Encyclopaedia Judaica
Jews in Poland 07: Pogroms and mass flight 1946-1947
Anti-Jewish riots and pogroms - flight movement
from: Poland; In: Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971, vol. 13
presented by Michael Palomino (2008)
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<Anti Jewish Excesses.
Jewish emigration from Poland (col. 780)
was motivated not only by the recent tragic past and by prewar [[racist]] Zionist education, but also by the continuation of a clear and present danger to the Jews. There were murderous attacks upon Jews on Polish roads, railroads, buses, and in the towns and cities. The murders were committed by members of Polish reactionary organizations, such as the NSZ (Narodowe Sily Zbrojne). In cruelty and inhumanity, their crimes often equaled those committed by the Nazis.
Beginning in 1945 the assaults upon Jews swiftly assumed mass proportions. In two pogroms - one in Cracow on Aug. 11, 1945, and the other in Kielce on July 4, 1946 - thousands of Polish men, women, and children ran amok in the Jewish quarters, killing in Kielce 42 Jews and wounding 50 others. The attacks spread throughout the country, and in 1945 alone 353 Jews were reported murdered. The wave of anti-Jewish excesses continued well into 1946 and reached its climax in the Kielce pogrom. The government and the ruling party issued declarations designed to placate [[calm down]] the Jews and there were public protests against anti-Semitism by intellectuals and large parts of the working class. Above all, the Jewish Communists and the Central Committee of Jews in Poland tried to reassure the Jews that the government would stamp out the anti-Semitic underground. The Jews however, did not heed [[consider]] the exhortations [[good words]] and raced for the borders. By the end of 1947, only 100,000 Jews remained in Poland. (col. 783)
The Flight from Poland.
[[...]] Moreover, pogroms continued even after the Nazi occupation ended. To most Polish Jews it was unthinkable to renew their life on the Polish soil soaked with the blood of millions of Jews. [[Apart the mass shootings on the East European Jews the big part of the Central European Jews died in the tunnel systems in the Reich and another part of the East European Jews on the battlefield in the Russian army, of this a big part on Polish soil. Directly after the war was the propaganda that all Jews had died in Poland in concentration camps what cannot be true]].
Thus tens of thousands of Polish Jews who fled from the U.S.S.R. and Poland made their way to Rumania [[Romania]] and Germany in the hope of reaching Palestine. After the *Kielce pogrom [[of 4 July 1946]] this exodus took on an organized and semi-legal character. A coordinating committee for aliyah was formed from representatives of all [[racist]] Zionist groups to make arrangements for up to a thousand persons a day to cross the Polish border at three points in Lower Silesia near Kudowa. The operation lasted about six months, until the end of 1946 (see *Berihah (Beriḥah)).
Thereafter, Jews encountered difficulties in leaving Poland, but emigration did not come to a stop. In 1949,when the [[racist]] Zionist parties were disbanded, all former [[racist]] Zionists were permitted to leave for [[racist Zionist Free Mason CIA Herzl]] Israel, and some 30,000 people took advantage of this opportunity. Thus, mass emigration continually depleted [[reduced]] Polish Jewry from 1944 to 1950. The Central Committee, which did all in its power to combat this movement, was forced to accept the reality of a drastic decrease in the Jewish population. (col. 780)
[[The racist Zionists had won against the non-Zionists in Poland and took them the Jews away into the eternal war trap in the Middle East...]]
Sources
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Poland, vol. 13, col. 779-780
Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971): Poland, vol. 13, col. 783-784
