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Racism in Poland
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Racism in Poland
Racism in Poland has been a subject of extensive studies. Ethnic minorities historically made up a substantial proportion of Poland's population, from the founding of the Polish state through the Second Polish Republic, than they did after World War II when government statistics showed that at least 94% of the population self-reported as ethnic Poles.
As per the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), hate crimes recorded by the Police of Poland dropped between 2018 and 2020, but rose steadily until 2022, reaching a level higher than 2018 (table below). Of the 440 prosecuted hate crimes, 268 (61%) were racist and xenophobic hate crimes, seconded by 87 (20%) anti-Semitic hate crimes, while only 6% were "anti-Muslim" hate crimes (25).
King Casimir III the Great brought Jews to Poland during the Black Death when Jewish communities were persecuted and expelled from several European kingdoms. With better living conditions, 80% of world Jewry lived in Poland by the mid-16th century. During the 15th century in the royal capital of Kraków, extremist clergymen advocated violence against the Jews, who gradually lost their positions. In 1469, Jews were expelled from their old settlement and forced to move to Spiglarska Street. In 1485, Jewish elders were forced to renounce trade in Kraków, leading many Jews to leave for Kazimierz which did not fall under the restrictions due to its status as a royal town. Following the 1494 fire in Kraków, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks occurred. King John I Albert forced the remaining Jews of Kraków to move to Kazimierz. Starting in 1527, Jews were no longer admitted into the city walls of Warsaw (generally speaking, temporary stays were possible in the royal palace). Only the Praga suburb was open to them.
The Council of Four Lands created in 1581 was a Jewish diet[clarification needed] presided over by community elders from each major part of Poland, while another governing body was established in Lithuania in 1623. Jewish communities were usually protected by the szlachta (nobles) in exchange for managing the nobles' domains. In Congress Poland, Jews gained civic rights with the ukase (edict) of 5 June 1862, two years before serfdom was abolished. 35 years later, the 1.4 million Polish Jews represented 14% of whom within the Russian-administered partition, which included Warsaw and Łódź.
In the Second Polish Republic, the Polish government excluded Jews from receiving government bank credits, from public sector employment (in 1931, only 599 of 87,640 public servants were Jewish—in the fields of telephony, railroads, administration and justice), and from obtaining business licenses in government-controlled spheres of the economy. From the 1930s, limits were placed on Jewish enrollment in universities, admission to the medical and legal professions, on Jewish shops, Jewish export firms, Shechita, membership in business associations etc. 25% of students were Jews in 1921-22, the proportion had dropped to 8% by 1939, while the far-right National Democracy (Endecja) party organized anti-Jewish boycotts.
Following the death of Poland's prime minister Józef Piłsudski in 1935, the Endecja intensified its efforts and declared in 1937 that its "main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland", which lead to violence in a few cases (pogroms in smaller towns). In response, the government organized the Camp of National Unity (OZON) to take over the Polish parliament in 1938, which went on to draft anti-Jewish legislations similar to those in Nazi Germany, Hungary, Romania etc. The OZON advocated the mass emigration of Jews from Poland, boycotts of Jews, numerus clausus and further restrictions on Jewish rights. According to Timothy Snyder, in the years leading up to World War II the Polish leadership
wanted to be rid of most Polish Jews [...but] in simple logistical terms the idea [...] seemed to make no sense. How could Poland arrange a deportation of millions of Jews while the country was mobilized for war? Should the tens of thousands of Jewish officers and soldiers be pulled from the ranks of the Polish army?"
During WWII, notable antisemitic incidents in Poland included the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom under brutal Nazi occupation and brief postwar anti-Jewish violence, attributed by historians to lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet occupation with which the Żydokomuna (Jewish communism) label was associated. Another major event took place during the 1968 Polish political crisis. Jews in Poland made up 10% of the country's population in 1939, who were all but eradicated in the Holocaust. In the Polish census of 2011, merely 7,353 people declared either their primary or secondary ethnicity as Jewish.[citation needed] In 2017, the University of Warsaw's Center for Research on Prejudice found an increase in antisemitic views in Poland, possibly due to growing anti-migrant sentiment and alleged Islamophobia in Poland. Later that year, the European Jewish Congress accused the Polish government of "normalizing" the phenomenon in the country.
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Racism in Poland
Racism in Poland has been a subject of extensive studies. Ethnic minorities historically made up a substantial proportion of Poland's population, from the founding of the Polish state through the Second Polish Republic, than they did after World War II when government statistics showed that at least 94% of the population self-reported as ethnic Poles.
As per the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), hate crimes recorded by the Police of Poland dropped between 2018 and 2020, but rose steadily until 2022, reaching a level higher than 2018 (table below). Of the 440 prosecuted hate crimes, 268 (61%) were racist and xenophobic hate crimes, seconded by 87 (20%) anti-Semitic hate crimes, while only 6% were "anti-Muslim" hate crimes (25).
King Casimir III the Great brought Jews to Poland during the Black Death when Jewish communities were persecuted and expelled from several European kingdoms. With better living conditions, 80% of world Jewry lived in Poland by the mid-16th century. During the 15th century in the royal capital of Kraków, extremist clergymen advocated violence against the Jews, who gradually lost their positions. In 1469, Jews were expelled from their old settlement and forced to move to Spiglarska Street. In 1485, Jewish elders were forced to renounce trade in Kraków, leading many Jews to leave for Kazimierz which did not fall under the restrictions due to its status as a royal town. Following the 1494 fire in Kraków, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks occurred. King John I Albert forced the remaining Jews of Kraków to move to Kazimierz. Starting in 1527, Jews were no longer admitted into the city walls of Warsaw (generally speaking, temporary stays were possible in the royal palace). Only the Praga suburb was open to them.
The Council of Four Lands created in 1581 was a Jewish diet[clarification needed] presided over by community elders from each major part of Poland, while another governing body was established in Lithuania in 1623. Jewish communities were usually protected by the szlachta (nobles) in exchange for managing the nobles' domains. In Congress Poland, Jews gained civic rights with the ukase (edict) of 5 June 1862, two years before serfdom was abolished. 35 years later, the 1.4 million Polish Jews represented 14% of whom within the Russian-administered partition, which included Warsaw and Łódź.
In the Second Polish Republic, the Polish government excluded Jews from receiving government bank credits, from public sector employment (in 1931, only 599 of 87,640 public servants were Jewish—in the fields of telephony, railroads, administration and justice), and from obtaining business licenses in government-controlled spheres of the economy. From the 1930s, limits were placed on Jewish enrollment in universities, admission to the medical and legal professions, on Jewish shops, Jewish export firms, Shechita, membership in business associations etc. 25% of students were Jews in 1921-22, the proportion had dropped to 8% by 1939, while the far-right National Democracy (Endecja) party organized anti-Jewish boycotts.
Following the death of Poland's prime minister Józef Piłsudski in 1935, the Endecja intensified its efforts and declared in 1937 that its "main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland", which lead to violence in a few cases (pogroms in smaller towns). In response, the government organized the Camp of National Unity (OZON) to take over the Polish parliament in 1938, which went on to draft anti-Jewish legislations similar to those in Nazi Germany, Hungary, Romania etc. The OZON advocated the mass emigration of Jews from Poland, boycotts of Jews, numerus clausus and further restrictions on Jewish rights. According to Timothy Snyder, in the years leading up to World War II the Polish leadership
wanted to be rid of most Polish Jews [...but] in simple logistical terms the idea [...] seemed to make no sense. How could Poland arrange a deportation of millions of Jews while the country was mobilized for war? Should the tens of thousands of Jewish officers and soldiers be pulled from the ranks of the Polish army?"
During WWII, notable antisemitic incidents in Poland included the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom under brutal Nazi occupation and brief postwar anti-Jewish violence, attributed by historians to lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet occupation with which the Żydokomuna (Jewish communism) label was associated. Another major event took place during the 1968 Polish political crisis. Jews in Poland made up 10% of the country's population in 1939, who were all but eradicated in the Holocaust. In the Polish census of 2011, merely 7,353 people declared either their primary or secondary ethnicity as Jewish.[citation needed] In 2017, the University of Warsaw's Center for Research on Prejudice found an increase in antisemitic views in Poland, possibly due to growing anti-migrant sentiment and alleged Islamophobia in Poland. Later that year, the European Jewish Congress accused the Polish government of "normalizing" the phenomenon in the country.