The prospects and perils of Holocaust research in Communist Poland: The first twenty years of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the history of the Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny; ŻIH) from its creation in the late 1940s until the late 1960s. During this period, ŻIH was not only a documentation center but also a principal source of knowledge about the Holocaust beyond Poland and the Soviet bloc. It played a significant role in the establishment of a transnational collective memory of the Holocaust, one that transcended the Iron Curtain. Equally important in these years was its contribution to the continued existence of Jewish life in Poland after the Holocaust. In particular, the article highlights the significant role of its director, Ber Mark, who led the institute from 1949 until his death in 1966. A convinced Communist, he nevertheless remained deeply rooted in Polish Jewish culture. Under his direction, ŻIH sought to preserve its autonomy to the greatest extent possible and to maintain international contacts with scholars in Israel and Western countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Holocaust historiography
• Cold War
• Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH)
• Polish-Jewish history
• Postwar Jewish life under Communism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Mark, “A Dangerous Myth.”

2 Several versions of Mark's first name appear in the sources: the Polonized “Bernard,” the Yiddish diminutive “Berl,” and the Western version of the Yiddish, “Ber.”

3 Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews.

4 Mark, “A Dangerous Myth,” 7.

5 Ibid., 8 (italics in the original).

6 Ibid., 12.

7 Cf. Eck, “Historical Research of Slander?”

8 Tokarska-Bakir, Pod klątwą; Gross, Fear; Cała: Ochrona bezpieczeństwa fizycznego Żydów w Polsce powojennej, 17–27; on violence against other national groups, see Zaremba, Die große Angst: Polen 1944–1947, esp. 438–497.

9 On Idisz Buch, see Nalewajko-Kulikov, “The Last Yiddish Books Printed in Poland.”

10 On the CKŻP, see Grabski, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce (1944–1950).

11 On Friedman, see Stauber, Laying the Foundations for Holocaust Research; Aleksiun, “Philip Friedman and the Emergence of Holocaust Scholarship.”

12 Archiwum Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw; hereafter AŻIH), Collection 303/XX, Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna przy CKŻP (1944–1947), file 1, n.p.

13 On Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes group, see Kassow, Who Will Write Our History?

14 Jockusch, Collect and Record, 31–38.

15 Borwicz, “Rozważyć! – Dobrze rozważyć! – bo należy.” Part of this article is reproduced in Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 51–52.

16 Eisenbach, “Historishe visnshaft oder ‘historishe vizye,’” quoted in Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 52. Eisenbach must have known of Borwicz's text before it was published in Nasze Słowo, as his retort to Borwicz appeared prior to the publication of Borwicz's article; see ibid., 53, n. 57.

17 Their functions in the historical commission were suspended in July 1947; AŻIH 301/I/8, Minutes of CKŻP executive committee meeting (27 January 1947).

18 This was already mentioned in the CŻKH's first report on its activity: AŻIH, 3AŻIH 303/XX/26, CŻKH report from 15 December 15, 1944 to 30 April 30, 1945.

19 Blumental uses the term “Żydowski Instytut Naukowy,” the Polish name for YIVO. AŻIH 303/I/6a Minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (27 January 1947).

20 Apart from members of the Jewish Caucus of the Polish Workers' Party, many of the CKŻP's delegates from Jewish cultural or social associations were de facto Communist activists. On the Jewish Caucus, see Grabski, Działalność komunistów wśród Żydów.

21 AŻIH 303/I/6a, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (27 January 1947).

22 Seidman, “Museum im. Bersohna.” I am grateful to Dorothea Warneck, who drew my attention to this fact. Her dissertation on early twentieth-century Jewish museums in East Central Europe, which she is writing at the University of Halle, will include a comprehensive chapter on the Bersohn Museum.

23 Grabski, Działalność komunistów wśród Żydów, 248–9; AŻIH 303/I/8, activity report of the CŻKH, appendix to the minutes of the executive committee meeting of the CKŻP (27 September 1947): 2.

24 AŻIH 303/I/8, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (27 September 1947).

25 AŻIH 310/20, protocols of ŻIH's board (23 October 1947).

26 On the role of ŻIH's personnel in Polish trials of former Nazis, see Finder and Prusin, Justice beyond the Iron Curtain, ch. 5; Stach, “‘Praktische Geschichte.’”

27 AŻIH 303/I/8, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (27 September 1947).

28 AŻIH 310/20, minutes of ŻIH board meeting (9 January1948), n.p.; see also Kobylarz, Walka o pamięć, 39–40.

29 Rafael Mahler urged ŻIH to publish in Yiddish in order to make its materials accessible to Jews around the world; see AŻIH 303/I/8, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (9 October 1947).

30 Only Natan Michael Gelber's article on the Jewish question in Congress Poland was written by an author living outside Poland: Gelber, “Di yidn-frage in kongres-poyln in di jor 1815–1830.”

31 AŻIH 303/I/15, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (5 January 1949).

32 AŻIH 310/20, minutes ŻIH executive board (30 December 1948); and AŻIH 310/20, minutes of ŻIH executive board (20 September 1948).

33 AŻIH 303/I/15, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (5 January 1949).

34 Rozenberg-Rutkowski, “Działalność Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w dziedzinie ścigania przestępców wojennych i kolaboracjonistów.”

35 Mirska, W cieniu wiecznego strachu; quoted in Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 66.

36 AŻIH 303/I/11, minutes of the plenary meeting of the CKŻP (16 June 1948).

37 AŻIH 310/20, minutes of ŻIH executive board (9 January and 24 February 1948).

38 AŻIH 303/I/15, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (5 January 1949).

39 AŻIH 303/I/15, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (16 March 1949).

40 AŻIH 303/I/17, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (9 September 1949).

41 Grabski, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce, 199–202, 226–248.

42 At this time, Rutkowski still used his Jewish name, Abram Rozenberg; AŻIH 303/I/17, minutes of the CKŻP executive committee meeting (29 July 1949).

43 Górny, “Die Wahrheit ist auf unserer Seite,” 43–44.

44 “Undzere tsil.” Although the statement is not signed, there is little doubt that it was issued by Mark.

45 Ibid. Interestingly, in ŻIH's Polish-language news bulletin, Mark puts even more emphasis on the need to counteract the obscurity of German crimes and the mass murder of Polish and European Jews and to prevent the “Anglo-Saxon instigators” from starting a new war; see Mark, “Rola i zadania Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego.”

46 For more on this period, see Stach, “Geschichtsschreibung und politische Vereinnahmungen,” 402–414.

47 Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot Archive, Holdings Registry 14859, 6, Mark's letter to Blumental and Kermisz (30 September 1950).

48 This characterization follows the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives (AJJDCA), NY AR195564/4/47/1/658, memo of William Bein on Jewish activists in Poland, n.p.

49 Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Three Colors,” 211–215.

50 Ibid., 218.

51 In fact, Mark was one of the few Jewish Communists active on the “Jewish street” to hold a university degree; see Berendt, Życie żydowskie w Polsce w latach 1950–1956, 157.

52 Ibid., 69–70.

53 On the journals, see Stach, “Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego,” 13–36.

54 Yiddish, 1950; Polish, 1952: Mark, Der oyfshtand fun Bialistoker Geto; idem, Ruch oporu w getcie białostockim.

55 Polish, 1953; Yiddish, 1955: Mark, Powstanie w getcie warszawskim na tle ruchu oporu w Polsce; idem, Der oyfshtand in varshever geto.

56 Polish, 1953; Yiddish, 1955: Eisenbach, Hitlerowska polityka eksterminacji Żydów w latach 1939–1945; idem, Di hiṭlerisṭishe poliṭiḳ fun yidn-farnikhṭung in di yorn 1939–1945.

57 Kupfer, Ber Mayzels; idem, Ber Meisels i jego udział w walkach wyzwoleńczych narodu polskiego, 1846, 1848, 1863–1864.

58 Ringelblum, Notitsn fun varshever geto.

59 Oral History Archives of the Oral History Department of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University in Jerusalem (OHD) (0050) 0031, interview with Stefan [Shmuel] Krakowski: 7.

60 Stobiecki, Historiografia PRL, 58–59.

61 Stach, “‘The Spirit of the Time Left Its Stamp on These Works.’”

62 Yevsektsiya is the Russian abbreviation for the Jewish section of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, mainly active in Yiddish, which was established in 1918 and disbanded in 1929. Later, “Yevsec” was used in a derogative manner to refer to Jewish Communists active in a Jewish or Yiddish-speaking context.

63 Tseytlin, “Di naye material fun varshever geto.”

64 “Arkhivarius” was probably the pen name of Artur Eisenbach, who served as director of ŻIH's archive for several years. Arkhivarius, “Notitsn fun an alten arkhivist”; quote in Yidishe shriften 10, 8.

65 On this controversy, see Rose, “The Oyneg Shabes Archive and the Cold War”; Stach, “‘The Spirit of the Time Left Its Stamp on These Works,’” 196–198.

66 Shulman, “Emanuel Ringelblums tog-bukh,” 17. Lebsn-fragn was a Tel Aviv-based magazine of Bundist orientation, published from 1951 to 2014 (online until 2016). Shulman (1909–1986) was a Yiddish writer, journalist, and literary scholar.

67 Ibid., 18.

68 In fact, only researchers who were familiar with the original manuscript were able to do so. See Kermish, “Mutilated Versions of Ringelblum's Notes”; Blumental, “Di yerushe fun Emanuel Ringelblum.”

69 For an analysis of the changes and omissions, see Person, “The Initial Reception and First Publications from the Ringelblum Archive in Poland, 1946–1952.”

70 Sloan, ed., Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto. On the shortcomings of Sloan's translation, see Braham's review in Jewish Social Studies, 55.

71 Ringelblum, Chronique du ghetto de Varsovie; idem, Sepolti a Varsavia: Appunti dal ghetto; idem, Crónica do ghetto de Varsovia; idem, Warushawa gettō: hoshū 1940-42-no nōto.

72 The Slánský trial was a show trial against the former secretary general of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Rudolf Slánský, and thirteen other party members, eleven of them Jewish. The Jewish descent of these defendants was explicitly mentioned in the bill of indictment, as was their alleged collaboration with Jewish and “Zionist” “spy-organizations” such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The trial took place on November 20–27, 1952, was broadcast on Czech radio, and enjoyed vast media coverage on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The court sentenced eleven defendants, including Slánský, to death and the remaining three to life imprisonment.

73 Berendt, Życie żydowskie w Polsce, 75–77.

74 For a more detailed discussion of the accusations against Mark and ŻIH in 1952–1953, see Stach, “‘The Spirit of the Time Left Its Stamp on These Works,’” 197–202.

75 Another prominent case involved Jakub Egit, director of Idisz Buch publishing house, who was arrested in early 1953. Zachariasz used his influence to defend him. Berendt, Życie żydowskie w Polsce, 159.

76 On Zachariasz's interventions in Mark's book on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, see Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN), collection 476 (Szymon Zachariasz papers), folder 18, 196–201.

77 F. Kupfer, “O genezie syjonizmu, przyczynek do zagadnienia.” It is noteworthy that Kupfer lived in Palestine from 1921 to 1926; because of this, he was under even more pressure to distance himself from Zionism.

78 It must be noted, however, that this took place at a time when the former coordinator of the Joint's activity in Poland, Józef Gitler-Barski, was under arrest and awaiting accusations against him; see Berendt, Życie żydowskie w Polsce, 77–78.

79 Mark, Der oyfstand in varshever geto.

80 Berendt, Życie żydowskie w Polsce, 201.

81 Mark, L'Insurrection du Ghetto de Varsovie.

82 Still, in February 1955, for instance, the Polish foreign ministry warned the Polish consul in Tel Aviv that, according to the information provided by ŻIH, “Yad Vashem is a reactionary, Zionist institution established by the [Israeli] government and financed by West German capital”; see Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 90.

83 On the purges, see Berendt, “Wpływ liberalizacji politycznej roku 1956 na sytuację Żydów,” esp. 362–375.

84 On the so-called Gomułka aliyah, see Węgrzyn, Wyjeżdżamy! Wyjeżdżamy?! Alija gomułkowska 1956–1960; Stankowski, “Nowe spojrzenie na statystyki dotyczący emigracji Żydów z Polski po 1944 roku,” 129–132.

85 Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 95–96.

86 AŻIH 310/367, ŻIH certificate, according to which Kupfer would be dismissed from his position at the institute after having received a passport for immigration to Israel (29 October 1957).

87 A short biography of Anna Kubiak can be found in Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego/Kwartalnik Historii Żydów, Wybór artykułów z lat 1950–2017, 661–662.

88 Adam Wein had begun a career in Oriental studies at his native Lwów's Jan Kazimierz University before the war. After the war he returned to Poland as a Red Army veteran and joined the ranks of the Office for Public Security in Poznań (Wojewódzki Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego). In 1948, he switched departments, moving to the Ministry of Public Security in Warsaw. A short biography of Wein can be found in Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego/Kwartalnik Historii Żydów Wybór artykułów z lat 1950–2017, 668.

89 For a short biography of Sakowska, see ibid., 666–667. See also the article “The Scholarly Legacy of Ruta Sakowska” by Samuel Kassow and Eleonora Bergman, in this issue.

90 AŻIH 310/350, letter of B. Mark to the Passport Office of the Ministry of the Interior (9 January 1957).

91 AŻIH 310/355, letter of B. Mark to Department I of the Polish Academy of Sciences (18 April 1957). Mark's and Berenstein's papers from the conference were published as Berenstein, “Documents in the Archives of Poland,” and Mark, “Problems Related to the Study of the Jewish Resistance Movement in the Second World War.”

92 Halpern was vice president of the Jewish Historical Society of Israel and a member of the Israeli delegation to Paris.

93 Shmeruk, “A briv in redaktsye,” 215–216. Shmeruk wrote this letter to express his disagreement with David Roskies, who had previously described Mark as “leader of the Polish-Jewish Yevsec.” Ibid., 215.

94 AŻIH 310/358, letter of Israel Halpern to B. Mark (13 March 1957). The letter is addressed to a hotel in Jerusalem, where Mark was staying.

95 For example, see AŻIH 310/354, letter of B. Mark to Samson Wajsblat/Vorkuta (12 April 1957); letter of B. Mark to M. S. Bok/Khashuri (Georgian Soviet Republic) (12 April 1957); AŻIH 310/362, letter of ŻIH to the Biłgoraj registry office asking for confirmation that Bejla Szyewicz was registered there before 1939 (1 August 1957).

96 AŻIH 310/254, Mark's letter to Arie L. Bauminger, Yad Vashem (10 April 1957).

97 AŻIH 310/355, Mark's letter to the editorial board of Polish Radio (18 April 1957). On May 14, 1947, Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet representative at the United Nations, demanded the establishment of a Jewish and a Palestinian state in Palestine if a bi-national solution could not be achieved.

98 Helena Datner and Olga Pieńkowska assume that these reserves originated from the funds that the Joint distributed among Polish Jewish institutions before it had to leave Poland by the end of 1949. See Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut 94, n. 16. This explanation appears plausible, even though Anna Sommer Schneider does not explicitly mention ŻIH as a beneficiary of the Joint in her book. Sommer Schneider, Sze'erit hapletah. Ocaleni z Zagłady, 167, n. 443.

99 Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 93–94, esp. 94, n. 16.

100 For instance, AŻIH 310/353, letter of Ber Mark to Department I of the Polish Academy of Sciences (12 March 1957).

101 Mark, Walka i zagłada warszawskiego getta, 9.

102 Eisenbach, Hitlerowska polityka zagłady Żydów.

103 Ringelblum, Ksuvim fun geto, vol. 1: Togbukh fun varshever geto (1939–1942); vol. 2: Notitsn un ophandlungen (1942–1943).

104 Nalewajko-Kulikov, “Dzieje publikacji Kroniki getta warszawskiego w Polsce”; idem (ed.), Pisma Emanuela Ringelbluma z getta; idem, Pisma Emanuela Ringelbluma z bunkra.

105 Artur Eisenbach's letter to the editors, “Dokumenty i fałszerstwa,” Trybuna Ludu (4 July 1968).

106 Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin IIIA, Dep. 38, Nachlass Rütten & Loening 173, letter of Stanisław Wygodzki to Georgia Peet (30 August 1961), 10.

107 See the article by Stach and Stoll, “The Jewish Historical Institute and the 1968 Antisemitic Campaign in Poland,” in this issue.

108 AŻIH 310/1825, Konspekt publikacji Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w języku obcym (n.d.). The publications mentioned in the prospectus indicate that it must have been written in the second half of the 1950s.

109 Mark, Der Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto; Mika (trans.), Im Feuer vergangen; Berenstein et al. (eds.), Faschismus – Ghetto – Massenmord; Rubinowicz, Das Tagebuch des Dawid Rubinowicz; Bernstein et al., Ghetto; and Witt (ed. and trans.), Der Fiedler vom Getto.

110 These were Ringelblum's diary and Eisenbach's book on Nazi extermination policy.

111 Zaremba, Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm, 263–352.

112 Ibid., 287–291; Wawrzyniak, Veterans, Victims, and Memory.

113 Kunicki, Between the Brown and the Red; on Piasecki's relations to Moczar, see esp. 141–145.

114 This is the title of one section of the report — see Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej (Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance, hereafter AIPN) BU 1224/993, part 2: 47.

115 Ibid., 52–53.

116 Ibid., 46.

117 “Judenmord-Spezialist,” in Berliner Zeitung (2 March 1960).

118 Globke was tried in absentia. See “Beobachter aus 23 Ländern kommen zum Globke-Prozess,” Neues Deutschland (29 June 1963); “Beweismaterial für Globke und Adenauer-Regierung vernichtend,” Neues Deutschland (15 July 1963).

119 See, e.g., “Beweise für Verbrechen Eichmanns,” Neues Deutschland (14 June 1960).

120 Report of ŻIH for 1963, in Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 116.

121 Bundesarchiv (BA) Koblenz, B 145/9095, Fernschreiben der deutschen Botschaft in London an das Bundespresseamt vom 19 February 1963. The Bundespresseamt did not only organize its own exhibition in Frankfurt, formally produced by a cover organization and financed by secret sources from the government budget. It also pressured possible venues in West Germany not to show the Polish exhibition. See Stach, “Holocaust und Kalter Krieg im deutsch-polnisch-jüdischen Kontext,” 69–72.

122 AIPN BU 1224/993, part 1: 12–27.

123 Ibid., 407.

124 Ibid. The archival materials mentioned in this report for the SB might be a distorted reference to lists the Central Jewish Historical Commission prepared in 1947 of some 2,000 putative Jewish collaborators that were consulted by the CKŻP's lawyers who were attached to its honor court (Sąd Społeczny). On these lists and the postwar Jewish honor court in Poland, see Finder, “Judenrat on Trial,” 90–1; and Koźmińska-Frejlak, “‘I'm Going to the Oven Because I Wouldn't Give Myself to Him,’” 254.

125 There was also no mention of such material or a secret safe in ŻIH's attic during the 1968 campaign, when the institute was, according to several reports, searched by SB agents. See Stach and Stoll, “The Jewish Historical Institute and the 1968 Antisemitic Campaign in Poland.”

126 Open letter of Arthur Eisenbach (6 April 1968), in Datner and Pieńkowska (eds.), Instytut, 132–133.

127 Mark, Powstanie w getcie warszawskim. The Yiddish edition appeared as Mark, Der oyfshtand in varshever geto. Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov mentions only one other Polish publication in her list of Idisz Buch publications; see Nalewajko-Kulikov “The Last Yiddish Books Printed in Poland.”

128 Poterański, Walka warszawskiego getta.

129 Ibid., 52.

130 According to Stefan (Shmuel) Krakowski, Mark reserved research on resistance for himself, while other researchers at the institute, among them, Berenstein, Eisenbach, and Rutkowski, could work only on Jewish martyrdom. See interview with Stefan (Shmuel) Krakowski, 9–10.

131 Mark, “A Dangerous Myth,” 8.

132 Mark, Dziennik, 167; see also Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov's translation of Ber Mark's diary in this issue.

133 In the edition of the book that finally appeared posthumously in Israel, completed by his wife Ester, no direct reference to Hilberg is to be found; see Mark, Megiles Oyshvits.

134 AŻIH 310/508, Letter of Hubert Witt (Reclam Leipzig) to B. Mark, (29 November 1965). I cordially thank Alexander Walther for drawing my attention to this letter.

135 See interview with Krakowski, 9–11.

136 Ibid., 11.

137 In fact, Eisenbach worked at the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

138 Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Records of the New York Headquarters of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Record Group Poland - NY AR196574/4/43, letter of Akiva Kohane to Charles H. Jordan (3 March 1967).

139 AIPN BU 1224/993, part 1: 168, 174–177.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from Grantová Agentura České Republiky and by the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI).

Notes on contributors

Stephan Stach

Stephan Stach is a historian whose research focuses on Polish and East-Central European history, Jewish history and Holocaust memory. Among his recent publications are Growing in the Shadow of Antifascism: Remembering the Holocaust in State-Socialist Eastern Europe, co-edited with Kata Bohus and Peter Hallama (2022), and Religion in the Mirror of Law: Eastern European Perspectives from the Early Modern Period to 1939, co-edited with Yvonne Kleinmann and Tracie L. Wilson (2016).