Who is my neighbor? Poles and Jews under German occupation.

"Since the issue of the Ghetto has become current in Warsaw, I consider it appropriate to inform you that a fat Jew [original spelling] named Dieksztein is hiding in the "Elibor" company at 103 Wolska Street, who was the deputy director of the Łódź branch of "Elibor" and at some point fled from Łódź to avoid getting into the ghetto..."

Thus begins one of many denunciations to the Warsaw Gestapo, preserved in the Archives of the Institute of National Remembrance. Practically everyone was denounced: more resourceful neighbors, Polish officers in hiding, underground soldiers, and independence activists. Hiding Jews were also denounced, endangering not only themselves but also the Poles who sheltered them. In their postwar accounts, memoirs, and conversations, Holocaust survivors often emphasized that informers were more dangerous than the German police. The worst was expected of the Germans, and among neighbors, it was never clear who would keep a secret and who would betray them.

Those who informed on or otherwise actively participated in the persecution were situated at one end of the continuum of attitudes that Polish society expressed towards Jews during the occupation. At the opposite end were those who hid and provided fugitives with all possible assistance, both long-term and occasional. Between the two, however, existed a multitude of people who simply wanted to survive and devoted all their energy and effort to ensuring their own survival and that of their loved ones. Unless a matter directly affected them, they generally remained indifferent.

It is not known exactly how many Poles were informers and actively supported the extermination of Jews. However, it is not the numbers that matter here, but the level of involvement of these individuals in the process itself. This attitude – often the result of anti-Semitic propaganda, both pre-war and during the occupation – was eagerly fueled and exploited by the Germans. They justified the confinement of Jews in ghettos as a defense against Polish anti-Semitism (which did not prevent them from placing warning signs on the borders of these ghettos about the threat of typhus). It was German-inspired attacks that led to the outbreak of violent anti-Jewish riots in early 1940, culminating in the Easter pogrom in March 1940.

Emanuel Ringelblum, historian and chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote about these events: "Gangs of anti-Semites, mostly youths, set off under the direction of a German who secured the rear and sponsored the operation. The weapons of these gangs consisted of clubs, canes, iron crowbars, etc. The attackers' slogans were: 'exterminate the Jews,' 'down with the Jews,' 'long live an independent Poland without Jews,' etc. Along the way, they smashed windows in shops marked with the shield of David, broke iron blinds, opened shops and robbed. They beat, knocked down, and beat unconscious any Jews they encountered along the way. The looting of shops was the finale of the pogrom, its essential goal" (Ringelblum Archive, vol. 29a, Warsaw 2018, p. 34).

Appeals from the Catholic Church and underground organizations to remain calm and not succumb to German provocations did not resonate everywhere. The pogrom involved people from the margins of society, as well as some youth who succumbed to the harsh anti-Semitic rhetoric of radical activists from some far-right organizations. The scale of these events was a genuine shock for Warsaw Jews. Although many organized, took up arms, and repelled the attackers, a deep pain and a sense of disappointment towards Poles remained. Rabbi Szymon Huberband, who worked with Emanuel Ringelblum, commented bitterly: "It is even said that this is German work, because the attacks by Poles on Jews are photographed by the Germans. Later, they will show the world that Poles are attacking Jews. It is only sad that there are Poles who allow themselves to be exploited by them and, becoming their playthings, serve foreign purposes. Even sadder is that there are no Poles who would influence these rascals to stop their dirty work" (Ringelblum Archive, vol. 32, Warsaw 2017, p. 50).

Pervasive, aggressive anti-Semitic propaganda, and from the autumn of 1941, the death penalty for helping and hiding Jews (outside of occupied Poland, a similarly drastic system of punishment was applied in the German-occupied territories of the USSR), were ultimately intended to discourage Poles from offering any assistance to Jewish escapees from the ghettos. There were environments where escapees could not count on support, but there were also those where providing shelter was a matter of course (e.g., the Warsaw Housing Cooperative operating in Żoliborz). Given the current state of knowledge, it is difficult to clearly assess the scale of the aid phenomenon. Emanuel Ringelblum attempted to make such calculations as early as early 1943: "Considering the special conditions in Poland, we must consider the behavior of that part of the Polish intelligentsia, workers, and peasants who hide Jews in their own country as exceptionally noble, consistent with the traditions of tolerance in Polish history. These noble individuals face not only German terror but also the hostile attitude of Polish fascists, who have learned nothing from the experiences of September 1939. […] Presumably, there are no more than 15,000 Jews hidden in the capital, housed among 2,000–3,000 Polish families. Considering that 2,000–3,000 Polish families act with the knowledge and approval of their closest relatives, we come to the conclusion that at least 10,000–15,000 Polish families in Warsaw help hide Jews, which amounts to some 40,000–60,000 people, counting a family of four." (Ringelblum Archive, vol. 29a, Warsaw 2018, p. 122).

To this day, we don't know how many such unsung heroes there were. They undoubtedly constituted an elite who truly understood and interpreted their humanity and Polishness. Unfortunately, after the war, they received insufficient attention, and many of their stories now need to be rediscovered, as it were. Some perished along with the Jews they hid, and others refused to talk about their actions long after the war. They were primarily afraid of their neighbors, who, in line with anti-Semitic stereotypes, believed that anyone who hid Jews likely made a fortune off them.

The Jews who survived mostly left Poland. They had to rebuild their lives. They began in silence. For a long time, they didn't speak of themselves or their saviors. Why? Krystyna Chiger, who was saved along with her family by the Lviv sewer worker Leopold Socha, described this new beginning: "In Israel, no one talked about the war. No one talked about the Holocaust. Whatever we had gone through, whatever we had endured before we arrived there, remained behind us and was not subject to any discussion. This was the attitude of the Jews in their homeland by choice, and in many respects it reflected the attitude toward the past we had developed within our family" ("Girl in a Green Sweater," Warsaw 2011, p. 282).

It took survivors many years of working through their traumas to begin to speak openly about their wartime experiences. Many years were also needed in Poland for society to begin recognizing and appreciating those who saved Jews, as well as discussing Polish-Jewish relations. The shared experiences of the rescuers and the rescued can become a space where Polish and Jewish historical experiences converge and create a shared narrative.

Dr. Jacek Konik

Photo: Janusz Wąż, Warsaw Ghetto Museum