From: dobo@cs.UAlberta.CA (W. Dobosiewicz)
Subject: Re: Background on Poland's policies toward Jews
Keywords: Just the Facts: Jews Poland History Anti-Semitism
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 16:00:04 GMT

avr@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (adam.v.reed) writes:

A number of sensational facts, if true, interleaved with facts that are
definitely correct and perhaps illuminating for some.
I delete parts of the message, which implies that I have nothing to add to
these parts.

>I am posting this note because I think that any sensible
>discussion of Polish-Jewish history needs to be based on at
>least a rudimentary knowledge of facts. So here is my own
>capsule summary. Anyone is welcome to differ, but be forewarned
>that I have reliable sources for everything below.

You are thus requested to produce them for the items that I contest. As
you chose your rules, I feel free to call you up.

>1. Jewish runaways from Roman slavery first settled among the
>"Northern Barbarians" about 2,000 years ago. Jewish travelers
>from Arabic Spain noted the existence of a thriving Jewish
>community in then-Pagan Poland, and all of our extant knowledge
>of Pagan Poland comes from Jewish sources. Same for the Polish
>language - all Polish-language inscriptions surviving from
            -----------------------------------------------
>before the 13th century are in the Hebrew alphabet, not the
-----------------------------------------------------------
>Latin alphabet used in later times.

1. Certainly not all. As a counterexample, consideree Gall's chronicle
written in the first half of the 12th century in Latin in Poland with a
large number of Polish words in it. There are more such examples.
2. That any "Polish language" texts written in Hebrew then ever existed
and, more amazingly, survived, is news to me. Please elaborate on the 
Hebrew texts in Polish. Could you describe one of them?

>2. During the Crusades, the Christian Church in Poland was still
>too busy fighting native paganism to do much about other
>non-christians, including Jews. Thus, Poland was the only
>country in Christendom whose Jews survived the Crusades without
                              ----------------------------------
>casualties. However, some Polish cities were founded by German
-----------

If we assume that the crusades lasted well into the 13th century,
this statement cannot be true. Almost all the cities in southern/central
Poland were destroyed by Mongolian (Tartar) invasions. I am sure that the
Jews were not favoured by the Tartars.
And this destruction was the cause for the facts below - the German
settlers who came (were brought in?) to rebuild the cities, commerce, etc.
Many Jews came, too, at that time.
>settlers who, in accordance with German customs, requested and
>received the priviledge of excluding Jews from their cities.

Competition between Germans and Jews was fierce, then. There was a market
to be conquered. The German burghers used all the tricks they could to
exclude Jews, and even Poles, from grabbing a share of it.

>3. [...]

>4. During the 16th and 17th centuries many prominent Poles
>converted to Judaism. The Roman Catholic Church responded with
	One name, please. Not that I contest the fact, I am just curious to know.
>massive propaganda, originally directed against Judaism but
>[...]

>5. [...]
>Prussia, on the other hand, kept some remnants of liberal
>Polish legislation in force in its zone of occupied Poland,
>causing many Jews from all the German states to move there.

Actually, Prussian regulations were more liberal than Polish were before.
But this is another matter.

>6. [...]

>7. After WWI, Polish independence was re-established, but
>Western powers, aware of the existence of an anti-Semitic
>tendency among Polish nationalists, required, as a condition of
>Polish sovereignty, Poland's adherence to a treaty guaranteeing
>equal rights to members of national minorities. Under this
>treaty Poland was obliged to grant citizenship to all residents
>of Poland who previously had been subjects of the Russian,
>Prussian, and Austro-Hungarian empires. This provision resulted
>in the granting of Polish citizenship to some 600,000 Jewish
>refugees from Russian bolshevism in the 1920's, and to a smaller
	I contest this number in another message. In any case, Poland had no
	obligation to grant those refugees anything, as the citizenship rule
	applied only to people LIVING IN THE TERRITORY OF POLAND (in the
	post-WW1 borders) BEFORE 1914.
>number of German Jews who fled to Poland immediately after the
>rise of Hitler. In neither case was the flight of Jews to Poland
>a matter of choice; other countries, not being subject to a
>Minorities Treaty, simply excluded most Jewish refugees from
>eligibility for immigration. Poland eventually closed the door
>on German Jews by repudiating the Treaty in 1934.
	Poland still accepted some Jews from Germany in 1939. Note that we are
	talking here not about "German Jews" whom Poland had no obligation to
	accept, but Polish citizens who emigrated to Germany earlier.

>8. [...]

>9. In 1926, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski used a railway strike by a
>largely Jewish labor union as an occasion to install himself in
>power as a military dictator. Pilsudski was an outspoken

This statement is unexpected. First, just a few days ago, a poster
assured us that no Jews were allowed to work on the Polish railroads
and you say they were largely Jewish. (Never mind, they were not.)
Secondly, the railroad strike started during Pilsudski's coup and was
directed to support him (it was organised by the Polish socialists).

>10. During Pilsudski's final illness, and after his death - from
>1934 to 1939 - power in Poland was held by a clique of former
>Pilsudski cronies who did not share his aversion to
>anti-Semitism. During this period Poland repudiated the
>Minorities Treaty, and proclaimed an official "economic war"
>against its Jewish citizens. This "economic war" was carried out
>by means of selective taxation, selective application of
>licensing and other nominally equal regulations, confiscation of
>Jewish business enterprises and firing their Jewish employees,
>barring the entry of additional Jewish graduates into several
>professions (notably Law, Pharmacy, and Professional
>Engineering), and other similar methods. A system of

	You seem to have some information that I could not find. Can you give
	details of this"selective taxation", of confiscation of Jewish
	businesses and of entry into professional engineering (is there
	"amateur" engineering?). I may believe Law and Pharmacy.

>11. After Poland was defeated by Hitler and Stalin in 1939,
>the underground opposition to the invading forces split into
>dozens of military factions, some opposed to anti-Semitism and
>accepting Jews as equal members, some excluding Jews (and other
>minorities) on the basis of a putative ascription of
>disloyalty, still others proposing to create an ethnically
>pure Poland by murdering everybody else, beginning with Jews.
>The Home Army, affiliated with the Polish Government in Exile,
>initially excluded Jews and approved of Polish collaboration
>with German authorities in the incarceration of the Jews in
>Ghettos, as being "motivated by the welfare of the Polish

	That certainly was not the policy of the Home Army, although, no
	doubt, some of its members may have expressed such views. The main
	counter-intelligence unit of the HA was run by a Jew (gee, what was
	his name? Hirszfeld? Someone may help here.).

	I am not aware of HA's policy of approving of any collaboration with
	German authorities. As a matter of fact, the HA did not exist when
	ghettos were created (winter 1939/40).

>				Adam_V_Reed@ATT.com

W. Dobosiewicz