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Jewish history in Poland

960 Jewish merchant from Spain, Ibrahim Ibn Jaqub (Abraham ben Jakov), travels to Poland and writes the first description of the country. Jewish traders are very active in Central Europe, mainly engaged in trading. Mieszko I produces the coins with Hebrew letters on it though some attibute this coins to the times of Mieszko the Old.

1343 Persecuted in Western Europe Jews invited to Poland by Casimir the Great

1500 Some of the Jews expelled from Spain, Portugal and from many German cities, move to Poland. In later centuries more than 50% of the Jewish world population lived in Poland.

1501 King Alexander of Poland readmits Jews to Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1525 A Jewish man promoted to a knighthood state by king Sigismund I of Poland, without being forced to leave Judaism.

1534 King Sigismund I of Poland abolishes the law that required Jews to wear special clothes.

1547 First Hebrew Jewish printing house in Lublin.1580-1764

1567 First Jewish University (Yeshiva) founded in Poland

1580-1764 First session of the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba' Aratzot) in Lublin, Poland. 70 delegates from Jewish communities (kehillot) meet to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community.

1623 First time separate (Va'ad) Jewish Seym for Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1632 King Ladislaus IV of Poland forbade Anti-Semitic print-outs.

1633 Jews of Poznan granted a privilege of forbidding Christians to enter into their city.

1648 Jewish population of Poland reached 450,000 or 4.5% whole population. Bohemia 40,000 and Moravia 25,000. Worldwide population of Jewry is estmated at 750,000.

1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky leads Uprising resulting in massacres of Polish gentry and Jewry that leaves estimated 65,000 Jews dead and similar number of gentry also. The total decrease in the number of Jews is estimated at 100,000. Poland loses 40% of her population during the so called Deluge.

1750 Jewish population of Poland reaches 750,000 or 8.0% of total. The worldwide Jewish population is estimated at 1,200,000.

1759 Followers of Jacob Frank joined ranks of Polish szlachta (gentry) of Jewish origins.

1772-1795 Partitions of Poland between Russia, Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. Main bulk of World Jewry lives now in those 3 countries. Old privileges of Jewish communities are denounced.

1831 Jewish militias take part in the defence of Warsaw against Russians.

1860 - 1864 Jews are taking intensive part in Polish national movement, that was followed by January rising

1860 - 1943 Henrietta Szold. Educator, author, social worker and founder of Hadassah.

1862 Jews given equal rights in Poland. The privileges given to some cities, that Jews are not allowed to settle down there, are denounced.

1880 World Jewish population around 7.7 million, 90% in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe; around 3.5 million in the former Polish provinces.

1897 First Russian census: 5,200,000 of Jews, 4,900,000 in the Pale. The Kingdom of Poland has 1,300,000 Jews or 14% of population.

1921 Polish-Soviet peace treaty in Riga. Citizens of both sides are given rights to chose the country. Hundred thousands of Jews, especially from forbidden in Soviet professions of shop keepers, move to Poland.

1924 2,989,000 Jews according to religion poll in Poland (10,5% of total). Jewish youth consituted 23% of students of high schools and 26% of students of universities.

1930 World Jewry: 15,000,000. Main countries USA (4,000,000), Poland (3,500,000 = 11% of total), Soviet Union (2,700,000 = 2% of total), Romania (1,000,000 = 6% of total). Palestine 175,000 = 17% of total 1,036,000.

1933 - 1939 German Jews attempt to emigrate, but almost all countries close borders for Jews, including United Kingdom and USA. Most Jews found temporary asylum in Poland.

1939 - 1945 The Holocaust (Ha Shoah)

1946 The Kielce pogrom.

1948 Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors begin leaving Poland for Israel and the United States.

1964 Jewish-Christian relations are revolutioned by the Catholic Church's Vatican II.

1968 Communist regime-sponsored anti-Zionist campaign in Poland. Most of the remaining Jews of Poland emigrate.

Mid 1970s-present - Growing revival of Klezmer music (The folk music of European Jews). (, ) and Yiddish culture.

1989-present - Reestablishment of several Jewish communities in Poland, most notably in Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw.

After massive expulsions of Jews from the Western Europe (England, France, Germany, and Spain), they have tried to find a refuge in the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Jagiellon Era Poland became the home to Europe's largest Jewish population, as royal edicts guaranteeing Jewish safety and religious freedom from the 13th century contrasted with bouts of persecution in Western Europe, especially following the Black Death of 1348-1349, blamed by some in the West on Jews themselves. Much of Poland suffered relatively little from the outbreak, while Jewish immigration brought valuable manpower and skills for the rising state. The greatest increase in Jewish numbers occurred in the 18th century, when Jews came to make up 7% of the population.

Jews in Poland within Russian Empire

• Pale of Settlement
• History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union

Interwar period 1918-1939

At the time the WWII erupted, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe. According to 1931 National Census there were 3,130,581 Polish Jews measured by the declaration of the religion. Additionally, 85% of Polish Jews listed Yiddish or Hebrew as their native language. Estimating the population increase and the emigration from Poland between 1931 and 1939, it is accepted that 3,474,000 lived in Poland as of September 1, 1939 (10% of total population). Jews were primarily centered in large and smaller cities: 77% lived in cities and 23% in the villages.

During the school year of 1937-1938 there were 226 elementary schools and 12 high schools as well as 14 vocational schools with either Yiddish or Hebrew as the instructional language. At this same time 130 periodicals were published in Yiddish or Hebrew, among them were 11 scholarly publications and 94 general interest or literary publications. During the course of 1937, there appeared in Poland a total of 443 non-periodical publications (books and brochures in Yiddish and Hebrew in a total print run of 675,000 volumes. There were 15 theatres and theatrical groups performing in Yiddish. Concurrently Polish intelligentsia of Jewish origin took an active part in Polish community live. Very many of the scholars, writers, performers, artists, musicians, theatrical performers, journalists, doctors, lawyers, etc. helped enliven the intellectual movement and the development of scholarship and art in the reborn Polish nation.

Jewish political parties, both the Socialist Bund, as well as groupings of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in Sejm (Polish Parliament) and quite frequently also in the regional councils. Warsaw at the start of WWII had 20 Jewish council member while in Lodz there were 17.

WWII

Main article: Holocaust.

During the campaign of Polish September Campaign of 1939, some 120,000 Jewish Polish citizens took part in battles with the Germans as member of the Polish Armed Forces. It is estimated that as many as 32,216 Jewish soldiers and officers died and 61,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans, of which the great number did not survive, the soldiers and non-commissioned officer were released and ultimately found themselves in the ghettos and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other civilians.

In partitioned, according to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland 61.2% (according to 1931 census) of Polish Jews found themselves under German occupation while 38.8% were in Soviet-occupied territory. Based on population migration from West to East during and after the Polish September Campaign the percentage of Jews in the Soviet-occupied areas was probably higher than that of 1931 census. Among Polish officers killed by NKVD in 1941 Katyn Massacre there were 500-600 Jews. Between 1939-1941 between 100,000-300,000 of Polish Jews were deported from Soviet-occupied Polish territory into Soviet Union. Some of them, especially Polish Communists (e.g. Jakub Berman) moved voluntarily, however, most of them were forcibly deported to Gulags. Small number of Polish Jews (6,000) was able to leave Soviet Union in 1942 with the Wladyslaw Anders army, among them future Israel Prime Minister Menachem Begin. During the Polish II Corps army stay in British Mandate of Palestine, 67% (2,972) of Jewish soldiers deserted, many to join Irgun.

About 3 million Jews (all but about 300,000-500,000 of the Jewish population) died of starvation in ghettos and labor camps or were killed at the Nazi extermination camps of Oswiecim (Auschwitz II), Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, Chelmno. Some Jews in what was then eastern Poland also fell victim to Nazi death squads called Einsatzgruppen.

Poland was the only occupied country during World War II where the Nazis formally imposed the Death penalty for anybody found sheltering Jews. Despite these draconian measures by the Nazi Germans, Poland has the highest amount of Righteous Among The Nations awards at the Yad Vashem Museum.

The Polish Government in Exile was also the first (in November 1942) to reveal the existence of concentration camps and the systematic extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, through its courier Jan Karski. The Polish Government in Exile was also the only government to set up an organisation Zegota specifically aimed at helping the Jews in Poland .

See also Warsaw Ghetto, Protest of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, Zegota.

Communist rule 1944-1989

Between 40,000 and 100,000 Polish Jews survived the WWII in Poland in hiding or in the Polish or Russian partisan units. Another 50,000-170,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union and 20,000-40,000 from Germany and other countries. At its post-war peak, there were 180,000-240,000 Jews in Poland settled mostly in Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, and Wroclaw.

Rebuilding of the Jewish life in Poland was carried between October of 1944 and 1950 by the Central Committee of Polish Jews (Centralny Komitet Żydow Polskich, CKŻP) headed by Bund activist S. Herszenhorn. CKŻP was providing legal, educational, social care, cultural, and propaganda services. A country-wide Jewish Religious Community, led by David Kahane who served as chief rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, was functioning 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 1949-1950.

Due to the refusal of the Communist regime to return pre-war Jewish property, desire to leave destroyed by the Holocaust communities and build the new life in the British Mandate of Palestine, as well as anti-Communist and anti-Jewish violence (e.g. Kielce pogrom), 100,000-120,000 Jews left Poland between 1945-1948. Their departure was largely organized by the Zionist activists in Poland such as Adolf Berman and Yitzhak Zuckerman under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine organization Berihah (Flight). Berihah was also responsible for organized emigration of Jews from Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia totaling 250,000 (including Poland) of the Holocaust survivors.

Disproportinately high percentage of Polish Jews participated in the establishment of the Communist regime in Poland between 1944-1956 holding, among others, prominent posts in the Politbiuro of the Polish United Worker's Party (e.g. Jakub Berman, Hilary Minc - responsible for establishing Communist-style economy), and the security apparatus Urzad Bezpieczenstwa (UB). After 1956, during the process of de-Stalinisation in Poland under Wladyslaw Gomulka regime, some Urzad Bezpieczenstwa officials including Roman Romkowski (b. Natan Grunsapau-Kikiel), Jacek Różański (b. Jozef Goldberg), Anatol Fejgin were prosecuted for "power abuses" including the torture of the Polish anti-Comunist patriots and sentenced to long prison terms. Józef Światło, (b. Izak Fleichfarb), a Urzad Bezpieczenstwa official, after escaping in 1953 to the West exposed through Radio Free Europe the methods of the UB which led to its dissolution in 1954.

Some Jewish cultural institutions were established including the Yiddish State Theater founded in 1950 and directed by Ida Kaminska , the Jewish Historical Institute an academic institution specializing in research of history and culture of the Jews in Poland, and the Yiddish newspaper Folks-shtime (The People's Voice).

Next wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime between (1957-1959). In 1967, following the Six Day War, Poland broke-off its diplomatic relations with Israel. In March of 1968 student-led demonstrations in Warsaw sparked the state-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign resulting in removal of Jews from the Polish United Worker's Party and the public services jobs including teaching positions in schools and universities. Due to the economic, political and police pressure, 25,000 Jews were forced to emigrate during the 1968-1970.

During the late 1970s some Jewish activists were engaged in the anti-Communist opposition groups. Most prominent among them, Adam Michnik was one of the founders of the Committee for the Defense of Workers (KOR). By the time of the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, only 5,000-10,000 Jews have remained.

1989-present

With the fall of the Communism in Poland, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has been undergoing a revival. Many historical issues, especially related to WWII and the 1944-1989 period, suppressed by the Communist censorship has been reevaluated and publicly discussed (.e.g. Massacre in Jedwabne, Koniuchy Massacre, Auschwitz cross, Polish-Jewish wartime relations , ).

Jewish religious life has been revived with the help of the Ronald Lauder Foundation, the Polish Jewish community employed two rabbis, operated a small network of Jewish schools and summer camps, and sustained several Jewish periodicals and book series events. In 1993 Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland has been establish with the aim to organize the religious and cultural life of the members of the communities in Poland.

Academic Jewish studies programs were established at Warsaw University and the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Krakow became home to Judaica Foundation , which has sponsored a wide range of cultural and educational programs on Jewish themes for a predominantly Polish audience.

Government relations between Poland and Israel are steadily improving, resulting in the mutual visits of presidents and the ministers of foreign affairs. Polish government will finance the construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

In September 2000, dignitaries from Poland, Israel, the United States, and other countries (including Prince Hassan of Jordan) gathered in the city of Oswiecim (new Auschwitz camp) to commemorate the opening of the refurbished Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue and the Auschwitz Jewish Center. The synagogue, the sole synagogue in Oswiecim 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 Oswiecim. 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.

In April 2001, during the 13th March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor victims of the Holocaust, several hundred citizens joined 2,000 marchers from Israel and other countries. Government officials participating in the march included Members of Parliament, the province's governor, and Oswiecim's mayor and city council chairman. Schoolchildren, boy scouts, the Polish-Israeli Friendship Society , and the Polish Union of Jewish Students (PUSZ) also participated in the march. In May 2001, several hundred students from around the world marched through the town in The March of Remembrance and Hope.

In April 2002, during the 14th March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor victims of the Holocaust, several hundred citizens joined 1,500 marchers from Israel and other countries.

In 2000, Poland's Jewish population was estimated to have risen to as many as 10,000 or 12,000. With Poland joining the European Union, a number of Israeli Jews are emigrating to Poland, although it is not clear how many intend to remain in Poland or are using Poland as a stepping-stone to the more prosperous nations of Western Europe.

References

• Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, After the Holocaust, East European Monographs, 2003, ISBN 0880335114.
• Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947, Lexington Books, 2004, ISBN 0739104845.
• Gershon David Hundert, Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity, University of California Press, 2004, ISBN 0520238443.
• Ivo Cyprian Pogonowski, Jews in Poland. A Dcumentary History, Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1998, ISBN 0781806046.

External links

• The Association of "Children of the Holocaust" in Poland
• Diapozytyw. Contemporary Jewish Life in Poland
• Foundation for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland
• Jewish Historical Institute
• Jewish Community in Poland
• Jews in Poland

Related articles

• Anti-Semitism
• History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
• Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków
• Kazimierz
• Koniuchy Massacre
• List of Polish Jews
• Relations of Pope John Paul II with the Jewish People
• Righteous Among the Nations
• Zegota

• Jewish Polish history
• Polish history