actual Jewish population of Poland in 1939

[rob in cal]

The Polish census showed about 3.1 million Jews in Poland in 1931. During the 1930's many Jews (in the hundreds of thousands I believe) emigrated, and yet the 1939 estimate is that there were about 3.3 million Jews in Poland. Is this number correct? Was the Jewish birthrate that high that it could absorb the loss of so many young emigrants and still be bigger than in 1931. Also, was the 1931 census fairly accurate to begin with?

[Artur Szulc]

According to a report, written during the War, from the Interior Ministry of the Polish Government in Exile this is the numbers of the Jewish emigration from pre-war Poland.

(In thousands):

1926 22,4
1927 18,7
1928 18,2
1929 23,4
1930 16,9
1931 8,6
1932 8,6
1933 16,9
1934 18,0
1935 30,7
1936 16,9
1937 8,9
1938 9,2

Total: 217 400
Source: Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, collection: B 1063

Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, the author of Jews in Poland - A Documentary history, page 300:

Sept. 30, 1921, Jewish population in Poland was 2,8 million, in 1931 it was 3,1 million and in 1937 about 3,5 million, including 330 000 legally repatriated (on the basis of Polish-Soviet pact of Riga, 1921) and about 450 000 illegal refugess from the Soviet Union - all of whom were granted Polish citizenship. In 1921-1937 Jewish minority increased by 800 000, while 390 000 emigrated. In 1937 Jewish population in Poland exceeded 3,5 million as a result of immigration and high birthrate.

Now, I only present som numbers. If they are accurate, well, I do not know.

I am sure there are plenty more sources which can be checked.

Best regards,

Chili

[phylo_roadking]

1934 18,0
1935 30,7
1936 16,9

Interesting....what happened in Poland in 1935???

[crolick]

According to the Small Statistical Yearbook 1939 the data are as follows:
- 3 113 900 persons of Jewish religion [census 1931]
- 2 732 600 persons speaking Yiddish and Hebrew [census 1931]
- between 1921 and 1931 the increase of Jewish population was 291 100
- fertility rate was: 1926-1930 9,7, 1931-1935 9,5, 1936-1938 8,5 (on 1000 inhabitants) it was below the average for Poland
- migration between 1927 and 1938 was 198 600

Phylo - shortly speaking there were 2 waves of Jewish migration to Palestine: 1924-28 (around 30 000) and 1933-36 (around 22 000). Both were triggered by the world crisis and it is speculated that the latter one also because of the rising antisemitism in Poland. As far as I know migration to other locations (like US or Latin America) were more or less constant in time).

[phylo_roadking]

I can see the increase through the four-year span - AND see the earlier period too....but was there anything specific and headline-grabbing about 1935? Even the spike spiked in that one year...! The number almost doubled...given that it had already doubled over the low-rate years...

[jola]

Nothing significant in 1935, however, the British drasticly limited immigration into Palestine past 1935. They were not thrilled with the Polish government giving military training to Zionist groups in 1931-1934 years.

[phylo_roadking]

however, the British drasticly limited immigration into Palestine past 1935

So at a guess that accounts for the drop from 1935 to 1936...

1935 30,7
1936 16,9

...but without that - would the trend have continued climbing, or reached a plateau at that 30,000 a year?

[michael mills]

None of the official statistics of the Jewish population of Poland in 1939 is entirely trustworthy.

After the war, the chief Polish statistician, Edward Szturm de Sztreng,admitted that the census of 1931 had been substantially falsified for political reasons, in particular the returns from the east of the country, for the purpose of exaggerating the number of ethnic Poles and minimising the number of ethnic Ukrainians.

How such falsification might have affected the statistics of the Jewish minority is unknown. Certainly the Polish authorities had no reason to minimise the size of the Jewish minority, since the Jews, unlike the Ukrainians, were not claiming a part of Polish territory. However, the difference of almost 400,000 between the number of persons claimed to speak Jewish languages (2.7 million) and the number claimed to be of the Jewish religion (3.1 million) looks suspicious. Is it possible that almost half a million Jews had abandoned their native language Yiddish for Polish or Ukrainian? It is most likely that almost all Jews living in Poland spoke Yiddish, and that there was a substantial proportion, maybe a majority, who spoke Polish as well, some better than others. But it is extremely unlikely that there was a substantial proportion of the Jewish minority (about 13%) that spoke Polish as their main language.

I would suggest that the figure for the number of persons speaking a Jewish language, ie 2.7 million, should be taken as a turer indication of the size of the Jewish population of Poland in 1931. By 1939 that population might have grown to about 3 million, but hardly more, given the relatively low fertility of the Jews and their relatively high rate of emigration.

The estimates of a much higher Jewish population in 1939, around 3.5 million, appear to rest on the claim that between 1921 and 1937 there was substantial Jewish immigration into Poland from the Soviet Union. A figure of 440,000 illegal refugees is quoted.

That claim of substantial Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union is entirely false, and is a result of a distortion of genuine demographic events to suit a Polish apologetic agenda.

The fact is that in 1923 some 400,000 Jews were indeed granted Polish citizenship. However, these persons were not refugees from the Soviet Union; in fact they were persons who had lived in the Austrian province of Galicia before the First World War, and had fled westward before the advance of the Russian Army during that war. At the end of the war they were living in refugee camps in Austria and Hungary. At the end of the war, the new Polish state seized the the whole of Galicia, but refused to let the refugees return or grant them Polish citizenship, on the basis that they were not residents of Poland.

The Entente refused to recognise the Polish seizure of Galicia until 1923, and it made its recognition conditional on the grant of Polish citizenship to all refugees from that province. The refugees were granted citizenship and allowed to return to Poland from the camps in Austria and Hungary.

The refugees had not been counted in the census of 1921, since they were outside Poland at the time. That census had recorded 2.1 million persons of Jewish nationality. The addition of the refugees who returned after 1923 raised that number to 2.5 million, which is consistent with 2.7 persons speaking a Jewish language in 1931.

Careful analysis of all the true data leads to the adoption of a maximum of 3 million Jews in Poland in 1939; the figure could indeed have been lower.

If we assume that the number of Jews in Poland in 1921 was of the order of 2.5 million, including the Galician refugees who were granted citizenship in 1923, and that number had increased to 3.0 million by 1939, and that 400,000 had emigrated between 1921 and 1939, that would represent a total natural increase of 900,000 from 1921 to 1939, or some 38%, about the absolute maximum possible over an 18-year period given the relatively low fertility of the Jewish population.

[Harro]

1934 18,0
1935 30,7
1936 16,9

Interesting....what happened in Poland in 1935???

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/ar ... 00295.html

2) After a deeply anti-Semitic history replete with pogroms and vicious discrimination, Poland in 1935 (four years before Germany had put a foot inside the country) introduced a number of anti-Semitic laws that were, in great measure, modelled on the Nuremberg laws. Jews were forbidden from taking any jobs in government; Jews were basically forbidden from entering universities; special taxes were levied on Jews. During this time, Jews were openly harangued and attacked in the streets of every Polish city and town on a daily basis. The government explored various possibilities of how Poland could "get rid" of its Jews, including ethnic cleansing. This latter was only prevented by the outbreak of war.

[Artur Szulc]

Harro, are you giving us a link to a blog with many commentators, and who of them are you quoting?

There are already many threads on the subject of polish antisemitism here on AHF. Let´s not start one more.

Chili

[Harro]

It is just a basic overview of the 1935 antisemitic laws of the Bartel administration. "phylo_roadking" asked what happened in 1935 that could explain the significant Jewish emigration from Poland in that year.

[michael mills]

Melanie Phillips is a very right-wing Anglo-Jewish journalist, whose writings display an extreme pro-Israel and anti-Muslim bias.

However, the passage quoted by Harro, although it appeared in Melanie Phillips' online diary in 2004, it was not actually written by her, but was rather a comment on her diary entry by somebody called "Charles".

The claims made by "Charles" may have some factual basis, but a quasi-anonymous comment on a piece by a biassed journalist cannot be regarded as a reliable source.

[Harro]

Michael, I stopped discussing anything with you a long long time ago. "Charles" gave a clear overview of the 1935 antisemitic laws of the Bartel administration and this overview shows us what happened in 1935 that could explain the significant Jewish emigration from Poland in that year.

[michael mills]

It is just a basic overview of the 1935 antisemitic laws of the Bartel administration.

I do not think any inter-war Polish government actually introduced anti-Semitic laws.

There were many anti-Jewish actions, such as the economic boycott organised by Endecja (which had been in place since 1910), and the "numerus clausus" introduced at many universities. But those were actions by non-governmental bodies, not by the government itself.

However, it is true that after the death of Pilsudski, the Polish government basically did nothing to hinder anti-Jewish agitation or actions by non-government groups. Its attitude was "owszem", I agree.

[Artur Szulc]

When it comes to antisemitism in intra-war Poland I prefer to read Richard C Lukas (PhD), Tadeusz Pitrowski (Prof), Norman Davies (Prof), Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (PhD, research prof), Izrael Gutman (Prof), Henryk Grunberg (Polish-Jewish writer), Szymon Datner (Polish-Jewish historian and former director of Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw), Dermot Quinn (associate professor of history at Seton Hall University), and many others, rather then some "Charles" on a blog.

Best regards,

Chili