Jews in Poland after 1945

Polish-Jewish relations still remain strained after a turbulent relationship during the 20th century. During WWII the survival rate for Jews in Poland was 1 percent. During WWII, Poland was partitioned by Germany and Russia. Stalin despised the Poles and hundreds of thousands were sent to Germany, while Hitler helped make Polish Jews the scapegoat for both Poland's economic devastation and Russia's persecution of Poles. Most of the notorious Nazi concentration camps were located in Poland, including Auschwitz and Birkenau. While some Poles chose to help the Jews, far larger numbers assisted the Germans in their disclosure, capture, and murder. While never official government policy of Poland, many organizations existed that we designed to kill hews, like the NSZ that was designed to kill Jews hiding in the forests.

At the end of WWII, there were very few Jews left in Poland. While some returned home, a majority immigrated to other countries including the U.S. For those Jews that survived in Poland or returned there after the WWII, the situation was one of hostility and violence. After the war, Poles actually killed returning Jews in the infamous pogrom in Kiel in 1946. Likewise, the Polish government actually maintained an anti-Semitic campaign in the late 1960s. In the first free elections in Poland in the 1980s that put Lech Walesa in office, supporters tried a smear campaign against one opponent by spreading a rumor that

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Such a mentality was justified due to social institutions reinforcing negative concepts of Jews. This research relates to our texts for the course by highlighting the State and social institutions as a source of systemized prejudice and racism. In Surviving Freedom Janusz Bardach recalls his survival of the Kolyma labor camps in Siberia in the 1940s and his return home to Poland in 1946. Upon his return home, Bardach recalls his hometown was "desolate and filled with debris and rubble, but empty of Jews. We can relate this to the experience of many other East European Jews who had to reintegrate into anti-Semitic societies in post-war, Communist ideology Eastern European countries illustrated in our course works. Only government ideology reinforced through social institutions can have the power to create such destruction and oppression against an entire people. The Polish government, the Catholic Church, and underground organizations in Poland created a force that simply overwhelmed the resources and power of Polish Jews at will. This occurred not just on the psychological and physical levels. It also occurred economically. Jewish businesses were routinely boycotted and continued to be aligned with the Communist threat

Category: History -