Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946

Anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944 to 1946 preceded and followed the end of World War II in Europe and influenced the postwar history of the Jews as well as Polish-Jewish relations. It occurred amid a period of violence and anarchy across the country, caused by lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland.[1][2] The estimated number of Jewish victims varies and ranges up to 2,000.[3] Jews constituted between 2% and 3% of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country,[3][4][5] including the Polish Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust on territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, and returned after the border changes imposed by the Allies at the Yalta Conference.[6][7] The incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogroms.

Jewish emigration from Poland surged partly as a result of this violence, but also because Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish emigration (aliyah) to Mandatory Palestine.[8] By contrast, the Soviet Union brought Soviet Jews from DP camps back to the USSR by force irrespective of their choice.[9] Uninterrupted traffic across the Polish borders intensified with many Jews passing through on their way west or south. In January 1946, there were 86,000 survivors registered with the Central Committee of Polish Jews (CKŻP). By the end of summer, the number had risen to about 205,000–210,000 (with 240,000 registrations and over 30,000 duplicates).[10] About 180,000 Jewish refugees came from the Soviet Union after the repatriation agreement.[10] Most left without visas or exit permits thanks to a decree of General Marian Spychalski.[8][11] By the spring of 1947 only 90,000 Jews resided in Poland.[12][13][14][15]

The violence and its causes have been highly politicized. Polish historian Lukasz Krzyzanowski states that both the attribution of antisemitic motives to all attackers, or on the other hand ascribing all anti-Jewish violence to ordinary criminality, are reductionist; however, in many cases "the Jewishness of the victims was unquestionably the chief, if not the sole, motive for the crime".[16] Tens of thousands of people were killed in Poland's two-year civil war, but also due to indiscriminate postwar lawlessness and abject poverty. Among the Jewish victims of violence directed against the new government were numerous functionaries of the new Stalinist regime, assassinated by the so-called cursed soldiers of the anti-communist underground due to their political loyalties.[17][18] Jan T. Gross noted that "only a fraction of [the Jewish] deaths could be attributed to anti-semitism."[18] The resentment towards returning Jews among some local Poles included concerns that they would reclaim their property.[19]

Background

Property claims and restitution

A restitution law "On Abandoned Real Estates" of May 6, 1945 allowed property owners who had been dispossessed, or their relatives and heirs, whether residing in Poland or outside the country, to reclaim privately owned property under a simplified inheritance procedure. The law remained in effect until the end of 1948. An expedited court process with minimal costs was put in place to handle claims. Applications had to be examined within 21 days, and many claims were processed the day they were filed. The Communist government enacted legislation on "abandoned property", placing severe limitations on inheritance not present in pre-war inheritance law which allowed inheritance by second-degree relatives, limiting restitution to the original owners or direct heirs. The unprecedented rate of extermination of Polish Jews in conjunction with the fact that only Jewish property was officially confiscated by the Nazis suggests "abandoned property" was equivalent to "Jewish property". Communist officials did not conceal this, the formulators of the law argued that it was necessary to prevent wealth concentration in the hands of "unproductive and parasite factors".[20] The initial 1945 decrees were superseded by a 1946 law,[21] with a claims deadline of 31 December 1947 (later extended to 31 December 1948) after which property devolved to the Polish state.[22] Even if Jews regained de-jure control, when it was occupied by Poles additional lengthy proceedings were required.[23] The majority of Jewish claimants could not afford the restitution process without financial help due to the filing costs, legal fees, and inheritance tax.[24]

Vast quantities of Jewish property were unclaimed due to some Jews being murdered when they sought restitution of family property and due to Jews fleeing postwar Poland. The murders, variously estimated, intimidated Jews from filing claims. Unclaimed Jewish property devolved to the Polish state on 31 December 1948, but many Jews who had fled to the Soviet Union were only repatriated after this date. Polish legislation in 1947 severely restricted intestate succession, limiting inheritance by distant family members.[25] Jews who returned to Poland from the Soviet Union and settled in the territories Poland acquired from Germany were entitled to material compensation on equal footing with ethnic Poles who were displaced from Eastern Poland.[26] While it is hard to estimate how many Jews got property back, they were likely few. [27]

Holocaust survivors and returnees

Polish Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust returning home were confronted with fears of being physically assaulted, robbed and even murdered by certain elements in the society.[28][29] The situation was further complicated by the fact that there were more Jewish survivors returning from the Soviet Union than those who managed to survive in occupied Poland,[7] thus leading to stereotypes holding Jews responsible for the imposition of totalitarian regime in Stalinist Poland.

Members of the former Communist Party of Poland (KPP) were returning home from the Soviet Union as prominent functionaries of the new regime. Among them was a highly visible number of Poles of Jewish origin, who became active in the Polish Workers' Party/Polish United Workers' Party and the Ministry of Public Security of Poland, among them Hilary Minc, the third in command in Bolesław Bierut's political apparatus and Jakub Berman, head of State Security Services (UB, Urząd Bezpieczeństwa) considered Joseph Stalin's right hand in Poland between 1944 and 1953.[30] Jewish representation in Bolesław Bierut's apparatus of political oppression was considerably higher than their share in the general Polish population.[31] The hypothesis emerged that Stalin had intentionally employed some of them in positions of repressive authority (see Gen. Roman Romkowski, director of the Special Bureau Anatol Fejgin and others) in order to put Poles and Jews "on a collision course."[5] A study by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance showed that between 1944 and 1954 out of 450 people in director positions in the Ministry, 37.1% (or 167) were Jewish.[31] The underground anti-communist press held them responsible for the murder of Polish opponents of the new regime.[32]

Anti-communist armed resistance

As the victory over Nazi Germany was celebrated in the West, in May 1945, Polish partisans attacked country offices of the PUBP, MO (communist state police), UB and NKVD employing numerous Jewish functionaries. Up to 80 percent of the officers, and 50 percent of the militiamen in Lublin alone,[33][34] as well as, up to 75 percent of the officers in Silesia were Jewish.[34] According to Eisenstein's estimates, 90 percent of the Jewish functionaries at the state security office in Katowice changed their names to Polish ones after November 10, 1945 for anonymity sake.[33][34] In May 1945, public security offices were destroyed by the anti-communist underground in Krasnosielc and Annówka (May 1), Kuryłówka (May 7), Grajewo and Białystok (May 9), Siemiatycze and Wyrzyki (May 11), Ostrołęka and Rembertów (May 18–21), Biała Podlaska (May 21, May 24), Majdan-Topiło (Białowieża Forest, May 28), Kotki (Busko-Zdrój) (May 28). Political prisoners were freed – sometimes up to several hundred or more (see, e.g. the attack on Rembertów) – many of whom were later recaptured and murdered.[35] The human rights law violations and the abuse of power by the Ministry only strengthened the anti-Jewish sentiments in Poland, adding to the "Żydokomuna" stereotype among ordinary Poles who in general had anti-Communist and anti-Soviet attitudes.[36] Accusations that Jews were being supportive of the new communist regime, and constituted a threat to Poland, came also from some high officials of the Roman Catholic Church.[37]

The provisions of the Yalta agreement allowed Stalin to forcibly return Jewish refugees along with all Soviet nationals from DP camps back to the USSR "irrespective of their personal wishes".[9] The former Polish citizens, the second largest refugee group in the West, did not even began to return until late 1946. Polish–Jewish DPs (25 percent of their grand total in the beginning of 1947) were declared nonrepatriable – due in part to the US pressure – which forced the British government to open the borders of Palestine.[38] By the spring of 1947 the number of Jews in Poland – in large part arriving from the Soviet Union – declined from 240,000 to 90,000 due to mass migration and the post-Holocaust absence of Jewish life in Poland.[7] "The flight" (Berihah) of Jews was motivated by the raging civil war on Polish lands, in as much as the efforts of a strong Polish-Jewish lobby at the Jewish Agency working towards a higher standard of living and special privileges for the immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak Raphael, director of the Immigration Department – who lobbied on behalf of Polish refugees – insisted on their preferential treatment in Israel.[8]

Reports of political repressions by the Communist forces in Poland and the wave of political murders by the security forces under Soviet control were mounting.[39] The United States ambassador to Poland, Arthur Bliss Lane, was troubled by the mass arrests of Polish non-Communists, and their terrorization by the security police.[39] The wave of state-sponsored terror and large-scale deportations was followed by the nationalization decree of January 1946.[39] In response to his protests, Bierut told Lane to "mind his own business."[39]

Blood libel

The prewar class of Polish intelligentsia ceased to exist. In the country of 23.7 million people in 1946, there were only 40,000 university graduates who survived the war; less than 0.2 percent of the general population.[40] Between 1944 and 1956 some 350,000–400,000 Poles were held in Stalinist prisons.[41] Sporadic anti-Jewish disturbances or riots were enticed by the spread of false blood libel accusations against some Jews in Polish towns – Kraków, Kielce, Bytom, Białystok, Bielawa, Częstochowa, Legnica, Otwock, Rzeszów, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Tarnów.[42][43][44] Acts of anti-Jewish violence were also recorded in villages and small towns of central Poland, where the overwhelming majority of attacks occurred.[45][46] According to Szaynok, the perpetrators of the anti-Jewish actions were seldom punished.[47]

The Kraków pogrom of August 11, 1945, was the first anti-Jewish riot in postwar Poland,[48] resulting in the shooting death of one woman, Róża Berger, who was hiding from the security forces behind closed doors.[49] A single shot was fired at a locking mechanism which shattered, piercing her body.[49] The immediate cause for the disturbance was a rumour spread by a young hooligan (who later claimed to have been tricked into it) that the corpses of Christian children were hidden at the Kupa Synagogue.[50][51] During the riot, Jews were attacked in Kazimierz, and other parts of the Old Town. A fire was set in Kupa Synagogue. In total, 145 suspects were arrested including 40 militiamen and 6 soldiers of the WP. In September and October 1945 some 25 of them were charged and 10 of them were sentenced to prison.[51] Shortly after the Kielce pogrom, violence against Jews in Poland had ceased entirely.[45]

Kielce pogrom

A pogrom (the causes of which are still very controversial),[44] erupted in Kielce on July 4, 1946.[52] The rumour that a Polish boy had been kidnapped by Jews but had managed to escape, and that other Polish children had been ritually murdered by Jews – according to Pynsent – ignited a violent public reaction directed at the Jewish Center.[52] Attacks on Jewish residents of Kielce were provoked by units of the communist militia and the Soviet-controlled Polish Army who confirmed the rumors of the kidnapping. Police and soldiers were also the first to fire shots at Jews, according to Szaynok.[53]

The pogrom in Kielce resulted in 42 people being murdered and about 50 seriously injured,[4][44] yet the number of victims does not reflect the impact of the atrocities committed. The Kielce pogrom was a turning point for the postwar history of Polish Jews according to Michael R. Marrus, as the Zionist underground concluded that there was no future for Jews in Europe.[54] Soon after, Gen. Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits,[55] and the Jewish emigration from Poland increased dramatically.[54] In July 1946, almost 20,000 Jews left Poland. By September, there were approximately 12,000 Jews left.[56] Britain demanded that Poland (among others) halt the Jewish exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.[57]

Number of victims

A statistical compendium of "Jewish deaths by violence for which specific record is extant, by month and province" was compiled by Engel for the Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center's International School for Holocaust Studies.[45] The study used as a starting point a 1973 report by historian Lucjan Dobroszycki, who wrote that he had "analyzed records, reports, cables, protocols and press-cuttings of the period pertaining to anti-Jewish assaults and murders in 115 localities" in which approximately 300 Jewish deaths had been documented.[58]

A number of historians, including Antony Polonsky and Jan T. Gross[59] cite the figures originating from Dobroszycki's 1973 work.[60] Dobroszycki wrote that "according to general estimates 1,500 Jews lost their lives in Poland from liberation until the summer of 1947",[61] although historian Jan Gross who cited Dobroszycki claimed that only a fraction of these deaths can be attributed to antisemitism and that most were due to general postwar disorder, political violence and banditry.[18] David Engel wrote that Dobroszycki "offered no reference for such 'general estimates'" which "have not been confirmed by any other investigator" and "no proof-text for this figure" exists, not even a smaller one of 1,000 claimed by Gutman.[62] According to Engel, "both estimates seem high."[45] Other estimates include those of Anna Cichopek claiming more than 1,000 Jews murdered in Poland between 1944 and 1947.[63] According to Stefan Grajek around 1,000 Jews died in the first half of year 1946.[64] Historian Tadeusz Piotrowski estimated that between 1944 and 1947 there were 1,500–2,000 Jewish victims of general civil strife that came about with Soviet consolidation of power, constituting 2 to 3 percent of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country.[65]

In the Yad Vashem Studies paper, Holocaust historian David Engel wrote:

[Dobroszycki] did not report the results of that analysis except in the most general terms, nor did he indicate the specific sources from which he had compiled his list of cases. Nevertheless, a separate, systematic examination of the relevant files in the archive of the Polish Ministry of Public Administration, supplemented by reports prepared by the United States embassy in Warsaw and by Jewish sources in Poland, as well as by bulletins published by the Central Committee of Polish Jews and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, has lent credibility to Dobroszycki's claim: it has turned up more or less detailed descriptions of 130 incidents in 102 locations between September 1944 and September 1946, in which 327 Jews lost their lives. — David Engel, Yad Vashem.[45]

Studying case records, Engel wrote that the compilation of cases is not exhaustive, suggesting that cases of anti-Jewish violence were selectively reported and recorded, and that there was no centralized, systematic effort to record these cases. He cites numerous incidental reports of killings of Jews for which no official reporting has survived. He concludes that these figures have "obvious weaknesses" and that the detailed records used to compile them are clearly deficient and lacking data from the Białystok region. For example, Engel cites one source that shows a total of 108 Jewish deaths during March 1945, and another source that shows 351 deaths between November 1944 and December 1945.[45]

References

1. Cichopek-Gajraj, Anna (2014). Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944-48. Introduction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 26, 47, 114, 143. ISBN 978-1107036666. The most intense battles took place in the east but the fighting was not limited to this region; all over the country, partisans clashed with communist security forces. Repressions increased in the winter of 1945/46 and spring of 1946, when entire villages were burnt. The fighting lasted with varying intensity until 1948 and ended with thousands killed, wounded, arrested, or transported to the Soviet Union.^{[p. 26]}
2. Prazmowska, Anita J. (2004). Civil War in Poland 1942-1948. Springer. p. 11. ISBN 0230504884.
3. Joanna B. Michlic. The Holocaust and Its Aftermath as Perceived in Poland: Voices of Polish Intellectuals, 1945-1947. In: David Bankier, ed. The Jews are Coming Back: The Return of the Jews to Their Countries of Origin After WW II. Berghahn Books, 2005.
4. David S. Wyman, Charles H. Rosenzveig. The World Reacts to the Holocaust. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
5. Tadeusz Piotrowski, Poland's Holocaust, page 130, (ibidem) Published by McFarland, 1998.
6. Berthon, Simon; Potts, Joanna (2007). Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-Creation of World War II. Da Capo Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0306816505.
7. Michael Bernhard; Henryk Szlajfer (2004). From the Polish Underground. Penn State Press. p. 375. ISBN 0-271-02565-4., ISBN 978-0-271-02565-0, 500 pages.
8. Hakohen, Devorah (2003). Immigrants in Turmoil: Mass Immigration to Israel and Its Repercussions in the 1950s and After. Syracuse University Press; 325 pages. pp. 70–. ISBN 0-8156-2969-9.
9. Kochavi, Arieh J. (2011). Post-Holocaust politics: Britain, the United States & Jewish refugees, 1945-1948. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-8078-2620-1.
10. David Engel. "Poland. Liberation, Reconstruction, and Flight (1944-1947)" (PDF). YIVO. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 3, 2013. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
11. Philipp Ther, Ana Siljak (2001). Redrawing nations: ethnic cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 138. ISBN 0-7425-1094-8. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
12. Albert Stankowski, with August Grabski and Grzegorz Berendt; Studia z historii Żydów w Polsce po 1945 roku, Warszawa, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny 2000, pp.107-111. ISBN 83-85888-36-5
13. Natalia Aleksiun. "Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland, 1944–1947." In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, ed. Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press, 2003. Pages 249; 256.
14. Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust University Press of Kentucky 1989 - 201 pages. Page 13; also in Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944, University Press of Kentucky 1986 - 300 pages.
15. Michael C. Steinlauf. "Poland.". In: David S. Wyman, Charles H. Rosenzveig. The World Reacts to the Holocaust. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
16. Krzyzanowski, Lukasz (2020). Ghost Citizens: Jewish Return to a Postwar City. Harvard University Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-674-98466-0. Lay summary. The broader issue of antiJewish violence has been studied many times in recent years, yet it remains highly politicized. One must be aware of at least two serious risks in analyzing its post-Holocaust occurrence. The first is extreme reductionism, the attempt to ascribe to Jews’ ethnic origins every act of violence to which they fell victim.1 But after all, Jews, like Poles, Americans, or Chinese, can be attacked, battered, or murdered for many reasons, not only because of their ethnicity. The second danger is acceptance of the opposite position—the explanation of anti-Jewish violence solely as postwar, ordinary criminality. Such an approach is disqualified by the simple finding that for some attackers the ethnicity of their victims did matter fundamentally. In the case of many attacks on Jews carried out immediately after the war in Poland, the Jewishness of the victims was unquestionably the chief, if not the sole, motive for the crime.
17. Grabski, August. "Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL); page 11, note 7 of current document" (PDF direct download, 1.03 MB). Book review of Stefan Grajek, "Po wojnie i co dalej? Żydzi w Polsce, w latach 1945−1949", translated from Hebrew by Aleksander Klugman, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw 2003 (p. 95) (in Polish). Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, Recenzje (Jewish History Quarterly; Reviews). p. 240. Retrieved July 4, 2012. Żydzi byli zabijani nie tylko przez niektóre organizacje prawicowego podziemia, ale też przez pospolitych bandytów [oraz] jako funkcjonariusze komunistycznego państwa, bez dodatkowego motywu rasistowskiego. Wedle Aliny Całej, liczba Żydów zabitych w latach 1944−1947 przekracza tysiąc osób (Alina Cała, Mniejszość żydowska, [in:] Piotr Madajczyk (red.), Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce. Państwo i społeczeństwo polskie a mniejszości narodowe w okresach przełomów politycznych (1944−1989), Warszawa 1998, s. 252).
18. Jan Tomasz Gross, Revolution from Abroad Princeton University Press - Page 277
19. Natalia Aleksiun. Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland, 1944-1947. In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, ed. Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press, 2003.
20. Weizman, Yechiel. "Unsettled possession: the question of ownership of Jewish sites in Poland after the Holocaust from a local perspective." Jewish Culture and History 18.1 (2017): 34-53.
21. Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944–48, Cambridge University Press, Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, page 72
22. The Plunder of Jewish Property during the Holocaust, Palgrave, page 101
23. Searching for Justice After the Holocaust: Fulfilling the Terezin Declaration and Immovable Property Restitution, Oxford University Press, page 325
24. false Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944–48, Cambridge University Press, Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, page 82
25. The Plunder of Jewish Property during the Holocaust: Confronting European History, Palgrave, Laurence Weinbaum, pages 100-1
26. Robbery and Restitution: The Conflict Over Jewish Property in Europe, Berghan Books in association with United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dariusz Stola, pages 244-248
27. Shattered Spaces, Harvard University Press, page 52
28. Bozena Szaynok. "The Role of Antisemitism in Postwar Polish-Jewish Relations." Page 270. In: Robert Blobaum, ed. Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland. Cornell University Press, 2005.
29. Joanna B. Michlic. Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present. University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
30. "Jakub Berman’s Papers Received at the Hoover Institution Archives", Stanford University Hoover Institution, August 11, 2008 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University Library and Archives Recent Acquisitions
31. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk Żydzi w kierownictwie UB. Stereotyp czy rzeczywistość? (Jews in the authorities of the Polish Secret Security. Stereotype or Reality?), Bulletin of the Institute of National Remembrance (11/2005), p. 37-42:online article (PDF 1.10 MB), entire issue.
32. Daniel Blatamn. "The Encounter between Jews and Poles in Lublin District after Liberation, 1944-1945." East European Politics & Societies. 2006, Vol. 20, No. 4, 598-621. Pages 601-602.
33. Tadeusz Piotrowski (2007). Poland's holocaust: ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces. McFarland. p. 313. ISBN 978-0-7864-2913-4.
34. Sack, John (1993). An eye for an eye. BasicBooks. pp. 175, 183. ISBN 0465042147. For background to a Decree issued on November 10, 1945, by the State National Council (Krajowa Rada Narodowa, KRN) about changing and adjusting names and surnames, see Powojenne prawo o zmianie nazwisk by Virtual Shtetl, Warsaw.
35. "Anti-Communist Armed Underground in Poland After 1944 - An Introduction." The Doomed Soldiers. Polish Underground Soldiers 1944–1963 - The Untold Story. See also: "National Armed Forces. Polish Underground Soldiers 1944–1963." DoomedSoldiers.com.
36. Aleksander Hertz (1988). The Jews in Polish Culture. Northwestern University Press. p. 1.
37. Dariusz Libionka, Antisemitism, Anti-Judaism, and the Polish Catholic Clergy during the Second World War, 1939-1945. In: Robert Blobaum, ed. Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland. Cornell University Press, 2005.
38. Kochavi, Arieh J. (2001), Post-Holocaust politics, page 31.
39. Lukas, Richard C. (2015). From Potsdam to Kielce. Bitter Legacy: Polish-American Relations in the Wake of World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 43–45, 47. ISBN 978-0813150437 – via Google Books.
40. Wielka Historia Polski. "Bilans strat Polski po II wojnie światowej" [Summary of Poland's World War II Losses]. NowaHistoria.interia.pl. Wydawnictwo Pinnex, Kraków 2000. The population was reduced by one-third from 35.1 million in 1939 to 23.7 million people in 1946. The ruling elite was wiped out: there were less than 40,000 people with higher education. Original: »ludność Polski zmniejszyła się z 35,1 mln osób w 1939 roku do 23,7 mln w 1946 roku, tj. o prawie jedną trzecią. Społeczeństwo polskie pozbawione zostało w zasadzie elity przywódczej: z wszystkich jego grup społecznych największe straty poniosła inteligencja i po zakończeniu wojny liczba ludzi z wyższym wykształceniem wynosiła niecałe 40 tys.«
41. Grzesik, Julian (2010). Po Zagładzie Żydów (1944 – 1948) [After the Jewish Genocide (1944 – 1948)] (PDF). Lublin: LIBER Duo S.C. Publishing. p. 22, or 24 of 332 in PDF. ISBN 978-83-61301-91-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-04. Retrieved 2018-01-04. According to IPN estimates (2007) there were 350,000–400,000 political prisoners held in Poland from 1944 till 1956. Original: »Ogółem według szacunków IPN z 2007,^[10] w latach 1944–1956 w aresztach i więzieniach znalazło się z powodów politycznych ok. 350–400 tysięcy osób (wliczając w to ok. 100 tys. ofiar prześladowań za rządów Bieruta w okresie 1949-1956).«
42. Gross, Jan T. (2005). "After Auschwitz: The Reality and Meaning of Postwar Antisemitism in Poland". In Jonathan Frankel (ed.). Studies in Contemporary Jewry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-518224-3.
43. Aleksiun, Natalia (2003). "Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland 1944-1947". In Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.). Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press. p. 248.
44. Piotrowski, Tadeusz (1998). Poland's Holocaust. McFarland. p. 136. ISBN 9780786403714. responsible for orchestrating the Kielce pogrom the chief of the UB Soviet intelligence officer.
45. Engel, David (1998). "Patterns of Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1944-1946" (PDF). Yad Vashem Studies. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. XXVI. pp. 21 (§ 2), 32. PDF file, 198 KB. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
46. István Deák; Jan Tomasz Gross; Tony Judt (2000). The politics of retribution in Europe : World War II and its aftermath. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. p. 111. ISBN 0-691-00953-8. OCLC 43840165.
47. B. Szaynok, in Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland By Robert Blobaum. Page 271
48. Michlic, p. 347.
49. Konopka, Tomasz (2005). "Śmierć na ulicach Krakowa w latach 1945-1947 w materiale archiwalnym krakowskiego Zakładu Medycyny Sądowej" [Deaths on the streets of Kraków in 1945-1947 at the archives of the Institute of Forensic Medicine] (PDF). Pamięć I Sprawiedliwość (Memory and Justice). Muzeum Historii Polski. 4/2 (8), 143–157. p. 148 (7 of 16 in PDF). The coroners' report revealed: the body was pierced by a bullet and shrapnel from the locking mechanism. Original: »ciało zostało przebite na wylot nie tylko przez sam pocisk, ale także przez stalowe i mosiężne odłamki pochodzące z rozbitego strzałem zamka.«
50. Cichopek, Anna (2003). "The Cracow pogrom of August 1945: A Narrative Reconstruction". In Zimmerman, Joshua D. (ed.). Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press. pp. 224–. ISBN 0813531586. Essay.
51. Libionka, Dariusz (2002). "Recenzja: Pogrom Żydów w Krakowie 11 sierpnia 1945 r. by Anna Cichopek, Warszawa 2000" [Review of The Cracow pogrom of August 11, 1945 by Anna Cichopek, 2000] (PDF). Pamięć I Sprawiedliwość. Muzeum Historii Polski. 1/1, 179–182. The author, [Anna Cichopek], repeats the stereotype found in literature, about the resurgence of anti-Semitic rhetoric in times of crisis, but curiously enough, does not explain how it would have been possible in postwar Kraków with no evidence of the blood libel propaganda in the 1930s... And, in spite of all documentary evidence confirming the death of one person, Cichopek claims five victims by looking at photographs from some funeral. Original: »Autorka nie wyjaśnia zadziwiającego powrotu tego motywu w pierwszych latach powojennych, zadowalając się powtórzeniem poglądu zakorzenionego w literaturze przedmiotu...«
52. Robert B. Pynsent, ed. (2000). The Phoney Peace: Power and Culture in Central Europe, 1945-49. University of London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. ISBN 0-903425-01-7.
53. B. Szaynok, in Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland By Robert Blobaum. Page 272
54. Marrus, Michael Robert; Aristide R. Zolberg (2002). The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War Through the Cold War. Temple University Press. p. 336. ISBN 1-56639-955-6. This gigantic effort, known by the Hebrew code word Brichah(flight), accelerated powerfully after the Kielce pogrom in July 1946
55. Aleksiun, Natalia. "Beriḥah". YIVO. Suggested reading: Arieh J. Kochavi, "Britain and the Jewish Exodus...," Polin 7 (1992): pp. 161–175
56. Ochayon, Sheryl. "Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland After Liberation".
57. Kochavi, Arieh J. (2001). Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States & Jewish Refugees, 1945–1948. The University of North Carolina Press. pp. xi. ISBN 0-8078-2620-0. Britain exerted pressure on the governments of Poland.
58. Lucjan Dobroszycki. "Restoring Jewish Life in Post-War Poland", Soviet Jewish Affairs 3 (1973), pp. 68-70. Cited in Engel 1998
59. István Deák; Jan Tomasz Gross; Tony Judt (2000). The politics of retribution in Europe : World War II and its aftermath. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. pp. 106–107. ISBN 0-691-00953-8. OCLC 43840165.
60. See, e.g., Antony Polanski. My Brother's Keeper? Routledge, 1989; Meyer Weinberg. Because They Were Jews: A History of Antisemitism. Greenwood Press, 1986; Jan Tomasz Gross. Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia. Princeton University Press, 2002; Natalia Aleksiun. Jewish Responses to Antisemitism in Poland, 1944-1947. In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, ed. Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press, 2003.
61. Cited in Engel, 1998
62. Yisrael Gutman. The Jews in Poland after World War II (Hebrew), (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 1985).
63. Cichopek (2003), "The Cracow pogrom of August 1945" [in] Contested Memories, p. 221. ISBN 0813531586. Essay.
64. (in Polish) Stefan Grajek, Po wojnie i co dalej? Żydzi w Polsce, w latach 1945−1949, (translated from Hebrew by Aleksander Klugman), Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warszawa 2003, pg. 254
65. Tadeusz Piotrowski (1998). Poland's holocaust : ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947. McFarland and Company. pp. 130. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. OCLC 37195289. 2,000 Jews between 1944 1947.