Anti-Jewish violence in Poland, 1944–1946

Anti-Jewish violence in Poland from 1944 to 1946 preceded and followed the end of World War II in Europe and influenced the postwar history of the Jews as well as Polish-Jewish relations. It occurred amid a period of violence and anarchy across the country, caused by lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland. The estimated number of Jewish victims varies and ranges up to 2,000. In 2021, Julian Kwiek published the first scientific register of incidents and victims of anti-Jewish violence in Poland in 1944–1947, according to his calculations, the number of victims was at least 1,074 to 1,121. Jews constituted between 2% and 3% of the total number of victims of postwar violence in the country, including the Polish Jews who managed to escape the Holocaust on territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union, and returned after the border changes imposed by the Allies at the Yalta Conference. The incidents ranged from individual attacks to pogroms.

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

The violence and its causes have been highly politicized. Polish historian Lukasz Krzyzanowski states that both the attribution of antisemitic motives to all attackers, or on the other hand ascribing all anti-Jewish violence to ordinary criminality, are reductionist; however, in many cases "the Jewishness of the victims was unquestionably the chief, if not the sole, motive for the crime". Tens of thousands of people were killed in Poland's two-year civil war, but also due to indiscriminate postwar lawlessness and abject poverty. Among the Jewish victims were functionaries of the new Stalinist regime, assassinated by the so-called cursed soldiers of the anti-communist underground due to their political loyalties. However, their percentage was not large, among the victims recorded by Julian Kwiek were only 84 people identified with the new government. Jan T. Gross noted that "only a fraction of [the Jewish] deaths could be attributed to antisemitism" and that anti-Jewish violence caused panic among Jews not so much because of its intensity and spread, but rather because of the "atmosphere of widespread anti-Semitism" they experienced after the end of the war. The resentment towards returning Jews among some local Poles included concerns that they would reclaim their property.