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DAY 24/248 1981 – WARSAW TO GHETTO, POLAND

GHETTO MUSEUM

The history of Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. The first Jews to visit Polish territory were traders, while permanent settlement began during the Crusades.  The first mention of Jews in Polish chronicles was in the 11th century, when Jews lived in Gniezno, at that time the capital of the Polish kingdom. Among the first Jews to arrive in Poland in 1097 or 1098 were those banished from Prague. The first permanent Jewish community in Poland is mentioned in 1085.

As elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, the principal activity of Jews in medieval Poland was commerce and trade, including the export and import of goods such as cloth, linen, furs, hides, wax, metal objects, and slaves.

The first extensive Jewish migration from Western Europe to Poland occurred during the First Crusade in 1098. Under Bolesław III (1102–1139), Jews, encouraged by his tolerant regime, settled throughout Poland, including over the border in Lithuanian territory as far as Kiev. Bolesław III recognized the utility of Jews in the development of the commercial interests of his country. Jews came to form the backbone of the Polish economy. 

Jews enjoyed undisturbed peace and prosperity in many principalities into which Poland was divided; they formed the middle class in a country where the general population consisted of landlords and peasants.

Another factor for the Jews to emigrate to Poland was the Magdeburg Law, a charter given to Jews, among others, that specifically outlined the rights and privileges that Jews had in Poland. For example, they could define their neighborhoods and set up monopolies.

The Swedish war (1648–1658) left a deep and lasting impression not only on the social life of the Polish-Lithuanian Jews, but on their spiritual life as well. The intellectual output of the Jews of Poland was reduced. The Talmudic learning which up to that period had been the common possession of the majority of the people became accessible to a limited number only. What religious study there was became overly formalized, some rabbis quibbled over religious laws; others wrote commentaries on different parts of the Talmud in which hair-splitting arguments were raised; and these arguments dealt with issues which were of no practical importance.

In this time of mysticism and overly formal Rabbinism came the teachings of Israel ben Eliezer, (1698–1760), which had a profound effect on the Jews of Eastern Europe and Poland. His disciples taught and encouraged the new fervent brand of Judaism based on Kabbalah known as Hasidism. The rise of Hasidic Judaism within Poland's borders and beyond had a great influence on the rise of Haredi Judaism all over the world.

The Pale of Settlement (pictured) is a region of Imperial Russia in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited. It extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and with Austria-Hungary.

With its large Catholic and Jewish populations, the Pale was acquired by the Russian Empire (which was a majority Russian Orthodox) in a series of military conquests and diplomatic maneuvers between 1791 and 1835, and lasted until the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917. It comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and mostly corresponded to historical borders of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; it covered much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, and parts of western Russia.

From 1791 to 1917, there were differing reconfigurations of the boundaries of the Pale, such that certain areas were variously open or shut to Jewish residency, such as the Caucasus. At times, Jews were forbidden to live in agricultural communities, or specific cities, Kiev, Sevastopol and Yalta.

For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal centre of Jewish culture, because of the long period of Polish and Russian religious tolerance and social autonomy. 

After the German Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 started the Second World War, Central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a German Nazi colonial administration. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population, several hundred thousand, some 30% of Warsaw’s population, were herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. In July 1942, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto began to be deported en masse to extermination camps.

Warsaw Ghetto, "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II. As many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2, with an average of 9 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations. From the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 Ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp under the guise of "resettlement in the East". The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the Ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000.

Warsaw became the centre of urban resistance to Nazi rule in occupied Europe. When the Nazi order came to annihilate the ghetto as part of Hitler's "Final Solution", Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, almost all survivors were massacred, with only a few managing to escape or hide.

By July 1944, the Russian Red Army was deep into Polish territory and pursuing the Nazis toward Warsaw.  Hitler, facing defeat, ordered Warsaw  to be razed to the ground and the library and museum collections taken to Germany or burned. Monuments and government buildings were blown up by special German troops known as "Burning and Destruction Detachments". About 85% of Warsaw was destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle.

On 17 January 1945 – after the beginning of the Vistula–Oder Offensive of the Red Army – Soviet troops and the First Polish Army entered the ruins of Warsaw, and liberated Warsaw's suburbs from German occupation. The city was swiftly taken by the Soviet Army, which rapidly advanced further west, as German forces retreated to more westward positions.

For a variety of reasons, the vast majority of Jewish survivors left Poland soon after the war ended. Many went to British Mandate of Palestine soon to be the new state of Israel, especially after a decree allowed Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits. In 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow Jewish travel to Palestine without visas or exit permits.

Between 1945 and 1948, 120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by Zionist activists who were also responsible for the organized emigration of Jews from Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, totaling 250,000 Jewish survivors. In 1947, a military training camp for young Jewish volunteers was established in Poland. The camp trained 7,000 soldiers who then traveled to Palestine to fight for the creation of Israel in Palestine. The boot-camp existed until the end of 1948.

After the end of World War II, the United Nations (UN), sought and created a Jewish homeland outside Europe, and adopted a Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947 recommending the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, and an internationalized Jerusalem. The following year, Jewish leaders declared the independence of the State of Israel.

A second wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) from Poland to Israel took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime in Poland between 1957 and 1959.

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