ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF POLISH SOCIETY

THE JEWS IN POLAND

JEWISH HISTORY IN POLAND
 In 16th century, Poland was the most tolerant country in
Europe. Known as paradisus Iudaeorum (Latin for
"Paradise for the Jews")
 Poland was a shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish
communities. About three-quarters of all Jews lived in Poland
by the middle of the 16th century
 It was the home to the world's largest Jewish community of the
time.
 It changed in 17th century when the Catholic Counter-
Reformation got in power.
AFTER THE PARTITIONS OF POLAND IN 1795

 Polish Jews were the subject to the laws of the partitioning

powers:
 the increasingly antisemitic Russian Empire 
 Austro-Hungary soft assimmilation policy and 
 The Kingdom of Prussia (later a part of the German Empire).
JEWISH MOVEMENTS
 After partition of Poland, the Jews lived in Russia were treated
very badly, Tsar Nikolas I was known as Haman the Second,
because of his anti-Semitism

 In Polish territory (but in partition time) a very important Jewish

movement, Haskala, started, which means Jewish Enlightenment.
The activist had inclined themselves to assimilation to Russian
culture. Some of them started Religious Zionism- Mizrachi
 JEWISH MOVEMENTS

 In 17th c Messianic movement started among Jews: it was

Sabbatism (Sabatai Cwi) and than Frankism (Jacob
Frank).
 Hasidic movement rose as the end of 17th century and is
connected with Israel ben Eliezer (1698-1760)
 It based on Kabbalah and developed in several dynasties:
Chabad Lubavich, Alexander, Bobov, Ger, Nadvorna.
There are Jewish names of Polish cities when the rabbi
was settled. Lubavich moved to USA after WW2.There
are few of them in Kraków.
JEWISH MOVEMENTS
 In the Polish territory in 19th c. other movements started: Poale
Zion, Bund (socialist).

 When the Poles fought for independence in 1914-1918 some

Polish paramilitary or military groups presented anti Jewish
attitude
 many Jews were killed in Lviv (Lwów) or Warsaw.
INDEPENDENT POLAND 1918- 1939

 Poland was the center of the European Jewish world with one of
world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million. 

 Antisemitism was a growing problem of:

 the political establishment
 from the general population,
 common throughout Europe
INDEPENDENT POLAND
 Jewish population increased sevenfold in time 1816-1921 from
213 000 to 1 500 000. Lot of them had migrated from Ukraine to
Poland. In mid-war period every year 100 000 Jews crossed
Polish-Ukraine border illegally.

 In 1918-1939 the Jews lived mainly in large and smaller cities

(shtetl): 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
 NUMBER OF JEWS IN SOME CITIES
 Łódź numbered about 233,000, roughly one-third of the city’s
population (33%).
 The city of Lwów (now in Ukraine) had the third largest Jewish
population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). 
 Wilno (now Vilnus in Lithuania) had a Jewish community of nearly
100,000, about 45% of the city's total. 
 In 1938, Kraków's Jewish population numbered over 68,000, or
about 25% of the city's total population.  
 In 1939 there were 375,000 Jews in Warsaw or one third of the
city's population.
 Only New York City had more Jewish residents than
Warsaw
PROFESSIONS
 Occupation: manufacturing and commerce.
 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%).

 Language: Yiddish and Polish

 Antisemitism was growing and some laws were introduced

against the Jews: numerus clausus, numerus nullus. Christian
party started anti Jewish movement on the base of religion.
FAMOUS JEWS FROM POLAND
 Isaak Bashevis Singer- Nobel Prize Winner
 Writers: Bruno Shultz, Julian Tuwim, Jan Brzechwa, Bolesław
Leśmian (Lesmann)
 Actors: Konrad Tom, Jerzy Jurandot,
 Musicians and composers: Jan Kiepura, Henryk Wars, Jerzy
Petersburski, Artur Gold, Jakub Kagan, Artur Rubinstein
 Painters: Maurycy Gottlieb, Artur Markowicz, Maurycy Trębacz
 Scientist: Leoplod Infeld, Stanisław Ulam, Alfred Tarski
 Linguistic: creator of Esperanto language Ludwik Zamenhoff
 Rafał Lemkin – who has introduced term genocide
 Leonid Hurwicz- nominated to Nobel Prize in economy in 2007
 Józef Rotblat –Nobel Peace Prize, founder of Pugwash Movement
WORLD WAR 2
 resulted in the death of one-fifth of the Polish population, about
3 million of Polish Jewry killed along with approximately the
same number of Poles (3 million Polish non-Jews).
 Polish collaboration with the Nazis is described as smaller than in
other occupied countries. The statistics of the Israeli War Crimes
Commission indicate that less than 0.1% of Polish gentiles
collaborated with the Nazis.

 But: in extreme cases, they participated in pogroms such as

the Jedwabne massacre.

 And according to Yad Vashem Museum Poles have the largest

number of “gratitude trees” in garden of YV
WW2
 Holocaust – concentration camps: Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka,
Bełżec, Sobibór

 During the Holocaust some of the Poles informed about cruelty:

Witold Pilecki, Jan Karski.
 Szmul Zygielbojm- suicude

 Uprising in Warsaw Getto 19 April – 15 May 1943

AFTER WORLD WAR 2
 In 1945 -200,000 Jewish survivors registered at CKŻP in it
136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union
 Those people generally left the Communist People’s Republic of
Poland  for the nascent State of Israel and to some countries in
North and South America
 Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish
community, institutions, post-war violence and the hostility of
the Communist Party to both religion and private enterprise
 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Block country to allow
free Jewish aliyah to Israel, without visas or exit permits
JEWS AFTER WW2 IN POLAND
 Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their
departure was largely organized by the Zionist activists in Poland
such as Adolf Berman and Icchak Cukierman under the umbrella
of a semi-secret organization Berihah  ("Flight")
 the second wave (aliyah) of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place
during the liberalization of the Communist regime between 1957
and 1959.
 After 1967 Six Day War Polish communist goverment,
following the Soviet policy had adopted an anti-Jewish course of
action which in the years 1968–69 provoked the last mass
migration of Jews from Poland
JEWS IN COMMUNIST TIME
 The Bund took part in the post-war 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
 The most famous and influential Jewish communist in Poland
were: Jakub Berman, Hilary Minc– responsible for establishing a
Communist-style economy, and the security organs Urząd
Bezpieczeństwa (UB) and in diplomacy/intelligence.
 After 1956, some UB officials including Roman
Romkowski (born Natan Grunsapau-Kikiel), Jacek Różański (born
Jozef Goldberg), and Anatol Fejgin were prosecuted for "power
abuses" including the torture of Polish anti-communists (among
them, Witold Pilecki),
 A UB official, Józef Światło, (born Izaak Fleichfarb), after escaping
in 1953 to the West, exposed through Free Europe Radio the
methods of the UB which led to its dissolution in 1954. 
 Solomon Morel a member of the Ministry of Public Security of
Poland and commandant of the Stalinist era Zgoda labour camp,
fled from Poland (1981) to Israel to escape prosecution for
genocide. 
 Helena Wolińska-Brus (born Fajga Mindla Danielak), a former
Stalinist prosecutor, who emigrated to England in 1969s, was
fighting being extradited to Poland on charges related to the
execution of a WW 2 resistance hero Emil Fieldorf. Wolinska died in
London in 2008. She was an exemplar of protagonist in a Ida film.
JEWS IN POLAND
 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized
and those who had migrated, but were Polish citizens
before World War II were allowed to renew
Polish citizenship.
 Religious institutions were revived, largely through the
activities of Jewish foundations from the United States
CONTEMPORY JUDAISM
 The contemporary Polish Jewish community is estimated to have
approximately 20,000 members, though the actual number of
Jews, including those who are not actively connected to Judaism
or Jewish culture, may be several times larger –
 in cenzus 2002: 1000
 in cenzus 2011: 7000
NUMBER OF JEWS IN POLAND
 1921 - 2, 845, 000
 1939 - 3, 250,000
 1945 – 100, 000
 1946 - 230,000
 1951 – 70, 000
 1960- 31, 000
 1970 – 9, 000
 1980 – 5, 000
 1990 – 3, 800
 2000 – 3, 500
 2002 – 1,200
 2011- 7, 000