Background analysis: Historical Context – introduction

Before the II World War, Poland had had the largest Jewish population in Europe of ca. 3,5 mln people. The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and of Polish territories under Soviet occupation in 1941 led to a massive, open extermination of Jews throughout Poland. About 180,000 to 240,000 Polish Jews survived the war, by hiding in forests, joining the guerilla forces or being saved by Poles. The post-war Stalinist regime classified much of the atrocities carried out by ethnic Poles on Jews during the war or blamed Nazis for committing those crimes. The total moral destruction and banditry in the society, widespread hatred towards communism, traditional Christian anti-Semitism which was associated with Jews, as well as fear, that the property would have to be given back to Holocaust survivors coming back home were used by the communist government to provoke anti-Semitic riots. One of those provocations, in Kielce in 1946 resulted in an infamous pogrom in which 42 Jews were killed and 40 were injured by communist soldiers, policemen and the civilian mob on the false accusations of blood libel. This event led to a panic among Polish Jews and resulted in about half of the Polish Jews leaving Poland mainly for Palestine or USA.
It is very important to state, that with the installation of communist regime in Poland, around one thousand Jews repatriated from USSR became prominent communist activist, working in the secret police, army, judiciary and administration. This number was very small comparing to the entirety of soviet apparatus, but was very noticeable and caused the perpetuation of the “Judeo-communism” stereotype, which concluded that Poland is ruled by its enemies and generated loads of hatred towards Jews and Communists, which as already said, both words were sometimes used interchangeably to describe the same people.
The Six-Day War of 1967, Prague Spring in Czech Republic of 68’ and student anti-communist protests of the same year, served as a pretext for the government to subdue and crush the remaining Jewish population, concentrating mainly on intellectual elites and students. The aim was also to distract the society from the events in Czech Republic and prevent any rise of opposition. In June 1968, Władysław Gomułka, the 1st Secretary of Polish Association of Workers’ Parties (the ruling party) gave a speech about the “Jewish 5th Column” that started a mass state-funded deportation of about 20.000 Poles of Jewish and some of non-Jewish descent, from which an overwhelming majority did not associate themselves with Jewish culture. Many of the deportees immigrated to Israel (many of whom live till this day in Ashkelon) and Sweden. The remaining Jewish population of Poland counted ca. 5-12 thousand people. The phenomenon of “Anti-Semitism without Jews” continued for the next 30 years.
The Jewish cultural and social life virtually ceased to exist. The diplomatic relations with Israel were called off in 1967; the old wounds and grudges of II World War and first years after it didn’t heal and were kept out of the public debate in Poland for over 45 years. On the eve of the collapse of communism in Poland the first voices in independent non-communist media rose, which advocated the reconciliation between Poles and Jews. In 1989, with the first semi-free elections in Eastern Europe, an open discussion about Polish-Jewish relations could finally commence. The rapid transformation of economy in Poland, which accounts for one of the quickest conversion to free-market economy in Eastern Europe, left hundreds of thousands of people behind, which were unable to adapt to the new reality. Poverty and general frustration with the omnipresent influence of Western culture, lack of understanding of the processes experienced by a newborn democracy, led those people shift to the far-right nationalistic camp, which traditionally in Poland was associated with anti-Semitism. Any attempt of reconciliation between the Poles and the Jews was dismissed by those parties as anti-Polonist and philosemitic filled with accusations of selling Poland to the enemy.
Simultaneously, the Jewish community has seen its revival. In Warsaw, the Chief Rabbinate of Poland was established with the regional divisions. An official Jewish Communities Bill was passed in the parliament in 1997 establishing official relations on the state level with the Jewish community. Pope’s John Paul II teachings influenced significantly the Polish attitude towards Jewry. The general anti-Semitism in Poland came to a much lower level than in the West. There are several issues in the Jewish-Polish relations which dominate the public debate, and which are going to be discussed in this blog.