[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.
