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No. 3 (2022)
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Editorial
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 9-12
As in the previous two volumes of Polish-Jewish Studies, the subject of Polish-Jewish relations appears in this third volume. This time, most of the texts deal with the period of the German occupation. German anti-Jewish policy, the Holocaust and its consequences – these are issues that continue to be be a focus of many researchers around the world. The texts collected in this volume are included in four sections: Studies, Sources, Reviews/Polemics and Chronicle. The Polish and English versions differ slightly from each other. Two articles previously published in Polish have been included in the English volume.
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Studies 
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Following a Polish Trail. Poland’s Military Cooperation with the Movement of Revisionist Zionists Before World War Two.
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 15-48
Polish-Jewish contacts have lasted more than 1,000 years. One of the most interesting yet least-known episodes is the military cooperation before and during the Second World War. Poles, who managed to win independence in 1918, became a role model for a group of Zionists gathered around Vladimir Jabotinsky, the leader of the revisionist movement. The Revisionists, whose main aim was to rebuild an independent Jewish state on the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine, thereby creating a place for the mass emigration of Jews from the European Diaspora, were dream partners for the Polish government. The same goal – the emigration of Jews from Poland – was reinforced by an ideological community based on similar values. Building on the Polish experience from before the First World War, the Revisionists in the Diaspora established a mass youth movement called the Betar. The task of the organisation, very similar to the Riflemen’s Union, was to create a new model of a Jew and to prepare the Diaspora for gaining and maintaining its own state. The foundation of this work was an agreement with the Polish government allowing Polish officers and soldiers to participate in training the young Betars. As part of the developing training cooperation, in 1938, members of the Irgun, the armed arm of the Revisionists in Palestine, began to come to Poland. In addition to training, Poland provided the tools necessary for the fight for independence – weapons and ammunition smuggled into Palestine. Poland thus became a natural and, most importantly, a reliable power base for Jewish independence plans. This was con- firmed by the project advanced by the Revisionists in 1939 – the idea of a naval invasion of British Palestine. However, the only real way for Jewish organisations to fight against the powerful British empire remained irregular actions, for the preparation of which cooperation with the Polish side was indispensable.
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The Political and Administrative System of the General Governorate in 1939–1945
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 49-83 (51-86)
The General Governorate (Generalgouvernement, GG) was a peculiar German political formation established on the territory of occupied Poland at the end of October 1939. It was to be a form of a temporary colony, which from its birth was treated as a reservoir of raw materials and a “racial dumping ground,” to which the Nazi regime planned to resettle, among others, all the Jews from the lands it controlled. Governor General Hans Frank treated the territory as a kind of feudal duchy and a “fringe state” of the Reich. The occupation apparatus under his authority was disorganised, and there was a fierce rivalry between the various institutions of power, especially between the civil administration and the SS and police. A shortage of professional staff and corruption among public and party officials further hampered management. As a result, the GG was nicknamed in the old Reich the “gangster’s district” (German: “Gangstergau”) or the Wild West, known as an area of unlimited opportunities, where a patchwork of inept adventurers and various parvenus came in large numbers to profit from the extermination and looting of Poles and Jews.
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The Autumn of Burning Synagogues. One of the Consequences of Germany’s Invasion of Poland in 1939
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 84-101
The article deals with the mass destruction of Jewish houses of worship by the German aggressors in the Polish territories incorporated into the Reich in October 1939. In the course of several months, they disappeared from over fifty per cent of the locations in the area in question. The author links this activity of the German occupants with the widespread hatred of the Mosaic religion among the Nazis.
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The Participation of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (Ukrainische Hilfspolizei) in the Extermination of Jews in the Municipality of Łysiec in Stanyslaviv County in 1941–1943
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 102-132
The extermination of the Jews of Łysiec, as in the entire pre-war Stanyslaviv voivodeship, was planned, organised and directed by the German occupiers. However, the Germans would not have been able to carry out their criminal plans effectively without the involvement of auxiliary formations whose officers demonstrated better knowledge about the area. To this end, the Germans included the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in the mechanism of the extermination of the Jews. According to the research, the participation of Ukrainian policemen in the various phases of the extermination of the local Jewish community was significant. They took an active part in the first stage of liquidating the Łysiec Jewish community, during which there were many brutal attacks, physical and psychological humiliation of members of the Jewish community, and the theft and requisitioning of property. They were also involved in the closing action of this stage of deporting local Jews to the Stanyslaviv ghetto, where they either died in the closed-off district or were deported to the Belzec extermination camp. To no small extent, the officers of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police were also involved in the second stage of exterminating the Jews of Łysiec and the surrounding area, which involved tracking down and murdering Jewish people hiding in the surrounding villages. It was at this stage that they showed more of their own initiative. There is no doubt that in many cases this occurred without the participation and probably without the knowledge of the Germans. The role of UAP officers was, therefore, not limited to the technical support of the German murder machine. Also critical here seems to be the attitude of individual officers, especially Bohdan Kozij, who showed particular zeal and his own initiative in carrying out the goals set for the Ukrainian police by the German authorities. In doing so, he acted with particular brutality.
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Activity of the Volksdeutsche Władysław Seredyński and His Son Roman in the Light of the Surviving Files from a Criminal Case Tried under the August Decree. A Contribution to the History of the German Occupation of the Lubaczów Land
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 133-164
This article presents the participation of the Volksdeutsche Władysław Seredyński and his son Roman in crimes committed against persons of Jewish nationality in Lubaczów (Kreis Rawa Ruska) during the German occupation and the post-war criminal case under the August Decree, which took place before the Court of Appeal in Rzeszow at an away session in Lubaczów. Both were sentenced to death by the sentence of the Court of Appeal in Rzeszow of 1 December 1949. The sentence was executed on 22 October 1950. Due to its wider context, the article also presents a brief description of Lubaczów, the situation of the local Jews during the German occupation and the liquidation of the ghetto. The crimes committed by the Seredyńskis took place in January 1943 in the Lubaczów area, mainly during the liquidation of the local ghetto. They consisted in denouncing and turning over persons of Jewish nationality to the gendarmerie or the Ukrainian police. The criminal activity of Władysław Seredyński and his son Roman was established based on the surviving files from the Decree of 31 August 1944 concerning the punishment of fascist-Hitlerite criminals guilty of murder and ill-treatment of the civilian population and prisoners of war and the punishment of traitors of the Polish Nation.
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The Story of Rudolf Grossfeld’s Rescue during the German Occupation. A Reconstruction Attempt
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 165-196
This article reconstructs Rudolf Grossfeld’s survivor story during the German occupation. The aim was to learn what knowledge is conveyed by the survivor’s testimony, being the primary source used for the analysis, and to what extent it is objective. The analyses of the source can contribute to research into the process of post-war documentation of Polish-Jewish relations during the German occupation.
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The Real Price of Helping Jews under German Terror. A Few Family Histories from the Environs of Cracow.
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 202-261
For more than two years, the Janczarski family hid the Kołatacz family, a Jewish family they had previously known only by sight. The Grzybowski family also participated in helping the Kołatacz family. The text attempts to reconstruct the reality of everyday life in a situation of illegally hiding people for such a long time. It presents a description of the circumstances in which the decision to provide help violated the occupation law. It brings closer the methods of securing oneself from the German occupation services and tracking dogs, as well as the principles of conspiracy. The article presents all the logistics involved in hiding people (hiding places, escape routes, food production, ways of getting food, and excrement disposal). Furthermore, it characterises the behaviour of those hiding and those giving shelter. Finally, it shows the situation of those in hiding and those giving shelter after the occupation of Poland by the Red Army and under the communist regime.
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The Pogrom in Kielce, as Reported by Opinion-Making US Newspapers in 1946 (The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times)
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 197-211
The article discusses how the Kielce pogrom and its aftermath were portrayed in the opinion-making American press. In the initial days after the incidents, press reports from Poland uncritically accepted the account of events presented by Poland’s communist rulers. The press articles did not provide readers with many nuances to offer a fuller picture of the complicated political situation in Poland at the time. It was not until a few days later that the American press published an opinion piece by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, the leader of the opposition party, and other commentaries that tried to explain in greater detail how the communist rulers in Poland wanted to exploit the following situation to discredit their political opponents, the Catholic Church, and the remnants of the armed underground, which they called “Fascist.” When the Polish primate, Cardinal August Hlond, spoke out about the issue, interest in the consequences of the Kielce pogrom resurged in the American newspapers, with most of the articles and letters to the editor polemising with Hlond’s statements. The Kielce pogrom was increasingly used to emphasise Polish anti-Semitism, prevalent not only after 1945 but also before the Second World War. Some statements embraced the rhetoric of the ruling camp, which positioned itself as a defender of the Jewish population in Poland, accusing its political adversaries of anti-Semitism. Comments by members of Jewish organisations in the USA clearly indicated that they had attempted to exploit the tragic events in Kielce to publicise and intensify efforts to help Jews emigrate from Central and Eastern Europe to Western countries and Palestine, as well as a desire to link the perpetrators of the Kielce massacre to the UK government. In terms of statistics, The New York Times showed the greatest interest in this issue, followed by The Washington Post, which also provided extensive coverage, publishing readers’ opinions, which were primarily reactions to Primate Hlond’s words and not so much to the Kielce pogrom itself. The Los Angeles Times limited its event coverage to reporting on the incident.
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Attempt at a Political Biography of Shlomo Nahum Perla. The Activity of Revisionist Zionists in the First Years of Post-War Poland
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 212-226
At the beginning of the Polish People’s Republic, attempts were made to recreate the Jewish community. All these efforts failed. They included the legal reconstruction of most of the Jewish parties that had functioned in interwar Poland. An exception were the Revisionist Zionists, i.e. the followers of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky. At the beginning of 1945, representatives of this movement began illegal activities in Poland that lasted until mid-1949. The study outlines the functioning of the Revisionists Zionist after the war, giving information about the political activity of one of the leaders of this movement, Shlomo Nahum Perla. The programme basis of right-wing Zionism is also discussed.
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“Rzeka,” “Atlantyk,” “Giełda”… A Review of Cases Conducted by the Security Apparatus Against the Jewish Population in 1945–1956
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 227-258
This text constitutes a supplement to the already existing scientific works dealing with the activities of the security apparatus directed at the Jewish community after the war. It is mainly a short analysis of the directions of the Office of Public Security (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego) activities concerning the Jewish community and an attempt to assess their effectiveness. It also includes a list of cases conducted by the security authorities in this field, which was compiled based on a query in the surviving archival materials and registration aids kept in the Archives of the Institute of National Remembrance.
Źródła
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Jews in Criminal Cases Before the Regional Court in Kielce between 1939 and 1941 – Contribution to Polish-Jewish Relations During the German Occupation
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 261-321
During the Second World War, in the part of the Polish lands called the General Governorate by the German authorities, there was judicial dualism. On the one hand, there were the German courts, and on the other, the so-called Polish courts – municipal, district and appeal courts, which handed down judgments according to the law. The article uses the preserved files of the Regional Court in Kielce to show the judicial practice of this court in criminal cases in which Jews were the defendants or victims in the years 1939–1941. The text is accompanied by four source documents containing judgments and indictments.
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THE ACTIVITY OF WŁADYSŁAW GÜNTHER-SCHWARZBURG, ENVOY OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND IN ATHENS, TO HELP POLISH AND JEWISH REFUGEES IN GREECE IN 1939–1941
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 322-377
This article deals with the activities of the Polish Legation in Athens from 1939 to 1941, i.e. until the post was shut down and its staff evacuated in the face of the German occupation of the Greek state. The diplomatic mission was then headed by Władysław Günther-Schwarzburg (1885–1974), who had held office in Greece since April 1936. His main task was to protect Polish citizens – Poles and Jews. In 1941, their evacuation in the face of the escalating German threat became paramount. The efforts to ensure that this evacuation was carried out efficiently and effectively are the main content of this article. The main obstacle proved to be the position of Great Britain and its representation in Greece, which hindered or even blocked the departure of Polish citizens and contributed to the chaos. This put at risk the health and lives not only of Polish citizens but also of British citizens, among others. The article contributes to the analysis of the Allied refugee policy during the Second World War and the links between this policy and the issue of the extermination of the Jews. The envoy and his colleagues managed to transport out of Greece a group of
300 people of various nationalities (including Poles, Jews and Britons) on the ship Warsaw without the help of the Allies. -
The Testimony of Elżbieta Kowner vel Wanda Bieńkowska on the Activities of Emilia Dyna and Elżbieta Gajewska – a Source for the History of Poles Who Were Saving Jews
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 378-399
The study, which was based on the testimony given on 26 September 1945 in Katowice by Elżbieta Kowner, contains the published document and a commentary to it. The testimony was submitted to the Public Security Municipal Office in Katowice, ultimately to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Regional Court in Warsaw, which in 1945, based on the decree of 31 August 1944, was conducting an investigation against Emilia Dyna, accused by the communist authorities of collaborating with the Germans. The investigation ended with the case being dismissed. Elżbieta Kowner’s testimony brings the world of a person in hiding, in this case an assimilated Jewish woman, to the world. She describes in detail the conditions in which she lived: from the moment Emilia Dyna led her out of the Warsaw Ghetto, through wandering around towns in the Krakow district (Krakow and its surroundings), to hiding in places inhabited by various people. Elżbieta Kowner devotes a lot of space to discussing interpersonal relations in the home of Emilia Dyna and Elżbieta Gajewska – Kripo officials, working and living together in Mińsk Mazowiecki. She was an important inhabitant in their house, and in addition she was privy to many current occupation matters. She could observe their involvement in the activities of the underground and, thanks to meetings between both women and Marian Gołajewski, an escapee from Auschwitz, as well as through conversations about their participation in relief work, she could see their efforts aimed at helping other Jews.
Reviews/Polemics
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Death for Helping Jews… A handful of comments on the latest book by Bogdan Musiał
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 403-418
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REFLECTIONS ON THE MARGINS OF THE EXHIBITION ABOUT GERMAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON JEWISH FAMILIES IN TARNÓW IN 1942
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 419-431
Chronicles
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German Crimes in Wierzbica and Wolica. Exhumation and First Funeral of a Family Murdered for Helping Jews in 1943
Polish-Jewish Studies, No. 3 (2022), pages: 435-438
Recently published
40 Evaluation points allocated by MInistry of Education and Science
40 (2023) (20 - in the list in force in 2021)
Fields: history, archival studies
Disciplines: history, security studies, political and administration studies, international studies
Editor-in-Chief: Grzegorz Berendt PhD habil.
- INSTYTUT PAMIĘCI NARODOWEJ
Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu
ul. Janusza Kurtyki 1
02-676 Warszawa
NIP: 525-21-80-487
- tel.: +48 22 581-87-78/77/76
e-mail: wydawnictwo@ipn.gov.pl
