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This is a "side response" to Ed's statement about few Polish Jews being
deported by the Soviets.

First, here is some POLICY for the group.

While there are sometimes tensions between certain elements of the Jewish
and Polish communities, the Kresy-Siberia group is not a forum to pursue
this topic. There is no basis in fact for the statement on the ethnic or
religious background of members of the Kresy-Siberia group, which is not
screened for membership on those criteria.

I invite all members to read and remember the mission of the Kresy-Siberia
Group, which is to "bring into contact people from countries around the
world with a special interest in the tragedy of the 1.7 million Polish
citizens of various faiths and ethnicities (Polish, Ukrainian, Belorussian,
Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, etc.) deported from eastern Poland (Kresy) in
1940-42 to special labour camps in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Soviet Asia."

Now for some HISTORY.

Under the Soviets, especially in the Kresy eastern borderlands, while being
Polish was sufficient reason for Soviet persecution, many Jews were also
persecuted because they were seen as threats to the Communist system.

After the 1941 amnesty, the Polish Government-in-Exile in London
investigated the plight of its citizens deported to the USSR and determined
that whilst the largest group of forced deportees was ethnically Polish,
many other Polish citizens were also deported, including land-owning
Ukrainians and Belorussians.

Approximately one-third of all the deportees from Poland to Siberia,
Kazakhstan, etc. were reported by the Polish Government-in-Exile to be
Jewish (that would make it half a million). On the other hand, it is a
fact that a significant proportion of the NKVD officers participating in the
persecutions of Polish citizens were themselves Jewish. If anything,
however, I would think that these facts would prove that being Jewish had
nothing to do with whether a person became a victim or a persecutor under
the Soviet regime.

Ed, is it possible that you (who was there as a young man, while I wasn't)
have formed your impressions because you do not personally remember many
Jews among the deportees? The deportees were scattered amongst hundreds of
far-flung settlements across the USSR - is it possible that not many of the
Jewish deportees did not end up in your settlement?

Furthermore, is it possible that you do not remember many Jewish soldiers in
Anders Army or with the cadets, after your evacuation to Persia?
Unfortunately, most of the Jewish Poles were not able to escape to Persia
with Anders Army. While General Anders issued orders that his Polish Army
was to be completely non-discriminating as to its members ethnic and
religious background, his British sponsors (who were occupying
Palestine/Israel at the time) prohibited armed Jews from being brought in to
the Middle East.

(Note that many Jewish soldiers, like future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin - slipped out of the USSR with the Polish Army anyway and went on to
form the Irgun anti-British terrorist group and later the Israeli Army after
the Polish Army turned a blind eye to their desertion once they got to
Palestine).

I hope that this note on POLICY and HISTORY helps us to guide our
discussions and keep them on-topic in the future.

Kind regards,

--
Stefan Wisniowski
Moderator, Kresy-Siberia

Stefan, On 10/16 you wrote:


"Approximately one-third of all the deportees from Poland to Siberia,
Kazakhstan, etc. were reported by the Polish Government-in-Exile to be
Jewish (that would make it half a million)".


Could you please identify where this is reported by the Polish Government.

My memory tells me that the figure of Jews deported to Siberia was
very small. Perhaps 1 or 2 %
There was not a single Jew in the Junaki/Cadet school in Middle East nor
were there any in the Polish camps and orphanages. The few that were there
were taken over on leaving USSR by the Jewish organizations. Of the 70,000
Polish army that came out of USSR 2000 Jews deserted in Palestine (among
them Menachim Begin) and some 100 remined and fought in Italy. Surely 2000
does not reflect the supposed 500,000 deportees.

There were many more "Polish" Jews in the USSR but they were not deported,
they went to USSR voluntarily to work there (they were escaping the Germans
and were very sympathetic to the Comunists. In 1919 about 600,000 jews
escaped from Russia /revolution to eastern Poland (Kresy)and most of them
could not speak Polish). They were not in the forced labor camps but worked
in industry and stayed in towns, perticularly in the south of USSR.

Edward

Stefan, you wrote:

"Ed, is it possible that you (who was there as a young man, while I wasn't)
have formed your impressions because you do not personally remember many
Jews among the deportees? The deportees were scattered amongst hundreds of
far-flung settlements across the USSR - is it possible that not many of the
Jewish deportees did not end up in your settlement?"

In the area where we were deported there were 3 camps. There was not a
single Jew in any of them.
My family (aunts and cousins ) reported on 5 other camps. I know over 300
children from various camps in USSR (including Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan)
who were in the camp in South Africa and they reported not a single Jew in
their camps. In travelling south to Uzbekistan we came across transports of
Jews some of whom spoke Polish (had to have been Polish Jews) who were
fleeing the German advance and they were travelling as Soviet citizens. I
came from a town on Kresy where over half the population was Jewish, most of
whom spoke very broken Polish or none at all- they spoke Yiddish. Then there
were few cultured Jews who spoke Polish well and also at home. My father was
a businessman and had Jewish friend and close contact with Jews.

Edward

Stefan, you stated:


""Furthermore, is it possible that you do not remember many Jewish soldiers
in Anders Army or with the cadets, after your evacuation to Persia?""
I already answered this previously: there were very few Polish Jews
in the Polish army in the USSR.


""Unfortunately, most of the Jewish Poles were not able to escape to Persia
with Anders Army.""
The Soviets attempted to prevent Polish Jews, Belorusians and
Ukrainians from reaching the Polish Army. They maintained that they
were Soviet citizens since they were not ethnic Poles.
Polish Army and civilians DID NOT ESCAPE from the USSR. It
evacuated to Persia according to the agreement reached with
the Soviets.

"While General Anders issued orders that his Polish Army
was to be completely non-discriminating as to its members ethnic and
religious background,"
Polish Army was always non-discriminating as to ethnicity of its
citizens. Polish Commonwealth was multi-ethnic and multi religious. It
was several centuries ahead of the rest of Europe. Tolerance and civil
liberties which are in fashion now have been practiced in the Polish
Commonwealth for centuries past. That is why 90% of European Jews
lived in the Polish Commonwealth. Jewish historians maintain that
Jews had more freedom in Poland than anywhere in their
history including the Kingdom of Israel.

"........his British sponsors (who were occupying
Palestine/Israel at the time) prohibited armed Jews from being brought in to
the Middle East."
First of all it was not "his" army but the Polish Army in the USSR.
Secondly there were no "his British sponsors". Britain had absolutely
nothing to do with the formation of the Polish Army in the USSR or
anywhere else.
Later when the Polish army moved from Iraq to Egypt through
Palestine the British were concerned about the Jews deserting in
Palestine.(there was no Israel until 1947) The Polish army command
did not pursue the deserters.
Palestine was a British mandated territory since they liberated it
from the Turks in WWI. In 19940 the brits accupied Persia and Iraq
to prevent them from falling into German hands. The Shah and king of
Iraq were pro-German.

Stefan try not to write history. You may distort it out of all recognition.
Edward Tarchalski

Edward

I take exception to your phrase that the British had nothing to with
forming the Polish 2nd Corp, while I have not great love for Churchill
etal, it was the Indian army which were under command of the British who
took the Polish refugees of the boats organised the resettlement of the
families, medical aid, clothed, fed and looked after those poor souls.
And then the 2nd Corp formed up with the eighth army organisation.

John

John,

The Brits had absolutely nothing to say in the formation of the Polish Army
in the USSR. There was no plan to evacuate from the USSR. When the Army
and civilians were eventually evacuated from the USSR it was the British
who took care of them (there was nobody else) using the Indian army to
perform the detailed tasks. You can be assured the Indian troops had no
power to make such decisions on their own.
The civilians were accomodated in the British Commonwealth and Colonies, viz
India ( through good offices of Maharaja), Tanganyika, Kenia and Rhodesias.
Mexico agreed to accomodate a group of children (the USA paid) and South
Africa also agreed under diplomatic pressure. Only New Zealand offered to
take care of some 1000 children unsolicited. The NZ Prime Minister saw the
childeren on their way to Mexico and offered to accept a group aswell.
The Polish army was stationed in Iraq (strategically, in case the Germans
broke through in Caucasus) and incorporated into the British 8th army and
consequently was organised according to British standards and regulations.
So were the French units and Australians and New Zealanders. It Fought in
Italy as part of the 8th Army. It was commanded by General Anders but the
Commander in Chief of all Polish forces, including the Navy and Air Force,
was the Polish Prime Minister General Sikorski.
Edward.
NB, I take exception to you taking exception to history.

Dear Ed
You wrote:

Could you please identify where this is reported by the Polish Government.

My memory tells me that the figure of Jews deported to Siberia was
very small. Perhaps 1 or 2 %
There was not a single Jew in the Junaki/Cadet school in Middle East nor
were there any in the Polish camps and orphanages. The few that were there
were taken over on leaving USSR by the Jewish organizations. Of the 70,000
Polish army that came out of USSR 2000 Jews deserted in Palestine (among
them Menachim Begin) and some 100 remined and fought in Italy. Surely 2000
does not reflect the supposed 500,000 deportees.

There were many more "Polish" Jews in the USSR but they were not deported,
they went to USSR voluntarily to work there (they were escaping the Germans
and were very sympathetic to the Comunists. In 1919 about 600,000 jews
escaped from Russia /revolution to eastern Poland (Kresy)and most of them
could not speak Polish). They were not in the forced labor camps but worked
in industry and stayed in towns, perticularly in the south of USSR.

In the area where we were deported there were 3 camps. There was not a
single Jew in any of them. My family (aunts and cousins ) reported on 5 other
camps. I know over 300 children from various camps in USSR (including
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) who were in the camp in South Africa and they
reported not a single Jew in their camps. In travelling south to Uzbekistan we
came across transports of Jews some of whom spoke Polish (had to have been
Polish Jews) who were fleeing the German advance and they were travelling as
Soviet citizens. I came from a town on Kresy where over half the population
was Jewish, most of whom spoke very broken Polish or none at all- they spoke
Yiddish. Then there were few cultured Jews who spoke Polish well and also at
home. My father was a businessman and had Jewish friend and close contact with
Jews.

Edward

This is my initial response to Edward's request for information. If I had
more time, I would report using more of the sources in my new and growing
library. Please note that I am far from an authority, having been studying
this only since February this year. Also, it is difficult to get precise
numbers on anything, as the Soviet archives have not all come to light. So
it is possible that while it is clear that hundreds of thousands of Jews
were deported, my estimate of 500,000 (1/3) may be inaccurate - I quoted the
1/3 from recollection. However, I have now found the original source, which
was based on statistical sampling.

Here is the specific information you requested on the Polish Government
document:

"A Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs memorandum entitled "Computation of
the Polish Population Deported to the USSR between 1939 and 1941" (Hoover
Institution, Poland, Box 588, Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, London, Mar.
15, 1945) offers a statistical breakdown of the deportees, compiled on the
basis of 120,000 personal files from the Polish Red Cross in Teheran:
0.5% = clergy of all denominations
0.6% = university professors, scientists
0.8% = judges and prosecutors
1.2% = journalists, artists, writers
1.3% = defense attorneys
3.1% = doctors and qualified medical personnel
3.2% = white-collar private employees
3.3% = workers
3.7% = employees of the Forestry Service
4.0% = police and border guards
4.0% = primary and secondary school teachers
4.4% = merchants
4.7% = engineers, technicians, agronomists
5.0% = white-collar state and local government employees
8.0% = professional military
24.6% = artisans
27.6% = peasants.
Poles made up about 52% of the deportees, Jews about 30%, and Ukrainians and
Belorussions about 18%."

The above quotation is taken from the book "Revolution from Abroad - The
Soviet Conquest of Poland's Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia" by Jan
T. Gross (1988, Princeton University Press, NJ). This book can be found at:

sr_1_12_2/107-4685137-0570969

The citation references an original Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(London Government in Exile) document archived in the Hoover Institution,
which can be found at:
;cs
=default;ts=default

Those on the group with access to the Hoover Institution can verify this
document if that is desired.

I have time tonight to add 2 more references.

First, reference the book "The Murderers of Katyn", by Russian Journalist
Vladimir Abarinov (1993, Hippocrene Books, NY). Appendix 1, "Katyn in
Historical Perspective (A Chronology by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski)," p371
contains the following:
"Among first 1,140,000 civilian deportees taken from areas annexed by the
Soviets[in the four mass deportations of February, April, June and June-July
1940], there were: 703,000 Poles, 217,000 Ukrainians, 83,000 Jews,
56,000 Byelorussians, 35,000 Polesians, 20,000 Russians and Lithuanians;
of the 336,000 Polish citizens, refugees from German occupied central and
western Poland, 198,000 were classified by the Soviets as Jews and the
remaining 138,000 as Poles."

So according to this, at least 281,000 Jews were deported to the USSR.

Second, reference the Polish book, "Swiadkowie Prezyc Sowieckich (Witnesses
of Soviet Experiences)", by Zbigniew Siemaszko (Caldra House, London). It
tells of how the lists of names were compiled for the June 1940 deportation
in which many of the deportees were Jews.

Apparently, German Registration Commissions were set up in Lwów and other
parts of occupied eastern Poland, to take names of refugees from western
Poland who wanted to return home to their Nazi occupied homes. In one
testimonial on page 342, Józef Bryda (then in Bournesmouth, UK), tells of
how the thousands of applicants organised themselves into groups of 100 and
1,000 to facilitate registration - but the German commission left abruptly
before they had the chance to register. Then, the chief of the Lwów NKVD
said that he felt sorry for the refugees sleeping in parks etc. and asked
the applicants committee (which had organised itself) to turn over the lists
of names and addresses of the refugees collected for purposes of applying to
the Germans (who were otherwise using false names and addresses) so that the
NKVD could organise transport trains to take them back to the Germans side.
The Applicants Committee hesitated, but took the risk of passing over the
names. Those on the list were rounded up and deported on the night of 28
June 1940.

Let me respond to two other specific points:

transports of... Polish Jews... who were fleeing the German advance and they
were travelling as Soviet citizens

During the Soviet occupation (was it in November/December 1939?) all of the
people in eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union were automatically
decreed to be Soviet citizens. After June 1941, the agreement to restore
Polish citizenship to the deportees only applied to ethnic Poles. Former
Polish citizens who were Jewish, Ukrainian and Belorussian had to remain
Societ citizens.

There was not a single Jew in the Junaki/Cadet school in Middle East nor
were there any in the Polish camps and orphanages. The few that were there
were taken over on leaving USSR by the Jewish organizations. Of the 70,000
Polish army that came out of USSR 2000 Jews deserted in Palestine (among
them Menachim Begin) and some 100 remined and fought in Italy. Surely 2000
does not reflect the supposed 500,000 deportees.

As the Jews were not allowed to reclaim Polish citizenship, they were also
not allowed by the Soviets to join the Polish Army in the USSR under Anders.
The Soviet-Polish Protocol for the Evacuation of the Polish Army to Persia
clearly states that only ethnic Poles were to be allowed to evacuate with
Anders Army. That is at least one reason for the lack of Jews in Polish
cadet schools and refugee camps in Africa.

The other reason is that some of the ones who did make it out with the
Polish Army deserted in Palestine. The book "General Anders and the
Soldiers of the Second Polish Corps", by Harvey Sarner (1997, Brunswick
Press, Cathedral City, CA) quotes a number of varying statistics for the
number of Jewish soldiers in Anders Army and the number of deserters in
Palestine. However, the number of Jewish soldiers making it out of the USSR
with the army to Iran seems to be about 4,300, with between 2,500 and 3,000
deserting in Palestine to join the Jewish Brigade of the British Army or the
Irgun Zvai Lemmi paramilitary group.

Incidentally, it is clear from this book that General Sikorski, head of the
Polish Government, and General Anders were both sympathetic to the Zionist
cause of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, although this caused significant
difficulties for them with the British Government (which was obviously
opposed).

People - there is more that I could mine from the books at my disposal if
anybody is interested. The main point is that the notion that hardly any
Polish Jews were deported by the Soviets is wrong, although it is likely
that not many were included in the 10 February deportation (which my family
suffered) and perhaps that is the reason that some of those who taken in
February may have formed this view.

Regards,
Stefan