Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Polish Jewish History
Kiwi:
Now more History of Jews in Poland.
Poland was home to the largest Jewish population in Europe and served as the center for Jewish culture. The history of Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. It ranges from a long period of religious tolerance and prosperity for the country's Jewish population to the nearly complete genocidal destruction of the community by Nazi Germany in the twentieth century during the German occupation of Poland and the Holocaust.
From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in the eleventh century through the early years of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was one of the most tolerant countries in Europe. Known as paradisus Judeorum (Latin for Jewish paradise) it became home to one of the world's largest and most vibrant Jewish communities.
With the weakening of the Commonwealth and growing religious strife (due to the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation), Poland’s traditional tolerance began to wane from the seventeenth century onward.
For centuries Poland was unique shelter for persecuted and expelled European Jewish communities. Polin, as the Jews called the place in Yiddish, a place which meant in Hebrew 'Here shalt thou lodge' in the exile from the Land of Israel.
Famous rabbi of Kraków Moses Isserles living in XVI century concluded: "had not the Lord left us this land as a refuge, the fate of Israel would have been indeed unbearable".
In 1568 Polish King Sigismund II Augustus issued privilege de non tolerandis christianis for Jewish inhabitant of Kazimierz. It was an extraordinary prohibition for Christians to enter Jewish town.
After the partitions of Poland in 1795 and the destruction of Poland as a sovereign state, Polish Jews were subject to the laws of the partitioning powers, primarily the increasingly antisemitic Russian Empire,[ but also Austro-Hungary and Prussian/German Empire. Still, as Poland regained independence in the twentieth century, immediately prior to World War II, it was the center of the European Jewish world with a vibrant Jewish community of over three million, one of the largest in the world, though anti-Semitism, both political and from the general population, common throughout contemporary Europe, was a growing problem.
Over 90% of the Polish Jewry, about three million, were killed during the Holocaust (also called Shoah in Hebrew) in Nazi-occupied Poland, along with approximately three million of non-Jewish Poles.
There was no collaborationist government in Poland, and relatively little collaboration by individual Poles with the Nazis in Poland, including the Holocaust. The attitude of non-Jewish Poles ranged from extreme cases of participation in massacres such as the Jedwabne pogrom and similar pogroms in 22 other Polish towns,through cases of blackmail (szmalcownik) of Jews hiding from Nazi persecution (condemned by the Polish Underground State and punished by death), indifference to the plight of the Jews or unwillingness to help due to fear for ones own life, to active assistance in evading and resisting the Germans such as Irena Sendler, who saved about 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.
Those non-Jews who worked at great risk to their personal safety to save Jews became known as the Righteous Among the Nations (or sometimes Righteous Gentiles). 6,004 Poles have received the honor of being named Righteous Among the Nations, the highest number of any other nation.
Poland, along with territories of today's Belarus and Ukraine included in the General Government, was the only occupied country in Europe in which anyone caught aiding a Jew was automatically subject to the death penalty, along with all family members of the same residence and often neighbors as well.
The Nazi occupation of Poland resulted in the death of one-fifth of the population, some 6 million people, half of them Jewish.
In the postwar period, many of the approximately 200,000 survivors chose to emigrate from the communist People's Republic of Poland to the nascent State of Israel, USA and South America, their departure hastened by the destruction of most Jewish institutions, post-war pogroms, and the hostility of the communist party to both religion and to private enterprise. Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in the late 1960s as the result of the Soviet state-sponsored anti-Semitic anti-Zionist campaign. After the fall of the communist regime in Poland in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized and Jews who were Polish citizens before World War II were allowed to get new Polish citizenship.
Religious institutions were revived, largely through the activities of Jewish foundations from the United States including the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. The contemporary Polish Jewish community is generally estimated to have approximately 8,000 to 12,000 members, though the actual number of Jews, including those who are not actively connected to Judaism or Jewish culture, may be several times larger.
For more continue in this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland#The_Polish-Lithuanian_Commonwealth:_1572.E2.80.931795
EagleEye:
--- Quote from: The Infidel. on December 14, 2007, 08:56:59 AM ---I just hope people read it and learn that not all Polish are Nazi's.
--- End quote ---
Anybody who is Polish or Russian and claims to be a nazi is a self-deluded person. If you understood Hitler's ideology, you'd understand it was for Germans only. Because I am interested in both Poles and Jews, I will read your posts when I have the time. While Poles have shown the capability to conflict with Jews, I don't think they are guilty of what many people here accuse them of.
Kiwi:
--- Quote from: EagleEye on December 15, 2007, 10:00:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: The Infidel. on December 14, 2007, 08:56:59 AM ---I just hope people read it and learn that not all Polish are Nazi's.
--- End quote ---
Anybody who is Polish or Russian and claims to be a nazi is a self-deluded person. If you understood Hitler's ideology, you'd understand it was for Germans only. Because I am interested in both Poles and Jews, I will read your posts when I have the time. While Poles have shown the capability to conflict with Jews, I don't think they are guilty of what many people here accuse them of.
--- End quote ---
You and I and few others Eagleye are informed, The reason this started was C.F's attack on Poles calling them all Anti Semites.
It amazes me the lack of people wanting to learn, they fear knowledge, because it might upset their narrow view on the world.
jdl4ever:
My grandfather who lived in Poland says that most Polish are nazis. Even after the nazis left they would murder all Jews who came back to Poland or came out of hiding.
Kiwi:
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on December 15, 2007, 10:57:59 PM ---My grandfather who lived in Poland says that most Polish are nazis. Even after the nazis left they would murder all Jews who came back to Poland or came out of hiding.
--- End quote ---
I agree MOST were, not ALL of them.
Its like saying all cats are long haired. A stupid and naive statement.
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