is a dependent territory that enjoys autonomy over m ...
of the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
that would free Jews in the region from Russian oppression. The plan, known as the League of East European States The League of East European States or Federation of East European States (german: osteuropäischer Staatenbund) was a 1914 proposal by the German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews for a German-dominated consociational buffer state to be establi ...
, soon proved unpopular with both German officials and Bodenheimer's colleagues, and was dead by the following year.
Interbellum (1918–39)
Polish Jews and the struggle for Poland's independence
While most Polish Jews were neutral to the idea of a Polish state,[Zygmunt Zygmuntowicz]
Żydzi w Legionach Józefa Piłsudskiego
excerpt from book ''Żydzi Bojownicy o Niepodleglość Polski'', Lwów
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
, 1939, digitized at Forum Żydów Polskich. Internet Archive. many played a significant role in the fight for Poland's independence during World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
; around 650 Jews joined the '' Legiony Polskie'' formed by Józef Piłsudski
), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania)
, death_date =
, death_place = Warsaw, Poland
, constituency =
, party = None (formerly PPS)
, spouse =
, children = Wan ...
, more than all other minorities combined. Prominent Jews were among the members of KTSSN, the nucleus of the interim government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
of re-emerging sovereign Poland including Herman Feldstein, Henryk Eile, ''Porucznik
Porucznik (Por.) is a rank of the Polish Army, roughly equivalent to the military rank of the First Lieutenant
First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment.
The rank o ...
'' Samuel Herschthal, Dr. Zygmunt Leser, Henryk Orlean, Wiktor Chajes and others. The donations poured in including 50,000 Austrian kronen from the Jews of Lwów and the 1,500 cans of food donated by the Blumenfeld factory among similar others. A Jewish organization during the war that was opposed to Polish aspirations was the Komitee für den Osten (Kfdo)(Committee for the East
A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
) founded by German Jewish activists, which promoted the idea of Jews in the east becoming "spearhead of German expansionism" serving as "Germany's reliable vassals" against other ethnic groups in the region and serving as "living wall against Poles separatists aims".
In the aftermath of the Great War localized conflicts engulfed Eastern Europe between 1917 and 1919. Many attacks were launched against Jews during the Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
, the Polish-Ukrainian War, and the Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921)
* russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
ending with the Treaty of Riga
The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga ( pl, Traktat Ryski), was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet War.
...
. Almost half of the Jewish men perceived to have supported the Bolshevik Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
in these incidents were in their 20s. Just after the end of World War I, the West became alarmed by reports about alleged massive pogroms in Poland against Jews. Pressure for government action reached the point where U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The commission, led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr.
Henry Morgenthau (; April 26, 1856 – November 25, 1946) was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans w ...
, concluded in its Morgenthau Report The Morgenthau report, officially the ''Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland'', was a report compiled by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., as member of the "Mission of the United States to Poland" which was appointed by the American Commission ...
that allegations of pogroms were exaggerated. It identified eight incidents in the years 1918–1919 out of 37 mostly empty claims for damages, and estimated the number of victims at 280. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none was blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents, during the battle for Pińsk a commander of Polish infantry regiment accused a group of Jewish men of plotting against the Poles and ordered the execution of thirty-five Jewish men and youth. The Morgenthau Report found the charge to be "devoid of foundation" even though their meeting was illegal to the extent of being treasonable.[ Davies, Norman, ''White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20'', ]St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...
, 1972, Page 47-48. In the Lwów (Lviv) pogrom, which occurred in 1918 during the Polish–Ukrainian War
The Polish–Ukrainian War, from November 1918 to July 1919, was a conflict between the Second Polish Republic and Ukrainian forces (both the West Ukrainian People's Republic and Ukrainian People's Republic). The conflict had its roots in ethn ...
of independence a day after the Poles captured Lviv from the Sich Riflemen
The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin ( uk, Січові Cтрільці з Галичини та Буковини) were one of the first regular military units of the Ukrainian People's Army. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was for ...
– the report concluded – 64 Jews had been killed (other accounts put the number at 72).[Joanna B. Michlic]
''Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present''.
University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
In Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, soldiers of Blue Army assaulted Jews in the streets, but were punished by military authorities. Many other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers such as ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
. The above-mentioned atrocities committed by the young Polish army and its allies in 1919 during their Kiev operation against the Bolsheviks had a profound impact on the foreign perception of the re-emerging Polish state. The result of the concerns over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the Versailles Treaty
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
signed by the Western powers, and President Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versail ...
,['']Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
RP. Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych.'' "Traktat między Głównemi Mocarstwami sprzymierzonemi i stowarzyszonemi a Polską, podpisany w Wersalu dnia 28 czerwca 1919 r.
PDF scan of the Treaty
(original document, 1,369 KB). Retrieved 16 October 2011. protecting the rights of minorities in new Poland including Germans. In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance and freedom of religious holidays.['']Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
RP. Internetowy System Aktow Prawnych.'' "Ustawa z dnia 17 marca 1921 r. – Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.
PDF scan of the March Constitution
, (original document, 1,522 KB), including "Rozporządzenie Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej z dnia 9 marca 1927 r. w sprawie utworzenia gmin wyznaniowych żydowskich na obszarze powiatów: białostockiego, bielskiego i sokólskiego województwa białostockiego.
Amendments
(original document, 67 KB). Retrieved 16 October 2011.
The number of Jews immigrating to Poland from Ukraine and Soviet Russia during the interwar period grew rapidly. Jewish population in the area of former Congress of Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Poland, Polish State (polity), state, a successor to Napoleon' ...
increased sevenfold between 1816 and 1921, from around 213,000 to roughly 1,500,000. According to the Polish national census of 1921, there were 2,845,364 Jews living in the Second Polish Republic; but, by late 1938 that number had grown by over 16% to approximately 3,310,000. The average rate of permanent settlement was about 30,000 per annum. At the same time, every year around 100,000 Jews were passing through Poland in unofficial emigration overseas. Between the end of the Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (Polish–Bolshevik War, Polish–Soviet War, Polish–Russian War 1919–1921)
* russian: Советско-польская война (''Sovetsko-polskaya voyna'', Soviet-Polish War), Польский фронт (' ...
and late 1938, the Jewish population of the Republic had grown by over 464,000.
Jewish and Polish culture
The newly independent Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
had a large and vibrant Jewish minority. By the time World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
began, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe although many Polish Jews had a separate culture and ethnic identity from Catholic Poles. Some authors have stated that only about 10% of Polish Jews during the interwar period could be considered "assimilated" while more than 80% could be readily recognized as Jews.
According to the 1931 National Census there were 3,130,581 Polish Jews measured by the declaration of their religion. Estimating the population increase and the emigration from Poland between 1931 and 1939, there were probably 3,474,000 Jews in Poland as of 1 September 1939 (approximately 10% of the total population) primarily centered in large and smaller cities: 77% lived in cities and 23% in the villages. They made up about 50%, and in some cases even 70% of the population of smaller towns, especially in Eastern Poland. Prior to World War II, the Jewish population of Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...
numbered about 233,000, roughly one-third of the city's population. The city of Lwów
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...
(now in Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
) had the third-largest Jewish population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). Wilno
Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...
(now in Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
) had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the city's total. In 1938, Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
's Jewish population numbered over 60,000, or about 25% of the city's total population. In 1939 there were 375,000 Jews in Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
or one-third of the city's population. Only New York City had more Jewish residents than Warsaw.
The major industries in which Polish Jews were employed were manufacturing and commerce. In many areas of the country, the majority of retail businesses were owned by Jews, who were sometimes among the wealthiest members of their communities.
Many Jews also worked as shoemakers and tailors, as well as in the liberal professions; doctors (56% of all doctors in Poland), teachers (43%), journalists (22%) and lawyers (33%).
Jewish youth and religious groups, diverse political parties and Zionist organizations, newspapers and theatre flourished. Jews owned land and real estate, participated in retail and manufacturing and in the export industry. Their religious beliefs spanned the range from Orthodox Hasidic Judaism
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Judaism, Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory ...
to Liberal Judaism.
The Polish language, rather than Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, was increasingly used by the young Warsaw Jews who did not have a problem in identifying themselves fully as Jews, Varsovians and Poles. Jews such as Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz (12 July 1892 – 19 November 1942) was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher. He is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy ...
were entering the mainstream of Polish society, though many thought of themselves as a separate nationality within Poland. Most children were enrolled in Jewish religious schools, which used to limit their ability to speak Polish. As a result, according to the 1931 census, 79% of the Jews declared Yiddish as their first language, and only 12% listed Polish, with the remaining 9% being Hebrew. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of German-born Jews of this period spoke German as their first language. During the school year of 1937–1938 there were 226 elementary schools and twelve high schools as well as fourteen vocational schools with either Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
or Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
as the instructional language. Jewish political parties, both the Socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
General Jewish Labour Bund (The Bund), as well as parties of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in the ''Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
'' (the Polish Parliament) as well as in the regional councils.
The Jewish cultural scene was particularly vibrant in pre–World War II Poland, with numerous Jewish publications and more than one hundred periodicals. Yiddish authors, most notably Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer ( yi, יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 11, 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born American Jewish writer who wrote and published first in Yiddish and later translated himself into English with the help ...
, went on to achieve international acclaim as classic Jewish writers; Singer won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
. His brother Israel Joshua Singer
Israel Joshua Singer (Yiddish: ישראל יהושע זינגער ; November 30, 1893, Biłgoraj, Congress Poland — February 10, 1944 New York) was a Polish-Jewish novelist who wrote in Yiddish.
Biography
He was born Yisruel Yehoyshye Zinger ...
was also a writer. Other Jewish authors of the period, such as Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz (12 July 1892 – 19 November 1942) was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher. He is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academy ...
, Julian Tuwim
Julian Tuwim (13 September 1894 – 27 December 1953), known also under the pseudonym "Oldlen" as a lyricist, was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, then part of the Russian Partition. He was educated in Łódź and in Warsaw where he studied la ...
, Marian Hemar
Marian Hemar (1901–1972), born Marian Hescheles (other pen names: Jan Mariański, and Marian Wallenrod), was a Polish poet, journalist, playwright, comedy writer, and songwriter. Hemar himself stated that before the outbreak of World War II he ...
, Emanuel Schlechter
Emanuel Schlechter (pseudonyms Eman, Olgierd Lech) (Emanuel Szlechter) (9 October 1904 – 1943) was born and died in Lwów. He was a Polish-Jewish artist, lyricist, screenwriter, librettist, writer, satirist, translator, composer and director. ...
and Bolesław Leśmian
Bolesław Leśmian (born Bolesław Lesman; January 22, 1877The exact date of his birth is disputed: the act of birth mentions 1877, Leśmian himself used 1878, while the date mentioned on his tombstone is 1879. – November 5, 1937) was a Pol ...
, as well as Konrad Tom
Konrad Tom (9 April 1887 – 9 August 1957), born Konrad Runowiecki, a Polish Jewish actor, writer, singer and director, born in Warsaw. Wrote song lyrics in Polish and in Yiddish for stage, film and cabaret, including '' szmonces''. His wife was ...
and Jerzy Jurandot
Jerzy Jurandot, born ''Jerzy Glejgewicht'' (19 March 1911 – 16 August 1979), was a popular Polish poet of Jewish ancestry, dramatist, satirist and songwriter.
History
Jurandot was born and died in Warsaw. He first became successful at the ...
, were less well known internationally, but made important contributions to Polish literature. Some Polish writers had Jewish roots e.g. Jan Brzechwa
Jan Brzechwa (), (15 August 1898 – 2 July 1966) was a Polish poet, author and lawyer, known mostly for his contribution to children's literature. He was born Jan Wiktor Lesman to a Polish family of Jewish descent. (a favorite poet of Polish children). Singer Jan Kiepura
Jan Wiktor Kiepura (May 16, 1902 – August 15, 1966) was a Polish singer (tenor) and actor.
Life and career
Jan Kiepura was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, the son of Miriam (née Neuman), a former professional singer, and Franciszek Kiepura, a b ...
, born of a Jewish mother and Polish father, was one of the most popular artists of that era, and pre-war songs of Jewish composers, including Henryk Wars
Henryk Wars (born Henryk Warszawski, after 1947 Henry Vars; 29 December 1902 – 1 September 1977) was a Polish composer. He composed scores for 50 films during the interwar period in Poland and 60 more in the United States.
He composed dozen ...
, Jerzy Petersburski
Jerzy Petersburski (1895–1979) was a Jewish Polish pianist and composer of popular music, renowned mostly for his Tangos, some of which (such as '' To ostatnia niedziela'', ''Już nigdy'' and ''Tango Milonga'') were milestones in popularizat ...
, Artur Gold
Artur (Arthur) Gold (born 17 March 1897, Warsaw, died 1943 in Treblinka) was a Polish Jewish violinist and dance-music composer during the Interbellum. He closely collaborated with his brother Henryk Gold and with Jerzy Petersburski with whom he ...
, Henryk Gold
Henryk Gold (19029 January 1977 in New York City, United States) was a Polish-born American composer, arranger, and orchestra director.
He was born in Warsaw to a musical family: his mother Helena was of the famous Warsaw klezmer Melodysta fami ...
, Zygmunt Białostocki
Zygmunt Białostocki (15 August 1897 – c. 1942)http://www.altango.art.pl/postacie/zygmunt-bialostocki/ Wojciech Dabrowski biography at altango was a Polish Jewish musician and composer. He composed many popular Polish pre-war songs, and worked ...
, Szymon Kataszek
Szymon Kataszek (1898–1943) (born Boruch Szymon Kataszek), was a Polish-Jewish composer, bandleader, pianist, a pioneer of Polish jazz. Born in Warsaw 1898; studied piano at the Warsaw Music Institute and Rome's St. Cecilia Academy. He returned ...
and Jakub Kagan, are still widely known in Poland today. Painters became known as well for their depictions of Jewish life. Among them were Maurycy Gottlieb
Maurycy Gottlieb ; 21/28 February 1856 – 17 July 1879) was a Polish realist painter of the Romantic period. Considered one of the most talented students of Jan Matejko, Gottllieb died at the age of 23.
Career
Gottlieb was born in Drohobycz ...
, Artur Markowicz, and Maurycy Trebacz, with younger artists like Chaim Goldberg
Chaim Goldberg (March 20, 1917 – June 26, 2004) was a Polish-American artist, painter, sculptor, and engraver. He is known for being a chronicler of Jewish life in the eastern European Polish villages (or '' shtetlekh'') like the one in his ...
coming up in the ranks.
Many Jews were film producers and directors, e.g. Michał Waszyński
Michał Waszyński (29 September 1904 – 20 February 1965) was first a film director in Poland, then in Italy, and later (as Michael Waszynski) a film producer, producer of major United States, American films, mainly in Spain. Known for hi ...
('' The Dybbuk)'', Aleksander Ford
Aleksander Ford (born Mosze Lifszyc; 24 November 1908 in Kiev, Russian Empire – 4 April 1980 in Naples, Florida, U.S.) was a Polish film director; and head of the Polish People's Army Film Crew in the Soviet Union during World War II. Follow ...
('' Children Must Laugh'').
Scientist Leopold Infeld
Leopold Infeld (20 August 1898 – 15 January 1968) was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Poland and Canada (1938–1950). He was a Rockefeller fellow at Cambridge University (1933–1934) and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Ea ...
, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam
Stanisław Marcin Ulam (; 13 April 1909 – 13 May 1984) was a Polish-American scientist in the fields of mathematics and nuclear physics. He participated in the Manhattan Project, originated the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapon ...
, Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...
, and professor Adam Ulam
Adam Bruno Ulam (8 April 1922 – 28 March 2000) was a Polish-American historian of Jewish descent and political scientist at Harvard University. Ulam was one of the world's foremost authorities and top experts in Sovietology and Kremlinology ...
contributed to the world of science. Other Polish Jews who gained international recognition are Moses Schorr
Moses Schorr, Polish: Mojżesz Schorr (May 10, 1874 – July 8, 1941) was a rabbi, Polish historian, politician, Bible scholar, assyriologist and orientalist. Schorr was one of the top experts on the history of the Jews in Poland. He was the fi ...
, Ludwik Zamenhof
L. L. Zamenhof (15 December 185914 April 1917) was an ophthalmologist who lived for most of his life in Warsaw. He is best known as the creator of Esperanto, the most widely used constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language ...
(the creator of Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
), Georges Charpak
Georges Charpak (; born Jerzy Charpak, 1 August 1924 – 29 September 2010) was a Polish-born French physicist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1992.
Life
Georges Charpak was born Jerzy Charpak to Jewish parents, Anna (Szapiro) and ...
, Samuel Eilenberg
Samuel Eilenberg (September 30, 1913 – January 30, 1998) was a Polish-American mathematician who co-founded category theory (with Saunders Mac Lane) and homological algebra.
Early life and education
He was born in Warsaw, Kingdom of Poland to a ...
, Emanuel Ringelblum
Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportation of Je ...
, and Artur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein ( pl, Artur Rubinstein; 28 January 188720 December 1982) was a Polish-American pianist. , just to name a few from the long list. The term "genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
" was coined by Rafał Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar. Leonid Hurwicz
Leonid Hurwicz (; August 21, 1917 – June 24, 2008) was a Polish-American economist and mathematician, known for his work in game theory and mechanism design. He originated the concept of incentive compatibility, and showed how desired outcomes ...
was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
. The YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
(Jidiszer Wissenszaftlecher Institute) Scientific Institute was based in Wilno before transferring to New York during the war. In Warsaw, important centers of Judaic scholarship, such the Main Judaic Library
Main Judaic Library (Główna Biblioteka Judaistyczna'. „Rzeczpospolita”, s. A5, 7 maja 2016. or Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyczna) is a currently defunct library, which was gathering collections concerning Judaism and the history of Jews in Po ...
and the Institute of Judaic Studies were located, along with numerous Talmudic Schools (Jeszybots), religious centers and synagogues, many of which were of high architectural quality. Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues ...
also flourished; Poland had fifteen Yiddish theatres and theatrical groups. Warsaw was home to the most important Yiddish theater troupe of the time, the Vilna Troupe The Vilna Troupe ( yi, Vilner trupe ווילנער טרופע; lt, Vilniaus trupė; pl, Trupa Wileńska; ro, Trupa din Vilna), also known as Fareyn Fun Yiddishe Dramatishe Artistn (Federation of Yiddish Dramatic Actors) and later ''Dramă şi Com ...
, which staged the first performance of ''The Dybbuk
''The Dybbuk'', or ''Between Two Worlds'' (russian: Меж двух миров ибук}, trans. ''Mezh dvukh mirov ibuk'; yi, צווישן צוויי וועלטן - דער דִבּוּק, ''Tsvishn Tsvey Veltn – der Dibuk'') is a play by ...
'' in 1920 at the Elyseum Theatre. Some future Israeli leaders studied at University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...
, including Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. B ...
and Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir ( he, יצחק שמיר, ; born Yitzhak Yezernitsky; October 22, 1915 – June 30, 2012) was an Israeli politician and the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms, 1983–1984 and 1986–1992. Before the establishment ...
.
There also were several Jewish sports clubs, with some of them, such as Hasmonea Lwow and Jutrzenka Kraków, winning promotion to the Polish First Football League. A Polish-Jewish footballer, Józef Klotz
Józef Klotz (2 January 1900 – 1941) was a Polish footballer who played centre-half. He scored the first-ever goal for the Poland national football team. He was killed by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941.
Biography
Klotz was born in Kra ...
, scored the first ever goal for the Poland national football team
The Poland national football team ( pl, Reprezentacja Polski w piłce nożnej) has represented Poland in men's international tournaments football competitions since their first match in 1921. The team is controlled by the Polish Football Associ ...
. Another athlete, Alojzy Ehrlich
Alojzy "Alex" Ehrlich (1914 – 7 December 1992), also called "King of the Chiselers," was a Polish table tennis player, widely regarded as one of the best players in Polish history of this sport, who three times won silver in the World Tabl ...
, won several medals in the table-tennis tournaments. Many of these clubs belonged to the Maccabi World Union
Maccabi World Union is an international Jewish sports organisation spanning five continents (Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Europe) and more than 50 countries, with some 400,000 members. The Maccabi World Union organises the Mac ...
.
Between antisemitism and support for Zionism and Jewish state in Palestine
An ever-increasing proportion of Jews in interwar Poland
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...
lived separate lives from the Polish majority. In 1921, 74.2% of Polish Jews listed Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
or Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
as their native language; the number rose to 87% by 1931, contributing to growing tensions between Jews and Poles. Jews were often not identified as Polish nationals, a problem caused not only by the reversal of assimilation shown in national censuses between 1921 and 1931, but also by the influx of Russian Jews escaping persecution—especially in Ukraine, where up to 2,000 pogroms took place during the Civil War, an estimated 30,000 Jews were massacred directly, and a total of 150,000 died. A large number of Russian Jews emigrated to Poland, as they were entitled by the Peace treaty of Riga to choose the country they preferred. Several hundred thousand refugees joined the already numerous Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...
. The resulting economic instability was mirrored by anti-Jewish sentiment in some of the media; discrimination, exclusion, and violence at the universities; and the appearance of "anti-Jewish squads" associated with some of the right-wing political parties. These developments contributed to a greater support among the Jewish community for Zionist and socialist ideas, coupled with attempts at further migration, curtailed only by the British government. Notably, the "campaign for Jewish emigration was predicated not on antisemitism but on objective social and economic factors". However, regardless of these changing economic and social conditions, the increase in antisemitic activity in prewar Poland was also typical of antisemitism found in other parts of Europe at that time, developing within a broader, continent-wide pattern with counterparts in every other European country.
In 1925, Polish Zionist members of the Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
capitalized on governmental support for Zionism by negotiating an agreement with the government known as the Ugoda. The Ugoda was an agreement between the Polish prime minister Władysław Grabski
Władysław Dominik Grabski (; 7 July 1874 – 1 March 1938) was a Polish National Democratic politician, economist and historian. He was the main author of the currency reform in the Second Polish Republic and served as Prime Minister of Poland ...
and Zionist leaders in eastern Galicia, including Leon Reich Leon Reich (July 11, 1879 – December 1, 1929) was a Polish Zionist leader, lawyer and politician. Life
Reich was born on July 11, 1879 in Drohobych, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. His parents were wealthy merchants and Orthodox Jews. He attended a h ...
. The agreement granted certain cultural and religious rights to Jews in exchange for Jewish support for Polish nationalist interests; however, the Galician Zionists had little to show for their compromise because the Polish government later refused to honor many aspects of the agreement. During the 1930s, Revisionist Zionists viewed the Polish government as an ally and promoted cooperation between Polish Zionists and Polish nationalists, despite the antisemitism of the Polish government.
Matters improved for a time under the rule of Józef Piłsudski
), Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania)
, death_date =
, death_place = Warsaw, Poland
, constituency =
, party = None (formerly PPS)
, spouse =
, children = Wan ...
(1926–1935). Piłsudski countered Endecja
National Democracy ( pl, Narodowa Demokracja, also known from its abbreviation ND as ''Endecja''; ) was a Polish political movement active from the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of the country until the end of ...
's 'ethnic assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural assi ...
' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality. The years 1926–1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski's appointee Kazimierz Bartel
Kazimierz Władysław Bartel (; en, Casimir Bartel; 3 March 1882 – 26 July 1941) was a Polish mathematician, freemason, scholar, diplomat and politician who served as 15th, 17th and 19th Prime Minister of Poland three times between 1926 ...
. However, a combination of various factors, including the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, meant that the situation of Jewish Poles was never very satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Piłsudski's death in May 1935, which many Jews regarded as a tragedy. The Jewish industries were negatively affected by the development of mass production and the advent of department stores offering ready-made products. The traditional sources of livelihood for the estimated 300,000 Jewish family-run businesses in the country began to vanish, contributing to a growing trend toward isolationism and internal self-sufficiency. The difficult situation in the private sector led to enrolment growth in higher education. In 1923 the Jewish students constituted 62.9% of all students of stomatology, 34% of medical sciences, 29.2% of philosophy, 24.9% of chemistry and 22.1% of law (26% by 1929) at all Polish universities. It is speculated that such disproportionate numbers were the probable cause of a backlash.
The interwar
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relativel ...
Polish government provided military training to the Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
Betar
The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...
paramilitary movement, whose members admired the Polish nationalist camp and imitated some of its aspects. Uniformed members of Betar
The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...
marched and performed at Polish public ceremonies alongside Polish scouts and military, with their weapons training provided by Polish institutions and Polish military officers; Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. B ...
, one of its leaders, called for its members to defend Poland in case of war, and the organisation raised both Polish and Zionist flags.
With the influence of the ''Endecja'' (National Democracy National Democracy may refer to:
* National Democracy (Czech Republic)
* National Democracy (Italy)
* National Democracy (Philippines)
* National Democracy (Poland)
* National Democracy (Spain)
See also
* Civic nationalism, a general concept
* ...
) party growing, antisemitism gathered new momentum in Poland and was most felt in smaller towns and in spheres in which Jews came into direct contact with Poles, such as in Polish schools or on the sports field. Further academic harassment, such as the introduction of ghetto benches
Ghetto benches (known in Polish as ''getto ławkowe'') was a form of official segregation in the seating of university students, introduced in 1935 at the Lwow Polytechnic. Rectors at other higher education institutions in the Second Polish Rep ...
, which forced Jewish students to sit in sections of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas (''Numerus clausus
''Numerus clausus'' ("closed number" in Latin) is one of many methods used to limit the number of students who may study at a university. In many cases, the goal of the ''numerus clausus'' is simply to limit the number of students to the maximum ...
'') introduced in 1937 in some universities, halved the number of Jews in Polish universities between independence (1918) and the late 1930s. The restrictions were so inclusive that – while the Jews made up 20.4% of the student body in 1928 – by 1937 their share was down to only 7.5%, out of the total population of 9.75% Jews in the country according to 1931 census.
Although many Jews were educated, they were excluded from most of the government bureaucracy.[Joseph Marcus (1983), ]
Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919–1939.
' Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin. . A good number, therefore, turned to the liberal professions, particularly medicine and law. In 1937 the Catholic trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
Poles. In a similar manner, the Jewish trade unions excluded non-Jewish professionals from their ranks after 1918. The bulk of Jewish workers were organized in the Jewish trade unions under the influence of the Jewish socialists
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, ho ...
who split in 1923 to join the Communist Party of Poland
The interwar Communist Party of Poland ( pl, Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) was a communist party active in Poland during the Second Polish Republic. It resulted from a December 1918 merger of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland a ...
and the Second International
The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second International continued th ...
.
Anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland had reached its zenith in the years leading to the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Between 1935 and 1937 seventy-nine Jews were killed and 500 injured in anti-Jewish incidents. National policy was such that the Jews who largely worked at home and in small shops were excluded from welfare benefits. In the provincial capital of Łuck
Lutsk ( uk, Луцьк, translit=Lutsk}, ; pl, Łuck ; yi, לוצק, Lutzk) is a city on the Styr River in northwestern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Volyn Oblast (province) and the administrative center of the surrounding L ...
Jews constituted 48.5% of the diverse multiethnic population of 35,550 Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and others.Central Statistical Office (Poland)
Statistics Poland (formerly known in English as the Central Statistical Office ( pl, Główny Urząd Statystyczny, popularly called GUS)) is Poland's chief government executive agency charged with collecting and publishing statistics related to th ...
, Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności. Woj.wołyńskie, 1931. PDF file, 21.21 MB. The complete text of the Polish census of 1931
The Polish census of 1931 or Second General Census in Poland ( pl, Drugi Powszechny Spis Ludności) was the second census taken in sovereign Poland during the interwar period, performed on December 9, 1931 by the Main Bureau of Statistics. It e ...
for the Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–39) Volhynian Voivodeship or Wołyń Voivodeship may refer to:
*Volhynian Voivodeship (1569–1795)
*
*Wołyń Voivodeship (1921–1939)
Wołyń Voivodeship or Volhynian Voivodeship was an administrative region of interwar Poland (1918–1939) with a ...
, page 59 (select, drop-down menu). Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...
. Łuck had the largest Jewish community in the voivodeship. In the capital of Brześć
Brest ( be, Брэст / Берасьце, Bieraście, ; russian: Брест, ; uk, Берестя, Berestia; lt, Brasta; pl, Brześć; yi, בריסק, Brisk), formerly Brest-Litovsk (russian: Брест-Литовск, lit=Lithuanian Br ...
in 1936 Jews constituted 41.3% of general population and some 80.3% of private enterprises were owned by Jews.Norman Davies
Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...
, ''God's Playground
''God's Playground: A History of Poland'' is a history book in two volumes written by Norman Davies, covering a 1000-year history of Poland. Volume 1: ''The origins to 1795'', and Volume 2: ''1795 to the present'' first appeared as the Oxford Cla ...
'' (Polish edition), Second volume, pp. 512–513. The 32% of Jewish inhabitants of Radom
Radom is a city in east-central Poland, located approximately south of the capital, Warsaw. It is situated on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been the seat of a separate Radom Voivodeship (1975–1 ...
enjoyed considerable prominence also,[Pinkas Hakehillot Polin]
Radom.
Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume VII. Translation of "Radom" chapter published by Yad Vashem. with 90% of small businesses in the city owned and operated by the Jews including tinsmiths, locksmiths, jewellers, tailors, hat makers, hairdressers, carpenters, house painters and wallpaper installers, shoemakers, as well as most of the artisan bakers and clock repairers.[ Source: ] In Lubartów
Lubartów () is a town in eastern Poland, with 23,000 inhabitants (2004), situated in Lublin Voivodeship. It is the capital of Lubartów County and the Lubartów Commune. Historically it belongs to Lesser Poland.
Lubartów was established in 154 ...
, 53.6% of the town's population were Jewish also along with most of its economy.[Lubartow during the Holocaust in occupied Poland.](_blank)
The Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture. In a town of Luboml, 3,807 Jews lived among its 4,169 inhabitants, constituting the essence of its social and political life.
The national boycott of Jewish businesses and advocacy for their confiscation was promoted by the Endecja
National Democracy ( pl, Narodowa Demokracja, also known from its abbreviation ND as ''Endecja''; ) was a Polish political movement active from the second half of the 19th century under the foreign partitions of the country until the end of ...
party, which introduced the term "Christian shop". A national movement to prevent the Jews from kosher slaughter of animals, with animal rights as the stated motivation, was also organized. Violence was also frequently aimed at Jewish stores, and many of them were looted. At the same time, persistent economic boycotts and harassment, including property-destroying riots, combined with the effects of the Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
that had been very severe on agricultural countries like Poland, reduced the standard of living
Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
of Poles and Polish Jews alike to the extent that by the end of the 1930s, a substantial portion of Polish Jews lived in grinding poverty. As a result, on the eve of the Second World War, the Jewish community in Poland was large and vibrant internally, yet (with the exception of a few professionals) also substantially poorer and less integrated than the Jews in most of Western Europe.
The main strain of antisemitism in Poland during this time was motivated by Catholic religious beliefs and centuries-old myths such as the blood libel
Blood libel or ritual murder libel (also blood accusation) is an antisemitic canardTurvey, Brent E. ''Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis'', Academic Press, 2008, p. 3. "Blood libel: An accusation of ritual mur ...
. This religious-based antisemitism was sometimes joined with an ultra-nationalistic stereotype of Jews as disloyal to the Polish nation. On the eve of World War II, many typical Polish Christians believed that there were far too many Jews in the country, and the Polish government became increasingly concerned with the "Jewish question". Some politicians favored mass Jewish emigration from Poland. The Polish government condemned wanton violence against the Jewish minority, fearing international repercussions, but shared the view that the Jewish minority hindered Poland's development; in January 1937 Foreign Minister Józef Beck
Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Poles, Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minist ...
declared that Poland could house 500,000 Jews, and hoped that over the next 30 years 80,000-100,000 Jews a year would leave Poland. As the Polish government sought to lower the numbers of the Jewish population in Poland through mass emigration, it embraced close and good contact with Ze'ev Jabotinsky
Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...
, the founder of Revisionist Zionism
Revisionist Zionism is an ideology developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann which was focused on the settling of ''Eretz Yisrael'' (Land of Israel) by independent ...
, and pursued a policy of supporting the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Polish government hoped Palestine would provide an outlet for its Jewish population and lobbied for creation of a Jewish state in the League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
and other international venues, proposing increased emigration quotas and opposing the Partition Plan of Palestine on behalf of Zionist activists. As Jabotinsky envisioned in his "Evacuation Plan" the settlement of 1.5 million East European Jews within 10 years in Palestine, including 750,000 Polish Jews, he and Beck shared a common goal. Ultimately this proved impossible and illusory, as it lacked both general Jewish and international support. In 1937 Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck
Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Poles, Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minist ...
declared in the League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
his support for the creation of a Jewish state and for an international conference to enable Jewish emigration. The common goals of the Polish state and of the Zionist movement, of increased Jewish population flow to Palestine, resulted in their overt and covert cooperation. Poland helped by organizing passports and facilitating illegal immigration, and supplied the Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
with weapons. Poland also provided extensive support to the Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
(the military branch of the Revisionist Zionist movement) in the form of military training and weapons. According to Irgun activists, the Polish state supplied the organisation with 25,000 rifles, additional material and weapons, and by summer 1939 Irgun's Warsaw warehouses held 5,000 rifles and 1,000 machine guns. The training and support by Poland would allow the organisation to mobilise 30,000-40,000 men.
By the time of the German invasion in 1939, antisemitism was escalating, and hostility towards Jews was a mainstay of the right-wing political forces post-Piłsudski regime and also the Catholic Church. Discrimination and violence against Jews had rendered the Polish Jewish population increasingly destitute. Despite the impending threat to the Polish Republic from Nazi Germany, there was little effort seen in the way of reconciliation with Poland's Jewish population. In July 1939 the pro-government ''Gazeta Polska
''Gazeta Polska'' (Literal translation, lit.: ''Polish Newspaper'') is a Polish language pro-United Right (Poland), United Right right-wing populist to far-right weekly magazine published in Poland.
Profile and history
Gazeta Polska was founde ...
'' wrote, "The fact that our relations with the Reich are worsening does not in the least deactivate our program in the Jewish question—there is not and cannot be any common ground between our internal Jewish problem and Poland's relations with the Hitlerite Reich." Escalating hostility towards Polish Jews and an official Polish government desire to remove Jews from Poland continued until the German invasion of Poland.
World War II and the destruction of Polish Jewry (1939–45)
Polish September Campaign
The number of Jews in Poland on 1 September 1939, amounted to about 3,474,000 people. One hundred thirty thousand soldiers of Jewish descent, including Boruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Military, served in the Polish Army
The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stret ...
at the outbreak of the Second World War, thus being among the first to launch armed resistance against Nazi Germany. During the September Campaign
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after ...
some 20,000 Jewish civilians and 32,216 Jewish soldiers were killed, while 61,000 were taken prisoner
A prisoner (also known as an inmate or detainee) is a person who is deprived of liberty against their will. This can be by confinement, captivity, or forcible restraint. The term applies particularly to serving a prison sentence in a prison.
...
by the Germans; the majority did not survive. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were released ultimately found themselves in the Nazi ghettos
Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Romani people, into small sections of towns and cities furtheri ...
and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other Jewish civilians in the ensuing Holocaust in Poland
The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
...
.
In 1939, Jews constituted 30% of Warsaw's population. With the coming of the war, Jewish and Polish citizens of Warsaw jointly defended the city, putting their differences aside.[ Polish Jews later served in almost all Polish formations during the entire World War II, many were killed or wounded and very many were decorated for their combat skills and exceptional service. Jews fought with the ]Polish Armed Forces in the West
The Polish Armed Forces in the West () refers to the Polish military formations formed to fight alongside the Western Allies against Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. Polish forces were also raised within Soviet territories; thes ...
, in the Soviet formed Polish People's Army
The Polish People's Army ( pl, Ludowe Wojsko Polskie , LWP) constituted the second formation of the Polish Armed Forces in the East in 1943–1945, and in 1945–1989 the armed forces of the Polish communist state ( from 1952, the Polish Pe ...
as well as in several underground organizations and as part of Polish partisan units or Jewish partisan formations.
Territories annexed by the USSR (1939–1941)
The Soviet Union signed a Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939 containing a protocol about partition of Poland (generally known but denied by the Soviet Union for the next 50 years). The German army attacked Poland on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Union followed suit by invading eastern Poland on 17 September 1939. Within weeks, 61.2% of Polish Jews found themselves under the German occupation, while 38.8% were trapped in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union
Seventeen days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Poland (known as the ''Kresy'') and annexed territories totalling with a population o ...
. Based on population migration from West to East during and after the German invasion German invasion may refer to:
Pre-1900s
* German invasion of Hungary (1063)
World War I
* German invasion of Belgium (1914)
* German invasion of Luxembourg (1914)
World War II
* Invasion of Poland
* German invasion of Belgium (1940)
* G ...
the percentage of Jews under the Soviet-occupation was substantially higher than that of the national census.
The Soviet annexation was accompanied by the widespread arrests of government officials, police, military personnel, border guards, teachers, priests, judges etc., followed by the NKVD prisoner massacres
The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions of political prisoners carried out by the NKVD, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union, across Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, a ...
and massive deportation of 320,000 Polish nationals to the Soviet interior and the Gulag slave labor camps where, as a result of the inhuman conditions, about half of them died before the end of war.
Jewish refugees under the Soviet occupation had little knowledge about what was going on under the Germans since the Soviet media did not report on the goings-on in territories occupied by their Nazi ally.
Many people from Western Poland registered for repatriation back to the German zone, including wealthier Jews, as well as some political and social activists from the interwar period
In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the World War I, First World War to the beginning of the World War II, Second World War. The in ...
. Instead, they were labelled "class enemies" by the NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
and deported to Siberia with the others. Jews caught at border crossings, or engaged in trade and other "illegal" activities were also arrested and deported. Several thousand, mostly captured Polish soldiers, were executed; some of them Jewish.
All private property and – crucial to Jewish economic life – private businesses were nationalized; political activity was delegalized and thousands of people were jailed, many of whom were later executed. Zionism, which was designated by the Soviets as counter-revolutionary was also forbidden. In just one day all Polish and Jewish media were shut down and replaced by the new Soviet press,[Dr Pawel Goldstein]
Lutsk (Luck) Ghetto.
Geni.com. which conducted political propaganda attacking religion including the Jewish faith. Synagogues and churches were not yet closed but heavily taxed. The Soviet ruble of little value was immediately equalized to the much higher Polish zloty and by the end of 1939, zloty was abolished. Most economic activity became subject to central planning and the NKVD restrictions. Since the Jewish communities tended to rely more on commerce and small-scale businesses, the confiscations of property affected them to a greater degree than the general populace. The Soviet rule resulted in near collapse of the local economy, characterized by insufficient wages and general shortage of goods and materials. The Jews, like other inhabitants of the region, saw a fall in their living standards.
Under the Soviet policy, ethnic Poles were dismissed and denied access to positions in the civil service. Former senior officials and notable members of the Polish community were arrested and exiled together with their families.
Polandsholocaust.org (17 September 1939). Retrieved on 2010-08-22. At the same time the Soviet authorities encouraged young Jewish communists to fill in the newly emptied government and civil service jobs.
While most eastern Poles consolidated themselves around the anti-Soviet sentiments, a portion of the Jewish population, along with the ethnic Belarusian and Ukrainian activists had welcomed invading Soviet forces as their protectors. The general feeling among the Polish Jews was a sense of temporary relief in having escaped the Nazi occupation in the first weeks of war. The Polish poet and former communist Aleksander Wat
Aleksander Wat was the pen name of Aleksander Chwat (1 May 1900 – 29 July 1967), a Polish poet, writer, art theoretician, memorist, and one of the precursors of the Polish futurism movement in the early 1920s, considered to be one of the more i ...
has stated that Jews were more inclined to cooperate with the Soviets. Following Jan Karski
Jan Karski (24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Western Allies ab ...
's report written in 1940, historian Norman Davies
Ivor Norman Richard Davies (born 8 June 1939) is a Welsh-Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at ...
claimed that among the informers and collaborators, the percentage of Jews was striking; likewise, General Władysław Sikorski
Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader.
Prior to the First World War, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause for Polish i ...
estimated that 30% of them identified with the communists whilst engaging in provocations; they prepared lists of Polish "class enemies".[ Other historians have indicated that the level of Jewish collaboration could well have been less than suggested. Historian Martin Dean has written that "few local Jews obtained positions of power under Soviet rule."
The issue of Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupation remains controversial. Some scholars note that while not pro-Communist, many Jews saw the Soviets as the lesser threat compared to the German Nazis. They stress that stories of Jews welcoming the Soviets on the streets, vividly remembered by many Poles from the Kresy, eastern part of the country are impressionistic and not reliable indicators of the level of Jewish support for the Soviets. Additionally, it has been noted that some ethnic Poles were as prominent as Jews in filling civil and police positions in the occupation administration, and that Jews, both civilians and in the Polish military, suffered equally at the hands of the Soviet occupiers. Whatever initial enthusiasm for the Soviet occupation Jews might have felt was soon dissipated upon feeling the impact of the suppression of Jewish societal modes of life by the occupiers. The tensions between ethnic Poles and Jews as a result of this period has, according to some historians, taken a toll on relations between Poles and Jews throughout the war, creating until this day, an impasse to Polish-Jewish rapprochement.]
A number of younger Jews, often through the pro-Marxist Bund or some Zionist groups, were sympathetic to Communism and Soviet Russia, both of which had been enemies of the Polish Second Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of the First World ...
. As a result of these factors they found it easy after 1939 to participate in the Soviet occupation administration in Eastern Poland, and briefly occupied prominent positions in industry, schools, local government, police and other Soviet-installed institutions. The concept of "Judeo-communism" was reinforced during the period of the Soviet occupation (see Żydokomuna).
There were also Jews who assisted Poles during the Soviet occupation. Among the thousands of Polish officers killed by the Soviet NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
in the Katyń massacre there were 500–600 Jews. From 1939 to 1941 between 100,000 and 300,000 Polish Jews were deported from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union, Soviet-occupied Polish territory into the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. Some of them, especially Polish Communism, Communists (e.g. Jakub Berman), moved voluntarily; however, most of them were Population transfer in the Soviet Union, forcibly deported or imprisoned in a ''Gulag''. Small numbers of Polish Jews (about 6,000) were able to leave the Soviet Union in 1942 with the Władysław Anders army, among them the future Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. B ...
. During the Polish army's Polish II Corps, II Corps' stay in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine, 67% (2,972) of the Jewish soldiers deserted to settle in Palestine, and many joined the ''Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
''. General Anders decided not to prosecute the deserters and emphasized that the Jewish soldiers who remained in the Force fought bravely. The Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino, Cemetery of Polish soldiers who died during the Battle of Monte Cassino includes headstones bearing a Star of David. A number of Jewish soldiers died also when liberating Bologna.
The Holocaust
Poland's Jewish community suffered the most in the Holocaust. Some six million Polish citizens perished in the war – half of those (three million Polish Jews, all but some 300,000 of the Jewish population) being killed at the Nazism, German extermination camps at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz, Treblinka extermination camp, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec extermination camp, Belzec, Sobibór extermination camp, Sobibór, and Chełmno extermination camp, Chełmno or starvation, starved to death in the ghettos.
Poland was where the German program of extermination of Jews, the "Final Solution", was implemented, since this was where most of Europe's Jews (excluding the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's) lived.
In 1939 several hundred synagogues were blown up or burned by the Germans, who sometimes forced the Jews to do it themselves. In many cases, the Germans turned the synagogues into factories, places of entertainment, swimming pools, or prisons. By war's end, almost all the synagogues in Poland had been destroyed. Rabbis were forced to dance and sing in public with their beards shorn off. Some rabbis were set on fire or hanged.
The Germans ordered that all Jews be registered, and the word "''Jude''" was stamped in their identity cards. Numerous restrictions and prohibitions targeting Jews were introduced and brutally enforced. For example, Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, use public transport, or enter places of leisure, sports arenas, theaters, museums and libraries. On the street, Jews had to lift their hat to passing Germans. By the end of 1941 all Jews in German-occupied Poland, except the children, had to wear an identifying badge with a blue Star of David. Rabbis were humiliated in "spectacles organised by the German soldiers and police" who used their rifle butts "to make these men dance in their praying shawls." The Germans "disappointed that Poles refused to collaborate", made little attempts to set up a collaborationist government in Poland, nevertheless, German tabloid (newspaper format), tabloids printed in Polish routinely ran antisemitic articles that urged local people to adopt an attitude of indifference towards the Jews.
Following Operation Barbarossa, many Jews in what was then Eastern Poland fell victim to Nazi death squads called ''Einsatzgruppen'', which massacred Jews, especially in 1941. Some of these German-inspired massacres were carried out with help from, or active participation of Poles themselves: for example, the Jedwabne pogrom
The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom ...
, in which between 300 (Institute of National Remembrance's Final Findings) and 1,600 Jews (Jan T. Gross) were tortured and beaten to death by members of the local population. The full extent of Polish participation in the massacres of the Polish Jewish community remains a controversial subject, in part due to Jewish leaders' refusal to allow the remains of the Jewish victims to be exhumed and their cause of death to be properly established. The Polish Institute for National Remembrance identified twenty-two other towns that had pogroms similar to Jedwabne. The reasons for these massacres are still debated, but they included antisemitism, resentment over alleged cooperation with the Soviet invaders in the Polish-Soviet War and during the 1939 invasion of the Kresy regions, greed for the possessions of the Jews, and of course coercion by the Nazis to participate in such massacres.
Some Jewish historians have written of the negative attitudes of some Poles towards persecuted Jews during the Holocaust. While members of Catholic clergy risked their lives to assist Jews, their efforts were sometimes made in the face of antisemitic attitudes from the church hierarchy.[Bożena Szaynok (2005)]
"Antisemitism, Anti-Judaism, and the Polish Catholic Clergy during the Second World War."
''In:'' Robert Blobaum, ''Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland''. Cornell University Press, p. 277. . Anti-Jewish attitudes also existed in the London-based Polish Government in Exile, although on 18 December 1942 the President in exile Władysław Raczkiewicz wrote a dramatic letter to Pope Pius XII, begging him for a public defense of both murdered Poles and Jews. In spite of the introduction of death penalty extending to the entire families of rescuers, the number of Polish Righteous among the Nations testifies to the fact that Poles were willing to take risks in order to save Jews.
Holocaust survivors' views of Polish behavior during the War span a wide range, depending on their personal experiences. Some are very negative, based on the view of Christian Poles as passive witnesses who failed to act and aid the Jews as they were being persecuted or liquidated by the Nazis. Poles, who were also victims of Nazi crimes, were often afraid for their own and their family's lives and this fear prevented many of them from giving aid and assistance, even if some of them felt sympathy for the Jews. Emanuel Ringelblum
Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportation of Je ...
, a Polish-Jewish historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote critically of the indifferent and sometimes joyful responses in Warsaw to the destruction of Polish Jews in the Ghetto. However, Gunnar S. Paulsson stated that Polish citizens of Warsaw managed to support and hide the same percentage of Jews as did the citizens of cities in Western European countries. Paulsson's research shows that at least as far as Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
is concerned, the number of Poles aiding Jews far outnumbered those who sold out their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation of Warsaw 70,000–90,000 Polish gentiles aided Jews, while 3,000–4,000 were szmalcowniks, or blackmailers who collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting the Jews.
Ghettos and death camps
The German Nazis established six extermination camps throughout German occupied Poland, occupied Poland by 1942. All of these – at Chelmno extermination camp, Chełmno (Kulmhof), Belzec extermination camp, Bełżec, Sobibor extermination camp, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz (Oświęcim) – were located near the rail network so that the victims could be easily transported. The system of the camps was expanded over the course of the German occupation of Poland and their purposes were diversified; some served as transit camps, some as forced labor in Germany during World War II, forced labor camps and the majority as death camps. While in the death camps, the victims were usually killed shortly after arrival, in the other camps able-bodied Jews were worked and beaten to death. The operation of concentration camps depended on Kapo (concentration camp), Kapos, the collaborator-prisoners. Some of them were Jewish themselves, and their prosecution after the war created an ethical dilemma.
Between October 1939 and July 1942 a system of ghettos was imposed for the confinement of Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest in all of World War II, with 380,000 people crammed into an area of . The Łódź Ghetto was the second largest, holding about 160,000 prisoners. Other large Jewish ghettos in leading Polish cities included Białystok Ghetto in Białystok, Częstochowa Ghetto, Kielce Ghetto, Kraków Ghetto in Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
, Lublin Ghetto, Lwów Ghetto in present-day Lviv, Stanisławów Ghetto also in present-day Ukraine, Brześć Ghetto in presend-day Belarus, and Radom Ghetto among others. Ghettos were also established in hundreds of smaller settlements and villages around the country. The overcrowding, dirt, lice, lethal epidemics such as typhoid and hunger all resulted in countless deaths.
During the occupation of Poland, the Germans used various laws to separate ethnic Poles from Jewish ones. In the ghettos, the population was separated by putting the Poles into the "Aryan Side" and the Polish Jews into the "Jewish Side". Any Pole found giving any help to a Jewish Pole was subject to the death penalty. Another law implemented by the Germans was that Poles were forbidden from buying from Jewish shops, and if they did they were subject to execution.[Iwo Pogonowski, ''Jews in Poland'', Hippocrene, 1998. . Page 99.] Many Jews tried to escape from the ghettos in the hope of finding a place to hide outside of it, or of joining the partisan units. When this proved difficult escapees often returned to the ghetto on their own. If caught, Germans would murder the escapees and leave their bodies in plain view as a warning to others. Despite these terror tactics, attempts at escape from ghettos continued until their liquidation.
Since the Nazi terror reigned throughout the Aryan districts, the chances of remaining successfully hidden depended on a fluent knowledge of the language and on having close ties with the community. Many Poles were not willing to hide Jews who might have escaped the ghettos or who might have been in hiding due to fear for their own lives and that of their families.
While the German policy towards Jews was ruthless and criminal, their policy towards Christian Poles who helped Jews was very much the same. The Germans would often murder non-Jewish Poles for small misdemeanors. Execution for help rendered to Jews, even the most basic kinds, was automatic. In any apartment block or area where Jews were found to be harboured, everybody in the house would be immediately shot by the Germans. For this thousands of non-Jewish Poles were executed.
Hiding in a Christian society to which the Jews were only partially assimilated was a daunting task. They needed to quickly acquire not only a new identity, but a new body of knowledge.[ Many Jews spoke Polish with a distinguished Yiddish or Hebrew accent, used a different nonverbal language, different gestures and facial expressions. Jews with the specific physical characteristics were particularly vulnerable.][
Some individuals blackmailed Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, Jews and non-Jewish Poles hiding them, and took advantage of their desperation by collecting money, or worse, turning them over to the Germans for a reward. The Gestapo provided a standard prize to those who informed on Jews hidden on the 'Aryan' side, consisting of cash, liquor, sugar, and cigarettes. Jews were robbed and handed over to the Germans by "szmalcowniks" (the 'shmalts' people: from ''shmalts'' or ''szmalec'', Yiddish and Polish for 'grease'). In extreme cases, the Jews informed on other Jews to alleviate hunger with the awarded prize.] The extortionists were condemned by the Polish Underground State. The fight against informers was organized by the Armia Krajowa (the Underground State's military arm), with the death sentence being meted out on a scale unknown in the occupied countries of Western Europe.
To discourage Poles from giving shelter to Jews, the Germans often searched houses and introduced ruthless penalties. Poland was the only occupied country during World War II where the Nazism, Nazis formally imposed the death penalty for anybody found sheltering and helping Jews. The penalty applied not only to the person who did the helping, but also extended to his or her family, neighbors and sometimes to entire villages. In this way Germans applied the principle of collective responsibility whose purpose was to encourage neighbors to inform on each other in order to avoid punishment. The nature of these policies was widely known and visibly publicized by the Nazis who sought to terrorize the Polish population.
Food rations for the Poles were small (669 kcal per day in 1941) compared to other occupied nations throughout Europe and black market prices of necessary goods were high, factors which made it difficult to hide people and almost impossible to hide entire families, especially in the cities. Despite these draconian measures imposed by the Nazis, Poland has the highest number of Righteous Among The Nations awards at the Yad Vashem Museum (6,339).
The Polish Government in Exile was the first (in November 1942) to reveal the existence of Nazi-run concentration camps and the systematic extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, through its courier Jan Karski
Jan Karski (24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Western Allies ab ...
and through the activities of Witold Pilecki, a member of ''Armia Krajowa'' who was the only person to volunteer for imprisonment in Auschwitz and who organized a resistance movement inside the camp itself. One of the Jewish members of the National Council of the Polish government in exile, Szmul Zygielbojm, committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allies of World War II, Allied governments in the face of the Holocaust in Poland. The Polish government in exile was also the only government to set up an organization (Żegota) specifically aimed at helping the Jews in Poland.
The Warsaw Ghetto and its uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto and its Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943 Uprising represents what is likely the most known episode of the wartime history of the Polish Jews. The ghetto was established by the German General Gouvernment, Governor-General Hans Frank on 16 October 1940. Initially, almost 140,000 Jews were moved into the ghetto from all parts of Warsaw. At the same time, approximately 110,000 Poles had been forcibly evicted from the area. The Germans selected Adam Czerniakow to take charge of the Jewish Council called Judenrat made up of 24 Jewish men ordered to organize Jewish labor battalions as well as Jewish Ghetto Police which would be responsible for maintaining order within the Ghetto walls. A number of Jewish policemen were corrupt and immoral. Soon the Nazis demanded even more from the Judenrat and the demands were much crueler. Death was the punishment for the slightest indication of noncompliance by the Judenrat. Sometimes the Judenrat refused to collaborate in which case its members were consequently executed and replaced by the new group of people. Adam Czerniakow who was the head of the Warsaw Judenrat committed suicide when he was forced to collect daily lists of Jews to be deported to Treblinka extermination camp at the onset of Grossaktion Warsaw (1942), Grossaktion Warsaw.
The population of the ghetto reached 380,000 people by the end of 1940, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was only about 2.4% of the size of the city. The Germans closed off the Ghetto from the outside world, building a wall around it by 16 November 1940. During the next year and a half, Jews from smaller cities and villages were brought into the Warsaw Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal, and 669 kcal for Poles, as opposed to 2,613 kcal for Germans. On 22 July 1942, Grossaktion Warsaw (1942), the mass deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began. During the next fifty-two days (until 12 September 1942) about 300,000 people were transported by freight train to the Treblinka extermination camp. The Jewish Ghetto Police were ordered to escort the ghetto inhabitants to the Umschlagplatz (Warsaw Ghetto), Umschlagplatz train station. They were spared from the deportations until September 1942 in return for their cooperation, but afterwards shared their fate with families and relatives. On 18 January 1943, a group of Ghetto militants led by the right-leaning Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW, including some members of the left-leaning Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB, rose up in a first Warsaw uprising. Both organizations resisted, with arms, German attempts for additional deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka.[ Note: Chariton and Lazar were never co-authors of Wdowiński's memoir. Wdowiński is considered the "single author."] The final destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto came four months later after the crushing of one of the most heroic and tragic battles of the war, the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The Uprising was led by ŻOB (''Jewish Combat Organization'') and the ŻZW. The ŻZW (''Jewish Military Union'') was the better supplied in arms. The ŻOB had more than 750 fighters, but lacked weapons; they had only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and several grenades. A developed network of bunkers and fortifications were formed. The Jewish fighters also received support from the Polish Underground (Armia Krajowa). The German forces, which included 2,842 Nazi soldiers and 7,000 security personnel, were not capable of crushing the Jewish resistance in open street combat and after several days, decided to switch strategy by setting buildings on fire in which the Jewish fighters hid. The commander of the ŻOB, Mordechai Anielewicz, died fighting on 8 May 1943 at the organization's command centre on 18 Mila Street.
It took the Germans twenty-seven days to put down the uprising, after some very heavy fighting. The German general Jürgen Stroop in his report stated that his troops had killed 6,065 Jewish fighters during the battle. After the uprising was already over, Heinrich Himmler had the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Square (outside the ghetto) destroyed as a celebration of German victory and a symbol that the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw was no longer.
A group of fighters escaped from the ghetto through the sewers and reached the Lomianki forest. About 50 ghetto fighters were saved by the Polish "People's Guard" and later formed their own partisan group, named after Anielewicz. Even after the end of the uprising there were still several hundreds of Jews who continued living in the ruined ghetto. Many of them survived thanks to the contacts they managed to establish with Poles outside the ghetto. The Uprising inspired Jews throughout Poland. Many Jewish leaders who survived the liquidation continued underground work outside the ghetto. They hid other Jews, forged necessary documents and were active in the Polish underground in other parts of Warsaw and the surrounding area.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was followed by other Ghetto uprisings in many smaller towns and cities across German-occupied Poland. Many Jews were found alive in the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 general Warsaw Uprising when the Poles themselves rose up against the Germans. Some of the survivors of 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, still held in camps at or near Warsaw, were freed during 1944 Warsaw Uprising, led by the Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa, and immediately joined Polish fighters. Only a few of them survived. The Polish commander of one Jewish unit, Waclaw Micuta, described them as some of the best fighters, always at the front line. It is estimated that over 2,000 Polish Jews, some as well known as Marek Edelman or Icchak Cukierman, and several dozen Greek, Hungarian or even German Jews freed by Armia Krajowa from Gesiowka concentration camp in Warsaw, men and women, took part in combat against Nazis during 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Some 166,000 people lost their lives in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, including perhaps as many as 17,000 Polish Jews who had either fought with the Armia Krajowa, AK or had been discovered in hiding (''see:'' Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński and Stanisław Aronson). Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Germans and more than 150,000 Poles were sent to labor or concentration camps. On 17 January 1945, the Soviet Army entered a destroyed and nearly uninhabited Warsaw. Some 300 Jews were found hiding in the ruins in the Polish part of the city (''see:'' Wladyslaw Szpilman).
The fate of the Warsaw Ghetto was similar to that of the other ghettos in which Jews were concentrated. With the decision of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
to begin the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe, Aktion Reinhard began in 1942, with the opening of the extermination camps of Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, followed by Auschwitz-Birkenau where people were killed in gas chambers and mass executions (death wall). Many died from hunger, starvation, disease, torture or by pseudo-medical experiments. The mass deportation of Jews from ghettos to these camps, such as happened at the Warsaw Ghetto, soon followed, and more than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943 alone.
The Białystok Ghetto and its uprising
In August 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto in Białystok. About 50,000 Jews from the city and the surrounding region were confined in a small area of Białystok. The ghetto had two sections, divided by the Biała River (Supraśl basin), Biala River. Most Jews in the Białystok ghetto worked in forced-labor projects, primarily in large textile factories located within the ghetto boundaries. The Germans also sometimes used Jews in forced-labor projects outside the ghetto.
In February 1943, approximately 10,000 Białystok Jews were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. During the deportations, hundreds of Jews, mainly those deemed too weak or sick to travel, were killed.
In August 1943, the Germans mounted an operation to destroy the Białystok ghetto. German forces and local police auxiliaries surrounded the ghetto and began to round up Jews systematically for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp. Approximately 7,600 Jews were held in a central transit camp in the city before deportation to Treblinka. Those deemed fit to work were sent to the Majdanek camp. In Majdanek, after another screening for ability to work, they were transported to the Poniatowa, Blizyn, or Auschwitz camps. Those deemed too weak to work were murdered at Majdanek. More than 1,000 Jewish children were sent first to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, Theresienstadt ghetto in Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
, and then to Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were killed.
On 15 August 1943, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising began, and several hundred Polish Jews and members of the Anti-Fascist Military Organisation ( pl, Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa) started an armed struggle against the German troops who were carrying out the planned liquidation and deportation of the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. The guerrillas were armed with only one machine gun, several dozen pistols, Molotov cocktails and bottles filled with acid. The fighting in isolated pockets of resistance lasted for several days, but the defence was broken almost instantly. As with the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, the Białystok uprising had no chances for military success, but it was the second-largest ghetto uprising, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Several dozen guerrillas managed to break through to the forests surrounding Białystok where they joined the partisan units of Armia Krajowa and other organisations and survived the war.
Communist rule: 1945–1989
Number of Holocaust survivors
The estimates of Polish Jews before the war vary from slightly under 3 million to almost 3.5 million (Polish census of 1931, the last nationwide census was conducted in 1931).
The number of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust is difficult to ascertain. The majority of Polish Jewish survivors were individuals who were able to find refuge in the territories of Soviet Union that were not overrun by Germans and thus safe from the Holocaust. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 800,000 Polish Jews survived the war, out of which between 50,000 and 100,000 were survivors from occupied Poland, and the remainder, survivors who made it abroad (mostly to the Soviet Union).
Following the Soviet annexation of over half of Poland at the onset of World War II, all Polish nationals including Jews were declared by Moscow to have become Soviet nationals regardless of birth. Also, all Polish Jews who perished in the Holocaust behind the Curzon Line were included with the Soviet war dead.[. ''[Also in:]'' ] For decades to come, the Soviet authorities refused to accept the fact that thousands of Jews who remained in the USSR opted consciously and unambiguously for Polish nationality. At the end of 1944, the number of Polish Jews in the Soviet and the Soviet-controlled territories has been estimated at 250,000–300,000 people. Jews who escaped to Kresy, eastern Poland from areas occupied by Germany in 1939 were numbering at around 198,000.[. ''Also in:'' Trela-Mazur 1997, ]
Wrocławskie Studia Wschodnie
'' pp. 87–104, Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
. Over 150,000 of them were repatriated or expelled back to new communist Poland along with the Jewish men conscripted to the Red Army from Kresy in 1940–1941. Their families were murdered in the Holocaust. Some of the soldiers married women with the Soviet citizenship, others agreed to paper marriages. Those who survived the Holocaust in Poland included Jews who were saved by the Poles (most families with children), and those who joined the Polish or Soviet resistance movement. Some 20,000–40,000 Jews were repatriated from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, up to 240,000 returning Jews might have resided in Poland mostly in Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...
, Kraków, Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
and Lower Silesia, e.g., Dzierżoniów (where there was a significant Jewish community initially consisting of local concentration camp survivors), Legnica, and Bielawa.
The Jewish community in post-war Poland
Following World War II Poland became a Polish People's Republic, satellite state of the Soviet Union, with its Territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, eastern regions annexed to the Union, and its western borders expanded to include Recovered Territories, formerly German territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This forced millions to relocate (see also Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II). Jewish survivors returning to their homes in Poland found it practically impossible to reconstruct their pre-war lives. Due to the border shifts, some Polish Jews found that their homes were now in the Soviet Union; in other cases, the returning survivors were German Jews whose homes were now under Polish jurisdiction. Jewish communities and Jewish life as it had existed was gone, and Jews who somehow survived the Holocaust often discovered that their homes had been looted or destroyed.
Anti-Jewish violence and discrimination
Some returning Jews were met with antisemitic bias in Polish employment and education administrations. Post-war labor certificates contained markings distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. The Jewish community in Szczecin reported a lengthy report of complaints regarding job discrimination. Although Jewish schools were created in the few towns containing a relatively large Jewish population, many Jewish children were enrolled in Polish state schools. Some state schools, as in the town of Otwock, forbade Jewish children to enroll. In the state schools that did allow Jewish children, there were numerous accounts of beatings and persecution targeting these children.
The anti-Jewish violence in Poland refers to a series of violent incidents in Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
that immediately followed the end of World War II in Europe. It occurred amid a period of violence and anarchy across the country, caused by lawlessness and Anti-communist resistance in Poland (1944–46), anti-communist resistance against the History of Poland (1945–1989)#Consolidation of communist power, Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland.
The exact number of Jewish victims is a subject of debate with 327 documented cases, and range, estimated by different writers, from 400[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ''After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II'' (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 2003), 212-213. .] to 2,000. Jews constituted between 2% and 3% of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country, including the Polish Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
on territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, and returned after the Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II, border changes imposed by the Allies at the Yalta Conference. The incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogroms.
The best-known case is the Kielce pogrom of 4 July 1946, in which thirty-seven Jews and two Poles were murdered. Following the investigation, the local Milicja Obywatelska, police commander was found guilty of inaction. Nine alleged participants of the pogrom were sentenced to death; three were given lengthy prison sentences. The debate in Poland continues about the involvement of regular troops in the killings, and possible Soviet influences.[ ''Also in'' ]
In a number of other instances, returning Jews still met with threats, violence, and murder from their Polish neighbors, occasionally in a deliberate and organized manner. People of the community frequently had knowledge of these murders and turned a blind eye or held no sympathy for the victims. Jewish communities responded to this violence by reporting the violence to the Ministry of Public Administration, but were granted little assistance. As many as 1500 Jewish heirs were often murdered when attempting to reclaim property.[The Plunder of Jewish Property during the Holocaust](_blank)
Palgrave, page 101
Several causes led to the anti-Jewish violence of 1944–1947. One cause was traditional Christian anti-semitism; the Kraków pogrom, pogrom in Cracow (11 August 1945) and in Kielce followed accusations of ritual murder. Another cause was the gentile Polish hostility to the Communist takeover. Even though very few Jews lived in postwar Poland, many Poles believed they dominated the Communist authorities, a belief expressed in the term ''Żydokomuna'' (Judeo-Communist), a popular anti-Jewish stereotype. Yet another reason for Polish violence towards Jews stemmed from the fear that survivors would recover their property.
Jewish property
After the war ended, Poland's Communist government enacted a broad program of nationalization and land reform, taking over large numbers of properties, both Polish- and Jewish-owned. As part of the reform the Polish People's Republic enacted legislation on "abandoned property", placing severe limitations on inheritance that were not present in prewar inheritance law, for example limiting restitution to the original owners or their immediate heirs.[Under these limitations, restitution seemed to proceed well, at least for a time (see ''The American Jewish Year Book'', vol. 49, 1947, p. 390).] According to Dariusz Stola, the 1945 and 1946 laws governing restitution were enacted with the intention of restricting Jewish restitution claims as one of their main goals. The 1946 law carried a deadline of 31 December 1947 (later extended to 31 December 1948), after which unclaimed property devolved to the Polish state; many survivors residing in the USSR or in Displaced persons, displaced-persons camps were repatriated only after the deadline had passed. All other properties that had been confiscated by the Nazi regime were deemed "abandoned"; however, as Yechiel Weizman notes, the fact most of Poland's Jewry had died, in conjunction with the fact that only Jewish property was officially confiscated by the Nazis, suggest "abandoned property" was equivalent to "Jewish property". According to , the state actively sought to gain control over a large number of "abandoned" properties. According to Krzyżanowski, this declaration of "abandoned" property can be seen as the last stage of the expropriation process that began during the German wartime occupation; by approving the status-quo shaped by the German occupation authorities, the Polish authorities became "the beneficiary of the murder of millions of its Jewish citizens, who were deprived of all their property before death". A 1945 memorandum by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Joint states that "the new economic tendency of the Polish government... is against, or at least makes difficulties in, getting back the Jewish property robbed by the German authorities." Later laws, while more generous, remained mainly on paper, with an "uneven" implementation.
Many of the properties that were previously owned or by Jews were taken over by others during the war. Attempting to reclaim an occupied property often put the claimant at a risk of physical harm and even death.[Adam Kopciowski. ''Zagłada Żydów w Zamościu'' (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2005), 203; Adam Kopciowski, "Anti-Jewish Incidents in the Lublin Region in the Early Years after World War II," ''Holocaust: Studies and Materials'' vol. 1 (2008), 188.][Alina Skibińska, "Problemy rewindykacji żydowskich nieruchomości w latach 1944–1950: Zagadnienia ogólne i szczegółowe (na przykładzie Szczebrzeszyna)," p. 493-573 in ''Klucze i kasa: O mieniu żydowskim w Polsce pod okupacją niemiecką i we wczesnych latach powojennych 1939–1950'', ed. by Jan Grabowski & Dariusz Libionka (Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, Warszawa 2014)] Many who proceeded with the process were only granted possession, not ownership, of their properties; and completing the restitution process, given that most properties were already occupied, required additional, lengthy processes.[Searching for Justice After the Holocaust: Fulfilling the Terezin Declaration and Immovable Property Restitution](_blank)
Oxford University Press, page 325 The majority of Jewish claimants could not afford the restitution process without financial help, due to the filing costs, legal fees, and inheritance tax. While it is hard to determine the total number of successful reclamations, Michael Meng estimates that it was extremely small.
In general, restitution was easier for larger organizations or well connected individuals, and the process was also abused by criminal gangs.
"Movable" property such as housewares, that was either given by Jews for safekeeping or taken during the war, was rarely returned willfully; oftentimes the only resort for a returnee looking for reappropriation was the courts. Most such property was probably never returned. According to Jan Gross, "there was no social norm mandating the return of Jewish property, no detectable social pressure defining such behavior as the right thing to do, no informal social control mechanism imposing censure for doing otherwise."
Facing violence and a difficult and expensive legal process, many returnees eventually decided to leave the country rather than attempt reclamation.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union, a law was passed that allowed the Catholic Church to reclaim its properties, which it did with great success. According to Stephen Denburg, "unlike the restitution of Church property, the idea of returning property to former Jewish owners has been met with a decided lack of enthusiasm from both the general Polish population as well as the government".
Decades later, reclaiming pre-war property would lead to a number of controversies, and the matter is still debated by media and scholars as of late 2010s. Dariusz Stola notes that the issues of property in Poland are incredibly complex, and need to take into consideration unprecedented losses of both Jewish and Polish population and massive destruction caused by Nazi Germany, as well as the expansion of Soviet Union and communism into Polish territories after the war, which dictated the property laws for the next 50 years. Poland remains "the only EU country and the only former Eastern European communist state not to have enacted [a restitution] law," but rather "a patchwork of laws and court decisions promulgated from 1945-present." As stated by Dariusz Stola, director of the POLIN Museum, "the question of restitution is in many ways connected to the question of Polish-Jewish relations, their history and remembrance, but particularly to the attitude of the Poles to the Holocaust."
Emigration to Palestine and Israel
For a variety of reasons, the vast majority of returning Jewish survivors left Poland soon after the war ended. Many left for the West because they did not want to live under a Communist regime. Some left because of the persecution they faced in postwar Poland, and because they did not want to live where their family members had been murdered, and instead have arranged to live with relatives or friends in different western democracies. Others wanted to go to Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate of Palestine soon to be the new state of Israel, especially after General Marian Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits. In 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
country to allow free Jewish aliyah
Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the Israel, State of Israel ...
to Israel, without visas or exit permits. Britain demanded Poland to halt the exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.
Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by the Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
activists including Adolf Berman and Icchak Cukierman, under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine ''Berihah'' ("Flight") organization. ''Berihah'' was also responsible for the organized Aliyah emigration of Jews from Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, totaling 250,000 survivors. In 1947, a military training camp for young Jewish volunteers to Hagana was established in Bolków, Poland. The camp trained 7,000 soldiers who then traveled to Palestine to fight for Israel. The boot-camp existed until the end of 1948.
A second wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime between 1957 and 1959. After 1967's Six-Day War, in which the Soviet Union supported the Arab side, the Polish communist party adopted an anti-Jewish course of action which in the years 1968–1969 provoked the last mass migration of Jews from Poland.
The Bund took part in the post-war Polish legislative election, 1947, elections of 1947 on a common ticket with the (non-communist) Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and gained its first and only parliamentary seat in its Polish history, plus several seats in municipal councils. Under pressure from Soviet-installed communist authorities, the Bund's leaders 'voluntarily' disbanded the party in 1948–1949 against the opposition of many activists. Stalinist Poland was basically governed by the Soviet NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
which was against the renewal of Jewish religious and cultural life. In the years 1948–49, all remaining Jewish schools were nationalized by the communists and Yiddish was replaced with Polish as a language of teaching.
Rebuilding Jewish communities
For those Polish Jews who remained, the rebuilding of Jewish life in Poland was carried out between October 1944 and 1950 by the 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, ( pl, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce, yi, צענטראלער קאמיטעט פון די יידן אין פוילן, trans ...
(''Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich'', CKŻP) which provided legal, educational, social care, cultural, and propaganda services. A countrywide Jewish Religious Community, led by Dawid Kahane, who served as chief rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces#After 1945, Polish Armed Forces, functioned between 1945 and 1948 until it was absorbed by the CKŻP. Eleven independent political Jewish parties, of which eight were legal, existed until their dissolution during 1949–50. Hospitals and schools were opened in Poland by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and ORT to provide service to Jewish communities. Some Jewish cultural institutions were established including the Yiddish theater, Yiddish State Theater founded in 1950 and directed by Ida Kaminska, the Jewish Historical Institute, an academic institution specializing in the research of the history and culture of the Jews in Poland, and the Yiddish newspaper ''Folks-Shtime'' ("People's Voice"). Following liberalization after Joseph Stalin's death, in this 1958–59 period, 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.
Some Polish Communists of Jewish descent actively participated in the establishment of the communist regime in the People's Republic of Poland between 1944 and 1956. Hand-picked by Joseph Stalin, prominent Jews held posts in the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party including Jakub Berman, head of state security apparatus ''Urząd Bezpieczeństwa'' (UB), and Hilary Minc responsible for establishing a Communist-style economy. Together with hardliner Bolesław Bierut, Berman and Minc formed a triumvirate of the Stalinist leaders in postwar Poland. After 1956, during the process of destalinisation in the Polish People's Republic, People's Republic under Władysław Gomułka, some Jewish officials from ''Urząd Bezpieczeństwa'' including Roman Romkowski, Jacek Różański, and Anatol Fejgin, were prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms for "power abuses" including the torture of Polish anti-fascists including Witold Pilecki among others. Yet another Jewish official, Józef Światło, after escaping to the West in 1953, exposed through Radio Free Europe the interrogation methods used the UB which led to its restructuring in 1954. Solomon Morel a member of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland and commandant of the Stalinist era Zgoda labour camp, fled Poland for Israel in 1992 to escape prosecution. Helena Wolińska-Brus, a former Stalinist prosecutor who emigrated to England in the late 1960s, fought being extradited to Poland on charges related to the execution of a Second World War resistance hero Emil Fieldorf. Wolińska-Brus died in London in 2008.
The March 1968 events and their aftermath
In 1967, following the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states, Poland's Communist government, following the Soviet lead, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and launched an antisemitic campaign under the guise of "anti-Zionism". However, the campaign did not resonate well with the Polish public, as most Poles saw similarities between Israel's fight for survival and Poland's past struggles for independence. Many Poles also felt pride in the success of the Israeli military, which was dominated by Polish Jews. The slogan "our Jews beat the Soviet Arabs" (Nasi Żydzi pobili sowieckich Arabów) became popular in Poland.
The vast majority of the 40,000 Jews in Poland by the late 1960s were completely assimilated into the broader society. However, this did not prevent them from becoming victims of a campaign, centrally organized by the Polish Communist Party, with Soviet backing, which equated Jewish origins with "Zionism" and disloyalty to a Socialist Poland.
In March 1968 student-led demonstrations in Warsaw (''see Polish 1968 political crisis'') gave Gomułka's government an excuse to try and channel public anti-government sentiment into another avenue. Thus his security chief, Mieczysław Moczar, used the situation as a pretext to launch an antisemitic press campaign (although the expression "Zionist" was officially used). The state-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign resulted in the removal of Jews from the Polish United Worker's Party and from teaching positions in schools and universities. In 1967–1971 under economic, political and secret police pressure, over 14,000 Polish Jews chose to leave Poland and relinquish their Polish citizenship. Officially, it was said that they chose to go to Israel. However, only about 4,000 actually went there; most settled throughout Europe and in the United States. The leaders of the Communist party tried to stifle the ongoing protests and unrest by scapegoating the Jews. At the same time there was an ongoing power struggle within the party itself and the antisemitic campaign was used by one faction against another. The so-called "Partisan" faction blamed the Jews who had held office during the Stalinist period for the excesses that had occurred, but the result was that most of the remaining Polish Jews, regardless of their background or political affiliation, were targeted by the communist authorities.
There were several outcomes of the ''March 1968 events''. The campaign damaged Poland's reputation abroad, particularly in the U.S. Many Polish intellectuals, however, were disgusted at the promotion of official antisemitism and opposed the campaign. Some of the people who emigrated to the West at this time founded organizations that encouraged anti-Communist opposition inside Poland.
First attempts to improve Polish-Israeli relations began in the mid-1970s. Poland was the first of the Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
countries to restore diplomatic relations with Israel after these have been broken off right after the Six-Day's War. In 1986 Israel–Poland relations, partial diplomatic relations with Israel were restored,[ and full relations were restored in 1990 as soon as communism fell.
During the late 1970s some Jewish activists were engaged in the anti-Communist opposition groups. Most prominent among them, Adam Michnik (founder of ''Gazeta Wyborcza'') was one of the founders of the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). By the time of the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, only 5,000–10,000 Jews remained in the country, many of them preferring to conceal their Jewish origin.
]
Since 1989
With the fall of communism in Poland, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has been undergoing a revival. Many historical issues, especially related to World War II and the 1944–89 period, suppressed by Communist censorship, have been re-evaluated and publicly discussed (like the Jedwabne pogrom, the Koniuchy massacre, the Kielce pogrom, the Auschwitz cross, and Polish-Jewish wartime relations in general).
Jewish religious life has been revived with the help of the Ronald Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture. There are two rabbis serving the Polish Jewish community, several Jewish schools and associated summer camps as well as several periodical and book series sponsored by the above foundations. Jewish studies programs are offered at major universities, such as Warsaw University and the Jagiellonian University. The Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland was founded in 1993. Its purpose is the promotion and organization of Jewish religious and cultural activities in Polish communities.
A large number of cities with synagogues include Warsaw, Kraków, Zamość, Tykocin, Rzeszów, Kielce, or Góra Kalwaria although not many of them are still active in their original religious role. Stara Synagoga ("Old Synagogue") in Kraków, which hosts a Jewish museum, was built in the early 15th century and is the oldest synagogue in Poland. Before the war, the Yeshiva Chachmei in Lublin was Europe's largest. In 2007 it was renovated, dedicated and reopened thanks to the efforts and endowments by Polish Jewry. Warsaw has an active synagogue, Beit Warszawa Synagogue, Beit Warszawa, affiliated with the Liberal-Progressive stream of Judaism.
There are also several Jewish publications although most of them are in Polish. These include ''Midrasz'', ''Dos Jidische Wort'' (which is bilingual), as well as a youth journal ''Jidele'' and "Sztendlach" for young children. Active institutions include the Jewish Historical Institute, the E.R. Kaminska State Yiddish Theater in Warsaw, and the Jewish Cultural Center. The Judaica Foundation in Kraków has sponsored a wide range of cultural and educational programs on Jewish themes for a predominantly Polish audience. With funds from the city of Warsaw and the Polish government ($26 million total) a Museum of the History of Polish Jews
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...
is being built in Warsaw. The building was designed by the Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki.
Former extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka are open to visitors. At Auschwitz the Oświęcim State Museum currently houses exhibitions on Nazi crimes with a special section (Block Number 27) specifically focused on Jewish victims and martyrs. At Treblinka there is a monument built out of many shards of broken stone, as well as a mausoleum dedicated to those who perished there. A small mound of human ashes commemorates the 350,000 victims of the Majdanek camp who were killed there by the Nazis. Jewish Cemetery, Łódź is one of the largest Jewish burial grounds in Europe, and preserved historic sites include those located in Góra Kalwaria and Leżajsk (Elimelech of Lizhensk, Elimelech's of Lizhensk ohel (grave), ohel).
The Great Synagogue in Oświęcim was excavated after testimony by a Holocaust survivor suggested that many Jewish relics and ritual objects had been buried there, just before Nazis took over the town. Candelabras, chandeliers, a menorah and a Ner Tamid, ner tamid were found and can now be seen at the Auschwitz Jewish Center.
The Warsaw Ghetto Memorial was unveiled on 19 April 1948—the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw ghetto Uprising. It was constructed out of bronze and granite that the Nazis used for a monument honoring German victory over Poland and it was designed by Nathan Rapoport. The Memorial is located where the Warsaw Ghetto used to be, at the site of one command bunker of the Jewish Combat Organization.
A memorial to the victims of the Kielce Pogrom of 1946, where a mob murdered more than 40 Jews who returned to the city after the Holocaust, was unveiled in 2006. The funds for the memorial came from the city itself and from the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.
Polish authors and scholars have published many works about the history of Jews in Poland. Notable among them are the Polish Academy of Sciences's Holocaust studies journal as well as other publications from the Institute of National Remembrance. Recent scholarship has primarily focused on three topics: post-war anti-Semitism; emigration and the creation of the State of Israel, and the restitution of property.
There have been a number of Holocaust remembrance activities in Poland in recent years. The United States Department of State documents that:
In September 2000, dignitaries from Poland, Israel, the United States, and other countries (including Prince Hassan of Jordan) gathered in the city of Oświęcim (Auschwitz) to commemorate the opening of the refurbished Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue and the Auschwitz Jewish Center. The synagogue, the sole synagogue in Oświęcim to survive World War II and an adjacent Jewish cultural and educational center, provide visitors a place to pray and to learn about the active pre–World War II Jewish community that existed in Oświęcim. The synagogue was the first communal property in the country to be returned to the Jewish community under the 1997 law allowing for restitution of Jewish communal property.
The March of the Living is an annual event in April held since 1988 to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. It takes place from Auschwitz to Auschwitz II, Birkenau and is attended by many people from Israel, Poland and other countries. The marchers honor Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as Israel Independence Day.
An annual Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków, festival of Jewish culture, which is one of the biggest festivals of Jewish culture in the world, takes place in Kraków.
In 2006, Poland's Jewish population was estimated to be approximately 20,000; most living in Warsaw, Wrocław
Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...
, Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
, and Bielsko-Biała, though there are no census figures that would give an exact number. According to the Polish Moses Schorr Centre and other Polish sources, however, this may represent an undercount of the actual number of Jews living in Poland, since many are not religious.[Beit Kraków » Wstęp do Judaizmu (Introduction to Judaism): "Korzenie" (Roots).](_blank)
31 August 2009. See also :pl:Szkoła rabinacka Beit Meir w Krakowie in Polish Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 July 2012. There are also people with Jewish roots who do not possess adequate documentation to confirm it, due to various historical and family complications.
Poland is currently easing the way for Jews who left Poland during the Communist organized massive expulsion of 1968 to re-obtain their citizenship. Some 15,000 Polish Jews were deprived of their citizenship in the 1968 Polish political crisis. On 17 June 2009 the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...
in Warsaw launched a bilingual Polish-English website called "The Virtual Shtetl", providing information about Jewish life in Poland.
In 2013, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened. It is one of the world's largest Jewish museums. As of 2019 another museum, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, is under construction and is intended to open in 2023.
Numbers of Jews in Poland since 1920
However, most sources other than YIVO
YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
give a larger number of Jews living in contemporary Poland. In the 2011 Polish census, 7,353 Polish citizens declared their nationality as "Jewish," a big increase from just 1,055 during the previous 2002 census. There are likely more people of Jewish ancestry living in Poland but who do not actively identify as Jewish. According to the Moses Schorr Centre, there are 100,000 Jews living in Poland who don't actively practice Judaism and do not list "Jewish" as their nationality. The Jewish Renewal in Poland organization estimates that there are 200,000 "potential Jews" in Poland. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency for Israel estimate that there are between 25,000 and 100,000 Jews living in Poland, a similar number to that estimated by Jonathan Ornstein, head of the Jewish Community Center in Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
(between 20,000 and 100,000).
See also
* History of the Jews in Poland before the 18th century
* History of the Jews in 18th-century Poland
* History of the Jews in 19th-century Poland
* History of the Jews in 20th-century Poland
* Timeline of Jewish-Polish history
* Galician Jews
* Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain
* History of the Jews in Austria
* History of the Jews in Germany
* History of the Jews in Russia
* Israel–Poland relations
* Jewish ethnic divisions
* ''Jewish Roots in Poland''
* List of Polish Rabbis
Notes
References
* Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ''After the Holocaust'', East European Monographs, 2003, .
* Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, ''Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947'', Lexington Books, 2004, .
* William W. Hagen, "Before the 'Final Solution': Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in Interwar Germany and Poland", ''The Journal of Modern History'', Vol. 68, No. 2 (Jun. 1996), 351–381.
*
* Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic. ''The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland'', Princeton University Press, 2003 .
The introduction is online
* Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, ''Jews in Poland. A Documentary History'', Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1998, .
* David Vital, ''A People Apart: A Political History of the Jews in Europe 1789–1939'', Oxford University Press, 2001.
* M. J. Rosman, ''The Lord's Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth During the Eighteenth Century'', Harvard University Press, 1990,
* Edward Fram, ''Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Life and Culture in Poland 1550–1655'', HUC Press, 1996,
* Magda Teter, ''Jews and Heretics in Premodern Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era'', Cambridge University Press, 2006,
* Laurence Weinbaum, ''The De-Assimilation of the Jewish Remnant in Poland'', in: Ethnos-Nation: eine europäische Zeitschrift, 1999, pp. 8–25
* New York: Funk and Wagnalls. Considerable amount of Wikipedia:Copy-paste, copy-pasted paragraphs lacking Attribution (copyright), inline citations originate from th
Chapter: "Russia"
in this source. The encyclopedia was published when sovereign Poland did not exist following Partitions of Poland, the century of Partitions by neighbouring empires. .
Further reading
*
* Cichopek-Gajraj, A. (2021)
Agency and Displacement of Ethnic Polish and Jewish Families after World War II
''Polish American Studies'', 78(1), 60–82.
* Dynner, Glenn. ''Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society'' NY: Oxford University Press, 2006.
*
* Stanisław Krajewski, Krajewski, Stanisław. ''Poland and the Jews: Reflections of a Polish Polish Jew'', Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
: Austeria P, 2005.
*
* Alvydas Nikžentaitis, Nikžentaitis, Alvydas, Stefan Schreiner, Darius Staliūnas (editors). ''The Vanished World of Lithuanian Jews''. Rodopi, 2004,
* Antony Polonsky, Polonsky, Antony. ''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 1: 1350–1881'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009)
* Polonsky, Antony. ''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 2: 1881–1914'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009)
* Polonsky, Antony. ''The Jews in Poland and Russia, Volume 3: 1914-2008'' (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011)
* Prokop-Janiec, E. (2019)
Jewish Intellectuals, National Suffering, Contemporary Poland
''The Polish Review'', ''64''(2), 24–36.
* Ury, Scott. ''Barricades and Banners: The Revolution of 1905 and the Transformation of Warsaw Jewry'', Stanford University Press, 2012.
*
* A Marriage of Convenience: The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government 1936-1939 Laurence Weinbaum, East European Monographs; dist. Columbia University Press, 1993
External links
Maps
The Cossack Uprising and its Aftermath in Poland
Jewish Communities in Poland and Lithuania under the Council of the Four Lands
The Spread of Hasidic Judaism
Jewish Revolts against the Nazis in Poland
(All maps from Judaism: History, Belief, and Practice)
History of Polish Jews
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
*
Virtual Shtetl
The Polish Jews Home Page
* [http://www.zydziwpolsce.edu.pl/aindex.html The Jews in Poland. Saving from oblivion – Teaching for the future]
Historical Sites of Jewish Warsaw
* Joanna Rohozinska
Central Europe Review, 28 January 2000.
Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland
World War II and the Holocaust
* [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/uprising/ Warsaw Ghetto Uprising] from the US Holocaust Museum. From the same source see:
*
Non-Jewish Polish Victims of the Holocaust
** Bibliography o
Polish Jewish Relations
during the War
during World War II in Poland
* [http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VPNRQSN Poland's Jews:A light flickers on], The Economist, 20 December 2005
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jews In Poland
Jewish Polish history,
History of ethnic groups in Poland