History of the Jews in Poland

Polish Jews
יהודי פולין‎
Polscy Żydzi

Monument to the Ghetto Heroes beside the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw
Total population
est. 1,300,000+
Regions with significant populations
Poland	10,000–20,000[1][2]
Israel	1,250,000 (ancestry, passport eligible[a]);[3] 202,300 (born in Poland or with a Polish-born father)[b][4]
Languages
Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, German
Religion
Judaism

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History of Jews and Judaism in Poland
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Early history 18th century 19th century 20th century 1989–present
Groups Orthodox Polish-Ashkenazim Musar movement Hasidim Aleksander Biala Bluzhev Bobov Ger Izhbitza-Radzin Kotzk Lelov Peshischa Radomsk Sanz Sochatchov Vurka Zionist Betar Brit HaHayal Poale Zion Komverband HeHalutz Lovers of Zion Tarbut Zionist Socialist Workers Party Other Bundism Haskalah Jewish Autonomism Folkspartei Reform Judaism
Cities Adamów Beuthen Białystok Gdańsk Kalisz Kraków Łęczna Łódź Łuków Wieluń
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Organizations Central Committee of Polish Jews Council of Four Lands Jewish Community Centre of Kraków Judaica Foundation Union of Jewish Religious Communities Vaad Rosh Hashochtim Yeshivas Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva Lomza Yeshiva Novardok Yeshiva
The Holocaust Ghettos Będzin Białystok Brzesko Częstochowa Frysztak Gorlice Kielce Kraków Łomża Mińsk Nowy Sącz Olkusz Opatów Piotrków Radom Siedlce Sosnowiec Stanisławów Tarnów Warsaw Concentration camps Auschwitz Monowitz Gross-Rosen Mittelsteine Kraków-Płaszów Lipowa 7 Poniatowa Potulice Soldau Stutthof Szebnie Trawniki Warsaw Death camps and mass murder sites Auschwitz-Birkenau Chełmno Majdanek Belzec Sobibor Treblinka Valley of Death Massacres Częstochowa Easter Pogrom Jedwabne Kielce Cemetery Tykocin Dynów Operation Harvest Festival Radziłów Szczuczyn Wąsosz Resistance Białystok Ghetto uprising Anti-Fascist Military Organisation Częstochowa Ghetto uprising Resistance movements in Auschwitz Auschwitz Combat Group Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Jewish Combat Organization Jewish Military Union Oyneg Shabbos Rescue of Jews by Poles Righteous Among the Nations
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The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy which ended after the Partitions of Poland in the 18th century. During World War II there was a nearly complete genocidal destruction of the Polish Jewish community by Nazi Germany and its collaborators of various nationalities,^[5] during the German occupation of Poland between 1939 and 1945, called the Holocaust. Since the fall of communism in Poland, there has been a renewed interest in Jewish culture, featuring an annual Jewish Culture Festival, new study programs at Polish secondary schools and universities, and the opening of Warsaw's Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

From the founding of the Kingdom of Poland in 1025 until the early years of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth created in 1569, Poland was the most tolerant country in Europe.^[6] Historians have used the label paradisus iudaeorum (Latin for "Paradise of the Jews").^[7][8] Poland became a shelter for Jews persecuted and expelled from various European countries and the home to the world's largest Jewish community of the time. According to some sources, about three-quarters of the world's Jews lived in Poland by the middle of the 16th century.^[9][10][11] 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 17th century.^[12][13] After the Partitions of Poland in 1795 and the destruction of Poland as a sovereign state, Polish Jews became subject to the laws of the partitioning powers, including the increasingly antisemitic Russian Empire,^[14] as well as Austria-Hungary and Kingdom of Prussia (later a part of the German Empire). When Poland regained independence in the aftermath of World War I, it was still the center of the European Jewish world, with one of the world's largest Jewish communities of over 3 million. Antisemitism was a growing problem throughout Europe in those years, from both the political establishment and the general population.^[15] Throughout the interwar period, Poland supported Jewish emigration from Poland and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Polish state also supported Jewish paramilitary groups such as the Haganah, Betar, and Irgun, providing them with weapons and training.^[16][17]

In 1939, at the start of World War II, Poland was partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). One-fifth of the Polish population perished during World War II; the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered in the Holocaust, who constituted 90% of Polish Jewry, made up half of all Poles killed during the war.^[18][19] While the Holocaust occurred largely in German-occupied Poland, it was orchestrated and perpetrated by the Nazis. Polish attitudes to the Holocaust varied widely, from actively risking death in order to save Jewish lives,^[20] and passive refusal to inform on them, to indifference, blackmail,^[21] and in extreme cases, committing premeditated murders such as in the Jedwabne pogrom.^[22] Collaboration by non-Jewish Polish citizens in the Holocaust was sporadic, but incidents of hostility against Jews are well documented and have been a subject of renewed scholarly interest during the 21st century.^[23][24][25]

In the post-war period, many of the approximately 200,000 Jewish survivors registered at the Central Committee of Polish Jews or CKŻP (of whom 136,000 arrived from the Soviet Union)^[22][26][27] left the Polish People’s Republic for the nascent State of Israel or the Americas. Their departure was hastened by the destruction of Jewish institutions, post-war anti-Jewish violence, and the hostility of the Communist Party to both religion and private enterprise, but also because in 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Israel,^[28] without visas or exit permits.^[29][30] Most of the remaining Jews left Poland in late 1968 as the result of the "anti-Zionist" campaign.^[31] After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the situation of Polish Jews became normalized and those who were Polish citizens before World War II were allowed to renew Polish citizenship. The contemporary Polish Jewish community is estimated to have between 10,000 and 20,000 members.^[1][2] The number of people with Jewish heritage of any sort is several times larger.^[32]

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