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Jews Greet the Soviet Invaders
The purpose of this compilation is not simply to present
evidence for the widespread phenomenon of throngs of Jews, often dressed
in their best attire for the occasion, avidly greeting the Soviet invaders
of Poland in September 1939. Jewish accounts about such pro-Soviet
outbursts are legion, as are Polish accounts. Many of them attest to
the boundless and uncritical enthusiasm for the new regime that consumed
large segments of the Jewish population. That, after all, is not the
crux of the Polish case. What is disconcerting, is that these manifestations
were generally accompanied by declarations of loyalty to the Soviet
Union and open and flagrant displays of anti-Polish sentiments and
conduct.
In Wilno:
... The Red Army entered ... early on the morning of
Tuesday, 19 September 1939, to an enthusiastic welcome by Vilna's
Jewish residents, in sharp contrast to the Polish population's
reserve and even hostility. Particular ardour was displayed by
leftist groups and their youthful members, who converged on the
Red Army tank columns bearing sincere greetings and flowers.
According to another Jewish eyewitness from Wilno:
... It is hard to describe the emotion that swept me
as I saw in the street, across from our gate, a Russian tank bearing
grinning young men with a blazing red star on their berets. As
the machines came to a halt, the people crowded around. Somebody
shouted: "Long live the Soviet government!" and everyone cheered.
... You could hardly find a Gentile in that crowd. ... Many people
did not stop and consider what this regime would bring in its wake.
... everyone greeted the Russians unanimously, as they would the
Messiah.
Israeli historian, Dov Levin, writes:
... Various accounts attest to the joyous welcome that
the Red Army received almost everywhere. When the Jews of Kowel
[Wolhynia] were informed that the Red Army was approaching the
town, they "celebrated all night". When the Red Army actually entered
Kowel, "the Jews greeted [it] with indescribable enthusiasm"...
In Baranowicze, "People kissed the soldiers' dusty boots. ... Children
ran to the parks, picked the autumn flowers, and showered the soldiers
with them. ... Red flags were found in the blink of an eye, and the
entire city was bedecked in red".
The town of Kobryn [Polesia] was awash in red flags, which local
communists had prepared by removing the white stripe from the two-color
Polish flag. The cheering crowd scattered leaflets castigating the
fascist [sic] Polish regime and lauding the Red Army and its augury
of liberation. In Ciechanowice [Ciechanowiec], a band of Jewish communists
erected an "arch of triumph" bedecked with posters bearing general
greetings and messages such as: "Long Live the Soviet Regime".
The Jews of Rozhinoy (Rozana, or Ruzhany) [Rozana] treated the day
of the Soviet occupation as a religious festival, greeting each other
with mazel tov.
... the sight of the Jews of Janow [Janow Poleski], greeting the Red
Army in their prayer shawls, was something that had [sic] many of
the Jewish-born Soviet troops had certainly never before beheld.
In the largely Jewish small town of Wiszniew:
... the entire town came to greet [the Soviet troops]
with flowers in their hands and everyone was very excited. At the
center of the market, a stage was built and the representative
of the Jews, Yakov Hirsch Alishkevitch, along with a few local
Christians, made excited speeches. At the end of Yakov's speech,
he said, "Long live the Soviet Union!".
A frenzy broke out in Nowogrodek that could have had
fatal consequences had the person fingered as an enemy of the new order
in fact been a Pole:
... The city's Jews, especially the youths and children,
swarmed through the streets, admiring the Red Army troops, their
weapons, tanks and armoured vehicles ...
... on the afternoon of the 17 [of September, 1939] we heard the roar
of the Soviet tanks coming from the Karelitzer Street. Some Jews
cried with joy. They ran towards the tanks with flowers in their
hands, blocking the way and waiting to kiss the soldiers of the Red
Army. ... there they noticed in the middle of the market square a
tall man with a new long overcoat walking towards Mickiewicz Street.
It took only one person to shout: "There goes the judge, who used to
send us for years to terrible jails", for hundreds of people to start
running towards him and then to rain him with blows. Red Army soldiers,
seeing a riot, ran to the scene and saved the poor man. They asked him
who he was, to which he replied that he was Refoel the poor cobbler
who had gone home to put on his Sabbath overcoat. He was no judge
but had come to welcome the Red Army.
The situation in Slonim was described by a Hebrew teacher
as follows:
... the Jewish population received the Soviet Army
on its entry into the city with bread and wine, with a shower of
flowers that were thrown at the soldiers, with drums and dances.
... The Slonim Jews threw themselves into the arms of the Soviet
soldiers, embraced them and kissed them. The festivities continued
three days. Liquor flowed like water and speeches were made in
the spirit of communism. Many believed that our salvation had come
and the Soviet Russians were our messiah. The gentiles whispered
and said: "Now the Jewish government has come".
In Braslaw:
... The Jews welcomed the Red Army with great joy,
with flowers, bread and salt. ... the draper Aharon Zeif brought
out and distributed rolls of red cloth among all who wanted to
make red flags.
In Ostrowek, a village near Iwacewicze (Polesia),
... Large numbers greeted the Red Army with flowers
(I don't think there were any Poles there). ... All the flowers
from our gardens were ripped out ... to meet the Russians. A well-known
peddler cut off the white part of the Polish flag and the red part
attached to the roof of our home.
In Bialystok:
... Towards evening [of September 22] the Red Army
marches into a city decorated with red flags. Communal delegations
greet them with flowers and speeches of welcome. Thousands of elated
Bialystoker throng the streets. Jewish youths embrace Russian soldiers
with great enthusiasm. On this, the holiest of nights, the culmination
of the Days of Awe, orthodox Jews pack the synagogues and pray with
renewed fervour.
Another Jewish account from Bialystok states:
... People in the streets greeted the Red Army with
great warmth. The professional associations and political organizations
in the city filled the streets with red flags and flowers. The
encounter was enthusiastic and friendly. Jewish youth, at that
time already alienated from traditional Judaism, embraced the Russian
soldiers.
In Horochow (Volhynia),
... The Jews were overjoyed. ... The balconies and
house fronts had been decorated with carpets and pictures of communist
leaders. A deputation of workers with radiant faces awaited their
guests - their life's dream had come true.
A Jew from Warsaw, who found himself in Luck, reported
with a foresight that seems to have been rather rare in those times:
... The majority of the youth expressed great enthusiasm.
They kissed the soldiers, climbed the tanks, they gave an ovation.
Even earlier, before the Red Army had entered the town, a part
of Jewish youth organized meetings and demonstrations. For us Jews
it was politically very unwise that a part of the Jewish community
had a very bad attitude towards Polish society and the Polish army.
In Rowne, young Jews marched ... in the streets, holding
high the red flag ... and singing the communist songs. A Polish
soldier, who observed a pro-communist parade led by a group of Jews
in honour of the Red Army, estimated that about ninety percent of
300 people, who took part were cheering Jews.
In Ostrog, in a comedy of errors, a Franciscan priest
dressed in a long cassock was mistaken for a Soviet commissar by Jews,
who set out to greet the Red Army. They bowed low before him. Local
Jews with red armbands were soon swarming the streets acting as the
militia.
In Lwow, pro-Soviet "enthusiasts", consisting mostly
of Jews and some Ukrainians, greeted the Red Army as it marched into
the city on September 22. Groups of young men met the Soviets on the
outskirts of the city and ... welcomed them with red banners, revolutionary
songs and music. Red flags, made by ripping the white portion off
the red and white Polish banner, draped windows and balconies and adorned
buildings and gateways. In front of the Grand Theatre, an impassioned
address to a Soviet tank division leader was delivered by a rabbi,
who reportedly expressed the Jewish community's gratitude for the long-awaited
demise of the Polish state.
Hugo Steinhaus, a renowned mathematician of Jewish origin,
recalled with shame the servility of "an enormous mass" of Jews from
Lwow, who
... had turned out to greet the Bolsheviks adorned in red bows
and stars, so much so that it aroused laughter among the Russian officers.
Others disarmed Polish officers in the streets, kissed Russian tanks
and stroked their artillery.
In Sniatyn,
... The townspeople organized a welcoming program in
honor of the Red Army and decked the town out with bunting; seven
hundred citizens marched past the Soviet headquarters, carrying
red flags and crying hail and hurrah. Most of the paraders were
Jews, some were Ukrainians; but there were no Poles.
In anticipation of the Soviet arrival, local Jews adorned
a square in Boryslaw with huge portraits of Lenin, Stalin, Marx and
Engels. They brought out a table which they covered with a red cloth
and erected a triumphal arch which bore pro-Soviet slogans.
In Drohobycz, the difference in attitude between the
Polish and Jewish population was striking:
... The Jewish crowd cheered the Bolsheviks. A huge red flag
was hoisted on the Town Hall and floodlit with a searchlight. The
Jews put on red armbands and tried to form a kind of militia to take
control of the town. ... The delight of the Jews was indescribable. Some
of them started making communist speeches and greeted others with uplifted
fists. The Polish population, on the other hand, kept very quiet and
stayed at home.
The prevailing mood was captured in a Jewish diary:
... I am going from place to place, from one shtetl to
another and am amazed to find true enthusiasm for the Soviet regime.
Some went even further. That same diarist encountered an
old Jew in a shtetl, who observed:
... These are Messiah's times and Stalin is the Messiah
himself.
There are many accounts which attest to the fact that elderly
Jews could also fall into pro-Soviet bliss. A grey-haired Jew from
Boremel (Volhynia), by the name of Lerner, who had the appearance of
a patriarch, when asked by a Soviet soldier how old he was, replied: I
am four-days old. How can you be four days old?, inquired the puzzled
soldier. I was born when the Red Army arrived. A Jewish eyewitness
recalls, how a Jewish doctor in the town of Bursztyn, in Eastern Galicia,
raised his fist clenched in the communist-style to salute his Soviet
comrades.
The theme of Stalin being a Messiah for the Jews was widespread.
A high school student from Lwow wrote:
... I must admit that if ever anyone actually knew
complete happiness, that was the day the Red Army entered. That's
the way I imagined the Jews awaiting the Messiah will feel, when
he finally comes. It is hard to find words to describe the feeling
- this waiting and this happiness. And at last we had lived to
see it: they arrived in Lwow. The first tanks rolled in and we
wondered how to express ourselves - to throw flowers? to sing?
To organize a demonstration? How to show our great joy?
These sycophantic displays enjoyed particular longevity
in smaller border towns such as Wolozyn, where a Jewish witness recalled
the pervasive pro-Soviet mood of the Jewish population as follows:
... Changes that could be seen as both comic and tragic
occurred in the Volozhyn Jews' style of dressing. The treasured fashion
trend of the Soviets was high boots. It was distressing yet amusing
for us to see distinguished balabatim such as Reb Isaak Shapiro,
Reb Hirsh Malkin, Reb Yakov Veissbord, Reb Avrom Shuker, Reb Mordechay
Shishko, Reb Namiot der Sheliver (name of his natal shtetl), Sholom
Leyb Rubinstein and others walking in high boots. Most people wanted
to please the new rulers. They threw away the elegant tied shirts
that symbolized the Polish bourgeoisies [sic] and "decorated"
themselves with the Soviet khaki guimnastiorka.
Polish accounts from Lwow are also informative:
... Meanwhile, the town suddenly changed its character.
Jews poured onto the streets and, by all external appearances,
Lwow was a Jewish town, especially when one considers the masses
of Jewish refugees who had come from the West. These throngs manifested
an intense sympathy for the Soviet army units and tanks that rolled
by. Every Jew felt it his duty to wear a red ribbon on his lapel
or, if possible, some Soviet emblem.
On Sunday, September 24, workers' demonstrations filled the streets.
Of course, they were almost exclusively Jewish and expressed their
joy at being "liberated." Poles and ... Ukrainians were not seen
often on the streets, and their faces were visibly dejected.
The next days the walls of buildings and houses were colored with
different posters. But they all had the same substance. "The rule
of the Polish masters has ended, the Red Army has liberated Poland".
One poster particularly struck me because it hurt me, a Polish eagle
was shown wearing a four-cornered Polish soldier's cap all stained
with blood and a Soviet soldier stood over it sticking it with a
bayonet.
The communists continuously organized meetings and rallies in the
town square. The crowds were drawn by members of the NKVD, who had
them sing [revolutionary songs in Ukrainian] ... There were hardly
any Poles in that throng. There were a few Ukrainian communists,
but most of all there were Jews, who didn't even know Ukrainian well,
but each of them shouted for three ...
I was travelling from Boryslaw to Drohobycz [in October 1939] in
one compartment with a young Jewish girl who, as if intoxicated,
spoke about the Red Army and the Soviets with whole-hearted adulation.
... My co-traveller finished her praises with this remark: "How refined
they are, what culture they possess. Every soldier has three watches
on his wrist, and good Swiss ones. I'm familiar with these matters
because my father is a watchmaker". She said this entirely seriously.
The first thing that Soviet soldiers had stolen in our region was
precisely watches, and the most widely known Russian saying was "davai
chasy" ("Hand over your watch").
The situation in a small village outside Rowne, in
predominantly Ukrainian Volhynia, a region far removed from the German
front and close to the Soviet border, was described by a Polish eyewitness
with all its striking and symbolic juxtapositions:
[at the train station] ... we found hundreds of
[Polish] military men and staff workers gathered into little groups.
We joined one of the gatherings, exchanging small talk. As we talked,
our attention was suddenly drawn to a group of young people across
the street. Slightly more than a dozen young men and women, who
appeared to be Jewish, wearing red arm bands were gathered about
a pretty girl with long black curls protruding from under a red
calico kerchief. In her hands, she cradled a tray, on which were
a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread. Some of us discussed this,
and one of us recalled that the wine and the bread might symbolize
the Jewish ritual of welcoming home Jews who had been victorious
in battle.
Despite their sudden appearance across from the station, they remained
inactive and strangely silent. They appeared to be waiting for
something: a middle aged man, who appeared to be one of them, joined
them, and looking over to our wondering gaze, broke into a wide
grin. "They are coming", he exclaimed.
This caused his group to break into an excited chatter, and then
they all turned to look eastward along the road. Their eyes appeared
glazed, either with excitement or hope, we knew not which. Perhaps,
I thought, they expect the Messiah. We looked eastward also, to
see what could be coming. And then we saw what it was. Far down
the muddy road could be seen a column of armed soldiers, marching
maybe six abreast, in a close formation. ...
"We are Evrei!" I heard the Jews shout out. They broke into a run, the girl
with her tray in their midst, toward the soldiers. I recognized the
word as one meaning that they were Jewish. ... But, for the first
time, I began to realize who these soldiers might be. "Evrei" is a Russian
word.
By now, the group had reached the soldiers, and they were embracing
them. I remained almost hypnotized, watching the scene. Now the girl
was moving about the soldiers with her tray, laughing, and offering
wine and bread, which they ignored, as they continued marching toward
us, their faces stern and set. Even when the girl kissed a couple
of the soldiers, they never broke stride and continued to march on
without expression.
Ignoring our people at the station, they marched right by. One onlooker
cried, "What is it, an invasion?"
"Who can they be?" a woman wondered aloud. Then, as we saw at close hand the
peaked caps emblazoned with a red calico star, the truth burst upon
all of us at once:
"Bolsheviks!" ...
A Polish officer standing nearby nervously lit a cigarette, and shaking
his head sadly, murmured, "We don't yet know the nature of this ... They haven't
declared war. What can they be doing here?" ...
Two small tanks emblazoned with red stars, and obviously Russian,
rolled by.
By now, the column had reached a cluster of small houses near the
station, where the road ran between them. The soldiers stopped. I
saw a large delegation of Jewish elders standing across the road. Some sort
of ceremony appeared to be taking place. Obviously, they were welcoming the
Red Army - and it appeared to be prearranged. Suddenly, I saw the soldiers
break ranks abruptly and move in with bayonets fixed upon those Polish officers
and cadets gathered loosely about the station building. Moving very swiftly,
they disarmed the Polish Army men and took them into custody. I watched them
rip the insignia and medals from the uniforms of the Polish troops. Even as
they did this, they pushed and jabbed their victims toward the train station
and then into the station. ...
When they had done this, two Red soldiers slammed shut the big wide
archway doors of the station. The scene was horrifying. ... Sickened
by the brutality, we stood there silent, helpless, unable to move, staring
at the doors with their ornate carvings. The silence was interrupted by a
man who slipped around behind the station and came back. "They have loaded
our officers into the train," he said in a hushed voice. We started to
walk away and were stopped by a soldier who waved his bayoneted rifle at us. "Get
back there, you..." he shouted in broken Polish.
An officer, who spoke more clearly, came up to our group of staff
workers huddled near the building. He appeared to be of high rank.
Like a chant, he intoned in brusk Russian why the Red Army had come.
We could not understand him, but a villager who knew Russian translated
the rambling speech. The Bolshevik was bragging of how the glorious
and unconquered Red Army had come to save and liberate the Russian and Ukrainian
brethren from the oppressive yoke of the landed gentry.
"The Red Army has come as your brothers to redeem the Polish citizens from
the Polish government", the translator said. The officer continued. He told
us that the Soviets now considered the Polish State nonexistent.
It would be the role of the glorious, liberating Red Army to protect us, he
said. The chant went on. Even the translation sounded like a chant.
"We will give you happiness. Long live the rising sun Stalin!"
"Long live the Soviet Socialist Union!"
"Glory to the heroic Red Army!"
Only the "Sieg Heils" were missing, I thought. After this shameless speech,
made while the "liberators" were herding our valiant officers into the train,
we were ordered to go to the nearby homes. Pushed by soldiers carrying
their guns at the ready, our group moved obediently into the houses. We found
that the residents had set out tables for the investigation of our papers. ...
Down the street, the soldiers stood at the ready in a grotesque pageant
of olive green, their bayonets still fixed. A guard unit had been
spread around the station, and nobody knew what could be happening inside.
The train engine belched smoke but remained motionless. A few civilians walked
dazedly from the scene.
The significance of what was happening was not lost
on some Jews, mostly from the educated and culturally assimilated spheres,
such as the following witness to events in Zbaraz, a town north of
Tarnopol:
... Later that day we saw many Soviet tanks, all coming
from the direction of the Soviet border, just a few kilometers
away. Later still, we were shocked to see Polish prisoners of war
led by Soviet soldiers. Seeing Polish soldiers stripped of their
weapons and rank was terribly depressing: the beginning of a new
era. During the next few days printed propaganda posters appeared
on the walls. They were very offensive and criticized the Polish
government and "oppressive bourgeoisie class". They contained messages
about freeing the Western Ukraine from Polish oppression.
When this Jewish youth returned to his home town of
Lwow, the same atmosphere prevailed there:
... Criticism of the Polish government, the Polish
army, Polish pre-war politics and particularly Polish [sic] hostility
toward the Soviet Union, was very sharp and could be felt everywhere.
Political posters on the streets were full of propaganda, such
as [Marshal] Pilsudski having been the greatest enemy of the people.
In the face of these abundant testimonies, both Jewish
and Polish, it is amazing to read Jan T. Gross's recent assessment
of what transpired. ... We have no clear evidence to judge the size
of the welcoming groups, he writes dismissively. ... Undoubtedly,
only a small fraction of the local population showed up on these occasions. As
to why the youth predominated among them, Gross observes glibly:
... Not surprisingly, for one should hardly expect
local youth, in some godforsaken backwater, to quietly sit at home
when an army goes by their hamlet and does not kill or rob anybody!
The views of Israeli historian Robert S. Wistrich are
even more strident. According to Wistrich, not only is the enthusiastic
welcome by Jews of the invading Red Army a myth, but also it is a
manifestation of anti-Semitism. The latter, rather ugly, charge is
undoubtedly calculated to stifle debate on this topic.
... According to this theory - still very popular in
Poland - when the Red Army entered the eastern half of the country
in mid-September 1939, it had been enthusiastically welcomed by
the Jewish population. Not only Catholic nationalists, ultra-rightists
and open antisemites espouse this myth but also prominent historians
such as Professor Tomasz Strzembosc [sic - Strzembosz], of the
Catholic University of Lublin.
Most Jews, who lived through those times, such as Michel
(Mendel) Mielnicki, have a different recollection of conditions in
their small towns, in his case Wasilkow, just outside Bialystok. Furthermore,
they know who was present when the Soviets arrived, why they were there
and what they were cheering for. The following is his recollection
of that "love affair":
... But, as The Wasilkower Memorial Book records,
everyone in the Jewish community was in such a holiday mood on
the evening of 18 September [1939] as they awaited the arrival
of the Red Army that they didn't want to go to bed lest they miss
any part of this historic occasion. Certainly, this is the way
I remember things.
I also can confirm that everyone cheered when our neighbour from
across the street, Mordechai Yurowietski, the tinsmith's son, raised
a red flag on top of the fire station tower. And cheered again when
a Soviet aircraft buzzed the crowd ... to drop leaflets welcoming
us as "Brothers and Sisters of West Byelo-Russia". And when the Soviet
soldiers finally did march in the next morning, ... they did so
singing "Katiusha", with all the little Jewish and White Russian
kids parading along beside them, joining in their song. This was
a scene worthy of a Sigmund Romberg operetta. ...
And contrary to Western propaganda, being part of the Soviet Union
gave the overwhelming majority of those in our community the security
of belonging to a civil society, or at least one that was a hell
of a lot more civil than anything we'd experienced before. ... Even
my rebbe was a relatively happy man under the atheistic communists.
... When a plebiscite was held in October and November 1939 on whether
we actually wanted to be part of West Byelorussia, the majority of
people ... (my mother and father included) voted "Yes".
Michael Maik, a native of the town of Sokoly, penned
this account in his wartime diary:
... The next day, soldiers of the Red Army entered the town.
The people of Sokoly, from the biggest to the smallest, from the
youngest to the oldest, men, women and children, all went out to the streets
to greet the liberating soldiers. The Jews received the "Reds" with shouts
of joy and enthusiasm. In comparison, the Poles stood disappointed.
The authors of The Memorial Book of Dawidgrodek, a small
town in Polesia, are even more explicit about their new loyalties and
their condemnation of the vanquished Polish state:
... Without question September 19, 1939 was the happiest
day in the lives of David-Horodoker Jews in the course of the previous
dozen years. After the shooting between the Poles and the Red Army
detachments had ended, the entire Jewish population ... came out
in the streets with happy smiling faces, and received the Red Army
detachments ... Young and old, small and large, man and wife-all
stood on the sidewalk of the main street through which the army
troops passed. With smiling faces and waving hands, they greeted
the Red Army men. ... That day everyone was simply intoxicated
with joy and happiness.
In the afternoon a meeting was held under the free sky, and representatives
of the Red Army made speeches in which they pledged a free and blissful
life for the inhabitants of the freed regions of West White Russia
and Western Ukraine. "Oppression, people-hatred and poverty will
no longer be the destiny of the freed brotherly people of Western
Ukraine and West White Russia. From henceforth you will enjoy a favored
status, freedom, brotherhood, love and you will work under the rays
of the sun of the great folk-leader Comrade Stalin". That was the
sum and substance of the speeches which were held at the meeting.
Understandably the chief celebrants, who acted as if they were
the hosts, were the few Jewish communists in town. They were
joined by several town citizens of David-Horodok. All day until
late in the night, everyone stayed in the streets conversing
with the Red Army men about how the Poles had suppressed the
national minorities and the Jews. ... On the night of September
19, 1939 the Jews of David-Horodok slept peacefully and blissfully,
and were full of hope for a bright future.
Jan T. Gross claims, but provides no evidence, that ... in
many instances ... the welcoming ceremonies were organized on explicit
instructions, and people were forced to attend; elsewhere, he claims
that the triumphal arches ... were erected most often out of fear.
He assures us that ... the majority of the residents were fearful of
the Red Army and ... only a fraction of the local population showed up
on these occasions. The conspicuously large street crowds of Jews "milling" in
cities such as Lwow, Wilno and Bialystok can be explained simply by the
fact that the Jewish population had doubled in size because of the influx
of refugees from the German occupation zone, which created a severe housing
shortage. However, these fanciful claims do not find support in Jewish
testimonies nor do they explain the overwhelming receptions, given to the
Red Army by Jews in small towns, where refugees were rather scarce.
A common occurrence was creating "ersatz" Soviet flags
by cutting off the white upper portion of Polish flags, thereby giving
more colour to the accompanying pro-Soviet chanting. Before it can
be seriously suggested that all this was merely a display of gratitude
for saving Jews from an unknown fate at the hands of the Germans, and
that it did not in any way cast aspersions on the loyalty or even neutrality
of the large masses of jubilant participants, one should consider how
Jews in Western Poland viewed pro-Nazi outbursts on the part of the
ethnic German population living there.
A young German-speaking Jewish woman from the heavily German city
of Bielsko, in Polish Silesia, recorded her sense of shock and indignation
at her German neighbours' behaviour in the early days of September
1939:
... I looked out again. A swastika was flying from
the house across the street. My God! They seemed prepared. All
but us, they knew.
A big truck filled with German soldiers was parked across the street.
Our neighbors were serving them wine and cakes, and screaming as
though drunk with joy. "Heil Hitler! Long live the Führer! We thank
thee for our liberation!"
I couldn't understand it. I didn't seem to be able to grasp the reality
of what had happened. What are those people doing? The same people
I had known all my life. They have betrayed us.
... I looked out the window and there was Trude, a girl I had known since
childhood. She and her grandmother lived rent-free in a two-room
apartment in our basement in return for laundry service. Now I saw
her carrying flowers from our garden, white roses of which she had
been so proud because they bloomed out of season. She handed them
to a soldier, breaking her tongue with the unfamiliar German, "Heil
Hitler!" The soldier reached for the flowers, but somebody offered
him some schnapps. ... I started sobbing, crying, releasing all my
emotions and anxieties in that outburst.
... Early in the afternoon the drunken, jubilant mob was still celebrating
its "liberation" and
hoarsely shouting "Heil Hitler". ... I realized that we were outsiders,
strangers in our own home, at the mercy of those who until then had
been our friends. Although I was only fifteen I had a strong feeling,
more instinct than reason, that our lives were no longer our own,
but lay in the hands of a deadly enemy.
... The next morning, I was in the kitchen with Mama when Mrs. Roesche,
one of the neighbors, came in with another woman and asked for our
Polish flag.
"The flag?" Mama asked. "What for?"
"To make a German one, of course. It's really simple. You leave the red stripe
as it is, cut a circle out of the white, and you put a black swastika
on it."
... Those two neighbors spent all morning sewing a Nazi flag to hang from
our house. ... Mrs. Roesche and the other woman struggled to
fasten the flag through the little hole on the roof. I couldn't bring
myself to look out of the window for days, but when I did, there was the
blood-red symbol of the tragedy that had engulfed us.
According to German reports, enraged Jews also attacked
German civilians who were taken hostage by the Polish army or Polish
authorities during the early stages of the German invasion. On the
march through Kutno, a group of ethnic Germans were set upon by
... a crazed mob (mostly Jews) and badly beaten.
... they set about the seriously ill and half dead comrades lying
on carts at the back of each column with clubs and iron bars.
Even in the Eastern Borderlands, Jews looked with trepidation
as the German minority began to show it true colours even before the
arrival of either the Germans or Soviets. As one Jewish resident of
Wlodzimierz Wolynski (Volhynia), describes:
... On the afternoon of September 12, members of the
Fifth Column, Polish citizens of German ancestry who secretly collaborated
with the Nazis, donned German uniforms and strolled back and forth
down Farna Street. I recognized the Schoen brothers, Bubi and Rudi,
friends of youth and sons of the local pastor. They didn't look
at me as we passed, and I ran back home. Our close friendship,
which had begun in grade school, had cooled over the years as they
spent their summer vacations in Germany. In one of our last conversations,
nearly two years before, Bubi told me I should leave Poland with
my family because bad things were going to happen to Jews.
Outbursts of pro-Soviet solidarity were not restricted
to the Eastern Borderlands. The Germans and Soviets had originally
agreed to a partition line running significantly to the west of the
River Bug and, for a brief period, the Soviets occupied a large portion
of Central Poland, namely Lublin Province (in addition to the Lomza
region, from which they did not withdraw). There too, as in Siedlce,
the Jewish population erected triumphal arches and greeted the Soviet
invaders enthusiastically donning red armbands and ribbons.
In some towns near the Soviet border, Poles and even
Polish officials were initially among the throngs greeting the Soviet
army. Indeed, Polish soldiers were given orders by their commanders
not to fire at the Soviet army. Duped by Soviet propaganda, these Poles
were under the mistaken impression that the Soviets had come to help
them fight the Germans, and not to subjugate their country. The Soviet
tanks that rolled into Kopyczynce, for example, were adorned with Polish
flags and slogans of Soviet help in the fight against the common Nazi
enemy. The Poles were soon disabused of these short-lived illusions,
however. As the confusion gave way to the certainty that Soviets did
not come as defenders of Poland, dejected, they abandoned the cheering
throngs. Many Jews, Belorussians and Ukrainians, on the other hand,
openly welcomed the prospect of Soviet rule instead of Polish rule.
The reality of collaboration ran much deeper than warmly
greeting the invading Soviet forces, however, and its consequences
had a devastating impact on the Polish population and on Polish-Jewish
relations. As we shall see, Jewish collaboration with the Soviet invaders
was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the loss of many thousands
of Polish lives.
POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS UNDER SOVIET
OCCUPATION, 1939-1941
POLAND'S ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE NAZI-SOVIET
OCCUPATION OF POLAND
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