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| - | {{JewishPolishHistory}}
| + | #REDIRECT [[Польша - еврейская община]] |
| - | {{Jews and Judaism sidebar|population}}
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| - | The '''history of the Jews in Poland''' dates back over a [[millennium]].<ref>[http://polishjews.org/ polishjews.org]</ref> For centuries, [[Poland]] was home to the largest and most significant [[Jew]]ish community in the world. Poland was the centre of [[Jewish culture]] thanks to a long period of statutory [[religious tolerance]] and [[Qahal|social autonomy]]. This ended with the [[Partitions of Poland]] and persecution especially by the [[Russia]]n authorities. There was nearly complete [[genocide|genocidal]] destruction of the Polish Jewish community by [[Nazi Germany]] in the 20th century during the 1939–1945 [[Occupation of Poland (1939-1945)|German and Soviet occupation of Poland]] and the ensuing [[Holocaust]]. Since the [[fall of communism]] there has been a [[Jewish Polish history (1989–present)|Jewish revival in Poland]], characterized by the annual [[Jewish Culture Festival]], new study programmes at Polish high schools and universities, the work of synagogues such as the [[Nozyk Synagogue|Nozyk]], and the [[Museum of the History of Polish Jews]].
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| - | From the founding of the [[Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385)|Kingdom of Poland]] in 1025 through to the early years of the [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]] [[Union of Lublin|created in 1569]], [[Poland]] was the most tolerant country in Europe.<ref name="Hugh">''Poland, at that time, was the most tolerant country in Europe'' "From Counter-Reformation to Glorious Revolution" by Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper University of Chicago Press 1992, page 51</ref> Known as ''paradisus Iudaeorum'' ([[Latin]] for Jewish [[paradise]]) it became a unique shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities and a home to the world's largest Jewish community. According to some sources, about three-quarters of all Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century.<ref name=Sanford>George Sanford, ''Historical Dictionary of Poland'' (2nd ed.) Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. p. 79.</ref><ref name=EJC>[http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=107 European Jewish Congress - Poland]</ref><ref name="relations">[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Poland]. Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife (due to the [[Protestant Reformation]] and [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[Counter-Reformation]]), Poland’s traditional tolerance<ref name="Central">''In accordance with its tradition of religious tolerance, Poland refrained from participating in the excesses of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation'' "Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends" by Lonnie R. Johnson Oxford University Press 1996</ref> began to wane from the 17th century onward.<ref name="Note">Although traditional narrative holds that as a consequence, the predicament of the Commonwealth’s Jewry worsened, declining to the level of other European countries by the end of the eighteenth century, recent scholarship by Gershon Hundert, Moshe Rosman, Edward Fram, and Magda Teter, suggest that the reality was much more complex. See for example, the following works, which discuss Jewish life and culture, as well as Jewish-Christian relations during that period: M. Rosman ''Lords' Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century'' (Harvard University Press, new ed. 1993), G. Hundert ''The Jews in a Polish Private Town: The Case of Opatów in the Eighteenth Century'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), E.Fram ''Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550–1655'' (HUC Press, 1996), and M. Teter''Jews and Heretics in Pre-modern Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006).</ref> After the [[partitions of Poland]] in 1795 and the destruction of Poland as a [[sovereign state]], Polish Jews were subject to the laws of the partitioning powers, primarily the increasingly [[anti-Semitism|anti-Semitic]] [[Russian Empire]],<ref name="partners-1">[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/index.html Beyond the Pale] Online exposition</ref> but also [[Austro-Hungary]] and [[Kingdom of Prussia]] (later known as the [[German Empire]]). Still, as Poland regained independence in the [[aftermath of World War I]], it was the center of the European Jewish world with one of world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million. [[Anti-Semitism]], however, from both the political establishment and from the general population, common throughout Europe, was a growing problem.<ref name="Hagen-1">[[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.</ref>
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| - | At the start of [[World War II]], Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (see: [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]]). The war resulted in the death of one-fifth of the Polish population, with 90% or about 3 million of Polish Jewry killed along with approximately 3 million Polish [[Gentiles]] (Christians).<ref name=YV-archive1>[http://web.archive.org/web/20080530115755/http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=3428&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/3428.GIF Shoa Resource Center: Estimated Casualties During World War II.] [[Internet Archive]]</ref> Although the [[Holocaust]] occurred largely in [[History of Poland (1939-1945)#Occupation and dismemberment of Poland|German occupied Poland]] there was little collaboration with the Nazis by her citizens. Collaboration by individual Poles has been described as smaller than in other occupied countries.<ref name=Paulsson1>{{cite book |last=Paulsson |first=Gunnar S |title=Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 |year=2002 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0-300-09546-5 |page=245 |quote=There were people everywhere who were prepared, for whatever motives, to do the Nazis' work for them. And if there was more anti-Semitism in Poland than in many other countries, there was also less collaboration.... The Nazis generally preferred not to count on outbursts of 'emotional anti-Semitism', when what was needed to realize their plans was 'rational antisemitism', as Hitler himself put it. For that, they neither received or requested significant help from the Poles.}}</ref><ref name="hnetradz">[http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=252691081495762 Unveiling the Secret City] H-Net Review: John Radzilowski</ref> Statistics of the Israeli War Crimes Commission indicate that less than 0.1% of Polish gentiles collaborated with the Nazis.<ref name=Lukas1>Richard C. Lukas [http://books.google.ca/books?id=lz9obsxmuW4C&pg=PA13 Out of the inferno: Poles remember the Holocaust] University Press of Kentucky, 1989 ISBN 0-8131-1692-9, p. 13</ref> Examples of Polish gentile attitudes to German atrocities varied widely, from [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|actively risking death in order to save Jewish lives]],<ref name=archive1>[http://web.archive.org/web/20080206114319/http://www.savingjews.org/ Anna Poray, ''Polish Righteous, Those Who Risked Their Lives'', 2008]</ref> and passive refusal to inform on them; to indifference, blackmail,<ref name=PCHR>[http://www.holocaustresearch.pl/publikacje(en).htm "I know this Jew!" Blackmailing of the Jews in Warsaw 1939-1945.] Polish Center for Holocaust Research</ref> and in extreme cases, participation in pogroms such as the [[Jedwabne massacre]]. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.<ref name="Yad-Vashem-1">Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, [http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/statistics.html Righteous Among the Nations - per Country & Ethnic Origin January 1, 2009. Statistics]</ref><ref name="Lukas">Richard C. Lukas, [http://books.google.ca/books?id=lz9obsxmuW4C&pg=PA13&dq=%22The+estimates+of+Jewish+survivors+in+Poland,%22&hl=en&ei=hlYATfrrKMj4sgbE4fXyDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20estimates%20of%20Jewish%20survivors%20in%20Poland%2C%22&f=false ''Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust''] University Press of Kentucky 1989 - 201 pages. Page 13; also in Richard C. Lukas, ''The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944'', University Press of Kentucky 1986 - 300 pages.</ref>
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| - | In the postwar period, many of the approximately 200,000 Jewish survivors registered at CKŻP <!--Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich, CKŻP (Central Committee of Polish Jews)--> (of whom 136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union)<ref name="Lukas" /><ref name=N-A>Natalia Aleksiun. [http://books.google.com/books?id=uHJyoGiep2gC&pg=PA248&dq=%22In+January+1946,+before+the+mass+repatriation%22&hl=en&ei=DVMATfiLOsPEswbji4HzDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22In%20January%201946%2C%20before%20the%20mass%20repatriation%22&f=false "Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland, 1944–1947."] In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, ed. ''Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath''. Rutgers University Press, 2003. Pages 249; 256.</ref><ref name=M-S>Michael C. Steinlauf. "[http://books.google.com/books?id=U6KVOsjpP0MC&pg=PA109&dq=%22began+to+emerge+from+concentration+camps+and+places+of+refuge%22&hl=en&ei=8FkATZXBB4HAswa7toHzDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22began%20to%20emerge%20from%20concentration%20camps%20and%20places%20of%20refuge%22&f=false Poland.]". In: David S. Wyman, Charles H. Rosenzveig. ''The World Reacts to the Holocaust''. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.</ref> left the [[communist]] [[People's Republic of Poland]] for the nascent [[State of Israel]] and [[North America|North]] or [[South America]]. Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions, [[Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946|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 Block]] country to allow free Jewish [[aliyah]] to Israel,<ref name=D-H>Devorah Hakohen, [http://books.google.ca/books?id=hCw6v0TFhdMC&pg=PA70&dq=%22Poland+opened+its+gates+to+Jewish+emigration.%22&hl=en&ei=vZPlTILoE8uUnAey5NGjDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Poland%20opened%20its%20gates%20to%20Jewish%20emigration.%22&f=false ''Immigrants in turmoil: mass immigration to Israel and its repercussions...''] Syracuse University Press, 2003 - 325 pages. Page 70. ISBN 0-8156-2969-9</ref> without visas or exit permits.<ref name="Kochavi-175">{{cite web|last=Aleksiun|first=Natalia|title=Beriḥah|url=http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/printarticle.aspx?id=219|publisher=YIVO|quote=Suggested reading: Arieh J. Kochavi, "Britain and the Jewish Exodus...," Polin 7 (1992): pp. 161–175}}</ref><ref name="Marrus">{{cite book|last=Marrus|first=Michael Robert|coauthors=Aristide R. Zolberg |title=The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War Through the Cold War|url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=ssrLM0yWD1kC&pg=PA336&dq=%22accelerated+powerfully+after+the+Kielce+pogrom%22&hl=en&ei=S6IBTYi_GMOUswbH0IWGCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22accelerated%20powerfully%20after%20the%20Kielce%20pogrom%22&f=false|publisher=Temple University Press|year=2002|pages=336|isbn=1566399556}}</ref> Britain demanded from Poland to halt the exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.<ref name="Kochavi-xi">{{cite book|last=Kochavi|first=Arieh J.|title=Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States & Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948| url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=LdWSwGaSoJAC&pg=PR11&dq=%22Britain+exerted+pressure+on+the+governments+of+Poland%22&hl=en&ei=Y0cCTa2tC8_wsgahoZTqCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Britain%20exerted%20pressure%20on%20the%20governments%20of%20Poland%22&f=false|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press|year=2001|pages=xi|isbn=0807826200}}</ref> Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in the late 1960s as the result of the Soviet-sponsored [[1968 Polish political crisis|"anti-Zionist" campaign]]. After the [[fall of communism|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]]. Religious institutions were revived, largely through the activities of Jewish foundations from the United States. The contemporary Polish Jewish community is estimated to have approximately 20,000 members,<ref name="polish-jewish-heritage.org">[http://www.polish-jewish-heritage.org/eng/05-01_Polan_Selects_New_Chief_Rabbi.htm The Canadian Foundation of Polish-Jewish Heritage]. Polish-jewish-heritage.org (2005-01-08). Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> though the actual number of Jews, including those who are not actively connected to Judaism or Jewish culture, may be several times larger.
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| - | ==Early history to Golden Age: 966–1572==
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| - | [[File:Reception oh Jews in Poland 1096.JPG|thumb|''The Reception of the Jews in Poland in the Year 1096''. Painting by [[Jan Matejko]]|left]]
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| - | {{main|Jews in the Middle Ages}}
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| - | {{Details|History of the Jews in pre-18th-century Poland}}
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| - | ===Early history: 966–1385===
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (966-1385)}}
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| - | The first Jews arrived in the territory of modern Poland in the 10th century. By travelling along the trade routes leading eastwards to [[Kiev]] and [[Bukhara]], Jewish merchants (known as [[Radhanites]]) crossed the areas of [[Silesia]]. One of them, a diplomat and merchant from the [[Moors|Moorish]] town of [[Tortosa]] in Spanish [[Al-Andalus]], known under his Arabic name of [[Ibrahim ibn Jakub]], was the first chronicler to mention the Polish state under the rule of prince [[Mieszko I of Poland|Mieszko I]]. The first actual mention of Jews in Polish chronicles occurs in the 11th century. It appears that Jews were then living in [[Gniezno]], at that time the capital of the [[Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385)|Polish kingdom]] of the [[Piast dynasty]]. The first permanent Jewish community is mentioned in 1085 by a Jewish scholar [[Yehuda ben Meir|Jehuda ha-Kohen]] in the city of [[Przemyśl]].<ref name="PMH-1">Postan, Miller, Habakkuk. [http://books.google.com/books?id=gaU8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA486 The Cambridge Economic History of Europe]. 1948</ref>
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| - | [[File:PolishHebrewCoins1.jpg|thumb|left|Early medieval Polish coins with Hebrew inscriptions]]
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| - | [[File:FirstCrusade.jpg|thumb|150px|While Jews (identifiable by their [[Judenhut|distinctive hats]] in this 1250 French Bible illustration) were being killed by [[First Crusade|Crusaders]] in Germany, Bolesław III invited them to the safety of Poland.]]
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| - | The first extensive Jewish emigration from [[Western Europe]] to Poland occurred at the time of the [[First Crusade]] in 1098. Under [[Boleslaus III of Poland|Boleslaus III]] (1102–1139), the Jews, encouraged by the tolerant regime of this ruler, settled throughout Poland, including over the border in [[Lithuania]]n territory as far as [[Kiev]]. Boleslaus III for his part recognized the utility of the Jews in the development of the [[commerce|commercial interests]] of his country. The Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish economy and the coins minted by [[Mieszko III of Poland|Mieszko III]] even bear [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebraic markings]]. 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]]s (developing into ''[[szlachta]]'', the unique Polish nobility) and peasants, and they were instrumental in promoting the commercial interests of the land.
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| - | The tolerant situation was gradually altered by the [[Roman Catholic Church]] on the one hand, and by the neighboring German states on the other.<ref name="Dubnow-1">[[Simon Dubnow]], ''History of the Jews in Russia and Poland'', Varda Books (2001 reprint), Vol. 1, p. 44.</ref> 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 [[Boleslaus the Pious]] of [[Kalisz]], Prince of [[Great Poland]]. With the consent of the class representatives and higher officials, in 1264 he issued a General Charter of Jewish Liberties, the [[Statute of Kalisz]], which granted all Jews the freedom of worship, trade and travel. During the next hundred years, the Church pushed for the persecution of the Jews while the rulers of Poland usually protected them.<ref name="Dubnow-2">[[Simon Dubnow]], ''History of the Jews in Russia and Poland'', Varda Books (2001 reprint), Vol. 1, p. 42.</ref>
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| - | [[File:Wojciech Gerson-Kazimierz Wielki.jpg|thumb|[[Wojciech Gerson]], ''Casimir the Great and Jews'']]
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| - | In 1334, King [[Casimir III of Poland|Casimir III the Great]] (1303–1370) amplified and expanded Bolesław's old charter with the [[Wiślicki Statute]]. Casimir, who according to a legend had a Jewish lover named [[Esterka]] from [[Opoczno]]<ref name="opoczno-1">[http://www.opoczno.pl/opoczno/_portal/117189707245d9baf044536/Zabytki.html Official portal of the city of Opoczno]</ref> 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]]s and Jews." Under [[penalty of death]], he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced [[Christianity|Christian]] [[baptism]]. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of [[Jewish]] [[cemeteries]]. Nevertheless, while for the greater part of Casimir’s reign the Jews of Poland enjoyed tranquility, toward its close they were subjected to persecution on account of the [[Black Death]]. In 1347, the first [[Blood libel against Jews|blood libel]] accusation against Jews in Poland was recorded, and in 1367 the first pogrom took place in [[Poznań]].<ref name="Poznan-1">[http://books.google.com/books?id=E5YSAAAAIAAJ&q=1367+pogrom+Poznan&dq=1367+pogrom+Poznan&pgis=1 1367 pogrom Poznan. Google Books]</ref> Later the pogroms occurred at [[Kalisz]], [[Kraków]], and other cities along the German frontier, and it is estimated that 10,000 Jews were killed.{{Citation needed|date=December 2008}} Compared with the pitiless destruction of their coreligionists in [[Western Europe]], however, the Polish Jews did not fare badly; and the Jewish masses of Germany fled to the more hospitable cities in Poland.
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| - | ===The early Jagiellon era: 1385–1505===
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (1385-1569)}}
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| - | As a result of the marriage of [[Jogaila|Wladislaus II]] to [[Jadwiga of Poland|Jadwiga]], daughter of [[Louis I of Hungary]], Lithuania was [[Polish-Lithuanian Union|united with the kingdom of Poland]]. Although, in 1388, rights were extended to [[Lithuanian Jews]] as well, it was under the rule of Wladislaus II and those of his successors that the first extensive persecutions of the Jews in Poland commenced, and the king did not act to stop these events.<ref name="Dubnow-3">[[Simon Dubnow]], ''History of the Jews in Russia and Poland'', Varda Books (2001 reprint), Vol. 1, pp. 54–58.</ref> There were accusations of [[blood libel]] and riots against the Jews, and persecution gradually increased, especially as the clergy pushed for less tolerance. Hysteria caused by Black Death led to additional 14th-century outbreaks of violence against the Jews. Traders and artisans fearing Jewish rivalry supported the harassment.
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| - | [[File:Casimir IV Jagiellon.PNG|thumb|[[Casimir IV the Jagiellonian|Kazimierz IV Jagiellończyk]] confirmed and extended Jewish charters in the second half of the 15th century]]
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| - | The decline in the status of the Jews was briefly checked by [[Casimir IV the Jagiellonian]] (1447–1492), but soon the nobility forced him to issue the [[Statute of Nieszawa]].<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/67/556.html The Encyclopedia of World History 1447-92. 2001]</ref> Among other things it 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".<ref name=bdw50>Bernard Dov Weinryb "Jews of Poland", [http://books.google.com/books?id=K2DgBdSCQnsC&pg=PA50 p. 50]</ref> The policy of the government toward the Jews of Poland oscillated under [[Casimir IV the Jagiellonian|Casimir's]] sons and successors, [[John I Olbracht]] (1492–1501) and [[Alexander the Jagiellonian]] (1501–1506). The latter expelled the Jews from the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]] in 1495 when he was the Grand Duke of Lithuania but reversed the law in 1503 shortly after becoming King of Poland. A year later he issued a proclamation in which he stated that a policy of tolerance befitted "kings and rulers".<ref name=bdw50/>
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| - | ===Center of the Jewish world: 1505–72===
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| - | Alexander became more tolerant just as the [[Alhambra Decree|Jews were expelled from Spain]] in 1492, as well as from [[Jews in Austria|Austria]], [[Hungarian Jews|Hungary]] and [[Jews in Germany|Germany]], thus stimulating Jewish immigration to the much more tolerant Poland. Indeed, with the expulsion of the [[History of the Jews in Spain|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.
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| - | The most prosperous period for Polish Jews began following this new influx of Jews with the reign of [[Sigismund I the Old|Zygmunt I]] (1506–1548), who protected the Jews in his realm. His son, [[Sigismund II Augustus|Zygmunt II August]] (1548–1572), mainly followed in the tolerant policy of his father and also granted autonomy to the Jews in the matter of communal administration and laid the foundation for the power of the ''[[Qahal]]'', 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.<ref name=Sanford/><ref name=EJC/><ref name="relations"/> In the middle of the 16th century, Poland welcomed the Jewish newcomers from [[Italy]] and [[Turkey]], mostly of [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardi]] origin, however some of the immigrants from the [[Ottoman Empire]] are still claimed to be [[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrahim]]. Jewish religious life thrived in many Polish communities. In 1503, the Polish monarchy appointed Rabbi Jacob Polak, the official Rabbi of Poland, marking the emergence of the Chief Rabbinate. 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 Jewry and its ''[[yeshiva|yeshivot]]'' achieved fame from the early 16th century.
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| - | [[Moses Isserles]] (1520–1572), an eminent [[Talmud]]ist of the 16th century, established his [[yeshiva]] in [[Kraków]]. In addition to being a renowned Talmudic and [[halakha|legal scholar]], Isserles was also learned in [[Kabbalah]], and studied history, astronomy, and philosophy.
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| - | ==The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: 1572–1795==
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (1572-1795)}}
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| - | {{details|Jewish Polish history during the 18th century}}
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| - | ===The Warsaw Confederation===
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| - | {{main|Warsaw Confederation (1573)}}
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| - | Following the childless death of [[Sigismund II of Poland|Zygmunt II]], the last king of the [[Jagiellon dynasty]], Polish and Lithuanian nobles ([[szlachta]]) gathered at [[Warsaw]] in 1573 and signed a document of limited toleration in which representatives of all the major religions pledged each other mutual support and tolerance. The edict did not include the Polish Brethren, an anti-Trinitarian that would later become known as Socinians, who formed roots for the modern Unitarian church in the US.
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| - | ===The Cossack uprising and the Deluge===
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| - | In 1648 the Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its population (over three million people), and Jewish losses were counted in the hundreds of thousands. The first of these was the [[Chmielnicki Uprising]], in which [[Bohdan Khmelnytsky]]'s [[Cossack]]s massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Poles in the eastern and southern areas he controlled (today's Ukraine). Khmelnytsky riled up the people by telling them that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews".<ref>Herman Rosenthal, [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=469&letter=C "Chmielnicki, Bogdan Zinovi"], ''[[Jewish Encyclopedia]]''.</ref> The precise number of dead may never be known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and ''[[Slavery in the Ottoman Empire|jasyr]]'' (captivity in the [[Ottoman Empire]]). The Jewish community suffered greatly during the 1648 Cossack uprising which had been directed primarily against the Polish nobility. The Jews, perceived as allies of the nobles, were also victims of the revolt, during which about 20% of them were killed.
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| - | Then the incompetent politics of the elected kings of the [[House of Vasa]] brought the weakened state to its knees, as it was invaded by the [[Swedish Empire]] in what became known as [[The Deluge (Polish history)|The Deluge]]. The kingdom of Poland proper, which had hitherto suffered but little either from the [[Chmielnicki Uprising]] or from the recurring invasion of the Russians, [[Crimean Khanate|Crimean Tatars]] and [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]s, now became the scene of terrible disturbances (1655–1658). [[Charles X of Sweden]], at the head of his victorious army, overran Poland; and soon the whole country, including the cities of Kraków and Warsaw, was in his hands. The Jews of [[Great Poland|Great]] and [[Lesser Poland|Little Poland]] found themselves torn between two sides: those of them who were spared by the [[Sweden|Swedes]] were attacked by the Poles, who accused them of aiding the enemy. The Polish general [[Stefan Czarniecki]], in his flight from the Swedes, devastated the whole country through which he passed and treated the Jews without mercy. The Polish partisan detachments treated the non-Polish inhabitants with equal severity. Moreover, the horrors of the war were aggravated by [[Infectious disease|pestilence]], and the Jews and townsfolk of the districts of [[Kalisz]], Kraków, [[Poznań]], [[Piotrków Trybunalski|Piotrków]], and [[Lublin]] perished ''en masse'' by the sword of the besieging armies and the plague.
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| - | 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 and become impoverished, it still was more numerous than that of the Jewish colonies in Western Europe; and Poland remained as the spiritual center of Judaism, and through 1698, the Polish kings generally remained supportive of the Jews, despite a hostile clergy and nobility. It also should be noted that while Jewish losses in those events were high, estimated by some historians to be close to 500,000, the Commonwealth lost one third of its population — approximately three million of its citizens.
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| - | ===Decline under the Saxon dynasty===
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| - | With the accession to the throne of the [[Saxony|Saxon]] dynasty the Jews completely lost the support of the government. The ''[[szlachta]]'' and the townsfolk were increasingly hostile to the Jews, as the religious tolerance that dominated the mentality of the previous generations of Commonwealth citizens was slowly forgotten. In their intolerance, the citizens of the Commonwealth now approached the "standards" that dominated most of the contemporary European countries, and many Jews felt betrayed by the country they once viewed as their haven. In the larger cities, like Poznań and Kraków, quarrels between the Satins (ref?) and the Jewish inhabitants were of frequent occurrence. Attacks on the Jews by students, the so-called ''[[Schüler-Gelauf]],'' became everyday occurrences in the large cities, the police regarding such scholastic riots with indifference. In the 16th and 17th centuries Jews were expelled from a number of Polish towns, and victimized by pogroms usually organized by local merchants and artisans.<ref>Frederic Cople Jaher ''A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-semitism in America'', [[Harvard University]] Press, 1994, pp. 79–80</ref> By 1764, there were about 750,000 Jews in the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]]. The worldwide Jewish population was estimated at 1.2 million.<ref>[http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/timeline_jewish_life_in_poland_from_1098_20070608/ Timeline: Jewish life in Poland from 1098], Jewish Journal, June 7, 2007</ref>
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| - | ===The partitions===
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| - | [[File:Berek joselewicz.jpg|left|upright|thumb|[[Berek Joselewicz]] (1764-1809)]]
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| - | [[File:Jewish dress in Poland 17th and 18th century.jpg|thumb|upright|Jewish dress in the 17th (top) and the 18th century (bottom).]]
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| - | 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 of Poland|Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski]] (1764–1795). In 1772, in the aftermath of the [[Confederation of Bar]], the outlying provinces of Poland were divided among the three neighboring nations, Russia, [[Austria]], and [[Prussia]]. Jews were most numerous in the territories that fell to the lot of Austria and Russia.
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| - | 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]]'' ("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]]'' [[Andrzej Zamoyski]], 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]] 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.
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| - | A second [[Partitions of Poland|partition of Poland]] was made on July 17, 1793. Jews, in a Jewish regiment led by [[Berek Joselewicz]], took part in the [[Kościuszko Uprising]] 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 great bulk of the Jewish population was transferred to Russia, and thus 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]] (1815–1831).
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| - | Jews were represented in the November Insurrection (1830–1831), the January Insurrection (1863), as well as in the revolutionary movement of 1905. Many Polish Jews were enlisted in the Legions, commanded by , which fought for the Polish independence finally achieved in 1918.
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| - | ==The development of Judaism in Poland and the Commonwealth==
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| - | [[File:PolishJews3.jpg|thumb|A Jewish couple, Poland, c. 1765]]
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| - | 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 language|Hebrew]], and as [[transliteration|transliterated]] 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'' ("[[Names of God in Judaism|God]]"), and ''Polin'' into two words of: ''po'' ("here") ''lin'' ("[you should] dwell"). 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]] until the Nazi [[Holocaust]], Poland would be at the center of Jewish religious life.
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| - | ===Jewish learning===
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| - | [[File:Zamosc 46.jpg|thumb|left|Late renaissance [[Zamość Synagogue|synagogue in Zamość]] (1610-1620).]]
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| - | ''[[Yeshiva|Yeshivot]]'' were established, under the direction of the rabbis, in the more prominent communities. Such schools were officially known as [[gymnasium (school)|gymnasium]]s, and their rabbi principals as [[rector]]s. 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 language|Hebrew]] [[Pentateuch]] ([[Torah]]) was printed in Kraków; and at the end of the century the Jewish printing houses of that city and [[Lublin]] issued a large number of Jewish books, mainly of a religious character. The growth of [[Talmud|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 [[Halakha|Jewish law]]. 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.
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| - | In the first half of the 16th century the seeds of Talmudic learning had been transplanted to Poland from [[Bohemia]], particularly from the school of [[Jacob Pollak]], the creator of ''[[Pilpul]]'' ("sharp reasoning"). [[Shalom Shachna]] (c. 1500–1558), a pupil of Pollak, is counted among the pioneers of Talmudic learning in Poland. He lived and died in [[Lublin]], 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]] (known as the ''ReMA'') (1520–1572) achieved an international reputation among the Jews as the co-author of the ''[[Shulkhan Arukh]]'', (the "Code of Jewish Law"). His contemporary and correspondent [[Solomon Luria]] (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]]'' had become entrenched under the protection of [[Rabbinic Judaism|Rabbinism]]; and such scholars as [[Mordecai Jaffe]] and [[Yoel Sirkis]] devoted themselves to its study. This period of great Rabbinical scholarship was interrupted by the [[Chmielnicki Uprising]] and [[The Deluge (Polish history)|The Deluge]].
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| - | [[File:Besht.jpg|150px|thumb|[[Israel ben Eliezer]], founder of [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidism]].]]
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| - | ===The rise of Hasidism===
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| - | {{main|Hasidim}}
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| - | The decade from the [[Chmielnicki Uprising|Cossacks' uprising]] until after the [[The Deluge (Polish history)|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 [[Sabbatai Zevi|Sabbatianism]] was succeeded by [[Jacob Frank|Frankism]].
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| - | In this time of [[mysticism]] and overly formal rabbinism came the teachings of [[Israel ben Eliezer]], known as the ''Baal Shem Tov'', or ''BeShT'', (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of [[Eastern Europe]] and Poland in particular. His disciples taught and encouraged the new fervent brand of [[Judaism]] based on ''[[Kabbalah]]'' known as [[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidism]]. The rise of Hasidic Judaism within Poland's borders and beyond had a great influence on the rise of [[Haredi Judaism]] all over the world, with a continuous influence through its many [[List of Hasidic dynasties|Hasidic dynasties]] including those of [[Chabad-Lubavitch]], [[Aleksander (Hasidic dynasty)|Aleksander]], [[Bobov (Hasidic dynasty)|Bobov]], [[Ger (Hasidic dynasty)|Ger]], [[Nadvorna (Hasidic dynasty)|Nadvorna]], among others. More recent ''rebbes'' of Polish origin include Rabbi [[Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn]] (1880–1950), the sixth head of the [[Chabad Lubavitch]] Hasidic movement, who lived in Warsaw until 1940 when he moved [[Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn#Warsaw to USA|Lubavitch from Warsaw to the United States]]. See also: [[List of Polish Rabbis]]
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| - | ==Jews of Poland within the Russian Empire (1795–1918)==
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| - | {{Main|History of Poland (1795-1918)}}
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| - | {{See also|History of the Jews in 19th-century Poland|History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union}}
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| - | [[File:Map showing percentage of Jews in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland, c. 1905.png|thumb|200px|Map of the Pale of Settlement, the highest Jewish populations were located in parts of present day Poland and Belarus]]
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| - | [[File:Jewish merchants in XIX century Warsaw.PNG|170px|thumb|left|Jewish merchants in XIX century Warsaw]]
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| - | 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]], the ''tzarina'' of Russia, instituted the [[Pale of Settlement]], 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.
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| - | Initially, Russian policy towards the Jews of Poland was confused, alternating between harsh rules and somewhat more enlightened policies. In 1802, the Tsar established the [[Committee on the Improvement of the Jews]] in an attempt to develop a coherent approach to the Empire's new Jewish population. The Committee in 1804 suggested a number of steps that were designed to encourage Jews to assimilate, though it did not force them to do so. It proposed that Jews be allowed to attend school and even to own land, but it restricted them from entering Russia, banned them from the [[brewing industry]], and included a number of other prohibitions. The more enlightened parts of this policy were never fully implemented, and the conditions of the Jews in [[Pale of Settlement|the Pale]] gradually worsened. In the 1820s, the [[Cantonist Laws]] passed by [[Nicholas I of Russia|Tsar Nicolas]] kept the traditional double taxation on Jews in lieu of army service, while actually requiring all Jewish communities to produce boys to serve in the military, where they were often forced to convert. Though the Jews were accorded slightly more rights with the [[Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia|emancipation reform of 1861]], they were still restricted to the [[Pale of Settlement]] and subject to restrictions on ownership and profession. The [[status quo]] was however shattered with the assassination of [[Tsar Alexander II]] in 1881, an act falsely blamed upon the Jews.
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| - | ===Pogroms within the Russian Empire ===
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| - | [[File:Pogrom bialystok2.jpg|thumb|150px|left|1906 [[Białystok pogrom]].]]
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| - | The assassination prompted a large-scale wave of anti-Jewish riots, called ''[[pogroms]]'', 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 [[Russian ruble|rubles]] worth of property was destroyed.<ref>Brian Porter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=k_g0ldP92ucC&pg=PA162 When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland]'', Oxford University Press (2000), p. 162.</ref><ref>[[Simon Dubnow]], ''History of the Jews in Russia and Poland'', Varda Books (2001 reprint), Vol. 2, p. 282.</ref> The new czar, [[Alexander III of Russia|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. The pogroms prompted a great flood of Jewish immigration to the United States, with almost two million Jews leaving [[Pale of Settlement|the Pale]] by the late 1920s, they also set the stage for [[Zionism]].
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| - | An even bloodier wave of pogroms broke out from 1903 to 1906, and at least some of the pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Tsarist Russian secret police, the [[Okhrana]]. Some of the worst of these occurred on Russian occupied Polish territory, where the majority of Jews lived, and included the [[Białystok pogrom]] of 1906, in which up to a 100 Jews were murdered and many more wounded.
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| - | [[File:Pogrom bialystok.jpg|thumb|150px|right|1906 [[Białystok pogrom]] caricature ]]
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| - | ===Haskalah and Halakha===
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| - | {{main|Haskalah}}
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| - | The Jewish Enlightenment, ''[[Haskalah]]'', began to take hold in Poland during the 19th century, stressing secular ideas and values. Champions of ''Haskalah'', the ''[[Maskilim]]'', 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 anti-Semitism and persecution, one form of which was the [[Musar movement]]. Polish Jews generally were less influenced by ''Haskalah'', rather focusing on a strong continuation of their religious lives based on [[Halakha]] ("rabbis's law") following primarily [[Orthodox Judaism]], [[Hasidic Judaism]], and also adapting to the new [[Religious Zionism]] of the [[Mizrachi (Religious Zionism)|Mizrachi]] movement later in the 19th century.
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| - | ===Politics in Polish territory===
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| - | [[File:ac.manif1917.jpg|thumb|250px|A Bundist demonstration, 1917]]
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| - | 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]]'' socialist party as well as the religious [[Polish Mizrahi]], and the increasingly popular [[General Zionists]]. Jews also took up [[socialism]], forming the [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia|Bund]] [[labor union]] which supported assimilation and the [[rights of labor]]. The [[Folkspartei]] (People's Party) advocated for its part cultural autonomy and resistance to assimilation. In 1912, ''[[Agudat Israel]]'', a religious party, came into existence.
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| - | Many Jews took part in the Polish insurrections, particularly against Russia (since the Tsars discriminated heavily against the Jews). The [[Kościuszko Insurrection]], [[January Insurrection]] (1863) and [[Russian Revolution of 1905|Revolutionary Movement of 1905]] all saw significant Jewish involvement in the cause of Polish independence.
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| - | By the end of the 19th century, 14% of Polish citizens were Jewish. Jews participated in their religious communities, as well as local and federal government. There were several prominent Jewish politicians in the Polish Sejm, such as [[Apolinary Hartglass]] and [[Yitzhak Gruenbaum]]. 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.
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| - | In addition to the socialists, Zionist parties were also popular, in particular, the Marxist [[Poale Zion]] and the orthodox religious Polish Mizrahi. The [[General Zionists|General Zionist]] party became the most prominent Jewish party in the inter war period and in the 1919 elections to the [[Polish legislative election, 1919|first Polish Sejm]] since the partitions, gained 50% of the Jewish vote.
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| - | In 1914, the German Zionist [[Max Bodenheimer]] founded the short-lived [[German Committee for Freeing of Russian Jews]], with the goal of establishing a buffer state (''Pufferstaat'') within the Jewish Pale of Settlement, composed of the [[Partitions of Poland|former Polish provinces annexed by Russia]], being ''de facto'' [[protectorate]] of the [[German Empire]] that would free Jews in the region from Russian oppression. The plan, known as [[Judeopolonia]], soon proved unpopular with both German officials and Bodenheimer's colleagues, and was dead by the following year.<ref>[[Walter Laqueur]]. [http://books.google.com/books?id=NMjh319vnwAC&pg=PA173 A History of Zionism.] Tauris Parke, 2003 pp. 173-4.</ref><ref>Isaiah Friedman. [http://books.google.com/books?id=iv1DADhI6h4C&pg=PA233 Germany, Turkey, Zionism, 1897-1918.] Transaction Publishers, 1997, p. 233 ff.</ref>
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| - | ==Interwar period 1918–1939==
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (1918-1939)}}
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| - | {{details|History of the Jews in 20th-century Poland}}
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| - | ===Fight for independence and Polish Jews===
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| - | [[File:Hasidic boys in Poland.jpg|thumb|[[Hasidic Judaism|Hasidic]] schoolchildren in [[Łódź]], circa 1910s.]]
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| - | While many other non-Polish minorities were ambivalent or neutral to the idea of a Polish state, Jews played a role in the fight for Poland's independence in 1918, a significant number joining [[Józef Piłsudski]].<ref>Zygmunta Zygmuntowicz, "Żydzi Bojownicy o Niepodleglość Polski", as excerpted at Forum Żydów Polskich [http://fzp.net.pl/historia18.html]</ref> In the wake of [[World War I]] and the ensuing conflicts that engulfed Eastern Europe — the [[Russian Civil War]], [[Polish-Ukrainian War]], and [[Polish-Soviet War]] — many pogroms were launched against the Jews by all sides. As a substantial number of Jews were perceived to have supported the [[Bolshevik]]s in Russia, they came under frequent attack by those opposed to the Bolshevik regime.<ref name="Piotrowski-41-42">{{en icon}} {{cite book |author=[[Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)|Tadeusz Piotrowski]] |title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... |year=1997 |pages=41–42|publisher=McFarland & Company |isbn=0-7864-0371-3}}</ref> 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]] sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The commission, led by [[Henry Morgenthau, Sr.]], concluded in [[Morgenthau Report|its report]] that the reports of pogroms were exaggerated, but also noted that the violence against Jews had been produced by a "widespread anti-semitic prejudice against Jews" ([[s:Mission of The United States to Poland, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. Report|see: Morgenthau Report]]).<ref>Neal Pease. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhK5QebocBkC&pg=RA1-PA74 'This Troublesome Question': The United States and the 'Polish Pogroms' of 1918-1919.] In: Ideology, Politics and Diplomacy in East Central Europe, ed. M. B. B. Biskupski. University of Rochester Press, 2003.</ref> It identified eight major incidents in the years 1918–1919, and estimated the number of victims at 280. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none were blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents, in [[Pińsk]] a commander of a local Polish military garrison accused a group of Jewish civilians of plotting against the Poles (a claim the Morgenthau report found "devoid of foundation") and ordered the execution of thirty-five Jewish men, women and children. (See [[Pinsk massacre]]). In [[Lviv]] (then Lemberg) in 1918, after the [[Polish Army]] captured the city, the report concluded that 64 Jews had been killed (other accounts put the number at seventy-two Jews who were killed by officers and soldiers of the [[Blue Army (Poland)|Blue Army]]).<ref>Herbert Arthur Strauss. [http://books.google.com/books?id=SOFkWX8EC4cC&pg=PA1048 ''Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39.''] Walter de Gruyter, 1993.</ref><ref>Joanna B. Michlic. [http://books.google.com/books?id=t6h2pI7o_zQC&pg=PA110 ''Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present''.] University of Nebraska Press, 2006.</ref>
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| - | In [[Warsaw]], 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]]'', although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in [[Ukraine]].<ref>Andrzej Kapiszewski, [http://www.studiajudaica.pl/sj14kapi.pdf Controversial Reports on the Situation of Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War I: The Conflict between the US Ambassador in Warsaw Hugh Gibson and American Jewish Leaders.] Studia Judaica 7: 2004 nr 2(14) s. 257-304 (pdf)</ref> Anti-Jewish atrocities committed by the Polish army and its allies during the [[Kiev Offensive|1920 invasion into Ukraine]] and [[Belarus]] had a profound impact on the perception of Polish state among the local Jews.<ref name=Babel>[[Isaac Babel]], ''1920 Diary'', Yale, 2002, ISBN 0-300-09313-6, ex. pp. 4, 7, 10, 26, 33, 84</ref> The result of the concern over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Versailles Treaty]] protecting the rights of minorities in Poland. In 1921, Poland's [[March Constitution]] gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance.
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| - | The number of Jews immigrating to Poland from Ukraine and the Soviet Russia during the interwar period grew rapidly. According to Polish national census of 1921, there were 2,845,364 Jews living in the Second Polish Republic; but, by late 1938 that number has 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]] and late 1938, the Jewish population of the Republic has grown by over 464 thousands.<ref>[[Yehuda Bauer]], ''A History of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1929-1939.'' End note 20: 44-29, memo 1/30/39 [30th January 1939], The Jewish Publication Society of America, [[Philadelphia]], 1974</ref>
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| - | ===Jewish and Polish culture===
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| - | {{main|Jewish culture|Polish culture}}
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| - | [[File:Bolesław Leśmian.png|thumb|[[Bolesław Leśmian]]]]
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| - | [[File:Wielka Synagoga w Warszawie.JPG|thumb|left|[[Great Synagogue (Warsaw)|Warsaw Great Synagogue]]]]
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| - | The newly independent [[Second Polish Republic]] had a large and vibrant Jewish minority– by the time [[World War II]] began, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe
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| - | 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.<ref>Nechama Tec, "When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland", Oxford University Press US, 1987, [http://books.google.com/books?id=Kg0L3L0kImUC&pg=PA12 p. 12]</ref>
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| - | According to the [[Polish census of 1931|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 September 1, 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.<ref>[http://www.info.kalisz.pl/Statut/JewsWar2.htm Jews in Poland - Polish Jews in World War II]</ref> Prior to World War II, the Jewish population of [[Łódź]] numbered about 233,000, roughly one-third of the city’s population.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Lodz.html The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Lodz]</ref> The city of [[Lwów]] (now in [[Ukraine]]) had the third largest Jewish population in Poland, numbering 110,000 in 1939 (42%). [[Wilno]] (now in [[Lithuania]]) had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the city's total.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Vilnius.html The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Vilnius]</ref> In 1938, [[Krakow]]'s Jewish population numbered over 60,000, or about 25% of the city's total population.<ref>[http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/ Jewish Krakow: The Jews of Krakow.]</ref> 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.
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| - | 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.<ref>[[Peter D. Stachura]], ''Poland, 1918–1945: An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic'', Routledge (2004), p. 84.</ref>
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| - | Many Jews also worked as shoemakers and tailors, as well in the liberal professions; doctors (56% of all doctors in Poland), teachers (43%), journalists (22%) and lawyers (33%).<ref>Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, ''Jews in Poland: A Documentary History'', Hippocrene Books (1993), pp. 27–28.</ref>
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| - | [[File:HANA ROVINA THE DYBBUK 1920.jpg|thumb|left|[[Hanna Rovina]] as Leah'le in ''[[The Dybbuk]]''.]]
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| - | 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. The religious beliefs spanned the range from Orthodox [[Hasidic Judaism]] to [[Progressive Judaism]].
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| - | Polish language instead of [[Yiddish]] was increasingly used by the young Warsaw Jews who did not have a problem in identifying themselves fully as Jews, Warsavians and Poles. Jews such as [[Bruno Schulz]], were entering the mainstream of Polish society, though many thought of themselves as a separate nationality within Poland.
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| - | Children were mainly enrolled in religious Jewish schools which limited their ability to speak Polish. As a result, according to the 1931 census, 79% of Jews gave 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 <ref name=YV-archive2>[http://web.archive.org/web/20080530115657/http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=7270&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/7270.JPG Shoa Resource Center: Students at a Jewish school, Warsaw.] [[Internet Archive]]</ref> and twelve high schools as well as fourteen vocational schools with either [[Yiddish]] or [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] as the instructional language. The [[YIVO]] (Jidiszer Wissenszaftlecher Institute) Scientific Institute was based in Wilno before transferring to New York during the war. Jewish political parties, both the [[Socialist]] [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland|General Jewish Labour Bund]] (The Bund),<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=7694&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/7694.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> as well as parties of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in the ''[[Sejm]]'' (the Polish Parliament) as well as in the regional councils.
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| - | The Jewish cultural scene <ref>Aleksander Hertz, Lucjan Dobroszycki [http://books.google.com/books?id=APRYwrQWy-AC&dq=jews+in+polish+culture&printsec=frontcover The Jews in Polish culture], Northwestern University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-8101-0758-9</ref> was particularly vibrant in pre–World War II Poland with numerous Jewish publications and over 116 periodicals. Yiddish authors, most notably [[Isaac Bashevis Singer]], went on to achieve international acclaim as classic Jewish writers, and in Singer's case, win the 1978 [[Nobel Prize]]. Other Jewish authors of the period, like [[Janusz Korczak]], [[Bruno Schulz]], [[Julian Tuwim]], [[Jan Brzechwa]] (a favorite poet of Polish children) and [[Bolesław Leśmian]] were less well-known internationally, but made important contributions to Polish literature. Singer [[Jan Kiepura]], born of a Jewish mother and Polish father, was one of the most popular artist of that era and pre-war songs of Jewish composers like [[Henryk Wars]] or [[Jerzy Petersburski]] are still widely known in Poland today.
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| - | Scientist [[Leopold Infeld]], mathematician [[Stanislaw Ulam]] or professor [[Adam Ulam]] contributed to the world of science. Others are [[Moses Schorr]], [[Ludwik Zamenhof]] - the creator of [[Esperanto]], [[Georges Charpak]], [[Samuel Eilenberg]], [[Emanuel Ringelblum]], [[Arthur Rubinstein]] just to name a few from the long [[list of Polish Jews]] who are known internationally. The term "[[genocide]]" was coined by [[Raphael Lemkin]] (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar. [[Leonid Hurwicz]] was awarded the 2007 [[Nobel Prize in Economics]]. The Scientific Institute YIVO was first organized in Wilno. In Warsaw, important centers of Judaic scholarship, such the Main Judaic Library and the Institute of Judaic Studies were located, along with numerous Talmudic Schools (Jeszybots), religious centers and synagogues, many of which were of great architectural quality. [[Yiddish theatre]] 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]], which staged the first performance of ''[[The Dybbuk]]'' in 1920 at the [[Elyseum Theatre]].
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| - | Some future Israeli leaders studied at [[University of Warsaw]] - [[Menachem Begin]], [[Yitzhak Shamir]].
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| - | There also were several Jewish sports clubs, with some of them, such as [[Hasmonea Lwow]] and [[Jutrzenka Kraków]], winning promotion to the [[Ekstraklasa|Polish First Football League]]. A Polish-Jewish footballer, [[Józef Klotz]], scored the first ever goal for the [[Poland national football team]]. Another athlete, [[Alojzy Ehrlich]], won several medals in the table-tennis tournaments.
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| - | ===Growing anti-Semitism===
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| - | An ever-increasing proportion of Jews in [[Second Polish Republic|interwar Poland]] lived separate lives from the Polish majority. In 1921, 74.2% of Polish Jews listed [[Yiddish]] or [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] as their native language; the number rose to 87% by 1931, resulting in growing tensions between Jews and Poles.<ref>Ilya Prizel, [http://books.google.com/books?id=fE2quB852jcC&pg=PA65 ''National identity and foreign policy''], Cambridge University Press 1998 ISBN 0-521-57697-0 p. 65.</ref> 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 and an estimated 30,000 Jews were massacred directly and a total of 150,000 died.<ref>Sharman Kadish, Bolsheviks and British Jews: The Anglo-Jewish Community, Britain, and the Russian Revolution. Published by Routledge, [http://books.google.com/books?id=rhkA1VpX5KQC&pg=RA5-PA87 p. 87]</ref><ref name="Gitelman">Zvi Y. Gitelman, A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present. [http://books.google.com/books?id=3f2rng6jDW4C&pg=PA70 p. 70]</ref> A large number of Russian Jews emigrated to Poland, as they were entitled by the [[Peace of Riga|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 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 radical Zionist and socialist ideas,<ref>Barbara Engelking Boni, "Psychological Distance Between Poles and Jews in Nazi-Occupied Warsaw", in Joshue Zimmerman, ed., "Contested memories", Rutgers University Press, 2003, [http://books.google.com/books?id=uHJyoGiep2gC&printsec=frontcover p. 47]</ref><ref>[http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=103153008 Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath]. Questia.com. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> coupled with attempts at further migration, curtailed only by the British government. Notably, the "campaign for Jewish emigration was predicated not on anti-semitism but on objective social and economic factors".<ref>Emanuel Melzer, [http://books.google.ca/books?id=co3KJikOaBYC&pg=PA132 ''No way out: the politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939''] p. 132. Hebrew Union College Press. 1997 - 235 pages.</ref> However, regardless of these changing economic and social conditions, the increase in antisemitic activity in prewar Poland was also typical of anti-semitism found in other parts of Europe at that time, developing within a broader, continent-wide pattern with counterparts in every other European country.<ref>Robert Blobaum [http://books.google.ca/books?id=gXisr7fgDjwC&printsec=frontcover Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland] Cornell University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-8014-8969-5</ref>
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| - | The matters improved for a time under the rule of [[Józef Piłsudski]] (1926–1935), who opposed [[anti-Semitism]]. Piłsudski countered [[Endecja]]'s '[[polonization|ethnic assimilation]]' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality.<ref name="Snyder">[[Timothy Snyder]], ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'', Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10586-X [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN030010586X&id=xSpEynLxJ1MC&pg=PA144 p.144]</ref> The years 1926–1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski’s appointee [[Kazimierz Bartel]].<ref name="Cieplinski">[[Feigue Cieplinski]], ''Poles and Jews: The Quest For Self-Determination 1919–1934'', Binghamton Journal of History, Fall 2002. Retrieved 2 June 2006.</ref> However a combination of various reasons, including the [[Great Depression]],<ref name="Snyder"/> meant that the situation of Jewish Poles was never too satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Piłsudski's death in May 1935, which many Jews regarded as a tragedy.<ref>[http://davidhorodok.tripod.com/4a.html DavidGorodok - Section IV - a<!--Bot-generated title-->]</ref>
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| - | With the influence of the Endecja party growing, antisemitism gathered new momentum in Poland and was most felt in smaller towns and 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]], which forced Jewish students to sit in section of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas (''[[Numerus clausus]]'') introduced in 1937 in some universities halved the number of Jews in Polish universities between independence and the late 1930s. The restrictions were so inclusive that, while Jews made up 20.4% of the student population in 1928, by 1937 their share was down to only 7.5%.<ref>Leo Cooper, ''In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust and Beyond'', Palgrave (2000), p. 60.</ref>
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| - | Although many Jews were educated, they were excluded from most of the relevant occupations, including the government bureaucracy. A good number therefore turned to the liberal professions, particularly medicine and law. In 1937 the Catholic [[trade union]]s of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to [[Christian]] Poles (in a similar manner the Jewish trade unions excluded non-Jewish professionals from their ranks after 1918). A series of professional and trade unions, including those for lawyers and physicians, enacted "Aryan clauses" expelling Polish Jews from their ranks.<ref>Herbert Arthur Strauss. [http://books.google.com/books?id=SOFkWX8EC4cC&pg=PA1059 Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39.] Walter de Gruyter, 1993.</ref> The bulk of Jewish workers were organized in Jewish trade unions under the influence of the Jewish Labor Bund, which recognized the special cultural needs of the Jewish population, as well as special conditions arising from official discrimination against Jews in certain professions.<ref>Zvi Y. Gitelman. The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002.</ref> Jews were virtually excluded from Polish government jobs during this period.<ref>Joseph Marcus. [http://books.google.com/books?id=82ncGA4GuN4C&pg=PA228 Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939.] Mouton Publishers, Berlin-New York-Amsterdam, 1983.</ref>
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| - | Complex and long history shaped Polish attitudes towards the Jews and Jewish attitudes towards the Poles, but the anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland had reached its zenith in the years leading to the [[Second World War]].<ref>Mordecai Paldiel [http://books.google.com/books?id=YCz0J-8HIIMC&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181 The path of the righteous: gentile rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust], KTAV Publishing House, 1993 ISBN 0-88125-376-6, p. 181</ref>
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| - | [[File:Index of Jewish student in Poland with Ghetto_benche_seal 1934.PNG|thumb|left|Index of Jewish student of medicine at the [[Warsaw University]] with "Ghetto benches" (odd-numbered seats) seal.]]
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| - | [[File:Ghetto benches.jpg|thumb|left|Demonstration of Polish students demanding implementation of "ghetto benches" at [[Lwów Polytechnic]] (1937).]] Between 1935 and 1937 seventy-nine Jews were killed and 500 injured in anti-Jewish incidents.<ref>''The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust'' by [[Martin Gilbert]], [http://print.google.ca/print?id=PnE6TXjt4hkC&pg=PA21 p.21]</ref> National policy was such that jobless Jews, who largely worked at home or in small shops due to discrimination in employment, were excluded from welfare benefits.<ref>Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993:1081-1083.</ref>
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| - | The national boycott of Jewish businesses and advocacy for their confiscation was promoted by the [[Endecja]] 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.<ref>Celia Stopnicka Heller. [http://books.google.com/books?id=GmVt-O3AR34C&pg=PA107 On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars.] Wayne State University Press, 1993.</ref> 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 [[list of riots|riots]], combined with the effects of the [[Great Depression]] that had been very severe on agricultural countries like Poland, reduced the [[standard of living]] 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.<ref>Ezra Mendelsohn. The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. Indiana University Press, 1983.</ref> 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.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}}
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| - | The main strain of anti-semitism in Poland during this time was motivated by Catholic religious beliefs and centuries-old myths such as the [[blood libel]]. This religious-based anti-semitism was sometimes joined with an ultra-nationalistic stereotype of Jews as disloyal to the Polish nation.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=GmVt-O3AR34C&pg=PA133 On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars]. Wayne State University Press, 1993.</ref> 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 were in favor of mass Jewish emigration from Poland.
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| - | 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, as was the case throughout much of Central and Eastern Europe. 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 (1929-1939)|Gazeta Polska]]'' 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."<ref>Edward D. Wynot, Jr., 'A Necessary Cruelty': The Emergence of Official Anti-Semitism in Poland, 1936-39. A''merican Historical Review'', no. 4, October 19711035-1058.</ref><ref>[[William W. Hagen]]. Before the "Final Solution": Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Antisemitism in Interwar Germany and Poland. ''Journal of Modern History'' July, 1996: 1-31.</ref> Escalating hostility towards Polish Jews and an official Polish government desire to remove Jews from Poland continued until the German invasion of Poland.<ref>Celia Stopnicka Heller. [Celia Stopnicka Heller ''On the Edge Of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars''. Wayne State University Press, 1993.</ref>
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| - | ==World War II and the destruction of Polish Jewry (1939–45)==
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| - | {{Main|History of Poland (1939-1945)}}
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| - | [[File:Bekanntmachung General Government Poland 1942.jpg|right|thumb|<u>NOTICE<br />
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| - | ''Concerning:''<br />
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| - | ''the Sheltering of Escaping Jews''.<u><br />
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| - | ....There is a need for a reminder, that in accordance with paragraph 3 of the decree of October 15, 1941, on the Limitation of Residence in [[General Government]] (page 595 of the GG Register) Jews leaving the Jewish Quarter without permission will incur the [[death penalty]].
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| - | ----
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| - | ....According to this decree, those knowingly helping these Jews by providing shelter, supplying food, or selling them foodstuffs are also subject to the death penalty<br />
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| - | ----
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| - | ....This is a categorical warning to the non-Jewish population against:<br />
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| - | .........<u>1) Providing shelter to Jews,<u><br />
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| - | .........<u>2) Supplying them with Food,<u><br />
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| - | .........<u>3) Selling them Foodstuffs.<u><br />
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| - | Dr. Franke - Town Commander - Częstochowa 9/24/42]]
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| - | ===The Polish September campaign===
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| - | {{Main|Invasion of Poland (1939)}}
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| - | [[File:Powazki wrzesien 4.JPG|thumb|125px|left|Graves of Jewish soldiers who died in [[September Campaign]]]]The number of Jews in Poland on September 1, 1939 amounted to about 3,474,000 people.<ref name="ess.uwe.ac.uk"/>
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| - | One hundred thirty thousand soldiers of Jewish descent served in the Polish Army at the outbreak of the Second World War,<ref>Shmuel Krakowski, [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206215.pdf The Fate of Jewish Prisoners of War in the September 1939 Campaign]</ref> thus being among the first to launch armed resistance against the Nazi Germany.<ref>[http://www.zchor.org/meirtchak/meirtchak.htm B. Meirtchak: "Jewish Military Casualties In The Polish Armies In Wwii"]. Zchor.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> It is estimated that during the entirety of [[World War II]] as many as 32,216 Polish-Jewish soldiers and officers died and 61,000 were taken [[POW|prisoner]] by the Germans; the majority did not survive.
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| - | The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were released ultimately found themselves in the ghettos and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other Jewish civilians.
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| - | In 1939 Jews constituted 30% of Warsaw's population.<ref name=boni>Joshua D. Zimmerman [http://books.google.com/books?id=4Iiw0KB31rgC&pg=PA47 Contested memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its aftermath], Rutgers University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-8135-3158-6 p. 47</ref> With the coming of the war, Jewish and Polish citizens of Warsaw jointly [[Siege of Warsaw (1939)|defended the city]], putting their differences aside.<ref name=boni/>
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| - | 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]], in the Soviet formed [[Polish People's Army]] as well as in several underground organizations and as part of Polish partisan units or Jewish partisan formations.<ref>[http://www.cyberroad.com/poland/jews.html "Jews in Poland"]</ref>
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| - | ===Territories annexed by the USSR (1939-1941)===
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| - | {{Main|Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union}}
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| - | On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany entered into a Nonaggression Pact, so-called [[Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact]] with a secret protocol providing the partition of Poland. Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939 and the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939. In newly partitioned Poland 61.2% of Polish Jews found themselves under [[Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany|German occupation]] while 38.8% were in the [[Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union]]. Based on population migration from West to East during and after the [[Invasion of Poland (1939)|Invasion of Poland]] the percentage of Jews in the Soviet-occupied areas was probably higher than that of the 1931 census.
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| - | The [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|Soviet annexation]] was accompanied by the widespread arrests of government officials, police, military personnel, border guards, teachers, priests, judges etc., followed by executions and massive deportation to the Soviet interior or forced labour camps were as a result of the harsh conditions many people died. Of the approximately 1.450 million Polish citizens living in the region deported by the Soviets, (63.1%) were ethnic Poles but Jews represented 7.4% of all the prisoners.
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| - | Jewish refugees from Western Poland who registered for repatriation back to the German zone (people in the Soviet occupation zone had little knowledge of what was going on in the German occupation zone since the Soviet media did not report on their Nazi ally's misdeeds), wealthy Jewish capitalists, prewar political and social activists were labelled "class enemies" and deported for that reason. Jews caught for illegal border crossings or engaged in illicit trade and other "illegal" activities were also arrested and deported. Several thousand, mostly captured Polish soldiers were executed on the spot, some of them were Jewish.
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| - | All private property and crucial to Jewish economic life private businesses were nationalized, political activity was illegal 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. Within one day all Polish and Jewish media was shut down and replaced by the new Soviet press, which conducted mainly political propaganda but also was 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.<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/about_holocaust/lost_worlds/grodno/grodno_during_ww1.html ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref>
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| - | Most economic activity was subject to central planning and restrictions and a lot of private property nationalized. Because Jewish communities tended to rely on commerce and small scale businesses, the nationalization affected some of them to a greater degree than the general populace. The Soviet system resulted in different economic arrangements which were characterized by low wages and frequent shortages of goods and materials. As a result, Jews, like many other inhabitants of the region, saw a fall in their living standards.<ref name="www1.yadvashem.org.il">[http://www1.yadvashem.org.il/about_holocaust/lost_worlds/grodno/grodno_during_ww1.html Lost Jewish Worlds - Grodno, Yad Vashem]</ref>
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| - | Under Soviet policy, Poles were denied access to positions in the civil service and former Polish senior officials and notable members of the community were arrested and exiled to remote regions of Russia together with their families.<ref>[http://www.polandsholocaust.org/memoir2.html World War Two Timeline - Poland 1940]. Polandsholocaust.org (1939-09-17). Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref><ref name="Stosunki">{{pl icon}} Marek Wierzbicki, [http://www.bialorus.pl/index.php?secId=49&docId=60&&Rozdzial=historia ''Stosunki polsko-białoruskie pod okupacją sowiecką (1939–1941)'']. „Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne” (НА СТАРОНКАХ КАМУНІКАТУ, Biełaruski histaryczny zbornik) 20 (2003), p. 186–188. Retrieved 16 July 2007. see also [[Jan T. Gross]] "Revolution from abroad : the Soviet conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia" Princeton, N. J. : Princeton University Press, 1988 ISBN 0-691-09433-0</ref> At the same time the Soviet authorities encouraged Jews to fill in the newly emptied government and civil service jobs.<ref name="www1.yadvashem.org.il"/>
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| - | While most Poles of all ethnicities had anti-Soviet and anti-communist sentiments, a portion of the Jewish population, along with ethnic Belorussians, Ukrainians and few communist Poles had initially welcomed invading Soviet forces.<ref>Joshua D. Zimmerman. [http://books.google.com/books?id=uHJyoGiep2gC&pg=PA62 Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath.] Rutgers University Press, 2003.</ref><ref name="Comm_syph">[http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/rogatin/roh032e.html The Death of Chaimke] Yizkor Book Project, JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Genealogy</ref><ref name="Piotrowski-49-65">{{cite book |author=[[Tadeusz Piotrowski (sociologist)|Tadeusz Piotrowski]] |title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... |year=1997 |pages=49–65|publisher=McFarland & Company|isbn=0-7864-0371-3}}</ref> The general feeling amongst Polish Jews was a sense of relief in having escaped the dangers of falling under Nazi rule, as well as from the overt policies of discrimination against Jews which had existed in the Polish state, including discrimination in education, employment and commerce, as well as antisemitic violence that in some cases reached pogrom levels.<ref>Joshua D. Zimmerman. [http://books.google.com/books?id=4Iiw0KB31rgC&pg=PA57 Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath.] Rutgers University Press, 2003.</ref><ref>Joanna B. Michlic. [http://books.google.com/books?id=t6h2pI7o_zQC&pg=PA174 Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present.] University of Nebraska Press, 2006.</ref> The Polish poet and former communist [[Aleksander Wat]] has stated that Jews were more inclined to cooperate with the Soviets <ref name=autogenerated1>[http://books.google.com/books?id=A4FlatJCro4C&pg=PA51 Poland's holocaust: ethnic strife ... - Google Books]. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref><ref>Tadeusz Piotrowski [http://books.google.ca/books?id=A4FlatJCro4C&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49 Poland's holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947], McFarland, 1998 ISBN 0-7864-0371-3 p. 49</ref> [[Norman Davies]] claimed that among the informers and collaborators, the percentage of Jews was striking, and they prepared lists of Polish "class enemies",<ref name=autogenerated1 /> while other historians have indicated that the level of Jewish collaboration could well have been less than that of ethnic Poles.<ref>Marek Jan Chodakiewicz. [http://books.google.com/books?id=TvUErL-MnV8C&pg=PA306&vq=jews+nkvd&dq=poland+jews+nkvd&lr=&source=gbs_search_s&sig=ACfU3U16igzUfU2Wd1oD6gOqrOVEnGzvEw Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947.] Lexington Books, 2004.</ref> Holocaust scholar Martin Dean has written that "few local Jews obtained positions of power under Soviet rule."<ref>Martin Dean. [http://books.google.com/books?id=tdzTU1Uj3zcC&pg=PA13 Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-44.] Macmillan, 1999.</ref>
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| - | 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 [[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.<ref>Samuel D. Kassow. [http://books.google.com/books?id=zJ3IzEy8sB0C&pg=PA476 Who Will Write Our History: Emmanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto and the Oyneg Shabes Archive] Indiana University Press, 2007.</ref> 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.<ref>Jonathan Frankel. [http://books.google.com/books?id=Rzp51R5WHtIC&pg=PA205 The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945: Continuity Or Contingency?] Oxford University Press, 1998.</ref> 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.<ref name="Piotrowski-49-65"/>
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| - | Even though only a small percentage of the Jewish community had been members of the [[Communist Party of Poland]] during the inter-war era, they had occupied an influential and conspicuous place in the party's leadership and in the rank and file in major centres, such as Warsaw, Lodz and Lwow. A larger 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]]. 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]]).<ref>Joanna Michlic. [http://www.lehigh.edu/~inber/sovietoccupation.pdf The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939–41, and the Stereotype of the Anti-Polish and Pro-Soviet Jew.] ''Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, and Society''.Spring/Summer 2007, Vol. 13, No. 3:135-176.</ref><ref name=IPN-UB>[[Krzysztof Szwagrzyk]] ''Żydzi w kierownictwie UB. Stereotyp czy rzeczywistość?'' (Jews in the authorities of the Polish Secret Security. Stereotype or Reality?), Bulletin of the [[Institute of National Remembrance]] (11/2005), p. 37-42, [http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.aspx?logid=5&id=CA8899B4-7AC6-42B8-BADF-CE18E478D525 online article], [http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=ffbb5b1f-0fe0-4413-b2a2-e672938ede75&articleId=ca8899b4-7ac6-42b8-badf-ce18e478d525 entire issue]</ref>
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| - | There were also Jews who demonstrated loyalty toward Poland, assisting Poles during brutal Soviet occupation. Among thousands Polish officers killed by the Soviet [[NKVD]] 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]]. 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 ''[[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]]. During the Polish army's [[Polish II Corps|II Corps]]' stay in the [[British Mandate of Palestine]], 67% (2,972) of the Jewish soldiers deserted, many to join the ''[[Irgun]]''. General Anders decided not to prosecute the deserters and emphasized that the Jewish soldiers who remained in the Force fought bravely.<ref>Yisrael Gutman [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206564.pdf Jews in General Anders’ Army In the Soviet Union]</ref> [[Polish cemetery at Monte Cassino|Cemetery of Polish soldiers]] who died during the [[Battle of Monte Cassino]] contains also headstones bearing a [[Star of David]].
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| - | ===The Holocaust: German-occupied Poland===
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| - | {{main|The Holocaust in Poland|Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany}}
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| - | [[File:WW2-Holocaust-Poland big legend.PNG|thumb|left|500px|The [[Holocaust]] in [[German occupied Poland]]: the map]]
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| - | The Polish Jewish community suffered the most in [[the Holocaust]]. About six million Polish citizens perished during the war,<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=3428&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/3428.GIF Estimated Casualties During WWII -Including Jews]</ref> half of them (three million) Polish Jews—all but about 300,000 of the Jewish population—who were killed at the [[Nazism|German Nazi]] [[extermination camp]]s of [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]], [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], [[Majdanek]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibór extermination camp|Sobibór]], [[Chełmno extermination camp|Chełmno]] or died of [[starvation]] in [[ghettos]].<ref>[http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/index.php?content=faq/index.php%23topic01-question02 Death tolls in the Holocaust, from the US Holocaust Museum]</ref>
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| - | Poland was where the German Nazi program for the extermination of Jews, the "Final Solution" was implemented, since this was where the majority of Europe's Jews lived at the time (excluding the Soviet Union).<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angap03.asp Estimated Jewish Population of Europe]</ref>
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| - | In 1939 several hundred synagogues were blown up or burnt by the Germans who sometimes forced the Jews to do it themselves.<ref name="ess.uwe.ac.uk">[http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpol5.htm Extermination of the Polish Jews in the Years 1939-1945. Part I]. Ess.uwe.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> In many cases Germans turned the synagogues into factories, places of entertainment, swimming-pools or prisons.<ref name="ess.uwe.ac.uk"/> By the end of the war, almost all of the [[synagogue]]s in Poland have been destroyed.<ref>Thomas C. Hubka, ''Resplendent Synagogue: Architecture and Worship in an Eighteenth-century Polish Community'', UPNE, 2003, ISBN 1-58465-216-0, [http://books.google.com/books?id=-RZVCtWQUl0C&pg=PA57&vq=%22Nazis+destroyed+almost+all+wooden+synagogues%22&dq=1939+synagogues+Poland&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0 p. 57]</ref> [[rabbi]]s were ordered to dance and sing in public with their beards cut or torn. Some rabbis were set on fire or hanged.<ref name="ess.uwe.ac.uk"/>
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| - | [[File:Bundesarchiv N 1576 Bild-003, Warschau, Bettelnde Kinder.jpg|thumb|Jewish children in the Ghetto]]
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| - | Germans ordered registration of all Jews and a word “''Jude''” was stamped in their identity cards.<ref name="YV-Grodno">[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/lost_worlds/grodno/grodno_the_german_occupation.html Lost Jewish World, Yad Vashem]</ref> Numerous restrictions and prohibitions targeting Jews were introduced and brutally enforced.<ref name="Gartner">{{cite book |last=Gartner |first=Lloyd P. |title=History of the Jews in Modern Times |year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0-19-289259-2 |page=353 }}</ref> For example, Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, use public transport, enter places of leisure, sports arenas, theaters, museums and libraries.<ref name="Johnson">{{cite book |last=Johnson |first=Paul |authorlink=Paul Johnson (writer) |title=A History of the Jews |year=1987 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=0-06-091533-1 |page=489 }}</ref> On the street, Jews had to lift their hat to passing Germans.<ref name="Fleischhauer">{{cite book |last=Fleischhauer |first=Ingeborg |chapter=Poland Under German Occupation, 1939–1941: A Comparative Survey |editor-last=Wegner |editor-first=Bernd |title=From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939-1941 |year=1997 |publisher=Berghahn Books |location=Providence, R.I. |isbn=1-57181-882-0 |page=51 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=aESBIpIm6UcC&pg=PA51}}</ref> 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.<ref name="YV-image">[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=4414&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/4414.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> The Germans made almost no attempt to set up a collaborationist government in Poland,<ref name="Davies-1">Norman Davies. [http://books.google.com/books?id=M0UknKj4xZkC&pg=PA464 ''God's Playground: God's Playground: A History of Poland in Two Volumes.''] Oxford University Press, 2005.</ref><ref name=Gross1>István Deák, Jan Tomasz Gross, Tony Judt. [http://books.google.com/books?id=s82F2H0FEHQC&pg=PA25 The Politics of Retribution in Europe.] Princeton University Press, 2000.</ref><ref name=Michnik1>Adam Michnik, ''[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B07E2DC153DF934A25750C0A9679C8B63&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/W/Walesa,%20Lech Poles and the Jews: How Deep the Guilt?]'', New York Times, March 17, 2001</ref> "disappointed that Poles refused to collaborate",<ref name=Friedrich1>Klaus-Peter Friedrich, "Land without a Quisling": Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II. ''Slavic Review''. Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005): 711-746. "Because of a lack of interest on the part of the Nazi leadership, there was no basis for state collaboration. On the contrary, overtures even by Polish fascists and other staunch anti-Semites were rebuffed by the occupiers." {{Verify source|date=January 2011}} For the follow-up see: abstract of John Connelly [http://www.jstor.org/pss/3649912 "Why the Poles Collaborated So Little"], JSTOR: [[Slavic Review]], Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005). Quote: John Connelly "suggests that even those cases that Friedrich documents do not make Poland into a collaborationist country. In fact, the Nazis were disappointed that Poles refused to collaborate." The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 2005.</ref> nevertheless, Polish language [[rag]]s ran by them routinely published antisemitic articles that urged local people to adopt an attitude of indifference towards the Jews.<ref name="Madajczyk">Czesław Madajczyk, ''Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce, Tom II'' (Politics of the Third Reich in Occupied Poland, Part Two), Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970, p.169-170</ref>
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| - | Following [[Operation Barbarossa]], many Jews in what was then Eastern Poland fell victim to Nazi [[death squad]]s 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 [[massacre in Jedwabne]], in which between 300 ([[Institute of National Remembrance]]'s Final Findings<ref>[http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/J/final.html Summary of IPN's final findings on Jedwabne] (English)</ref>) 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 [[pogrom]]s similar to Jedwabne.<ref>[http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,669067,00.html Discussion of IPN findings]</ref> The reasons for these massacres are still debated, but they included [[anti-Semitism]], 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.
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| - | Some historians have written of the negative attitudes of some Poles towards persecuted Jews during the Holocaust.<ref>See e.g., Yisrael Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski. Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews During World War H (New York: Holocaust Library, 1986)</ref> While members of Catholic clergy risked their lives to assist Jews, these efforts were made in the face of strong anti-semitic attitudes from the Polish Catholic Church hierarchy.<ref>Klaus-Peter Friedrich. Collaboration in a "Land without a Quisling": Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II. ''Slavic Review''. Vol. 64, No. 4 (Winter, 2005):711-746.</ref><ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=rT6qx6hi8C4C&pg=PA277 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, 2005.</ref> Anti-Jewish attitudes also existed in the London-based Polish Government in Exile.<ref>David Engel. ''In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-In-Exile and the Jews, 1939-1942''. University of North Carolina Press. 1987; David Engel. ''Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945''. University of North Carolina Press. 1993.</ref>
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| - | [[Holocaust survivors]]'s views of Polish behavior during the War span a wide range, depending on the personal experiences of the person. 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 Nazi Germans.<ref>[http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da=encyclopedia&ke=107 "Polish-Jewish Relations", Holocaust Survivors Encyclopedia]</ref> Poles, who were also victims of [[Nazi crimes]],<ref name="lukas">Richard Lukas 'Forgotten Holocaust'', Hippocrene Books, 2nd revised ed., 2001, ISBN 0-7818-0901-0.</ref> were often afraid for their and their family's lives themselves and this fear prevented many of them from giving aid and assistance, even if some of them felt sympathy for the Jews. [[Emanuel Ringelblum]], a Polish-Jewish historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote in 1944 in his [http://books.google.com/books?id=42sz6MifjMEC&dq=Emanuel+Ringelblum+Polish-Jewish+Relations+during+the+Second+World+War&pg=PP1 Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War] of the indifferent and sometimes joyful responses in Warsaw to the destruction of Polish Jews in the Ghetto.<ref name="P-M">Antony Polonsky & Joanna B. Michlic, editors. [http://books.google.com/books?id=a_49GjK8ovMC&dq=The+Neighbors+Respond:+The+Controversy+Over+the+Jedwabne+Massacre+in+Poland&pg=PP1 ''The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland''.] Princeton University Press, 2003.</ref> However despite that, as another scholar ([[Gunnar S. Paulsson]]) in his work on the Jews of Warsaw has demonstrated, Polish citizens of Warsaw managed to support and hide the same percentage of Jews as did the citizens of cities in Western European countries.<ref name="hnetradz"/>
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| - | [[File:Treblinka 1945.jpg|thumb|Photo of [[Treblinka]] site from 1945, mass graves were disturbed, and bones and personal effects are visible]]
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| - | ===Ghettos and death camps===
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| - | The German Nazis established six [[extermination camp]]s throughout Poland by 1942. All of these - at [[Chelmno extermination camp|Chelmno (Kulmhof)]], [[Belzec extermination camp|Belzec]], [[Sobibor extermination camp|Sobibor]], [[Treblinka]], [[Majdanek]] and [[Auschwitz]] (Oswiecim) - were located on the rail network so that the victims could be easily transported to them. The system of 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 some 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.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html History of the Holocaust - An Introduction]. Jewishvirtuallibrary.org (1943-04-19). Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref>
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| - | The operation of concentration camps depended on [[Kapo (concentration camp)|Kapos]], collaborator-prisoners. Some of these Kapos were Jewish themselves, and their prosecution after the war created an ethical dilemma.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kapos.html Kapos]. Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref>
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| - | [[File:Ghettos Eastern Europe 1941-1942.gif|left|thumb|Jewish Ghettos in German occupied Poland and Eastern Europe]]
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| - | Ghettos were also created for the confinement of Jews. The [[Warsaw Ghetto]] was the largest, with 380,000 people and the [[Łódź Ghetto]], the second largest, holding about 160,000. Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included [[Białystok]] ([[Białystok Ghetto]]), [[Częstochowa]], [[Kielce]], [[Kraków]] ([[Kraków Ghetto]]), [[Lublin]], [[Lwów]] ([[Lviv Ghetto]]), and [[Radom]]. Ghettos were also established in smaller settlements. Living conditions in the Ghettos, most hermetically sealed and without ability to leave, were terrible. Overcrowding, dirt, lice, lethal epidemics such as [[typhoid]] and hunger resulted in countless deaths.
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| - | [[File:Death penalty for Jews outside ghetto and for Poles helping Jews anyway 1941.jpg|thumb|Announcement of death penalty for Jews captured outside the Ghetto and for Poles helping Jews, November 1941]]
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| - | Many Jews tried to escape from the ghetto 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 up until their liquidation.<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/lost_worlds/grodno/grodno_the_german_occupation.html "Lost Jewish Worlds - Grodno", Yad Vashem]</ref>
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| - | Since Nazi terror reigned throughout the Aryan districts, the chances of remaining successfully hidden undoubtedly 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 fo their own life and that of their family. The Germans would often murder non-Jewish Poles for small misdemeanors and execution for help rendered to Jews, even the most basic kinds, was automatic. Poles often refused to help, but the general reason for that was that they feared for their own lives since in any apartment block or area where Jews were found to be harboured, everybody in the house would be immediately shot by the Germans. While the German policy towards Jews was ruthless and criminal, their policy towards Christian Poles who helped Jews was very much the same. Thousands of non-Jewish Poles were executed for helping Jews.<ref>[http://members.core.com/~mikerose/waryears.htm Jewish History in Poland during the years 1939-1945]</ref>
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| - | Hiding in a Christian society to which the Jews were only partially assimilated to was a daunting task.<ref name=hiding>[http://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/data.show.php?di=record&da=encyclopedia&ke=98 Encyclopedia - "Hidden Jews"]. Holocaust Survivors. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> They needed to quickly acquire not only a new identity, but a new body of knowledge.<ref name=hiding/> Many Jews spoke Polish with an accent, used different nonverbal language, different gestures and facial expressions. Jews with the specific physical characteristics were particularly vulnerable.<ref name=hiding/>
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| - | [[Szmalcownicy|Some individuals]] took advantage of a hiding person's desperation by collecting money, then reneging on their promise of aid—or worse, turning them over to the Germans for an additional reward. Individuals who turned in Jews in hiding to the [[Gestapo]] received a standard payment consisting of some cash, liquor, sugar and cigarettes.
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| - | Many Jews were robbed and handed over to the Germans by "[[szmalcownik]]"s many of whom practiced blackmail as an "occupation". Those criminals were condemned by the [[Polish Underground State]] and a fight against these informers was organized by [[Armia Krajowa]] (Underground State's military arm), with the death sentence being meted out on a scale unknown in the occupied countries of Western Europe.<ref>[http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/2%20Article.htm The Polish Undergroud State and Home Army]</ref>
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| - | [[File:Krochmalna Street orphanage.PNG|left|thumb|[[Janusz Korczak]]'s orphanage]]
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| - | The belief that the experienced suffering was preordained and that it would result in the coming of the [[Messiah]] also existed among some religious Jews.<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary.org">[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Warsaw.html The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Warsaw]. Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref>
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| - | 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]]<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=2743&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/2743.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> for anybody found sheltering and helping Jews.<ref name="Nie-Nic">Donald L. Niewyk, Francis R. Nicosia, ''The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust'', Columbia University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-231-11200-9, [http://books.google.com/books?id=lpDTIUklB2MC&pg=PA114 p. 114]</ref><ref name="Polonsky">Antony Polonsky, '' 'My Brother's Keeper?': Recent Polish Debates on the Holocaust'', Routledge, 1990, ISBN 0-415-04232-1, [http://books.google.com/books?id=uceq22StcZUC&pg=PA149 p.149]</ref>
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| - | The penalty applied not only to the person who did the helping, but also extended to his or her family, neighbors and sometimes to an entire village.<ref>[http://isurvived.org/Frameset4References-3/-PolishRighteous.html Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: Polish Righteous]</ref>
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| - | 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.
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| - | Food rations for Poles were very small (669 kcal per day in 1941) and [[black market]] prices of food 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 (6,195).<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/statistics.html The Righteous Among the Nations]. .yadvashem.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref>
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| - | 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]]<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206425.pdf Karski, Jan]</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.republika.pl/unpack/1/dok03.html Note of December 10, 1942, addressed by the Polish Government to the Governments of the United Nations concerning the mass extermination of Jews]</ref> 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.
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| - | ====Warsaw Ghetto and its uprising====
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| - | {{Commons category|Warsaw Ghetto|Daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto}}
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| - | [[File:Stroop Report - Cover Page.jpg|thumb|The cover page of [[Stroop Report|The Stroop Report]] with [[International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg]] markings.]]
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| - | {{cquote|''When we invaded the Ghetto for the first time, the Jews and the Polish bandits succeeded in repelling the participating units, including tanks and armored cars, by a well-prepared concentration of fire. (...) The main Jewish battle group, mixed with Polish bandits, had already retired during the first and second day to the so-called Muranowski Square. There, it was reinforced by a considerable number of Polish bandits. Its plan was to hold the Ghetto by every means in order to prevent us from invading it. (...) Time and again Polish bandits found refuge in the Ghetto and remained there undisturbed, since we had no forces at our disposal to comb out this maze. (...) One such battle group succeeded in mounting a truck by ascending from a sewer in the so-called Prosta [Street], and in escaping with it (about 30 to 35 bandits). ... The bandits and Jews - there were Polish bandits among these gangs armed with carbines, small arms, and in one case a light machine gun - mounted the truck and drove away in an unknown direction.''|||[[Jürgen Stroop]] Stroop Report 1943<ref>"The Stroop report", Pantheon 1986 ISBN 0-394-73817-9</ref><ref>"The Stroop Report - The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is No More", Secker & Warburg 1980</ref><ref name="stroop">From the [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nowarsaw.html Stroop Report] by SS [[Gruppenführer]] Jürgen Stroop, May 1943.</ref>}}
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| - | [[File:Umschlagplatz loading.jpg|thumb|left|Deportation to [[Treblinka]] at the ''[[Umschlagplatz]]'']]
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| - | The [[Warsaw Ghetto]]<ref>[http://polishjews.org/shoah/shoahwrs.htm The Polish Jews Home Page]. PolishJews.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> and its [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|uprising in 1943]] 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 October 16, 1940. Moved from all parts of Warsaw, almost 140,000 Jews lived in the ghetto in the beginning at the same time approximately 110,000 Poles had been forcibly moved out of the area. The Germans selected [[Adam Czerniakow]] to take charge of 24 other Jewish men who formed Jewish Council called [[Judenrat]] which was to organize the labor battalions to be used by the Germans as well as [[Jewish Ghetto Police]] which would be responsible for maintaining order within the Ghetto walls.<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=1361&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/1361.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref><ref>[http://warsawghetto.epixtech.co.uk/20Chlodn.htm ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> A number of Jewish policemen were corrupt and immoral. Soon the Nazis demanded even more from the Judenrat and the demands were much more cruel. 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 <ref>[http://www.diapozytyw.pl/en/site/ludzie/adam_czerniakow Dia-Pozytyw: People, Biographical Profiles]. Diapozytyw.pl. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> when he was forced to collect daily lists of Jews to be deported to [[Treblinka]] extermination camp.
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| - | At this time, the population of the ghetto reached 380,000 people, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 2.4% of the size of Warsaw. The Germans then closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world, on November 16 of that year, building a wall around it. 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 July 22, 1942, the mass deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began; during the next fifty-two days (until September 12, 1942) about 300,000 people were transported by train to the [[Treblinka extermination camp]]. The deportations were carried out by fifty German [[SS]] soldiers, 200 soldiers of the [[Latvia]]n ''Schutzmannschaften'' Battalions, 200 Ukrainian Police,<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto/stroop_collection/stroop_8.html Photographs from the Warsaw Ghetto]. .yadvashem.org (2010-02-16). Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> and 2,500 [[Jewish Ghetto Police]]. Employees of the ''[[Judenrat]]'', including the Ghetto Police,<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=866&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/866.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> along with their families and relatives, were given immunity from deportations in return for their cooperation. Additionally, in August 1942, Jewish Ghetto policemen, under the threat of deportation themselves, were ordered to personally "deliver" ghetto inhabitants to the [[Umschlagplatz]] train station. On January 18, 1943, a number 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 uprising. Both organizations resisted, with arms, German attempts for additional deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka.<ref name="Wdowiński">{{en icon}} {{cite book | author =David Wdowiński | title =And we are not saved | year =1963 | page =222 | publisher =Philosophical Library | location =New York | id =ISBN 0-8022-2486-5 }} Note: Chariton and Lazar were never co-authors of Wdowiński's memoir. Wdowiński is considered the "single author."</ref>
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| - | [[File:Ghetto Uprising Warsaw2.jpg|thumb|The [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] of 1943 saw the destruction of what remained of the Ghetto]]
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| - | [[File:Monument of ghetto uprising.JPG|thumb|left|Ghetto fighters memorial in Warsaw build in 1948, sculpturer: Natan Rappaport]]
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| - | 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]] led by the ŻOB, and the ŻZW.<ref name="Wdowiński"/><ref>(the first [[ghetto uprising]] is believed to have occurred in 1942 in the small town of [[Lakhva|Łachwa]] in the [[Polesie Voivodship]]).</ref> The ŻZW was the better supplied in arms.<ref name="Wdowiński"/> The ŻOB had more than 750 fighters, but lacked weapons: they had only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and several grenades.<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary.org"/> 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 May 8, 1943 at the organization's command centre on 18 Mila Street.
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| - | 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 Tlomack Street (outside the ghetto) destroyed as a celebration of German victory and a symbol that the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw was no longer.
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| - | 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.
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| - | [[Image:Gesiowka.jpg|thumb|right|Freed prisoners of [[Gęsiówka]] and the ''[[Szare Szeregi]]'' fighters after the liberation of the camp in August 1944]]
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| - | [[File:5 sierpnia 44 Gesiowka.jpg|thumb|left|34 [[Mordechaj Anielewicz]] Street, Warsaw, Poland]]
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| - | 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 surrounding area.
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| - | Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was followed by other [[Ghetto uprising]]s 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,<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=8301&lang=EN&type_id=2&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/8301.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> Hungarian or even German Jews freed by [[Armia Krajowa]] from [[Gesiowka]] concentration camp in Warsaw, men and woman, 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 January 17, 1945, the [[Soviet Army]] entered destroyed and nearly uninhabited Warsaw. Some 300 Jews were found hiding in the ruins in the Polish part of the city (''see:'' [[Wladyslaw Szpilman]]).
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| - | 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]] 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).<ref>{{cite web | last = Urban-Klaehn | first = Jagoda | title= Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp - Advice from a Tour Guide | url=http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art256fr.htm|publisher = culture.polishsite.us | accessdate = 2009-05-22}}</ref> 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.
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| - | ==Communist rule: 1945–1989==
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (1945-1989)}}
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| - | ===Postwar===
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| - | {{main|Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946}}
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| - | Between 40,000 and 100,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust in Poland by hiding or by joining the Polish or Soviet [[resistance movement|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 postwar peak, there were 180,000–240,000 Jews in Poland mostly in [[Warsaw]], [[Łódź]], Kraków, [[Wrocław]] and [[Lower Silesia]], e.g., [[Legnica]], [[Dzierżoniów]] and [[Bielawa]].<ref>A. Stankowski, Studia z historii Zydow w Polsce po 1945 roku, Warszawa 2000, pp.107-111.</ref>
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| - | The character of Poland had changed however. In spite of the major [[Polish contribution to World War II]], Poland was placed under direct Soviet control due to British and US dependence on the Soviet military commitment to the defeat of [[Hitler]] and [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s unwillingness to confront Stalin over his future plans for Poland. Soviet style communism was established and the borders of Poland were moved west. The Soviet Union annexed the [[Kresy|eastern regions]], which had many ethnic minorities including Jewish [[shtetl]] communities.
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| - | The Jewish survivors found it practically impossible to reconstruct their earlier lives as they were before in pre-war Poland.<ref name=USHMM-archive1>[http://web.archive.org/web/20071215094214/http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/surviv.htm USHMM: The Survivors.] [[Internet Archive]]</ref> Jewish communities and rich Jewish life ceased to exist. People who somehow survived the Holocaust and who returned to their town or villages often discovered that their homes had been looted or destroyed. Some homes had new repatriated inhabitants who at times were very unhappy to see returning Jewish survivors.
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| - | [[File:Kielcepogrom.jpg|thumb|left|Jewish Holocaust survivors awaiting transportation to the [[British Mandate of Palestine]]]]
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| - | Polish Jews began to leave Poland soon after the Second World War ended for variety of reasons.<ref name="jcpa.org">[http://www.jcpa.org/cjc/cjc-schudrich-06.htm The Chief Rabbi's View on Jews and Poland - Michael Schudrich]. Jcpa.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> Many left because Poland became a communist country they did not want to live in, or because all private property has been confiscated by the new communist government. Some left because they did not want to live where their family members were murdered and instead chose to live with relatives in different countries. Many wanted to go to [[British Mandate of Palestine]], soon to be the new state of [[Israel]], especially after Gen. Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits.<ref name="Kochavi-175" /> Yet others left because many Poles viewed Jews with hostility due to anti-Semitic prejudice.
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| - | Anti-Jewish riots broke out in several Polish cities and hundreds of Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish violence (see: [[Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944-1946]]).<ref name=Engel1>David Engel, [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203128.pdf Patterns Of Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1944-1946]</ref> The best-known case is the [[Kielce pogrom]] of 1946,<ref>[http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=3048&lang=EN&type_id=&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/3048.JPG ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> in which thirty seven Jews were brutally murdered. Kielce anti-Semitic riot, amidst the raging civil war in postwar Poland,<ref name="TP-2">Tadeusz Piotrowski, [http://books.google.com/books?id=hC0-dk7vpM8C&pg=PA130&dq=%22Stalin+placed+some+Jews+in+highly+visible+positions+of+authority+in+the+PRL+and+in+the+organs+of+oppression%22+%22to+put+Poles+and+Jews+directly+on+a+collision+course%22#PPA131,M1 ''Poland's Holocaust'', page 130, (ibidem)] Published by McFarland, 1998.</ref> discouraged many survivors from rebuilding their lives there and convinced them to emigrate.
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| - | Irrespective of their status, the communist government's response to the Kielce atrocities was rapid.<ref name=response>[http://www.fathom.com/course/72809602/session3.html Poland's Century: War, Communism and Anti-Semitism]. Fathom.com. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> Special investigators were dispatched and military tribunals formed.<ref name=response/> Acitivities of the local authorities were investigated.<ref name=response/> However, only the local commander of [[Milicja Obywatelska]] was found guilty of inaction.<ref name=response/> Nine direct participants of the pogrom were sentenced to death; three were given lengthy prison sentences.<ref name=response/> Debate in Poland continues today whether the murderers were leftists or rightists. Who inspired the killings is not agreed upon or known.
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| - | Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by the [[Zionism|Zionist]] activists in Poland such as [[Adolf Berman]] and [[Icchak Cukierman]] under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine organization ''[[Berihah]]'' ("Flight").<ref name=YV-archive3>[http://web.archive.org/web/20080530115749/http://www1.yadvashem.org/Odot/prog/image_into.asp?id=8069&lang=EN&type_id=2&addr=/IMAGE_TYPE/8069.JPG Shoa Resouce Center: Members of the Bericha Movement.] [[Internet Archive]]</ref> ''Berihah'' was also responsible for the organized [[Aliyah|emigration of Jews]] from [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[Czechoslovakia]], and [[Yugoslavia]] totaling 250,000 (including Poland) Holocaust survivors.
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| - | 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 1968-69 provoked the last mass migration of Jews from Poland.<ref name="jcpa.org"/>
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| - | 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]] which was against the renewal of Jewish religious and even 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.
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| - | 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 (''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, 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.<ref name=Weiner/> 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").
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| - | Following liberalization after [[Joseph Stalin]]'s death, in this 1958-59 period, 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.<ref name="relations"/> A significant number of Polish communists were of Jewish descent and actively participated in the establishment of the communist regime in the [[People's Republic of Poland]]. Between 1944 and 1956, they held, among others, prominent posts in the [[Politburo]] of the [[Polish United Worker's Party]] (e.g., [[Jakub Berman]], [[Hilary Minc]]– responsible for establishing a Communist-style economy), and the security apparatus ''[[Urząd Bezpieczeństwa]]'' (UB) and in diplomacy/intelligence. After 1956, during the process of [[destalinisation]] in Poland under [[Władysław Gomułka]]'s regime, some ''Urząd Bezpieczeństwa'' 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]]), and sentenced to long prison terms. A UB official, [[Józef Światło]], (born Izaak Fleichfarb), after escaping in 1953 to the West, exposed through [[Radio Free Europe]] 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 Poland for Israel to escape prosecution for genocide. [[Helena Wolińska-Brus]], a former Stalinist prosecutor, who emigrated to England in the late 60's, was fighting being extradited to Poland on charges related to the execution of a Second World War resistance hero [[August Fieldorf]]. Wolinska died in London in 2008.
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| - | ===1967–1989===
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| - | In 1967, following the [[Six-Day War]] between [[Israel]] and the [[Arab]] states, communist Poland broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. The Israeli victory over the Soviet backed Arab states in 1967 was greeted by Poles with a slogan; "Our Jews beat the Soviet Arabs" (Nasi Żydzi pobili ruskich Arabów)<ref>[http://www.wprost.pl/ar/13189/Wojna-zastepcza/?O=13189&pg=1 Nasi Żydzi biją sowieckich Arabów]</ref><ref>[http://prawy.pl/r2_index.php?dz=felietony&id=37395&subdz= ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref>
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| - | The vast majority of the 40,000 Jews in Poland by the late 1960s were completely assimilated into the broader society.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}} 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.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}}
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| - | 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 anti-Semitic 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 were forced to leave Poland and relinquish their Polish citizenship .<ref>Albert Stankowski, Studia z historii Zydow w Polsce po 1945 roku, Warszawa 2000, pp. 139-145.</ref> 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 anti-semitic 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 end result was that most of the remaining Polish Jews, regardless of their background or political affiliation, were targeted by the communist authorities.<ref>AP Online, "Some Jewish exiles to have Polish citizenship restored this week", 03-10-1998, [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-19804342.html]</ref>
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| - | 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 anti-Semitism and opposed the campaign. Some of the people who emigrated to the West at this time founded organizations which encouraged anti-communist opposition inside Poland.
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| - | First attempts to improve Polish-Israeli relations began in the mid seventies. Poland was the first of the [[Eastern Bloc]] countries to restore diplomatic relations with Israel after these have been broken off right after the Six Day's War.<ref name="relations"/> In 1986 [[Israel–Poland relations|partial diplomatic relations with Israel]] were restored,<ref name=relations/> and full relations were restored in 1990 as soon as communism fell.
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| - | 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.
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| - | ==Since 1989==
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| - | {{main|History of Poland (1989–present)}}
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| - | {{Details|Jewish Polish history (1989–present)}}
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| - | 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 [[Massacre in Jedwabne]], the [[Koniuchy Massacre]], the [[Kielce pogrom]], the [[Auschwitz cross]], and Polish-Jewish wartime relations in general).
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| - | [[File:Michael Schudrich 01.JPG|thumb|Chief Rabbi of Poland - [[Michael Schudrich]]]]
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| - | According to the [[Coordination Forum of Countering Antisemitism]] there were eighteen anti-Semitic incidents in Poland in the period from January 2001 to November 2005. Half of them were incidents of demagoguery, eight were violent incidents such as vandalism or desecration, and one was verbal abuse. There were no antisemitic attacks by means of weapons in Poland.<ref>[http://www.antisemitism.org.il/frontend/english/index.htm ]{{dead link|date=August 2010}}</ref> According to a 2005 survey, the portion of the population holding anti-Semitic views in Poland is not higher than those in some other countries surveyed.<ref>[http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASInt_13/4726_13.htm ADL Survey in 12 European Countries Finds Anti-Semitic Attitudes Still Strongly Held]. Adl.org. Retrieved on 2010-08-22.</ref> According to a survey <ref>[http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2005/K_001_05.PDF Stosunek do Innych Narodów (Attitudes Toward Other Nations), CBOP, 2005]</ref> carried out by [[CBOS]] and published in January, 2005, in which Poles were asked to assess their attitudes toward other nations, 45% claimed to feel antipathy towards Jews, 18% to feel sympathy, while 29% felt indifferent and 8% were undecided. Those surveyed were asked to express their feeling on the scale from -3 (strong antipathy) to +3 (strong sympathy), with 0 taken to indicate indifference. The average score for attitude towards Jews was -0.67. In the 2010 survey <ref>[http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2010/K_012_10.PDF Stosunek Polaków do Innych Narodów (Attitudes Of Poles Toward Other Nations), CBOP, 2010]</ref> antipathy decreased to 27% and sympathy rose to 31%. 35% of respondents felt indifferent and 7% responded "hard to say". The average score for attitude was +0.05. The Chief Rabbi of Poland, [[Michael Schudrich]], said in a [[BBC]] interview: ''it's ... false and painful stereotype that all Poles are antisemitic. This is something I want to clearly state: this is a false stereotype. Today there is antisemitism in Poland, as unfortunately the rest of Europe; it is more or less at the same level as the rest of Europe. More important is that you have a growing number of Poles who oppose antisemitism.''<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8333000/8333370.stm Kaminski 'today against anti-semitism', BBC Today Programme, 30 October 2009]</ref>
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| - | [[File:Lesko synagoga.jpg|thumb|left|[[Lesko Synagogue]], Poland]]
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| - | [[File:Beit Warszawa synagogue interior2006.jpg|thumb|left|Reform [[Beit Warszawa Synagogue]]]]
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| - | Poland has many legal provisions to combat antisemitism, neo-fascism, extremism and has ratified all the major international conventions pertaining to human rights protection and anti-discrimination.
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| - | 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.
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| - | Cities with synagogues include Warsaw, Kraków, Zamość, Tykocin, [[Rzeszów]], Kielce and Góra Kalwaria although not all of them are always active. Stara Synagoga ("Old Synagogue") in Kraków, which hosts a Jewish museum, was built in the early 1400 hundreds 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.
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| - | 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 Krakow 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 the Polish Jews]] is being built in Warsaw. The building was designed by the Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamaecki.<ref name=Weiner>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html Rebecca Weiner, The Virtual Jewish History Tour, Poland]</ref>
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| - | [[File:March of the living-in-auschwitz.jpg|thumb|2005 [[March of the Living]]]]
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| - | Of the [[Communist Bloc]] countries that interrupted [[diplomatic relations]] with Israel in 1967 (i.e. all communist countries except [[Romania]]), Poland was the first to restart them again in 1986, and to fully restore them in 1990.
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| - | Former extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka are open to visitors. At Auschwitz the Oswiecim 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 build out of many shards of broken stone, as well as a mausoluem 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. In Łódz there is the largest Jewish burial ground in Europe, and preserved historic sites include those located in Góra Kalwaria and Leżajsk.<ref name="JVL">[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html Jewish Virtual Library, The Virtual Jewish History Tour Poland]</ref>
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| - | [[File:MOTL.jpg|thumb|left|Young Jews in the Auschwitz museum, 2008]]
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| - | The Great Synagogue in [[Oświęcim]] was excavated after testiomy by a Holocaust survivor suggested that many Jewish relics and ritual objects had been buried there, right before Nazis took over the town. Candelabras, chandeliers, a menorah and a ner tamid were found and can now be seen at the Auschwitz Jewish Center.<ref name="JVL"/>
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| - | The [[Warsaw Ghetto Memorial]] was unveiled on April 19, 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 [[Natan Rappaport]]. The Memorial is located where the Warsaw Ghetto used to be, at the site of one command bunker of the [[Jewish Combat Organization]].
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| - | [[File:2007 06 26 lech kaczynski 06.jpg|thumb|[[President of the Republic of Poland]], [[Lech Kaczynski]], at the groundbreaking ceremony for the [[Museum of the history of the Polish Jews]], 26 June 2007]]
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| - | 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]].
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| - | In modern Poland, interest in learning about and preserving the artifacts of Jewish culture is quite strong, especially among the younger generations. Many works devoted to the Holocaust have been published. Notable among them are the [[Polish Academy of Sciences]]'s journal Zaglada (first issue, 2005) as well other publications from the [[Institute of National Remembrance]].[[File:Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.jpg|thumb|left|"Shalom in Szeroka Street", the final concert of the 15th Jewish Festival]]
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| - | There have been a number of Holocaust remembrance activities in Poland in recent years. The [[United States Department of State]] documents that:
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| - | <blockquote>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.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/5727.htm | title = Poland, International Religious Freedom Report | year = 2001 | publisher = [[United States Department of State]] | accessdate = 2009-05-25}}</ref></blockquote>
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| - | The [[March of the Living]] is an event held each year in April to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. It takes place from Auschwitz to [[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]].
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| - | An annual [[Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków|festival of Jewish culture]] takes place in Kraków.<ref>[http://www.jewishfestival.pl/index.php?pl=strony&nrstr=4&lang=e Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow]</ref>
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| - | In 2006, Poland's Jewish population was estimated to be approximately 20,000;<ref name="polish-jewish-heritage.org"/> most living in Warsaw, [[Wrocław]], [[Kraków]], 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.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}} The Centre estimates that there are approximately 100,000 Jews in Poland, of which 30,000 to 40,000 have some sort of direct connection to the Jewish community, either religiously or culturally.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}} There are also people with Jewish roots who do not possess adequate documentation to confirm it, due to various historical and family complications.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}} A special program of introduction to Judaism is offered to them by a progressive Jewish Community Beit Kraków.<ref>[http://www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/pastevents The festival of Simchat Torah] at the [[Galicia Jewish Museum]], [[Kraków]]</ref><ref>[http://beitkrakow.pl/konwersja/ Beit Kraków » Wstęp do Judaizmu (Introduction to Judaism), October 8, 2009] see also [[:pl:Szkoła rabinacka Beit Meir w Krakowie]]</ref>
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| - | Poland is currently easing the way for Jews who left Poland during the Communist organized massive expulsion of 1968 to re-obtain their citizenship.<ref>[http://www.americangathering.com/2008/03/05/3178/jta-poland-reaches-out-to-expelled-jews/ "Poland reaches out to expelled Jews"] at www.americangathering.com</ref> Some 15,000 Polish Jews were deprived of their citizenship in the [[1968 Polish political crisis]].<ref>[http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/107260.html "Poland reaches out to expelled Jews"] at www.jta.org]</ref> On June 17, 2009 the future [[Museum of Polish Jews]] in Warsaw launched bilingual Polish-English website called "The Virtual Shtetl",<ref>[http://www.sztetl.org.pl/?cid=15&lang=en_GB "The Virtual Shtetl", information about Jewish life in Poland] at www.sztetl.org.pl</ref> providing information about the Jewish life in Poland.
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| - | ==See also==
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| - | *[[Timeline of Jewish Polish history]]
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| - | *[[List of Polish Jews]]
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| - | *[[Jewish history]]
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| - | *[[Jewish ethnic divisions]]
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| - | *[[Museum of the History of the Polish Jews]]
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| - | *[[Three Hares]]
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| - | *[[Wooden synagogue]]
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| - | *[[Jewish-Ukrainian relations in Eastern Galicia]]
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| - | ==Notes==
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| - | {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}
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| - | ==References==
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| - | {{JewishEncyclopedia}}
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| - | * [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]], ''After the Holocaust'', [[East European Monographs]], 2003, ISBN 0-88033-511-4.
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| - | * [[Marek Jan Chodakiewicz]], ''Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947'', [[Lexington Books]], 2004, ISBN 0-7391-0484-5.
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| - | * [[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.
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| - | * [[Gershon David Hundert]], ''Jews in Poland-Lithuania in the Eighteenth Century: A Genealogy of Modernity'', [[University of California Press]], 2004, ISBN 0-520-23844-3 [http://print.google.com/print%3Fq%3DLiberty%27s%2Bfolly:%2Bthe%2BPolish-Lithuanian%2Bcommonwealth%2Bin%2Bthe%2Beighteenth%2Bcentury%26lr%3D%26start%3D10 Google Print]
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| - | * [[Antony Polonsky]] and [[Joanna B. Michlic]]. ''The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland'', [[Princeton University Press]], 2003 ISBN 0-691-11306-8. ([http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/chapters/i7632.html The introduction is online])
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| - | * [[Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski]], ''Jews in Poland. A Documentary History'', [[Hippocrene Books]], Inc., 1998, ISBN 0-7818-0604-6.
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| - | * [[David Vital]], ''A People Apart: A Political History of the Jews in Europe 1789–1939'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2001.
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| - | * [[M. J. Rosman]], ''The Lord's Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth During the Eighteenth Century'', Harvard University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-916458-18-0
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| - | * [[Edward Fram]], ''Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Life and Culture in Poland 1550–1655'', HUC Press, 1996, ISBN 0-8143-2906-3
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| - | * [[Magda Teter]], ''Jews and Heretics in Premodern Poland: A Beleaguered Church in the Post-Reformation Era'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-85673-6
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| - | ==Further reading==
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| - | * [[Alvydas Nikžentaitis]], Stefan Schreiner, Darius Staliūnas (editors). ''The Vanished World of Lithuanian Jews''. Rodopi, 2004, ISBN 90-420-0850-4 [http://print.google.com/print%3Flr%3D%26q%3DPolish-Lithuanian%2Bcommonwealth%26start%3D20 Google print]
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| - | * {{cite book| year= 2003 | title = After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II, East European Monographs | isbn = 0-88033-511-4 | first = Marek Jan | last = Chodakiewicz | authorlink = Marek Jan Chodakiewicz | publisher = Columbia University Press}}
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| - | * {{cite article | first = David | last = Engel | authorlink = David Engel| title = Patterns of Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland 1944–1946 | work = Yad Vashem Studies | year = 1998 }}
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| - | ==Notes==
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| - | See also [[Stanisław Krajewski]], ''Poland and the Jews: Reflections of a Polish Polish Jew'' ([[Kraków]]: Austeria P, 2005).
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| - | Glenn Dynner, ''Men of Silk: The Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society'' (NY: Oxford University Press, 2006)
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| - | == Источники ==
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| - | * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Polish_Jews#1967.E2.80.931989 Статья "History of the Jews in Poland" в английском разделе Википедии]
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| - | ==External links==
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| - | {{Commons category|Judaism in Poland}}
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| - | ===Maps===
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| - | *[http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415236614/resources/maps/map48.jpg The Cossak Uprising and its Aftermath in Poland], [http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415236614/resources/maps/map47.jpg Jewish Communities in Poland and Lithuania under the Council of the Four Lands], [http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415236614/resources/maps/map50.jpg The Spread of Hasidic Judaism], [http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415236614/resources/maps/map65.jpg Jewish Revolts against the Nazis in Poland] (All maps from Judaism: History, Belief, and Practice)
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| - | ===History of Polish Jews===
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| - | * [http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/index.php?miId=2&lang=en Museum of the History of Polish Jews]
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| - | **[http://www.sztetl.org.pl/?lang=en_GB Virtual Shtetl]
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| - | * [http://polishjews.org The Polish Jews Home Page]
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| - | *[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/index.html Beyond the Pale]: A History of the Jews in Russia. See especially: [http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/18.html Jews of Lithuania and Poland]
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| - | *[http://members.core.com/~mikerose/history.html Mike Rose's History of the Jews in Poland before 1794] and [http://members.core.com/~mikerose/history2.htm After 1794]
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| - | *[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Poland.html Virtual Jewish History Tour of Poland]
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| - | *[http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Medieval/TheStory6321666/Expulsion/Poland.htm Early History of the Polish Jewish Community] from Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia
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| - | *[http://www.cyberroad.com/poland/jews.html Jews in Poland] from the LNT Travel company.
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| - | *[http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/judaismmiller.htm Judaism in the Baltic: Vilna as the Spiritual Center of Eastern Europe]
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| - | *[http://www.zydziwpolsce.edu.pl/aindex.html The Jews in Poland. Saving from oblivion - Teaching for the future]
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| - | *[http://jewish.sites.warszawa.um.gov.pl/wstep_a.htm Historical Sites of Jewish Warsaw]
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| - | *[http://krakow.zaprasza.net/fkz/szeroka_street.html Kazimierz in Kraków - History and Jewish Festivals]
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| - | *[http://www.jewishmemory.gliwice.pl/ Jewish presence in the history of Gliwice]
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| - | *[http://www.polandembassy.org/Links/p7-10.htm Polish-Jewish Relations section of the Polish Embassy in Washington]
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| - | *[http://www.polandembassy.org/Links/under_one_heaven/content/08_OnTheRole.html Facts and Myths: on the Role of the Jews during the Stalinist Period]
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| - | *[http://www.ce-review.org/00/4/rohozinska4.html A Complicated Coexistence:Polish-Jewish relations through the centuries], [[Joanna Rohozinska]], [[Central Europe Review]], 28 January 2000
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| - | *[http://www.earlymodern.org Primary sources for the premodern period in Jewish history and video presentations by scholars, including: Edward Fram, Moshe Rosman, Adam Teller, and Magda Teter on Jews in Poland-Lithuania]
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| - | *[http://fzp.net.pl/historia20.html Jewish organisations in Poland before the Second World War]
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| - | ===World War II and the Holocaust===
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| - | *[http://www.vilnaghetto.com/index.html Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto: wartime photographs & documents - vilnaghetto.com]
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| - | *[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/uprising/ Warsaw Ghetto Uprising] from the US Holocaust Museum. From the same source see:
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| - | **[http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/ Non-Jewish Polish Victims of the Holocaust]
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| - | **Bibliography of [http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/index.php?content=bibliography/index.php%3fcontent=poles Polish Jewish Relations] during the War
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| - | *[http://www.humboldt.edu/~rescuers/book/Makuch/conditionsp.html Chronology of German Anti-Jewish Measures] during World War II in Poland
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| - | *[http://www.kimel.net/jewpol.html THE JEWS AND THE POLES: HOLOCAUST UNDERSTANDING & PREVENTION] by [[Alexander Kimel]]
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| - | *[http://letters.krakow.pl/books/mojzesz.html The Catholic Zionist Who Helped Steer Israeli Independence through the UN]
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| - | *[http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VPNRQSN Poland's Jews:A light flickers on], [[The Economist]], 20 December 2005
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| - | * http://fzp.net.pl/historia20.html
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| - | {{History of the Jews in Europe}}
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| - | {{Polish religions}}
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| - | {{DEFAULTSORT:Jews In Poland}}
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| - | [[Category:Jewish Polish history| ]]
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| - | [[Category:Polish Jews| ]]
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| - | {{Link GA|de}}
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| - | {{Link GA|pl}}
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