Salomon Morel

Salomon Morel (November 15, 1919 – February 14, 2007) was a Holocaust survivor who managed former Nazi concentration camps after World War II. He also served the Ministry of Public Security in the Communist Poland. In Nazi-occupied Poland, Morel and his Jewish family hid with the help of a Polish farmer, which allowed him to survive the Holocaust.

Career

Morel ran the NKVD prison at Lublin Castle in 1944. He became the commander of the Zgoda labor camp in Świętochłowice in 1945, then that of the Jaworzno concentration camp in 1949. Before his dismissal by Poland's communist regime in 1968, he was the colonel of the Ministry of Public Security.

Zgoda labor camp

The Zgoda labor camp at which Morel worked had three categories of prisoners:

 Those declared traitors by the Polish National Liberation Committee on November 4, 1944Article 1 of this decree stated that "A Polish citizen who, during the German occupation, declared his allegiance to German nationality on the territory of the so-called General Government and voivodship of Białystok ... shall be subject to ... detention for an unspecified period in a detention centre (camp) and compulsory work", Dz.U [Official Journal] no. 11/44, item 54.
 Those declared "Fascist-Nazi criminals and traitors" by the same committee on August 31, 1944
 Those declared "hostile elements" of Polish society by the same committee on May 6, 1945Letter from Salomon Morel to the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish People in Katowice dated 7 XI 1992, IPN Ka, Case files..., pp 78-81, see also Oboz Pracy w Swietochlowicach w 1945 roku. Dokumenty, zeznania, relacje, listy [Labour Camp in Swietochlowice in 1945. Documents, testimonies, reports, letters], selected and edited by and with an introduction by A. Dziurok, Warsaw 2002, pp. 89-92.

Controversies

War crimes allegations

In the 1990s, Poland's official Institute of National Remembrance accused him of war crimes over alleged revenge murders of over 1,500 prisoners, most of whom were reportedly either Silesian German or Polish political prisoners. Fearing unfair trial, Morel immigrated to Israel, which rejected Poland's extradition requests twice in 1998 and 2004. The Polish government gave up on seeking his extradition in July 2005.

Issues

Notably, over 50 anti-Jewish pogroms happened in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine between 1944 and 1948.Tokarska-Bakir, J. Postwar Violence against Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, 2020. Dozens of anti-Jewish incidents happened in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlandsAdam Kopciowski, “Anti-Jewish Incidents in the Lublin Region in the Early Years after World War II,” Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały (2008): pp. 177–205, specifically p. 177; Kwiek, Nie chcemy Żydów u siebie, pp. 214–5. to the extent that Holocaust survivors were advised not to speak Yiddish in public. Meanwhile, it is a common theme in far-right propaganda to exaggerate wartime Jewish misdeeds, including the allegations against Salomon Morel, to draw a false equivalence between Jews and the Axis.

By August 1, 1945, the Zgoda labor camp had processed 5,048 prisoners.G. Gruschka, Zgoda-miejsce zgrozy. Oboz koncentracyjny w Swietochlowicach [Zgoda, a place of doom. The concentration camp at Swietochlowice], Gliwice 1998, p. 51. Documents showed that many prisoners were convicted of Nazi-associated crimes,H. Piecuch, Akcje specjalne: od Bieruta do Ochaba [Special operations: from Bierut to Ochab],Warsaw 1996, pp. 27-28. some of whom were voluntary Ortsgruppenleiter ("Local Group Leader") in Nazi-occupied areas. There was a typhus outbreak that killed 30% of the prisoners during operation. This outbreak, however, was not mentioned in one of the books that accused Morel of killing the prisoners. The other book that accused Morel was even pulled from circulation in Germany in 1995 after a journalist called it an "antisemitic fodder".Streitfeld, David. (February 15, 1995). Book on Jewish-Run `Revenge' Camps Is Pulled, The Washington Post ("A German publisher has abruptly canceled a book that investigates the Jewish role in running internment camps in Poland after World War II, saying the work otherwise could be "cause for some misunderstanding."")

Reactions

Elan Steinberg

Elan Steinberg, executive emeritus and former president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), said:

Israeli Justice Ministry

The Israeli Justice Ministry said that they found Poland's accusations of Morel having committed "genocide" to be baseless, adding that Morel saw his whole family killed by Polish Nazi collaborators during the Holocaust. 

The Ministry emphasized that there were only 600 prisoners in the Zgoda labour camp, many of whom were "Nazi collaborators", whose number did not change throughout Morel's employment period, which made the alleged death toll of 1,695 impossible. In addition, the Ministry said that about 1,000 Jews were killed by Polish citizens right after the war ended.

Anne Applebaum

American historian Anne Applebaum said:

Aftermath

United States

The allegations against Salomon Morel have been co-opted by antisemites into their propaganda. For instance, prominent Catholic 

  antisemite Candace Owens brought up those allegations in one of her podcast shows to draw a false equivalence between Jews and the Axis.

Related pages

 Racism in Poland
 Historical revisionism
 Antisemitism in Europe

Footnotes

References

Category:Controversies
Category:Polish people
Category:History of Poland
Category:Antisemitism in Europe