Lwów pogrom (1918): Difference between revisions
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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During the first days of armed Polish-Ukrainian conflict Polish quarter of Lwow was defended only by little group of students and young people. known in Polish historiography as [[Lwów Eaglets]]. |
During the first days of armed Polish-Ukrainian conflict Polish quarter of Lwow was defended only by little group of students and young people. known in Polish historiography as [[Lwów Eaglets]]. The chaos during the Polish take-over of the city{{Vague|date=September 2008}} was accompanied by unrest in which dozens of civilians - Ukrainians, Jews and Poles {{Fact|date=September 2008}} perished. |
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In 1918, the Jews of Galicia found themselves caught in the middle of the post-[[World War One]] Polish-Ukrainian conflict, and fell victim to a rising wave of pogroms,<ref name="Ezra">Ezra Mendelsohn. [http://books.google.com/books?id=5_OXOwvjqjwC&pg=PA40&dq=lwow+polish+jewish+1918+galicia&sig=ACfU3U0l-Mc7QW2bQk2lgVhw3MFbIbzi-Q The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars.] Indiana University Press, 1983.</ref> fueled by lawlessness, perpetrated by both sides of the conflict. Throughout the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Jews had served as scapegoats for the frustrations of the warring forces.<ref>Scott Ury. Who, What, When, Where, and Why Is Polish Jewry? Envisioning, Constructing, and Possessing Polish Jewry. ''Jewish Social Studies'', Volume 6, Number 3, Spring/Summer 2000:205-228.</ref> |
In 1918, the Jews of Galicia found themselves caught in the middle of the post-[[World War One]] Polish-Ukrainian conflict, and fell victim to a rising wave of pogroms,<ref name="Ezra">Ezra Mendelsohn. [http://books.google.com/books?id=5_OXOwvjqjwC&pg=PA40&dq=lwow+polish+jewish+1918+galicia&sig=ACfU3U0l-Mc7QW2bQk2lgVhw3MFbIbzi-Q The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars.] Indiana University Press, 1983.</ref> fueled by lawlessness, perpetrated by both sides of the conflict. Throughout the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Jews had served as scapegoats for the frustrations of the warring forces.<ref>Scott Ury. Who, What, When, Where, and Why Is Polish Jewry? Envisioning, Constructing, and Possessing Polish Jewry. ''Jewish Social Studies'', Volume 6, Number 3, Spring/Summer 2000:205-228.</ref> |
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Revision as of 05:15, 8 September 2008
The Lwów pogrom (also called the Lemberg pogrom) of the Jewish population of Lwów (now Lviv) took place on November 21 - November 23 1918 during the Polish-Ukrainian War. In the course of the three days of unrest in the city, an estimated 52-150 Jewish residents were murdered and hundreds injured, with widespread looting carried out by Polish soldiers [1][2][3][4][5][6] militiamen and local criminals.[7] Hundreds more Christians (primarily Ukrainians) were killed during this time as well.[8][9] It took Polish forces two days to stop the rioters. Over a thousand people were arrested by Polish authorities during and after the riot.[10][11][7]
The events, widely publicized in the international press, led to US President Woodrow Wilson appointing a commission, led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., tasked with investigating excesses against the Jewish population in Poland.[12]
Background
During the first days of armed Polish-Ukrainian conflict Polish quarter of Lwow was defended only by little group of students and young people. known in Polish historiography as Lwów Eaglets. The chaos during the Polish take-over of the city[vague] was accompanied by unrest in which dozens of civilians - Ukrainians, Jews and Poles [citation needed] perished.
In 1918, the Jews of Galicia found themselves caught in the middle of the post-World War One Polish-Ukrainian conflict, and fell victim to a rising wave of pogroms,[1] fueled by lawlessness, perpetrated by both sides of the conflict. Throughout the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Jews had served as scapegoats for the frustrations of the warring forces.[13] On November 9-10, the Jews of Lwów formed a militia and declared their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over the city.[10] Poles resented the Jewish neutrality, and there were reports, leading to exaggerated rumors, that some Jews, including the militia, collaborated with the Ukrainians and shot at the Polish forces.[10][11][7] On the morning November 22, after taking the city in the night of November 21 to November 22, and amidst rumors that Lwów's Jews would be made to pay for their neutrality in the Polish-Ukrainian conflict, Polish forces interned and disarmed the Jewish militia.[10][11]
Before withdrawing from the town, Ukrainian forces let the criminals out of the prisons.[10][11][7] The town was also full of Austrian army deserters. Polish authorities also armed a number of volunteers (including some former criminals) who promised to fight the Ukrainains.[10] The riots, including pogroms in the Jewish quarters (but an even larger disturbance in the Ukrainian quarters, with three times as much dead),[9] broke out after Polish forces managed to get control over all parts of the city, including the Jewish quarters.[10] Ukrainian and Polish criminals, militia volunteers, soldiers, civilians, and even officers began robbing and pillaging parts of the city.[10] According to many eyewitnesses and victims testimonies rioting Polish soldiers asserted, that they were given by their officers 48 hours to pillage Jewish quarters, as a reward for capturing the city from Ukrainians.[10] Such an order was never found in the Polish archives, and Polish commanding officer and amateur historian, Czesław Mączyński, in his history of 1918 battle of Lwów, noted that he heard rumors of such an order, which the criminal elements attempted to buy, without success.[7] In his 1919 report, Henry Morgenthau concludes that in Lemberg, as well as in the Polish cities of Lida, Wilna, and Minsk "the excesses were committed by the soldiers who were capturing the cities and not by the civilian population."[14] Writing in the journal Central European History, William W. Hagen reports that the pogrom was carried out by Polish Blue Army forces, together with lawless civilians, with the connivance or toleration of their military superiors.[15] Joseph Tenenbaum, a leader of the Jewish militia and eyewitness to the pogrom, wrote that Polish troops led by officers actively looted the Jewish quarter.[16] His report is contradicted by Mączyński, who argues that the Polish forces tried to stop the riots quicker, but were undermanned, and that while the unruly soldiers participated in the riots, officers actively tried to stop them.[7]
Polish forces were able to bring order to the city after one or two days (reports vary), on November 23 or November 24.[10][11] Ad hoc courts handed verdicts during the riots.[11] About one thousand people well jailed for participating in the riots.[10][11] Mączyński notes that between 1300 to 1500 people were jailed, primarily Ukrainians (60%), the rest Polish (30%), but also some Jewish criminals (10%).[7] Mączyński also gives the statistical breakdown of professions, that includes 18 officers and 54 soldiers among those arrested.[7]
Casualties
Figures for the death toll vary; according to William W. Hagen, citing a report prepared for the Polish Foreign Ministry, approximately 150 Jews were murdered and 500 Jewish shops and their businesses were ransacked,[10] while the 1919 Morgenthau report counted 64 Jewish deaths. A simultaneous British government investigation led by Sir Stuart Samuel reported that 52 Jews were killed, 463 injured and a large amount of Jewish property was stolen.[17] Jewish contemporary sources reported 73 deaths;[10] Official city documents support only 41 deaths.[7] According to Tadeusz Piotrowski, in the chaotic events of the riot, more Christians than Jews have died,[8] and Morgenthau Report, for example, raised a question of whether the label pogrom it technically applicable to such riots in the times of war.[8] The report submitted to Polish Foreign Ministry cited by Hagen characterized the incident as a pogrom, and criticized the inaction of Polish officials in failing to halt the violence, while accusing the officials of publicizing inflammatory charges against Lwów's Jews.[10] Historian Norman Davies has cited figures of 340 total deaths in the violence, of whom two thirds were Ukrainian Christians and the remaining 70 were Jews.[9] Davies questioned whether these circumstances can be accurately described as a "pogrom," suggesting that Polish forces may have carried out two distinct massacres — an anti-semitic pogrom against Jews and an anti-Ukrainian massacre.[9]
Aftermath
Over a thousand people were arrested, hundreds individuals accused of participation in the pogrom were punished by Polish authorities after they established themselves in the city, promises of material compensation were made.[7][11][12]
As a result of the pogrom, an all Jewish unit of around 1000 men was formed in the army of the West Ukrainian National Republic. [18]
The events were widely reported by European and American press,[19] including The New York Times[20] News reports of the massacre, claimed by some historians (ex. Davies, Kapiszewski, Piotrowski) to have been greatly exaggerated, were later used as a means of pressure on Polish delegation during Paris peace conference into signing the Minority Protection Treaty (the Little Treaty of Versailles).[11][19][9] and in 1921, the events also resulted in Polish government awarding liberal minority rights for Polish Jewish population in the March Constitution.[21]
International outrage at the series of similar acts of violence committed by Polish military (Pinsk massacre, Lida, Minsk and Vilna pogroms) and civilian population (Kielce pogrom) against the Jews led to the appointment of an investigation commission by US President Woodrow Wilson in June 1919[22][23]. On October 3, 1919 commission lead by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. published it's findings. According to Morgenthau Report excesses in Lwow were "political as well as anti-Semitic in character".[12]
Polish government also investigated Lwow events. Report prepared on December 17, 1918 by the Foreign Ministry of Poland emphasized the role played by criminals released during the struggle over the city and recruited by Polish Armed Forces. According to the report this resulted in a "tragic and vicious circle" when a soldier fighting for the Polish cause, also "robbed at every oppurtunity and wherever he could"[10]
Notes
- ^ a b Ezra Mendelsohn. The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars. Indiana University Press, 1983.
- ^ Joanna B. Michlic. Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present. University of Nebraska Press, 2006. One of the first and worst instances of anti-Jewish violence was Lwow pogrom, which occurred in the last week of November 1918. In three days 72 Jews were murdered and 443 others injured. The chief perpetrators of these murders were soldiers and officers of the so-called Blue Army, set up in France in 1917 by General Jozef Haller (1893-1960) and lawless civilians
- ^ Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993. "In Lwow, a city whose fate was disputed, the Jews tried to maintain their neutrality between Poles and Ukrainians, and in reaction a pogrom was held in the city under auspices of the Polish army"
- ^ Gilman, Sander L. (1999). Jewries at the Frontier: Accommodation, Identity, Conflict. University of Illinois Press. p. 39. ISBN 0252067924,. OCLC 9780252067921.
After the end of the fighting and as a result of the Polish victory, some of the Polish soldiers and the civilian population started a pogrom against the Jewish inhabitants. Polish soldiers maintened that the Jews had sympathized with the Ukrainian position during the conflicts
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help); Check|oclc=value (help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ Marsha L. Rozenblit. Reconstructing a National Identity: The Jews of Habsburg Austria During World War I. Oxford University Press US, 2001. The largest pogrom occured in Lemberg. Polish soldiers led an attack on the Jewish quarter of the city on November 21-23, 1918 that claimed 73 Jewish lifes
- ^ Zvi Y. Gitelman. The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. In November 1918, Polish soldiers who had taken Lwow (Lviv) from the Ukrainians killed more than seventy Jews in a pogrom there, burning synagogues, destroying Jewish property, and leaving hundreds of Jewish families homeless
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Template:Pl icon Czesław Mączyński, Boje Lwowskie, 1921
- ^ a b c Template:En icon Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide... McFarland & Company. pp. p. 41-42. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters:|chapterurl=and|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b c d e Norman Davies. "Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland." In: Herbert Arthur Strauss. Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39. Walter de Gruyter, 1993.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o William W. Hagen. "The Moral Economy of Popular Violence The Pogrom in Lwow, November 1918." In: Robert Blobaum, Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, Cornell University Press, 2005, ISBN 0801489695, Print, p.127-129
- ^ a b c d e f g h i David Engel. "Lwów, 1918: The Transmutation of a Symbol and its Legacy in the Holocaust." In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, Rutgers University Press, 2003, ISBN 0813531586, Google Print, p.33-34
- ^ a b c Morgenthau, Henry (1922). "Appendix. Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland". All in a Life-time. Doubleday, Page and Company. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ^ Scott Ury. Who, What, When, Where, and Why Is Polish Jewry? Envisioning, Constructing, and Possessing Polish Jewry. Jewish Social Studies, Volume 6, Number 3, Spring/Summer 2000:205-228.
- ^ Henry Morgenthau, French Strother. All in a Life-time. Doubleday, Page and Company, 1922, p. 414. Original from the New York Public Library, digitized Jul 17, 2007>
- ^ William W. Hagen. Murder in the East: German-Jewish Liberal Reactions to Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland and Other East European Lands, 1918–1920. Central European History, Volume 34, Number 1, 2001 , pp. 1-30. Page 8.
- ^ Joseph Bendow (Joseph Tenebaum). Der Lemberger Judenpogrom. Nov 1918-Jan 1919. (Vienna 1919).
- ^ Cited in: American Jewish Committee. The American Jewish Yearbook 5682. Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized Mar 3, 2005.
- ^ Orest Subtelny. Ukraine a History. University of Toronto Press, 2000, ISBN 0802083900. p 369. [1]
- ^ a b Andrzej Kapiszewski (2004). Controversial Reports on the situation of Jews in Poland in the aftermath of World War I, Studia Judaica, pp.257-304
- ^ "A Record of Pogroms in Poland". New York Times. June 1, 1919. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ Jacob Goldstein, Abraham Cahan, Jewish Socialists in the United States: The Cahan Debate, 1925-1926, Sussex Academic Press, 1998, ISBN 1898723982, Google Print, p.11
- ^ Little, John E. (1999). "Morgenthau, Henry". The United States in the First World War: An Encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0815333536. OCLC 9780815333531.
{{cite book}}: Check|oclc=value (help) - ^ Marcus, Jacob Rader (1989). United States Jewry, 1776-1985: The Sephardic Period. Wayne State University Press. p. 391. ISBN 0814321887. OCLC 9780814321881. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
{{cite book}}: Check|oclc=value (help)