Talk:Kielce pogrom

Moved from Talk:History of anti-Semitism

The mods to entry for Kielce, 1946 require serious support. Please provide. Thanks. Humus sapiens 10:23, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Kielce is not well documented, because Poland was under communist regime. It was also abused for propaganda reasons. What I can assure you, that something barely happenned without the consent of the secret police. In the period of 1945-1956 Polish secret police was ruled by ethnic Jews.Cautious

The Jews were not ruling Poland's secret police. That would be an anti-Semitic position.

Are you joking?? Anti-Semitism is the hatry of Jews. Stating the historical facts, that Stalin used ethnic Jews against Poles in period 1945-1956 has nothing to do with hatry. Do Poles deny Feliks Dherzhynsky nationality? I am not saying, that those Jewish communists, pursue Jewish interests, rather Soviet interests. Also I think, that planned by Stalin pogrom in 1953, was also to put blame on Jews for Stalinist crimes in Poland. Eventually, it was Stalin, who died first, one claims that from natural causes. Cautious

Perhaps some of the police were of Jewish ethnicity, but that is a different issues. Most secret police in most European communist states came from Christian backgrounds. Does this make the Christians a problem people? Does this mean that Christians were not persecuted at times? No. JeMa 17:34, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)

If I mean ethnic Jews, I mean ethnicity, not religion. Religiously, they were atheist. In Kielce, religious Jews were massacred by the rioters, while the atheists Jews, living the next house, were not attacked. Coincidence or the deliberate planing? Cautious

Not even going into highly questionable details of Cautious' arguments, this is irrelevant, IMO. Dry, objective encyclopedic reference to historic facts should not be replaced by allegations (still baseless and undocumented - after 2 days) or emotions. So I am going to remove the fairytale and restate the simple fact, supported by 9 links. Thank you. Humus sapiens 06:41, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The alleged intentions

The intention of this action was to induce a mass immigration to Palestine, causing troubles to Great Britain after the war and facilitating the implementation of Soviet spies to the West.

I moved that phrase to talk. Sorry but this allegation can't be serious: after 1937, throughout the WW2 and up until the establishment of Israel in 1948, very small number of Jewish immigrants was allowed by the Mandate. That was one of the reasons why many European Jews had nowhere to go and ended up in the Nazi gas chambers. In 1946, thousands of Jewish (and other) refugees still were held in concentration camps for displaced persons (now kept by the Allies) throughout Europe. This was a major point of contention between GB and the Jews. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 07:09, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No matter the allegations, the Kielce was not the only pogrom or act of violence against Jews in Poland. I've just read about Poles killing five Jewish survivors in Raciaz; It could be that KGB haev organized it (it definetely suited the Soviets!) but it was all too easy for them...

OTOH, there are two other facts: the ongoing civil war in Poland and post-war chaos, and indeed high percentage of poeple perceived as "Jewish" in Polish communist secret police and elsewhere. Not sure hwo to present that twop facts in NPOV light, since both of them would result in reverts from either one or second side... Szopen 15:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Poland was not alone, unfortunately. AFAIK, the same sad story was repeating all over Europe. For example, I've heard a personal story of similar events in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. I can imagine that people, including refugees who lost their own property, who considered (or even helped) the Jews "exterminated", so naturally Jewish homes were taken over. I can certainly understand that some of new owners would be unpleasantly surprised by returning the survivors who claimed their property. I don't think KGB push was necessary for sparks to fly... ←Humus sapiens←Talk 03:02, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There likely were several indcidents like that - times were hard, and people aren't perfect no matter what time or place. But most of them were organised by an organistation with a specific goal - like Nazis had in Germany in 1930s. Jews lived there fairly peacefuly for hundreds of years, and wars like The Deluge have devasted those teritories as much as the IIWW. I doubt if withouth KGB help most of those pogroms would have had happened. This is why I think it is important to live some mention of why KGB did it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 12:34, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

External Links

I have deleted several external links because, IMHO, they didn't satisfy the relevance and quality standards. All historical information about the pogrom is included in links to two published authors Szaynok [1] (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/REGIONAL/ECE/kielce.html) (historian who published a book about the event) and Pogonowski [2] (http://www.poloniatoday.com/kielceix.htm) and is nicely augmented by USHM [3] (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005366) and fantom.com links [4] (http://www.fathom.com/course/72809602/session3.html). Leichter text [5] (http://www.kielce.org.il/content/pogrom_eng.html) is not scientific but rather an emotional impression about the event, Hlond's response [6] (http://www.smcm.edu/academics/soan/smp/jewish_resilience/Hlond%20responds%20to%20kielce.htm) was one of hundreds which were expressed about the event (or generally about Christian-Jewish relations e.g. John Paul II) between 1946-2005, link to JTA story [7] (http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/2959/format/html/displaystory.html) about the planned commemoration for the site of pogrom is dated (1996) - current info would be welcomed here. Also, JTA story, in light of Szynok and Pogonowski monographs, is not accurate. Link to Anna Williams [8] (http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holocaust/Resources/the_kielce_pogrom.htm) doesn't contribute anything new to the history of the event - there are dozens of references like that on the internet. Link to Jewish Virtual Library [9] (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Kielce.html) contains a reprint of Szynok's original article from [10] (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/REGIONAL/ECE/kielce.html) and as duplicate is not needed.

I am encouraging anybody who is considering reverting my edits to read Szaynok and Pogonowski texts first and discuss them here. --Ttyre 14:57, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The copiousness of the links may be explained by attempts in the past to deny the K.P. or justify its occurrence. If we leave only 1-2 links, more attempts possible on the grounds that there is not enough evidence. Also note that ext. links have a tendency to disappear. A notability of the 1996 event was due to 50-year anniversary. I appreciate efforts to make this article more encyclopedic. 4 high-quality links with your explanations work for me. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 22:15, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Trigger?

I have deleted the paragraph saying that Kielce pogrom was a trigger for Jewish exodus from Poland as incorrect and too simplistic. My reasons are as followed:

1. There were 2 main waves of Jewish emigration from Poland: first 40,000-50,000 between July and October of 1945, second between May and September 1946 (100,000). Assuming that between May and September 1946 every month an equal number of people left -> 40,000 left in 1946 before Kielce pogrom! Thus, overall, between July 1945 and June 30, 1946 (before Kielce pogrom), 80,000-90,000 Jews left Poland. Source: [11] (http://www.yivoinstitute.org/pdf/poland.pdf).

2. The reasons for Jewish exodus from Poland as well as from other Central/Eastern European countries were more complex. The main once were: refusal of the Communist regime to return pre-war Jewish property, desire to leave destroyed by the Holocaust communities and build a new life in the British Mandate of Palestine, as well as anti-Communist and anti-Jewish violence. Altogether 250,000 Jews left Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

3. The emigration from Poland, although "illegal" was supported by the Polish and Soviet Communist regimes for various reasons. One of them was Soviet attempt to undermine British Mandate in Palestine. --Ttyre 00:53, 3 May 2005 (UTC)