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Smooth Transition
In order to carry out the planned sweeps of Poles
and other targeted groups, reliance on local collaborators was
indispensable. Civilian denunciations took on massive proportions.
Lists of people to be deported had to be carefully prepared with
the assistance of local people, very often Jews.
Polish historians confirm that Jews continued to
play a prominent role in the "red militia" - the right hand of
the NKVD - throughout the Soviet occupation (according to one
Jewish author, the customary sight of Jewish militiamen patrolling
the streets resulted in Poles referring to the Bolshevik regime
as "Jewish rule"). Enthusiastic supporters of the Soviet regime
also had an important administrative, economic, social and
propaganda role to play.
Jan Tomasz Gross, an American sociologist of
Polish-Jewish origin, explains why the transition to Soviet rule
went so smoothly:
... Even before the Soviets entered, citizens'
committees or militias were spontaneously formed in many places
to replace the local Polish administration, which had either
fled or lost the ability to enforce order.
... These committees often acted as hosts to Red Army units.
... in the first moment of encounter, the Soviet commanders
relied on such welcoming committees and militias. The Soviets
armed them or authorized them to carry the weapons that they
had already acquired ...
Their primary immediate task involved ferreting out hiding Polish
officers and policemen.
These first militias were a strange lot. In some areas,
particularly in the larger towns where the majority of the 1.7
million Jews living in this territory dwelt, they were
predominantly Jewish, often organized by communist sympathizers.
... In any case, the initial collaboration of ethnic minorities
allowed for the effective penetration of local society. The
effect of this collaboration on the occupier's administration
cannot be overestimated. ... They were carrying out a social
revolution in eastern Poland, which could not be accomplished
without local support.
... A new administration was quickly established in the conquered
territories. ... In higher administrative echelons, the gmina
[the smallest territorial administrative unit in Poland], either
Soviet officials or Polish communist sympathizers (usually Jews)
always held supervisory positions. In addition to committees,
militia detachments were formed, which were soon subsumed under
the command of the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) operatives.
This was the network through which the social and political
transformation was to be implemented.
In the first phase of the takeover, committees were used mainly
for expropriations and arrests. But the Soviets soon gave them a
more important task: a mass mobilization of the local population
in support of the new regime. On October 22, barely one month after
they crossed the Polish frontier, the Soviets organized a
plebiscite in eastern Poland. [this was a key component of
the incorporation of these territories into the Soviet Union]
... After assisting in the initial exercise of intimidating
the local population, the committees were then supposed to draw
the inhabitants together and mobilize them on behalf of the new
regime.
Israeli historian, Ben-Cion Pinchuk, paints a similar
picture:
... Indicative of the human resources and
potential in the Jewish community was the important role played by
the Jews during the transition period and the first phase of
organizing the new regime. There were many places, usually those
removed from the major routes of the advancing Red Army, where the
interregnum lasted for some days. The power vacuum created was
filled quite often by local temporary executive committees. Jews
played a prominent role in those committees, which lasted in many
places until they were replaced by officials from the Soviet Union.
... The creation of the temporary committees was a local initiative ...
There were places where committees were created to organize the
reception for the Soviet units and provide what they considered
new Soviet-like authority as a temporary replacement for the
disintegrating Polish administration. Revolutionary committees,
as some of the committees were called, according to numerous Polish
reports consisted almost entirely of Jews, with a few Ukrainians.
A citizens' militia served as the executive tool of the committees.
In the two organizations Jews played a dominant role, according to
Polish sources. Jewish communists tried in some places to establish
what they considered a Soviet administration. The committees behaved
as if they were the government until the entrance of the Red Army.
They initiated "socialist" reforms, occasionally coming into
conflict with the local population.
... Expression of suppressed grudges and hatreds against the haughty
Polish officials could be detected during the transition. ... it
was a time for settling scores, a time of retribution. Detectives
and policemen were disarmed and arrested. Polish officials reported
that they were told by local Jews: ‘Your time has passed, a new epoch
begins.’ The Polish population felt itself alienated and threatened
and tried to avoid public attention ... There were many instances of
arbitrariness and of settling accounts with those who were well-to-do
or in authority in the old regime, Jews and Poles alike. Those, who
were communists before were 'engaged now on their own in
"nationalizing" stores, houses, merchandise, and settling old grudges.
Arbitrarily they make arrests and investigations', related a survivor.
Harassment of the more affluent, expropriation and distribution of
goods among the poor without authorization from the incoming regime,
were typical of the transition time. The persecution, expropriations,
and occasional imprisonment were indicative of the social changes
that would take place.
... Jews participated in disproportionate numbers in the
Soviet-established institutions during the first few weeks of the new
regime [and also afterwards - M.P.]. ... The Polish
population could not serve as a source of manpower for the new
institutions ... The Jewish community particularly in the shtetlach
constituted a large reservoir of manpower, relatively well-educated,
reliable as far as its outside relations were concerned and, what
was equally important, available and eager to cooperate.
... Jewish youth formed special organizations whose role was to
facilitate the establishment of the new regime. In many places the
first Soviet-appointed institutions contained a very high proportion
of Jews. Governmental and economic institutions, the militia in
particular - organized by the authorities as a local police force -
employed many Jews. The shtetl Jews ... were willing to fill every
available opening, thus playing an important role in the initial
stages of building the Soviet system in former eastern Poland.
During the transition period the local communists were used ... in
helping build up the Soviet system. After the formal annexation
local communists were systematically removed from responsible
positions, some were even arrested. Many of them received subordinate
administrative appointments, particularly in fields where knowledge
of local conditions or direct contact with the population was
required. They were employed in factories, schools, the militia, as
NKVD informers and later as propagandists in the election campaigns.
Israeli historian, Aharon Weiss, concurs with this
assessment:
... From the first days of Soviet rule, the Jews
were absorbed into the state administration, together with all its
offshoots, without any restriction, and they were represented in
it to an extent exceeding their proportion of the population as a whole.
There are some who hold that political considerations played a part
in the inclusion of a relatively high proportion of Jews in the
Soviet administration. The Soviets saw in the Jews an element loyal
to the new regime, and sometimes even sympathetic to it. The Soviets
were aware of the hostile attitude of the Poles ...
There was a similar situation among the Ukrainians, who were imbued
with strong nationalistic feelings. These facts were very well known
to the Soviet authorities when they came to man the administrative
machine, the main purpose of which was to carry out Soviet policy and
assist in the establishment of the new regime. And so the Jews,
perhaps more than the other two nations in Eastern Galicia, met the
requirements of the authorities. The Jews at this time had no political
ambitions such as would have excited the suspicions of the Soviets or
given them cause to exercise reserve.
Israeli historian Dov Levin, who exaggerates the role of
prewar communists and is rather reticent and sketchy about the concrete
activities of the largely Jewish "red militia", writes:
... During the preparations for the arrival of the
Red Army, and immediately after its advent, young Jews in many locations
formed semi-military groupings with names like "People’s Militia",
"Workers' Guard", and so on. It was the task of these organizations to
maintain local security, order, and sound administration. Above all,
they were to prevent any disturbances as the Red Army came in. These
youngsters often armed themselves with light weapons left behind by
the Polish police. In lieu of uniforms, they tied red ribbons to their
sleeves. The very fact of armed Jews visibly imposing their order made
their fellow Jews even more eager to greet the Soviet forces.
In the very first days of the Red Army presence in Eastern Poland, parts
of Romania and the Baltic countries - and, in certain cases, even
preceding the takeover - Jews were active in setting up the institutions
of the new government. They were prominent in guard formations of the
militia, bodies known as revolutionary or provisional "committees", and
so on. The presence of Jews in these organizations was conspicuous in
the towns and cities. Some participants belonged to Jewish leftist
circles; and some were young adults who identified with the Soviet
regime despite the lack of a defined ideological background. Most,
however, were Communist Party members who, having just emerged from
prison or the underground, regarded themselves as natural partners in
laying the foundations of the new regime.
In the Soviet military administration it was widely (and correctly)
believed at the time that the Jewish minority was one of the most
reliable elements in existence at that stage. This was especially
true in Eastern Poland, where the Soviet authorities had not had
time to prepare properly for the new situation in view of the dizzying
speed of events in the autumn of 1939. Jews were visible in all agencies
of the civil administration as the Soviet regime consolidated itself
before the official annexation of the western Ukraine and western
Belorussia in November, 1939.
... A Jew headed the provisional committee of the town of Stryj. In
Borislav [Boryslaw], well-known communists who had spent many
years in Polish prisons assumed important positions in the municipal
administration. According to Jewish sources, Jews accounted for 70
percent of the members of the militia in certain Eastern Galician
localities.
... A new Jewish elite of sorts, composed of officials and confidantes
of the new establishment, took shape at this time. Its members were
people who, until the Red Army takeover, had been marginal players
in the arena of Jewish public activity. This new elite replaced, to
some extent, the veteran elite that was immobilized, silenced or
eliminated by the circumstances of the new war and the new realities.
This trend persisted even after Ukrainians and Belorussians dislodged
the Jewish functionaries who had established the provisional
institutions.
Many Jews, confident that the changes following the Soviet annexation
would be long-lasting, preferred to adjust to the new circumstances.
Quite a few collaborated with the authorities, some out of ideological
identification and others for reasons of sympathy and gratitude.
... Unlike non-Jewish resistance groups affiliated with the majority
peoples (e.g., Ukrainians and Lithuanians), Zionist groups did not
reject the fact of the annexation of their areas of residence.
[Zionist youth] movements did not regard themselves as enemies of
the regime, instead hoping that over time the regime would change its
policies regarding Judaism and Zionism. ... none of them (not even
Betar) professed hostile trends or thoughts, and all were careful to
avoid any manifestation of anti-Sovietism.
Labeling of the Soviet administration as a "Jewish regime" became
widespread when Jewish militiamen helped NKVD agents send local Poles
into exile. ... Landlords and estate owners must have harbored much
bitterness when forced to greet, with strained politeness, young
Jews who came to confiscate their property.
One of the most surprising metamorphoses was the
overnight transformation of ardent Zionists into militant communists,
which is remarked on by a number of observers - this time by Prof.
Karol Estreicher of the Jagiellonian University:
... In Skole, a small town in the Carpathians
[near Stryj], the leader of the local Zionist youth organization
of "Chalucs" [Hechalutz] became a communist immediately, and
transformed the club into a Bolshevik one. The portrait of Stalin
supplanted the picture of Herzl in the common room, but the membership
of the organization remained the same.
According to Jewish-Belorussian historian, Evegenii
Rozenblat, many Jews occupied leading positions in the NKVD apparatus
and judicial system, which played key roles in subjugating the conquered
territories. As of October 1940, more than forty percent of all positions
in the judicial apparatus of the Pin´sk region were held by Jews. Local
Jewish recruits were bolstered by the arrival of large numbers of Soviet
Jews in the service of an oppressive regime whose aim was to destroy all
vestiges of Polish nationhood. Of the 2789 apparatchiks, sent to
Bialystok in September and October 1939 (this number does not include
functionaries of the militia and NKVD), 600 (21.5%) were Jews.
That there were not more Jews in the service of the new
regime was not a function of a shortage of eager Jews but because many
of those who volunteered their services, especially prewar communists
from Central Poland, were rebuffed and even repressed. However:
... In contrast to the hurdles that the [Communist]
Party placed in the path of persons seeking admission - newcomers and
veterans alike - the Komsomol and the Pioneer (Communist Party children's
organization) branches opened their doors to teenagers and children.
Membership in these organizations became highly acceptable, and Jewish
youth thronged to them. This was especially so in the towns and the
outlying areas, where youth movements had played a paramount role. All
were welcome, even those who had previously belonged to Zionist,
religious, or Bundist movements or parties.
... The Pioneers also attracted relatively large numbers of Jews.
Symptomatic of the prevalent mood were the long line-ups of
Jews, among them many elderly people, which began to form in front of the
polling stations hours in advance of their early morning opening on October
22, 1939 to cast their votes for Stalin and the annexation of Poland's
Eastern Borderlands. They did so ostentatiously and often with great
enthusiasm.
The electoral committee in Lwow was headed by prominent
Jewish communists, members of the Communist Party of "Western Ukraine", such
as Jerzy Borejsza (Goldberg), his brother Jozef Rozanski (Goldberg), Ozjasz
Szechter (later Michnik), Hilary Minc, and others. After the Soviet
"liberation" of Poland in 1944, they adroitly switched their "national"
allegiance and were installed in leading positions in Stalinist Poland.
POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS UNDER SOVIET
OCCUPATION, 1939-1941
POLAND'S ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE NAZI-SOVIET
OCCUPATION OF POLAND
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