By Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press
There has been much controversy in recent
months regarding Poland’s complex history regarding the
treatment of its Jewish population, particularly during the
Holocaust.
Of course Poland was an anti-Semitic country
at various other times in its history. For example, this year
marks the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the
state-orchestrated “anti-Zionist” campaign in Poland, then under
Communist rule. At the time, Jews numbered no more than 30,000
members out of a Polish population of 32 million.
Cold War politics and a power struggle within
the Polish Communist party would result in a purge that would
force at least 20,000 Jews, themselves ironically mostly
Communists, to leave the country.
Organised by the Polish United Workers’ Party
(PZPR), the CP’s official name, the anti-Zionist campaign
destroyed a Jewish community which had only just re-established
itself after the Holocaust. It was a classical example of
left-wing anti-Semitism.
The backdrop was Israel’s victory over its
Arab enemies in the Six-Day War of June 1967. The defeated
countries included Soviet-backed Egypt and Syria and in response
the member states of the Warsaw Pact, with the exception of
Romania, on June 9 cut diplomatic ties with Israel.
On
June 19, Wladysław Gomułka, the first secretary of the PZPR,
accused some Polish Jews of sympathising with the enemies of
socialism, thus forfeiting their claim to be loyal Polish
citizens. “Israel’s aggression in the Arab countries was met
with applause in Zionist circles of Jews – Polish citizens,” he
declared.
A well-organised international Zionist
conspiracy, whose centre was to be found in the Jewish
community, was trying to undermine the Polish socialist state.
These people constituted a fifth column in the country, which
had to be eradicated before it could gain strength. He compared them to
the German minority living in Poland that supported the Nazi
invasion in 1939.
Gomułka was in a power struggle with the
Ministry of Internal Affairs, under the command of General
Mieczyslaw Moczar, a fervent anti-Semite. (It did not escape his
notice that Gomulka’s wife was Jewish.)
Though Moczar and his faction, known as the
“Partisans,” failed to topple Gomułka’s government, it resulted
in an expulsion from Poland of thousands of individuals of
Jewish ancestry, including major figures in the military and
state offices.
It all started on January 30, 1968, some 300
University of Warsaw students protested the decision to ban
further performances of the anti-Russian play Dziady by the 19th
century author Adam Mickiewicz. Though it was written in 1824
and set in tsarist times, Polish
authorities viewed the play as targeted against the Soviet
Union.
The protest leaders, known as the Komandosi
(Commandos), included Adam Michnik and Jan Litynski, both Jews,
demanded a cessation
of censorship. For this, they were expelled from the university.
In
response, about one thousand students gathered on the campus
on March 8 demanding their reinstatement. This rally began the mass student protests
throughout the country known as the “March events.”
The protests were
brutally suppressed and the anti-Semitic campaign
was now stepped up. A March 11 article in the
newspaper Slowo Powszechne made the link between the student
opposition and the “Zionist fifth column.”
Within the next ten days, 250 articles were
published, a good portion of which endorsed the anti-Zionist
conspiracy theory. In more than 100,000 public meetings
throughout Poland, anti-Zionist resolutions were passed. As the attacks on
the Jewish community intensified, some Communists produced
documents confirming that they were baptized as proof they did
not have a Jewish background!
“Polish citizens who are emotionally and in
their thoughts connected to the State of Israel” would have to
leave the country, Gomulka announced
in a speech on March 10, as he emphasized the Jewish origin of
the instigators.
“Loyalty to socialist Poland and imperialist
Israel is not possible simultaneously,” Prime Minister Jozef
Cyrankiewicz declared on April 11. “Whoever wants to face these
consequences in the form of emigration will not encounter any
obstacle.”
Entire academic departments were dissolved,
while thousands of members of the country’s intelligentsia,
including outstanding scientists, artists and academics such as
Zygmunt Bauman were driven out of the country.
Almost 9,000 Jews lost their jobs and
hundreds were thrown out of their apartments. Of the 8,300
members expelled from the PZPR, nearly all were Jewish.
The regime allowed Jewish citizens to leave
the country under two conditions: they must revoke their
citizenship; and they must declare Israel as the country of
their destination. They were made stateless upon leaving Poland
while their possessions were confiscated.
Since few of these Jews were actually
Zionists of even the mildest variety, fewer than 30 per cent of
them ended up in Israel, with the rest going to other countries,
including Norway, Sweden, France and the United States.
In June 1968, the Central Committee decided
to discontinue the campaign. By the Fifth Party Congress in
November, Zionism was no longer on the agenda.
One memorial to the expulsions is a small
plaque on the wall of the Warszawa Gdanska railway station on
the north side of the city off Highway 637.
It was from there that many Poles of Jewish
origin departed. It bears a tribute from the Polish-Jewish
writer Henryk Grynberg: “For those who emigrated from Poland
after March 1968 with a one-way ticket. They left behind more
than they had possessed.”
Visitors to Warsaw can also see a
commemorative plaque at the university for the students
demanding freedom of speech in 1968 on the wall of one of the
buildings surrounding the courtyard. The university entrance is
on Krakowskie Przedmiescie (the Royal Avenue) in Warsaw’s Stare
Miasto (Old Town).
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