JEWS IN EASTERN POLAND AND THE USSR, 1939--46 in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939-46

Edited by

Norman Davies Professor of Polish History School of Slavonic and East European Studies University of London and Antony Polonsky Professor of International History London School of Economics and Political Science

Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-21791-5 ISBN 978-1-349-21789-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21789-2

© School of Slavonic and East European Studies 1991 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1991 978-0-333-49128-7 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Ine., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

First published in the United States of America in 1991

ISBN 978-0-312-06200-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data Jews in eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939-46 I edited by and Antony Polonsky. p. em. Seven of the ehapters were first presented at the International Conference on the History and Culture of Polish Jews held in Jerusalern in February 1988. Includes index. ISBN 0-312-06200-1 1. Jews-Ukraine--Galicia, Eastern--History-2Oth century. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Ukraine--Galicia, Eastern. 3. Galicia, Eastern (Ukraine}-Ethnie relations. 4. Jews-Byelorussian S.S.R.-History-2Oth century. 5. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Byelorussian S.S.R. 6. Byelorussian S.S.R.-Ethnie relations. 7. Refugees, Jewish-Soviet Union. 8. Holocaust survivors-Poland. 9. Poland--Ethnic relations. I. Davies, Norman. 11. Polonsky, Antony. 111. International Conference on the History and Culture of Polish Jews (1988: Jerusalern) DS135.R93G3436 1991 947' .718004924--dc20 91-12028 CIP Contents

List of Maps and Tables Vll List of Documents viii Preface ix Notes on the Contributors x 1 Introduction 1 2 The Sovietisation of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia 60 fan Tomasz Gross 3 Some Economic and Social Problems of the Jews of Eastern Galicia in the Period of Soviet Rule (1939-41) 77 Aharon Weiss 4 The Jews in Soviet-Occupied Eastern Poland at the End of 1939: Numbers and Distribution 110 Maciej Siekierski 5 Jewish Issues in the Polish Literature of Exile in the USSR 116 Henryk Siewierski 6 Sovietisation and the Jewish Response to Nazi Policies of Mass Murder 124 Ben-Cion Pinchuk 7 Jewish Resistance in Sm all Towns of Eastern Poland 138 Shmuel Spector 8 The Welfare of Polish-Jewish Refugees in the USSR, 1941-43: Relief Supplies and their Distribution 145 Keith Sword 9 The Jewish Issue in the Polish Army in the USSR and the Near East, 1941-44 161 Ryszard Terlecki

v vi Contents

10 The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Erlich-Alter Affair 172 David Engel 11 Jews in the Kosciuszko Division and First Polish Army 183 Klemens Nussbaum 12 The Road to New Poland: Jewish Communists in the Soviet Union, 1939--46 214 Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum 13 Polish-Jewish Refugees Repatriated from the Soviet Union to Poland at the End of the Second World War and Afterwards 227 Y ose! Litvak 14 The 'Jewish Organising Committee' in Moscow and 'The Jewish Central Committee' in Warsaw, June 1945-February 1946: Tackling Repatriation 240 Hanna Shlomi Documents 255 Index 404 List of Maps and Tables

Map 1 Poland Under Soviet and German Occupation, 1939-41 xiii Map 2 Modern Poland xiv 1.1 Demography of Eastern Poland, 1939 3 4.1 Cities of Eastern Poland in the 1931 Census 111 11.1 Jews in the Polish First Division 193 11.2 Jewish Officers in Polish Army Units and HO 197 11.3 Distribution of Jewish Officers 198 11.4 Jewish Battle Casualties 201

vii List of Documents

An Early Account of Polish Jewry under Nazi and Soviet Occupation Presented to the Polish Government-in-Exile, February 1940 (edited by David Engel) 256 Moshe Kleinbaum's Report on Issues in the Former Eastern Polish Territories (edited by David Engel) 275 Questionnaire and Protocols (edited by Joanna Hanson) 301 Polish Army Questionnaire Put to Jewish Soldiers who Left the USSR with General Anders' Army 304 Protocol no. 215 308 Protocol no. 28 312 Protocol no. 32 322 Protocol no. 41 329 Protocol no. 128 336 Protocol no. 176 345 Protocol no. 251 349 Protocol no. 259 356 The Proposal to Establish a 'Jewish Legion' within the Polish Army in the USSR (edited by Antony Polonsky) 361 Bernard Singer's Report on the Situation of Polish Citizens of Jewish Nationality in the USSR in 1942 (edited by Jerzy Tomaszewski) 373 Memoirs of a Jewish Medical Officer Taken Prisoner by the Soviets in 1939 384

viii Preface

This book owes its origin to the International Conference on the History and Culture of Polish Jews which was held in Jerusalem in February 1988. Seven of the chapters - those by Spector, Sword, Terlecki, Engel, Rozenbaum, Shlomi and Litvak - were presented as papers there. In order to provide a fuller picture of the complex problems raised by the position of the Jews in Eastern Poland, as weIl as those deported from Poland to the USSR in the period 1939 to 1946, we commissioned the remaining articles. The Karski report was first published in J ewish Social Studies, vol. XLV, no. land is reprinted by permission of that journal. The Kleinbaum report was published in Gal-Ed, vol. V in Hebrew, but appears here for the first time in English, as do the other documents, and the memoir of Solomon Slowes, which is a summary of his autobiography which was published in Hebrew under the title Beya'ar Katyn (In Katyn Wood, Jerusalem, 1988). The subjects dealt with in this volume are painful and contro­ versial. We have provided an extended introduction which, we hope, will enable the reader to make up his own mind on these topics, which have for long constituted apart of the 'blank spots' in both Polish and Jewish history. We are very grateful to the many people who have made the appearance of this volume possible: Professor Chone Shmeruk, Chairman of the International Conference on the History and Culture of Polish Jews, Professor Michael Branch, Director of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, Kate Moore, Publications Officer at SSEES and our translators, Morris Hoffman, Jakub Basista and Joanna Hanson. This volume is the first joint publication of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London and the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford. We hope it will be followed by many more.

ix Notes on the Contributors

Norman Davies has written widely on Poland, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. He is the author of White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20, God's Playground: A and Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland, all of which have been translated into foreign languages, and have been published in Poland in either official or in underground editions. More recently, he has been writing on issues such as Polish Jewry, War Losses and War Crimes, Soviet Nationalities, Contemporary Culture and Poli­ tics. At present, he is preparing Europe: A History. Norman Davies is Professor of Polish History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. David Engel is Senior Lecturer in Jewish History at Tel Aviv Univer­ sity and co-editor of the journal Gal-Ed: Studies on the History of Polish lewry. Among his many publications is In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the lews, 1939-1942 (1987). Jan T. Gross is Professor of Sociology at Emory University. He is the author, most recently, of Revolution from Abroad. The Soviet Con­ quest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia (1988). Joanna Hanson completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in mod­ ern Polish his tory at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, London University. She is the author of The Civilian Popu­ lation and the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (Cabridge, 1982). She is currently preparing a study on a his tory of Poland from 1944 to 1947. Yosef Litvak is a historian residing in Jerusalem. For the ten years before his retirement, in 1980, he served as head of the Diaspora Jewry Research Department at the Ministry of Immigrant Absorp­ tion in Israel. He is the author of numerous works on the history of the Jews of Poland and Russia. His book lewish Refugees from Poland in the Soviet Union 1939-1946 was published in Hebrew in 1988 and will soon be published in English translation as weH. Klemens Nussbaum is a historian who completed his doctorate at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of the book lews in the Polish Army in lhe. Soviel Union (U niversity of Tel A viv) and has published several articles on Polish Jewry during the Second World War.

x Notes on the Contributors xi

Ben-Cion Pinchuk was born in Poland and went to Israel in 1949. He studied at the Hebrew University and the University of Washington and is at present Associate Professor of History at the University of Haifa. His books include The Octobrists in the Third Duma 1907-1917 (Seaule and London, 1974) and Shtetl Jews under Soviet Rule (forthcoming). Antony Polonsky is Professor of International History at the London School of Eeonomics and Political Science. He is author of several books on Polish and Polish-Jewish topics including Politics in Inde­ pendent Poland (Oxford, 1972) and, with B. Drukier, The Beginnings 0/ Communist Rule in Poland (London, 1981). He is the editor of POLIN: A Journal 0/ Polish-Jewish Studies and President of the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies. Wlodzimierz Rozenbaum is Soviet and East European Analyst at the United States Department of Defense. He is the author of articles on Polish and Soviet history and politics. He is currently completing a book on the Jewish question in the context of the nationality poliey in post-Second World War Poland. Hanna Shlomi immigrated to Israel from Poland in 1946. She is a researcher in the Diaspora Research Institute ofTel Aviv University and has published several articles on Polish Jewry during and after the Second World War. Maciej Siekierski is Assistant Curator in the Soviet and East Euro­ pean Collection at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford, California. He is a speeialist in the history of the Grand Duchy of (with articles in The Journal 0/ Byelorus­ sian Studies) and Eastern Poland, and edited Wiktor Sukiennicki's East Central Europe during World War 1 (1985). Henryk Siewierski is a visiting professor in the Department of Litera­ ture, University of Brasilia and researeher at the Brazilian National Council of Scientific and Technological Development. He is editor of the annual publications Aproximacoes - Europa de Leste em Lingua Portuguesa. Among his publications on Polish literat ure is Spotkanie narod6w (1984) and contributions to Znak. Solomon W. Siowes was formerly Assistant Professor in the Medical Faculty, University of Wilno. He is a member of the British Associ­ ation of Plastie Surgeons and is head of the Maxillo-Facial Surgery Department and Leeturer at the Surassky Medieal Center, Tel A viv xii Notes on the Contributors

University Medical School. He is the author of articles and a book on Maxillo-Facial Injuries, and recently published Katyn 1940 (Hebrew, 1987). Shmuel Spector is the director of the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and author of one of its volumes, Volhynia-Polesie (1989). He is also author of: 01 Volhynian lews 1941-1943 (1986), and the chapter: 'The Gas-vans behind the Eastern Front' in Nazi Mass Murders, by gas (1983) as well as many articles on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Keith Sword is Research Fellow in Polish Migration Studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of Lon­ don. He is the author (with Jan Ciechanowski and Norman Davies) of The Formation 01 the Polish Community in Great Britain, 1939-50 (1989) and of The Soviet Takeover 01 the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939-41 (forthcoming). Ryszard Terlecki is a member of the Historical Department of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow. He has undertaken research on interwar and wartime Po land and is on the editorial board of the journals Arka and Czas. He has published widely on contemporary topics. Jerzy Tomaszewski is Professor of History in the Institute of Political Sciences of Warsaw University, where he is also head of the Research Centre on the History of Jews in Poland. He is the author ofworks on the economic history of Po land including The Polish Economy in the Twentieth Century (1985) together with Zbigniew Landau, as well as on national minorities in Poland, Rzeczpospolita wielu narod6w (1985), and on Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. Aharon Weiss is Senior Lecturer in Jewish Modern History at Haifa University, Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Editor of Yad Vashem Studies. He is the author of numerous publications on modern Jewish History in East Europe. xiii

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