A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [49]
About 40,000 Polish Jews returned from concentration camps, and another 55,000 turned up from hiding in Poland or other countries. And then 180,000 came back from the Soviet Union. By June 1945, there were already more than 10,000 Jews in Cracow, almost 8,000 in Wroclaw, 135,000 in Warsaw, and 41,000 in the Lodz area. These were only small fractions of the prewar population, but they were enough for Jewish communities to function with schools and synagogues.
The Central Committee of Polish Jews established an office in Lublin to disseminate information about who was living and who was dead. Slowly, the incomprehensible figures were compiled and published in press releases. The Committee started to establish orphanages, and by the end of 1945, they already housed seven hundred orphans. By the middle of 1946, they had established forty-four secondary schools for 3,400 children and thirty-six primary schools for another 3,300 children. Miraculously, Polish Jewry was back.
But it was not welcomed. Returning Jews expected to get their property back, and the Poles who had taken over their homes, businesses, and possessions had not counted on this. The Poles grew increasingly hostile to the returning Jews. Polish fascists were still armed and operating in the east and southeast. In Cracow on May 3, 1945, a youthful mob smashed windows in Jewish homes and shouted anti-Semitic slogans until the Red Army moved in to control the disturbance. In August “blood libel” reemerged in Cracow—the old claim, dating back to the Middle Ages, that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in satanic rituals.
An extreme right-wing group called Narodowe Sily Zbrojne, the National Defense Force, pulled Jewish survivors off trains and murdered them. They even attacked Jewish orphanages. The Central Committee of Polish Jews listed four hundred Jews murdered in such attacks between February and September 1945. In 1946 things got even worse. As hostility grew toward the Communists, a new anti-Semitic stereotype gained currency—zydokomuna, a Jewish Commie. There had been Jews/the usurers, Jews/the bloodsuckers, and Jews/the baby-snatchers, and now there were Jews/the Communists plotting to undermine the Polish national destiny. Although Jews represented only a minority of the Communists, it was frequently said that they were the Communist movement. Hadn't they cheered the entry of the Soviets? Poles hadn't cheered the Red Army—only the Jews. The fact that the Jews were being saved from total extinction never entered this argument.
Jewish leaders tried in vain to solicit the help of the Catholic Church hierarchy. They were repeatedly refused audiences with cardinals and bishops. In June 1946 the Bishop of Kielce refused to issue a pastoral letter against the spread of anti-Semitic violence. On July 4 a nine-year-old Polish boy, Henryk Blaszgzyk, was reported missing in Kielce. A crowd quickly grew, claiming he had been murdered by Jews who wanted his blood. The crowd marched into the Jewish area and went on a violent rampage. While they were laying siege to the building of the Jewish Committee, the Jewish leaders inside desperately tried to telephone the bishop, but his office refused to put through the call. Forty-two Jews, mostly camp survivors, were killed.
A similar pogrom was averted in Cze§tochowa because there the local bishop, Teodor Kubin, denounced the accusations of blood ritual. But Bishop Stefan Wyszynski of Lublin, who later became Cardinal Primate, explained to the Jews that they were resented because “they took an active part in the political life of the country.” The statement went on to explain, “The Germans murdered the Jewish nation because the Jews were the propagators of Communism.” When the Lublin Jews asked him for his position on the accusations of ritual