Polish-Jewish Relations Within the Anders Army A

Home , Berek Joselewicz, Dov Levin, Edward Kossoy, Eliyahu Dobkin, Israel Bartal, Israel Carmi

Contested Loyalties in War: Polish-Jewish Relations within the Anders Army

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the Faculty of Humanities

2019

Dominika Cholewinska-Vater

School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

List of Contents

List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………………………………..5

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………6

Declaration and Copyright Statement………………………………………………………………8

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………….9

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………..10

Research Objectives and Questions……………………………………………………..18

Theoretical Framework and Concepts………………………………………………….22

Literature Review (Historiography)………………………………………………………28

Contribution of the Study…………………………………………………………………….42

Methods and Sources…………………………………………………………………………..44

Structure of the Thesis…………………………………………………………………………50

Historical Background………………………………………………………………………….54

Chapter One: Polish-Jewish relations in Palestine before the arrival of the Polish Army in the East…………………………………………………………………………………..57

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………57

1. Wartime Refugeedom…………………………………………………………………….59

2. Wartime Palestine…………………………………………………………………………..71

3. Polish-Jewish Military Agreement………………………………………………..…88

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….101

Chapter Two: Official Polish narratives concerning the desertion of Jewish soldiers in the Soviet Union………………………………………………………………………...105

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….105

1. Jews as Bad Soldiers……………………………………………………………………..112

2. Jews as Disloyal…………………………………………………………………………….125

3. Jews as Pro-Communist…………………………………………………………….....130

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….139

Chapter Three: Jewish Narratives on Jews and the Polish Army…………………..143

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………….143

1. The Revisionist Faction and Military Values……………………………………….150

2. The Representation of Polish Jewry and Civic Equality……………………….161

3. The Yishuv and its Need for Pioneers and Soldiers……………………………..173

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………186

Chapter Four: Official Polish Reactions to Desertions by Jewish Soldiers……..191

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….191

1. The Polish Law on Desertions……………………………………………………….199

2. The Soviet Case…………………………………………………………………………….204

3. The British Case…………………………………………………………………………….208

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….225

Chapter Five: Official Polish Reactions to Jewish Soldiers’ Desertions – Epilogue

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….229

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….229

1. The Ethnic Inequality as the Sense of Justice…………………………………234

2. The Pressure of British Public Opinion and Political Elites……………..243

3. Polish Internal Crisis as a Source of Self-Examination……………………253

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….263

Chapter Six: The Aftermath of Jewish Soldiers’ Desertions in Palestine……….267

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….267

1. The Mainstream Zionists and the Jewish Legion……………………………272

2. Radical Movements in the Yishuv: Zionists-Revisionists and

Communists………………………………………………………………………………….284

3. The Representation of Polish Jewry………………………………………………304

4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….312

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………316

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………344

Word count: 80,637

List of Abbreviations

AAN Archiwum Akt Nowych (Central Archive of Modern Records) C. in C. Commander in Chief CZA Central Zionist Archives IDF and MOD Israeli Defence Forces and Ministry of Defence WPP Wojskowy Przegląd Prawniczy (journal)

Abstract

This thesis examines Polish-Jewish relations and the policies that shaped them during WWII outside occupied Poland within the deterritorialised Polish state in exile. It takes as its point of examination the case of mass desertions by Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army answerable to the exiled Polish government, and the impact it had on relations between Poles and Jews under the aegis of the Allies (particularly Britain, which held the mandate for Palestine in which most of the desertions took place in 1943). The question why the Jewish soldiers deserted the Polish Army en masse was not infrequently raised in post-war Polish historiography, either in Poland (both before and after the transition from communism to democracy) or in the Polish diaspora in the West. This thesis makes a novel intervention in this debate by restoring to relevant historiography the contextual yet universal condition of wartime refugeedom, which, as this thesis shows, preceded the ethnic operative categories of “Pole” or “Jew”. By doing this, this thesis deconstructs the politicized ethno-nationalist Polish and Jewish contemporary narratives, which subsequently came to underpin post-war mainstream Polish and Israeli historiographies on the subject, whose treatment of the desertions was fundamentally irreconcilable both morally and methodologically.

The central argument of this thesis is that the desertions were a result of complementary Polish and Jewish policies: the former wished to push the Jewish minority outside the boundaries of the ethnically-defined Polish body politic, while the latter’s vested interest laid in encouraging Polish Jews to settle in the Palestinian Yishuv. The specific role of the societal beliefs informing these policies and the concepts developed on both sides in their wake is scrutinized in this thesis. This study identifies the Polish wartime regime as an ethnic democracy, using this term as an efficient analytical mechanism to explain the handling of the Jewish minority issue by the Polish government in exile which, in spite of its pretences to abide by the principles of liberal democracy in order to gain its rightful place among the Allies, ultimately spoke above all for the ethnic Polish majority. This government, and its diplomatic and administrative branches, encountered the leadership of the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv), an encounter which highlighted certain key features of Polish-Jewish relations: majority-minority dynamics, sense of belonging, and inclusion versus exclusion from the body politic, in theory as well as in practice.

Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the help and support of the following individuals and institutions:

Special thanks and credit go to my supervisor, Dr Ewa Ochman, for her guidance and patience. I also want to thank my co-supervisor, Dr Jean-Marc

Dreyfus and my advisor, Dr Cathy Gelbin, for their help and support. I want also thank my husband, Dr Roman Vater, for his insightful suggestions and support, and Susan Kennedy for her diligent proofreading and copy-editing.

I am indebted to the following institutions: Polish Institute and Sikorski

Museum and Archives in London, Central Zionist Archives, Haganah Archives and Jabotinsky Institute in Israel. This research was made possible by the

CEELBAS post-graduate studentship and the President’s Doctoral Scholarship.

Introduction

The extermination of Jews that took place on Polish soil and in the presence of

the Poles does not belong to Polish history and does not constitute part of the

Polish fate, in the historical awareness of the dominant Poles…

Polish Centre for Holocaust Research

Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

This statement on the website of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research reflects one of the central problems this thesis is addressing. The Polish-Jewish dynamics during the Second World War demonstrate the tragic paradox of

Poles and Jews living together within the same society while at the same time remaining apart. Consequently, the question arises of whether the extermination of Jews who were Polish citizens is part of Polish history or not.

The way this issue is framed by the Centre engages with categories of ethnicity and the identification of episodes of history with either Jews or Poles. As I see it, the purpose of the Centre is to assess the position of Jews within Polish wartime society, focusing on the dynamics between Jews and their non-Jewish environment. It assumes a critical approach to the category of ethnicity,

10 without however denying its validity in wartime and its tragic consequences.

After all, it is a common observation that Polish-Jewish relations, both during the war and well before, were often shaped by separation rather than integration.

One of the outcomes of this new approach was the reassessment of Raul

Hilberg’s famous triad of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims in the Shoah.1

These categories were usually identified with particular ethnicities, Germans being the perpetrators, Poles the bystanders, and Jews the victims. In the course of the Centre’s research it emerged that this three-role model was not precise enough to depict the complex social reality under the German occupation, and that Poles to a larger extent than previously believed were involved as perpetrators (or their supporters) in the Shoah, to the outraged disbelief of certain parts of Polish society.2 It has thus become evident that the period of the Second World War in general, and wartime Polish-Jewish relations in particular, call for new interpretations and revisions and have the potential to engage both scholars and the non-academic public.

Two other terms that appear in the above citation are key: the sense of belonging and dominance. Polish-Jewish relations were majority-minority

1 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, first edition: Yale University Press, New Haven, 1961. 2 The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy of Jedwabne Massacre in Poland, eds. Antony Polonsky, Joanna B. Michlic, Princeton University Press, 2004.

11 relations, which indicates a fundamental asymmetry between the two sides.

The sense of belonging is a complex matter that can be encouraged or discouraged, or even exist irrespective of any actions. The link between the sense of belonging and dominance is exhibited in the majority’s ability, from a position of power, to exclude or include a minority (within a community, fate, or the narratives of the common past), even when the minority’s sense of belonging speaks against it. This is what the Centre’s researchers observed: the non-existence in Polish historical awareness of the extermination of Polish

Jews. Since the Shoah happened “on Polish soil and in the Polish presence” it must at a certain point have been expunged from the majority’s collective consciousness.

That said, focusing on Polish-Jewish relations in occupied Poland does not cover Polish-Jewish interaction during the war in its entirety. This work draws attention to an “overseas” aspect of Polish-Jewish wartime relations, shaped in exile, which complements the domestic relations between Poles and Jews under Nazi occupation. The Polish-Jewish overseas relations extend outside the domestic context not only by reason of their setting in wartime refugeedom, but also by pertaining to relations between Poles and non-Polish

Jews, specifically the Jewish community in Palestine known as the Yishuv.

Released from the immediate domestic context, Polish-Jewish relations in

12 wartime exile evolved around the themes of social belonging and majority- minority dynamics. This thesis frames Polish-Jewish relations as relations between a majority and a minority, or, as Daniel Bartal and Yona Teichman put it, an in-group and out-group.3 It employs the categories that were briefly mentioned earlier – a sense of belonging, exclusion from a community and inclusion in another one – and tracks the patterns of official discrimination based on societal beliefs, the well-rooted pre-conceptions of the “others”, the policies of attraction to the Yishuv, or the pre-war Polish policy of encouraging the emigration of Polish Jews to Palestine (what Matthew Frank called a policy of ethnic unmixing).4

They (Polish-Jewish relations in wartime exile) introduced yet another historical-analytical breaking point: the exit of Polish Jews from the community of Polish refugees and their entry into the community of Palestinian Jews. This thesis situates the moment of the Jews’ abandonment of the Polish exile community, expressed by mass desertions, at the heart of its analysis and looks at the dynamics that informed the Jewish desertions and the conditions of their developing a new sense of belonging to the Yishuv.

3 Daniel Bar-Tal, Yona Teichman, Sterotypes and prejudice in conflict: Representation of Arabs in Israeli Jewish Society, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005. The terms in-group and out-group were first explained by Henri Tajfel, “Social identity and intergroup behaviour”, Social Science Information, April, 1974, p. 65-93. 4 Matthew Frank, Writing Minorities History: Population Transfer in Twentieth-Century Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017.

The sense of belonging pertains not only to the Polish or Jewish community in the shaky conditions of wartime refugeedom, but also to the historical consciousness of Poles and Jews. The deserters belong fully to neither, since

Polish historical consciousness looks at them in the moment of departure, while Jewish (or Israeli) historical consciousness treats them as escapees from persecution and overlooks the active involvement of the Yishuv in drawing them in. Both parties tend to see the deserters through the lenses of their national historical paradigms: as disloyal Jews on the one hand, and as immigrants-victims of diaspora anti-Semitism on the other. This thesis aims to transcend national histories by viewing the deserters’ story in its completeness.

In so doing, this thesis looks outside the wartime timeframe of 1939-1945.

Although it begins its investigation with the emergence of the Polish wartime diaspora after September 1939, it also frequently refers to the pre-war period of the Polish Second Republic (1918-1939), when the state-created framework for Polish-Jewish relations was carved, and which was by and large recreated in the wartime diaspora. The analysis also goes beyond the end of the war by looking at the projects for the new political regime that the wartime Polish authorities in exile hoped to install in liberated Poland, and at the aftermath of the desertions in Palestine. The central event this thesis is concerned with is

14 the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army; therefore the narrative follows the trail of the Polish Army in the East from the Soviet Union to the Middle East, but equally regularly considers the Polish civil and military headquarters in the west, located in Great Britain. This thesis considers military service in the Polish Army in the East, as well as desertions from it, as secondary to the overwhelming status of a wartime refugee, common to the

Polish pre-war citizens. The Anders Army was formed of wartime refugees, volunteers of various ethnic descent. Thus, this study aims to depict the broad panorama of Polish-Jewish relations during the wartime exile, focusing on the political activity of the Polish wartime administration concerned with military service and the desertions of Polish Jews, and with the unanticipated institutional encounter between the Polish wartime refugees, Poles and Jews, arriving from the warzone and the Yishuv. Palestine became during this time one of the centres of the Polish wartime diaspora, a locus of displacement for

Polish refugees. It was also a vibrant environment of local policies, with Jewish and Arab political and ideological forces competing for self-governance. It was also the place where the central issue of this thesis, the desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army, became a mass phenomenon. By examining the

Polish and Jewish policies implemented in Palestine, this thesis traces the link between the place, the condition of refugeedom, the mass nature of the

15 desertions, and the transformation of many deserters from Polish refugees into Jewish migrants. It also looks at other important places of Polish refugee concentration, particularly Great Britain, where the highest-level Polish authorities sculpted the guidelines of wartime policy, and the Soviet Union, where the Polish Army was formed, experienced its first interethnic tensions, and started its journey to the Middle East.

Given that this thesis directs its attention to Polish and Jewish institutions and their mutual interactions over the multi-ethnic cohort of wartime refugees, it focuses on the institutions involved in Polish-Jewish relations in exile. The overview of the institutions involved in Polish-Jewish relations in exile starts with the highest Polish authorities: the Polish government, the President of the

Polish Republic, and the high military command. It then discusses Polish diplomatic outposts, especially in Palestine and in the Soviet Union, before exploring the whole range of Jewish institutions and political organizations, such as the Representation of Polish Jewry, the mainstream Palestinian Zionist leadership and the opposition to it, including the Revisionist faction and the communist movement. It finishes with the Yishuv’s underground military organizations of various political affiliations. These multi-dimensional contacts did not take place in a political vacuum. The immediate political context was created by the Soviet and British authorities: the former hosted the Polish

Army in the East in its initial phases, and the latter not only hosted the highest exiled Polish institutions and but also exercised authority over Palestine as the

Mandatory power. Therefore, in order to produce as accurate a picture of

Polish-Jewish relations as possible, both British and Soviet policies towards the

Polish ally are considered.

This top-down perspective is consequently used to analyse the events this thesis looks at, in a wider temporal context that makes it possible to assess the unstated and implicit aspects of both Polish and Jewish policies concerning

Polish and Jewish communities. Juxtaposing these reflections with analyses of the statements made by Polish or Jewish wartime officials concerning Polish-

Jewish relations, the thesis demonstrates how the official discourse of declarations and postulates met reality and was adapted in accordance with changing conditions and the interlocutors’ reactions. The wartime refugeedom opened a unique opportunity for the continuation of official and institutional

Polish-Jewish relations; however, it also produced a specific setting in which physical dispersion, poor living conditions and overall uncertainty regarding the future determined the particular needs that the Polish and Jewish elites had to meet. What was impossible under Nazi occupation became possible in refugeedom: Polish and Jewish leaders and authorities talked, corresponded and interacted over the challenges of wartime refugeedom. It did not mean

17 that the voices of Polish and Jewish refugees themselves went unheard. The official verbal exchange is preoccupied with soldiers’ and refugees’ testimonies, letters and statements, with detailed comments by officials.

Altogether the sources form a reflection on discourse and hierarchies, some emerging from the bottom and some coming from the top, enabling us to track the immediate responses of the actors involved in the exchange. The main value of this approach is the analysis of the discursive exchange formulated in parallel to, and coterminous with, the relevant events.

Research Objectives and Questions

The main objective of this thesis is to provide an analysis of Polish-Jewish relations in wartime exile by examining the policies implemented by the Polish authorities and Jewish political leaders regarding Polish and Jewish refugees.

To this end, it analyses the policies undertaken by the Polish authorities both towards Polish citizens and the Palestinian Yishuv. It also looks at the policies of the main political Jewish organizations in Palestine vis-à-vis the incoming

Polish refugees, from whose numbers the Jewish deserters came. To achieve these aims, the thesis poses a series of questions, which are detailed in the following paragraphs.

First, this research tackles the question of why the Jewish soldiers deserted the ranks of the Polish Army. This question was raised immediately the desertions

18 took place and became a central element in the literature of Polish and Jewish wartime history. The answers suggested during the war by the actors in the events have substantially shaped the scholarship produced by post-war historiographies, both in Poland and the West. This thesis revisits this question by critically scrutinizing the original elements that formed the most commonly given answers. In order to identify their basic elements, it analyses the narratives developed by Polish and Jewish officials to explain the desertions as well as the way these narratives were put to use by Polish and Jewish leaders.

By unpacking the narratives’ concepts and language, this thesis identifies the values and functions that informed them: how do the Polish and Jewish narratives, developed by Jewish and Polish, depict Poles and Jews? How were these incorporated into policies declared and implemented by Polish and

Jewish wartime leaders? What political needs were the narratives responding to? What was the role of societal beliefs, to use the term suggested by Daniel

Bar Tal for perpetuated and strong convictions regarding the “other”, in construing the narratives? 5 How did the Polish and Jewish narratives relate to each other? To address these questions adequately, this study refers to certain episodes affecting Polish-Jewish relations prior to the war. It is specifically interested in the lives of Poles and Jews during the period of partition under

5 Daniel Bar Tal, “Societal beliefs in times of intractable conflicts: the Israeli case”, International Journal of Conflict Management, 9: 1, 1998, 22-50.

Russian rule, including the January Uprising of 1861-64, as well as the Polish-

Bolshevik war of 1919-1921.

Second, to place its investigation in a deeper and broader context, this research assesses the institutional and situational frameworks in which Polish-

Jewish relations unfolded and what influence they had on the desertions.

These are the position of Jews as a minority in the Polish social and political system, the psychological environment of wartime refugeedom, and Zionism as an ideology using spiritual forms of attraction to the Land of Israel. The political system through which the Polish authorities in exile governed the dispersed Polish society abroad and the Polish underground at home is rarely identified as a source of interethnic antagonisms. This thesis examines how the exiled Polish institutions treated and governed the Jewish minority in wartime refugeedom. By highlighting how the Polish authorities managed the Jewish minority’s military service, and their reaction to the desertions, it traces the patterns of official discrimination targeting the Jewish minority. What were the political and legal foundations of the Polish political system that divided Polish society into a Polish majority and ethnic minorities? Was Polish wartime policy towards the Jews a continuation of pre-war policy, especially in the years

1935-1939, when Polish Jews were actively encouraged to leave the country?

How did the Polish authorities approach and organize military service, including recruitment procedures?

Third, this thesis takes a closer look at the institutional Yishuv and explores the ways in which it approached the influx of Polish refugees. They arrived hot on the heels of the Mandatory policy limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine, which local Jewish political organizations attempted to circumvent throughout the war. How were the Polish refugees integrated into the policies of the

Yishuv? How did they impact the local Jewish political scene? And how did the institutional Yishuv face up to the challenges the incomers brought?

Finally, this thesis looks at wartime refugeedom as the most immediate and powerful context in which the decisions of both the leadership and the refugees were taken. By addressing the issues of uncertainty, belonging, and home-coming, it seeks to answer the question of what mental challenges people faced in exile. Through close examination of the range of emotions generated by wartime displacement, it traces the refugees’ relations with their communities in Palestine, whether Polish or Jewish. It also conceptualizes the period of refugeedom as fluid, enabling transition to take place from one community to another, and highlights the contingency of such categories as

21 deserter or migrant.6 Exploring the mental conditions of the refugees as monitored by their leadership, and reconstructing the leaders’ own psychological condition as expressed by them in official and semi-official papers, helps to establish the immediate circumstances in which the Polish leaders operated and the challenges they had to face. How did wartime refugeedom affect Polish refugees, Poles and Jews? How were the needs and challenges of refugeedom reflected in the political decisions taken by the

Polish leadership? What exact actions were initiated, and how were they organized and funded? I approach these questions by looking at the community of Polish wartime refugees in the Soviet Union and at the process of forming a Polish army there, and subsequently extend this approach to the ensuing phases and relocations the Polish Army underwent, including the central Polish authorities in London.

Theoretical framework and Concepts

The concept of a deserter is a complex one, yet clearly includes an array of negative connotations: transgression, violation, betrayal. A desertion often addresses the sense of belonging to the community of soldiers in a certain army. Linking military service to citizenship, which obliges all male citizens to

6 Roger Zetter, “Labelling refugees: forming and transforming bureaucratic identity”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 4: 1, 1991, 39-62.

22 serve in the army, establishes links between a citizen and a state, and a sense of identification and belonging between the two.7 A problem arose when armies became defined nationally in multi-ethnic societies, as was the case with the Second Polish Republic from 1918-1939. This situation implied a paradox, in that military duty was common and therefore took no account of ethnic background, while the Polish Army simultaneously possessed a clear national character. Similar paradoxes exhibited themselves in other areas, leading one to question the overall character of the political regime that made these paradoxes a central feature of its political mechanism.

Therefore, the main concepts on which this thesis operates relate to the nature of the Polish wartime regime, the successor to the Second Polish

Republic. One of these is the concept of ethnic democracy, a type of democratic regime described by the Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha.8

Smooha claims that ethnic democracy is a democratic regime with an ethnic dominance, and he recognized the Second Polish Republic as such, with the exception of its four last years, 1935-1939, when the Polish regime took a decisive authoritarian turn. Two principles have an uneasy coexistence within that type of regime: civic equality, which reflects democratic aspirations, and

7 Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the Modern Era, eds. Nir Arielli, Bruce Collins, Palgrave Macmilian, Basingstoke, 2012. See more: Alexander Watson, “Fighting for Another Fatherland: the Polish Minority in the Prussian Army, 1914-1918”, English Historical Review, Volume 126, p. 1137-1166, 2011. 8 Before Smooha, the term ‘ethnic democracy’ was used by Juan Jose Linz,

23 ethnic inequality – represented in the case of the Second Polish Republic by the division of society into a Polish majority and ethnic minorities (or national minorities, as they were called then). In this perspective, ethnic minorities pose a permanent problem, usually referred to as a “minority issue”, which calls for a solution. This thesis uses the pre-war political legacy as a model to which to compare the Polish wartime regime, particularly in the fields of Polish law and wartime amendments to it, and in the everyday administrative practice of the

Polish institutions in exile.

Other concepts used in this thesis, such as societal beliefs and out-group/in- group, developed by another Israeli scholar, Israel Bar-Tal, further refine and clarify aspects of a multi-ethnic society existing in an ethnic democracy.

Societal beliefs are well-established, long-operating pre-conceptions of the

“other”, which in the case of Polish-Jewish relations means a different ethnic group. The in-group and the out-group are the main category of division in a multi-ethnic society. These categories establish the sense of belonging and open a way to include and exclude, which is mainly, albeit not uniquely, the domain of the authorities. This study makes heavy use of the categories “in- group” and “out-group”, as well as “societal beliefs”, specifically in the context of official Polish rhetoric concerning the Jewish soldiers’ desertions from the

Polish Army, and of Jewish responses. Finally, the concept of “ethnic

24 unmixing”, a political measure described and elaborated by Matthew Frank, meant a popular conceptualization, if not outright fantasy, of how to neutralize the “minority issue” in multi-ethnic societies.9 This fantasy could be realized by assimilation or emigration. The political programme of “emigrationism” – that is, encouraging and facilitating the emigration of Polish Jews to Palestine – was realized in the last years of the Second Polish Republic (1935-1939). This thesis follows the ways in which the Polish wartime authorities treated this political measure.

This brings us to a complementary concept to “emigrationism”: Jewish immigration to Palestine, the flagship idea of the Zionist ideology. The political project of gathering diaspora Jews in Eretz Israel, the historical Land of Israel, emerged in the nineteenth century as a core tenet of Zionism. The act of immigration to Palestine was called Aliyah, the Hebrew word for ascension, which well depicts the spiritual context of the act, but for which Zionism provided a defined political framework. The Jewish community in Palestine was called the Yishuv, the Hebrew word for settlement or settled society.

Jewish immigration to Palestine met severe obstacles during the war.

9 Matthew Frank was not the first scholar who referred to ethnic unmixing. See for example: Rogers Brubaker, “Migrations of Ethnic Unmixing in the ‘New Europe’ ”, The International Migration Review, Volume 32, Number 4, p. 1047-1065, 1998. Others who discussed this concept: Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2016; Eric D. Weitz, “From the Vienna to the Paris system: international politics and the entangled histories of human rights, forced deportations, and civilizing missions”, The American Historical Review, Volume 113, Number 5, 2008, p. 1313- 1343.

Restricted to limited quotas by the British Mandate authorities, wartime

Jewish immigration was divided into legal streams, which functioned within the agreed quotas, Aliyah Alef, and illegal, or clandestine, streams, Aliyah Bet, which flouted the British quotas. To understand how the two communities met, this study focuses on the political objectives pursued by the exiled Poles and the Jewish Yishuv.

In so doing, this thesis relies on the analysis of Sammy Smooha and Daniel Bar

Tal, both concerned with social and political dynamics in multi-ethnic societies.10 Yoav Peled identified the regime of the Second Polish Republic from 1918-1935 (excluding the last four years in the run-up to the Second

World War, when the Polish regime took an authoritarian turn) as an ethnic democracy, meaning a democratic system intertwined with an ethnic hegemony.11 This concept has never before been applied to the Polish wartime regime, as represented by the Polish government in exile, whose declarations of profound allegiance to democratic principles, condemnation of the

10 Sammy Smooha, “The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”, Nations and Nationalism, 8: 4, 2002, 475-503; S. Smooha, “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype”, Israel Studies, 2: 2, 1997, 198-241; S. Smooha, “Minority status in an ethnic democracy: The status of Arab minority in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13: 3, 1990, 389-413. Smooha’s articles triggered an academic discussion which is worthy of attention: Oren Yiftachel, “The concept of ‘ethnic democracy’ and its applicability to the case of Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 15: 1, 1992, 125-136; Adam Danel, “A methodological critique of the concept of ethnic democracy”, Journal of Israeli History, 28: 1, 2009, 37-54; Sammy Smooha, “The model of ethnic democracy: Response to Danel”, Journal of Israeli History, 28: 1, 2009, 55-62. See also: Yoav Peled, “The viability of ethnic democracy: Jewish citizens in inter-war Poland and Palestinian citizens in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34: 1, 2011, 82-102. 11 Yoav Peled, “The viability of ethnic democracy: Jewish citizens in inter-war Poland and Palestinian citizens in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34: 1, 2011, 82-102.

26 authoritarian pre-war regime, and recreation of Polish administration in exile contrasted with its decisions regarding ethnic tensions within the Polish wartime diaspora. This thesis applies the ethnic democracy theory as an analytical framework to interpret Polish-Jewish relations in wartime exile.

Reflecting on the everyday administrative practice of the Polish wartime authorities, it also borrows from the findings of Daniel Bar Tal, who coined the term societal beliefs to indicate perceptions of “others” rooted in the collective consciousness. Bar Tal’s findings illuminate the wartime discourse on Polish-

Jewish relations and tensions, as construed by Polish and Jewish elites.

Regardless of the political programmes, Poles and Jews, elites and ordinary people, experienced wartime refugeedom, the last concept discussed in this section. The thesis focuses on the activity of the political elites and leadership in organizing and managing life in exile. By referring to refugeedom as Peter

Gatrell sees it, “a matrix involving administrative practices, legal norms, social relations and refugees’ experience”12, it explores how wartime Polish and

Jewish elites approached the issues connected to it: financial deprivation, uncertainty, insecurity. At the same time, the concept of refugeedom, as Peter

Gatrell argues, means not only the people’s displacement caused by the war

12 P. Gatrell, “Refugees-What’s Wrong with History?”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, 2017, 170.

27 but also population transfers resulting in ‘unmixing of peoples’ or ethnic groups by design from above.13

Literature review (Historiography)

Polish-Jewish relations in wartime exile, and particularly the mass desertions of

Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army in exile, stretch across a number of research fields. They are found either on the margins of the main topic – for example, the Second World War in Polish and Jewish national histories – or occupy a more central position, for example in scholarly studies of the Polish military forces in the war. Polish-Jewish relations in exile belong to the history of the Polish wartime diaspora as well as of the pre-state Yishuv in Palestine, primarily due to the emergence of a Polish refugee centre in Palestine.14 The subject encapsulates other important fields of research outside history: majority-minority dynamics; the political, social, and psychological consequences of refugeedom; shifting identities, and so on. The current study’s immediate predecessors are writings on Polish-Jewish relations in exile, military history especially, but also studies of the pre-state Yishuv and the wartime Jewish diaspora. David Engel’s two-volume book on relations between the Polish government in exile and the Jews offers a comprehensive, multi-

13 See: Peter Gatrell, The Making of The Modern Refugee, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013, p. 7. 14 The most recent scholarly intervention is Jacek Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie w latach drugiej wojny światowej. Ośrodki, instytucje, organizacje, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź, 2012.

28 layered, well-documented study of Polish-Jewish relations in exile seen from a top-down perspective.15 This study, published in the midst of great geopolitical turmoil, when Central-Eastern Europe was transitioning from communism to democracy, both reflects the post-war historiographical dealings with Polish-

Jewish relations in exile but also heralds the challenges to come. Before Engel,

Polish-Jewish relations in exile were studied predominantly by Polish scholars, both émigré historians living in the West and scholars working under the duress of the communist regime in the People’s Republic of Poland. The conflicting perspectives of Polish émigré and domestic historians produced a highly polemical scholarship concerning the war. This can be clearly discerned in the case of one of the key figures in the present study – General Anders, commander of the army from which the Jewish soldiers deserted and a prominent representative of the Polish wartime and post-war diaspora.

In 1946 the communist authorities in Poland deprived General Anders of his

Polish citizenship, citing his alleged “anti-state activity” abroad. Furthermore, they sponsored a whole body of popular historical literature, which made

General Anders responsible for the widespread anti-Semitism in the Polish

Army, as well as cataloguing at length his personal faults.16 The Polish diaspora

15 David Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939-1942, University of North Carolina Press, 1987; Facing a Holocaust, Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943- 1945, University of North Carolina Press, 1993. 16 Jerzy Klimkowski, Byłem adiutantem Generała Andersa, Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warsaw, 1959. See more about the attitude of the communist authorities towards General Anders: Krzysztof

29 responded with passionate articles in the émigré press, while Władysław

Anders’ own memoirs provided an account of his pre-war and wartime experiences, including a statement on Polish-Jewish issues in the army under his command. Bez ostatniego rozdziału (Without the Final Chapter, but published in English as An Army in Exile) was reprinted several times in the west (and appeared in Poland after 1989). It established the general’s popularity and articulated a catchy “double-loyalty” argument, which maintained that Jewish soldiers deserting his army were torn between their loyalty to the Polish cause and to the Jewish community in Palestine.17 This argument was endlessly repeated in the history books and became one of the signifiers of the author’s positive attitude towards the Polish post-war diaspora.18 By the same token, those rejecting it were automatically classed as supporting the communist argument depicting General Anders as a fascist-like anti-Semite. A third way was to avoid the controversy altogether, and not touch upon Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish Army in exile. This course was often taken by scholars in Poland as political interest in discrediting the Polish

Tarka, „’Wrogowie’ Polski: pozbawienie obywatelstwa polskiego oficerów Polskich Sił Zbrojnych na Zachodzie”, Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy, 14 (65): 4 (246), 2013, 65-84; K. Tarka, „’Watażka’ na celowniku. ‘Rozpracowanie operacyjne’ Generała Władysława Andersa przez wywiad PRL”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 164, 2008, 61-74; Andrzej Furier, „Propaganda Polski Ludowej wobec gen. Władysława Andersa”, Zesłaniec, 32: 32, 2007, 19-30; ‘Wybitnie wroga jednostka’: komuniści przeciwko generałowi Władysławowi Andersowi 1943-1970, Wybór dokumentów, selection and editing B. Polak, M. Polak; Leszno, 2008. 17 Władysław Anders, Bez ostatniego rozdziału, Wspomnienia z lat 1939-1946, London, 1949 (first edition). Later editions in London: 1950, 1959; London-Warsaw: 1992, Warsaw: 2007. 18 Harvey Sarner, General Anders and soldiers of the Second Polish Corps, Brunswick Press, 1997.

30 diaspora diminished in the later years of the People’s Republic of Poland.19

Engel’s two-volume book has restored interest in Polish-Jewish relations in exile (and also in the army) and, together with the other voices discussed below, heralded the return of the subject. The most recent contribution to relations between Jews and the Polish government-in-exile, providing an enriching comparative perspective, is the book edited by Jan Lanicek and

James Jordan, Governments-in-exile and the Jews during the Second World

War.20

Meanwhile, wrapped around the political rivalry between the Polish diaspora and the communist regime in Poland (with the diaspora’s political significance fading dramatically with time), the subject of Polish-Jewish relations in exile also appears on the margins of many studies of the Polish wartime administration and the Polish Army operating in exile.21 All these works can be read alongside studies of the Jewish minority during the Second Polish

Republic (1918-1939), as the period when the social, cultural and political

19 Piotr Żaroń, Armia Polska w ZSRR, na Bliskim i Środkowym Wschodzie, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warsaw, 1981. Similar, by this author: Kierunek wschodni w strategii wojskowo-politycznej gen. Władysława Sikorskiego, 1940-1943, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw, 1988; Ludność polska w Związku Radzieckim w czasie II wojny światowej, PWN, Warsaw, 1990; Stanisław Strumph-Wojtkiewicz, Wbrew rozkazowi. Wspomnienia oficera prasowego 1939-1945, Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warsaw, 1979. 20 Governments-in-exile and the Jews during the Second World War, eds. Jan Lanicek, James Jordan, Mitchell Valentine, 2013. 21 Eugeniusz Duraczyński, Rząd polski na uchodźstwie 1939-1945. Organizacja, personalia, polityka, Warsaw, 1993 and other publications by this author. Magdalena Hułas, Goście czy intruzi? Rząd polski na uchodźstwie, wrzesień 1939 – lipiec 1943, Instytut Historii PAN, Warsaw, 1997. Jacek Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie w latach drugiej wojny światowej. Ośrodki, instytucje, organizacje, Lódź, 2012.

31 framework of Polish-Jewish relations was carved out, to resonate in wartime.

Jerzy Tomaszewski’s Najnowsze dzieje Żydów w Polsce w zarysie do 1950 provides a long historical perspective on the history of Polish Jews. This work is complemented by more specific analyses of the Jewish minority’s legal position in pre-war Poland by Jerzy Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydów w

Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej w latach 1918-193922 and articles in the military history quarterly Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny by Jerzy Nazarewicz on the military judiciary in the Polish Army in exile.

The topic of wartime refugeedom has traditionally been dealt with by stressing the organizational and educational achievements.23 The newest interventions have brought other aspects to the forefront, such as the evaluation of Polish governmental assistance to the refugees, or political interactions with societies receiving Polish refugees and reflections on the scale of the wartime refugeedom.24 Of specific concern for this thesis, Jacek Pietrzak’s analysis is a valuable source of information about the wartime community of Polish refugees in the Middle East (see footnote 24). Pietrzak discusses the

22 J. Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydów w Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej 1918-1939. Prawa cywilne i polityczne, Warsaw, 2012. 23 Jan Draus, Oświata i nauka polska na Bliskim i Środkowym Wschodzie, 1939-1950, Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1993. 24 Daniel Boćkowski, Czas nadziei: obywatele Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w ZSSR i opieka nad nimi placówek polskich w latach 1940-1943, Neriton, 1999; J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie.

32 interactions of Polish politicians with Jewish political organizations, but his single reliance on Polish sources limits his study to the Polish perspective.

If Polish émigré and domestic scholarship provides the background for Polish-

Jewish relations in exile, the works and articles by Dariusz Stola, Yisrael

Gutman, Daniel Bar Tal, Sammy Smooha, and Dov Levin are the main sources of inspiration and points of dialogue for this thesis, of which more will be said below. Yisrael Gutman’s 1977 article published in Yad Vashem Studies directly addressed Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish Army in the Soviet Union.25

Gutman, a Warsaw-born Israeli scholar, based his analysis on Jewish soldiers’ testimonies stored in Yad Vashem. He was the first historian to systematically depict the whole range of discriminatory acts taken against Jewish citizens by the Polish military authorities and demonstrate their consequences. He claimed that anti-Semitism informed all the Polish military authorities’ decisions concerning Jews, and even utilized the loaded term “Polish anti-

Semitism”. This discriminatory Polish policy, claimed Gutman, had an exclusionary effect: in the closing paragraph of his article he linked the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers with the Polish wartime policy of excluding Jews from the Polish Army. Gutman’s article thus stood in contrast both to Anders’ argument about Jewish double loyalty and to the overall reflections of Polish

25 Yisrael Gutman, „Jews in General Anders’ Army in the Soviet Union”, Yad Vashem Studies, XII, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 1977, 231-296.

33 historiography, which at that time rarely considered the consequences of actions taken by the Polish majority, even when addressing the issue of anti-

Semitism. Gutman’s article proves there was cleavage not only between pro-

émigré and pro-communist standpoints, but also between Polish and Jewish perspectives on the events. Dariusz Stola took this point further in his study of the role of a prominent Jewish politician, Itzhak (Ignacy) Schwarzbart, in the

Polish wartime administration.26 Stola restored the figure of Schwarzbart to the Polish historic discourse, but, more importantly, depicted the Jewish minority, with Schwarzbart as its spokesman, as an integral member of the

Polish exiled wartime community and an unequal partner to the policy-making

Polish wartime elites. Stola highlighted Schwarzbart’s wartime activity as a negotiator working to improve the position of Polish Jews in Polish society, which indicated a broader strategy adopted by a minority group towards the dominating group in society.27

The present study develops Stola’s findings further, demonstrating that the

Jewish minority and the Polish majority remained in an ongoing interaction, in which the reciprocal position of both parties determined the strategies they adopted. It takes these findings further insofar as it looks at a Jewish minority

26 Dariusz Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada. Ignacy Schwarzbart-żydowski przedstawiciel w Radzie Narodowej RP (1940-45), Oficyna Naukowa, Warsaw, 1995. 27 D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 13.

34 in its political complexity, reflecting the competing strategies within the minority group.

Polish-Jewish wartime relations from the perspective of the receiving Yishuv are a theme that has not received its due attention. The first person to investigate the subject of deserting Jewish soldiers in wartime was Dov Levin, whose article was published in 1997.28 Levin’s claim was that the desertions were part and parcel of Jewish illegal immigration (Aliyah Bet), but he put the desertions into a separate sub-category (Aliyah Vav), demonstrating in this way

– and for the first time in a strictly scholarly text – the connection between the desertions and the Yishuv’s policy of facilitating illegal Jewish immigration to

Palestine.29 Pre-war Polish-Zionist cooperation, especially in the years 1935-

1939, which met both the Zionist goal of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the Polish idea of “ethnic unmixing”, is well-documented, but the analysis rarely extends beyond this temporal framework. Laurence Weinbaum focused on the cooperation between the pre-war Polish government and the

Revisionist New Zionist Organization, when both parties co-organized the

28 Dov Levin, “Aliyah ‘vav’: the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish army in Palestine, 1942- 1943”, Shvut, Studies in Russian and East European Jewish History and Culture, 5: 21, 1997, 144-170. 29 Works making the same claim, but doubtful as to their scholarly rigour: H. Sarner, General Anders…, 1997; Kazimierz Zamorski, Dwa tajne biura 2 Korpusu, Poets and Painters, London, 1990. Also, to be mentioned in this context: Edward Kossoy, “Żydowskie podziemie niepodległościowe w Palestynie i jego polskie powiazania”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 157, 2006, 63-101; Artur Patek, Jews on Route to Palestine 1943-1944. Sketches from the History of Aliyah Bet – Clandestine Jewish Immigration, Kraków, 2012 (first edition in Polish, 2009).

35 illegal immigration of Polish Jews to Palestine.30 Wartime cooperation is briefly referred to by scholars dealing with Jewish illegal immigration to Palestine, and usually in the context of possibly the best-known case of a Jewish soldier to leave the Polish Army in Palestine, Menachem Begin (though exceptionally

Begin was not a deserter).31 This thesis attempts to fill in this void as well as to elaborate on the reasons for the absence of Aliyah Vav, to use Dov Levin’s term, in the existing scholarship on wartime Yishuv.

Finally, this thesis frequently draws inspiration from post-war scholarship, especially post-1989, which usually placed Polish-Jewish relations in the context of the non-Jewish majority’s perception of Jews. The extermination of

Polish Jewry left a hollow space in Polish society that produced what can only be described as mental phantom limb pains. The memory of Polish-Jewish inter-civic relations pushed Polish scholars into retroactive reflections on various aspects of Polish-Jewish coexistence. Polish-Jewish wartime relations under the Nazi occupation occupied most scholarly attention, with Jan Tomasz

Gross’s Neighbours becoming a focal point of the public debate in Poland over the Poles’ involvement in the extermination and their attitude towards the

Jewish plight. Gross, together with scholars affiliated with the Polish Centre for

30 Laurence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience: the New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government, 1936-1939, 1993. 31 For example: Yehuda Bauer, From diplomacy to Resistance: A history of Jewish Palestine, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1970. More bibliography on the topic: see chapter 6.

Holocaust Research, argues that the extent to which Poles got involved in the extermination was larger than previously believed and was fuelled by deep- rooted anti-Semitism. Contrary voices raised by Władysław Bartoszewski and

Zofia Lewin in their book Righteous Among the Nations: How Poles helped the

Jews 1939-1945 pointed to the salvation and assistance Poles offered their

Jewish compatriots. Their account triggered a multi-layered discussion on the

Polish majority’s attitude to the Jews that often reflected on their anti-

Semitism, prejudices and patterns of discrimination. This exchange echoes the tensions exposed by the ethnic democracy theory of a civic society with democratic and inclusivist inclinations, yet bedevilled by ethnic inequality and animosities, as was the case in Poland both before the war and, as this thesis asserts, during the war in exile as well. The Polish title of Bartoszewski’s book which means in translation: Thou art from my fatherland… was ironically travestied by Jan T. Gross in an article in the émigré journal Aneks: “Thou art from my fatherland…But I do not like you”.

This debate, which is analysed separately, covers many issues, with the role of the Polish majority in the extermination process provoking the most passionate discussion. The debate is easily transformed into an internal discussion on the Poles themselves, losing the Jews from sight. The reason for this, as I see it, is the inadequate understanding of majority-minority dynamics

37 and the attendant power of the majority, which by its numerical superiority is able to rationalize its attitudes and to impose the appropriate rhetoric.

However, as long as the fundamental asymmetry of Polish-Jewish relations is remembered, it is possible to escape the misleading concepts formulated and imposed by the majority. Otherwise, one replicates it without even being aware of it. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir speaks of a perspective in which noticing the “other” (including Jews) changes everything else we see.32 This thesis, therefore, systematically juxtaposes Jewish responses and reactions with the

Polish majority’s actions.

The phenomena of anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish prejudices and anti-Jewish discrimination, detached from the immediate context of the Holocaust, are topics of a burgeoning field of research.33 This thesis employs the insights drawn from the critical study of anti-Semitic prejudices and its formulae:

“Judeo-communism”, “Jewish issue”, “Jewish disloyalty”, “Jewish cowardice”, which served as the building blocks of the political concept of a “Jewish issue” whereby Jewish minorities become an immanent problem for non-Jewish societies. The Polish majority perceived the Jewish minority as non-assimilable

32 Joanna Tokarska-Bakir’s statement at the debate held at the Batory Foundation during the commemorations of Jacek Kuron’s 80thbirthday. See online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyc72dti5_0&t=754s (accessed in June 2019). Tokarska-Bakir spoke about two different approaches to the history of multi-ethnic Polish society: one is looking at the ethnic minorities as at a picture in a gallery exhibition, the other is looking through the minority perspective as if through a window. 33 Hans Christian Dahlman, Antysemityzm w Polsce roku 1968, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw, 2018; Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Pod klątwą. Społeczny portret pogromu kieleckiego, Warsaw, 2018.

38 and therefore undesirable, as Joanna Michlic and Michael Steinlauf point out.34

Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland edited by Robert Blobaum covers the way the “Jewish issue” was translated into Polish politics and social system.35 Apart from Blobaum, the following studies cover various aspects of anti-Semitism in Poland: Maciej Moszyński traces back the origins of anti-

Semitism in the Kingdom of Poland and Łukasz Krzyżanowski analyses Polish immediate post-war anti-Semitism.36 Important contextualization for the case of Polish anti-Semitism can be found in studies by Brian Porter, Theodore

Weeks and William Hagen.37

The way the Polish majority regarded Jews prompted the emergence of stereotypes, of which those concerned with the Jews and military service are of special interest here. The stereotype of Jewish cowardice and disloyalty is particularly virulent in the military context explored by this thesis. Derek

Penslar analysed the variegated encounter between Jews and the military

34 Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University, Syracuse, 1997; Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland’s Threatening the Other. The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. 35 Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland, ed. Robert Blobaum, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2005. 36 Maciej Moszyński, Antysemityzm w Królestwie Polskim. Narodziny nowocześniej ideologii antyżydowskiej (1864-1914), Wydawnictwo: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poznań, 2017; Łukasz Krzyżanowski, Dom, którego nie było. Powroty ocalałych do powojennego miasta, Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wołowiec, 2018. 37 Brian Porter, When nationalism began to hate. Imagining Modern Politics in Nineteenth Century Poland, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002; Theodore R. Weeks, From Assimilation to Anti-Semitism: The “Jewish Question” in Poland, 1850-1914, Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, 2006; William W. Hagen, Anti- Jewish Violence in Poland, 1914-1920, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

39 world, not only in the Polish context, in his book Jews and the military.38 In his conclusion he dissects the powerful conviction of non-Jewish communities that

Jews and the army were essentially incompatible, a conviction expressed in popular stereotypes of Jews as cowards and disloyal. Joanna Beata Michlic discusses the image of a pro-communist and anti-Polish Jew throughout the period of Soviet occupation in the pre-war Polish eastern territories, and reflects on the stereotype of Judeo-communism.39 She proves that the stereotype resulted in the active exclusion of Polish Jews, whose belonging to

Polish society was questioned by the Polish majority given their alleged treacherous communist sympathies. Krystyna Kersten provides a more general view of the genesis of “Judeo-communism”, which covers the wartime mass desertions by Polish Jews as well as the post-war years. Kersten addresses the question of Jewish involvement in communism, intending to debunk the existing prejudices the Polish majority held against the Jewish minority and its presumed ties to communism.40 Yet the title of her study (An Anatomy of

Truths and Half-truths) betrays a pre-assumption, not fully articulated but commonly shared by Polish society, that the stereotype of “Judeo- communism” indeed contained some elements of truth. When attention is

38 Derek Penslar, Jews and the Military. A History, Princeton University Press, Oxford and Princeton, 2013. 39 Joanna B. Michlic, “The Soviet Occupation of Poland 1939-1941, and the Stereotype of the Anti-Polish, Pro- Soviet Jew”, Jewish Social Studies, 13: 3, 2007, 135-176. 40 K. Kersten, The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948, University of California Press, 1991.

40 given to Polish-Jewish relations in the Anders Army, the blend of the ethno- nationalist perspective with the anti-communist paradigm results in the revival of the Judeo-communism stereotype. For example, Zbigniew Wawer, author of many studies on the Polish Army, in a chapter devoted to the military service of national minorities, downplays Jewish testimonies of anti-Semitic policies in the army by “exposing” the testifiers’ supposed communist connections.41

Polish-Jewish relations not being the main topic of his book, Wawer nonetheless presents his argument concerning Jewish soldiers in lengthy footnotes and passes judgment on Polish-Jewish tensions in the army without any analysis or reference to the existing literature on the topic. The more attention is given to Polish-Jewish relations in the army, the more objective the judgment should be, as mentioned in the literature review. A similar conclusion is reached by Tomasz Gąsowski, whose latest study focuses on

Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish military forces. Here too the argument seems to reach the ultimate compromise of juste milieu, and does not challenge the popular conviction that responsibility for tensions in the Polish

Army was equally divided between Poles and Jews. This demonstrates that the power of the Polish majority’s societal beliefs has not weakened in influence, and that, by default, they still organize the memory of the troubled Polish-

41 Z. Wawer, Armia generała Władysława Andersa w ZSRR, 1941-1942, Bellona, Warsaw, 2012.

Jewish past. A genuine departure from this approach can be found in the most recent intervention of Anna Zawadzka, who claims that Polish historiography still operates under an anti-communist paradigm that works to block an objective evaluation of communist sympathies among Polish Jews.42 This anti- communist paradigm continues to inform recent analyses dealing with Polish-

Jewish relations in the Polish Army in exile, such as Tomasz Gąsowski’s book

Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…43 Gąsowski proceeds, in a manner similar to

Kersten’s, to attempt to reconcile the Jewish and the Polish “truths” and find the juste milieu between them. This approach is echoed, to various extents, in

Polish military historiography.44 Therefore, Zawadzka’s call to analyse not only the object, but also the discourse, is adopted as the guiding approach of this thesis.

Contribution of the Study

This thesis offers a comprehensive study of Polish-Jewish relations during the wartime exile. It consistently looks at the subject through the perspective of

Jewish and Polish official documents. Focusing on the documents and writings produced by the Polish and Jewish elites, this thesis brings to scholarly

42 Anna Zawadzka, „Żydokomuna. Szkic do socjologicznej analizy źrodeł historycznych”, Societas/Communitas, 8 (2), 2009, 199-244. 43 Tomasz Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orla Białego: kwestia żydowska w Polskich Silach Zbrojnych w czasie II wojny światowej, Kraków, 2002. 44 See for example Zbigniew Wawer’s works on General Anders and Polish Army in exile.

42 attention previously unknown documents created by the Yishuv’s institutions but also offers a new reading of well-known documents emanating from the

Polish institutions in exile. By placing Polish-Jewish relations in the context of wartime refugeedom, this study sheds new light on decisions made by Polish and Jewish officials concerning Polish and Jewish refugees. The study contributes to scholarship on the wartime Yishuv, the exiled Polish institutions and wartime regime, its mechanisms and dual nature made up of both democratic and ethnic values. Situating these reflections against the background of politicized wartime discourse that operated and sometimes weaponized such categories as “disloyal Jews” or “pro-Zionist pioneers”, which identified certain values (or lack of) with certain ethnicities that were overwhelmingly re-used in the existing historiography, and by intertwining them with the discussion over Polish or Jewish responsibility for the desertions, this thesis demonstrates how the actions and inactions of officials, and the narratives they used, influenced the Jewish refugees’ decisions to abandon the Polish community. On a more general level, it is concerned with the salience of ethnicity for the leaderships of both the Polish wartime diaspora and of Palestinian Jewry. Furthermore, the present thesis contributes to the discussion on majority-minority dynamics, offering an analysis of Polish-

Jewish relations as a topical case study.

Finally, this thesis contributes to a wider discussion on wartime refugeedom, its history and nature. It investigates the refugees’ discomfort and suffering, and the remedies they chose to overcome these conditions. It restores the immediate context of wartime refugeedom as the primary determinant for

Polish-Jewish relations in exile, while also adding to the more general understanding of refugeedom.

Methods and sources

The present thesis is based on an analysis of official documents produced by the Polish wartime administration in exile and by various political organizations in the Yishuv, ranging from the Labour Zionist movement to its opponents on the right and left. The Polish documents are stored in the archives of the Polish

Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, as well as in the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford University, California (the so-called

“Polish collection”, which is available online).45 Documents concerning wartime

Yishuv and produced by Jewish institutions in Palestine are scattered in various archives in Israel: the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem, the Haganah

Historical Archives and the Jabotinsky Institute archives in Tel Aviv, and finally the Archives of the Israeli Defence Forces in Tel Ha-Shomer (near Tel Aviv). The

45 See the website of Polish Central Archive of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych): https://szukajwarchiwach.pl/800#tabZasoby

44 materials include orders, reports, minutes of meetings, confidential notes and official letters. Occasionally, press excerpts are consulted, as well as soldiers’ testimonies, typically together with comments left by contemporary Polish or

Jewish officials.

Many documents produced by the Yishuv leadership and concerning the Polish presence in wartime Palestine, cited and analysed in this thesis, have not previously been consulted by scholars. The documents stored in the Central

Zionist Archives and in the Haganah Historical Archives make it possible to reconstruct the Yishuv’s reception of Polish wartime refugees. They shed light on the policies that the institutional Yishuv implemented upon the arrival of the Polish refugees. They offer evidence of the Yishuv’s deep interest in encouraging Polish Jews to join the Yishuv and actively participate in the

Zionist struggle for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. They help to trace the fates of those who stayed in the Yishuv. They provide an insight into the aftermath of the desertions, when Polish Jews were absorbed into the Palestinian Jewish society. This thesis considers the desertions’ aftermath and the deserters’ absorption as one of its core elements, but the subject certainly merits further scholarly attention.

The present study is an investigation of Polish-Jewish relations as seen and shaped by two wartime elites, the Polish and the Jewish. The desertions by

Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army in Palestine in 1942-1943 are seen here as a point of transition from one community to another, with immediate effects pertaining to legal, political and social aspects. As such, they called for the reaction of both Jewish and Polish elites. At the same time, the phenomenon of the desertions is a pretext for deeper exploration of its reasons. These reasons stemmed from the policies pursued by Polish and

Jewish political actors during, and in the run-up, to the war. Overall, therefore, the approach used in this thesis is a top-down perspective and the direct objects of research are documents officially produced by various actors in the

Polish and Yishuv wartime political scenes. Consequently, this thesis departs, albeit not entirely, from the opposite bottom-up perspective, which often overtly relies on the testimonies of Polish refugees. These testimonies were collected by Polish and Jewish authorities and officials during the war for explicit political purposes. The Polish military and civil authorities were interested in obtaining first-hand material on the conditions of Polish refugeedom in the Soviet Union. Polish citizens were interviewed using a profiled questionnaire, and information on the various aspects of the oppressive Soviet state was sought for.46 The collection of the testimonies was organized, conducted and managed by the Polish authorities. Unlike the Poles,

46 K. Zamorski, Dwa tajne… , 1990; Daniel Boćkowski, Czas nadziei.., 1999.

Jewish officials, alarmed by rumours of Polish-Jewish tensions in the Soviet

Union, enabled Jewish soldiers to testify freely in front of the Representation of Polish Jewry. Their expectations of a stream of complaints concerning maltreatment by the Polish Army and civil institutions were met. A vast amount of material was collected from the interviews and testimonies, some parts of which have been published.47 The soldiers’ and civilians’ testimonies form a chorus of numerous unconnected voices, thus offering deep insights into many individual cases and endless perspectives and opinions. Yet, they often narrate the events by making uncritical use of the official rhetoric and echo societal beliefs and prejudices. Many researchers use the testimonies without methodological reflection, including long excerpts from refugees’ statements, untouched by critical analysis, believing that they truthfully reflect wartime reality. The use of testimonies became an immediate expectation.

The refugees’ testimonies also create an illusionary symmetry, for Polish and

Jewish voices stand as equal, implying that each tells its own truth and therefore neither possesses it fully. It is known, however, that Polish and

Jewish voices represent unequal groups, of the ethnic majority and minority respectively. As Feagin, Orum and Sjober observe, “The perspectives of those

47 J. T. Gross, Irena Grudzińska-Gross, ‘W czterdziestym nas…, 1984; I Saw the Angel of Death. Experiences of Polish Jews Deported to the USSR during World War II. Testimonies Collected in 1943-1944 by the Ministry of Information and Documentation of Polish Government in Exile, eds. Maciej Siekierski and Feliks Tych, Warsaw, 2006. I refer here to scholarly publications.

47 who command social power and the orientations of those below, who are under the control of the former, are asymmetrical.”48 It is therefore essential to contextualize the interaction between the majority and the minority groups and identify the position of both in the structure and relations of power.

Otherwise, the authors claim, one risks blaming “the disadvantaged for their plight, when, from our standpoint, their situation has resulted primarily from the activities of those who control organizational power.”49 As such, officially produced documents constitute an exchange of voices, the authors of which, and their roles, positions and intentions, are easily traceable, providing the context for their actions (or inactions). Polish and Jewish officials and authorities discuss among themselves, in various configurations, the same issues that the soldiers’ and civilians’ oral accounts reflect. Yet they do so from the position of power, being those who design and shape the social and political system. The arguments of Polish politicians were immediately countered by their Jewish interlocutors in meetings or debates. These were later analysed in reports written by Polish and Jewish officials for their superiors, enabling further contextualization of the Polish-Jewish interaction.

The participants’ position in the administrative Polish hierarchy, or the place

48 A Case for the Case Study, eds. Joe R. Feagin, Anthony M. Orum, Gideon Sjoberg, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991, 65 49 A Case for the Case Study, 66.

48 they occupy in the Yishuv’s political scene, is discernible thanks to identifying letterhead information. Altogether, the reports provide plenty of context to consider Polish-Jewish relations in their true setting of a political imbalance of power, and thus avoid the pitfall of misleading symmetry.

Furthermore, analysis over a longer period enables the evaluation of political goals and aims, both envisaged and achieved. Any discrepancies between what was officially declared and what was realized in the everyday practice of both

Polish and Jewish institutional communities are well apparent. Consequently, this thesis comes close to the true intentions of both the Polish and Jewish wartime elites, even if they remained unexpressed in the official documents.

Finally, this thesis examines the rhetoric of Polish and Jewish statements. It identifies both sides’ “societal beliefs” and their role in shaping the policies of

Polish and Jewish wartime political leaders and elites in areas of inclusion/exclusion, majoritarian dominance, and the transition from one community to another as a result of military desertion. The deconstruction of the official national narratives, and the exposure of their essential elements, further uncover the policies pursued by the two sides to Polish-Jewish relations. Moreover, the deconstruction of such concepts as disloyalty, bravery, cowardice, and honour shows how certain values were ascribed to certain ethnicities, but also how fluid and reversible this ascription if such were

Structure of the Thesis

This thesis overviews Polish-Jewish relations in the course of the Second World

War. Specifically, it explores Polish-Jewish relations in the context of the multidirectional wartime displacement of Polish citizens, focusing its attention on the refugees’ centres in Palestine, the Soviet Union and Great Britain. The thesis is organized into six chapters, each of which focuses on a particular localization of refugees.

Chapter 1 begins with the establishment of the community of Polish refugees and analyses the first interactions between the new Polish authorities and the

Yishuv over recruitment to the Polish military forces organized by Polish institutions in Palestine. It outlines the principles of Polish and Yishuv policies and places these policies against the backdrop of pre-war Polish-Jewish contacts. It analyses the influence of refugeedom on how the Polish and Jewish policies were reformulated and tailored to wartime. In so doing, it refers to

Matthew Frank’s and others’ insights on “ethnic unmixing” and traces the signs of ethnic-oriented policies in the daily practices of Polish institutions.50 The chapter argues that the concept of “ethnic unmixing”, as expressed in the

Polish authorities’ actions, also suited the mainstream Zionist movement in the

50 Specifically, R. Brubaker, “Migrations of Ethnic Unmixing…”, and idem, “Aftermaths of Empire and the Unmixing of Peoples. Historical and comparative perspectives”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 18, Number 2, p. 189-218.

Yishuv. It uncovers an unknown military agreement between the Poles and the

Yishuv that expressed the Polish-Jewish concordance of opinions on Jewish refugees, members of the Polish refugee community.

Chapter 2 looks at the community of Polish refugees in the Soviet Union and the Polish-Jewish tensions that emerged during the enlistment of refugees into the Polish Army. It does this via an analysis of the Polish narratives, produced and used by Polish officials, which discuss the restrictions imposed upon the participation of ethnic minorities in the Polish Army and the desertions of

Jewish soldiers from its ranks. The new reading of Polish officials’ written and oral statements employs the category of “societal beliefs” and demonstrates their role in shaping the relations between the Polish majority and the Jewish minority. The analysis traces the origins of the Polish societal beliefs and discusses their usage in wartime refugeedom and the political constraints

(subjectivity/dependency) experienced by the Polish authorities in the Soviet

Union.

Chapter 3, which develops further the findings of chapter 2, problematizes the

“societal beliefs” as seen from the Jewish side of the Polish-Jewish interaction.

Jewish narratives, used by Jewish officials and leaders in their reports, memoranda and official statements, and elaborated in response to the Polish narratives, are the central point of discussion here. Firstly, the chapter

51 discusses the complexity of Jewish political organizations, their programmes, aims and the rhetoric that express them. Secondly, it analyses how various

Jewish narratives interacted with the Polish narratives over the issue of the

Jewish soldiers’ desertions and how they accommodated contemporary Jewish policies. The chapter discusses the conceptual sources of the Jewish narratives and discusses the variety of ways in which the Polish narratives inspired their

Jewish counterparts.

Chapters 4 and 5 analyse Polish reactions to the Jewish soldiers’ desertions in

Palestine (1942-1943) and Scotland (1944). These two chapters provide a deep insight into the mechanisms of the Polish wartime regime, identifying the fundamental principles that informed Polish reactions to the Jewish soldiers’ desertions. These chapters employ the ethnic democracy theory developed by

Sammy Smooha. Chapter 4 traces the elements of this type of regime in the

Polish law concerning military desertion and citizenship, and its wartime implementation in the comparative perspective of the Soviet and British

(Palestinian) cases. It argues that it was not only the limited agency of the

Polish authorities but rather the concept of “ethnic unmixing” and its wartime interpretation, which regulated the use of exclusionary laws. Chapter 5 applies the framework of ethnic democracy to the Polish wartime apparatus amid the political crisis caused by the Jewish soldiers’ desertions in Scotland and their

52 coverage in the British media. Discussing the viability of ethnic democracy and contributing to Smooha’s theory, this chapter views Polish-Jewish relations as situated at the core of the Polish ethnic-democratic regime and its ability to shake its fundamental beliefs. It investigates the circumstances in which the ultimate decisions concerning deserters in Palestine and Scotland were taken, especially the Polish elites’ apprehension of the harmful effects the desertions might have on the reputation of the Poles. It places the discussion in the context of the envisaged post-war Polish regime in the projects promulgated by the Polish wartime elites, insofar as they concerned Polish-Jewish relations.

Chapter 6 returns to Palestine and analyses the aftermath of the desertions by looking at the reactions of the Yishuv’s political and ideological organizations to them and to the deserters who stayed there. It analyses both the rhetoric and the actions of Jewish actors in the Yishuv and discusses the benefits and losses to the Yishuv in the context of the Zionist policy aiming to encourage

Jewish immigration to Palestine. It pinpoints the Zionist attempt to classify the deserters as wartime migrants to Palestine and include them in local politics. It investigates the reasons for the failure of these attempts, taking into consideration the rivalry between various political forces in the Yishuv. This chapter argues that the reasons that “Aliyah vav” did not enter Israeli

53 historiography are to be found in the unsuccessful absorption of Polish Jews into the wartime Yishuv.

Historical background

Polish citizens were the first to become wartime refugees as the Second World

War started with Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland on 1 September 1939.

Following the German attack, the Soviet attack on Poland from the east took place on 17 September 1939.51 These military actions generated the multidirectional mass migrations of Polish citizens, as ordinary people, together with elites, fled the enemy armies. As a result, several centres of concentration of Polish refugees emerged, and these are discussed briefly at the beginning of each chapter. The focus of this thesis are the Polish wartime authorities that eventually settled in London.52 A political turmoil preceded the

Polish authorities’ relocation to Great Britain. The last pre-war government fled in September to Romania, where it was interned under pressure from the

Germans and the French. A new Polish government was then formed in France,

51 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, Basic Books 2010. For an older source see: Norman Davies, God’s Playground, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982; Jan Tomasz Gross, Revolution from Abroad: The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, Princeton University Press, 2002 (Expanded Edition, first published in 1988). 52 Governments-in-exile and the Jews During the Second World War, eds. Jan Lanicek, James Jordan, Mitchell Valentine, 2013; D. Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939- 1942, University of North Carolina Press, 1987 (first volume); D. Engel, Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943-1945, University of North Carolina Press, 1993 (second volume); Magdalena Hułas, Goście czy intruzi? …, 1996.

54 consisting of Polish politicians whose transfer from Romania and Hungary had been facilitated by the French.53 The Polish President, using his constitutional prerogatives, established the new government. According to the bilateral agreements made by the Second Polish Republic with Great Britain and France,

Poland joined the coalition against Hitler. This coalition grew as the war unfolded: countries occupied by the Germans – Greece, Denmark, the

Netherlands, Belgium – followed the Polish example and formed governments in exile.54 Following Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Soviet

Union joined the Allies as well. The Soviet entry into the war meant the position of the Polish government in London began to decline. The Soviet

Union did not hide its political appetite to control Polish territory and consequently set about constructing an alternative centre of political power, in line with the communist ideology the Soviet Union was attempting to export, which seized power in Poland in mid-1944.55 As a result, the Polish government in exile did not return to the liberated country. It formally continued its existence, though in limited form, until 1991.

The war had a different impact on the Yishuv and on the Zionist leadership in

Palestine – the main, albeit not the only, interlocutor of the exiled Polish

53 Paweł Wieczorkiewicz, Historia Polityczna Polski 1935-1945, Wydawnictwo Zysk I S-ka, 2014. 54 Governments-in-exile and the Jews During the Second World War, eds. Jan Lanicek, James Jordan, Mitchell Valentine, 2013 55 Krystyna Kersten, The Establishment of Communist.

55 government in the sphere of Polish-Jewish institutional relations. Wartime

Palestine was governed by Great Britain as a mandatory territory on behalf of the League of Nations, and therefore was involved in the war on the Allies’ side. 56 Yet the main political forces in the Yishuv contested the British policy of restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. This situation continued until May

1948, when the State of Israel was established by decision of the United

Nations. The political dynamics informing the activities of the Yishuv leadership and the Polish government in exile generated the network in which Polish-

Jewish wartime relations were shaped. Frustration and hope, existing on both sides, was strongly present in the political arena, which this study traces and identifies.

56 Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917-1929, 1978; Michael Cohen, Palestine Retreat from Mandate: The Making of British Policy, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1978); Jacob Hen-Tov, Communism and Zionism in Palestine during British Mandate, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.), 2012.

Chapter One: Polish-Jewish relations in Palestine before the arrival of the

Polish Army in the East

Introduction

This chapter explores the nature of institutional relations between Poles and

Jews on the eve of the arrival of the Polish Army in Palestine in 1942 under

General Anders’ command. In the years 1939-1942 an entire community of

Polish wartime refugees was formed in Palestine, which interacted with the local Jewish community, the Yishuv. It argues that it was specifically the condition of wartime refugeedom that constituted the main factor determining the shape of Polish-Jewish relations. Starting with the initial reason for the significant wartime presence of Poles in the Middle East, through the specific problems encountered by the Polish wartime administration when organizing and managing the Polish diaspora, the wartime refugeedom served both as the background and the catalyst for the unfolding relations between Poles and

Jews. This being said, the record of pre-war Polish-Jewish relations should not be ignored, since it constitutes an immediate parallel for comparison and triggers the question of continuity versus discontinuity vis-à-vis pre-war Polish policy towards Jews and that of the wartime administration. Furthermore, the ethno-centric Polish policy interacted with the Jewish policy that operated

57 similar criteria of ethnic descent. Specifically, this chapter refer to the

“emigrationist” policy implemented by the immediate pre-war Polish government between 1935 and 1939, which aimed at encouraging Polish Jews to leave Poland and emigrate to Palestine. In the Yishuv, the Zionist movement advocated Jewish immigration to Palestine, in order to enlarge the local Jewish community versus the majority Arab community. This was particularly relevant for Polish Jewry, which at the time was the third largest Jewish community in the world. The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, together with the exile of the central Polish authorities, made the realization of the two aforementioned policies almost impossible. Therefore, the wartime displacement of Poles and Jews functioned as the immediate context in which

Polish and Jewish institutions formulated their policies.

This chapter looks first at the origins of the wartime refugeedom and the consequences it had on Polish internal policy. Specifically, it refers to the establishing of new rules by the political cadre speedily recruited from the pre- war opposition, and how it translated to the policy envisaged by the wartime

Polish authorities towards the Jewish minority. The shaping of wartime Polish policy towards the Jews took place amid political rivalry between the country’s immediate pre-war and wartime rulers, also reflected in this chapter. Secondly, this chapter analyses the political scene in the Palestinian Yishuv and the

Yishuv’s interactions with local Polish institutions regarding the arrival of Polish refugees in Palestine. Finally, the last section examines the military agreement signed between the Polish and Yishuv authorities pertaining to the recruitment of Jews to the Polish military unit in Palestine.

1. Wartime Refugeedom57

The immediate result of the Third Reich attack on Poland from the west on 1

September 1939, followed two weeks later by the entry of Soviet troops into

Polish territory from the east, was the mass relocation of Polish citizens with subsequent multidirectional displacement. In many instances this took the form of the unorganized movement of Polish Jews from western Poland fleeing eastwards from the Nazi persecutions, but four organized deportations of

Polish citizens, followed by two smaller relocations, from the territories annexed by the Soviets exhibited planned, deliberate policy by the occupying state. These Soviet deportations, on trains, represented the planned repression of Polish citizens. Although the circumstances of the subsequent deportations might vary, they contributed overall to the experience drama of war. Polish citizens thus became the first refugees of the Second World War.58

57 The term ‘refugeedom’ comes from the study by Peter Gatrell, „Refugees-What’s wrong with History?”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30: 2, 2016, 170-189. 58 For Jewish refugees see: Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust. Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939- 1944, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990; Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power: The Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel, University of California Press, Berkeley 1998; Artur Patek, Żydzi w drodze do Palestyny 1934-1944. Szkice z dziejów aliji bet, nielegalnej imigracji żydowskiej, Avalon, Kraków, 2009; For Polish refugees see: Jan Draus, Oświata i nauka polska na Bliskim i Środkowym Wschodzie 1939-

Another movement was southwards, by those following the orders of the

Commander-in-Chief, General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, who on 17 September

1939 called for the retreat of the Polish Army to Romania and Hungary.

Accompanying the retreating army was a large number of Polish civilians, many of them prominent political figures and civil servants. It is estimated that over

100,000 civilians and military men crossed the Polish-Romanian border in

1939.59 For many, Romania was only a temporary refuge. The majority then proceeded to Hungary and Yugoslavia, before forming the nucleus of the Polish wartime diaspora in Palestine.

While they were the first to leave their homes and belongings behind in 1939, the experience of wartime refugeedom was not new to the Poles. Twenty years earlier, in 1915, Poles were expelled from Warsaw by the retreating

Russian Army. Under Russian rule, close to 750,000 Poles were forcibly relocated to Russia.60 The emergence of independent Poland in 1918 enabled

1950, Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, Lublin, 1993; Jacek Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie w latach drugiej wojny światowej. Ośrodki, instytucje, organizacje, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź, 2012. More bibliography on the topic: see chapter 2, footnote 4. 59 Polscy uchodźcy w Rumunii 1939-1947. Dokumenty z Narodowych Archiwów Rumunii/ Refugiaţii polonezi în România 1939–1947. Documente din Arhivele Naţionale ale României, (in two volumes), ed. J. Bednarek, D. Dobrincu, L. Kamiński et al., Warsaw-Bucarest, 2013; Istvan Lagzi, Droga żołnierza polskiego przez granice węgierską w latach 1939-1941, Poznań, 1978; Witold Biegański, Polskie siły zbrojne na Zachodzie 1939-1945, Warsaw, 1990. 60 Peter Gattrel, “Displacing and Re-placing Populations in the two World Wars: Poland and Armenia Compared”, Contemporary European History, 16: 4, 2007, 519. Ignacy Blum claimed that Polish deportees numbered 900,000 (I. Blum, “Polacy w Rosji carskiej i Związku Radzieckim”, Wojskowy Przegląd Historyczny, 3, 1966, 198). See more: Mariusz Korzeniowski, „Refugees from Polish territories in Russia during the First World War”, Europe on the Move: refugees in the era of the Great War, eds. P. Gatrell, Liubov Zhvanko, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017, chapter 3; Tomas Balkelis, “Nation building and World War I refugees in Lithuania 1918-1924, Journal of Baltic Studies, Volume 34, Number 4, 2003, p. 432-456.

60 some of them to return, but the turmoil of the first years of the independent

Polish republic, especially the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921, set other people on the move. In a broader perspective, Poles experienced forced dislocations and deportations after every uprising against the Russian state, from the

Kosciuszko Insurrection (1794) to the 1831 November Uprising and the January

Uprising of 1861 to 1864.61 Thus, the Polish experience of refugeedom stretched beyond the life-span of a single generation; it became a peculiar legacy transmitted from one generation to another.

All these experiences equipped the Polish people with a template for recreating and organizing the Polish diaspora, whenever and wherever such need arose. The idea of repatriation, the return to Poland after the conflict was over, was an obvious aim, but so was the need to provide Poles with assistance and solace in the meantime. The variable conditions of refugeedom would determine the specific needs. Polish refugees of the Second World War who concentrated in Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary found themselves in a difficult situation in 1940. Since the host countries were either allied to Nazi

Germany or maintained a precarious neutrality, they were no longer willing to provide housing and welfare. Members of the newly constituted Polish government (whose path of exile led from France to Great Britain, where its

61 See more: Zesłańcy postyczniowi w Imperium Rosyjskim, ed. Eugeniusz Niebelski, Wydawnictwo KUL i Instytutu Historii PAN w Warszawie, Lublin-Warsaw, 2008.

61 wartime headquarters were ultimately established) started to negotiate with the British regarding the transfer of Polish refugees to Palestine in June 1940.62

The first groups of Polish citizens arrived in Palestine between November 1940 and June 1941. Apart from this organized and agreed relocation, there was also an uncontrolled stream of Polish refugees into Palestine from late 1939 on. The size of this migration is hard to estimate. According to a diplomatic report sent from Tel Aviv to the Polish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in London in

March 1941, the number of refugees arriving in Palestine quickly exceeded the agreed British quota set at 550 people. In 1941 the number of Polish refugees was 730, and the number was constantly growing due to the stream of people reaching Palestine by their own devices from Syria or by sea on Egyptian ships.63 In addition, in 1940, following the fall of France and the establishment of the Vichy administration in Syria and Lebanon, the Polish Independent

Carpathian Rifle Brigade, which was stationed in Syria as part of the French

Army of the Levant, marched to Palestine where it was placed under the command of the British Eighth Army. In order to organize and manage this quickly growing diaspora, the Polish diplomatic corps in Palestine, consisting of two consulates, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, was engaged by the central Polish

62 The most updated compendium on Polish refugees in Palestine during Second World War is Jacek Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie w latach drugiej wojny światowej… (see footnote 2), 46-48. 63 Archiwum Akt Nowych (Central Archive of Modern Records, hereinafter AAN), Ministry of Foreign Affairs collection, Box 524, folder 12, report from March 1941, (800/42/0/-/524).

62 authorities in London as the main point of reference for Polish refugees in the

Middle East.

Palestine itself was not a terra incognita for Poles. Prior to the war, Polish Jews comprised 40 per cent of all Jewish immigrants to Palestine.64 During the last five years of the Polish Second Republic, the government encouraged Jewish immigration to Palestine, making the promotion of the so-called

“emigrationist” (expatriation) programme an important political objective.65

Elaborated at the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this programme propagated mass immigration of Polish Jews to Palestine, and found favour with the Zionist movement, especially right fraction, the New

Zionist Organization also called the Zionist-Revisionists). In the eyes of the programme’s authors, the emigration of Polish Jews was necessitated by

Jewish dominance of certain spheres of the economy and commerce, and their overall surplus in Polish society. Why would a particular group of Polish citizens be regarded as supernumerary? The main author of the “emigrationist” programme, Wiktor Drymmer, who headed the pre-war Consular Department, depicted Polish Jewry in the following manner:

64 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 19. 65 For example, the Polish-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, established in 1926, published the periodical Palestyna i Bliski Wschód (Palestine and Middle East) that stressed the economic prosperity in Palestine. Some issues of the journal available online: https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/publication/365684/edition/348670?language=en

“They wore long, occidental-style coats (kapotas), small caps, beards and side curls; [with] their soulful, strange music and songs, strange […] cuisine, broken

Polish speech […] they remained an incomprehensible exoticism to the majority of Poles.”66

Drymmer’s point was that Polish Jewry, as a whole, was in fact an unassimilable group, living a separated life from the Polish majority.67 But beyond this supposed aesthetic dissonance, Polish Jews were singled out as being guilty of blocking the economic development of the Polish peasantry.

This idea, born among the Polish right, gained popularity throughout Polish society and became integrated into the political mainstream.68 The argument concerning Jewish “unassimilability” was used as a means of justifying Jewish emigration.69 The departure of the Jewish “strangers” would open up new employment prospects in the Polish countryside, which was suffering from over-population and underemployment. In the meantime, the Polish pre-war administration promulgated a series of discriminatory decisions to additionally

66 Wiktor T. Drymmer, „Zagadnienie żydowskie w Polsce 1935-1939”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 13, Paris, 1968, 56- 65. 67 See more: Joanna B. Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, (especially Part II: the Historical Introduction, which encompasses the years 1918-1939, 1-3), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE and London, 2006. 68 See: Antisemitism and its opponents in modern Poland, ed. Robert Blobaum, Cornell University Press, 2005. Also: Antony Polonsky, Politics in independent Poland 1921-1939. The crisis of constitutional government, Oxford University Press, New York, 1972. 69 See more on highly complex term and concept of assimilation: Anna Jagodzińska, “Asymilacja, czyli bezradność historyka. O krytyce terminu i pojęcia” [in:] Wokół asymilacji i akulturacji Żydów na ziemiach polskich, ed. Konrad Zieliński, Wydawnictwo UMCS, Lublin,2010.

64 boost the process of “polonization” in certain branches of economy. In order to evade accusations of anti-Semitism, and particularly of anti-Semitic violence, this activity was labelled “economic rivalry”.70 Nonetheless, its nationalistic and undemocratic stance was denounced by the pre-war Polish-Jewish left,71 since the perception of some Polish citizens as desirable and others as unfit due only to their ethnicity seriously undermined the principle of democratic equality.

This is why the alliance between the sanacja government and the Jewish

Agency, the main Zionist body in Palestine, and the Zionists-Revisionists remained semi-official.72 The intention of separating Poles and Jews and encouraging the latter to leave was clearly pronounced. Despite the Law on

Polish Citizenship of 1938, which enabled those who had lost contact with

“Polish statehood” to be deprived of their Polish citizenship, many Jewish immigrants to Palestine actually retained their Polish citizenship.73

70 I refer here to the statement by the last Polish Prime Minister, Felicjan Sławoj-Składkowski who said: “yes to economic rivalry but no to any harm”. Citation from: Arkadiusz Adamczyk, “Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski i Bogusław Miedziński wobec kwestii żydowskiej w ostatnich latach Drugiej Rzeczpospolitej”, Acta Universitatis Lodzensis. Folia Historica, 66, 1999, 164. 71 See for example a brochure by Wiktor Alter, Jewish socialist activist, Antysemityzm gospodarczy w świetle cyfr, Wydawnictwo Myśli Socjalistycznej, Warsaw, 1937. 72 See more: A. Patek, Żydzi w drodze do Palestyny 1934-1944…; Laurence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience. The New Zionist Organization and the Polish Government 1936-1939, Boulder: East European Monographs, New York, 1993; Andrzej Chojnowski, Koncepcje polityki narodowościowej rządów polskich w latach 1921-1939, Polska Akademia Nauk, Wrocław, 1979. 73 Grzegorz Kulka, „Nadawanie, pozbawianie i przywracanie polskiego obywatelstwa w czasie II wojny światowej”, Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, LXIII: 1, 2011, 149.

This “fantasy of ethnic unmixing” 74 was an idea haunting European states long before the emergence of the Second Polish Republic. The break-up of multi- ethnic empires located wholly or partially in Europe, like Austro-Hungary or the

Ottoman Empire, prompted political thinkers to look for a solution of the

“minority problem” born out of this process:

“[F]rom the early 1910s to the late 1940s western liberal democracies as well as authoritarian states and dictatorships saw in internationally sanctioned forced resettlement a means of promoting the creation and consolidation of stable and homogenous nation states and safeguarding national and regional security”.75

Pre-war Polish policy towards Polish Jews is a classic example of this approach.

For the sake of a “healthy” economy and social stability, Polish Jews were encouraged to leave Poland and settle in what was considered their ethnic homeland, Palestine. The reasons for the Jews to leave, as formulated by

Polish political leaders, were certainly much more complex than this, and will be analysed in the following chapters. Here, it is important to note that population transfer was upgraded from a concept to an action, and once it

74 This phrase was used by Matthew Frank in his book on population transfers: Making Minorities History. Population Transfer in Twentieth-Century Europe, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017. 75 M. Frank, Making Minorities…, 1.

66 revealed its attraction as a simple solution for Poland’s social and economic woes, it became irresistible.76

The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted in serious changes in the

Polish political leadership.77 In particular, these affected Polish-Jewish relations as they were now envisioned and shaped by Poland’s new leaders.78 Nazi

Germany’s blitzkrieg, followed by the Soviet invasion and annexation of the eastern Polish territories, prompted the existing Polish leadership to flee the country along with those military units that had survived the first battles.

Counting on the pre-war Polish-Romanian alliance, they entered Romania, where the members of the pre-war Polish cabinet were interned under

German pressure. A new government made up mainly of members of the pre- war opposition was established in France and was recognized as the legal

Polish political authority by the foreign powers. Its democratic credentials were treated with mistrust by the Western democracies.79 Headed by General

76 See more: Timothy Snyder, Czarna Ziemia: Holokaust jako ostrzeżenie, Znak Horyzont, Kraków, 2015, (chapter 3: „Obietnica Palestyny”, 89-112). 77 See for example: Eugeniusz Duraczyński, Kontrowersje i konflikty 199-1941, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw, 1977; Idem, Rząd polski na uchodźstwie: organizacja, personalia, polityka, Książka i Wiedza, Warsaw, 1993; Magdalena Hułas, Goście czy intruzi? Rząd polski na uchodźstwie, wrzesień 1939 - lipiec 1943, Instytut Historii PAN, Warsaw, 1996; Paweł Wieczorkiewicz, Polityczna historia Polski 1935-1945, Zysk i S-ka, Warsaw, 2014. 78 See for example: David Engel, In the shadow of Auschwitz. The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939-1943, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill &London, 1987; Dariusz Stola, “The Polish Government-in-exile: National Unity and Weakness”, [in:] Governments-in-Exile and the Jews during the Second World War, eds. Jan Lanicek and James Jordan, Valentine Mitchell, London, 2012, 95-118; Adam Puławski, “The Polish Government-in-exile in London, the Delegatura, the Union of Armed Struggle-Home Army and the Extermination of the Jews”, ibidem, 119-144. 79 David Engel, In the shadow of Auschwitz…, 50-51.

Władysław Sikorski, a prominent military figure who had been marginalized after the 1926 coup d’état, the Polish government in exile declared itself democratic and disassociated itself from the non-democratic decisions of the pre-war Polish government. However, this message to international public opinion was followed up with an internal promise to the Polish public that it would categorically and mercilessly bring to account the pre-war sanacja regime, which, in the eyes of the new Polish leadership and much of Polish society, had been responsible for the September 1939 defeat. Broadly speaking, sanacja encompassed the political, economic and social rebirth or healing (the exact meaning of the word sanacja) of the abnormal situation that had prevailed in Poland before the coup d’état of 1926. Sanacja’s main grievance was that an unchecked parliament and uncontrolled economy had resulted in a crisis of democracy. To remedy this, sanacja promoted the primacy of the state in all public spheres, a planned economy, the liquidation of parliamentary government, and the restructuring of Polish society through deep moral renewal.80 The issue of national minorities was to be addressed in a dual manner: Slavic minorities (Belarusians and Ukrainians) were to be assimilated, while the Jewish minority was to be significantly reduced through

80 More about sanacja and the ideology this camp pursued: Waldemar Paruch, Myśl polityczna obozu piłsudczykowskiego w Polsce 1926-1939, Wydawnictwo UMCS, Lublin, 2005.

68 population transfer.81 The military character of sanacja rule (also called the colonels’ regime since many sanacja officials were high-ranking army officers), installed by means of the armed coup d’état in 1926, made it clear that political vengeance would be executed by the Polish military forces established in exile. Indeed, while still in France, the new Polish government ordered the setting up of a specifically designated unit – the Cerizay Officer Centre – in which surplus officers, along with pre-war real or suspected sanacja officers, were detained in enforced idleness.82 After the fall of France (June 1940) and the evacuation of the Polish government to Great Britain, this detention camp was re-established at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute (Officer Concentration

Station in Rothesay).83 The act of keeping soldiers loyal to sanacja away from active military service was only amounted to state-sanctioned violence (the results of which – frequent cases of apathy, depression, and other mental problems – were recalled after the war) but sent out a message of their being undesirable, both in the army and for a future Poland. It collided with the declared democratization of Polish politics and recalled the political prisoners of the sanacja period, and as such was a bad prognostic for the future.

81 Jeffrey S. Kopstein, Jason Wittenberg, “Beyond Dictatorship and Democracy: Rethinking National Minority Inclusion and Regime Type in Interwar Eastern Europe”, Comparative Political Studies, 43: 8-9, 2010, 1089- 1118. 82 Arkadiusz Adamczyk, “Piłsudczycy na emigracji, 1939-1944”, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 5-6, 2008. 83 The sojourn in the Cerizay and Rothesay camps was a recurrent theme of the post-war memoirs by Polish officers, for example: Tadeusz Munnich, “Cerizay and Rothesay”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 78, Paris, 1986, 226-229.

The three key issues mentioned so far – refugeedom, the redefinition of Polish policy towards Jews, and the political rivalry between the new rulers and their opponents – intersected in Palestine, giving rise to some unexpected results.

The almost unforeseen emergence of a Polish refugee diaspora in Palestine prompted a transformation of the pre-war “emigrationist” programme, which in any case was impossible to implement in the wartime circumstances.84 The everyday administrative practice of the Polish diplomatic personnel, responsible for managing the refugee community, revealed that there were more refugees than simply former sanacja officials, now categorized as undesirable, and as such stood in sharp contrast with the exiled government’s declared adherence to democratic standards. In what follows I will first analyse the establishment of the Polish wartime diaspora in Palestine and the main problems that immediately arose: the political and economic control of the refugees, and the relations between Poles and the receiving society, the

Palestinian Yishuv. I will then reflect on the approach taken by the local Jewish community towards the refugees and the main objectives that shaped Jewish policy. Finally, I will analyse Polish policy towards the refugees in Palestine by examining the cases of the Polish welfare distribution system and the military draft.

84 M. Frank, Making Minorities…

2. Wartime Palestine

For the Polish government in London, Palestine became an object of special attention after the waves of Polish wartime refugees arriving there between early 1940 and early 1941 resulted in the formation of a sizable Polish diaspora.85 Particularly troubling was the presence of pre-war sanacja officials who had been directed to Palestine by decisions taken at the highest level of

Polish political leadership. Driven by the immediate wish to keep political opponents away from the decision-making centre, the Polish wartime authorities now hesitated over further steps. The Polish diplomatic corps in

Palestine, directly responsible for Polish refugees, regularly alerted London about what they saw to be an escalating problem: “(…) a veritable tumour is growing in Palestine. Poniatowski [is] at best of his energy, (…) the Drymmer-

Hulanicki duo have some high profile contacts with the British and influence in the Army.”86 The three mentioned (Juliusz Poniatowski, former Minister of

Agriculture, Wiktor Tomir Drymmer, former head of the consular department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Witold Hulanicki, consul general in

Jerusalem) were prominent statesmen. Highly placed in the pre-war Polish administration, they enjoyed international connections and were known both

85 About the formation of Polish wartime diaspora in Palestine see: Jacek Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy…, 43-59. 86 Sikorski Institute, PRM 51, document 4. A cable from March 1941 on the relations in Palestine prepared by Consul Walery Bader in Jerusalem.

71 to the Polish community in Palestine and to the British authorities. The enmity the wartime Polish authorities displayed towards them resulted in the further consolidation of the sanacja milieu.87 This was exactly what the wartime Polish authorities feared – the expansion of the political opposition’s influence through informal contacts and friendly relations reaching back to pre-war times. Polish officials struggled to prevent cases like that of General Kordian

Zamorski: “When he [Zamorski] took up command in the Auxiliary Camp in

Latrun, he was full of eagerness and fervour demonstrating loyalty to the

[Polish wartime] authorities. (…) In a short period of time though his former colleagues talked him over.”88 However, the taking of any decisive measures against “sanacja hostile action” posed political risks for the authorities in power. The initial idea was to incorporate sanacja adherents, who often had military experience, into the ranks of the Carpathian Rifle Brigade, but the risk of encouraging grassroots opposition in the Polish Army was too high.

Eventually the opposite step, of imposing enforced idleness on sanacja officers, was taken. This practice, first carried out in France and Great Britain, appeared as a convenient tool for neutralizing the “undesirable refugees”, as sanacja officers were termed by London-based Polish politicians. The

87 More about the sanacja politicians in Palestine: Marek Czarniawski, “Apologeci Komendanta: z dziejów polskiego wychodźstwa politycznego na Bliskim Wschodzie 1940-1947”, Niepodległość i Pamięć, 9/1: 18, 2002, 99-107; A. Adamczyk, “Piłsudczycy na emigracji..”, 2008; J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 2012. 88 Sikorski Institute, PRM 51, Ibidem.

“undesirables” endured a series of discriminatory practices, calculated to prevent any political sabotage on their side. Some pre-war officers were given category “E” (unfit for military service) status and rejected forthwith. This meant a lower income, which made their refugee existence penurious.89 Thus the link between being “undesirable” and economic duress was officially conceived.

The main argument in favour of keeping sanacja-associated officers away from

Polish units was to prevent the spread of the sanacja ideology. The sanacja camp propagated an uncompromising attitude towards the Soviets and harshly criticized General Sikorski’s policy as being too consensual towards both the

British and the Soviets, especially over the issue of the Polish territories annexed by the USSR in 1939. As already mentioned, sanacja’s pre-war drift from democracy towards authoritarianism meant that in wartime this concept collided with Polish aspirations to be part of a coalition of western democratic allies. In Palestine, the idea of a population transfer represented an additional geopolitical risk. Jewish immigration to Palestine had been drastically limited by Great Britain in its May 1939 White Paper. Over the following five years

British authorities were to accept only 75,000 Jews, whose entry to Palestine

89 M. Czarniawski, “Apologeci Komendanta…”, 102.

73 required an advance immigration certificate.90 With the Polish exiled government hosted on British soil and the British being the Poles’ major ally at that stage of the war, it became vital to nullify sanacja’s political initiatives lest they damage the Polish-British alliance. This did not mean, though, that the concept should be abandoned altogether. When the circumstances of war expelled the Polish authorities from the homeland, they obtained an opportunity to gain insight into other standpoints on the concept of population transfer. For example, in October 1941, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs,

Edward Raczyński, took part in an informal meeting at Lord Moyne’s residence in London. His report on the meeting to Prime Minister Sikorski shows the

Polish officials’ understanding of the British stand on the “Jewish question”, and their conclusions. Raczyński perceived the meeting as a relaxed off-the- record discussion, with a free exchange of views. The post-war situation of

European Jews was assessed and the idea of settling European Jews outside

Europe presented itself as an inevitable necessity. The question of a suitable territory remained open, with the British openly reluctant to give Palestine away as territory for the Jews to settle. The floating of the Polish part of

90 Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust... More about British Mandate Palestine: Daphna Sharfman, Palestine in the Second World War. Strategic Plans and Political Dilemmas. The Emergence of a New Middle East, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, Chicago, Toronto, 2014. For the older but still relevant studies: Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and Jewish-Arab Conflict, 1917-1929, The Society, London, 1978; Michael J. Cohen, Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate. The making of the British Policy, 1936-45, Paul Elek, London, 1978.

Eastern Prussia as an alternative was quickly rejected by Raczyński (“We will need these lands for ourselves!”).91 One conclusion drawn by the Poles afterwards was that Polish officials should take extra precautions in Palestine before taking any political decision there. More importantly perhaps, the meeting at Lord Moyne’s residence showed clearly that population transfer was a measure for consideration not only by peripheral Eastern European states but also by western liberal democracies, members of the very political club that Poles wanted to join. The Polish authorities concluded that the odium of anti-Semitism had been removed from the population transfer concept where the Jewish population was concerned. Raczyński noted: “Ministers Eden and Moyne approached the issue [of population transfer] as a practical solution, without linking it to any specific ideology or prejudice.”92

With British opinion on the matter clarified, the Polish wartime authorities were able to set out the principles of their policy in Palestine. Documents exchanged between the Polish consulates in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and the

London-based Ministry of Foreign Affairs reveal how well versed Polish diplomats were in the intricacies of the Yishuv’s political life. Now the dilemma was limited to which Jewish political force should be picked as an appropriate

91 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs collection, Box 611, folder 3, (800/42/0/-/611), a note from October 1941 by Edward Raczyński to Prime Minister, General Władysław Sikorski. 92 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 611, folder 3, Ibidem. See more about the concept of population issues: Alison Bashford, Global Population: History, Geopolitics and Life on Earth, Columbia University Press, New York, 2014.

75 partner. The Jewish Agency (Hebrew: Sochnut) of the mainstream Zionist movement was correctly identified by the Poles as the most influential political body in Palestine and the actual host for Polish Jewish refugees. The most powerful Jewish political power in Poland before the war, the Bund (Jewish socialists), was absent from Palestine. The Zionist-Revisionists, the Zionist movement’s right flank, were rejected as too radical and too closely linked to the pre-war regime. Finally the idea of neutrality, understood as abstaining from demonstrative support for any Jewish political force, prevailed in Polish circles. By the same token, Polish officials tended not to reject any Jewish party too assertively. For example, in December 1941 the Polish Ministry of Foreign

Affairs refused to consider the Revisionists’ candidate to the Polish National

Council,93 instructing the consul in Jerusalem to officially reject the

Revisionists’ offer. At the same time, it stated clearly that this decision had

“nothing to do with Polish Government’s favour for each Jewish political party”.94 In the same dispatch the Polish consul was advised to accept other requests by the Revisionists whenever possible, provided they did not clash with Polish state interests.

93 More about the Polish National Council during the War: E. Duraczyński, R. Turowski, O Polsce na uchodźstwie... . 94 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs collection, Box 611, folder 10 (800/42/0-/611), a cable from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Polish consul in Jerusalem from November 1941.

In addition to well-established and long-functioning Jewish institutions in

Palestine such as the Jewish Agency, there were a number of new comers, established in response to the specific needs of the Jewish people in wartime.

The Representation of Polish Jewry, a body set up in 1939 by prominent Polish

Jewish politicians in Palestine, was designed to serve the community of Polish wartime Jewish refugees.95 In its founding act, it officially termed itself a spokesman for Polish Jewry.96 As such, it might have appeared as a natural partner for Polish officials in their mission of managing and organizing the

Polish diaspora in the Middle East, all the more so since the Representation’s key members enjoyed good relations with the Jewish Agency, and it could easily have become a go-between for the Polish authorities and the powerful

Yishuv leadership. Yet despite the evident aspirations of the Representation to play such a role, Polish officials frequently spoke lightly of it in correspondence restricted to internal circles. In this specific case, the Polish approach stemmed from its distaste for the agenda pursued by the Representation. The

Representation of Polish Jewry identified itself with the General Zionist movement, supporting the establishment of a Jewish national home in

Palestine but endorsing at the same time the Helsingfors programme

95 See more: Andrzej Friszke, „Tuż przed zagładą. Ze stosunków polsko-żydowskich na emigracji 1939-1945”, Więź, 4, 1986, 91-100. 96 See: establishment act, Central Zionist Archives (hereinafter: CZA), J25/94.

77 concerning the Jewish masses in the Diaspora, the so-called

Gegenswartsarbeit, “work in present”.97 This programme promulgated political activity by Jewish leaders in the Diaspora to improve the status of Jews. A practical manifestation of Gegenwartsarbeit was the activity of Itzhak (Ignacy)

Schwarzbart.98 A prominent figure in the General Zionist movement in Galicia before the war, Schwarzbart now played a dual role as a member of the

Representation and of the Polish National Council, the advisory board set up to represent the broader political scene beyond the four political parties making up the government.

The principle of Polish neutrality in Palestine underwent a difficult test if one takes into account the multiple ways the wartime authorities, as well as their political rivals, were connected to Yishuv politicians. One of the pre-war Jewish migrants to Palestine was Itzhak Grunbaum, leader of the General Zionists in

Congress Poland and head of the Polish parliamentary Jewish Faction before the war. His main antagonist from Poland, Leon Lewite, had also lived in

Palestine since 1933.99 The Yishuv political scene was uniquely accessible to

97 See for example: Roni Gechtman, “Jews and Non-Territorial Autonomy: Political Programmes and Historical Perspectives”, Ethnopolitics, 15: 1, 2016, 66-88. 98 For the pre-war activity of Itzhak Schwarzbart see: Dariusz Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada. Żydowski przedstawiciel w Radzie Narodowej RP (1940-1945), Oficyna Naukowa, Warsaw, 32-34. Also: Marcin Kula, D. Stola, „Koncepcja Żyda-Polaka w oczach polskiego Żyda” [in:] M. Kula, Uparta sprawa? Żydowska? Polska? Ludzka? Universitas, Kraków, 2004, 39-72. 99 Joseph Marcus sees the rivalry between Grunbaum and Lewite as marking the inter-war years and one of the causes for the deep fractions within the Polish Zionist movement. J. Marcus, Social and Political History of Polish Jews 1919-1939, Mouton Publishers, Berlin, New York, 1983, 267.

Polish politicians due to the personal contacts many of them retained with their Jewish colleagues, MPs, or members of local governments.

By the beginning of 1941 the community of Polish refugees in Palestine had risen to 700 people.100 Its size attracted much attention within the Polish

Ministry for Foreign Affairs in London. Inevitably, and quite naturally, Polish refugees interacted with the local Jewish community, and it was the nature of these contacts that became the object of concern to Polish officials. The Polish

Ministry for Foreign Affairs quickly realized that the two general consulates in

Palestine were supplying conflicting information about the Polish diaspora and its relations with the Yishuv. The optimistic tone adopted by the Tel Aviv consul

Henryk Rosmarin, when discussing relations between the Poles and the Yishuv

(often connected with his own achievements in this field), stood in sharp contrast to the reports of the Jerusalem-based consul, Witold Korsak. Polish officials perceived Rosmarin to be a devoted supporter of the Representation of Polish Jewry and its agenda (something Korsak eagerly confirmed).101

Therefore Rosmarin’s reports did not impress the Ministry in London, despite their positive intentions. Consul Korsak, unlike Rosmarin, provided information about the tensions and problems of the refugee community, and was therefore

100 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 524, folder 14 (800/42/0/-/524), a cable from the Polish consulate in Jerusalem to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from January 1941). 101 Sikorski Institute, PRM 51, Palestinian diplomats’ dossiers.

79 trusted more by the Polish authorities (who consequently subordinated the Tel

Aviv consulate to that of Jerusalem).

The unanticipated encounter in the Yishuv between Polish refugees (both Jews and non-Jews) and the community of recent immigrants (including a large number of Polish Jews) was rife with tensions from the start.102 The mere fact of the arrival of Poles in Palestine made the restrictions imposed on Jewish immigration to Palestine still more evident and painful. The Yishuv sabotaged the White Paper that had set the officially approved number of Jewish immigrants at 75,000 by intensifying Aliyah Bet, the stream of clandestine

Jewish immigration to Palestine that had started some time before the outbreak of war. A specifically designated body of the Histadrut (the General

Organization of Workers in the Land of Israel), the Immigration Bureau

(Mossad le’Aliyah Bet), was established in 1938. Earlier, the Revisionist faction had organized illegal immigration to Palestine.103 This illegal immigration would sometimes end in tragedy and drama. In November 1940 the ship Patria, with over 1800 Jewish refugees on board, sank in the port of Haifa, killing 267.

With one type of incomer restricted from coming to Palestine and another type welcomed, the influx of Polish refugees aggravated the existing

102 The Yishuv certainly did not consist only of Jewish immigrants from Europe; the Old Yishuv comprised Jews who lived in Palestine before the modern Zionist Aliyah. 103 See more: Yehuda Bauer, From Diplomacy to Resistance. A history of Jewish Palestine 1939-1945, Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1970; Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust…, 1990.

80 atmosphere in the Yishuv. Not all Polish refugees arrived there legally; some only had transit visas to Palestine, banning them from a longer stay. Moreover, these mainly Jewish refugees were not included in the evacuees’ lists and the

Polish consul had no choice but to include them in the agreed contingent, thus legalizing their stay in Palestine. What was at stake was the legal and financial responsibility for the incomers: the British authorities did not want to be bothered with organizing, managing, controlling and, above all, funding the

Polish diaspora in Palestine. I shall return to these economic aspects later, when discussing the actual policies implemented by the Poles vis-à-vis the refugees.

The British were not the only people to be troubled by the Polish presence in

Palestine. Jewish representatives of the Yishuv had their concerns as well. As early as July 1940 two members of the Jewish Agency, Yeshayahu Kalinov and

Moshe Shertok, exchanged telegrams concerning possible tensions in the

Yishuv arising from the Polish military unit’s presence there. After the capitulation of France, Polish troops in Syria (which was a French Mandate territory) were now subordinated to the Eighth British Army in the Middle East and ordered to relocate to British-controlled territory. The concerns of the

Jewish Agency’s representatives pertained to possible offences committed by local Jews against Polish soldiers perceived by and large as “incomers from an

81 anti-Semitic country”. In order to prevent these offences, the two debated how to press the Yishuv news corps “to devote a few nice lines with blessings to the Polish Brigade, as we did with the Australian Brigade”.104 For Polish

Jews, who constituted a large segment of the Yishuv, anti-Semitism had been one of the factors pushing them out of Poland before the war.105 Sensitive to any display of Polish anti-Jewish moves, Palestinian Jews consequently subjected the Polish diaspora to close scrutiny. Accordingly, the

Representation of Polish Jewry protested against the appointment of

Władysław Kański, a prominent activist of ultra-nationalist Polish organizations

(Młodzież Wszechpolska, Obóz Wielkiej Polski) and known for his anti-Semitic views, as head of the press department in the Jerusalem Polish consulate, making him a key figure in the information and propaganda apparatus.106 The

Polish authorities’ reluctance to recall Kański had opposite consequences to those they had anticipated. Instead of an article with “a few nice lines about the Polish soldiers” the Tel Aviv daily newspaper Davar published an article recalling the strength of Polish anti-Semitism before the war. The anonymous author (the Polish authorities suspected it was Anshel Reiss, a member of the

Representation of Polish Jewry) recapitulated the popularization of the Nazi

104 CZA, S26.1169, a cable from Shertok to Kalinov from July 1940. 105 A. Patek, Żydzi w drodze do Palestyny…, 94-95. 106 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 239.

82 ideology in Poland with such milestones as the visit of Nazi official Hans Frank visit to Poland in 1938, or the rally of nationalist students in the Czestochowa sanctuary in 1936, with the public taking of oaths and the shouting of slogans against fighting jews (sic!), communists and other enemies of the fatherland.107

Polish diplomats regarded the article as thoroughly anti-Polish and demanded that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took personal action, pointing to Reiss’

Polish citizenship as the legal basis for punishment. In the end, the

Representation of Polish Jewry, which included Reiss, denied its involvement in the affair and the perpetrator (whether Reiss or not) went unpunished. The incident confirmed what was already suspected by the Polish authorities: that from now on the Jews of Palestine would severely judge the behaviour of

Polish refugees, and the political consequences would carry beyond Palestine.

Clearly, the ethnic tensions so common in Poland, now reverberated in the new political situation in exile, and could be more harmful to the Polish cause than ever. This factor would have been taken into account by the Polish authorities when making any decision concerning Polish refugees in the Middle

East.

107 On the analogies between Polish and German pre-war anti-Semitism see: William W. Hagen, “Before the ‘Final Solution’: Toward a Comparative Analysis of Political Anti-Semitism in the Interwar Germany and Poland”, The Journal of Polish History, 68: 2, 1996, 351-381.

The public image of the Polish war refugee community was not the Polish authorities’ sole concern. The most urgent issue was financing the refugeedom.108 Polish wartime exiles arrived in Palestine with different resources. Nevertheless, even those blessed with considerable means would eventually exhaust them and have to turn to the state political representatives for help. The Polish authorities in Palestine had therefore to organize a system of financial aid, and the first step was to establish a means of testing the eligibility of refugees for a welfare allowance. Responses to the question of what makes a refugee varied over time. At first the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, the body responsible for refugees, claimed that the conditions of departure from Poland were the key. A refugee would be adjudged as such if the events of war had caused him or her to leave. In other words, a refugee was a war fugitive.109 Later, in February 1941, the Ministry prepared a longer questionnaire requiring information about the individual’s mode of arrival (whether he or she held a visa, certificate, or other documentation), their military status, and their capability for work.110 The questionnaire, which served as guidance for Polish officials in Palestine, made it clear that the qualities of a refugee would matter in deciding his or her

108 See more: M. Hułas, Goście czy intruzi? ..., chapter „Finances” (35-67). 109 Peter Gatrell, The Making of the Modern Refugee, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013. 110 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 524, folder 14 (800/42/0/-/524), a report from Polish consulate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from January 1941.

84 eligibility for financial aid. Equally clear was the intention to differentiate between an immigrant and a war refugee by probing the method of arrival.

The exiled authorities had only limited resources to allocate to welfare payments; hence the need to reduce the number of recipients. In December

1941 Tadeusz Lubaczewski, the ministerial delegate designated to coordinate the welfare system in Palestine, reported to the Ministry’s headquarters in

London: “The financial situation of the Polish exiles is tragic. Prices are growing every day, the outbreak of the Japanese war has reduced imports. We ought to raise the welfare payment or relocate the refugees to a cheaper place.”111 This despatch in Palestine could not have been less welcome in London. Already in

1941 the refugee relief share accounted for 25 per cent of the entire Polish budget of three and half million pounds designated for this purpose.

This money came predominantly from wartime loans from the French and

British governments.112 This was not the kind of resource the Poles wished to exhaust. Any request to enlarge the loan, if met at all, would only deepen the exiled Polish government’s financial dependence on its creditors. In this situation, the Polish authorities resorted to the ministerial definition of a refugee, and deprived the holders of Palestinian visas or immigration

111 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 536, folder 5 (800/42/0/-/536), a cable from consul in Jerusalem to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from December 1941. 112 See: Magdalena Hułas, Goscie czy intruzi? …, 37. About the Polish treasury evacuated from Poland see: Janusz Wróbel, „Wojenne losy polskiego złota”, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 8-9, Łódź, 2002, 55-65.

85 certificates, beyond the agreed number, of financial support. This decision by the Polish authorities led to protests from Jewish refugees, who, needless to say, made up the majority of holders of Palestinian visas and immigration certificates. The accusation was that the Polish authorities differentiated between Poles and non-Poles in their qualification procedures for refugee status, and discriminated against Polish Jews, thereby infringing the democratic principle of civic equality. The Polish officials categorically rejected the accusations of discriminatory policy and eventually retreated. Yet, the status of certificate holders remained ambiguous and the dilemma of whether to treat them as war refugees or immigrants to Palestine was hard to solve.

A Palestinian immigration certificate or visa was regarded by Polish officials as signalling the holder’s willingness to settle in Palestine, something that the

Polish authorities did not wish to prevent. The certificate system distinguished four categories of Jewish immigrants to Palestine: people of independent means (Category “A”, “capitalists”); students and religious people of assured income (Category “B”); prospective employees (Category “C”, “labour”); and people financially dependent on permanent residents (category “D”).113 The

Polish reasoning was that a prospective settler would be taken care of by the

Yishuv institutions. Indeed, the Jewish Agency became involved in the question

113 Aviva Halamish, “A New Look at Immigration of Jews From Yemen to Mandatory Palestine”, Israel Studies, 11: 1, 2006, 61.

86 of Palestinian certificate and visa-holders, and an agreement between the

Jewish Agency and the Polish authorities was struck: holders of “capitalist” certificates were excluded from the Polish welfare scheme since their income was anyway secured. The agreement excluded other refugees already assisted by the Jewish Agency.114 This agreement might have saved some resources but it did not alter the generally gloomy state of the exiled Polish government’s finances. These limited resources, along with the growing needs of the Polish diaspora, pushed the authorities to look for additional financial sources. Ideas ranged from arranging employment for skilled refugees in British colonies and territories under British control, further limitations on welfare recipients, and, lastly, the transference of civil refugees to the Polish military forces, whose separate funding would potentially relieve the strained social budget. The first two proposals turned out to be only half-measures. The dispatch from

Lubaczewski, mentioned above, named the British Colonial Office as the institution capable of arranging employment for refugees. Further correspondence proves that the Polish authorities indeed argued this point at the British administration’s offices in the Middle East and beyond, with poor results. Occasionally, Polish diplomats posted in different parts of the British colonial empire exchanged information on existing vacancies (for instance, the

114 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy…, 171.

87 need for five vets in Kenya in December 1942) but the financial problem largely remained unsolved.115 Sixteen refugees were invited for a job interview at the

Manufacturers’ Association of Palestine.116 Overall, by that time, 65 artisans, engineers and other skilled refugees had found employment in British- administered territories in the Middle East. Along with looking for employment opportunities to provide refugees with independent sources of income, the

Polish authorities were seeking all possible ways of saving money, sometimes coming up with drastic suggestions, as when, for example, the Ministry of

Labour and Social Welfare pressured its delegate in Palestine to lower his funeral expenses!

3. Polish-Jewish Military Agreement

The Polish authorities attempted to redistribute the financial burden evenly among the Polish wartime apparatus, for which purposes the Polish Army in exile seemed to offer almost never-ending potential. The Polish military forces occupied a particular space in the strategic political thinking of Polish wartime officials. The Polish Army was supposed to function as proof of the Poles’ tangible involvement in the war effort. It was hoped that any military success by the Polish units would strengthen the Polish political case, including the key

115 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 536, folder 3 (800/0/42/-/536), a Claris from Polish consulate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from December 1942. 116 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 536, folder 5, Ibidem.

88 one of rebuilding Poland within its pre-war borders after the war. The French, and later the British, governments had great expectations of the contribution

Polish soldiers would make to the allied military effort. In December 1939 the

French and the British initiated financial discussions on covering the expenses of the Polish Army,117 leading to the negotiation of an open credit that increased its budget substantially. In this context, the Polish Independent

Carpathian Brigade in Palestine emerged as a reservoir of vacancies from which the Polish government might benefit politically. Negotiations between the civil authorities and the Polish High Command covered issues like enlistment, discharges, or civil employment within the Army’s agencies.

The Independent Carpathian Brigade was a voluntary force formed in 1940, consisting of Polish soldiers who had fled Poland with the stream of civilian refugees through the Balkans in 1939. When the Carpathian Brigade left

French-controlled Syria to enter Palestine, it put itself under the command of the Eighth British Army in the Middle East. In August 1940 the Polish unit was already included by the British in the planned North African Campaign and was being prepared for relocation to Egypt.118 At this point, it turned out that the voluntary force needed to be strengthened. It was initially believed that the

117 M. Hułas, Goście czy intruzi…, 45. 118 Glyn Harper, The battle for North Africa, El Alamein and the Turning Point for World War II, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2017.

89 numbers could be made up by Polish youth fleeing to Palestine from the Soviet

Union through the Caucasus, Turkey, Iran and Iraq.119 Later, however, the situation called for more systematic solutions. In January 1941 the Carpathian

Brigade commander Lieutenant Władysław Kopański ordered a draft to be made among Polish refugees in the Middle East who had military experience.

The draft, first conducted in Cyprus, was of serious concern to Polish diplomats, worried about the effects of a subsequent draft in Palestine. On the one hand, the intake of refugees into the army’s ranks would lighten the financial burden. On the other hand, the draft could potentially complicate inter-ethnic relations in Palestine, both within the refugee community and between Polish refugees and the Yishuv leadership. The Polish diplomats’ concerns were far from baseless. In May 1941 Polish diplomats reported that the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council (Vaad Leumi) had called upon Palestinian Jews to enlist in the British Army. The Yishuv leadership had shown great interest in the military involvement of Palestinian Jews since the outbreak of the war. Yehuda Bauer listed three main reasons for this: self- protection against potential Nazi attacks and reciprocal vengeance in

Palestine; the strengthening of the Zionist cause by making the British take note of the Jewish contribution to the war effort; and the development of a

119 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 610, folder 11 (800/42/0/-/610), a cable from Sosnkowski to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from August 1940.

90 future Jewish force that would serve the Yishuv whatever the need may be.120

At that point the British authorities put the Jewish Agency’s and World Zionist

Congress’ offer to create a Jewish military force on hold, giving it a low profile.121 Nevertheless, the recruitment campaign launched by the Jewish

Agency resulted in around 60,000 Jewish recruits joining the British Army’s technical units stationed in Palestine.122 After the initial success, with

Palestinian Jews flocking to the recruitment posts, the recruitment lost its impetus.123 The recruitment was vigorously advertised in Palestine through

Zionist press, which recommended ostracism towards those who would chose to avoid the military duty.124 What Polish officials in Palestine feared was a rivalry over Jewish recruits developing between the Jewish and Polish leadership, since the Polish law on common military duty, still binding for those

Jews who retained Polish citizenship, stated clearly that any male Polish citizen of military age was obliged to perform common military service.125

120 Y. Bauer, From Diplomacy to Resistance…, 79. 121 See for example: M. Cohen, Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate…, 98-124. 122 Monty Penkower, “The struggle for an Allied Jewish Fighting Force during World War II”, [in:] Contemporary Views on the Holocaust, ed. Randolph L. Braham, Kluwer Nijhof Publishing, The Hague, 1983. 123 Older studies on wartime Yishuv spoke about overall success of Jewish enlistments (see for example, M. J. Cohen, Palestine: retreat from the Mandate…, see footnote 64 above). Newer studies, like that by Daphna Sharfman (Palestine in the Second World War…54-55; see footnote 33), as well as documents cited in this thesis speak about the difficulties of the Yishuv leadership to meet the British quotas for Jewish recruits. See more in chapter 3. 124 From Polish diplomatic correspondence: AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 611, folder 30,( 800/42/0/- /611), consul Korsak’s cable to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London from August 1942. 125 The Law on Common Military Service from 1938. The text of the Law can be found on the Sejm website: http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19380250220

Interestingly, Polish and Jewish approaches to a military contribution to the war effort stemmed from different assumptions, though the tactical goals might have appeared similar. Polish participation in the war effort took place within supranational military forces, as the Polish exiled army formed part of the multinational allied military force engaged in a common fight against Nazi

Germany. Poles participated in the military alliance under the ideal of a common military effort against Germany, and in the name of shared values not only envisioned but given actual material form through this brotherhood in arms.126 Within this supranational framework, Polish officials made every effort to maintain the high prestige of the Polish Army in exile as a regular state army, in which all social classes fought shoulder to shoulder. The Polish leadership was aware that, in order to make the claim of social unity believable, they had to include all segments of Polish society in exile, including national minorities, so that the army would resemble the regular Polish peacetime military forces. What the Polish authorities risked through this strategy was that the Polish Army in exile would be treated as a Polish national unit, a client, not a partner, of its more powerful allies, recreating the situation of the First World War, when Polish soldiers, having no state of their own, fought under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian flags, sometimes in Polish

126 Glynn Harper noticed “multinational character” of the British Eight Army, as reflecting multinational character of the British Empire: idem, The Battle for North Africa…, 16.

92 national units.127 The only way to avoid this was to strengthen the inclusivity of the Polish Army. But working towards inclusivity provoked tensions between the concept of civic equality and ethnic proportionality, which had existed in the Polish Army before the war. Unlike the Poles, the Yishuv leadership hoped to form Jewish national units in order to advance the Zionist project of creating a Jewish national home in Palestine. They wished to recreate the pattern of the

Jewish Legion fighting in the First World War as part of the British Army.128 The remaining question was whether Palestinian Jews should eventually step away from their national communities of origin and their obligations to become transnational soldiers, those who had shifted their allegiance from the community of origin to the Palestinian Yishuv.

After long pressure on the Polish High Command to issue instructions concerning the draft policy in Palestine (thus indicating that the central Polish authorities were also troubled by the dilemma of carrying out the projected draft in the specific context of Palestine), Polish diplomats were finally given details on how Jewish recruits should be treated. In the process of elaborating the issue, an anonymous official of the Polish administration prepared a thorough analysis of the Jews and the military. This merits careful reading since

127 Zbigniew Wojciechowski, „Polski czyn zbrojny w pierwszej wojnie światowej”, Colloquium Wydziału Nauk Humanistycznych i Społecznych, 1, 2009, 227-238. 128 See for example: Shmuel Almog, “Antisemtism as a dynamic phenomenon: The ‘Jewish Question’ in England at the end of the First World War”, Patterns of Prejudice, 21: 4, 1987, 3-18.

93 many of the ideas expressed in it are echoed later on in further decisions taken by the Polish authorities in exile.129 Firstly, although Polish Jews were divided into two groups – wartime refugees and pre-war migrants – some comments treated them as a single group, such as a reference to the Jews’ “dubious military skills”.130 Secondly, such generalizations created the basis for the conclusion reached in the document, that military service by Polish Jews was problematic and therefore undesirable. The problems the author predicted ranged from the limited means of punishment available for those trying to avoid military service to the Yishuv’s protests over the compulsory conscription of Polish Jews and the “tearing away [of] those Jews who were already rooted in” Palestinian soil.131 The document contained a mixture of prejudices and generalizations (Jews as poor soldiers) and a frank recognition of the limits of self-agency (the incapacity of the Polish authorities to sanction draft-dodgers,

Polish vulnerability to unfavourable public opinion). At the same time, the author captured the essence of the Polish authorities’ wartime policy towards

Jews: their unwillingness to attract Jewish immigrants back to the Polish community. Officially, the Polish wartime authorities might renounce the sanacja’s undemocratic concept of expelling Polish Jews from Poland to

129 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 610, folder 12, a note on the recruitment in Palestine (800/42/0/- /610). 130 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ibidem. 131 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ibidem.

Palestine, but in actual practice they were willing to support the outcome of this policy: that Polish Jews settled in Palestine should stay there; the Polish exiled government saw no interest in encouraging their return. Taking all these concerns and observations together, the Polish authorities decided to conduct a “voluntary draft” (or, in this case, enlistment) in Palestine, with ranks open to

Jewish volunteers but with no foreseen sanctions for those avoiding it. An instruction on how the consulate in Jerusalem should organize the draft was further confirmation that the policy was structured upon the factor of ethnicity. An evader would be deprived of consular financial aid – a rather ineffectual penalty for Polish Jews who had immigrated to Palestine before the war and had probably already secured their source of income. Jewish refugees were additionally offered an open choice of serving in the Polish Army or, having obtained an individual permit from the consulate, of joining one of the

Jewish units within the British Army. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs allowed the Polish consul in Jerusalem to distribute permits to Polish Jews to serve in the British Army “for the benefit of Great Britain’s and its allies overall war- effort.”132 The official stand of the High Command repeated the contention that the “Polish authorities did not intend to tear them [the Jews] away from their new existential centre.”133

132 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 610, folder 12, ibidem. 133 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ibidem.

The ethnic dimension had existed in the Polish army well before this date. By law, all Polish male citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, were obliged to carry out military service134 – a duty that applied equally to all Polish male citizens but in practice was exercised differently, according to the conscripts’ ethnic origins. Before the war non-Poles (Ukrainians, Jews, Belarussians, Germans and others) were not allowed to serve in the air force, navy, military communications, or the gendarmerie.135 Their military progression was also made difficult by the exclusionary Polishness of the officer corps (the few exemptions from that rule only confirming the principle of exclusion).136 Such a policy was not rare in pre-war Europe, yet the Polish reasoning behind it was specific.137 From various motives (Ukrainians, Belarussians and Germans were suspected of favouring the enemy in case of military conflict with one of the

Poland’s neighbouring states), the Polish pre-war military authorities shaped the ethnic composition of the Polish Army so that members of national minorities would not harm the “healthy proportions” of Poles and non-Poles.

Specifically, the issue of Jewish military service underwent a bitter test during

134 The Law from 1924 later replaced by the Law from 1938, both on Common Duty for Military Service http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19240610609. 135 Jerzy Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydow w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1918-1939. Prawa cywilne i polityczne, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw, 2012, 60. 136 Tomasz Gąsowski wrote about few dozens of Jewish officers in the years 1926-30, mainly “doctors, vets or rabbis.” T. Gąsowski, “Żydzi w silach zbrojnych II Rzeczpospolitej: czas pokoju i wojny”, Udział mniejszości narodowych w różnych formacjach wojskowych w czasie kampanii wrześniowej 1939, (conference materials), Sejm Publishing House, Warsaw, 2009, 17. 137 Derek Penslar, Jews and the Military: A History, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2013.

96 the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919-1921. As the Bolshevik Red Army headed to

Warsaw in July 1920, the Polish military command interned Jewish soldiers in the Jabłonna training camp near Warsaw, fearing they might sabotage the

Polish military effort against the invading force.138 Twenty years later, in

Palestine, the same generalizing approach prompted the Polish authorities to prevent the voluntary military forces from taking in Jewish soldiers.

The delaying attitude of the Polish authorities towards the Palestinian draft stemmed from, among other things, their uncertainty as to the reactions of the local hosting authorities: both the British Mandate and the Jewish Yishuv. In fact, the main Polish concern was that their specific approach to Jewish recruits might be made public and questioned in light of the declared equality of Polish citizens. The Yishuv leadership was aware of the Polish dilemma, which gave it a powerful tool to assert pressure on the Polish authorities.

Driven by their particular local interests, the Yishuv leadership entered negotiations with the Polish authorities over the military service of Polish Jews in Jewish units within the British military forces. Polish recruitment activity in

Palestine became, for Jewish politicians, an opportunity to single out those

Jewish volunteers whose sympathies lay with the realization of the Yishuv’s political aspirations. In August 1940 Itzhak Grunbaum, on behalf of the Jewish

138 See for example: Tomasz Gąsowski, „Żydzi w silach zbrojnych…, 2009.

Agency, inquired of the Polish government, through the Polish consulate in

Jerusalem, whether Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army who intended to serve in Jewish-Palestinian units were entitled to do so without losing their Polish citizenship.139 Similarly, the right-wing faction of the Zionist movement probed the Polish authorities regarding their willingness to support the Revisionists’ military project. In April 1941 Władysław Kopański cabled General Kazimierz

Sosnkowski, Vice Commander-in-Chief, regarding an offer made by the Zionist-

Revisionist camp to General Kordian Zamorski, commander of the reserve camp in Latrun, near Jerusalem, to create an exclusively Jewish unit within the

Polish Army recruited from Jewish volunteers. The Revisionists’ proposal treated Jewish volunteers exactly as Polish officials treated them: as a problem to be solved. The project of singling them out and concentrating them in a

Jewish unit was presented as being of benefit to the Polish authorities with the expectation that the Polish authorities would make reciprocal action after the war by supporting Jewish mass immigration from Poland to Palestine, just as they had before it.140 General Kopański, assessing the proposal as political, asked General Sosnkowski to forward the inquiry to the civil authorities. It was turned down. A note prepared in May 1941 at the Ministry of Information and

Documentation referring to the Revisionists’ offer reflected the Polish

139 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 610, folder 12, ibidem. 140 Sikorski Institute, PRM 10, document 4.

98 authorities’ preference for pushing Jewish volunteers out of the ranks of the

Polish Army instead of forming a Jewish unit within in it, something that would inevitably provoke accusations of creating a Jewish ghetto. The best course would be to direct Jewish volunteers possessing the immediate right to settle in the country, and on resignation of their Polish citizenship, to the Jewish units in Palestine.141 Given the strict quotas imposed by the British authorities in the

1939 White Paper, this scenario was unrealistic. Of the two visions regarding

Jewish military service, the Polish and the Jewish, the actual outcome was closer to the Jewish one. An agreement signed in late summer (or autumn)

1941 between the Jewish Agency and Polish officials defined in detail the conditions for the transfer of Jewish soldiers to the Jewish units within the

British Army in Palestine.142 The idea of Jewish military service within Jewish units was not new: such procedures had taken place before the agreement,143 but the fact that it laid down regulations for the transfer of large numbers of people showed that both sides assumed that growing numbers of Polish Jews would be interested in going down this route. The agreement pertained to

Polish-Jewish refugees who at the time were in receipt of Polish social welfare and held Palestinian immigration certificates. These conditions, set out at the

141 Sikorski Institute, PRM 57, document 2. 142 For the Hebrew and Polish text of the agreement see CZA, S26.1174. 143 The system of individual permits issued by the Polish Consul discussed earlier.

99 beginning of the agreement, stressed the importance of a volunteer having the legal right to stay in Palestine and of his being recognized by the two authorities. It could not have been otherwise in view of the strict British control over the Jewish inflow to Palestine. Control over the transfer was exercised at every level: every Jewish volunteer was required to obtain a war- valid permit from the Polish consulate, as well as a certificate from a draft bureau affiliated to the Jewish Agency testifying to his actual engagement. In the meantime – that is, after the relevant permit had been issued but before he had actually been incorporated into a Jewish unit, the Jewish refugee continued to receive Polish welfare payments (“Jewish volunteers to the

Jewish units of the British Army who have obtained a permit from the Polish

Consulate are still entitled (together with their families) to receive the Polish governmental welfare pay, provided they hold a certificate confirming their admission to the Jewish units issued by the draft bureau, until the moment of their actual access into the Jewish unit ranks”) .144 The agreement even recognized the willingness of Jewish refugees who exceeded the military age to serve.

The entitlement to receive Polish governmental welfare was also secured for those who obtained a certificate deferring their military service or were found

144 The underlined fragments appear on the original document, which is a copy the Jewish Agency sent to the Polish Consulate.

100 unfit to serve (“The certificates issued by the draft bureaus that disqualified a volunteer from military service were honoured by the Polish authorities and reserved for that volunteer and his family the right to receive Polish welfare allowance”). Despite some reluctance by Polish officials to grant permits for

Jewish soldiers, as documented by the Jewish Agency, the agreement must have been put into practice, since its interpretation was expanded in 1943.145

Once again, Itzhak Grunbaum explained to Minister Kot that the term “Jewish units in the British Army” also included supernumerary police and citizen guards.146

Conclusion

The Polish-Jewish military agreement has not so far been discussed by scholars in the context of wartime Polish-Jewish relations. Yet it should be seen as an excellent gauge for measuring Polish-Jewish relations in exile at that juncture of the Second World War. Firstly, the military agreement showed that the

Polish-Zionist alliance persisted, despite the change in the constitution of the

Polish ruling elite and the adaptation of Polish and Zionist policies to wartime circumstances. Secondly, the Polish government signed an agreement that

145 See the case of Yeremiahu (Jeremiasz) Najfeld whose request for a permit to serve in the British Army was turned down on the grounds of his having volunteered for the Polish Army (the negative decision from the Polish Consulate in Jerusalem and the Jewish Agency’s correspondence over this issue are kept in the same folder, S26.1174). 146 CZA, folder S26.1174.

101 proved to be entirely favourable to the Jewish Agency. According to its provisions, Jewish soldiers opting to fight in the Jewish units of the British

Army could maintain their Polish citizenship. They continued to receive Polish welfare allowance until the actual start of their military service. The political initiative belonged to the Jewish Agency and it was becoming clear that Polish authorities would have to follow suit. This was but the first display of relations between Poles and Jews beyond the framework that existed within Polish society: a Polish majority and a Jewish minority. Thirdly, the ethnic paradigm determining both Polish and Zionist policies emerged clearly, insofar as the transfers of Jewish soldiers within the British Army, in which both the Polish military forces and the Jewish units formed part of the allied military force, had no other significance but a specifically ethnic one. These were the political calculations on both sides of the agreement that gave meaning to the soldiers’ transfers. Yet the war prompted tangible changes to Polish law on sensitive issues such as citizenship and military service. In July 1942 a law allowing Polish citizens to serve in foreign (but allied) armies without losing their Polish citizenship was proclaimed, and published in August in the Polish Journal of

Laws.147

147 Journal of Laws, Polish: Dziennik Ustaw, an official journal where new laws had to be published as a condition of their validity.

102

The war dislocated Polish people and Polish political ideas far from their original habitat. The refugeedom that emerged as an immediate outcome of the Polish defeat induced profound changes in Polish society and Polish politics. These had effects on Polish-Jewish relations, understood both as internal relations within Polish society and external relations between Poles and world Jewry. Although at first internal and external Polish-Jewish relations were of secondary account, within the framework of the political rivalry that took place in exile between the Polish pre-war and wartime administrations, the unexpected emergence of the diaspora of Polish wartime refugees in

Palestine added new aspects to this rivalry and challenged the Polish government in exile to define its policy towards Jews. The organization and management of the community of wartime refugees pressured the Polish authorities into making a series of administrative decisions that revealed a distinct approach to Polish Jews. They were considered “undesirable refugees”, just like the prominent pre-war officials, now the political rivals of the wartime

Polish authorities. The economic discrimination exercised through the system of refugee welfare distribution was directed both at sanacja officials and at

Jewish refugees, holders of immigration certificates. However, the Polish decisions that followed proved that political opponents and Polish Jews constituted two different cases. In fact, Polish policy towards Jews resembled

103 the policy pursued before the war, with its leading idea of Jewish population transfer. This concept was adapted to wartime conditions and transformed into an official approach by the Polish authorities, who encouraged Polish Jews to stay in Palestine and join the local Jewish community, the Yishuv. The best exemplification of the above approach was the Polish-Jewish military agreement enabling Polish Jews to perform military service in Palestinian units.

As such, the Polish-Jewish military agreement was the outcome of Polish and

Jewish wartime policies that corresponded with each other and formed the basis for Polish-Jewish cooperation. Both brought into play the ethnic factor.

The Zionist leadership in Palestine organized Jewish immigration outside the restricting regulations imposed by the British on the entry of immigrants and hoped for the creation of a Jewish military force; both aims were to advance the dream of building a Jewish national home in Palestine. The exiled Polish authorities continued to conceptualize Polish society as consisting of an ethnic majority and ethnic (national) minorities, and what mattered the most was the

“healthy proportions” between them.

104

Chapter Two: Official Polish Narratives Concerning the Desertion of Jewish

Soldiers in the Soviet Union

Introduction

This chapter will consider official Polish pronouncements and public statements regarding the military service of Polish Jews in explanation of the attitude of the Polish authorities to Jewish volunteers and soldiers. It examines not only their function in overcoming the array of emotions evoked by refugeedom and in consolidating the Polish national community, but also their political function in maintaining the balance between the Polish majority and ethnic minorities. It draws upon Daniel Bar Tal’s observations on intractable conflict, societal beliefs, and collective memory. Bar Tal characterizes intractable conflicts as protracted, irreconcilable, violent, of a zero sum nature, total and central, with the parties involved having an interest in their continuation, but above all as producing a range of emotions, such as stress and uncertainty.148 I argue that such a variety of emotions occurred among the

Polish refugee community in the Soviet Union. In order to overcome these feelings, Bar Tal argues that the sides taking part in the conflict form societal

148 Daniel Bar Tal, “From Intractable Conflict through Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation: Psychological Analysis”, Political Psychology, 21: 2, 2000, 353.

105 beliefs that facilitate the ability to cope with It. Societal beliefs are a repertoire of commonly shared cognitions on topics that are of special concern to a society and are basic elements of collective memories and ethos of conflict.149

As such, the official Polish narratives on Jewish military service were societal beliefs evoked to ease emotional hardship and justify the principle of maintaining a degree of balance between majority and minority groups. The narratives analysed here pertain specifically to the positive collective self- image, security, and patriotism.150

The Palestinian community of Polish wartime refugees was one of several centres of dispersed Poles that formed during the war. Another one emerged in the Soviet Union after the eastern Polish territories, Western Ukraine and

Belarus – also referred to by an emotionally loaded term Kresy (Polish: borderlands) – were invaded by the Red Army on 17 September 1939. Rigged elections to the Peoples’ Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western

Belorussia were organized in October 1939. The results sealed the annexation of these lands to the Soviet Ukrainian and Byelorussian Republics. In their wake came planned mass deportations of Polish citizens and their forced relocation and resettlement in the Soviet interior. Scholars distinguish four

149 Daniel Bar Tal, Shared Beliefs in A Society: Social Psychological Analysis, London, 2000. 150 Bar Tal, “Collective memory as Social Representations”, Papers on Social Representations, 23, 1.70-1.93, 2014; also: idem, “Sociopsychological Foundations of Intractable Conflicts”, American Behavioral Scientist, 50: 11, July 2007, 1438.

106 great deportations: February 1940, April 1940, May-July 1940 and April 1941.

However, the earliest forced relocations to the Soviet interior took place as early as in October 1939 and included, among other people, Polish POWs, young men drafted to the Red Army, and individual deportees.151 Different sources give varying figures for the total number of Polish refugees in the

Soviet Union; the most up-to-date estimates oscillate around 750,000-780,000 people, including Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians and others.152 The distribution of ethnic groups within the Polish diaspora in the Soviet Union did not correspond to the ethnic proportions within the society of the Polish

Second Republic, since the percentage of Polish Jews within the Polish diaspora in the USSR was higher than the percentage of Jews in pre-war Poland.153

According to Daniel Boćkowski, the ethnic percentage in the Soviet exile approximated to Poles, 56 per cent; Jews, 25 per cent; Ukrainians, 9 per cent;

Belarussians, 8 per cent; Russians, 1 per cent. However, the figure for Jews

151 The topic of Polish refugees in the Soviet Union has a vast literature. For Jewish refugees see: Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, ed. Atina Grossmann, Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2017; for the deportations from the east into the Soviet interior see:; Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad. The Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1981; J. T. Gross, Irena Grudzińska-Gross, ‘W czterdziestym nas matko na Sibir wyslali…’ Polska a Rosja 1939-1942, Res Publica, Warsaw, 1990 (first edition: Aneks, London, 1983); Piotr Żaroń, Deportacje na Kresach 1939-1941, Wydawnictwo Minsterstwa Obrony Narodowej, Warsaw, 1990; Daniel Boćkowski, “Deportacje ludności polskiej w głąb ZSRS (1939-1941) “, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 1-2, 2011; Idem, Czas nadziei. Obywatele Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w ZSRR i opieka nad nimi placówek polskich w latach 1940-1943, Neriton, Warsaw, 1999. An excellent graphic description of the deportations and relocations is: Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki 1939-1959. Atlas ziem Polski, ed. Witold Sienkiewicz, Grzegorz Hryciuk, Demart, Warsaw, 2008. 152 The number 750-780 000 Polish citizens in the Soviet Union was given by D. Boćkowski, Czas nadziei…, 92. 153 On ethnic diversity, related to Polish-Jewish relations, see: Norman Davies, “Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland” [in:] From Shtetl to Socialism: Studies from Polin, ed. Antony Polonsky, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, London, 1993, 235-250.

107 may be even higher, if people drafted to the Red Army are excluded.154

Following the Sikorski-Mayski agreement concluded in July 1941 between the exiled Polish government and the Soviet state, this diverse group was eventually recognized and organized into the community of Polish refugees.

The military agreement that followed the Sikorski-Mayski treaty established the legal foundations for the creation of a Polish military force recruited from

Polish refugees in the Soviet Union. The Sikorski-Mayski agreement also re- established diplomatic relations between Poland and the USSR, though it did not solve the issue of the annexed lands in the Polish east. The resolution of the territorial problem was deferred to the post-war peace negotiations, but both Poles and Soviets were already envisaging the political fate of these lands.

The Soviet attack in September 1939 was officially presented in the USSR as an intervention aimed at protecting brother nations, the Ukrainians and the

Belorussians, following the collapse of the Polish state under the German onslaught. By referring to the pre-war ethnic tensions in eastern Poland, the

Soviets implicitly stressed that political, geographical and emotional bonds were stronger between these lands and the Soviet state than with Poland. In reaction, the Polish government in exile, concerned to uphold its right to territorial integrity, formulated as a principle of wartime policy the deep

154 Ibidem, 91.

108 connection between the eastern lands and Polish statehood. This fundamental tenet pushed the Polish wartime authorities into embracing all the inhabitants of Kresy, particularly those of non-Polish origin, who constituted a majority in these lands: Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Jews (to name only the largest groups). The positions taken by the Polish and Soviet authorities meant that the ethnic factor came to play an important role in their policies and would subsequently shape Polish-Jewish relations there.

Uncertain about the practical implementation of the Sikorski-Mayski treaty and the conditions allowing the two Polish institutions in the Soviet Union – the

Polish Embassy and the Polish military headquarters – to function, the Polish authorities were faced with an array of emotions such as stress, fear and insecurity.155 Polish refugees (both deportees and exiles) who were amnestied as a result of the Sikorski-Mayski treaty and released from prisons, forced labour camps and places of exile experienced violence, loss, separation and hardship.156 Since the conditions for the functioning of Polish institutions in the

Soviet Union were at best ambiguous, a national mobilization and the closing

155 These sentiments strongly emerge from wartime testimonies by refugees (see footnote below) and from Władysław Anders’ papers stored in Polish Archives of Modern Records. 156 There exists a massive memory literature produced by Polish refugees in the Soviet Union. See for example a collection of testimonies: J. T. Gross, I. Grudzińska-Gross, ‘W czterdziestym nas matko na Sibir wyslali…’…, 1983; Widziałem Anioła Śmierci: losy deportowanych Żydów polskich w ZSRR w latach II wojny światowej: świadectwa zebrane przez Ministerstwo Informacji Rządu Polskiego na Uchodźstwie w latach 1942-1943; I saw the angel of death: experiences of Polish Jews deported to the USSR during World War II: testimonies collected in 1942-1943 by the Ministry of Information and Documentation of the Polish Government in Exile, eds. Maciej Siekierski et alia, Warsaw: Rosner i Wspólnicy: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny; Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 2006.

109 the ranks emerged as an intuitive step to overcome these feelings of insecurity. Mobilization and control over the Polish diaspora was crucial also for purely political reasons, determined by relations within the exiled Polish administration. Supporters and opponents of the Sikorski-Mayski treaty came into conflict. The governmental “August crisis” demonstrated clearly that the treaty’s lack of provision for the Polish-Soviet border had the potential to generate political disquiet.157 This was particularly so among the Polish diaspora in the Soviet Union, since many Polish refugees had previously lived in the lands in question. In order to gain relief, control and mobilization, the

Polish authorities used the collective values and ethos shared by the Polish ethnic majority that had been formulated in contrast to, and often targeted, the ethnic minorities, mainly Jews. This is where the multi-ethnic character of the Polish diaspora fully revealed its potential for conflict. This resonated most loudly within the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union. Polish officials in the Soviet Union narrated admission to the Polish Army for members of national minorities, their military service, and finally cases of group desertions by Jewish volunteers and recruits, in a specific way, reinforcing the historic narratives that demonstrated the incompatibility between Jews and military service. Inevitably, this led to the escalation of Polish-Jewish tensions.

157 See more: M. Hułas, Goscie czy intruzi…, 95-112.

110

Polish-Jewish tensions in the Soviet Union, and specifically in the Polish Army, have been much scrutinized in the existing scholarship.158 Many scholars tend to see the Soviet authorities as being mainly responsible for the discrimination that was applied to ethnic minorities during the draft for the Polish Army in the

USSR, thus diminishing the Polish authorities’ role in the process.159 Little has been said about internal Polish policy, the narratives used by the Polish authorities and the political functions these narratives served. Similarly, little attention is given to the link between the narratives and the emotional conditions of refugeedom.

This chapter develops further the main concepts of the first chapter, such as refugeedom being the main frame of reference for Polish-Jewish relations outside Poland, Polish-Jewish relations as shaped in relation to a third party (in this case the Soviets), and the Polish policy of maintaining a proportional balance between a Polish majority and ethnic minorities in refugee institutions, including the Polish Army. Organizing and managing the Polish diaspora in the

Soviet Union, which was both sizable and strongly traumatized, against the

158 The most updated monography devoted entirely to Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish Army in the East is Tomasz Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orła Białego: kwestia żydowska w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych w czasie II wojny światowej, Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków, 2002. Others: Krystyna Kersten, Polacy, Żydzi, komunizm. Anatomia półprawd 1939-1968, NOWA, Warsaw, 1992; Piotr Żaroń, Armia Polska w ZSRR, na Bliskim i Środkowym Wschodzie, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warsaw, 1981. 159 See for example: Zbigniew Wawer, Armia generała Władysława Andersa w ZSRR 1941-1942, Bellona, Warsaw, 2012.

111 background of Polish-Soviet relations that were lacking in sincerity and openness, required specific tools that would not subsequently be needed in

Palestine. Firstly, this chapter analyses the origins of the Polish refugee community in the Soviet Union by addressing the term “refugee” in the context of Soviet occupation. Secondly, it looks at the Polish Embassy and

Polish military forces and the role they performed for the Polish refugee community in the Soviet state. Finally, it explores the official Polish narratives regarding the participation of Polish Jews in the Polish Army in the Soviet

Union by distinguishing three main perceptions: of Jews as bad soldiers, as disloyal citizens, and as pro-communists (Judeo-communism).160

1. Jews as Bad Soldiers

The community of Poles who found themselves in the Soviet Union during the war consisted of various categories of refugee, including prisoner of war, forced labourer, convict, and deportee. In effect, the wartime term refugee had been problematized. From the Polish POWs captured during the military actions of 1939, through “volunteers” seeking job opportunities (in many cases under Soviet pressure), those recognized as politically precarious and hostile in terms of social class for the Soviet state, those put on trial and sentenced to

160 In this chapter I will refer to the Polish Military Forces in the Soviet Union interchangeably with Polish Army, though the appropriate name is the first one. Scholars sometimes employ the colloquial name “Anders’ Army” (or “General Anders’ Army”).

112 labour camps (GULAG), those drafted by force into the Red Army to, finally, those deported and relocated in the four big deportation actions, together with two smaller ones, referred to in Chapter 1, the community of Polish wartime refugees in the Soviet Union had experienced various kinds of wartime oppression. The same community consisted of various segments of pre-war Polish society, including military men, landlords, peasantry, political and cultural activists, as well as activists of the Ukrainian, Belorussian and

Jewish national movements. Similarly, all ethnicities of pre-war Polish society were represented, including a large number of Polish Jews, who – as mentioned earlier – exceeded the Jewish pre-war percentage in Polish society.161 Polish citizens fell victim to the Soviet political plan of cleansing

Western Ukraine and Belarus of any counter-revolutionary or politically precarious element, which cut across ethnic lines. Whatever the case, Polish citizens experiencing Soviet oppression had no clear clue about the future.

The fate of Polish refugees was supposed to change after the Soviet Union entered the war on the allies’ side following the German invasion of 22 June

1941. The Polish government in exile and the Soviets immediately became allies in the war against a common foe (though the unresolved conflict over the lands annexed by the Soviets in 1939 made the rapprochement a tactical

161 Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Annexation, Evacuation, an Antisemitism in the Soviet Union 1939-1946” [in:] Shelter from the Holocaust..., 133-160, 2017.

113 one) – not without pressure from Britain, which was bearing the war effort and sought relief. The agreement between the Polish Prime Minister and

Commander-in-Chief, General Władysław Sikorski, and the Soviet Ambassador to Great Britain, Ivan Mayski, was signed on 30 July 1941 in London, followed by a military agreement signed in Moscow two weeks later. The provisions included the abrogation of the Nazi-Soviet territorial agreement of 1939 from the Soviet side, the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two sides, and the creation of a 30,000-strong military force recruited from among the amnestied Polish citizens. The costs required for this purpose were to be covered by a loan from the Soviet Union.162 The protocol accompanying the agreement defined the conditions for amnesty, which was to be granted to every Polish citizen deprived of his or her freedom in the Soviet Union. The term “amnesty” (implying the forgiveness of a supposed guilt by Polish citizens) was commented on ironically by the Polish exiled press and by politicians who rejected any alliance with the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, the Sikorski-Mayski agreement regulated the legal status of the various categories of Polish refugees in the Soviet Union: from then on, regardless of the reason for their presence there, they were treated as Polish citizens, entitled to seek assistance from Polish Embassy established in the

162 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 314-324.

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Soviet state, and to enlist in the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union. The

Soviet authorities excluded only one category of Poles from amnesty: these were Polish citizens recruited to the Red Army, who were moved to working units (stroibaty) after June 1941.163 Officially these individuals were not deprived of their freedom, and so did not qualify for amnesty. The exemption was significant, and the Soviets’ arbitrariness in implementing the provisions of the Sikorski-Mayski treaty only confirmed Polish fears.

An immediate result of the Sikorski-Mayski treaty was that a stream of Polish citizens, amnestied and released from prisons and places of exile, embarked in conditions of hardship on an arduous journey to recruitment posts manned by mixed Soviet-Polish committees in order to enlist in the Polish Army. They did in this in response to the first order issued by General Władysław Anders, who had himself been recently released from the infamous Lubyanka prison in

Moscow. Appointed Commander in Chief of the nascent Polish Army, he called upon “all Polish citizens capable of bearing arms to fulfil their duty to the homeland and enlist [in the Army] under the banner of the White Eagle.”164

This call, addressed to all Polish citizens regardless of their ethnic origin, turned out to be problematic in practice when, in the early stages of recruitment, it became clear that the majority of the volunteers were Polish Jews. The Polish

163 D. Boćkowski, Czas nadziei…, 47. 164 T. Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…, 57.

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Embassy was established first in Moscow, then in Kuybyshev (formerly and again today Samara), and Professor Stanislaw Kot, the newly appointed ambassador, was given the task of registering the Polish diaspora, and of identifying and meeting its needs. He was aided by a group of trustees made up of respected Polish citizens. It was Professor Kot who first reported to the

Prime Minister’s office that “There are numerous Jews among Polish citizens,

[the percentage] may even be as high as one third.”165

The military authorities were ill disposed towards the “Jewish surplus”.

Lieutenant Leopold Okulicki, chief of staff, cabled General Romuald

Wolikowski, military attaché at the Polish Embassy in Moscow: “In order to complicate our work (…) they [the Soviets] pelt us with Jews and national minorities. As a rule, Jews are the first to be released from camps, they [later] comprise up to 50 per cent in transports (…). Apparently, they [the Soviets] want to kill two birds with one stroke: provoke tensions between Poles and

Jews and inflict bitterness among Polish people towards the Polish authorities for taking care of Jews and not of Poles.”166

It is difficult to establish the exact numbers as well as the proportions of Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers. Witnesses at the time reported a high percentage

165 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 332. 166 Ibidem, 327.

116 of Jews in the Polish Army during its formation period (as much as 70 per cent according to Leon Szczekacz), but these figures have been rejected by some scholars.167 Z. Wawer estimates that the percentage of all national minorities did not exceed 15 per cent, whereas T. Gąsowski accepts an estimate of 50 to

70 percent.168 These huge discrepancies illustrate the two issues to be discussed in this chapter. Firstly, the number of Jewish volunteers joining up during the first weeks of the Army’s creation, inaccurately reported even in contemporary wartime reports, did not match the number of Jewish soldiers admitted to the Polish Army at this time as well as in the following months.

Secondly, the actual number of Jewish volunteers and Jewish soldiers admitted to the ranks was of less importance than the prevailing opinion at the recruitment posts that they were initially overrepresented. It was this opinion that motivated the military authorities to “correct” the ethnic proportions, which they perceived as being detrimental to the army. In this situation, the

Polish military command decided to introduce quotas for Ukrainian,

Belorussian, and Jewish volunteers. An order issued in October 1941 set the permitted percentage of soldiers from national minorities in particular units at

167 The 70% estimate by Leon Szczekacz (Leyb Rosen), the chief rabbi of the Polish Army, was cited by Z. Wawer and rejected as impossible. (Armia generała…, 484). 168 Z. Wawer, Armia generala…, 326.) T. Gąsowski estimated the percentage to be 60%, based on testimonies but without names given, as observed by Wawer (T. Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…, 58). Later however, Gąsowski, claimed that the percentage of Jewish soldiers was 30% at the first days of the Polish Army being organized in the Soviet Union (“Żydzi w siłach zbrojnych II Rzeczpospolitej…” , 19).

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10 per cent for privates and 5 per cent for officers (the same for artillery: 5 per cent and the air force: 0 per cent).169 The blatantly discriminative nature of the order echoed the idea that Jews were over-represented in the Soviet-based community of Polish refugees.170 The document recalled the proportions obtaining in the pre-war Polish Army and restored the notion of majority- minority balance; as such it was perceived as just. The “just proportions”, according to another scholar, Tomasz Gąsowski, gave Jewish soldiers a threshold of 5 per cent on average: in 1922, the percentage of Jews was 4.7 per cent; in 1926, 4.4 per cent; in 1936, 5.95 per cent; in 1938, 6.6 per cent

(the highest figure for the inter-war years).171 Naturally, this decision by the

Polish military authorities was bitterly received by the Jewish refugee- volunteers, who turned to the Polish authorities for help.

However, the prospects for Polish Jews (and members of other ethnic minority groups) were further diminished by the Soviet decision to treat Polish Jews,

Ukrainians, Belorussians, and others of non-Polish ethnic background as Soviet citizens, thereby denying their right to amnesty and enlistment in the Polish

169 Krystyna Kersten cited three different collections containing this order: AVII 1/4 (a document signed by General Anders in Buzułuk), AXI 64/6 and Anders Collection 7i, k. 29-34. It was mentioned by Z. Wawer (Armia generała Władysława Andersa…, 329; T. Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…, 59. 170 The policy of limiting the numbers of Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army must have been formulated in the Polish Ministry of Defence, the civilian authority in charge of the military. The application of the discriminative law by the Army shows how useful a tool it was in “correcting” the proportions of national minorities’ participation in Polish refugee society. For a comparative perspective see: David MacDonald, “United Government and Foreign Policy in Russia, 1900-1914”, MA, Cambridge, 1995. 171 T. Gąsowski, „Żydzi w silach zbrojnych II Rzeczpospolitej…”, 16.

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Army. The Soviet authorities had not initially placed any obstacles in the way of

Polish citizens of non-Polish origins, but their attitude changed over time. The first reports that the Soviet authorities were treating Polish citizens unequally on the basis of their ethnic origins reached the Polish Embassy in the Soviet

Union in November 1941. The Polish ambassador issued a note to the Peoples’

Commissariat of Foreign Affairs to protest the Soviet practice; it initiated a series of Soviet responses and Polish protests.172 The Poles stated firmly that the Polish legal system treated all citizens equally, regardless of their ethnic origin, and therefore the Soviet approach to Polish citizens was unacceptable.

However, the attitude of some Polish officials may have contradicted this assertion. The issue was eventually discussed at the highest political levels at a meeting between Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Sikorski, who visited the

Soviet Union in early December 1941. The conversation between Stalin,

Sikorski and General Anders has been mentioned many times in the existing literature, but it is useful to recall it once again in view of the light it throws on the participation of ethnic minorities in the Polish Army:

[Anders]: “I count on one hundred fifty people but among them there is a strong Jewish element that does not want to serve in the Army.

172 A document produced in the Polish Embassy in Moscow regarding the situation of Polish Jews in the Soviet Union was published in the émigré journal Zeszyty Historyczne, 119, Paris, 1997. See also a top secret document on the Soviet attitude towards Polish national minorities, Sikorski Institute, PRM73a (document 13).

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[Stalin]: Jews are poor soldiers…

[Sikorski]: Many of the Jews who reported themselves are actually speculators and smugglers. Those I do not need in the Army.

[Anders]: Two hundred Jews deserted from Buzułuk upon hearing a false report on the bombing of Kuibyshev. More than sixty Jews deserted the Fifth

Division a day before the weapons were handed out.

[Stalin:] Yes, Jews are poor soldiers. What do you need Ukrainians,

Belarussians and Jews for? You need Poles, they are good soldiers.

[General Sikorski:] I do not think that people such as these can be swapped for

Poles holding Soviet citizenship, but I cannot essentially agree to the suggestion of the instability of Polish borders.173

The tropes voiced by the two Polish Generals, ably provoked by Stalin, represented aspects of the traditionally low opinion that Poles held of Jews as soldiers. Although historic examples of Jewish bravery and comradeship with

Poles in common military undertakings were well known (including such emblematic figures as Berek Joselewicz174), the image of a Jew as a coward and

173 Long extracts from the conversation were published by Z. Wawer in his book Armia generała…, 145-159. 174 Berek Joselewicz was a participant in the Kosciuszko Insurrection and head of the Jewish Legion in 1794. See more about this figure as well as how this Jewish hero was incorporated into the Polish pantheon of national heroes: Maria Janion, Hero, Conspiracy and Death: The Jewish Lectures. Volume 3 of Cross-roads: Polish studies in culture, literary theory, and history, Frankfurt am Main, New York: PL Academic Press, Frankfurt am Main, New York. On Polish-Jewish cordial relations during the January Uprising of 1863 see: Magdalena Opalski, Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: a Failed Brotherhood, Brandeis University Press, Hanover,

120 someone who shirked military duty was much more entrenched. In fact, these tropes were arbitrarily invoked: in some cases Jewish volunteers were to be found flocking to the recruitment posts; in others, they tried to avoid military service. One thing was certain, traditional Jewish values, as understood by the

Polish majority, stood in sharp contrast to the military world as such. Examples of the active and somewhat legendary participation of Jews in Polish military history had receded from memory long before, with the partitioning of Poland by Prussia, Austria, and Russia in 1795, and the annexation of its population.

Subsequently all males, both Poles and Jews, were subject to the military obligations of whichever partitioning state they lived in. The experience of military service in the Russian tsarist army was particularly central in shaping the perception of Jews in the military environment. Jewish attempts to avoid the draft were held to be common: popular literature was suffused with the image of a simple young Jew from the Russian Pale of Settlement using all possible means to escape military duty.175 At the same time, there was the image of a wealthy Jew, an army supplier who often acted against army interests, exploiting them to his own profit. For example, during the Russo-

1992. To compare: Adam Gałkowski, “Jan Czyński and the Question of Equality of Rights for all religious faiths in Poland”, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, 7, 2008, 31-56. 175 See: Derek Penslar, Jews and the military…, chapter 1 (The Jewish Soldier: between Memory and Reality) 16- 34. Y. Petrovsky-Shtern listed the following popular Russian novels: Faddei Venediktovich Bulgarin, Ivan Vyzhygin (1829); Iakov Brafman, Kniga kagala: Materialy dlia izuchenia evreiskogo byta (The Book of the Kahal: Materials for the Study of the Jewish Life (1888). In Polish literature: K. Junosza Szaniawski, Na zgliszczach (On the ruins) (1898), Pająki (Spiders) (1894).

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Turkish War of 1877–1878, a partnership of mainly Jewish army purveyors

(Gregre, Gorvits, Kogan and Varshavski) was found guilty of embezzlement, artificially raising prices, and bad organization.176 This generally negative picture was not lightened by the record of Jewish soldiers’ participation in the campaign of September 1939.

Both images – the deceitful, wealthy Jew working only for his own profit and the fearful shtetl Jew (a yeshiva student) trying to avoid military duty – were deeply rooted in the Polish collective memory. They were later consolidated into the societal belief that Jews were unable to carry out their military duty either through their desire for gold and profits, or their physical weakness and dislike of military life.177 This largely negative image was the precise opposite of the positive image Poles had of themselves. The narrative of the essential unfitness of Jews to serve in the army stemmed from their perceived incompatibility with the military ethos of bravery, honour and devotion. The same virtues became Polish specialities. Therefore, the narrative of Jews as bad soldiers had an important function in constructing the identity of the ethnic majority. By indicating the differences between Jewish and Polish

176 See more: Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, „The ‘Jewish Policy” of the Late Imperial War Ministry: the impact of the Russian Right”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 3: 2, 2002, 217-254. 177 It should be noted that ethnic Poles who were drafted into the Russian Army also tried to avoid the hardships of military duty. Their motivations were commonly regarded as driven by political factors. Poles would resist serving in the occupying army and the draft was regarded as a tool in a political game played against Poles: the best example is the conscription (Polish: branka) conducted in 1863 shortly before the January Uprising in order to prevent young men from joining the resistance (in vain).

122 values, the boundaries between them appeared as clear and simple antonyms.

As a result, two groups emerged: the in-group (ethnic Poles) with positive values attributed to them, and the out-group (Jews), whose values were largely regarded as negative. The in-group and out-group division resonated in the

Soviet Union when the question ‘who is a Pole?’, the question of identification, arose following the Sikorski-Mayski treaty. And although the official category of Polish citizenship, rather than ethnicity, became an official legal base, the in- group and out-group categories mattered specifically in the context of the military service. Jewish soldiers were released from the army after repeated medical examinations.178

However, Jewish intentions and values, held to be intrinsically contradictory to the military ethos, required a more tangible explanation, one that could be translated into the formal language of military administration. What made a bad soldier, apart from his low morale, was more precisely his physical unfitness and lack of brawn. These weaknesses were traditionally attributed to

Jewish draftees before the war, as one can read in the Informative Bulletin about National Minorities from 1928: “as soldiers, Jews are the worst material amongst all the national minorities. [They are] physically lame.”179 This

178 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 329; T. Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…, 79; Yisrael Gutman, “Jews in General Anders’ Army in the Soviet Union”, Yad Vashem Studies, 12, 1977, 6; Shimon Redlich, “Jews in General Anders’ Army in the Soviet Union 1941-1942”, Soviet Jewish Affairs, 1: 2, 1971, 92. 179 Rafał Świerucha, „Komunikat informacyjny o mniejszościach narodowych w wojsku (1928)”, Glaukopis: pismo społeczno-historyczne, 34, 2016, 267-290.

123 evaluation corresponded with images of a wealthy Jewish exploiter as well as of a petty yeshiva-bokher: both figures appearing at first glance as unfit for military service. The physical condition of the draftee was an integral part of the military admission process. According to Polish military regulations there were five medical categories describing military fitness: category A, fit for military service; category B, temporarily unfit for military service; category C, fit for levee en masse (mass conscription); category D, fit for auxiliary military service; category E, entirely unfit for military service.180 Medical examinations became a useful tool in regulating the number of Jewish soldiers in the Polish

Military Forces in the Soviet Union. Based on testimonies from Jewish soldiers and civilians, Yisrael Gutman established that each volunteer had to undergo a two-staged medical examination.181 First, a mixed Polish-Soviet recruiting commission assessed the volunteers’ fitness for military service. Then followed a second round, managed entirely by a Polish commission, the purpose of which, according to Gutman, was to reduce the number of Jewish soldiers that had been admitted into the Polish military forces in the first round. Although

Jewish refugees recalled that both Jewish volunteers and soldiers were often assessed as categories “D” and “E”, it was the latter group to which the

180 From the Polish Central Military Medical Committee site: http://cwkl.wp.mil.pl/pl/45.html (accessed January 2019). 181 Y. Gutman, “Jews in General Anders’ Army….”, 7-8.

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October order on quotas referred. It seems that the idea of thresholds for non-

Poles willing to serve in the Polish Army was applied backwards. In his memorandum on the relations between the embassy and the Polish Army in the Soviet Union, Professor Kot, the Polish ambassador to the Soviet Union, recalled the drive to reduce the number of Jewish soldiers: “[the Army] embarked on selecting and isolating Jews or release massively, without checking who constitutes an insecure element, and whose release will provoke bitterness which will be harmful for Polish policy”.182 As a result, Z. Wawer asserts, the scale of ethnic minorities in the army was reduced to 15 per cent overall, a figure resembling more closely the pre-war quotas and thus satisfying the need for “just proportions”.

Another manifestation of the societal belief that regarded Jews as bad soldiers in physical terms was the high percentage of Jewish soldiers transferred to the army’s reserve centre. At first, the percentage of Jewish soldiers there reached

30 per cent, later rising to 60-70 per cent in some units.183

2. Jews as Disloyal

The Polish Army considered Jews as undesirable for more than just one reason.

There existed other societal beliefs about the undesirability of Jewish soldiers,

182 Sikorski Institute, PRM 102, document 3. 183 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 328.

125 with each narrative reinforcing the others and strengthening each one’s plausibility. One of these was the narrative of Jewish disloyalty. As suggested above, the Polish military authorities’ decision to reduce the number of Jewish soldiers and transfer them to lower-qualified units provoked negative reactions from Jewish refugees. On 14 November 1941 General Anders issued an order in reaction to complaints by Jewish volunteers about the discriminatory approach they experienced in the Polish Army, in which all volunteers were supposed to be treated equally. Although the Polish authorities, both civil and military, argued that anti-Jewish discrimination during the recruiting procedure was only practised by the Soviets, they privately admitted that discreditable practices such as scrutinizing the volunteer’s genealogy (when searching for

Jewish roots) and denying admission to the army based on selective medical checks were not only the preserve of the Soviets. There must have been similar

Polish attitudes, otherwise General Anders’ order would not have called on subordinates to adhere to the principle of democratic equality and enable equal access to the military service. General Anders wrote: “It is sought to make clear to all subordinates that Poland has always been in a position of democracy and tolerance and will not go off that track. All statements made against Jews, Polish citizens, only because they are Jews are unacceptable.”184

184 D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 137.

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However the November order triggered protests from members of the officer corps who claimed Polish Jews were disloyal to the Polish authorities and, broadly, to the Polish cause and as such posed a serious threat to the security of the army. In order to calm the atmosphere, General Anders issued a follow- up order in which he explained the logic of his earlier order:

“I do understand very well the reasons for anti-Semitic impulses in the army’s ranks – they reflect the disloyal and often hostile behaviour of the eastern

Polish Jews during the years 1939/40. (…) In this respect our approach to Jews may seem obscurantist, historically unjustified, and bizarre. (…) All soldiers must unconditionally understand that our raison d’état requires us not to antagonize the Jews. (…) And when we are back as landlords in our country (…) we will fix the Jewish question according to the potential and sovereignty of our Fatherland as well as according to ordinary justice.”185

Within the existing historiography on the Polish Army in the Soviet Union, these two orders are often interpreted in the same spirit as Professor Kot’s, that of political naïveté.186 Professor Kot expressed his disagreement in the memorandum mentioned above: “General Anders issued a very clever order about treating Jews in the army. It was met with much resistance, so General

185 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 334. 186 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 334; T. Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami…, 71; K. Kersten, Polacy, Żydzi, komunizm…, 25.

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Anders issued a follow-up order which contained content that was politically risky.”187 It was not the content itself that the Polish ambassador perceived as harmful but its potential repercussions on Polish policy in the international arena.

In other words, General Anders had expressed an opinion that was widely shared but should have remained confidential. The second order explicitly reflected a widely held view that painted Jews as being disloyal to the Polish state (or the Polish cause), a view that predated the war and was strengthened by the popular opinion regarding the disloyal behaviour of Jews during the annexation of the eastern lands by the Soviet Union in 1939. The roots of the idea of Jewish disloyalty reached back far beyond the Second World War.188

According to a long-established common belief, Jews had turned against the reestablishment of the Polish state during the period of its non-existence in the nineteenth century, leaning instead towards the Russian empire. In another version, they gravitated towards German culture – the inconsistency of such beliefs only made them all the stronger. In both cases, Jewish disloyalty was understood as their lax allegiance to the Polish cause, in other words their weak patriotism. These two terms, (dis)loyalty and patriotism, are mutually

187 Sikorski Institute, PRM 102c. 188 David Engel scrutinized the Jewish political balancing (as seen by Poles) in the first chapter (The Prewar Legacy) of the first volume of his book on wartime Polish-Jewish relations (In the shadow of Auschwitz…, 12- 45).

128 linked and are both vague. According to Jan Lanicek, editor of the most recent study on governments in exile during the Second World War and author of an illuminating article on loyalty and disloyalty, loyalty (and disloyalty) is “a messy category and the rules defining it are usually stipulated by the ruling establishment, often also with a retrospective validity.”189 The interrelation between power and the definition of loyalty is crucial, as Lanicek observes.

Before the Polish state was re-established in 1918, it was the Polish ethnic majority that determined both loyal behaviour and transgression. After 1918 these were the Polish state authorities that decided on the same questions. In either case, the evaluation of the minority group was external and came from observation and examination by the majority. Disloyalty was seen as a lack of patriotism, a key term in the creation of a community. As observed by Bar Tal, patriotism connotes with belonging, “feeling of some kind of we-ness” and identification. Jewish disloyal behaviour further excluded Jews from the Polish community established on the criterion of patriotism, and Jews were seen as bereft of all sentiments associated with it: love, loyalty, pride, care and concern.190 It is not by chance that the feelings listed above are of a positive nature. They are all positive evaluations and emotions, they form a catalogue

189 Jan Lanicek, “What did it mean to be Loyal? Jewish Survivors in Post-War Czechoslovakia in a Comparative Perspective”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 60: 30, 2014, 390. 190 Daniel Bar Tal, “Patriotism as Fundamental Beliefs of Group Members”, Politics and the Individual, 3: 2, 1993, 48.

129 of desired traits. Anyone not showing such feelings demonstrates a lack of bond with the community. This situation reinforces the division into in-group and out-group, the community and those whose access to it is denied due to the absence of the desired sentiments (wanting in patriotism) and the manifestation of their opposites (disloyalty, cowardice). If disloyalty means lack of the feelings listed above, then it leaves room for other contradictory feelings. This is the basis for yet another supposed Jewish transgression: a predilection to communism.

3. Jews as Pro-Communist

There was a particular variation of disloyalty, which ultimately exceeded the limits of this term. Jewish involvement in the socialist movement, and especially in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the emergence of the

Communist state on the ruins of the Russian Empire, transformed these earlier premises into the myth of Judeo-communism: a specifically Jewish sympathy for the communist movement.191 Some scholars tend to call it a stereotype, others define it as a myth, or a specifically political myth, or an anti-Semitic

191 There exists a vast literature on the subject: Daniel Blatman, “Polish antisemitism and ‘Judeo communism’: Historiography and memory”, East European Jewish Affairs, 27: 1, 1997, 23-43; Andre Gerrits, “Anti-Semitism and Anti-Communism: the Myth of Judeo-Communism in Eastern Europe”, East European Jewish Affairs, 25, 1995, 49-72. About the Judeo-communism stereotype after the war: Aleksander Sołtysik, “Konstytutywne cechy ‘żydokomuny’ w Polsce w latach 1944-1947 – próba analizy”, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 134, 2007, 143-162, Krystyna Kersten, Polacy, Żydzi, komunizm…, 1992.

130 cliché.192 The participation of Jews in the communist movement was one thing, quite another was the belief in Jewish overrepresentation in, and even domination over the movement. It is this ideological construct and code whose functions will be discussed below.193

A powerful moment in the development of the Judeo-communist myth was the

Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919-1920. Polish society regarded the war as an attack by an hostile state, the political leadership of which was commonly perceived as being dominated by Jews, carried out with the assistance of the local Polish Jewry activated by an outside foreign agency and ready to cooperate with it, to the detriment of the newly re-emerged Polish state.

Pogroms occurred in Lviv, Pinsk and Vilna in the year 1918-1919. As a result, in

1920 a pogrom-like atmosphere was prevalent. The military authorities undertook preventive measures such as refusing to allow Jewish volunteers join the army, or relocating the Jewish population living within a certain distance of the strategic Modlin Fortress. Many Jews were arrested on charges of espionage (often unconfirmed). Finally, all Jewish soldiers and volunteers serving in units to the rear of the lines were interned in the Jabłonna camp on

192 Respectively: Joanna B. Michlic, “The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939-41, and the Stereotype of the Anti- Polish, Pro-Soviet Jew”, Jewish Social Studies, 13: 3, 2007, 135-176; Andre Gerrits, The Myth of Jewish Communism: A Historical Interpretation, Peter Lang, Brussels, 2009; Marcin Zaremba, Wielka Trwoga. Polska 1944-47. Ludowa reakcja na kryzys, Znak, Warsaw, 2012; Paweł Dobrosielski, Spory o Grossa. Polskie problem z pamięcią o Żydach, Instytut Badań Literackich PAN, Warsaw, 2017. 193 For the first approach see: Jews, Leftist Politics. Judaism, Israel, Antisemitism and Gender, ed. Jack Jacobs, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017.

131 suspicion of collaborating with the Bolsheviks.194 Clearly, the boundary between loyal, patriotic Poles and deceitful, treacherous Jews had solidified further. The code of Judeo-communism was once again being employed to define the in-group and the out-group. But there was something else as well.

Because the Polish-Bolshevik War threatened the young Polish Republic, anyone professing sympathy to communism was regarded not simply as disloyal, but as a traitor. Communism as a political option was entirely excised from the democratic process; the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) was delegalized in 1919 and remained illegal until August 1938 (when the Party was largely paralysed since its leaders had been executed in Stalin’s Great Purges of

1937-1938). Communist activity was therefore regarded as criminal. Unlike the supporters of sanacja, whom the wartime Polish authorities regarded as political opponents and treated accordingly, often pushing them unceremoniously to the margins of politics, communist supporters were perceived as Soviet agents and representatives of Soviet interests, which placed them way beyond the pale of political life. And since the threatening country, the Soviet Union, continued to exist, a pro-communist attitude was

194 Poles and Jews alike broadly protested this preventive action undertaken by the Polish military authorities and it later became a symbol of the hostile attitude of the Polish state towards its Jewish citizens. The words of Itzhak Grunbaum, later a member of the Representation of Polish Jewry in Palestine, have an especially bitter tone: “There was an ambiance and readiness among the Jewish community as never before. […] And to our readiness we received a different answer […] we were pushed away. The reply we received was Jabłonna… where our volunteers were concentrated like prisoners, like traitors.” The quotation comes from the article by Jacek Walicki, “The situation of the Polish Jews during the 1920 campaign”, Acta Universitatis Lodzensis. Folia Historica, 52, 1995, 113-125.

132 associated with the essential insecurity of the Polish state. It was this narrative that the Polish authorities employed in the Soviet Union in 1941.

Polish authorities produced yet further evidence of Judeo-communism: the alleged common support for the Soviet invasion of the eastern territories in

1939. The issue of how far the national minorities, mainly Jews, collaborated with the Soviet authorities has its own scholarship that is not free of passion.195

Scholars still debate the extent to which Polish Jewry as a whole welcomed the

Red Army, participated in the new Soviet apparatus, and denounced Poles to the Soviet authorities to bring about their deportation or arrest. However, the opinion of Polish wartime officials on these matters was based on the testimony of amnestied Poles received at the embassy or military headquarters. It was further shaped by the myth of Judeo-communism popularized in the Polish press during the inter-war years. The societal belief regarding the Jewish leaning towards communism appeared as empirically based. Polish Ambassador Kot, relying on reports given by General Anders and the protocol of meetings with Polish Jews, depicted the community of Jewish refugees in the following manner:

195 The historiography of the Soviet occupation of eastern provinces is mainly Polish: J. T. Gross, I. Grudzińska- Gross, W czterdziestym nas…, 1983; J. T. Gross, Revolution from abroad…, 1988. A public debate that followed publishing the book on the massacre of Jewish population of Jedwabne, Sasiedzi. Historia zagłady żydowskiego miasteczka, (J. T. Gross, 2001); Andrzej Żbikowski, U genezy Jedwabnego. Żydzi na Kresach północno- wschodnich II Rzeczpospolitej wrzesień 1939-lipiec 1941, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw, 2006; Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Rzeczywistość sowiecka 1939-1941 w świadectwach polskich Żydów, RYTM, Warsaw, 2009.

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“Poles are in general very angry with the Jews due to their behaviour during the occupation […]. Even in forced labour camps many Jews tried to gain favour from the [Soviet] authorities by offending Poles [...]; many Jews were denouncing and quite a few are suspected to have volunteered for the Polish

Army to carry on doing so. Those charged are almost exclusively Jews from the

Eastern Lands, who even before the war had gravitated towards Russia, especially Jewish working class. […] On the other hand, the behaviour of the

Jewish intelligentsia and so-called bourgeoisie is reflected in many positive reports […]. The petty Jewish element caused aversion [of the people] due to constant speculation, buying up [goods], the raising of prices, not showing any empathy towards the needs of their neighbours.”196

The information on Jewish behaviour in the Soviet Union was provided by

Poles, fellow deportees and detainees who documented and recalled their impressions in front of the Polish authorities.197 Characteristically, the Polish majority’s hatred was directed at all Jews, even though those “accused” were from the Kresy only, meaning working-class Jews.. Professor Kot’s differentiation between social classes seemed nearly scientific. It reiterated the

Polish majority’s broadly held that Jewish model behaviours and attitudes

196 General notes of Professor Kot passed in the report to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the situation of Poles in the USSR. The citation from Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 332-333. These words of Professor Kot are popular in Polish historiography, quoted by, among others, T. Gąsowski (Pod sztandarami Orła Białego…, 60). 197 See for example: Anna Zawadzka, “Żydokomuna. Szkic do socjologicznej analizy źródeł historycznych”, Societas/Communitas, 2: 8, 2009.

134 were determined by social class. The representatives of Polish Jews protested this harmful generalization. On 1 July 1943, a meeting was held at the

Representation of Polish Jewry’s headquarters at Lilienblum Street in Tel Aviv with a special guest, the Polish Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, Jan

Stańczyk. The agenda covered the burning issue of Jewish collaboration in the

Kresy. To the embittered exclamation of a member of the Representation, who pointed out that “there were others as well, not only Jews, who did so!

[collaborated with the Soviets]”, Minister Stańczyk gave a significant response:

“True, there were others, and, true, it was not a common phenomenon, and it is a well-known [fact, that] not only Jews are communists, but this is human nature, apparently [to think that way].”198

One may judge the ministerial response to be cynical, especially given that unsubstantiated anti-Jewish prejudices, of which Jewish collaboration with the

Soviets was an important element, backed the discriminatory decisions taken by the Polish authorities. “Human nature” as Stańczyk put it, referred to habitual thinking about Jews, regardless of the reality, to the societal belief.

Not only did Minister Stańczyk explicitly admit that the narrative on Polish

Jews’ common collaboration with the Soviets was an exaggerated generalization, he also made it clear that the Polish authorities did not intend

198 CZA, J25, minutes of the conference with Minister Stańczyk from July 1943.

135 to prevent it from spreading further.199 Instead, the image of pro-communist

Jews was perpetuated in official propaganda in the form of educational talks given by the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union. The educational role of the Polish Army had been established in the interwar years, with emphasis placed on its task of unifying the various ethnicities within society, though the curriculum changed in accordance with the political profile of successive Polish governments. After 1935, the belief was promoted that the Polish Army was the type of environment in which all citizens could meet and forge genuine civic attitudes. An instruction of the Ministry of Military Affairs dating from

1931 specifically stressed the role of the educational talks as the most influential element of the army’s educational-cultural programme.200 The educational talks had to be conducted by the commander of each subdivision, to better fit the needs of the soldiers and to create an intimate atmosphere of ease and mutual trust. In addition to the educational talks, the military press also propagandized the allegiance between the soldier and the state and its actual rulers. Both these means of communication between the authorities and soldiers were used in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the relationship between them (the military press and the educational talks) was mirrored in

199 See similar statement by Professor Kot: D. Engel, “The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Holocaust: Stanisław Kot’s confrontation with Palestinian Jewry, November 1942 – January 1943 – selected documents”, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, 2, 1987, 279. 200 Zbigniew Dziemianko, “Edukacja obywatelska żołnierzy w Wojsku Polskim w okresie dwudziestolecia międzywojennego”, Przegląd Naukowo-Metodyczny. Edukacja dla Bezpieczeństwa, 3, 2010, 136.

136 two orders issued by General Anders: that the press should be an official propaganda machine, offering polished content, and that the educational talks should reflect the personal feelings and thoughts of the refugee community in the Soviet Union.

The Polish Army’s weekly, Orzeł Biały (White Eagle), published from December

1941, promoted in official and formal style the political line of the Polish government in exile, leaving no room for doubt, and glorifying the Polish leaders, Prime Minister Sikorski, President Władysław Raczkiewicz, and

General Anders. As emphasized above, the Sikorski-Mayski treaty became a bone of contention for the Polish political establishment. Therefore, in an official newspaper, discussion of the problematic alliance with the Soviet Union and the unresolved conflict over the eastern territories was moderated in line with the official political line.201 Although Orzeł Biały contained more entertaining content, the political credo of Polish elites infiltrated even these fragments: “A Polish soldier from the USSR – whether a Pole, a Jew, an

Ukrainian or a Belarussian – knows that Poland was a country of true liberty, knows that, despite some conflicts, the coexistence of various nationalities went on harmoniously, he knows that both public and private life was based on the healthiest foundations, Christian morality.”202 The editorial board

201 All issues of Orzeł Biały are available online: http://www.pbc.uw.edu.pl/view/divisions/Orzel.html 202 Orzeł Biały, 31 (70), August 1943.

137 recommended Orzeł Biały as educational material to be read by the soldiers of every unit, but the educational talks included themes that went beyond the usual scope of the journal.203 Itzhak Schwartzbart recalled an example of the educational talks at the National Council’s session in May 1944: “The lecturer tried to […] indicate that Ukraine and Russia are under Jewish rule and by this he suggested that Jews particularly were responsible for the Soviet attack on

Poland [in 1939].”204 This cited extract was delivered to the Polish Army in

Great Britain, yet many Jewish soldiers’ testimonies, collected by the

Representation of Polish Jewry, prove that the same statements were made in educational talks given in the Soviet Union as well. The link between Polish

Jews and communism was broadly discussed by the refugees in the Soviet

Union, thereby questioning the right of the Jewish minority to be part of the

Polish refugee community. Unlike the supposed low military qualities and disloyalty attributed to Jews, their involvement in the communist movement was seen as unacceptable since it was linked to an essential issue of state security. Concerning the undeclared war between Poland and the Soviet Union started by Soviet aggression with the annexation of Polish territories in 1939, now covered up by the Polish-Soviet alliance, Jewish attitudes during that conflict appeared straightforwardly as a national betrayal. Bar Tal underlines

203 Orzeł Biały, 1 (5), January 1942. 204 CZA, S23.77, Shwarzbart’s speech at the Polish National Council from 13 May 1944.

138 that “society’s security values are expressed in its beliefs concerning national survival and personal safety.”205 The same beliefs may lead to delegitimization, and to an array of strong negative emotions related to rejection: hatred, anger, contempt, fear or disgust.206 The brutal treatment that Polish citizens in the

Soviet Union suffered at the hands of the Soviet authorities and the Red Army before the Sikorski-Mayski treaty was therefore linked to Jews who were held to be responsible for it. In a situation in which the Soviets could not be officially pinpointed as a hostile aggressor, it was the Jews who took the blame instead. This narrative was built on the traditional notion of Jewish disloyalty in general, and on their predilection to communism in particular, so the message appeared coherent and plausible.

Conclusion

Polish-Jewish relations in the Soviet Union were shaped by the specific make- up of the Polish refugee community there, of which both Jews and Poles were part. Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union fell victim to the political context (the

Polish-Soviet alliance) and to the societal beliefs of the Polish majority. In short, the political position taken up by the Polish government in exile, stressing the need to demonstrate a deep and true allegiance between the

205 Bar Tal, “Societal beliefs in times of intractable conflicts…”, 27. 206 Bar Tal, Ibidem.

139 people inhabiting the eastern territories annexed by the Soviets in 1939 and the Polish state, ran contrary to the principle of maintaining an ethnic proportional balance in key Polish institutions, including the army. The Polish authorities were pushed into tackling the overall despair caused by the difficult emotional and physical conditions of the Polish refugee diaspora in the Soviet

Union by calling for all citizens to come together to form an organized community. From the very start it became clear that implementation of the rule of the equal right of all Polish citizens to serve in the Polish military forces collided with the idea of ethnic proportions in the army as soon as a “Jewish surplus” appeared at the recruitment posts. The practice within the Polish

Army before the war, that soldiers recruited from national minorities should not exceed 10 per cent (5 per cent, or even 0 per cent in some divisions), once again came into effect in the Soviet Union, and applied in hindsight. A review was made of the Polish Army ranks with the aim of reducing the number of soldiers from ethnic minorities who had already been admitted. In order to back these measures, the Polish authorities explicitly and officially relied on the repertoire of well-known societal beliefs that held Jews to be bad soldiers, disloyal citizens and communist sympathizers (Judeo-communism). These beliefs, based on the Polish collective memory of Jewish incompatibility with the military ethos, played important social roles of identifying, mobilizing, and

140 fostering feelings of security and control among the Polish refugee community in the Soviet Union. The clear division that resulted from this process – the emergence of an in-group and an out-group – further reinforced the ethnic boundaries, the basic division of pre-war Polish society into ethnic Poles and non-Poles. In this ambiguous political environment (the Polish-Soviet territorial conflict remaining unresolved), the Polish community became mobilized and strongly identified with Polish institutions in the Soviet Union. Unacceptable behaviours, such as disloyalty, lack of patriotism and betrayal, were attributed to the out-group, and as a result strengthened the positive self-image of the

Polish ethnic community as patriotic and loyal. In the Soviet environment the societal belief of Jews gravitating towards communism resonated particularly strongly. The process was inspired and approved by the Polish authorities, though some high-ranking statesmen expressed dissent, mainly of the political cost of this operation (such as Professor Kot’s negative opinion of General

Anders’ order). The stated aim of not accepting too many Jews (as well as

Ukrainians and Belarussians) was presented to the Polish majority as being founded on the Polish refugees’ own observations and feelings developed under the Soviet occupation and oppression. The Polish authorities’ position on Jewish participation in the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union was expressed in many channels of official communication, including confidential

141 discussions held at the highest ranks of Polish and Soviet authority, daily orders, and the planned ideological educational actions undertaken within the

Polish Army. Altogether, the official message transmitted this way was coherent, corresponded to the Polish majority’s collective memory, and appeared just and acceptable. Looked at from the other side, the Polish authorities’ decisions and message officially created what the representatives of Polish Jewry called an anti-Jewish atmosphere, which will be analysed in the following chapter.

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Chapter Three: Jewish Narratives on Jews and the Polish Army

Introduction

This chapter analyses the Jewish narratives that emerged around the military service of Jews in the Polish Army as a reaction to the Polish narratives discussed in the previous chapter. The immediate inspiration for looking at them was Daniel Bar Tal’s observations on Israeli narratives and their interacting Palestinian counterparts. In his article on Israeli societal narratives and their instrumentalization in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Daniel

Bar Tal tangentially observes that “similar conflict-supporting narratives and similar miscodes (…) can also be found among Palestinians as mirror images of

Israeli narratives.”207 This sentence implies that similar conflict- or tension- supporting narratives produced by an out-group (Palestinians in the case of the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Jews in the case of Polish-Jewish wartime relations) pertain to the image of the in-group. Following this reasoning, one could expect that the Jewish narratives would simply reverse the Polish ones, acting as Polish equivalents, and would consequently frame the Jews as good and brave soldiers vis-à-vis the Poles. However, such assumptions do not prove

207 D. Bar-Tal (together with S. Vered), “Construction of conflict-supporting narrative in cases of intractable conflict: Miseducation in Israel about Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, [in:] Miseducation: A history of ignorance- making in America and abroad, ed. A. J. Junglo, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD, 2016, 1.

143 to be entirely accurate. True, a narrative reversing the “Jews as bad soldiers” trope can be found, with one Jewish faction (the Zionist-Revisionists) actually claiming the opposite, and characterizing Jews as possessing soldierly honour.

Yet this is only one in a number of ways that Jews voiced their opinion about themselves and the Poles. Consequently, the Jewish narratives had different functions. If the Polish narratives drew a clear-cut line separating the in-group from the out-group, Jewish narratives referred to Jews, not Poles, in this way defining the Jewish self-image in relation to the Polish majority, and sometimes even against it.

This chapter explores the variety of narratives produced by different Jewish political environments, reflecting the plurality of Jewish voices and responses to statements by the Poles. It identifies the Jewish narratives’ two-part structure: the first, reflecting on discriminative Polish attitudes and rhetoric towards Jews, at the same time acts as a point of departure for the second, which looks for solutions to improve the situation. As such, the narratives created by Jews recognized the Polish narratives as manifestations of an anti-

Jewish atmosphere or Polish anti-Semitism. The reflections that follow go back in time to explore the deep sources of Polish anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish atmosphere imposed by the Polish majority on the Jewish minority in the

Soviet Union during 1941-42. The second part of the Jewish narratives

144 depended on the particular vision of Jewish destiny and Polish-Jewish relations held by each Jewish political force. This chapter overviews the narratives of the

Zionist movement, reflecting on the programme differences between mainstream Labour Zionism, the Revisionist faction, and liberal Zionists. The narratives forged in these political environments promoted fundamental concepts or political projects: for the Revisionist faction, Jewish mass- immigration to Palestine and military preparations to fight for the Jewish state; for liberal Zionists, the coexistence of Jews and non-Jews in the Diaspora based on civic equality; for mainstream Labour Zionists, Jewish immigration to

Palestine and the enlistment of Jews into the British Army’s Jewish units.

Suggestions for improving the tense relations between Jews and Poles accordingly corresponded with these programmes and visions: be it the

Revisionists’ proposal to create a Jewish unit in the Polish Army, the liberal

Zionists’ recommendation for educational action to promote civic equality (as opposed to ethnic inequality) in the Polish Army, or the mainstream Zionists’ offer of humanitarian help for Jewish refugees that would make them the responsibility of the Yishuv’s relevant institutions. Each of these narratives employed terms and concepts like double loyalty, soldier’s honour, tribute of blood, Jewish pride, or pioneerism that clearly interacted with Polish societal beliefs regarding Jews as bad soldiers, Judeo-communism, or Jewish surplus.

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Analyses of Jewish narratives as responses to discrimination and anti-Semitism have so far only touched on specific cases, for example Jehuda Reinharz’s article “The Zionist Response to Antisemitism in Germany.”208 Other studies deal with the rhetoric of individual Jewish political entities, such as the military rhetoric of the Zionist-Revisionists. Derek Penslar’ study, Jews and the military…, contains many insights into how Jews narrated the military service.209

This chapter further elaborates on the majority-minority dynamic within the refugeedom, consequently approaching Polish-Jewish relations as an interaction and continuous exchange of ideas. Firstly, it analyses the Zionist-

Revisionists’ narratives and their proposition for creating separate Jewish units in the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. Then it looks at the mainstream Labour

Zionist movement and the rhetoric of its representatives in Iran. Finally, it analyses the narratives employed by Itzhak Schwarzbart, the representative of the liberal Representation of Polish Jewry, and his statements at the Polish

National Council’s forum.

The immediate impulse to employ these narratives was the series of relocations the Polish Army underwent after its evacuation from the Soviet

208 Jehuda Reinherz, “The Zionist Response to antisemitism in Germany”, The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 30: 1, January 1985, 105-140. 209 Derek Penslar, Jews and the military: a history, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2013.

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Union, aggravating the Polish-Jewish tensions that had already occurred on the army’s initial recruitment. The relocation of the army to the southern parts of the Soviet Union had been discussed at the meeting between Sikorski and

Stalin described in the previous chapter, with new staging points being chosen in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kirghizia. Now the Polish military forces in the

Soviet Union were to experience even more dramatic events. In March 1942 the Soviets informed General Anders that supplies for the Polish Army – at that time 96,000 men strong – would be reduced to 44,000 rations, necessitating the evacuation of soldiers’ surplus to that number. Later, the decision was made at the highest Polish, British and Soviet levels to evacuate the entire

Polish Army to Iran, from where it could be sent to the Middle East. In the summer of 1942 General Sikorski approved British plans to combine Polish units already stationed in the Middle East (the Carpathian Brigade) with units arriving from the Soviet Union, and make them into an enlarged Polish military force that would remain in the Middle East.210 The concentration point for this force was Palestine, but on leaving the Soviet Union, Polish units had been tasked with various missions throughout the Middle East, such as guarding oil fields against the German advance through the Caucasus. On quitting the

Soviet Union, other units (youth units, the women’s auxiliary service) were

210 After, some 17,000 soldiers from the Soviet Union will be sent to Great Britain, according to the Commander-in-Chief’s order from March 1942.

147 sent immediately to Palestine. The evacuation of the army occurred in two stages: March-April 1942, and August 1942. It involved the relocation of

116,543 people, including 78,631 soldiers who were moved by train into yet another episode of refugeedom. Like the initial recruitment process, the final days of the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union were fraught with ethnic controversies.211 The imposition of strict Soviet control over the categories of departing Polish refugees stirred up conflicts over who was qualified to leave and who was not. The eventual freeing of Polish refugees and authorities alike from Soviet political influence exposed them in turn to political pressure from

British and Middle Eastern authorities, pressure that was determined by the crucial encounter (at least in respect of Polish-Jewish relations) with the

Palestinian Yishuv, in Palestine as well as with its emissaries throughout the

Middle East.

The evacuation was the moment that allowed Polish Jews to express their feelings on the prevailing situation. Not having, unlike the Poles, any governmental apparatus at their disposal, the Jewish population used various other means to voice its opinion. Whether through manifestos, at sessions of the Polish National Council in London, official correspondence with the Yishuv agencies and institutions of world Jewry, and last, but not least, in newspapers,

211 Yisrael Gutman, “Jews in General Anders’ Army…”, 39-50.

148 the Jewish voice was heard and, especially in the case of wartime journalism, resonated loudly. The further the Polish Army travelled from the Soviet Union, the greater the interest expressed by Allied public opinion in the situation of

Polish Jews in the Polish Army. This interest was activated every time a new group of Polish refugees arrived in Palestine, the collecting centre for the

Polish refugee community, where Jewish public opinion enjoyed relative freedom of speech.

First, this chapter examines the rhetoric of the right-wing Zionist-Revisionists and their flagship policy of a Jewish Legion. Then it looks at the liberal Zionists

(or General Zionists) and analyses their struggles to implement civic equality throughout Polish society. Finally, it analyses the stand of the Yishuv’s mainstream Labour Zionist movement and its efforts to bolster the wartime

Yishuv with new immigrants and recruits. The voices of the Zionist movement resonated the loudest, yet other Jewish political forces, such as the Bund, also expressed their views on the issue. Since the Bundist approach corresponded to the opinions of the Representation of Polish Jewry, the two will be discussed together.

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1. The Revisionist Faction and Military Values

The Zionist-Revisionist faction, which belonged to the right wing of the Zionist movement, had advocated radical measures for European Jewry since its emergence in 1925. It spoke most loudly through the New Zionist

Organization, established by the Revisionists in 1935, which encouraged

750,000 Polish Jews to immigrate to Palestine.212 It is important to state that this had won the Revisionists certain favours from Poland’s pre-war military and political elites, who were looking for ways to reduce the size of Polish

Jewry. The Revisionists hoped the Polish authorities would extend this positive attitude to their wartime activities, but the evacuation programme proved impossible to implement in the circumstances of war. Nonetheless, the immediate wartime context motivated the Revisionist camp to put forward another flagship policy, that of a Jewish Legion. The idea, inseparably linked to

Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky, the Revisionists’ leader who died in August 1940, was promoted in various places during the war.213 The New Zionist

212 750,000 Polish Jews comprised the largest share of the total 1,500,000 Eastern European Jews that were to be “evacuated” to Palestine, according to the Jabotinsky’s plan announced in September 1936. 213 Monty Penkower, “Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky, Hillel Kook-Peter Bergson, and the campaign for Jewish Army”, Modern Judaism, 31: 3, 2011, 332-374.

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Organization, and specifically its youth movement, Betar, had advertised a programme based on militarism ever since the establishment of the Revisionist faction.214 Jabotinsky declared: “It is important to till the ground, it is important to manufacture, it is important to speak Hebrew, but unfortunately it is still important to know how to shoot, otherwise we will have to forgo playing a settlement.”215 In his admiration for militarism, military training, military discipline and splendour (Hebrew: hadar), Jabotinsky was inspired, as scholars recognize, by the Polish struggle for independence – specifically by the idea of

Polish legions in the armies of the partitioning states – and by the Italian

Risorgimento.216

The literature concerning the Polish Army in the Soviet Union (especially Polish historiography) frequently states that Polish Revisionists in the Soviet Union proposed the creation of a separate Jewish unit after the first signs of Polish-

Jewish tensions became visible.217 The Revisionists’ proposal, in a memorandum of October 1941, is usually treated as evidence of Jewish separatism, justifying the creation of an infamous unit in Kotlubanka, an

214 See more: Daniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky’s Children: Polish Jews and the Rise of Right-Wing Zionism, Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford, 2017. 215 Uri Ben-Eliezer, The making of Israeli Militarism, Indiana University Press, Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1998, 4. 216 Shlomo Avineri, The making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of The Jewish State, Basic Books, New York, 1981, 161. 217 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 328-329 (particularly including footnotes for these pages); Tomasz Gąsowski, Pod sztandarami…, 62-64.

151 auxiliary unit of the Polish Army in which Jewish soldiers were the majority.

Called a ghetto by its critics, the Kotlubanka unit served both as evidence of

Jewish self-exclusion from Polish society as well as a sign of things to come for the Polish military authorities, who eventually disbanded the unit.218 What is usually ignored is that the Revisionists’ extrinsically acquired tactic was based on a deep internalization of the Jewish issue along with its key argument on the Jewish surplus in Polish society. Thus the Revisionists’ political programme met Polish worries regarding the “overrepresentation” of Jews in Polish society. At the time that the Revisionists were drafting their manifesto, Polish refugees in the Soviet Union were experiencing Polish-Jewish tensions during the process of recruitment to the Polish Army, and ethnic minority quotas had already been introduced (see chapter 2). The creation of a Jewish Legion would gather Polish Jews in one unit, thus saving them from Polish anger about the

“unfair ethnic proportions” in the Polish Army in the Soviet Union.

These thoughts were put together in a manifesto addressed to General Anders and delivered to the Chief of Staff, General Leopold Okulicki, on 10 October

1941.219 The authors, Miron Sheskin and Marek Kahane, who introduced

218 The term “self-exclusion” regarding Polish Jews in the Second World War was used by Adam Puławski in his essay on Polish Jews in Poland under German occupation: “Wykluczenie czy samowykluczenie? Trzy aspekty obecności Żydów w wojennym społeczeństwie polskim na przykładzie 1942” [Exclusion or self-exclusion? Three aspects of Jewish presence in the Polish Wartime Society], Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość, 12: 1, 2008, 127-157. 219 The manifesto, followed by the editorial board’s note, was published by the Polish émigré journal Zeszyty Historyczne [Historical Brochures], 119, Paris, 1997.

152 themselves in the opening section of the document, represented the institutional structures of the Revisionist movement in Poland: the Union of

Jewish Reservists (Brit He-Hayal), and the editorial board of Der Moment, the popular journal of the New Zionist Organization since 1935. They addressed the head of the Polish Army, General Anders, out of deep concern over the difficult conditions the Polish diaspora was experiencing in the Soviet Union.

The authors openly admitted that a large share of Polish citizens in need were

Polish Jews, tapping into Polish opinion on Jewish overrepresentation in the

Soviet Union. Therefore, the Revisionists offered to act as go-betweens in contacting international Jewish charities such as the Joint Distribution

Committee in order to relieve the overstrained Polish welfare apparatus. But the question of welfare was only a lure. The point of Sheskin’s and Kahane’s reasoning was: “It would be wrong to limit our action to charity only. (…) We cannot close our eyes to the facts that prove that the Jewish issue [sic!] and all the phenomena linked to it, still exists.”220 The suggested solution would be the “mass-emigration of Polish Jews to Palestine, in other words, a significant reduction in the size of the Polish Jews’ community that can efficiently pacify the Jewish issue.” In order to present the pro-Palestinian idea as a solution to

Polish-Jewish tensions, the authors claimed that the creation of a Jewish

220 Here and further on: Zeszyty Historyczne, 119, Paris, 1997.

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Legion as a separate Jewish unit within the Polish Army would significantly advance the realization of the Palestinian project. But there were risks embedded in the Jewish unit project, which its authors sought to address: “The

Jewish Legion cannot become a precedent to differentiate between Jews and non-Jews and violate Jewish civic rights.”221 In other words, the Jewish Legion should not serve as a pretext for further discrimination directed at Polish Jews.

The Jewish Legion, although it carried connotations that prestige came with ethnicity, was above all meant to be an entity through which Polish Jews could identify more easily with the battle than in the ordinary ranks. The Revisionists claimed that Polish Jews demonstrated an eagerness to fight against Hitler, whether it be in the Polish Army or in a Palestinian unit. Yet the concept of a

Jewish Legion expressed a preference for the Palestinian option. The

Revisionists would return to that idea later.

Meanwhile, their proposition coincided with a parallel concept of creating a

Jewish unit that came from within the Polish Army. In autumn 1942, in the course of making organizational changes to the auxiliary units, once the percentage of Jewish soldiers at the Auxiliary Centre had reached 5 per cent

(for officers) and 10 per cent (for privates), the surplus was sent to form a

Jewish battalion. This 700- strong battalion was sent to Kotlubanka, where

221 Zeszyty Historyczne, 119, 1997.

154 conditions were bad, as the chief rabbi of the Polish Army, Leon Szczekacz

(Leib Rosen), described in his address to the Jewish soldiers in November 1941:

“the majority of you live here in bad conditions, without tents, relevant clothing and shoes.”222 The separate unit in Kotlubanka did not last long, however; it was liquidated at the end of 1941 on the orders of General Anders, prior to his statement of principle concerning the equality of Polish soldiers in the army. In practice, the Kotlubanka battalion not only undermined the idea of a prestigious Jewish Legion, it also generated the undesirable effects the manifesto had warned against: by singling out Jewish soldiers and concentrating them into one unit, it aroused suspicions of segregating Jewish from non-Jewish soldiers in order to create a ghetto. The claims of Rabbi

Szczekacz, that a separate Jewish battalion was created to facilitate the organization of Jewish religious celebrations and kosher provisioning, seemed unconvincing for the Revisionists.223 Despite these negative experiences, the

Revisionists expressed considerable understanding of the Polish view on Jewish surplus. Although the issue remained unsettled in the manifesto itself, it was elaborated elsewhere. In December 1943, on Marek Kahane’s initiative, and in his presence, an informal meeting was held in the Jerusalem apartment of Arie

222 Sikorski Institute, A.XII.15/2. 223 Rabbi Szczekacz, after the war, published his memoirs on Kotlubanka battalion, where he referred to it as ghetto in the title of his book written in Yiddish: Leon Szczekacz, Geto Koltubanka [sic!] - geshikhte funm proyekt tsu shafn a Yidishn legion bay der Poylisher armey in Sovet Rusland, Paris-New York, 1951.

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Altman, the head of the Central Political Bureau of the New Zionist

Organization. It was Altman himself who addressed the issue of anti-Semitism and its Polish specifics: “(…) we differentiate between subjective anti-Semitism and objective anti-Semitism and it is clear to us that in Poland, where the

Jewish minority was as high as 10 per cent, the forces of objective anti-

Semitism were the strongest.”224 Maintaining this stance during the war, the

Revisionists and their sympathizers preferred to pour oil on the troubled waters of Polish-Jewish relations. Ha-Mashkif, a Palestinian pro-Revisionist daily newspaper, called for a sensible approach in an article entitled “Do not exaggerate!”225 The author criticized the inactivity of the western allies in tackling the plight of European Jewry at the hands of the Nazis, while stressing their over-activity with regard to the oppression of Jews in the Polish Army.

This practice of playing down Polish anti-Semitism was simply a tactic, the full advantages of which were revealed in Palestine. The main objective was to curry favour with the Polish military authorities as a safeguard for the future.

When the core of the Polish Army reached Palestine in the summer of 1943, more Revisionists came forward. Among them was Menachem Begin, the head of Betar in Poland before the war, who had been arrested by the Soviets in

224 Kazimierz Zamorski, Dwa tajne biura 2 Korpusu, Poets and Painters Press, London, 1990, 102. Possibly, the author confused the “objective anti-Semitism” with the “anti-Semitism of things” as opposed to the “anti- Semitism of people.” 225 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 71, Folder 47 (800/42/0/-/71), document 218.

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1940, then amnestied and enlisted in the Polish Army after July 1941. Taking advantage of cordial contacts between the members of the Revisionist faction and some Polish military figures, Menachem Begin’s friends requested a leave for him from the Polish Army. This obviously confidential act has became shrouded in legend, and accounts of the connections used to obtain the leave vary. David Engel recalled that Polish governmental figures at the highest level were involved in facilitating Begin’s leave in order to send him and other

Revisionists on a lobbying mission to the United States on behalf of the Polish government.226 In this context a Polish top secret document prepared in

Palestine for the Minister of National Defence, General Kukiel, mentions three other names: Treller, Karasik, Arnold, confirming the General Anders intention to send the abovementioned soldiers to the United States for propaganda action.227 These events were also described by Kazimierz Zamorski, author of a post-war memoir of the Army’s analysis bureau (Polish: Biuro Studiów).

Zamorski, who was employed in the bureau, openly sympathized with the

Revisionist movement and befriended some of its members (like Menachem

Buchweitz, who also cooperated with the bureau). His book drew on his own recollections, as well as those of his friends, including members of the

226 David Engel, „The frustrated Alliance: The revisionist movement and the Polish government-in-exile, 1939- 1945”, Studies in Zionism, 7: 1, 1986, 11-36. 227 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/40.

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Revisionist movement whom he interviewed in Israel in the 1990s, and faithfully reflects the characteristic style and rhetoric of the people associated with the bureau:

At the end of 1943 [Begin] was offered the leadership of Etzel (Irgun

Tzvai Leumi), which he accepted, under the condition of obtaining leave

from the Polish Army. As if he could not desert, like hundreds of others

[!]. But he insisted that he did not want to desert. This was about

establishing an independent Jewish state, and he was talking about a

soldier’s honour [italics mine] and did not want to cast the uniform

away.228

Similarly, in a humorous but exalted way, the same author recalls Marek

Kahane’s leave from the Polish Army in Iraq in 1943:

Would you agree, General, that at this war, my duty towards the Jewish

nation is much greater than [my duty] towards the Polish nation. […] I

am member of the Jewish military organization and while wearing a

Polish uniform I will not desert to wear a Jewish uniform [instead]. This

goes against the soldier’s honour [italics mine].229

228 K. Zamorski, Dwa tajne biura…, 108. 229 K. Zamorski, Ibidem, 98.

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The inspiration here was clear: the soldier’s honour, a value so cherished by

Poles and denied to Jews, was here accorded to the Revisionist leaders.230

Responding to the widely held belief of the Polish majority that being Jewish was incompatible with military values (Jews as bad soldiers), the Revisionist faction went even further by signalling a genuine moral dilemma faced by

Jewish soldiers. The Revisionists presented the shift in allegiance from the

Polish to the Jewish (in fact, the Yishuv) cause, symbolized by the Revisionists’ desire to change the Polish uniform for a Jewish one, or to serve in a Jewish unit instead of the regular ranks of the Polish Army, as an internal conflict of double loyalty. By placing Jewish soldiers on the same moral scale, the

Revisionists purposefully engaged with the Polish societal belief that painted

Jews as disloyal. They hoped to win a moral, and perhaps also political and military, support for the Revisionist faction. Demonstrating that Jewish soldiers exhibited the same range of values would make such support more credible.

The Zionist-Revisionists questioned the traditional Polish beliefs that denied

Jews virtues and capabilities such as honour or loyalty without openly defying the Polish narratives.

230 Jewish honour and heroism were frequent theme in the wartime Jewish press in America, Palestine and the Soviet Union. See more: Yosef Gorny, Jewish Press and the Holocaust, 1939-1945: Palestine, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012, 6-7.

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But the concept of double loyalty was more complex than just the simple rhetoric it might seem at first sight. Based on Jan Lanicek’s essay on the meaning of loyalty, it can be argued that the Revisionists’ rhetoric constituted a breakthrough, since the right and privilege of deciding who was loyal and who was not had up till now lain with the authorities.231 Therefore, the narrative proposed by the Revisionists can be read in two different ways: as a sign of the minority’s emancipation, but also as a sign of Polish officialdom’s weakening authority. This reversed the traditional relationship between Poles and Jews, which had previously been framed in terms of the majority versus the minority. The key element in this transformation was the Zionists’ plan to settle Jews in Palestine, as a result of which Polish-Jewish relations no longer concerned relations between fellow citizens. The narrative of double loyalty was supposed to have validity for a certain period of time only. Seen in this perspective, double loyalty was a convenient device enabling the transfer of allegiance from the Polish to the Jewish Zionist cause.

231 Jan Lanicek, “What does it mean to be loyal? Jewish Survivors in Post-War Czechoslovakia in a Comparative Perspective”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 60: 3, 2014, 383-404.

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2. The Representation of Polish Jewry and Civic Equality

In many aspects the programme adopted by the Representation of Polish

Jewry was the exact opposite of the programme promulgated by the Zionist-

Revisionists. Unlike the Revisionists, whose contacts with Polish authorities were informal and often confidential, members of the Representation not only contacted Polish authorities publicly and formally, but also cooperated with them and even participated in the Polish wartime administration. The same was true for the Bund, the Jewish socialist movement that advocated the assimilation of Polish Jews into Polish society and was represented in the

Polish National Council by Szmul Zygielbojm after March 1942.232 The

Representation of Polish Jewry was located inside the Zionist movement and its members largely identified with Zionist ideology, yet the Representation’s manifesto, formulated at the beginning of the war, only mentioned Zionist ideas at the very end. The values dear to the Representation were listed as follows:

1. “Freedom of peoples and humans from violence, oppression,

exploitation, fear and poverty.

232 See more: A. Friszke, “Tuż przed zagładą…”, 95-98; D. Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz…, 122; D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 36-43.

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2. Poland’s independence, her strength, importance and development in

every aspect – political, economic, cultural and social.

3. The building and development of Palestine as the Jewish national

home.”233

The above point can be interpreted as the movement’s credo, while the order in which they are listed reveals its hierarchy of aims: overall humanitarian values; then specific Polish national goals; finally, specific Zionist aspirations.

Polish Jewry occupied a special place in the Representation’s activity. The involvement of the Representation of Polish Jewry in the Polish wartime political apparatus was a function of the second point, corresponding to the idea of “work in present” endorsed by some Zionist circles (see Chapter 1). The

Representation claimed to represent Polish Jewry as a whole, and its members readily stressed that its political horizon stretched “from the bourgeois-right to the socialist-left”,234 giving them the right, so they argued, to represent the

Jewish masses, even though, as they openly admitted, Revisionists and

Bundists were not part of the Representation. In particular, the Revisionist faction was held to be opportunistic, in contrast to the Representation, which

“represent[s] (…) [the] unchangeable and permanent endeavours of the overriding majority of Polish Jews, their demand for full equality in political,

233 CZA, J25.94. 234 CZA, Ibidem.

162 national, and economic terms, and at the same time their recognition as an organized entity linked to world Jewry and striving to full national emancipation [in Palestine].”235 From this perspective, the Representation’s standpoint on issues concerning Polish Jews was expressed, so its members believed, on behalf and in the name of Polish Jewry, being its mainstream, as opposed to radical factions like the Zionist-Revisionists. Itzhak (Ignacy)

Schwarzbart, mentioned earlier, was the most outspoken member of the

Representation; the London-based Polish National Council the most appropriate forum for his rhetorical pleas.236 It was also a space in which the

Representation could raise issues for consideration and discussion in Polish policymaking circles. This chapter analyses some of the speeches Itzhak

Schwarzbart delivered at the sessions of the National Council, as well as his correspondence with the Representation’s leadership based in Tel Aviv, to whom he reported his London activities.

The Representation’s call for full equality for Polish Jews drew the attention of its members to the Polish Army in the Soviet Union and the Middle East.

Alarmed by reports from Jewish soldiers already evacuated from the Soviet

Union, the Representation started to monitor their situation. The results were

235 CZA, J25, Ibidem. 236 See more: D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 17-61.

163 put together in a memorandum presented to the Polish government in exile in

September 1943:

All too often a Jew hears from his fellow Poles, his brothers in arms, that

Hitler is doing the right thing by murdering Polish Jews (…). Orders

issued against these manifestations of anti-Semitism carry a message

that anti-Jewish behaviour must cease due to the harm it inflicts on

Polish politics (…). Complaints from Jewish soldiers are ignored (…), the

guilty ones [for these acts] are not held responsible. (…) Insults to

dignity, offences, verbal abuses, […] discrimination, go on every day. We

are aware of many similar facts (…). But facts are less important, the

most important is the atmosphere [italics mine] and the deep

psychological crisis it provokes in a Jewish soldier.237

Depression was not the only emotional harm resulting from the anti-Jewish atmosphere. Also damaged was “Jewish pride.” “If a Jewish soldier (…) says he cannot take it any longer, it is clear [that he cannot] from the perspective of human pride, civic pride, Jewish pride, the pride of free people.”238

The Representation of Polish Jewry regarded the anti-Jewish atmosphere, so robustly depicted in the memorandum, as the factor that drove Jewish soldiers

237 CZA, J25, Shwarzbart’s memorandum to the Polish Government in exile from September 1943. 238 CZA, S23.77, Ibidem.

164 to lie to or bribe the recruiting committees, or to use personal contacts and friendships to secure a place in the army. In May 1944 Itzhak Schwarzbart delivered a long speech at a session of the Polish National Council, in which he reflected on the underlying causes of a problem discussed during the session, namely the group desertions of Jewish soldiers from Polish units in Scotland.

The roots of the problem lay in the Soviet Union, Schwarzbart claimed, where despairing Polish Jews “willing to discharge their duty to Poland, had to resort to favouritism, or, worse, to favouritism and falsification.” The Representation regarded these acts as particularly harmful to Polish Jews, since they pushed

Jewish citizens outside the Polish legal framework. In 1944 Schwarzbart openly identified the anti-Jewish atmosphere as the reason for the Jewish soldiers’ illegal behaviour: “This forgery incriminates perhaps those who demanded it.

(…) there were many Jews in Russia who gave [false information regarding their] faith.”239 The situation escalated: minor criminal offences committed in the Soviet Union eventually led to a more serious transgression of the Polish military code, namely desertion from the ranks. Schwarzbart saw it clearly: “In my opinion, were it not for the dense anti-Semitic atmosphere, the Jews would never have done what they did.”240

239 CZA, S23.77, Ibidem. 240 CZA, S23.77, Ibidem.

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Had it not been for the atmosphere of insults, repugnance and rejection, Polish

Jews would never have had committed these crimes, Schwarzbart concluded his speech to the Polish National Council.

The ultimate example of criminal offences committed by Jewish soldiers were the mass desertions in Palestine in 1943. These would, in like manner, not have taken place if there had been an atmosphere of goodwill among the Polish troops. The link between the anti-Jewish atmosphere and the desertions was so obvious that Schwarzbart distanced himself from using the shameful and accusative term “deserter”; he rather saw the desertions of Jewish soldiers as acts of protest against the anti-Jewish atmosphere. The term “deserter” appeared in quotation marks in Schwarzbart’s correspondence with the headquarters of the Representation in Tel Aviv and his distancing attitude was felt in his speeches. This stance was further developed in an appeal “To Jews,

Soldiers of the Polish Army”, issued on 14th March 1944 (though stamped “not for publication”), that called for Jewish deserters to return to the ranks. Signed by Arie Tartakower, Anshel Reiss and Itzhak Schwazbart, it said: “We are aware that manifestations of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army’s ranks resulted in an atmosphere filling you with bitterness. We are aware that your step

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[desertion] was caused by these factors and not others, especially not by a desire to shirk military duty or participate in battle.”241

So far as was possible in wartime conditions, the Representation of Polish

Jewry pressured the London-based Polish government to fulfil the political declarations it had committed itself to. The situation of Polish Jews in the army was seen as particularly significant. The Representation regarded the army as the strategic place for implementing democratic values: “Today this is where an independent, active and free Poland has its most truly realized existence. It is there that the people who ought to bring freedom to Poland are trained, formed and educated.”242 In order to alleviate the atmosphere in the army, polluted as it was by anti-Semitism, the Representation proposed two measures: “An intense educational action against anti-Semitism and the drawing of legal consequences against those who are guilty of anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviours.”243 In this way, the Representation hoped to prevent the desertions from taking on the character of a mass phenomenon. The

Representation’s ordinary members also became involved in the task: desperate Jewish soldiers would be approached by members of

241 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 4. 242 CZA, J25, Ibidem. 243 CZA, J25, Ibidem.

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Representation who would “explain (…) how we see a future Poland and in the name of what values we urge him to stay where he is.”244

From the point of view of the Representation of Polish Jewry, the condition of

Polish Jews was an internal Polish issue, and could be ameliorated only by internal measures, preferably by using instruments already existing within the

Polish legal system or institutional framework. Educational talks in the army, misinterpreted by the officers of the Polish Army in exile, were intended to promote civic unity above ethnic animosities. The Representation’s idea was to return to the talks’ original function, a concept also supported by the Bund.245

In order to strengthen their influence on Polish soldiers, Schwarzbart reviewed the body of Polish law to search for relevant regulations that would ban anti-

Semitic pronouncements. Polish law, however, lacked any explicit regulations against anti-Semitism as such.246 At the Polish National Council’s session in

May 1944, in the presence of the Minister of Defence, General Marian Kukiel,

Schwarzbart committed himself to introducing a change to the Polish law: “The issue of the spread of hatred ought to be addressed in new legislation, so that a prosecutor would be involved, because at present the rules are too flexible, and so is the practice.”247 The Representation’s suggestion went further: to link

244 CZA, J25, Ibidem. 245 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 29. 246 This view Schwarzbart expressed in May 1944. CZA, J25, Ibidem. 247 CZA, S23.77, ibidem.

168 anti-Semitism with fundamental political interests relating to the reputation of the Polish wartime administration and its credibility in the eyes of the allies.

According to this logic, though Polish-Jewish relations were essentially an internal Polish affair (and the instruments for shaping them were also bound by Polish law and regulations), Polish-Jewish tensions resonated outside. This obvious externalization of Polish-Jewish internal tensions was stressed to drive home the harmful potential of anti-Semitic incidents for Polish interests.

On the grounds of protecting vital Polish wartime interests, the Representation of Polish Jewry reported on every case in which the Polish authorities transgressed the democratic standards they themselves proclaimed. General

Anders’ follow-up order issued in the Soviet Union (see chapter 2) therefore attracted the Representation’s attention sometime later. The order was brought to the attention of the broader public by the Palestinian weekly

Eshnav, a Hebrew journal sympathizing with the Revisionists, in summer 1943.

In July 1943 the Representation of Polish Jewry demanded an official inquiry from the Polish Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. The authors, I.

(Itzhak?) Lew and Dr. Abraham Stupp, stressed the negative effect that publication of the order had on the Yishuv and world Jewry. The immediate reason for demanding the inquiry was the order’s “glaring discrepancy with the official statements and governmental resolutions regarding full equality of

169 rights for Jews, as well as regarding Polish-Jewish cordial coexistence founded on mutual trust, both now and after independence is regained…”.248 In every case of an official anti-Semitic statement would being made, the

Representation linked it to the government’s declarations concerning its allegiance to democratic standards and values, and called for them to be put them into practice. The Representation of Polish Jewry regarded General

Anders’ order as a warning sign, working against the integration of Polish Jews into Polish society, an aim the Representation was busy promoting. Its members feared that “the official statements and governmental resolutions” were nothing more than a political ploy by the Polish authorities to the Allies.

Viewing Polish Jews as inseparable from Polish society, the Representation sought to avoid treating Polish Jewry as a minority group and protested any suggestions to the opposite. The desertions were therefore highly undesirable to the Representation since they could be interpreted as self- excluding acts from Polish society that carried possible legal sanctions, including loss of citizenship. The Representation and the Bund were officially opposed to the

Revisionists’ idea of creating a separate Jewish unit within the Polish Army.249

But there was another reason why the Representation sought to dissipate the negative effect of Jewish soldiers’ desertions. The desertions were highly

248 CZA, J25, ibidem. 249 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 29.

170 unwelcome in view of the Representation’s hope that the military contribution made by Polish Jewry would become an argument for granting them equal rights in post-war Poland. Schwarzbart claimed that Polish Jews in the Soviet

Union “were driven to fight for Poland, to take revenge for [their] families and ruins of [their] houses. [They] were driven to win equal rights for themselves and [their] children, through the sacrifice of blood [my italics].”250 The deeply patriotic allegiance of Polish Jews to Poland was of a civic rather than an ethnic nature. The loyalty that moved Polish Jews to respond to the official call in

1939 and participate in the defensive phase of the war (the September campaign), the eagerness with which they flocked to the recruiting posts in the

Soviet Union, all proved the Jewish sense of duty towards the country in which they lived and felt themselves attached to. In return, Polish Jewry expected that the democratic ideal would be realized in the form of civic equality, ending the authorities’ everyday practice of ethnic divisions. Yet, the concept of sacrifice of blood added a more spiritual and symbolic sense to the rationalist and progressive concept of civic equality. The sacrifice of blood was expected to produce a brotherly bond of allegiance to Poland, informed by the organic concept of brotherhood of blood. The abnormal situation of war with all its atrocities, as opposed to the everyday building of civic society in times of

250 CZA, S23.77, ibidem.

171 peace, opened up the possibility of launching a Polish civic project. The shedding of blood in war enabled Polish Jews to take an active part in the same effort as their fellow Poles. The contribution of Jewish blood to the military war effort was meant to ultimately convince the others of their allegiance to

Poland. Jewish blood spilt alongside Polish blood would generate solidarity and brotherhood between the two. The equal contribution to the war was expected to bear fruits of equality for both Jews and Poles in terms of societal position in post-war Poland. Hopefully, this would be powerful enough to eradicate the traditional negative symbols of Jews and blood, such as the figure of the Jewish bloodsucker, both in the pre-modern sense of blood libel and the modern sense of the Jew as the exploiter of the working class.251 Yet the aspirations of Polish Jews for brotherhood were upended by the Jewish honour defended by the Jewish representative in the Polish National Council.

The final decision on whether to treat the war as a starting point for introducing equality in Polish-Jewish relations depended on how sincere Polish officials were in their democratic statements.

251 See more: Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, “The Figure of the Bloodsucker in Polish Religious, National and Left-Wing Discourse, 1945-46: A Study in Historical Anthropology”, Dapim-Studies in the Holocaust, 27: 2, 2013, 75-106.

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3. The Yishuv and its Need for Pioneers and Soldiers

The Representation’s assessment of the harmful potential of inter-ethnic tensions in the Polish Army proved to be true when one looks at the reactions the sufferings of Jewish soldiers elicited in the Yishuv. The creation of the Army in the Soviet Union, and its subsequent relocation to the Middle East, was monitored and commented on by foreign journalists and correspondents who made public the issue of Polish-Jewish tensions in the ranks.252 Despite the efforts of the Polish Embassy’s press attaché in the Soviet Union, Ksawery

Pruszyński, foreign journalists (correspondents for The New York Times and the

British News Chronicle among them) inquired into the most sensitive topics, such as the Jewish surplus in the Polish Army and the attitude of the army command to anti-Semitic incidents. On this topic, Pruszyński reported the views of some of the journalists he came into contact, for example: “Jordan and Sulzberger claimed that anti-Semitism is accepted by the top, (…)

Champenois and Shapiro opposed by claiming that Poles are anti-Semites in general.”253 On the concept of a separate Jewish unit, Pruszyński continued:

“Shapiro claimed that separate Jewish units are necessary in the Polish Army and gave evidence that was unfortunately true (…)”).254 These press reports

252 See Y. Gorny, Jewish Press and the Holocaust…, 88. 253 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, document 1. 254 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, ibidem.

173 spread throughout world Jewry. Consequently, the Yishuv leadership involved the Jewish Agency in issues of Jewish brotherhood in the Soviet Union.

The Yishuv had found itself in a difficult political situation since the beginning of the war. As indicated in the Chapter 1, British entry into the war forced the

Yishuv leadership to reformulate their strategy, eventually pursuing a balancing act between supporting the British in their fight against Nazi

Germany and contesting the limitations they imposed on legal Jewish immigration to Palestine. The ambiguity of this strategy meant it was received coolly by the Jewish Palestinian community and activated the political opposition. One component of this strategy was the Yishuv’s military contribution to the war in the form of Jewish units within the British Army.

Despite the efforts of the Jewish Agency to advertise them, fewer volunteers than expected turned up at the Jewish Agency’s recruiting centres.255 The minutes of a meeting of the Recruitment Committee of the Jewish Agency in

September 1941 demonstrated the pressing need for more recruits to Jewish units in Palestine: “At the present moment we need 2,600 people and in the next period we need to prepare 3,000 people and after that there is a chance another 6,000 will be needed. […] We have to receive a thousand volunteers from civilian society… We can have about a thousand recruits from the

255 See also D. Sharfman, Palestine in the Second World War…, 54.

174 kibbutzim, from ‘Maccabi’256 and other organizations.”257 Among the ways discussed for raising these urgently needed recruits, particular attention was given to launching a broad popular propaganda appeal.258 This appeal was supposed to complement a parallel recruitment drive among Palestinian Arabs supported by the British Mandate authorities.259

The Yishuv also had difficulties in maintaining the stream of legal Jewish immigration.260 Most of Europe, the main source of Jewish immigrants, was under occupation and Jews were prohibited from leaving it. In fact, the only place from where legal Jewish immigration to Palestine could continue during the war was Yemen.261 The Yishuv consequently experienced a shortage of human resources. Thus, the significant presence of Jews among the numbers of Polish refugees, as reported in the world press, appeared very promising to the Yishuv leadership. And it was the condition of the refugees that appeared still more promising. Refugeedom was, by its very nature, temporary: it was in a refugee’s best interest to cease to be one. Moreover, a refugee could be, in

256 Sports club. 257 Central Zionist Archives, S25\10635-45. 258 Central Zionist Archives, ibidem. How critical the situation was may be gauged from the suggested sanction for evading military duty – a public boycott. This was put into practice, and one can read about it in reports sent by Polish diplomats to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the atmosphere in Palestine: young men in military age should be aware that when they appeared in public (restaurants, cafes etc.) they could be shamed by guests probing their attitude to military duty. 259 D. Sharfman, Palestine in the Second World War…, 55. 260 D. Sharfman, Ibidem, 93-94. 261 Aviva Halamish, “A New Look at Immigration of Jews from Yemen to Mandatory Palestine”, Israel Studies, 11: 1, 2006, 59-78.

175 the eyes of the Yishuv leadership, transformed into an immigrant. Therefore, the Jewish Agency did not engage with Polish narratives about Jews and alter them, in the way of the Revisionists or the General Zionists, but was preoccupied only with the Polish Jews’ wartime refugeedom, mentioning their links to the Polish administration only when it served the Jewish Agency’s narrative to do so. The Agency’s actions aimed at Polish Jews were calculated to stress their refugee condition and to suggest replacing it with that of an immigrant to the Yishuv, whose allegiance would be to Jewish Palestine. A specifically designated bureau within the Jewish Agency was created, the

Polish Refugees’ Council (Hebrew: Va’ad lema’an Plitei Polin).

In spring 1942 the Jewish Agency asked the Polish government if it would be acceptable to mobilize a Jewish third party (like the American Jewish Congress) to intervene and discuss with the Soviets the issue of exit visas for those Polish

Jews officially recognized by the Soviet authorities as being Soviet, not Polish, citizens.262 The Polish government turned down this proposal for friendly mediation on grounds of the high sensitivity of Polish-Soviet relations.

Nevertheless, the Jewish Agency did not stop its efforts. In the same period the

Jewish Agency’s representative Raphael Shafar presented the following memorandum: “The Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Jewish Aid

262 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, document 1.

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Organization, being aware of the condition of our refugee brethren from

Poland who are in the Soviet Union, desire to assist them and (…) wish that the aid be evenly distributed to all Polish refugees in the Soviet Union, regardless of their ethnic origin or the religion they profess.”263 The way the memorandum was formulated was not accidental: the Jewish Agency was aware of the controversies surrounding the recruitment and the conditions of military service for Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army. The Yishuv Zionists intentionally utilized the official Polish position presented to the Soviets at the peak of the argument over the Polish citizenship of non-Poles. Yet the Agency’s offers of cooperation continued to be turned down. These offers were, however, nothing more than a test. The largest pool of potential Jewish immigrants to Palestine were Soviet Jews and it was the Soviet Union with whom the Jewish Agency wanted to discuss the “Jewish issue”, over the heads of the Poles.264 The conflict over what citizenship was borne by Jewish refugees from Poland in the Soviet Union made the Jewish Agency aware that the Soviet government might be the relevant addressee. At the same time, the Jewish

Agency monitored the situation of Polish Jews, hoping that Polish officials would react favourably to the idea of Polish Jews joining the Yishuv, especially

263 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, ibidem. 264 See: Yaacov Roi, “Soviet policy in the Middle East: The case of Palestine during Second World War II”, Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique, 15: 3-4, 1974, 373-408.

177 during the crucial evacuation of the Polish Army from the Soviet Union. As may be read from the report forwarded by the World Jewish Congress to the office of the Polish Prime Minister, the Jewish Agency had tasked itself with a thorough and deep investigation of the Jewish refugees, beginning with an estimation of their numbers and ending with a probing enquiry into their mood and psychological condition.265

An envoy from the Jewish Agency’s executive, Eliyahu Dobkin, reported on the process of evacuation: “On 12thAugust a new evacuation was launched (…), this includes 70,000 people: 45,000 soldiers and 25,000 civilians, mostly soldiers’ families. I fear that this time, as before, the number of Jews will not exceed 4 to 7%, even though Jews comprise 35 to 55% of the overall Polish refugee community in the Soviet Union.”266 Not only did the low number of Jewish evacuees itself concern the Yishuv’s agents, Dobkin discussed the reasons for this low number: “Despite the negative attitude of the Soviets (…) who claim that every Jew is a Soviet citizen, whether they come from western or eastern

Polish provinces (…) anti-Semitism prevailing in the Polish Army stops the

265 Sikorski Institute, PRM88b, document 26. 266 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, document 8. The fragments cited in the document kept at the Sikorski Institute come from the Report on the situation of Jewish refugees in Pahlavi from 8 September 1942 by Eliahu Dobkin. The report is stored at the Central Zionist Archives: S25/7950.

178 evacuation of Jews.”267 An anonymous author reporting to the Jewish Agency was more dramatic in tone:

I met Professor Kot in Pahlevi. (…) He repeated the old argument on the

Polish-Soviet conflict over the eastern territories and claimed that only

Russians were guilty [of the small number of Jewish evacuees]. [General

Anders] issued an order before the evacuation that Poles must follow

the Soviet orders [which excluded Soviet citizens: Jews, Ukrainians,

Belorussians and others], otherwise the Soviets might stop the entire

evacuation. (…) Officers implemented this order with satisfaction,

spilling, literally [sic – emphasis mine], Jewish blood. They were tearing

parents from their children, brothers from their sisters, wives from their

husbands. (…) It was his [Anders’] gendarmerie that was beating our

chalutzim [Hebrew: pioneers] and simply Jews, taunting them and

insulting them. (…) Because of that, Jews in Krasnovodsk were jumping

into the sea and were drowning as they tried to get on board.”268

The scene described above resembled a pogrom, an ultimate eruption of anti-

Jewish violence of which the authorities were aware, although the term pogrom was not mentioned. The brutality was obviously a reminder of the

267 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, ibidem. 268 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, Ibidem.

179 brutality that accompanied the anti-Jewish riots of the inter-war period, which the Polish authorities were reluctant to register as pogroms.269 With other evacuees watching, Jews, both Zionist pioneers “and simply Jews”, became the victims of unveiled and tangible violence at the hands of the Polish gendarmerie in the Soviet Union. This violence had a clear exclusionary character: Jews were pushed out of trains if a group of Polish refugees was waiting to be evacuated; desperate Jews trying to reach ships full of evacuees setting sail for Iran drowned in the sea. So the pogrom had its casualties. The gravity of these claims motivated the Polish central authorities to question

General Anders about the evacuation. He dismissed the Polish gendarmerie’s violence towards Jewish evacuees with these words: “Whether a case like this

[dispersal by rifle butts] took place indeed I cannot say as no complaint was raised with the chief headquarters. But the Jewish crowds, who were not entitled to be evacuated, behaved provocatively (…). These were dispersed by

NKVD people since they were wrecking the orchard surrounding the chief headquarters’ building.”270

Fed with reports like this one, the Jewish Agency, expecting more controversies to come, mobilized its bureau in Pahlevi, where its

269 Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, ed. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, David Gaunt, Natan M. Meir, Israel Bartal, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2011. 270 Sikorski Institute, PRM 74d, ibidem.

180 representative was awaiting Jewish evacuees.271 Despite its formal title, the bureau was nothing more than “a dedicated corner in a canvas tent with a plaque saying: Representative of Jewish Organization”, as the Jewish Agency’s representative openly admitted.272 Working with such modest means, the

Jewish representative followed the agreed plan, which was to assist the Jewish refugees and investigate the atmosphere among them. The results were promising. Dobkin noted with satisfaction: “[There is] a great group of Zionists,

I am told that even in the Soviet Union they managed to maintain contact. (…)

They asked at first: what is the news from Palestine? (…).”273 These pro-Zionist sentiments could be considered a logical result of the anti-Jewish violence during the evacuation, in which the Polish authorities had evidently participated, persuading Polish Jews to shift their allegiance from the Polish government in exile to the Yishuv leadership. Dobkin noted a scene when “a little boy told his Christian colleague: “Try to beat us now. We also have our government. We are not scared now. I will go to Palestine – and you will not!”274 The expressed allegiance to Palestine and growing hopes for a

“Palestinian solution”, detected even among children (if this comment can be believed) was exactly the feeling the Jewish Agency hoped to cultivate, and it

271 Pahlevi (today Ansali) was the main entry point for Polish refugees arriving in Iran. 272 Sikorski Institute, PRM 88b. 273 Sikorski Institute, Ibidem. 274 Sikorski Institute, Ibidem.

181 prepared to distribute spare Palestinian immigration certificates among the

Jewish evacuees. This action, its evident political aims notwithstanding, was advertised as a humanitarian gesture. Itzhak Schwarzbart of the

Representation of Polish Jewry, the body that primarily identified itself with humanitarian action, officially admitted: “Without any doubt, the Jewish

Agency, having at its disposal a certain amount of unused immigration certificates (…), used [them] in order to save the miserable Jews oppressed across Europe, thus fulfilling an important humanitarian purpose.”275

Schwarzbart’s opinion was included in a longer statement on the tragic situation of Polish Jews, who, abandoned by the Polish authorities, were looking for any form of assistance. The point was that Polish Jews accepted

Palestinian immigration certificates, not with the intention of settling in

Palestine, but in order to save their own lives by whatever means were available at the time. In his closing remarks Schwarzbart argued that Polish

Jews remained entitled to Polish welfare, as they still were Polish citizens in existential deprivation, despite accepting the Palestinian immigration certificates. In the same document, however, Schwarzbart admitted that for the Jewish Agency “[All] Jews arriving in Palestine were immigrants, regardless of the mode of their arrival: whether by certificate or an entry visa.”276 The

275 CZA, J25, Shwarzbart’s memorandum to Polish representatives in London from December 1945. 276 CZA, J25, ibidem.

182 allegedly humanitarian action undertaken by the Jewish Agency stemmed from the ethnic-oriented policy of the Yishuv. This became even clearer when the

Jewish refugees eventually reached Palestine. The Yishuv leadership prepared to give the Polish Jews a warm welcome. The Central Jewish Hospitality

Committee (and its local branches) of the Jewish Agency was made responsible for this, though other institutions, like the Zionist Information Bureau for tourists in Palestine and local municipalities, also cooperated.277 In June 1942, together with the Representation of Polish Jewry, the Jewish Agency discussed and produced a programme that included one-day educational trips around

Palestine and longer expeditions, combined with lectures, on Zionist achievements in Palestine.278 The main aim was to promote the Yishuv as a destination for Jewish refugees who would be able to become immigrants, pioneers, in Palestine. Consequently, the Jewish Agency appointed Shimon

Rephaeli, an activist of the Yishuv’s Soldiers’ Welfare Committee, to be the official liaison officer to the Polish command and Polish troops stationed in

Palestine. The liaison officer’s duties were described as organizing trips to

Jewish villages and other sites, and arranging concerts and other entertainment for Polish Jews in the towns. Rephaeli initially reported certain difficulties in making contact with the Polish command, but his efforts

277 CZA, S26.1169, various documents in this folder („Welcoming Polish soldiers, 1940-1942”). 278 CZA, Ibidem.

183 eventually bore fruit and the desired contact was established. Rephaeli’s report went on to describe the range of activities on offer to the Polish Army, including visits to collective community farms (kibbutzim), industrial enterprises and hospitals, lectures and readings expatiating on the Zionist engagement with the idea of a Jewish National Home. The efforts of the Jewish

Agency, and of Shimon Rephaeli in particular, resulted in informal contacts being put in place between the Yishuv and the Polish soldiers.279 The programmes offered to Jewish and non-Jewish participants differed. If, for

Poles, the visits to kibbutzim or hospitals were purely touristic attractions

(advertised as an encounter with the “Holy Land”), for Jewish soldiers the same trips had a stronger ideological character. By informing Polish soldiers about the development of the Yishuv, it was hoped that they would come to identify with the Jewish community in Palestine, take pride in its achievements, and express the desire to join it.

Up to that point the activities of Yishuv’s institutions were legal as far as the

British Mandate authorities were concerned. In parallel, however, other activities, were being carried on that the British regarded as illegal (the Yishuv opted for the term “clandestine” and hid them from public gaze), such as

279 For example, Rephaeli recalled the friendly atmosphere during visits by Polish military medical personnel to Tel Aviv and Haifa hospitals. Central Zionist Archives also store cards acknowledging the attention provided by the Yishuv to the Army, such as games and maps, or even Christmas gifts and wishes.

184 illegal immigration to Palestine in defiance of the quotas imposed by the

British. As the Polish Army reached the Middle East in growing numbers, opportunities for the Yishuv to influence Polish Jews in the Polish refugee community also mounted. Between August-October 1942 the Polish Army relocated to Iraq was enhanced by a few Polish forces from Palestine in order to secure the oil fields against Germans. At the same time, civilians and some soldiers were immediately sent to Palestine, These multi-directional journeys threw open a window of opportunity for a clandestine operation. There is reason to believe that some instances of Polish Jews being transported in buses belonging to “Solel Boneh”, a Histadrut-owned construction company, and “Egged”, a transportation company, assisted by soldiers in the British

Army’s Jewish units stationed there, were coordinated by agents of the Aliyah

Bet bureau, and were thus part of the Jewish illegal immigration stream.280 The

Mossad leAliyah Bet, or simply, the Mossad, was a semi-independent unit of the Haganah, the Yishuv’s mainstream underground military organization. This illegal off-shoot of the Jewish immigration movement inspired the Yishuv

Zionist movement to devise an action based on Aliyah Vav, a sub-type of illegal immigration, whose Hebrew name was Aliyah Bet, as opposed to Aliyah Alef,

280 This first to write about this was Dov Levin in his article “Aliyah vav: the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish army in Palestine, 1942-43” (in Hebrew) (Shvut: Studies in Russian and Eastern European Jewish History and Culture, 5: 21, 1997, 144-170.

185 legal immigration. Aliyah Vav was explained by Israel Carmi, a Haganah member and active participant in the events he narrated. An account he gave after the war, stored in the Haganah archives, is the most compelling evidence we have that Aliyah Vav was conceived, coordinated and conducted by the

Yishuv. As such, the transformation of Polish Jews from wartime refugees to immigrants to Palestine, as envisioned by the Yishuv’s Zionist mainstream, materialized, at least in this narrative.

Conclusion

Analysis of the Jewish official narratives disproves the academic conjecture that the societal beliefs and the narratives used by the out-group functioned in mirror relation to those of the in-group. Although the spokesmen for the out- group, coming from different political camps, formulated their stance in response to the majority’s opinions and spoke from a position imposed on them by the majority, they then broke free of it. Societal beliefs about Polish anti-Semitism, stressing its particular nature, were used as the starting point to go beyond the framework of Polish-Jewish relations as envisioned by the Polish majority, or the in-group. In this sense the Jewish narratives, unlike the Polish ones, pertained to the future, and referred to the past only to build themselves up. Polish anti-Semitism was regarded by Jews as corresponding to the modern

186 type of racial hatred and prejudice informed by supposedly rational scientific arguments and enjoying the patronage of the state. This is opposed to religious anti-Semitism that historically thrived in Polish society in the absence of national statehood.

In this way, they also tried to demonstrate the growing agency of the Jews, both as an ethnic minority within Polish society whose self-confidence and political organization developed during the twenty-one years of Polish independence (1918-1939), as well as an expanding community of the Jewish

Yishuv whose aspirations to national sovereignty crystallized in the war years.

Both Yishuv and Diaspora Jews tried to negotiate their political projects with the wartime powers, and the Polish government in exile was a component of the maze of international politics. The depiction of Jews as the victims of Polish anti-Semitism, which the Jewish narratives confirmed, upheld their image as a discriminated minority and an out-group. But by the same measure their status as victims dictated Jewish desires and helped to construe and promote the future political program for Jews, both among Jews and internationally.

Consequently, the discriminatory practices of Polish wartime institutions and the societal beliefs voiced by Polish wartime refugees were seen by Jews as an outflowing of Polish anti-Semitism, a phenomenon whose roots Jews tried to recognize and rationalize. Polish anti-Semitism was a natural effect of the

187 sheer size of Polish Jewry and Jewish overrepresentation in Polish society, from the perspective of the Revisionists; a manifestation of the faulty implementation of democratic standards, specifically the democratic value of civic equality, in Polish public life, according to the liberal Zionists; or the result of pursuing an exclusionary ethnic policy, sometimes by violent means, in the eyes of the Yishuv Labour Zionists. Polish anti-Semitism therefore meant, respectively, a more or less justified policy of the Polish authorities to reduce the number of Polish Jews; an anti-Jewish atmosphere in which democratic aspirations and official declarations collided with everyday practice; and, finally, a form of violent oppression approved and practised by the Polish authorities in exile. Most ambiguous was the Revisionists’ rhetoric, which utilized the term objective anti-Semitism, thereby not only removing the accusation of discrimination from the Polish leadership but making the Jews themselves responsible for its emergence. By making Polish anti-Semitism morally vague, the Revisionists operated the double loyalty concept, which defined the Jewish position in the framework of Polish-Jewish relations and gave them space for manoeuvre. This concept enabled the Revisionists to opt freely for either the Polish or the Jewish cause and eventually shift their allegiance without losing the moral high ground encapsulated in the term soldier’s honour. Unlike the Revisionists, the Representation of Polish Jewry,

188 which advocated Polish-Jewish coexistence within Polish society, perceived

Jewish military service in the Polish Army as crucial for the quality of this coexistence. The participation of Jewish soldiers in the war effort, shoulder by shoulder with their Polish colleagues, was conceived as a sacrifice of Jewish blood for the sake of a future post-war Polish society that would honour democratic values, and especially civic equality. In the meantime, Polish Jews were experiencing anti-Jewish feeling in the Polish Army stemming from the lack of civic equality in the everyday practices of the Polish wartime administration – something that was noted by the Representation and raised at the sessions of the Polish National Council. The narratives of both the rightist Revisionists and the liberal Representation were formulated for the future. The most topical discourse was that of the Yishuv Zionist leadership, which focused on the basic condition of Polish Jews as wartime refugees. From the perspective of the Yishuv’s envoys to the Soviet Union, during the evacuation of the Polish Army to the Middle East, Polish anti-Semitism appeared to be the continuation of the infamous pre-war tradition of pogrom, a state-sanctioned act of violence against the Jewish population. The Yishuv offered the solution of salvation from the hardships of refugeedom as well as from the violence perpetrated by the Polish majority. The Jewish Agency’s representatives launched a campaign aimed at attracting Polish Jews to the

189

Yishuv: starting with the distribution of Palestinian immigration certificates among Jewish evacuees from the Soviet Union and continuing with touristical programmes, the main point of which was to promote the achievements of the

Zionist Yishuv. These programmes were recommended to those who had already arrived in Palestine. These legal activities of the Jewish Agency took place in parallel with the illegal transportation of Polish Jews from Iraq to

Palestine. Therefore, the channels of Aliyah Alef (legal immigration) and Aliyah

Bet (illegal immigration) embraced the community of Polish Jews. These activities answered the need to bring new immigrants to the Yishuv and furnish recruits for the Jewish units of the British Army.

190

Chapter Four: Official Polish Reactions to Desertions by Jewish Soldiers

Introduction

This chapter analyses the institutional reactions of the Polish administration to occurrences of desertion by Jewish soldiers, starting with the first incidents of desertion in the Soviet Union and ending with the phenomenon of mass desertions upon the arrival of the Polish Army in Palestine. By comparing the two agreements regulating the administration of Polish military justice within the Soviet and British territories, this chapter compares the official Polish responses to desertions in the Soviet Union and Palestine and analyses the differences between the two settings. Analysis of the legal and political aspects of Polish decision-making processes with regard to Jewish desertions provides this chapter with an insight into the nature of the Polish wartime regime as the main framework in which Polish majority-Jewish minority relations occurred. It argues that ethnic democracy, a type of regime combining democracy with ethnic policies, defined the Polish administration’s legal and political decisions where they concerned Jewish deserters.

191

The ethnic democracy model was introduced by Sammy Smooha as a type of democracy he took to be missing from the traditional typology.281 Smooha identified “liberal, individual-based democracy (as in France) and (…) consociational [sic!], group-based democracy (as in Belgium), [both] civic by nature”.282 Apart from these two, there is another type of democracy, ethnic democracy, recognized in multi-ethnic states, where different ethnic groups are viewed as unassimilable into the majority population. Ethnic democracy combines majoritarian electoral procedures and respect for individual rights with an institutionalized dominance by a majority ethnic group.283 Smooha describes it further as “fall[ing] short of liberal democracy in that it violates the norm of equality. The state is defined as the national patrimony of the dominant ethnic group, rather than of its citizenry. At the same time, ethnic democracy is still a democracy insofar as it provides some political space for the minority to work to improve its position within the framework of the law.”284 Smooha’s pointed to Israel as an archetype of this type of regime.

281 Smooha launched a series of articles and publication on ethnic democracy, inter alia: Arabs and Jews in Israel: Conflicting and Shared Attitudes in a Divided Society, 1989; “Minority status in an ethnic democracy: The status of the Arab minority in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13: 3, 1990, 389-413; “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype”, Israel Studies, 2: 2, 1997, 198-142; “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Israel as Jewish and Democratic”, Nations and Nationalism, 8: 4, 2002, 475-503; “The model of ethnic democracy: Response to Danel”, Journal of Israeli History, 28: 1, 2009, 55-62; 282 S. Smooha, “The model of ethnic democracy: Response to Danel”, 56. 283 S. Smooha, Ibidem, 55-62. 284 S. Smooha, “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Israel as Jewish…”, 477.

192

Smooha’s critics point to the integral illogic of the ethnic democracy model as applied to the case of Israel. As’ad Ghanem, Nadim Rouhana and Oren

Yiftachel argue that a democratic regime implies full equality, otherwise it cannot be qualified as democratic.285 While assenting to the belief that equality is impartial, I argue nonetheless, hat Smooha’s ethnic democracy model points to the very essence of the ethnic-democratic regime, which is the tension between democracy and ethnic logic, both present in the regime. Democracy, with its civic equality, is an ideal to which the authorities of ethnic-democratic regimes genuinely aspire. At the same time, these same authorities continually practise ethnic inequality in the everyday existence of the state institutions.

The existing literature on the wartime Polish authorities identified such tensions between the democratic attributes of the state institutions and an ethnic logic embedded in their institutional activity without in fact referring to

Smooha’s ethnic democracy model. David Engel, in his two-volume book, refers constantly to the inconsistency between what the Polish government in exile declared in terms of its allegiance to democracy and what it practised.286 His conclusion was that the Polish government was driven by ill will in its attitude towards the Jewish minority and that its democratic declarations were made

285 As’ad Ghanem, Nadim Rouhana, Oren Yiftachel, “Questioning ‘Ethnic Democracy’: A Response to Sammy Smooha”, Israel Studies, 3: 2, 1998, 254. 286 D. Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz… and Facing a Holocaust…

193 out of political expediency. Democratic-ethnic tensions are therefore faithfully reflected in Polish wartime institutional dealings with the Jewish minority; for this reason, I take the view that the ethnic democracy model is the most adequate tool to analyse relations between Polish Jews and Polish wartime institutions.

Furthermore, the ethnic democracy model has been applied to the Polish

Second Republic (1918-1935). Yoav Peled claims that Smooha’s ethnic democracy model describes the Second Polish Republic only until 1934, the break coming with the enactment of a new constitution in 1935, lessening the state’s democratic character and replacing it with autocracy.

How did this change translate into Polish policy towards the Jewish minority?

In 1934 Poland repudiated the Little Treaty of Versailles signed between

Poland and the League of Nations in 1919 to protect the rights of Poland’s ethnic minorities. The Little Treaty of Versailles was commonly perceived in

Poland as a sign of state weakness, and consequently its repudiation was seen as part of the process of “recovering the Polish state” or sanacja, the name given to the political formation that seized power in 1935 (“sanacja” from the

Latin sanatio meaning healing or recovery). Before that date, politicians from both the right and the left considered the Little Treaty of Versailles as having

194 been “concluded under duress, forced upon (…) by the Allies as a virtual condition of (…) [Polish] independence; as such, it represented an affront to

Poland’s sovereignty and placed an unwarranted limitation on the state’s ability to arrange its internal affairs as it saw fit.”287 What was particularly vexing to the Polish majority was that it provided Poland’s ethnic minorities with a legal base on which to complain of the discrimination inflicted on them by the Polish state and to seek international arbitration in conflicts between them and the Polish Second Republic.288 When, in 1934, Józef Beck, the Polish

Minister for Foreign Affairs, handed the League of Nations a declaration to the effect that Poland no longer considered itself bound by Article 12 of the Treaty allowing ethnic minorities to appeal directly to the League of Nations in cases concerning violation of their rights, he also promised that these rights would be enshrined in the new constitution. This eventually happened; however, the new Polish policy concerning its Jewish minority materialized as the

“emigrationist programme”, the Polish version of the fantasy of “ethnic unmixing”, analysed in Chapter 1. Instead of the policy of status quo, maintaining the proportions between the ethnic majority and ethnic minorities

(using the tools of “numerus clausus” and “numerus nullus” – a limited

287 D. Engel, In the Shadow of Auschwitz…, 20. 288 See for example: Marek Maciejewski, „Prawne aspekty położenia mniejszości narodowych na Górnym Śląsku w okresie międzywojennym”, Studia Prawno-Ekonomiczne, XCI: 1, 2014, 63-86.

195 number, or none at all), and ensuring a balance between civic equality and ethnic inequality, as the Little Treaty of Versailles and appealing procedure were intended to do, the policy implemented in the years 1935-1939 was aimed directly at pushing the Jewish minority outside Polish society. It envisaged the mass immigration of Polish Jews from Poland to Palestine, over which the Polish authorities cooperated with the Zionist movement. Moreover, the exclusion was planned to be irrevocable. According to a law passed in

1938, one circumstance leading to the removal of Polish citizenship was “loss of contact” with Poland, when a citizen had resided abroad for at least five years since the emergence of independent Poland.289 The personnel of Polish overseas diplomatic posts were called upon to identify such a “loss of contact”.

Although the law was not explicitly directed at Jews, the actual result was that

Jews who had emigrated from Poland were specifically at risk of losing their citizenship, all the more so since the Polish Sejm simultaneously enacted a regulation stipulating that only persons of “Polish origin” were entitled to citizenship. The German Reich used this occasion to deport Polish Jews back to

Poland before their citizenship potentially expired in October 1938. It was this

289 This Law is available on the Polish Sejm website: http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19380220191 (accessed 14 March 2019).

196 action that caused a revenge attack on the German embassy in Paris by a deportee’s son, provoking the infamous Kristallnacht.290

The position of the Polish legal system towards ethnic minorities evolved from that of being an “undesirable minority” in an ethnic democracy to being an

“excluded minority” under the authoritarian regime. The attitude of the new

Polish government formed after the September campaign of 1939 to the pre- war legislation remained in question. At first, the Polish government in exile affirmed the legal continuity of the constitution of April 1935. However, the same government, consisting as it did predominantly of opposition politicians, declared its policies to be consistent with the democratic values they felt to have been missing from those of the pre-war regime, leading some to conclude that the Polish wartime administration would return to the ethnic democracy model. Nevertheless, the “emigrationist programme” and the logic of exclusion remained popular in some circles.

This chapter analyses the reactions of the Polish authorities to the desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army in the Soviet Union and in the Middle

East. The issue of military desertions, not only Jewish, had troubled the Polish military and civil authorities since the beginning of the Polish Army’s existence in the Soviet Union. Yet it was in the summer 1943, when the core of the army

290 See more: Alan Steinweis, Kristallnacht 1938, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009, 17.

197 reached Palestine, that Jewish soldiers began to abandon the Polish Army in mass numbers. The desertions started in late August-early September 1943. By the end of the year, around 3,000 Jewish soldiers had deserted from the ranks of the Polish Army. These desertions followed a similar pattern: Jewish soldiers would not return from a weekend leave or furlough. The period after the

Polish Army entered Palestine was filled non-combative activities such as military training and schooling. This facilitated the desertions insofar as they did not occur in any dramatic circumstances (for example, desertion in the face of the enemy) but took the form of a silent transition from military to civil life.

Nevertheless, the desertions were violations of Polish military law and as such called for punishment under the Polish Military Penal Code. The implementation of the relevant law concerning mass desertions depended however on two factors, one external and one internal. The external factor was the organization of Polish military jurisdiction during the war, as the Polish military forces were part of the allied military forces and were stationed in foreign territory. The implementation of the Polish Military Penal Code was curbed by official agreements concerning Polish military jurisdiction signed by the Polish government in exile with Britain and the USSR.291 These agreements

291 Alltogether there were several military agreements signed by the Polish government in exile and regulating the status of Polish forces in various territories: French, British, Soviet. See more: Georg V. Kacewicz, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939-1945), Nijhoff Publishers, London, 1979.

198 were governed by the particular circumstances of the Polish military forces operating in exile, and being thus obliged to accept foreign authority and law.

The other factor was internal and concerned the Polish authorities’ balancing of the ethnic democracy model in a situation where the “emigrationist programme”, and the logic of “ethnic unmixing” peering out from behind it, still had appeal.

This chapter first looks at the body of Polish law concerning military desertions and locates it with regard to the ethnic democracy model. It then analyses two cases of the implementation of the aforementioned law, looking at the external and internal circumstances as explained above: the Soviet case and the British case (in Mandate Palestine).

1. The Polish Law on Desertions

The abandonment of military duty is above all a violation of military law, but its framing as desertion is contingent upon time and place. The Polish law on military desertions, which remained valid during the war, was developed in the pre-war period and codified in 1932 as the Military Penal Code. Digressions against military duty and the punishments for those who committed them

199 were defined in articles 43-52 of the Polish Military Penal Code.292 This was characterized by the same progressive approach that defined the pre-war

Polish Common Penal Code, also enacted in 1932, which above all examined the criminal’s intention.293 The Polish Penal Code (also known as the

Makarewicz Code, named after its main author) was acclaimed by theoreticians of law as an important contribution to the development of Polish legal thinking. According to the code’s progressive spirit, “the guilt determines the punishment, but the guilt is understood in real-life terms, by examining the motivations of the perpetrator who controls the actions that led him to commit the crime. (…) The aim of the punishment should not be reprisal alone

(…) but (…) [it] should be reasonable and efficient as a preventive measure.”294

Consequently, the punishment defined in the Military Penal Code depended on the deserter’s will to permanently dodge military duty. Only when this condition was present could a missing soldier be designated a deserter. If a soldier went AWOL (absent without official leave), the punishment according

292 The text of the Military Penal Code is available on the Polish Sejm site (Internet System of the Acts of Law): http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU19320910765 (accessed November 2017). 293 Adam Lityński noticed: “(…) without the Penal Code, the Military Penal Code could have not been brought to being: indeed, the Military Penal Code was only complementary to the Penal Code”. (A. Lityński, “Dwa kodeksy karne 1932. W osiemdziesiątą rocznicę”, Roczniki Administracji i Prawa. Teoria i Praktyka, XII, 2012, 207-218). The two Penal Codes ended the period of the validity of the foreign laws on the territories of the Polish state (as a remnant of the Partition of 1795-1918). The two Penal Codes were not a compilation of the Partition laws but were created from scratch, as a fully original Polish conception. An indication of their universal and progressive character is their retention in post-war communist Poland. See also: Józef Koredczuk, „Znaczenie kodeksu karnego z 1932 r. dla rozwoju nauki i prawa karnego w Polsce XX wieku”, Zeszyty Prawnicze UKSW, 11/2, 2011, 45-60. 294 Igor Zduński, „Zasady i dyrektywy kary w k.k. z 1932 roku”, Studia z Zakresu Nauk Prawnoustrojowych. Miscellanea, VI, 2016, 245.

200 to the Military Penal Code was imprisonment for up to two years (or up to three years in wartime). If, however, the intention of a perpetrator was to permanently avoid military duty, the crime was qualified as a proper desertion and was punishable by imprisonment for a maximum of ten years.295 As noticed by Knap, this subjectivization of desertion was balanced by an objective premise: a soldier’s absence for longer than six months was also classified as the manifestation of a desire to permanently dodge the service, without needing to investigate the soldier.296 The accompanying circumstances of such offences further influenced the severity of the punishment, which was augmented during wartime. If a soldier committed such an offence in the face of the enemy, or conspired to do so in a group, the punishment was respectively imprisonment for no less than one year for a wartime desertion, and imprisonment for no less than three years or for life, or even capital punishment, when conspiring to desert in a group in wartime. The most severe cases, of desertion in the face of an enemy, carried the death penalty.297 In cases of aggravated circumstances, punishments could include the loss of public rights and of honorary civic rights. It is important to note that this law

295 About punishing desertions in the years 1918-1939 see: Remigiusz Kasprzycki, „Dezercje i unikanie służby w Wojsku Polskim w latach 1918-1939”, Dzieje Najnowsze, XVLVII: 3, 2016, 87-106. 296 E. Knap, „Dezercja w polskim ustawodawstwie wojskowym (rys prawno-historyczny) “, Wojskowy Przegląd Prawniczy, 27: 3 (104), 1972, 292-307. The issue of law and military desertion was tackled several times by Wojskowy Przegląd Prawniczy [Military Law Review], hereinafter: WPP (J. Kaczorowski, “Dezercja (rys prawno- historyczny) “, WPP, 1: 1, 3/4, 1945, 177; J. Muszyński, „Problematyka przyczyn dezercji w świetle badań kryminologicznych”, WPP, 22: 4, 1967, 40). 297 In case of conspiring to desert in a group during peacetime, the imprisonment was no less than one year.

201 did not differentiate between soldiers of various ethnicities. It offered a neutral tool, progressive in essence and formulated in a way that did not leave room for any discriminative interpretations. At the same time, the law was sufficiently elastic, since, as explained above, it was sensitive both to objective conditions (such as whether the offence was committed in wartime or in peacetime) and subjective ones (the soldier’s motivation).

Closely related to the issue of military desertions was the 1938 Law on

Common Military Duty, which permitted those convicted of avoiding military duty to be stripped of their Polish citizenship.298 The relationship between military service and citizenship was formulated in the introduction to Article 6 of the law: “Military service is a service of honour, a service for the Nation and the State and at the same time a fulfilment of a fundamental civic duty.”299 It was the intention of the legislator to connect military service with allegiance to the state and the accruing material benefits of Polish citizenship. The introduction of the category of honour further situated the law in the context of an emotional bond to “the Nation and the State”. This duality was not accidental; clearly military service was not only the fulfilment of a civic duty

298 Grzegorz Kulka, „Nadawanie, pozbawianie i przywracanie obywatelstwa polskiego w czasie II wojny światowej”, Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, LXIII: 1, 2011, 150. 299 The Law on General Military Duty from 1938 (text of this Law is available on the Polish Sejm website: http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU19380250220 (accessed October 2017) detailed the circumstances in which deprivation of Polish citizenship was possible: abandoning a unit (or a post), avoiding a call for military duty and residing abroad in hiding, calling to join a foreign army or a military organization.

202 but also the manifestation of certain values, such as the soldier’s honour. The exclusionary tendency in granting the soldier’s honour was also not accidental.

The Polish far right even went as far as to call for the exclusion of ethnic minorities from military service. In October 1936, the right-wing weekly Polska

Narodowa (National Poland) passionately proclaimed: “Military service in the

Polish Army is not only a duty for a Pole but an honourable and praiseworthy service. But a service for Poles only. No one else should have access to it! Keep

Jews and Jewish traitors away from the army!”300 Jews in particular were perceived as being unsuitable for military service due to their supposed indifference to the virtue of honour, as the analysis of Polish societal beliefs in

Chapter 2 shows.

Furthermore, a Polish citizen could not accept other citizenship. Therefore, any manifestations of allegiance to another state, such as accepting an office or a post in a foreign state or serving in a foreign army, would lead to the loss of

Polish citizenship.301 From this perspective, members of ethnic minorities, even without formal ties to foreign countries (such as foreign citizenship) raised doubts regarding their loyalty to the Polish state, as they could potentially transgress the boundaries of loyalty to Poland.

300R. Kasprzycki, “Dezercje i unikanie służby…”, 97. 301 J. Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydów…, 53-55.

203

This law was later annulled by the wartime Polish government, which permitted enlistment into an allied army without loss of citizenship.302 As noted by Jerzy Ogonowski, researching the legal status of Polish Jews, “the entire body of pre-war Polish legislation, [had] anti-Jewish accents present clandestinely”.303 This remark is particularly important when assessing the body of Polish law, which – though it might seem neutral in theory – turned out to be ethnically oriented in practice. The Polish wartime administration’s practice regarding desertions was not the same in every country, the divergences stemming from the different status the Polish Army had in each.

The practice will be now analysed in both the Soviet and the British case.

2. The Soviet Case

The Polish-Soviet military agreement was signed in Moscow in August 1941 as an annexe to the “Agreement between the USSR and the Polish Government- in-exile concerning resumption of diplomatic relations and mutual aid in the war against Germany”, known popularly as the Sikorski-Maisky Treaty, made in

London the previous month. The agreement permitted the Polish military

302 See more: G. Kulka, “Nadawanie, pozbawianie i przywracanie…”, 151-163. 303 J. Ogonowski, Sytuacja prawna Żydów w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1918-1939. Prawa cywilne i polityczne, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warsaw, 2012, 42. See also: Jerzy Tomaszewski, “The Civil Rights of Jews in Poland 1918-1939”, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, 8, 2004, 115-128.

204 authorities to maintain separate military courts, with their own internal military structure and principles of service, as well as an independent system of enforcing discipline.304 This gave the Polish military authorities in the Soviet

Union wide freedom in implementing Polish military law. The only area where this law did not apply was the vast category of “crimes against the Soviet state”, which could encompass even a common offence,305 and were invariably judged by the Soviet military authorities.306 Thus the category of an offence against the state served as a counterweight to the liberal approach adopted by the Soviets in concluding the military agreement.

Following the conclusion of the agreement, the Polish military authorities moved to create Polish military courts; in October 1941 the Legal Command

(Szefostwo Służby Sprawiedliwości) of the Polish Military Forces Command in the Soviet Union was created.307 Belief in the army’s low morale and poor discipline dictated that the military judiciary adopted a harsh approach, in

304 L. Kania, “Polskie sądy wojskowe w Armii Polskiej gen. Władysława Andersa w ZSRS oraz na Bliskim i Środkowym Wschodzie (1941-1943) “, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Przyrodniczo-Humanistycznego w Siedlcach, 27 (100), 2014, 40; See also: Joop Voetelink, Status of Forces: Criminal Jurisdiction over Military Personnel Abroad, Faculty of Military Science, The Hague: Asser Press, 2015, 42. 305 This category applied to various crimes, such as destroying tools in a kolkhoz (this was regarded as an attack on state property). Further examples and references: L. Kania, „Dylematy wojskowej Temidy. Problemy orzecznicze sądów wojennych w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych na Zachodzie w czasach II wojny światowej”, WPP, 2, 2014, 5-36; Jerzy Nazarewicz, ”Organizacja i działalność sądów polowych w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych w ZSRR w okresie 14 sierpień 1941 – 31 sierpień 1942”, WPP, 1 (157), 1986, 52-70. 306 L. Kania asserted that Polish military authorities were following the terms of this agreement and passed Polish soldiers, accused of committing offences against the Soviet state, to the Soviet military authorities. L. Kania, “Polskie sądy wojskowe…”, 41. 307 This was followed by the formation of separate Polish martial courts, based in cities where units of the Polish Army were subsequently formed (Yangiyul, Jalal-Abad, Shahrisabz, Kermine [today Navoiy], Chokpak, Margelan [today Tashlak] and Lugovoye). L. Kania, “Polskie sądy wojskowe…”, 41-42.

205 some cases abusing Polish law.308 In October 1941, the Commander in Chief

General Władysław Sikorski ordered the creation of an ad-hoc judiciary, which existed until June 1942.309 As a result of this decision, sixty-four crimes listed in the Military Penal Code and the Civil Penal Code were made punishable by the death penalty.310 This harsh approach could be moderated by an act of mercy, a privilege given to General Anders as the penal-judicial superior in the Soviet

Union.311 Yet General Anders rarely used this prerogative, a point stressed by

Polish scholars. As a result, sentences of capital punishment were handed down and carried out for even minor violations.312 This approach contradicted the chief principle of the Polish Penal Code, which laid down that punishment

308 This opinion was reflected in a document on Polish military judiciary in the Soviet Union written at the end of 1943 by Lt. Military Jurist Zgorzelski of Legal Command (Sikorski Institute, KGA 22). 309 There exist controversies around the circumstances in which the summary jurisdiction was introduced. L. Kania claimed that on October 1941 the summary jurisdiction was introduced by the Commander in Chief, General Władysław Sikorski (L. Kania, “Polskie sądy wojskowe…”, 42). J. Nazarewicz in 1986 wrote: “blatant cases of insubordination were court-martialled in the mode of wartime jurisdiction. In General Anders’ opinion such mode did not improve the discipline. Therefore, the Commander of the Polish Military Forces in the Soviet Union issued a decree on the introduction of the summary jurisdiction applicable only to certain crimes. (…) This decree was announced (…) with a note that it was issued according to the article 386 of the Military Penal Code under the authority of the C.-in-C. This was wrong however as the note was based on a mistaken interpretation of the article. The competences belonged to the C.-in-C. only and General Anders was not authorized [to issue such decree]” (J. Nazarewicz, “Organizacja i działalność sądów polowych w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych…”, 32-70). A decree was enacted in September 1940 that the privilege of mercy (and moderation of the sentences passed by the military judiciary) will be attributed to the C.-in-C. during the war (and not the President of the Republic of Poland). 310 According to the Military Penal Code the severity of the punishments was contingent upon the situation of the Army vis-a-vis the enemy. Whereas the legislator intended to consider a factual situation of an imminent military confrontation, in the Soviet Union the circumstances that made it possible to determine if a crime against military discipline had taken place were defined by an order issued by the Polish military authorities in March 1942. J. Nazarewicz considered this order as an abuse of the Polish law (J. Nazarewicz, “Organizacja i działalność sądów polowych…”, 56.) 311 L. Kania claims that General Anders was authorized to use the prerogative of mercy by the C.-in-C., as evidenced by documents stored at the Sikorski Institute (R.1472). Contrary to him, J. Nazarewicz claimed that the prerogative of mercy was reserved to the C.-in-C. only. (J. Nazarewicz, “Organizacja i działalność sądów polowych…”, 55). 312 L. Kania cites a case where a soldier was executed for a theft of a tin of food. L. Kania, “Polskie sądy wojskowe…”, 46.

206 should, above all, contain a preventive dimension applicable to the individual committing the offence.313

Nevertheless, the Polish military authorities seem to have employed this severe approach in quite a selective manner. When, in 1941, “250 Jews deserted at Buzuluk upon hearing false rumours that the city was being bombed [and] over sixty deserted from the Fifth Division on the eve of the handing out of the weapons ceremony”, the punishment, according to the

Military Penal Code and the prevailing tendency in the Soviet Union, should have been severe. 314 In practice, there is no evidence that the Jewish deserters were punished in any way.315 The circumstances in this case are, in a sense, typical: Jews escaping bombs and fleeing the army even before weapons had been handed out would have augmented the entrenched perception of Jews as lacking any military qualities, explored in the previous chapter. Therefore, the Polish military authorities most probably decided that those who escaped could not be legally defined as soldiers, since their draft process remained incomplete, meaning that the Military Penal Code was in no way applicable to

313 “We concentrate on the preventive effect when we explain the severity of the punishment by [referring] to an individual prevention which assumes that the purpose of punishment is to work upon a particular evil-doer in order to prevent that individual from committing other crimes”. Igor Zduński, „Zasady i dyrektywy wymiaru kary w k.k. z 1932 roku”, Studia z zakresu nauk prawnoustrojowych. Miscellanea, 6, 2016, 242-258. Capital punishment naturally lacks the individual preventive effect, which the Penal Code was structured upon. 314 Z. Wawer, Armia generała…, 156. General Anders’ conversation with Stalin from 4 December 1941. 315 I do not determine positively that the deserters were unpunished, but only point to a lack of information on this topic in the relevant archival sources. Most probably the answer to this question is contained in folder A.XII.8 (Military Judiciary) at the Sikorski Institute. However, this is classified.

207 them. While the attention paid by western journalists to the situation of Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army in the Soviet Union may have also influenced the decision of the Polish military judiciary, the concept of exemplary punishment, with its clear preventive aim, excluded those who were neither greatly valued nor wanted as soldiers in the Polish Army. By the act of pardoning Jewish recruits (not soldiers) for their crimes against the Polish Military Penal Code, the military authorities spared their lives but confirmed the exclusion of Jews from the community of values shared by the Polish majority.

3. The British Case

The situation of the Polish military forces in Great Britain was entirely different. As G. Kacewicz has noted, “While Great Britain was interested in having Polish Air Force personnel join the Royal Air Force, especially by 1940, due to the shortage of trained British flyers, it was reluctant to station autonomous Polish units which it considered contrary to British [interests]”.316

The Polish military forces’ presence in the United Kingdom, including the functioning of its judiciary, was regulated in a bilateral agreement signed in

August 1940, later incorporated into the British Allied Forces Act,317 which

316 G. V. Kacewicz, Great Britain, Soviet Union…, 56. 317 L. Kania noticed the unconstitutional character of this agreement, since it had been signed before the British parliament formally agreed to the presence of a foreign military force. (L. Kania, “Dylematy wojskowej

208 stipulated that allied military forces were subject to the 1933 Law on the

British Military Forces of the British Commonwealth of Nations. This agreement provided that Polish ground forces were subject to the Polish military judiciary, while the air force was subject to a combined Polish-British military judiciary (where Polish and British law conflicted, British law would prevail).318 Violations of civil law, such as murder or rape, were subject to

British civil jurisdiction. At the same time, if a Polish soldier committed an offence against British law, he would be tried and punished according to the same law, valid at the moment of the crime. The detailed regulations defining the implementation of the August 1940 bilateral agreement, in the opinion of the Polish authorities in the UK, further curbed their autonomy in executing the law. For example, a deserter from the Polish Army could only be pursued within the territory where Polish military forces were located or within Polish military bases. Outside these areas, the Polish penal-judicial superior, on submission of the necessary paperwork, was obliged to ask the British authorities to carry out the search. If found, a Polish deserter had to stand trial before a British common court. It is thus clear that the Polish military authorities were committed to working in close cooperation with the British

Temidy…”, 2). This demonstrates that standard legislation was sometimes incompatible with wartime conditions and needed to be circumvented. 318 More on the agreement: J. Nazarewicz, „Sądownictwo wojskowe w Polskich Siłach Zbrojnych w Wielkiej Brytanii w latach 1940-1946”, WPP, 42: 1 (157), 1986, 414-43; J. Voetelink, Status of Forces...., 2015.

209 authorities, both military and civil, and accepted the superiority of British law where it differed from Polish military law.319 The same applied to territories under British control, including Mandatory Palestine where Polish pursuit of deserters indeed became an issue in late summer-autumn 1943.

In early 1943 the core of the Polish Army in the East was still in Iraq but preparing for departure to Palestine. The logistics of the Polish troops’ relocation was in the charge of the British, and every military transport was answerable to the British command (PAIC).320 The Polish military reports speak about Polish-British cooperation in preventing the desertions in Iraq, and a number of Jewish soldiers was arrested by the British authorities in Bagdad, based on the information from the Polish intelligence.321 Yet, the British authorities apparently acted duplicitously in their Middle Eastern policy. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Yishuv enterprises “Egged”

(transportation company) and “Solel Boneh” (construction company) were engaged in organizing the military transport and used the opportunity to smuggle Jewish soldiers into Palestine outside the framework of official

319 The same rules applied to soldiers of other allied armies present in Great Britain at various points during the war, such as Czechoslovak, Norwegian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch and Free French forces. L. Kania cites in this connection the memoirs of Captain Gordon Sinclair: “The Czechs immediately organized a war tribunal and intended to execute the poor man [a Czech pilot] by shooting him at the rear of the hangars. We discovered it with Douglas Blackwood on time and dissuaded the Czechs from performing the lynch. We told them: you cannot proceed this way. We are pulling the strings here.” See: L. Kania, “Dylematy wojskowej Temidy….”, 5. 320 Persia and Iraq Command, British military organizational structure in the Middle East since September 1942. 321 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/22.

210 relocation. In January 1943 the Polish command issued an order stating clearly that the declared number of soldiers transported out of Iraq (especially to

Palestine) should agree with the actual number of soldiers in the transport.

The motives for this order, as stated by General Anders, would reverberate later: “It makes a bad impression on the British and they judge our discipline negatively (…) moreover, when it comes to transports to Palestine, it arouses certain suspicions.”322 Discrepancies in the numbers of soldiers included in the transports contrasted with the strict quotas the British imposed on Jewish immigration into Mandate Palestine.323 British policy in Palestine, as formulated in the 1939 White Paper, was based on the assumption that the size of the Jewish community should not exceed one third of the total

Palestinian population. However, as Daphna Sharfman argues, the Yishuv-

British clandestine cooperation continued in spite of the strict regulations of the White Paper, and expressed itself in accepting the clandestine transfer of militarily skilled Jews, potential recruits to the British Army (within the Jewish units’ scheme). David Hacohen, director of “Solel Boneh”, reported that a confidential agreement was reached between him and the British that “no obstacle will be put in the path of Jewish activities, such as (…) assisting Jews in

322 Sikorski Institute, R10, order number 9. 323 The quotas were included in the White Paper of 1939, a document formulated by the British government that defined the most important elements of British policy in Mandate Palestine. See more about the White Paper: Michael J. Cohen, “The British White Paper on Palestine, May 1939: Part II: The Testing of a Policy, 1942-1945”, The Historical Journal, 19: 3, 1976, 727-757.

211 travelling to Palestine, even though such actions conflicted with the policies of the Palestine Administration and the Colonial Office.”324

But it was not only the number of Jewish soldiers already smuggled into

Palestine from Iraq, but also the assets of the illegal incomers, that worried the

British. Long before the Polish Army arrived in Palestine, both Arab and Jewish underground organizations had been stocking weapons in the aftermath of the

Arab revolt of 1936-1939.325 The size of these illegal armouries obviously troubled the British authorities, and their concerns grew as the first trained and armed Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army were smuggled into Palestine, raising justified fears that they might join the underground Jewish militias. In the meantime, mass desertions by Jewish soldiers had already started. In

October 1943, General Anders estimated the number of Jewish deserters at

1,000.326 By the terms of the Polish-British agreement, the Polish military authorities in Palestine were obliged to inform the British police of the growing number of desertions from the Polish Second Corps, the final organizational form taken by the Polish Army in the East. This information served as an immediate excuse to carry out official searches in places where both the British

324 Daphna Sharfman, Palestine in the Second World War…, 70. 325 More on the Revolt see: Yehoshua Porath, The Palestinian Arab National Movement. 1929-1939. From Riots to Rebellion, 1977; Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, Boston, 2006. 326 General Anders admitted that he reported regularly to the British authorities in Palestine about the desertions of Jewish soldiers (Sikorski Institute, PRM 114, document 13). The same source contains the figure of 1,000.

212 and Polish military service suspected Jewish deserters to be hiding. In October-

November 1943, under the pretext of a search for Jewish deserters, and after

“wanted” notices had been issued by the Polish authorities,327 the British authorities organized searches for illegal arms in two kibbutzim, Ramat Ha-

Kovesh and Hulda, demanding the involvement of the Polish military gendarmerie.328 Yehuda Bauer wrote:

“It was obvious that the [British] authorities were apprehensive about

Haganah's strength, and were paving the way for large-scale action to break this. On November 16th, the settlement of Ramat Hakovesh was searched on the pretence of looking for deserters from the Polish Army. No arms were found, and one settler was killed after an unusual display of police brutality.”329

The British authorities were afraid that official British searches in the kibbutzim would result in an aggressive backlash from the Jewish underground, whose attitude had been hardened by the White Paper’s strict quotas on Jewish

327 The last “wanted” notice issued by the head of the Gendarmerie of the Ministry of National Defence in July 1945 closes the file with a total figure of 5,144 soldiers altogether (irrespective of their ethnicity). This file, stored at the Sikorski Institute (A.XII.59/11), became the base of K. Zamorski’s analysis of Jewish desertions from the Polish Army. See Kazimierz Zamorski, “Dezercje Żydów z Armii Polskiej”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 105, Paris, 1993, 5-22. 328 S. Wagner, “Britain and the Jewish Underground…”, 58. 329 Yehuda Bauer, „From cooperation to resistance: the Haganah 1938-1946”, Middle Eastern Studies, 2: 3, 1966, 201.

213 immigration. Therefore, the British military authorities tended to conduct their searches under another guise.330

The Polish authorities were aware of the British motivations, but they had their concerns too. A few lengthy notes added to reports prepared by the document bureau of the Polish Army point to uproar within the Jewish community in

Palestine following these searches.331 In conversations Polish officials had with official representatives of the Yishuv, the awkward position of the Polish soldiers in these actions was met with a degree of sympathy.332 The same degree of sympathy was presented by British military authorities.333

Nevertheless, the Palestinian press and Palestinian public opinion overall reacted negatively to the participation of the Polish gendarmerie in the searches carried out in Ramat Ha-Kovesh and Hulda, accusing the Polish Army once again of anti-Semitism.334 This argument was strengthened by recent examples of ethnic tensions between Polish and Jewish students in Tel Aviv.

The press recalled that in November 1942 a duel between Polish and Jewish

330 Yoav Gelber, "British and Zionist Policy in the Shadow of the Fear of a Jewish Uprising, 1942-1944” (Hebrew), HaTzionut, 7, 1981, 335-6. 331 The action in Ramat Ha-Kovesh, which ended in an exchange of fire, caused particular indignation (“After the army and police surrounded the Kibbutz and began their search, however, a violent struggle ensued, producing an embarrassment for the British when the Hebrew press published the story despite of the censor.” Steven Wagner, “Britain and the Jewish Underground, 1944-46: Intelligence, Policy and Resistance”, MA thesis, University of Calgary, 2010. 332 See for example: notes on the searches in Hulda (AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 71, folders 1 and 3). 333 IDF and MOD Archives, hereinafter: IDF Archives, Sarner Collection, 506/2002/40 (copy of the original document by the British Colonial Office, National Archives, ref.: CO733/445/11). 334 IDF Archives, Sarner Collection, 506/2002/40 (copy of the original document by the British Colonial Office, National Archives, ref: CO 733/445/11).

214 students developed into a riot, in which the Polish gendarmerie, British police, and Greek soldiers all intervened to pacify the tensions. In the days that followed, a nervy atmosphere, together with some minor incidents, was noted between Poles and Jews. 335 The comparison the Yishuv press made with official anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland was precisely the analogy the wartime

Polish authorities were struggling to avoid. Declaring their allegiance to democratic values, with civic equality at the head, the Polish government in exile tended to hush up any cases that indicated that the ethnicity of Polish citizens still mattered and was liable to erupt. The damaging effect of the unfavourable tone taken by the Yishuv press was obvious to the Polish authorities and alarmed the highest Polish echelons in London. There, the worries pertained to international policy and specifically to British policy in

Palestine, with which Polish officials preferred not to interfere. Yishuv reaction to Polish participation in the kibbutzim searches was the subject of a secret telegram from the Commander in Chief, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, to

Prime Minister Sikorski.336 The C.-in-C. reported the details of the searches and stated the Polish military authorities’ intention of demanding that the British

335 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy…, 217). Characteristically, the author attributed the tensions to the perception of communist provocation widespread among the Jewish (sic!) community in Palestine, but did not analyse it further. Regarding the prevailing paradigm of contemporary Polish historiography that addresses these perceptions see: Joanna Michlic, “The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939–41, and the Stereotype of the Anti- Polish and Pro-Soviet Jew,” Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, 13: 3, 2007, 135–176. 336 Sikorski Institute, PRM 114, document 13.

215 did not link their searches for illegal weapons with the hunt for deserters.

Clearly, the Poles did not wish to interfere in the political dynamics between

British, Jews, and Arabs. The influx of Polish Jews, many of whom were armed soldiers, tipped the balance between Jews and Arabs in Palestine and collided with the British stated policy of preserving the Jewish minority in Palestine vis-

à-vis the Arabs.337 Yet, the Polish-British agreement over the military jurisdiction pushed the Poles outside the neutral comfort zone.

Apart from the international repercussion of the mass Jewish desertions, the

Polish military authorities had already made up their minds how to react to crimes committed by Polish citizens by referring to the body of Polish law, without necessarily informing the public about their internal administrative decisions. In his post-war memoirs, General Anders referred in the following way to the Polish-British searches and the idea of punishing the deserters:

“I issued strict regulations not to pursue those Jewish soldiers who deserted the ranks upon their arrival in Palestine. In my opinion, those Jews who put their duty to defend Palestine ahead of everything else had the right to do so”.338

337 It should be mentioned here that British policy concerning Mandate Palestine was not entirely consistent. There existed a conflict between the Foreign Office and Colonial Office regarding the support for either Jewish or Arab populations in the country. (Michael J. Cohen, “Direction of policy in Palestine, 1936-45”, Middle Eastern Studies, 11: 3, 1975, 237-261) 338 Władysław Anders, Bez ostatniego rozdziału…, 204.

216

Researchers like Leszek Kania who wrote that “…Gen. Anders, despite the pressure from the British, insisted that the Polish Army was made up of volunteers and ordered to free those deserters who were captured and annul the cases,”339 have further strengthened this point of view, which paints

General Anders not only as liberal and sympathetic, but also as strongly resistant to political pressure. That General Anders was the inspiration for the

Revisionists’ rhetoric on Jewish double loyalty seems certain. The concept of double loyalty, combined with the notion of the Polish Army as a volunteer force, became a useful tool in implementing Polish law against Jewish deserters with a clear punitive aim, as directly expressed by General Anders in himself in a secret telegram addressed to the Minister of National Defence,

General Marian Kukiel, asking for instructions concerning the punishment of deserters in Palestine.340 Anders suggested stripping them of their Polish citizenship by referring to the Polish Law on Common Military Duty of 1938 and withdrawing the financial support for the deserters’ families provided by the two Polish consulates in Palestine. He openly admitted that the military authorities had no success in tracking down the deserters, the majority of whom, he believed, had joined Jewish military units. Furthermore, General

Anders suggested that the appropriate Polish office for initiating such action on

339 L. Kania, “Dylematy wojskowej Temidy…”, 15. 340 Sikorski Institute, PRM 114, document 13.

217 behalf of the Minister of Defence would be the Polish consulate in Jerusalem.

Correspondence between this diplomatic outpost and the central Ministry for

Foreign Affairs proves that such measures were indeed put in hand. According to a telegram from the Polish consulate in Jerusalem sent in February 1944, applications to strip deserters of their Polish citizenship were prepared by the

Polish Army command on the orders of the Ministry of National Defence. They were about to be processed by the Polish consulate in Jerusalem and the final decision to be taken by the Ministry of Interior was forwarded to London with

General Anders’ telegram.341

Three factors seem to have determined General Anders’ preference for using the Law on Common Military Duty of 1938, and not the Military Penal Code.

The first was that the volunteer nature of military service in the army under his command prompted the choice of the Law on Common Military Duty rather than the Military Penal Code with regard to soldiers who were already fulfilling their obligatory military service. It was difficult to put out a search for missing

Jewish soldiers without endangering the reputation of the Polish Army as being indifferent to the ethnic factor, since the hunt for them would resemble anti-

Jewish repression. So it was wiser to call them volunteers, thereby deferring their pursuit. The second reason, however, was embedded in the text itself of

341 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 267, folder 9, a cable from Polish consul to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from February 1944.

218 the law of 1938. Pointing to the honourable character of military service, the law narrowly defined the Polish majority as the only bearer of this virtue.

Consequently, the Polish societal belief that Jews specifically lacked soldier’s honour automatically placed them in the potential position of violating the law. Furthermore, the sense of duty embodied in the title of the law did not appear to refer to Jews, whose loyalty to the Polish state had traditionally been questioned by Poles. The wartime rhetoric of Jewish double loyalty summoned up a variation of the traditional Polish notion of Jewish disloyalty. The concept of double loyalty enabled both Poles and Jews to possess the high moral ground, since they both appeared to be motivated by moral obligation: Jews by the idea of the Jewish state, Poles by a just and fair differentiation between regular soldiers and volunteers. Moreover, this approach covered the possible reasons for mass desertions from the Polish Army in a veil of silence. This was the third reason for ignoring the Military Penal Code, since its conciliatory approach called for an examination of the soldier’s intentions and tailored the punishment accordingly. General Anders made plain his disinterest in the deserters’ motivations, pointing to the one most convenient to him: Zionist agitation.

This logic, which operated on societal beliefs regarding common attitudes and values attributed to ethnicities, interfered with civic order, symbolized in the

219 equality of Polish citizenship, regardless of ethnic origin. The idea of depriving

Jewish deserters of their Polish citizenship meant their ultimate exclusion from

Polish society. Their symbolic exclusion from the community of values, as analysed in Chapter 2 on societal beliefs, would now be endorsed with actual exclusion that placed the excluded ones outside Polish society once and for all.

This interpretation of the motivation that lay behind the decision to implement the law of 1938 is all the more credible since a much more conciliatory solution was at hand. In the same telegram, General Anders stated the opinion, widespread in Polish military circles, that the majority of deserters belonged to the Jewish units of the British Army, of which Polish troops were also a part (in the sense of belonging to the allied military forces). Apparently Jewish – non-

Jewish deserters obviously did not join the Jewish units – demonstrated a willingness to fight on the Allied side, but not in the ranks of the Polish Army.

Why did this fact not occasion the legal transfer of soldiers from the Polish

Army in the East to the British Army? Such a move could have been easily legalized by the presidential decree of 1942.342 It would have also immediately

342 Following the promulgation of the Allied Powers Bill in 1941, Polish citizens could be incorporated into the British Army. Since this conflicted with existing Polish laws, the Polish wartime authorities struggled to enact a law that would permit an individual to serve in the Allied military forces without affecting his Polish citizenship. As a result, in 1942 the president signed a decree permitting Polish citizens to serve in the Allied forces, and even legalizing transfers to foreign armies before the required permit had been obtained. In the latter case, a soldier was obliged to obtain such a permit no more than six months after his military duties in the foreign unit had ceased. The decree even permitted the conferring of group permits for this purpose. G. Kulka, „Nadawanie, pozbawianie i przywracanie...”, 165.

220 nipped in the bud the accusations of anti-Semitism, so harmful to Poland’s image, that were repeatedly raised in the Yishuv press as the main reason for

Jewish soldiers deserting from the Polish Army. This way, desertions could have been categorized as approved transfers between national units of the

Allied military forces and would thus have neutralized the antagonisms forcing

Jewish soldiers out of the army. Such a solution was even briefly discussed by the head of the Commander-in-Chief Headquarters, the Ministry of Internal

Affairs, the Ministry of National Defence, and the Polish consulate in

Jerusalem.343

The reasons for not applying this law to Jewish deserters in Palestine fell into two categories: legal (formal) and political. Firstly, very few Polish Jews applied to the Polish consulates in Palestine for permission to transfer between units.344 Moreover, deserters demonstrated their unwillingness to serve by simply not returning to the units. Therefore, Jewish soldiers who absconded from the Polish Army did indeed meet the definition of desertion as laid out in the Polish Military Penal Code. Reclassifying these desertions as approved transfers would have diverged too blatantly from Polish law. Secondly, the traditional sense of affinity between the Polish citizen and the Polish state still

343 Sikorski Institute, A.11.E/662. The Ministry of Internal Affairs raised concerns regarding permits to serve in foreign armies issued ex-post and their compliance with Polish law. The idea of ex-post permits was favoured by the head of the C.-in-C. Headquarters and the Ministry of National Defence. 344 According to the telegram cabled by Consul Korsak to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 9 January 1943. Sikorski Institute, A.11.E/662.

221 prevailed, despite the wartime legal amendments that made the bond more abstract.345 Finally, it was political expediency rather than any deeper degree of allegiance to the allies’ common fate and effort during the war that shaped the thinking of the Polish authorities. Transferring Jewish soldiers to the Jewish units of the British Army still left open the possibility of their return to the

Polish units and, after the war, to Poland, under the potentially strict control exercised by the British, whose interests would be served by sending Polish

Jews back to their country. Preventing the post-war repatriation of Jewish soldiers to Poland fitted in with the idea of reducing the size of Polish Jewry.

This could be done most effectively by depriving them of Polish citizenship, the legal basis for their continuing to live in Poland.

But the plan to deprive Jewish deserters of Polish citizenship did not materialize, either. The reasons why applications to strip deserters of their

Polish citizenship were not ultimately processed were wholly political. In July

1943 General Kukiel replied to General Anders’ inquiry and ordered him not to pursue the deserters, not to prepare the applications for depriving them of

Polish citizenship, stating that this was due “to the political reasons” and limit

345 Such approach could be found in the foreign legislatives as well, for example American. See more: T. Alexander Aleinikoff, “Theories on Loss of Citizenship”, Michigan Law Review, 84: 7 (June), 1986, 1471-1503.

222 the activity to register the deserters and identify the reasons. Finally, General

Kukiel recommended to pass these files to the British authorities.346

Correspondence on this matter between the Polish consulate in Palestine and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in London reveals that it had long been under consideration by the latter authorities. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs, first cabled about the problem in February 1944, delayed its answer until March

1944, when it instructed the Polish consulate to proceed with the applications as usual, since the final decision belonged to the Ministry of Interior. Requests to deprive deserters of Polish citizenship were issued regardless of their ethnicity, as noted by the Polish consul in Jerusalem.347 However, it was only the requests issued for Jewish deserters that caused the Polish authorities concern. They feared the political consequences of punishing Jewish deserters, explicitly stating their concerns:

“One needs to consider, before the whole action is initiated, the possible

political implications for Polish-Jewish relations:

1. Should the action be initiated [processing the requests to strip the

deserters of Polish citizenship], the Palestinian authorities’ response

would certainly be negative. As a result of the action, over 3000 Jewish

346 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/22. 347 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 267, Folder 9, a cable from Polish consul to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 22 February 1944 .

223

deserters would remain in Palestine, despite having arrived there

temporarily as soldiers.

2. Those deprived of Polish citizenship could be used by communist

propaganda in Palestine [against Polish interests].”348

The fears expressed above emanated from two sources. One was the clash of interests between the Polish state, should it decide to punish its citizens for violating the law, and the British Mandate authorities, who did not want to increase the number of Jews in Palestine. The second stemmed from nervousness that Soviet propaganda would use the stripping of citizenship as yet another example of Polish discrimination against Jews. After April 1943, when diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish exiled government were ruptured, tensions between the two had grown month by month. As a result, Poland’s position was shifting towards Great Britain, host to the Polish exiled government, as its dependence on political support from the western allies deepened. Consequently, the Polish authorities struggled to meet some of the expectations of the British authorities and public, and to resist Soviet policy and propaganda, which they identified as the primary

348 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 267, folder 8, a cable from Polish consul to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 28 February 1944.

224 threat to the vital Polish interests represented by the Polish exiled government in London.

Conclusion

Polish-Jewish relations had their legal aspect in that Poles and Jews, as citizens of the Polish state, were subject to both Polish civil and military law, in theory equal to all. Jewish deserters in 1943 had to submit themselves to the decisions of the Polish authorities resulting from their violation of Polish military law. The legal steps taken by the Polish authorities regarding Jewish deserters revealed the coexistence of two principles, ethnic and civic, embedded in the Polish body of law. The spirit of progression and equality contained in the Polish law code coexisted with laws formulated in a way to permit their selective usage, for example towards one social group picked out on grounds of its ethnicity, thus undermining the principle that all Polish citizens were equal before the law. This duality has led to the Polish wartime regime being recognized as an ethnic democracy, a regime model elaborated by Sammy Smooha, who claimed its applicability to the Polish Second Republic of 1918-1935. Recognition that the Polish wartime authorities conformed to the model of ethnic democracy further implies that the way they reacted to desertions by Jewish soldiers was neither unsystematic or random, nor

225 misguided. Though limited by the bilateral agreements it signed with the major allies regarding military jurisdiction over soldiers of the Polish Army, the Polish government in exile nevertheless tended to practise its own laws, elaborated in the interwar period. The Polish military authorities manifestly made clear their reluctance to participate in the searches for Jewish deserters in the kibbutzim, as they were obliged to do under the Polish-British agreement. But they did not give up the idea of punishing the deserters. The plan to deprive deserters of Polish citizenship, raised by General Anders, did not emerge accidently from within military circles. It was in this environment that the concepts and political projects of the last pre-war government prevailed. The sanacja’s political programme of supporting the immigration of Polish Jews to

Palestine, the “fantasy of ethnic unmixing” (see Chapter 1), specifically matched the particular place and context. Jewish soldiers who abandoned the

Polish Army’s ranks were actually realizing the idea of abandoning one community for the sake of the other. Deprivation of Polish citizenship therefore had the aim of preventing the deserters’ return to Poland after the war rather than actual punishment. Not only did the idea run counter to the paradigm that led the Polish military authorities in the Soviet Union to punish deserters harshly (though again the punishment was applied selectively), but it went beyond the logic of ethnic democracy, that it would exclude Jewish

226 deserters once and for all from Polish society. That was why the process of depriving deserters of their Polish citizenship deprivation was blocked in the initial stages by the Polish civil authorities. Ethnic democracy’s norm was the balanced coexistence of the ethnic and democratic principles, without evidently preferring one over the other. Even employing the convincing rhetoric of double loyalty, repeated by General Anders and then by the

Revisionists, did not help. The double loyalty narrative well matched the Polish

Law on Common Duty, with notions of honour pertaining to the higher aspects of morality. The law stemmed from the societal belief that honour is a virtue restricted to some Polish citizens. Yet, the recommendation to deprive Jewish deserters of their Polish citizenship instead of pursuing other solutions, such as implementing the progressive and ethnicity-blind Military Penal Code or the wartime amendment to the Polish law on citizenship enabling Polish citizens to serve in the allied army without losing Polish citizenship, came with an attached political risk. The thing that concerned Polish officials the most was how the implementation of the law would be internationally received. The imagined reactions of other states, specifically those with whom Polish officials had crucial or sensitive political interests, worked as a powerful disincentive to realizing a policy aimed at reducing the number of Jewish citizens. Still, it was due to the fact that General Anders’ proposition went too far beyond the

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Polish regime’s ethnic democracy model by abusing its democratic wing. Such a situation was both difficult to manage internally (within Polish elitist circles) and to explain externally. In the end, procedures to deprive Jewish deserters of

Polish citizenship were halted, and the dilemma over how they were to be punished reached its finale in Great Britain, where other Jewish groups deserted the Polish units stationed there, attracting the attention of the British public. These events will be discussed in the following chapter.

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Chapter Five: Official Polish Reactions to Jewish Soldiers’ Desertions –

Epilogue

Introduction

This chapter explores further the Polish wartime regime as a type of ethnic democracy by looking at the Polish administration’s reaction to the group desertions of Jewish soldiers in Scotland in 1944. It goes on to consider Polish-

Jewish domestic relations as shaped by the characteristics of an ethnic democracy regime. Moreover, it looks at the Polish regime at the moment of crisis triggered by these desertions. Therefore, it relies on Sammy Smooha’s observations on the viability of ethnic-democratic regimes.

A regime modelled according to the criteria of an ethnic democracy can successfully exist, yet this comes with conditions. Sammy Smooha discusses these conditions in his article on the viability of ethnic democracy.349 One is the non-interference of a foreign power in the internal affairs of an ethno- democratic regime. Foreign attention can easily bring to light the inherent discrepancies between the hierarchic-ethnic and the equal-democratic principles that such regimes attempt to reconcile. In an ethnic-democratic

349 Sammy Smooha, “The Viability of Ethnic Democracy as a Mode of Conflict Management: Comparing Israel and Northern Ireland”, [in:] Comparing Jewish Societies, eds.: Todd Endelman, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1997, 267-312.

229 regime, inter-ethnic relations have a particularly vulnerable aspect, one where the conflicting principles are concentrated and are thus most evident. Once exposed as internally contradictory, the regime loses its power of persuasion and control of the political dynamic, thereupon precipitating an internal political crisis. This scenario materialized in 1944 when Jewish and Orthodox

(Belarussian and Ukrainian) soldiers of the Polish military forces units stationed in Scotland deserted and requested to join British units. The Polish government in exile launched legal proceedings, but quickly found itself in a difficult position, given the growing interest of both the British public and British politicians in the issue of Polish-Jewish tensions in the army. On being confronted by a show of protest from a group of Polish citizens citing ethnic discrimination as their motivation, the reaction of Polish officials exposed still further the inherent and irredeemably discriminatory nature of the Polish political and legal system for all those who did not belong to the Polish majority. This chapter argues that Polish-Jewish domestic relations lay at the heart of the Polish ethnic-democratic regime due to the systemic incongruence between civic equality and ethnic inequality within it. It also argues that, despite the often penetrating criticism of the ethnic-democratic regime voiced by the wartime Polish authorities in the wake of the desertions, these same authorities nonetheless planned to perpetuate this system after the war.

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The crisis triggered by the desertions erupted at a most unfortunate time for the Polish authorities. It coincided with the deepening deterioration and marginalization of the Polish cause in the war.350 In April 1943 diplomatic relations between the Polish government in exile and the Soviet Union were broken off following the horrifying discovery made by German soldiers of the mass murder of Polish officers in the Katyn forests.351 The Polish government accused the Soviet authorities of the massacre, but the Soviets denied responsibility, pointing the finger at the Germans instead. Polish-Soviet relations plummeted until the final rupture on 25 April 1943. With the Polish-

Soviet conflict over the eastern territories remaining unresolved, the Poles hoped the British would arbitrate in their favour after the war, so it mattered more than ever that British opinion should view the wartime Polish political representation positively.352 This goal, however, remained elusive, especially when British public opinion expressed sympathy for the Jews as a result of their sufferings under Nazi occupation. Feelings of frustration and unfairness contributed to the emotional background of the Polish administration when dealing with Jewish deserters from the Polish Army.

350 This deteriorating position was well captured in the title of Magdalena Hulas’ study on Polish government in exile: Goście czy intruzi?... 1996. 351 See for example: George Sanford, “The Katyn Massacre and Polish-Soviet Relations, 1941-43, Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (1), 2006, 95-111. 352 The Polish authorities tried, however, to build an alternative alliance with the United States, with meagre results. See for example: Anna M. Cienciała, „The United States and Poland in World War II”, The Polish Review, LIV: 2, 2009, 173-194.

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Partly out of what they perceived as growing international pressure, partly driven by the internal dynamics of the conflict, Polish officials set out to explore the reasons for the desertions, while also taking into account those of their own making. Their soul-searching provides an insight into the inner workings of the Polish regime. This is all the more valuable as individual Polish officials enriched their analysis with comments and suggestions for improvements of their own, providing a unique opportunity to actually grasp the ethnic-democratic logic as they saw it with their own eyes. They tackled well-known societal beliefs (specifically Judeo-communism) and manifested their implicit belief in ethnic inequality within Polish society, while simultaneously voicing critical thoughts about the anti-Semitism inherent in state institutions and the link between the condition of minorities and the condition of the Polish regime.

Though concentrating fully on the wartime situation, the Polish authorities were also looking ahead to their return to Poland. The country’s post-war political, social and economic arrangements occupied an important place in the thinking and planning of these exiled political elites, who wished to return as the legal representatives and guarantors of the lawful continuity of the Polish state. Before preparing to reform the Polish political, legal and economic system, the Polish wartime administration first embarked on a critical overview

232 of the Polish political system.353 These projects were already well developed in

1943 and 1944. An integral element in all their plans was the question of inter- ethnic relations in post-war Polish society, as the Polish authorities assumed

Polish society would continue to be multi-ethnic. They planned to perpetuate the political practice of steering a course between ethnic and civic democracy, first implemented in the interwar period (1918-1935), even though this same practice had triggered the political crisis that had cost the international image of the Polish regime so dearly. The projects concerned with post-war Polish political and social reality provide an enriching lens through which to view the reaction of Polish officials to the crisis caused by the desertions of 1944. The prevailing adherence to societal beliefs (specifically the belief that “Jews” equalled “communists”) eventually led to frank consideration and analysis of the defects of the ethnic-democratic system.

First, this chapter analyses the legal proceedings implemented after the desertions and the broader discussions on the notion of justice that quickly became the main issue arising from the whole crisis. Justice included fair and equal judgment exercised by state institutions but also respect for the law, the law’s integral nature (specifically in concern of minorities’ rights), and finally

353 Some of the documents produced of that discussion were published: Tadeusz Kisielewski, Spory o ustrój Polski Niepodległej. Sprawa narodowa i polityka. Dokumenty z lat 1939-1943, Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna, Częstochowa, 1994.

233 the new norm of social solidarity. Secondly, Polish officials’ assumptions and expectations concerning foreign public opinion are discussed. Prognostications of how international opinion might react to the legal treatment of Jewish deserters set the Polish government in exile on the path of adjusting political decisions in line with conjectured political outcomes. This caused considerable frustration, as the better the effect they were trying to make, the cooler was the reception they received. The later stages of this process are analysed in this section. Finally, this chapter examines the political crisis of the Polish administration, starting with the stormy session of the Polish National Council at which the resignation of the Minister of Defence was demanded and ending with the thoughtful insights formed in the aftermath of the crisis with regard to issues like anti-Semitism, Judeo-communism and civic education. These insights demonstrate further discrepancies of opinion among the Polish wartime elites.

1. The Ethnic Inequality as the Sense of Justice

The dilemma of deciding adequate punishment for Jewish deserters in

Palestine was still unresolved when the outbreak of fresh desertions by Jewish soldiers in Europe called for decisive action by the Polish authorities. In January

1944, mixed groups of Jewish and Orthodox (Belarussian and Ukrainian)

234 soldiers began to desert from the ranks of the Polish Army in Scotland, with the Jewish soldiers asking to join the British Army instead.354 The first group of

68 Jewish soldiers in January, followed by 134 in February, were indeed transferred to the British Army on condition that such transfers would not be repeated. Consequently, in March 1944, the Minister of National Defence issued an order providing that, in future cases of desertion, the legal consequences would follow the relevant law of the Military Penal Code, without exception. Nevertheless, more soldiers deserted: 24 Jews, and 28

Ukrainians and Belarussians. The Jewish deserters stated that their decision was motivated by the anti-Semitic abuse they had suffered at the hands of

Poles – both verbal and bodily attacks from fellow soldiers that were ignored by their commanding officers.355 In April 1944, all deserters not incorporated into British units were tried before the Polish Eighth Military Court. After a one-day trial held behind closed doors, they were sentenced to one or two years’ imprisonment, the lowest possible term allowed by the Military Penal

Code.

354 The Belarussians and Ukrainians were volunteers in the Polish Army from South America (Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 25. The desertions in Scotland are well accounted by D. Engel, Facing the Holocaust…, 108- 111 (chapter 4: Soldiers) and D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 255-269. See more about Belarussian soldiers in the Polish Army: Jerzy Grzybowski, Białorusini w polskich regularnych formacjach wojskowych w latach 1918-1945, Oficyna Wydawnicza RYTM, Warsaw, 2006. 355 See the report, including the deserters’ statements, prepared by a representative of the Ministry of Interior: Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 16. Also, there are available two protocols of the investigation concerning Jewish deserters Mojżesz Żelazngóra and Leon Kune, who referred to anti-Semitism they suffered in the ranks: Sikorski Institute, AXII.28/16B.

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In parallel with the legal proceedings, a special commission of the Polish

Ministry of National Defence was formed to examine the events.356 The chief outcome of the commission’s investigation was the formulation of the argument that there was “marked disproportion between the organized desertions and sporadic [italics mine] anti-Semitic events.”357 In a few selected cases, the commission advised initiating legal proceedings against those guilty of anti-Semitic offences, but the deliberate plans of the Jewish soldiers appeared much more serious compared with the superficial nature of these offences. The fact that Jewish soldiers had made preparations such as collecting money before the escape was cited as evidence of a conspiracy to desert, for which they were assigned the blame.

The desertion affair quickly reached beyond the limit of military authority and was taken up for discussion by the civilian administration. In April 1944 Itzhak

Schwarzbart filed an urgent petition to recruit a 6-member commission among members of the National Council to scrutinize the events.358 There, aspects of the affair previously ignored by the army officers, were brought out and critically investigated. Adam Ciołkosz, a Polish Socialist Party member of the

Polish National Council, and member of the abovementioned commission,

356 Its findings were announced on 2 May 1944. The National Council called for the Minister of National Defence to report on the issue. Sikorski Institute, PRM 138, document 4. 357 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 25. 358 Sikorski Institute, A.XII.15/2, document 253.

236 explicitly expressed this at the National Council session of 10 May 1944: “(…) it is not about the Jews, it is about state and justice [italics mine].”359 Indeed, the issue of desertions had, from the start, a pronounced legal aspect. Certain questions arose naturally: How did it come to pass that a significant group of

Polish citizens decided to violate the law and desert the Polish Army? Why had so few opted for a legal transfer from the Polish Army to a foreign one in accordance with the military agreement of 1941 between the Polish government and the Jewish Agency? Why were the legal proceedings marred by failures and their final outcome modified according to political calculations?

Some of these questions were directly dealt with by the Legislative Committee of the Ministry of Justice, headed by Professor Wacław Komarnicki, whose works concentrated on democratic procedures and Polish allegiance to democracy understood as the rule of law.360 The attention given to these elements was prompted by exile: the Polish presence in the United Kingdom offered Polish elites an insight into the British legal system, which impressed them positively and inspired a reformist approach to the practice of the law.

Members of the Legislative Committee regretfully observed the deficiency of the order of law in wartime. The Legislative Committee adopted a critical

359 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, ibidem. 360 More about the Legislative Committee: Adam Jankiewicz, W poszukiwaniu idei państwa prawa. Koncepcje Komisji Prac Ustawodawczych Ministerstwa Sprawiedliwości Rządu RP (1942-1945), Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, Warsaw, 1992. More about Professor Komarnicki: A. Friszke, „Z dziejów Stronnictwa Narodowego na emigracji w latach 1939-1942”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 92, Paris, 1990, 3-47.

237 approach to the military judiciary, as expressed by Minister Komarnicki himself:

Initially, the military authorities agreed to the unpunished exit of 202

Jewish soldiers and gave them to the British authorities. Concerning the

latest group, which was not numerous, they are acting differently,

passing the issue to the military court. The accused may think that they

are not treated equally (…). It gives a serious argumentation for those

who decided to defend them [the accused deserters], alternatively to

utilise utilize the events for anti-Polish propaganda.361

According to Professor Komarnicki, consistent implementation of the Polish law would render a better service to the image of Poland. The formal drawbacks of the legal proceedings were not ignored by the Minister of Justice.

He noticed that the sentences passed were not approved by the appropriate higher judiciary, as required by the wartime interpretation of the Polish law.362

In a more general sense, the events of 1944 well demonstrated the phenomenon that had long been identified by the Legislative Committee: the unsatisfactory level of respect towards the law as such in Polish society as a whole, together with the elites. In the committee’s opinion, the pre-war and

361 Professor Komarnicki’s note, Sikorski Institute, PRM 144, document 25. 362 Sikorski Institute, PRM 144, Ibidem.

238 wartime examples of the abuse of law by the Polish authorities underscored the dramatic contrast to the high respect for law in British jurisprudence that

Polish wartime politicians had had the chance to witness during their exile. The ease with which the Polish military authorities had treated the legal proceedings initiated against the deserting Jewish soldiers, by adjusting the sentences to what they believed was in Poland’s best political interest, testified to their cavalier attitude towards the law as such. Needless to say,

General Anders’ proposal from the previous year was, in that perspective, an extreme example of the abuse of Polish law (without, however, breaking it formally). The reinstatement of respect for the law was regarded as crucial, and agreement over this task went beyond the political divisions within the

Polish wartime elites. Although the majority of the Legislative Committee’s lawyers were supporters or members of the right-wing National Democracy

(Polish: Endecja) that subscribed to a worldview radically at odds with that of the Polish Socialist Party, the proposals regarding the fundamentals of the post-war Polish judiciary as elaborated by the committee seemed to follow

Ciołkosz in his criticism of the condition of the wartime Polish judiciary as presented to the National Council session.363 The other aspect of the desertions in Scotland was the fact that the deserters came from national

363 See more: Adam Jankiewicz, W poszukiwaniu idei państwa prawa… Also: A. Friszke, „Z dziejów Stronnictwa…”, 4-5; Idem, Adam Ciołkosz: portret polskiego socjalisty, Krytyka Polityczna, Warsaw, 2011.

239 minorities, a matter of great importance. The rights of ethnic minorities in the

Polish state that emerged after the First World War were guaranteed by the

Little Versailles Treaty, the provisions of which allowed for foreign control over internal Polish affairs, since the representatives of the ethnic minorities could, and did, request the League of Nations to arbitrate as a third party in conflicts between the minorities and the Polish state.364 The Little Versailles Treaty was officially renounced by the last Polish pre-war government, when it was declared that Polish law would follow democratic principles in protecting ethnic minorities. To prevent the Polish majority viewing this declaration as a veiled instrument of the political influence of the ethnic minorities, especially

Jews, over Polish politics, its provisions would be embedded into the law so as to appear a genuinely Polish norm, and not one enforced from outside. The wartime Polish government, obliged by its own declared policy of returning to democratic standards, was forced to take a stand on the protection of minority rights in a situation where the League of Nations was no longer able to act as a guarantor. The Committee, along with Professor Komarnicki, supported the notion of incorporating the laws covering the protection of minority rights into

364 The Treaty of Versailles. The Reassessment after 75 years, eds. Manfred M. Boemke, Gerald D. Feldman, Elisabeth Glaser, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998 (particularly chapter by Crole Fink „The Minorities Question at the Paris Peace Conference: The Polish Minority Treaty, June 28 1919”, 249-274); Henryk Chałupczak, „Polityka neutralizacji przez Polskę niemieckich petycji mniejszościowych do Rady Ligi Narodów w okresie międzywojennym”, Polityka i społeczeństwo, 9, 2011; Mark Mazower, „The strange triumph of human rights”, The Historical Journal, 47: 2, 2004, 379-398.

240 the body of Polish law. The idea that the law should be regarded as stemming from innate societal norms and standards and not as something imposed from outside, would open the way to a better and increased awareness of the law in

Poland after the war. The committee’s basic premise was that the law was not simply a catalogue of norms imposed by the authorities but was the reflection of social relations “commonly accepted, and shaping normative behaviours.”365

However, Polish normative behaviours acquiesced in the ethnic hierarchy, which became for Poles the commonly accepted basis of social justice, as

Minister Stańczyk expressed it in his discussions with the Representation of

Polish Jewry (see Chapter 2). Post-war law would consequently sanction existing relations rather than introduce new patterns of behaviour with the result that the basic social structure (a dominant Polish majority vis-à-vis national minorities) would be preserved rather than questioned. Existing antagonisms between various groups in Polish society could only be overcome by encouraging a sense of solidarity. As Jankiewicz notes, the Polish jurists of the Legislative Committee, relying on French jurist Léon Duguit’s theory of solidarism, emphasized the value of social solidarity over equality as the guiding principle of the Polish post-war social system.366 The accent was to be on nurturing amicable relations between unequal segments of Polish society

365 A. Jankiewicz, W poszukiwaniu idei…, 218. 366 A. Jankiewicz, Ibidem, 225.

241 rather than on a law securing normative equality between Polish citizens.

Komarnicki was optimistic in his belief that “the notion of national solidarity dominates (…) and it will enable the solution of economic, social and political issues in the spirit of social justice.”367 It is sufficient to add that in Professor

Komarnicki’s opinion, future Polish law should be based on Christian culture, to secure and strengthen its bonds with western Europe. Christianity was the common ground of Polish and western European civilization. This was the ideological background to search for a statement that would repel the widespread hatred that, according to the jurists of the Legislative Committee, was the main factor preventing the bedding down of social solidarity. The legal framework for a decree designed at combatting the spread of hatred against others on grounds of faith, nationality, or race was discussed at the inter- ministerial conference in October and November 1944. This approach was aimed at neutralizing the “ethnic minorities’ issue” without engaging with the essential factor of inequality. Accordingly, a regime modelled on ethnic democracy was envisaged as persisting after the war.

On the other hand, the Polish wartime authorities, in imagining a bright future for relations between the Polish majority and the ethnic minorities, was occasionally prepared to amend Polish law before the end of the war. One

367 A. Jankiewicz, Ibidem, 225.

242 such amendment, advertised as “restoring a well-deserved justice”, pertained to the Law on Deprivation of Polish Citizenship of 1938. In November 1941 a new law was enacted abolishing the 1938 law, which made it possible to deprive a Polish citizen of his or her citizenship if they had spent a long time abroad or lost contact with the Polish state. Not only did the Polish authorities abolish the law, they were also ready to admit its discriminatory nature. The head of a “Jewish Bureau” within the Ministry of Interior commented: “(…) the

Government is set on a path to amend the injustice it had once committed against some of the citizens.”368

2. The Pressure of British Public Opinion and Political Elites

In the meantime, however, the Polish authorities had to face a difficult encounter with the British public opinion over the issue of desertions. Poland’s reputation was once again at stake. Since the beginning of the war, the Polish authorities placed great importance on the image of the occupied country and its exiled government. The approach of Polish officials was based on two assumptions. First, the continuation of the Polish state in the existing political framework depended on the western allies’ good opinion of Polish policy.369

368 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 38. 369 See more: Jan Lanicek, “Governments-in-exile and the Jews during and after the Second World War”, Holocaust Studies, 18: 2-3, 2015, 73-94.

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Second, in part relating to the first, Polish prestige was under constant and severe scrutiny from the western allies on the one hand and under equally regular attack from the Soviet Union on the other. The conclusion was obvious: the war was also being waged in the sphere of public information and propaganda; therefore, the efforts of Polish officials should be concentrated on neutralizing hostile Soviet and German propaganda and positively impacting public opinion in those countries whose good opinion mattered. Although a

Ministry of Information and Documentation was established to manage the information policy of the Polish wartime administration,370 not all the ministerial offices succeeded in communicating fluently in the international arena. Their inconsistency of opinions and attitudes turned out to be particularly damaging to the Polish image in the years 1943-44. Even before the desertion of Jewish soldiers emerged as a problem for the Polish authorities, the Polish position among the allies was precarious. In April 1943 official relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish exiled government were broken off following the German Army’s discoveries in Katyn and surrounding villages.371 A united front among the allies became more difficult

370 More about the Ministry of Information and Documentation: Rafał Habielski, “Polityka informacyjna i propagandowa Rządu RP na emigracji 1939-1945”, Dzieje Najnowsze, 4, 1997, 53-76. 371 The Katyn historiography is divided into a pre-1989 and post-1989 period, when Soviet archives became accessible. The standard study is by Janusz K. Zawodny, The Death in the Forest. The story of the Katyn Forest Massacre, Macmillan, London, 1971. Newer studies include: George Sanford, Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940. Truth, Justice and Memory, Routledge, London, New York, 2005; Stanisław Jaczyński, Zagłada oficerów wojska polskiego na wschodzie, wrzesień 1939 — maj 1940, Bellona, Warsaw, 2000.

244 to maintain, given the dilemma of whether to support a major ally, the Soviet

Union, or a minor ally, Poland.372 The choice was usually given in favour of the senior one. Consequently, when Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston

Churchill met at the Tehran Conference in November-December 1943, the

United States and Great Britain acceded to the Soviet aspirations, voiced since

1942, to control Eastern Europe.373 According to the decisions taken at the conference, the post-war eastern Polish border was supposed to follow the

Curzon line, leaving the two principal cities of that region, Vilna and Lviv, outside Poland.374 In early 1944, the Red Army re-entered pre-war Polish territories, causing serious concern in Polish émigré circles that the Soviets would pursue a policy of fait accompli.375 It was becoming increasingly clear to the Polish authorities, who had not been informed about the decisions taken in

Tehran, that one of their key wartime strategic objectives, the reclamation of the eastern territories (Kresy) annexed by the Soviets in 1939, would not be achieved. The first months of 1944, however, left room for discussion on the exact line of Poland’s eastern borders. The Soviet Union attempted to impress

372 George Sanford claims that the Germans revealed the revelations on Katyn intentionally: “The Katyn Massacre and the Polish-Soviet Relations…”, 96. 373 According to Paweł Wieczorkiewicz, the Soviet territorial programme was accepted by the British during Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s visit to the Soviet Union in December 1941. P. Wieczorkiewicz, Historia polityczna Polski…, 332. 374 On the British memorandum concerning territorial changes in post-war Poland see: Jacek Tebinka, “Brytyjskie memoranda z 1944 w sprawie zmian linii Curzona”, Dzieje Najnowsze, 29: 1, 1997. In English: Antony Polonsky, The Great Powers and the Polish Question 1941-1945. A Documentary Study in Cold War Origins, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 1976. 375 The Polish authorities officially protested the Red Army’s march through Polish territories.

245 on the Poles that if Soviet demands were met, then Polish claims on the eastern territories would be as well. One of those demands was that

“reactionary elements” in the Polish exiled government should be removed and replaced by Polish communists, members of the Union of Polish Patriots.

In parallel, Soviet attitudes towards the Poles became evident in parts of the

British press, such as the Daily Worker, which cast the Poles in an unfavourable light.376 The Polish authorities regarded this as evidence that the British press was under the influence of Soviet propaganda. Thus, the first remarks in the

British press about the desertions were considered part of a campaign being waged against the Polish government-in-exile. The timing was specific, although Rafał Habielski claimed there was a prevailing sense of general indifference towards the victims of the war in the west: “The war which has been ongoing for a fourth year has put empathy levels down. The news of the suffering and victims became commonplace among the societies not affected directly by the war.”377 Nevertheless, the British public, which in 1944 was already aware of Nazi atrocities in occupied Poland, was moved by a certain degree of empathy towards the suffering of Jews.378 Given the low levels of

376 P.M.H. Bell, “Censorship, Propaganda and Public Opinion: The Case of the Katyn Graves, 1943”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 39, 1989, 63-83. 377 The indifferent tone of the British press towards the Poles was evident long before the events under analysis. R. Habielski, „Polityka informacyjna i propagandowa Rządu RP na emigracji 1939-1945”, Dzieje Najnowsze, XIX: 4, 1967, 69. 378 See more about how news on the Jewish plight reached the West: Adam Puławski, “The Polish Government-in-exile in London, the Delegatura, the Union of Armed Struggle-Home Army and the Extermination of the Jews, [in:] Governments -in-Exile and the Jews during the Second World War, eds. Jan

246 anti-Semitism in Britain, British society tended to judge the Polish exiled authorities’ attitude to the issue of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army harshly. 379

Polish officials, aware of the situation, set out to inform the highest echelons of the Polish wartime administration of this growing danger to the Polish cause. Minister of Justice Komarnicki noted: “The case (…) is clearly political and immediately after the first Jewish desertions in January and February it should have been taken firmly into account that suing [those deserters] would have wide repercussions and be counted against us in the hostile press and propaganda.”380

Minister Komarnicki’s reflections on the events were made after the issue of the Jewish deserters had been raised several times in the House of Commons during April 1944.381 The discussions, held over a number of sittings, , covered both the reasons for anti-Semitic incidents in the Polish Army (with speakers occasionally displaying a fair knowledge of both wartime and pre-war internal

Polish affairs) and the effects of the anti-Semitic incidents, particularly the

Lanicek and James Jordan, Valentine Mitchel, 2013; David Engel, ”‘The Western Allies and the Holocaust' JAN KARSKI'S MISSION TO THE WEST, 1942-1944”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 5: 4, 1990, 363-360. 379 See more: Tony Kushner, “ ‘The Western Allies and the Holocaust’ RULES OF THE GAME: BRITAIN, AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST IN 1944”, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 5: 4, 1990, 381-402. 380 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, ibidem. 381 The minutes of archival British parliamentary debates can be found at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/index.html (accessed 24 November 2017).

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Jewish deserters’ requests to join the British Army. On 6 April, Tom Driberg, an

Independent MP, spoke of his impressions of high-ranking Polish officers:

Of the existence of this sentiment [anti-Semitism] to a pretty wide

degree in the Polish Forces, there is no doubt. (…) I have met (…) large

number of Polish officers, (…) extremely gallant, charming and decent

young men they are. But, unfortunately, if one gets on to these awkward

subjects (…) one finds that they have certain fixed prejudices, one of

which is this deep prejudice against Jews.382

Another MP, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore, seconded Driberg: “We must admit, and it is no use blinking the fact, that, in Central Europe, many of them have become tainted with the bestial doctrine of anti-Semitism, and, after they came to this country, this doctrine still permeated their attitude to the Jewish members of their army.”383

The requests of Jewish soldiers who had not previously been admitted to the

British Army, to be allowed to make the transfer were turned down by the

Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, who announced to the House on 5 April 1944 that both the Polish and the British authorities agreed that further transfers of

382 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1944/apr/06/polish-forces-great-britain-antisemitism (accessed 24 November 2017). 383 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1944/apr/06/polish-forces-great-britain-antisemitism (accessed 24 November 2017).

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Jewish deserters to the British Army would not be beneficial to the allied military forces. Instead, continued Eden, the Polish authorities had committed themselves to searching for a remedy to anti-Semitic sentiments in the army.384 Among other points raised by MPs were demands that the British government should persuade the Polish government to mitigate the sentences handed down by the Polish military court. Despite Eden’s assurances that the

Polish sentences were as light as possible under the Polish Military Penal Code, the demand for their re-examination was supported both by British MPs and the British public.385

The British standpoint was acknowledged by Polish officials. In late April 1944

Minister Stańczyk, who was at the time journeying to the United States, cabled the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Announcing the sentences handed against Jewish soldiers without

mentioning sentences passed against soldiers guilty of anti-Jewish

offences and by mentioning solely an investigation sounds as a one-

sided sanction that results in an extremely negative impression. The

whole matter brings incalculable damage to Poland, since it reaches

384 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/apr/05/polish-forces-great-britain-antisemitism#S5CV0398P0_19440405_HOC_247 (accessed 24 November 2017). 385 For example, a meeting concerning anti-Semitism in the Polish military forces was organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jewry in May 1944, as well as a protest vigil at the Stoll Theatre against anti-Semitism in the Polish Army. See: PRM 142, documents 20 and 21.

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beyond the issue of a group of thirty soldiers. It should be stopped at

once and I appeal for the Commander in Chief or President, depending

on their competences, to grant an amnesty.386

Stańczyk was correct in his prognosis of further harm being done to Polish interests. On 2 May 1944 an article in The Economist stated that: “The Polish military authorities are within their legal rights in punishing desertions, but by doing so (…) they have convinced the British public that the autonomy which the British Government has granted to the Polish Army is being abused to cover anti-Semitism, hooliganism and brutality. No worse service could have been done to Poland.” (PRM 133, doc. 20) This suggestion, clearly prompted by western public reaction to the sentences, was eventually fulfilled: on 12 May

1944 the Polish President in exile, Władysław Raczkiewicz, amnestied the soldiers punished by the Eighth Military Court. The presidential amnesty

386 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 18. The C.-in-C., General Sosnkowski, supported the idea of amnesty, yet under some conditions (among them, the acceptance of Jewish deserters into the British Army if they wished it). PRM 142 (doc. 22). Notably, Emanuel Scherer, a representative of the Jewish Socialist Party, Bund, also proposed the suspension of sentences for Jewish soldiers (Sikorski Institute, PRM 138, document3). The attitude of the Jewish members of the Polish political elites will be discussed in the next chapter. For the British public, Polish behaviour towards Jews was all the more unacceptable as knowledge of the mass- murder of Jews by the Nazis was common. As Jan Lanicek wrote: “On 26 June 1942, one day after Ringelblum had reached his conclusion, the BBC and all its European language services relayed the content of the so-called ‘Bund Report’. This report, prepared in occupied Poland by the Jewish Social-Democratic Bund in cooperation with the Warsaw underground archives Oneg Shabbat, informed the Allies that 700,000 Jews had already been murdered by the Nazis between June 1941 (the outbreak of the German-Soviet war) and May 1942.” J. Lanicek, “Governments-in-Exile…, 70.

250 affected Jewish soldiers in Palestine as well.387 In consequence, requests to strip the deserters of Polish citizenship were ultimately not processed and the final decision concerning them not undertaken.388

This final step was ultimately made after yet another factor was taken into account: Soviet policies and the powerful Soviet propaganda. This influenced both sides, Polish and British, as American scholar George Kacewicz observed:

Anglo-Polish-Soviet relations during the war years can be diagrammed in

a triangular manner. At one angle of the triangle was the Soviet Union,

pressing for British recognition of its revisionist claims and for Polish

acquiescence to its territorial and eventually political conditions. At the

second was the British government (…) [which] after 1941 (…) became a

moderator between Polish and Soviet interests, attempting to influence

the Polish government to accede to the Soviet demands. At the third

angle was Polish government, allied with Great Britain and considering

itself to be at war with the Soviet Union.389

387 A statement of the Polish Telegraphic Agency made clear the scope of the presidential amnesty: “Today the President of the Republic of Poland signed a decree to amnesty a number of military cases, including desertion unless it was desertion to a foe. On the basis of this decree Jewish soldiers are being released, as well as other soldiers who have deserted the ranks recently.” Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 32. 388 Personal information from Nurit Dreiband, step-daughter of Solomon Dreiband, one of the Jewish deserters concerning whom a formal request to deprive him of Polish citizenship was submitted by the Polish Consulate in Palestine, and annulled following the presidential amnesty. 389 G. Kacewicz, Great Britain, the Soviet Union…, 71.

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This triangular metaphor was evident during the desertions affair. In April 1944 a British press report on the parliamentary discussion on anti-Semitism in the

Polish military forces was followed by an attack on the “Commander-in-Chief for his negative attitude towards the Soviets.”390 Following the passing of sentence against the Jewish deserters by the Polish judiciary, The Observer contrasted the civil democratic Polish government in exile with the anti-Semitic military authorities. The Polish authorities were chiefly motivated by concerns over the political actions of the Soviet Union and the Soviet press propaganda campaign, which were targeted at disparaging the Polish exiled government and promoting instead the Polish institutions created under Soviet auspices: the Polish Army formed in the Soviet Union under the command of General

Zygmunt Berling, and the Union of Polish Patriots.391 On 14 May, the day when the presidential amnesty was announced, The Observer noted that the Soviets were likely to leave Lviv within Polish borders in exchange for abolishing the office of Commander-in-Chief. Therefore, it appeared to the Poles as an acceptable price for the granting of the presidential amnesty.

390 Witold Babiński, „Prasa brytyjska”..., 11. 391 See for example: Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, first edition: Columbia University Press, New York, 1979. The Berling Army consisted of Polish people left in the Soviet Union after the evacuation of Anders Army. The Polish military forces in the Soviet Union were formed under the auspices of the Union of Polish Patriots, at whose helm stood the writer Wanda Wasilewska, the main proponent for the creation of a Polish Army formed with the support of, and subservient to, Soviet interests.

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3. Polish Internal Crisis as a Source of Self-Examination

It is not by chance that the previous section began by examining Polish official thinking. The Polish authorities formed their opinion of the eventual reception of their activity prior to any foreign involvement. Polish assumptions were not unequivocal and the main division within the Polish administration cut across the civilian and military powers. Characteristically for an internal political conflict, the representatives of civilian ministries criticized the monopoly the

Ministry of National Defence had in dealing with what they perceived as a highly delicate political issue. These ministries generally believed that the military authorities were inefficient at promoting the image of the Polish Army as both courageous and democratic. Before being discussed in public, representatives of both the Ministry of Information and Documentation and of the Ministry of the Interior raised concerns about the possible harmful effects the deserters’ sentences might have on the reputation of the Polish exiled government. This was particularly true of the Ministry of Information and

Documentation, whose head, Professor Kot, had long been a critic of the political naïveté of the military authorities. Professor Olgierd Górka, head of the Nationalities Department within the Ministry of the Interior, expressed

253 similar criticisms of these developments. Both men were dissatisfied with the military authorities for failing to follow the guidelines on propaganda and information laid out by the civil authorities. For example, the Ministry of

National Defence floated the idea of sending a group of soldiers to the Polish

Embassy in the United States where, in a series of public speeches, they would emphasize Polish-Jewish cooperation.392 One of the soldiers picked for this mission was Menachem Begin. Released from regular military service for this purpose, he took the opportunity to join ETZEL and subsequently lead it in its fight against the British Mandate authorities.393

The attitude of the military attracted the attention of the Ministry of Justice, which critically evaluated their procedural failings and prevailing tendency to bend the law for political purposes. As a result, the efficiency of the

Commander in Chief, General Sosnkowski – who had regularly been issuing apparently vain orders calling for solidarity and unity in the Polish ranks, regardless of nationality – was questioned in a harsh interpellation addressed to the Minister of National Defence at the Polish National Council session on

10 May 1944.394 Then came the legal proceedings, commented upon by both the British press and the British parliament. In a summary report, the Minister

392 Sikorski Institute, A.XII.3/40. 393 David Engel, “The Frustrated Alliance…”, 11. 394 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 15.

254 of National Defence, General Marian Kukiel, noted: “In order to evaluate the scope of the sentences that were passed, it is worth mentioning that the sentences previously passed against some Polish soldiers reached up to four, five, six and ten years of prison. If one reads the press headlines ‘Punished because they were Jews’, one can reply that they were punished so lightly because they were Jews.”395

The author of this comment admitted that the sentences passed against Jewish soldiers were exceptionally light because of anticipated criticism from the

British public. The fact that the outcome of the legal process, despite being moulded to meet imagined British expectations, did not halt the anti-Polish campaign, left the military authorities frustrated. Moreover, the deserters rejected the offer of a legal transfer to the British Army that had been arranged by the Polish military authorities so long as they remained in the

Polish Army for the transition period.

At the same session at the National Council on 10 May 1944, some members, including Adam Ciołkosz (Polish Socialist Party), supported by Bund, demanded the dismissal of the Minister of National Defence as the person constitutionally responsible for the events. General Kukiel refused to resign, explaining that this would mean an admission of responsibility, which he was not ready to

395 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 29.

255 give.396 In stating this, he reiterated his strong opinion that the desertions were caused by external factors. Minister Kukiel concluded: “The severe crisis which we currently experience is not of our own making. It was manufactured by hostile elements to weaken our Army and to destroy its military readiness.”397

Moreover, the demand to resign appeared too consistent with Soviet demands to exclude “reactionary elements” from the Polish government, and as such was utterly unacceptable. Trying to refute the accusations, Minister Kukiel actually mentioned a communist conspiracy, though in a veiled way: “It was already clear who is taking care of the deserters and why. It was done in order to break up the ranks of the Polish Army so… the Army would be unable to fight.”398 This strong conviction that the desertions were organized and inspired by foreign actors, whether Soviet (in Scotland and to some extent in

Palestine) or Zionist (in Palestine), was backed up by the reports of the military secret service, which believed in a communist agency acting inside the Polish

Army.399 The political situation (the breaking of Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations and Soviet political designs on Central Europe) make such assumptions plausible. It is difficult, however, to address the issue of a communist conspiracy since the judiciary files at the Sikorski Institute remain

396 See more about these circumstances: Zeszyty Historyczne, 20, Paris, 1971. 397 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 29. 398 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 29. 399 It is important to note that some evidence of a Soviet plot to provoke the desertions was indeed established, see for example: PRM173/6, document 30, a confidential note to the Prime Minister.

256 classified. The report prepared by the Nationalities’ Department that summed up the legal proceedings provides insufficient information to confirm the communist conspiracy thesis.400 One can learn from this report that the deserters under trial rejected any allegations of Soviet influence emanating from such bodies as the Union of Polish Patriots or the Soviet Embassy in Great

Britain. Nevertheless, the attempts of the Ministry of National Defence to exonerate the Polish establishment of any responsibility for the crisis did nothing to stem criticisms of how values of democracy and law were being upheld in wartime Polish institutions.

The crisis penetrated internal Polish affairs more deeply than might have appeared from the bungled legal proceedings and subsequent uproar in the

British press. What also mattered for Polish officials in London was the opinion of the underground authorities in Poland, which frequently regarded the

London-based authorities’ policy towards the Jews as philo-Semitic (sic!) and, as such, at odds with the prevailing atmosphere in Polish wartime society.401

These radically different perceptions of the attitude of the Polish government in exile towards the Jews – one anti-Semitic, the other philo-Semitic – called for revision of the government’s own opinion of themselves. Having read a

400 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, document 16. 401 See for example: A. Puławski, W obliczu Zagłady: Rząd RP na Uchodźstwie, Delegatura Rządu RP na Kraj, ZWZ-AK wobec deportacji Żydów do obozów zagłady (1941-42), Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warsaw, 2009; D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 1995.

257 short summary of the events at the National Council session on 10 May 1944,

Minister of National Defence General Kukiel concluded:

[The allegation of] Anti-Semitism is a complete lie, there have been only

some bad, silly and wicked words towards Jews. An investigation into

this matter shows that there had been six of them earlier and 17 at

present (…). They pertained to lower-ranking soldiers, in three cases

they were ignored by officers. (…) Anti-Semitism in the Polish Army is a

complete lie, there might have been some references to Jews, bad, silly

and wicked.402

General Kukiel wished to play down the significance of anti-Semitic incidents in the army, but his observations on the nature of what qualified as anti-Semitism seemed to reflect his genuine convictions. The low number of such events raises a question concerning the criteria used to qualify them as anti-Semitic.

In fact, the term “anti-Semitic” was avoided, instead the minister spoke of

“bad, silly and wicked words” (and not discriminatory or harmful). General

Kukiel thus did not dissent from the majority’s perception of discrimination, which was shared by the military staff. Yet, even within military circles there were other voices, betraying somewhat greater sensitivity. The desertions affair triggered a discussion within the Political Division of the Ministry of

402 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142, ibidem.

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National Defence, and specifically within the Desk for Jewish Affairs.403 Its scrutiny of the nature of anti-Semitism contradicted in a large way the words of Minister Kukiel. Professor Heitzman, head of the Political Division, wrote:

“The way the term anti-Semitism is understood by the military authorities includes not only acts hostile to Jews but also the encouragement and acceptance of such acts, even in the absence of Jews [as well as] generalizing negative opinions on Jewry as a whole.”404

This approach demonstrates a high sensitivity to the issue by the military authorities, in marked contrast to the official statements produced by the same Ministry. Was the sensitivity limited to the political department and the

Desk for Jewish Affairs only? Or was a denial of Polish guilt thought to better serve propaganda purposes? Be that as it may, this approach was consistent with the spirit of pre-war Polish law that analysed crime by taking into account the entire set of accompanying circumstances, which determined the classification of the criminal offence. It also corresponded with the views put forward by Itzhak Schwarzbart and the whole Representation of the Polish

Jewry, which recognized the link between the consistent discriminatory approach of the military and the violation of Polish military law by Jewish soldiers (see Chapter 3). Meanwhile, however, the official message of the

403 See more: D. Engel, Facing a Holocaust…, 115. 404 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/40.

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Ministry of National Defence, if one regards the civic education introduced in the army as such, hardened traditional societal beliefs, which apportioned blame to the Jews and held that their guilt only proved the negative opinion the Polish majority had of them. This was noted by Itzhak Schwartzbart in a speech of 13 May 1944 concerning the educational role of the Polish Army,405

After discussing in detail some educational-propagandist texts prepared by the army shortly before the mass desertions, in which the prevailing idea was that the size of Polish Jewry was a negative factor in the Polish economy,

Schwarzbart posed a rhetorical question: what did the texts actually contribute to the officially declared aims of civic democracy and the improvement of relations between Jews and non-Jews? He went on to argue that the content reflected mainstream opinions and not the views of individual soldiers, which occasionally could be quite extreme (in the eyes of the military authorities).

Unsurprisingly, the results of this policy were not only unsatisfactory but also contradicted official aims, as Second Lieutenant Zygmunt Nagórski correctly identified in a note analysing the issue of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army, written in early July 1943, before the wave of Jewish soldiers’ desertions in

Palestine. In it, he compiled a list of suggestions for combatting manifestations of anti-Semitism in the army, which he perceived as problematic for the future,

405 Full text of Schwarzbart’s speech is available at the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem (S23.77).

260 and recommended de-politicizing civic education in the army by creating a new institutional body modelled on the British Army Bureau of Current Affairs. This new body would not be associated with discredited institutions or people that had previously been at the helm of civic education, such as Professor Kot, the

Minister of Information and Documentation, who was a hugely unpopular figure in the Polish Army in the Middle East. Yet the means Nagórski proposed still borrowed from the propaganda arsenal: lectures, radio broadcasts, press articles, educational-propaganda bulletins, and talks, all tailored to the soldiers’ range of interests.406 The difficulties in finding the right form were reflected in the search for the right content. A closer look at the topics mentioned by Nagórski reveal that the traditional elements used to promote good relations between Poles and Jews would be maintained. At the same time, those responsible for disrupting these relations would be classified as

“not genuine” Poles. The author proposed discussing the following subjects in regard to the situation in occupied Poland: “Situation of the Jews – (…) Polish attitude towards persecution of Jews, solidarity, disappearance of anti-

Semitism, Jewish participation in the underground with the required documents (…) anti-Semitism inflamed by the Germans, renewed solidarity

406 An example of such was mentioned by D. Engel: a special newspaper issued in September 1943 (it coincided with Jewish High Holidays) titled Żołnierz Polski-Żyd (Jew-A Polish Soldier), dispersed in the army and containing articles on Judaism. D. Engel, Facing a Holocaust…, 116.

261 between Polish and Jewish partisans. After this war the issue of minorities and neighbours should not be based on hatred and rejection.”407

The fragment cited above offers an insight into how the Polish majority – the author was a high-ranking Polish soldier representing both ethnic Poles and

Polish state institutions – envisaged Polish-Jewish relations. The planned discussion – to be held with a group of Polish-only soldiers, or with a mixed

Polish-Jewish group? The author did not specify – shifted responsibility for anti-Semitism in Polish society to the Nazi occupiers without mentioning the pre-existing anti-Semitic mental baggage.408 The circumstances in which anti-

Semitism would “disappear” from Polish society seem equally vague. The author’s central idea was that Poles and Jews were united in solidarity and equality in fighting shoulder to shoulder against the Nazi occupiers. This, in his view, should be a promising starting point for a post-war, multi-ethnic Polish society that was not built on hatred and exclusion.

This document illustrates the level of internal confusion, stemming from the ethnic-democratic regime, to which Polish officials were prey. Attempts to

407 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/40A. 408 Certainly, the social landscape in occupied Poland was much more complex than its depiction in laconic phrases (“Polish-Jewish solidarity”) suggests, but there is also the question of how the situation in Poland was acknowledged and its consequences realized. These issues however go beyond the scope of this chapter.

262 reconcile what was irreconcilable were of no avail, and only added to their overall sense of frustration.

Conclusion

The wartime exile of the Polish government had an impact on the Polish political regime and, consequently, on inter-ethnic relations within the community of Polish refugees. The Polish wartime authorities were exposed to scrutiny and control by the hosting state, Great Britain, and the Polish government’s weakening position in the arena of international policy additionally made them vulnerable to foreign judgment. This situation loaded the issue of inter-ethnic relations within Polish society with an unprecedented significance. The reactions of Polish officials to the desertions of Jewish soldiers from Polish units in Scotland revealed what lay at the heart of the ethnic-democratic regime: the ultimate inability to reconcile democratic values, especially civic equality, with the ethnic supremacy that was characteristic of this type of regime. The public obligations of the Polish government to re-establish democratic rule, in contrast to the Polish authoritarian regime before the outbreak of war, deepened further the Polish

263 authorities’ dependence on the opinion of others. With the role of the League of Nations, the international guarantor and protector of ethnic minorities’ rights, in decline, reputation or image became the leading arbiter of these concerns. These were, however, construed internally, based on speculations and anxieties of the type of: what will they think about us? This preoccupation overruled all else, causing disappointment when assumptions turned out to be wrong. It was the logic that lay behind the court-martial trials of deserters, who were eventually handed down light sentences. However, contrary to expectations within Polish military circles, this did not quieten public interest in their cases, but rather fanned the crisis. The unequal treatment of some Jewish deserters when others, at their own request, were transferred to the British

Army, raised doubts about the Polish wartime regime’s actual implementation of democratic civic equality. The Minister of National Defence’s comment at the Polish National Council session, that Jewish deserters were punished lightly because they were Jewish, only confirmed what was already becoming evident to the wider international public: that the implementation of democratic rule smashed up against a strong allegiance to ethnic hierarchy; or, in other words, democracy in its Polish version was entangled with ethnic thinking. The discussion of the desertions in the British media, and above all in the British parliament, caused an uproar in Polish circles. Not only did it occur at a time of

264 political difficulty for the Polish government, faced with the Soviet takeover of the occupied Polish territories, but it also exacerbated existing tensions between the civil and military Polish powers. The political crisis led to internal accusations of lack of skills for political precaution, and demands for the dismissal of the Minister of Defence and the granting of amnesties to the

Jewish deserters. The crisis lasted until 14 May 1944 when the Polish President in exile, Władysław Raczkiewicz, following the suggestions of some of his ministers, issued an act of amnesty, bringing a sudden halt to unfinished legal proceedings, both in the Polish military court in Scotland and those of the

Polish consulate in Palestine, analysed in the previous chapter. The immediate aftermath of the crisis motivated the Polish administration to formulate some preventive measures for the future and, somewhat on the margins of the main discussion, drove others to raise opinions on the anti-Semitism of which the

Polish authorities were eventually accused. Both these elements provided greater insight into the machinery of ethnic democracy by the Polish authorities. Simultaneously with the actual political affairs, the Polish wartime administration created an official body, the Legislative Committee, to work out the post-war Polish political, economic and social order, from which it clearly appears that the post-war regime was planned to be an improved version of the model prevailing in 1918-1935. The tensions in Polish society’s interethnic

265 relations would be overcome by social solidarity, considered the keystone value to be promoted. In wartime, its advancement took the form of educational activities undertaken by the Polish Army. Yet, a closer look at the content on offer to Polish soldiers makes it clear that they would only exacerbate inequalities between the ethnic groups making up Polish society.

The easy side-stepping of Polish anti-Semitism, by making the German occupying forces carry all the blame for anti-Semitism in Polish society, implied that the inability to recognize the internal reasons for anti-Semitism was quite widespread. Only a few people, such as the head of the Ministry of Defence’s political department, were able to break free of traditional ways of thinking about Jews, anti-Semitism, and the accountability for it. The majority remained largely unaware of society’s anti-Semitic attitudes and became aggrieved when the matter was raised outside. For most people, the Polish social system still appeared as fair and just.

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Chapter Six: The Aftermath of Jewish Soldiers’ Desertions in Palestine

Introduction

This chapter is devoted to analysis of the mass desertions’ aftermath in

Palestine, where various Jewish political groups had to deal with the results of the influx of Polish Jews into Yishuv society. The disturbances they caused impacted strongly on the local political scene, and the desertions were appropriated by various Jewish political groups both to justify their most urgent aims and to strengthen the ideologies they promoted. This chapter describes how, and with what success, the desertions were appropriated. At the same time, the influx of Jewish Polish citizens into Palestine and their evident will to remain in the Middle East, as the desertions are usually interpreted as indicating, raises the question of the fate of the Polish legacy they brought with them. The latter is not merely a metaphor, meaning cultural affiliation. Jewish deserters retained many links with Polish society, the most tangible of which was the Polish citizenship they held. Tied in so many ways to

Polish society, the incomers did not annul these links on transitioning to the

Yishuv. Polish-Jewish relations therefore entered a new phase, in which Polish

Jews changed their position vis-à-vis the Polish majority, formally (yet temporarily) belonging to the community of Polish citizens but at the same

267 time setting out along a smooth path of developing new ties to the Yishuv. This chapter offers further analysis of the sense of belonging to a community.

Research into the arrival of Polish Jews in Palestine, and the events that followed, has never before been framed in this manner. In Polish historiography, the Jewish deserters are lost from sight the moment they abandon the ranks of the Polish Army,409 while the influx of Polish Jews, recent soldiers of the Polish Army, and the political implications of their transitioning from Polish nationals into migrants to the Yishuv, remain largely underexplored in Israeli historiography. The scholarship on the illegal immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel during the war rarely notices the presence of a large group of Polish Jews in Palestine, concentrating instead on the arrival of emblematic Holocaust survivors from Europe – the central issue of this historiography.410 The immigration waves – the Aliyot (the Hebrew plural form of Aliyah, immigration or ascension to the Land of Israel) – are the yardstick of Zionist history, a dominating narrative in Israeli historiography.411

409 The few exceptions are an article in Zeszyty Historyczne, an émigré journal issued in Paris: E. Kossoy, ”Żydowskie podziemie zbrojne w Palestynie i jego polskie powiązania”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 157, 2006, and memory literature (K. Zamorski, Dwa tajne biura…) or unscholarly literature (H. Sarner, General Anders and Soldiers of the Polish Second Corps, Brunswick Press, 1997). 410 Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power. Holocaust Survivors and the Emergence of Israel, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1998 (the Hebrew edition of this book was published in 1996). Although the author dealt with post-war years, when mentioning the pre-war and wartime roots of the phenomenon of the illegal immigration, he did not mention the deserters. Also, Dalia Ofer, Escaping the Holocaust. Illegal Immigration to the Land of Israel, 1939-1944, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991; Aviva Halamish, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1998. 411 See: Hizky Shoham, “From ‘Great History’ to ‘Small History’: The Genesis of Zionist Periodization”, Israel Studies, 18: 1, 2013, 31-55.

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The only exception is an article by Dov Levin, published in the Israeli journal

Shvut in 1997, which analyses the case of Jewish deserters from the Polish

Army in Palestine and uses the term Aliyah Vav in the article’s title.412 Yet the profile of the journal (Shvut. Studies in Russian and East European Jewish

History and Culture) indicates that even labelling the phenomenon (Aliyah Vav) with the flag concept of Zionist ideology did little to incorporate the mass desertions into Israeli historiography. The term Aliyah Vav, the path of wartime illegal immigration leading through the Polish Army, has not been integrated into the larger theme of Jewish wartime illegal immigration, the Aliyah Bet. It is particularly troubling that the theme of wartime illegal immigration serves as a

“cult theme” in Zionist historiography as well as a “major element in the Israeli mythology of origin.”413

Instead, the Polish Jews’ arrival resembles a “deus ex machina” entrance, exemplified by probably the best known and most frequently cited case of

Menachem Begin, whose arrival in Palestine in 1942 provides an excellent example of how the Polish context – his survival in a Soviet prison and the circumstances of his obtaining official leave from the Polish Army (see chapter

3) – has been overlooked while the significance of his arrival has been

412 D. Levin, „Aliyah ‘vav’: the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish army in Palestine”, Shvut. Studies in Russian and East European Jewish History and Culture, 5: 21, 1997, 144-170. 413 Idith Zertal, From Catastrophe to Power…, 1.

269 simultaneously acclaimed. In the existing literature, Begin’s link to the Polish

Army appears as marginal to the mode of his arrival and his later activity as leader of Irgun (the right-wing underground Jewish military force) and subsequent instigator of its anti-British revolt.414

Is this because the influx of Polish Jews had little to do with the ideologically driven waves of Jewish pioneers to the Land of their Forefathers?415 Instead, it perhaps came closer to hagira, the Hebrew word for immigration not driven by ideological (Zionist) motivations, and therefore less valued in the Yishuv.416 The question of whether the influx of Jewish deserters from the Polish Army better fits the phenomenon of Aliyah or hagira is closely related to the issue of the successful appropriation of the mass desertions by the political Yishuv. Jewish wartime refugees, former soldiers of the Polish Army, joined the Yishuv, thus

414 Yehuda Bauer, “From Cooperation to Resistance: the Haganah 1938-46”, Middle Eastern Studies, 2: 3, 1966, 182-210; J. Bowler Bell, Terror Out of Zion: Fight for Israeli Independence, Routledge, New York, 1976; Colin Shindler, The rise of the Israeli right, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015; Steven Wagner, “Whispers from Below. Zionist Secret Diplomacy, Terrorism and British Security Inside and Out of Palestine, 1944-47”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 42: 3, 2014, 440 - 463; S. Wagner, “British Intelligence and Jewish Resistance Movement in the Palestine Mandate, 1945-46”, Intelligence and National Security, 23, 2008, 627-659 (and other publications by this author). Menachem Begin is mentioned briefly, outside the context of the Polish Army, by Bauer (“From Cooperation to Resistance…” 202), by Shindler (The rise of Israeli…, 202) and by Wagner (“British Intelligence and Jewish Resistance…”, 631). Bell mentions Begin in the context of the Polish Army once, as a “member of General Władysław Anders pro-Allied Polish army” (Bowler Bell, Terror Out of Zion…, 52). Bruce Hoffman points to Begin as the one who reactivated the anti-British activity of Irgun with a short reference to Begin’s release from the Polish Army (Bruce Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers. The struggle for Israel 1917-1947, Vintage Books, New York, 2015, 114). A full account of Begin up to the moment of his leave from the Polish Army is given by Stanislaw Korboński in his essay “Unknown chapter in the Life of Menachem Begin and Irgun Zvai Leumi”, East European Quarterly, 13: 3, 1979, 373- 379. However, Korboński’s Polish angle ignored the broader Jewish context in the Yishuv. 415 The image of the pioneers’ Aliyot to the Land of Israel as driven by high spiritual and ideological aspirations has been recently criticized. See for example works by Gur Alroey: “Aliya to America? A comparative look at Jewish mass migration, 1881-1914”, Modern Judaism, 28: 2, 2008, 109-133. 416 I refer to the term hagira in the context it was used by Shira Klein in Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism, Cambridge, 2018, 157.

270 ending their wartime displacement. Yet their absorption into the new society was neither immediate nor easy, even though the Yishuv’s political organizations approached the new incomers with detailed plans for benefitting politically from their arrival. The mainstream grouping of wartime Yishuv,

Labour Zionism with its central institutions, approached Polish Jews with its most urgent project of recruiting Palestinian Jews to the Jewish units in the

British Army, to be met with reluctance and resistance. The Jewish deserters retained their Polish citizenship, which now became a powerful argument for having a choice of whether or not to accept the demands and expectations of the Yishuv authorities. More marginal political bodies in Palestine, such as the

Zionist right wing, the Revisionists, and their opposites in the communist movement, benefited from the introduction of enthusiastic new blood, but for both the main gain was to buttress their rhetoric concerning the actual ending of the diaspora. Pointing to widespread anti-Semitism as the main reason for the desertions from the Polish Army, the Revisionists argued that the moral dilemma of double loyalty should be resolved in favour of the Yishuv. The communist movement utilized the same argument in order to attack the Polish wartime government as being deeply involved in the deplorable discriminatory practices of the past, as reactionary and fascist-like, thus questioning its right to represent Polish society. Finally, the mass desertions, together with the

271 plight of Polish Jewry in the Holocaust, ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the liberal programme promoted by the Representation of Polish Jewry, and to the dissolution of the Representation in 1945.

I will first look at the mainstream Labour Zionist movement and its struggles to implement the policy of absorbing the incomers into the Yishuv, especially with regard to the Jewish Agency’s long-term military plans. Next, I will analyse the position taken by the two marginal forces in the Yishuv, the Zionist-Revisionists and the communist movement, towards the Jewish soldiers’ desertions.

Finally, I will look at the Representation of Polish Jewry and the reaction of this political milieu to the mass desertions.

1. The Mainstream Zionists and the Jewish Legion

The mass desertions by Jewish soldiers, seemingly encouraged by the activities of the Yishuv agencies in promoting the benefits of life in the Yishuv, at first seemed to strengthen mainstream Labour Zionism. It quickly turned out, however, that the political hopes of the Yishuv’s leadership regarding the incomers did not match the incomers’ expectations. The influx of Polish Jews coincided with the Zionist movement’s endorsement of a new programme.

More than a year before the mass desertions, in May 1942, a conference was

272 held in New York City’s Biltmore Hotel.417 The programme formulated during the conference, known as the “Biltmore Programme”, directly addressed the obstacles and contradictions that the Zionist movement was facing at this point: the limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine that so harshly limited the rescue action; the Jewish-Arab conflict that already seemed inevitable; the freezing of the implementation of the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of the Jewish national home in Palestine. The main premises of the Biltmore Programme were that the limits on Jewish immigration to

Palestine should be lifted, that cooperation between Jews and Arabs be established, and that a Jewish commonwealth be created, the latter aim being formulated explicitly for the first time. Apart from the point about Jewish-Arab cooperation, which reflected a preferred ideal more than any reality, the

Biltmore programme was a manifestation of the growing expectations for more decisive action by the Yishuv’s leadership. Jewish immigration to

Palestine appeared as an urgent necessity, with revelations of the Nazi persecution of Jews throughout occupied Europe. Providing them with an asylum would advance the struggle for the Jewish commonwealth (the term

“state” was deliberately not used), particularly as the Jewish minority in

Palestine would eventually outnumber the current Arab majority, definitely

417 See more: Monty Noam Penkower, “American Jewry and the Holocaust: From Biltmore to American Jewish Conference”, Jewish Social Studies, 47: 2, 1985, 95-114.

273 leading to new tensions between the two peoples. Thus, each step taken in the direction proclaimed by the Biltmore Programme was inevitably entangled with problems and new conflicts. Unsurprisingly, then, there emerged an opposition to the Biltmore Programme, exemplified by Chaim Weizmann,

President of the Zionist Organization.

At first, the influx of Polish-Jewish soldiers into Palestine seemed a realization of the Zionist movement’s new policy. The One Million Plan adopted by the

Jewish Agency in 1944 had at its heart the immigration and absorption of one million Jews from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa into Palestine.418

On a spiritual level, Jewish immigration was termed “the ingathering of exiles”

(Hebrew: kibbutz ha-galuyot). The message was clear: Palestine was the old- new homeland for Jewish people, who should abandon the diaspora and gather in Eretz Israel, the Hebrew name for Palestine. This choice was called

Aliyah [Hebrew: ascension], an ideologically driven immigration to the Jewish homeland.

On arriving in Palestine, the majority of Jewish refugees were approached by the institutional Yishuv controlled by the Jewish Agency.419 As the Polish Consul

Wdziękoński in Jerusalem observed in December 1943: “There existed an office

418 Ari Barell, David Ohana, “,The Million Plan’: Zionism, Political Theology and Scientific Utopianism”, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 15: 1, 2014, 1-22. 419 Anita Shapira, “The Yishuv and the Survivors of the Holocaust”, Studies in Zionism, 7: 2, 1986, 277.

274 in Tel Aviv whose aim was to support deserters /supplying civilian clothes, documents, flats etc./ (…), certainly it could not have existed without the awareness of the Jewish officials.”420 These observations were further confirmed by the employees of the Documents’ Bureau and the military intelligence.421 The Documents’ Bureau noted the friendly attitude shown to the deserters by the Yishuv population:

“In general a high level of solidarity exhibits itself among the Jewish population towards the deserters, therefore the escape is easy, moreover that there is no compulsory registration in the Yishuv. Every Jewish community, every rabbi, every notary would issue an ID for a deserter stating that such a person was born in Palestine or in Yemen, which continues to supply a stream of illegal immigration.”422

The aim of the Jewish Agency’s executives was to locate the Jewish deserters in a place away from the sight of the British authorities’ controlling eye where they could wait until the tensions caused by the military aspirations of the

Yishuv had subsided. In reports produced for the Jewish Agency, Israel Carmi frequently appears as the contact person for individual Jewish deserters

420 Sikorski Institute, AXII.3/40A. 421 The military intelligence’s report: Sikorski Institute, KGA 24, document 54. 422 AAN, Box 71, Folder 65, Document 289 (800/1/0/-/71). This document was also cited by Kazimierz Zamorski in his article on Jewish deserters published in Zeszyty Historyczne (“Dezercje Żydów w Armii Polskiej”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 105, 1993.)

275 located in kibbutzim or towns and cities in the Yishuv. Born in 1917 (or 1918) in

Gdańsk, Israel Carmi developed a military career in the Yishuv, and later in the state of Israel, which started soon after he immigrated to Palestine in 1934 and joined a kibbutz. From there he was “called upon to participate in one historic activity after another”.423 One of them was his activity in and for the Haganah and his clandestine operations in secret units such as the Special Night Squad, the Special Interrogation Squad, or the Special Identification Squad.424 He was also involved in organizing Jewish illegal immigration to Palestine. Carmi was thus a man of action, leaving more hesitant negotiators to toil in their offices while he actually realized the aims of Zionist policy.

As a liaison officer between the Jewish Agency’s leadership and the Jewish deserters from the Polish Army, Israel Carmi would deliver letters of recommendation for selected deserters from the Polish Army enabling them to access shelters or workplaces. The kibbutzim were places of refuge that were particularly frequently mentioned in correspondence between Yishuv officials and the management of the kibbutzim. Dvorah Hacohen even makes the point that the kibbutzim played “a central role in the organization of immigration

423 Levi Soshuk and Azriel Eisenberg (ed.), Momentous Century. Personal and Eyewitness Accounts of the Rise of the Jewish Homeland and State 1875-1978, 1984, 224. 424 See more: Y. Bauer, From diplomacy to resistance…, 199-200 and D. Sharfman, Palestine in the Second World…, 68-77. Also, Israel Carmi published his memoirs on the period: Yisrael Carmi, B’derekh Lohamim, Tel Aviv: Head Office of Education, Sifriat Tarmil Library, 1966.

276 before the establishment of the State [of Israel]”.425

For example, a lengthy report on Avraham Zilberman, a deserter from the

Polish Army, is stored in the Haganah archives.426 Directed to the Masada kibbutz in the Jordan Valley by Carmi, Zilberman started to attract the locals’ attention, his activities arousing suspicions that were voiced in a report produced by the local Jewish committee. The anonymous author warned the addressee of the possible dual role being played by Zilberman: “He struggles to impress upon us that he is followed by the [British] police but it could well be that he is rather linked to it.”427

Undoubtedly, Israel Carmi kept a trace on the Jewish deserters he came into contact with. Carmi and his peers faced similar problems to those outlined above regarding the unreliability of those who had only recently joined the

Yishuv. In order to be effective, the Jewish Agency needed an accepting society that trusted its leaders and followed the shifting guidelines calculated to achieve political objectives that were constantly being updated and turned around. Reports like the one cited above confirm fears that the deserters did not constitute a solid ideological front with strong principles on whom the

425 After the establishment of the State of Israel the kibbutzim renounced their cooperation with Ben Gurion. See: Dvorah Hacohen, “Mass immigration and the Israeli political system, 1948-1953”, Studies in Zionism, 8: 9, 1987, 102. 426 Haganah Archives, 14/64/422. 427 Haganah Archives, Ibidem.

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Zionists could rely. Jews who newly joined the Yishuv after abandoning the

Polish milieu expressed their disappointment and criticism of the achievements of the Zionist movement in Palestine. Their correspondence was monitored and any words of disparagement highlighted by the Zionist censors.

This process can be reconstructed through reports from the kibbutz management and secret agents of the Sochnut planted among the settlements of the Yishuv. Here is an example:

“Doctor Yosef Axer, a refugee, who came a year ago through Iran, wrote a letter to his brother in Switzerland. In that letter he slandered the Yishuv and its institutions.”428

The lack of trust displayed by the Yishuv institutions towards the Yishuv’s new members is also reflected in secret Polish military reports. In November 1943,

Colonel Mokrzycki of the Polish military secret service described the attitude of the kibbutz management towards Jewish deserters as one full of distrust and criticism. Mokrzycki wrote:

“(…) the kibbutz managements complain to official Jewish authorities about

Jewish deserters located in kibbutzim, who are unworthy of trust, lazy,

428 Haganah Archives, 14/64/422. A report from December 1943.

278 obstruct the work rules, and arouse suspicions that they are leaking information about arms located in the kibbutzim.”429

Worse unrest was to come when the Jewish Agency’s expectations that Polish

Jews would join the Jewish units of the British Army and help in fulfilling the quotas that the Zionist leadership were struggling to meet were disappointed.

Despite British raids on the kibbutzim in search of illegally collected weapons and the general tense atmosphere, the Zionist leadership still hoped for a more independent Jewish military force within the British Army as its masterstroke.

Such a decision was finally taken in the summer of 1944, and in September

1944 a 5500-strong Jewish Brigade was established.430 From the beginning, the

Zionist leadership had planned to include the Jewish deserters as recruits in the forthcoming Jewish Brigade, making it their final destination. However, those Polish Jews who had only recently joined the Yishuv demonstrated a marked reluctance to carry out the Jewish Agency’s wishes.

A year after the desertions reached their peak, in August 1944, representatives of the Jewish Agency, the Histadrut, held a public meeting with deserters from the Polish Army. The representatives demanded that the deserters join the

429 Sikorski Institute, Collection 138/219. 430 Further on the Jewish Brigade: James Bunyan, “To What Extent Did the Jewish Brigade Contribute to the Establishment of the Jewish State?”, Middle Eastern Studies, 51: 1, 2015, 28-48; Monty Noam Penkower, chapter “The Struggle for an Allied Jewish Fighting Force” [in] The Jews were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1988.

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Jewish Brigade in return for the support they had received from the Zionist leadership when they defected to the Yishuv. The deserters were warned that

“it has been agreed with the Histadrut that it will demand from its local branches lists of Polish deserters employed in factories and workshops” in order to check whether they had fulfilled their military duty to the Yishuv.431 In reaction, the deserters present at the meeting accused the Jewish Agency of manipulating the information on anti-Semitism in the Polish Army to entice

Jewish soldiers to abandon it and join the Yishuv. They demanded that their

Polish citizenship should not be the subject of any negotiations between the

Jewish Agency and the Polish authorities. They wanted to keep it as a safeguard for their possible future return to Polish society.432 The deserters believed that the Jewish Agency was in a position to negotiate with the Polish authorities over the deprivation of Polish citizenship, and consequently demanded from Carmi that it not do so.

From the perspective of a Polish observer, present at the meeting,

(…) by causing the desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army [Carmi] put them in trouble as they do not know what do with themselves. […] If they had continued in the Polish Army, in the struggle for Polish liberation, then, after the war, they would have been

431 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 615, Folder 19, report „Propaganda action among deserters in the Middle East by Union of Polish Patriots”. 432 On the widespread myth that Jewish refugees never accepted the possibility of returning to their countries of origin see for example: Jonathan D. Sarna, “The Myth of No Return: Jewish Return Migration to Eastern Europe, 1881-1914”, American Jewish History, LXXI: 2, 1981, 256-268.

280

rewarded with certain privileges. Today instead, as deserters, they have no roof over their heads, and when a deserter finds a job, then, ‘gentlemen from the Sochnut [italics mine]’, together with Carmi, force him to enlist in the Palestinian units and if a deserter refuses, he is sacked from the job and left without income.433

Finally, although a certain number of Jewish deserters did indeed join the

Jewish Brigade after military training in the same Sarafand camp (as one learns from Carmi’s testimony), many opposed the idea of performing military service for the Yishuv.434 Moreover, in documents held in the Haganah archives there is evidence of occasional returns to the Polish Army, with a description of the procedure that a returning soldier had to undergo. The return phenomenon was not massive, but the mere fact of its existence is another proof that joining the Yishuv was treated as an option and not as a categorical parting from the

Polish community. This did not stop Israel Carmi from concluding in his report that the “Aliyah Vav, from ve’ivrakh [Hebrew: and he was gone, reference to a

Biblical passage][italics mine] resulted in a successful assimilation apart from a few dozen communists who returned to Poland.”435 Yet, the indifference of

Polish Jews towards the Zionist ideology points to similarities with the immigration of Italian Jews few years earlier, before the war. Italian Jews

433 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 615, folder 19, Ibidem. 434 See for example a Polish report on the cold reception accorded to the Jewish Brigade, AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 30, folder 5. 435 Haganah Archives, 28.33, Israel Carmi’s testimony.

281 migrated to Palestine often because of the Italian anti-Jewish laws, but by and large they maintained strong emotional links to their fatherland and looked critically at the Zionist ideology and its various manifestations: pioneering spirit, national mobilization, rough manners.436 The Italians’ criticism of the values cherished in the Yishuv resulted in labelling their arrival as hagira, not

Aliyah: merely immigration as an escape from persecution, as opposed to the ideological ascension.

The account of the Polish observer cited above points to the tensions and frustrations felt on the part of the Yishuv, and much to the schadenfreude of the Poles. The shaping of the Israeli nation-to-be was fraught with difficulties, something that the Poles, who had regained independence just twenty-five years earlier, knew all too well. Dealing with the political implications of the accusations of anti-Semitism made by Polish Jews, the Poles noted with satisfaction the claims by Jewish refugees that the Zionist leadership had deliberately exaggerated the incidence of discrimination in Polish society. For the Poles, it was yet another argument for the existence of an external anti-

Polish plot that supposedly had nothing to do with the Polish internal reality, which they perceived to be just and democratic. The conclusion for Polish Jews was that their evaluation of life in the diaspora would need to conform to what

436 See: Shira Klein, Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018.

282 was emerging as the official narrative of the Yishuv. Having left the Polish milieu, by and large on grounds of the real discrimination they experienced as an ethnic minority at the hands of the Polish majority, they still displayed a certain reluctance towards the Yishuv, even when deciding to join it and stay in

Palestine. The Zionist leadership treated Polish Jews as refugees, victims of oppression in the diaspora. For Yishuv’s leadership, the attitude of the incomers showed that the pattern on which they had operated before, that the position of victimhood would always imply gratitude to the saviour, was turned on its head. Finally, the Polish citizenship eventually retained by the

Jewish refugees remained a powerful and occasionally valued element linking

Jews with the diaspora.437

The arrival of Polish Jews in the Yishuv could be regarded as yet another successful immigration stream contravening the provisions of the 1939 White

Paper, organized or at least supported by the Yishuv, and paralleling the stream of Jewish escapees from the Holocaust. The deserters’ belonging to

Yishuv institutions like kibbutzim might appear to represent acceptation of the

Zionist ideology and a final decision to leave Europe and the diaspora behind.

437 This issue has not been discussed before and exceeds the scope of my research. Yet, Jewish wartime refugees-deserters-immigrants to Palestine retained their Polish citizenship up to the moment they were drafted into the Israeli Army after the State of Israel was established in May 1948 (and some of them were immediately sent into battle in the first war of the State of Israel, which started in 1948). The Polish Law, according to which service in a foreign army cancelled Polish citizenship, was retained after the war by the communist regime. Contemporary Israelis with Polish roots, claiming their Polish citizenship, discover this fact during the official procedure of the Polish citizenship reclamation.

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Yet, the oppression from which the Jewish soldiers fled was not as heinous as the Nazi programme to exterminate European Jews. Similarly, the incomers’ attitude towards the Zionist enterprise was not overwhelmingly positive and accepting.438 Expectations, but also worries, made themselves known on both sides, the incomers to the Yishuv and the Yishuv’s officials.

2. Radical Movements in the Yishuv: Zionists-Revisionists and Communists

The radical political movements in the Yishuv, the Zionist-Revisionist movement and the communist movement, which stood in opposition to the mainstream Labour Zionist movement, largely benefited from the desertions of

Jewish soldiers. The gains came both from the desertions as such, and from the individual Jewish deserters who joined each of the movements.

The Zionist-Revisionist movement was empowered by the Jewish desertions not only in terms of manpower but also, if not primarily, in terms of ideology.

The mass desertions strengthened this faction’s rationale regarding “double loyalty” and leaving the diaspora. Firstly, the Revisionist movement was lacking a leader since the death of Jabotinsky in 1940 and the movement was

438 See more about the migrants’ decision-making process: Gur Alroey, “Information, Decision, Migration: Jewish Emigration from Eastern Europe in the Early Twentieth Century”, Immigrants and Minorities, 29: 1, 2011, 33-63 (especially the section The Decision to Emigrate that contains references for further reading).

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“fragmented into the Revisionists themselves, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and

Lehi.”439 These two last were underground armed militias, the second more radical than the first. Irgun was considered an underground army, while Lehi carried out terrorist acts against British officials and Jews who cooperated with the British.440 In this way they responded to the Yishuv’s growing expectations for more decisive action in terms of Jewish participation in the war and in sympathy with military Zionism.

As Steven Wagner has observed, in 1943 the Revisionist movement in Palestine was weak and in need of spiritual leadership.441 A possible candidate was identified among the Jewish soldiers of the Polish Army in the East.442

Menachem Begin had been head of the Polish branch of Betar, the

Revisionists’ youth movement, before the war. At first glance, he did not seem a likely candidate for the role. As Bruce Hoffman put it: “Short, bespectacled, and slight to the point of frailty, Begin, wearing his Polish army battle dress (…) appears more rabbinical and scholarly than soldierly and tough.”443 However,

Begin had both charisma and leadership experience, qualifying him to lead

Irgun. The only obstacle was his active military service in the Polish Army. The

439 C. Shindler, The rise of the Israeli right…, 6. 440 C. Shindler, The rise of the Israeli right…, 6. 441 Steven Wagner, “British Intelligence and the Jewish Resistant Movement in the Palestine Mandate 1945- 46”, Intelligence and National Security, 23: 5, 2008, 631. 442 These were the Irgun command in Palestine and Hillel Kook, head of the Irgun delegation to the United States. 443 B. Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers…, 119.

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Revisionists turned to high-ranking Polish officers who supported the

Revisionist movement with a request that Begin should be officially released from military service. This was acceded to, and Menachem Begin was able to leave the Polish Army without incurring accusations of violating the military code of honour.

On leaving the Polish Army, Menachem Begin took over the leadership of Irgun

(or Etzel, the acronym of the Hebrew full name National Military Organization) and led a revolt against the British in early 1944. With Lehi marginalized by the mainstream Haganah and refusing to cooperate with Begin’s Irgun, it was

Irgun that grew to be the main force of the Yishuv right. Although the programme advocated by Begin did not entirely conform with the ideology of

Jabotinsky, Begin claimed affinity with the Revisionist movement. This, however, remained fragmented, despite attempts to unify the forces of the right. Like the Jewish Agency’s chief, David Ben Gurion, the Palestinian leader of the Revisionist movement, Arieh Altmann, remained sceptical of taking open action against the British. Colin Shindler argues that the unsuccessful attempts at unification were also due to Menachem Begin’s individual personality, particularly his inclination to formality and military celebration, which Shindler regards as part of Begin’s Polish heritage.

The concept of an anti-British revolt resonated in the milieu of Polish

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Revisionist supporters who remained in the Polish Army. Their position, with one foot in the Polish Army and the other foot outside, in the Yishuv, already suggested the particular moment for their ultimate departure from the Polish community. A number of Revisionist supporters, who officially remained soldiers of the Polish Army, formed an informal milieu as employees of the

Army’s Documents Bureau whilst also engaging in the often clandestine activities of the Yishuv underground. It was clear, however, that they would not accompany the Polish Army when it came to relocate, and that they wanted to stay in Palestine, where expectations of creating a Jewish state were running high.

The Documents Bureau was an office created in the Polish Army after its relocation to the Middle East in 1943 on the basis of the already existing offices.444 Its main task was to analyse and edit the vast amount of material gathered in the Soviet Union: soldiers’ testimonies, analysis, and observations of Soviet reality. The Polish authorities hoped to use this material in a propaganda campaign designed to discredit the Soviet Union by revealing its true nature as undemocratic and blatantly oppressive. This aim aligned with the Revisionists’ overwhelmingly anti-Soviet political motives, which explains

444 A complete history of the Bureau was written by Kazimierz Zamorski, an active member of the Bureau: Dwa tajne biura 2 Korpusu, London, 1990. It is, however, lacking scholarly rigour. See also scholarly study: Mieczysław Wieliczko, “Biuro Dokumentów Wojska Polskiego na Obczyźnie w latach 1941-1946”, Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, LXI: F, 2006, 185-200.

287 the Revisionists’ presence among the Bureau’s employees. Another aspect of the Bureau’s activity was the analysis of a wide range of topics linked to Polish-

Jewish relations. A specifically designated section within the Documents

Bureau concentrated on laying down broad guidelines for the post-war prospects of Polish-Jewish relations, touching upon such issues as inheritance law concerning looted Jewish property in occupied Poland, the immigration of

Polish Jews to Palestine, and other topics. The section also took an interest in current affairs, such as the ongoing desertions of Jewish soldiers. These were caused primarily by the Poles’ rejection of the idea of a separate Jewish Legion, a flagship concept of the Revisionists: “Instead of a voluntary Jewish enlistment in the Jewish Unit (an alleged ghetto), a percentage limit [numerus clausus] was imposed, harming the rights of those who were unadmitted. (…) As a result, the Polish Army was labelled anti-Jewish and General Anders an anti-

Semite.”445

The separate Jewish Legion was further discussed as a measure that could still, if introduced, improve the situation. The author of the document cited above suggested further:

“Announcing the creation of a separate Jewish unit within the Polish Army (…) based on voluntary [sic!] applications for transfer, would resolve the burning

445 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 20, Document 150, (800/1/0/-/70).

288 issue of the desertions. Doing so under the slogan of avenging the ghetto, adopting the emblem of the Star of David, a symbol of disgrace under the

Nazis, and a symbol of honour for the avengers, Sabbath rest, kosher food, all these not only will no longer allow the Poles to be accused of discrimination, but, more importantly, will prompt the deserters to return (…).”446

The separate Jewish Legion concept was adjusted to the current situation, with the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto becoming a motto-reason for the Legion’s establishment in April 1943. Such a project, as the author further argued, would gain support from Jewish political organizations, including, among others, the Jewish War Committee in the United States and Great Britain. The project could also potentially diffuse the anti-Polish atmosphere in these countries. Despite its appealing tones, the Revisionists’ proposition was not realized. The reasons were listed by another anonymous employee of the

Documents Bureau:

“Firstly, such a solution should have been implemented at the recruitment stage in the Soviet Union. Creating a Jewish unit within the Polish Army in

Palestine […] could be seen as a half-measure solution. Separating Jewish units would create a very uncomfortable situation for those Jewish soldiers who

446 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 20, Ibidem.

289 would like to continue their military service in Polish units.”447

The hypothetical separate Jewish unit in the Polish Army was burdened with further complications. It could potentially antagonize not only Polish and

Jewish soldiers, but also Jewish soldiers willing to serve in that separate unit and those opting to serve outside it. Ultimately, the existence of a separate

Jewish unit would vindicate the original reason for its creation, namely the tensions between Poles and Jews. This could have been easily utilized by hostile propaganda. In another document produced by the Documents Bureau, one can read a critical reception of the Revisionists’ concept:

“Their [the Revisionists’] only goal is a Jewish State. Not having any political- legal backup (…) they are in a search of a government weak enough in the international arena to be in need of their support, at the same time formally capable of raising the issue of a Jewish State in Palestine. In return they offer cooperation [with this government] in select areas. (…) Cooperation on such grounds is opportunistic, as it is in the case of a partnership of negative strategic goals.”448

The partnership of negative strategic goals was additionally characterized as a

“cooperation over strategic interests”. However, due to the fact that these

447 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, box 71, folder 65, Document 289 (800/1/0/-/71). 448 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 7, Document 135 (800/1/0/-/70).

290 interests were separable, the cooperation was bound to die out when just one of the parties achieved its goal. This was not the kind of cooperation the Polish authorities could favour. The Documents Bureau thus perceived the role of

Polish-Jewish relations as follows: “(…) the Government should express its will to [support] a coexistence of the Polish Nation with the Jewish community by mutually shaping this coexistence to the interest of the two parties.”449

All this was clear to the Revisionists: they knew that their repeated proposition to create a Jewish Legion was by now too late, and its implementation fraught with complications. Moreover, voices calling for the creation of a separate

Jewish fighting force, free from any links to a superior power, resonated in the

Yishuv more and more loudly with the passage of time. The Zionist-Revisionists understood this as a final rejection of cooperation with their movement. This rejection led them to draw wider conclusions regarding the ultimate end of the diaspora (and Jewish assimilationist attitudes) and the categorical need to create a Jewish state. The Jewish dilemma of double loyalty was about to be resolved with the Jewish state-to-be evidently to be preferred over the diaspora. The Revisionists’ updated standpoint was formulated in a lengthy document on the current guidelines of Jewish policy prepared by the

Revisionist milieu in the Documents Bureau. The anonymous author of the

449 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 7, Ibidem.

291 document wrote:

“A century-long attempt to assimilate proved successful only for a minuscule percentage of Jews and also that the European nations do not want mass- assimilation.”450 Therefore, the only aim uniting the Jewish people should be a

Jewish state: “Humanity knows only one form of a stable existence of a nation.

It is that nation’s stable dwelling in its territory. Therefore only Zionism can secure a stable Jewish existence by providing the Jews with a state sovereignty.”451

The rejection of the idea of creating a separate Jewish Legion in the Polish

Army was not only disappointing and harmful to its authors’ ambitions, it was received by the Revisionists as an evident sign of the rejection of Jewish assimilation as such, and thus as positive proof of the Zionist ideology. The

Jewish soldiers’ desertions in Palestine were further evidence that Jews did not want to assimilate. Consequently, the Revisionists opted for an ultimate parting from Polish society. They launched a new policy designed to drain the

Polish Army’s ranks of supporters of Revisionism in order to strengthen the movement in the Yishuv. However, they insisted on doing so in a civilized, friendly manner. This attitude can be observed in cases of formal releases from

450 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 12, Document 141, (800/1/0/-/70). 451 AAN, Register of Władysław Anders, Box 70, folder 12, Ibidem.

292 the Army (see Chapter 5).

What was perhaps the most interesting was the reaction of Polish colleagues.

Whether they were taken in by the familiar rhetoric depicting Jewish positions in dramatic tones with references to honour cannot be known for certain. Yet, the Polish staff of the Documents Bureau, including the author of a memoir about the institution and its employees, strongly sympathized with the

Revisionist movement.452 Some of them, with visible family connections, impressed on the rest that sympathy and moral support for the Revisionists came from the very top of the Polish wartime government. One of the

Bureau’s employees was Teresa Lipkowska, a relative of General Kazimierz

Sosnkowski, who was appointed as commander-in-chief after General

Sikorski’s tragic death in a plane accident in Gibraltar in July 1943. In fact,

Kazimierz Sosnkowski and others who belonged to the pre-war sanacja circles could indeed demonstrate personal sympathy for the Revisionist activity. This sympathy continued after the war: Lipkowska stayed in Palestine and died in

Israel. She was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Jaffa, and the inscription on her gravestone says that she was an Etzel member.

The Zionist-Revisionist faction benefited from the Jewish mass-desertions from

452 K. Zamorski, Dwa tajne Biura…, 1990. See also: Edward Kossoy, „Żydowskie podziemie zbrojne i jego polskie powiązania”, Zeszyty Historyczne, 157, 2006, 62-100.

293 the Polish Army. Among the deserters were important figures in the pre-war

Revisionist faction in Poland. They joined the Revisionists’ structures in

Palestine, justifying their decision by the resolution of the “double loyalty”,

Polish Jews’ specific dilemma of allegiance to the Polish and Jewish cause.

The communist movement in Palestine treated Jewish soldiers’ desertions as an opportunity – which proved problematic in time – for disseminating anti-

Polish propaganda inspired and directed by the Soviet Union. At the same time, the participation of pre-war Polish-Jewish communists in the Palestinian communist movement strengthened the Żydokomuna stereotype among

Polish authorities and refugees.

The Yishuv’s radical left movement, the Palestine Communist Party, known as the PKP (from its Yiddish name, Palestinishe Komunistishe Partei), and its accompanying institutions, advocated universal socialist principles over particular national projects, such as building a Jewish state in Palestine.453

Thus, the communist movement was generally opposed to the Zionist movement, but also turned against the British authorities in Palestine with the hope of replacing their colonial-like, imperialist supervision with a Soviet protectorate. After 1924, the Party was affiliated with the Third Communist

453 For a succinct overview of the Palestinian Communist Party’s ideology with its shifts and secessionist groups see: Ran Greenstein, Zionism and its Discontents. A Century of Radical Dissent in Israel/Palestine, Pluto Press, London, 2014.

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International, popularly known as the Comintern.454 As a result, the Soviet

Union exercised influence through the Palestinian communist institutions.

Nevertheless, the Palestinian communist movement represented a specific case in terms of its own ideology, particularly in what related to the national question. The Arab-Jewish conflict in the period preceding the outbreak of the

Second World War, and the growing tensions between the two societies during the war years, led the communists in Palestine to conclude that nationalism and its operative categories were inevitable for the time being. Indeed they were. In 1943, the Palestinian Communist Party split into an Arab and a Jewish branch. The Arab-Jewish competition in achieving independent status in

Palestine had appeal for some communist leaders insofar as their approach to clandestine Jewish immigration was not entirely negative. National ties proved to be meaningful, despite the communists’ declared aim of abolishing all national differentiations.

The pro-Soviet attitude of the Palestinian Communist Party meant a hostile approach towards the Polish civil and military authorities. As the events of early 1943 showed, the Sikorski-Maisky agreement of 1941 was just a tactical step by the Soviets. Their true intentions were to retain the pre-war Polish

454 The Third Communist International was founded in Moscow in 1919 as a Soviet initiative to assist and guide the world revolutionary movement (Johan Franzen, “Communism versus Zionism: The Comintern, Yishuvism, and the Palestine Communist Party”, Journal of Palestine Studies, 36: 2, 2007, 6-24).The Comintern was dissolved in May 1943.

295 eastern territories within the Soviet Union and to subject post-war Poland to

Soviet political and economic patronage; indeed, these intentions emerged clearly at the beginning of 1943, when the Soviets started promoting a new

Polish political power to rival the exiled Polish government in London.455 The

Soviets sought to weaken the legal Polish government by questioning its credibility as a political power engaged in the war against Nazi Germany. By citing examples of Polish discriminative policy towards national minorities, especially Jews, the Soviets argued that this policy was not very different from

Nazi Germany’s policies in areas under German occupation. As an alternative to the London government, the Soviets pinned their faith on Polish communists, at present in the Soviet Union, as an uncompromised political force that was sincerely determined to implement democratic values in post- war Poland. The Palestinian communist movement was involved in this propaganda action, and for this purpose, the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army appeared as an ideal tool.456 The propaganda campaign was waged in the Palestinian communist press, and involved periodicals such as Kol HaAm (Hebrew: Peoples’ Voice), Kol HaNoar (Hebrew:

455 See: Krystyna Kersten, The establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948, University of California Press, 1991. (The book was first published clandestinely in Polish in 1984.) 456 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 393. Pietrzak, in his earlier article on Polish communists in the Middle East during the war, contended that according to Polish military intelligence in Palestine at that time, an anti-Polish propaganda campaign was proclaimed at the meeting of the Palestinian Communist Party in October 1943. (J. Pietrzak, “Działalność komunistów wśród polskiego wychodźstwa w świetle kontrwywiadu Polskich Sił Zbrojnych (1944) “, Dzieje Najnowsze, 38: 3, 2006, 121.

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Youth’s Voice) and others. Due to the supra-national character of the communist movement, articles concerning Jewish mass desertions in Palestine appeared in the communist press in Great Britain and the United States, making the denunciation of the Polish authorities even more severe. The desertions, the communist press thundered, were caused by the Polish military authorities’ discriminative and fascist-like attitude towards the Jewish minority. Here is an excerpt from an American communist journal, Morgen

Freiheit, published in New York in December 1943:

“The ‘Gentlemen’ from the ‘Polish Government in Exile’, who play soldiers in the Middle East, learned nothing and forgot nothing for the past few horrible years. In particular they did not forget their hatred for the Soviets and their sympathy to the Nazis. They did not forget about anti-Semitism that erupts each time a Jew can be harmed, no matter if it takes place in Iran […], Mexico

[…], or in Palestine during search for Jewish ‘deserters’.”457

Some elements from the above excerpt are telling. Firstly, the Polish authorities in the Middle East are framed as usurpers. Since they lack legitimacy from Polish society, they do not constitute a legal civic power.

Secondly, doubts are raised regarding the Polish military contribution to the

457 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 615, folder 25, translation of the article from “Morgen Freiheit”, followed by a cable from Professor Olgierd Górka from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Allied war effort, with the Polish Army in the East being kept away from the military fronts and not used in battle until the summer of 1943. Thirdly, the author suggests that the paradigmatic shift in Polish policy after the sanacja regime had been replaced by the pre-war opposition parties was superficial.

According to this perception, the Polish wartime authorities manifested their allegiance to democratic values (civic equality being the most important) only in order to curry favour with Western democracies, and therefore do not indicate a sincere change in Polish policy. The episodic rapprochement between the sanacja regime and the Nazis in the 1930s served as a pretext to draw a line of continuity between the pre-war and wartime Polish regimes.

This argument is finally backed up by citing publicly known eruptions of official

Polish anti-Semitism, such as the searches for Jewish deserters hiding in the kibbutzim in the Yishuv. This seems definite confirmation of the Polish authorities’ inclination towards anti-Semitism and their resemblance to Nazi

Germans.

Anti-Polish Soviet propaganda grew larger, crossing international boundaries in the communist media. The Jewish soldiers’ desertions were also used against the Polish military authorities. Invoking Soviet sources, the Uruguayan liberal journal La Razon released information about thousands of Jewish deserters from the Polish Army, as well as initiating legal action against 700 Polish

298 officers who sympathized with the communist movement.458 The Polish civil authorities launched a counteroffensive designed to neutralize their black image in the press, and also issued a series of rebuttals. This, however, had no tangible effect. The communist interpretation of events worked on existing tensions between Poles and Jews in the Polish Army and assiduously touched upon the weaknesses of the wartime Polish administration, including its dubious legitimacy, the deficiency of its military participation in the war effort, and its non-functioning democratic mechanisms.

The arguments used by the international communist movement against the

Polish authorities were also employed by an indigenous group of Polish communists. The run-up to the desertions was marked by a shift in communist policy in Palestine. Martin Ebon writes:

With the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943, individual communist parties throughout the world achieved a measure of autonomy in the development of local policies (…) Since each Middle Eastern nation represented specific internal and external problems, it was of considerable advantage to Russia's Middle Eastern policy for local communist parties to be able to adapt day-to-day tactics to local conditions.459 The local conditions in Palestine were characterized by the presence of a number of ethnic groups made up of wartime refugees (Greeks and Czechs in

458 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, box 59, folder 14. A cable from Polish Consul Rozwadowski in Montevideo from March 1944 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 459 M. Ebon, „Communist tactics in Palestine”, Middle East Journal, 2: 3, 1948, 256.

299 addition to Poles). In order to accommodate their needs, a European section was created within the Palestinian Communist Party. The Polish section, a sub- group within the European section, was responsible for the local dissemination of anti-Polish propaganda. It was headed by Kalman Gelbard, a former Polish citizen, whose pre-war communist activity and Jewish background were disapprovingly mentioned by the Polish military agencies.460 The tasks laid down for the Polish section included collecting information via military intelligence aimed at the Polish Army in the Middle East, as well as espionage and sabotage. The Polish section’s secret agents planted in the Polish Army were uncovered by Polish counter-intelligence in September-October 1943, and members of the group – named the Rosen-Zawadzki group after their ringleader, Kazimierz Rosen-Zawadzki, a pre-war Polish officer of Jewish descent – were court-martialled by the thirteenth military court of the Polish

Army in Jerusalem in February 1944. The Rosen-Zawadzki group were apparently all recruited by the Soviets and indoctrinated in one of the NKVD’s secret centres while the army was still in the Soviet Union.461 The accusations against them included espionage, sabotage, the propagandizing of soldiers and the dissemination of rumours that the Polish Army was to be relocated to

460 See J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 393. 461 See: Stanisław Jaczyński, “Willa szczęścia w Małachówce. Próby pozyskania przez NKWD oficerów polskich do współpracy politycznej i wojskowej 1940-41”, Przegląd Historyczno-Wojskowy, 12 (63): 3, (236), 2011, 57- 82.

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Burma, away from the military front in Europe. The trial reverberated in the communist press, which published lengthy articles on the repressions experienced by soldiers in the Polish Army “who were only eager to fight the

Germans.”462 The communist press insinuated that the Polish Army remained inactive in Palestine while allied soldiers elsewhere were fighting Nazi

Germany.

In time, the Polish section of the Palestinian Communist Party went on to establish a Union of Polish Patriots in Palestine, with no links to the Soviet- based Union of Polish Patriots. This new organization, which aimed its activities at civilian refugees, became an object of concern for the Polish authorities, as shown by the alarmed reports sent from the Polish consulates in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in early spring 1944.463 The Polish diplomats did not take lightly the involvement of Jewish activists from the pre- war Polish communist movement in the Union of Polish Patriots in Palestine. In

March 1944 the Ministry of Information and Documentation told the Polish consulate in Jerusalem that the Union of Polish Patriots was headed by Stefan

Kirtiklis, a pre-war voivode associated with the sanacja, “the only Pole among activists of Jewish origin”. 464 Others, like Marek Thee and Aleksander Zatorski,

462 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 392. 463 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs collection, box 59, folder 14, Ibidem. 464 See: J. Pietrzak, „Działalność komunistyczna wśród polskiego wychodźstwa na Bliskim Wschodzie w świetle materiałów kontrwywiadu Polskich Sil Zbrojnych (1944) “, Dzieje Najnowsze, 38: 3, 2006, 119-136. In this article Pietrzak, following a brief short introduction, published three documents on the Union of Polish Patriots

301 were seasoned pre-war activists from the Polish and Polish-Jewish communist movements.465 The Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots was eventually recognized by the Soviet-based Union of Polish Patriots in 1944. According to the Polish diplomats’ reports, in the summer of that year the Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots launched a propaganda campaign directed at deserters from the Polish Army. Jacek Pietrzak rightly observed that although the Polish

“Army, headed by General Anders, […] was the favoured target of the communists’ attacks, at the same time it was believed that accepting the desertions at the time of the ‘war against fascism’ would place the organization [Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots] in an awkward position.”466

Offering open support to the deserters would collide with the communist press’s recent line of condemning the Polish military authorities for punishing the Rozen-Zawadzki group for their eagerness to fight.

Therefore, the Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots tended to assign the deserters to a separate organization instead of admitting them into the Union of Polish Patriots. A meeting held at the Union’s headquarters in Tel Aviv in

1944 attracted about 200 former soldiers of the Polish Army, from whom a 12- member committee was selected. The committee drew up a resolution that

prepared by the Polish military secret service. Kirtiklis was appointed as a voivode in the Vilna Voivodship (1930-31), the Pomerania voivodship (1931-36) and the Bialystok voivodship (1936-37). 465 On Marek Thee, see: Bożena Szaynok, Poland-Israel 1944-1968. In the shadow of the past and of the Soviet Union, Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw, 2012, 57. 466 J. Pietrzak, Polscy uchodźcy na Bliskim Wschodzie…, 402.

302 was then sent to the Union of Polish Patriots in the Soviet Union. Its statements of intent included the reaching of agreement between the exiled

Polish government and PKWN (the Polish Committee of National Liberation), officially proclaimed in July 1944 in opposition to the Polish government in exile, and the unification of the Polish Army – essentially, veiled support for the communist takeover of Poland. Hostile opinions of General Anders, whose dismissal was demanded, backed the authors’ claim that the current Polish authorities were incapable of creating a genuine democratic environment in which Jews and Poles would realize their patriotic duties. In September 1944, a year after the mass desertions took place, another meeting was organized by the Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots and the deserters. This time, expectations for a more democratic Polish government (meaning a communist one) were laid down as a condition for the deserters’ return to Poland.467 The

Union of Polish Patriots existed in Palestine until 1946. With the emergence of the communist regime in Poland, all the people mentioned above returned to their country of origin. Kazimierz Rosen-Zawadzki and Stefan Kirtiklis continued their communist activities.468

The communist movement in Palestine struggled to incorporate the Jewish mass-desertions into its propaganda efforts. The anti-Semitism of the Polish

467 AAN, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Box 50, folder 5, Doument “Declaration”. 468 See more: J. Pietrzak, “Działalność komunistyczna wśród polskiego wychodźstwa….”, 122 and 125.

303 authorities, seen by communists as the main reason for the desertions, was easy to use as an argument to paint the Polish government as oppressive, reactionary and ready to play on ethnic divisions. Nevertheless, the ethnic category retained its validity: the Polish section within the Palestine

Communist Party and the Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots was dominated by pre-war Polish-Jewish communists, whose activity only strengthened the

Polish popular societal belief of “Żydokomuna”.

3. The Representation of Polish Jewry

The Representation of Polish Jewry was perhaps the only Jewish force in

Palestine that entirely condemned the prevailing attitude towards the Jewish desertions, which is not to say that the Representation avoided a critical evaluation of Polish-Jewish relations. In fact, the acts of desertion openly challenged the core of the policy pursued by the Representation for Polish-

Jewish coexistence within Polish society, founded on civic equality. In reaction, members of the Representation exerted themselves to neutralize the negative effects of the desertions and enable the deserters to return to Polish society.

As well as the desertion issue, the Representation continued with its declared purposes, calling for action to rescue Jews in occupied Poland, support for

Jewish refugees in the Soviet Union, and the equal treatment of Jewish members of the Polish wartime community in the west. All these activities

304 were, however, undertaken with a growing sense of frustration. The

Representation’s calls for the return of deserters to the Polish Army’s ranks were, unfortunately of no avail. Its members were well aware that those who deserted in Palestine had already succumbed to the pressing persuasion of those who argued most determinedly for allowing the new immigrants to strengthen the Yishuv’s Jewish minority. The deserters in Scotland remained indifferent to the Representation’s appeals as well. The Representation’s emissary in London, Itzhak (Ignacy) Schwarzbart, continually sent detailed reports to the Palestinian headquarters informing them of the meetings he attended, the letters he sent, and the costs of his activities, but after 1944 a despondent tone predominated. Dariusz Stola, author of Schwarzbart’s wartime political biography, noticed his sadness and growing resignation.469 He saw the main reasons for it arising from despair over the revelations coming out of occupied Poland. Indeed, it seems that the desertions affair unfolded exactly at the time that the Representation was coming to terms with the extent of the annihilation of Polish Jewry under German occupation, and therefore the Representation’s reaction to the desertions should be considered in the context of the Holocaust.

The Representation’s archival collection contains correspondence forwarded

469 D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, Warszawa, 1995.

305 to the Polish exiled government from occupied Poland that revealed the enormity of Polish Jewry’s desperate position. Jewish leaders in Poland under occupation wrote to their colleagues in the west – though Schwarzbart received this letter as late as February 1944: “We are sending you warning on the eve of the final massacre of all that remains of Polish Jewry. The Germans brutally murdered the last Jews in Lvov. At this moment they are murdering the biggest centre of Jewish population, the Lodz ghetto. The same fate awaits the rest.”470

Calls from Jewish leaders in Poland for money to mount rescue operations to save the remnants of Polish Jewry, mobilized the Representation to appeal for funds in Great Britain and the United States. However, by early 1944, the weight of the reports and messages, and the conclusions arising from them, slowly but inexorably forced Jews in the west to contemplate the actual end of

Polish Jewry. Although the German policy of extermination had ceased to be a secret since early 1942, the internalization of the Holocaust was not immediate.471 Anita Shapira wrote: “the Yishuv was both aware and unaware, both sympathetic and indifferent. The Holocaust was not internalized and

470 CZA, J25, a cable from Jewish leaders in the occupied country, passed by the Polish Government in exile to Representation of Polish Jewry, received in Tel Aviv 20 June 1944. 471 The reaction of the Yishuv to information on the extermination of Jews in Europe has been studied by researchers, such as Anita Shapira („The Yishuv and the Survivors…), and Yehuda Bauer (From diplomacy to Resistance…). The dealings of the Jewish Palestinian press with the Holocaust was analysed by Yosef Gorny, The Jewish Press and the Holocaust 1939-1945. Palestine, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012.

306 integrated into the national ethos (…) until the Eichman’s Trial [in 1961].”472

Similarly, the Allies were unwilling to credit as true the first reports coming from the occupation zones, receiving them with reserve. Yet after 1943 the information from Poland became more frequent, revealing the extent of the extermination.473 The report cited above listed the largest centres of Jewish population (Lviv, Lódź) that had been annihilated. Almost a year earlier, in spring 1943, the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, crushed by the Germans, sealed the fate of Warsaw’s Jews. The Representation of Polish Jewry became aware that the community they represented was disappearing. There followed the need arose to manage the possessions of the murdered Jews. Schwarzbart raised the issue of Jewish property appropriated and destroyed by the

Germans, and the assets left without heirs, at a session of the Polish National

Council in June 1944. Schwarzbart expressed his appreciation of the cultural and scholarly achievements of Polish Jewry in the inter-war period and claimed that the destruction had been as vast: “Today these great cultural achievements of Polish Jewry are entirely destroyed by the Germans. (…) Many cultural and religious objects have disappeared but many are left that call for an urgent rescue plan.”474 Schwarzbart accordingly called upon the Minister of

472 A. Shapira, „The Yishuv and the Survivors…”, 277. 473 See more: D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…, 152-188 (chapter four). 474 CZA, J25, Schwarzbart’s speech from 17 March 1944.

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Religious Confessions and Public Enlightenment, Reverend Zygmunt Kaczyński, to include Jewish assets in the registers for reparations then being drawn up by the Polish authorities. The issue of Jewish assets left in Poland became much larger, however. In May 1944 Schwarzbart appealed to his colleagues in the

Representation to form a suitable commission to deal with plans to amend the

Polish law of succession. The issue was that for the majority of Polish Jews there would be no legal heir as their families had been murdered and thus excluded from legal succession procedures. These procedures stated clearly that assets were inherited by the family, depending on who was left after the death of the testator, and included extended families with legal relatives unto the twelfth degree.475 Where there were no successors, the assets passed into the control of the state. This law originated in the nineteenth-century

Napoleonic Code and could not possibly have foreseen the situation that emerged in Poland after the Holocaust. The mass extermination of whole

Jewish families, leaving in many cases no living relative, resulted in the emergence of vast Jewish heirless assets. A commission to adjust Polish law to the challenges of the post-war situation was established, and although it did not emerge from the Representation of Polish Jewry, the Representation’s members participated in it.

475 Justyna Bieda, Dorota Wiśniewska-Jóźwiak, „Zasady dziedziczenia ustawowego na ziemiach Królestwa Polskiego po 1826 roku”, Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne, LXVI: 1, 2014, 105-120.

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Soon, however, this fact became insignificant. It became clear that resolution of the complexities of legal succession would not lie with the Polish government in London. Schwarzbart called upon his colleagues to form the commission in May, but in July 1944 the newly constituted Polish Committee of National Liberation (Polish: Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego, abbreviated to PKWN), a provisional executive authority installed in recently liberated Chełm in eastern Poland, announced its manifesto.476 The signatories of the manifesto (Wanda Wasilewska, head of the Union of Polish Patriots established in the Soviet Union, among them) proclaimed the legal authority of the State National Council (Polish: Krajowa Rada Narodowa, abbreviated to

KRN), a body subjugated to and controlled by the Soviets. The manifesto openly challenged the Polish government in London, questioning its authority and legality. The manifesto also included a paragraph on “property plundered by the Germans”, which would be returned to its rightful owners, thus correctly identifying the key issue for sorting out the proprietary structure in

Poland.477 At the same time, Polish communists signalled that the issue of

Jewish assets would be resolved in Poland, not in London. The conclusions

476 See more for example: Krystyna Kersten, The Establishment of Communist Rule... 477 See more: Monika Krawczyk, “The effect of the Legal Status of Jewish Property in Post-War Poland on Polish-Jewish Relations”, [in:] Jewish Presence in Absence. The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944- 2010, eds. Feliks Tych, Monika Adamczyk-Grabowska, Yad Vashem, 2014, 791-822; Klucze i kasa. O mieniu żydowskim w Polsce pod okupacją niemiecką i we wczesnych latach powojennych, 1939-1950, eds. Jan Grabowski, Dariusz Libionka, Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, Warsaw, 2014.

309 from these events were clear: Polish Jewry, the community represented by

Schwarzbart and his colleagues, no longer existed, at least with regard to its pre-war size and political significance. The Polish government in London, the main partner of the Representation, was threatened by competition from a rival centre of authority established in the liberated part of Poland, with the help of the Soviets. The situation on the war fronts demonstrated the strength of the Red Army, and proportional to that, the power of the Red Army’s ideology. It was reasonable to expect that the upstart communist authorities in

Poland would benefit from the military-political circumstances.

In this context, the attitude of Jewish wartime refugees in the west, including deserters, was key. The outflow of Polish Jews from the Polish diaspora meant that there were few Jews who would in any way consider returning to Poland after the war. The Representation of Polish Jewry issued an official appeal to the deserters, signed by Schwarzbart, Anshel Reiss and Arieh Tartakower, calling for Jewish soldiers to return to the Polish Army. Despite the

Representation’s appeals, Jewish deserters in Scotland largely refused to do so.478 As Stola observed, the desertion affair, which was more discussed in

Polish circles in London than was the extermination of Polish Jews in occupied

Poland, signalled the ultimate bankruptcy of the Representation’s policy. In the

478 Itzhak Schwarzbart mentioned three deserters who returned to the Polish Army in May 1944. CZA, J25, Schwarzbart’s cable to the Representation in Tel Aviv from 23 June 1944.

310 overwhelming terminal atmosphere, Ignacy Itzhak Schwarzbart addressed his colleagues with an overview of his political activities in the Polish wartime administration. In late May 1944 he wrote to Stupp:

“At nights I am drafting my resumé of my last four years of action. (…)

Certainly, the failures are big. In social terms the results are, in my opinion, rather impressive, though God knows how hard I struggled. In political terms the results are fragmentary in principle, which, given the fate of our brethren in Poland, means the failure is huge. (…) [In terms of] our Zionist policy (…) I found supporters, the PPS and the “populars” [Polish Peasant Party]. (…) When

I took office, many millions of Polish Jews were still alive. My activity reflected this fact. Today it must reflect another fact: the remaining shreds of our community and the need to rescue them.”479

Events proceeded along the anticipated path, and a communist regime was installed in Poland. In late 1944 a Central Committee of Polish Jews established in the liberated territories of Poland claimed the role of representing Polish

Jewry. The Representation of Polish Jewry was disbanded (?) in July 1945, after a period of twin rule with its analogue institution in Poland. Finally,

Schwarzbart’s membership of the Polish National Council was rendered void

479 CZA, J25, Schwarzbart’s cable to the Representation from 24 May 1944.

311 on its dissolution in March 1945.480

Conclusion

The group of 3,000 Jewish deserters who left the Polish Army and joined the

Palestinian Yishuv in summer 1943 followed in the footsteps of Jewish soldiers who had done so earlier. These Polish Jews joined the Palestinian Yishuv in the midst of dramatic political upheavals. One issue was particularly urgent: whether the future for Jewish people lay in actively supporting the creation of a Jewish national home or in continuing to live in the diaspora. Jewish deserters, as wartime refugees and as Polish citizens, faced the dilemma of returning to Polish society or staying in Palestine. Local Jewish political organizations in Palestine offered various solutions to this dilemma. The mainstream Zionist movement, as well as the right-wing Revisionist faction, promoted the Yishuv as the final destination for Polish Jews and made efforts to engage them in their strategic projects. Liberal Zionists, represented by members of the Representation of Polish Jewry, continued to call for the return of Polish Jews to the Polish refugee community. The Palestinian communist movement abstained from taking an explicit position on the refugees’ dilemma and instead incorporated the desertions into current political issues, as defined by the Soviet Union. Despite the differences in aims,

480 For Schwarzbart’s activity post-war see the epilogue of D. Stola, Nadzieja i Zagłada…,

312 all the Jewish political groups stressed the anti-Semitism experienced by Polish

Jews at the hands of the Polish majority in order to strengthen their political arguments, seeing the discriminatory practices of the Polish authorities as the main reason for the desertions. It seemed easy then to exploit these practices politically, according to whichever programme the particular Jewish organization advocated. However, it turned out to be more complicated than imagined, and none of them, except the Zionist-Revisionists, benefited from the mass desertions of Jews from the Polish Army. The mainstream Zionists believed that Polish Jews, grateful for the support and assistance many of them had received from Yishuv institutions and society on their arrival in

Palestine, would unconditionally embrace the Zionist programme. Polish Jews, however, turned out to be reluctant to enlist in the Jewish units of the British

Army, the same army that the Jewish Agency had committed itself to finding recruits for. They also remained resistant to the Zionist rhetoric and defended their right to retain their Polish citizenship, which they perceived as offering the possibility of returning to Poland after the war. All these factors determined the limited popularity of the Zionist term “Aliyah Vav”, meaning a supposedly ideologically driven immigration to Eretz Israel from the Polish

Army. In contrast to the mainstream Zionist movement, its Revisionist faction could speak of full success. Not only did the movement gain a new leader,

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Menachem Begin, who by act of principle obtained a permit of leave from the

Polish Army, but also successfully amplified its rhetoric by announcing that the recent dilemma of “double loyalty” troubling Polish Jews had been resolved in favour of the Zionist cause, in its Revisionist guise. The same cannot be said of the Palestinian communist movement, which struggled to adapt its rhetoric to cover the ambivalence of the deserters’ case. Firstly, Polish Jews arriving in

Palestine were assigned to a specially created Polish section within the

Palestinian communist movement, upholding the enduring validity of ethnic categories. The Palestinian communist movement, predominantly busy with animosities between Jewish and Arab activists, delegated its authority to deal with Jewish deserters to a section determined by ethnicity. Secondly, if the anti-Semitism of the Polish wartime authorities was easy to use as an argument against the Polish government in exile, it was more difficult to defend the deserters and their decision to escape the oppressive army in the context of overall praise for the military effort against fascism. Thirdly, the involvement of Polish Jews, pre-war communist activists, in the Polish section and the Palestinian Union of Polish Patriots strengthened the Polish majority’s societal belief in “Żydokomuna”, making it difficult to propagate communist ideology among Polish refugees in the Middle East, and later in post-war

Poland.

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Perhaps the most spectacular failure was that of the Representation of Polish

Jewry, upholders of the continuity of Polish Jewry as part of Polish society.

Apart from a few isolated cases, the deserters did not return to the Polish

Army, despite the appeals of the Representation. Every other activity of the

Representation was similarly tinged with failure: their attempts to deal with the looming issue of Jewish heirless assets in occupied Poland and their calls to the Polish government to abandon their discriminatory policy against ethnic minorities were to no avail. Polish Jewry, as represented by the Representation of Polish Jewry, ceased to exist as a result of Nazi Germany’s extermination policy. The position of the Polish government in exile, the main partner of the

Representation, evaporated after the triumphant installation of the communist rule in Poland. The liquidation of the Representation of Polish Jewry was the last act of its six-year existence.

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Conclusion

This dissertation examines wartime Polish-Jewish relations in exile by focusing on Jewish soldiers’ mass desertions from the Polish Army and by illuminating the context of wartime refugeedom. This framework was dictated by the existing literature on wartime Polish-Jewish relations, which is overwhelmingly focused on Polish-Jewish relations under Nazi occupation. This includes both relations between Polish Jewry in occupied Poland and the exiled Polish authorities, and relations between Polish Jews and the Polish underground authorities and society. Often, official Polish attitudes towards the plight of

Polish Jewry are scrutinized, with particular emphasis on the effectiveness of the preventive actions taken by Polish officials in the face of the Holocaust.

Given that the Polish state authorities bore political responsibility for all Polish citizens, Jews and non-Jews, the debate becomes coloured with categories of moral and political accountability. By addressing the subject of Polish-Jewish relations during the wartime exile, the aim of this thesis is to fill the gap in the existing literature and to critically revisit the questions raised by historians concerning Polish-Jewish relations in wartime exile, and the answers put forward until today.

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The above limitations determined the methodological framework adopted for this dissertation. Firstly, analysing Polish-Jewish relations in exile introduces an image of Polish-Jewish relations less influenced by the policy implemented by the Nazi occupier towards Polish society. This leaves open the question of whether Nazi policy was implemented against the will of the exiled Polish government or to its silent satisfaction. Political exile granted the Polish government a larger degree of freedom in executing a genuinely Polish policy towards Polish Jews, albeit applied only to those members of Polish society who went into exile. As a result, the Polish government’s political will concerning Jews gains greater transparency. This enables us to address the issue of the key features of official Polish policy towards the Jewish minority as well as that of the moral responsibility of the exiled Polish authorities for

Jewish citizens in wartime refugeedom. Secondly, in the world outside occupied Poland, the Jewish element in Polish-Jewish relations presented itself in a more outspoken way. This relates to the Palestinian Yishuv’s political forces on the one hand and to Polish Jews, both as ordinary members of exiled

Polish society and as officials in the various sections of exiled Polish institutions, on the other. From this perspective, the scope of wartime Polish-

Jewish relations outside occupied Poland actually looks quite vast. It can, and ought to, be analytically divided into domestic relations, implying the dynamics

317 between majority and minority groups in relations between Jews and non-Jews within Polish society, and foreign relations, meaning the position of exiled

Polish authorities vis-à-vis the Yishuv. The engagement of so many actors involved in shaping Polish-Jewish relations offers us a chance to see them in their entire complexity, to analyse the full spectrum of Polish and Jewish interactions. Lastly, the mass desertions by Jewish soldiers from Polish military units operating in exile have been chosen to serve as a lens that concentrates key aspects of wartime Polish-Jewish relations, allowing them to be scrutinized more closely. Starting as a matter of concern to the exiled Polish army as a key institution of wartime Poland, the desertions effectively developed into a case of migration from one society to another. The mass move from Polish society to that of the Yishuv violated the restricting regulations of the British mandatory authorities of Palestine introduced in the 1939 White Paper, and as such became the focal point of political tensions involving three sovereign, or semi-sovereign, actors on the worldwide diplomatic and military stage: the

British government, the Polish government (also based in London), and the

Jewish authorities of the Yishuv, who were troubled by political rivalries of their own. Consequently, the history of Jewish deserters belongs to various historiographies: the wartime history of Poland and the Poles, the history of pre-state Yishuv, and the history of wartime refugeedom and migration.

318

Specifically, the latter provides a perspective from which to consider the concept of belonging, in that it looks at Jewish soldiers deciding which community they belong to.

The vexing question of Jewish soldiers’ military service in the Polish Army during the Second World War is discussed in a body of scholarship, though, as this dissertation attempts to demonstrate, its treatment by Polish – and to a lesser extent Israeli – historians is anything but satisfactory. By selectively picking biased sources and interpreting them with a political slant, both the

Polish and Israeli historiographies either engage with selected aspects only of the complex history of Jewish soldiers’ desertions, or by and large ignore the topic altogether. As a result, the central question of the causes of the desertions is usually transformed into the question of to whom to assign the responsibility for them happening in the first place. The polemical tone adopted in the ensuing debate usually reproduces the political narratives developed immediately after the desertions on both sides of the divide, without giving consideration to the political role these narratives played during the war. The terminology employed to describe the desertions is often emotionally and ideologically charged, abounding with terms such as

“disloyalty”, “double loyalty”, “betrayal” etc. The ultimate effect of such a flawed approach is that the existing scholarship, instead of problematizing

319

Jewish and Polish memories of the mass desertions, perpetuates the mnemonic conflict that functions within the larger framework of the conflicting historical narratives concerning the Second World War as experienced by both communities.

This dissertation aims to overcome the limited perspectives of national historiographies and to depart from the traditional formulae encapsulating the issue of the mass desertions. The first step is to re-examine the validity of the main question in its original formulation: why they deserted, not who is to blame for the desertions. The responsibility for the desertions, insofar as such exists, is understood in a political perspective: what political actions were undertaken, and by whom, that eventually led to the act of mass violation of

Polish military law by Polish Jews? This questions applies to both communities: the Polish community of wartime refugees and its institutions operating in exile that the Jewish deserters left behind, and the Yishuv society and its political organizations that received the majority of Jewish deserters.

Methodology: top-down perspective. Expanding, reversing, deconstructing

(verifying).

Framing the subject anew requires a new and thoroughly considered methodology, to which some attention is now due. A basic methodological decision that would meet the aim of this study most efficiently was to look at

320 the desertions and the broader framework of wartime Polish-Jewish relations from a top-down perspective. This choice was dictated by the assumption, suggested above, of a causal relationship between political actions initiated by wartime officials and the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers. This meant that that the main protagonists of this study were the ruling or dominant political forces active on the Polish and Jewish political scenes, as well as their opponents. My attention was therefore directed to the policies pursued by

Polish and Jewish wartime leaders as well as to the narratives used to formulate these policies and communicate them to the Polish and Jewish societies and to the international public in the Allied states.

Two key methodological steps in this thesis are (i) expansion of the context, shifting the centre of gravity towards the desertions’ aftermath, and (ii) deconstruction of the political narratives used by contemporary Polish and

Jewish politicians. Firstly, the desertions were located in a broad context of wartime political realities. Not only were Polish and Jewish policies scrutinized, but also British and the Soviet ones, to the extent that they were connected to, and had bearing on, the desertions. Another methodological intervention was aimed at moving attention away from what had preceded the desertions to their aftermath, specifically to the reactions of Polish and Jewish officials.

There were several reasons for this decision. One was that the desertions’

321 aftermath, as a scholarly subject, remains largely untapped. Polish historiography “forgets” the Jewish deserters immediately after their act of desertion. Israeli historiography speaks about individual cases of Jewish deserters without mentioning the context of their arrival in Palestine. Looking at the immediate outcome of the desertions illuminates the continuity of the deserters’ fates, and is therefore a first step in fusing the Polish and Jewish perspectives on the issue, which remain disjointed in the existing literature.

Another reason is that the desertions’ aftermath allows us to verify their actual causes and the contemporary ideologized explanations for what has just transpired. Finally, a focus on the desertions’ aftermath allows us to introduce and debate questions that are actually closely connected to the phenomenon of desertions but on which the existing literature remains silent – questions such as absorption, a sense of belonging, and the desire to return. The final methodological intervention led to the deconstruction of the political narratives on the Jewish soldiers’ desertions and, more broadly, on the military service of Jews in the Polish Army. These narratives, made up of many cognitive layers – some of them deeply grounded in history, like societal beliefs, some of them originating in contemporary concerns, like immediate political expediency (to mention just two) – call for a precise separation of the elements they consist of. This need is particularly acute given that the

322 narratives were formulated across national fault lines of division, with the

Jewish and Polish narratives posited polemically against each other.

Furthermore, as mentioned above, these narratives supplied what later became the Polish and Jewish memory of the events, which fed on them quite uncritically. The deconstruction performed here illuminates the components of each narrative and the connection of their political function to their cognitive function. The theory of multidirectional memory does not juxtapose one memory or narrative to its counterpart in order to determine which is true and which is false. Its aim, rather, is to evaluate the mutual relations in which they were constructed. This holistic and complementary objective inspired all the methodological steps I undertook in my research.

Summary

The outbreak of the Second World War led to the mass relocation of people within and outside Poland. One group of Polish citizens arrived in Palestine, where they formed one of the centres of the wartime Polish diaspora by founding or joining institutions answerable to the exiled Polish government. An analysis of this centre’s political profile and background in the period preceding the arrival of the Polish Army in the East revealed the realities of

Polish policy towards its own Jewish minority and to Jewish society in

Palestine. What continued to be seen by the wartime Polish authorities as a

323

“Jewish issue” was divided between various exiled institutions (the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs and its diplomatic outposts, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the

Ministry of Defence and others). This institutional plurality involved in the

“Jewish issue” accurately reflected the importance of ethnic issues for Polish policy. The same plurality obscured the main political line regarding Polish

Jews and Palestinian Jewry. While the immediate pre-war Polish regime, the post-Piłsudskian sanacja, did not take the trouble to conceal its political aim of reducing the number of Jews in Poland by encouraging their immigration to

Palestine (the emigrationist programme), the wartime Polish authorities officially abandoned this line. However, the day-to-day practice of the Polish administration in Palestine shows the enduring appeal of the emigrationist idea among the officials who found themselves in Palestine as wartime refugees, some of whom had held high-ranking posts before the war. This context helps to explain some of the political decisions taken by the wartime

Polish administration, which were discussed in the first chapter, such as cutting the wartime allowances to refugees with links to the Yishuv or reaching agreement with the Jewish Agency to allow those Polish Jews who had opted for it, and had obtained the necessary permit, to carry out their military service in the Palestinian units. In the longer term, this policy was clearly designed to dissuade Jewish refugees from returning to Poland after the war – an obvious

324 instance of continuity with pre-war Polish policy. At the same time, the main

Jewish organization with which the wartime Polish authorities allied themselves was the mainstream Labour Zionist movement, and the Jewish

Agency in particular, whose policy of calculated moderation aligned well with

Polish policy. However, this conformity of Polish and Jewish policies clashed with the aims of Great Britain, until June 1941 the main western protagonist in the war and home to the exiled Polish government, as well as acting as the ruling force in Palestine on behalf of the League of Nations.481 Consequently, the Polish authorities had to use discretion in their policies of allowing illegal

Jewish immigration to Palestine in defiance of British restrictions (the White

Paper) and encouraging Polish Jews to stay in Palestine, seeking to obscure their deeper aims from the public.

What was possible in Palestine through the intense engagement of the two

Polish consulates in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was less achievable in the Soviet

Union where the formation of the Polish military forces was initiated as a result of the Sikorski-Mayski agreement of July 1941. With members of the national minorities in pre-war Poland – Jews, Ukrainians, Belorussians – arriving en masse at the recruiting centres, the Polish military command introduced the numerus clausus principle of limiting the number of non-Polish

481 Michael J. Cohen, From Mandate to Independence, Frank Cass, London, 1988.

325 ethnic volunteers who could be admitted to the Polish Army. This principle, officially applied throughout the inter-war years in Poland, and not only in the

Polish Army, went against the principle of the democratic equality of all citizens and the allegiance to democracy pledged by the Polish government in exile.482 The representation of Polish society within wartime refugeedom was clearly demarcated on ethnic lines, with the Polish majority powerful enough to impose restrictions on ethnic minority participation in the key institutions of the Polish political and social system. This discriminative policy caused tensions between Poles and Jews in the Soviet Union. These were further exacerbated when cases of Jewish soldiers’ group desertions were narrated differently by the Polish and the Jewish sides, with such rhetorical devices as “Jewish disloyalty”, the Jewish reluctance to military service, the Jewish tendency to communism (“Judeocommunism”), or intrinsic “Polish anti-Semitism” proliferating. The deconstruction of these rhetorical devices in Chapters 2 and

3 exposed the deeply prejudicial nature of the Polish and Jewish official narratives, their long record of usage, and the political objectives they served.

These narratives were shown to incorporate societal beliefs, which made them more credible to both communities, as they were rooted in the tradition of

482 See more: Szymon Rudnicki, „From ‘numerus clausus’ to ‘numerus nullus’, Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, 1993, 359-382; Natalia Aleksiun, “Together but apart: University Experience for Jewish students in the Second Polish Republic”, Acta Poloniae Historica, 104, 2014, 109-137.

326 mutual Polish-Jewish perception.483 On the Polish side, the narrative publicly used by civil and military officials fulfilled the supreme political function of excluding Jews from the national community in order to facilitate their departure from Polish society. On the Jewish side (irrespective of political denomination), the supposedly omnipresent anti-Semitism of the Poles was instrumentalized in order to support a number of occasionally overlapping principles: embracing the Zionist idea of leaving the diaspora and joining the

Yishuv; working to neutralize anti-Semitism in the future post-war regime in

Poland (work undertaken by Jewish members of the exiled Polish administration); opting for communist ideology with its ready recipe for the solution of the ethnic minority issue. This prejudicial rhetoric was accompanied by a series of matching political steps: the Poles applied the numerus clausus principle and introduced additional medical checks for recruits belonging to ethnic minorities, while the Yishuv dispensed immigration certificates among

Polish Jews after the evacuation of the Polish Army from the Soviet Union, and waged an anti-Polish press campaign.

The tensions arising in the Soviet Union were recognized by both sides as the main reason for the mass desertion of Jewish soldiers in late summer 1943, after the bulk of the Polish Army in the East had reached Palestine following its

483 Daniel Bar Tal, Shared Beliefs in A Society: Social Psychological Analysis, Sage, London, 2000.

327 evacuation from the Soviet Union. However, as the evidence amassed in the

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 showed, the phenomenon of mass desertions had longer and more complex roots. The immediate reactions of Polish officials to the desertions of Jewish soldiers and the desertions’ aftermath in Palestine, as scrutinized in these chapters, revealed some key features of the wartime Polish regime concerning its stand on the issue of ethnic minorities, as well as discrepancies between the declared and realized political goals of both Polish and Jewish authorities.

The reactions of the wartime Polish administration to the mass desertions in

Palestine and the group desertions in Scotland (both by Jewish soldiers) demonstrated that the policy concerning minorities that lay at the heart of the

Polish regime was driven by ethnic logic. This is better understood once the wartime Polish regime is recognized for what it was: an ethnic democracy.484

The Polish ethnic-democratic regime, combining democratic aspirations with ethnic supremacy, was additionally challenged by the political concepts that took shape during the pre-war regime and retained their appeal in wartime.

The idea of punishing the deserters by depriving them of Polish citizenship, which emerged in the military environment, was inspired by the pre-war

484 Sammy Smooha, “The model of ethnic democracy: Response to Danel”, Journal of Israeli History, 28: 1, 2009, 55-62.

328 emigrationist program promulgated by the autocratic Polish regime to solve the “Jewish issue”. The procedure of depriving the deserters of their Polish citizenship was halted in the early stages of realization due to the public criticism that followed the group desertions in Scotland and which shaped the legal steps undertaken in relation to the Scotland-based soldiers. The words of

General Kukiel, the Polish Minister of Defence – “[they were] punished so lightly because they were Jewish” – is evidence not only of the frustration of the Polish officials who felt pressured by international public opinion, but also of the essential discrepancy between the declared social equality and the actual inequality of the various ethnicities within the Polish body politic. Polish

Jews could be denied access to the Polish majority’s community of shared values, and their position as an ethnic minority carefully maintained, by political measures like numerus clausus or discreet agreements with the

Zionists over the transfer of Polish Jews to the Yishuv. But depriving them of

Polish citizenship went beyond the ethnic-democratic logic as it meant a categorical exclusion from the community of Polish citizens. And here the pressure of foreign opinion mattered greatly to the wartime Polish authorities, not only because they saw it as a condition for the Allies’ support in the war effort. Foreign opinion was what certified the Polish regime as democratic and thus enabled the perpetuation of the ethnic-democratic regime. This political

329 pressure eventually compelled the Polish authorities to grant amnesty to all the deserters and their oppressors in the army before the completion of the legal proceedings. Most importantly, it demonstrated the irrepressible nature of ethnic thinking in Polish politics. The dominance of the Polish ethnic majority was to persist after the war, while the ethnic minorities, although officially tolerated, were to face various undetermined social limitations.

If the comprehensive analysis of official Polish reactions revealed the fundamentals of the Polish regime that set the framework for Polish-Jewish domestic relations, the reactions in the Yishuv political scene uncovered the horizon of these relations. The Zionist leadership regarded the influx of Polish

Jews as another wave of Jewish illegal immigration to Palestine. As a result, the main Zionist institutions considered the problems they faced, such as the question of the incomers’ absorption into Yishuv society, as typical of immigration. The difficulties of the deserters’ absorption and their reluctance to follow the guidelines of Zionist policy in Palestine reduced the Zionists’ enthusiasm for them. Nevertheless, the Zionist leadership continued to advocate an end to the diaspora, a bitter end, considering the plight of

European Jewry under the Nazis. Eretz Israel was supposed to be the asylum for all Jews fleeing anti-Semitic discrimination. The Zionist-Revisionists went even further by announcing clearly that Jewish assimilation in their European

330 home countries had failed and was undesirable. In this context, the

Revisionists’ formulation of the “double loyalty” dilemma, which was willingly adopted by some Polish prominent figures including General Anders himself, was merely an excuse. The only destination for Polish (and European) Jews was

Palestine, which was to be populated massively and quickly by Jews, and Jews only. Yet there were still advocates of Polish-Jewish coexistence within a uniform Polish society, who made attempts to engage both sides in a discussion over the fundamental rules of this proposed coexistence. These attempts, however, fell on deaf ears since, as evidenced in Chapter 5, post-war

Poland was to be founded on the same principle of ethnic division between the

Polish majority and the ethnic minorities that would bury the idea of social equality before anyone could call for it. The only conciliatory Jewish political body, the Representation of Polish Jewry, ended its existence in 1945. What was left was the never-ending and constantly refuelled political argument of

Polish anti-Semitism, which could be used against the Polish exiled authorities.

The communist movement in Palestine, which was subject to the Soviet authorities, used this argument in its own propaganda campaign. Nonetheless, the prospect of egalitarian Polish-Jewish relations remained open, and the

Polish citizenship retained by the Jewish deserters enabled some of them to return to Poland after the war.

331

Implications for the field of knowledge: national historiographies and wartime refugeedom

The methodology adopted in this research is useful in illuminating both national post-war historiographies, which, by raising the question of why the desertions took place and immediately linking it to who was responsible for them, defined the starting point of for the this analysis. The theories that this thesis applied to the subject of the Jewish soldiers’ mass desertions freed the subject from the heavy burden of answers traditionally given to the above question. At the same time, the expanding contextualization of the subject made it possible to restore the story of the Jewish deserters both to Polish wartime history and to that of pre-state Yishuv and retrieve the moment when they overlapped. Moreover, the mass desertions of Jewish soldiers from the

Polish Army can now also be seen as an element of wartime refugeedom. Each concept used, whether military deserter, illegal immigrant, a war refugee, implied different conceptual fields, as well as different answers to the question of why the desertions took place. Polish Jews, as an ethnic minority, were subject to Polish discriminatory policy aimed at maintaining a “healthy balance” between the two main segments of Polish society: the Polish ethnic majority and the ethnic minorities, including Jews, and keeping them apart. If the fundamental division of Polish society into an ethnic majority and ethnic

332 minorities was an obstacle, then the assimilation of Polish Jews proceeded despite it. Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army must have demonstrated an attachment to the Polish language, and to military ritual and ethos, at least to some extent (leaving aside cases where Jewish volunteers were admitted to the army as a result of their close personal contacts with members of the

Polish military command). Nevertheless, Jewish assimilation into the dominant

Polish ethnic society was considered undesirable since it supposedly destabilized the boundaries between majority and minority. Such a situation was rife with tensions. Finally, the difficulties surrounding the assimilation of

Polish Jews, the deserters, into the Yishuv ultimately demonstrated that they preserved at least a tactical allegiance to their last formal link with Polish society – their Polish citizenship and their clear determination to keep hold of it.

Nevertheless, the restrictions and limitations imposed by the Polish majority were oppressive enough for Polish Jews to at least consider leaving Polish society. The Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, presented itself as a promising potentiality. The Zionist movement, broadly considered, had long promoted Palestine as the only valid destination for Jews living in the diaspora, where they could find what they were missing in the diaspora. Two particular

Zionist projects were that Polish Jews should serve in Jewish units of the British

333

Army, where they would no longer experience ethnic discrimination, or join clandestine paramilitary movements in Palestine, where they could use their military skills on behalf of the Zionist cause. The latter incentive was not minor: the Zionists offered Polish Jews the chance to fully identify with the new society, in conformity with, and not against, their ethnic origin. As a result, both Polish and Jewish wartime officials created a system of pull and push factors in implementing their social policies. These policies were aligned, occasionally taking the form of official cooperation, such as the agreement on military transfers signed by the Polish authorities and the Jewish Agency – an observation that makes it possible to address the question of political responsibility for the desertions. However, the alignment of Polish and Jewish social wartime policies was actually more by coincidence than design. The arrival of the Polish Army in Palestine was not planned long in advance, which meant the Jewish volunteers in the Soviet Union could not have been sure they would be transported there. Historians have devoted a measure of attention to the wartime diaspora experienced by both the Polish authorities and sections of Polish society (with the liberal employment of terms such as Odyssey or

Trail) but have largely ignored the influence that the experience of wartime refugeedom had on the decisions taken by Poles and Jews during their displacement. The uncertainty and transiency embedded in the refugee

334 experience constitute an additional dimension in the act of desertion.

Remaining in the Yishuv might have appeared as a route towards personal security in the face of the Polish state’s uncertain fate. The Yishuv economy, presented to the refugees as welcoming and dynamic, seemed to provide an answer to worries about daily existence, especially when compared with the modest resources offered to the refugees by the Polish authorities. The loosening of ties between the members of a society on the move widened the distance between the past and an uncertain future. In such a situation, any potential stability had particular value. Consequently, the political activity of

Polish and Jewish officials in matters relating to Polish-Jewish relations was intertwined with wartime refugeedom, which made certain elements – such as a sense of belonging, majority-minority dynamics, exclusion and inclusion – particularly pronounced.

Analysis of the documents produced by Jewish Palestinian organizations, including the Jewish Agency, the Representation of Polish Jewry, and others, clearly expose the involvement of institutional Yishuv in the desertions. The relation between the Yishuv’s aspiration for military participation in the war and the fortunate arrival of potential Jewish recruits has been consecutively demonstrated in this thesis. Yet the motivation of the Yishuv’s leadership exceeded short-term aims by being grounded in the project of an illegal Jewish

335 immigration to Palestine, which had been realized long before the war. The

Aliyah Bet, in its wartime version, was designed to facilitate the arrival of

Jewish refugees and victims of Nazi persecution by sea to Palestine, and this is how it is treated in the vast scholarship on the subject. The arrival of Polish

Jews within the Polish Army in the East has not been researched as an integral part of Aliyah Bet, although it took place simultaneously. The term Aliyah Vav, referring specifically to Jewish deserters from the Polish Army, was mentioned only once in the documents I found.485 The difficult absorption of the new incomers into the Yishuv and their subsequent doubts, which were strong enough to cast doubt on the vehemence of Polish anti-Semitic discrimination, aligned less well with the narrative of rescue rendered by Palestinian Jews to their oppressed brethren. As in Polish historiography, which loses sight of the deserters immediately after their act of desertion, in Zionist historiography the rescued Jews melt away into the Yishuv and their fate is no longer traced. The history of wartime social relations calls for a holistic approach that transcends the boundaries of pre-war states and societies.

Implications for the field of knowledge: ethnic democracy and societal beliefs

The model of ethnic democracy, developed by Sammy Smooha, was applied in this research for the first time to the wartime Polish authorities in order to

485 The post-war testimony by Israel Carmi, Haganah Archives, 28.33.

336 illuminate the basic approach of the exiled Polish authorities towards Polish

Jews as an ethnic minority (the contemporary Polish terminology was

“national”). The ethnic democracy model had earlier been applied to the pre- war Polish regimes from 1918-1935, the last five years of the Polish Second

Republic being considered as unfit for the model as a result of the authoritarian turn taken in the April 1935 constitution.486 Surprisingly, the model has never been adapted to the wartime period, despite the Polish authorities clearly and publicly declaring their intent to return to the pre-1935 democratic standards. Ethnic democracy as an analytical tool has particular appeal for studying wartime relations between the Polish exiled authorities and Polish Jewry, due in part to the extermination policy of Nazi Germany in occupied Poland. This tool proved its usefulness from the beginnings of the formation of the Polish military forces in the Soviet Union in 1941. Starting with the numerical limitations on Jewish volunteers, continuing with the official proclamations on Jewish military service and the first cases of group desertions, and ending with the idea of punishing Jewish deserters by depriving them of Polish citizenship, the wartime Polish authorities consistently demonstrated the validity and political meaningfulness of the ethnic factor in their eyes. Although declaring their official commitment to

486 Yoav Peled, “The viability of ethnic democracy: Jewish citizens in interwar Poland and Palestinian citizens in Israel”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34: 1, 2011, 83-102.

337 democracy and placing themselves within the community of democratic values shared with other western allies, as opposed to the Soviet policy of limiting members of national minorities from entering military service, in reality the exiled Polish officials pursued a social policy bolstering the dominance of the

Polish ethnic majority in the political, cultural and economic spheres. Ethnicity mattered in every contact with the wartime Polish administration, whether it concerned the distribution of refugee funds or admission to the army. This paradox is central to the ethnic democracy model, which weighs the ultimately successful combination of the contradictory ideals of civic equality and ethnic inequality. This success did not last long, though. The Polish authorities hosted by Britain were exposed to outside critique from both the British public and the authorities, and so a key condition guaranteeing the viability of an ethnic democracy regime, that of non-intervention by foreign powers, was not present in this case.487 If the numerical balance between the majority and minorities was a key to understanding Polish policy, then the most powerful factor that prevented the Polish authorities from openly implementing the policy of inequality was the political support of the western democracies, especially Britain and the United States, which was highly prioritized on the wartime agenda. This explains the strategic purpose to the exiled Polish

487 Sammy Smooha, “The model of ethnic democracy” [in:] The Fate of Ethnic Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, eds. Sammy Smooha, Priit Jarve, Open Society Institute, Budapest, 2005, 4-59.

338 government’s democratic image, with civic equality one of the most easily measured qualities of a democratic regime. This image was of such importance that the government sometimes had to make concessions by reversing some of its most controversial decisions, such as jailing Jewish deserters or depriving them of Polish citizenship. Even so, the initial legal proceedings undertaken by the Polish authorities in reaction to the Jewish desertions in Scotland in 1944 were still in line with the spirit of ethnic inequality, described so well by

General Kukiel, Minister of Defence: punished so lightly because they were

Jews.488

The scrutiny given to the desertions, including the legal proceedings of the

Polish military court, in the House of Commons revealed the discrepancies that lay between the declarations of the Polish government concerning national minorities and the everyday practice of the Polish administration. While the

British public rejected the Polish discriminative approach, Soviet propaganda used this affair against the Poles. The political crisis was eventually extinguished by the presidential amnesty that halted the legal procedures midway.

The ethnic democracy model served two objectives well. One was to identify the intentions of the Polish authorities concerning Polish Jews and to juxtapose

488 Sikorski Institute, PRM 142.

339 them with the everyday practice of the Polish wartime administration. The second was to understand the boundaries delimitating domestic Polish-Jewish relations. Often described as double-dealing or cynical, the intentions of the

Polish authorities actually faithfully followed the logic of ethnic democracy, with its coexistence of equality and inequality. Consequently, the “minority issue” occupied an important place in the political agenda of Polish officials.

Ethnic minorities were discriminated against numerically in order to maintain a mathematical balance between ethnic groups in their categories: Poles were to remain the majority, Jews (and others) were to remain the minority. Any addition to the minority category was undesirable, as was the assimilation of minorities into the majority. Representatives of the ethnic minorities were invited to participate in the policy-making process and accommodated in state institutions, provided they did not exceed the allocated percentage norms.

Such was the role played by the Representation of Polish Jewry, the only

Jewish political organization that aimed at improving domestic Polish-Jewish relations. Despite the Polish elites’ lack of interest in the assimilation process, the assimilation of Polish Jews into Polish society was real, as is evidenced by the massive presence of Jews at the recruiting centres in the Soviet Union.

These Jews had to know the Polish language and military customs, or to have contacts with Polish officers, in order to be positively assessed by the

340 recruiters, who supposedly upheld the equal right of all Polish citizens to fulfil their military duty. It ought to be emphasized that relations between Jewish and non-Jewish members of Polish society were shaped primarily by the decisions of the Polish ethnic majority, and in that sense were asymmetrical.

They should be seen and analysed through the lens of the majority-minority dynamic.

The ethnic-oriented narratives, which tend to attribute certain attitudes and qualities to ethnic groups and to categorize them accordingly, were distilled from the statements of Polish officials concerning Jewish military service and the desertions. They had a number of functions that can be explained by relying on Daniel Bar Tal’s (2006) theory of intractable conflicts. The narratives that developed with the creation of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union and the emergence of the issue of the minorities’ military service stemmed from deeply rooted beliefs held by the Polish ethnic majority with regard to Jews.

Jews as gravitating towards communism, Jews as cowards, Jews as disloyal citizens – all these elements, enhanced by collective memories, were calculated to strengthen inter-ethnic conflict (which before the war most often took the form of, and was referred to, as economic rivalry). Furthermore, the societal beliefs that Jews not only stood outside the Polish military ethos but also supported foreign, often hostile, political interests to the detriment of the

341

Polish wartime cause, were simultaneously fuelling Polish distrust of Jews. As a result, decisions to limit the admission of Jews into the army or to punish Jews for deserting won common approval and consent. Their function was clearly political, as they facilitated the implementation of discriminative policy within the wartime Polish diaspora.

Consequently, the officially produced narratives of the Jewish desertions should be treated as a practical demonstration of the ethnic democracy model, solidifying the boundaries between majority and minority, rather than sources that help to explain the reasons for the abandonment of the Polish army by the

Jewish deserters, as they are often used in the existing scholarship. These have more to say about contemporary patterns of prejudice than about wartime reality.

Research prospects

I see the two elements discussed above, ethnic democracy and societal beliefs, as useful tools that can also be applied to the study of inter-ethnic relations beyond the Polish-Jewish context. Discriminatory attitudes similar to those inflicted on Jews can be observed in the relations between the exiled Polish government and other ethnic minorities, such as Ukrainians or Belorussians.

These, too, are loaded with accumulated tensions and animosities. Using a universal neutral analytical tool to dissect them can be helpful in warding off

342 accusations of non-objectivity. After all, as suggested by the author of the ethnic democracy model himself, it is useful in comparisons of any sort.

343

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344

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