[D.] The
refugees
[6.12. German-Polish action against Jews in
1938: Camp at Zbaszyn]
[25 March 1938: Poland
declares all passports not valuable from Jewish Poles
since 5 years abroad]
On March 25, 1938, the Polish Sejm passed a law according
to which any Polish citizen who had not visited Poland for
five consecutive years could be deprived of his
citizenship, unless he passport was specifically renewed.
The original aim of this ruling was (p.243)
to prevent Polish Jews in Vienna from entering Poland
after the German occupation of Austria on March 13, 1938.
[15 June: Poland:
Announcement that Polish Jews from Vienna will be put
into concentration camp]
On June 15 the Polish Telegraphic Agency reported that
those Polish Jews from Vienna who had nevertheless
succeeded in crossing the Polish border would be put into
the Polish concentration camp of Bereza Kartuska.
[1933: NS Germany: 98,747
Jews of foreign nationality - 56,480 Polish Jews]
Among the approximately 500,000 Jews in Germany in 1933
[official counting without 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews], there
were 98,747 Jews of foreign nationality. Of these, 56,480
were Polish Jews.
(End note 62: S. Adler-Rudel: Ostjuden in Deutschland;
Tübingen 1959, p. 166)
[Oct 1938:
Denationalization of 56,480 Polish Jews in NS Germany]
Frantic attempts by many of these Jews to avoid being
declared stateless were of no avail; their
denationalization was to take effect at the end of October
1938.
The Nazi government, bent on getting rid of as many Jews
as possible, saw the Polish step as a menace to their own
anti-Jewish policy. If they did nothing, they might later
not be able to expel these Jews into Poland because the
Poles would then argue that they were no longer Polish
citizens.
One of the main planks of the original Nazi party program
in 1920 had been to rid Germany of foreigners, and first
and foremost this applied to Jews. Ideologically,
therefore, there was every reason for the Nazis to prevent
the continuation of Polish Jewish residence in Germany.
[But it seems NS government tolerated the Polish Jews
until 1938].
[6 Oct 1938: Poland
announces renewal for passports limit for 29 October]
On October 6 [1938] the Polish government decreed that
those who did not have their passport renewed by October
29 would lose their Polish citizenship.
[26 Oct 1938: NS Foreign
Office requests Gestapo send back Polish Jews from
Germany]
On October 26 the German Foreign Office requested the
Gestapo to evict as many Polish Jews as possible from
Germany.
(End note 63:
-- Ibid. [S. Adler-Rudel: Ostjuden in Deutschland;
Tübingen 1959], p.153
-- Raphael Mahler: Ringelblum's Letters from and about
Zbaszyn (Hebrew): Yalkut Moreshet 2 (May 1964: 14 ff.)
[27/28 Oct 1938: Reich:
17,000 Polish Jews are deported back to Poland]
The Gestapo obliged with its customary promptness and
brutality, and on the night of October 27/8, some 17,000
Polish Jews in Germany were rounded up, some of them in
their nightclothes. Many were beaten. They were put on
special trains and sent to the Polish border. There some
of them were forced by the Germans to cross the border
illegally; most, however, were simply shunted across the
frontier in railway carriages.
Some of the refugees still had families or other
connections in Poland and were able to resettle with some
measure of ease. Others were less fortunate. People who
had left Poland dozens of years before, or had never been
to Poland at all but had inherited their (p.244)
[Nov 1938: 12,800 Jewish
homeless deportees from NS Germany in Poland - Zbaszyn
open air prison for some 5,500 Polish Jews from NS
Germany - figures]
Polish citizenship from their parents, found no place to
stay. By early November the JDC office counted 12,800
homeless refugees all over the country. There were small
groups of these refugees in the main Jewish centers such
as Lodz, Warsaw, and Cracow. Local refugee committees
sprang up in these places to look after the people as best
they could.
The worst spot, however, was a tiny hamlet of some 4,000
inhabitants, Zbaszyn, on the main railroad between
Frankfurt on the Oder and Poznan, which was situated on
the Polish side of the border with Germany. At the
crossing the Germans expelled some 9,300 men, women, and
children; nearly 4,000 managed to get away into Poland
within the first 48 hours.
The Poles were unwilling to let the rest, some 5,500, into
Poland and forced them to remain in the village. It
presented a terrible sight. Since the number of refugees
was larger than the total population of the village, they
had to be housed in stables, pigsties, and other temporary
shelters.
November is a very cold month in Poland, and after the
first few days there were problems concerning bedding,
heating, warm food, sanitation, and medical attention. The
refugees themselves were completely helpless, for the
Polish government would not allow any of them to leave
Zbaszyn for the interior.
[Zbaszyn became an open air prison for them].
[Polish Jewry about the
Polish Jews from Germany - help actions by JDC and
others - Ringelblum's help]
Polish Jewry, however, reacted fairly swiftly. On November
4 an aid committee was set up in Warsaw, which collected
large amounts of money locally. By July 1939 over 3.5 mio.
zloty had been collected, of which JDC contributed 20 %.
(End note 64: Germany-refugees in Poland, report: the
Activity of the General Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees
from Germany in Poland, 11/1/38-7/1/39 [1 November 1938-1
July 1939]. the total collection was 3,543,299 zloty, of
which JDC contributed 721,149, and other foreign sources,
539,725).
This was besides aid in kind, which during this period
amounted to over 1 million zloty more.
The struggle over the Zbaszyn refugees had an importance
that transcended mere financial considerations. JDC in
Poland found itself pursuing a policy quite different from
the one it had practiced throughout the 1930s. Giterman
and the famous historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who was a JDC
employee, rushed to Zbaszyn immediately on receipt of the
news of the refugees' arrival. With local aid, they
organized the first help.
Throughout the months of (p.245)
November and December, JDC personnel directly supervised
the aid activities at Zbaszyn. The usual roles seemed to
be reversed: usually, JDC allocated money and the local
committees did the actual work; in this case, the local
Warsaw committee provided the bulk of the funds, and JDC
personnel did the actual work of organizing and
supervising the aid.
At first Giterman's policy at Zbaszyn was not to erect
more permanent structures for the refugees, since this
might encourage the Polish government to regard Zbaszyn as
a permanent refugee camp.
(End note 65: 29-Germany, Polish deportations, Zbaszyn,
report by Giterman, November 1938)
However, this policy of trying to pressure the Polish
government into doing something penalized the refugees
rather than the government, which refused even to provide
food.
[December 1938: Cold
winter in Zbaszyn - aid organized by JDC Ringelblum]
In early December intense cold set in, and there was no
choice but to order adequate bedding and food and to
construct appropriate shelters.
After the first ten days Giterman left and Ringelblum,
with a devoted staff of about ten people, stayed on. In
the name of JDC he organized food distribution, heating,
first aid, distribution of clothes (collected from all
over Poland), emigration advice, and similar essential
activities. He also saw to it that there was a library,
that the schooling of children was organized, that a
Talmud Torah for Orthodox children was set up, that
concerts and lectures were held.
Apparently he even collected historical material on the
expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany; unfortunately this
material has not reached us.
[End 1938: 5,200 Polish
Jews from NS Germany in Zbaszyn]
Despite repeated interventions by the Warsaw committee the
Poles let very few of the refugees enter the country, and
by the end of the year there were still 5,200 refugees at
Zbaszyn.
[Finance quarrels about
Zbaszyn open air prison]
An aspect of the Zbaszyn crisis was the growing tension
between the Polish Jewish committee and JDC. Giterman
stated JDC's position in a cable he sent on December 21:
"We giving contribution only when approached by local
organizations after their funds becoming exhausted." In
the U.S., meanwhile, JDC fund raising naturally became
geared to the new situation and much money was collected
for aid for refugees in Poland. In early 1939 the Warsaw
refugee committee complained that only 15 % of the funds
so (p.246) far had been spent by foreign organizations,
including JDC, while all the rest had come from the
impoverished Polish Jewish community.
In New York, Alexander Kahn, chairman of JDC's Polish
Committee, was worried. He stated: "Our position is
untenable, when we seek and receive substantial
contributions here for assistance to German deportees and
negligible sums are expended in the face of such dire
need."
(End note 66: Ibid. [29-Germany, Polish deportations,
Zbaszyn, report by Giterman, November 1938], quoted by
Hyman to Paris JDC, 1/20/39 [20 January 1939])
[1939: More money for
Zbaszyn]
Possibly as a result of repeated interventions by the New
York office, JDC expenditure for Zbaszyn increased in
1939.
[Early June 1939: 4,000
Polish Jewish refugees at Zbaszyn]
By early June [1939] there were still 4,000 Jews at
Zbaszyn, and about $ 40,000 monthly was needed there.
However, JDC in Poland was careful; it was not completely
convinced of the correctness of the Warsaw committee's
statistics, and besides, additional issues had arisen in
the meantime to complicate the problem considerably.
[Poland's action plans
against Germany]
The Polish government was extremely unhappy about the
whole situation. Trying to pay the Germans back in their
own coin, it threatened to expel German citizens from
Poland, especially German Jewish refugees who had arrived
from Germany in previous years. In this tragic situation,
where the mutual animosity of two anti-Semitic states was
typically and brutally expressed by the maltreatment of
each other's Jews,
[24 Jan 1939: Agreement
for no further expulsion - temporary stay for the
expelled in Germany to arrange their affairs]
a way out was found (at least temporarily) when both
countries agreed on January 24, 1939, that no further
expulsion would take place, and that the Jewish expellees
would be granted limited rights to visit Germany to wind
up their affairs there or to arrange for final emigration
to other countries.
