Table Of ContentJEWS IN EASTERN POLAND AND THE USSR,
1939--46
Je ws 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 Norman Davies 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 History of Poland
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
