Polish Jews through the eyes of Alter Katsizne. Amazing photos! Poles killed Jews en masse even after World War II: what historians say about this

April 21st, 2015 , 10:16 pm

And again Poland.
Thanks to the help of LJ friends who supply materials on the stated topics, for which they receive my personal grand merci, I am forced to return to the topic of Jews, which is ACCIDENTAL. And he didn’t seem to say anything special. And the Poles stank so much that it immediately became clear: they had something to hide.

Here is an extremely interesting material translated from the New York Times and given to me by blogger evgeny_leskov.
Thank him very much. And it immediately became clear why the overwhelming majority of the Jews who survived in Nazi concentration camps left Poland and rushed, some to Israel and some to the USA.

Whoever reads it will be shocked. Tough.
But it's not my fault. And I think people should know about this. And the Poles deserve international flogging for this.

So...
_____

Sometime in the late 1950s, Jewish newlyweds walked through the streets of Lodz holding hands. Like all Polish Jewish survivors of their generation, they survived the Holocaust against all odds. This made the joy of that moment especially poignant. “Just look at them,” said a well-dressed passerby, deliberately raising his voice so that they could hear. “It’s like they’re in Tel Aviv.” The newlyweds understood the meaning of these words perfectly: Jews have no place in Poland, let alone be happy there.

I thought about these two people, whom I later became friends with, as I read new book Jan Gross "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz." Polish-born Gross, a professor of history at Princeton University, did not include the above story in the book, although he knew about it. He needs to be told about much greater humiliations. It must tell the story of how Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, escaping the fate of 90% of their community - three million people - returned to their homeland, where they continued to be vilified, intimidated and killed (at least 1,500 murders were committed), sometimes as brutally as the Nazis .

It would seem that if anything could cure Poland of anti-Semitism, it would be the Second World War. Polish Jews and Christians found themselves bound together as never before by unimaginable suffering inflicted by a common enemy. It would seem that there should have been pity for the Jews, most of whom had lost everything they had - homes, youth, hope, all their relatives. Besides, there are very few of them left to hate - only 200 thousand out of 20 million.

However, returning Polish Jews encountered anti-Semitism that was horrific in its rage and cruelty. So it is not surprising that as soon as many of them found themselves on Polish soil, they immediately fled from there again. Many went to the West, to a place that strangely became an oasis of peace and security compared to Poland: Germany. Those Poles who sheltered Jews during the war did not become national heroes, but, on the contrary, begged the Jews for silence, so that their neighbors would not call them Judeophiles, beat them and break into their houses in search of money, which the Jews undoubtedly had there left, or did not kill them at all.

The attitude of the Poles towards the Germans remains, for obvious reasons, bitter. During his visit to Poland in May, German Pope Benedict XVI visited Auschwitz and wisely spoke mostly Italian. However, as Gross reminds us, there was at least one thing that many Poles applauded Hitler for: when he proposed final decision Jewish problem in Germany, he also took care of Polish Jews. Nazi policy towards the Jews, the legendary underground Polish diplomat Jan Karski told the government in exile in London in 1940, formed “a kind of narrow bridge where the Germans and the majority of Polish society merged in harmony.”

And it wasn’t just Karski who spoke about this. Witnesses in the Warsaw Ghetto saw Poles watching with approval and even assisting Nazi soldiers in executing Jews. When the ghetto was burning, Polish girls joked: “Look at how the Jewish chops are fried.” Nazi accounts of the Judenjagd, the "hunt of the Jews", tell how the Poles searched for and found Jews whom the Germans had somehow missed. Deportations were carried out, and before the trains to Chelmno, Belzec or Treblinka arrived, the Poles gathered on the outskirts to plunder Jewish property or move into Jewish houses. And while the Nazis killed millions of Jews, the Poles killed thousands - for example, as Gross recounts in another of his books, Neighbors (2001), which sparked a scandal in Poland, in July 1914, 1,600 Jews were killed in Jedwabno. But in those days, almost no attention was paid to these crimes, and even now they are hardly remembered in Polish history textbooks.

When the war ended, a thousand delegates from the Polish Peasant Party passed a resolution thanking Hitler for the extermination of Polish Jewry and calling for the survivors to be deported. And indeed, the “cleansing” soon began. Returning to their villages and cities, the Jews heard: “What? Are you still alive?” Their efforts to reclaim their property were unsuccessful - and sometimes ended fatally. Some Jews met their end on trains - this time not in cattle cars, but in passenger trains, from which they were simply thrown out. And if the trains didn't move fast enough, they were beaten to death.

Gross's book is filled with shocking, unimaginable images.
Treblinka, September 1945: lunar landscape dotted with craters. It was the Poles who dug thousands of holes in search of gold placers mixed with Jewish bones and ash.
Polish synagogues, torn apart brick by brick.
Jewish cemeteries turned into garbage dumps.
Jewish schoolchildren who are oppressed, and Jewish artisans and professionals who are denied work.
While law enforcement agencies and the courts looked the other way, Jews were killed individually or in pogroms. Behind this massacre there inevitably stood the old story about Jews killing Christian babies for their blood, but with a new twist: the Jews now needed the blood not only to make matzah, but also to strengthen their emaciated bodies.

The most notorious incident occurred 60 years ago, when residents of Kielce, including police officers, soldiers and boy scouts, beat 80 Jews to death. “The huge courtyard was littered with bloody pipes, stones and hockey sticks, which had been used to smash the skulls of Jewish men and women,” wrote Polish-Jewish journalist Saul Schneiderman the next day. It was the largest peacetime pogrom against Jews in the 20th century, Gross notes. However, he believes that this was nothing unusual: in that era, this could have happened anywhere in Poland. Polish intellectuals, writes Gross, were shocked by what was happening in their country. Only a psychopath, one of them wrote, could imagine such cruelty.

A few days after the pogrom, Polish primate Cardinal August Chlold scornfully rejected Jewish pleas to condemn Roman Catholic anti-Semitism. After this, he declared that, having led the effort to establish a communist regime in Poland (Jews did occupy a prominent position in the party, although they did not hold the reins of control in their hands), Jews had themselves to blame. This idea was echoed by the Bishop of Kielce, who suggested that the Jews deliberately provoked the unrest in order to convince Great Britain to give up control of Palestine. Only the Bishop of Częstochowa condemned the murders, for which he was immediately condemned by his colleagues.

If the church quickly dealt with the Jews, then the same was true of the communists, even the Jewish ones. For them, ignoring the Jewish situation, as well as Polish complicity in wartime crimes, was a way to ingratiate themselves with a suspicious country. Besides, what was there to do? When Polish Jewish leaders called on the Communists to do something to end the hatred, one official responded with a prepared retort: ​​“Do you want me to send 18 million Poles to Siberia?”

How can we explain this madness? Gross recalls former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's famous remark that Poles absorb anti-Semitism with their mother's milk, only to refute it. "It is untenable by either common sense or empirical evidence," he says. So are false claims of ritual murders or a Jewish-Communist conspiracy. Gross insists that the Poles feel guilty: they were so deeply involved in the Jewish tragedy, aiding and abetting the Nazis, expropriating Jewish property, that the mere sight of these ghosts returning from the camps, exile or exile, people who knew dirty secrets and had claims to property was simply unbearable. So the Jews were killed or expelled.

However, Gross's evidence, up to the anti-Semitic performance in January 1947 near Auschwitz, the largest Jewish cemetery on the planet (a local policeman played main role), refutes his theory. Such a vast and varied inventory of inhumanity, including the cruelty of children too young to feel guilt or remorse, transcends any set of historical conditions. A more plausible, if less politically correct, explanation is that the Germans emboldened the Poles with their practiced anti-Semitism, pushing them to act as they had always believed necessary. The remark by Shamir, who was himself a Polish Jew, may seem to us extremely offensive, simplistic and even racist. However, no matter what Gross says, he supports Shamir rather than refutes him.

But ultimately, the most important thing in this story is not the why, but the what - that a civilized country could fall so low, and that such behavior should be documented, remembered and discussed. Gross does just that. And the fact that he gets distracted from time to time, that his chronology can be confusing, that he repeats himself, and that he has difficulty controlling his indignation does not play such a big role.

Two new waves of state anti-Semitism, in 1956-1957, and in 1968-1969, squeezed out the majority of those Polish Jews who, despite everything, held out in this country. (Among them were the newlyweds I was talking about. Later, my husband admitted to me that on his first day in New York he felt much more at home in his homeland than during his entire life in Poland). Now, despite periodic outbreaks of anti-Semitism - in May, for example, the chief rabbi was attacked on a Warsaw street by a man who shouted "Poland for the Poles" - and despite widespread prejudice against Jews, including suspicions that they still rule country, Poland has become a focus of necro-nostalgia. In the Jewish quarter of Krakow, klezmer tunes are heard. You can buy matzo in any Polish supermarket. And in alcohol stores, near the windows with Polish kosher vodka, highly valued for its purity, you can see the faces of happy Hasidim - more of them than you can meet today in Lublin or Bialystok. Meanwhile, young people with the most distant Jewish connections can return to their heritage. But as Gross reminds us in his depressing, haunting and infuriating book, the happiest Polish Jews, not before Hitler but after him, were those who left.

Jewish organizations in Poland have said the country's controversial Holocaust law has led to a "rising wave of intolerance, xenophobia and anti-Semitism" leaving many Polish Jews feeling unsafe.

Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Photo: Depositphotos

An open letter on the website of the Union of Jewish Communities of Poland, signed by several organizations, states that threats to the Jewish community have increased after parliament passed a law prohibiting accusing Poles of complicity in crimes committed by Nazi Germany, including the Holocaust, CNN writes. .

The law also applies to Auschwitz and other camps that were located in Nazi-occupied Poland. Violation of this prohibition carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

“The current wave of anti-Semitism arose in response to an amendment to the Law on the Institute of National Remembrance. We believe that this law is poorly drafted and is detrimental to open discussion of history. If the Polish government believes that even isolated mentions of “Polish death camps” should be criminalized, then equally serious penalties should be introduced for the intolerance and anti-Semitism growing in our country. Our government has the legal tools to combat hate, but lacks the political will to do so. We call on our politicians to change course,” the open letter said.

Polish President Andrzej Duda signed the law in early February, and now the document must be considered by the country's Constitutional Tribunal.

The adoption of such a law caused condemnation from Jewish organizations in Israel, the United States and France.

Tensions escalated on February 17 when Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a security conference in Germany that Jews were among the perpetrators of the Holocaust, sparking outrage.

The Polish government spokesman sought clarity in the comments. At the same time, Morawiecki stressed that Poland “does not intend to deny the Holocaust or blame the Jewish victims of the Holocaust for genocide committed by Nazi Germany.”

The Polish prime minister's comments drew condemnation in Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling his Polish counterpart to express his outrage.

Morawiecki's words also upset many Jews in Poland, where about 10% of the 3.5 million Jews living in Poland are Holocaust survivors.

Many of the survivors and their families were then deported in 1968 at the height of the "anti-Zionist" campaign, in which the communist government blamed the Jewish community for economic problems. Many lost their jobs, were attacked in the press and lost their citizenship and the right to return to Poland.

Only in 1989, after the fall of communism in the country, were Polish Jews allowed to return home.

“On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the anti-Semitic events of March 1968 and 75 years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Polish Jews do not feel safe in Poland,” reads an open letter from Polish Jewish groups.

“The current threats to the Jewish community in Poland are different from those we have experienced in the past. Unlike many European Jews today, we do not face direct physical threats. However, despite the absence of physical violence, our situation is far from normal,” the document notes.

Polish Jews have stressed that anti-Semitism is a “growing problem” in Poland, a fact the government denies.

“We perceive the inaction of the authorities as tacit consent to hatred of the Jewish community and call on the Polish leadership to punish those whose actions threaten our well-being. We call government agencies, police, means mass media, schools and members of the Polish public to fight anti-Semitism, and we are very keen to cooperate with them in this important mission,” the document says.

Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said the consequences of the new law were so severe that many members of the Jewish community questioned whether Poland wanted them as members of its society.

Schudrich said the open letter was not a political move, but a desire to show how Polish Jews feel.

Let us recall that in early February the Senate of Poland introduced criminal penalties for mentioning that Nazi concentration camps were Polish. It is also prohibited to claim that Poland is responsible for Nazi crimes.

In order for anti-Semitism to bloom in full bloom, the presence of Jews in a country where anti-Semitism has triumphed is not at all necessary.

In 1967-1968 A large-scale anti-Semitic campaign was launched in Poland. It was headed by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party - PUWP, Wladyslaw Gomułka. This shameful campaign led to the emigration from this country of Jews who miraculously survived the Holocaust.

Before World War II, Poland had the largest Jewish community in Europe. It exceeded 3.5 million people. The Holocaust killed 2.8 million. Few survived, but even they, in fact, were forced to flee. In 1967-1968 Of the 30 thousand Jews remaining in Poland, the vast majority left the country. This was the result of an anti-Semitic campaign led by Gomułka. It was carried out under the banner of “the fight against Zionism.”

Poland was the first country in Europe to offer armed resistance to the Nazi invaders. None military unit did not fight under the Polish flag on the side of Nazi Germany. Poland was the only European country without a puppet government. Many Poles fought in the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition, and there was a broad Resistance movement in the country itself.

The German occupation of Poland was particularly brutal. Hitler included part of Poland into the Third Reich. The remaining captured territories were turned into a General Government. Industrial and agricultural production in Poland were subordinated to the military needs of Germany. The occupiers simply closed Polish universities and other universities, and the intelligentsia was persecuted. It would seem that in such a situation the Poles have no time for Jews and no time for anti-Semitism. Ah, no. Even under the conditions of occupation, anti-Semite phobes, of whom there were always plenty in Poland, were in a hurry to prove themselves in this shameful field.

The small Polish town of Jedwabne is located near the eastern border of Poland. Before the war, 1,600 Jews lived here, making up more than half of its population. On June 23, 1941, German troops entered the town, and on June 25, the Poles began pogroms against Jews. They killed their neighbors with axes, stabbed them with pitchforks, cut out their tongues, gouged out their eyes, drowned them in a pond, and chopped off their heads. The local priest refused to stop the bloodshed because he considered all Jews to be communists. The Poles “coordinated” the pogrom with the German authorities. Then the Nazis gave the order to exterminate all the Jews still alive. The Poles carried out the order. They herded the Jews to the central square, then took them to a barn on the outskirts of the town, where they had previously thrown the bodies of the torn victims. There they burned them together - alive and dead. Until recently, at the burial site of Jews there was a monument with the inscription that the victims killed by the German fascists were buried here. Now a new monument has been erected, on which is carved the inscription: “In memory of the Jews killed and burned.”

Polish historian Jan Tomasz Gross now lives in New York. He published an essay in which he spoke about the brutal extermination of the Jews of Jedwabne by the Poles. Then he published the book “Neighbors” with detailed description this barbaric crime. This book excited the whole of Poland and caused a resonance throughout the world. In 1949, the trial of the pogromists from Jedwabne took place. It took place in Lomza. Most of the accused were convicted and received from 8 to 15 years in prison. The trial in Lomza took place in secrecy, it was not reported in the press, and few people knew about the trial. The Jedwabne pogrom was not the only case of extermination of Jews at the hands of the Poles. This took place in Radziwillow, where 659 people were killed, in Wonsosha, Wizna and other cities and towns. At the funeral ceremony in Jedwabne, dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the pogrom, the then President of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, on behalf of himself and those Poles who feel great shame, asked for forgiveness from the Jewish people.

Anti-Semitism in Poland did not disappear after the war. It was especially fueled by the fact that the new leadership of the country included several Jews, in particular Jakub Berman and Hilary Mintz. In addition, several Jews worked in senior positions in the state security agencies, and this circumstance was exploited with all their might by the Judeophobes.

Historian Jan Tomasz Gross is a Jew who was born in post-war Poland. After the events of 1967-1968. and a short period of imprisonment, he left Poland and settled in the United States. Professor at Princeton University. Above we mentioned his book “Neighbors” about the pogrom in Edbavne. So, after “Neighbors,” he published another book, “Fear.” It is subtitled “Anti-Semitism in Poland after the war. A story of moral failure." The book “Fear” is dedicated to the relations between Jews and Poles after the war. The author describes the anti-Semitic sentiments of many Poles after the German occupation and the Holocaust. “Fear” tells about the Jewish pogroms in Poland after the war, about the events in Kielce in July 1946. Then, as a result of the largest pogrom in post-war Europe, 37 Jews were killed and 35 were mutilated. This is despite the fact that in total there were just over 200 miraculously surviving Jews in the city. Gross accuses the Poles of pathological anti-Semitism. He emphasizes that most of them were anti-Semites even during the war, and many killed Jews themselves.

Jan Gross's book "Fear" caused quite a strong reaction in Poland and abroad. Its author was accused of provocation. Sharply opposed Gross Catholic Church. Essentially, the book concluded that all Poles are anti-Semitic. The author wrote about this extremely harshly. Things got to the point that the Krakow prosecutor became interested in the book. Of course, one cannot agree with Gross that supposedly all Poles are anti-Semitic. There is no doubt that in Poland there are thousands of people who are disgusted by anti-Semitism. This fact convincingly demonstrates this. On the Avenue of the Righteous at the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, more than 6 thousand trees were planted in honor of the Poles who saved Jews during the Nazi occupation (for which they faced death). However, on the other hand, neither Krakow nor other Polish prosecutors will be able to refute the fact that anti-Semitism in the country has a long history and has taken deep roots. It is in this context that the anti-Semitic campaign organized in 1967-1968 by the Polish communists under the leadership of their then leader Wladyslaw Gomulka should be considered.

First of all, let us introduce the reader in a little more detail to the hero, or rather anti-hero, of this publication.

Wladyslaw Gomulka was born in February 1905 in the village of Bjallabzheg, near the town of Krasno, into a working-class family. After three years of school, at the age of 14 he began working at a factory as a mechanic. WITH youth took part in the revolutionary movement, was the organizer of the communist working group, later became a "professional party activist" and agitator. He was arrested and tried, but the sentence was limited to a suspended sentence. In 1926-1929. was one of the leaders of the workers' union chemical industry. In 1932, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison for participating in an underground communist organization. He served half his sentence and was released due to illness. In 1934-1935 Gomulka studies at the Lenin School in Moscow. He was lucky then, he managed to avoid repression. The functionaries of the Polish Communist Party who were in the USSR were arrested, and the entire party was accused of Trotskyism. Returning to his homeland, Gomułka found himself in a Polish prison. He was imprisoned until World War II. When Warsaw was captured by the German occupiers, he escaped from prison and in 1941 moved to Lviv, which was occupied by the Red Army. When Germany attacked the USSR and Lviv was occupied by German troops, Gomułka went underground and was a member of the Resistance movement.

In 1944, under the auspices of the Soviet authorities, the Committee for the National Liberation of Poland was created in Lublin. It also included Gomułka. After the liberation of Poland, he returned to Warsaw with the so-called. Lublin government, in which he became deputy prime minister. He was elected general secretary of the Polish Workers' Party. After the creation of the Polish United Workers' Party, he became part of the leadership of this party. In 1949, Gomulka and his inner circle were accused of right-wing nationalist deviation and expelled from the party, and then arrested. Gomułka was released from prison in 1954. And in the context of the political crisis that broke out in the country, Wladyslaw Gomulka returned to power. On October 21, 1956, he was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the PUWP. Some reforms have been carried out. Some collective farms in the countryside were liquidated, the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church was stopped, censorship was softened, etc. However, in general, Poland, even under Gomulka, followed Moscow’s lead, and the country’s new leadership pursued a policy approved by the Kremlin.

Gomulka's reformist fervor quickly dried up, and many of the problems that arose were either not noticed by the new leaders of Poland or simply ignored. This led to a political crisis that erupted in the country in the late 60s of the last century.

One of the goals of the anti-Semitic campaign launched in Poland in 1967-1968 was to divert public attention from pressing problems, and the old proven method was used - to make Jews extreme. Even Hitler said that if there were no Jews, they would have to be invented. The fact that there were almost no Jews left in Poland did not bother Gomulka and his circle. The catalyst was the Six Day War in June 1967. At a meeting in Moscow, the leaders of the socialist countries were instructed to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Gomułka and others hastened to comply with the Kremlin's wishes. The exception was Romania. Ceausescu refused to do this.

Returning to Warsaw, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the PUWP began to spin the flywheel of Judeophobia. He spoke at a meeting of the capital’s party activists and declared the need to “repel Israeli aggression” and outlined all the arguments that he heard in Moscow. But, of course, it didn’t stop there. He said that Israel is supported by “Zionist circles” in Poland; they are carrying out subversive work. Gomulka exclaimed, not without pathos:

We don't need a fifth column!

Thus, the anti-Israeli campaign was called anti-Zionist, but in fact turned out to be anti-Semitic. It reached its peak in March 1968. At this time, the general situation in Poland worsened. It all started with student performances. The reason for them was the authorities banning the production of the play “Dziady” by Adam Mickiewicz at the National Theater. They saw in it an anti-Russian, anti-Soviet orientation. The students filed a protest to the Sejm. Thousands of Poles signed it. Gomulka and other leaders of the PUWP were very afraid that workers and trade unions would join the students, so they began to intensively expose the “machinations of Zionism.” At that moment, a huge number of anti-Semitic leaflets appeared, in which the events in the country were interpreted as the machinations of the Zionists and their allies - Polish intellectuals. The newspapers were full of articles in which they attacked the Zionists - “the enemies of people's Poland.” A favorite “revealing” technique is compiling lists of surnames indicating past names and surnames. All Polish publications, with very rare exceptions, took part in this shameful campaign. Then came the persecution of Jews, incredible for post-war Europe. A grandiose ideological campaign was launched, modeled after the Stalin era, although people were not killed. Everything else followed the same pattern. During the two weeks of the campaign, 1,900 party meetings alone were held condemning Zionism. Rallies were held, meetings were held labor collectives all with the same agenda. There were calls: “Cleanse Poland of Zionist Jews.” There were cases when Jews were dealt with physically.

Jews who value Israel more than Poland must leave our country.

It should be noted that, perhaps, no less a role, and perhaps even a greater one, in the persecution of Jews was played by the then Minister of Internal Affairs, General Mieczyslaw Moczar (real name and surname - Mikolay Demko), who had large group their supporters of the hardest line, opponents of liberalism. At that time, a joke appeared: “What is the difference between anti-Semitism today and before the war? Before the war it was not mandatory.”

As a result of the campaign against Zionism, thousands of people were fired from their jobs. First of all, Jews who worked in government agencies, universities and schools, and in the cultural sphere were expelled. As a result, about 20 thousand people left Poland. For Jews who wanted to go to Israel, the road was open. They were given an original document in which it was written that the bearer of this document was not a citizen of Poland. Engineers, doctors, scientists, university professors, journalists, musicians, etc. left the country.

As a result of this campaign, Gomulka's authority suffered greatly. This entire campaign caused deep outrage in the United States, Western Europe. And in Poland itself, many people reacted extremely negatively to the campaign launched by Gomułka and Moczar. They understood her vile purpose perfectly.

When they tried to start building “socialism with a human face” in Czechoslovakia, the Kremlin mobilized all its forces to fight the “Prague Spring.” Polish troops took part in the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.

At the end of 1970, a new political crisis broke out in Poland. It was associated with serious economic difficulties that the country was experiencing. The authorities announced price increases for food and basic consumer goods. Was introduced new system salary calculations. Unrest began. Workers went out to demonstrate. The unrest that broke out in Gdansk, Gdynia and Szczecin was suppressed by army units. 70 workers were killed and more than 1,000 wounded. Gomulka and other leaders of the PUWP again tried to explain the events in the country as “the machinations of the Zionists.” But there were no more Jews in the country and it just looked funny.

Wladyslaw Gomulka ruled Poland for 14 years. During this time he has come a long way. In October 1956, the newly elected first secretary of the PUWP said that if workers take to the streets, then the truth is on their side. In 1970, he also ordered to shoot at workers who went out onto the street. Gomulka had to resign from the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the PUWP. He was succeeded by Edward Gierek. Mochar's hopes for power did not come true. After retiring, Wladyslaw Gomułka became an ordinary pensioner, forgotten by friends and enemies; he died in Warsaw in September 1982.

A new surge of anti-Semitic campaigns occurred in Poland already in the 70s. As before, the group of so-called “partisans”, which was part of the leadership of the PUWP, led by General Mieczyslaw Moczar, began again in every possible way to fan hatred of Jews, although at that time there were only a few thousand of them left in the country and they played practically no role in political life . It was then that the world press started talking about the Polish phenomenon of “anti-Semitism without Jews.”

The theme of the March 1968 events, the anti-Semitic campaign of that period, is finding an increasing response in modern Poland. At a meeting in connection with the 40th anniversary of those events, now Polish President Lech Kaczynski called the anti-Semitic campaign a disgrace for which there is no justification. In present-day Poland there is no state anti-Semitism. Good, even friendly relations have been established between Poland and Israel. Warsaw strongly emphasizes its affection for our country. But the so-called everyday Judeophobia still sometimes makes itself felt. But what to do, there are many people for whom anti-Semitism has become their calling, their profession, although often it is difficult to call them people.

Joseph TELMAN, candidate of historical sciences, Nesher

By the 16th century in central and Eastern Europe A separate Jewish subethnic group was emerging - the Ashkenazis, a significant part of which lived on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Here, unlike neighboring Germany, Jews were not constrained by a large number of laws that limited the scope of their professional activities, which ensured a constant influx of representatives of the Jewish faith into the Polish and Lithuanian lands. In the 16th century, out of the 11 million population of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, approximately 800 thousand were Jews.

The freedom that the Jews found themselves in worried many Poles. In particular, in 1485, Krakow Catholics tried to prohibit Jews from any activity other than “mortgaging for overdue debts.” However, they failed to turn Jews solely into moneylenders. In 1521, already the heads of the Lviv magistrate complained to Poznan:

“The infidel Jews deprived us and our fellow citizens engaged in merchants of almost all sources of food. They took over all trade, penetrated into towns and villages, and left nothing for the Christians.” However, in this case there was no reaction either. The king did not want to lose, in the person of Polish Jewry, a powerful trade and economic layer, which also ensured the financial stability of the state.

However, the Jews gradually concentrated their activities in a niche in which they could not be disturbed by representatives of other nationalities and religions - these were mediatory functions between townspeople and peasants. The essence of the activity is this: first, the Jewish intermediary bought raw materials from the peasants and resold them to the city, then purchased them from the townspeople finished products and resold it again to the village.

It was difficult for non-Jews to occupy such a niche: they had to work a lot and persistently, maneuver and adapt in order to become useful to both the city dweller and the peasant. The “profit” from such activities was small: if the tariff were slightly higher, the peasant and the city dweller would begin to negotiate directly.

Towards the end of the 16th century, Jews gradually emerged from the influence of the king and fell into the sphere of interests of the magnates. Jews are turning into, albeit dependent, but completely separate feudal class. They build taverns and taverns, roads and hotels, workshops and factories, thereby participating in the creation of the transport and economic infrastructure of the Kingdom. Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are respected, but most importantly, they are needed.

For over 500 years, the presence of Jews in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus was very noticeable .

Warsaw. Jewish Quarter, 1930

The first written mentions of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are the charters of Prince Vitovt, issued in 1388 and 1389 to the Jews of Berestye (Brest) and Garodnya (Grodno).

By 1560, the number of Jews in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania reached 20 thousand people, by 1628 - 40 thousand, by 1788 - 157 thousand. And 110 years later, according to the All-Russian population census of 1897, 1,202,129 Jews lived in five Belarusian provinces. They made up 14.1% of the total population of the then North-Western Territory and 35.9% of urban residents.

As of January 1939, there were 375 thousand Jews in the then small Belarus. After the annexation of Western Belarus, their numbers more than doubled.

The first Jews appeared on the territory of modern Belarus in the 14th century, during the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Jews who lived in this medieval state and their descendants are still called “Litvaks.” According to the ethnographer M. Chlenov, the Litvaks included the Jews of Lithuania, Belarus, the western regions of modern Bryansk, Smolensk and the southern regions of the Pskov regions of Russia. They differed from other Jewish ethnographic groups by their northeastern dialect of Yiddish, special features of life and customs.

The first written source about the presence of Jews on Belarusian soil is a letter from Prince Vitovt to the Brest Jews, dated 1383.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, there was a massive migration of Jews from German cities to Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Entire communities are being resettled, transporting their capital, centuries-old habits trading activities, kahal system, German-Jewish dialect (Yiddish), religious traditions and the system of Talmudic education. By the end of the 15th century, more than 20 thousand Jews lived in Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Until 1495, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania there were five cities with a settled Jewish population: Brest-Litovsk, Vladimir-Volynsky, Grodno, Lutsk, Troki. In other settlements, Jews met during this period only temporarily: these are Drogichin, Kamenets, Krichev, Minsk, Novogrudok.

From 1503 to 1569, new Jewish settlements arose in Kobrin, Pinsk, Indura, Novy Dvor, Turets, Palace, Lyakhovichi, Ratno, Slonim, Surazh.

At the same time, the core of future Jewish settlements was created where Jews had leases and farms. These are Vitebsk, Drogichin, Kamenets-Litovsk, Meroch, Minsk, Mogilev, Bobruisk, Drissa, Zheludok, Mysh, Novogrudok, Polotsk, Glubokoye, Gorodets, Druya, Molchad, Motol, Mstislavl, Mosty, Ostrino, Pruzhany, Radoshkovichi, Shereshev.

Alexander Jagiellon (Grand Duke of Lithuania, since 1501 - King of Poland), entangled in debt and unable to get rid of Jewish creditors, publishes a decree to “knock the Jews out of the earth.” In April 1495, all Jews of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - Brest, Grodno, Trok, Lutsk, Vladimir-Volynsky and Kyiv were expelled. The Jews of the Brest and Grodno communities moved to neighboring Poland and partly to the estates of the appanage princes of Lithuania.

In April 1503, Alexander allowed the Jews to return to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, returning their alienated property.

In the person of the Grand Duke and King Zhigimont I the Old (1506-1548), Belarusian Jews found an active defender. He strengthened legal status Belarusian Jewry by legislative acts: freed them from the obligation to send a thousand horsemen to war, equalized the tax rate with the burghers, granted freedom of trade and craft, and protected the governors and elders from arbitrariness, who judged the Jews, “as they themselves want.”

Needing money for the war with Moscow, Zhigimont decided to centralize power over the Jews in fiscal interests and in 1514 appointed the Lithuanian customs tax farmer Michel Ezefovich as general foreman of all Jews in the Grand Duchy.

In the first quarter of the 16th century, the most flourishing Jewish communities were in Brest, Grodno and Pinsk.

In 1551, Belarusian Jews received the right to elect rabbis. It is interesting that the rabbi of Brest Mendel Frank was titled “royal official,” and the Jew Shloimo Izrailovich was appointed deputy for the Vilna voivodeship. The most distinguished Jews were usually titled “pans” in official documents. Like the nobles, they carried sabers with them and, if necessary, were always ready to use them.

At the same time, the Statute of 1529 prohibited Jews from owning slaves, and the Statute of 1566 defined the clothing that Jews were required to wear. In particular, they were not supposed to wear expensive dresses with gold chains. “Let them wear yellow hats or caps, and let their wives be warriors made of yellow linen, so that everyone can distinguish a Jew from a Christian.”

In the period from 1569 to 1667, new Jewish settlements arose: Pukhovichi, Malech, Mogilno, Slutsk, Smolyany, Bragin, Vysoko-Litovsk, Kopyl, Kossovo, Lida, Nesvizh, Rakov, Radun, Ruzhany, Selets, Slovatichi, Smorgon, Timkovichi, Turov, Gomel, Gorki, Kopys, Koydanovo, Logishin, Lyubech, Mozyr, Oshmyany, Rechitsa, Staro-Bykhov, Cherikov, Uzda, Chausy, Chechersk, Shilov, Zelva.

The highest body of Jewish self-government was the Vaad - congresses of rabbis and kahal representatives. The Vaad of the Crown, or Polish, Jews existed from 1580 to 1764, the Jewish communities of Belarus were united as part of the so-called. “Lithuanian Vaad”, which collaborated with the Vaad of the Four Lands that existed in Poland. In 1623, the first Vaad of the Belarusian and Lithuanian communities gathered in Brest-Litovsk, the marshal (chairman) of which until his death was the Brest rabbi Meir Val, the son of the legendary Polish “king” Shaul (Saul) Val.

In 1654, a war began between Moscow and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which brought untold disasters to Belarusian Jews. They were again robbed, killed and expelled from the cities conquered by the Russian army. In 1648, a Cossack uprising began in Ukraine under the command of Zinovy-Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Dozens of thriving Jewish communities in Ukraine were destroyed, thousands of refugees poured into Belarusian and Lithuanian towns. However, the uprising soon spread to parts of Belarus and Lithuania. More than 2 thousand Jews of Gomel died at the hands of the Cossacks. “With fire and sword,” the Cossacks devastated the Pinsk Jewish community and the entire Pinsk district.

In the 17th century Belarusian Jews suffered from the pogroms of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the invading Russian troops in 1655. During the uprising of Bohdan Khmelnitsky and the Russian-Polish and Polish-Swedish wars that followed, about 86 thousand Jews died.

As a result of the divisions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. the territory of Belarus, together with the Jews living there, became part of the Russian Empire.

After the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, about 55 thousand Belarusian Jews became part of Russia. The Senate decree of 1775 legalized the existence of the Kagals. According to the proposal of Governor General Chernyshev, Jews in Belarus were allocated to a special tax and class unit. Since 1780, Jews received the right to enroll as merchants and participate in class-city self-government.

Soon all the Jews of Belarus found themselves in the Pale of Settlement. By special decree of Catherine II, since 1791 the Jewish population was kept within the boundaries of its settlement. In 1794, the expanded Pale of Settlement was legalized. Jews were allowed to “engage in merchant and petty bourgeois trades” in the provinces: Minsk, Izyaslav (later Volyn), Bratslav (Podolsk), Polotsk (Vitebsk), Mogilev, Kyiv, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Ekaterinoslav and Tauride regions. The Dnieper along its two banks was made the central river of “Jewish territory.”

Around this time, Hasidism spread in some parts of the country.

Although Jews at that time were not yet accepted for active duty military service, a considerable number of Belarusian Jews took an active part in the Patriotic War of 1812 on the side of the Russian army. They were skilled scouts and skilled suppliers.

On April 11, 1823, the highest decree was issued that in the Belarusian provinces, Jews should cease wine production and the maintenance of leases and post offices, and by 1825 they would move to cities and towns.

The first 1st category (lowest) school for children of Russian Jews was established in 1847 in Minsk.

According to the 1897 census, more than 900 thousand Jews lived in Belarus - 21.1% of the Jewish population of the Pale of Settlement Russian Empire. At the same time, they were the second most important - after the titular ethnic group - on the Belarusian lands, ahead in terms of quantitative indicators and specific gravity even the traditionally large Polish diaspora.

In 1897, 34,440 Jews lived in Vitebsk (52% of the city’s population), in Brest - 30,260 (65%), in Grodno - 22,684 (48%), in Minsk - 47,652 (52%), in Pinsk - 21 065 (74%), in Slutsk - 10,264 (77%), in Mogilev - 21,547 Jews (50%), in Gomel - 20,385 (55%).

IN late XIX century, from 25% to 38% of Jews in the towns of Belarus lived off charity, and many emigrated to the USA and other countries.

Representatives of various Jewish socialist groups gathered in Vilna in October 1897 and founded the "General Jewish Workers' Union in Lithuania, Poland and Russia" (abbreviated in Yiddish as Bund).
At the end of 1901, a congress of a society called “Poalei Zion” (“Workers of Zion”) was also held in Minsk.

When a Jewish pogrom was organized in Gomel in the summer of 1903, the Jewish youth of the city, for the first time in the history of Jewish pogroms in Russia, managed to create a self-defense detachment and successfully repel the onslaught of the pogromists. The members of this self-defense unit, having moved to Palestine, laid the foundation for the second aliyah and founded the Hashomer organization.

There were large yeshivas on Belarusian soil - in Volozhin, Lubavitch, Mir, Slonim, Slutsk. Jewish youth from many countries of the world flocked here.

Synagogues occupied an important place in the life of Belarusian Jews. In 1917 there were: in Minsk - 83, in Mogilev - 50, in Bobruisk - 42, in Vitebsk - 30, in Gomel - 26.

The February Revolution of 1917 eliminated the Pale of Settlement. On March 20, 1917, the Provisional Government adopted the “Resolution on the abolition of all national and religious restrictions.” All Jewish parties came out of hiding. As a result of free elections, Bund member Aron Weinstein became the chairman of the Minsk City Duma. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in the Minsk province, 65,400 people voted for the Zionists, 16,270 for the Bund and the Mensheviks. Zionist J. Brutskus was elected as a deputy Constituent Assembly. Several Jewish newspapers began to be published in Minsk: the weekly “Dos Yiddishe Wort” (“The Jewish Word”), the daily newspaper “Der Veker” (“Alarm Clock”), the legal Zionist newspaper “Der Id” (“The Jew”).

In 1919-1922, Belarusian Jews became victims of pogroms from all sides: Polish troops, and Bulak-Bulakhovich’s gangs, and units under the ideological leadership of Boris Savinkov, and simply gangs of robbers (“greens”), and units of the Red Army, During this period, 225 pogroms were committed on the territory of Belarus.

First World War and Civil War led to the acceleration of the process of urbanization of Belarusian Jewry and its mass outflow outside the republic. In the 1920s, as a result of the NEP, the economic structure of the Jewish town was destroyed. Tens of thousands of former artisans and traders lost not only their permanent income, but also civil rights(became “disenfranchised”).

The October Revolution divided Belarusian Jews into two camps. One part took an active part in the struggle to establish Soviet power, while the other, smaller part, was anti-Soviet.

In June 1919, the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities announced a decision to dissolve Jewish communities and demanded that their property be handed over to it.

After the establishment of Soviet power (1920), the Jewish community was dissolved, Jewish parties were liquidated, the Hebrew language was banned, as was education in cheders and yeshivas, Jewish melamed teachers were persecuted, and synagogues were closed. Soviet authority created a Soviet system of education, enlightenment and culture for Jews in the Yiddish language without national traditions and national culture. Apart from the Bundist newspaper Der Wecker, all Jewish publications were banned.

In the 1920-1930s, the BSSR had four state languages: Belarusian, Russian, Jewish (Yiddish) and Polish. If in the 1924-1925 academic year in the BSSR there were 87 primary and 42 seven-year Jewish schools teaching in Yiddish, then in the 1926-1927 academic year the number primary schools increased to 147, and seven-year-olds - to 53. There were 24 thousand students studying there. In the early 1920s, three Jewish pedagogical colleges were opened. In Belarus there were Jewish departments of workers' faculties, pedagogical faculties, the department of Jewish language of the Gorets Agricultural Academy, a Jewish section of the ethnological and linguistic faculty of the BSU, a Jewish zootechnic school, etc. But at the end of the 1930s, Jewish education in the BSSR was virtually eliminated. In July 1924, the Jewish department of the Institute of Belarusian Culture was established, then transformed into the Jewish sector of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. In 1932, the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture was created. In 1935, the Institute of National Minorities was organized within the system of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, which was closed already in 1936. In Minsk, a Jewish sector was opened at the Institute of Belarusian Culture, in the library named after. V.I. Lenin, at the BSU at the Faculty of Pedagogy.

In 1926, the Belarusian State Jewish Theater was created in Minsk, headed by Mikhail Rafalsky, and in 1929, a Jewish choral studio was created under the direction of composer Samuil Polonsky.

In the BSSR, the Jewish monthly literary magazine “Stern”, the biweekly magazine “Der Junger Arbeter”, the daily newspaper “October”, and the Jewish pioneer newspaper “Der Junger Leninets” were published. In 1929, 55 titles of Jewish books were published in Minsk.

The second half of the 1920s - the first half of the 1930s truly became the heyday of Jewish culture in Belarus. Jewish culture of Belarus gave the world such famous artists as Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Yehuda Pan, Solomon Yudovin, Meir Axelrod.
By the end of the 1930s. About 400,000 Jews lived in Belarus.

In 1939, 375 thousand Jews lived in the BSSR. In September 1939, after Germany attacked Poland, the territory of Western Belarus was annexed to the BSSR. After the annexation of Western Belarus in 1939, the Jewish population increased, according to various estimates, to 800,000 - 1,000,000 people.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War About 1 million Jews lived on the territory of Belarus.

The Great Patriotic War became a Catastrophe for Belarusian Jewry. In 1941-1945, 983 thousand Jews died here, including 85 thousand foreign Jews. More than 300 ghettos were created on the territory of 207 settlements. Most of the prisoners of Minsk, Polotsk and other ghettos and Jews of European countries were exterminated in the Trostenets death camp.

In the difficult conditions of the ghetto, an anti-fascist movement arose. Underground groups operated in Minsk, Slonim, Baranovichi, Bobruisk, Grodno, Brest and other ghettos. In many ghettos, on the eve of the preparation of mass executions by the Nazis, uprisings took place. Most of the prisoners who were released took an active part in the partisan movement.

On the territory of the BSSR there were more than 10 Jewish partisan detachments. About 12 thousand Jews fought in the ranks of the Belarusian partisans in 1941-1944.

23 Belarusian Jews became Heroes Soviet Union. Two Belarusian Jews became full holders of the Order of Glory. During the Great Patriotic War, 62 generals and 4 Jewish admirals, natives of Belarus, served in the ranks of the Red Army and Navy.

During the post-war anti-Jewish “fight against cosmopolitans” campaign, all Jewish schools and cultural organizations were closed in the republic. In 1945-1946, a wave of anti-Semitism swept through many populated areas of Belarus. In addition to the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, G. B. Eidinov. There are no Jews left at the level of the highest party and state leadership of the republic. After the murder of the outstanding Jewish artist S. M. Mikhoels in Minsk in 1948, an anti-Semitic bacchanalia began in the BSSR, as well as throughout the country. Jews were arrested only because they studied Hebrew and Yiddish and read the books of Sholom Aleichem.

In the 1940s - 1950s. The activities of religious communities were practically stopped.

In the 1960s - 1970s. Belarus is becoming one of the centers of “anti-Zionist propaganda.” The rampant state anti-Semitism in the 1970s led to the fact that there was not even an article “Jews” in the 12-volume “Belarusian Savetskaya Entsyklapediya”. There was no place in this edition for Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine.

The size of the Jewish population of the republic in the post-war period decreased from 150,000 in 1959 to 112,000 in 1989. In 1959, there were 150 thousand Jews in Belarus. According to the 1979 census, 135 thousand Jews lived in the BSSR, and in 1989 - 112 thousand.

The main factor in the decline in numbers was in the 1970s - 1990s. migration processes and assimilation. Until 1989, the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union was not widespread. From 1979 to 1988, 9,955 Jews left the BSSR.

Since the 1970s, Minsk Jews began to hold a May 9 rally “on the Yam” at the monument to those killed in the ghetto, which was erected in 1947. This monument is the first in the USSR with an inscription in Yiddish: “To the Jews - victims of Nazism.” In the 1970s A movement for national dignity and the right to repatriation began in the city: underground ulpans appeared to study Hebrew, history and traditions. This activity became especially active in the mid-1980s.

The permission to travel abroad freely in 1989 marked the beginning of mass aliyah to Israel. The peak of emigration to Israel from Belarus occurred in 1989 - 1991. Over three years, 62,389 people went there.

The first Jewish organizations in Belarus appeared in the late 1980s.
In 1988, the Minsk Society of Lovers of Jewish Culture (MOLEK) was created, and in 1991, the Belarusian Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities was officially registered, which became part of the Vaad of the USSR.

In 1989 - 1994, the number of people who repatriated from Belarus to Israel amounted to 49,243 people. During this same time, Jewish emigration to the United States and other countries amounted to 227,000 people.

According to the 1999 census, the Jewish population in the republic was 27,810 people, while only one charitable organization, Hesed, serves more than 18 thousand people of retirement age. Based on this, even taking into account the age disproportions characteristic of the modern demographic situation, according to the most rough estimates, at least 50-60 thousand Jews should live in the republic.

Most Jews live in the capital of Belarus, Minsk. The remaining operating large communities are located in Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Grodno, Bobruisk, Polotsk, Mozyr, Baranovichi and Pinsk.

Diplomatic relations with Israel were established in 1992. In 2003 - 2005. The Israeli embassy in Minsk was closed as part of a campaign to save Israeli government budget funds. In response, Belarus in January 2004 de facto reduced its level of representation in the State of Israel, leaving a charge ad interim at the head of the embassy. The conflict was settled in January 2005, when the Israeli Embassy resumed its work in Minsk, and a consular section opened in June 2005. Currently, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel to the Republic of Belarus is Eddie Shapira. In May 2006, Belarus also appointed its ambassador to Israel, Igor Aleksandrovich Leshchenya.

In the Belarusian capital there is Jerusalem Street. In addition, by the decision of the Minsk City Council of Deputies, Mebelny Lane was renamed into a street named after one of the leaders of the underground in the Minsk ghetto, Mikhail Gebelev, with the installation of a memorial plaque. On January 15, 2008, the National Bank of Belarus introduced into circulation commemorative coins “Z. Azgur. 100th year”, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Belarusian sculptor, a Jew by nationality, Zaire Azgur. In March 2008, the National Tourism Agency of Belarus developed the excursion "Shooted Stars. The History of the Minsk Ghetto." In September 2005, a memorial plaque in honor of Israeli Prime Minister M. Begin was unveiled in Brest. Since October 2005, kosher bread has been baked at the bakery in Mogilev. The League of Interparliamentary Friendship "Belarus - Israel" is active, headed by deputy of the National Assembly of Belarus O. Velichko.

In the Republic of Belarus there is currently no Law on Restitution that would allow the return of property to legal or individuals. The only possibility exists for existing, officially registered religious communities - by decision of local authorities, they, as legal successors, can be given ownership of religious buildings that previously belonged to these denominations.

The most representative of the currently operating Jewish organizations in the country is the Union of Belarusian Jewish Public Associations and Communities (SBEOOO), headed by the Honored Architect of the Republic of Belarus, Lenin Prize laureate Leonid Levin. SBEOO is a member of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, actively cooperates with the World Jewish Congress, the European Jewish Congress and other international Jewish organizations → History of the Jewish community of Belarus.

→ Jewish neighborhoods and towns

→ Chronicles of the Minsk Ghetto

Physical extermination during the war, and then emigration, led to a steady decline in the Jewish population in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus after 1940:

in 1950 in post-war Belarus there were about 150 thousand Jews,
in 1970 - 148 thousand,
in 1979 - 135 thousand,
in 1989 - 112 thousand,
in 1999 - about 28 thousand,
in 2009 - 18.5 thousand (0.2% of the country's population).

Thus, Jews in Belarus virtually disappeared .

→ Warsaw Ghetto

In 1946, 23.8 million people lived in post-war Poland. Polish Jews There were still half a million people who escaped the Holocaust, but the Jews were still a large national group. By comparison, France, which now has the largest Jewish community in Europe, had only 180,000 Jews after the war.

However, within several post-war years, the vast majority of Jews left Poland. At the end of the sixties, there was a new surge in immigration, and almost all the Jews remaining in the country left Poland.

According to the 2002 Polish census, there were 1,133 Jews living in the country.

In the four hundred old Jewish cemeteries that have survived today in Poland and hundreds of others that have not survived, lie the ancestors of millions of citizens of Russia, Israel, the USA, Argentina, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries.

But Poland today is a country without Jews .

The number of Jews in Lithuania is constantly decreasing .

By the beginning of the 20th century, Jews made up 40% of the population of Vilnius. According to the 1923 census, the Jewish population of independent Lithuania reached approximately 154 thousand people (7.6% of the total population), living mainly in major cities- Kaunas (25 thousand, 27%), Panevezys (6.8 thousand, 36%), Siauliai (5.3 thousand, 24.9%), Ukmerge (3.9 thousand, 37.5%) , Vilkaviskis (Volkovyshki; 3.2 thousand, 44%) - and towns.

Lithuania was occupied by German troops at the end of June 1941. At the time of the occupation, there were from 225 to 265 thousand Jews in Lithuania, including 13-15 thousand refugees from Poland. By the beginning of 1942, remnants of Jewish communities remained only in the cities of Kaunas, Vilnius, Siauliai and Švenchis. In the ghetto of Vilnius there were about 20 thousand Jews, Kaunas - 17 thousand, Siauliai - 5 thousand, Shvenchis (Sventsyan) - about 500 people.

During the Second World War, on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR, which was part of the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire and included areas densely populated by Jews, almost 94% of Lithuanian Jews were exterminated.

In Vilnius, mass executions of Jews were carried out by units of Einsatzgruppe A and parts of the local police. In the village of Paneriai (Ponary), by the beginning of September 1941, about 35 thousand Jews were shot, and another 10 thousand by the end of the year (out of 60 thousand living in the city).

Vilnius. 1941

By mid-October 1941, the total number of Jews exterminated in Lithuania, according to the latest results scientific research, amounted to 71,105 people.

The Nazis deported European Jews to Lithuania for the purpose of extermination. So, at the end of December, trains with five thousand Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia arrived in Kaunas. They were immediately destroyed at the ninth fort. In 1941-43. Several thousand Jews from Belgium, the Netherlands and France were also exterminated there.

In most towns and cities of Lithuania, the entire Jewish population was exterminated by German units and detachments of Lithuanians by December 1941.

In total, by the end of January 1942, as a result of mass executions, death from cold and hunger, 180-185 thousand Jews died in Lithuania.

The tragedy of the Holocaust in Lithuania claimed the lives of 95-96% of the pre-war Jewish population (200 thousand people, according to other sources 215-220 thousand) of Lithuania. By 1944, only 600 Jews remained in Vilnius.

→ The mystery of the Vilna ghetto

According to the 1959 census, there were about 25 thousand Jews in Lithuania (less than 1% of the total population), of which over 16 thousand were in Vilnius, about 5000 in Kaunas.

According to the 1979 census (after the start of Jewish emigration from the USSR), the Jewish population of Lithuania was 15 thousand people (0.4% of the total population).

In 1989, the Jewish population of Lithuania was 12,400. In the late 1980s - early 2000s. a large number of Lithuanian Jews moved to Israel, the USA, Canada, Germany, and Australia. Total 1989-2004 7,362 people left Lithuania.

According to the 2001 census, there were 4,007 Jews in Lithuania, of which 2,769 were in Vilnius and 427 in Kaunas.