History of the Jews in Poland

960 Jewish merchant from Spain, Ibrahim Ibn Jaqub (Abraham ben Jakov), travels to Poland and writes the first description of the country. Jewish traders are very active in Central Europe, mainly engaged in trading. Mieszko I produces the coins with Hebrew letters on it though some attibute this coins to the times of Mieszko the Old.

1500 Some of the Jews expelled from Spain, Portugal and from many German cities, move to Poland. In later centuries more than 50% of the Jewish world population lived in Poland.

1580-1764 First session of the Council of Four Lands (Va'ad Arba' Aratzot) in Lublin, Poland. 70 delegates from Jewish communities (kehillot) meet to discuss taxation and other issues important to the Jewish community.

1633 Jews of Poznan granted a privilege of forbidding Christians to enter into their city.

1648 Jewish population of Poland reached 450,000 or 4.5% whole population. Bohemia 40,000 and Moravia 25,000. Worldwide population of Jewry is estmated at 750,000.

1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossack Bohdan Chmielnicki leads a massacre of Polish gentry and Jewry that leaves estimated 65,000 Jews dead and similar number of gentry also. The total decrease in the number of Jews is estimated at 100,000. Poland loses 40% of her population during the so called Deluge. [1] (http://www.virtual.co.il/communities/wjcbook/poland/)

1750 Jewish population of Poland reaches 750,000 or 8.0% of total. The worldwide Jewish population is estimated at 1,200,000.

1860 - 1864 Jews are taking intensive part in Polish national movement, that was followed by January rising

1862 Jews given equal rights in Poland. The privileges given to some cities, that Jews are not allowed to settle down there, are denounced.

1880 World Jewish population around 7.7 million, 90% in Europe, mostly Eastern Europe; around 3.5 million in the former Polish provinces.

1897 First Russian census: 5,200,000 of Jews, 4,900,000 in the Pale. The Kingdom of Poland has 1,300,000 Jews or 14% of population.

1921 Polish-Soviet peace treaty in Riga. Citizens of both sides are given rights to chose the country. Hundred thousands of Jews, especially from forbidden in Soviet professions of shop keepers, move to Poland.

1924 2,989,000 Jews according to religion poll in Poland (10,5% of total). Jewish youth consituted 23% of students of high schools and 26% of students of universities.

1930 World Jewry: 15,000,000. Main countries USA(4,000,000), Poland (3,500,000 = 11% of total), Soviet Union (2,700,000 = 2% of total), Romania (1,000,000 = 6% of total). Palestine 175,000 = 17% of total 1,036,000.

1933 - 1939 German Jews attempt to emigrate, but almost all countries close borders for Jews, including United Kingdom and USA. Most Jews found temporary asylum in Poland.

1948 Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors begin leaving Poland for Israel and the United States.

1968 - anti-Zionist campaign in Poland. Most of the remaining Jews of Poland emigrate.

Mid 1970s to present - Growing revival of Klezmer music (The folk music of European Jews). ([2] (http://www.well.com/user/ari/klez/articles/aboutklez.html), [3] (http://www.klezmershack.com/)) and Yiddish culture.

1989 to present - Reestablishment of several Jewish communities in Poland, most notably in Warsaw, Gdansk and Wroclaw.

After massive expulsions of Jews from the Western Europe (England, France, Germany, and Spain), they have tried to find a refuge in the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Jagiellon Era Poland became the home to Europe's largest Jewish population, as royal edicts guaranteeing Jewish safety and religious freedom from the 13th century contrasted with bouts of persecution in Western Europe, especially following the Black Death of 1348-1349, blamed by some in the West on Jews themselves. Much of Poland suffered relatively little from the outbreak, while Jewish immigration brought valuable manpower and skills for the rising state. The greatest increase in Jewish numbers occurred in the 18th century, when Jews came to make up 7% of the population.

The Chmielnicki Massacres

Jews in Poland within Russian Empire

Holocaust

Concerning the Sheltering of Escaping Jews. A reminder - 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. 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. This is a categorical warning to the non-Jewish population against: 1) Providing shelter to Jews, 2) Supplying them with Food, 3) Selling them Foodstuffs. Dr. Franke - Town Commander - Czestochowa 9/24/42

Jews in Poland after WWII

Anti-semitic incidents in modern Poland

Acts of direct violence against Jews are not common, but often one can see anti-semitic slogans on the wall. In lower-educated parts of the society calling someone 'a Jew' amounts to an insult. Below is a selection of anti-semitic incidents in modern Poland.

Sporadic and isolated incidents of harassment and violence against Jews continue to occur in the country, often generated by skinheads and other marginal societal groups. Occasional cases of cemetery desecration, most often of Jewish cemeteries but also including Catholic shrines, also occurred during 1998 and the first half of 1999. Government authorities consistently criticized such actions and pledged to prevent similar acts in the future, for example by increased police patrols around Jewish sites.

In January 1998, a rock was thrown through the window of the Jewish community headquarters in Katowice, hitting the doors of an adjacent prayer room. Immediately following the incident, then National Police Chief Marek Papala instructed the Katowice provincial police chief to work with the Jewish community to tighten security around the property. Papala also sent a letter to the other province-level police commanders instructing them to make themselves available to discuss Jewish community security concerns. Local police continue to work with Jewish community leaders to resolve the case. In May 1998, vandals desecrated 27 Jewish graves in the Warsaw Jewish cemetery in two separate incidents. Police investigated the attacks but have been unable to identify any suspects.

Jewish graves also were vandalized at the Palmiry cemetery near Warsaw, which houses the graves of victims of Nazi executions during World War II. The grave of pre-World War II Sejm speaker Maciej Rataj--a Polish Catholic--also was vandalized in that attack. Within days of the incident, both Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Sejm Speaker Maciej Plazynski visited the cemetery and laid flowers on the desecrated graves. In a public address, the Prime Minister criticized the act and stressed that society must do all it can to prevent similar acts in the future. He also pledged government funds to restore the vandalized graves. The vandals responsible for both incidents are still at large.

In July 1998, unknown perpetrators vandalized a plaque commemorating Rzeszow Jews killed in the Holocaust. The vandals spray-painted anti-Semitic and anti-German slogans below the plaque, which hangs on the wall of a Rzeszow synagogue. Rzeszow city officials reacted swiftly and cleaned up the plaque upon discovery of the vandalism. Vandals in that area previously had targeted Catholic churches and cemeteries as well as a statue of a World War II hero. Police continue to search for those responsible. In October 1998, vandals attacked and damaged 56 gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Krakow. On several weekends in 1998, groups of skinheads gathered outside the Wroclaw synagogue for demonstrations, occasionally subjecting persons attending services to verbal abuse. Authorities moved to ensure the safety of the worshipers. The demonstrations ended shortly thereafter, and as of June 1999 none had taken place for several months.

In January 1999, vandals damaged or destroyed 57 gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Krakow. Vandals had attacked the same cemetery in October 1998. After the first incident police officers increased their patrols of the cemetery. Police promised additional, special protection after the second incident to prevent further attacks. In May 1999, the cemetery was vandalized again when unidentified perpetrators overturned 30 gravestones and set fire to the main door of the pre-burial house. However, the chairman of the local Jewish community called this an act of hooliganism, not anti-Semitism, since in the weeks preceding the attack vandals had smashed gravestones and otherwise damaged two nearby Catholic cemeteries. The chairman also noted the cooperation of the Krakow city police with the Jewish community to improve the security of the cemetery. In June the cemetery was attacked yet again when vandals painted crosses on several tombstones and on the pre-burial house. This incident appears to have been motivated by anti-Semitism, since members of the Jewish community received telephone calls linking the graffiti to the recent removal of crosses that were placed near the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Sporadic and isolated incidents of harassment and violence against Jews continue to occur in the country, often generated by skinheads and other marginal societal groups. Occasional cases of cemetery desecration, including both Jewish and, more frequently, Catholic shrines, also occurred in 2001. Government authorities consistently criticized such actions and pledged to prevent similar acts in the future, for example, by increased police patrols around Jewish sites.

In September 2000, dignitaries from Poland, Israel, the United States, and other countries (including Prince Hassan of Jordan) gathered in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) to commemorate the opening of the refurbished Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue and the Auschwitz Jewish Center. The synagogue, the sole synagogue in Oswiecim 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 Oswiecim. 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.

In October 2000, extreme nationalist Kazimierz Switon, who during the period 1998 to 1999 was responsible for the controversial raising of several hundred protest crosses at a gravel pit outside the former Auschwitz death camp, was acquitted of distributing leaflets alleging that some politicians were of Jewish origins and appealing for their removal from public life. The court ruled that the 1995 distribution of such leaflets did not incite ethnic strife.

In November 2000, under the auspices of the No to Europe Association (an anti-European Union organization), some 400 nationalists marched through the streets of Katowice, chanting anti-Semitic slogans and burning Israeli flags. The protest organizer told police investigating the case that only some 30 percent of the rally's participants were members of his organization.

In February 2001, 16 tombstones were desecrated in the Jewish cemetery in Wroclaw and, in April 2001, several tombstones were damaged in a Catholic cemetery in the town of Bartoszyce. In May 2001, the Jewish cemetery in Oswiecim was desecrated when 39 tombstones were knocked over by unidentified perpetrators. Later that month, a group of international and Polish students, who participated in the March of Remembrance and Hope, organized a clean up of the cemetery and restored the tombstones to their proper locations.

In March and April of 2001, several functionaries in the presidential chancellery were identified as having participated as students in the government-sponsored anti-Semitic campaigns of 1968. One of those accused subsequently resigned.

In April 2001, controversial Gdansk priest Henryk Jankowski created in his church a replica of the barn in Jedwabne in which members of that town's Jewish community were burned to death in 1941. A sign near the display accused Jews of having killed Christ and of persecuting Poles. The local archbishop ordered the tableau removed, and religious and political leaders strongly criticized its construction in the church.

In April 2001, during the 13th March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor victims of the Holocaust, several hundred citizens joined 2,000 marchers from Israel and other countries. Government officials participating in the march included Members of Parliament, the province's governor, and Oswiecim's mayor and city council chairman. Schoolchildren, boy scouts, the Polish-Israeli Friendship Society, and the Jewish Students Association in Poland also participated in the march. In May 2001, several hundred students from around the world marched through the town in The March of Remembrance and Hope.

During 2001 Polish-Jewish relations were complicated by a controversy that arose over revelations regarding the 1941 massacre of the Jewish population of the northeastern town of Jedwabne. The publication of a book, which alleged that the killings were perpetrated by the town's ethnic Polish inhabitants and not by the occupying Germans as stated in a monument at the site, led to considerable discussion of the Polish role during the Holocaust, of the extent of Jewish cooperation with Soviet occupation forces, and of Polish-Jewish relations in general. The Government moved quickly to address the problem, removed the inaccurate monument, began an investigation of the Jedwabne events, and held a ceremony of reconciliation on the 60th anniversary of the killings in July 2001. The National Remembrance Institute continued to investigate all circumstances surrounding the Jedwabne incident through April 2002.

On March 1, 2002, the National Remembrance Institute (IPN), which was created to provide access to Communist-era secret police files and provide an accurate history of the Communist period, released its first annual report. During the debate, one Member of Parliament criticized the report for devoting too much time to the July 1941 killing of Jews in Jewabne and introduced a motion to reject the report; he made remarks that some observers interpreted as anti-Semitic. The case was referred to the ethics committee; however, there were no reports of an investigation at the end of the period covered by this report. A group of well-known politicians, scientists, clergymen, artists, and businesspersons signed an open letter of protest against the verbal attacks on the IPN Chairman.

In April 2002, during the 14th March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor victims of the Holocaust, several hundred citizens joined 1,500 marchers from Israel and other countries.