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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the social history of the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) during the era of Communist rule. Among the issues explored are the relationship between the Polish Jewish community and the institute; the ties between ŻIH and the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (TSKŻ); the historical and political factors that shaped its structure; the transformation of the social profile of its management; and the important, albeit non-statutory, watchdog function it performed throughout the period of 1947–1989. At a number of crucial moments such as the March 1968 antisemitic campaign, ŻIH sought to defend the Polish Jewish community. Throughout the entire period under discussion, it consistently engaged with the authorities in trying to protect the material heritage of Polish Jews, in particular, their cemeteries.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In 1986, an educational-scholarly institution was established at the Jagiellonian University, whose main goal was Polish–Jewish dialogue; see Link-Lenczowski, “Interdepartmental Center for the History and Culture of Jews in Poland.”
2 For a general survey on Polish writings on the Holocaust, see Aleksiun, “Polish Historiography of the Holocaust”; on the content of ŻIH publications, see: Żbikowski, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny. Since 2014, the institute has published a series of critical works by the Central Jewish Historical Commission (CKŻP), ŻIH’s predecessor; by the end of 2021, seven works originally published in the years 1945–1947 came out. On the work of Nachman Blumental (1947), see Tokarska-Bakir, “Słowa niewinne.”
3 Stach, “Walka klas w getcie?” 272–287; idem, “‘Duch czasu wycisnął jednak na tej pracy swe piętno’”; Finder, “Bernard Mark, powstanie w getcie warszawskim i proces Jurgena Stroopa”; Person, “The Initial Reception and First Publication from the Ringelblum Archive in Poland 1946–1952”; Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Praca będzie wymagała pewnych nieznacznych zmian”; Skibińska, “Ludzie opowiadali rzeczy potworne o tym, co się tam działo.”
4 See Koźmińska-Frejlak and Finder, “Apart.”
5 For an in-depth study of the institute’s structure and its transformation, see Rykała, “Żydowski Instytut Historyczny jako instytut i stowarzyszenie.”
6 See Getka-Kenig, “Problemy badań nad historią sztuki żydowskiej w komunistycznej Polsce.”
7 See Datner, “Władza komunistyczna zrewidowana”; see also Mirosław Szumiło's detailed study depicting the role of antisemitism in shaping the history of the Communist Party from the very beginning of its existence as the party in power (Roman Zambrowski 1909–1977). On the outcome of “national legitimization” for Jewish institutions, see Pęziński, Na rozdrożu; Nalewajko-Kulikov, Obywatel Jidyszlandu; Kichelewski, “‘Pomoc naszym braciom z Polski.’”
8 In Jewish circles, Ber Mark was considered a “liberal,” as was Dovid Sfard, the editor of Yidishe shriftn. See Pęziński, Na rozdrożu, 75–76. By this time, Mark had already demonstrated his independence and common sense. See Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Trzy kolory.”
9 See note to the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the United Polish Workers’ Party (n.d.), Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (IPN BU), 1585/7280: 23–32.
10 An indication of change was the appearance of the question “Who is a Jew?” among members of the community, which points to the fact that the criteria for being considered a member had ceased to be obvious and natural. See Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Trzy kolory.”
11 Quoted in Datner, Po zagładzie, 80.
12 See Rykała, “Żydowski Instytut Historyczny jako instytut i stowarzyszenie,” 244–245. Taking over the collections would also have involved parceling them out and dividing them into library, archive and museum collections, which would have gone against the concept of ŻIH as a central institution.
13 Ibid., 348–349.
14 ŻIH was the only institution in Poland with such a structure; other research institutes run by associations – for instance, the Western Institute (Instytut Zachodni) in Poznań and Silesian Institute (Instytut Śląski) in Opole—were separated from the associations that had established them. A final change in the legal formula that separated the social and cultural association (SŻIH) from the state-run research institute (ŻIH) came about in 1994.
15 The belief that the Stalinist period was particularly perilous to the Jews in Poland, and—by extension—to the institute, can be found, for instance, in Stach, “Duch czasu wycisnął jednak na tej pracy swe piętno,” 154, but it is nowhere to be found in the institute’s documentation, or in any other documentation, for that matter. For Jewish Communists during this period, internationalism was an undisputed matter. See, e.g., Mark, “Dziennik grudzień 1965-luty 1966,” 166.
16 In the early 1950, ŻIH was still receiving subsidies from the money left by the Joint, which had returned to Poland in 1945. The organization was expelled in 1950, but was allowed to return to Poland in 1957. Throughout the 1960s, the institute once again received its assistance, and this enabled it to advance programs such as cataloging the monuments of culture in Poland and conducting archival research.
17 See, for example, note from a meeting (21 September 1970) between representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Culture: “[t]here is no justification for the expansion of statutory activities,” IPN BU 1585/7394:16.
18 In the mid 1950s, Mark complained to party authorities about the difficulties in publishing books devoted to Jewish subjects and on the government's continual underinvestment in the institute (“the budget merely suffices to pay the salaries”). See letter (18 February 1956) to the Publishing Department of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (KC PZPR), AŻIH 310/703. The government’s policy toward Jewish publishing houses up until 1956 and afterwards requires much more detailed research. In the 1960s, there were problems with publishing the diary of Emanuel Ringelblum. We also know of intense censorship at the time with regard to any mention of Poles’ attitudes toward the Jews during the war.
19 Intensive invigilation, launched in 1961, was combined with breaking into the institute, photographing documents (including Holocaust testimonies), and searching for “anti-Polish” content, e.g., negative opinions expressed by Poles with regard to the Jews. See Rutkowski, “Kierunki, cele i rezultaty działań Służby Bezpieczeństwa PRL wobec Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.”
20 Czesław Pilichowski, “Stan i potrzeby badań nad problemem badań nad zbrodniami hitlerowskimi na ziemiach polskich w aspekcie zadań GKBZH w P,” no date (ca. 1966), IPN BU1633/260.
21 See Madajczyk, “Uwagi o działalności Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego” (3 May 1968), 495; cf. interview with Stefan Krakowski conducted by Benjamin Pinkus (29 April 1969), Oral History Division of the Hebrew University, tape no. 1503. Excerpts of the interview are reprinted in Datner and Pieńkowska, eds., Instytut, 138–140.
22 “Polish society had absolutely no interest in the martyrdom of Jews […] to the extent that in the years 1957–60 Polish historians often turned to the Institute for help in Jewish matters—after that they stopped” (excerpt from Krakowski interview). Mark complained that, at the 1963 unveiling of a plaque dedicated to Emanuel Ringelblum on the wall of the Jewish Historical Institute, there was “not a single representative of Polish institutions and Polish society.” Letter from Mark to Board of the TSKŻ (30 May 1963), AŻIH 310/704.
23 In analyzing the works of ŻIH, Madajczyk claimed that many of its documents were designed to leave the impression that Poland was an antisemitic country (see “Uwagi o działalności Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego,” 495).
24 “ŻIH maintains relations and cooperates with the Social-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland as well as with other similar institutions […] in the country and abroad.” Statute from 1964, AŻIH 310/3. Until the end of ŻIH’s existence in the form of an association, this fragment remained part of the institute’s charter.
25 See letter (21 May 1956), AŻIH TSKŻ 45: 373. “Books of records” contain lists of people who registered at the Jewish Committees set up at the end of the war.
26 Pęziński, Na rozdrożu, 75. In the view of some of the Jewish Communists, Israel, as a capitalist state, could not be supported.
27 Ibid., 75–76.
28 Nalewajko-Kulikow, “Trzy kolory,” 280. In 1962, Hersz Smolar, a veteran Communist, ceased to be the head of the TSKŻ, which could be considered a breaking point in the life of the Jewish community in Poland.
29 See the protocol from a meeting of the members of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute (26 January 1963), AŻIH 310/53, see also Datner and Pieńkowska, eds., Instytut, 110.
30 See the letter from the Social-Administrative Department to the vice minister of Internal Affairs (16 August 1969), IPN BU 1585/7394: 6 (“This time, we could comply with ŻIH director Datner’s request [for not merging the institutions]”).
31 See memo to S. Wójcik (17 June 1972), IPN BU 1585/394: 30.
32 Rykała, “Żydowski Instytut Historyczny jako instytut i stowarzyszenie,” 371–379.
33 The separation came about after Szymon Datner’s term as director and was formalized in a new charter of the institute adopted in 1976, which, however, did not change substantially the director’s subordination to the board of directors. See Rykała, “Żydowski Instytut Historyczny,” 369.
34 Epsztejn, “Uwagi do sprawozdania zarządu za lata 1986–1989,” n.d.; n.p., AŻIH 310/55.
35 Epsztejn, born in 1911, was a professor of economics, a lawyer, and a hydro-technologist. In the years 1949–1968, he served as director of the Institute of Economics and Organization of Industry; see AŻIH 310/901.
36 An audit carried out by the Polish Academy of Sciences revealed a number of serious and uncorrected cases of negligence in the institute’s organization and operation; see letter of the Control Office of the Polish Academy of Sciences to the chairman of the Board of the Jewish Historical Institute (24 November 1987), AŻIH 310/55. See also Epsztejn, “Uwagi do sprawozdania zarządu za lata 1986–1989.” During his tenure, Epsztejn succeeded in significantly increasing PAN's grant to the institute; bringing about the completion of renovation of the institute building; hiring qualified staff for the library, archive, and museum; improving cooperation with Yad Vashem; sorting out the issue of stolen manuscripts; and drafting a formal separation of ŻIH and the SŻIH.
37 See Epsztejn, “Uwagi do sprawozdania z działalności ZIH w okresie 3 IV-XI 1985.”
38 See letter by Ilja Epsztejn (17 December 1986) to the chairman of the board of ŻIH, Szymon Datner: “In view of the hampering of my professional duties caused by the conduct of certain members of the present and previous management, I am forced to terminate my employment contract […].”AŻIH 310/ 901.
39 Datner was a member of the Religious Union of Mosaic Faith, an umbrella group of more than a dozen local congregations. In the 1980s, he was an honorary chairman of the union.
40 Szymon Datner was in fact fluent in three languages—Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew.
41 Nachman Blumental (1905–1983) studied philosophy, Polish philology, history, and pedagogy at the University of Warsaw (UW); Szymon Datner—anthropology at the Jagiellonian University; Bernard Mark—law at UW.
42 At a convention of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) convention in Moscow in August 1945, Mark declared: “First and foremost, our party must broaden and intensify its efforts to combat antisemitism […]. We must support all positive issues regarding Jewish affairs including emigration and Palestine […].” Quoted in Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Trzy kolory,” 272–273.
43 For example, in his reply to a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1 February 1955) concerning cooperation with Yad Vashem, Mark attacked the Israeli institution as “reactionary” and refused to cooperate with it (AŻIH 310/703). Earlier, the institute was accused of introducing “corrections” to the materials from the Ringelblum Archive it had published. In YIVO bleter from 1953, Józef Kermisz (later, Joseph Kermish) pointed to the fact that any negative appraisal of Polish attitudes toward Jews were omitted in ŻIH publications (see Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Wstęp,” xlv).
44 See, for example, Mark's negative assessment of Mayer Balaban's History of Jewish Literature, due to its “conservative,” “nationalistic,” and “mystical” character (letter [26 January 1955] to the Main Board of Booksellers, AŻIH 310/703).
45 Mark, “Dziennik,” 166.
46 See Chmielewska, “Realizm socjalistyczny w nowym kontekście.”
47 Protocol from the meeting of the TSKŻ Board (1–2 December 1956), quoted in Pęziński, Na rozdrożu, 35.
48 Protocol from the meeting of the TSKŻ Presidium (30 November 1963), Archiwum Towarzystwa Społeczno- Kulturalnego Żydów w Polsce (ATSKŻ), 8/25: 12.
49 Although emigration peaked in 1957, several hundred Jews left Poland each year during the first half of the 1960s. After March 1968, the numbers increased dramatically.
50 Mark, “Dziennik,” 176.
51 Ibid., 175. On Mark as a team leader, see Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Trzy kolory,” 282; interview with Stefan Krakowski (cf. n. 26). Krakowski was an associate (współpracownik) at the institute from the beginning of the 1960s, and in the years 1967–1968, he was an employee there. Gabriel Finder notes that “Ester Mark's published bibliography of her late husband's writings includes 959 items.” See Mark, “Bibliografiye fun di shriftn fun Prof. Ber (Bernard) Mark.” Mark’s lifework awaits critical evaluation.
52 See “II światowy Kongres Nauk Judaistycznych w Jerozolimie”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 22 (1957): 72.
53 Interview with Krakowski, 9. Among other things, the Joint funds enabled photographic documentation of the surviving material heritage of Jews in Poland, a project that extended over several years.
54 Beginning in the 1960s, Artur Eisenbach (1906–1992) also worked at the Institute of History at PAN; in the years that followed, he was the only historian there to be engaged in research on Jewish history. On ignoring Jewish themes while writing the history of Poland, see Datner, Ta i tamta strona, 16–17.
55 Interview with Krakowski, 10.
56 Datner claimed that he “accepted the post of director as a result of an appeal addressed to him, according to which the Institute’s future was dependent on his agreeing to take up the post” (protocol of the general meeting of the staff of the Jewish Historical Institute, AŻIH 310/46).
57 Artur Eisenbach’s attempts at setting up the Academic Council proved unsuccessful. Datner, in contrast to Eisenbach, established the council with the aid of a third party, the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
58 See letter from the Social-Administrative Department to the deputy minister of internal affairs (16 August 1969), IPN BU 1585/7394, k. 6.
59 Datner claimed that “there are many Poles in Poland who, at the hardest time of all, helped Jews, risking their own lives.” Ludwik Łozowski, in a polemical exchange with Datner, argued that materials on Polish aid to Jews should be distributed by PAN rather than by ŻIH; see general meeting of the Jewish Historical Institute (7 June 1969), IPN BU 01178/1141 mf. 2945/2-5: 266–7.
60 Datner, Las sprawiedliwych (The Forest of the Righteous). For an analysis of the Datner’s oeuvre dedicated to Polish aid to Jews, see Libionka, “Polskie piśmiennictwo na temat indywidualnej i zorganizowanej pomocy Żydom,” 38–42. The Forest of the Righteous stands in contrast to Datner's own account written shortly after the war had ended, as well as to his work titled Khurbn Bialystok from 1946. See (Helena) Datner, “Immediately after the War the Picture Was Complete.”
61 AIPN, IPN BU MSW II 4400, k. 218-219, note from 21 April 1970, also quoted in Danielik, “Żydzi przeciw Żydom?” During his speech at TSKŻ, Datner discussed the anti-Jewish publications that were the talk of the town back then: books by Kazimierz Sidor, Tadeusz Walichnowski and Stanisław Ryszard Dobrowolski. See IPN BU 01178/1141, mf. 2945/2-6: 44.
62 Marian Fuks (1914–2022), a military officer and historian (of the press and of music) directed the institute in the years 1970–1973 and was editor of the Biuletynu Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego for many years. His short tenure as director was negatively evaluated by the authorities, who, among other things, were not pleased by some of the subjects of research pursued by the institute, which were conducted “from the position of national divisions and praising Jewry as a whole. It can be noticed in such research subjects as, e.g., Jewish participation in the Second World War […] Jewish contribution to the development of various fields of culture and science in Poland […].” The unnamed author of this evaluation (dated 16 June 1973) advocates Fuks' dismissal. IPN BU 1585/7394: 75–80.
63 Maurycy Horn (1917–2000) was a graduate of the History Department at Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov; following repatriation to Poland in 1957, he worked at the Pedagogical University in Opole. Initially, he served as a dean of the Faculty of Philology and History, and from October 1966 until May 1968 he served as the provost. During the years 1973–1990, when he served as (part-time) director of ŻIH, he commuted between Warsaw and Opole.
64 After Mark resigned from his position on the TSKŻ Presidium in April 1962, he was replaced by Rajber; see Markusz, Polak nierdzennie polski, 23. Rajber and Horn used to visit departments at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, thus demonstrating their loyalty in such matters as a ban on discussions concerning antisemitism. See, e.g., unsigned note (28 January 1974), IPNBU 1585/7394: 81.
65 “Candidates to the new board […] were not discussed with ‘our department,’ nor were they discussed with the Administrative Department at the Central Committee. It is fairly likely that they were not discussed with the organ which finances the operation of ŻIH—namely PAN—either”; cf. memo [22 May 1980], IPN BU 1585/7394: 114).
66 Among those elected to the new board were Wilhelm Billig, a former deputy minister; Stefan Bergman, a former head of the Department of Marxist-Leninist Classics at the Książka i Wiedza publishing house and government plenipotentiary on the use of atomic energy; and Józef Niedźwiecki, a former department head in the Communist Party’s Central Committee; see minutes of the annual general meeting of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland (23 May 1980), AŻIH 310/54.
67 This change in the intellectual climate surrounding Jewish affairs was due, among other things, to the first postwar contacts abroad between Jewish and Polish academics and intellectuals, which set the tone and manner of speaking about Jewish history in the tone of the “dialogue.” In 1979, for instance, there was a meeting of representatives of American Jewish associations and the Polish American Congress in Orchard Lake, Michigan, followed by academic conferences in various other places, among them, New York, Oxford, Kraków, and Jerusalem.
68 See report of the Trade Union of Employees of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland (for the period of 21 November 1988 to 21 January 1990), AŻIH 310/2095; see also the account of Paweł Fijałkowski in Datner and Pieńkowska, eds., Instytut, 183, 190.
69 Report of the NS of the Trade Union of Employees of the Jewish Historical Institute.
70 See Datner, Ta i tamta strona.
71 See letter from Mark (17 December 1953), AŻIH 310/ 702.
72 Rzepliński, “Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej?,” 457–459.
73 See Żbikowski, “Pogromy i mordy ludności żydowskiej,” in ibid., 1:162. The question remains whether the institute was trying to interest relevant institutions in these documents.
74 AŻIH S/340, 129,137.
75 See letter from Całka Migdał sent to ŻIH from Montevideo (29 December 1947) and forwarded to the Ministry of Justice (30 January 1948). See Persak, “Akta procesu z 1949 roku,” 415.
76 Rozenberg-Rutkowski, “Działalność Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w dziedzinie ścigania przestępców wojennych i kolaboracjonistów.” At the time, the criminal file was said to contain the names of 10,000 offenders; see also Finder and Pusin, Justice behind the Iron Curtain, ch. 5.
77 In recent years, there has been a significant amount of research devoted to this subject among Polish scholars. See, for instance, Janicka and Żukowski, Przemoc filosemicka; and Żukowski, Tożsamość pod presją.
78 See, e.g., a letter (25 June 1956) to the Presidium of the National Council, AŻIH S/333,9: “For some time now, some janitors have been compiling lists of Jewish tenants and approaching them to demand they hand over their keys because they are allegedly leaving for Israel […]. Who gave them instructions to draw up lists of tenants of Jewish nationality or origin? Where do the janitors get the information that all Jews are leaving?”
79 See, e.g., a letter addressed to the Voivodship Committee of PZPR in Warsaw (30 November 1953) regarding an elderly person who rescued Jews in Otwock, who was now being threatened with eviction, AŻIH 310/702.
80 See, e.g., a letter to the Dean of the Warsaw Polytechnic (27 June 1963), regarding admission to the Faculty of Architecture, following entrance exams, of the daughter of Stanisław Tabaczyński, AŻIH 310/468. Mark wrote that Tabaczyński had led about 100 insurgents from the ghetto during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, AŻIH 310/468 (in fact, such a rescue operation had never taken place).
81 See, for instance, a memorandum written by Stefan Bergman, a member of ŻIH’s board of directors; cf. Director of the Social-Administrative Department at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW), IPN BU 1585/7394, k. 149. See also Postulates of the Basic Party Organization to the Commission of the Ninth Extraordinary Party Congress (15 January 1981), AŻIH 310/2121.
82 Letter adopted at the meeting of the Board of the Jewish Historical Institute (21 January 1988), AŻIH 310/55.
83 Bielawski, Zagłada cmentarzy żydowskich, is most informative on this subject.
84 Ibid., esp. 199–207.
85 See, e.g., letter by Bernard Mark (4 June 1954) addressed to the attorney general regarding digging in the area of the death camp in Treblinka, AŻIH 310/303. Mark wrote that “currently, there are two enormous and deep pits there (most likely the effect of organized work by grave robbers) as well as several dozen smaller pits.”
86 Letter to the Complaints Office of the State Council (29 July 1955), regarding the demolition of a well-preserved synagogue in Płońsk, AŻIH 310/322.
87 Cf. letter addressed to the Bureau of Religious Denominations (30 November 1953), AŻIH 310/295. The ghetto cemetery on Żabia Street was ultimately destroyed in 1971.
88 The quote appears in a letter from Bernard Mark to the Central Committee (KC PZPR) (3 February 1964), AŻIH 310/ 702.
89 Memo of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (26 January 1966), quoted in Pęziński, Piotr Na rozdrożu: 227. The Joint was soon expelled from Poland; a temporary acceptance of this organization by the Polish state had much to do with the state's profiting from the inflated rate at which dollars were exchanged for zlotys.
90 See protocol of the meeting of the Board of ŻIH (10 April 1964), AŻIH 310/22.
91 Interventions concerned, among others, the synagogue in Szydłowiec and cemeteries in Tykocin, Kalisz, Radom.
92 See letter to the Bureau for Religious Denominations (2 August 1980), AŻIH 310 /656.
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Helena Datner
Helena Datner is a sociologist and social historian, whose work has focused on Polish Jewry in the nineteenth century and in the postwar era. During the 1990s, she served as head of the Jewish Community of Warsaw.