Kielce pogrom

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The Kielce pogrom refers to the events that occurred on July 4, 1946, in the Polish town of Kielce (pop. 50,000). The outbreak of the anti-Jewish violence, sparked by allegations of blood libel, resulted in 37 Polish Jews being murdered out of about 200 Holocaust survivors who had returned home after World War II. Two more Jews in the trains passing through Kielce also lost their lives. Two or three Gentile Poles were killed by the Jews defending themselves, while nine were sentenced to death later.

While far from the deadliest pogrom against the Jews, the incident was especially significant in post-war Jewish history, as the attack took place fourteen months after the end of World War II, shocking the Jews in Poland and the international community.

Contents 1 The pogrom 1.1 Background 1.2 Blood libel 1.3 Killings 2 The aftermath 2.1 Trials 2.2 Effects on the Jewish emigration from Poland 2.3 Reaction of the Catholic Church 3 Speculations over the Soviet involvement 4 Recent events 4.1 IPN investigation 4.2 Pogrom monument 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

[edit] The pogrom

[edit] Background

During the German occupation of Poland, Kielce was entirely ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population. By the summer of 1946, some two hundred Jews, many of them former residents of Kielce, lived there after returning from the Nazi concentration camps and from their hiding places. About 160 of them were quartered in a single building administered by the Jewish Committee of Kielce Voivodeship at 7 Planty Street.^[1] Among them were former prisoners of concentration camps as well as some relatively rich Soviet Jews on their way to Palestine.

Planty is a small street in the center of the town, and it ran perpendicular to the main streets in which were the regional headquarters of the Milicja Obywatelska (Communist police) and the armed forces. In the same house, another entry, also lived the local officers of the Polish secret police.

[edit] Blood libel

On July 1, 1946, an eight-year old Polish boy, Henryk Błaszczyk, was reported missing by his father Walenty. Two days later, the boy, his father and one of their neighbors went to a local police station where Henryk falsely claimed that he had been kidnapped by Jews (years later, shortly before his death in 1990s, he said he was told to lie by his father and the men from the secret police^[2]). Henryk accused the Jews of killing children for their blood and keeping the bodies in the cellar of the Kibbutz (Jewish socialist collective community) on Planty Street, among other alleged horrors.

A patrol of 14 uniformed and plainclothed policemen was dispatched to the Jewish house by the station's new police chief Edmund Zagórski. On their way they were spreading rumours regarding the alleged kidnapping, and were joined by several groups of about 100 soldiers and officers from various units and formations (Polish People's Army, Internal Security Corps, Main Directorate of Information) and some more policemen. The false news of the Jewish religious atrocities spread among the gentile civilians in Kielce, and resulted in a gathering at first some 120 people outside the Jewish residence in anticipation of a search for bodies of Christian children.

By 9 a.m., uniformed policemen and soldiers, as well as several mostly plainclothed officers of the Ministry of Public Security (UBP), broke down the doors and entered the building. They began to disarm the inhabitants, who had permits from the authorities to bear arms for self defense. One Jewish man, described by Henryk, was arrested and beaten by the police, while Dr. Seweryn Kahane, head of the local Jewish Committee, tried to convince them of their mistake, pointing out that the building had no basement. At this point the house was surrounded by security forces, with the civilian crowd standing about 100 m away, towards Piotrkowska street.

[edit] Killings

By 10 a.m. the first shot had been fired - it is unclear by whom: a policeman, a soldier, or one of the Jews. Violence broke out and in the confusion the servicemen began killing Jews. Dr. Kahane was shot in the back of head and killed while he was trying to call the authorities for help (survivors witnessed that he was shot by an officer of military intelligence). At least two and possibly three Poles, including a police officer, were killed as the Jews tried to defend themselves (according to the official version at the time, they were killed while trying to defend the Jews). After the attack inside the building, more Jews were then forced outside by the soldiers and attacked by the mob on the street. Some of the victimes were thrown out of windows, including one reportedly thrown on the risen bayonets.

By noon, the arrival of an estimated 600 to 1,000 workers (led by the members of the paramilitary ORMO reserve police and activists of the Polish Workers' Party's militia) from the nearby Ludwików steel mill marked the beginning of the next phase of the pogrom, during which about 20 Jews lost their lives killed in a cruel fashion, mostly by a steelworks tools. Neither the military and secret police commanders, nor the local political leaders from the Workers' Party did anything to stop the workers from attacking Jews. A unit of cadets from the nearby police school joined in the looting and murdering of the Jews, which continued inside and outside the building.

The killing of Jews at Planty Street was stopped with the arrival of new unit of security forces from a nearby Public Security academy sent by Colonel Stanisław Kupsza and the additional troops from Warsaw at approximately 6 p.m. After firing few warning shots in the air, on the order of officer identified only as Major Konieczny, they quickly restored order, posted guards, and removed all the Jewish survivors from the building.

The violence in Kielce, however, did not stop immediately. Wounded Jews, while being transported to the hospital, were beaten and robbed by soldiers.^[3] Trains passing through the Kielce's main railway station were searched for the Jews by civilians and railway guards, resulting in two passengers thrown out of the trains and killed. Later, a civilian crowd approached the hospital and demanded that the wounded Jews be handed over to them. The civil disorder ended some nine hours after it started.^[4]

[edit] The aftermath

[edit] Trials

Between July 9 and July 11, 1946, twelve among the alleged pogrom's civilian perpetrators, one of them apparently mentally challenged, were arrested by the UBP officers led by Adam Humer. They were tried by the Supreme Military Court in a Stalinist show trial.^{[citation needed]} Nine of them were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad the very next day by order of Bolesław Bierut. The remaining three received prison terms ranging from seven years to life.

In addition to the city's police chief Wiktor Kuźnicki, sentenced to one year for "failing to stop the crowd" (he died in 1947), only one police officer was punished, the crime being the theft of shoes from a dead body. The regional State Security commander Władysław Sobczyński and his men were cleared of any wrongdoing.

[edit] Effects on the Jewish emigration from Poland

The brutality of the Kielce pogrom put an end to the hopes of many Jews that they would be able to resettle in Poland after the end of the Nazi Germany occupation. In the words of Bożena Szaynok, a historian at Wrocław University:

Until July 4, 1946, Polish Jews cited the past as their main reason for emigration. After the Kielce pogrom, the situation changed drastically. Both Jewish and Polish reports spoke of an atmosphere of panic among Jewish society in the summer of 1946. Jews no longer believed that they could be safe in Poland. Despite the large militia and army presence in the town of Kielce, Jews had been murdered there in cold blood, in public, and for a period of more than five hours. The news that the militia and the army had taken part in the pogrom spread as well. From July 1945 until June 1946, about fifty thousand Jews passed the Polish border illegally. In July 1946, almost twenty thousand decided to leave Poland. In August 1946 the number increased to thirty thousand. In September 1946, twelve thousand Jews left Poland.^[3]

Many of these Jews were smuggled out illegally by the Berihah (Escape) organization.

The official reaction to the pogrom was described by Anita Prazmowska in Cold War History, Vol. 2, No. 2:

Nine participants in the pogrom were sentenced to death; three were given lengthy prison sentences. Policemen, military men, and functionaries of the UBP were tried separately and then unexpectedly all, with the exception of Wiktor Kuznicki, Commander of the MO, who was sentenced to one year in prison, were found not guilty of "having taken no action to stop the crowd from committing crimes." Clearly, during the period when the first investigations were launched and the trial, a most likely politically motivated decision had been made not to proceed with disciplinary action. This was in spite of very disturbing evidence that emerged during the pre-trial interviews. It is entirely feasible that instructions not to punish the MO and UBP commanders had been given because of the politically sensitive nature of the evidence. Evidence heard by the military prosecutor revealed major organizational and ideological weaknesses within these two security services..^[5]

[edit] Reaction of the Catholic Church

Six months prior to the Kielce pogrom, during the Hanukkah celebration, a hand grenade had been thrown into the local Jewish community headquarters. The Jewish Community Council had approached the Bishop of Kielce, Czesław Kaczmarek, requesting him to admonish the Polish population to refrain from attacking the Jews. The Bishop refused this request, replying that "as long as the Jews concentrated upon their private business Poland was interested in them, but at the point when Jews began to interfere in Polish politics and public life they insulted the Poles’ national sensibilities." Therefore, according to the Bishop, it was not surprising that the local population had acted violently.^[6] Similar comments were made by bishop of Lublin Stefan Wyszyński when he was approached by the Jewish delegation. Wyszyński stated that the popular hatred of Jews was caused by Jewish support for Communism, which had also been the reason why "the Germans murdered the Jewish nation". Wyszyński also gave some credence to blood libel rumours commenting that the question of the use of Christian blood was never completely clarified.^[7]

Controversial reaction of Polish Catholic Church to violence against Jews was a subject of criticism by American, British, and Italian ambassadors to Poland. Reports on Kielce pogrom caused major sensation in the United States, leading the American ambassador to Poland to insist that Cardinal August Hlond hold a press conference and explain the position of the church. In the conference held on July 11, 1946, Cardinal Hlond condemned the murders, but attributed them not to racial causes but to rumour concerning killing of Polish children by Jews. Hlond also put a blame for deterioration in Polish-Jewish relations on the Jews "occupying leading positions in Poland in state life". This position was echoed by Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha who was reported to have said the Jews brought it on themselves, and by Polish rural clergy.^[8]

On September 14, 1946, Pope Pius XII gave audience to Rabbi Phillip Bernstein, the advisor on Jewish affairs to the U.S. European theater of operations. Bernstein asked the Pope to condemn the pogroms, but the Pope claimed that it was difficult to communicate with the Church in Poland because of the Iron Curtain.^[9]

[edit] Speculations over the Soviet involvement

The Kielce pogrom has been a difficult subject in Polish history for many years, and there is still confusion over blame. While it is beyond doubt that a mob (consisting of the gentile inhabitants of Kielce including members of the communist militsiya and army), carried out the pogrom, there has been considerable controversy over the possible outside inspiration for the events. A hypothesis that the event was provoked, or inspired, by the Soviet intelligence appeared immediately in Poland and a number of such scenarios are still offered.

In modern historical works, for instance by Tadeusz Piotrowski,^[10] by Abel Kainer,^[11] or by Jan Śledzianowski^[12] allegations are made, that the events were part of a much wider action organized by the Soviet intelligence in countries controlled by the Soviet Union (very similar pogrom took place in Hungary), and that Soviet-dominated agencies like the UBP were used in the preparation of the Kielce pogrom. Presence of Polish and Soviet communist commanders at the place of pogrom was confirmed by witnesses - e.g. Natan Shpilevoi (Soviet "advisor"), Kupsza (commander of the pacification squads), Mikhail Diomin (high-rank GRU officer for special actions). It was also uncommon behavior that the numerous soldiers from security formations were present at the place and did not prevent "mob" from gathering, while even gathering of five people was considered suspicious and immediately controlled these times.^[13]

In common with many conspiracy theories, such explanations are based on circumstantial evidence such as cui bono reasoning, and attempt to show that the communist government or other groups or forces would have gained various political benefits from the pogrom and thus could have inspired it. No solid, direct evidence of such outside provocation exists and it's unlikely that it will because all documentation was intentionally destroyed by communist security services (most in 1989). It's also pointed out that even if such a provocation were to be demonstrated, the participants in the pogrom would still bear the moral responsibility for having succumbed to it.

One line of argument that implies external inspiration goes as follows:^[14] The 1946 referendum showed that the communist plans met with little support, with less than a third of the Polish population. Only vote rigging won them a majority in the carefully controlled poll. Hence, it has been alleged that the UBP organized the pogrom to distract the western media's attention from the fabricated referendum. Another element of distraction was the upcoming ruling in the Katyń Massacre in the Nuremberg Trials, from which the communists tried to turn international attention away, placing Poles in an unfavorable spotlight. The massacre happened on 4 July, exactly the same day when Katyń case started in Nuremberg.

On the other hand, a highly-debated sociologist and contemporary historian, Jan T. Gross, blames the massacre on Polish hostility to the Jews.^[15] However, Gross's most recent book, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, offers a somewhat different and more nuanced interpretation. Gross claims that "the complicity of gentile Poles in the Holocaust" combined with demands for the return of Jewish property confiscated during World War II created a climate of "fear" that pushed Poles to commit violence against Jews. He thus argues against any notion that it was a "provocation," or that the alleged cooperation of Jews with communism, an enduring and powerful stereotype of anti-Semitism in the Central Europe and particularly in Poland (known in Polish as Żydokomuna, or "Judeo-Communism"), caused the violent anti-Semitism that exploded in Poland after 1945. At the same time, Polish communist structures were formerly "cleansed" from Jews even before the war by the same people who later participated in anti-Semitic events in Kielce (Władysław Sobczyński) and in March 1968 (Mieczysław Moczar).

The opinion that the Soviets arranged the massacre in order to discredit the Poles in the eyes of the world remains common in Poland to this day, despite a thorough investigation that did not discover any evidence in support of this version and the formal apology for the massacre that was issued by the Polish government. A stance that maintains the foreign responsibility for such a disturbing event (similar to the version that the Germans rather than the Poles were responsible for the war-time Jedwabne pogrom) is ill regarded by some Jewish groups who view it as evidence of the lack of determination in Polish society to confront and address the anti-Semitism in Poland.^[16]

[edit] Recent events

[edit] IPN investigation

In recent years, the Kielce pogrom and the role of the Poles in the massacre are openly discussed in Poland. A formal investigation of the pogrom conducted by Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) since 1990, finished inconclusively in 2004, as it did not find sufficient evidence to charge any specific living individual with crimes committed during the pogrom. However, the timeline of events on that fateful day is well established.^[17] In course of the investigation IPN dismissed the theory of Soviet inspiration because of "lack of direct evidence and lack of obvious Soviet interest in provoking the events".^[18]

[edit] Pogrom monument

A monument by New York-based artist Jack Sal entitled White/Wash II commemorating the victims was dedicated on July 4, 2006, in Kielce, at the 60th anniversary of the pogrom. At the dedication ceremony a statement from the President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczyński condemned the events as a "crime and a great shame and tragedy for the Poles and the Jews". The presidential statement asserted that today's democratic Poland had "no room for racism" and brushed off any generalizations of the anti-Semitic image over the Polish nation as the "stereotype".^[16]

[edit] See also

• Kielce pogrom (1918)
• Kraków pogrom
• September 24, 1945 Topoľčany Pogrom (Slovakia)^[19]
• May 21, 1946 Miskolc Pogrom (Hungary)^[20]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

1. Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (2003). After the Holocaust. East European Monographs. ISBN 0-88033-511-4. 
2. Jan Śledzianowski (1998). Pytania nad pogromem kieleckim. Kielce: Jedność. ISBN 83-7224-057-4. 
3. Bożena Szaynok, Ryszard Śmietanka-Kruszelnicki, Jan Żaryn, Jacek Żurek (2006). in Łukasz Kamiński, Jan Żaryn: Wokół pogromu kieleckiego. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. ISBN 83-60464-07-3. 
4. Jan T. Gross (2002). Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-09603-1. 
5. Jan T. Gross (2006). Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12878-2. 

[edit] External links

• The Jewish Pogrom in Kielce, July 1946 by Bożena Szaynok
• The Pogrom in Kielce
• The Truth about Kielce by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, arguing that the Soviets were responsible for the pogrom
• Postwar Pogrom The New York Times
• The Killing After the Killing Washington Post