Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39: Austria - Hungary - Poland - Russia 3110137151, 9783110137156

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Hostages of Modernization

w G DE

Current Research on Antisemitism Edited by

Herbert A. Strauss and Werner Bergmann

Volume 3/2

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1993

Hostages of Modernization Studies on Modern Antisemitism 1870-1933/39 Austria - Hungary - Poland - Russia

Edited by

Herbert A. Strauss

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1993

Published with the support of the Technische Universität Berlin, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung.

© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI to ensure permanence and durability

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism 1870-1933/39 / edited by Herbert A. Strauss. X, 749 p. 15,5 X 23 cm. - (Current research on antisemitism; v. 3 / 2 - ) Contents: [2] Austria - Hungary - Poland - Russia ISBN 3-11-013715-1 1. Antisemitism--History. I. Strauss, Herbert Arthur. Π. Series. DS145.H68 1993 305.8' 924—dc20 92-35612 CIP

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging-in-Publication Data Current research on antisemitism / ed. by Herbert A. Strauss and Werner Bergmann. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter NE: Strauss, Herben Α. [Hrsg.] Vol. 3. Hostages of modernization: studies on modern antisemitism 1870-1933/39. 2. Austria - Hungary - Poland - Russia / ed. by Herbert A. Strauss. - 1993 ISBN 3-11-013715-1

© Copyright 1993 by Walter de Gruyter & Co. D-1000 Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in Germany Typsetting: Dörlemann-Satz, 2844 Lemförde — Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, 1000 Berlin 36 — Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer GmbH, 1000 Berlin 61 -Cover design: Rudolf Hübler, 1000 Berlin 41.

Contents Volume 3/2

Part IV: Austria H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Austria - Vicissitudes of Anti-Modernism: Origins and Continuities of Populist Antisemitism

669

ROBERT S. WISTRICH

Georg von Schoenerer and the Genesis of Modern Austrian Antisemitism

675

ANDREW G . W H I T E S I D E

Pan-Germanism: Anti-Semitism in Mass-Style Politics

689

P E T E R G . J . PULZER

Lueger's Heritage: Anti-Semitism in Austrian Party Politics

700

JOHN W . BOYER

The Viennese Artisans and the Origins of Political Antisemitism, 1880-1890

720

JOHN W . BOYER

Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews: Rhetorics and Realities

776

GEORGE E . BERKLEY

Vienna and Its Jews: The Solitary Scapegoat in Post-War Vienna . . . BRUCE F. PAULEY

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

797 811

GERHARD BOTZ

The Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust

836

VI

Contents

Part V: Hungary H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Hungary - Historie Catastrophes and Long-Range Changes

857

R O L F FISCHER

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

863

EZRA MENDELSOHN

Trianon Hungary, Jews and Politics

893

RANDOLPH L . Β RAH AM

Right Radicalism in the Immediate Post-War Period

916

BERNARD KLEIN

Hungarian Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

924

NATHANIEL KATZBURG

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies and Nazi Influence in the 1930s . . H . SETON-WATSON

Two Contrasting Policies toward Jews: Russia and Hungary

939 948

Part VI: Poland H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Poland - Culture of Anti-Semitism

963

NORMAN D A VIES

Polish-Jewish Relations: Historic Background

972

EZRA MENDELSOHN

The Jewries of Interwar Poland

989

FRANK GOLCZEWKSI

Rural Anti-Semitism in Galicia before World War I

996

NORMAN D A VIES

Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland

1006

PAWEL KORZEC

Polish-Jewish Relations during World War I

1022

YLSRAEL GUTMAN

Poles and Jews between the Wars: Historic Overview

1038

DIETRICH BEYRAU

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1063

Contents

VII

JOSEPH MARCUS

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic and Social Conditions, 1918-1939

1091

CELIA S. HELLER

Jewish Social Status in Sociological Perspective

1135

ALEKSANDER H E R T Z

Jewish Caste Status in Poland

1153

WLADYSLAW BARTOSZEWSKI

Polish Folk Culture and the Jew

1165

Part W : Russia H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union - Enduring Mentalities

1177

HEINZ-DIETRICH LÖWE

Anti-Semitism at the Close of the Czarist Era

1188

HANS ROGGER

Reforming Jews - Reforming Russians

1208

I . MICHAEL ARONSON

Geographical and Socioeconomic Factors in the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia

1230

SHLOMO LAMBROZA

Jewish Self-Defence during the Russian Pogroms of 1903-1906

1244

HANS ROGGER

The Beilis Case: Anti-Semitism and Politics in the Reign of Nicholas Π 1257 MAURICE SAMUEL

World and Domestic Reaction to the Beiliss Case

1274

STEFAN T . POSSONY

Periods of Kremlin Jewish Policies

1288

SALO W . BARON

Jews in Russia: The First World War and the Revolutionary Period . 1291 STEFAN T . POSSONY

The Ukrainian Jewish-Problem

1312

LESTER SAMUEL ECKMAN

Soviet Policies toward the Jews: From Lenin to Stalin

1325

VIII

Contents

SALO W . BARON

Social and Economic Changes Among Soviet Jews ΖΝΙ Y . GITELMAN

Socio-Economic Modernization and Imposed Culture Change

1342 1357

WILLIAM K O R E Y

Continuities in Popular Perception of Jews in the Soviet Union

1383

Epilogue H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Epilogue

1409

Contents

IX

Volume 3/1

Foreword

V

HERBERT A . STRAUSS

Introduction: Possibilities and Limits of Comparison

1

Part I: Germany HERBERT A . STRAUSS

Germany - Continuities, Ambiguities, and Political Style

11

HANS ROSENBERG

Anti-Semitism and the "Great Depression", 1873-1896

19

HANS-ULRICH WEHLER

Anti-Semitism and Minority Policy

29

WERNER JOCHMANN

Structure and Functions of German Anti-Semitism 1878-1914

41

SHULAMIT VOLKOV

The Social and Political Function of Late 19th Century Anti-Semitism: The Case of the Small Handicraft-Masters

62

NORBERT KAMPE

The Jewish Arrival at Higher Education

80

DAVID BLACKBOURN

Roman Catholics, the Centre Party and Anti-Semitism in Imperial Germany

107

DAVID PEAL

Antisemitism by Other Means? The Rural Cooperative Movement in Late 19th Century Germany 128 SAUL FRIEDLÄNDER

Political Transformations During the War and Their Effect on the Jewish Question

150

HERBERT A . STRAUSS

Hostages of "World Jewry": On the Origin of the Idea of Genocide in German History

165

χ

Contents

U W E LOHALM

Volkisch Origins of Early Nazism: Anti-Semitism in Culture and Politics

174

HEINRICH AUGUST WINKLER

Anti-Semitism in Weimar Society

196

DONALD L . NIEWYK

The Jews in Weimar Germany: The Impact of Anti-Semitism on Universities, Political Parties and Government Services

206

THOMAS CHILDERS

Voter Perceptions of Nazi Propaganda: The Issue of Modernization .

227

H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Nazi Persecution of the Jews and Emigration

236

IAN K E R S H A W

German Popular Opinion and the "Jewish Question", 1939-1943: Some further Reflections

269

ANDREAS H I L L G R U B E R

The Persecution of the Jews: Its Place in German History

280

Part Π: Great Britain H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Great Britain - The Minor Key

289

GEOFFREY G . FIELD

Anti-Semitism with the Boots Off

294

COLIN HOLMES

Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876-1939

326

ALAN L E E

Aspects of the Working Class Response to the Jews in Britain

350

G E O F F R E Y ALDERMAN

The Anti-Jewish Riots of August 1911 in South Wales

365

JOHN A . GARRARD

The English Dilemma: Political Custom and Latent Prejudice

376

G I S E L A LEBZELTER

Political Anti-Semitism in England 1918-1939

385

Contents

XI

COLIN HOLMES

Attack and Counter-Attack

425

COLIN H O L M E S

The Balance Sheet: Summary and Evaluation

435

Part ΙΠ: France HERBERT A . STRAUSS

France - Intertwined Traditions

455

ZEEV STERNHELL

The Roots of Popular Anti-Semitism in the Third Republic

464

Louis L. SNYDER Chronology of the Dreyfus Case

486

PHILIP G . N O R D

The Politics of Shopkeeper Protest

496

MICHAEL BURNS

Boulangism and the Dreyfus Affair 1886-1900

514

STEPHEN W I L S O N

Antisemitism in France at the Time of the Dreyfus Affair

541

ANDREAS ZOBEL

The French Extreme Right and the Concept of Pre-Fascism

593

MICHAEL R . M A R R U S / R O B E R T O . PAXTON

The Roots of Vichy Anti-Semitism

599

STEPHEN A . SCHUKER

Origins of the "Jewish Problem" in the Late Third Republic

631

MICHAEL R . M A R R U S / R O B E R T O . PAXTON

Public Opinion, 1940-1942

644

Part IV Austria

H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Austria - Vicissitudes of Anti-Modernism: Origins and Continuities of Populist Antisemitism The following eight contributions (by six authors) focus on Vienna, before 1918 the capital of an empire of 54 million subjects. It was composed of diverse national minorities and ethnic strains in the throes of cultural and political independence movements. Some of what used to be part of this Empire is being given a separate section - Hungary - or is included in the section on a successor state - Poland. References to the German-speaking provinces contingent to Lower Austria (the Vienna province) are rare and non-specific. Research efforts have properly concentrated on the capital where modern antisemitism and modern antisemitic movements originated. Local studies and studies of peasant attitudes, if they exist at all, do not enter significantly into this development, although peasant organizations join in by the mid-1890s. Theriseof modern antisemitic movements occurs from within the social structures and the political culture of late 19th century Vienna, and its complex and contradictory patterns of public behavior, mutual accomodation, and private sociability. The authors agree in referring to the historic outsider position of the Jews in the Empire. Jews are being tolerated and being made use of for the raison ά'έίαί of the Habsburgs, the provincial governors, the bureaucracy, or the church leadership. After the Revolution of 1848 had been put down by force, and with it the promise of constitutional equality and civilrights,lip service to political liberalism became the prestigious behavior to adopt - Jews and Gentiles appear to have agreed on a compact of silence, animosities went latent. These years were the "golden era" of Jewish life in Vienna. Immigrants from Galicia, Bohemia, Moravia swelled the number of Jews in the capital to one-tenth of the population (74,000 in 1880). It was to reach a peak of 200,000 in the 1920s. Their cultural, economic, and social dynamics made Jewry central to the capital's vitality. They may well have been the most dynamic concentration of East-Central European Jews in any Western European capital before World War I. Their success, based as it was on the German language and culture many of the immigrants had represented

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among other nationalities of the Empire, rivalled the business history of the Viennese Jewish upper-middle class, their visibility in commerce, banking, the new railroads, manufacturing, and international trade. Excluded from government service (but not military promotions or careers as in Germany), higher education compensated for denied respectability through professional careers. Authors point out the increase in the number of students, university professors, lawyers, physicians, journalists - they may have added writers and free-lance intellectuals. That Viennese Jews thrived in what may be called American-style acculturation, offers one aspect of the multi-faceted problem of placing Viennese modern antisemitism into perspective. For almost the entire first four decades of the 20th century, about two thirds of the Austrian (sic) electorate voted for the Christian-Social Party and the Volkspartei (the identifying adjective changed although the program remained), two (of three) major parties professing open antisemitism. Even the third major party, the Austrian Social Democrats, were not immune against using antisemitism in internal debates among leaders, or in appeals to an electorate believed to be in need of more than plain anticapitalism. As is valid for all sections of this book, voting for an antisemitic party is no reliable index for salient or intense Jew-hatred or stereotyping, above all in multi-issue parties. The mixture of economic protest and traditional stereotype, religious tradition and status anxiety, general xenophobia and new racism can not be broken down by historic methods. Given the dominant role of major parties, it might be argued that the alternatives open to voters were limited. Still, where antisemitism had in fact become a social norm in political behavior, the continuity of antisemitic attitudes into the recent past acquired a somewhat sinister dimension. Yet, as several of the following essays detail convincingly, the style of organizational behavior and propaganda was highly differentiated and gave antisemitism a variety of political and social or economic functions. The most brutal and rude physical aggression appeared first among Austrian students in the 1860s, and reappeared again and again right up to the Nazi take-over and beyond (Whiteside, Wistrich). Although no social analysis is available for Austrian student antisemitism, it may well have reflected the appearance of upwardly mobile but status-anxious petty bourgeois students using aggressive chauvinism to demonstrate manhood equality to their betters, the sons of the already arrived educated elites. (Cf. Kampe on German student antisemitism.) Georg von Schoenener's affinity for erratic, if mass-effective, provocations originated here and pointed forward to its perfection by ex-Austrian Hider. Hitler also admired the political style of the second founding figure of modern Austrian antisemitism, Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna 1897 to 1910,

Austria - Vicissitudes of Anti-Modernism

671

one of the fathers of the Christian Social Party. His cultural conditioning for antisemitism derived no doubt from his deeply conservative petty-bourgeois values (Boyer), but it was tinged with an air of unreality, of play-acting, of opportunistic unseriousness, almost a whiff of the fin-de-siecle Lueger, no doubt, found most uncongenial as a literary or artistic movement. Boyer points out the political structure of his party and its support organizations. It forced him into opportunistic balancing acts between his private (and financial) relations with Jews and public antisemitic rhetoric, a duality found by other authors (Pauley) and for the 1920s as well. (The authoritarian Heimwehr Ε. R. von Starhemberg's was financially supported by some Jews for its staunch anti-Marxism.) Antisemites and Jewish bankers used each other for motives of their own. That the offensive antisemitic rhetoric of the Christian Social Party was not implemented between 1920 and 1934, reveals a consideration of domestic (and probably foreign policy) influences that can not be overlooked in evaluating Austrian political culture. Failing to maintain his hold on reality while aestheticizing immorality into kitsch theatre became the ultimate Austrian denouement in Hitler's downfall. Π The analysis of the social and political context of modern Viennese antisemitic movements reveals several strains interacting with the political and social effects of demographic and industrial change. The crash of the Vienna stock exchange in 1873 provided the major shock to the greed and the illusions of middle-class investors out for a killing without considering the risks. The long-range depression that followed has not been correlated with the swings of antisemitic organization and intensity - it was overdetermined by several types of frictions to which antisemitism appeared to answer. Schoenerer appealed to sub-elite nationalistic informal organizations like Turnvereine (gymnastics societies), school alumni groups, Deutsche Vereine (Germanic Societies) and above all, the students, the academic community of professors and professionals. He derived his strength primarily from frontier areas affected by intense conflicts between Germans intermingled with other nationalities, and the middle classes in the Alpine provinces. His social program represented a generalized populist antisemitism that appealed to tradesmen, shopkeepers, teachers and peasants ascribing their relative loss of status to Jewish liberals (Wistrich). They could be organized "in protest against the forces of modern life" (Whiteside). Of considerable model character for later fascist movements in ideology and methods of mass manipulation, Schoenerer's scurrile Prussian and Hohenzollern kleindeutsch national-

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ism removed him as effectively from the Viennese scene as did his erratic public behavior. Mainstream Viennese antisemitism of immediate as well as long-range significance had its intellectual basis in Reform Catholic social thought. It rested on populist protest. Its followers recruited themselves mainly from the old middle class of house ownery craftsmen, and retailers and the new white collar employees, the "salariate". Boyer shows the structural changes impinging upon the economic or status positions held by this group - changes in which the exploding Jewish population of Vienna was involved and for which the stereotypical "Jewish capitalist" was made responsible. The stereotypical image carried forward traditional features of the Jewish "middleman" that, of course needed to be present prior to selective perceptions. The ideological basis for this image derived from a revival of several strains of Catholic social and state theory. It was spread among others by the journalist Karl von Vogelsang, a German Protestant convert to Catholicism. At its core was a romantic grassroots anti-modernism: romantic in origin, (Pulzer) it sought the kind of Christian Social Utopia that, in 1890, inspired Leo ΧΙΠ (Rerum Novarum) to propose a "third way" between "materialistic liberal capitalism" and "atheistic Marxist socialism." The Jew, for the Christian Social Movement originating here, became the prototypical symbol of what had gone wrong in modernity. Objective frictions with Vienna's ethnic population suggested a program of legislation designed to protect the interest of the affected native Christian groups - increased guild regulations, stringent masters' examination, limits on street (house-to-house) sales and peddling, strict regulation for the developing large-scale house industrial systems (putting-out system, Heimarbeit), and similar measures as detailed in context by Boyer's masterly expose. Of special significance are the relations uncovered between party organization and antisemitism: the lower clergy feeling itself financially deprived and underpaid - righdy or wrongly - became the multipliers of the new social gospel while providing an ultimately stabilizing and conservative brake on radical adventurism. Linking the lower clergy thus with the status warp in which low-income white collar employees found themselves illustrate social conflict within the Catholic Church: the hierarchy was traditionally establishmentarian and felt threatened by clerical insubordination and by the social radicalism of the Christian-Social movement. Not being necessarily favorably disposed towards Jews (Pulzer), they had experienced Schoenerer's PrussianProtestant fusion of Pangermanism with antisemitism as threat. However, by then, Leo ΧΙΠ and his Secretary of State, Rampolla, had opted for the philosophy of Rerum Novarum (1890). Lueger's picture graced the Pope's desk, and episcopal delegations to Rome were given short thrift. The Christian

Austria - Vicissitudes of Anti-Modernism

673

Socials appeared to answer the need for broad support and religious renewal. The Court (cabinet), the bureaucracy, and the Church hierarchy failed to prevent Lueger's confirmation as mayor of Vienna only temporarily against the electoral support of the Christian-Social party. Jews, major supporters of Habsburg rule and German culture among nationalities (e. g. against the Young-Czech movement or in South-Eastern Europe), did not hinder the rise of Lueger's party to respectability when Austrian Social Democrats gained their first electoral successes. In Pulzer's words, "antisemitism, despite its stormy past, had become 'state conserving' in Austria as in Germany." The organized pattern of prejudice and anti-modern nostalgia thus established as a widely diffused - and diffuse - social norm in post-war Vienna appears to have passed into the First Republic without visible breaks. An election poster widely disseminated by the Christian Social Party in 1920 depicts the Austrian eagle being strangled by a snake ending in a Stuermerstyle Jewish head wearing the Jewish skull-cap, the yarmulke (cf. original preserved in the library of the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, Technische Universität Berlin). Precise analyses of the social composition of this antisemitic majority are missing as are studies on the salience of the factor antisemitism in political behavior or voting. The readings (Berkely, Pauley) suggest that student antisemitism continued rowdy and brutal in a state whose territory and population (now 6.5 million) reflected the radical reduction from imperial to small-state status. Now the vast bureaucracy turned unemployed and their children competed more sharply than ever in academic training and the free professions with each other and the upwardly mobile Jews. The Jewish presence in highly visible branches of business, banking and manufacturing positions, the large percentages of lawyers, physicians or university professors became central issues in a city administered by the Social Democratic Party, some of whose prominent leadership and administrative positions were occupied by persons of Jewish origin as well. Now, different from the prewar period, racist language ever more sharply distorted selective perception, whatever the reality component ofJewish occupational competition may have been. Given the fundamentally proletarian or petty bourgeois quality of the Jewish immigrant settlement in selected districts, the frictions between Gentile crafts and trade and Jewish business no doubt continued. The issue of Ostjuden in Vienna and their threat reflects a wide spectrum of populist resentment against the twin dangers perceived in socialist radicalism and capitalist concentration. Catholic literature against "Jewish capitalism, socialism, or communism" (Pauley) fuses antimodernism and Catholic religious and cultural anxieties with economic pleading for special interests. Those now included the Jewish presence in theatre and the cinema besides the professions.

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It is unclear how far Catholic clergy and hierarchy were penetrated by racist thought. The rhetoric for example against the much-hated Ostjuden immigration was primarily nationalistic, cultural, or ethnic, but obviously softened by decades of Christian Social use of antisemitic routines. On the other hand, Catholic publicists advanced group stereotypes hardly less vicious than racist slurs. That one suffragan bishop, Alois Hudal, moved beyond accomodation and taught the compatibility of 'Nazi' racism with Christianity (as long as fundamental Christian dogmas were not violated, see Pauley) reflects the accomodation element in Austrian political culture referred to above. Hitler's antisemitic record (by March 1938) did not prevent Vienna Cardinal Innitzer to welcome the Anschluss. Bishop Hudal, after the war, was to ferret Nazi criminals over a Catholic network from Rome to safety in Latin America and the Near East. As Botz relates in detail, Austrian behavior towards Jews after the Anschluss rested on "the antisemitic mobilization of considerable parts of the population . . . satisfied immediate economic and social requirements of large groups and classes in every concrete manner." (p. 837). The "dynamic of hostility towards the Jews as existed in Vienna already before 1900" (ibid, p. 853) was the same that led to "the annihilation of the Viennese Jews" not without exploding in orgies of brutalities and greed of utmost vulgarity, far removed from the rationalizations developed in the halcyon context of the pre-War world.

ROBERT S. WISTRICH

Georg von Schoenerer and the Genesis of Modern Austrian Antisemitism* It was the multi-national Habsburg Empire rather than Imperial Germany which was the cradle of modern political antisemitism. Although the impetus came from events in Germany and Hungary, antisemitism in Austria was essentially novel in its methods, techniques of mass agitation and political impact.1 Certainly, there were similarities with the Berlin movement of Adolf Stoecker and also with his völkisch successors in Germany. Austrian and German antisemites reacted, for example, against Jewish emancipation which had been completed in both countries by 1871. In both Austria and Germany, the stockmarket crash of 1873 had ruined a mass of small investors and fostered the resentment of the 'litde man' against capitalism and the Jews. The economic discontent of the peasant and craftsman class supplied a clientele which proved very receptive to antisemitic agitation in Austria and Germany.2 The existence of universal suffrage in Germany and the very modest electoral reform of 1882 in Austria made the support of this class politically important. But the differences between Austria and Germany are equally important and help to explain why the antisemitic movement was successful in the polyglot Habsburg Empire before 1914 but not in the German heartland. Moreover in Austria a sharp dichotomy developed between the clerical and pan-German variety of antisemitism. The hostility and bitterness between the

* From: Robert S. Wistrich, "Georg von Schoenerer and the Genesis of Modern Austrian Antisemitism," Wiener Library Bulletin 29, 39/40, 1976, abridged pp. 20-29. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 See Peter G. J. Pulzer, "The Development of Political Antisemitism in Austria", in The Jews of Austria, ed. by Josef Fraenkel, London 1967, pp. 429-443. 2 Peter G.J. Pulzer, The Rise ofPolitical Antisemitism in Germany and Austria, New York 1964, pp. 24-25.

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two camps never attained the same ferocity in Germany, although here too, there was a division between 'Christian' and 'anti-Christian' antisemitism.3 Another contrast was that in Austria-Hungary antisemitism was not restricted to one nationality but was a widespread sentiment among the oppressed as well as the dominant nations. There was a Czech antisemitism which was basically anti-German, a Slovak antisemitism which was antiMagyar, a Ruthene antisemitism which was anti-Polish and a Polish antisemitism which was simultaneously anti-German and anti-Russian. In each case, the Jews were seen as accomplices of the politically dominant nationality. Ideological antisemitism was however most highly developed among the Germans of Austria and it is with them that we are chiefly concerned. Why did the dichotomy between clerical and nationalist Judeophobia become so pronounced in Austria? Why was the Austrian variant of antisemitism more radical, dynamic and politically successful than elsewhere at the end of the nineteenth century? One factor in Austrian antisemitism which probably contributed to its efficacy was the degree of credence given to the ritual-murder charges which frequently recurred in the pre-dominantly Catholic Habsburg lands. In part, the resurrection of this medieval superstition owed its success to August Rohling's Der Talmudjude (1871) whose calumnies against the Jewish religion were taken up in Hungary and by agitators in Vienna in the early 1880s. Rohling, a Catholic Professor of Semitic Languages at Prague University, was a charlatan and quack whose diatribes against Talmudic Judaism were a vulgar rehash of Andreas Eisenmenger's Entdecktes Judentbum, a much earlier German forgery. The Tisza-Eszlar Affair in Hungary (1882) and the subsequent antisemitic campaign of the Hungarian politician Victor von Istoczy, ensured the dissemination of Rohling's ideas to a wider public.4 The Viennese antisemite, Franz Holubek, also used Rohling's academic authority as a screen for his own attacks on the Talmud and was as a result acquitted of causing racial incitement at his trial in 1882. Although the ritual-murder charges in Hungary were proved to be without foundation and Rohling was eventually exposed in the courts as a liar and forger by Rabbi Joseph Bloch - the damage was already done. The ritual-murder charge never died and was revived again in the 1890s by Christian-social agitators like Father Joseph Deckert and Ernst Schneider. Schneider in April 1900 actually asked the Lower Austrian Diet to grant 3

4

See Uriel Tal, Christians andJews in the 'SecondReich' (1870-1914), Jerusalem 1969, pp. 175-205 (in Hebrew). Dirk van Arkel, Antisemitism in Austria, Leiden 1966, p. 20.

Schoenerer and Modern Austrian Antisemitism

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special protection to Christian children in the weeks preceding the Jewish Passover and demanded special police supervision ofJewish butchers.5 Deckert saw no contradiction between acceptance of Christianity and the fantastic myth of Jewish ritual-murder which he propagated from the pulpit in the 1890s.6 In Bohemia, the Polna ritual-murder affair of 1900 in which Leopold Hilsner, a Jewish shoemaker's assistant, was accused of murdering a young Christian girl, predictably sparked off Czech anti-Jewish riots.7 Hilsner was condemned to death (later reduced to life-imprisonment) and finally acquitted in 1918. This was only the most notorious of no less than 12 ritual-murder trials in Austria-Hungary between 1867 and 1914. The revival of this medieval superstition was arguably the symptom of a more deeply-rooted social protest, a consequence of the economic crisis in Austria which had badly hit tradesmen and artisans in Vienna. But why did the effects of the 1873 crash have a more striking impact in Austria than in Germany? Part of the answer may lie in the peculiarities of the Austrian electoral system, in the socioeconomic structure of Vienna and in the general backwardness of Austrian conditions. The combination of these factors may also explain the relative strength of the Austrian antisemitic movement as compared to socialdemocracy in the 1880s and 1890s. In this respect, Austria differed considerably during this period from Germany. The widening of the franchise in 1883 was an indispensable pre-condition for the success of the Austrian antisemitic parties. It effectively ended the conservative-liberal monopoly of Austrian politics and ensured that power in Vienna would henceforth depend on wooing the discontented lower middleclass. The newly enfranchized Five Guilder Men (so called because the payment of five florins a year in tax was a qualification for the vote) were drawn from the numerous class of small proprietors, artisans, petty officials and shopkeepers. Before 1882, politics had been the preserve of the aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie and only about 3 per cent of the population had enjoyed the right to vote. The antiquated Austrian electoral system with its divisions into various curiae according to property and income, had been grossly unequal and weighted in favour of the dominant classes.8 It also artificially preserved the hegemony of the German nationality.

5

Ibid. p. 27.

6

Joseph Deckert, Der ewigeJude Ahasver', Vienna 1894 and idem, Semitische und antisemitische Schlagworte in Doppelbeleuchtung, Vienna 1897. Thomas G. Masaryk, Die Notwendigkeit der Revision des Polnaer Prozesses, Vienna 1899. William A. Jenks, The Austrian Electoral Reform of1907, New York 1950.

7 8

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Under Count Taaffe's reform of 1882 and his 'Iron Ring' coalition, this dominance of privilege was threatened for thefirsttime. Taaffe, like Bismarck, had turned away from an alliance with the national liberals, and tried to govern with the support of a coalition of Slavs and Austro-German Catholics.9 This shift in Taaffe's policy away from liberalism undoubtedly encouraged the emergence of political antisemitism. The electoral reform of 1882 had strengthened the anti-capitalist forces in the Viennese petty-bourgeois class who were growing bitter at liberal indifference to their plight. At the same time it opened the way for their political alliance with clerical conservatives who, by protecting the skilled handicraftsmen from ruin, sought to further undermine the liberals.10 Why was this aristocratic and petty-bourgeois alliance initially more effective in Austria than in Bismarckian Germany, where Prussian conservatives also tried to weaken liberalism by appeals to the 'little man'? One negative reason was that the electoral system in Austria, unlike that in Germany, denied the working-class the vote. As a result, the Austrian socialist party was weak, divided and disorganized in the early 1880s - whereas in Germany it was the most active opponent of the Stoecker movement. Both in Austria and in Germany, Taaffe and Bismarck had instituted anti-socialist laws which in the early 1880s were to have quite different effects. In Austria, they led to indiscipline, anarchism and a demoralized labour movement. In Germany, however, the socialists were already steeled in the iron ring of the Sozialistengesetz in the 1880s and their mass support went from strength to strength. It was not surprising, therefore, that in Austria the socialists were on the defensive against anti-semitism whereas in Germany they were able to take the initiative. A second factor which favoured Austrian antisemitism was the socioeconomic structure of the Viennese population which had preserved the traditionalist flavour of pre-capitalist organization. Vienna was not an industrial city in the sense of Berlin but a residential town of officialdom and predominantly small-scale production. According to the industrial census of 1902, 90,714 out of 105,570 industrial and commercial establishments employed from 1 to 5 persons only. In the industrial sector, these tiny workshops employed almost a third of all wageworkers -115,505 out of a total of 373,424 persons.11 Another third of the labour force worked in small and mediumsized factories. Hence the organized working-class did not carry the same

9 10 11

William A. Jenks, Austria under the Iron Ring 1879-1893, Charlottesville, Va. 1965, p. 18. Ludwig Brägel, Geschichte der österreichischen Sozialdemokratie, Vienna 1922, ΠΙ, p. 293. Martin Paul (ed.), Technischer Führer durch Wien. Österreichischer Ingenieur-und Architektenverein, Vienna 1910, p. 563.

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weight in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century as in Berlin, quite apart from its disenfranchisement. At the same time, the predominance of smallscale producers, of craftsmen, tradesmen and shopkeepers ultimately encouraged the emergence of a strong antisemitic movement. In this and a number of other respects, Vienna resembled Paris rather than Berlin and significantly it continued to remain the nucleus of Austrian antisemitism. The prominence of Jews in the socio-economic structure of Vienna and in all spheres of cultural and intellectual life was also, at least before 1914, more striking than in Berlin. Furthermore, the demographic picture showed a rapid increase of the Jewish population after 1860 which closely corresponded to the genesis and growth of Viennese antisemitism. This added a numerical pressure to the dramatic ascent of the Jews in social and economic status following their emancipation. In 1860 there were 6,200Jews in Vienna (2-2 per cent) - within a decade this had risen to 40,200 (6-6 per cent), By 1880 thefigurehad reached 72,600 (10-1 per cent), the highest proportion ofJews relative to the rest of the population.12 After 1880 immigration from the provinces continued to swell the Jewish population and provide fuel for antisemitic agitators. But these figures do not in themselves explain why antisemitism became such an attractive political ideology after 1880. Why did the Jews become a symbol of modernization and of the evil effects of modern capitalist society to the average Viennese Kleinbürger? What made the Jewish scapegoat so popular in Austria? The famous meeting of artisans in the 'Dreher-Saal' of Vienna in 1880 to protest against the unwelcome Jewish competition gives one a first pointer.13 Buschenhagen's attack at this meeting on immigrant Jewish pedlars from Poland, Hungary and Russia was essentially an economic protest. It led to the founding of the Gesellschaft zum Schutze des Handwerks (1881) and then, in 1882, to the creation of an umbrella organization, the Oesterreichischer Reformverein. This was the main organ of early Viennese antisemitism and it adopted the programme of Buschenhagen, Schneider and Zerboni. It was both anti-immigrant and also fearful of the big capitalist Jew who (it claimed) was ruining the craftsmen by the use of modern manufacturing methods. The basic demands of the antisemitic agitation in Vienna were not therefore fundamentally different from those of the Berlin movement. The Viennese movement sought, furthermore, a repeal ofJewish emancipation by returning to the restriction on Austrian Jews operative before 1848 (special marriage permits, a numerus clausus, a poll-tax, the forbidding of Christian servants and 12 13

Hans Tietze, Die Juden Wiens, Vienna, Leipzig 1933, p. 203. See Van Arkel, op. cit.

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of the right of Jews to own real estate) - but it also included more general demands of a democratic nature like social security, old-age pensions, health insurance and suffrage for all taxpayers. The Viennese movement was however more radical in tone than Stoecker's agitation in Berlin and this was initially an original feature of Austrian antisemitism. Its lower class leadership (Schneider was a mechanic, Buschenhagen a watchmaker etc.) gave it a more obviously plebeian quality than the Berlin movement which had attracted outstanding academic personalities like Heinrich von Treitschke. But like the Berlin movement, Austrian antisemites could also be reconciled to clerical conservatism with its ideology of economic protectionism, its guild-orientation and Christian rhetoric. This reconciliation was made possible by Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang, a North German convert to Catholicism and the founder of Christian socialism in Austria. Vogelsang was an aristocratic apostle of neo-feudalism and the first conservative theorist to perceive in the disorientated artisan class, the instrument through which he could realize his romantic dream of a corporatist society.14 The antisemitic elements in Vogelsang's Catholic socialism were a reflection of the general backwardness of Austrian socio-economic conditions. His denunciations of liberalism, materialism and secularism were reminiscent of Adolf Stoecker but conceived on a more sophisticated theoretical level. Vogelsang had the advantage that the Gewerbefreiheit Law of 1859, which had institutionalized the victory of the free-trade principle in Austria was anathema to the tradesman and artisan class. They favoured a modernized form of the guild-system which would protect them from free competition by creating a Chinese wall of 'special certificates of competence' and restrictions on big capital. Vogelsang showed an acute appreciation of the social problems of capitalist society and insisted that Christian ethics were incompatible with its material foundations. Hence he proposed a return to the organic model of medieval Christian society. Austro-marxists like Otto Bauer and Karl Renner admired his critique of laissez-faire capitalism and of specific evils like alcoholism, crime, materialism, nihilism and social atomism although they naturally rejected his Christian corporatist panaceas.15 There was even a theoretical similarity

14

15

As a disciple of Friedrich Schlegel and Adam Müller, Vogelsang revived the medieval concept of a Ständestaat in which workers would be rewarded with a 'just wage' and protected by the State from exploitation. See Otto Bauer, "Das Ende des Christlichen Sozialismus", Der Kampf {1910-1911), Vol. IV, pp. 393-398.

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between Vogelsang's critique of economic activity as an end in itself and that of the young Marx, a parallel which extended also to their views on the Jewish question. Indeed, Vogelsang himself, quoted Marx's ZurJudenfrage, concluding that the victory of capitalism had meant the emancipation of the Jews who had no God but Mammon.16 He agreed with Marx that the modern Christians had become 'Jews' and that capitalism and the 'Jewish spirit' were essentially synonymous. Vogelsang however gave a specifically Christian slant to such concepts which was symptomatic of the fundamental difference between Christian socialism and Marxism. Thus, according to Vogelsang, it was the anti-Christian Jew whose capitalistic spirit was undermining the Christian social order. The victory of the 'Jewish spirit' disturbed Vogelsang because it implied that the Christians had lost their religious faith.17 When Vogelsang's journal Das Vaterland, deplored the dissolution of traditional society as a result of commercial capitalism and the influence of the big-city press, it was primarily the disapperance of a Christian order which he lamented. Where Marx proposed a classless society, Vogelsang believed that only a Christian society could save Austria from so-called 'Jewish tyranny'.18 Vogelsang interpreted the young Marx's identification of the Jew with capitalism in a conservative and clerical direction; the Jew not only symbolized wealthy manufacturer, industrialist and banker but also the anti-clerical and subversive revolutionary. The Christian-social party inherited his dualistic image of the Jew from Vogelsang and both in Vienna and lower Austria, it proved extraordinarily effective. Vogelsang's Catholic antisemitism was essentially theoretical and lacked the vulgar racism of some of his disciples. Like Stoecker in Germany he was soon outflanked by more unscrupulous and plebeian fanatics who drew no distinction between 'Christian' and 'anti-Christian' antisemitism. In the Austrian context, this distinction proved somewhat academic within the Christiansocial camp although it did become important after the split between clerical and nationalist antisemites in the 1890s. The most important legacy of Vorgelsang was the creation of the Christlich-sozialer Verein in 1887 by his Tyrolese Catholic disciple, Ludwig Psenner together with Adam Latchka. This was to become the focus of anti-liberal forces in Austria and the nucleus of the future Christian-social party.19 It included aristocrats like Prince von

16

17 18 19

Wiard von Klopp (ed.), Die sozialen Lehren des Freiherm von Vogelsang. Grundzüge einer christlichen Gesellschafts- und Volkswirtschaftslehre, St. Pölten 1894, p. 631. Ibid. pp. 132, 190. Ibid. p. 194. Friedrich Funder, Von Gestern ins Heute, Vienna 1952, p. 95.

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Liechtenstein, the mechanic Ernst Schneider, the clerical Dr. Gessmann, the nationalist Robert von Pattai, the theologian Franz Schindler and eventuality the 'democrat' Karl Lueger. This motley alliance was assembled into the formidable Vereinigte Christen in 1889, an organization dedicated to overthrowing the last bastions of liberal hegemony in Austria - the Vienna municipal council and the lower Austrian diet. Its manifesto of 1889 reflected the growing antisemitism among the petty-bourgeois Christian masses. It called for excluding the Jews from the professions (medicine, law, ect.), from teaching in Christian schools, from the civil service and judiciary as well as for restrictions on Jewish immigration. The Jewish question was patently an issue which could still serve to unify clerical conservatives, Pan-German nationalists, racial antisemites, social reformers, disillusioned ex-liberals and democrats in one fighting party. But the unity of the Vereinigte Christen was to break down in the 1890s with the emergence of two distinct antisemitic parties whose ideologies became increasingly incompatible. Already in the early 1880s a distinctively Austrian brand of antisemitism had emerged under the leadership of Georg von Schoenerer. The latter not only has a strong claim to be considered the first real forerunner of nationalsocialism but also to have been the seminal figure in modern Austrian politics. From Schoenerer's circle in the early 1880s one can trace the genesis of the three great camps in Austrian political life - the Conservative-clerical (Christian-social), the National (nationalist/pan-German) and the Social-democratic parties.20 For a brief moment in 1882, when Schoenerer stood as the unchallenged leader of the democratic opposition in Austria, he could unite under his wing such diversefiguresas Karl Lueger, Ernst Schneider und Robert Pattai, Victor Adler, Engelbert Pernerstorfer, Heinrich Friedjung and Otto Steinwender. The future leaders of Austrian social-democracy and of Christian socialism as well as of Pan-German nationalism can therefore trace their origin back to the same roots. The common ground between all three parties lay in their antiliberalism or rather in their alternative methods of supplanting liberalism. Schoenerer's rebellion against liberalism was certainly the most radical, antisemitic and also the most anti-Austrian.21 Whereas the social-democrats and the Christian-social party accepted in differing ways the framework of the Habsburg dynastic State, the Austrian Pan-Germans totally rejected the 20

21

Adam Wandruszka, "Die Drei Lager", Geschichte der Republik Österreich, Vienna 1954, pp. 292 ff. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, London 1967, revised edition, p. 238.

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multi-national Empire. If the Christian-socialists proclaimed their loyalty to the State, the Pan-Germans owed their loyalty only to the Germanic Volk. Whereas the Luegerites affirmed their Austrian patriotism, the Schoenerites asserted their anti-Austrian nationalism. If social-democrats inherited the liberal belief in reason, education and enlightenment, the Pan-Germans advocated an anti-liberal cult of blood, race and soil.22 It is important to realize however that these differences only crystallized gradually. Until 1890 the rift between clerical and nationalist antisemites was far from absolute and much later there were points of convergence. Moreover, even the Austrian social-democrats were by no means consistently hostile to Schoenerer and indeed borrowed some points from his Linz Programme of 1882. The antisemitism of a number of Austrian socialists owed not a little to the pervasiveness of Pan-Germanism, an ideology whose influence extended far beyond its limited electoral appeal before 1914. [ . . . ] The nationalism of Schoenerer was romantic, revolutionary and entirely lacking in political realism but it did correspond to a certain mood among the Slav borderlands. Was this nationalism inevitably antisemic? Why did a movement which initially was so enthusiastically supported by Jews turn against them and adopt racial antisemitism as the true criterion of German nationalism? The answer must be sought in the attitudes of the social strata to which Schoenerer's movement basically appealed. Schoenerer's early attacks on the Jews in 1879 had still been hesitant and an insignificant part of his anti-capitalist rhetoric in favour of the 'productive classes'. At this time he still confined himself to general remarks a b o u t . . der

bisherigen semitischen Herrschaft des Geldes und der Phrase.. .'which won an

enthusiastic response mainly from university students.23 The latter were perhaps the most agressively antisemitic group in Austria-Hungary and it was their ultra-nationalism which finally converted Schoenerer to a fully fledged racial ideology.24 Already in 1878, the Burschenschaften in Vienna had begun to exclude Jews from membership and this trend rapidly spread throughout the Empire, affecting not only fraternities, but also school associations, gymnastic clubs and German societies. In the student community, pro-Prussian

22

23

24

Carl E. Schorske, "Schoenerer". The Responsibility of Power, London 1968, pp. 235 ff. Also Andrew G. Whiteside, The Socialism of Fools. Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian PanGermanism, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1975. E. Pichl, Georg Schönerer und die Entwicklung des Alldeutschtums in der Ostmark, Oldenburg 1938, Vol. I, p. 85. Ibid., Vol. Π, p. 320. Also, Paul Molisch, Geschichte der deutschnationalen Bewegung in Österreich von ihre Anfängen bis zum Zerfall der Monarchie, Jena 1926.

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sentiment was strong as a result of Austria's defeat in 1866, the Ausgleich with Hungary and the Slav menace. The Wacht am Rhein was the rallying-cry of the Burschen, whose anti-Austrianism was a logical outcome of their anticlerical, Germanic romanticism. Equally axiomatic for the fraternities was the belief in a deep and fundamental racial antagonism between Aryan and Jew. Austrian fraternities adopted the antisemitic ideology of Eugen Dühring, pioneered in Germany, that the Jews were alien to the German spirit. In this respect, the students of the Ostmark were far more 'radical' and racist than their German brethren in the 'Reich' and the Waidhofen conference of 1896 merely formalized their attitude. No Bursche, declared the Austrian student convention, could fight a duel with a Jew (unless both were reserve-army officers) because the Jewish student was racially-speaking ehrlos and without character. This type of racialism was by no means confined to student fraternities and Turnvereine but was also popular among the academic community and the German-speaking professional middle-class, especially in the Alpine provinces. But the students were the best index of the impact of Schoenerer's ideology in Austria and they remained loyal to their leader through thick and thin. Nor was their racialism necessarily inconsistent with the romantic, revolutionary and anti-clerical spirit of 1848 which had never wholly died in the Burschenschaften or in Schoenerer himself. The latter, long after he had turned antisemitic, remained a violent anti-clerical in favour of civil education, lay marriage and the destruction of church and Jesuit influence. Not for nothing was one of the best-known Pan-German slogans: Ohne Juda ohne Rom wird gebaut Germaniens Dom.25 Schoenerer's anti-clerical antisemitism was not then dissimilar to the propaganda developed in Germany by Wilhelm Marr and Eugen Dühring and later given a populist, demagogic tinge by the Hessian agitator Otto Bockel. What was distinctive was his radical fusion of nationalist and anticapitalist elements. In the original 11-point Linz Programme of 1882, the cornerstone of the German national movement drawn up by Schoenerer together with two assimilated Jews, Heinrich Friedjung and Victor Adler - the antisemitic element had not yet appeared. The Linz Programme declared war on the dualistic Austro-Hungarian State, on the hereditary rights of the Habsburg dynasty and the historic unity of the Austrian Empire. It called for the incorporation of Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina into Hungary and autonomy for Galicia and Bukovina. The Linz Programme thereby envisaged

25

E. v. Rudolf, Georg Ritter von Schönerer. Der Vater des politischen Antisemitismus, Munich 1936, p. 87.

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a rump Austrian state, German in character but ruling over a non-German population of nearly 50 per cent in Bohemia and Moravia, Silesia, Carniola, Istria, Tyrol, Trieste, etc. German was to remain the Staatssprache used in the army, parliament and for official business; the social programme (probably drawn up by Victor Adler) was markedly democratic and later partly absorbed by the Austrian social-democrats. It called for a broader suffrage, progressive income-tax, a tax on stock-exchange transactions, obligatory trade-unions, the nationalizing of railways and insurance companies, the limitation of working hours and of child and female labour.26 Only in May 1885 did Schoenerer add the infamous Judenpunkt to the Linz Programme which called for the removal of Jewish influence from all areas of public life as 'indispensable for realizing these reforms'. By this time Schoenerer had adopted a systematic ideological antisemitism which he now described as 'the greatest achievement of the nineteenth century'.27 Already in 1882 Schoenerer had been a regular speaker in the Oesterreichische Reformverein, the leading organization of Viennese antisemites. Although he broke with the Reformverein over the issue of dynastic Austrian patriotism, he was influenced by their anti-capitalist antisemitism as much as by the racial ideology of the students. By 1883 he had cast Friedjung and Adler aside and his Deutschnationaler Verein began to follow the policy of student fraternities in systematically excluding non-Aryans - i. e. Jews. Also in 1883 Schoenerer founded his journal Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte which substituted a Dühringian racialism for the more moderate nationalism of Pernerstorfer's Deutsche Worte. Schoenerer by 1884 was clearly an antisemitic leader but still able to successfully combine this element with nationalism and social radicalism. Indeed, during the Nordbahn Controversy of 1884, Schoenerer briefly emerged as leader of the radical opposition in Austria. He sharply denounced the fat incomes which its shareholders derived from the Kaiser Ferdinand railroad while the public had to endure high tariffs on meat and produce brought in by rail. He accused the Rothschilds who owned the railroad and sought the renewal of its franchise, of transport 'usury' and the Court and Ministers of bowing to corruption.28

26

27 28

For the Linz Programme, see Pichl, op. dt., I. ΙΠ if. and Klaus Berchthold (ed.), Parteiprogramme 1868-1966, Munich 1967, pp. 198-203. Pichl, ibid., I, p. 251 and Berchthold, ibid. pp. 203-204. William A. Jenks, op. cit, 1965, 141-157.

Österreichische

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His populist campaign (supported by Karl Lueger) was seen as 'communistic' by the liberal Neue Freie Presse but it gained great popularity for Schoenerer as well as feeding antisemitism.29 Schoenerer's novelty at this time lay in the combination of his 'progressive' socio-economic policies with populist antisemitism rather than in his anti-Slav platform. His clientele was not particularly strong in Vienna apart from the university students, but in the provincial Austrian small towns and rural districts it was another matter. His supporters were to be found dispersed among those engaged in traditional trades, among craftsmen and shopkeepers, above all among the teachers and agricultural classes.30 These social strata responded enthusiastically to antisemitic appeals directed against finance capitalism and later against the rising labour movement. As in Germany during the 1890s, the 'national' camp discovered in antisemitism the easiest way to be simultaneously anti-liberal, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist. Only in Austria, for specific historical reasons, was the Pan-German variant of political antisemitism also anti-dynastical and unpatriotic. It was this last point which separated Schoenerer not only from Lueger, but also from all other branches of German nationalism in Austria. It gave an uncompromising, paranoid and openly secessionst flavour to his movement which proved electorally to be its undoing. The German-speaking middle-class was not yet attracted by such national extremism and disloyalty to the dynasty and turned increasingly to the more moderate nationalism of Steinwender and bis 'German Club'. Otto Steinwender followed a long list of ex-followers of Schoenerer who were alienated by his authoritarian extremism and personal obduracy; Schneider, Pattai, Vergani, Lueger, Wolf, Friedjung, Adler and Pernerstorfer had all previously abandoned Schoenerer as an impractical 'Don Quixote'. Whether they turned Christian-social, nationalist or social-democrat, they all (including Steinwender) absorbed his antisemitism, but none could accept the fundamental premise of anti-Habsburgism. It was his irreconcilable antagonism against the Habsburg dynasty which was the cause of Schoenerer's isolation before 1914 and not his anti-Jewish rhetoric. The latter existed in all three anti-liberal camps from the 1880s onward, among nationalists, clericals and socialists, though in very different forms. Indeed, the Jewish question was the one unifying element in the alliance of the Vereinigte Christen in 1889. Diverse social strata including intellectuals, students, teachers, peasants and craftsmen regarded the Jew an enemy of the

29 30

Neue Freie Presse, 22 April 1884. Van Arkel, op. at. pp. 145-164.

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German-Austrian, a representative of 'Manchesterism' and cosmopolitanism. Only in the Marxist camp was there any oppositon to this petty-bourgeois antisemitism but it was equivocal at best and consistently avoided any defence of the Jews per se.31 Schoenerer's brand of antisemitism was undoubtedly the most uncompromising of the existing varietes in Austria. Thus he regarded the despised Czechs and Slovenes as 'Aryans' with whom the conflict was only temporary, compared to the eternal and biological necessity of combating the Jew. Within Pan-German ideology, the fight against the Jews became the key to everything else, the cornerstone of a Germanic outlook. The Christian-social party, on the other hand, rejected racial theory as irreligious and eventually made a clear distinction between baptized and non-baptized Jews. 32 The racialism and anti-clericalism of the Pan-Germans thereby led to the break-up of the collaboration between the two groups and eventually to a marked enmity. But in the early 1890s, the Christian-socialists still tolerated an antisemitic agitation led by Schneider, Gregorig, Deckert and Father Abel, which conceded nothing in vulgarity to that of Schoenerer. The Deutsche Volksblatt, edited by Ernst Vergani, a close collaborator of Schoenerer, was for example a racist-nationalist paper devoted to the cause of Karl Lueger and his clerical movement. 33 The dividing line between clerical and nationalist antisemitism was not as clear-cut as some historians have assumed and had little to do with antisemitism. Lueger, Schneider, Pattai and Vergani were all nationalist converts to the Christian-social camp who had once shared a common platform with Schoenerer. They all split with him over the issue of Austrianism. In other words they opposed 'Anschluss' with Hohenzollern Germany although they favoured Austro-German ascendancy within the Habsburg Empire. With the exception of Lueger, they were anti-clerical, racist antisemites driven into the Christian-social camp by Schoenerer's doctrinal intransigence. Significantly, it was the Habsburg loyalist and 'Catholic' traditionalist Lueger who in his rise to power proved able to manipulate the Jewish question more successfully than his nationalist and Pan-German rivals. The genesis of Austrian antisemitism in the 1880s reveals therefore a complex interpenetration of clerical, nationalist and anti-capitalist themes.

31

32 33

See Robert S. Wistrich, "Victor Adler: A Viennese Socialist against Philosemitism," The Wiener Library Bulletin 27, No. 32,1974, pp. 26-33. Also by the same author, 'Socialism and Antisemitism in Austria before 1914', Jewish Social Studies 37,1975, pp. 323-332. Van Arkel, op. at. pp. 88-90. Ibid.

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Schoenerer's Pan-German variation was part of a programme of irredentist nationalism which sought to resolve the 'Jewish question' for Austria along racial lines. The allegedly unassimilable Jews were depicted as the prime ideological enemy of the Germanic Volk which looked to the Hohenzollern Empire for its protection and for its salvation from alien races. Christian socialism, on the other hand, grew out of the economic ressentiment of the Spiessbürger against Jewish capital and high finance. The role of the Jews in Austro-liberalism and in the industrialization of the Habsburg Monarchy gave a concrete social dimension to this protest. Christian socialism moreover had the advantage of being rooted in an indigenous Austrian clerical tradition of Judeophobia. It could therefore draw on a certain continuity of Catholic antiJewish sentiments going back to Abraham a Sancta Clara, the popular seventeenth century preacher in Vienna.34 Both the native and the imported and-Austrian school of Jew-hatred were helped by the traditional unpopularity of the relative weakness of liberaldemocratic tradition in Habsburg Austria and by the crisis of insecurity afflicting the Austro-Germans. They were helped even more by the Jews in Austria and the lack of any countervailing religious, social or political trend of philosemitism. Medieval superstition and modern social protest fused in an antisemitic movement that in Austria could alternately become anti-liberal, anti-capitalist, anti-socialist and either pro- or anti-Habsburg. The initial spark for the anti-Jewish movement may, as in Germany, have come from above, but it swept Karl Lueger to power in Vienna during the 1890s because of its popularity among the masses.

34

See Erika Weinzierl, "Antisemitismus als österreichisches Phänomen", Die Republik 3,1970, pp. 28-35.

ANDREW G . W H I T E S I D E

Pan-Germanism: Anti-Semitism in Mass-Style Politics* Austrian Pan-Germanism originated as part of the Europe-wide reaction against classical liberalism, individualism, and human rights which became increasingly evident after 1880. A subde and attractive mystery everywhere surrounded the concept of blood and race. The Jews were widely identified with the problems that went along with progress and modernization, and their influence on the quality of life in Austria had become a subject of general debate. The idea also that a universal, inevitable, and ultimately beneficial struggle was taking place in all areas of human society pervaded the public consciousness in Europe after the middle decades of the nineteenth century, when Austrian Pan-Germanism first appeared as a political ideology. This "social Darwinism" acted as an imperative to competition and struggle, and heightened popular anxiety about the high stakes involved in politics. The entry of the masses into political life accentuated the crudity of all political, economic, and social struggles. The great changes in social and political structures during the period of industrial transformation had made many men dissatisfied with the available means of political expression. The traditional nineteenth-century political alignments and political vocabulary no longer seemed adequate to serve the needs and aspirations of all the people. This was especially the case in Austria, where feudal ständisch attitudes remained strong. The new prestige of the German Reich and the complex traditions and attitudes summed up in the notion of national Besitzstand reinforced these general European trends among German-Austrians. Political, economic, social, ethnic, and cultural conditions in the Habsburg empire, Bismarck's reorganization of central Europe after 1866, and the Austrian constitution of 1867 created a situation in which, by the 1870s, the development of a Pan-German movement of some sort was almost inevitable. * From: Andrew G. Whiteside, The Socialism ofFools. Georg Ritter von Schoenerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles, Ca., 1975, abridged pp. 307-318. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

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The Austrian Germans were fraught with tension between their national loyalty and loyalty to their Austrian citizenship and heritage. All the tensions between liberty and equality and between state power and freedom which beset liberals and nationalists everywhere in Europe appeared in extreme form among the German-Austrians. The term kleindeutsch acquired a peculiar meaning in Austria which was the reverse of what it meant in the Bismarck Reich. Pan-Germanism in any form perhaps implied the overthrow of the Austrian government - that is, revolution - but kleindeutsch nationalism did not necessarily mean the repudiation of civilized values. Its general objective German unity - though revolutionary for the Austrian state, was within the dispensation of legitimate politics in the European tradition, in which the right of revoluton has been generally recognized. Pan-Germanism in Austria, however, meant more than kleindeutsch nationalism, more than a mere change of government and the substitution of Hohenzollern for Habsburg. The first evidence of a definable movement with the fervor of passion, the sense of affective community, and the spiritual force necessary to produce a fundamental change in the character of politics and society, was at the universities at Vienna, Prague, and Graz in the 1860s and 1870s. There a vociferous minority of the students - for the most part in the Burschenschaften and similar fraternities - combined Jacobin integral egalitarian nationalism, intolerance of dissent, suspiciousness, quarrelsomeness, and opposition to laissez-faire capitalism with an incongruous emotional veneration of the reactionary Junker Bismarck and an uncritical rough Borussismus that included contempt for humanitarian law and justice, representative institutions, individualism, and reason. The students were among the earliest and most violent protagonists of biological racist doctrines and racist anti-Semitism as essential corollaries of national patriotism, and the so-called Aryan paragraph was their invention. They adapted student fraternity customs to political life, making politics a surrogate religion replete with symbols and ceremonies that claimed to possess the convert heart and soul. They had the driving impulse to create an authentic new political ideology, and they provided the reckless revolutionary elan that transformed a mere tendency into a movement. Untroubled by considerations of responsibility, the students took pride in their rudeness as proof of their strength. To attain their ends they relied eventually on force, and were not averse to using terrorist violence - a tactic aimed as much at attracting attention as at intimidating the opposition. They made the riotous kommers and the drinking, fighting, and singing of the Kneipe and the Paukboden their style of polities, and they rejected reasoned argument, compromise, and consensus. The conscious use of the technique of the confrontation, as a

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polarizing and radicalizing influence on the confused and undecided majority, was their achievement. No simple explanation exists of why some of the students became fanatics. The contrast between their youthful enthusiasm for the ideology and violence of Pan-Germanism while at the university and their later desertion of the movement in adult life suggests that the generational factor was as important in shaping political allegiances as were class and geographical location. Georg Schönerer himself has been plausibly labeled a case of "delayed oedipal rebellion against his father," and his virulent anti-Semitism has been explained as a device to give his nationalism a neurotic destructiveness that he emotionally required. We cannot know whether the students' proneness to violence was an expression merely of surplus energy, or of a neurotic heartlessness, or of, in Lewis Feuer's phrase, "a desire for symbolic parricide." Although the students created a distinct Pan-German ideology and political style within the university walls, by themselves they could not influence events and become a lasting force in the adult world. They were too young and usually too poor to vote or sit in elective bodies. They suffered from legal and psychological restrictions on their political activities which did not apply to adults outside the university. Their leaders were intensely jealous of one another; most of them were too individualistic, too independent, and too volatile for prolonged cooperation with each other; and they were few in number - a minority even in their own institutions. Most of them, including the toughest bullies, were, in many respects, pathetically naive about the realities of politics. Many were basically not prepared to carry out their revolutionary program, especially after they graduated. They wore cornflowers, sang the "Wacht am Rhein", and brawled with the police, but they rarely did so outside the privileged walls of the university buildings. There were few kleindeutsch student narodniki interested in working with the masses. Most of them accepted the established order to a far greater extent than their behavior in the university indicated. Their reservations about Schönerer and the mixture of love and hatred that most of them felt for him were symptoms of their ambiguousness about serious revolutionary activity as well as expressions of their resentment toward his efforts to assert a despotic authority over them. If a Pan-German movement were to emerge from the fringes of student kleindeutsch nationalism, two additional factors were necessary: a basis in the broad masses of the German-Austrian population, and inspired leadership. In the 1870s, small businessmen, skilled workers, artisans, and peasants began to organize in protest against the "forces of modern life" - that is, capitalism, large-scale productivity, the complexities of financial credit, and

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political disenfranchisement by purse-proud liberalism. They demanded state financial credit, striaer guild regulation of production, the right to vote, and what they called the "removal of Jewish influence" - a vague concept with sinister implications. They were anti-Semitic and anti-Slav; they were the true "dispossessed and disinherited" whose dominant political attitude was rage; and they frankly advocated direct action in the beer halls and streets to force the government to grant their demands for relief. But they were disunited, they listened to many demagogic street orators, and they were inclined to be respectful of throne and altar. The leaders from their own ranks - Schneider, Buschenhagen, Holubek - had no significant political talent. Their rage tended to be focused on what the Pan-Germans later condemned as "anti-Semitism only," and they were inclined to work within the establishment. All the ideological and social components of Pan-Germanism - a rebellious young intelligentsia, discontented masses, and a deepening sense of political, economic, and social crisis among all Germans - were at hand in the early 1880s, but no organized Pan-German political party as yet existed. The fanatical kleindeutsch students in the mid-seventies had recognized in the radical Reichsrat deputy Georg Ritter von Schönerer an inspiration to their kind of politics, and they brought him into their circle. Though he was already close to them ideologically and temperamentally, they had a decisive influence on him. They brought him in touch with the intellectual fathers of kleindeutsch nationalism, including the anti-Semites, pseudo-socialists, and völkisch romantics who were then in vogue in Germany. They showed him how effective the riot was as political propaganda. Their enthusiasm and ruthlessness encouraged Schönerer to grope toward a movement that repudiated conventional political objectives and techniques. Schönerer inspired the most extreme of the kleindeutsch students to sever their remaining ties with the larger body of radical nationalists and to wage war ά outrance for the domination of student life at the universities. His pungent phrases became their hymns - wir schielen nicht - and his elemental fury in commanding resistance to "the polyps" became their unforgettable memory. His leadership and inspiration made Pan-Germanism such a potent force among German-Austrian university youth that Pan-Germanism has been called the Austrian youth movement par excellence. He also founded the artisan anti-Semitic organizations that repudiated clerical influence and provided the mass backing that Pan-Germanism needed if it were to become a serious force in public life. He broke away from the far-Left radicals of the Linz group. He repudiated democratic radicalism on the ground that it was disguised treason to the German people. He founded Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte as the organ of Pan-Germanism.

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Schönerer provided the inspiration, the leadership, the will, and most of the necessary money to unite the students and workingmen in the populist antidemocratic revolutionary movement that we know as Austrian PanGermanism. He fused the demands and the revolutionary elan of the most politically active elements of youth, the lower middle classes, the workers of the ethnic borderlands, the provincial intelligentsia, the kleindeutsch nationalists, and the anti-Semites, anti-Slavs, antiliberals, anticapitalists, and antisocialists. He brought together the dispossessed enrages from all segments of the people. Under his leadership, the Pan-Germans intervened in the debates of the Reichsrat. Later, it was his impulse that extended Pan-Germanism to religion, with the Los von Rom campaign, a development that intensified still further the movement's revolutionary opposition to the established institutions of the country. He showed that ordinary men could attack the most sacred shrines of Austrian patriotism and the strongest bastions of power in the Habsburg state. It was primarily due to Schönerer that Pan-German ideology - that is, in Pan-German eyes, "unfalsified" German patriotism - was defined by the purging of all "racial Jews" from political, economic, and cultural life, the reduction of Slavs to the level of helots, the destruction of the Habsburg state, the cult of Bismarck and of Prussianism in an exaggerated, bizarre form, and the rejection of any possibility of gradualism and compromise. It was primarily due to him that crude threats, name calling, and physical bullying became essential features of the movement. It was he who imprinted on the movement, which originally was aimed only at realizing German unity, the style of the student Burschenschaften and of the anti-Semitic artisan Vereins which he found congenial to his temperament. He focused in the prism of his personality all the swagger, bullying, drinking, and recklessness of the student fraternities and the pessimism, desperation, and uncouthness of the working classes. No other contemporary politician could have accomplished this, and no other Pan-German leader maintained this style as exclusively and consistently as Schönerer did. Schönerer was a typical idealistic young radical democrat when he first entered politics; his transition from radical Left to radical Right took almost ten years. From the beginning, he craved an extraordinary amount of public recognition and was not averse to seeking crude notoriety. His self-righteousness undoubtedly made him vulnerable to the liberal leaders' somewhat hypocritical and exaggerated horror at his flamboyant phrases. He intensely resented the liberals' cuttingridiculeand reacted with violent revulsion to the complacent, slightly corrupt atmosphere which they created in the Reichsrat. His burning desire to save his people was certainly in part rooted in egotism, as

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is often the case with self-appointed saviors. But he was also an idealist who was prepared to sacrifice his own advantage for what he believed to be the salvation of others. Schönerer understood and used all the modern agitator's techniques: stereotypes and slogans with emotional overtones, arbitrary selection of facts, repetition, and assertion without proof. He knew how to embarrass the authorities by attracting crowds that were too big for the police to disperse easily without bloodshed or scandal. He could keep crowds at fever pitch for hours by his oratory and by the use, particularly among students, of singing, music, salutes, badges, and romantic ceremonial. He created a thrill in his audiences by flaunting his defiance of authority. He knew how to take full advantage of the enemy's weaknesses and exploit anomalies of the enemy's position, so that many of those who disagreed with his creed felt compelled to support him on important issues. His technique of spectacular recklessness advertised him to the masses as the only honest champion of the people, and was effective in driving his opponents to copy him. He knew how to combine legal procedure and revolutionary spirit. He showed his followers how to debase the law at the same time that they were obeying it, and demanded freedom of speech so as to destroy constitutional government and civic equality. He knew how to raise to a principle of political morality the expression of his followers' irrational anxieties and emotional indignation by calling intransigence and violence "honesty" and "patriotism" and calling compromise "treason." Tactically he knew how to organize a tightly disciplined revolutionary headquarters while outwardly identifying himself at strategic times with his opponents. While taking advantage of every opportunity to discredit his opponents, he remained close enough to them to be able to work with them when doing so would have practical benefits for his own cause. Schönerer, more than any other individual in Austria, created the antiSemitic explosion of 1882. He was the principal force behind popular pressure on the German party leaders to incorporate anti-Semitism into their programs for safeguarding and extending German national liberties - that is, he went far in achieving his goal of making racism an accepted, indeed almost obligatory, form of German nationalism in the national borderlands of the Habsburg empire. He ruined the political careers of Heinrich Friedjung and Otto Steinwender - both advocates of moderation, compromise, and racial equality. He drove Viktor Adler and Engelbert Pernerstorfer out of the democratic radical camp and into Marxism. It is not too much to say that, in the 1880s, he destroyed the democratic German Left in Austria. He was the leadingfigurein the wave of student riots at the leading Austrian universities and technical

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schools in the eighties and nineties which for long periods seriously damaged and at times destroyed - the universities' role as centers of learning. He was the inspiration of German nationalist Austrian youth for over fifty years. He became the most relentless practitioner of slander and character assassination in Austria. There is no way of knowing how many careers in politics, government, the universities, and the army were destroyed by the PanGermans, or how many men of genius in the arts and sciences they alienated from Austria, but there were certainly many. A typical act of violence - if not of deliberate terrorism - banished Schönerer from active politics for nine years, but he returned dramatically to the center of affairs in 1897, more feared and powerful than ever before. For four years, by means of insults, slander, and bullying threats and assisted only by a handful of personally insignificant followers, he forced (as Karl von Grabmayr said) a hundred and fifty to dance to one man's tune in the Austrian parliament, and brought into the streets enraged crowds ready for revolution. The furor teutonicus, of which Schönerer soon became as much a cause as a symptom, raised the Pan-German movement to heights of influence over the entire German camp - which included many "international" Social Democrats and Catholics - which would have been unthinkable earlier. Schönerer ruthlessly exploited the weaknesses of the big German parties - the groups that bore most of the burden of defending the German Besitzstand and holding in equilibrium the tensions of German nationality and Austrian patriotism - in order to demoralize them and make them serve his purposes. His voice was the decisive factor in the upsurge of fanatical nationalism which shook the government to its foundations and stampeded the patriotic Austrian majority into parliamentary obstruction and capitulation to extremism. The long-term damage wrought by that great crisis to the Austrian state, and to the political principles on which it was built, was almost entirely Schönerer's achievement. The effects of the crisis of 1897 were never entirely overcome. It wrought damage to the delicate fabric of consensus politics in Austria which was never repaired. N o return to stable constitutional government ever took place; the country reverted to a universally detested absolutism; the conviction spread among both Czechs and Germans that the problem of reconciling their conflicting ideas of liberty and equality could not be solved within the multinational state; the commitment of the Austrian peoples to a civilized solution of their problems declined; and the politics of extremism ultimately replaced the politics of consensus. This was the beginning of the end of imperial Austria and the overture to an era of violence. The social basis of the movement is as confusing as is the ideology. If there was a common factor in the experience of most Pan-Germans, it was failure of

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one kind or another, along with a sense of dispossession and attendant feelings of anxiety and alienation. In Austria, dispossession could as easily be experienced in national or race relations as in matters of economics and social class. The peculiar concept of their national Besitzstand made Austrian Germans extremely sensitive to all political, economic, and social changes. The socialist leader Otto Bauer maintained that "in the Austrian class struggle" the German worker, because of his nationality, might relate his interests to those of the exploiters instead of the exploited - that is, he identified himself with his privileged nationality rather than with his exploited class. Democratization might raise threats as serious to the security of the worker as a German, as to the employer as a capitalist. The dispossessed in multinational Austria were not a monolithic oppressed class. Nationalism offered encouragement both to the "privileged" German working class and to the "oppressed" Slavs. In the industrial areas, especially in Bohemia, rapid social change and increasing competition between immigrant Slav (or Jewish) minority groups and the older indigenous German majority, which made members of the latter feel threatened in their jobs and status, produced an acute sense of dispossession among German handicraftsmen, shopkeepers, and professional men. PanGermanism's emphasis on the central importance of race offered a plausible solution for the anxieties of such people and gave Pan-German ideology the appearence of a comprehensive theory of society. The Pan-German movement also represented, of course, an emotional reaction to social conditions in which the role of ideas was minimal. While a paranoid style of politics cannot be traced to any single taproot reaching into economic conditions, social structure, customs, sexual or generational conflict, fear, aggression, or other obvious causes, the threatening aspects of "modern life," with their attendant frustration and fear of dispossession, may provide an explanation of the Pan-Germans' strong negative bias and their predilection for violence. They felt that their country and its liberal political and social institutions had failed to assure their future. They fought out of a sense of doom. They acted more often like a desperate rear guard than like an optimistic vanguard of the people. Their behavior was an expression of their frustration at their "defeats" - defeats that were inflicted on them by the great political, economic, and social changes of the post-1867 generation which they identified as "the system." They found themselves challenged by the militant underprivileged non-German majority of the Habsburg empire, and at sea in a society in economic transition. The Pan-Germans were men who saw their destiny as being the consequence of political surrenders disguised as negotiated settlements. They aimed therefore at preventing reasonable adjustments to social and political problems, and attacked every

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mechanism that offered a chance of mediation. This pessimism, combined with the demand for action characteristic of Pan-Germanism, produced almost a formula for what would later be called rightist radicalism or, in its revolutionary sense, fascism. The numbers of the collaborators {Nahestehende, as Edward Pichl called them), fluctuated according to the extent to which the German masses experienced a sense of panic. These people were important because it was on them that the movement relied for popular support and future conversions. They were collaborators and sympathizers with Pan-Germanism who were basically conventional citizens whom Pan-German extremism exploited as circumstances permitted. The Schönerianer who after 1901 gave up the movement's original commitment to revolution in effect removed themselves from real Pan-Germanism, and were as alien to the movement's essence as were the Schönerianer-without-Schönerer and similar völkisch radicals. The precise place in the history of Pan-Germanism held by Karl Hermann Wolf and his followers after they had repudiated Schönerer, and the relationship to the movement of the wider spectrum of radical nationalist Schönerianerwithout-Schönerer, which included men like Hermann Kienzl of Graz, is difficult to define. Their rhetoric often resembled that of Schönerer and they sometimes supported him. To many moderates they seemed to be a "realistic" wing of the Pan-German movement whose only difference with Schönerer was over tactics, not ultimate objectives. The distinction between the PanGermans and many of those who were close to them but not "of them" was often unclear both to those directly involved and to their contemporaries. But if Pan-Germanism ist to be assessed as something more substantial than a vague bias in favor of German rule in Austria - as it must, if the movement has any right to recognition as a distinct entity - the people on the fringe of Schönerer's followers, the people who were sometimes in that following but usually only around or near it, must be considered only as occasional collaborators. The real Pan-Germans were a small elite cadre. The dedicated Pan-German extremists probably constituted less than 1 percent of the adult German population. Those who were around, in and out - or in some way, at some time, close to the movement - accounted for another 2 or 3 percent. Those who normally rejected most of the movement's extremism but respected its courage and sympathized secredy with the completeness of its "solution of the national problem" numbered no more than 10 percent (except during moments of nationalist hysteria, when they may have constituted well over half the population). Under normal conditions, certainly better than 50 percent of all Germans disliked the movement but were afraid to oppose it openly if doing so meant risking being called

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traitors by the Pan-Germans. Perhaps less than 10 percent of the Germanspeaking population opposed all aspects of Pan-Germanism under all circumstances. The strength of Pan-Germanism never lay in the number of its formally enrolled members so much as in the ruthlessness and brutality of its leadership, the vulnerability of the German masses in Austria to panic about their Besitzstand, and the weakness of the patriotic German political leaders. PanGermanism succeeded in making "good Germans" feel guilty if they tried to acquit themselves of their national duty by merely signing petitions, and made them feel ashamed if they did not demonstrate their national patriotism by spectacular acts such as insulting Jews, officers, and the symbols of Austrian imperial loyalty. The Pan-Germans intimidated millions - and the political leaders of those millions - by arousing feelings of fear and shame. This was what the Pan-Germans meant when they described themselves as the "conscience of the German people." The Pan-Germans' contempt for what they regarded as the irrelevance of the conventional parties appealed at times of unusual crisis to the negative resentments of many of the dispossessed and rebellious who wanted an alternative to the painful process of negotiation and compromise but who were in normal circumstances unwilling to submit fully to Schönerer's imperious demand for complete political obedience to himself and to the hardships involved in entering the "national ghetto" of the Pan-German movement. Prince Lichnowsky thought that nearly every German who was not an outand-out clerical sympathized at least in secret with Pan-Germanism during the Badeni crisis. Some of the Christian Social demagogues in Vienna, such as Schneider and Buschenhagen - who were almost as much anti-Slav as antiSemitic and who sometimes called for more bizarre and barbaric treatment of Jews than did Schönerer himself - were, in a sense, near or related to, PanGermanism; but after Lueger was confirmed as mayor of Vienna, they ceased to be a revolutionary force and their bark was worse than their bite. Most of those who only collaborated with Schönerer at times of crisis had not been permanently converted to extremism. Their first choice - as long as the Austrian state existed - was the maintenance of the established order and the power and integrity of the Austrian state and the continuation of Austrian patriotism, the politics of compromise, and constitutional government. The Pan-Germans channelled the fears and the suppressed destructive drives of a part of the German masses into extremist demonstrations that affected the course of history. They did not and probably could not, in the nature of things, succeed in making permanent mass conversions to their style of antipolitics. They did succeed in demoralizing democratic German nation-

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alism, and they contributed to the increasing abandonment of the humanitarian heritage of the Left by otherwise sincere Austrian German radicals. Time and again the Pan-Germans forced the leaders of the big, basically moderate, patriotic Austrian parties to copy Pan-German ideas and manners by threatening the moderate party leaders with groundless charges of corruption, cowardice, and treachery. In consequence, the German-Austrian public and its leaders gradually became more crudely racist and more hardened against compromise. The Pan-Germans succeeded in identifying, in the eyes of the other nationalities, all German political proposals, however capable of negotiation and modification they might be, with intransigence and extremism. If, in 1900, Pan-Germanism was a power before which the emperor's ministers had quailed, the moment of the movement's greatest electoral triumph was also the beginning of a decline which within a few years reduced Schönerer's party to impotence. Schönerer lost his Reichsrat seat and gave up public appearances, and the Pan-German party became a little group of tame parliamentarians who, in Hitler's scornful words, "preferred the somewhat gender variety of revolutionary struggle and avoided the more dangerous task of preparing for a revolution." Young activists who wanted only "honor and fame in posterity" and "warriors willing to die" who "had the strength to oppose a catastrophic destiny with the defiance of martyrdom" looked elsewhere for inspiration. The establishment of German hegemony by force of arms in Central and Eastern Europe after 1914 went far to realize the PanGermans' dreams, but brought no revival of Schönerer's movement. The German militarists and imperialists rose to power in the German Reich, but it was the Social Democrats and Catholics who prevailed in 1918. The Germans of the borderlands passed under Slav rule. Schönerer died, and his name faded into the twilight of fable.

PETER G . J . PULZER

Lueger's Heritage: Anti-Semitism in Austrian Party Politics"" Nationalist anti-Semitism was only one symptom of the reaction to the failure of Liberalism; another, equally portentous, was provided by its oldest opponent, Catholicism. The two had, as we have seen, been embattled since the end of the eighteenth century. But Josephinian ideas had left their mark even on unenlightened Habsburg despots, so that during the nineteenth century there were two parties in Austrian Catholicism. One consisted of the majority of the hierarchy, who, pursuing a conciliatory and opportunist policy, were prepared to regard themselves as partners in state authority; the other was an "opposition" who condemned the hierarchy for rendering too much unto Caesar and wished the Church to pursue a more independent and aggressive policy. They accused the hierarchy of being apathetic and impregnated with "Josephinism," and indeed two prelates, the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Abbot of Melk, actually sat with the Liberal peers in the Herrenhaus,1 It was this opposition, which welcomed the 1848 revolution,2 stressed the social mission of the Church, and stringently opposed any concessions on educational or other matters, that brought anti-Semitism into Catholic political propaganda. The movement was derived from the Catholic Romantic movement which, like Romanticism in general, was a reaction against the Enlightenment. Its local father was the Redemptorist saint and aposde Clemens Maria Hofbauer (1751-1821) whose pupils - or rather pupils' pupils * From Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York 1964, abridged pp. 163-176,199-206,214-218. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 Georg Franz, Liberalismus. Die deutschjreiheitlkhe Bewegung in der Habsburger Monarchie, Munich 1955, pp. 413-414. 2 Cf. WienerKircbenzeitung, 14 November 1848: "Will the Church... intended by its nature and purpose to be free, now lose the shameful fetters under whose pressure it has groaned since the days of Joseph Π?"

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provided the popular basis for the "Catholic Renewal" movement in 1848. It included men like Veith, Gruscha, and Brunner,3 a circle which contained a surprisingly large number of Protestant and Jewish converts.4 It was from this circle that the bulk of Catholic journals and periodicals emanated (Wiener

Kirchenzeitung, Österreichischer Volksfreund, Kapistran, Gegenwart), mosdy edited, published, or directed by the tireless Albert Wiesinger and Sebastian Brunner,5 whom Kuranda accused in 1860 of having chosen agitation against the Jews as his literary specialty.6 More dubious assistance came to the Catholic anti-Semitic cause from Canon August Rohling, whose Der Talmudjude of 1871 made him a center of controversy for some fifteen years. The book was a rehash of Eisenmenger's EntdecktesJudentum of 1708, and sought to prove the depravity of the Jews by means of extracts from the Talmud. He scored an initial success with it; the Bonifatius-Verein of Westphalia distributed 30,000 copies of it gratis, and he was appointed to the Chair of Semitic Language at Prague thanks to the efforts of an influential well-wisher. His work was well received by the Catholic press of Austria;7 and it had sufficient standing as a work of scholarship to secure the acquittal, in 1882, of Franz Holubek, a Reformverein orator, who, accused of utterances likely to bring the Jewish faith into disrepute, based his defense on Rohling. His exposure soon followed, however. He was accused by Joseph Bloch, a Viennese rabbi newly arrived from Galicia, of ignorance and incompetence, and was challenged to undertake an unseen Hebrew translation in open court.8 Eminent theologians like Professors Delitzsch of Leipzig, Nöldeke of Strasbourg, and Wünsche of Dresden testified against Rohling. He was finally forced to withdraw his plaint against Bloch in 1885,9 a blow from which he never recovered. His Der Zukunftsstaat of 1898 was placed on the Index and he died in 1931 a forgotten man. He was altogether too disreputable to provide academic respectability for the anti-Semitic campaign. His equally vehement

3

4 5

Rudolf Till, Die Anfänge der christlichen Volksbewegung in Österreich, Jahrbuch der LeoGesellschaft, 1937, Vienna 1937, pp. 57-58, 65. Idem, Hofl>auer und sein Kreis, Vienna 1951, p. 107. P. Klein, Antisemitismus in der Wiener Presse von 1848 bis 1873, unpubl. dissertation, Vienna

1938, pp. 49-50, 72. 6 7 8 9

Franz, op. cit., pp. 422, 513. For example, Vaterland, 1 January 1872; Tribüne 11-13 December 1882. In articles in the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, 22 December 1882, 10 January 1883. In the trial Rohling was represented by Pattai, and Bloch by the Liberal deputy Joseph Kopp. Lueger had offered his services to Bloch, who was warned by Fischhof not to trust him. Joseph Samuel Bloch, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, Vienna 1922, p. 88.

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anti-Protestantism disqualified his work from use in Germany, and he was disowned by part of the Catholic press.10 However, no fewer than three translations of Der Talmudjude were published in France at the time of the Dreyfus Case11 and the work also circulated in Russia.12 He added no new ammunition to the "Talmudic" argument against the Jews; he may, however, have done something to revive its popularity. But in an age in which religion mattered less than it had mattered in Europe for 1500 years and which was more inclined to listen to economic or nationalist arguments, this can never have been more than a secondary influence. It was particularly to its attention to the social question that the Catholic minority faction owed its growing support, although reformist zeal was not necessarily their primary motive. A memorandum to the hierarchy argued: In the first place the social question is the question of the possibility of, and the means towards, the living re-Christianisation of society; only in the second place is it for us a question of the viable reform of existing economic and social conditions. In the second place for this reason: because such reforms are not possible without liberating the peoples from spiritual and moral anarchy. 13

Nevertheless, reform remained the trump card ofthat group of which Vogelsang had become the political philosopher and Karl Lueger the party leader. Lueger was Schönerer's junior by two years. He was born in Vienna, lived there all his life, and died there. On his father's side he was descended from peasants in Lower Austria. His father, being the second son, became a soldier during the Napoleonic wars, and after his retirement an attendant at the Polytechnik. His mother was the daughter of a carpenter. After her husband's death she opened, with her daughters, a tobacco kiosk.14 In Lueger's quarterings we may read the composition of his future political following. He had hardly graduated and qualified as a lawyer when he immersed himself in public affairs. The rough-and-tumble of Vienna suburban politics appealed to him and remained his love for all his life. Although he became a member of the Reichsrat and Deputy Landmarschall of Lower Austria, his heart remained in Viennese politics and his following, throughout his career, came from the "little man" of the growing and teeming suburbs of the capital.

10 11 12 13 14

For example, Kölner Volkzeitung, 10 February 1897. Robert F. Byrnes, Anti-Semitism in Modem France, New Brunswick, NJ 1950, pp. 91-92. Simon M. Dubnow, Die neueste Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, Berlin 1920-1923, DI, p. 69. Friedrich Funder, Auflmtch zur christlichen Sozialreform, Vienna 1951, pp. 11-12. Kurt Dr. Karl Uteger, der Mann iwisAen den 2eiten,Y\eimz and Munich 1954,p. 17; H. Schnee, Bürgermeister Karl Lueger, Paderborn 1936, pp. 7 - 9 .

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The dominant political philosophy of Vienna was Liberalism. Clericalism and Conservatism counted for next to nothing (in 1868 the Council had petitioned unanimously for the abrogation of the Concordat), and such differences of opinion as existed were fought out within the Liberal ranks. The Liberals of the Town Hall and the political clubs were the most loosely-knit of parties - an association of like-minded individuals rather than a specific organization. The political leadership was provided by the haute bourgeoisie of the city, who were educated and cultured men, broadminded citizens of the world, but out of touch with the great social and economic transformation Vienna was then undergoing, ignorant of, rather than selfishly opposed to, the more democratic yearnings of the masses. Nor was corruption on a modest scale lacking in their somewhat easy-going administration of the capital's services and finances. But even the radicalism which was then fermenting in the industrial districts grew out of a desire to go beyond rather than react against, the principles of 1867. It formed a ginger-group, not an opposition. It was in such political circles that Lueger found himself in the third district, and it was to represent their interests that he was elected to the city council in 1875 in the second curia.15 In the council chamber he adopted a critical attitude to the majority and joined with an idealistic but erratic Jewish lawyer, Julius Mandl, in asking awkward questions about laxity and corruption.16 The two grandiloquently formed the FortscJmtts- und Wirtschaftspartei. Its political effectiveness was restricted to the third district, based on the Eintracht club, but it had a mouthpiece in Mandl's Fortschritt, one of the capital's less distinguished journals. He was re-elected in 1878, this time for the third curia, and joined with a number of other radical-minded councilors in a group named the United Left, but their essentially negative attitude and the death, in 1881, of their leader, the Democrat Schrank, robbed the faction of any cohesion and by 1882 it was dissolved. Lueger had placed high hopes on the ability of the United Left to transform the city government. He appreciated that its failure would for the time being leave him little scope within the confines of municipal politics and he therefore sought wider fields of action. We have already seen him at artisans' conven-

15

16

The municipal electors of Vienna were divided into three curiae, according to the amount they paid in taxes and rates. Among the scandals unearthed were: that the sand delivered for building the Ringstrasse was not of the quality paid for; that the snow-clearers' wage list at the Central Cemetery was identical with the list of those to be buried; and that the wardens of two orphanages had their footwear repaired at the public expense.

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tions 17 and at the Northern Railway meetings. The next year, 1885, he decided to enter Parliament. He was elected for the fifth district and in the Reichsrat associated himself with the band of Democrats led by Ferdinand Kronawetter. The Democrats, sitting on the extreme Left, considered themselves advanced Liberals, but their interest in social reform and hostility to nationalism made them more benevolent toward Taaffe. Thus it was not too difficult for Lueger to take up contact with anti-Semites and Catholic reformers. It is next to impossible to trace accurately Lueger's development toward the acceptance of either anti-Semitism or religious belief. There is virtually no evidence in favor of supposing either conversion to have been sincere, and there is a good deal of evidence against. According to Kronawetter, he remarked at this time, when reproached with going over to the anti-Semites, "Well, we shall see which movement will become the stronger, the Democratic or the anti-Semitic. One will have to accommodate oneself accordingly." 18 In May 1887 he was one of nineteen deputies who voted in iavor of Schönerer's bill to restrict the immigration of Russian and Rumanian Jews, 1 9 an action which caused Kronawetter to break with him. 20 H e also took part in the cortege of sympathy which paraded past Schönerer's house the day on which he began his imprisonment, and he had signed two motions which Schönerer was planning to put to the Reichsrat, one to deplore the premature announcement of William I's death in the "Judenpresse, "and the other to limit the right of Jews to change their names. 21 Of more immediate importance was the fact that he was being drawn into the meetings of the Catholic reform movement. Vogelsang's ideas were speedily gaining popular support in the 1880's, not only because of the undoubted need to counter the neglect which social problems were suffering, but also because of the contact which Vogelsang was able to establish with widely divergent political forces. First, inspired by the example of such figures as the Comte de Mun and the Marquis de la Tour du Pin in France, a few Conservative noblemen, notably Prince Alois Liechtenstein, were interesting

17

18 19

20 21

In 1881 he proposed that the city council officially welcome the artisans' congress. P. Miko, Die Vereinigung der Konservativen in der Chrisdich-sozialen Partei, unpubl. disseration, Vienna 1949, p. 18. Neue Freie Presse [NFP], 11 March 1910. Ε. Pichl, Georg Schoenerer und die Entwicklung des Alldeutscbtums in Österreich, 2nd ed, Munich 1938,1, pp. 351-353. The measure was based on the Chinese Exclusion Bill passed by the United States Congress in 1882. Skalnik, op. cit., p. 57. Pichl, op. cit., I, p. 355.

Lueger's Heritage

705

themselves in the idea of reform. Second, a number of clergymen, including Franz Schindler, A. M. Weiss, and Adam Latschka, were attaching themselves to the same ideas. Third, Vogelsang was in touch almost from the beginning with the artisans' reform movement in which the clerical wing was led by Holubek and Schneider.22 In Parliament, Liechtenstein was instrumental in the revision of artisan legislation and securing the five-florin franchise. The relationships among these various men, all of them aiming at some sort of reform, was largely personal and informal. Thus Lueger was introduced to Vogelsang by his friend, and later second-in-command, Albert Gessmann, then an employee at the University Library, who in turn had been introduced by Schneider.23 Lueger began taking Christian-Social ideas seriously after the foundation, in 1887, of the Christlich-sozialer Verein by two priests, Adam Latschka and Ludwig Psenner, the editor of the anti-Semitic Österreichischer Volkfreund.In general, the younger clergy predominated in this circle, including, for instance, Fr. Rudolf Eichhorn, who had published a pamphlet on the working conditions of the tramway employees.24 The Society of Jesus was also strongly represented and there were two future cardinals among the young reformers.25 In September 1887 he was persuaded to attend a meeting of the union; and what happened there is related by Psenner and recorded by Klopp in his biography of Vogelsang: At this meeting the first speaker was the Hungarian anti-Semitic leader Dr. Komlossy, who was received with an ovation lasting several minutes, and, constandy interrupted by cries of assent, made a strongly anti-Semitic speech... Lueger, as the second speaker, was meanwhile sitting near the chairman, Psenner, and asked him anxiously what he should speak on so as not to fall foul of Komlossy. Psenner's advice was that he could become the hero of the evening only if he outdid Komlossy in his anti-Semitism. Lueger appreciated this at once and, amid storms of applause, made a speech which, as Psenner said, set the seal on his transformation from a Democrat into an anti-Semite.26

If Lueger was converted to anything that night, it was not the truth or validity of anti-Semitism but its usefulness as a political weapon. Lueger's connection with the Christian-Social Union and Vogelsang grew closer after this. They met informally for thefirsttime at the beginning of 1888 22

23 24 25

26

Vogelsang's correspondence with Schneider dates from 1882. Wiard von Klopp, Leben und 'Wirken des Sozialpolitikers Karl Freiherr von Vogelsang, Vienna 1930, p. 292. Ibid., p. 293. Die weissen Sklaven der Wiener Tramwaygesellscbaft, Vienna 1885. Α. Μ. Knoll and J. Triebl, "Österreichs Katholisch-soziale Literatur zur Zeit des Rerum Novarum," Volkswohl, 7 and 8, 1931, pp. 268-272, 286-293. Klopp, op. dt., p. 306.

706

Peter G. J. Pulzer

in Princess Metternich's villa.27 His speech at the Catholic demonstration the next month in celebration of Leo XHFs fifty years of priesthood - a purely religious, not reforming or anti-Semitic occasion - so impressed Vogelsang that he afterward exclaimed, "Now we have our leader! Lueger must be our leader!"28 He became a regular visitor to the study group which, beginning in 1889, met weekly at the Goldene Ente inn under the presidency of Schindler and became known as the Entenabende,29 The 1880s marked the turning point for the Catholic reform movement, and it brilliandy seized the opportunity which was to lead it to success not only against Liberalism but also against a "crypto-Josephinian" hierarchy. It did this by taking up feelers with the anti-Semitic and anti-Liberal movement generally - the artisans, the Nationalists, and even Schönerer's party. Its instrument was the temporary alliance which these disparate groups formed under the name Vereinigte Christen (United Christians). The "United Christians" The 1880's were the melting pot of Austrian political parties. In the various radical and reformist circles, dissatisfaction with disintegrating Liberalism and the "masterly inactivity" of Count Taaffe found expression in movements and organizations which seemed doomed to ineffectiveness if only by their very multiplicity. Schönerer, Adler, Pernerstorfer, Mandl, Lueger, Kronawetter, Schneider, and Pattai - Jews and anti-Semites, clericals and pan-Germans, exLiberals and future Socialists rubbed shoulders, jockeyed for positions, and prayed for ideas. The chief organization for canalizing these sentiments, the Reformverein, was a microcosm of the quarrels and patched-up alliances of the movement. The first struggle was between the Pattai-Schönerer wing, nationalist in inspiration, and Vogelsang's friend, Schneider, who led the Catholic wing. The Catholics were profoundly disturbed by the pan-Germanism and irredentism of some of the extreme Nationalists: Let me tell you honestly and without reservation [Schneider wrote to Schönerer] that I am an Austrian in body and soul and could never, never reconcile myself to being subject to a Prussian government. I would sooner go to America.30

27 28 29 30

Skalnik, op. cit., pp. 63-64. Ibid., p. 65. F. M. Schindler, "Neun Jahre Entenabende," Volkswohl 3, 1923. Letter of 4 April 1882, Nachlass Pichl, Österreichisches Verwaltungsarchiv [NP ÖVA], Box 37.

Lueger's Heritage

707

But the Nationalists also had reason to be dissatisfied, particularly when the Reformverein opposed a customs union with Germany which would obviously have been damaging to the less efficient small producers in Austria. Schönerer finally walked out with his closest followers, "since the Reformverein does not primarily pursue anti-Semitism, but has as its aim the support of the Taaffe regime."31 The next year, 1885, Schneider narrowly defeated Pattai for the presidency. In addition the Democrats must be considered. They had, during the 1870's, been the spokesmen of the small man's discontent with Liberal big business, and had in their ranks worthy veterans of 1848, such as Steudel. But their reluctance to embrace anti-Semitism, particularly during the battles of 1884 and 1885 to divest the Rothschilds of their railway concessions, led to large-scale desertions by both leaders and rank andfile.Many later luminaries of the Christian-Social Party entered public life as Democrats, including Lueger's lieutenant, Albert Gessmann.32 Indeed, according to Kronawetter, the Democrats' leader,33 Lueger was largely responsible for drafting their 1884 program with its specific endorsement for the "principle of the equality of all denominations.34 The chief organs at the disposal of the anti-Liberals were two weeklies. The Österreichischer Volksfreund, revived in 1881 after its demise in 1877, became, in 1882, the Organ der Österreichischen Reformpartei and in 1884 was bought by Ludwig Psenner, a Christian-Social priest. It was partly financed by the Countess of Chambord (the Archduchess Maria Theresa),35 who had also been an intimate of the French banker, Etienne Bontoux. (His unsuccessful and fraudulent Union Generale had been an attempt to break the JewishProtestant monopoly of French banking.) It claimed among its readers seven members of the imperial family, three generals, seven bishops, and 101 clergymen, as well as hundreds of professional and businessmen.36 The Österreichische Wählerzeitung was close to the Democrats. Its occasional anti-Semitism was rather subdued. The two co-operated, involuntarily to some extent, in the campaign to unseat Liberal representatives in parliament and the city council. In the annual elections to the city council, the Volksfreund made and unmade reputations. Opposition to Liberal "corruption" was the

31

Unverfälscht Deutsche Worte [LJDW], 15 March 1884. R. Kuppe, Karl Lueger und seine Zeit, Vienna 1923, p. 90. 33 NFP, 11 March 1910. 34 Österreichische Wählerzeitung [ÖW], 14 December 1884. 35 Bloch, op. at., p. 22. 36 Österreichischer Volksfreund [ÖV], 15 January 1882. 32

708

Peter G. J. Pulzer

primary criterion. Occasionally it refused to endorse Democrats who were not also anti-Semites;37 at other times it was more latitudinarian.38 Lueger, at this time still associated with Julius Mandl, was consistently given support,39 even by the Conservative Vaterland,40 although a minority of Nationalists objected to this.41 However, during the period of Schönerer's imprisonment, even his supporters were prepared to vote together with Clericals as the occasion demands, for instance when it is a question of defeating the Jew-Liberals.42 [ . . . ]

There was an element of the unreal and even ridiculous in these carefully edited messages of advice from party headquarters. The real electoral decisions were generally made by small caucuses meeting over a beer table, actuated as much by personal as party considerations, and executed by a fairly unsophisticated electorate. The formal appearance of the "United Christians"43 dates from two byelections at St. Pölten in 1887, one to the Reichsrat and the other to the provincial Diet of Lower Austria. There were three candidates in the first ballot, the Conservative and the Schönerian Josef Ursin being presented as "both men of honest labor and differing in only one point of their program;"44 in the second ballot the Conservatives withdrew in favor of Ursin and the verdict on his success was, "The United Christians have been victorious over the united pseudo-Liberals."45 The grand alliance had been forming for some time. In 1884 the Nationalists had suggested that Psenner should be approached to help in the distribution of their literature through the Volksfreund,46 and to Vogelsang the need to make common cause between Schönerer and the Conservatives against the Liberals in Northern Bohemia justified "the use of Beelzebub to drive out the Devil." 47

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47

ÖV, 15 March and 17 May 1885. ÖV, 29 April 1884; 7 March, 28 March, 4 April and 11 April 1886. ÖV, 9 March, 23 March 1884; 7 March, 28 March, 4 April, 11 April 1886 and 20 March 1887. Vaterland, 20 March 1884. UDW, 1 April 1884; 16 April 1886. UDW, 1 April, 1 June, 16 October and 1 November 1888. Mgr. Josef Scheicher is credited with the actual invention of the name. Miko, op. cit., p. 29. Vaterland, 13 October 1887. Ibid., 25 November 1887. 29 November 1884, NP ÖVA, Box 40. This letter was written less than eight months after Schönerer had left the Reformverein in the highest dudgeon. Letter to Becredi, 17 December 1887. P. Molisch, Briefe zur deutschen Politik, p. 296.

Lueger's Heritage

709

As a party label, "United Christians" was useful. At the time of the St. Pölten by-elections Lueger had proposed that Democrats, anti-Semites, and Conservatives should, since their economic programs were almost identical, unite themselves into an anti-Liberal league;48 but "anti-Liberal" could be interpreted as meaning opposition to constitutional liberties. "Christian" was acceptable to Nationalists and even in Vienna, where "clericalism" was still in bad odor; even the heterodox Schönerer approved the title . . . for the electoral coalition of all anti-Semitic und also those Conservative elements who fight against Jewish-Liberal candidates . . . Shortly after Ursin's election [reported Pattai] Herr von Schönerer told me expressly, "We do not like the name anti-Liberal league, because it is open to misinterpretation, but United Christians is all right," and asked me to inform Dr. Lueger of this, which I did.49

Vogelsang wryly remarked, "Nowadays we have to start rejoicing once people call themselves Christians."50 In 1889 the first official program of the United Christians was published. It demanded (apart from the usual claims on behalf of artisans and peasants) a restriction on Jewish immigration; the exclusion ofJews from the civil service, the judiciary, the army, the law, medicine, pawnbroking, retail trade, and the teaching of Gentile pupils; a customs union with Germany; and denominational schools.51 The last two points no doubt represented an attempt to reconcile the two wings of the movement. By 1890 the Democrats had been virtually eliminated as a force and remained a small rump, led by Kronawetter, drawn increasingly to reliance on Jewish Liberal voters. The Reformers had also purged themselves of their remaining Jews. Mandl was expelled from the Eintracht club in 1889, after some token resistance from Lueger,52 and forced to seek refuge with the Liberals. Heinrich Friedjung confessed to Rabbi Bloch that he had broken with all Nationalists, not only Schönerer, who had "become a laughing stock," but also Steinwender who was "coquetting with anti-Semitism."53 Sigmund Mayer, who was Liberal agent in the second district (the Jewish quarter of Vienna), kept separate registers of Jewish and Gentile voters, and noticed that each year fewer Gentiles voted Liberal.54

48

49 50 51 52 53 54

G. Schmitz, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der christlichen Volksbewegung in Osterreich, 18751891, unpubl. dissertation, Vienna 1938, p. 106. Letter to Vergani (probably March 1889), NP ÖVA, Box 18, fol. 2. Klopp, ap. at., p. 307. Deutsches Volksblatt [DVB], 20 February 1889. Kuppe, op. cit., pp. 191-192. ÖW, 20 March 1891. Sigmund Mayer, Ein jüdischer Kaufmann, 1831-1911. Lebenserinnerungen, 2nd ed. Berlin, Vienna 1926, pp. 374-376, 392.

710

Peter G. J. Pulzer

It was not only the undoubted economic distress and their skillful propaganda that helped the United Christians to success; they were also aided by the 1882 electoral reform enfranchising thefive-florinmen - precisely the class most likely to support them. The electorate was thereby increased from 15,385 to 45,695 voters.55 An illuminating analysis of the occupations of the new voters in one district is given in the Gemeindezeitung.56 7591 2833 588 472 455 221 152 61

artisans clerks in private employment municipal officials teachers municipal porters servants roast-chestnut men hawkers

35 43 13 9 4 3 1 1

itinerant knife grinders clerks of works journeyman interior decorators bootblacks Sedan chair carriers maker of wickcr chairs dog trimmer

Even more helpful to the United Christians was the extension of the city's boundaries in 1891, increasing the number of voters to 78,387. In the seedy suburbs which formed the nine newly incorporated "districts," 77 % of the electorate belonged to the third curia, compared with 62 % in the area of the old city,57 only 5.2 °/o of them were Jews, compared with 12 °/o in the old city58 - an important difference if we remember that a Jewish vote was almost automatically a Liberal vote. As in Berlin, the anti-Semites' main strength lay in the third curia, that of the Liberals among the well-to-do. In the first elections to the enlarged city council the anti-Semites polled almost as many votes as the Liberals;59 only the graded franchise gave the Liberals a two-toone majority in seats. Under Lueger's leadership the anti-Semites had united themselves in the Bürgerklub, and after the 1891 Reichsrat elections Lueger also became the leader of the "Free Union for Economic Reform on a Christian Basis," a grouping of the anti-Semitic parliamentarians who now numbered eighteen. The great prize, the object to which all his political wanderings were to lead, was in sight. [ . . . ]

55 56 57 58 59

Kuppe, op. cit., p. 139. Skalnik, op. at., p. 44. Vaterland, 4 March 1891. Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Wien, Vienna 1892, pp. 36-37. Liberals received 29,005; and Anti-Semites received 27,858.

Lueger's Heritage

711

Austrian Parties After 1900 By 1897, with the capture of Vienna, anti-Semitism had won its major battle and seemed safely entrenched as a permanent force in the country. It ceased to be a major issue and lost some of its magic as a catchword. With the exception of the Social Democrats, no party could afford to adopt an overtly friendly attitude to the Jews and even the Social Democrats tended to avoid one. Indeed, the increasingly large Jewish element in the Socialist movement made some form of anti-Semitism more necessary than ever to the bourgeois parties. Of most interest during the last seventeen years of peace was the relationship between the various anti-Semitic groups. Victory in Vienna necessarily meant the break-up of the "United Christian" alliance. The 1897 Reichsrat elections had shown that the Christian-Social movement had grown beyond Vienna. By means of Peasant Unions it was succeeding in organizing the peasants, especially in Lower Austria and the Tyrol, into becoming its second pillar of electoral support. 60 With its slogans against the corn brokers and the land jobbers it convinced them, as it had convinced the artisans a decade earlier, that it was the Jews who were at the back of the system that was ruining them, and that if the Jews were removed their problems would be solved. Secure in command of his impregnable majority, Lueger could now turn against the Nationalists in his own ranks and convert his party into a purely Christian-Social one. Estimates of the number of anti-Semitic Nationalists elected in 1895 vary from twenty-seven to thirty-two; 61 in 1896 there were twenty-eight. Schönerer had ordered his followers to boycott Lueger's movement, but a group of dissident pan-Germans, round Karl Wolf, had decided to support him, as did the majority of Steinwender's Volkspartei. A split came in 1896 over the candidature for second deputy mayor. The pan-Germans wanted their man Pacher, but Lueger would accept only Neumayer, the

60

61

The Peasant Unions, like the Austrian trade unions, were organized from above as a means of political recruitment, not from below as spontaneous economic combinations. In Lower Austria the clergy were prominent in organizing the Peasant Union, notably Mgr. Scheicher and Fr. Döllen In the Tyrol, where the Conservatives were stronger, the clergy were forbidden to associate themselves with it until 1909 (Miko, op. cit., p. 52). When the Lower Austrian Bauernbund was reconstituted in its present form, thirteen of the eighteen officers and committee members were also holders of political office (T. Kraus, Die Entstehung des niederösterrekhischen Bauembundes, unpubl. dissertation, Vienna 1950, pp. 189-190). Pichl gives the number at 32: op. at., IV, p. 52; Molisch as 30: P. Molisch, Geschichte der deutsch-nationalen Bewegung in Osterreich von ihren Anfängen bis zum Verfall der Donaumonarchie, Jena 1926, p. 183; Badeni in a confidential report to the Emperor as 27: Miko, op. cit., p. 211.

712

Peter G. J. Pulzer

chairman of the Viennese Volkspartei.62 Eleven of the Nationalist councilors resignedfromthe Bürgerklidfi3 and formed themselves into a Deutschnationale Vereinigung, the remaining seventeen deciding that it would be political suicide to defy Lueger.64 Of these twenty-eight councilors, sixteen had been elected in the crucial second curia. It is obvious that without Nationalist support Lueger could never have risen to his eminence. The hopes of the Vereinigung to constitute a third force in the city council, supporting Lueger on economic questions, but opposing him on the clerical issue, were short-lived. Lueger "reorganized" the franchise for the various curiae beyond all recognition. Ministers of religion were promoted en bloc to the second curia, the Vereinigung s main source of strength, and by 1900 it had no councilors left.65 Indeed, incredible as it may sound, the pan-Germans were driven in 1900, by their hatred of Lueger, into a number of alliances with Liberals - all of them unsuccessful - in opposition to the official anti-Semitic list of Christian-Socials and pro-Lueger Nationalists.66 By 1900 the Christian-Socials had a virtual monopoly of seats, 131 out of 154. Indeed, the only districts that regularly returned Liberal candidates were the first, second, and ninth, which between them contained over half the city's Jews. A similar development, with similar tactics, can be seen in the simultaneous struggle for the control of the diet of Lower Austria. This province, with a population of 3 Vz million, at that time included Vienna. Its diet was elected by four curiae; the landed proprietors (twelve seats), the chambers of commerce (four seats), the urban communes (thirty, later thirty-five, seats), and the rural communes (twenty, later twenty-one, seats). Before 1890 the Liberals enjoyed an overwhelming majority, the only opposition coming from the followers of Schönerer. Attempts to form a Schönerer-Lueger alliance for the 1890 election foundered;67 the Liberal majority was reduced, but the anti-Semites were split into six groups. In 1896, the year of the tidal wave, the United Christians were triumphant. An Antisemitisches Zentralwahlkomitee, of which Lueger was chairman, and Richter of the Volkspartei vice-chairman,68 drew up a list of candidates for the two lower curiae. The majority of their candidates had a clear run against their

DZ, 24. January 1897. Ostdeutsche Rundschau [ODR], 20 October 1896. DVB, 26 October 1896. 6 5 O. Pohl, "Die Wiener Gemeindeiatswahlen," Neue Zeit 18, Pt. 2, 1900, p. 335. 57 CB, 1883, pp. 269-270; 1888, pp. 679-680; 1894, pp. 161-163; 1896, p. 733. 158 SP, IX, 1882, pp. 1261-1263. is« CB, 1892, p. 583; 1887, p. 254; 1894, pp. 812, 206. >60 CB, 1894, p. 162; 1896, p. 179. 1« CB, 1896, pp. 734, 865; 1897, p. 18.

768

John W. Boyer

social marginality. The Delegates' Conference implied this when it argued that a low Congrua showed the state's "disdain" (Geringsekätzung) for the clergy, discouraging new recruits from joining the priesthood.162 The "humiliation" of the priests in being compared with wage laborers is significant in view of the chronic inability of the Austrian clergy to win even a modest following among the working class.163 Although the radical clerics occasionally used cultural justifications for their salary demands, their most frequent argument was the more functional assertion that they were an "educated class" (gebildeter Stand) who deserved treatment consistent with their training.164 The 1894 Congrua petition had noted, in a distinction based on personal achievement, that the cleric's education amounted to twelve years of training (eight years gymnasium, four years seminary), whereas the school teacher found employment after only eight years of advanced schooling (without the financial burden of attending a gymnasium), and concluded that an assistant priest deserved more money than his counterpart in public education.165 This self-serving distinction with its overcompensatory rhetoric showed the clergy's similarity to late-nineteenth-century white collar protest movements among Austrian Staatsbeamten and school teachers in learning to articulate their discontent about status and income. The second great wave of clerical petitions on the Congrua (1894-96) occurred after a parallel movement among Austrian state officials in the years 1888-93 had led many of them to political antisemitism. By selecting the bureaucrats and teachers as their referents, the priests demonstrated their desire to be included as a part of the new Mittelstand culture of special interest demands.166 The clergy's claim to a valid level of Bildung also showed a craving for bourgeois respectability in a society in which older corporate values were being forced to compete with achievement criteria of education and work performance. The clergy now recognized the criterion of achievement for the allocation of prestige and work rewards, but they wished to mix this new

CB, 1896, pp. 862-863. CB, 1896, pp. 734, 865. On the uncertain feelings of many clerics toward the urban working class, see Heinrich Swoboda, Grossstadtseelsorge, Regensburg 1909, p. 11. 164 CB, 1892, p. 332; 1896, pp. 731-733. 165 CB, 1894, p. 856. 166 Xhe great majority of the Lower Austrian and Viennese clergy came from urban Bürger or Kleinbürger and peasant social backgrounds. Clerics from the working class (in Austrian terms) were rather rare. See Gustav Müller, Die Erhabenheit und Bedeutung des katholischen Priestertwns, Vienna 1890; CB, 1900, p. 143; Erika Weinzierl-Fischer, "Österreichs Klerus und die Arbeiterschaft," Wort und Wahrheit [WW] 10, 1957, p. 617.

162 163

Viennese Artisans - Origins of Political Antisemitism

769

attitude with older corporate claims. The clerics affirmed their conservatism in static religious-cultural terms, but by emphasizing their education as a basis for their salary claims, they also placed themselves on a level with the more stable sectors of the antisemitic coalition. The clerics thus were a prime example of nonmobile and dynamic conceptions of social status within the same occupational group.167 The proud, yet defensive assertions by the Correspondenzblatt group that their Bildung was a good as any other inevitably led them to realize that it was not as good as they (or their predecessors in 1848) wanted it to be. In 1848 Veith and Günther had stressed the need for a truly educated Catholic clergy, but for the good of society more than for the clergy's own good. The priests of the 1880s adopted a more complex attitude. To the outside world their training was as modern as anything available. But among themselves they admitted that clerical education needed improvements, not so much for society's good as for their own self-justification to the world. They reaffirmed the older Josephist value of education as a source of moral improvement, but they added to it the idea of education as the criterion for competition as a modern occupational group. Competitive self-interest replaced pure social service as the reason for Bildung. The politics of clerical incomes, reflecting traditional prerogatives which had been forgotten or ignored and new claims which were not yet recognized, played a decisive role in motivating younger clerics to search for political solutions for their disaffection. By discovering the collective dimensions of their social devolution, the clerics took the first step to prepare themselves for entry into the Christian Social coalition. By breaking with the state over salaries, the clerics ended the umbilical dependence which had held them to the state for nearly a century. With their traditional cultural values, the clergy were suitable allies for groups equally dependent upon past-oriented conceptions of their now threatened social status, the artisans and shopkeepers in the Third Curia. At the same time, because the clerics had a basic social rationality, their claims to respectability equal to that of state officials or older school teachers were not absurd and did reflect an inflation in personal values of all middle bourgeois groups in latenineteenth-century Vienna. The clergy were thus compatible allies, in pure class terms, for more established and educated segments of the Christian

167

See the important distinction between status as a characteristic of social rank and status as a characteristic of traditional cultural expectations, in Peter Stearns, "Introduction," Peter Stearns and Daniel J. Walkowitz (eds.), Workers in the Industrial Revolution, New Brunswick, N.J. 1974, p. 8.

770

John W. Boyer

Social coalition: the property owners, the thousands of Staatsbeamten, and the middle and upper ranks of many private bureaucracies. Culturally the priests might affiliate with the artisans, but socially their guidance points were the more elite sectors of the Christian Social movement. This placed priests at a crucial equilibrium point: they were able to exploit the resources of both sectors, which they did to a remarkable degree in the years 1895-1918. [.. .] One easy explanation of the clergy's predicament was antisemitism.168 Of the various groups in the antisemitic movement, the clergy alone could not project economic competition from the Jews as the basis for their antisemitism. Jews ran the Liberal newspapers which degraded the clergy's image, however, creating a form of cultural rivalry the clergy found as ominous as economic competition. Poorer Jews served clerics as objects of invidious selfesteem; to enhance their own social status, clerics attacked a nondominant minority group.169 For a few clerics (probably not the majority) racialist hatred even reflected themes of violence - Heinrich Abel recalled with delight how his father had once beaten up a Jew with a club. 170 Perhaps the most singular use to which the clerics put antisemitism, however, was to explain the devolution of the Austrian state after 1867. Of all the priests associated with the Correspondenzblatt, Joseph Deckert was probably the most vulgar antisemite, but it was precisely in Deckert's numerous pamphlets and articles that the Jews were repeatedly used to explain the perversion of government and society in the Liberal era. Deckert insisted that the Jews were responsible for the disappearance of a state in which Christian culture reigned supreme.171 "Jewish domination" changed the essential nature of the Austrian state, forcing it to deny its Christian origins and ethics. Society had now become a "sick organism."172 The tough exclusionist legislation

168

169

170

171

172

Scheicher confirmed the importance of Schönerer for many clerics in stimulating an interest in antisemitism. Joseph Scheicher, Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen, 6 vols., Vienna und Leipzig 1906-1912, vol. 4, pp. 167-172 [EE]. Sebastian Brunner was also an important influence on the antisemitism of priests like Scheicher. See Erika Weinzierl-Fischer, "On the Pathogenesis of the Anti-Semitism of Sebastian Brunner," Yad Vashem Studies 10, 1974, pp. 217-239. See Stanislav Andreski, The Uses of Comparative Sociology, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1965, p. 295. Hans Schmitz, "Aus P. Abels Erinnerungen an die christlichsoziale Frühzeit," Volkswohl [VWJ 14, 1923, pp. 342-343. On Abel, see Ernst Karl Winter, "Abel," in Staatslexikon, 5 vols., Freiburg i. B. 1926,1, p. 1; Die Fackel, Nr. 22, 1899, pp. 10-20. For Deckert, see J. W. Boyer, "Catholic Priests in Lower Austria: Anti-Liberalism, Occupational Anxiety, and Radical Political Action in Late Nineteenth Century Vienna," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society [PAPS] 118, 1974, pp. 337 ff. Most of Deckert's pamphlets were first published in his journal, the Sendboten des heiligen Joseph. See Joseph Deckert, Türkennotk und Judenherrschaft, Vienna 1894, pp. 12-15, esp. p. 15.

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prescribed by Deckert would in an indirect way eliminate the interconfessional laws of the Liberal period. If the bishops could not achieve this in the name of Catholicism, perhaps it could be done in the name of "Christian antisemitism." 173 Deckert thus explained away the problem of state power by suggesting that once "Jewish" influence on such power had been eliminated, its use by the clergy would again be permissible. Equally important, once the Jews had been isolated from Austrian society, society would again recognize voluntarily the privileges of the Church. 174 Deckert also showed his fellow clerics how profitable antisemitism could be in a personal sense, even if this meant exploiting half-demented Lumpen (e. g., Paulus Meyer of the famous MeyerBloch libel trial in 1894) to achieve his ends.175 [.. .] In beginning to explore "society, with all of their self-centered and classlimited biases, the clerics stumbled onto a great opportunity to circumvent their isolation from Austrian public life. If they could not change the preconditions of their religious heritage, perhaps the other side of the equation - the society to which they directed their cultural efforts - might be viewed in a different light. The clerics found a more congenial relationship with anti-Liberal artisan, merchant, and white collar groups in Vienna and the small and middle peasantry in Lower Austria, even if the bond which united them to these groups was a class-based secularism (in the ad hoc form of antisemitism) rather than shared religious experiences, as might have occurred in Germany. After 1885 many of the Viennese clerics came under the intellectual influence of Karl v. Vogelsang. Their natural inclinations to support the Bürgertum and Kleinbürgertum in social conflicts were intensified by Vogelsang's arguments. The key turning point was the year 1887. Several priests from the Correspondenzblatt were active in establishing the Christian Social Association, first in Alsergrund and then throughout the city. More important, Joseph Scheicher was instrumental in obtaining Catholic support in Lower Austria for Joseph Ursin, a nationalist supporter of Schönerer running for a seat in the Lower Austrian Landtag in November 1887. The idea of the "United Christians" was born, a coalition of clerical, nationalist, and antisemitic protest

173 174 175

Ibid., pp. 15-19. Also, idem, Kann ein Katholik Antisemite sein?, Dresden 1893, pp. 3-4. Deckert, op. cit., 1894, pp. 19-24; idem, op. cit., 1893, p. 40. Rar the history of the Deckert trial of September 1893, see Bloch, op. at., pp. 361-540, and the articles in ÖW, 12 May 1893, pp. 355-363; 19 May 1893, pp. 375-379; 26 May 1893, pp. 395-398; 2 June 1893, pp. 415-419. The 1893 trial recalled another such event in Vienna ten years earlier, when Rabbi Joseph Bloch had vindicated himself against August Rohling, the author of the scurrilous Der Talmudjude.

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against Viennese Liberalism. Scheicher now recognized that his earlier efforts at a purely Catholic politics were doomed to failure and that the clergy had to ally themselves with other anti-Liberal groups.176 [.. .] Scheicher and Eichhorn were among the first to identity themselves openly as antisemites, but by 1888 dozens of other clerics were moving in the same direction. Priests began to show up at secular political rallies; gradually they were permitted to share the speaker's platform with other petty notables. The Catholic School Association was infiltrated by antisemtic clerics, as was the whole network of small Catholic voluntary organizations. In 1890 two antisemitic priests were elected to the City Council, and one, Josef Schnabl, won a runoff election for the Landtag. Although Scheicher's personal example and his urgings in the Correspondenzblatt doubtless played a decisive role, the actual movement of clerics into ward politics and electioneering was truly a collective and often an anonymous phenomenon. In the 1870s Scheicher's attempt to found a small conservative movement was ignored by most of his fellow clerics. Now, fifteen years later, their enthusiasm was overwhelming. The clergy had changed. Not only did they possess a new level of professional self-awareness, but they discovered a secular protest movement which seemed sufficiently powerful to make their gamble worthwhile. [ . . . ] Of the various professional groups which joined the antisemitic coalition, the priests were numerically the smallest. Even at the zenith of their electoral work, in the elections of 1895-96, not more than 200 to 300 clerics, as compared with thousands of Beamten and Hausherren voters, were actually involved. But it must be remembered, lest these figures be taken to detract from their importance, that not only were the priests the first to join (clerical agitation clearly predates serious, organized Beamten unrest by at least two years), but their movement to self-awareness as a bourgeois interest group was path breaking for the similar processes which occurred later among the other groups in the coalition. More important, they brought key assets to the antisemitic coalition which their rivals for bourgeois status did not. Whereas most of the antisemitic agitators and leaders who were property owners and state officials tended to remain atfirstwithin the organizational context of their home movements, the priests found it easier to play a multifunctional role in party agitation. Police reports from 1895-96 indicate, for example, that the clergy were often behind a variety of different kinds of rallies, political events,

176

Joseph Scheicher, op. cit., EE, IV, p. 47; idem, "Kirchliche Zeitläufe," 7PQ538,1885, p. 687; Johann Prammer, Konservative und christlichsoziale Politik im Viertel ob dem Wienerwald, University of Vienna 1973, pp. 140-146.

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and money solicitations.177 Whereas Christian Social leaders like Strobach, a property owner, were specialists at representing their own interest group, the clergy tended to become "all-purpose" agitators to whom Gessmann and Lueger could assign a variety of mundane organizational tasks. In part this reflected the clergy's role in society - they had time and opportunities for dayto-day social contact which other persons often did not enjoy; it also reflected their tendency to overcompensatory behavior. Strobach had no need to apologize for owning property. But the clerics were suspected by many within their own coalition. They had to work harder at being accepted. The clergy were important, thus, not simply as a voting group, but much more as a source of local, sub-elite organizers. The clergy constituted a subsidiary group of organizers who gradually integrated themselves into the other, larger sub-elite structure of the party which was based on the secular political clubs, the guilds, and the district electoral committees. The two groups were not identical (and there were tensions between the two), but to the extent that Catholic associations gradually were converted to antisemitic rallying points (the work ofJosef Dittrich in the Leopoldstadt was an excellent example of this process - his Catholic Verein became a leading element in the local Christian Social organization in this ward), the lower clergy made a meaningful contribution to the successes of 1895-96. [. . .] Some clerics must have felt uneasy, however, about their new careers as antisemitic agitators. This was suggested by Gustav Piffl, a young Viennese priest in the 1890s and later Cardinal of Vienna during the interwar period, who wrote in his private diary: "When one has been so involved in political action as I have up to now, one becomes fearfully 'tolerant,' one allies oneself with anyone who seems minimally compatible. Are there any alternatives, if one wants to succeed?"178

177

178

See J6 ad 7723/1895 (Nr. 8096 and 8396) and B2 ad 7831/1895, Niedemsterrekhisches Landesarchiv, Vienna. For a competent, interesting survey of the clergy in the Catholic wing of the movement up to 1907, which appeared too late for the present chapter, but which largely (with a few minor points of debate) confirms the argument in my 1974 article on the clergy, see the dissertation by Gavin Lewis, Kirche und Partei im politischen Katholizismus, Salzburg 1977. My own views on the relationship of the party to the episcopate and the clergy for the period 1897-1920, as well as the role of Los von Rom and the conflict with the Socialist teacher's organizations in the urban and national policy considerations of the Christian Social elite, will be considered in detail in the second volume of the present history. For the involvement of Joseph Scheicher and Franz Schindler in the Austrian modernism crisis, the Clemstag, and the Ehrhard affair, see Boyer, op. cit., 1974. On Piffl, see Erika Weinzierl-Fischer, "Friedrich Gustav Piffl," Neue österreichische Biographie lNÖBJ9,1956, pp. 175-187; for his private journal, see the "Personal Diary of Gustav Piffl, 1894-1901," entry of 27 October 1894, Erzbischöfliches Diözesesarchiv [EBDA]. Fora similar

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T h e uncertainty expressed by Piffl over clerical politics was also shared, ironically, by m a n y secular politicians and ward heelers in the antisemitic movement in Vienna. T o prove their worthiness, clerics were forced to surpass the aggressiveness of even the staunchest ward politician in local electoral rallies. Psenner's Oesterreichischer

Volksfreund warned Catholic priests in 1890

that " w e want n o clerical domination and we will vote for a priest only then, when he has actually shown that he is concerned selflessly and fearlessly with law and justice, with the public welfare." 1 7 9 T h e most important strategic effect of the clergy's antisemitism was that it set the antisemitic movement on a collision course with the Austrian bishops and the emperor himself. Franz Joseph had no fondness for Bürger antisemitism, but his greatest mistrust was directed against lower clerics playing non-Establishment politics. A s a good Josephist he found this intolerable. [. . . ] Antisemitism was not the r o o t issue which divided the priests from their bishops, since Greuter was certainly as antisemitic as Schleicher, and the bishops had n o fondness for "atheistic freemasonry" and the like. Doubtless the bishops felt some unease over the popular agitation of the clerics and the

statement, see Karl Hilgenreiner, "Lebenserinnerungen," [KKJ 32, 1938, p. 160, cited in Barbara Schmidt-Egger, Klerus und Politik in Böhmen um 1900, Munich 1974, p. 69. Piffl also noted his concern that Lueger made little effort to even play the role of being a genuine Catholic. Piffl for one was under no illusions about the seriousness or depth of Lueger's "Catholicism," realizing that Lueger's lifework in politics was designed to achieve party political hegemony for himself and the secular side of his movement, not for the Church or the clergy. 179 OV, 21 September 1890, p. 2. See also Josef Dittrich's defensive propaganda when he ran for the Reichsrat from the Leopoldstadt in 1897: Das Echo, 20 March 1897, p. 1. 1 8 0 From the confidential transcripts of the bishops' assemblies and Executive Committee meetings, it is clear that the issue of the hierarchy's personal and professional authority over their clerics was the most critical problem in creating hostility to the Christian Socials. The bishops were aware of wider social and economic controversies, and they certainly did not enjoy being subject to public insults from antisemitic hawkers like Ernst Schneider, but the radicalism of the clergy itself challenged their professional status in authority relations, and as good "Josephists" (in their internal relationships with their clergy), they worried first about their own bureaucratic hegemony and only then about the wider concerns of civil society. The bishops disliked the vages Christentum which was undermining their official authority. See Protokoll der bischöflichen Versammlung... 1894, pp. 96-98. Catholic editors had to be loyal to their bishops. Cardinal Schönborn admitted openly at the 1894 Executive Committee meeting that he liked Vaterland because it stressed the "authority principle." Protokoll der Conferenz des bischöflichen Comites vom 29. bis zum 31. März, p. 8. The episcopate was equally suspicious of the new cult of quasi-political pilgrimages, fearing Missbräuche in the relations of authority. Protokoll der bischöflichen Versammlung... 1897,pp. 11-15,63-64. In contrast, the party's social and economic policies received very little attention, aside from a

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oft touted claims of the Christian Socials that they were about to launch a new "Christian democracy" in secular society, but the most immediate and probably the most important tension between the episcopate and their clerics involved intra-Church authority.180 [.. .]

rather resentful grumbling in Jan. 1896 that the episcopate disliked the Gebühren of the Christian Socials. The most specific comments made at the conferences in reference to the social question were a series of harsh evaluations of the Social Democrats and the need to bolster the Mittelstand. By 1897 the bishops were already moving to a position where logically they had to tolerate Lueger and the Christian Socials, since Lueger was the best guarantee the Church had against the extraordinary anticlericalism of the Socialists. See especially Protokoll der bischöflichen Versammlung. . . 1897, pp. 6-7. For a similar view, see Albert M. Weiss, Lebensweg und Lebenswerk, Freiburg i. Β. 1925, p. 413.

JOHN W . BOYER

Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews: Rhetorics and Realities"' The history of the Viennese Christian Social movement between 1890 and 1920 constitutes an important and, as yet, largely unexplored aspect of the social and political history of late Imperial politics.1 The Austrian Christian Socials had assembled behind them a large and diverse constituency of angry bourgeois voting groups, many of whom had once either voted for the local Liberal party or whom the Liberals had at least considered to be passively loyal Liberal supporters. Property owners {Hausherren), school teachers, middle and lower ranking government officials, artisans, merchants and shopkeepers (some surprisingly wealthy) and a small group of intensely antisemitic Catholic clerics - all of these social groups united behind a party coalition dominated by Karl Lueger, the antisemitic Mayor of Vienna from 1897 until 1910. Not only did the Christian Socials win control of the second largest German-speaking city in Central Europe, but in doing so they destroyed the Viennese Liberal presence in the city's political culture. Unlike Berlin with its Three-Class franchise system, where Liberalism retained control of the municipal administration up to 1918, Vienna possessed a special

* From: John W. Boyer, "Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews," Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 26, 1981, pp. 125-141. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 A full discussion of the history of the Three Curia franchise system and its significance for Viennese politics may be found in my book, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna. The Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848-1897, University of Chicago Press, 1980. For partial aspects of the Christian Social movement see Menachem Z. Rosensaft, "Jews and Antisemites in Austria at the End of the Nineteenth Century," Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 21, 1976, pp. 57-86; Peter G.J. Pulzer, The Rise ofPolitical Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, New York 1964; John W. Boyer, "Freud, Marriage and Late Viennese Liberalism," Journal of Modem History 50,1978, pp. 72-100; Carl E. Schorske, "Politics in a New Key. An Austrian Triptych," ibid. 39, 1967, pp. 343-386; Reinhold Knoll, Zur Tradition der Christlichsozialen Partei, Vienna-Cologne-Graz 1973.1 disagree with Knoll's analytical scheme for interpreting the party in terms of a transformation from a "mass" to a "notable" party, which is not justified in terms of the actual social history of the party.

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Three-Curia franchise system which allowed lower and middle bourgeois groups to exercise a greater share of political power than in most large German cities. Because of the special characteristics of this curial system (such as consigning most private industrial and commercial employees and clerks to the lowest, third Curia, whatever their income level), many Jewish occupational groups found themselves disadvantaged and "left out" of the local political system before 1890, or at least outvoted by angry masses of Gentile voters (again, in the Third Curia, where all the Gentile artisans voted, Jewish white-collar employees were hopelessly outnumbered, even in districts like the Alsergrund where Jewish population levels were relatively high). One problem which requires a systematic review in regard to the history of the Christian Social administration in Vienna is the question of Lueger's view of and behaviour towards the local Jewish community. Nothing served to demonstrate more the complexity of Lueger's personality and the complex political matrix within which he worked than his attitude towards the use of antisemitism. On the surface, Lueger's enemies could with some justification accuse him of sheer hypocrisy, for Lueger never disliked Jews personally.2 Nor did he refrain from participating in high bourgeois and aristocratic social circles before and after 1897, where he frequently encountered and occasionally even befriended influential and wealthy Jews. Numerous contemporary testimonies exist as to Lueger's contacts with the wealthier segments of Jewish society. Lueger was both extremely vain and not a little arrogant, having a strong touch of the patrician burgher in him.3 Power, as Lueger well knew, did not follow neat ethnic lines, and Lueger enjoyed cultivating the 2

3

Cf. Joseph Bloch, My Reminiscences, Vienna-Berlin 1923, pp. 227,230-231; Sigmund Mayer, Die Wiener Juden. Kommen, Kultur, Politik, 1700-1900, 2nd edn., Vienna-Berlin 1918, pp. 377, 464; idem, Ein jüdischer Kaufmann 1831 bis 1911. Lebenserinnerungen, Leipzig 1911, pp. 248,298,351,357; Arthur Schnitzler, Jugend in Wien, Vienna-Munich 1968, pp. 146-147; Albert Fuchs, Geistige Stimmungen in Oesterreich, Vienna 1949, pp. 58-64; Karl Renner, Oesterreich von der Ersten zur Zweiten Republik, Vienna 1953, p. 94, η. 22; Stefan Grossmann, Ich war begeistert, Berlin 1930, pp. 119-120; and Alexander Spitzmüller, . . . Und hat auch Ursach es zu lieben, Vienna 1955, pp. 73-75. The collective self-concept of the Christian Socials as an urban Bürgertum (and not simply as a band of hysterical, rabid petit-bourgeois agitators) both in terms of class pretensions and caste values was clearly evidenced in a hundred major and minor issues. The use which the party made after 1896 of the coveted Bürgerrecht was not only a device for filling the Second Curia with trustworthy voters, but also reflected the intense desire of most Mittelstand voters to confirm publicly their aspirations and expectations with regard to a quasi-patrician status in the commune, as opposed to the majority of "outsiders" (the working class, the Jews, etc.) who happened to reside in the city. The very language which the Christian Social newspapers used to categorise working-class families (guests, temporary residents, residents with no interest in or commitment to the city, etc.) indicated something of this bourgeois status offensive. For minor

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wealthy and the influential and held such contacts to be the proper expression of his dignity as mayor and as the leader of a party whose sense of democracy was at best one of a patrician oligarchy.4 None the less, the fact that Lueger wore his professed antisemitism lightly and that he used it principally in the realm of public propaganda was an important index to the ambiguous social and economic conservatism of the man. He could hate Jews for the tendency to create a culturally pluralistic society and for their often superior educational and intellectual backgrounds. However, Lueger could not help but respect them since they were well-educated and talented, especially in light of the fact that many Austrian Jews had risen from petit-bourgeois social disabilities to achieve through their own energy bourgeois prominence, a pattern of social mobility quite similar to Lueger's own. In the same way the Jews served Lueger and many of his antisemitic colleagues as a convenient mythic scapegoat to excuse their own dissonance on the property issue and the capitalism problem, yet the very fact that the Jews did represent such prominent and nationally significant modes of private ownership forced Lueger to deal with them with sobriety and respect, given his general adherence to the idea of a state based on permanent legal norms (Rechtsstaat).5 The antisemitic press went to great pains to avoid any mention of Lueger's personal social connections, and such contacts with the upper Viennese bourgeoisie never seemed to harm him at the polls. Later, after 1907, when other Christian Social leaders like Albert Gessmann made and cultivated similar contacts, an open, venomous feud erupted in the party, partly because Gessmann was less careful in the kinds of contacts which he established, and

4

5

issues, but still suggestive on their own terms, cf. the party's attitude towards domestic servants in Reichspost, 27 October 1899, p. 9; Lueger's ironic speeches before a group of bourgeois industrialists in ibid., 1 November 1900, p. 9 and 3rd November 1900, p. 6. The whole Hausherren problem, with its complex political and linguistic meanings, in which the Christian Socials played the role of honest, God-fearing property owners against the onslaught of the Red Hordes, was only intelligible from this perspective. The insistence of the party that direct tax payments on a curial scale determine therightto vote in local and regional elections revealed the same problematic ethos. See, for example, the Reichspost, 27 October 1900, p. 1, and Lueger's speech defending conservative bourgeois politics in ibid., 17 October 1899, p. 9. This trend towards a revival of older Central European ideals of a mid-level, property-owning Bürgertum as the centrepoint of virtuous and just politics does not date from the period after 1897 when the party took power, but was inherent in the antisemitic coalition's growth since the later 1880s. The confrontation with the Social Democrats after 1895, and the functional opportunities provided by the party's control of the municipality's patronage resources after 1896, did enhance this political-cultural stance, however. For the concept of cognitive dissonance as used here, see Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford 1957.

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partly because, unlike Lueger, he sought to use these connections for his own personal financial advantage. The typical Christian Social voter's reaction to such behaviour depended in great part on the wider socio-economic climate and the state of the economy. As long as the party made a serious effort to deliver the promised help for the artisans and prevented the Social Democrats from gaining power in Lower Austria and Vienna, the easy hypocritical personal stance of many party leaders towards the Jews was not very controversial. After 1907, with the rise in consumer prices and the tendency on the part of key elite leaders to formalise their already existent loyalty to industrial capitalism, splinter groups of disenchanted artisans such as the Verein Mittelstandused the Jewish issue against the Reichspartei faction of the party headed by Albert Gessmann. Not only had the economic climate turned sour, but the leaders of the party had sacrificed some of the party's Viennese strength by pushing for universal suffrage on the national level in 1905-1906. The latter decision provoked great unrest among many of the more embattled interest groups in the party coalition, like the property owners and the industrial artisans. To many artisans the party, including Lueger himself, seemed unresponsive and indifferent. In such a situation »softness« on the Jewish question was an excellent cudgel for spoilers like Ernst Vergani. It was not accidental that this revival of intra-party fighting and accusations of philosemitism occurred at the time when Lueger began to lose control of the Viennese party organisation. When Leopold Kunschak's forces defied the party elite and successfully elected a Catholic labourite in opposition to an antisemitic bourgeois candidate for a by-election to the Lower Austrian Landtag in Neubau in 1909, many Kleingewerbe groups began to wonder if Lueger's party was falling apart. It was typical of Lueger that he once employed a Jewish assistant in his law office and that in his later years he relied heavily for advice on August Lohnstein, a baptised Jew and the director of the Länderbank in Vienna.6 Ironically, Lohnstein symbolised in his person the two forces - capitalism and Judaism - which Lueger's party was theoretically opposed to. Lueger never ceased to retain his friendship with Ignaz Mandl, his one-time Jewish colleague in the early Democratic movement in the 1870s and early 1880s.7 For all his anti-Jewish rhetoric he made sure that the Jewish rabbis were given a prominent place in the new First Curia within the 1899-1900 franchise reforms in

6 7

Erich Kielmansegg, Kaiserhaus, Staatsmänner und Politiker, Vienna 1965, p. 398. Mayer, op. at., 1918, p. 377.

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the city.8 The Reichspost reported upon Lueger's death in March 1910 that Wilhelm Stiassny, a Liberal and a leading member of the Viennese Jewish community, had interceded on numerous occasions with Lueger after 1900 on behalf of Jewish interests, usually with success.9 Other prominent Liberals were equally insistent in their assertions about Lueger's secret detente with the Jewish community on issues of major import. Lueger himself took enormous pride in being able to say with some arrogance that "It is I who determine who is a Jew." He once bragged openly that he had defended the Jews on several occasions when his fellow patty leaders planned antisemitic policies.10 Lueger was particularly anxious in early November 1895 to create a harmonious image of himself before the Jewish community and in an interview given to a Hungarian newspaper, he assured the paper's many Jewish readers that the Jews in Vienna would not be harmed in the least under a Christian Social regime and that, in fact, Jewish interests would inevitably prosper.11 A few days later, when Lueger learned that his conciliatory stance towards the Jews had not helped to earn him confirmation as mayor from the Emperor, he returned to the attack with a thundering denunciation of the Börse in the Reichsrat,12 The interview was, however, probably the more accurate of the two events in terms of Lueger's real attitude toward Austrian Jewry. Lueger was never fond of the stock exchange and did not hesitate to associate Jews with its operations (the Börsenjuden),13 but he never seriously entertained any thought of tampering with its structure. Lueger's arrogant paternalism was, however, often unjustified and even ineffective, since some Jews did suffer from Christian Social behaviour, although not nearly as much as members of the Socialist Party. To the extent that Jews belonged to or voted for the Social Democrats, they had committed, in Lueger's mind, the unpardonable sin. Some Jews were denied employment in the city government under the Christian Social administration, often because patronage decisions were left in the hands of more convinced anrisemites. Few Jews found avenues for advancement or promotion as easily available as under the preceding Liberal regime, which itself had been ex-

8

9 10 11 12

13

One might argue that Lueger and Gessmann were forced to give the First Curia vote to the rabbis because they had also included the Catholic pastors in that curia, but the important fact was that the issue was not a contentious one for the party. Reichspost, 11 March 1890, p. 10. See also Bloch, op. cit. p. 231. Rekhspost, 10 December 1905, pp. 9-10. The Times, 5 November 1895, p. 5. Stenographische Protokolle des Hauses der Abgeordneten, XI. Session, 1895, pp. 21448-21450. See also the commentary in Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 1895, p. 938. Stenographische Protokolle, XI. Session, 1892, pp. 5107-5109.

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tremely parsimonious in offering employment to Jews in municipal government. 14 Exceptions like the director of the Magistrat, Victor Tachau, or the Vice-Mayor, Josef Porzer, might be cited as objections to the preceding assertion, but they were both baptised. Jewish teachers found their Gentile colleagues winning advancements far more quickly than they (although, again, this trend probably reflected the extensive politicisation of school appointments into party patronage jobs, and not necessarily extremist antisemitism in and of itself). When asked in the City Council about unfair treatment of Jewish bureaucrats in the municipality, Lueger declared that all personnel matters were a question for the Stadtrat and that, personally, he had adopted a neutral stance on the issue.15 Similarly, the city made some attempts to channel public works contracts on goods such as shoes and uniforms to non-Jewish artisans and merchants. Occasionally, these efforts would break down into comic absurdity, such as the confusion in 1908 when numerous Jewish merchants received large contracts from the city for materials needed for the Imperial Jubilee festival of the year.16 But, in general, an anti-Jewish contract policy was in force whenever conditions permitted, unless Jews made private "deals" with individual members of the Stadtrat, which after 1907 was increasingly possible. On large scale construction projects, such as the building of the municipal gasworks and electrical plant, and in efforts to finance the large capital construction, the Jewish Question played a much diminished role after 1900. Christian Socialsponsored Gentile banking houses made profits from such transactions,17 but Jewish banking and industrial interests also found an appropriate share of the

14

15 16

17

Cf. Arbeiter-Zeitung, 18 March 1899, p. 4; ibid., 15 April 1899, pp. 4-5. Also, Reichspost, 5 March 1899, p. 3; ibid., 19June 1895, p. 3; and Mayer op. cit., 1911, pp. 333,344. Ibr other discriminatory practices, often very petty themselves, such as the withdrawal of a subsidy for a Jewish kindergarten, cf. Reichspost, 29 April 1898, pp. 4-5. On the dismissal of lowly bureaucrats from their jobs, cf. Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 1896, pp. 985-986 and the detailed report on discrimination against Jewish officials in the city government in Die Fackel, No. 147, pp. 25-26. It should be noted, however, in fairness to the Christian Socials, that even under the Liberal regime before 1895 the number ofJews appointed to important positions in the Magistrat was very low. The antisemites simply made a virtue out of the Liberals' vice. See Die Zeit, 23 March 1895, p. 180; 1 June and 21 September 1895, p. 188. Arbeiter-Zeitung, 4 March 1899, pp. 4-5. Reichspost, 22 March 1908, p. 7, 9 May 1908, p. 7 and 13 May 1908, p. 9. The festive procession staged by the city which was the centrepoint of this jubilee celebration later haunted the party because of the obvious mismanagement and even corruption with which it was organised. See the Arbeiter-Zeitung, 14 October 1909, pp. 8-9; 15 October 1909, pp. 8-10. On the Plewa Bank and the antisemites, cf. Arbeiter-Zeitung, 27 January 1899, p. 2 and Die Fackel, No. 22, p. 25 and No. 65, pp. 18-19.

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operations, especially after 1903. It was primarily on the artisan level that the Christian Socials took such care in their antisemitism, testifying to the fact that the party elite was always willing to sacrifice the small Jew for the favours of his more powerful co-religionist. Anticapitalist rhetoric was splendid and relatively inexpensive, but hardly practical. The burgeoning ranks of the Jewish industrial artisans and small shopkeepers, on the other hand, posed a far more immediate threat to the party's largest urban voting bloc, the master artisans.18 Lueger's undifference or "neutrality" illustrated a profound dilemma of the party and its leadership. Lueger did not control the party with an absolute dictatorial grip. He had to respect the processes of reciprocity and compromise under which the party operated so effectively, at least before 1907. Even had he wished to eliminate all discrimination against the Jews, the more antisemitic sub-elite of the party would have expected some concessions. Lueger's stance was not the result of ignorance or perverted social conscience, but of the clear limitations of his power. The Stadtrat was an elected executive council within the municipal government, with far more power than the plenary City Council. It was composed of powerful Christian Social district leaders and occupational interest-group representatives, elected from the Christian Social delegation to the Council. Artisan interests were well represented, as were those of the Hausherren and the various white collar groups. Some implementation of antisemitic notions was probably inevitable, given the presence of antisemitic sub-elite leaders in the Stadtrat, although even this discrimination was generally hesitant and moderate. 19

18

19

On antisemitic hostility against less powerful Jews, cf. Oesterreichische Wochenschrift, 1896, p. 847. Joseph Scheicher, one of the leading antisemitic spokesmen among the clergy, later admitted in his memoirs that the party had never seriously intended to harm any of the more powerful and wealthy sectors of Viennese Jewish society. Cf. Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen, 6 vols., Vienna 1907-1912, IV, p. 359. See also Die Fackel, No. 32, p. 23 and No. 5, p. 17. The Kaiseήubiläurns-Stadttheater debacle between 1898 and 1903 was a good example of this diffusion of antisemitic power. Anton Baumann, a ward leader from Währing and an exGerman nationalist antisemite, organised a project to develop an antisemitic theatre in one of the newly incorporated suburban areas. The antisemites in Währing were not the only ones interested in developing theatres outside the inner city. A citizens' committee in the Landstrasse tried for years to raise the funds and approval necessary to establish a local theatre, the project becoming a point of local pride. With support from the municipality the Währing theatre was launched, however. The intent of the project was to build a large popular theatre which would exclude bothJewish artists and Jewish playrights from its staff. Much of the ethos behind the theatre was more local-patriotic and nationalist than explicitly antisemitic. Lueger supported the undertaking more from patriarchal vanity and a general philistine culture orientation than from any deep anti-Jewish feelings. The Imperial government generally refused to permit the use of any explicit antisemitic material in the plays performed in the

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Perhaps the most disheartening factor about Lueger's glibness towards the Jews in public was his autocratic pose, in which the civil and the political rights of a given social group were at best to be "saved" by the subjective moods of one man. Here Lueger's sense of patrician democracy and his philistine traditionalism merged with his patriarchalfrivolityabout serious issues involving civil liberties. Ironically Lueger could not be certain of mustering such power (especially after 1907) towards the Jews and other key issues, and the fact that he claimed to be able to do so, a claim reinforced by the misleading reportage in party newspapers about his hegemonic leadership role, offered a dangerous model for attentive novices like the young Hitler. In the proper perspective, however, it must be admitted that the Jews of Vienna did not suffer extensive material or cultural deprivations from Christian Social rule. Many Jewish occupational groups even gained, both financially and politically. Jewish occupational strata which were otherwise hated by Christian Social voters, such as the Jewish commercial clerks, made political gains when they were consigned to the Second Curia in the 1900 municipal voting reform, a reform which was anti-Socialist and anti-Nationalist and not specifically antisemitic.20 Why did Lueger use antisemitism and why was he so effective in doing so? The answers to both questions lie in good measure in Lueger's cultural attitudes and in his view of the social system. Usually Lueger was most sensitive to the Jewish Question when the state schools and Social Democracy

20

theatre. The vast majority of plays performed were traditional German works and newer Austrian pieces, the latter often performed as a service for party loyalty and as a crass form of artistic patronage and not as an expression of literary quality. When the management of the theatre changed hands in 1903 and the new director, Rainer Simons, put an end to the antiJewish discrimination (which had cost the enterprise tens of thousands of gulden in receipts), Lueger refused to intervene, preferring afinanciallystable theatre to one with an anachronistic and absurd "anti-Jewish" rationale. The Währing theatre revealed the fart that the antisemites in the city were not all impoverished artisans: much of the initial financial support for the project came from 2,000 families who purchased shares in the Verein which ran the theatre and from which they expected 4 per cent dividends, just like those who invested in so-called "Jewish" theatres in Vienna. When Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn, the theatre'sfirstdirector, was about to be forced out of his position because of his miserablefinancialrecord, he noted that the original contributors expected their dividends and implicidy suggested that their antisemitism only went as far as their pockets permitted. See his appeal to Lueger in late 1902 for a municipal subsidy for the theatre in Die Fackel, No. 146, pp. 12-21. For the feuds of 1903, in which various factions of the party fought for control of the theatre, see Baumanns Wäbringer Bezirks-Nachrichten, October-November 1903, and the Deutsches Volksblatt for November 1903. See also Arbeiter-Zeitung, 11 November 1903, and Richard Geehr, "The Aryan Theatre of Vienna. The Career of Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn," The Wiener Library Bulletin 28,1975, pp. 25-32. Arbeiter-Zeitung, 30 May 1899, p. 3.

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were the objects on his combat agenda. In his parliamentary speeches Lueger was surprisingly sparing in his use of the antisemitic issue. Usually only an adverse turn in political events or a vital tactical manoeuvre which required an antisemitic "cover" would motivate Lueger to bother with the Jewish issue. Beyond this, he confined his antisemitism to occasional jokes, innuendoes, personal slanders and comic interludes. Joseph Bloch's comment on the essentially theatrical nature of Lueger's public self had some relevance on this point.21 The most sober and devastating attack which Lueger delivered against Austrian Jewry occurred in February 1890, when a bill regulating the legal status of Austrian-Jewish communities was before the Reichsrat.22 Lueger had been provoked by some embarrassing accusations of Joseph Bloch and returned fire by delivering a long castigation of the Jews for ruining Austrian civilisation. The speech was also a timely reaffirmation of his personal acceptability among his fellow antisemites at a time when the forces of Schönerer were making critical comments about the diluted nature of the Christian Socials' non-racial antisemitism. The speech was a parade of the usual antiJewish epithets - laziness, the Talmud, anti-clericalism, business fraud, "Jewish domination", and the like - although it offered no evidence for demonstrating any affinity for racialism on Lueger's part. The Jew seemed to Lueger to be an agent of cultural fragmentation and social disunity in a society which had once, so Lueger felt, been strongly cohesive and socially homogeneous. The Jew, like the seasonal day labourer and the unskilled factory worker, was a "guest" in a tradition-orientated city who had abused the rights which a temporary resident enjoyed. Lueger's chauvinism and his patrimonial sanctimoniousness about the Viennese Bürgertum were apparent here. Just as Jews could never be full cultural members of Viennese Burger society, so too did their involvement in the modernisation of Austrian industry and capital finance cast a web of guilt on their economic bourgeois roles. Lueger's position on the problem of industrial and finance capitalism was always ambiguous. He could not help but defend Austrian industrial interests (even large-scale industry) against their foreign competi-

21

22

Cf. Bloch, op. cit., pp. 229-233. The charge that Jews were mistreated or attacked, especially around election time, deserves a most scrupulous examination, since politics in Vienna were not a game for the sensitive or the weak. An examination of Bloch's Oesterreichische Wochenschrift between 1892 and 1896, the high point of antisemitic agitation in the city, would show no more than a handful of suggestions that Jews had suffered physical abuse. Had such incidents occurred. Bloch would have reported them immediately with greatfanfare.Verbal abuse of Jews, especially poorer Jews, was a common occurrence, however. Stenographische Protokolle, op. cit., X . Session, 1890, pp. 13384-13393; ibid., XI. Session, 1891, p. 1349.

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tors, precisely because they were Austrian and, in his chauvinistic view, somehow "non-international".23 At the same time the Jew helped to make this ambiguous, positive-negative response towards capitalism more congruent and tolerable. It was the Jew, both culturally and economically, and not the capitalist system per se which bred social misery. Lueger's belief in the sacred sense of Biedermeier culture was transparently evident in his attitude towards the Austrian state school system. To the extent that he supported the limited attempt of his party colleagues to separate Jewish and Gentile school children in Viennese schools in 1898 (only in schools where existing classroom enrolments permitted full parallel classes), it was not out of racial motives, but rather a reflection of crass political opportunism as well as a more deeply rooted conviction in the ideological and social superiority of those who "owned" the city, as opposed to those who simply resided in it (such as the thousands of poorer Jews who had recently migrated to the city from the eastern territories of the monarchy.)24 Lueger's prejudices were cultural and class-orientated, but not racial. He was never so personally concerned about the segregation of Jewish and Gentile children in the elite private schools. At that point his general respect for wealth and for patrician, upper bourgeois respectability, whether Gentile or Jewish, came into play. After 1898 the enormous controversy raised by the younger Social Democratic teachers in the school system (the Jungen led by Karl Seitz) far out-shadowed the Jewish issue as such with respect to municipal educational politics. Since one issue which could mobilise the loyalties of Gentile tenured teachers (especially older teachers who had won positions in the Bürgerschule) was a nationalist-orientated antisemitism - witness the kind of propaganda issuing forth in the journal Deutsche Schulzeitung-Jew-hatred became more a subordinate principle for teacher control and a test for teacher political reliability against the Socialists and less a cultural goal unto itself.25 This partial replacement of the Jewish Question with the Red fear as the social referent for Christian Social Gentile bourgeois anxieties was not

23 24

25

Reichspost, 23 November 1900, p. 6. In this connection see the essay by Robert S. Wistrich, "Austrian Social Democracy and the Problem of Galician Jewry 1890-1914," Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 2 6 , 1 9 8 1 . Rar the 1898 school edict, see the Amtsblatt der Stadt Wien, 1898, pp. 2476-2486. The Christian Socials insisted the edict reflected sound pedagogical requirements, but its obvious core rationale was a crass political one. See also Deutsche Zeitung, 13 September 1898, p. 7 and 22 September 1898, p. 6; for Lueger's and Gessmann's views, see ibid., 28 November 1892, p. 2 and 9 December 1898, p. 2. For a Socialist critique, see Freie Lehrerstimme, 2 October 1898, pp. 345-346. Cf. the Deutsche Schulzeitung. Organ des Vereines der Lehrer und Schulfreunde Wiens, 1899— 1903, esp. 4 June 1899, pp. 72-73.

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uniquely associated with the public school controversy. The attack on the Socialists was able to maintain antisemitism as an important primary motif because of the presence of Jews in the Social Democratic leadership cadres, and thus satisfied the "demand" for a certain level of antisemitic stimuli. The addition of the Red to the Jew as a principal object of social anxiety was, however, of considerable importance throughout bourgeois social strata in Vienna after 1900. The Jew originally functioned for many anti-Liberal "social reformers" as a mechanism for reducing or eliminating the paradoxical situation of desiring at the same time to attack and to defend property rights. The new focus on the Red Terror did not end the functionality of this kind of antisemitism; it simply helped to diversify the operational modes in which Jew-hatred was utilised. The older use of the Jew as a resolution to the conscience problems of quasi-social reformers was supplemented by the use of the Jew as a tool to defuse (or pervert) the moral earnestness and the social impact of the Socialists. Ultimately, the two antisemitic functions dove-tailed rather conveniently - the one functioned as a positive reaffirmation of the integrity, the inner congruence, and the sincerity of the anti-Liberal bourgeois self (whether individual or collective); the other as a negative vehicle denied a similar level of integrity, effectiveness and honesty to one's major opponents. With regard to the Austrian university system, Lueger and his colleagues shared a deep-seated distrust of intellectual pretentiousness, a pattern of reaction often evident among the lower level of the Austrian Mittelstand. Since many Jews had made successful university careers and since they represented a spirit of aesthetic secularism which was incompatible with Lueger's cultural traditionalism (not his religious piety, which was minimal), they were prime targets for his resentment. However, another factor which was at play, one which has been accorded insufficient attention, was the motive of ambivalence, explaining perhaps how Lueger and other Christian Social politicians could both desire to associate with the upper bourgeois intellectual elite and at the same time resent their attainments. The boundary between putative antiintellectualism and envy was admittedly difficult to draw, yet it did exist. The culture of the Christian Social Party did not simply represent a total, collective resentment against the educated classes or what some historians of the NSDAP have called the fight against Bildung. It is true that the Christian Socials had sub-elite leaders among them, like Hermann Bielohlawek and Ernst Schneider, who were never hesitant in their contempt for "Jewish" professors and "Jewish" learning, yet several other features of the party tended to counterbalance this strain of potential anti-intellectualism. Many of the Party's leaders were lawyers or had at least had some university or Gymna-

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sium training. Among the radical clerics, there was a hostility against secular education, but a strong, residual respect for higher education in general. To be a Hausherr in Vienna in 1895 was to impute to oneself a capacity for Bildung, even if this assumption hinged on defining the concept in a most vague and informal way.26 Class boundaries and intra-strata boundaries in Vienna had long recognised the alliance of interests between the Besitz- and Bildungsbürgertum. The radical Hausherren for 1895 simply went one step further and equated the two. Theodor Wähner, whose Deutsche Zeitung probably represented Lueger's political thought in the period after 1897 more accurately than any other single journalistic source, exploited these pretentions of possessing a cultural and socially merited Bildung when he advertised his paper as one having Anstand und Vernunft in its antisemitism.27 And although Ernst Schneider was hopelessly beyond the pale of social achievement and respectability, self-made types like Leopold Steiner and Hermann Bielohlawek ultimately achieved administrative experience and party recognition which elevated them to more respectable social positions. After 1896, when the fortunes of the party became so heavily involved with the administrative tasks of running the municipal and Land bureaucracies, a positive respect for the desirability of higher education became more prominent. Albert Gessman used the membership of the Catholic student groups at the Austrian universities as sources for patronage recruitment. Nor was there a total, consummate hatred of the ideal of Bildung among many of the wealthier artisans. Many of these men hoped to be able to arrange for advanced education for their sons which would lead to stable government jobs - if not university, then at least a teacher training seminar, a Mittelschule of some sort or a Handelsschule. They did resent, moreover, what they felt to be a patronising attitude towards them on the part of the academic bourgeoisie. Most of the leaders of the Christian Socials who had had gymnasial and university training were first generation success stories. They were often the first in their families to attend institutions of higher education and were extremely conscious of their mobility achievements.28 (Lest one be tempted to suggest a hard andrigidcontrast between the

26

27 28

See the assertion in the Hausherren-Zeitung, 15 March 1894, p. 3 that the typical Hausbesitzer was "more intelligent" and more interested in "culture" than most Viennese. See the subscription invitations printed in the daily editions of the Deutsche Zeitung, 1896. Lueger's father was a Saaldiener in the Wiener Polytechnikum. His paternal grandfather was a Lower Austrian peasant and sometime labourer in granite quarries. Schindler and Scheicher came from peasant families, Weiskirchner's father was a school teacher, Gessmann's lather was a mid-level military Beamter. Only Robert Pattai came from an academically educated family hisfatherwas a lawyer in Graz who had been elected to the Frankfurt Assembly in 1848 from Styria.

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Liberals and Christian Socials on this point, however, it might be noted that many prominent Liberals who fought Lueger were also first generation university types from modest family backgrounds, such as Raimund Grübl, Ferdinand Kronawetter and Julius Ofner. Griibl's case illustrated the power of personal patronage as an alternate means to professional success in Vienna he was as poor as Lueger but became Heinrich Jacques' law assistant and used Jacques's patronage to launch a successful political career. Social mobility might be achieved in Vienna by various routes and Austrian politics after 1867 were open to men of talent and energy.) The question which the Christian Socials held most significant was not the acceptability of Bildung, but an increased equality of opportunity to attain it or to see one's progeny attain it. Here hatred of the Jews was quite useful and functional, since the prominence ofJewish students in all faculties of university and professional study seemed to lessen the opportunities available to the hypothetical Gentile majority. The hatred of the Jewish professor may not have been, thus, a simple-minded rejection of Bildung, but a crude desire for a share in what seemed to be scarce quantity of resources.29 Ironically, antisemitic voters in the Christian Social Party shared a good deal more with the typical petit-bourgeois Jewish family in Vienna, or Budapest than they cared to admit. Both found themselves confronted with cultural ideals and norms modelled upon the psychological needs and economic situation of a higher bourgeoisie, and both strove, with varying commitments of energy andfinancialresources, to win a share of the material recourses of that bourgeois culture.

29

Upon the responses of both petit-bourgeois Jews and Gentiles to this question of social resources and their relative scarcity hinged a great deal. To follow the Socialists and call for an expansion and equalisation of resources may have been easier for Jews than for Gentiles, but both groups recognised that an expansion of educational resources was potentially dangerous for preservation of that bourgeois society to which they aspired. What the antisemites preferred, therefore, was to deprive the Jews of anything but a small share of these resources, while maintaining a strong barrier against penetration of such resources by the lower classes. The fascinating relationship of loathing and grudging admiration which bourgeois Jews manifested toward the Christian Socials reflected the anxiety which many Jews felt about socialist schemes of egalitarianism in education and other social sectors. Many Jewish families had spent two or three generations of hard struggle and great effort to win final evidence of bourgeois status for their family in the person of a son as a doctor or a lawyer in the face of a closed system of social resources. Would they be interested in a radical expansion in or equalisation of institutional opportunities? Perhaps economic and social parity with Gentiles had cost too much to be declared irrelevant. The reaction of older, more established social strata in Vienna in the 1870s and again during the First World War to a mass immigration of Eastern Jews might bear this out. The Jewish community in Vienna was neither culturally monolithic nor socially homogeneous.

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Lueger must have resented the mocking attitudes of both Liberals and Socialists towards the simplicity and logical disorder of his "programme". Politically, Lueger was convinced that, given the interest group nature of his party, no other propaganda approach was viable.30 But behind the faijade of wit and arrogance and success, the academic assumption that the Christian Socials were not only tactically inept, but also intellectually incapable of serious thought must have proved grating at times to his pride.31 The most challenging motive to employ antisemitism was, as Lueger himself admitted, the issue of economic competition.32 Lueger was well aware of the harsh, competitive realities of Viennese economic life and behind all of the rhetoric about dishonest Jewish shopkeepers and artisans lay a realistic assessment that many commercial occupations in Vienna were significandy overcrowded. Except where the Socialists were concerned, Lueger was not ordinarily a malicious person, and he enjoyed the opportunity to display a paternalistic devotion to the "poorer" classes. Doubtless, he did not originally intend to deprive Jewish families resident in Vienna of their economic livelihood, but if the exigencies of political success called for slander, Lueger was perfectly willing to sacrifice the few for the many.33 More than this, he loved the sense of struggle and combat which such a rhetorical aggressiveness inevitably produced. As he proudly put it: "I am an agitator and I will always remain one." 34 Lueger's great dilemma and his most glaring failure was his inability to deal with the challenges raised by Social Democracy and the Catholic labour

30

31

32

33

34

Lueger did not make use of long, theoretical staff memoranda in running the municipal government, even though the Christian Social regime was even more highly bureaucratised than that of the Liberals. Lueger did have great respect, however, for a professionalised, rationalised bureaucracy. Lueger's admiration for Karl von Vogelsang and Franz Martin Schindler, the two principal Catholic spokesmen for theoretical matters in the coalition during his life-time, can be explained in part because he respected their theoretical efforts, although he realised that a rigid, theoretical base would have been totally inappropriate for his own style of politics. Nothing served to send the Christian Socials intofitsof anger so much as snide comments in the Liberal press about their intellectual "stupidity". Stenographische Protokolle, op. dt., XI. Session, 1895, p. 939; ibid., X. Session, 1890, pp.13388-13389. Lueger tried to justify economic antisemitism by arguing that it was directed only against the wealthy, capitalist Jew and not against the poorer elements of the population. This was often not the case, however. Cf. Stenographische Protokolle, op. cit., X . Session, 1890, pp. 1338513391. The antisemitic Kauft nur bei Christen campaign hurt the smaller Jewish merchant or artisan more severely than his wealthier co-religionists. Cf. Reichspost, 5 April 1903, p. 3.

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movement. It was not surprising, therefore, that in situations where Jews and Socialists came up for discussion simultaneously, Lueger could sound draconian in his hostility and threats of revenge. During the first party congress of Leopold Kunschak's Christian Social Labour Party in Vienna in January 1896, a quarrel broke out over how much antisemitism was to be included in the young party's programme. Sensing that some of the bourgeois members of the Christian Social mother party hoped to use antisemitism to preoccupy the labour organisation's energies and to divert it from urging social reforms, Kunschak refused to insert a long antisemitic article in the programme.35 Lueger, who happened to be present at the meeting, strongly disliked the idea of a written programme to begin with and was even more suspicious of the potential disloyalty of the new labourite subculture within the Christian Social movement.36 Nonetheless, Lueger sided with Kunschak, but he did so from different motives. Lueger did not want the major wing of the Party embarrassed or restricted in its programmatic flexibility by a rigid statement on antisemitism from anyone in the Party, much less from Kunschak's upstart organisation. He had worked hard and long to keep "programmes" away from the Christian Socials. He suggested, therefore, that the Christian Social Workers' Party defer any action on the antisemitic issue and simply adopt the general position of the mother party, i. e., to use or not to use antisemitism as the tactical situations required. Lueger's principal concern was to ensure that the Catholic workers understood that their demands would have to meet with the approval of the majority, bourgeois interests of the Party at all times. To reiterate his point, Lueger reminded the labour organisers that they must never antagonise the master artisans and tradesmen led by men like Schneider. Lueger did not stop at that point, however. The circumstances in which he found himself begged an insult to the Social Democrats. He commented that, personally speaking, he believed that the Austrian Jews should be deprived of their voting rights. The statement was a palpable lie, but it served several purposes. Lueger intended to protect his flanks with regard to the racial antisemitic elements of the Party, who might use the Kunschak incident as evidence that Lueger was "going soft" on the antisemitic issue. He was also expressing his anger over the drawn-out pace of his confirmation as mayor of Vienna and the support accorded to Viennese Liberalism by Jewish commu35

36

Cf. Central-Organ der christlich-socialen Arbeiterpartei Oesterreichs, 15 January 1896, pp. 1-3. For the complete programme, ibid., 11 February 1896, p. 1. Cf. the police report on the Kunschak group, 16January 1896, Jl, No. 261/1896, Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv, Vienna.

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nal organisations. But, much more, Lueger was articulating his own frustration in dealing with any formally constituted labour movement. His threat against the Jews was to be taken primarily as an index to his hostility and fear of bourgeois Jewish support which might be provided to the Social Democrats in the forthcoming Reichsrat elections. The whole experience was not the kind of public event which Lueger enjoyed. He realised that an uncompromising statement against the Jews could do the Party and the city no good, but he could not resist the barbed threat to the Jewish community in Vienna to the effect that it should refrain from any support of the radical Social Democrats. Lueger could not have meant that he would deprive the Jewish proletariat of the local franchise, since they had no voting rights to begin with and since Lueger had no intention of giving any proletarian - whether Gentile or Jewish - an equal voice in municipal or regional elections. Rather, he addressed his aggressive remarks to the doorstep of the bourgeois Israelitische Cultusgemeinde and of the Oesterreichisch-Israelitische Union?7 Like most Viennese Christian Socials, moreover, Lueger never resolved for himself the fundamental inconsistency between a "knowledge" or a "cognition" of himself as a social reformer (which he seriously and genuinely believed) and at the same time his cognitive posture as a staunch defender of private enterprise and traditional private property. Political antisemitism, in one of its functions, could help anti-Liberals assume that the dilemma of property/non-property was not the basic issue after all. Rather, real property as opposed to "Jewish" property was the challenge. Social reform thus consisted in limiting a categorically defined "Jewish" property, not property as such. After 1900, however, with the increasing prominence of the fear of Social Democracy, some of the older members of the Christian Social Party elite became more comfortable in their public roles as bourgeois defenders of property and had less need to use the Jew in this manner (they never abandoned it entirely). The use of the Jew to stigmatise Social Democracy was, on the other hand, increasingly vital for everyone in the Party. Both functions of antisemitism were prominent after 1907, since many local Party leaders, especially those who considered themselves anti-capitalist racialists, like Vergani, Scheicher and Schneider, clung with tenacity to the vision of the

37

Lueger uttered another, similar threat when he warned the Jews that they should be careful in their politics lest they find their property confiscated. Cf. Stenographische Protokolle, po. at., XI. Session, 18 November 1895, p. 21575. Again the date is extremely important here in trying to get at his real intent and motives. After being denied confirmation as Mayor by the Emperor less than two weeks previously Lueger for once had lost his usual self-control. The remark reflected his wounded pride and political dismay, not a pogrom mentality.

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Jew as the polluter of honest private property systems (however ludicrous or misleading). Hitler's later, almost hysterical identification of Bolshevism and European Jewry was simply a restatement of the old Christian Social tandem, intensified by Hitler's cognitive confusion over his own social personality and exacerbated by the experience of violence and brutality during the war. If Lueger did help to modify and to moderate Austrian antisemitism, as some authors have asserted (and which is only partially correct, since increasing economic prosperity in the city after 1896 contributed as much to the weakening of economic antisemitism resulting from business competition as Lueger did), was the Christian Social experiment in politicised Jew-hatred, in a machiavellian sense, ultimately a "good" art? Or are we to subsume Lueger and Gessmann and the other Christian Social leaders into some vague prefascist category? The first conclusion is far too generous, while the second, as it stands, is potentially misleading. A key to this problem - to the extent that the question can be answered satisfactorily at all - lies in the dualistic structure of radical political phenomena in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe. In light of the enormous fund of protests that European Liberalism was "dead" or that it had somehow "failed", men were forced to experiment with new modes of political behaviour and new ideological conceptions to fill the civic cultural void. That Liberalism was by no means as dead or obsolescent as its critics often maintained was clearly apparent in their willingness, once in power, to adopt orthodox administrative and fiscal policies and modes of class behaviour which were deeply indebted to earlier Liberal models. The Christian Social Party was heavily indebted to Austrian Liberalism for much of its Bürger self-concept. When faced with the threat of Austrian Social Democracy, this dependence was most apparent. However, there was also a good deal of novelty in the anti-Liberals' machinations. The Christian Socials faced the contradictions in their selfimage on social reform matters in a far more discomforting and less consonant manner than the typical Liberal of Ernst Plener's or Eduard Suess's ilk. This was to be both their glory and their undoing. Antisemitism was, together with a vague pseudo-clericalism, a new mode of behaviour and one of the few new cultural concepts (new in its revitalisation and adaptation, not creation) which served the Christian Socials well for over twenty-five years. However, political and cultural antisemitism, in the way in which men like Lueger, Gessmann and Weiskirchner employed it, carried with it four unwritten assumptions: 1. that Austrian economic life, althoug occasionally subject to unfavourable, cyclical patterns, was not caught up in a hopeless evolutionary pattern, and that a certain confidence in the

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long term improvement of the economy was justified, provided the state would engage in a programme of creative supervision and control (not necessarily ownership) 2. that all of the political systems and autonomous sub-systems of public life were subsumed in and ultimately controlled by a basic culture of law 3. that the Dynasty would constitute an inviolable principle of mediation and conciliation (or at least functional co-existence) which defined the possible and even conceivable parameters of political change 4. that mass violence resulting from political or economic stimuli, although always possible, was both unlikely and unnecessary (an exception being the occasionalist hysteria of the bourgeois parties when pressed too hard by the Social Democrats)

Even the Social Democrats of Victor Adler's generation operated under these assumptions, although they and their opponents were loath to admit the fact. The change in the Party after 1918 was not simply attributable to the choleric personality of Otto Bauer. Bauer is only intelligible in relation to the loss of these structural ordering principles. Within the culture dominated by these unwritten assumptions, antisemitic rhetoric could move and function, bourgeois leaders could express verbally outrageous threats against the Red Terror, and, given a minimum level of economic prosperity and social stability, new generations of societal leaders could be socialised to behave in patterns appropriate to the unwritten principles of order, not in patterns which would take the rhetoric of violence and terror literally. Public political language may have occasionally exceeded social reality, but was never intended to destroy that reality - an appropriately Austrian combination of theatrically expressive politics and an equally traditionalist, if more unstable commitment to private elite negotiations.38

38

Recent literature on Austrian political culture in the Second Republic has discussed the problem of Proporz and consociationalism as an Austrian form of elite cartel management of a deeply polarised political system. See, for Austria, Kurt Steiner, Politics in Austria, Boston 1972, and in general Arend Lijphart, "Typologies of Democratic Systems," Comparative Political Studies 1,1968, pp. 3-32. There may have been some early precedents for consociational decision-making in a polarised system under the late Imperial period (the work of the various advisory councils on legislation such as the Arbeitsbeirat, etc.). One might view the period 1920-1945, in all its complex sub-divisions, as a necessary transition in which the preconditions for a new principle of political legitimacy were established (from a more exogenous form of legitimacy in which the Verwaltung and its external judicial guarantees supervised a fragmented political system which rested on a blend of inherited social privilege and class-based political privilege to a more endogenous legitimacy based on political egalitarianism and on a social structure more clearly marked by urbanisation and modern class values), which permitted a revival and expansion of consociational traditions, this time under the supervisory aegis of the political parties themselves rather than the Verwaltung. This does not suggest that the specific form of this transition and its peculiar timing was itself inevitable, although it does imply that some kind of slow acculturation to a system-sustaining legitimacy by the parties was inevitable.

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What the Christian Socials could not know, however, was that the broad political culture with which the coming generations in the Austrian First Republic would have to deal would bear little or no resemblance to the world as they understood it or even imagined it. Yet the behavioural patterns were still transmitted, some erroneously as in Hitler's mistaken perception of Lueger as a dictatorial, charismatic Führer-type; some accurately as in the experience of Hitler's imitative modelling of the response of petit-bourgeois politicians to the threat of Socialism and to the ambiguity of their own social reform consciences. Hider and numerous other young hot-heads learned how to respond, but the wider context in which those responses were somehow tolerable and congruent with social pluralism and civil liberties (if only through the external guarantee of the Imperial Verwaltung) was to prove dangerously elusive and easily lost. It might be argued, therefore, that the greatest mistake which Lueger and his colleagues committed in using antisemitism was never registered in Habsburg Austria. The cultural and the political socialisation of young people, whether small children attending meetings of the quasi-anrisemitic Christian Family Association or itinerant post-card painters standing on street corners and reading the Deutsches Volksblatt, provided models of behaviour for social learning processes.39 The behaviour of men like Lueger and Vergani was observed and imitated, either vicariously or in actuality, although the resulting learned patterns of responses might often remain inactive in a latent state for years. After 1918, however, such behaviour lost its congruence and its selfimposed social controls with a society and a set of normative assumptions that no longer existed.40 Finally, it should be noted that one of Lueger's greatest political accomplishments, the expansion of Vienna's power in the Imperial political system, 39

40

See especially the work of Albert Bandura and R. H. Walters, Social Learning and Personality Development, New York 1963 and Bandura, Aggression. A Social Learning Approach, New York 1973. For the attendance of young children and adolescents at antisemitic rallies, see Arbeiter-Zeitung, 22 January 1899, p. 4. Recent work on the history of political antisemitism in late nineteenth-century Germany has also suggested the need for a clearer differentiation between pre-1914 and post-1918 antisemitism. See, for example, the important studies by Werner Jochmann, "Struktur und Funktion des deutschen Antisemitismus", in Juden im Wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890-1914. Ein Sammelband herausgegeben von Werner E. Mosse unter Mitwirkung von Arnold Paucker, Tübingen 1976 (Schriftenreihe wissenschaftlicher Abhandlungen des Leo Baeck Instituts 33), pp. 389-477, esp. pp. 436-477; and Richard S. Levy, The Downfall ofthe Political Anti-Semitic Parties in Imperial Germany, New Haven 1975. See also the recent biography of Houston Stewart Chamberlain by Geoffrey G. Field, Evangelist of Race. The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, New York 1981.

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ultimately rebounded against Jewish interests in the First Republic after 1919. Beyond the fact that he crippled political Liberalism in Vienna, Lueger also gave to the city a more imposing and ominous role in Imperial politics, one which the older Liberals with their more passive notions of urban autonomy had always scrupulously avoided. Unlike the Liberal mayors after 1861, Lueger insisted on retaining his Reichsrat seat and on leading his party's delegation in the parliament. The Christian Social municipal-socialist programme was also intended to emphasise the city's financial independence from more traditional, state-controlled or supervised sources of tax revenue. When the Social Democrats won control of Vienna in 1919, after the revolution which destroyed the older bourgeois-dominated Curial franchise system, they continued and enlarged this sense of the city as an autonomous agent of political change in the national political system. In doing so, they were assisted by inherent tendencies within the post-revolutionary culture the allocation to Vienna of an independent Land status and its administrative separation from Lower Austria - but such constitutional changes simply complemented and intensified an older power trend which the Christian Socials themselves had set in motion (even before 1914 some urban leaders of the Christian Socials wanted greater administrative and financial autonomy from the agrarian hinterland, a fact which caused serious disruptions within the party by the time of Lueger's death). But unlike the Christian Socials, the Social Democrats saw the city as a powerful agent for social and moral egalitarianism, one which would stand at the threshold of a new epoch of political anti-clericalism. It was hardly surprising that both Karl Seitz, the mayor of Vienna from 1923 until 1934, and Otto Glöckel, the controversial schools' chief of the Socialist administration in the city, had won their political spurs in the anti-clerical/socialist Unterlehrer movement against both the Liberals and the Christian Socials in 1892-1899, a movement which helped to build older Left-Liberal anti-clerical values into the Socialists' cadre leadership. Given the sponsorship which many Jewish voters in Vienna during the First Republic provided for the new Socialist regime, a level of support which Walter Simon has documented in detail,41 it was hardly surprising that the conquest of "Red" Vienna in 1933-1934, a long-standing demand of the Austrian Heimwehr movement and other proto-fascist elements on the Austrian Right, should have also implied a conquest of "Red-Jewish" Vienna as

41

Walter B. Simon, "The Jewish Vote in Austria", Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 16, 1971, pp. 97-121, esp. 117 ff.

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well.42 That is, the level of municipal autonomy and public policy aggressiveness which Lueger himself instituted in Vienna's affairs, when taken over and expanded drastically by the Social Democrats in a much smaller and far more polarised political system, inevitably exposed the Jewish community in the city to the accusation of a moral and electoral "alliance" with the AustroMarxists, not simply because Jewish voters were involved, or because they happened to live in a large urban area, but because by 1930 "Vienna" as a symbolic cultural entity, representing large-scale social transformation, had come to function as a convenient hate-object for all who found the city's progressive educational and housing reforms an object of class anathema and moral disgrace. In this sense the Jews in Republican Vienna simply escaped one epoch of isolation and entered into another, far more dangerous one, for although the municipal government of the city after 1919 was more sympathetic and open to their religious and ethical interests, the city now found itself politically besieged by the rest of the Republic.43

42

43

For a recent discussion of the Austrian Heimwehr, cf. C. Earl Edmonson, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politicsl918-1936, Athens, Georgia 1978, who shows that anti-Marxism rather than antisemitism was the principal thematic motif in the Austrian movement. Indeed, one might argue - to explain the absence of a formal, independent antisemitic principle within Austrofascism - that precisely because the Jewish issue was so effectively submerged in the issue of "Red Vienna" by 1930 that there was no need, either tactically or psychologically, to attempt to develop Jew-hatred as an independent principle of political motivation and organisation. Norbert Leser has discussed both with insight and with passion the conversion of Red Vienna from a threshold for total social transformation into an isolated, defensive-minded bastion against the rest of the Republic. See his Zwischen Reformismus und Bolschewismus. Der Austwrrutrxismus als Theorie und Praxis, Vienna 1968, pp. 373 ff. Clearly not all Jews felt entirely comfortable with the various Socialist municipal reform schemes, which often seemed to be of little value to the local community. See, for example, Leo Goldhammer's comments about Socialist housing reform in his Die Juden "Wiens, Vienna, Leipzig 1927, pp. 60-61.

G E O R G E Ε . BERKLEY

Vienna and Its Jews: The Solitary Scapegoat in Post-War Vienna"" The political instability and economic impoverishment that accompanied the birth pangs of the new Republic furnished, in themselves, ideal conditions for an upsurge of anti-Semitism. But more specific elements also helped unleash a new outburst of hate. When the Austro-Germans ruled and largely ran a vast empire, they could look down upon a host of other nationalities. They could also blame them for many of their own grievances. Now they had no one to feel superior to, and no one to attribute their misfortunes to, except the Jews. The Jews had always been the primary internal target for Austro-German wrath; now they became the only target. As might be expected, the country's economic problems ranked foremost in the Austro-Germans' long list of accusations against their Jewish countrymen. Postwar inflation wiped out the savings of the middle class while it enriched, at least temporarily, many speculators. The two most spectacular speculators were Camillo Castiglioni and Sigmund Bösel. Both men were Jews. Castiglioni, in fact, was the wayward son of the chief rabbi of Trieste. Both speculators eventually went bankrupt, and their bankruptcies showed that numerous highly-placed and highly-respected Gentiles had actively assisted, and hoped to profit from, their wild schemes. Bosel's financial manipulations had even involved two prominent members of Seipel's cabinet, while Castiglioni had had dealing with a host of Christian Social leaders including a provincial governor. Jewish Social Democrats in Parliament had led thefightin exposing and excoriating their machinations, yet the finger of accusation remained pointed at the Jews and the oft-heard slogan of the 1890s, "The Jew is guilty," took on new life. * From: George E. Berkley, Vienna and ItsJews. The Tragedy of Success, 1880s-J980s, Abt Books/ Madison Books, Cambridge, Mass. 1988, pp. 149-161,168-169. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

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Many blamed the inflation itself on the Jews, whom they considered its biggest beneficiaries. Such a belief ignored several basic economic facts. Inflation hurt savers, and Austria's largely middle-class Jews were, if anything, greater savers than Austria's Gentiles. Inflation also hurts lenders who see their loans repaid in money that has lost much of its value. The inflation was one reason why ten of Vienna's twelve major banks went bankrupt during the early 1920s, and these banks were largely Jewish-owned. The biggest beneficiaries of inflation are borrowers who can pay back their loans in less valuable money. In Austria such borrowers did include some Jewish speculators but many more were non-Jewish, among them the country's farmers whose mortgages and other debts were, in real terms, largely wiped out by the erosion of money values. Yet many Gentiles, including many farmers, claimed the Jews had produced and were profiting from the collapse in the country's currency. Then there were the Ostjuden refugees who constituted both an economic and a social problem. As noted earlier, many of them sought to return to their homes with the winding down of the war. But many of those who did, ended up returning to Vienna, because after the Armistice Galicia once again became a no-man's land and war ragedfirstbetween the Poles and the Ukranians, and then between the Poles and the Russians. Furthermore, the Poles did not allow embroilments with their neighbors to keep them from indulging in savage pogroms that during the first few months of "peace" killed overfivehundred Jews. As a result, unemployed and unsettled Jewish refugees continued to congregate in the cafes and on the streets of the Leopoldstadt provoking angry reactions from Austro-Germans, and from more than a few Viennese Jews as well. In August 1920 the peace treaty signed in Paris a year earlier came in effect. Its terms gave all Jews and other nationals of the former empire not residing in the Republic the option of choosing Austrian citizenship. Most of the Ostjuden did so. Consequendy, Vienna's Jewish population reached a high point of over 200,000 in the 1923 census (about ten percent of the population). Although thisfigurewas only 25,000 more than the prewarfigureit did make Vienna more Jewish than it had been. Another 20,000Jews lived in the rest of the country, giving Austria and overall Jewish population of about three percent. This was slighdy larger than the prewar figure for the same area. Many of the new Jews in the countryside lived in the Burgenland, a section of prewar western Hungary which had been given to Austria in the peace treaty. That over ninety percent of the country's Jews now lived in Vienna created additional problems, and the problems were compounded by the fact that the Social Democrats now ran the city.

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Even before the war many rural Austro-Germans had viewed Vienna with a measure of distaste. The city's decadent sophistication, combined with its polyglot population, made it seem alien and even suspicious. In the new, postwar Austria, these feelings took on added dimensions. Vienna was now the bloated Wasserkopf (water head) that the rest of the country had to support. Even its geographical position argued against it, for in the new Austria it was no longer centrally located but situated at the far eastern end of the country. Austrians living along the western border were as close to Paris as they were to their own capital city. In taking over Vienna the Social Democrats launched a series of public projects that would attract worldwide attention and admiration. They built well-designed housing complexes, kindergartens, funeral societies, sports centers, and other facilities. They even gave a Wascbpaket, or laundry package of diapers and other infant necessities, to the parents of every new baby born in the city. Helped by the new federal constitution, whose decentralizing features they had originally opposed, the Social Democrats virtually transformed Vienna into a state within a state. [...] The Social Democrats installed a Gentile, Karl Seitz, as mayor, but some key administrative posts were occupied by Jews. Chief among them was Hugo Breitner, a former bank executive who now became the city's finance director. Since it was Breitner who levied the onerous taxes necessary to carry out the Party's expensive programs, he soon became the focal point of middleand upper-class rage. Even many of the middle- and upper-class Jews who increasingly voted for the Social Democrats - what other party could they vote for? - railed against Breitner and his financial policies. Christian Social election posters branded him as a "tax sadist." Thus it was Breitner the Jew, not Seitz the Gentile, who became the chief target of widespread wrath. Aside from theirfinancing,the programs and projects themselves generated controversy and complaints. A fortunate family allowed to rent a sparkling new apartment for ten dollars a month, and to send their children to nursery school for thirty cents a week, was expected to be loyal to the Social Democrats. If they knew or were related to a member of the admissions committee for the housing project involved, so much the better. Similar informal patronage guidelines governed the dispensing of the much-sought-after jobs in municipal agencies and enterprises. The use of public funds to reward the party faithful, and sometimes personal favorites among them, tarnished the luster of the Social Democrats' ambitious social welfare programs. More importantly many of the city's projects offended the Catholic clergy. In building a municipal crematorium and in naming their biggest housing project (three-quarters of a mile long, it was the world's largest) after Karl

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Marx, the Social Democrats seemed to be going out of their way to confront and affront the Church. This at least was the Church's view, which increasingly regarded the Social Democrats as, basically, Bolsheviks intent on undermining organized religion and its values. The Austrian Social Democrats were not Bolsheviks but their Jewish leaders especially did display an affinity for doctrinaire Marxism. This tendency was reinforced by their desire to squelch the country's budding communist movement by undercutting its position. In this they succeeded, for their left-wing orientation did prevent the communists from gaining the position in Austria that they acquired in Germany. But the Social Democrats paid a price in distancing themselves too far and too rigidly from the center and, since the Jews had become increasingly identified with the Party, they paid the price as well. Thus, while municipal officials from all over Europe trooped to Vienna to marvel at the city's remarkable achievements, a large majority of Austrians, including a substantial number of Viennese, seethed with resentment and rage. Already too large for, and too isolated from, the rest of the country, Vienna had now become identified with the Jews and with all their alleged materialistic, parasitical, unethical, in short "decomposing" qualities. Even Social Democrats in the provinces spoke sarcastically of "the Jews in the Vienna headquarters," while many other Austrians looked on "Red Vienna" as an infected scab that needed to be lanced. Shortly before the first postwar municipal elections of 1919, a then-famous anthropologist named P. Wilhelm Schmied warned his fellow Austrians that had the Turks captured Vienna in 1683, it would not have been so destructive and painful as the loss of Vienna today to "these Jewish hostile forces." Shortly after the elections that gave the Social Democrats control of the city, the Tyrol Farmers League held a rally in Innsbruck to urge "Freedom from Vienna." The chief speaker, a prominent Christian Social attorney, summoned them to fight against "the Asiatic overlords of Vienna" for "only a fundamental break with the spirit of Jewry and its disciples can save the German Alpinelands." His remarks were greeted with thunderous applause. Not only domestic developments were undermining the position of the Jews in postwar Austria. International concerns were also playing a role. The end of the war brought communist governments to Hungary and the state of Bavaria. Both governments were soon overthrown but the fact that Jews figured so prominently in their makeup, plus the fact that both states bordered Austria, drove home to many Austrians the Bolshevik peril which the Jews seemed to present. That so many Jews also seemed to be playing so

Vienna and Its Jews

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great a role in the Bolshevik government of Russia further strengthened this fear. But it was not just the notion ofJews as communists that acquired increased pervasiveness during these turbulent times. Inl920 a German edition of The Protocols of the Elders of 2ion appeared. This trumped-up document, which supposedly proved a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, did not arouse as much attention in Austria as in Germany, for many Austrians had long already believed in the existence of such a plot. But its remarkable acceptance elsewhere - the Times of London wondered if it was not true - certainly did nothing to diminish its appeal to Austrians. [ . . . ] In June 1918, with Austria's war effort already starting to disintegrate, the Pan-Germans and Christian Socials joined to stage a German Peoples Day. Speakers included such Christian Social leaders as Richard Weiskirschner, Lueger's successor as mayor of Vienna; Leopold Kunschak who headed the Christian Workers League; and Heinrich Mataja who would become foreign minister in Seipel's cabinet. The event turned into a virtual competition in antiSemitism as the speakers vied with each other in accusing Jewish Austrians of disloyalty to the Emperor, of profiteering from the war, and of causing virtually all of Austria's many and troublesome problems. A week later the board of the Gemeinde replied by branding such charges misleading and false, and accusing the anti-Semites of trying to make loyalty to the Emperor synonymous with hate of the Jews. But in rather contradictory fashion, the integrationist-dominated board said, "The Jewish community considers it beneath its dignity to mount a defense against such deliberately false accusations." In August the rector of the University of Vienna announced a quota system on medical students from Galicia and Bukovina, though both regions were still part of Austria. Since virtually all medical students from the two areas were Jewish, the intended effect was obvious. In the meantime, the Christian Social and Pan-German press kept up their drumfire against the Jews, publicizing, for example, the names of all Jewish businessmen arrested for illegal activity, while downplaying and even omitting the names of Christians apprehended for similar misdeeds. At the war's end the influential Reichspost, the official organ of the Christian Socials, began telling the peasants that the government was seizing grain and livestock to feed hundreds of thousands of idle Jews in Vienna, and that Jewish profiteers and Jewish Socialists bore responsibility for retaining war regulations regarding food. In itsfirstpostwar election manifesto, issued on Christmas Eve in 1918, the Christian Social party stated that, "The corruption and lust for power which Jewish circles are manifesting in the new state compels the Christian Social

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party to call on the Austrian people to defend themselves as strenuously as possible against the Jewish peril. Recognized as a separate nation, the Jews shall be granted self-determination. But they shall never be masters of the German people." Harsh as such a statement may seem, it appears almost mild alongside some of the individual pronouncements by the Party's leading dignitaries. A week earlier Kunschak had told a party conference that when it came to the Jews "nothing is being talked about more in recent years than the decisive hour in which the reckoning will begin. The Jews know that when the people are ready for this reckoning, it will be a judgement that will make them shudder." Richard Kralik, one of the Party's foremost writers, submitted a proposed text for the new Republic's national anthem. For the old anthem's words, "God protect and God preserve our emperor from harm," Kralik substituted the following: "God protect, God preserve our land from the Jews." Violent words from on high were being matched by actual violence below. Groups of anti-Semites began staging sporadic riots on the streets of Vienna, giving the city's Jewish residents a taste of Russian- and Polish-style pogroms. The rioters seized and beat everyone who looked Jewish, sometimes stopping and searching trolleys in their hunt for suitable victims. Inevitably, mistakes occurred. In one instance they grabbed and beat an elderly Catholic priest whose long white beard not only gave him a rabbinical look but concealed his clerical collar. But on the same trolley a Jewish couple who did not look particularly Jewish escaped unscathed. The riots usually erupted on the Franz Joseph Kai which lies in the inner city just across the Danube Canal from the Leopoldstadt. A group of some 150 Leopoldstadt war veterans hastily organized themselves into a Jewish defense force and were sworn in as auxiliary policemen. With the help of the regular police they succeeded first in containing and then in snuffing out the attacks. But the calls for violence continued. As the February 1919 elections approached, anti-Semitic brochures were distributed before churches and coffee houses. The leaflets labeled the Jews the "refuse of humanity," and claimed that were Jews were concerned, God had canceled his fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Pogroms against them could and should be carried out with the "Joy of God." The Christian Social party did not, at least officially, sign or sanction such inflammatory material, confining its election campaign position largely to a call for a quota system within a generalized framework of political and economic segregation. The Austrian-Israelite Union, thefightingarm of the integrationists, blamed the Christian Socials for whipping up such hate and called on their coreligionists to give their answer "with a ballot in the hand." The Jews re-

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sponded by voting heavily for the Social Democrats, thereby giving the Party its narrow edge over the Christian Socials in the national elections. While the semi-victory of the Social Democrats and the installation of a coalition government that they dominated checked some of the more outrageous anti-Semitic agitation, the wave of hostility continued. During 1919 it centered largely on the Ostjuden refugees, and on this issue the Social Democrats offered little help. When at the beginning of the year a Christian Social deputy submitted a resolution designed to crack down on the refugees, a Social Democratic deputy submitted an amendment to make his proposal more severe. Two months later, when an Pan-German demanded that all war refugees be stripped of their ration cards and prevented from doing business, the Social Democrats combined with the Christian Socials to draw up a somewhat less drastic series of measures to restrict the rights of the refugees. The Social Democratic newspaper Arbeiter Zeitung, in reporting this development, added rather sheepishly, "It would be nicer to be hospitable but naked self-preservation compels us to be otherwise." Two days later a deputation from the newly organized Union of Eastern Jews called on Prime Minister Renner to protest. Renner glibly assured them that such measures were directed only against the Bolsheviks. The Social Democratic press frequently launched its own attacks on the Ostjuden, demanding on several occasions expulsion for those engaged in illegal or unethical activities. Some refugees, to be sure, were involved in such activities, but given their widespread poverty, their lack of German, and their lack of contacts in or even knowledge of the city, it is impossible to imagine that their numbers could have been very substantial, although highly visible. Many Ostjuden, however, conducted illegal business amongst themselves and many others tried to eke out a living by peddling without proper licenses. In May, the Social Democratic militia, the Volkswehr, joined with the city's police in raiding coffee houses frequented by Ostjuden and, to the delight of passersby, dragging them off to headquarters for interrogation. Most, however, were subsequently released. On September 10, the Social Democratic governor of Lower Austria which included Vienna called for the removal of "all those not native to German Austria." He set September 20 as the deadline. When the day came, the police rounded up some of the refugees and husded them off to the railroad station. But no trains were there to transport them, and, even if trains had been available, no coals was there for fuel. Three days later the provincial government admitted that it could not implement its order. The failure to carry out the expulsion incensed the Pan-Germans especially, and on September 25 they held a mass rally in front of city hall. Fired-up

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speakers exhorted the crowd to equip themselves with sticks and staffs to drive the Jews out of the city. They set October 5 as the date for the next meeting, calling it the "day of reckoning." But now for the first, and what would be the last, time, the Social Democrats came to the support of the Jews. Embarrassed over their provincial governor's fiasco and aware that the planned outrages could cut off American assistance currently being received by Austria, the Social Democrats called a rally of their own two days later. Using the quite spurious but reasonably effective excuse that the Pan-Germans were monarchists who were stirring up Judenhetze in order to restore the Habsburgs (actually the Jews with their memories of Franz Joseph were much more pro-monarchist than the PanGermans), the Social Democrats threatened counter-demonstrations. To their credit, they also deplored the call for Russian-style pogroms, calling such efforts a "cultural scandal" for German Austria. The move emboldened two influential, Jewish-owned newspapers, the Neue Freie Presse and the Abend, to take a stand as well. The following day both papers pointed out that while some Ostjuden were black marketeers, most of them were desperately poor, while Austria itself was too poor to deport them. The Presse also warned that an outbreak of violence against them could jeopardize the American aid that the country would need to survive the coming winter. Confronted with such resistance from the country's governing party and Vienna's major newspapers, the Pan-Germans backed down. They held their rally as scheduled but did not call for physical violence against the Jews. The Social Democrats then refrained from organizing counter-demonstrations of their own. The Christian Socials had not offically participated in the Pan-German rallies but their spokesmen equaled and at times exceeded the Pan-Germans in anti-Semitic zeal. Chief among them was the Party labor leader Kunschak who called for the internment and deportation of all Ostjuden to the East. Some months later when anti-Semitic students at the University of Vienna raided the Jewish cafeteria and beat up the students, Kunschak called the incident "an outburst from the soul of an oppressed people," and he added, "we can now give the Jews a choice: either leave voluntarily or be put into concentration camps." Conditions at the University were so serious that two years earlier Albert Einstein had initially rejected an invitation to lecture in Vienna. Professor Felix Ehrenhaft, a friend and admirer of Einstein, had urged him to come but Einstein declined, saying, "In view of the special situation in the Viennese academic world which has so spectacularly come to light in recent days,

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I do not think it advisable to give a lecture in Vienna in the foreseeable future." Ehrenhaft had persisted, saying that all the agitation was coming from the Germans attending the University, not the Austrian students. Although this argument would seem dubious indeed since Einstein was then experiencing no trouble lecturing regularly to the German students in Berlin, still the scientist finally agreed to give a talk at the Konzerthaus 'm October. Fortunately the hall lay outside the University and the police could act. They stationed a double cordon of uniformed policemen around the building several hours before the lecture, and allowed no one with without a special invitation to enter. The lecture itself went off smoothly and successfully. As one local professor said afterwards. "The Viennese like Einstein for they love a relative point of view." But the German ambassador sent back a report saying. "The official Austrian position towards Einstein is very reserved, since he is a Jew and is oriented towards the left. Neither the educational minister nor the rector of the University attended the lecture." Qutside Vienna anti-Semitic sentiment also raged. In September 1919 the provincial legislature of Upper Austria banned stays of "outsiders" for more than three days. (The legislators acted on a petition from a group of Salzburg housewives who claimed that such outsiders were aggravating the food shortage.) Two months later the Tyrolean legislature took similar action. It also banned kosher slaughtering, thereby forcing the province's few hundred Jews, most of whom lived in Innsbruck, to import their meat from Linz. In southern Austria, Jewish soldiers returning from Italian prioner of war camps were occasionally roughed up as they tramped through rural villages on their way home. Many Austrian resort communities began barring Jewish vacationers. The mayor of Maria Tafel issued the following proclamation on July 27, 1920: It has been repeatedly observed that Jews are finding lodgings and meals in Maria Tafel. Owners of hotels, coffee houses, and inns are requested not to cater to J e w s . . . . Maria Tafel is the most famous health resort in Lower Austria and not a Jewish temple.

Another resort community, Erfinding, decreed that no Jew could stay in the town for more twenty-four hours. In 1921 the German-Austrian Mountain Club, acting at the repeated urging of its Austrian branches, adopted the Aryan paragraph. As these developments indicate, the agitation against the Ostjuden did not spell any diminution in the drive against all Jews. As national elections loomed again in the fall of 1920, the Christian Socials (to say nothing of the PanGermans) sought to lump the Ostjuden with Jews and Social Democrats into

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one perilous package. On September 22, a few weeks before the balloting, the Rekhspost blazoned forth with a headline saying. "Out with the Ostjuden No Votes for the Jewish-Led Social Democrats - No Votes for a Party List Which Has a Jewish Candidate - German People Awake and Fulfill Your Holy Duty." In the supporting story the paper gave grossly falsified statistics on the number of Jews in Vienna both before and after the war, putting the prewar figure at 300,000 and saying that it "has assuredly more than doubled" with the influx of refugees. It then went on to blame the Jews for all the problems, both material and moral, besetting the country, and charged the allegedly Jewish-dominated Social Democrats with wanting "to create out of German-Austria a new Palestine, a land where their people, the Jewish people, rule and govern." Christian Social party election posters adopted a similar tone. One showed a snake strangling the Austrian eagle. The serpent had a grotesquely humanized head which featured a long, hooked nose and was covered by a yarmulke. The Christian Social/Pan-German government which the election produced took office two months after the peace treaty went into effect. One of its first moves was an all-out attempt to prevent the Ostjuden from obtaining Austrian citizenship. To do so the government decided to link nationality with language. Since most Ostjuden spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue, they could then be denied Austrian citizenship. The country's administrative court upheld this ruling, but the constitutional court struck it down. Many young Ostjuden had begun to attend the University of Vienna and their presence prompted the University's rector in 1922 to express fears that the University was becoming "levantized." He publicly called for a quota system to halt this dangerous trend. The Vienna Technical Institute went still further, saying that henceforth it would admit Jews only in proportion to their numbers in the population. On December 22 a delegation from the Gemeinde called on Seipel to protest these measures and the mounting violence against Jewish students generally. Seipel quickly assured them that no political party wanted to destroy "our country's reputation as a state of tranquility and order." The quotas never took effect - they probably would have been unconstitutional in any case - but the violence continued. After a series of student riots at the Vienna Institute of Commerce and World Trade {Hochschule für Welthandel) in 1923, the police confiscated some highly inflammatory anti-Semitic posters and other materials. (The Institute did not enjoy the University's immunity from police intervention.) Preparations for the first postwar census brought a new government effort to isolate the Jews. The Interior Minister decided to include the question of

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race on the census form with the intent of designating Jews as a race separate from German Austrians. The Jews, however, took the issue to court to demand a clear definition of race. Basing a decision on precedents, the judges more or less said that a person belonged to the race that he believed himself to belong to. Liberal newspapers added to the Minister's frustrations by telling their readers to write simply "White" in the prescribed place on the census form. Anti-Semites, especially German nationals, grumbled that the incident proved how "Judaized" the press had become, and how cowardly the Jews themselves had become since they feared to admit their racial origins. But such setbacks at the offical level failed to curb anti-Semitism at lower levels. The beginning of 1923 brought a series of rallies and demonstrations. At one, a speaker claimed that Jews owned seventy-five percent of all apartment houses in Vienna and that every Viennese surrendered three-quarters of his earnings to Jewish bankers. At another, a speaker from Germany told his women listeners that whenever they see a German maiden with a Jew they should give the girl a hard box on the ears. The speaker was a schoolteacher named Julius Streicher who, in his own city of Nuremberg, was already actively supporting the activities of another Austrian anti-Semite, Adolf Hitler. As the anti-Semitic fervor of the immediate postwar period continued into the 1920s, it became increasingly apparent that the Social Democrats would not and indeed could not, mount an effective defense against it. The Party was plagued not only by the number ofJews in its own upper echelons, but also by the abundance of anti-Semites within its rank and file. After their election losses in the fall of 1920, the Social Democrats began resorting to a tactic they had previously used and never fully abandoned. Instead of trying to counter anti-Semitism, they sought to capitalize on it. To begin with, derided the Christian Socials for the number of converted Jews - many of them actually half Jews - within that party's own ranks. In March 31, 1921 the Arbeiter Zeitung spoke sneeringly of a Frau Dr. Maresch who worked in the Department of Education and who was born in Galicia. "A few drops of holy water and out of the Polish Jewess emerges a Christian Social leader," scoffed the paper. Seven months later the newspaper taunted the Party's Finance Minister Viktor Kienböck for having earlier, as a private attorney, defended a wealthy Galician Jew in a civil case. Said the paper, "Isn't it a fact, Herr Kienböck, that the money of the Ostjuden doesn't stink; only the "Ostjuden " stink ?" When Seipel the following year announced his new pro-business policy aimed at encouraging economic growth, the Social Democrats responded by

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trying to link the Christian Socials with Jewish capitalism. In the parliamentary debate on the new policy, Karl Seitz, who held a parliamentary seat in addition to being mayor of Vienna, claimed that Seipel had undergone his "conversion" to laissez-faire liberalism "with the help of the Jew press." In making this observation, Seitz adopted a pronounced Jewish accent modeled after the one Austrians used in telling anti-Semitic jokes. On September 17, in a story headlined "The Zionists for Seipel," the Arbeiter Zeitung claimed that the Christian Social/Greater German Government had become "the executive organ of the bank Jews." In a subsequent edition the paper referred to the "Jewish plutocracy" as "protecting and directing" Seipel. Caricatures of capitalists in the Social Democratic press invariably sported long, hooked noses. As new parliamentary elections approached in the fall of 1923, the Social Democrats stepped up this line of attack. Their publishing house issued a small book entitled The Jewish Swindle which trotted out nearly every anti-Semitic cliche available in railing against the Jewish capitalists, especially bankers, who were allegedly benefiting from Seipel's currency reforms. (Seipel was by now moving vigorously against the hyper-inflation.) The book labeled the Christian Social and German Nationalist parties as "the bodyguards of Jewish capitalism." The Social Democratic press also took to mocking religious Jews, caricaturing not just their beliefs but also their appearance and dress. On at least one occasion it tried to link them with Jewish capitalism. This occurred during the summer of 1923 when Agudas Israel held its International Congress in Vienna and Seipel sent the delegates a perfunctory message of welcome. Arbeiter-Zeitung published a cartoon showing a group of bearded, blackclothed Jews in Seipel's outer office. In the caption, the delegation leader says to an official, "We want to thank the Federal Chancellor for his friendly greetings to our Ostjuden organization Agudas Israel which was not even greeted by the West European Jews." The official then replies, "Don't mention it. The Chancellor has instructed me to thank your for supporting so generously our Christian election fund." The cartoon's message was, of course, a travesty. Although many Jewish industrialists were contributing to the Christian Social party, largely through paying dues to various business organizations which themselves contributed to the Party, hardly any of these Jewish businessmen were members of Agudas Israel. As the election day drew closer, the Social Democrats sought to make increasing use of Jew-baiting to further their electoral fortunes. Though their election posters were ostensibly directed only against Jewish capitalist and/or

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religious Jews, theyrivaledthose of the other parties in viciousness. Nevertheless the election saw the Party lose further ground to the Christian Socials, who won a near majority of the seats. One can argue that the anti-Semitism of the Social Democrats backfired and cost them votes. Unfortunately one can also argue, and perhaps with more plausibility, that had they not adopted such an approach, then, given the tenor of the times, they would have suffered even greater losses than they did.

·J

The postwar wave of anti-Semitism reached its heigth during the winter of 1923. By early March rallies and demonstrations against the Jews were becoming an almost daily occurrence. The persistent agitation finally forced the fragmented Jewish community to unite. On March 3, Jews of all orientations turned out for a mass rally in front of city hall to protest the campaign of hate against them. Twelve days later leaders of various Jewish organizations held a press conference where, speaking with one voice for the first time, they vowed to take action against any further outbreaks. "These strong words seem to have made an impression on the anti-Semites," says Moser, "for antiSemitic activity immediately began to subside." The unity displayed on this occasion did not last. The feuds, especially the basic one between nationalists and integrationists, would soon reassert themselves. Nor did anti-Semitism in any way die out. As we have seen, all major parties, including the Social Democrats, made use of anti-Semitic materials in the fall election campaign. But the rallies and demonstrations which at times threatened to turn into mass pogroms became far less frequent. A key factor in the gradually improving atmosphere was the change in the Christian Social party. Under Seipel it had become an essentially pro-business party dependent on campaign contributions from business groups, especially the Austrain Industrialists' Association. But the Jewish members of the Association had begun expressing annoyance over the vicious attacks and threatened to stop paying their dues. This, in itself, helped induce the Party to moderate its more extreme expressions of hate. The responsibilities of governance had also tempered the Christian Socials'attitude. This was especially true regarding the international situation, for Austria depended heavily on foreign favor, and no other western nation, including Germany, was prepared to sanction and support policies that could lead to physical violence against Jews. Another favorable factor was the fading away of the Ostjuden problem. Many of them had by now returned home; others had emigrated abroad. Those who remained in Vienna had, for the most part, established themselves in a legitimate line of work. The census of 1923 put Vienna's Jewish popula-

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tion at 201,500, less than 30,000 above its prewarfigure.This put a damper on claims that the city was flooded with Ostjuden. The Austrian economy was also starting to revive. Although unemployment was still high, and would remain high all through the inter-war period, it had gone down, while the hyper-inflation of the immediate postwar years had ended. Seipel's policies, a loan from the League of Nations, and the improved world economic situation generally were having a beneficial effect. Viennese, Austrians and other members of the Hitler-Reich could therefore easily soothe their conscience when observing fragments of the monstrosity of the final consequences of Nazism's anti-Jewish policy while gaining substantial material advantages from the Jews' persecution.

BRUCE F. PAULEY

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna* The enormity of the crimes committed against Jews by Nazi Germany have overshadowed antisemitism in other countries prior to the implementation of the so-called Final Solution.1 This is especially true of antisemitism in interwar Austria. Although there was little that was really new in the discussion of the 'Jewish Question' during the First Austrian Republic, the country's desperate economic plight, together with the Nazi takeover in Germany, intensified the debate and made some solution to the issue seem imperative to many antisemites. The diminutive Austrian Republic with its 6.5 million people and 32,000 square miles is a strategic country for the study of antisemitism. Here east met west and north met south, geographically, politically and culturally. The country contained almost every form of fascism from the generally pro-Italian Heimwehr (or Home Guard) to the pro-German Austrian Nazi party, and also almost every possible form of antisemitism. There was the old-fashioned and comparatively subde cultural and religious antisemitism of many Catholics and the modern, racial and radical variety practised by the Nazis and a large number of lesser-known groups. Likewise, the Jewish population was evenly and bitterly divided between those 'westernized' Jews, who desired cultural or even social assimilation, such as were also found in Germany, Italy and France, on the one hand, and Orthodox, sometimes Yiddish-speaking, Jews and Zionists more commonly found in eastern Europe, on the other,

* From: Bruce F. Pauley, "Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna," in Ivar Oxaal, Michael Pollak, Gerhard Botz (eds.), Jews, Antisemitism and Culture in Vienna, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and New York 1987, pp. 152-173. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 Among the exceptions are Ezra Mendelsohn, TheJews ofEast Central Europe Between the World Wars, Bloomington, Indiana 1983; Celia Heller, On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland Between the Two World Wars, New York 1980; D. Weinberg, A Community on Trial: TheJews of Paris in the 1930s, Chicago and London 1977; and P. Hyman, From Dreyfus to Vichy: The Remaking ofFrench Jewry, 1906-1939, New York 1979.

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who favoured religious or political separatism. Consequently, antisemitism was probably more intense in Austria than anywhere else in western or central Europe including pre-Nazi Germany, though in all likelihood it was less extreme than in Poland, Hungary, Rumania, or Lithuania.2 Both Austrian antisemitism and Jewish migration into Vienna were drastically increased as a result of the Great War of 1914-18. Now, for thefirsttime in the modern era, antisemitism became far more salonfähig and was no longer the monopoly of the lunatic fringe.3 The war was in every respect a catastrophe for both Austria as a whole and for the Jews in particular. Ironically the monarchy's Jews enthusiastically supported the war as an opportunity to fight Tsarism and to disprove the old antisemitic charge that Jews could not make good soldiers.4 Habsburg archdukes and senior officials in the Austro-Hungarian army did indeed recognize the bravery of Jewish soldiers,5 and until 1916 censors prevented any antisemitic articles from appearing in Austrian newspapers.6 Nevertheless, antisemites accused them of shirking front-line service.7 The attitude of even the imperial government began to change in 1918 because of the Zionists' support for the general strike in Vienna in January. Thereafter, some government officials began to believe in an international Jewish conspiracy and no longer hindered counter-revolutionary and antisemitic propaganda.8 The antisemitic press now repeatedly charged that factory owners were profiteers, ignoring the benefits that big landowners and peasants - almost none of whom were Jewish - also derived from the war.9 In the meantime, a new wave of Jewish migration into Vienna was proving to be a far larger source of antisemitic agitation than real or imagined war profiteering. Soon after the war began, Galicia was overrun by Tsarist troops. Military authorities ordered the evacuation of civilians from the battle zone.

2 3

4

5

6

7 8

9

See Mendelsohn, op. cit., chapters 1, 2, 5. Dr. E. Führer, "Antisemitismus in neuem Osterreich" in R. Körber and Τ. Pugel (eds.), Antisemitismus der Welt in Wort und Bild, Dresden 1935, p. 184. M. Grunwald, History of the Jews in Vienna, Philadelphia 1936, p. 460; Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933, Cambridge, Mass., 1980, p. 176. J. Ornstein, Festschrift zur Feier des SOjähigen Bestandes der Union österreichischer Juden, Vienna 1937, p. 9. G. Fellner, Antisemitismus in Salzburg 1918-1938, Vienna, Salzburg, Veröffentlichungen des Historischen Instituts der Universität Salzburg, 1979, p. 84. Ornstein, op. cit., p. 10. John Bunzl, Klassenkampf in der Diaspora: Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Arbeiterbewegung, Vienna 1975, pp. 127-128. Jonny Moser, "Die Katastrophe der Juden in Osterreich, 1918-1945 - ihre Voraussetzung und ihre Überwindung" in vol. 5: Der gelbe Stern in Osterreich, Eisenstadt 1977, pp. 70-71.

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The Jewish inhabitants, well aware of the antisemitic policies of the Russian government in recent decades, needed little encouragement to leave. The Russian invasion caused the greatest flight of Jewish refugees since the seventeenth century. Altogether some 340,000 refugees had already left Galicia by the end of 1915; of these, 137,000 found asylum in Vienna, where many had friends and relatives. Sixty per cent or 77,000 of the newcomers were Jewish; almost overnight Vienna's Jewish population grew by nearly 50 per cent. The refugees aggravated a severe shortage of food and fuel. The Jews among them mosdy desperately poor peddlers, artisans, and cattle dealers - arrived in the Austrian capital virtually penniless. To ward off starvation some of them resorted to crime. Although the number of Jewish refugees in the imperial capital was never more than 125,000, some antisemitics claimed the figure was as high as 400,000. Most of the homeless Jews were returned to their native provinces as soon as they were evacuated by Russians; but 35,000 still remained in Vienna in 1918 and were reluctant to go back to their often devastated homes. By 1921, all but 26,000 had been forced to leave, and those who remained were resented more than ever by the city's long-time residents, including many acculturated Jews. 10 The first postwar years brought still more complaints from Austrian antisemites. The Peace Treaty of St Germain, signed in September 1919, was negotiated in part by the ethnic Jew and leftwing Socialist foreign minister, Otto Bauer (although it was signed by the moderate non-Jewish chancellor Karl Renner). It imposed harsh territorial and economic terms on the already destitute country. Even more alarming to antisemites was the participation of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), with its many Jewish leaders, in the federal government until 1920. The Socialists also completely controlled the government of Vienna until the party's demise in 1934. The administration of Vienna, especially the Jewish city councillor, Hugo Breitner, was determined to implement an extensive social welfare programme paid for by steeply graduated federal income taxes, which fell most heavily on the already hardpressed middle and upper classes. Socialism, defeat, democracy and Jewry, therefore, came to be equated in the minds of many conservative Austrians after the war. Events outside Austria also contributed to the increase in antisemitism in the early postwar years. The Bolshevik revolutions in Russia (in 1917), and 10

All the above statistics are from A. Tartakower, "Jewish Migration Movements in Austria in Recent Generations," in Josef Fraenkel (ed.), The Jews ofAustria: Essays on their Life, History and Destruction, London 1967, pp. 286, 287, 293.

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Hungary and Bavaria (both 1919) all aroused the ire of antisemites because of the prominent roles played by ethnic Jews. The war and revolution in Austria also affected population trends. The growth and indeed the maintenance of the city's Jewish community had, during the nineteenth century, depended on immigration from the Bohemian crownland, Hungary and Galicia. With these areas now belonging to foreign countries population movement virtually ceased. The rapid increase in the city's Jewish population was now reversed. Owing to a high death rate, a low birth rate, and a few mixed marriages, the 201,513 Jews who had been counted in the census of 1923 declined to 191,481 in 193411 and to fewer than 170,000 by 1938, a decrease of 1.5 per cent per year forfifteenyears.12 The percentage ofjews in the city also declined from 10.8 in 1923 to 9.4 in 1934.13 Ninety-one per cent of the Jewish population of Austria lived in the capital city whereas only about 15,000 lived in the rest of the country, or 0.64 per cent of the total provincial population.14 One would suppose that these statistics would have gladdened the heart of the most rabid antisemite, who could have looked forward to a 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem' in a few generations without any recourse to expulsion or violence. No such development occurred. The main reason was that Austrian census takers recorded only the religion of the Austrian people despite efforts of antisemites to include 'race'. Consequently, antisemites imagined that there were anywhere from 300,000 to 583,000 'racial'Jews in Vienna.15 Often, antisemites simply ignored the statistical decline by pointing out how much greater the proportion of Jews was in Austria compared with Germany, France or Great Britain.16 Occasionally they admitted there was a diminution in the Jewish population, but claimed this was more than offset by an increase in Jewish economic and cultural influence.17

11

12 13 14 15

16

17

S. Maderegger, Die Juden im österreichischen Städtestaat 1934-1938, Vienna, Salzburg 1973, p. 1; Bericht des Präsidiums und des Vorstandes der israelitischen Kultusgemeinde Wien über die Tätigkeit in den Jahren 1933-1936, Vienna 1936, p. 109. Κ. R. Stadler, Austria, New York, Washington 1971, p. 138. Maderegger, op. dt., p. 1. Die Wahrheit, 30 January 1931, p. 3. See, for example, R. Körber, Rassesiegin Wien, der Grenzfeste des Reiches, Vienna 1939, p. 217; Deutschösterreichische Tages-Zeitung (Dötz). Unabhängiges Blatt für völkische Politik (Vienna), 14 June 1932, p. 4; B. Bangha, O. Trebitsch and P. Kris, Klärung in derJudenfrage, Vienna, Leipzig 1934, p. 138; and Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (AVA) Bundeskanzleramt (BKA), Grossdeutsche Volkspartei (GVP) VI-36 (Judenausschuss), 7 May 1921. Führer, op. dt., p. 203; Der Stürmer. Unabhängiges Wochenblattfür alle Schaffenden (Vienna), 3 March 1934, p. 7. Georg Glockemeier, Zur WienerJudenfrage, Leipzig and Vienna 1936, p. 115.

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There is no doubt that the cultural and economic status of the Viennese Jews was a major cause - or at least excuse - for antisemitism. Even Jews conceded that they had a great influence in the country's cultural and economic life.18 A plethora of statistics supported this observation. By Jewish reckoning Jews in 1936 accounted for 62 per cent of the city's lawyers and dentists, 47 per cent of its physicians, over 28 per cent of its university professors, and 18 per cent of its bank directors. Ninety-four per cent of the city's advertising agencies were Jewish, as were 85 per cent of the furniture retailers, and over 70 per cent of those involved in the wine and textile trades.19 Jewish power in questions of public opinion was, if anything, even greater. For example, shortly before the war 123 of 174 newspaper editors were Jewish 20 and 70 per cent of the city's cinemas were owned by Jews. 21 Antisemites never tired of citing these and other statistics to 'prove' that Jews enjoyed an unfair and privileged economic and cultural status in the city. However, thesefiguresdid not by themselves adequately describe the position ofJews in Viennese society. Nor did they fully account for the sharp increase in antisemitism after the war. Jews were concentrated in business and the so-called free professions, not because they sought to avoid manual labour more than gentiles, as antisemites charged,22 but because for centuries prior to 1867 they had been prevented by law from owning land or holding public offices.23 They also became selfemployed because gentiles would not hire them. 24 Antisemites usually mentioned only the fields in which Jews were overrepresented, not those in which the opposite was true. Jews continued to encounter discrimination in seeking civil service positions and were underrepresented in primary and secondary teaching. In 1934, of 160,696 civil servants in Austria, only about 700 were Jewish. Even the most eminent scholars could not be promoted to full professor after the war. No school directors were Jews and no Jews became judges or senior military officers

18

19

20

21 22 23 24

Die Wahrheit, 29 May 1931, p. 1; Die Stimme, Jüdische Zeitung (Vienna), 2 March 1934, p. 1; J. Wassermann, My Life as a German and a Jew, New York 1933, pp. 186-187. Maderegger, op. cit., p. 220; H. Rosenkranz, "The Anschluss and the Tragedy of Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945" in Fraenkel, op. at., p. 480. Hellmut Andics, Der ewige Jude: Ursachen und Geschichte des Antisemitismus, Vienna 1968, p. 292. Glockemeier, op. cit., p. 109. Ibid., p. 66. Μ. Grunwald, op. cit., pp. 298-299. Die Wahrheit, 13 February 1931, p. 4; Die Stimme, 2 March 1934, p. 1.

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during the Republic.25 Whereas 200,000 Christians found employment with Jewish firms, very few Jews were employed by Christians. Half a million civil servants and government pensioners (1.5 million if dependants are counted) were supported in large measure by Jewish taxes.26 One should add that no Christians were obliged to seek the services of Jewish lawyers or doctors or were forced to read Jewish- owned or-edited newspapers. They did so because they found the services superior and the prices competitive. Organized boycotts simply failed, as they did also in Nazi Germany.27 No statistics were ever kept on the income of Viennese Jews, 28 but it is certain that many of them, especially recent immigrants from Galicia, were poor. One clue as to their general poverty was that free burials for impoverished Jews just before and during the war outnumbered first- and secondclass burials by a ratio of about ten to one. 29 In 1934, 55,000 Viennese Jews were dependent on some form of welfare from Jewish institutions.30 At the heart of postwar anrisemirism was not just the wealth or poverty of the Viennese Jews; their domination of certain occupations was, after all, already well established in the years between 1900 and 1914, a time when antisemitism was relatively subdued. But that had been a period of rapid economic expansion when jobs were plentiful for both Jews and gentiles. By 1919, however, Vienna no longer served an empire of 54 million people, but instead a landlocked Alpine state with only 6.5 million inhabitants. The gentile-dominated civil service, which had already been far too large for the empire, was now grotesquely overstaffed. Gentiles, therefore, sought employment in the traditionally 'Jewish' fields of industry and the free professions. Industrialists, however, were also in a desperate situation having had their prewar domestic markets cut off by new high tariff barriers imposed by the Successor States.31 The economy of republican Austria never fully recovered its prewar status. Vienna's educational and cultural institutions - universities, libraries, theatres, opera houses, etc. - which had been subsidized by imperial revenues now had

25

26

27

28 29 30 31

Maderegger, op. cit., p. 156; Die Stimme, 2 March 1934, p. 1; W. Boerner, Antisemitismus, Rassenfrage, Menschlichkeit, Vienna, Flugschrift der Ethischen Gemeinde, 1936, p. 12. Sozius (pseudonym for Eli Rubin), Die Juden in Osterreich: Schädlinge oder wertvolle Staatsbürger?, Vienna 1923, pp. 6, 9, 21. Bangha, op. cit., p. 176; letter by Josef Pödinger to the Kampfruf, 30 October 1932, Nationalsozialistische Parteistelle (NS-P), Karton (K) 8. Die Stimme, 22 October 1931, p. 2. Β. Frei, Jüdisches Elend in Wien: Bilder und Daten, Vienna 1920, p. 40. Maderegger, op. cit., p. 54. Die Wahrheit, 8 March 1935, p. 1; Die Stimme, 5 March 1935, p. 2.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

817

to get along on much smaller budgets. The postwar inflation, which reached its peak in Austria in 1921-2, virtually wiped out the long-accumulated savings and pensions of the thrifty. And, of course, the Great Depression, which left as many as 600,000 Austrians unemployed, simply worsened the country's economic situation and sharpened the competition for jobs still further.32 That antisemitism was not merely a product of terrible economic conditions, however, is proven by the history of the Austrian Social Democratic party. No class was more vulnerable to the perils of business cycles than the proletariat. And yet the Socialist party was certainly the least antisemitic of the major political parties of Austria. Consequently, it was also the party which attracted by far the largest Jewish vote. About 75 per cent of all Viennese Jews voted for the SDP 33 both because of the party's relative freedom from antisemitism and because of its welfare programme and stand on the issue of church and state. Many Jews, however, objected to the party's antireligious, anti-Zionist and pro-assimilationist philosophy.34 Jews flocked to the SDP after the Liberal party, which had championed their emancipation in the 1860s, declined in the 1890s as a result of the extension of the franchise to the lower classes.35 The founder of the SDP, Victor Adler, was a baptized Jew and many other intellectual leaders of the party were of Jewish descent; the party's newspaper editors soon became overwhelmingly Jewish, a fact which troubled even some Jewish members of the party.36 The prominence ofJews in the S D F s leadership made the party sensitive to the repeated antisemitic charge that it was a Judenschutzpartei. Moreover, because all other parties had well-developed antisemitic programmes, the SDP could take the Jewish vote for granted37 and even indulge in some antisemitic rhetoric of its own. The Socialists tried to turn the tables on the (Catholic) Christian Social party (CSP) and the Greater German People's party (GVP) and even the National Socialist German Workers' party (NSDAP) by accus-

32 33

34 35 36

37

Glockemeier, op. cit., p. 50. John Bunzl, "Arbeiterbewegung und Antisemitismus in Osterreich vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg", Zeitgeschichte 4, 1976-7, p. 167. Die Wahrheit, 29 April 1927, p. 1. W. Simon, "The Jewish Vote in Austria," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 16,1971, pp. 103,108. R. Schwarz, "Antisemitism and Socialism in Austria 1918-1962," in Fraenkel, op. cit., pp. 445-446; G. Zernatto, Die Wahrheit über Österreich, New York 1939, p. 67. Die Stimme, 21 April 1932, p. 1.

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ing them of being the guardians of Jewish capital.38 Capitalists were denounced more for being Jewish than for being capitalists.39 In some Socialist publications the dress of Orthodox Jews was ridiculed and antisemitic caricatures were used in posters. Terms like Bankjuden, jüdische Presse, and Börsenjuden were frequently employed by both editors and speakers.40 Ironically, the worst offenders were renegades who looked at their Jewish heritage with disdain. By contrast, nearly all non-Jewish leaders of the SDP stood firm against antisemitism, opposing, for example, attempts to exclude Jews from summer resorts.41 Although the SDP was the only Austrian party to make any attempt to fight antisemitism, and was the first party to take a stand against the Nazis, it did not have a unified programme for resisting antisemitism. The latter was considered to be no more than an anti-Socialist plot which would disappear with the complete establishment of Socialism.42 The Jewish policy of the Christian Socials, like that of the Socialists, was formed in all its essentials with the foundation of the party in the 1890s. It combined the traditional anti-Judaism of the Catholic church with the resentment the bourgeoisie felt toward the Industrial Revolution, which it blamed on Jewish capitalists. The overrepresentation of Jews in many commercial fields was also seen as a threat to the existence of the Catholic bourgeoisie. Like the Socialists, however, the CSP had no clear racial theory and preferred slogans and demagogy to antisemitic legislation.43 This demagogic tradition can be traced back to the party's founder and first great leader, Dr. Karl Lueger, who was also the mayor of Vienna from 1897 until his death in 1910. Lueger resembled his contemporary, Georg von Schönerer, in exploiting antisemitic sentiments of the lower middle class; but he differed sharply from the Pan-German leader in supporting the Habsburg dynasty and the Roman Catholic church. Lueger's nonracial antisemitism made it possible for him to appoint baptized Jews to important positions.

38 39 40 41 42

43

Bunzl, op. at., 1975, p. 167. Ibid., p. 168. Fellner, op. cit., p. 124. Ibid., p. 121, Simon, op. cit., p. 110. Bunzl, op. cit., 1975, pp. 168-170; Katz, op. cit., p. 6; Donald L. Niewyk, TheJews in Weimar Germany, Baton Rouge and London 1980, p. 70. A. Staudinger, Christlicbsoziale Judenpolitik in der Gründungsphase der österreichischen Republik. Reprinted in Avshalom Hodik, Peter Malina and Gustav Spann (eds), Juden in Osterreich, 1918-1938, Vienna, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 1982, (typescript), p. 54; see also Katz, op. cit., p. 288.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

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Viennese Jews made even more progress in commercial affairs during his administration than during the previous Liberal era.44 Lueger's Jewish policy also made it possible for him to avoid conflicts with the teachings of the Roman Catholic church, which recognized baptized Jews as full-fledged Christians. Lueger's legacy of denouncing Jews in the abstract while tolerating them in practice was carried over by the Christian Socials into the First Republic. During the first postwar election campaign in December 1918 the CSP programme called for a strong defensive fight against the 'Jewish danger' and Jews were described as volksfremd (foreign) even if they were assimilated. The official programme of 1926 and 1932 also called on the party to fight the 'destructive' (zersetzende) and revolutionary influence of the Jews in both intellectual and economic affairs.45 The programme failed to say how this was to be done, however, or even to say who was a Jew. To a considerable degree the party's antisemitism reflected the views of its long-time postwar leader, priest, and sometime chancellor, Dr. Ignaz Seipel. Seipel denounced the notion of racial antisemitism46 and in 1927 toned down the antisemitism of the recent party programme in order to gain the support of liberals and democrats. Moreover, he never indulged in vulgar, public antisemitic outbursts.47 He was willing, however, to use antisemitism as a weapon against the Social Democrats and feared that Christians were threatened economically, culturally, and politically by Jews, especially those in the leadership of the SDP. Although Jews were not a separate race, a possible solution to the Jewish problem, he suggested, was that they be treated as a separate nation within Austria, a programme already advocated by the Zionists.48 Although the antisemitism of Seipel, and probably most members of the CSP, was nonracial and comparatively moderate, the opposite was true of the party's Christian Workers' Movement. Antisemitism was an essential part of its Linz Programme of 1926, and, along with religion, was one of the principal ways it distinguished itself from the egalitarianism of the Social Democratic party. The programme said that Austrians had the right to protect themselves in the same way that Americans did against the Chinese by treating the Jews as 44 45

46 47

48

Andics, op. cit., p. 387. Fellner, op. cit., pp. 72-73; John Bunzl, Antisemitismus in Österreich: historische Studien, Innsbruck 1983, p. 48.. Ornstein, op. at., p. 34. Klemens von Klemperer, Ignaz Seipel: Christian Statesman in a Time of Crisis, Princeton 1972, p. 256. Jonny Moser, "Von der antisemitischen Bewegung zum Holocaust" in Klaus Lohrmann (ed.), 1000Jahre österreichisches Judentum, Eisenstadt 1982, p. 257.

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a national minority with their own schools, doctors and judicial system, as demanded by the Zionists. Moreover, the antisemitism of the Christian Workers' Movement was racial and not 'merely' religious.49 Aside from Seipel himself, Catholic clergy played an active role in the discussion about the Jewish problem. Anti-Judaism, of course, was a deeply rooted tradition within the Roman Catholic church, dating back to Antiquity and the Middle Ages and beyond. For centuries the church had held Jews collectively responsible for the murder of God. 50 The age-old antagonism between Catholics and Jews was enhanced during the First Republic by the attempt of some Jews to stop the spending of tax revenues for the construction of church buildings in Vienna. Jewish leaders in the SDP also favoured legalizing divorce.51 Catholic clergy responded with frequent anti-Jewish attacks. One priest, Father Georg Bichlmair, the leader of the 'Paulus-Werke' for baptizing Jews, gave a lecture in Vienna in March 1936 in which he contradicted Catholic teachings about race by saying that baptized Jews should not be allowed to hold high office in the church hierarchy or the civil service up to the third generation.52 Even Catholic bishops did not scruple to make direct and formal pronouncements condemning the Jews. For example, only a few days before Hitler's appointment as chancellor bishop Johannes Gföllner of Linz issued a Hirten, (pastoral) letter, to the faithful in which he claimed that Jews had a harmful influence on almost all aspects of modern culture including law, medicine, the press, the theatre and the cinema. They were also responsible for capitalism, socialism, and communism. It was not just the right, but also the duty of Christians to stop the spread of this Jewish 'spirit'.53 Nazis, who loved to quotefromthis letter, were careful to avoid mentioning that the bishop also said that it was impossible to be both a good Catholic and a Nazi. Nor could they have been pleased when later in the same year the entire Austrian episcopate denounced Gföllner's letter for arousing social hatred and conflict.54 But four years later the Nazis' propaganda was givenfreshammunition when another Austrian bishop, Alois Hudal, wrote that Nazi nationalism and

49 50

51 52

53 54

Anton Pelinka, Stand oder Klasse. Reprinted in Hodik etal., op. cit., pp. 51-53. Erika Weinzierl, "Antisemitismus in Osterreich," Austriaca 1978. Reprinted in Hodik etal., op. cit., p. 1. Hans Tietze, Die Juden Wiens: Geschichte, Wirtschaft, Kultur, Vienna 1933, p. 255. Friedrich Heer, Gottes erste Liebe: 2000Jahre Judentum, und Christentum; Genesis des österreichischen Katholiken Adolf Hitler, Munich 1967, p. 363. Glockemeier, op. cit., p. 106. Heer, op. cit., pp. 363-365.

Political Anrisemitism in Interwar Vienna

821

racism were compatible with Christianity as long as fundamental Christian dogmas were not violated.55 Catholic anrisemitism could also be found in the interwar years in the Reicbspost, the official organ of the Christian Social party. It discussed the 'Jewish problem' in all sections of the newspaper including the advertisements (none of which could be purchased by Jews). All the usual antisemitic charges could be found in the pages of the Reichspost. Jews were blamed for the loss of the war and were responsible for the Communist regime in Russia; Jews held too many positions at the University of Vienna, especially in the faculties of medicine and law. After the early postwar years the paper's anrisemitism was tempered somewhat by its editor, Friedrich Funder. But as late as 1934, the Rekhspost sympathized with the anrisemitism in Nazi Germany, especially the boycott of Jewish businesses and the reduction of Jewish cultural influence. On the other hand, Funder, like his early hero, Karl Lueger, was never a racial antisemite and did not hesitate to associate with Jews socially. A baptized Jew for him was no longer a Jew. 56 Despite all its antisemitic rhetoric the CSP did not implement any discriminatory legislation against the Jews in the many years it held power between 1920 and 1934, if only because the party needed the money of Jewish bankers.57 In the spectrum between the demagogic, but usually nonracial, anrisemitism of the Social Democrats and Christian Socials, on the one hand, and the racial and sometimes violent anrisemitism of the Nazis on the other, the Austrian Heimwehr (HW) or Home Guard stood squarely in the middle with one foot in both camps. The Heimwehr was a paramilitary formation which was founded shortly after the collapse of the empire in order to defend Austria's southern borders against South Slav incursions. It soon evolved, however, into a primarily anti-Socialist movement. At the Heimwehr's height in the late 1920s, 70 per cent of its up to 400,000 active members and sympathizers were peasants, many from antisemitic areas like Styria and Carinthia. Their traditional fear of Jews was now combined with their hatred of Socialists and their distrust of the great metropolis,

55 56

57

Moser, op. cit., p. 265. Hedwig Pfarrhofer, Friedrich Funder: Ein Mann zwischen Gestern und Morgen, Graz, Vienna, Cologne 1978, pp. 203, 295-301. Karl Stuhlpfarrer, "Antisemitismus, Rassenpolitik und Judenverfolgungen in Osterreich, 1918-1938", Reprinted in Hodik etal., op. cit., p. 145; Peter G. J. Pulzer, 'The Development of Political Anrisemitism in Austria', in Fraenkel, op. cit., p. 441.

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Vienna, which the Socialists now ruled. Heimwehr members in most other provinces, while sharing the anti-Socialism of their comrades in the south, were too Catholic to indulge in racial antisemitism. Moreover, the two wings of the movement were badly split over the issue of Anschluss with Germany with the Pan-German racist wing in the south and parts of Lower Austria in favour, and the Catholic wing elsewhere strongly opposed.58 Complicating the issue of antisemitism still further was the much needed financial support ofJewish bankers who sympathized with the HW's staunch anti-Marxism.59 Richard Steidle, from the ultra-Catholic Tyrol, and the movement's co-leader from 1927 to 1930, said that the Heimwehr was not antisemitic, but merely opposed to Jewish Marxists. Patriotic Jews were welcome co-fighters against Marxism. But another HW member, Dr. Franz Hueber, a minister of justice in the federal government and a brother-in-law of Hermann Goring, announced that Austria 'ought to be freed from this alien [Jewish] body'. As a minister he 'could not recommend that the Jews be hanged, that their windowpanes be smashed, or that their shop display windows be looted. . . . But racially impure elements ought to be removed from the public life of Austria.'60 Prince Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, the Heimwehr's sole leader (with one interruption) from September 1930 until its dissolution in 1936, could be either radical or moderate on the Jewish issue, depending on his audience. In a speech delivered to a HW crowd in 1930 he proclaimed that The object of our movement is to create a people's state in which every Volksgenosse [racial comrade] will have therightto work and to bread. [The Nazis' slogan was 'Arbeit und Brot. ] By a Volksgenosse I mean only one inspired by the race instinct of the Germans in whose veins German blood flows. In 'the people' I do not include those foreign,flat-footedparasites from the East who exploit us. [This was an apparent attempt to distinguish between Ostjuden and 'natives.']61

Starhemberg became more temperate after he joined the government as vicechancellor in 1932, particularly when he was speaking to foreign journal-

58

59

60

61

For a history of the Heimwehr see C. E. Edmondson, The Heimwebr and Austrian Politics, 1918-1936, Athens, Georgia, 1978. For its pan-German and racist wing see Bruce F. Pauley, Hahnenschwanz und Hakenkreuz: Steirischer Heimatschutz und österreichischer Nationalsozialismus, 1918-1934, Vienna, Munich, Zürich 1972. C. A. Macartney, "The Armed Formations of Austria", International Affairs 7, November, 1929, p. 630; Μ. Bullock, Austria, 1918-1938: A Story ofFailure, London 1939, pp. 185-186; see also Die Wahrheit, 4 October 1929, p. 24. Excerpt from the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna), 26 October 1930, Dokumentation, Newspaper clippings, Arbeiterkammer (Vienna), folder entided 'Heimwehr-Antisemitismus'. Quoted in F. Winkler, Die Diktatur in Österreich, Zürich 1935, p. 40.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

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ists. To a French newspaper he said in March 1934 that he merely wanted to break Jewish 'predominance'.62 English and American reporters were told a few weeks later that it would be crazy to solve the Jewish question by force, 63 and a Hungarian newspaper was told at about this same time that all Jews who rejected internationalism and who were not a burden to the state were not part of a Jewish problem. The Heimwehr, he added, completely rejected Nazi racial theories.64 The Heimwehr tried to bridge the gap between moderate, traditional, Catholic anti-Judaism, and modern, racial antisemitism. At the same time it was divided between the Catholic political camp in Austria, represented by the Christian Socials, and the German national camp, represented by the Greater German People's party, and increasingly after 1930 by the National Socialist German Workers' party. The antisemitism of the GVP, like that of the SDP and CSP, could also be traced to the last forty years of the monarchy, and specifically to Georg von Schönerer, the first great antisemitic leader of prewar Austria. The appeal of von Schönerer's antisemitism, however, had been reduced by his linking it to a demand that the German-speaking portions of Austria be attached to the German Reich. On the other hand, his call for the elimination of Jewish influence from public life, which he addeld to the infamous Linz Programme of the Liberal party in 1885, was to be repeated by virtually all antisemites in postwar Austria.65 Von Schönerer's career was cut short in 1887 when it was discovered that he was married to a woman with a Jewish ancestor. By that time he had already established a tradition within Pan-Germanism of emotional indignation and intolerance, suspicion about the integrity of people who did not go along with [the Pan-Germans], [and] contempt for political parries. . . . The movement's opponents - the majority of people of Schönerer's day - regarded it as a political aberration; the Pan-Germans saw themselves as the heralds of the future. History has provided sinister confirmation of the boast.66

During the 1920s the GVP was one of the most important heirs to Schönerer's ideas. A middle-class coalition of nationalistic groups, it favoured free trade, 62 61 64 65

66

Die Stimme, 1 March 1934, p. 1. Ibid,., 27 March 1934, p. 2. Ibid., 17 February 1934, p. 2. Katz, op. at., p. 287; Sachar, op. at., p. 238; Andrew G. Whiteside, The Socialism of Fools: Georg von Schönerer and Austrian Pan-Germanism, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1975, p. 305. Whiteside, op. at., pp. 304-305.

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an Anschluss with Germany, and racial antisemitism. It also supported the concept of a Volksgemeinschaft or people's community. This idea had the dual advantage of ending the class struggle, which was advocated by Marxists, while excluding the 'parasitic' Jews, who were not ethnically Germans and who, therefore, could never be part of the Volksgemeinschaft.67 According to the party's official Salzburg programme of 1920, the Jews were to be treated as a separate nation and their influence over the country's economic and public life was to be greatly reduced.68 Like other antisemites, the members of the GVP did not draw a sharp distinction between Jews and those people who had been affected by the 'Jewish spirit'. The Jews, they alleged, were only interested in making money and dominating the world. 69 Members of a special GVP 'Committee on Jews' disagreed only on how Jews sought world dominion. Some thought it was a well-organized conspiracy directed from New York, whereas others believed it was simply a matter of instinct.70 Despite their efforts to combat Jewish power through the publication and distribution of leaflets and pamphlets, members of the GVP themselves admitted that they had not been very successful up to 1924, except for increasing social segregation.71 Another antisemitic organization which had close ties to both the GVP and NSDAP and for a time even the CSP was the 'German-Austrian Defensive League of Antisemites' or Antisemitenbund (AB) for short. It also resembled the HW in trying to be überparteilich (or nonpartisan) and in being organized around a single issue, in this case antisemitism, however, rather than antiMarxism. The AB was founded in 1919 and flourished until 1925, during most of which time it co-operated closely with the GVP and NSDAP.72 Thereafter, its popularity declined, as did the popularity of antisemitism in general in Austria, until a revival of both occurred with the coming of the Great Depression. The organization's official newspaper, Der eiserne Besen, was published weekly and reached a maximum circulation of 6,000. Member-

67 68

69

70

71 71

Stuhlpfarrer, op. cit, p. 36. K. Berchtold (ed.), Osterreichische Parteiprogramme 1868-1966, Munich, 1967. Reprinted in Hodik, op. cit., pp. 70, 72. R. Ardelt, Zwischen Demokratie und Faschismus: Deutschnationales Gedankengut in Österreich, 1919-1930, Vienna, Salzburg 1972, pp. 88, 98; Glockemeier, op. cit., p. 90. Minutes of the Fachausschuss für die Judenfrage der GVP, 7 February 1924, p. 1 and 22 February, p. 3, AVA, GVP, VI-36. Minutes of 21 April 1921, p. 6 and 7 Rbruary 1924, p. 1, ibid. Fellner, op. cit., pp. 102, 128, 134.

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ship was drawn from the entire non-Socialist camp and consisted largely of wage earners, employees and workers.73 The ideology of the Antisemitenbund was in most respects unremarkable. Like other nationalists it regarded the Jews as a race, but also said that it fought the 'Jewish spirit5. It wanted to protect 'Aryans' from the economic, social, and political influence ofJews through the legal separation ofJews and gentiles in matters of education, administration of justice, and welfare. What made it unusual was its desire to co-operate with all other antisemites, both domestic and foreign, in order better to fight the alleged world organization of Jews. 74 The Antisemitenbund virtually disappeared from public view during the relatively prosperous late 1920s, and during the early 1930s it was surpassed by the far more boisterous antisemitism of the NSDAP. However, it underwent a major renaissance after the prohibition of all the political parties of Austria, beginning with the Nazis in June 1933. 75 During these years the AB led a precarious existence, however, because Austrian security forces were convinced that it was a mere cover for the illegal Austrian Nazi party. From mid-1935 until early 1937 the AB was not even allowed to hold public meetings.76 In fact, many leading Austrian Nazis, such as the Gauleiter of Vienna, Leopold Tavs, did have connections with the Antisemitenbund.77 Perhaps in an attempt to keep their eyes on the illegal Nazis and to distract them from more dangerous activities, the authorities permitted the AB to hold meetings, attended by large and enthusiastic crowds, during the last year of Austria's independence.78 The most infamous of the antisemitic organizations of Austria was without doubt the Nazi party. But once we look beyond its popular reputation we discover that its ideas and methods of propaganda were in no respect novel. It is even doubtful whether its Jewish policy prior to the Anschluss was any more extreme than that of the Antisemitenbund, the Christian Workers' Movement, or some elements of the Greater German People's party.

73 74 75

76

77 78

Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 128; see also K. Peter, Der Antisemitismus, Vienna 1936. Unsigned letter from the Antisemitenbund to the security director of Lower Austria dated 27 April 1935, AVA, BKA, doc. 33 000 4 G D 2/1935. Report dated 13 January 1937 on a meeting of the Antisemitenbund, Dokumentationsarchiv der österreichischen Widerstandes (DOW), folder 6895. Report dated 28 January 1938, ibid. Ludwig Jedlicka, "Aus dem politischen Tagebuch des Unterrichtsministers a. D. Dr. Emmerich Czermak, 1937 bis 1938," Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur, vol. 8, 1964, p. 359.

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If it was unique in any way it was in how it combined different aspects of antisemitism from all other political parties. One could find the same antiJewish capitalism of the SDP, 79 the same attacks on the Jewish leadership of the SDP 80 made by the CSP and the Heimwehr, the same charges of 'Jewish materialism'81 made by the GVP and the AB, the same violent criticism of Jews for their supposed domination of the Viennese press and cultural life,82 found in all the non-Jewish political groups of Austria, and the same racism as in Schönerer's Pan-Germans, the GVP, the AB, and parts of the HW. The Nazis were more consistent in their antisemitism than their rivals. Their 'scientific' racism and aggressive opposition to Jews avoided the semireligious, semi-racist, and basically defensive antisemitism of most Christian Socials. Unlike the Socialists they rejected all Jews, not just those who were capitalists, and unlike the H W and the CSP, 83 the Nazis did not accept money from Jewishfinanciers.In contrast to all their antisemiticrivals,except perhaps the Antisemitenbund, Nazis were not supposed to associate with even baptized Jews. Thus, the Nazis, unlike most other antisemites, could claim to be fully kompromisslos on the Jewish question. Even the 'solutions' to the Jewish problem offered by the Nazis were derivative of other political groups. For example, the Nazis, like many Christian Socials, supported Zionist efforts to have Jews emigrate to Palestine or Madagascar in order to establish a state of their own. 84 A disguised Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer (not to be confused with Julius Streicher's scandal sheet of the same name in Nuremberg), also warmly endorsed the idea of recognizing the Jews as a national minority with their own schools and taxes.85 This same idea had been put forward at various times by Ignaz Seipel; a former minister of culture and leading CSP member, Emmerich Czermark; and Leopold Kunschak, the leader of the Christian Workers' Movement.86 (It was also advocated by the Austrian Zionists, but passionately opposed by the acculturated Jews of Vienna.87) The idea of expelling all Jews who had immigrated to Austria since

Draft for a poster entitled "Ihre Existenz ist in Gefahr!", AVA., NS-P, Κ. 14, Plakat Entwürfe; Führer, op. dt, p. 190. 8 0 Führer, op. cit, p. 188. si Ibid., p. 189. 82 Ibid., p. 191; Der Stürmer, 3 March 1934, p. 1. 8 3 Klemperer, op. cit., p. 257. 8 4 Glockemeier, op. cit., p. 121, Omstein, op. cit., p. 29. 85 11 November 1933, p. 1. 8 6 Moser, op. cit., p. 257; see also E. Czermak and O. Karbach, Ordnung in der Judenfrage: Verständigung mit dem Judentum, Vienna 1933. 87 Die Wahrheit, 27 Ottober 1933, p. 1.

79

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

827

1914, as well as making summer resorts judenrein, had already been proposed by the Antisemitenbund.88 The goal of complete segregation in all activities, athletic, academic and professional, carried out in Nazi Germany during the mid-1930s, had been discussed many years earlier by the GVP.89 Probably the favourite solution to the question advanced by nearly all antisemites, including the Nazis, bore the Latin phrase numerus clausus, or proportional representation. If the Jews made up only 10.8 per cent of the Viennese population in 1923 and 9.4 per cent in 1934 then they should be limited to those same ratios in such fields as commerce, law, medicine, banking and higher education. Young Nazis at the university of Vienna and other Viennese institutions of higher education, who frequently brutally attacked their fellow students of the Jewish tradition, were especially eager to limit the number ofJewish students who would soon be competing with them for employment.90 Interestingly enough, even the most ardent racists wanted to count only avowed religious Jews in their scheme, and not the inflated number of 'ethnic' Jews they so frequently complained about. Moreover, the ratio was to be imposed only where Jews were unusually numerous, not where they were grossly under-represented, as in the civil service, the school teaching profession, and landowning.91 Only the Social Democrats opposed these solutions proposed by the Nazis and other antisemites. Officially their view was that antisemitism was simply a bourgeois prejudice which would disappear in time. Socialist (and Communist) theoreticians equated Zionism with reactionary nationalism and assumed that it was only a question of time until all Jews were fully assimilated. Thus, antisemitism would end when Jewish identity ceased.92 The Austrian Nazis enjoyed an inestimable advantage over their antisemitic rivals in being able to point to their brethren in Nazi Germany who were actually doing something besides talking about the Jewish problem. There Jewish influence had been eliminated from the civil service and cultural life of the country and German Jews had been deprived of their full citizenship rights. But the Nazis' Jewish policy in Germany prior to the Anschluss was

88 89 90

91

92

Fellner, op. cit., pp. 106-107, 136-137. Minutes of the Judenausschuss, 19 May 1921, p. 2, AVA, BKA, GVP; Führer, op. at., p. 204. Die Wahrheit, 1 February 1923, p. 11; Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna 1867-1914: Assimilation and Identity, New York 1983, p. 159. Der Stürmer, 30 December 1933, p. 2; Peter, op. cit., p. 16; Maderegger, op. ck., p. 197; Die Stimme, 21 December 1933, p. 3. Stuhlpfarrer, op. cit., p. 37.

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actually moderate compared to the demands of many Austrian antisemites. Jews were not yet required to emigrate, had not been killed simply because they were Jews, and were even allowed to engage in business. Kristallnacht and the Holocaust were still unforeseen events of the future. Such a 'middle-ofthe-road' programme was bound to appeal to a broad spectrum of antisemites, not just hard-core Nazis in Austria and other countries. Undoubtedly, this is exactly what it was intended to do. The policy also made an Anschluss between Germany and Austria seem all the more attractive to those Austrians who saw the Jews as the root of their misfortune. Nazism and antisemitism grew simultaneously after the arrival of the Great Depression. The Depression, which struck Austria perhaps more ferociously than any other country in the world, led to a rapidly escalating rate of unemployment, and the collapse of Vienna's great Rothschild banks, the Bodencredit and the Creditanstalt. One Austrian emigre reflected years later that these failures did more than hurt the Jewish community financially; they undermined the belief that Jews were particularly gifted, and indeed vitally needed, for the conduct of financial transactions and enterprises. Added to the substantial losses suffered by hundreds of thousands of gentile bank depositors . . . the end of the myth of Jewish competence in money matters gave a renewed impetus not only to antisemitic feelings, but even more so to the idea that antisemitic actions could be taken without harm to the economy.93

The Nazis, in fact, made a point of this very issue in their propaganda.94 The growth of unemployment and antisemitism in turn gave a great boost to the Austrian Nazi party. The continuing growth in popularity of the Austrian Nazi party after 1932 persuaded the Austrian government, headed by Engelbert Dollfuss from 1932 to his assassination by Nazis in July 1934, and by Kurt von Schuschnigg thereafter until the Anschluss in March 1938, to compete for the support of the antisemites, or at least not to drive them all into the Nazi fold. The issue of antisemitism appeared to be all the more acute after 1933 because of the emigration of German Jews following Hider's Machtergreifimg. This was, in reality, a phoney issue, Nazi claims notwithstanding; most German Jews, unable tofindwork in impoverished Austria, soon moved on to other countries. Whatever burden the refugees presented was imposed mainly on the already financially hard-pressed Israelitische Kultusgemeinde

93 94

Letter of J. H. Furth to the author, 24 June 1979, p. 5. Führer, op. cit., p. 190.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

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(IKG), the official communal organization for Jews in religious and cultural affairs.95 The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg regime hoped to lessen the Nazi appeal by showing that it too could be antisemitic. Dollfuss talked vaguely about adopting that which was 'positive and worthwhile' in the Nazi ideology. Although Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, as practising Roman Catholics and members of the now (after 1934) defunct Christian Social party, rejected racial antisemitism, they both professed to be opposed to the cultural and economic 'foreign penetration' ofJews. 96 This kind of phraseology, as we have seen, was the stock in trade not only of the Nazis, but most other antisemitic groups as well. However, neither Dollfuss nor Schuschnigg could afford to alienate totally either the local Jewish community or the western democracies by appearing to give in to pressure from Germany. They desperately needed support wherever they could find it, and the Jews gave substantial sums of money to the Austrian government.97 Viennese Jews, like those in Hungary at this time, found themselves in the absurd position of looking to moderate antisemites for protection against radical ones.98 The Austrian government protected Jews in a number of ways. Both the old constitution of 1919, and the new authoritarian constitution introduced by Dollfuss in 1934, guaranteed Jews freedom to practise their religion and equal political rights as citizens. Strangely enough, Jews were the only Austrians after 1934 who were able to have political parties and elect officers through democratic elections to the Kultusgemeinde." Schuschnigg also prevented the Salzburg provincial parliament from enacting a law prohibiting the ritual slaughter of animals in 1937. 100 The disgustingly antisemitic newspaper, Der Stürmer, was eventually banned from making street sales and some issues were confiscated.101 On a number of occasions the federal chancellor reas-

95

96

97 98 99

100 101

Letter with an illegible signature from the Bundes—Polizeidirektion in Vienna to the BKA, Generaldirektion für die öffentliche Sicherheit, Staatspolizeiliches Büro in Vienna, 17 November 1935, 2pp., AVA, BKA Inneres 1933, K32, doc. 219.644; Bericht der KG, 19331936, op. cit., p. 73. H. Busshoff, Das Dollfitss-Regime in Österreich in geistesgeschichtlicher Perspektive unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der 'Schöneren Zukunfi'und 'Reichspost', Berlin 1968, p. 280. Ν. H. Tur-Sinai, "Viennese Jewry," in Fraenkel, op. cit., p. 318. Mendelsohn, op. cit., p. 110. Ornstein, op. cit., p. 37; Ο. Karbach, "Die politischen Grundlagen des deutsch-österreichischen Antisemitismus," Zeitschrift für die Geschichte derJuden 4, 1964, p. 176. Fellner, op. cit., p. 200. Der Stürmer, 20 January 1934, p. 1 and 17 February 1934, p. 1.

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sured both foreign and domestic Jews that Jews in Austria would not be treated like second-class citizens, as long as they took a positive attitude toward the state and respected the culture and religious values of the majority of the population.102 A few Jews, most of them Zionists, were even appointed to high positions in the Austrian and Viennese municipal governments. The Austrian government did not want to appear to be giving in to German pressure to persecute Jews; on the other hand, it feared that being too friendly toward them would provoke Nazis both at home and abroad and might even alienate members of its own government.103 The compromise Jewish policy which the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg government pursued amounted to tolerating nongovernmental antisemitism while practising only economic discrimination itself. Direct attacks on the Jews as a religious community were usually avoided. Meanwhile the Schuschnigg government quietly and gradually reduced the number ofJews in banking and the legal and medical professions to bring their numbers more into line with their proportion of Austria's total population (numerus clausus*).104 Jewish doctors who worked in municipal hospitals were dismissed after the ill-fated Socialist uprising in Vienna in February 1934. Officially, these Jews lost their jobs because they were Socialists and not because they were Jews. However, 56 of the 58 physicians who were released were Jewish (defined 'racially') even though four-fifths of them had in no way been active in Social Democratic politics.105 It hardly needs to be added that Jews continued to be almost completely excluded from other federal, provincial and municipal positions. The role of Jews in the commercial life of Austria was left largely, but not entirely, unimpeded. Even here there were instances of large export houses discharging their Jewish employees, especially those doing business with Nazi Germany. 106 If it is admitted that Jewish commercial life was not too seriously disturbed during the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg years, the concession is less significant than it might appear. After all, Jewish businessmen in Nazi Germany were left relatively unmolested until 1938. 107

102 103 104

105 106 107

Die Stimme, 21 September 1934, p. 1 and 26 October 1934, p. 1. Bunzl, op. cit., 1975, pp. 47-48; Karbach op. at., p. 175. The Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) to the Secretary ofState, 30 March 1938, United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1938, p. 471. Maderegger, op. at., pp. 230, 241. Martin Fuchs, Showdown in Vienna, New York 1939, pp. 71-72, 221. At the beginning of 1938 there were nearly 40,000 Jewish-owned businesses in Nazi Germany, some of which had contracts with the government and were enjoying boom conditions. See Jacob Boas, "German-Jewish Internal Politics under Hitler, 1933-1938," Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 29,1984, p. 4.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

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In the realm of education, a Vienna school board ordinance in September 1934 establishing 'parallel (i.e. segregated) classes' for all non-Christian students (Jews and children without religious affiliation) could be, and was, interpreted as an antisemitic move. To be sure, the Jüdische Presse, the organ of Orthodox Jews, welcomed the policy as a first step toward the establishment of religious schools. 108 Die Wahrheit, however, representing the views of acculturated Viennese Jews, vehemently objected that the new classes would enlarge the already deep gulf between Christians and Jews. 109 Even Die Stimme, the mouthpiece of the Zionist faction, was not too pleased with the new ruling because it did not provide for Jewish teachers or a Jewish curriculum. 110 The Schuschnigg government blandly answered these objections by saying that it was simply trying to make religious instruction easier, in accord with Jewish desires.111 Probably the most common type of antisemitism during the DollfussSchuschnigg years was the passive variety. For example, antisemitism was tolerated in an otherwise tightly controlled press just as long as the attacks were directed exclusively against Jews and not against the government.112 Even a Nazi front newspaper, the Wiener Neueste Nachrichten, which was secretly subsidized by Germany, was allowed to continue its antisemitic diatribes.113 The same was true of other Austrian newspapers including the semiofficial Reichspost. Only in really extreme cases or where a paper had known connections with the Austrian Nazi party was it shut down, as was true of Der Stürmer in 1934. We have already seen how a purely antisemitic organization like the Antisemitenbund was allowed to function right up to (and beyond) the Anschluss, albeit under close police surveillance. Private clubs and professional organizations continued to be allowed to exclude Jews and adopt antisemitic policies.114 How did the Viennese Jews respond to the increasingly threatening situation of the interwar years? In fact, their reactions were just as varied as the types of antisemitism they encountered. Not only did they differ according to particu108 109 110 111 1,2 113

114

(Vienna, Bratislava), 24 May 1935, p. 1. 28 September 1934, p. 1. 21 September 1934, p. 1. Die Wahrheit, 8 March 1935, p. 2. Maderegger, op. cit., pp. 116-127. Letter of Franz von Papen to the German Foreign Ministry, 5 August 1935, National Archives (Washington), microfilm T-120, reel 5415, frames K287371-72. Moser, op. at., p. 264.

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lar incidents, but also according to the religious, political, social and economic background of the Jews themselves. Just as the non-Jewish Austrians were bitterly divided into Pan-German nationalists, conservative Roman Catholics, and militantly Marxist Social Democrats, so too were Jews in Vienna and the rest of Austria split into acrimonious camps. In no respect was the mythical Nazi view of Jews more absurd than in its depiction of them as monolithic world conspirators.115 Indeed, Jews could not even agree on the most fundamental questions of survival. Until at least 1932 most Jews were acculturated into Viennese society and considered themselves to be loyal Austrians first and Jews second. They were organized in the Union österreichischer Juden (Union of German-Austrian Jews). These were by far the wealthiest and best educated of the Austrian Jews and, therefore, had the most to fear from a Nazi takeover and the least to expect from a voluntary move to Palestine. As the largest party in the Kultusgemeinde until 1932 the Union was able to continue its prewar policy of making formal complaints to the Austrian government over specific cases of antisemitism. With so many lawyers in their ranks the Unionists believed themselves to be particularly well qualified for this kind of action.116 The leaders of the IKG hoped that their grievances could be resolved through normal legal channels: police authorities, law courts, and district attorneys. Formal declarations and personal remonstrances to government officials were also employed. The results, however, were mixed.117 Throughout the 1920s the IKG protested the vicious attacks on Jewish students made by their völkisch adversaries. Usually the government replied that it could not interfere with academic autonomy.118 However, the protests of the Kultusgemeinde and the Union over the attempt to divide students at the University of Vienna into 'nations' did eventually result in the Austrian supreme court declaring the law unconstitutional.119 The Zionists, who were the principal rivals of the Unionists, hoped that withdrawal from Austrian politics and society (dissimilation), along with the building of a separate Jewish culture, would win the respect of gentiles and would lessen outbursts of antisemitism. If some such attacks still occurred the

115 116 117

118 119

Frei, op. cit., pp. 25, 29. Die Wahrheit, 13 May 1932, p. 1. Avshalom Hodik, "Die israelirische Kultusgemeinde, 1918-1938," in Hodik etal., op. cit., p. 31. Ibid., p. 30; see also, Die Wahrheit, 15 November 1929, p. 3. Die Wahrheit, 18 December 1931, p. 4; Körber, op. at., 1939, p. 236.

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Jews could appeal to the League of Nations to enforce the minority rights provisions of the Treaty of St Germain.120 This suggestion caused near apoplexy among Unionists, not only because it acknowledged Jews to be a separate nationality, as alleged by racial antisemites, but also because they believed (and with good reason as it turned out) that the League could not be counted on for protection.121 Far more militant and aggressive than either the Unionists or the Zionists was the Bund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (League of Jewish War Veterans). Founded in the summer of 1932, when antisemitism and the Austrian Nazi party were reaching their peak strength, the BJF was inspired both by the older and larger Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten in Germany and the Heimwehr in Austria.122 Like the Heimwehr, at least in its heyday prior to 1930, the BJF was überparteilich. By deliberately avoiding partisan politics and emphasizing military virtues of discipline, obedience and physical fitness, it hoped to overcome the chronic divisiveness of the Jewish community in Austria. Boasting some 8,000 members by February 1934, its main goals were to support the independence of Austria and physically to protect the Jewish people against violent Nazi hooligans.123 Unfortunately, these were the only two things that the BJF or other Austrian Jews could agree upon. Otherwise, they were at loggerheads about dealing with the domestic and foreign peril of National Socialism. Except, perhaps, in the final emergency following the Berchtesgaden conference between Chancellor Schuschnigg and Hitler in February 1938, the greater the danger, the more the Jews fought each other, with neither Unionists nor Zionists hesitating to accuse the others of being related to the Nazis.124 If the Viennese Jews were bitterly divided, however, they were no more so than other Austrians, and probably somewhat less. If they failed to anticipate the Holocaust and were unable to halt the spread of Nazism, at least they understood, better than anyone else, the real threat represented by National Socialism not only to themselves, but also to the whole of western civilization. After surveying this kaleidoscope of antisemitic parties and movements, along with the Jewish reaction to them, a number of conclusions can be drawn. 120 121 122

123

124

Die Stimme, 20 February 1934, p. 2; Die Neue Welt (Vienna), 1 March 1938, p. 1. Die Wahrheit, 2 December 1932, p. 2. On the Reichsblind see U. Dunker, Der Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten, 1919-1938, Düsseldorf 1977, and Boas, op. cit., pp. 1 0 - 1 1 . Drei Jahre Bund jüdischer Frontsoldaten Österreichs, Vienna 1935, pp. 17-37; Maderegger, op. cit., p. 56. Maderegger, op. cit., pp. 4-5.

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Although there was never a time after 1914 when antisemitism entirely disappeared from the political scene, it was clearly stronger during times of rapid Jewish immigration, political upheaval, and economic hardship. Thus, the years 1914-18, 1919-23, and 1930-3 were periods when antisemitism flourished, whereas the fifteen years before the outbreak of the First World War and the late 1920s saw a remission of the disease. It is also obvious by now that the vocabulary of the antisemites was interchangeable. Such words as 'parasites', volksfremd, Ve^udung, 'Jewish spirit', 'cancerous growth', 'destructive', and 'materialistic', just to name a few of the more polite ones, were used with equal frequency by all opponents of the Jews. By the time the Nazis inherited this vocabulary it had lost its capacity to shock or disgust. We have also seen how antisemitism was a political tool used to reinforce other more important objectives. It was just one way that Socialists and Christian Socials had of attacking each other. For the Pan-Germans in the GVP and the NSDAP it was a way of bringing an Anschluss closer by undermining the integrity of the Austrian government. Because the Jewish 'problem', as defined by ardent antisemites, was essentially insoluble by any normal or civilized political action, antisemitic demands were a surefire way of embarrassing and undermining the government.125 For conservatives antisemitism was a useful way of denouncing anything associated with capitalism, liberalism, Socialism, democracy, or modern culture. Rather than criticizing these things on their own merits it was easier and more effective to condemn them through their association with some prominent group of Jews. For the Nazis its most important utility was in appealing to the largest possible crosssection of Austrians. It is unlikely that any other issue, even the Treaty of St Germain or unemployment, could have attracted so much popular support as antisemitism. The eclectic nature of Nazi antisemitism lulled Austrians, both Jews and gentiles, into thinking it was no more radical than its predecessors.126 This reasoning must have been confirmed by the seemingly 'moderate' nature of antisemitic legislation in Germany between 1933 and early 1938. Traditional antisemites could see their programme being enacted; Austrian Jews could take comfort that their co-religionists were not being forcibly expelled from Germany and were sometimes actually prospering.

125

Karbach, vol. 1, op. cit., p. 8.

126

Die Wahrheit, 10 February 1933, p. 1.

Political Antisemitism in Interwar Vienna

835

Finally, although few if any Austrians could have anticipated the Holocaust in 1938, seven decades of unceasing antisemitism obviously had a certain conditioning effect. At the very least a large number of Austrians had come to think of the Jews as being alien, overprivileged, dangerous, and not worthy of the equal rights of citizenship.

GERHARD BOTZ

The Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust* Austria, and particularly Vienna, have managed so far to obscure their participation in the history of the Third Reich. After all, the 1943 Moscow Declaration of the Allied foreign ministers declared Austria thefirstvictim of Hitler's aggression, and the whole selfimage of the Second Republic is based on this simplification of history. In this way their connection with, and responsibility for, the Nazi dictatorship have been completely removed from the historical consciousness of Austrians, who could logically assume that the extinction of independent statehood in 1938 was followed by a seven-year historical vacuum. Virtually none of the existing general histories of modern Austria stresses the considerable contribution to the functioning of the Third Reich of a large part of the population.1 The major role played in the persecution and annihilation of the Jews by the Viennese - and not just party members or their 'Reich-German' superiors - would have to be singled out. I cannot present here an outline of the end of Vienna's Jews without calling attention to these facts. A change of perspective is required from one which simply regards the Jews as victims of an imported antisemitic policy arising from German National Socialism to

* From: "The Jews of Vienna from the to the Holocaust," in IvarOxaal, Michael Pollak and Gerhard Botz (eds.), Jews, Antisemitism and Culture in Vienna, Roudedge & Kegan Paul, London and New York 1987, pp. 185-204 (slighdy abridged). Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 See for instance the otherwise comprehensive histories of Austria since the First World War: Erika Weinzierl and Kurt Skalnik (eds), Österreich 1918-1938: Geschichte der Ersten Republik, Graz 1983, 2 vols; Erika Weinzierl and Kurt Skalnik (eds), Osterreich: Die Zweite Republik, Graz 1972, 2 vols; R Dusek, Anton Pelinka, Erika Weinzierl, Zeitgeschichte im Aufriß: Österreich von 1918 bis in die achtziger Jahre, Vienna 1981; Ν. Schausberger, Osterreich: Der Wegder Republik 1918-1980, Graz 1980. This is true also for scholarly researched specialized studies like Herbert Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung: DieJuden in Osterreich 1938-1945, Vienna 1978; Widerstand und Verfolgung in Wien 1934-1945: Eine Dokumentation, ed., Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstands, Vienna 1975,3 vols (and the subsequent vols on Upper Austria, Burgenland and Tyrol).

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one which also looks at the identity of persecutors and the nature of their socio-economic motives.2 An analysis of the socio-economic forces and the political measures accompanying the persecution of the Jews in Vienna from 1938 to 1945 also allows one to demonstrate that the sharp controversy which has sprung up recendy concerning the Tinal Solution', particularly among German historians,3 is being conducted too narrowly. In this German debate two points of view confront each other: thefirstargues that Hitler's personality, his actions and an early pre-determined plan of the Führer's had envisaged the Tinal Solution', which was then consistently put into practice;4 a second, opposing view stresses the gradual, step-by-step development of the concrete measures of persecution in the Third Reich. According to Hans Mommsen,5 the most explicit exponent of the second view, the cumulative radicalization of National Socialist anti-Jewish policy arose chiefly from the internal dynamics of the rival power centres of the Third Reich 6 and from the consequences of foreign and politico-military developments which moved towards the destruction of the Jews within the German sphere of power without direct initiatives by Hitler. In my opinion both positions underestimate the significance of the antisemitic mobilization of considerable parts of the population in favour of Nazi measures against the Jews; both underestimate the extent to which the persecution and annihilation of the Jews satisfied immediate economic and social requirements of large groups and classes in a very concrete manner - a

2

3

4

5

6

This contribution is based mostly on my own earlier publications: Gerhard Botz, Wobnungspolitik und Judendeportation in Wien 1938 bis 1945: Zur Funktion des Antisemitismus als Ersatz nationalsozialistischer Sozialpolitik, Vienna 1975; idem, Wien vom 'Anschluß' zum Krieg: Nationalsozialistische Machtübernahme und politisch-soziale Umgestaltung am Beispiel der Stadt Wien 1938/39, Vienna 2nd ed., 1980. Cf. Gerhard Hirschfeld and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), Der 'Führerstaat': Mythos und Realität, Stuttgart 1981; Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives ofInterpretation, London 1985, pp. 82-105; Klaus Hildebiand, Das Dritte Reich, Munich 1979, pp. 175-180; Martin Broszat, "'Holocaust' und die Geschichtswissenschaft," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 27,1979, pp. 285-298; J. Hiden and John Farquharson, Explaining Hitler's Germany: Historians and the Third Reich, London 1983, pp. 43-47. Gerald Fleming, Hitler und die Endlösung: 'Es ist des Führers Wunsch', Munich 1982; Lucy Dawidowicz, The WarAgainst theJews 1933-45, Harmondsworth 1977; Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the'JewishQuestion', Princeton 1984, pp. 128-145. Hans Mommsen, "Die Realisierung des Utopischen: Die 'Endlösung der Judenfrage' im Dritten Reich", Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9,1983, pp. 381-420; Martin Broszat, "Hitler und die Genesis der 'Endlösung': Aus Anlaß der Thesen von David Irving," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 25, 1977, pp. 739-775; Κ. S. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933-1939, Urbana, Dl. 1970. Mommsen, op. cit. pp. 394, 395.

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Gerhard Botz

process of persecution which in fart acted as a surrogate for the social welfare policies the Nazis had promised their followers. The combination of antisemitic persecution and the satisfaction of material interests does not appear to me, at least in the Viennese case, to have been simply an attempt by the National Socialist regime to justify the persecution of the Jews - as Mommsen stresses to have been the case in the whole of the Third Reich - rather, material interests were one of antisemitism's most powerful motivating forces. On this factor rested the 'popular unanimity'7 of Viennese antisemitism since the nineteenth century, which had always been more than an ideological concept of racial values concerning the depravity of the Jews. It was no coincidence that Schönerer's ideological, racial antisemitism had been denied success with Vienna's masses,8 while Lueger's pragmatic, economic, religio-cultural-based antisemitism could be made into the integrating force of his Catholic lowermiddle-class movement.9 The precondition for this was that the Jewish part of the population was not a tiny minority, but represented a sufficiently large potential economic target, or was perceived as such by the antisemites. And, as a number of the foregoing chapters in the present volume have repeatedly indicated, this was the case in Vienna, where a pattern of relative Jewish affluence existed until the Nazi takeover. Viennese Jews were rather highly concentrated in middle-class occupations and the learned professions, as well as in capitalist circles.10 Thus the antisemites were of the opinion, and not

7

8

9

10

Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise ofPolitical Antisemitism in Germany and Austria, New York 1964, pp. 144-147, 279-287; idem, "The Development of Political Antisemitism in Austria," in Josef Fraenkel (ed.), The Jews ofAustria: Essays on their Life, History and Destruction, London 1967, pp. 429-443; Dirk von Arkel, 'Antisemitism in Austria', unpublish. phil. Diss., University of Leiden 1966, pp. 67-185; Anton Pelinka, Stand oder Klasse* Die christliche Arbeiterbewegung Österreichs 1933 bis 1938, Vienna 1972, pp. 213 ff; Karl Stuhlpfarrer, "Antisemitismus, Rassenpolitik und Judenverfolgung in Osterreich nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg," Das österreichische Judentum: Voraussetzungen und Geschichte, Vienna 1974, pp. 141-164; Erika Weinzierl, 2M wenig Gerechte: Österreicher und Judenverfolgung, 1938-1945, Graz 1969. Andrew G. Whiteside, The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schönerer and Austrian PanGermanism, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1975, esp. pp. 107-140. John W. Boyer, Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: The Origins ofthe Christian Social Movement 1948-1897, Chicago 1981, pp. 184 ff; idem, "Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews," Year Book, Leo Baeck Institute 26,1982, pp. 125-144, reprinted in this volume; Kurt Skalnik, Dr. Karl Lueger: Der Mann Twischen den Zeiten, Vienna 1954. Ivar Oxaal and Walter R. Weitzmann, "The Jews of Pre-1914 Vienna: An Exploration of Basic Sociological Dimensions," Year Book ofthe Leo Baeck Institute 30,1985, pp. 395-432; cf. also: W. von Weisl, Die Juden in der Armee Österreich-Ungarns, Tel Aviv 1979, pp. 1-22; Wolfgang Häusler, "Toleranz, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus: Das österreichische Judentum des bürgerlichen Zeitalters (1782-1918)," Das österreichische Judentum, op. dt., pp. 83-140; Leo Goldhammer, DieJuden Wiens: Eine statistische Studie, Vienna 1927; Georg Glockemeyer, Zur WienerJudenfrage, Leipzig 1937.

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without some justification, that harassing the Jews could bring them collective benefits. In fact, antisemitsim was to a great extent also a substitute for social policy in favour of the non-Jewish population at the cost of Jews and other persecuted minorities in Vienna and other central and east European cities.11 It was this high economic and social status ofJews which became the theme of the Nazi persecution in Vienna after the Anschluss. It was therefore not just pure demagoguery and propaganda in preparation for the persecution of the Jews when the Völkischer Beobachter, in its Vienna edition of 26 April 1938, wrote about the popular mood six weeks after the Anschluss·. By the year 1942 the Jewish element in Vienna will have to have been wiped out and made to disappear. No shop, no business will be permitted by that time to be under Jewish management, no Jew may find anywhere any opportunity to earn a living and with the exception of those streets where the old Jews and Jewesses are using up their money, the export of which is prohibited, while they wait for death, nothing of it may show itself in the city. ( . . . ) No one who knows Viennese opinion regarding the Jewish question will be surprised that the four years in which the economic death sentence on the Jews is to be executed seems much too long a time to them. They are puzzled by all the fuss, by the pedantic attention to the maintenance and protection of Jewish property; after all it is very simple: 'The Jew must go - and his cash must remain.' ( . . . ) While in many instances National Socialism drew the attention of North-Germans to the private, almost unpolitical danger of the Jews, in Vienna, on the contrary, the Nazis professed a commitment to responsible education of the public. This posture was intended to demonstrate the blamelessness and purity of the movement - and thus to stem the exuberant local antisemitic radicalism, steering the understandably violent reactions to the Jewish excesses of a whole century into orderly channels. This means, and let everyone take note, because Germany is a state based on the law: nothing happens in our state except by due process of law. ( . . . ) Here there will be no pogroms, certainly not through Mrs. Hinterhuber wanting to get at Sarah Cohen, in the third courtyard, on the half-landing, by the watertap.12

These were the problems and perspectives of the Vienna Nazis immediately after the Anschluss. The measures of anti-Jewish persecution until the 'Final Solution' - 'eradication' from the economy was the metaphor used in the Völkischer Beobachter of April 1938 - followed by and large these basic themes. But the persecution of the Jews in Vienna presented itself in a variety of forms, depending on particular circumstances: as a groundswell of spontaneous protest, or as a response to either an attachment of traditional elites to a bureaucratic concept of 'law and order', or to the assertion of the anti-

11

12

Botz, op. cit., 1975, pp. 117-124; idem, "'Arisierungen' und nationalsozialistische Mittelstandspolitik in Wien (1938-1940)," Wiener Geschichtsblätter 29, 1974, pp. 122-136.

Volkischer Beobachter, Vienna, 26 April 1938, pp. 2, 4.

840

Gerhard Botz

institutional radicalism of the activists of the Nazi movement, or even to the requirements of the foreign policies of the Greater German Reich. 13 Without intending to claim a teleological progress in a straight line in the 'extirpation' of Jews from Viennese society, I shall nevertheless show that the persecution of the Jews in Vienna from 1938 to 1942 moved forward in phases, with each of the various manifestations of antisemitism in Austria being built on the preceding one or at least complementary to it. One can distinguish eight distinctive stages in the progressive elimination of the Jews from Viennese society between 1938 and 1943; these eight stages were required for the progress of the Holocaust - the ultimate 'elimination' from society in the annihilation industries. 1 Exploration of the perpetrators' emotional potential and demonstration of Jewish defencelessness. In Vienna the Anschluss was immediately accompanied by events resembling pogroms, such as had not occurred until then in the 'Old Reich', that is to say in Germany before the Anschluss of Austria.14 This was because the Anschluss was not just a transfer of power by a kind of occupation, but was at the same time an internal take-over of power by the Austrian Nazis and a popular rising. The political and social discontent that had accumulated over the years among the middle-class following of National Socialism was discharged with elemental force against the Jewish part of the population. In the foreground were symbolic acts aimed at the destruction of a sense of identity: humiliations and arrests, but also brutal physical assaults and robbery, while 'scrubbing-squads' of Jews were made to clean the streets or the quarters of the storm-troopers. Children had to deface their parents' business premises with abusive words - Jude was thought to be one - and strictly orthodox Jews were forced to commit acts of sacrilege. Not only Nazis but also fellow-travellers and people who cared but little about National Socialism took part in week-long raids, with or -without the 'authorization' of the NSDAP. 15 The targets of these raids were the private apartments of Jewish bankers and of members of the intelligentsia, of the Jewish middle classes as well as the tens of thousands of poverty-stricken Jews, the Jewish-owned department stores of the Mariahilfer-Strasse as well as the pathetic little shops in 13

14

15

Helmut Genschel, Die Verdrängung derJuden aus der Wirtschaft im Dritten Reich, Göttingen, 1966, pp. 165-166; Uwe Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf, 1972, pp. 195 ff; also K. Drobisch et al, Juden unterm Hakenkreuz, Frankfurt/M., 1973, pp. 50 ff. G.E.R. Gedye, Die Bastionen fielen: Wie der Faschismus Wien und Prag überrannte, Vienna, 1947, pp. 294-309; Dieter Wagner and Gerhard Tomkowitz, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Eibrer: DerAnschluß Österreichs 1938, Munich 1968. Botz, op. cit., 1980, pp. 93-106.

Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust

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the Leopoldstadt16 Jewellery, cash, clothing, furs, carpets, works of art and furniture were carried off by the plundering mob. The shock suffered at that time by so many Viennese Jews can still be discerned in the many novels which have attempted to come to terms with that pogrom which until then had been altogether unimaginable in a 'civilized' country.17 The despair drove many Jews, particularly of the upper middle classes, to commit suicide - as many as 220 in March alone.18 Every other problem aired in the correspondence columns of the Neues Wiener Tagblatt in the beginning of April 1938 appeared under code words, such as 'Question of Life and Death 1938', 'Kismet', "Worried', 'What is To Be Done?', 'Desperate Wife and Mother', 'Distraught', 'Altogether in Despair', Ί938', 'Unhappy', 'Question of Existence'.19 This pogrom-like situation might at the outset have been somewhat encouraged by the new men in power as a safety valve for the uncontrolled social revolutionary tendencies among their own followers; however, the longer the state of chaotic interventions in the economic and administrative life of Vienna continued, the higher rose the anguish of the leading Nazi functionaries. Most anxious of all was Josef Bürckel, who had been appointed Reich-Commissioner in Austria and who feared that the national Socialist 'Reconstruction' would be hindered by the chaos. Above all, Berlin had expressed concern that 'in Austria there had occurred widespread confiscations of property' which had been impossible to control.20 Therefore measures were taken, even before the 'plebiscite' of 10 April 1938, to rein in the pogrom.21 This led to a phase of seemingly legal actions whose function it was to prepare the further progress of anti-Jewish measures.

2 The conceptual delineation and definition of the enemy group. As long as it was possible for non-Jews to become victims of persecution because of the blurred outlines of both the popular and the 'scientific' idea of 'the Jew', there

16

17

18

19 20

21

John Bunzl, "Arbeiterbewegung, Judenfrage' und Antisemitismus. Am Beispiel des Wiener Bezirks Leopoldstadt," in Gerhard Botz et al. (eds.), Bewegung und Klasse, Vienna 1978, pp. 743-763; R. Beckermann, Die Mazzesinsel, Vienna 1984. For literary accounts see: Helen Hilsenrad, Brown was the Danube, New York 1966, pp. 275 ff; G. Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna, London 1983. Botz, op. cit., 1980, pp. 98-105; Rosenkranz, op. cit., 1978, pp. 39-41; wrongfiguresare still derived from Gedye, op. cit., pp. 300-309. Neues Wiener Amtsblatt, Vienna, 5 April 1938, p. 8. MD 3872/38, Archive of the City and Land of Vienna [AdStuLW], letter of J. Bürckel to Goring, 19 July 1938, R. 104/Pak/Bundesarchiv, Koblenz [BA], Wiener Zeitimg, Vienna, 3 March 1938, p. 4; M.D. 2802/38, AdStuLW.

842

Gerhard Botz

was no assurance that radical measures of persecution would be tolerated by the large but not actively participating parts of the population. This principle was later to become clear during the euthanasia actions. The category 'Jews' had, of course, been definitively delineated by the Nuremberg racial laws, which were formally introduced into Austria on 20 May 1938. They stated what legally constituted being a 'Jew', the criteria being in the last resort based on religious-historical factors rather than racial-biological notions. Since Nazi genealogists made good use of the resulting boom, everyone soon knew whether or not he came under the classification of 'Jew'. This process of authoritative definition found its clearest preliminary expression in the special marking of identity cards for Jews. In July and August 1938, legislation was introduced covering the entire Reich which required Jews to adopt the distinctive first names 'Israel' or 'Sarah'. The passports of Jews were also marked with a large red 'J' on the first page. From the age of about fifteen, all Jews were obliged to carry the identity card at all times; they also had to declare their Jewish identity 'unasked, and on pain of prosecution, whenever they had dealings with the civil or Party authorities'.22 Moreover from the beginning of November 1938, all Jewish-owned shops had to display inscriptions in Hebrew lettering. In the course of the temporary advance of traditional authoritarian-bureaucratic tendencies in the Nazi policy in Austria during the summer of 1938, this restricting categorization was the precondition for a sort of 'legal' (i. e. regulated by law) antisemitism which showed itself in the schools, the professions, and the economy. In the area of education, blow followed blow against the Jews after the plebiscite of 10 April 1938. On 24 April a numerus clausus was introduced for Jewish university students (2 per cent), followed on 27 April by separation ofJewish pupils in the secondary schools, and on 9 May by the same action with regards to primary, comprehensive and trade schools. By 1 July 1938 Jewish teachers had been dismissed, and the number of Jewish pupils of compulsory school age diminished accordingly as many Jewish schools were closed down. From the autumn, only 1 per cent of university students were to be ofJewish descent; on 14 November they were completely excluded. Instead of the previous 6,000 secondary school pupils there were now only 500, all of them crammed into the single remaining secondary school. Altogether, approximately 16,000 pupils had been affected by the 'deschooling' which had taken place in April. 'At first they were taught in

22

Gesetzblattfardas Land Österreich, Vienna 327/1938; E. Mannlicher, Wegweiser durch die Verwaltung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Verwaltung im Reichsgau Wien, Berlin 1942, pp. 210-211,233.

Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust

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accommodation provided by the city. At the end of the school year 1938/39 all public education of Jewish children was forbidden.'23 By the end of November 1938, those of mixed race were also excluded not only from the free professions, the press, literature, theatre, film, music creative arts, but also from the professional bodies of physicians, pharmacists, lawyers and notaries public. They thereby lost to their 'Aryan' competitors their right to practise. By these measures, which carried out earlier demands of German nationalist and Christian Social antisemitism, the social and organizational networks of Viennese Jewry were destroyed, even before the physical destruction of the Jews set in. With the loss of the multiplicity of everyday Jewish social organizations, Jewish identity also lost its social basis in Vienna. Thus, Nazism destroyed an important precondition of the cultural achievements of the Viennese Jews. 3 Destruction of economic means of subsistence. The same kind of 'legal' discrimination was carried through in the economic field. In the public services and in some sectors of private enterprise, Jewish employees and workers were dismissed in large numbers, which led to a temporary increase in the rate of unemployment in Vienna. In spite of that, some rabid Austrian Nazis found too slow the process which had begun in March and was to continue for several more months. According to a plan of the Ostmark's economics minister, Hans Fischböck, all 200,000 of Vienna's Jews ought to relinquish their workplaces to unemployed 'Aryans' in one comprehensive action. However, in contrast to the public sector and the free professions, the governmental agencies moved in fact with some caution in relation to private enterprise. Economic considerations were decisive. Reich-Commissioner Bürckel, who, notwithstanding his wide-ranging powers regarding 'Jewish policy', was under stria instructions from Goring, proceeded from three principles. The aims were: first, to remove 'the Jew' unconditionally from the economy andfinallyfromAustria altogether, especially from Vienna; second, 'de-judaization' was to proceed in a way which would prevent any serious damage to export or domestic trade; and, third, it was required that the 'Jewish question' be solved in a legal manner by means of severe legislation in order to preserve the economy intact.24

23

24

Amtsblatt der Stadt Wien, vol. 46, no. 27, p. 2; 'Stadtchronik 1938/1940', Handbuch Reichsgau Wien, vol. 63/64, Vienna 1941, pp. 975-976. Max Rieser, Österreichs Sterbeweg, Vienna 1953, p. 131; Radomis Luza, Austro-German Relations in the Anschluss Era, Princeton 1975, p. 217.

844

Gerhard Botz

These guidelines were difficult to put into effect at first, particularly in Vienna. In contrast to the O l d Reich', where the 'de-judaization' of the economy was dragging on, in Austria after March 1938 the 'spontaneous Aryanization' was carried out completely without any orders from above and without following rules. Looking back, Reich-Commissioner Biirckel remarked: 'The splendid history of National Socialism and the rising in Austria has had a cloud cast over it by the extent of robbery and theft which occurred in the first few weeks, which required me to take most severe action.'25 The extent of 'Aryanization' had become so great in Vienna that it could no longer be met by improvisations as in the O l d Reich'. According to National Socialist estimates, of the 146,000 businesses in Vienna, 36,000 (25 per cent) had been in Jewish hands; of the capital value of these firms - 800 million Reichsmark - 300 million was Jewish.26 Even after the wave of 'spontaneous Aryanization', 26,000 of these enterprises still remained. In some cases these were handed over to approximately 25,000 'Aryan administrators', which meant Nazis. 27 In others the enterprises were continued in the form of socalled 'NSBO-enterprises' (National Socialist Betriebs-Organisation-fcms) by National Socialist co-operatives of the 'Aryan' employees, which were then put under the control of NSDAP. To prevent senseless destruction of the economic capacity of the Ostmark and to mobilize for the Balkan trade which was a burning interest of Göring's, Biirckel had no choice but to legalize the system of commissars which had spontaneously emerged as a 'necessary evil', to get the policy to contain the worst excesses, and to attempt, in the months following the Anschluss, a halfway orderly method of 'Aryanization'. In consequence 'Aryanisation Instructions' were speeded up, dictated by events in Vienna for the whole Reich at the end of April 1938. Administrative methods developed in Austria soon became models for the O l d Reich' as well as for the 'newly-acquired territories of the Reich'.

25 26

27

Genschel, op. cit., p. 162. Karl Schubert, Die Entjudung der ostmärkischen Wirtschaft und die Bemessung des Kaufpreises im Entjudungsverfahren, unpublish. Diss., University of World Trade, Vienna 1940, p. 10; Dietmar Walch, Die jüdischen Bemühungen um die materielle Wiedergutmachung durch die Republik Osterreich, Vienna 1971, p. 3; cf. Alf Krüger, Die Lösung der Judenfrage in der deutschen Wirtschaft, Berlin 1940, pp. 64-65; Liselotte Wittek-Saltzberg, Die wirtschaftspolitischen Auswirkungen der Okkupation Österreichs, unpublish. phil. Diss., Vienna 1970, p. 225. DerProzeß gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof, Nuremberg 1947 seq. vol. 27, p. 163 (doc. 1301-PS) [ Μ η .

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845

The Nazi party itself increased the economic dangers by making 'Aryanization' into an instrument of social and economic welfare in the hands of its members and followers - a process facilitated by the size of theJewish economic sector in Vienna. At the same time this 'middle-class' welfare system came into conflict with the economic, and particularly macro-economic-orientated organs of the Nazi state. Most of the 'provisional managers' {Kommissare) were either unable or unprepared to take a long-term view of economic management, while on the other hand the 'Four-Year Plan' was directed toward economic efficiency for war. The interests of the non-Jewish middle class, moreover, favoured the liquidation of those frequently uneconomic small and medium-sized Jewish businesses, a measure which was put into eifect towards the end of 1938. The Vienna Nazi leadership was thus able to justify accelerating the concentration and improvising the structure of Vienna's economy, which was limping along behind that of the 'Old Reich' anyway, even at the danger of causing bitter resentment among the 25,000 'provisional managers'. For the Viennese Jews, 'Aryanization' meant mostly economic expropriation. The most rapid 'Aryanization' to the end of 1938 involved 'several hundred Jewish enterprises of importance for defence and economic development' - mainly large-scale enterprises - 'all well-known obviously Jewish businesses' as well as the big department stores.28 These especially were targets of spontaneous or orchestrated antisemitic outbursts. The very large Jewish industrial enterprises and joint stock companies were approached by the Third Reich with circumspection; the property of foreign Jews was not touched until the outbreak of war. The radical policy of 'Aryanization', tried and carried out mosdy in Vienna through a combination of spontaneous action from below and official regulation from above, earned distinction for the Austrian Minister for Economics, Labour and Finance, Dr. Hans Fischböck. He had already aroused the admiration of Goring and the managers of the economy of the 'Old Reich' in the autumn. In consequence this procedure was applied to the whole of the Reich at the end of 1938. The Austrian procedure became a kind of model for the remaining parts of the Greater German Reich. 4 Forced emigration. After a large part of Viennese Jewry had been ruined through the destruction of their economic base, they were obliged to leave the country. But they now faced such obstacles as travel expenses, immigration 28

Ibid., vol. 28, p. 525 (1816-PS); R 104/Pak/BA.; Rlix Romanik, Der Leidensweg der österreichischen Wirtschaft 1933-1945, Vienna 1957, pp. 24-28; Adam, op. cit., pp. 195 ff; Rosenkranz, op. cit., 1978, pp. 60-70.

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Gerhard Botz

quotas, fees, the limited chances of integration in other countries, and the barriers of German bureaucracy and the 'Reich-escape tax' (.ReichsfluchtSteuer). The more successful the expropriation of the Jews became, the more difficult it became for Viennese Jews to find avenues for emigration. The Gestapo in Vienna therefore devised the following solution, as the chief of the Gestapo, Heydrich, reported after the Kristallnacht We did it by demanding a certain sum of money through the Jewish community from the rich Jews who wanted to emigrate. With this sum, plus some payments in foreign currency a number of poor Jews could also be got out. The problem was not to get rid of therichJews but of the Jewish mob.29

The Gestapo utilized the enforced co-operation of the Jewish community organization, the Kultusgemeinde, a division of labour between the persecutor and persecuted which was to prove its usefulness right into the Nazi extermination camps. Eichmann had come to Vienna for this task and was to excel himself in the creation and management of the 'Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna' to such an extent that it opened up a further career for him. 30 As in other areas of the anti-Jewish policy, this Central Office had grown out of the necessity of mastering the administrative problems of Nazism's Jewish policy in Vienna. The activities of the Vienna Central Office considerably speeded up the enforced emigration of Jews, which reached its high point of almost 10,000 emigrants as early as September 1938, one month after its foundation. Between the Anschluss and the end of Juli 1938, only 18,000 Jews left Vienna as emigrants. In the three months to October 1938, however, 32,000 Jews emigrated; and by July of the next year a further 54,000 followed. On 30 November 1939 the count was 126,445Jewish emigrants, a number which did not significantly increase later on. In addition to the profits gained through 'Aryanization', this expulsion of the Jews brought the Reich the sum of 1.6 million dollars which had been raised by Jewish immigration aid societies by the end of November 1939. After the beginning of the war Jewish emigration soon came to an end. Even so, another 24,500 Viennese Jews managed to emigrate during the Second World War.31

29 30

31

IMT, vol. 28, doc. 1816-PS. Letter of Eichmann to Herbert Hägen, 8 May 1938, Microfilm Τ 175, R 413, 2,938.501, National Archives, Washington, D. C.; cf. also Robert M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen, Zurich 1961, pp. 42-49; Rosenkranz, op. cit., 1978, pp. 71-77. Ibid., pp. 105-125,168-178. Jonny Moser, Judenverfolgung in Österreich 1938-1945, Vienna 1966, pp. 6 ff.

Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust

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5 Radicalization and Rekhs-Kristallnacht In the late summer of 1938 the bureaucratically softened law-and-order phase of the Nazi regime in Austria was followed by a newly radicalized policy. The threatening economic and socio-political crisis brought about by the increased armaments policy urgently required further foreign policy and military expansion,32 which went hand in hand with increasing severity of control over internal political adversaries, national minorities and Jews. The Reichs-Kristallnacht of 9 November 1938 33 marked the beginning of a new phase in the politics of the Third Reich. Vienna, once again in the vanguard, had already witnessed pogrom-like attacks against Jews in October. The Vienna pogrom was probably more violent and the cause of more bloodshed, as far as the Jewish population was concerned, than that in the 'Old Reich'. Apart from the thousands of shops and dwellings demolished in Vienna, 42 synagogues and prayer rooms were burnt down, at least 27 Jews were killed and 88 were severely injured. In addition, the numbers of those who out of despair made an end to their lives rose by leaps and bounds. In Vienna 6,547 were arrested in the course of the Judenaktion, 3,700 of whom were taken to the concentration camp of Dachau straight away. The greater part of the concentration camp detainees were released only during the first part of 1939 on production of proof of emigration documents, or on the condition of emigration within fourteen days.34 The result of this 'unchaining of the lowest instincts', as the representatives of 'orderly, legal' antisemitism in the Gestapo uneasily put it, 35 brought with it in the end a speeding-up of 'Aryanization' and a radicalization of the entire anti-Jewish policy as Hider's foreign policy moved towards the Second World War. 6 Spatial segregation (ghettoization). A few days after the pogrom of November 1938, there was an intensified revival of 'spontaneous Aryanization' of houses and flats such as had occurred in the days immediately after the Anschluss. This time, however, the robbery of Jewish dwellings was managed from above as a means of propaganda and served as indemnification of 'comrades, men of the people, who had served the Nazi movement in 32

33

34 35

Cf. Timothy W. Mason, Arbeiterklasse und Volkgemeinschaft:: Dokumente und Materialien zur deutschen Arbeiterpolitik 1936-1939, Opladen 1975, pp. 119-158. Herbert Rosenkranz, "Reichskristallnacht": 9. November 1938 in Österreich, Vienna, 1968; idem, op. cit., 1978, pp. 159-167; cf. Hermann Graml, Der 9. November 1938: Reichskristallnacht, Bonn 1955; Lionel Kochan, Pogrom: 10. November 1938, London 1957. Botz, op. cit., 1980, pp. 402 and 533. Quotation see: Widerstand und Verfolgung, Wien, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 279-280.

848

Gerhard Botz

especially deserving ways'. 36 To cope with this problem, which assumed immense proportions, the Vienna City Council - but not the Reich authorities or the NSDAP - devised administrative procedures and prepared a draft law to deprive Jewish tenants of protection. Of particular interest to the Nazi City Council administration - which calculated a housing shortage of about 70,000 dwellings for the total indigenous population of Vienna plus new arrivals from the Reich - were the dwellings occupied by Jews, originally also numbering 70,000 and representing approximately 10 per cent of the total housing stock of Vienna. By the end of 1938 alone, following forced emigration and 'spontaneous Aryanization', 44,000 Jewish homes had been occupied by 'Aryans', but there remained more than 26,000 dwellings to be 'aryanized'. Once again, a problem was tackled by the Reich authorities for the territories under their control only after the solution had presented itself in Vienna. The structure of the housing problem and the acute need for accommodation in Vienna, given the fact that Jewish property constituted a significant economic share, created in the city a special radical form of persecution of the Jews. The accommodation occupied by the Jews, and therefore at the disposal of the Nazi regime, totalled 70,000 dwellings - 6,000 more than the Social Democrats in 'Red Vienna'37 had managed infifteenyears of intensive building policy! The intensification of the war economy in the Third Reich and its internal supply crisis in 1939 made the procedures developed in Vienna worth copying throughout the Nazi sphere of power. I have characterized this specific substitutive form of socio-political procedure, including certain aspects of 'business Aryanization', as negative social policy.38 Complementary to the 'Aryanization' of homes was the development of semi-ghettoes in city districts along the Danube Canal, particularly in the Leopoldstadt. The concentration of the Viennese Jews (still numbering almost 100,000 in October 1939 and now defined as 'Jews by race' in the sense of the Nuremberg laws) in single houses, entire blocks and parts of some districts was partly a side-effect of the legal framework of the 'Aryanization procedure', and partly a deliberate policy of the Viennese Nazi district leaders. This process of relocation went on until it found its final conclusion in 1942. 36 37

38

M D 3300/1938, AdStuLW. F. Czeike, Liberale, christlkbsoziale und sozialdemokratische Kommunalpolitik (1861-1934), dargestellt am Beispiel der Gemeinde Wien, Vienna, 1962, p. 104; cf. P. Feldbauer, Stadtwachstum und Wohnungsnot, Vienna 1977, pp. 209-286; cf. also Albert Lichtblau. Wiener Währungspolitik 1892-1919, Vienna 1984, pp. 24-32. See Gerhard Botz, "National Socialist Vienna: Anti-Semitism as a Housing Policy," Wiener Library Bulletin 29, no. 39/40,1976, pp. 47-55.

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849

This process of segregation again aroused the objections of those Nazi functionaries, party members and 'comrades' who were affected by the ghetto formation; they insistently demanded the removal of the Jews from their district, not least so as to seize for themselves the remaining, often overcrowded, Jewish homes. As early as July 1939, a plan had surfaced in ReichCommissioner Bürckel's office to expel the remaining Viennese Jews to barracked encampments; the plan envisaged 'an intensive productive employment of the inmates'.39 The Viennese City administration clearly had in mind two concentration camp-like labour camps in the vicinity of Vienna and by the beginning of September 1939 had prepared detailed building plans. A change in these plans came with the outbreak of war. The planned 'overall measures' of which Heydrich informed the commanders of the SSEinsatzgruppen in Hitler's name on September 1939, envisaged the early deportation of 300,000 poorer Jews from 'Greater Germany' to Poland. They also cast a glance at a 'Final Goal' (Endziel) which was not yet clearly defined.40 Only after the rapid conquest of Poland made that more comprehensive solution appear realistic did the Viennese authorities abandon their plans of re-locating the Jews in a nearby vicinity. That Hitler had the 'declared intention' in supporting this re-location measure 'to cleanse the Ostmark of Jews as a beginning' is supported by sources.41 A memorandum in Bürckel's stafffilesstates: 'This re-location procedure will be concluded in three quarters of a year at the latest. With it the Jewish problem in Vienna will have been completely solved.'42 It cannot be excluded, given the early date of the proposed deportation initiative in Vienna, that Viennese anti-Jewish policy had an influence on the Reich policy in this area as well. After all, Hitler may well have looked with greatest interest, as well as sense of firsthand knowledge, at that city where he had first learned of the 'Jewish problem'. 43 We see here a typical oscillation and opportunism in the anti-Jewish policy: always working toward the ultimate 39

40

41 42 43

Memorandum E. Becker's, mat. reg.,file235 (2315/6), Reichskommissar, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna (Rk. AVA) and Letter of Biirckel to Goring, 8 July 1939, file 235 (2315/7) Rk. AVA, see: Botz, op. cit., 1975, pp. 146-148, 172-173. Helmut Krausnick, "Judenverfolgung," in Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 2, Munich 1967, p. 289. File 235 (2315/7), Rk. AVA. Memorandum 12 October 1939, Rk. AVA (see Botz, op. cit., 1975, p. 164). Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, New York 1939, pp. 73-79; see also Friedrich Heer, Der Glaube des Adolf Hitler, Munich 1968, pp. 51 ff; J. S.Jones, Hitler in Vienna 1907-1913, New York 1983, pp. 115-121; William A.Jenks, Vienna and the Young Hitler, New York 1976; William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, New Haven and London 1974, p. 241.

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goal within the realm of the possible, never restricting itself to any single line of How this deportation policy was implemented in Vienna, in so far as it had not simply arisen from the pressure by the 'Aryan' Viennese, is revealed in the following citation from a report to Bürckel by a National Socialist Ortsgruppenleiter kom a Vienna Jewish residential area (Rossau-Alsergrund) in 3 October1939: The extent of anti-Jewish feeling in the population is beyond measure. It is entirely thanks to the exertion of all our energy that in no case haveriotsoccurred. I am fully conscious that this cannot be carried on forever, and that it is a pretty thankless task for a political leader, you will understand. The populace constandy points to the fact that the Jews are the only ones responsible for the war, and that they ought to be dealt with accordingly. People cannot understand why Jews receive the same quantities of food-stuffs as do Aryans. They Μ to understand why Jews are not conscripted for forced labour and are left to pursue their dark schemes. The population is completely convinced that the Jews know of ways and means to obtain more goods, even these days, than they are entided to. Proof, however, is not available, since this would be the task of the police to provide, who cannot cope in our Jew-infested district. The population sees it sometimes as a sign of weakness that organs of the Party are not entitled to do away with abuses. People feel themselves severely disadvantaged, as long as 'Aryans' have to live in damp cellars while Jews are permitted to wallow in beautiful apartments. The morale of part of the population is being so thoroughly affected by their living in such close proximity with the Jews that it will not be possible for many years, in spite of great efforts, to win them over. Therefore I propose: 1 Either to set male Jews to work in mines or similar labour where they can be supervised easily, and accommodate their female family members in nearby camps. 2 Or, should this not be possible, to consider their evacuation to Poland, east of the Vistula, since it is all the same whether 2.5 or 2.7 million Jews live in Poland. 3 Should this be impossible as well, then the transfer ofJews should be carried out under other considerations than hitherto. Either: a. to those habitations which are unhealthy (mainly cellar flats where even today Aryans have to live with their children) or b. into apartments exposed to the dangers of air raids (4th or 5th floor).44

Procurement of accommodation at the expense of the Jews, i.e. negative social policy, also played a central role in all other newly conquered territories of the Third Reich and in the 'Final Solution', though I shall not go into the question of how far this applied to Poland and Romania. It was probably less a mere instrument of rationalization and pseudo-moral legitimation than an effective moving force towards the 'Final Solution'.45

44 45

File, mat. reg. 31 (1710), Rk. AVA. See Botz, op. at., 1975, pp. 85-86. The non-Jewish population was involved in and profited by Nazism's antisemitic measures in eastern central Europe to a higher extent than usually admitted; cf. Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (eds.),/iws and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, New York 1974.

Jews of Vienna from the Anschluss to the Holocaust

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Until the beginning of 1942, by which time the victorious Wehrmacht had opened up new perspectives on Jewish transportation to bleak and unhealthy reservations (previously the French colony of Madagascar had been mooted), insurmountable obstacles had arisen due to the internally competing institutions of the Third Reich; hence the deportation ofJews did not really get under way. However, as early as October 1939 there had been two transports of Jews from Vienna to Nisko; although their continuation was prevented by Himmler 'for reasons of technical difficulties'.46 Obviously, the pressure of events, and the requisite internal radicalization of the Third Reich in the phase of the Blitzkrieg, had not yet developed sufficiently to overcome the obstacles to such mass deportation measures. 7 Realizing the Nazi stereotype ofthe'Jew'.The formation of ghettoes and the earlier elimination of the Jews from the economy and the rule of law had led to a further deterioration of the already intolerable situation of the Viennese Jews. In this way the National Socialist persecution policy created a multitude of Jews who corresponded to the stereotype promoted by Julius Streicher in Der Stürmer,filthy,down-and-out Jews who snatched greedily at any chance of business dealings. The consequence of the persecution reenforced the propagandistic stereotype of the 'Jews' and broke the remains of solidarity on the part of their 'Aryan' neighbours at the same time. The 'Jew' became as disgusting for the 'Aryans' as the antisemites had depicted him as being since time immemorial. For 'vermin' and 'parasites' nothing but extermination was appropriate, as völkisch antisemites had already imagined several decades earlier.47 Only in the wake of this process of de-humanizing the Jews did it become possible further to radicalize the persecution, thus making the Holocaust itself capable of realization. There remained in Vienna at the beginning of October 1939, 66,000 socalled 'persons of Jewish faith' (Glaubensjuden), 39,000 persons of so-called 'Jewish race' (Rassejuden),48 and approximately 13,000 foreign and stateless

46 47

48

Moser, op. at., pp. 17 ff. Hitler, op. at., pp. 419-425; cf. an antisemitic pamphlet from 1923, Gerhard Botz, Gewalt in der Politik, 2nd edn, Munich 1983, p. 406. According to the Nuremberg Racial Laws of 15 September 1935, a Jew was a person who descended from at least three so-called racially full Jewish grandparents. Under certain circumstances (Jewish denomination, marriage to a Jew, illegitimate birth), this definition of 'Jew' applied also to 'half-castes' with only two Jewish grandparents (H. Pfeifer, Die Ostmark: Eingliederung und Gestaltung, Vienna 1941, pp. 173-174). This definition of 'Jew by race' (Rassejude) was wider than the 'Jew of denomination' (Glaubensjude), which comprised only members of the Jewish religious community.

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Gerhard Botz

Jews. Their further pauperization and marginalization was once more put in motion by 'legislative measures'. As early as September 1939 a curfew was imposed and the existing limitations on access to parks and recreational facilities were tightened even further. At the beginning of January 1940 the times during which Jews, whose ration cards were marked with a 'J', could enter provision stores were limited to those when goods in demand had been sold out. In 1942 Jews were forbidden to obtain cigars, eggs, meat, full-fat milk and white flour. After they had already been forced in 1939 to hand over all jewellery and precious metal, they were now robbed of fur and woollen clothing. Since the end of 1941 they had been excluded from all public social services, as well as from listening to the radio, use of public transport and use of the telephone. They were forbidden to leave the area of Greater Vienna without permission. The apex of social discrimination was reached with the law of September, 1941, which required the identification ofJews by a yellow Star of David - Judenstern - which was to be worn prominently on the left side of the chest. Without it Jews were prohibited to show themselves in public.49 A National Socialist report about the economic situation of Vienna's Jews in the summer of 1940 stated 'that they mostly had no income, apart from isolated cases like doctors and dental technicians who treated Jews and lawyers who represented Jews'. Of Vienna's 'Jews by faith' about 40,000 were without means. In September 1939,35,500 persons were fed each day by the Jewish communal administration and 31,364, about one-half of the remaining 66,000, received cash grants. The budget of the Jewish community required a monthly sum of 1.4 to 1.5 million Reichsmark in order to fulfil all the tasks of social support with which it had been charged and in order to finance emigration up to August 1939. Since these large sums came mainly from foreign-aid committees, the start of the war meant an almost total collapse of Jewish self-aid. The situation of these Viennese Jews was made even more difficult by the fact that 40 per cent of them were above 60 years of age, with those less than 40 years old amounting to only 19 per cent. In addition, women were overrepresented by a factor of two to one. The preponderance of the aged and of women was a consequence of emigration - for economically active persons, men, and middle- and upper-class Jews emigration was less difficult - and the extremely deteriorated conditions of life which had made the remain-

49

Rosenkranz, op. cit., 1979, passim.

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ing Viennese Jews into a moribund community even before their deportation. 50 [ . . . ] In conclusion, the following points summarize the process of the persecution of the Jews and their elimination from Viennese society: 1 The events leading up to the destruction of the Viennese Jews must be seen as a process, but not one with a clearly-defined goal or one that moved unilinearly in a predefined political direction. Although the general direction of antisemitism was determined, it was not fixed in detail in its timing, means, or degree of radicalism. 2 National Socialist anti-Jewish policy found widespread support in Vienna; it was based on anti-Jewish traditions popular since the Middle Ages. 3 The annihilation of the Viennese Jews in the Third Reich showed essentially the same dynamic of hostility towards the Jews as existed in Vienna already before 1900, as indicated in other papers in this volume. Its most powerful driving forces in the Third Reich, radiating from the regional areas, were immediate material interests. This should not be taken to mean that the strong antisemitism of many Viennese did not also have socio-psychological, cultural or religious causes. The official and party-organized persecution of the Jews was put into effect with a thoroughness which on occasion called forth criticism from even the Gestapo and the economic and state bureaucracy. This points to the extent of the pent-up and socially explosive frustration at the root of the antisemitism of the population and the Nazis of Vienna. It also reflects the massive economic and status-anxiety of the middle layers of a society which had entered the dynamic of capitalist development, threatened by crises and in a state of rapid modernization. Antisemitism doubtless did have a strong anti-capitalist dimension. Since the economic motives ofJew-hatred have to be reckoned the stronger, the more insecure the economic situation of a country - and the more prominent, affluent and concentrated the Jewish population - the antisemitism in Vienna was more intense than that in the Old Reich. In consequence, from 1938 on Vienna was always a few steps ahead of Germany in the process of persecution of the Jews. Not only were the comparable measures applied earlier in Vienna than in Germany, but they could also count on much broader support among the non-Jewish population. Here, the organizational instruments and procedures could be developed which would later be applied

50

Ibid., pp. 297-300; 'Die Juden in Wien' (1941), Botz, op. at., 1975, pp. 605-610.

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Gerhard Botz

by Eichmann in the 'Final Solution'. It is not surprising, therefore, that in connection with the expulsion of the Jews from their homes, concrete plans were devised in the office of the Reich-Commissioner earlier than anywhere else in the Greater German Reich (except perhaps by Hitler and the innermost circles of the leadership) from the mass deportation and incineration in concentration camps of the entire remaining Jewish population of Vienna. The response of the party membership to the announcement of a considerably more stringent Jewish policy immediately after the start of the war, which eventually was to bring about the deportation and annihilation of 65,000 Viennese Jews, shows that fantasies and desires in that direction had long been entertained. The 'Final Solution' had already been within the realm of the thinkable before the Nazi period and it became feasible only at the end of a politico-social-psychological process, which dehumanized step-by-step the image of the 'Jew' and weakened the still existing feelings of solidarity with the victims among the non-Jewish population. At the beginning of this process antisemitic action on such a massive scale was implausible; by the end it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.51 Viennese, Austrians and other members of the Hitler-Reich could therefore easily soothe their conscience when observing fragments of the monstrosity of the final consequences of Nazism's antiJewish policy while gaining substantial material advantages from the Jews' persecution.

51

See also: Hans Buchheim, "Die SS - das Herrschaftsinstrument. Befehl und Gehorsam," Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol. 1, Munich 1965. A similar mechanism seems to govern South Africa's Apartheid policy (cf. J. Lelyveld, Move Your Shadow South Africa, Black and White, New York 1985).

Part V Hungary

HERBERT A . STRAUSS

Hungary Historic Catastrophes and Long-Range Changes The decisive turn in the fortunes of Jews in Hungary, the readings in this chapter agree, arrived with the defeat of the Central Powers in World War One and the peace the victors concluded with the much diminished country at Trianon on June 4, 1920. Hungary, perceived as inheriting the war guilt incurred by pre-war Austria-Hungary, suffered a nationally humiliating loss in territory and population that ended the dominance it had exercised semiindependendy with German Austria since 1867 over the region. Before 1918, Hungary had been a multi-national state, its minorities in precarious numerical balance with Hungarian-speaking ethnics (about 47 % each). The about 7 % Jews to be added tipped the scale in favor of the ruling Magyars: the technique of expelling minorities to secure mono-national control over territory was just then only in its beginnings. Trianon severed major parts of Hungarian Jewry from the new state, most but not all of them relatively recent immigrants in northern and eastern counties (Komitats). The changes in the structure of politics, economics and social class relationships gave birth to intensively felt national chauvinism and territorial revisionism. They revealed cracks in the long-range accommodation of Jews into the national pattern, although the personal and social alliances of the past continued to exert a dominant influence in public life, political culture, and economic "symbiosis" (in this case meaning "mutually beneficial exploitation"). The most traumatic single event in post-war Hungarian-Jewish relations was the perception of national opinion that Jews had betrayed the national contract: they had been active in highly visible numbers in the post-war revolutionary upheavals and the Soviet Government of Bela Kun and his colleagues, many of whom were of Jewish background. N o matter that one fourth of Hungarian officers killed fighting at the front had been Jewish in World War One, or that Jews had successfully and loyally embraced the ideology of Magyarization. No matter even that the Kun government was expected to obtain better conditions from the Allies for the peace. The

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selective perception of the Jewish role in the new rump state among conservative-liberal governments as well as Conservative-Right and extreme Right Radicals emerged in party politics, in legislation, in sharp social and economic conflicts between Jews and Christians. Hungarian governments might not have resorted to deporting their Jews, let alone to mass-murdering them, but the pattern of government persecution beginning in 1938 with the First Jewish Law followed two decades of anti-Jewish propaganda, politics, and discrimination (cf. readings by Klein, Katzburg, Braham). Although defeat of the Axis powers was in sight in 1944 and recognized by Hungarian decision makers, and although worldfigureswarned or informed the Hungarians, there was no Hungarian Wallenberg or Feller (Swedish and Swiss diplomats, respectively, helping to save Jews in Budapest in 1944/1945). The readings accessible to persons unacquainted with the Hungarian language concentrate primarily on the political and social complementarity of the dominant land-owning elites making up the latifundia-owning nobility (magnates), and the quite small percentage of Jews who created the financial and banking system, industrialized the country often along oligopolistic lines, and carried on its major trade. As a group, they "sub-infeudated" into an essentially pre-modern nobility, successfully maintaining their political predominance and linking up with the market even during a period of falling agricultural prices. Politically, Jews were essential in securing a Magyar majority between 1867 and 1918. They fused their (several) Jewish cultures (cf. Fischer on Jewish immigration to Hungary) with Magyar education and culture and strengthened Hungarian enclaves among non-Hungarian ethnic groups like Germans, Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Rumanians, and others. Nowhere in continental Europe was the identification of nobility with Jewish Grossbuergertum less beset with frictions, the ennoblement of numerous Jewish families symbolizing the economic division of power and function. However, as the reading by Fischer suggests more strongly than others, below the "golden age of harmony" in Hungarian-Jewish relations appeared cracks that may help explain the allegedly sudden turn in Hungarian attitudes mentioned earlier. Hungary's Jewry was composed of distinct groups based on origin and date of immigration. By 1910, about 50 % of the population was of recent East-European immigrant stock, primarily in the Northern and Eastern sections of the country. However, statistics are not broken down further so that the reference to a far-reaching or complete Magyarization of Jews living in Budapest - their number grown from 70,227 to 203,587 persons between 1880 and 1910, the most active period of Polish-Russian emigration westward - stands in need of documented proof. Similar strictures apply in most readings on data concerning social groups supporting antisemitic organi-

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zations or parties, or voting for them. The rather sudden emergence in the literature of social groups like the lower middle class, the expanding Christian industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, industrial workers, or landless peasants needs to be related to long-range trends preparing for antisemitic reactions. As Klein states, peasants in Hungary, presumably a desperately poor and semi-servile lot under the control of the landlords, lived in peace and harmony with Jews and considered them their benefactors.1 Future research may modify what appears to be the consensus among scholars. There was antisemitism among middling and small landowners during the 1880s (Great Depression!), and in the 1890s, both a Catholic People's Party and an Association of Farmers were organized, when the emphasis in economic weight shifted enough to produce a sense of crisis among the lower landowning gentry being dispossessed. The impact of Catholic dogmatic anti-liberalism also needs further study. As Fischer point out, antisemitism of a secular kind linked up with the hysteria surrounding the widely publicized accusation of ritual murder leveled against a village Jew in Tisza Eszlar in 1882. In the 1880s a party based on a one-issue antisemitic platform, succeeded to send up 33 representatives to the Hungarian parliament (1906). Significantly, the strength of the party lay in Transdanubia (between the Danube and the Western and Southwestern frontiers of pre-war Hungary). Its leaders derived typically from among middling and small landowners, while its ideologies contained nationalist and anti-liberal invectives as well as Catholic-Social anti-modernism. There were traces of student antisemitism, too, but different from Vienna, they were kept by government decree from public display. But, like in Vienna, the gospel of Social-Christian antisemitism found adherents among the lower clergy (active in founding the Peoples Party in 1895). Fischer points to several minority groups reacting adversely to the Jewish role as Magyarizers. Pending further local and regional studies on peasant attitudes, however, it appears that the propagandistic insistence on the "undesirability" of foreign Jews (i. e., Jews from the Eastern fringes of the territory) that appeared frequently on all levels of antisemitism, especially in the inter-war period, did not correspond to the distribution of the antisemitic vote. In addition, the strength of anti-semitic organizations in predominantly Catholic Western and Southwestern areas suggest ideological influences from German sources. It parallels the policies pursued by the Papacy and the Vienna Christian Socials.

1

The author of a study reported in progress in 1990 on "Grassroots antisemitism in interwar Hungarian peasantry" (G. Bar-Shaked) could not be traced at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

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Thus, Fischer'sfindingsuggest a revision of a too tight division into pre- and post-war periods in antisemitism. As he suggests further, by the late 19th century two thirds of the lower gentry had lost their land, while the remaining third was heavily in debt. Among magnates, the fast shift in economic emphasis to larger concentrations of economic strength in banking, industry and commerce created a sense of fast change, a slippage into economic crisis. As a result, some aristocrats, still before World War One, defected from the historic "alliance" and sought assurance in a national conservatism that included antisemitic ideas to fight liberalism and its perceived capitalistic evils. Both domestic and foreign affairs, in consequence, gained a sharpened nationalistic edge. On the pattern of sub-political, preliterate, or associational antisemitism more needs to be known, and different methodologies need to be adopted to bring to light the meaning of "antisemitic attitudes" in the context of the mentality of isolated peasant populations. Were they touched by the upperclass politics that is described as the core of Hungarian Jewish relations before the war? Similarly, the impact of the Catholic social movement and of Papal social Christianity on Hungarian clergy and laity need to be subjected to regional analysis as well as a comparison of the ideological appeals that made antisemitism useful to rally supporters. It would help to differentiate the careful analyses offered by Fischer and Mendelsohn in this volume. Thus, when in 1918 defeat came crashing down on the old structure, the social realignment was long prepared that formed one pole of inter-war Hungarian politics. Braham fixes the origin of radical (fascist) Hungarian antisemitism in early post-war patriotic associations, and places the conservative Right into a pre-fascist context (Italy rather than Germany becoming the model). Seen in this light, the policy of conservatively controlled governments and prime ministers appears as a calculated balance between Right Radical allies at home and, after 1933, Nazi German pressures from abroad. Mendelsohn, in turn, sees continuity in the policies of the [Horthy and] Bethlen periods even though the turn to nationalist economic and social policies does, in fact, signal a basic change. The political alliance between Jews and national interests retained its economic basis, as Jewish capital, industry, and trade were vital to maintaining post-1923 prosperity. But the now more mono-national Hungary had no further need for its Magyarized Jews to counter-balance minorities. Instead, national interest was perceived increasingly in terms of social demands that had appeared only muted before 1914: "unassimilated, unnational, or even anti-national Jewry," immigrants from Russia, Romania, or Galicia, were seen as controlling press and literature (1926), discriminatory legislation and practice began to limit Jewish access to accustomed careers

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(university study, officers' corps, bureaucracy). Yet, in practice, the alliance held firm against the demand to define Magyarization in terms of replacement of Jewish by Christian Hungarians in the professions (numerus clausus law, 1920) and in economic life. Antisemitism was used by the new claimants for admission to middle class roles as an opening wedge to displace a Jewish community that chose, or was forced to seek, its defense against right-wing extremism and incipient racism in an alliance with the very landowning magnates that derived their economic power from arrangements originating in a feudal past. They in turn made use of the alliance - and of limited concessions to social discontent - to stave off changes in structure and arrangements in politics and economics. The social groups concentrated in the extreme right wing of anti-establishment politics and represented by premier Gömbös (1932-1938) need more sophisticated statistical analysis to become distinct enough for their social motives and the ideological and religious sources of their nationalist antisemitism. They are identified in these readings as members of the gentry whose impoverishment dated to before World War One and as the "expanding commercial and industrial Christian bourgeoisie" (Braham) pushing for economic advancements by means of replacing Jews already in positions, with the help of racist and nationalist-revisionist ideologies. The status warp between retained gentry auto-stereotype and economic role perception noted for the earlier period (Fischer) is seen to continue and link conservatives and radicals in the fascist period beginning in 1932 (with modifications as pointed out by Mendelsohn). While for the 1930s, landless peasants and industrial workers are mentioned as having been attracted by the fascist movement, no information on the attitudes of the peasantry is being offered. With 1933, the presence of Nazi Germany loomed increasingly large and threateningly over Hungarian politics. This has stimulated historians to try to sort out autochthonous from imported trends towards the Holocaust in which 300,000 Hungarian Jews were brutally murdered. Yet, the question remains in abeyance whether the methods of analysis applied to Hungarian antisemitism are capable so far of answering the question raised in one reading (Klein) about the deeper causes of antisemitism in Hungary: The various statements made in Parliament about Jews disclose a much deeper hatred for which rational and economic explanations . . . are insufficient. One of the Right-radical publications, UjMagyanag,... considered... anti-Semitism... a new philosophy and a way of life . . . a great inner catharsis which would rebuild Hungarian society and solve the antiSemitic problem for the benefit of the Jews as well. (1966)

The point was raised by the author presumably to emphasize the limits of his (conventional) political analysis and the concentration on the political elites of traditional Hungarian-Jewish history. It had of course been answered for

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Herbert A. Strauss

fascism as well as antisemitism in history and social thought when it was made. They had reinforced or replaced - either of both - traditional religious emotionalism, or, in respect to Jew-hatred, had fed on mentalities surviving even during periods of catastrophic social upheavals or turbulent political change that, like in post-1918 Hungary, threatened or destroyed accustomed self-understandings.

R O L F FISCHER

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932"" The Magyar-Jewish Relationship in the Era of Dualism, 1867-1918 The situation of the Jewish population in Hungary was significantly better towards the end of the 19th century than in most other European states. This was not just the view of the large majority of Hungarian Jews; many foreign, especially Austrian observers shared in this assessment, and even Theodor Herzl, in a resume for the First Zionist Congress of 1897 in Basel, came to the conclusion that Hungary was an "oasis in the anti-Semitic world." 1 Although voices also warned this congress against premature optimism with regard to the situation of Hungarian Jewry, it was astonishing how much appreciation the Zionists extended to the development of the Magyar-Jewish relationship and the integration of Jews in the Hungarian part of the Habsburg monarchy. Alexander Mintz, who reported on the situation of Jews in Austria, pointed out that the positive developments in Hungary even made the efforts and successes of Zionists in Austria more difficult; for Hungary, the "transleithian paradise," was the favorite argument of all Austrian Jews who continued to base their hopes and their futures on the progress and success of assimilation, and who thus enthused over the "wealth of some, contentment of many, and patriotic enthusiasm of all Jews" 2 in Hungary. The cause of this generally positive assessment was above all the obvious weakness of the Hungarian anti-Semitic movement, which contrasted conspicuously with the spectacular anti-Jewish events occurring in many places in Europe, especially in the 90's. While the Dreyfus affair divided France, in Germany an anti-Semitic fraction came into being in the Reichstag for the first

* Translated from the German by Belinda Cooper "Antisemitismus in Ungarn 1882-1932", unpubl. manuscript. Reprinted with permission of the author. 1 Theodor Herzl, "Der Baseler Kongress," in L. Kellner (ed.), Zionistische Schriften, Berlin,

p. 244.

2

Alexander Mintz, "Die Lage der Juden in Osterreich," Protokoll des I. Zionistenkongresses in Basel vom 29. bis 31. August 1897, Prague 1911, pp. 59-70, 69.

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time, in Russia Jews were denied even elementary rights and pogroms occurred constantly; while Karl Lueger, the country's most popular anti-Semite, was elected mayor of Vienna and in Bohemia the Czechs and Germans turned ever more openly to anti-Semitic methods in their national conflict, in Hungary comparative silence surrounded the anti-Semites. This, as well as the astonishing results of the assimilation process that interacted with it, could be traced back to economic structures, political constellations and ethnic realities in multiethnic Hungary. Yet the "golden era" of Hungarian Jewry, the half century between emancipation - granted by the legislation of the Austro-Hungarian setdement of 1867 - and the First World War, was not free of serious social conflicts. At the beginning of the 80's, the anti-Semites also succeeded in Hungary in placing the "Jewish question" at the center of public discussion. The social nucleus that backed the anti-Semitic movement was recruited above all from those classes that had been downgraded by the forced economic developments of the final third of the 19th century. Capitalist development in the era of Austro-Hungarian Dualism (18671918) was characterized by two different phases whose point of intersection was the early 90's. In thefirstphase, the bases of industrialization were created, in the form of dynamic expansion of markets and capitalization of the economy. This was a somewhat extensive process that preserved the traditional structures of industrial branches.3 At the end of the 80's and the beginning of the 90's, developments took a new turn. They accelerated, spilled over into areas of the economy that had been neglected until then, and created new forms of organization. The focus of developments shifted from agriculture to industry. In the nineties, characteristic manifestations of monopolization came to the fore; the trend to large industry and concentration increased, large concerns and cartels emerged, and, through the interconnection of industrial and bank capital, a powerful financial oligarchy formed.4 In the quarter century before the First World War, Hungarian capitalism went through its most stormy phase. It called into question Hungary's traditional social and economic hierarchy. Trade and industry developed more quickly than agriculture; investment in these sectors brought more profit more quickly

3

4

Cf. Peter Hanäk, Miklos Lacko, György Ränki, "Gazdasag, tarsadalom, tarsadalmi-politikai gondolkodas Magyarorszagon a kapitalizmus koraban," Vita Magyamrszag kapitalizmuskori fejlödeseml, Budapest 1971, pp. 13-86, 28 ff. Cf. Laszlo Katus, "Magyarorszag gazdasagi fejlödese (1890-1914)," Magyamrszag tärtenete 111, Budapest 1978, pp. 263-292.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

865

than in the agricultural sector. In comparison with mobile capital, land ownership found itself in a disadvantageous position. The social tensions that this structural transformation brought forth were intensified by economic crises that did not spare Hungary's economy, despite the general upward trend.5 The "Great Depression" from 1873 to 1896, which, compared with the prosperity preceding it, was characterized by slower economic growth and reduced capital investment, also had an effect on Hungary. In this industrially underdeveloped state, the crisis had the most lasting effect on the agrarian sector. The agrarian crisis was expressed through falling prices for agricultural products; in particular grain prices, which had been sinking since the 70's because of worldwide overproduction, put agriculture under pressure. While the large landowners, supported by their material opportunities, succeeded in adapting to the demands of capitalist competition, the economic decline of medium and small-sized aristocratic property was one of the most significant processes of this period.6 The majority of this class of the nobility was no match for the requirements and the dynamics of capitalist competition. In the second half of the 19th century, two-thirds of the Magyar gentry lost its property; much of the remaining property was burdened with debt.7 The decline of the social class richest in tradition can be traced back to interacting economic factors and social-psychological dispositions. A lack of financial means, an inadequate credit system and thus "expensive" credit impeded the necessary measures to preserve competitive ability. The drop in prices, that began in the mid-70's and brought sinking prices year after year for two decades, intensified the economic pressure already felt by medium-sized and small agrarian productive units.8 In this process of forced economic and social change, traditional thought processes and the often anachronistic mentality of the old "historical middle class" made even more difficult the necessary orientation towards and acceptance of new forms and new branches of employment. This lack of mobility can be traced back to the nobility status of the middle class. In Hungary's

5 6

7

8

Ibid. For details on the agrarian crisis, see Pal Sändor, "Die Agrarkrise am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts und der Großgrundbesitz in Ungarn," Studien zur Geschichte der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie, Budapest 1961, pp. 167-194. Cf. Peter Lang, "Mezögazdasägi edekkepviselet Magyarorszagon. Az agrarius mozgalom zaszlobontasa es szervezeteinek kiepülese," Agrärtörteneü szemle 13, 1971, pp. 392-407, here 397. On the agricultural situation, see Antal Vörös, "Α mezögazdasag," Magyamrszdg tortenete 7/1, Budapest 1978, pp. 293-401.

866

Rolf Fischer

agrarian society, as in other societies in this region, an independent Magyar peasant bourgeoisie had no chance to develop. The social and economic dominance of the aristocracy, the weakness of industrial development, and thus the preservation of agrarian, in part feudal structures had decisively hindered bourgeois development. Thus the core of the middle class, the classical terrain of the bourgeoisie, had been formed from noble elements and was influenced by them in all its parts. It is telling that this class called itself the "historic" and/or "establishment (herrschaftlich) middle class" (törtenelmi/üri közeposztaly). To its representatives, employment in bourgeois occupations such as trade, business and industry counted as socially unacceptable; only management of estates, political activity and the acceptance of office were appropriate to their prestige. However, because the economic crisis required them to turn to areas outside of agriculture, a run on administrative offices resulted in this period (Dualism), and to a lesser degree, as these could not take all applicants, a penetration of the independent professions. The administrative apparatus was built up greatly; members of the gentry were given preference infillingpositions. In 1890 they held, for example, 64.1 % of the positions in the Ministry of the Interior, and 53.8 % in the Ministry of Finance.9 In the administration of the komitates, these numbers were far higher. A part of the gentry and lower nobility sank into the peasant class. However, the economic decline of the "establishment middle class" did not mean a simultaneous loss of social prestige. Social contacts to the aristocracy, prominent positions in administration and politics, and not least their "noble" self-image preserved them a place in the social hierarchy.10 The discrepancy between their claim to social and political leadership on the one hand, and their concrete economic, as well as intellectual, plight on the other was meanwhile so obvious that it became a much-discussed problem. Those who were affected equated their fate with that of the "Magyar" itself, while their critics described them and their conduct as the anachronistic remnants of a traditionalist period. In this situation, representatives of this class succeeded in ascribing to their problems a dimension that went far beyond the real issues. Their fate, they argued, was doubly linked to that of the Hungarian state and the Magyar ethnic group. Economic liberalism, more precisely its "mercantile

9

10

Cf. Andrew J. Janos, "The Decline of Oligarchy: Bureaucratic and Mass Politics in the Age of Dualism (1867-1918)," in A.Janus and W. B. Slottman (eds.), Revolution in Perspective, Los Angeles, London 1971, pp. 1-60, here 7 f. Cf. P. Hanäk, "Economics, Society and Sociopolitical Thought in Hungary During the Age of Capitalism," Austrian History Yearbook 11, 1975, pp. 113-135, here 126.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

867

spirit," was the threat. Hungary was primarily an agrarian state whose agricultural character therefore had to be protected against the interests and practices of capital - in the interest of the majority of its population. This collision of interests, however, was not only a question of the conflict between "agrarian" and "mercantile," but at the same time between the "Magyar" and "alien" spirits. On this point, the argument could in fact base itself upon peculiarities of social development. Since no native bourgeoisie had emerged, its position had been taken by newcomers - at first mainly Germans, then, in growing measure, by Jews. In the mid-19th century, the German element still was prevalent among the old urban bourgeoisie. The trade, industry andfinanceof modern capitalism, on the other hand, were decisively developed and dominated by the Jewish element. The newly-rising bourgeois middle class that emerged served as an enemy par excellence for the old, gentry-influenced middle class. Yet it was probably not merely the in part "humiliating" wealth itself that attracted aggression, but also the way in which it was earned. In Hungarian society, prestige was traditionally based on family heritage, land ownership or office. The resulting mentality and the values that accompanied it were characteristic of broad segments of the Hungarian population, even in the age of Dualism. To this way of thinking, and to these values, oriented around nearly immobile criteria, the principles and mechanisms of capitalist economics and its opportunities were strange and suspicious. It is quite possible that most would rather have preferred to share in the profits than to damn them, but in the given situation the advantage lay as a rule with those to whom the terrain had willingly been left, and who now dominated it. Jewish immigration was fostered by these conditions. Jewish immigration in modern times occurred in three basic waves.11 The first phase lasted until around 1700 and brought Jews mainly from the Austrian and German states to Hungarian territory; most settled in the border areas of the western komitates. In 1700, around 85 % of Hungarian Jews lived in the four komitates Sopron, Pozsony, Moson and Nyitra. The second, more extensive wave of immigration began at the start of the 18th century and involved Jews from Bohemia and Moravia. They settled mainly in the homitates Pozsony, Nyitra and Trencsen, which bordered on Moravia. From 1700 to 1735, the percentage of Hungarian Jews living on the border with the Moravian areas rose from 28.9 to 41 %. The third phase, most significant in duration and scope, was the immigration from Galicia (Austrian since 1772), 11

On the following figures, see Ernest Marton, "The Family Tree of Hungarian Jewry," in Randolph L. Braham (ed.), Hungarian Jewish Studies 1, 1966, pp. 1-59.

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Rolf Fischer

Poland and the Polish areas of the Czarist empire. It began in the mid-18th century and continued until the end of the 19th century, but so-called "Ostjuden" also immigrated during the First World War.12 The majority settled in the komitates bordering on Galicia, which reveal an above-average proportion of Jews in the population around the turn of the century. It is estimated that in thefirsthalf of the 20th century Hungarian Jewry consisted of 10 % old-established Jews and 15 % that could be traced to the AustrianGerman, 25 % to the Moravian-Bohemian, and 50 % to the Polish immigration. Growth proceeded as follows: Table I The Jewish Population of Hungary, 1787-1910 (without Croatia-Slavonia)13 Year

Jews

1787 1815 1840 1869 1880 1890 1900 1910

80,775 126,620 238,848 542,279 624,826 707,961 826,222 911,227

°fo of the total population 1.3 1.8 2.6 4.0 4.4 4.7 4.9 5.0

Jewish migration within the borders of the country was an important phenomenon. This was, on the one hand, a migration from border areas to the interior of the country, and, on the other, from rural areas to the population centers. In 1700, 90 % settled in border areas, in 1910 only 35.7 %. Budapest was one of the European metropoleis which experienced the greatest increase in Jewish population. The three communities of Obuda, Buda and Pest (Budapest since 1873) had already experienced thefirstmajor influx following 1830. Up to 1920, the Jewish percentage of the population grew continuously, so that from the turn of the century nearly every fourth resident of the capital was of Jewish descent. Although no other community approached the size of the Budapest community, there were cities and villages in which the percentage of Jews in the 12

13

On Jewish immigration from Galicia, see Walter Pietsch, "A zsidok bevändorlasa Galiciäbol es a magyarorszagi zsidosäg," Valosag, 1988, pp. 46-59. Cf. Nathaniel Katzburg, "Hungarian Jewry in Modern Times. Political and Social Aspects," Hungarian-Jewish Studies 1, 1966, pp. 137-170, here 166.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

8 69

Table Π The Jewish Population of Budapest, 1813-191014 Year

Jews

% of the Budapest

°/o of Hung. Jews

population

1813 1830 1848 1869 1880 1910 a

5,525 8,750 18,265 44,890 70,227 203,687

7.9 8.8 13.8 16.6 19.7 23.1

a

4.5 _ _ _a

8.1

11.0 22.1

No data available for 1813 and 1848

population was significantly higher. Thus in 1880, in the eastern part of the country, the percentage of Jews in Munkacs was 46.7 °/o, in Sztopko 45.5 °/o, and Kurima 36 %; in the north, in Liptoszentmiklos 45 °/o, and in the west, in Dunaszerdahely 44.8 % and in Szered 33.7 °/o. The percentage was lowest in the southeast and in Transylvania, and only exceeded the 10 % mark in a few communities, such as Arad with 15.2 % and Temesvär with 12.2 %. In Transylvania, an exception was Gyulafehervär with 15.1 %; Marosväsärhely reached 6.6 °/o and Kolozsvär 5.4 °/o. Of course, migration to the cities - like interior migration in general occurred not only among Jews, but there the trend was most clearly evident. In all of Hungary's seven provinces, the population grew visibly between 1869 and 1910. However, if one considers the share of each province in the total population of the country, during this period it declined or stagnated in six of the seven provinces; only in the province "between the Danube and the Theiss," containing greater Budapest, did it rise considerably. The population of the province "Right Bank of the Danube" (Transdanubia) grew between 1869 and 1910 by 27.9 °/o, while during this period its share of the total population fell from 15.6 % to 14.8 %.15 The number of Jews, which more than doubled between 1830 and 1880, decreased in this province after 1880 even in absolute figures, and its share of the province's population decreased from 3.7 % (1880) to 2.9 % (1910). The process was similar in the remaining

14

15

Compiled from the figures in Victor Karady and Istvän Kemeny, "Les Juifs dans la structure des classes en Hongrie," Actes de la Recherche en sciences sociales, 1978, pp. 25-29, here 29, as well as Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 4 (B), Jerusalem 1972, p. 1449. P. Hanak, "Magyarorszäg tarsadalma a szazadfordulo idejen," Magyarorszäg tartenete 7/1, Budapest 1978, p. 406.

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Rolf Fischer

provinces. "Between the Danube and the Theiss," on the other hand, the number of Jews grew enormously not only in absolute figures, but also more quickly than that of other newcomers; their share of the province's population rose from 5.8 °/o (1880) to 7.8 °/o (1910). The cause of this greater mobility can be found in the social and economic constellations in which a majority of the Jewish population found itseE Yet Hungarian Jewry was of course as little a homogenous group as the Magyars themselves. A Jewish banker or industrialist had as little in common with a Jewish peddler as a large Magyar landowner with a Magyar day laborer. Based on the three waves of immigration, it is possible to attempt a rough preliminary sketch of the social structure of Hungarian Jews. The immigrants from the Austrian and German states were above all businesspeople and traders who concentrated on border trade with the western areas of the Empire and lived in modest circumstances. The immigration from Moravia revealed a different background. As a result of a prohibition on marriage, the wealthiest Jews, among others, emigrated to Hungary. The 339 highest Jewish taxpayers in Moravia thus arrived in the country between 1740 and 1752.16 A large number of the pioneers and representatives of Hungary's capitalist development came from this group - bankers, industrialists, but also leading personalities in cultural life. The largest, and in many respects also the most unified group were the "Polish" Jews. Having come to Hungary because of material need or to escape persecution, they were occupied mainly in small crafts, small business and peddling. They worked as shopkeepers and barkeepers, and traded on a small scale in agricultural products. Hungarian Jewry differed considerably on a number of points from the non-Jewish population with respect to social structure, even if the intensified process of assimilation in the second half of the 19th century led to an increasing differentiation within Jewry. The main difference was their extremely limited presence in the agrarian sector, in which, at the beginning of the 20th century, two-thirds of the entire population was still employed, but only 4-5 % of the Jews.17 On the other hand, they made up 85 % of all selfemployed persons in banking and finance, and 42 °/o of the employees and workers in these branches. In industry, the corresponding share was 12.5 % of the self-employed and 21.8 °/o of the employees and workers; in trade, it was 52.2 % and 32.9 %. They were also disproportionately overrepresented in the independent professions: in 1910, 45.2 °/o of the lawyers, 48.9 °/o of the

16 17

E. Marton, op. at., p. 53. P. Hanak, op. at., pp. 464 ff.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

871

doctors, 42.4 % of the journalists, 33.6 % of the engineers and 26.6 % of the writers and artists were Jewish. 18 However, these oft-quoted data reflect only a part of the situation. The antiSemites were right in continuously pointing out that the overwhelming majority of large capitalists and industrialists were Jews; however, they regularly concealed the fact that this was as tiny a minority within Jewry as were the large landowners among the Magyars. 72.7 % of all gainfully employed Jews belonged to the petty bourgeoisie or the working class (38.3 % petty bourgeoisie, 34.4 % working class, of these 16.4 % industrial workers), 20 % to the independent professions and the civil service, 3.2 °/o to the small landowners under 100 acres, 1 % to the army; the large earners were recruited only from the remaining 3 % of landowners over 100 acres.19 Their distribution into wealthy, secure, and poor was thus not essentially different from that of the non-Jewish population. If, nevertheless, Jews in the lower classes generally succeeded in securing a living, this was certainly also a result of their generally above-average education. In 1910,18.5 % of Jews had had at least four years of higher education, but only 3.3 % of the Roman-Catholic population, 4.4 % of the Lutheran and 3.2 % of the Reformed. 20 In the 37 higher trade schools that existed in Hungary in 1905-06, over half of the students were Jews (3,033 of 5,969); in the 170 gymnasiums and 32 secondary schools, they were the second highest denominational group, with 23 % of the students, after the Roman-Catholic students (43 °/o).21 In the colleges, they were represented in continually rising numbers, especially among medical students (1913-14:46.7 %), law students, (1903-04: 27.5 %), and pharmacists (1913-14: 30.5 %); at the technical colleges, their share had fallen since the turn of the century, but was still 33.3 % in 1913-14. 22 Literacy rates corresponded to these ratios; in 1910,71.9 % of the population could read and write, but 90.2 % of the Jews. 23 As a result of the above-mentioned economic constellations and social dispositions, in the agrarian Hungarian state the Jewish element made more

18

19 20

21 22 23

Wolfdieter Bihl, "Das Judentum Ungarns," Studia Judaica Austriaca, ΠΙ, Studien zum ungarischen Judentum, Eisenstadt 1976, p. 27. P. Hanäk, op. dt., p. 465. The data refer to 1910. For detailed statistical material, see V. Karady and I. Kemeny, op. cit., p. 35. A detailed overview of aspects of Jewish identity and assimilation and references to research deficiencies existing in this area are given in V. Karady, "Zsido identitas es asszimiläcio Magyarorszagon," Mozgo VilAg, August 1988, pp. 26-49; September 1988, pp. 44-57. Education in Hungary, Budapest 1908, pp. 84, 61. Bihl, op. cit., pp. 25 f. V. Karady and I. Kemeny, op. cit., p. 35.

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Rolf Fischer

rapid progress in the process of becoming bourgeois than the others. In industry, trade, and finance, developments were initiated and advanced in decisive measure by Jews. The majority ofJews "magyarized" voluntarily and rapidly, and this was looked upon with approval by Magyar officials. The magyarization process had a sustained, widespread effect during the second half of "Dualism." In 1880, 58.5 % of all Jews declared Magyar to be their "mother tongue," in 1890 63.8 %,andinl910,77 %-that is, some 700,000 of the 911,000 Jews in Hungary.24 The rest declared for the German language, which included Yiddish. The widespread practice of Magyarizing names emphasized this process. Between 1860 and 1918, 338 Jewish families were ennobled; only two of these were orthodox Jews. 25 When Christian-Jewish mixed marriages were made possible by the changes in church policy and legislation of 1894-95, their number increased steeply in the subsequent period: Between 1901 and 1905,3.2 % of all Jewish marriages were mixed; in the period 1914-1918, 10.7 % 26 The Jews rose to the top ranks in all areas of public life, in politics, administration, the military, scholarship and culture. The principles and policies of the ruling "Liberal Party" allowed and encouraged this development. "Official" Jewry was a convinced supporter of the ruling Liberals. The Jewish organ Egyenlöseg ("Equality," which began appearing in 1882) made no secret of its sympathy and support for the government. The regular column "We Magyarize ourselves" (Magyarosodunk), which among other things listed Magyarized names, acted as a sort of commentary on this good relationship. However, Jews were also heavily represented in the ranks of the Social Democrats, in the workers' movement in general, in the bourgois-radical camp, and in the publications associated with these groups. In general, they no longer had any relationship with the Jewish community (as an organization). Their participation in these opposition movements was so prominent that the anti-Semites saw in it the reason for the fact that anti-Semitism could gain no influence over the Hungarian workers' movement. The fact that Jews were present in almost all areas of public life itself speaks for the weakening of traditional structures, for an assimilation that was not merely superficial, not merely a formal Magyarization. This trend led not only 24 25 26

P. Hanäk, "A lezaratlan per," Zsidokerdes, asszimiLzcio, antiszemiazmus, Tanulmänyok a zsidökerdesröl a huszadik szazadi Magyarorszagon, Budapest 1984, p. 371. Rar details, see William O. McCzgg, Jewish Notables and Geniuses in Modem Hungary, New York 1972, p. 21 ff. W. Bihl, op. cit, p. 26.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

873

to conflicts with parts of the non-Jewish environment, but also to inner-Jewish disputes between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, which then led to a formal Jewish split at the "Congress of Hungarian Israelites" of 1868-69. 27 In the subsequent period, communities with differing statutes existed side-by-side: the Reform community, whose supporters were generally known as "neologists," the Orthodox community, and a third tendency that did not join either of the other two and called itself the "status-quo-ante" community. By decisively fashioning the processes of capitalization and industrialization, the Jewish population not only fulfilled eminently important economic functions. By declaring themselves decisively Magyar, the Jews strengthened the Magyar position in its dispute with the nationalities in this multiethnic empire, and in purely quantitive terms represented a sort of majority-creator for the Magyar ethnic group: In 1910, 54.5 % of the total population was Magyar; of this, 7 % was of Jewish faith.28 Thus both the political leadership of the country and the traditional economic elite, the large landowners, who quickly came to terms with financial and industrial capital and joined with it in a "community of interests," approved of the assimilation and integration of the Jews. The opposing movement came from the ranks of those who were panicked by economic and social developments. Development of the Anti-Semitic Movement, 1882-1918 The pioneer, and later the motor, of the Hungarian anti-Semitic movement was the jurist Gyözö Istoczy, who took office in 1872 as judge in the district of Vasvär, in the komitate of Vas, and was elected in the same year as Parliamentary deputy from the "Deäk Party." 29 He began his endeavors to organize anti-Semitism after giving his first antiSemitic speech in the house of representatives in 1875. He published anti27

28 29

On this congress, see N. Katzburg, "The Jewish Congress of Hungary, 1868-1869," Hungarian-Jewish Studies2,1969, pp. 1-33, and Thomas Domjän, "Der Kongreß der ungarischen Israeliten 1868-1869," Ungarn-Jahrbuch 1,1969, pp. 139-162. P. Hanäk, op. cit., 1978, p. 420. On Hungarian anti-Semitism before the First World War, see Judith Kubinszky, Politikai antiszemitizmus Magyarorszdgon, 1875-1890, Budapest 1976; N. Katzburg, "The Tradition of Antisemitism in Hungary," in Randolph L. Braham and Bela Vago (eds.), The Holocaust in Hungary - Forty Years Later, New York 1985, pp. 3-13; Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction. Anti-Semitism 1700-1933, Cambridge, Mass., 1980; Friedrich Gottas, "Die antisemitische Bewegung in Ungarn im Zeitalter des Hochliberalismus," Zeitgeschichte 1, 1973-74, pp. 105-119; Rolf Fischer, Entwicklungsstufen des Antisemitismus in Ungarn, 18671939. Die Zerstörung der magyarisch-jüdischen Symbiose, Munich 1988.

874

Rolf Fischer

Jewish newspapers, founded a Union of Non-Jews, took up contact with German anti-Semites, especially Wilhelm Marr, and was also one of the most active participants in the "First International Anti-Jewish Congress" in Dresden in 1882. Istoczy had such a lasting effect on the early phases of Hungarian anti-Semitism that contemporary observers spoke of "Istoczysm" when commenting on anti-Semitic events.30 However, until 1882 none of his activities met with success. This only changed when the "Jewish question" became the focus of public discussion as a result of the political debates surrounding a ritual murder affair. On April 1, 1882, a Christian girl disappeared in the East Hungarian village of TiszaEszlär.31 Members of the village's Jewish community were accused of ritual murder: the girl was said to have been lured to the local synagogue, where she was murdered and her blood distributed to orthodox Jews to bake their Easter bread. The affair quickly made the front pages of almost all Hungarian newspapers; the events were reported in detail even outside the country. The accusation, based on speculation, fell apart when it was revealed that the incriminating statements supporting the prosecution had been obtained using repressive measures. Even though the accused was found not guilty, the antiSemites had achieved their goal; other aspects of the "Jewish question" were now also discussed in connection with the ritual murder affair, especially the economic aspects. In addition to the purely anti-Semitic press, the organs of the Catholic Church in particular made no secret of their anti-Jewish resentments; even their official organ, "Magyar State" (Magyar Allam), came out openly on the side of the anti-Semites.32 The emotions stirred up by this affair exploded in a series of anti-Jewish riots and disturbances in August, 1883, concentrated in the west of the country in the komitates of Somogy and Zala.33 In October, 1883, with an eye to the public virulence of anti-Semitic resentments, Istoczy organized anti-Semitism on the party level. The "AntiSemites Party" (Orszägos Antiszemita Part), founded on October 6, 1883, was the first political party anywhere to include the concept "anti-Semitism,"

30

31

32 33

See, e. g., Patriotische Stimmen aus Ungarn über die Judenfrage oder einige Ursachen der gallopierend fortschreitenden allgemeinen Verarmung, Religionslosigkeit und Verjudung des Ungarlandes, Zombor 1880. From among the comprehensive literature on the ritual murder affair of Tisza-Eszlär, see for example Andrew Handler, Blood Libel at Tiszaeszlar, Boulder 1980; Sändor Hegedüs, A tiszaeszlan νέτνάά, Budapest 1966; Paul Nathan, Der Prozeß von Tisza-Eszlär. Ein antisemitisches Culturbild, Berlin 1892. Magyar Allam, 4 August 1883. On the unrest, see J. Kubinszky, op. at., p. 127 jf., and F. Gottas, op. cit.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

875

still new at the time, in its name and to stand for election as a purely antiSemitic party.34 It achieved considerable success in the elections of 1884, entering Parliament with 17 deputies. In the party program, its goal was formulated as "breaking Jewish power and making up for Jewish influence.. . in the areas of press, money and credit, trade and traffic, industry and landowning relations."35 Here as in many other writings by the Hungarian anti-Semites, it becomes clear that they saw the heart of the "Jewish question" in the economy, for in their arguments they returned again and again to a central idea: the existence of a double conflict between "Jewish capitalism" and the interests of the Hungarian people and the Hungarian nation, as the population was agrarian and the nation Christian. In Hungary in the 80's, it is possible to localize organized anti-Semitism in particular regions. There were anti-Semites nearly everywhere in Hungary, but they did not succeed everywhere in channeling anti-Jewish resentments into a social movement. If one follows the anti-Semites' own arguments, a completely distorted picture appears on this point, for they declared the largely non-assimilated Ostjuden, who had settled primarily in the northeast of the country, to be the central problem and pointed to the komitates bordering Galicia, where the Jewish population in fact represented up to 15 °/o of the total population.36 Yet the roots and strongholds of Hungarian anti-Semitism could as little be found in these northeastern regions as its causes could be found in the Jewish population. If one bases a localization on the clearest manifestation of the antiSemitic spirit in this period (the success of the "Anti-Semites Party" and antiJewish disturbances), the centers of the movement prove to be in the west and southwest of the country. The anti-Semitically-oriented areas were grouped most densely in Transdanubia, the country between the Danube and the border of Styria and of Croatia-Slavonia. In the 80's (in the elections of 1884 and/or 1887), the "Anti-Semites Party" was successful in 11 electoral districts: in the komitates of Somogy (3 anti-Semitic deputies), Moson (2), Tolxia (2), Zala (2), Vas (1), and Baranya (1). The disturbances of 1883 also raged most furiously in Transdanubia. In the west it was above all the komitates of Pozsony and Nyitra, in which the candidates of the "Anti-Semites Party" could win five mandates (Poszony 3, Nyitra 2). Anti-Jewish riots occurred

34 35

36

The history of the "Anti-Semites Party" is treated by J. Kubinszky, op. cit. Theprogramwaspublishedin"12röpirat," 15 October 1883; it was reprinted in GyulaMerei, Magyar politikai partprogramok 1867-1914, Budapest 1934, p. 313 f. For example, in 1880—1881 in the komitate of Miramaros, 14.7 %; in Bereg, 13.5 %; in Ung,

13 %.

876

Rolf Fischer

again and again in the city of Pozsony. A group of komitates southeast of the capital formed a third region: Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun (3), Bekes (2), Csongrad (1), and Csanäd (1). The area north of Debrecen, the komitate of Hajdu, can be considered a special case. However, anti-Semitism there was nourished only through the events surrounding the ritual murder affair. The party endeavored to make political capital of these sensational events, but met with little success in this directly-affected region. It ran in six electoral districts there, but was able to win in only two. The disturbances that broke out after the Jews accused in the ritual murder affair were declared innocent were not centered here, at the scene of the events, but characteristically in Transdanubia. In only four of the 13 komitates listed was the share of the Jewish population higher than the countrywide average of 4.5 % (1880). In the majority of the komitates in which the anti-Semitic movement was able to take root, the Jews were underrepresented. In Transdanubia, where anti-Semites behaved most aggressively in the course of the riots of 1883 and where the party had its stronghold, the share of the Jewish population was low. In addition, the Jews of Transdanubia were assimilated Jews who had been settled in this region for a long time. Thus two of the main dangers emphasized by the anti-Semites, Jewish orthodoxy and massive new Jewish setdement, did not exist there. It must be asked which overall societal conditions explain the political vote for anti-Semites in certain regions. The general political orientation of the people in a region must be counted as one of these conditions. Under the government of Kaiman Tiszas (1875-1890), Hungary's political landscape could be divided roughly into three political camps. The basic distinguishing criterion was expressed in contemporary journalism with the abbreviations "67-ers" and "48-ers." "67-ers" stood for all the forces that saw their political basis in the conditions of the Austro-Hungarian settlement of 1867, especially the governing "Liberal Party" that emerged from a fusion in 1875. The term "48-ers" brought together those who demanded state independence in the national revolution of 1848-49. On the party level, these were primarily the "48-er Party" and the "Independence Party," which merged in 1884 to become the "Independence and 48-er Party." In Parliament, too, they represented the most important opposition group. Between these two poles existed a third tendency, which can be characterized as the "67-er opposition." This accepted the settlement as a basis, but took other positions than the governing "67-ers" on certain questions, and remained in the opposition for tactical reasons as well. Its main forum was the "Moderate Opposition."37 The 37

On the political landscape, see Adalbert Toth, Parteien und Reichstagswahlen in Ungarn, 18481892, Munich 1973.

877

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

distribution of seats in the House of Representatives guaranteed that the ruling "Liberal Party" could carry out its policies without parliamentary limitations. The electoral results of 1875-1892 gave the Liberal Party a share of 58.7 % in all Hungarian electoral districts.38 If one compares this result during this period to that which was achieved in electoral districts in which, in the 80's, a candidate from the "Anti-Semites Party" successfully campaigned (1884 and/ or 1887), a reversed picture of the distribution of political forces emerges:

Table m Shares Achieved by Political Tendencies in the Electoral Districts, 1875-1892 (in ° / o ) 3 9 1875-1892 governing 67-er all Hungary (413 districts) the 25 districts that voted anti-Semitically in the 80's

oppos. 48-er "extreme" opp.

oppos. 67-er! "moderate" opp.

58.7

20.9

20.4

26.5

50.8

22.7

The "Anti-Semites Party" could push through their candidates particularly in those regions in which the opposition had held a strong or prevailing position before and after the anti-Semitic wave of 1882-1884. In only five of the 25 districts in which they won had a government candidate been victorious prior to the vote for an anti-Semite; in seven, a "67-er Opposition" candidate had previously been victorious, and in 13, one from the "48-er Opposition." Thus a characteristic of the regions that voted anti-Semitically was their traditional opposition to the governing liberals. This accords with the fact that the majority of the leading politicians of the "Anti-Semites Party" came from the ranks of the "Independence Party." Anti-Semitism appears to have been a popular means of promoting farther-reaching political goals. The path led as a rule from general political opposition to anti-Semitism, and not through antiSemitism to political opposition in general.

38 39

Ibid., p. 112. Calculated according to Toth, op. cit., 112 and 173 ff. The share of the "Anti-Semites Party" is included in the shares of the "extreme" opposition.

878

Rolf Fischer

The 46 candidates of the "Anti-Semites Party" were members of the following classes:40 Large landowners (over 1000 acres) Middle-size landowners Landowners under 200 acres State or komitate civil servants Intelligentsia

3 3 11 18 (including 6 small landowners)

11

Since some of the 23 listed here without property were members of families that had once been landowners, the overwhelming majority of anti-Semitic candidates can be assigned in social background to the middle-sized and small landowning classes that were hard-pressed by economic developments. A comparison in educational level of the candidates who were actually elected reveals a high degree of correspondence.41 Fourteen of them had an academic education: law (9), theology (3), medicine (1), military academy (1); four of these had received a doctoral degree. Following their education, they had worked as state or komitate officials, as clergymen or independently. Only two who still managed their estates do not fall within this conspicuously parallel development. Other sources, too, point to this group as active carriers of the anti-Semitic movement. Thus it was mainly representatives of the provincial intelligentsia (teachers and minor clergy) and the middle-sized and small landowners - in addition to the leaders of the party - who wrote the articles in the paper "12 pamphlets" (12 röpirat).42 It should be noted that the anti-Jewish articles in this magazine, but also in newspapers that were generally not anti-Semitically oriented, were often published under pseudonyms. This, in addition to the observation of contemporary commentators that antiJewish resentments were openly expressed "in trusted circles," but not in public,43 indicates that anti-Semitism was still considered socially unacceptable in the 80's. There was no respected personality in public life who could have made anti-Semitism socially acceptable by speaking up for it, as was the case with Treitschke in the German Reich. Even in its formative stages, the movement found strong support among students. A first clear sign of this anti-Semitic potential in the universities was a sympathetic letter handed to Istoczy on February 10, 1881 by a student delegation. It was signed by 234 students and had as its goal to create

40 41

42 43

Cf. J. Kubinszky, op. at., p. 209. On the biographical information, see above all J. Kubinszky, op. at., and A. Toth, op. at., p. 216 ff. J. Kubinszky, op. at., p. 83. Bela Märiässy, Zsidokerdes es uzsora, Budapest 1883.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

879

difficulties for Jewish students. Here, too, law students were most heavily represented: law (148), medicine (56), pharmacy (16), philosophy (11), engineering (3).44 The students called a conference for February 17 at which further steps would be considered. However, this conference was forbidden by Minister-President Tisza, who was also Minister of the Interior at the time. In the multi-ethnic and multi-denominational country that Hungary was, one must also consider the ethnic and denominational structures of antiSemitically oriented areas. In multi-ethnic Hungary, anti-Jewish resentments were of course also manifest among the non-Magyar nationalities. However, the causes and appearances of this anti-Semitism were substantially different from those of organized anti-Semitism. Thus, for example, Anton Stefanek, one of the leading personalities in the Slovak cultural movement, traced antiSemitic tendencies among the Slovaks of northern Hungary back to the fact that the Slovaks saw the Jewish population as "exponents of Magyardom" and active promotors of the efforts at Magyarization.45 In many cases, this accorded with reality; in some regions, it was mainly Jewish schools that taught the Hungarian language and Hungarian culture. They were at the forefront in times of national conflict, and attracted some of the nationalities' reaction to increasing Magyarization pressures. If, on the other hand, an assimilated Slovak who considered himself Magyar was an anti-Semite, his anti-Semitism was nourished in large part by exactly the opposite motive; it was as a rule impossible, in his eyes, for Judaism to represent Magyardom. Among the Ruthenians in the komitates bordering Galicia in the northeast of the country, Jew-hatred arose primarily from miserable material conditions. Living nearly always on the edge of the poverty line, the majority of the population was dependent, at every worsening of the already miserable situation, upon those from whom at least the necessities for survival could be obtained "on credit." The "usurers," the small traders and barkeepers in these regions, were mainly Jews. Jew-hatred barely went beyond the short-sighted reaction that allowed a justified discontent with their own living conditions to become hatred of Jews. Organized anti-Semitism could not take root in these areas; however, its supporters knew how to exploit these people's poverty for their own ends. Organized anti-Semitism gained influence above all among the Magyars, including those assimilated into Magyardom. In 1890, the Magyars made up 48.6 % of the total population;46 however, in anti-Semitically oriented areas 44 45

46

J. Kubinszky, op. at., p. 66. Thus a questionnaire in the magazine "Huszadik szazad" of 1917, quoted here from Zsidokerdes, op. at., p. 92. L. Katus, "A nepesedes es a tarsadalmi szerkezet vältozasai," Magyamrszdg törtenete 6/2, Budapest 1979, pp. 1119-1163, here 1149.

880

Rolf Fischer

their share was significantly higher, around 80 °/o.47 The Slovaks and Germans formed a sizeable minority in these areas; in some subregions, such as in the komitate and city of Pozsony, they represented the quantitatively-dominant ethnic element. Assimilated Slovaks and Germans also played an important part in the "Anti-Semites Party," as indicated by the names of the deputies Rath, Gruber and Nendtvich. A denominational breakdown of the areas in which anti-Semitism appeared provides as clear a picture as the ethnic structure. While in 1890, 47.8 °/o of the population countrywide professed its allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church, 4 8 in the anti-Semitically oriented areas the average was 70-75 °/o.49 In most of the subregions, especially in the west and southwest, 70-95 % of the population belonged to the Roman Catholic faith. The Protestant churches dominated in the regions south and southeast of Budapest (Lutherans and Calvinists in the komitates of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun and Bekes), as well as in the east, in the area around Tisza-Eszlär (the komitate of Hajdu was a Calvinist stronghold). In summary, the social background of the movement can be characterized with great precision. The overwhelming majority of active anti-Semites came from the "historic middle class", which began increasingly to characterize itself as the "Christian middle class:" members of the middle-sized and small landed gentry or descendants of this class who were active in public administration and the professions, as well as representatives of the Christian bourgeoisie of the old type, mainly assimilated Germans and Slavs. This class's claim to leadership contrasted with its economic decline; neither a match materially for the requirements of capitalist economic competition, nor psychologically disposed towards it, this social group fell prey to an aggressive ideology that united economic, social and national elements aimed at the rising Jewish bourgeoisie. With this social basis, the movement could take root primarily in areas in which two additional factors came into play: political opposition against the Liberals, who ruled on the basis of the AustroHungarian settlement, and the dominance of the Catholic Church. The second half of "Dualism," the period from the beginning of the 90's to the First World War, was a period of political and social polarization in which

47

48 49

Exact figures could not be given here, as the electoral districts used as the basis for the concept of "anti-Semitically oriented areas" were not identical with the administrative units upon which the census was based. These are approximate values calculated in the regional breakdown in Pal Balogh, A nepfajok Magyamrszagon, Budapest 1902. L. Katus, op. at., p. 1162. This, too, is an approximate figure.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

881

domestic political stability was lost. The Liberals came under pressure from various political camps, social groups, and rebelling nationalities. Anti-Semitism, too, reached beyond its original social origins in the 90's with an extensive conservative critique of Liberalism, and entered the programs oft newly-forming parties and interest groups as an essential element. The Hungarian anti-Semites found a new political home in the so-called "agrarian movement" and in political Catholicism, once the "Anti-Semites Party" had sunk into insignificance towards the end of the 80's and no longer ran in the elections of 1892. The agrarian movement, which - after decades of less-successful attempts to organize itself - advanced in the last decade of the 19th century to a "pressure group" that had to be taken seriously, was a reaction by the conservative camp of the large landowners to the economic and social consequences of rapidly-progressing capitalist developments. The goal of the agrarians was to limit and reverse the continuously growing power of large industry and offinancialcapital, a defense by the large landowners against the "excesses of the rule of capital."50 What was different about this conservatism was the organizational form on the basis of which its goal was to be achieved - as an interest group with a mass base to be gained by using modern methods of propaganda, and which would carry out its practical activity through a network of cooperative associations. The competitive relationship of the traditional aristocracy to the rising financial aristocracy led the agrarians to formulate the conflict as one between "agrarian" and "mercantile" interests. Because a large segment of the latter did not originate in the Magyar ethnic group, something the agrarians never failed to point out, this conflict also implied from the beginning a conflict between "agrarian-Christian" and "mercantile-Jewish," or "agrarian-national" and "mercantile-cosmopolitan" interests. The "Association of Farmers" (Magyar Gazdaszövetseg), founded by the agrarians in 1896, as well as a network of credit and consumer cooperatives, were the mass organizations that gave effect to this anti-Semitically influenced ideology. These cooperatives, which boasted well over a million members by the First World War, were to offer the peasant population an alternative to the village "usurers." In reports to the Ministry of the Interior, it was pointed

50

György Pallavicini, A magyar agrarpolitikdrol^ Budapest 1923, p. 8. On the history of agrarian interest groups, see P. Lang, op. cit.\ on the new conservative movement, see Miklos Szabo, "Uj vonasok a szazadforduloi magyar konzervativ politikai gondolkodasban," Szdzadok 1974, pp. 3-65.

882

Rolf Fischer

out repeatedly that the cooperatives in some regions were openly anti-Semitic and considered the "eradication" of Jewish businesses to be their main task.51 The leaders of the agrarian movement were members of the aristocracy. Most closely connected with its history was Count Sändor Kärolyi, who also became the first president of the "Association of Farmers." The Association remained under the leadership of the large land owners, who considered the basis for their own position to be a healthy middle-sized and small landowning class, and who hoped to provide the growing number of discontented citizens with a conservative alternative to Social Democracy. Its program thus simultaneously fought capitalism and socialism. However, the struggle against capital remained half-hearted, for it was waged exclusively against the type of capital in which one had little share - against mobile capital and its supposedly cosmopolitan character. The agrarians had close personal and programmatic contacts with the organizations of political Catholicism.52 The first lasting result of the efforts to organize in Catholic circles was the founding of the "People's Party" (Neppärt) in January, 1895. This creation of a party forum represented a direct reaction to the struggle over church policy and the legislation on church policy passed by the government, which noticeably intensified domestic political confrontations in the 90's. The "Hungarian Kulturkampf consisted of a hardfought struggle between church and state, as well as, simultaneously, among the denominations. The object of these disputes were the legal articles ΧΧΧΙ-ΧΧΧΙΠ/1894 and XLII - XLIII/1895, which decreed and regulated the following: obligatory civil marriages, maintaining government registers, religious education of children of mixed marriages, reception of the Jewish religion, and finally, general religious freedom.53 In the debate over this liberal religious legislation and the struggle against its political implementation, different wings of Catholicism came together and created a platform for political action by founding the "People's Party." However, the new orientation in content and organization, the "awakening" of Hungarian Catholicism, cannot be traced solely to this domestic Hungarian dispute, but had its roots - as in other European countries - in the renewal of

51 52

53

M. Szabo, op. cit., p. 53 f. On political Catholicism, see Jenö Gergely, A politikai katolicizmus Magyarorszagon, 18901950, Budapest 1977; Jozsef Galäntai, Egyhdz espolitika, 1890-1918, Budapest 1960; Daniel Szabo, "A neppärt megalakuläsa," Tortenelmi szemle, 1977, pp. 169-208. Corpus Iuris Hungarict, 1894-1895. evi törvenyctkkek, Budapest 1897.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

883

Catholicism, initiated by the Vatican, into a community adapted to the conditions of bourgeois society. The founding of the People's Party came about as a result of pressure from the lower clergy and the secular Catholic intelligentsia. Its leadership, however, was in the hands of two aristocrats: Nändor Zichy and Miklos Moric Esterhäzy. As its overall demand, the party program set the goal of protecting the "Christian character" of the society.54 In addition to a revision of the legislation on church policy, the program demanded, among other things, protection of those active in agriculture and introduction of a stock market tax. The publications whose responsibility it was to popularize the party's ideology used language on the "Jewish questions" that differed little from that of the former "Anti-Semites Party" in clarity. This is not suprising, for Emil Szemnecz, for example, who functioned as publisher of the "Magyar Allam" from 1890-1908, had already run as a candidate for the "Anti-Semites Party." His newspaper reported in detail on the successes of international antiSemitism, from the Dreyfus Affair to the electoral success of Lueger in Vienna.55 The "Peoples' Party" ran 98 candidates in the 1896 elections, of which 18 entered the House of Representatives.56 In the elections of 1901 and 1905, 25 candidates obtained mandates. The best results were achieved in 1906 with 33 representatives, while the party suffered a heavy defeat in the last elections preceding the war, winning only 13 mandates. As with the "Anti-Semites Party," the regional focus of the "Peoples' Party" was in Transdanubia, especially in the komitates of Zala, Tolna, Vas, Sopron and Baranya, as well as in the west and northwest, especially in the komitates of Nyitra, Pozsony, Trencsen and Arva.57 With a view to winning the Slovak-Catholic peasant classes, it was significantly more active than the "Anti-Semites Party" in the northwest, in Trancsen, Arva, Lipto and Bars. It was barely active in the Protestant regions in the east of the country, where the "Anti-Semites Party" had also gained little influence. The majority of founders of the Christian-Social movement formed in the early 20th century came from the ranks of the "Peoples' Party." In addition,

54

55 56

57

The program was published in "Magyar Allam" on 31 January 1895; reprint in Gyula Merei, op. at., p. 315. Cf., for example, Magyar Allam, 25 April and 31 October 1895. On the election results, see Miklos Ruskai, "Az 1945 elötti magyar välasztasok statisztikaja," Tbrteneti statisztikai kozlemenyek, 1959, pp. 11-57. From a list of the electoral districts in which the parties ran in the 1896 elections; cf. Christliches Volksblatt, 10 October 1896.

884

Rolf Fischer

the "Catholic Popular Union" (Katolikus Nepszövetseg) had existed since 1908, so that Hungarian Catholicism also had a mass organization. The two most important personalities in Catholicism at this time were Ottokar Prohäszka and Bela Bangha. Prohäszka developed a large part of the theoretical fundament on which the "Catholic renaissance" was based. As an early thinker in a prominent position, he was generally on a lower rung when it came to practical activities in parties and associations. He ran unsuccessfully for the "Peoples' Party" in the 1896 elections, and, starting at the turn of the century, sparked the development and spread of Christian-Social thought.58 Prohäszka, bishop of Szekesfehervär since 1905, saw the Church's place on the side of progress; he called for the Church's reconciliation with the bourgeois social order. His attempts at reform found a strong echo among Catholic intellectuals. His transformation from a Church reform politician to an authoritarian nationalist and anti-Semite had begun before the First World War, but became apparent only in its final years. The Jesuit Bela Bangha represented the intransigent wing of Catholicism; in contrast to Prohäszka, he had already used openly anti-Semitic arguments before the First World War. Bangha traced all conflicts between Jews and Christians back to a fundamental contradiction between "Jewish materialism" and "Christian idealism."59 For Christians, material prosperity was only a means to a higher end, while for the Jews it was the end in itself; thus they lacked "moral reserves." However, in his opinion, discussion of the Jewish question, the most burning social problem, was systematically suppressed, as the press was all under Jewish control. Bangha and Prohäszka devoted themselves to precisely this problem, the supposedly "Judaized press," by working toward a tighter organization and distribution of the Catholic press. Regardless of differences in content and tone, all Catholic periodicals and newspapers were anti-Semitic. The strong "Christian," actually Catholic accent that overdetermined antiSemitism was an expression of the threatening situation in which the Roman Catholic Church believed itself to be from 1867 on. Once a state church, it faced the dismantling of its privileges and a general tendency towards secularization as a result of the grant of equal rights to other Christian denominations, as well as to Judaism after 1895; this led to a counter-movement that articulated itself primarily through anti-Semitism. Religious motives were salient in connection with the ritual murder affair. However, they soon gave way to 58

59

O n Prohäszka's career and teachings, see J. Gergely, op. cit.; Antal Schütz, Prohäszka Ottokar pälyäja, Budapest 1929; on his anti-Semitic positions, see Ottokar Prohäszka, DieJudenfrage in Ungarn, Hamburg 1920. Bela Bangha, A keresztenyseg es a zsidok, Budapest 1912.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

885

arguments focussing on social and economic issues from a nationalist point of view. In addition, the concept "Christian" was well-suited to drawing clear dividing lines in a polyethnic state, to the extent that it included not only the Magyars, but also all Magyarized non-Jews. In this way, it served as a useful supplement to the concept "national," and in the combination "Christiannational" acted as a double divider from the Jewish population. In the final two decades before the First World War, anti-Semitism became embedded in a more comprehensive conservative ideology; in reaction to the economic and social rise of the bourgeois industrial and financial aristocracy, parts of the traditional aristocracy now adopted anti-Semitic ways of thinking. This not only extended the social basis, but also raised the social standing of anti-Semitism. However, even in the final decades of "Dualism," anti-Semitism had no influence on government policy and administrative practice. It could doubt and question the process of assimilation, but it could not seriously hinder or even interrupt it. The actual advance of this process indicated the limits placed on anti-Semitism in multi-ethnic Hungary. Legal equality of the Jews was not limited by state "regulative measures." A "subversion of the constitution by the administration," which historians have shown for the Jewish situation in Wilhelminian Germany,60 was not practiced. Even "sensitive" areas, high positions in the state and the military, were not closed. One need only refer to the Defense Minister Samu Hazai (1910-1917). A third of the officers who fell in the First World War were Jewish.61 In 1913, the Jew Ferenc Heltai took office as mayor of the capital; in addition, two Jewish vice-mayors had already held office. These were the highest points and clearest indicators of the Magyar-Jewish symbiosis. It rested on a wide base and could only have succeeded in this form and to this extent with state encouragement. This encouragement of assimilation was an existential necessity for the Hungarian state. Magyardom could not retreat into ethnocentric ideas if it wished to preserve or strengthen its position among Germans, Slavs, and Rumanians. The idea of the "political nation" of Hungary, to which all citizens belonged regardless of their ethnic group or language, remained the highest goal of state policy. In the eyes of leading Hungarian politicians, there was no alternative to this idea. Thus their nationalism might be intransigent in face of the nationalities' demands for autonomy, but it was open to all who declared 60

61

Cf. Werner Jochmann, "Struktur und Funktion des deutschen Antisemitismus 1878-1914," in W.E. Mosse and A. Paucker (e0s.), Juden im Wilhelminischen Deutschland 1890-1914, Tübingen 1976, pp. 389-477. W. Bihl, op. dt., p. 28.

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their allegiance to the Hungarian state. The overwhelming majority of Jews declared allegiance not only to the state, but also to Magyardom. In addition, they were best qualified to introduce and direct the necessary capitalization of the agrarian sector. Hungarian anti-Semitism failed in the era of Dualism because of this highly favorable constellation for the development of the Magyar-Jewish relationship. Even its later triumph could not belatedly turn this failure into a triumphal history. It had undoubtedly gained in substance during the two decades prior to the First World War, but certainly no more than had the assimilation process. Anti-Semitism as an Element of State Policy, 1919-1932 The end of the epoch of prosperity in Hungarian-Jewish history came abruptly and with surprising violence. With the defeat of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, coming at the end of an at first bourgois-democratically oriented revolutionary process that had received decisive impetus from the military defeat, a wave of pogroms began in August, 1919, that marked a turning point in Magyar-Jewish history. While internal conflicts had lost significance at the start of the First World War due to the euphoria seizing Hungary, like other countries, during the final years of the war anti-Semitic agitation began again. As defeat became certain and wide circles of the population suffered under catastrophic supply conditions, a new accusation came to the fore: the Jews had avoided service at the front, and had instead waged war on the civilian population in the form of price gauging, thus becoming responsible for their suffering. The anti-Semites' tone became markedly more aggressive. However, the conditions that made it possible for the anti-Semites to turn their ideology into practical policies and violence appeared only after the Republic, declared on November 16, 1918, and the Soviet Republic that followed from March 21 to August 1, 1919, had failed.62 In the political confusion that followed the fall of the Soviet Republic, the rival counter-revolutionary camps agreed on one point: future policies would be based on a "Christian national line." 63 The anti-Semitism that now experi62

63

On anti-Semitism in the interwar period and in the Second World War, see N. Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews, 1920-1943, Jerusalem 1981; Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary, 2 vols., New York 1981; R.Fischer, "Entwicklungsstufen des Antisemitismus;" in R. Braham and B. Vago, op. cit.; Denis Silagi, "Die Juden in Ungarn in der Zwischenkriegszeit (1919-1939)," Ungam-Jabrbuch 5, 1973, pp. 198-214. On the ideology of the "Christian-national line," see J. Gergely, "A 'kereszteny-nemzeti' ideologia (1919-1944)," Egy letünt korszak-ml, 1919-1945, Budapest 1987, pp. 71-92.

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enced a breakthrough was from the beginning an ideological cornerstone of this line. Its starting point was the high percentage ofJews in the ranks of the leaders of the Republic and the Soviet Republic.64 The "Jewish Republic" - went the anti-Semites' recurring argument - was the culmination of the disastrous policy ofJewish emancipation and assimilation. Their attempt to "take power" proved that anti-Semitic policies aimed at dissimilation were necessary. The first expression of the changed balance of power was a wave of violence not only but primarily against the Jewish population. Pogroms and mass murders occurred in the course of the "White Terror," carried out mainly by units of the "National Army" commanded by the future Reich Administrator Horthy, as well as by paramilitary organizations, especially the "Hungarian Awakening." The Pest Jewish community set up an office to record reports by eye-witnesses.65 These protocols show that these "people's verdicts," as the pogroms were called by their perpetrators and political sympathizers, were as a rule directed by White detachments, but were not supported by the overwhelming majority of the population; on the country, they often attempted to intervene in favor of the persecuted. The events often followed the same pattern: first, bands of soldiers distributed pamphlets calling on the local population to participate in plundering and murder; they then murdered, abused or drove out the victims, and finally took what they wanted from the deserted houses and stores. The local authorities generally vacillated between sympathetic inactivity and active participation. Hardest hit were the regions in Transdanubia, in the wider area of Horthy's headquarters in Siofok, and in the lowlands between the Danube and the Theiss, where mass murders that aroused international attention occurred in Kecskemet and Orgoväny. There are no exact figures on the number of victims. Estimates assume that the "White Terror" claimed some 5,000 victims, among them some 3,000Jews. 66 In early 1920, the terror receded noticeably; however, in subsequent years attacks and persecutions recurred again and again.

64

65

66

V. Karady and I. Kemeny, "Antisemitisme universitaire et concurrence de classe. La loi du numerus clausus en Hongrie entre les deux guerres," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 6, 1980, pp. 67-96, count 19 Jews among the 32 People's Commissioners with ministerial rank; W.O. McCagg, op. cit., indicates that 30 of the 42 People's Commissioners were of Jewish extraction. From 1 September, 1919 on, the reports were published in Egyenlöseg. Some of them were reprinted in German in Josef Halmi, "Akten über die Pogrome in Ungarn," inj. Krausz (ed.), Martyrium. Ein jüdisches Jahrbuch, Vienna 1922, pp. 59-66. Cf. V. Karady and I. Kemeny, op. cit., 1980, p. 75; the figure of 3,000 Jewish victims is also given by J. Halmi, op. cit., p. 59. On the riots, see also Ervin Hollos and Vera Lajtai, Horthy Miklos - a feherek vezere, Budapest 1985.

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These violent events were only possible to this extent because the new political leadership had reached a new consensus on the "Jewish question" and rejected the principles of emancipation and assimilation. This was a result of the change in the balance of political power; in the period immediately following the fall of the Soviet Republic, the "Christian middle class" succeeded in establishing itself as a so-called "third force," in addition to large landowners and the upper bourgeoisie.67 It was composed mainly of members of the military, the administration, and the intelligentsia. Many who were active in its ranks had already belonged to the anti-Semitic movement before the First World War. All political representatives of the postwar period based themselves on anti Semitic positions; in 1919-20, even their reactions to the anti-Jewish violence remained halfhearted, calculated more to encourage than to prevent. Minister President Istvän Friedrich (August 7 - November 24, 1919) presented the persecutions as an understandable reaction by the Christian population, and saw in them an indication of its desire for "rebirth." 68 His successor, Käroly Huszär (November 24, 1919 - March 15, 1920), once a teacher and Catholic clergyman, active in the anti-Semitically oriented Christian-social movement for two decades, described Jewry in his capacity as Minister President as a "degenerate world race." 69 In his government declaration of March 17, 1920, Sändor Simonyi-Semadam (March 15 - July 19, 1920), lawyer, also a member of the Christian-social camp and since 1901 a deputy of the "Peoples' Party," called for a purge of the economy on the basis of "Christian morality" and a revision of education according to "national and Christian viewpoints."70 Everyone knew by that time what was meant by such formulations. The "Jewish question" dominated the political debate during this period as though the future of the country depended on its solution alone. Repression of the actual causes of the collapse and the loss of large parts of the state's territory increased when, in January, 1920, the victorious powers' conditions for the conclusion of a peace treaty became known. Hungary had to give up 67 % of its former state territory and lost 58 % of its population. When the treaty was signed on June 4, 1920 in Trianon, many newspapers were published with black borders or blackened front pages; they spoke of a

67 68 69 70

P. Hanak, Gy. Ranki and M. Lacko, op. ext., p. 66 ff. Egyenlöseg, 18 September 1919 and 18 February 1922. Citation from Egyenlöseg, 18 February 1922. Az 1920. evifebruärhö 16-dra hirdetett Nemzetgyüles naploja, 1, Budapest 1920, p. 188 f.

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"Hungary condemned to death." 71 The sense of powerlessness in foreign policy was compensated by nationalism that erupted domestically for lack of other possibilities. It focussed its attention on the "internal enemy," on the supposed cause of the collapse. A sort of Hungarian "stab in the back myth" was constructed, directed primarily against the Jews. A blind, helpless rage declared the "stab in the back by Judeo-Bolshevism" to be responsible for everything, symbolized by the word "Trianon." Revisionism, the attempt to restore historical Hungary's territorial integrity, anti-Semitism and anti-Socialism integrated the counter-revolutionary ideology; it fulfilled an eminently important social function, since the most varied social classes could be united under its flag in a "community of destiny." The rejection of the concept of assimilation created the essential condition for the conversion of anti-Semitic ideas into political and administrative practice. The military was one of the first areas to isolate the Jews. Six weeks after the signing of the peace treaty, on July 22, 1920, Minister President Pal Teleki (July 19,1920 - June 14,1921) announced in his inaugural speech that the "military service of unreliable elements" might be regulated by inducting them into newly-established work batallions.72 In a confidential order dated November, 1919, Commander-in-Chief Horthy defined the unreliables: "Jewry and the organized working class are to be excluded from recruitment to military service. This is to be strictly adhered to." 7 3 Supplementing this order, his high command provided on January 17,1920 that workers and Jews should at the most be assigned to working units.74 These work batallions would play a disastrous role in the later history of Hungarian Jew. 75 Another area to which anti-Semites devoted themselves with energy was education; the debate on the universities formed a chapter in itseE 76 On August 7, 1919 the "Christian-Magyar youth" of the Technical College in Budapest had already demanded the "exclusion of all Jews and Bolsheviks" from the university.77 However, the rector made it clear that only participation in "Bolshevik activities" would be viewed as grounds for exclusion. The

71 72 73

74 75

76

77

ÜjNemzedek, 18Januaiy 1920. Az 1920. evifebrudrho 16-ära birdetett Nemzetgyüles naploja 4, 1920, p. 11. Citation from Csak szolgalati hasznalatra. Iratok a Harthy-hadsereg törtenetehez, Budapest 1968, p. 131 f. Ibid., p. 146. On the history of the work batallions, see R. L. Braham, The Hungarian Labor Service System, 1939-1945, New York 1977. See Andor Ladanyi, Az egyetemi ifitisdg az ellenforradalom elsö eveiben (1919-1921), Budapest 1979; on the numerus clausus law, in particular V. Karady and I. Kemeny, op. cit., 1980. A. Ladanyi, op. at., p. 23 ff.

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students then held a vote in which the large majority voted for the exclusion of all Jews, regardless of their political past. The rector saw no chance of agreement and ordered the closing of the university. Anti-Semitic circles now pushed for a legal solution to the "Jewish question" at the universities. The Ministry of Culture went into action in February, 1920. The result was legal article XXV/1920, which regulated matriculation and was generally known as the "numerus clausus law." It determined that only such people could register who were "absolutely reliable in patriotism and morals," and that admissions should take into consideration "that the ratio among students of individual races and nationalities living in the state should as far as possible equal the countrywide ratio of the races or nationalities involved..." Its essentially anti-Jewish aim, which could not be inferred from the text of the law alone, was indicated all the more clearly during the political discussion on the law. The debate in the National Assembly in particular indicated that the declared aim of the law was to reduce the percentage of Jewish students, which was far above their 6 % share in the population, and to bar their path to the universities in the future. Minister of Education Haller argued that the limitations should have been carried out much sooner, but were not because such a step would have been interpreted as anti-Semitism. However, the established system would not allow itself to be diverted by any slogans. The spirit of liberalism had finally come to an end with this law. Ottokar Prohäszka, who had risen to become one of the symbols of the Christian-national trend, demanded that the system of "excluding the destructive" be expanded to include the schools.78 Gyula Gömbös, later Minister President (1932-1936), emphasized that the law naturally had an anti-Jewish tendency, as it was intended to protect the Magyar race. The Entente states had won the World War because they had fewer Jews. Thus the historical task of ending Jewish influence had to be carried out consistently.79 The effect of the law corresponded to the intent; the opportunities available for academic youth of the Jewish faith were cut back with lasting effect.80 The Jewish share of all students sank from 34 % countrywide in the 1917-18 semester, to some 8 % in 1933. Some Jews with high-school diplomas, whose number remained nearly unchanged, left the country to study at foreign universities.

78 79 80

For Prohäszka's speech, see Az 1920. evi februär ..op. cit., 5, 1920, p. 344 ff. Ibid., p. 377 ff. On the effects of the law, see V. Karady and I. Kemeny, op. cit., 1980, p. 88 ff.

Anti-Semitism in Hungary 1882-1932

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The symbolic significance of the "numerus clausus law" was certainly as important as its practical intent. With its passage, the break with traditional Jewish policy had been established. Numerous measures were taken by the administration that were less spectacular, but which made life difficult particularly for the middle and lower Jewish classes; a considerable number ofJews had their livelihoods taken from them. Jewish teachers were dismissed or retired, Jewish students obviously discriminated against, business concessions denied or withdrawn. An end was put to the Magyarization of names; a change in the family name had been promoted and was considered a pure formality before the war. Now, the applicant required proof of his patriotic attitude, which, as a rule, was not issued to Jews. 81 The govenment of Minister President Istvän Bethlen (April 14, 1921 August 24, 1931), that is, the "consolidation" introduced by him with some success, improved the situation of the Jewish population.82 In contrast to his predecessors, Bethlen spoke out unmistakably against acts of violence and aggressive propaganda; he tried to limit the influence of the anti-Semites. His attitude to anti-Semitism was clearly determined by pragmatism and political calculation. However, even for him there was no question of a return to liberal policies. The definition, ascribed to Bethlen, of an anti-Semite as a person who hated Jews more than was necessary83 suitably characterizes the anti-Jewish atmosphere and politics of the twenties. Under these conditions, the radical anti-Semites could not be deprived of their influence. The struggle against radical anti-Semitism occurred in the early twenties against the background of the necessity of economic redevelopment. Without, or even against, Jewish financial and industrial circles, this redevelopment would have been impossible to carry out, or only under vastly less-favorable conditions. With a view, above all, to the admission into the League of Nations sought by Bethlen and achieved in 1923, and the credits hoped for and received in 1924 from this organization, it was necessary to make clear to the international public that the

81

82

83

On anti-Semitism in the administration, see Tibor Dioszeghy, "Der unblutige Pogrom. Der ungarländische Antisemitismus als Institution," in Kranz (ed.), op. cit., pp. 67-79. On Bethlen's consolidation policy, see Ignäc Romsics, "A bethleni konszolidacio allam-es kormänyzati rendszere," Egy letünt koszakml, 1919-1945, Budapest 1987, pp. 38-52; William M. Batkay, Authoritarian Politics in a Transitional State. Istvän Bethlen and the Unified Party in Hungary 1919-1926, New York 1982. Thomas Karfunkel, "The Impact of Trianon on the Jews of Hungary," in B.K. Kiraly, P. Pastor and Ivan Sanders (eds.), War and Society in East Central Europe, VI, Essays on World War I: Total War and Peacemaking, A Case Study on Trianon, New York 1982.

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days of riots and lawlessness were over, and that the state was making an effort to guarantee the rights of all citizens. For the radical wing of the governing camp, this policy of Bethlen's, based on expediency, was already "philo-Semitism." Gömbös and other partisans of this wing left the governing party and founded the "Race Protection Party." The results of this double-edged policy were inevitable: the economic position of "the Jews" remained strong, even strengthened at the top because of economic developments in the twenties favorable to capital and industry, while repression and isolation occurred on a political and social level. Since the economic situation of "the Jews" was always identified with that of the wealthy, an unusual picture was presented. Despite governmental anti-Semitism and its declared intention of forcing the Jews out of the economy, the already high proportion of Jews in the highest tax brackets continued to rise. On the other hand, they faced expulsion from the academic, political and government sectors. In the first decade following the war, the Jewish share in the ministerial bureaucracy sank from 4.9 to 1.5 %, in local administration from 4.5 to 0.7 %, in the judiciary from 5.0 to 1.7 °/o.84 Jews were almost completely excluded from high state and political offices; the appointment of Baron Koranyis as Finance Minister was an exception. As Bethlen's "consolidation" came to an end with the world economic crisis, and his successor Gyula Kärolyi (August 24, 1931 - October 1, 1932) failed to solve the catastrophic economic and financial crisis, the "third force" once again made its demands. With the appointment of the defense minister and prominent anti-Semite Gyula Gömbös as Minister President, one of its representatives took over the responsibilities of government.

84

A.J. Janos, The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary, 1825-1945, Princeton 1982, p. 227.

EZRA MENDELSOHN

Trianon Hungary, Jews and Politics* Hungarian Jewry and the End of the Old Order We have remarked that World War I and the ensuing peace settlement had a devastating impact on Hungary. The same can be said for Hungarian Jewry. 1 Just as Hungary lost vast territories and millions of people, so Hungarian Jewry was deprived of thousands of Jews in Transylvania (now attached to Romania), Slovakia, and Subcarpathian Rus (both now part of CzechoT Slovakia). This meant the loss of the most religious and least assimilated of Hungarian Jews, the strongholds of Orthodoxy and Yiddish speech in Pressburg (now called Bratislava), Szatmär (Satu-Mare), and Munkacs (Mukacevo). Those who remained in Trianon Hungary tended to be more Neolog than Orthodox and more magyarized. Moreover, the collapse of Habsburg Hungary meant the end of the golden age of Hungarian-Jewish relations, an age which was never to return. One of the reasons for this was the demise of the multinational state. If the Jews were regarded in the prewar period as agents of magyarization, so useful to Hungarian rule in the peripheral regions, in the postwar period they were no longer needed to fulfill this function. Trianon Hungary, after all, was a nation-state, not a state of nationalities; as for the magyarized Jews of Slovakia, Transylvania, and Subcarpathian Rus, it was hoped that they would remain loyal to Magyardom, but it was also realized that they were in no position to bring about a revision of the postwar settlement. Thus one of the main reasons for traditional pro-Jewish feeling among the Hungarian elite, from Kossuth on, no longer applied. Along with the collapse of multinational Hungary went a series of political upheavals which, although ultimately unsuccessful, were also to strike at the * From Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1983, pp. 85-131, abridged pp. 94-99, 102-104, 116-128. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 The history of Hungarian Jewry in the interwar period is the subject of two recent and important books: Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, I, New York 1981; Nathaniel Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews, 1920-1943, Ramat-Gan 1981.

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Hungarian-Jewish alliance. In October, 1918, the first (and only) Westerntype liberal regime in Hungarian history, headed by Michäly Karolyi, took power. Kärolyi's left-leaning coalition, supported by radicals and social democrats and including within its ranks several prominent Jews, was unable to halt the disintegration of the state. In March, 1919, it was replaced by a Communist government headed by Bela Kun (1886-1939), a Transylvanian Hungarian ofJewish origin who had spent most of the war as a Russian prisoner. If many right-wing opponents of Kärolyi (who was of impeccable aristocratic origins) accused him of being a "Jewish stooge," there was no doubt in the minds of millions of anti-Communist Hungarians that Bela Kun's regime was Jewish through and through.2 In fact, the number of Jews who occupied prominent positions in Kun's ill-fated one hundred-day regime was truly remarkable. According to one student of this period, of twenty-six ministers and vice-ministers of the Kun regime, twenty were of Jewish origin.3 Of course, they were Jews only in the technical sense - Kun himself is quoted as having proclaimed in 1919, "My father was a Jew but I am no longer one, for I became a socialist and a Communist."4 But this made no difference to anyone. The fact was that the Hungarian Soviet government, despised by large numbers of Hungarians as the antithesis of traditional Hungarian politics and as a Russian effort to gain a beachhead in Central Europe, was from the beginning identified with Hungarian Jewry. The extraordinarily high rate of Jewish representation deserves some comment, for, although Jews were prominent in socialist movements everywhere in Eastern Europe, nowhere, and certainly not in Soviet Russia, did they play so great a role. Not only did Jews dominate the Bela Kun government, but they were also very prominent in the prewar "Galileo Circle," the center of Budapest student radicalism, and in the prewar socialist movement. The traditional explanation for the promi-

2

3

4

On Jewish support for Karolyi, see Peter Pastor, Hungary between Wilson and Lenin: The Hungarian Revolution of 1918-1919 and the Big Three, New York 1976, pp. 39, 45; Oscar [Oszkar] Jäszi, Magyarens Schuld, Ungarns Sühne, Revolution und Gegenrevolution in Ungarn, Munich 1923, pp. 24-27; William McCagg, "Jews in Revolutions: the Hungarian Experience," Journal ofSocial History, 1972, pp. 78-105; Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars, Seattle 1974, p. 139. Karolyi is described as Jewish stooge in the violendy antiSemitic book by Cecile Tormay, An Outlaw's Diary: Revolution, London 1923, esp. p. 70. Shlomo Yitshaki, "Ha-yehudim bemahapechot hungariya, 1918-1919," Moreshet 11, 1969, pp. 113-134. See also McCagg, op. cit., and Istvan Deak, "Budapest and the Hungarian Revolutions of 1918-1919," Slavic and East European Review 46, 1968, pp. 129-140. Quoted in Andrew Janos, "The Decline of Oligarchy: Bureaucratic and Mass Politics in the Age of Dualism (1867-1918)," in Revolution and Perspective: Essays on the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, ed. by Andrew Janos and William Slottman, Los Angeles and London 1971, p. 97.

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nence of Jews in the left, namely, that they were reacting to anti-Semitism, certainly has something to do with this phenomenon. True, prewar Hungary, as we have noted, was not extremely anti-Semitic, but the atmosphere changed radically after the war and even in the prewar period those Jews who were politically ambitious were likely to look to the left rather than to the gentry-dominated establishment political order. We should also recall that Hungarian Marxism was not a mass movement but chiefly an organization of intellectuals (as it was elsewhere in Eastern Europe), and the Hungarian intelligentsia, as we have already remarked, probably had more Jewish members than that of any other East European country. It was, in fact, characterized by the conspicuous presence of precocious and brilliant children of the Jewish bourgeoisie, who found on the left a more attractive environment than that offered by their banker and merchant parents. (More will be said on this subject later on.) Jäszi and other observers of the Hungarian scene have theorized that the Jews' overrepresentation in Hungarian radicalism was the result of the roodessness, "half-assimilation," and lack offirmnational tradition which characterized Hungarian Jewry. Confronting the problem of why so many Jews were involved in Bela Kun's "un-Hungarian" experiment, Jäszi wrote in 1923 that we must not forget that the contrast between Jewry and the Christian world is much greater in Eastern Europe than in the West. The Hungarian people is much more rural, conservative, and slow thinking than the Western peasant peoples. On the other hand, Hungarian Jewry is much less assimilated than Western Jewries, it is much more an independent body within society, which does not have any real contact with the native soul of the country.

This lack of contact with the Hungarian nation rendered the Jews much more prepared to devote themselves to the Bolshevik ideal than were the "rooted," conservative Hungarian masses.5 Indeed, for Jäszi the peculiar situation of the Jews in Hungary made them prone to ideological excesses of all kinds, including not only Bolshevik internationalism but also Hungarian superchauvinism. The connection between Jewish roodessness and Jewish Bolshevism, which fitted in well with racial theories about the Jews' inability to assimilate properly, was made ad nauseam by Hungarian anti-Semites during the interwar years. And if there is some truth in this analysis, the fact is that most Jews were patriotic Hungarians who were extremely hostile to Bolshevism and who wanted nothing less than the restoration of the prewar order. Nonetheless, they paid a heavy price for the high proportion ofJews in Kun's

5

Jäszi, op. at., p. 129. For valuable material on Jews and the left in Hungary, see also William McCagg, Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modem Hungary, New York 1972.

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government, just as Russian Jewry during the civil war paid a high price for the conspicuous role played by Trotsky and other Jews in the Soviet regime. Kun's regime, accompanied by considerable chaos and a modest red terror, called into life a voluminous and incredibly venomous anti-Semitic literature, the theme of which was the accusation that Kun was attempting to subjugate Hungary to Jewish domination. "St. Stephen's Hungary," read one typical entry, "has fallen under the rule of Trotsky's agent, Bela Kun, the embezzler."6 Under Kun, we are informed, "a new Jerusalem was growing up on the banks of the Danube. It emanated from Karl Marx's Jewish brain, and was built by Jews. . . ."7 Just as ominous, from the Jewish point of view, was that Kun's regime brought forth a powerful counterrevolutionary reaction. A loose coalition of fanatic right-wing anti-Bolsheviks and old-style Hungarian liberals rose up to fight Kun and socialism in the name of ancient Hungarian virtues. The latter group, led by Istvän Bethlen and Pal Teleki, typical aristocrats of the old regime, was concentrated in Vienna, while the former, led by the future profascist prime minister of Hungary, Gyula Gömbös, rallied around theflagin Szeged. (Gömbös and his followers were known as the "men of Szeged.") In the summer of 1919 Kun was overthrown, not so much by internal opposition as by French-backed Romanian military intervention. The counter-revolution took over the country, symbolized by the appointment as regent of Admiral Miklos Horthy, a venerable naval hero and representative of the old ruling class who favored the restoration, as much as possible, of the prewar regime. The overthrow of Kun and the triumph of counter-revolution was accompanied by a white terror which was, among other things, a series of bloody pogroms directed against leftists and Jews, usually regarded as identical. This was the Hungarian version of the wave of anti-Jewish disturbances which swept over the Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, and even Czechoslovakia during 1918— 1919. But if pogroms were fairly common in the lands of the old Tsarist empire, they were something new in the lands of St. Stephen. The white terror reached its height during August-September, 1919, but continued until the spring of 1920. Jews were murdered in some fifty towns, usually by military detachments. Hungarian public opinion regarded these events as just revenge for the sins of the Kun regime, and Horthy himself, upon his triumphant entrance into Budapest, promised to "punish" that sinful city which was identified in the Hungarian mind with Hungarian Jewry.8 The Jewish world, and in particular 6 7 8

Cecile Tormay, An Outlaw's Diary: the Commune, Hereford 1923, p. 5. Jerome and Jean Tharaud, When Israel Is King, New York 1924, p. 190. Deak, op. cit, pp. 131-132; Paul Ignotus, Hungary, New York 1972, p. 151. For details on the pogroms see Nathaniel Katzburg, "Redifot ha-yehudim be-hungariya 1919-1922," Universität

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Hungarian Jewry, reacted with horror and amazement to these events, so unexpected in this "philo-Semitic" country. But the Hungarian ruling class, which before the war would never have tolerated such behavior, did not condemn the excesses. Terror, it was felt, had to be fought by terror, and the Jews were clearly guilty of great crimes.9 They deserved what they got. The Hungarian experience provides the researcher with a unique example of how a country previously "good for the Jews" is transformed, almost overnight, into a country wracked with pogroms and permeated with anti-Semitic hysteria. How did this happen? We have already seen how the community of interests which bound the Magyar ruling class to the Jews had been shaken by loss of empire and how the prominence of Jews in the short-lived Communist regime infuriated the great majority who were anti-Bolshevik. More generally, it might be said that the Hungarian nation underwent a profound national trauma during 1918-1919, when the humiliation of loss of empire was combined with the humiliation of a political takeover by a group of socially unacceptable intellectuals acting, so it was believed, under the guidance of foreign, antiMagyar powers. These humiliations, greater than those experienced by any other East Central European nation during this period, created the overriding need for scapegoats. The Jews and the leftists were obvious targets, and if the old regime had once shielded the Jews from anti-Semitism, which was at any rate relatively submerged in prewar Hungary, it was no longer in a position to do so when anti-Semitism burst forth with unprecedented vigor during the white terror. In other words, Jewish well-being during the prewar period was a function of the old regime's ability to retain the empire and maintain social and political tranquility. The collapse of the Habsburg regime signaled the beginning of the collapse of the Jewish-gentry alliance. To be sure, the restoration of the old regime in 1919 also restored, to a degree, the old situation so far as Hungarian-Jewish relations were concerned. But the restoration was more apparent than real. The Jewish condition in Trianon Hungary was quite different from that in prewar Habsburg Hungary, and even the victory of Horthy and Bethlen could not conceal this fact. The

9

bar-ilan, sefershana 3, 1965, pp. 225-251; idem, op. cit., 1981, pp. 32-59. See also "La terreur blanche en Hongrie et les juifs," Bulletin du comite des delegations juives aupres de la conference de lapaix 14, 12 May 1920, pp. 3-5; ibid. 15, 6 July 1920, pp. 6-11; the testimony of one of Horthy's aides in 1919, in Anton Lehar, Erinnerungen. Gegenrevolution und Restaurationsversuche in Ungarn 1918-1921, Munich 1973, pp. 112-127. There appear to be no statistics on the number of Jews killed; the reference to fifty cities is in Katzburg, op. cit., 1981, p. 41. See, for example, Nicholas Horthy, Memoirs, London 1956, pp. 98-109. Horthy does write in his memoirs that he opposed the pogroms, but he also writes that he did not regret the white terror, which was necessary in order to rid the country of Bolshevism.

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Jews remained great Magyar patriots, but the Hungarian ruling class was no longer pro-Jewish; meanwhile, a new political force, organizing on the extreme right, threatened the Jewish minority as no political force ever had before. But it was not only the attitude of the ruling elite and the emergence of a radical right which were new. If before the war the Hungarian nation was prepared to welcome reinforcements from other national and religious groups, it was now much less so. The traditional open nationalism of the prewar period was replaced by a closed, exclusivist nationalism which found its intellectual justification in the writings of such people as the outstanding historian of the interwar years, Gyula Szekfü.10 And if the Jews were able to play such a dominant role in economic and intellectual life before the war, when Hungary was a large, multinational empire undergoing rapid economic development, in the interwar period new economic conditions rendered their dominance much less tolerable. Hungary was now a much smaller country, where opportunities were suddenly reduced and where competition for employment was greater. A rapidly growing number of "native" university graduates were now searching for suitable work, and this was made worse by the influx after the war of large numbers of Hungarians from what was now Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. The old world was gone forever, and Hungary became a most dramatic example, along with Bukovina, Transylvania, and Galicia, of how Jewish fortunes declined with the decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire. [ . . . ] The New Hungary and the Jewish Question: Part One Historians of interwar Hungary usually divide the period into two parts - the period of the "liberal" restoration, when Hungary was ruled by the old aristocratic elite, and the period when the country fell under the control of radical right forces. The first period extends until 1932 and comes to an end with the appointment of Gömbös as prime minister. This scheme is far from foolproof (there was, for example, an old-style "liberal" Hungarian prime minister during the years 1942-1944), but it is useful, and its usefulness extends to our discussion of the position of the Jews in the state. Roughly speaking, so long as the old elite held on to power, albeit in the new environment of Trianon Hungary, Jewish well-being was not seriously im10

Stephen Bela Vardy, Modem Hungarian Historiography, New York and Guildford 1976, pp. 62-69. See also Asher Cohen, "The Attitude of the Intelligentsia in Hungary toward Jewish Assimilation between the Two World Wars," in Jewish Assimilation in Modem Times, Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (eds.), Boulder 1981, pp. 57-74.

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paired. This was not the case under premiers of Gömbös' type, although we shall see that the bark of this first avowed Hungarian fascist to rule the country was considerably worse than his bite. Two men put their stamp on Hungary of the 1920s: the regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy, and the prime minister for much of this period, Istvän Bethlen. Both were old-style landowners, both were avowed enemies of the Versailles settlement and of Communism, and both wished to preserve the social and political system of prewar Hungary. This meant the ascendancy of the old gentry elite along with the preservation of a certain degree of political pluralism. Opposition groups were allowed to exist, but since democracy was foreign to the Hungarian system, and remained anathema to her new leaders, party life on the Czechoslovak or Polish model never devloped. So far as its attitude toward the Jews was concerned, the political elite was far less friendly than the prewar rulers of Hungary, but in substance its policy during the 1920s differed little from that of its predecessors. Even at the height of the struggle against Kun and his "Jewish government," Horthy was careful not to blame all Hungarian Jews for Kun's crimes. His attitude is reflected in his memoirs, written after World War Π, when he noted, "The Jews who had long been settled among us were the first to reprobate the crimes of their co-religionists, in whose hands the new regime almost exclusively rested."11 This distinction between "real Hungarian Jews" and the others, presumably recent immigrants, became a common theme in the writings of the leaders of the restoration. It was not wholly reassuring to Hungarian Jewry, but it was at least not a purely racist position, and it allowed for the existence of good, patriotic Hungarian Jews who could be counted on to support the regime. It was made in the clearest possible way by the future prime minister, Count Pal Teleki, a great magnate and establishment politician who, when in the United States in 1921, insisted that Hungarians disliked only the "Galician Jews," by whom he meant recent arrivals from Poland who were clearly not assimilated Hungarians. " . . . it is a mistake," he added, "to think that the anti-Jewish movement, which really existed and which still exists in Hungary, is one against the Jewish religion or Jews in general."12 In a lecture given in 1926 Teleki elaborated on this theme: For centuries we have had a nationally thinking and valuable working Jewry in the process of assimilation. Over the past decades, however, the ratio of immigrants, from Russia, Romania, and Galicia has multiplied. The unassimilated, unnational or even antinational Jewry became

11 12

Horthy, op. cit., p. 98. Paul Teleki, The Evolution of Hungary and Its Place in European History, reprint ed., Gulf Breeze 1975, pp. 141-142.

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predominant, first numerically, then in certain professional lines, such as the press and literature. Its flexible, combatant cosmopolitanism has undermined the way of thinking of individuals, and started destroying the pillars of the state. And in the years subsequent to the World War, the cohesive force of the Jewish thought proved to have been stronger than the national thought.13

It makes no difference that the theory of the "Galician invasion" had little basis in fart. So long as Hungarian leaders took out their wrath on the "Galicians," and not on the "nationally thinking and valuable working Jewry," stateinspired anti-Semitism remained limited. And some of the traditional reasons for limiting anti-Semitism still prevailed. Jews might not be able to serve as magyarizers in Transylvania now that that province was attached to Romania, but they could still provide great financial assistance to the government. They did, in fact, support the new-old regime with an enthusiasm born of certain knowledge that this regime's opponents on the right were fanatic anti-Semites whose victory would prove fatal to Hungarian Jewry. For their part, Bethlen and Horthy also had much to fear from the radical right, whose attitude toward social and economic questions posed a threat to the status quo. Thus the old Jewish-Hungarian establishment alliance was reconstructed; it was built on much less firm soil than in the prewar period, but it held so long as the old-regime politicians continued to rule new Hungary. As Macartney has put it, "the big Jewish interests became one of the most powerful pillars of his [Bethlen's] whole system." 14 The Jewish oligarchy continued to co-opt Hungarian aristocrats into its firms and sometimes even intermarried with the sons and daughters of the aristocracy. Jews continued to serve as lessees of large estates. And while the Jewish rich (and, as we shall see, the Jewish political leadership) lent its strong support to the regime, the regime resisted popular pressure from the extreme right to curtail Jewish rights and to strike at the Jewish economic interest. This meant, of course, that Jewish well-being continued to be firmly linked to the preservation of the conservative (or even reactionary) order just as it had been before the war. This was not a happy position for HungarianJewry tofinditself in, but it is difficult to see what other choice it had. And surely the situation of Hungarian Jewry during the 1920s was happier than that of the Jews of Poland, where the basically racist attitude of the Endek movement prevailed and where the Jews' lower-middle class and

13

14

Quoted in L. Tilkovszky, Pal Tekki (1879-1941): A Biographical Sketch, Budapest 1974, pp. 28-29. Introduction to Nicholas [Miklos] Källay, Hungarian Premier, Westport 1970, p. XV. Rar details on Jewish-gentry cooperation, see Bernard Klein, "Hungarian Politics and the Jewish Question in the Inter-War Period," Jewish Social Studies 28,1966, pp. 79-98. Reprinted in this volume.

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proletarian character made them especially vulnerable to anti-Semitism. Teleki and his colleagues did not love the Jews, and we shall see that they came to love them less and less, but their attitude was preferable to that of Dmowski and other leaders of the Polish right, who could not concede the possibility that Polish Jewry might be of benefit to the state. [ . . . ] If 1932 is regarded by most Hungarian historians as the great turning point in interwar Hungarian politics, for Hungarian Jewry the crucial year was 1938. This, of course, was the year of the German takeover of Austria and of the first partition of Czechoslovakia. The latter event was of great significance for Hungary, since it returned to Hungary parts of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus. Here was proof that the Nazi alliance was strong enough to begin the righting of the terrible wrong of 1920. In this atmosphere of growing affection for the Nazi ally and of a surge of nationalism fed by the prospects of revising the Trianon settlement, along with rising fears within the government due to the rapid growth of the Arrow Cross Party, pressure mounted to "solve" the Jewish question. The pressure came not only from within Hungary but from Germany as well, since the Nazis strongly urged their Hungarian friends to emulate their Jewish policy. In May, 1938, even before the return of parts of Slovakia, the pro-German prime minister, Kaiman Daranyi, enacted the so-called first Jewish law, the first such law to be passed in East Central Europe. The major provisions of the law were summed up by an official Hungarian publication as follows: Industrial and commercial undertakings and banking houses employing more than ten persons are given five, or in certain cases ten, years in which to adjust the proportion of employees and of salaries, bonuses, and so on, to conform with the general rule that does not allow the Jewish share under any of these headings to exceed twenty percent of the total. In chambers of industry and commerce and in the legal, medical, and engineering professions, new Jewish members will be admitted at the rate of only five percent, until the Jewish proportion is reduced to the limit of twenty percent. New chambers in journalism and in the entertainment industry will be set up by the end of the year, and the twenty percent numerus clausus will come into force at once. 15

Jews who had converted in Christianity prior to August, 1919 were exempt from these draconian measures (but those who had participated in the rather large wave of conversions following the fall of Bela Kun and during the white terror were not). Exempt too were Jews who had fought at the front during World War I, as well as the widows and children of Jews killed in the war.

15

Laszlo Ottlik, "The Hungarian Jewish Law," The Hungarian Quarterly A, 1938-39, p. 399. See also Johann Weidlin, Der ungarische Antisemitismus in Dokumenten, Schorndorf 1962, p. 51; Katzburg, op. dt., 1981, pp. 94-113; Braham, op. cit., 1, pp. 122-127.

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Government spokesmen justified this law on three grounds. First,the high percentage of Jews in commercial, industrial, and professional life was obviously "abnormal" and could not be allowed to continue forever, certainly not when thousands of Christian Hungarians were starving. Second, the growing strength of Nazi Germany had caused great panic among the Jews, who were under the impression that they would be subjected to the same kind of antiJewish terror prevalent in the Reich; therefore, "it was necessary to reassure the Jews by laying down the limit of the restrictions which the Government was prepared to approve as just and equitable."16 In other words, the state had done the Jews a favor. Finally, it was claimed that the great majority of Jews had not really become proper Magyars, that they had not really assimilated, despite a superficial process of acculturation. Thus they were not worthy of equal treatment before the law. All these claims were rejected by the Jewish leadership, which, now, in contrast with its reactions during the 1920s, registered a strong public protest. The Union of Hungarian Jews pointed out that the law "creates a distinction between Hungarian citizens of the Jewish and of other faiths [and] is a gross offense against the principle of equality of rights." It was, in fact, a violation of the noble tradition of Hungarian tolerance, embraced by the great Hungarian statesmen and revolutionaries of the nineteenth century - by Kossuth, Deäk, and Eötvös. The Jewish leadership declared, logically enough but rather naively, that since nofieldof occupation was closed to Hungarian Jews, no one has therightto accuse them of having taken up too great a number of positions in economic life - particularly in fields from which, according to the motivation of the Bill, citizens professing other religions have kept away. No one can deny that without the activity of Hungarian Jews, the most important areas of industry, commerce, and credit in Hungary would not have been cultivated to their needed extent. Neither has anyone the right to reproach the Jews of Hungary for having participated in everyfieldof intellectual endeavor to the best of their ability, and for faithfully serving the country's interest, the people's welfare and national culture in this as in other spheres of endeavor.17

Having established the obvious unfairness and un-Hungarian character of the law, the Jewish organization went on, in time-honored fashion, to denounce the view that the Jewish population was not fully assimilated and did not identify itself wholeheartedly with the Hungarian cause: We protest against making our Jewish faith appear as if adherence to it is opposed to the faithful observance of the nation's historical traditions and as if these traditions do not represent the

16 17

Ottlik, op. at., pp. 401-402. "Declaration of Protest of Hungarian Jews against the Introduction of the Occupational Restriction Law of May, 1938," Contemporary Jewish Record 1, no. 2, 1938-39, p. 26.

Trianon Hungary, Jews and Politics

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same values for Hungarians ofJewish faith as they do for other Hungarians. We protest against the pretense that the adherence to the Jewish faith could in any way influence assimilation to the Hungarian spirit. And we particularly protest against terming the abandonment of the Jewish faith as assimilation to the Hungarian spirit, and thus terming loyalty to religion as incompatible with loyalty to the nation. This declaration of reasons for the Bill is a condemnation of the Jewish religion before the forum of the nation. It is an insult to the most sacred patriotic feelings of more than four hundred thousand Hungarian citizens of the Jewish faith. We maintain and declare that we are and will remain faithful Jews by religion, faithful Hungarians by sentiment. We suifer from the doom of Trianon equally with all our compatriots. Our efforts are directed towards the realization of the great aims of the nation. We will share in the newly initiated work of saving the nation with the same utmost effort and faculty for sacrifice that we have demonstrated in the past,fightingagainst every attempt at disturbance from whatever quarter it may come. The spirit of Räkoczi, Kossuth, Vorösmarty, Petöfi, Jokai, and Arany stand before us as our national ideals.18

Such ringing declarations show that even the cautious and conservative Jewish leadership would not remain silent in the face of such an obvious attempt to make the Jews into second-class citizens, although they also demonstrate that its Hungarian superpatriotism remained firm. Moreover, now as in 1920, the Jewish leaders rejected the idea of foreign intervention on behalf of Hungarian Jewry and were even prepared, at least in private, "to accept a tolerable-level of anti-Jewish measures."19 In return for not attempting to rally world and Jewish opinion against the law, they hoped that the government would do its best to subdue the extreme right. ThefirstJewish law was debated in parliament, where members opposed to the government, few and ineffectual as they were, were allowed to voice their opposition. One common theme in this opposition, one which was likely to strike a responsive chord among many Hungarians, was that the new law was "made in Germany," that is, drafted with an eye toward appeasing the Nazis. 20 Another theme was the unequal treatment meted out to Jews and to the Swabian Germans, Hungary's only national minority. Why, asked the socialist deputy Peyer, were the Jews told that their failure to assimilate had cost them their equal status while the German Hungarians (whose cause was dear to the hearts of the Nazi government and who were disliked by many Hungarian nationalists) were allowed to remain loyal to their ethnic heritage?21 Finally, there was opposition on moral grounds. The law, some

18 19

20

21

Ibid., pp. 27-28. Those names are great Hungarian patriots of past centuries. Katzburg, op. cit., 1981, p. 98. See also the correspondence between Halifax and Norman in Bela Vago, The Shadow of the Swastika, London 1975, p. 313. See the remarks of Dr. Rassay quoted in Weidlin, op. cit., p. 66. For the debate in general, see ibid., pp. 53-94; Katzburg, op. cit., 1981, pp. 94-113. Weidlin, op. cit., p. 76.

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deputies thought, was obviously contrary to that Hungarian tradition which had consistendy opposed racism and whose only criterion for legal equality was loyalty to the Hungarian state. These arguments had no effect on the government, of course, and it is interesting that the law was defended by such representatives of the old ruling class as Pal Teleki, whose views on the Jewish question are quoted above. Writing in early 1939 to an English acquaintance, Teleki had the following to say: It was in 1919 or 1920 when I told some Jewish leaders of our public-life: "You are Jews and you are Magyars. There is a conflict between the Christian Magyars and between the Oriental [i. e. East European] Jews who came in great masses to our country in the last half-century, and the continual infiltration of which did not stop and does not stop. You have to choose your place in this conflict because it is an earnest conflict, it is a problem of life and death for the Hungarian people. You must choose between your Magyar compatriots and between your Oriental co-religionists." Unhappily the greatest part of Hungarian Jews chose the latter. They help the Oriental Jew with money, by way of adoption and by giving them work, to come into the land, to get here a footing, to stay and fight his life [sic] in competition with the autochthonous Christian people.22

Such were the views also of Horthy and other pillars of the establishment. The Catholic church, less active in the anti-Semitic campaign here than in Poland, and fearful lest the anti-Jewish hysteria strike at Christians of Jewish origin, nonetheless also supported the 1938 law.23 ThefirstJewish law was not one-hundred-percent racist in character. It did, after all, exempt some Jews and also recognized pre-1919 converts as Hungarians. Teleki, Horthy, and their allies maintained the old tradition of allowing for the existence of "Magyar Jews." Moreover, these "moderates" insisted that thefirstJewish law, even if it was not justified on moral grounds and even if it violated the spirit of Hungarian history and the Hungarian constitution, was a reasonable way out of a situation in which external and internal pressures combined to make some sort of action necessary. Thus Teleki informed his disapproving English correspondent that "I have probably more connections with most different circles of people than many parliamentary politicians. And I know quite well how public opinion wishes a very radical solution of the Jewish problem." Failure to act might provide "the opportunity to any neighbor and especially the big one [Germany] to interfere."24 And besides, it was argued that the law was not very harmful to the Jews, since it

22 23 24

Nathaniel Katzburg, "Paul Teleki and the Jewish Question in Hungary," Soviet Jewish Affairs 2,1971, pp. 106-107. Weidlin, op. cit., pp. 31-32; Braham, op. cit., 1, pp. 123-125. Katzburg, op. cit., 1971, p. 109.

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was to be implemented over a long period of time, and since Hungarians were at any rate not nearly so efficient as Germans. Such arguments, first trotted out during the numerus clausus affair of the 1920s, continued the old pattern of behavior according to which "moderate" Hungarian politicians argued for the acceptance of "moderate" anti-Semitic measures as an alternative to the great danger of a revolt from below (that is, a takeover by the Arrow Cross Party) which would finish off the Jews (and the old elite) altogether.25 It is by no means clear to what extent the views of Horthy and Teleki were shaped by expediency - the need to buy off the extreme right and the Nazis - and to what extent they reflected a growing acceptance of Nazi racism. Whatever the truth of the matter, one thing was clear: the Hungarian ruling class did not hesitate to strike cruelly at its erstwhile Jewish allies, much preferring such action to social reform and knowing full well that the Jews, lacking any other, allies, would continue to support it in preference to the still worse alternative. From the Jewish point of view, as we have already noted, this was a very dangerous game, since the stakes were constantly rising. One might live with a numerus clausus not strictly enforced, but could one live with the law of 1938? And would this be the last Jewish law? It turned out that this was not the end, but rather the beginning. During 1938-1939 the links with the Nazis grew stronger (and bore fruit in the return, in 1939, of the rest of Subcarpathian Rus to Hungary) and so did the Arrow Cross Party. The need to steal the thunder of the extreme right in order to maintain the power of the "moderates" was now even greater. In late 1938 the government of Bela Imredy initiated a "second Jewish law," and after Imredy fell (in ironic circumstances, described below) the measure was passed by the new prime minister, Pal Teleki, whose strong anti-Nazi and anti-Arrow Cross views did not prevent him from steering it through parliament. The new law, which took effect in May, 1939, was far more severe than its predecessor. Its definition of a Jew was still not entirely racial; children of Jewish parents both of whom had converted were not regarded as Jews, although children one of whose parents was a nonconverted Jew were, and exemptions were still granted to Jewish war veterans who had won medals and to invalids. Champions of Olympic games ofJewish origin were also exempted. But the numerus clausus was made more restrictive, and a host of other limitations were introduced. The following is contemporary summary of the regulations:

25

This is also the position of C. A. Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History ofModem Hungary 1929-1945,2 vols., Edinborough 1956-1957; see, for example his discussion of thefirstJewish law, I: pp. 218-219.

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The Law limits the Jews to 6 percent of the membership of the Chambers of the liberal and academic professions; restricts the participation of the Jews in public contracts to 20 percent, and from 1943 to 6 percent; forbids them to occupy any controlling, managerial, or influential position in newspaper offices, theatres, cinemas, or film studios; utterly excludes them from the Civil and Municipal services, and from the staff of social insurance organizations and all public institutions, as well as from the vocations of notary and sworn interpreter. It requires that all Jewish professors and teachers in colleges and higher grade schools, and all Jewish district notaries shall be retired by January 1st, 1943, and all Jewish public prosecutors by January 1st, 1940, with compensation. Jewish students at Universities and higher grade schools are to be limited to 6 percent. All licenses held by Jews for the sale of State monopoly articles must be withdrawn withinfiveyears and not renewed, and trade licenses issued to Jews must be limited to 6 percent of the total held in the local community. Jews have norightto buy or sell land, except by permission, and they can be compelled at any time to sell or lease their agricultural property on termsfixedby the authorities - a provision that amounts to forcible expropriation. In industrial concerns, mines, banks, money exchanges, and insurance companies Jews must be limited to 12 percent; they can be dismissed at any time on short notice, and their compensation or pension depends upon the generosity of the employer.26

As was the case with thefirstJewish law, there was opposition to this law - and this time not only from the handful of left-wing and Jewish deputies in the parliament. In January, 1939, the former premier Bethlen and other distinguished Hungarians voiced their opposition in a letter to the regent, Horthy. To be sure, Bethlen did not take a pro-Jewish position. He too believed that the Jewish question (along with the question of land reform) had to be solved immediately: If these two problems remain unsolved before elections are called, any internal or external revolutionizing tendency will attempt by way of these problems to deflect our nation - a nation small, and therefore hardly able to accept greatrisksand loads - from the lawful path of historical development, and divert it to the path of unforeseeable revolutionary risks. If these two problems are not setded, the agitation of the Arrow Cross men will roll over the four thousand communities of our country, in a unprecedented manner, and it is beyond doubt that they will dispose of abundantfinancialmeans from foreign sources.27

"The essence of the Jewish problen," Bethlen continued, "is that there are too many of them and their influence is too great." But the proposals of the Imredy government would not provide the cure, according to Bethlen, since they created panic among the Jewish population and threatened to destroy the Hungarian economy. The former ruler of Hungary therefore attacked the

26

27

Israel Cohen, "The Jews in Hungary," The Contemporary Review, November 1939; p. 10. See also Weidlin, op. cit., pp. 95-137; Katzburg, op. at., 1981, pp. 114-157; Braham, op. dt., I, pp. 147-156. "Memorandum of Count Istvän Bethlen and some other politicians," The Confidential Papers of Admiral Horthy, Budapest 1965, pp. 114-115.

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second Jewish law, not on moral grounds and not even on the grounds that it was "made in Germany," but on the same pragmatic grounds which were responsible for Gömbös' moderate position during his tenure as prime minister: Within the country the Government are about to turn close to one million [sic] intelligent Jews over to an internal element hostile to the Hungarian nation [apparently Communism] and capable of doing anything. The growth of strength which the reannexation of the Highlands [Slovakia] means might be completely offset by a faulty setdement of the Swabian and Jewish problems, moreover such a setdement might call into jeopardy our position as a nation in every respect. For the future development of our foreign trade and our finances the settlement of the Jewish problem might be of decisive importance, and it may perhaps suffice to mention that on the day of the march into Kassa [a Slovakian city, in November, 1938] the pengö was quoted at about 70 centimes in Zurich, while during the past week it was already around 35 centimes. The revolutionizing policy of the Government, and the Jewish Bill drafted for purposes of propaganda have reaped their first fruit: throughout the country, enteiprise has come to a standstill, and normal business life is on the decline. The expanded employment of the armament industry may for a short time cover up the decay, yet the catastrophe will come to pass as soon as the extraordinary requirements of the army will be covered. The level of government revenue is sinking, the budgetary equilibrium has been upset, and panic among the Jews and the liquidation of Jewish business turns tens and hundreds of thousands of Christians into unemployed. The present Jewish Bill does not serve Hungarian interests, but aims at satisfying base passions with the intent to prop up the position of a weak government in the eyes of irresponsible elements, irrespective of how much this success costs the country.28

Here is the authentic voice of the old Hungarian seigneur, fearful of the masses, afraid of German expansionism, and conscious of the vital (and even beneficial) role played by the Jews in the economy. Horthy also was unhappy with Imredy's policy and complained that the latter had tabled the law "without my previous consent."29 But while the existence of these and other critical voices demonstrates to what extent the old ruling class had become the captive, whether willingly or not, and for whatever reason, of the radical antiSemitism of the extreme right. The passage of the two laws also demonstrates the extent to which Hungarian politics had become obsessed with the Jewish question by the late 1930s, an obsession resulting from economic distress, the triumph of Hungarian chauvinism, the great prestige and influence of Nazi Germany, and the government's fears of the ever-growing fascist movement. One of the victims of this obsession was the highly anti-Semitic prime minister Bela Imredy, author of the second Jewish law, who was forced to resign from office when his enemies (among them Horthy) published documents showing

28 29

Ibid., pp. 117-118. Ibid., p. 112. Horthy, op. at, p. 175.

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that he possessed a Jewish great-grandfather.30 The victims of the anti-Jewish hysteria were therefore not confined to the Jewish population alone. But this was small comfort to a Jewish community now augmented by the annexation of thousands of coreligionists from Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus. What was the impact of the first two Jewish laws on Hungarian Jewry? In the view of some it was very limited. The new regulations were enforced in the "Hungarian way," that is, inefficiently, and not as in Nazi Germany. Macartney remarks that "the business went on as before, all the real work being done by the Jews, while the requisite changes in the proportions of Jewish and non-Jewish employees, etc., were effected by simply taking on extra non-Jewish employees, many of whom did little more than draw their salaries."31 The efficient Germans looked on with contempt, believing that the anti-Jewish legislation was merely for show and not really intended to harm the Jewish interest.32 And, of course, the local Hungarian fascists agreed with their Nazi allies. The truth seems to be that the first two laws left the Jewish financial and industrial elite untouched, but did strike fairly hard at the middle and lower middle class and at the professionals. Thousands were discharged and reduced to poverty. In some small towns (where one-half of all Hungarian Jews resided) Jewish landowners' property was confiscated, the few Jewish civil servants were dismissed, and Jewish artisans lost their licenses, but in others the laws were simply not enforced.33 Much depended upon the attitude of the local authorities. But it is clear that the laws signaled a new and dangerous deterioration of relations between Jews and gentiles, since they legitimized anti-Semitic attitudes in a way in which even the white terror had not and made the Jews fair game for job hunters. The "aryanization" of the Hungarian economy might have been bad for the status of the currency, as Bethlen pointed out, but it gave thousands of Hungarians a stake in the new anti-Semitic "system," as well as official sanction of the baser instincts of the Hungarian population. In one sector of Hungarian life, the military, the situation became particularly ominous in 1939. According to the second Jewish law, Jews were no

30

31 32

33

See the account of Macartney, op. cit., I, pp. 327-328. It appears that Horthy used Imredy's "Jewish descent" as a means to get rid of a man whose radical right policies he disliked. Ibid., pp. 350-351. See, for example, "Memorandum des Deutschen Aussenministeriums an die Ungarische Regierung," 1943, which accuses the government even at that late date of doing nothing to reduce Jewish influence; Lajos Kerekes (ed.), Allianz Hitler-Horthy-Mussolini, Budapest 1966, p. 347. Israel Cohen, op. at., For the situation in the small towns, see the invaluable material in Pinkos ha-kehilot, Hunganya, Jerusalem 1975, p. 104.

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longer allowed to serve as officers, but the question as to whether they were worthy of serving at all alongside Christian Hungarians remained open. In May, 1939, some progress was made toward solving this issue by founding several special "labor battalions." These battalions were at first not earmarked for Jews alone, but in subsequent years Jews were deprived of the right to bear arms and were drafted exclusively into such formations. The results, as we shall see, were disastrous.34 The impact upon the Jews of the laws of 1938-1939 was not limited to economics. The leadership, as we have noted, was no longer content to remain silent, but on the other hand it did not offer new guidelines to the Jewish community. It held fast to its traditional line - the reiteration ofJewishMagyar patriotism, denunciation of any effort to separate Hungarians of the Mosaic faith from other Hungarians, and a willingness (now born out of desperation) to go along with any regime so long as it was not a regime of the Arrow Cross. 35 Samu Stern, President of the Jewish community of Pest, spoke for assimilationist Hungarian Jewry when he wrote, in 1938: It is easy to love the homeland w h e n . . . the homeland offers glory and happiness to those who love it; but the homeland must be loved even when it does not bestow upon us the totality of its love. God must be worshipped even when he reduces us to d u s t . . . we worship him whether he rewards or punishes us. We worship him even when he appears to turn his love away from us and we worship our earthly God, our homeland, whatever our fate may be in this homeland.36

But for many Jews this position was no longer satisfactory. Ever since the mid-1930s the idea of emigration had been growing more popular, and, although emigration could never become a mass movement (since there was nowhere for the masses to go), some left, including Jewry's most famous writer, Ferenc Molnär.37 Another response to the Jewish laws was a new wave of conversions, more significant than that of 1919-1920. During 1938-39 over 14,000 Jews converted, a number unparalleled anywhere else in Eastern Europe - even though conversion, as we know did not exempt Jews from the various disabilities imposed upon them. 38 Finally, during the years 1939-1944

34

35

36

37

38

Randolph L. Braham, The Hungarian Labor Service System 1939-1945, New York 1977, pp. 5-13. Nathaniel Katzburg, "Hanhagat ha-kehilot," in Hanhagat yehude hungariya bemivhan hashoa, Jerusalem 1976, pp. 81-84. Quoted in Braham, op. cit., 1981,1, p. 96. Stern was also the president of the National Bureau of the Jews in Hungary. During the years 1928-1935,2,609 Jews emigrated; see Sh. Friedman,"Yidishe emigratsie fun ungara," Yidishe ekonomik 3, 1939, pp. 89-94. Rotkirchen, "Korot tkufat ha-shoa," Pinkos ha-kehilot, Hungariya, p. 104.

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Jewish nationalism finally came to play a role in Hungarian Jewish life. That it did so was the result not so much of an emerging Jewish nationalism among the Jews of Trianon Hungary, but rather of the return to Hungary of Slovakian, Subcarpathian, and (in 1940) large numbers of Transylvanianjews. The Jewries of these three regained or partially regained provinces were much more nationalist- and Zionist-inclined that Trianon Jewry, and their national leaders, some of whom moved to Budapest, established a new Jewish leadership which, if it did not supplant the traditional one, at least offered an alternative. Zionist youth movements sprang up as well. Another indication of the new mood among some Hungarian Jews was the rather dramatic rise in the number of students attending the rabbinical seminary in Budapest.39 None of this indicates any change in the basically acculturated and antinationalist nature of Hungarian Jewry, but the virulent anti-Semitism of the late 1930s and early 1940s did induce some Jews to convert to Zionism, just as it induced others to convert to Christianity. Neither phenomenon, however, was to save Hungarian Jewry. The War Years In strict adherence to the scope of this book, our survey of Jewish history in interwar Hungary should end with the second Jewish law of 1939. However, because Hungary retained its national sovereignty until 1944, a brief description of the fate of Hungarian Jewry during the first six years of World War Π is in order. This period was a truly remarkable one, since, despite the outbreak of war and Hungary's entry into it as a loyal ally of Nazi Germany, the traditional tug-of-war over the Jewish question continued with no real resolution. As in the late 1930s, the German Nazis pressured Hungary to solve the Jewish question along German lines, as did the local fascists, while the Hungarian regime, now much more in German thrall than before the war, continued to pass anti-Semitic laws while to some extent resisting Nazi pressure. The great symbol of the preservation of traditional Hungarian policy even in the new wartime environment was Horthy, the old Habsburg admiral, still regent of Hungary and still a force in political life. In the course of his efforts to preserve Hungarian sovereignty, he continued to differentiate be-

39

Bela Vago, "Tmurot be-hehagat yehude hungariya bi-yeme milhemet haolam ha-shniya," Hamhagat yehude hungariya bemivhan ha-sboa, op. at., pp. 61-76; Yosef Shefer, "Hanhagat ha-mahteret ha-halutsit be-hungariya," ibid., pp. 135-149; A. N. Ts. Rot, "Bet ha-midrash lerabanim be-hungariya," in Sh. Mirski, ed., Mosdot tora be-impa be-vinyanam u-ve-borbanam, New York 1956, p. 649.

Trianon Hungary, Jews and Politics

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tween "good" Hungarian Jews and "bad," while at the same time acquiescing in the ever-harsher treatment meted out to all the Jews. This approach meant, among other things, solving the Jewish question in the "Hungarian way"; as late as July, 1944, Horthy wrote to Hitler that he preferred to solve the Jewish question without having recourse to "brutal and inhumane methods."40 New anti-Jewish legislation was enacted in 1941, this time prohibiting intermarriage between Jews (defined in this context as a person with one Jewish grandparent) and gentiles. In 1942 the status of the Jewish religion was reduced from that of an "established cult" to that of a "recognized" one.41 Hungarian officials continued to argue, however, as had Bethlen in 1939, that it was simply impossible on practical grounds to do what the Germans had done. In 1943 the Hungarian Foreign Office prepared a memorandum for use during discussions between Germany and Hungary. While pointing out the Jews were by now virtually excluded from the professions and intellectual life, the memorandum noted that the Jews were proportionately far more numerous in Hungary than in Germany and played a much greater role in economic life. It followed that they could not be excluded from the Hungarian economy without dreadful consequences which would serve neither Hungarian nor German interests.42 In 1942 Horthy managed to assure the appointment of Miklos Kallay as prime minister, a man whose views were similar to those of Bethlen in that he disliked both the Nazis and the Hungarian fascists. Under this last "liberal" Hungarian premier yet another act in the already familiar Hungarian-Jewish drama was played out, according to the by now wellestablished rules. Like his predecessors, and under much greater foreign pressure than either Daranyi (the premier at the time of the first Jewish law), Imredy, or Teleki, Kallay announced in parliamant that "the restriction of the Jew in the economic field is a basic condition for the economic progress of the Hungarian people, at which none can take offense." He then proceeded to initiate more anti-Jewish legislation (this time confiscating Jewish-owned estates) while at the same time making no secret of his anti-Nazi views and urging Jews to "understand" his actions in light of the terrible situation of wartime Hungary. As he put it, in what was fast becoming a truly classical style,

40 41

42

Kerekes, op. at., p. 385. For details on the definition of "Jew" in the first three Hungarian laws, see Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago 1961, p. 513. O n anti-Jewish legislation during the war years, see Katzburg, op. cit., 1981, pp. 158-211; Braham, op. cit., 1981, pp. 192-328. See "Notes prepared by Andor Szentmiklosy," 1943, in Admiral Hortby's Confidential Papers, pp. 241-243.

912

Ezra Mendelsohn

. . . my introduction and commendation of the Expropriation Bill was - for all the injustice of it, like any discriminatory action or any interference with individual liberty perpetrated - a successful move on my part. I had to gain time, I had to provide a safety valve for the overstrained anti-Semitic feeling in the country and to divert it from the racialist line and from the threatening possibility of individual action. I therefore chose a solution which - as will be seen later - was never finally followed up and could have been partly or wholly undone after the war or at least equalized with similar measured applied to non-Jewish land. 43

How similar this sounds to official apologies for the numerus clausus law of 1920. And now, as then, the wealthy pillars of the Jewish community continued to look to "moderates" like Källay and Horthy for aid and comfort, pleading yet again the cause of Hungarian-Jewish partnership in the face of the Nazi-Arrow Cross onslaught. As always, they had nowhere else to turn. We may be skeptical about how moderate Horthy and his allies were during the war years, and we have observed how such "moderation" had led to severe anti-Jewish legislation. Nonetheless, it is a fact that so long as Hungary remained sovereign and under the control of such men, Hungarian Jewry was far better off than were the Jewries of Nazi-occupied East Central and Eastern (Soviet) Europe. True, Hungarian Jews were humiliated and impoverished. With Hungary's entry into the war, Jews were drafted into labor battalions and sent, unarmed, mosdy to the eastern front, where they were brutally treated and died in great numbers.44 Others were employed in slave labor in Yugoslavia, where their fate was no happier. In 1941 thousands of Jewish refugees were forcibly "repatriated" to Poland, where most were murdered by the Nazis, and in 1942 thousands of Jews and Serbs were butchered by Hungarian forces in the region of Ujvidek (Nori Sad), formerly part of Yugoslavia. But up until 1944 the "final solution" had not yet been attempted, despite intense Nazi pressure. However, after the occupation of Hungary by German troops in March, 1944, the Nazis, aided by Hungarian collaborators, began the process of ghettoizauon and deportation organized by Adolf Eichmann. Between May 5 and June 7 of that year close to 300,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to death camps. Horthy, who still retained some power despite the German occupation, was able to prevent the deportation of Budapest Jewry. (This was his last service to the Jews of the capital, the "real" Hungarian Jews whom he and his friends consistendy distinguished from the "Galician" Jews of the hinterland.) In October, 1944, the Nazis engineered a coup which placed Szälasi and his Arrow Cross Party in control of the country, and, in the few months which remained before the liberation of

43 44

Kallay, op. cit., pp. 75-76. For details see Braham, op. cit., 1977.

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Hungary by the Soviet Union, pogroms and death marches took their toll of the Jews of Budapest as well.45 Horthy, arrested by the Germans and then taken into custody by the Allies, eventually made his way to the West, where he received financial support from some of his millionaire friends of Jewish origin - the final aα of the ancient alliance between the Jewish elite and the Hungarian ruling class. At the time of the Soviet conquest of Budapest, over half of the capital's Jewish community remained alive. The Jewish communities of the provinces had been almost entirely wiped out. 46 Some Final Thoughts The peculiar relationship between Jews and Magyars in Trianon Hungary was based to a large extent upon illusions. The spokesmen of the Jewish community believed that their community's long history of loyal service to the Hungarian cause and to the ruling class would ensure its continued prosperity. How pathetic were the words of the son of Vilmos Väzsonyi, a deputy in parliament, who stated during the debate on the first Jewish law, "When the fatherland calls again, then Hungarian Jewry will find itself at the front." 47 Its Jewish sons did, in fact, find themselves at the front during World War Π, but in humiliating labor battalions, without the right to bear arms, persecuted by anti-Semitic officers and contributing to the Nazi cause in Russia. Jews were sent to these battalions and removed from the Hungarian economy with the express consent of that same ruling class which was supposed to be opposed to anti-Semitism. In the end it became apparent to all that the Telekis, Horthys, and Kallays, moderates though they might be in comparison with the men of the Arrow Cross, and opposed as they might be to brutal Nazi measures, were willing to sacrifice Hungarian Jewry - not only the so-called Galicians but all Hungarian Jews - to the exigencies of the German alliance and to the need to buy off the radical right by passing anti-Jewish laws. For their part, at least some of the moderate Hungarian leaders cherished the illusion that they could play the Jewish game according to their rules - that they could pass anti-Jewish laws while making clear their aversion to racism and, at a given point, put a halt to the deterioration in the Jews' status and in Hungarian-Jewish relations. This was part of a larger illusion that Hungary could regain its empire, accept the Nazis' embrace, and yet retain its freedom

45

46 47

Randolph L. Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account, New York 1963,1, pp. XI-XXI. Ibid., Π, p. 971. Bor details, see Braham, op. cit., 1981, Π. Weidlin, op. cit., p. 76.

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of action. The high price for this belief was paid not only by Hungarian Jewry but by all Hungarians. There were, of course, good reasons for the behavior both of Hungarian Jews and of the Hungarian leadership. The former were wedded to a ruling class which was obviously not adhering to its liberal traditions. Horthy, moreover, was no Masaryk, and thefeetthat he and his allies were capable of condoning the Jewish laws demonstrates the essential difference between Czech and Hungarian liberalism. In the Czech case liberalism meant a commitment to political democracy and a firm rejection of religious discrimination. In the Hungarian case, in the new interwar environment, it did not. But the Jews could not turn, as they could in Poland, to possible allies on the moderate left or among the nation's minorities, and we have seen how the history and nature of Hungarian Jewry precluded the possibility of the rise of Jewish nationalism as a rallying point. The marriage between Jewry and the traditional Hungarian ruling class may have been based on an illusion, but there were no other possible partners. And there was therefore no likelihood that the Jews would seek a divorce. As for the Hungarian leaders, they too could claim that, given the obsession with revision, there was no choice but to act as they did. And they could also claim that, while they bent in response to Nazi and Arrow Cross pressure, they preserved the physical safety of Hungarian Jewry until the German occupation and even, to a degree, until October, 1944. If Horthy was no Masaryk, neither was he a Hitler. He and his circle may have betrayed the traditional pro-Jewish views of the Magyar ruling class, but they preserved at least some elements of that tradition until the very end. In the final analysis it was a truly disastrous and unexpected set of circumstances which combined to doom Hungarian Jewry. There were, as we know, observers who had predicted before World War I that the Hungarian-Jewish honeymoon would not endure, but few would have predicted so rapid a disappearance of all those factors which had made Hungary a promised land for its Jewish population. For this particular type of Jewish community, the interwar period was an especially cruel tragedy. Having so enthusiastically magyarized and having embraced the ideology of "Hungarians of the Mosaic faith," although never really succeeding in integrating into Hungarian society, these Jews were less prepared for the blows which fell upon them and less capable of defending themselves than were the nationalist-minded Jewries of the Eastern type. Their fate is proof of the fact that what the Jews did and how they behaved had little impact on what happened to them. The bulk of Hungarian Jewry remained, during the years 1918-1944, as it had been during the last half of the nineteenth century. With the exception of a vocal but small

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radical left faction, attracted to Hungarian socialism or Communism, its ideology did not change. It was not more prominent in the economy of 1935 than it had been in 1910, and no less patriotic, the utterly different treatment it received was a function of the collapse of the old Hungarian empire destroyed by the first World War.

RANDOLPH L . BRAHAM

Right Radicalism in the Immediate Post-War Period* The Patriotic Associations The real strongholds of power supporting the Szeged men were the secret and semi-clandestine patriotic associations and paramilitary organizations. The oldest and the most bloodthirsty among these was the Association of Awakening Magyars (ibredö Magyarok Egyesülete), which was founded in 1917 by soldiers discharged during the war. However, by far the most important association to be formed after the war by Right-wing military and civilian elements was the M O V E (Magyar Orszdgos Vederö Ergyesület; Hungarian

Association for National Defense). Originally called into being by a group of officers to replace the officers' association of the Hapsburg era and to fight for Hungary's national integrity and social stability, it was soon transformed into a pronouncedly anti-Legitimist, ultra-reactionary, and rabidly anti-Semitic organization. The radical change in its position came on January 19, 1919, when Gömbös, a co-founder, was elected as its president.1 Upon assuming the presidency, Gömbös, who had attracted attention by a strong public attack on Mihäly Kärolyi and his policies, brought about the establishment of two secret societies to serve as the civilian and military inner rings of the MOVE. The civilian society had two names: one official and public - the Hungarian Scientific Race-Protecting Society (Magyar Tudo-

1

From: Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary, Volume 1, Columbia University Press, New York 1981, abridged pp. 20-23, 56-59, notes. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. After the attack, Vilmos Böhm, Kärolyi's Social-Democratic Minister of War, who was also to play a leading role in the Kun government, ordered the dissolution of MOVE and the internment of Gömbös. Gömbös, however, eventually escaped,firstjoining the Vienna group and the Szeged group. MOVE was reinvigorated immediately after the overthrow of the Kun regime. One of the secret organizations to develop strong ties to MOVE was Andras Csillery's Hungarian Association (Magyar Tärsasäg), which was launched in 1916 in order to maintain "Hungarian supremacy over the extremes ofJewry." For details of the Hungarian Association, see Eva S. Balogh, "Istvän Friedrich and the Hungarian Coup d'Etat of 1919: A Reevaluation," Slavic Review 35, 1976, pp. 275-276.

Right Radicalism in the Post-War Period

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mänyos Fajvedö Egyesület); the other secret - the Etelköz Association (Etelközi Szövetseg). The latter was named after the region the Magyars had inhabited around the mouth of the Don before they ventured into Pannonia during the ninth century. This secret society was popularly known by its abbreviated name, EKSz or simply as X. The military counterpart of EKSz was the Society of the Double Cross [Kettös-Dereszt Szövetseg), named after the Cross of Lorraine on the Hungarian Coat-of-Arms. Both secret societies were organized on the pattern of primitive Hungarian society. The members, who were inducted in a fearful ceremony based upon some early Magyar secret rituals, had to swear absolute allegiance and total subordination to the leader of the society.2 Among the other organizations of considerable influence were the Irredentist Association (Irredentista Szövetsegthe Order of Heroes (Vitezi Rend), and the Christian National League (Kereszteny Nemzeti Liga). The latter,

founded by Dr. Käroly Wolff in 1919, also had two secret core groups. One was known as Resurrection (FekamacLxs), which was led by 50 men identified as Battle Leaders (Vezerharcosok). Among these leaders were a number of prominent political and church figures who were to play a dominant role during the Horthy era, including Istvän Bethlen, Pal Teleki, Kaiman Känya, Läszlo Bärdossy, and the Bishops Ottokar Prohäszka, Sändor Raffay, and Läszlo Ravasz. The other was known as the Szent Istvän group, which was composed primarily of judges and university professors. The number of the secret and public patriotic and social associations increased phenomenally during the early 1920s. Numbering some 10,000, they constituted an enormous nationwide network covering practically every major group interest, including that of women, students (e. g. the Turut), and servicemen. Their activities were first coordinated by a body known as the Association for Territorial Defense (Területvedö Liga) and then by its successor organization, the Federation of Social Associations {Tarsadalmi Egyesületek Szövetsege - T E S z ) . 3

The counterrevolutionary governments not only tolerated and sympathized with the activities of the patriotic associations, but actively encouraged and supported them clandestinely. Their standard response of the occasional protests advanced by the Allies against the excess of some of these associations

2

3

Rar further details on the M O V E see Rudolfne Dosa, A MOVE. Egy jellegzetes magyarfasiszta szervezet, 1919-1944 (The M O V E . A Characteristic Hungarian Fascist Organization, 1919— 1944), Budapest 1972. C . A. Macartney, October Efteentb. A History of Modem Hungary, 1929-1945, 2 vols, Edinburgh 1957,1, pp. 29-33.

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Randolph L. Braham

was that they were unable to control them because of the limitation imposed upon the official armed forces. With no active or effective restrictions imposed upon them, many of these patriotic associations arrogated to themselves the power and responsibility to defend the "Magyar cause." They became the chief vehicle for the spread of the virulent seeds of revisionism, irredentism, and, above all, anti-Semitism. The most ferocious among these was the Association of Awakening Magyars, whose members appointed themselves chief executants of the White Terror. The "patriotic" Association of Awakening Magyars enjoyed virtual immunity for all its activities directed against the Jews and trade union leaders during the counterrevolutionary period. The enormous power and influence wielded by the Association were revealed by Bela Fabian, a Jewish deputy, in his October 8, 1924, statement in the lower house of the Hungarian Parliament. Speaking shortly after a court in Szolnok had acquitted the Association members that were involved in the bombing of a charity ball organized by the Jewish Women of Csongrad in which several people were killed, Fabian declared that the Association was primarily responsible for the cover up of all the murders and crimes committed in Hungary during the previous four years.4 At the time, the association was headed by Tibor Eckhardt,5 who was also a leading member of the RaceProtecting Party (Fajvedö Part).6 The patriotic associations remained the strongholds of the reactionary elements associated with the Szeged Idea primarily because of the singular role played in them by Gömbös, their spintus rector. Gyula Gömbös. From the early days of the counterrevolution until his death in 1936, Gömbös was one of the foremost leaders of the Hungarian radical Right. He was born on December 26,1886, at Murga, a Swabian township of Transdanubia. His father was a village school teacher and his mother came

4

5

6

Deszö Sylok, A Magyar-Tragedia (The Hungarian Tragedy), Newark 1954, pp. 270-271,284, and 288. Eckhardt was elected to head the Association of Awakening Magyars on 15 December 1923. Ibid., p. 270. In addition to Eckhardt, the Race-Protecting Party, which was founded by him and Gömbös in 1923, also included a number of deputies of which Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, Emil BorbelyMaczky, Gyula Gömbös, Jänos Zsirskay, Ferenc Ulain, Menyhert Kis, and Läszlo Budaväry were the most important ones. Ibid., p. 421. Following the death of Gaszton Gäal in 1932, Eckhardt, with his political position changed, became the head of the Smallholders' Party (Kisgazda Pari). This party was also joined by Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, who became the most respected liberal of the wartime period and the only true Hungarian hero during the German occupation.

Right Radicalism in the Post-War Period

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from a German-speaking Swabian yeoman farmer family. His use of the adjectival predicate "jäkfai" as an indication of his noble origin had no basis in fact though it was indicative of his social ambitions. Like many Swabians of the lower middle class, Gömbös entered upon a military career, but in spite of all his efforts he could not attain a rank higher than captain.7 His political career reflected the ambivalence with which the Right viewed and treated the Jewish question throughout the interwar period. His talents as an anti-Semitic, antidemocratic orator were recognized early by both wings of the counterrevolutionary Right. An anti-intellectual driven by an insatiable ambition, he was a sly and vain individual whose chauvinistic nationalism was perhaps subconsciously motivated by his eagerness to mask his Swabian background. His social views, which appealed to the interests of the gentry, incorporated an opposition to both the great landlords and the financiers - the former because of their association with the Hapsburgs; the later because of their overwhelmingly Jewish character. He articulated the two major tenets of the social program of the radical Right - agrarianism and the "Christian idea" - the ideological Janus face that characterized most extreme rightist movements. These tenets claimed to express the peasants' demand for land reform and the hatred of the Christian workers and lower middle class for rapacious Jewish capitalism.8 Although a vocal anti-Legitimist, it was anti-Semitism that constituted the inner core of his political ideology. Like most anti-Semites, he disregarded the important role played by the Jews during the Revolutionary War of 1848-49 and conveniently overlooked their disproportionate sacrifices during the First World War. Rationality notwithstanding, he tended, like the National Socialists in Germany - with whom he had been in close contact since 1921 - to look upon the Jews as aliens hostile to the Christian body politic. He helped develop and propagate the Nazi myth about the Jews by depicting them as being at once exploiters and revolutionaries, both plutocrats and Bolsheviks. His anti-Semitism gradually acquired a racial coloration, which was reflected ever more vocally by his "race-protecting" associations. In his vocabulary, "race-protection" was also Janus-faced, for it was designed to

7

8

For biographical details see C. A. Macartney, op. dt., I, pp. 33-35; Deszö Szabo, "Gyula Gömbös," in Az egesz Idtohatdr-Tanulmanyok (The Entire Horizon Studies), ΙΠ, Budapest 1938; Endre Szokoly,... es Gömbös Gyula a kapitany (And Gyula Gömbös the Captain), Budapest 1960; and Dosa, op. cit. György Ränki, "Gondolatok az ellenforradalmi rendszer tarsadalmi bäzisänak kerdesehez as 1920's evek elejen" (Thoughts on the Question of the Social Basis of the Counterrevolutionary Regime During the Early 1920s), Tbrtenelmi Szemle (Historical Review) 3-4, 1962, pp. 355356.

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Randolph L. Braham

focus on the twin danger represented by the Jews as agents of Communism and "Jewish capitalism."9 As the leader of the MOVE, Gömbös had acted during the crucial months before the counterrevolutionary victory as the de facto head of a shadow government. Recognizing MOVE's importance, Horthy was glad to accept from Gömbös the tide of Honorary President of the association. These two leaders of the counterrevolution developed an intimate partnership in which Horthy provided the prestige and Gömbös supplied the organizational ability as well as the original troops of the national army. [. . . ] The Rise and Evolution of Ultra Rightist Parties and Movements The duality that characterized the composition and policies of the rightist forces came once again into focus during the later years of Gömbös' rule. Although the forces originally associated with the so-called Vienna and Szeged groups of counterrevolutionaries underwent a gradual realignment during Bethlen's Consolidation Era, they continued to remain basically distinct and, while sharing certain common objectives, fundamentally opposed to each other. The "liberal-conservative" aristocratic-gentry-dominated Vienna faction managed to acquire and consolidate its ruling position in the state by acquiring the support of the foremost representatives of the Szeged group, including that of Horthy and Gömbös. The ultra-rightist factions of the Szeged group, joined by elements particularly hard-hit by the depression, emerged in the course of time as an increasingly aggressive opposition force dedicated to the establishment of a National Socialist society at home and to the firm alignment of Hungary's foreign policy with that of the Third Reich. Although both the ruling and the opposition wings of the Hungarian Right shared certain common objectives, including the pursuit of a "revisionist, nationalist-patriotic, Christian, and anti-Bolshevik" policy, the ruling wing tended to adopt a

9

He crystallized his equation ofJews with Communism in many speeches as well as in his book, DieJuden in Ungarn. In 1920, for example, he declared in a speech. "We do not possess proper racial self-awareness. We have beenfalseMagyars all of us. For, if we had not been divorced from our racial self-knowledge, especially in the last century, then we would not have experienced a Bolshewik Jewish rule." Dosa, op. cit., p. 126. Gömbös was not, of course, opposed to capitalism as such. Like Gottfried Feder, he differentiated between the exploitative, i. e. Jewish, and creative, i. e., Christian, capital. In a 1921 article, for example, he declared himself an advocate of "racially homogeneous capitalism," i. e., one that was divorced from Jewish involvement. Ibid., p. 128.

Right Radicalism in the Post-War Period

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rather moderate Italian-oriented semi-Fascist position, while the opposition was eager to embrace the German brand of National Socialism in its totality. The ambivalence and inconsistencies in Hungary's policies during the interwar period can to a large extent be traced to this division in the political Right. Perhaps in no other area was this political ambivalence reflected in a more pronounced and dramatic fashion than in the treatment of the Jewish question. Both wings of the Hungarian Right were, of course, anti-Semitic and both were actively concerned with, and sought an effective solution of, this "burning issue." They differed radically, however, on the scope and means to be used. The aristocratic-gentry-dominated ruling wing of the Right, which had good connections with the Jewish upper middle class, aimed at implementing a "civili2ed" anti-Semitic program calculated not only to gradually diminish and eventually eliminate the Jews' influence from the country's economic and cultural life, but also to appease the Right radicals at home and the National Socialists abroad. In the pursuit of these objectives, this ruling faction subjected the Jews to great economic pressure, depriving a large percentage of them of their livelihood, and to a cruel and humiliating system of discrimination. Nevertheless, it was consistently opposed to any Nazi-style physical action against the Jews. For example, the atrocities that were committed at Kamenets-Podolsk (August 1941) and Delvidek (January 1942) had neither the approval nor the prior knowledge of the government. Furthermore, it successfully resisted the repeated and ever more insistent demands of the Third Reich for the Final Solution of the Jewish question in Hungary. In fact, the protection of the Jews through this faction's consistent opposition to any Final Solution program proved quite troublesome for the ruling elite in the early 1940s. For, although dedicated to maintaining the inviolability of Hungary's sovereignty and to retaining, if not further cultivating, Hungary's fragile relations with the Western democracies, it was full cognizant that Hungary's revisionist ambitions and trade interests required the country's alignment with the Third Reich. Whereas the ruling elite supported the Third Reich for reasons of expediency but was gravely concerned with the dangers of German expansionism, the opposition Right radical wing was politically and ideologically attracted and firmly committed to Nazism. It wholeheartedly embraced the National Socialist program not only because of its anti-Semitism, though this was its most "attractive" aspect, but also because of its emphasis on the advocacy of social and political reforms. The radicals, consequendy, wished to bring about the restructuring of Hungary's antiquated semi-feudal social-political order as well as the total "solution" of the Jewish question.

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The backbone of the Right radical movement consisted of the original supporters of the "Szeged Idea," namely the elements associated with the governmental and military bureaucracies. During the 1920s and 1930s, the civil servants and the officers' groups were joined by two additional social strata that at once coveted and challenged the dominance of the landed aristocracy and its alliance with Jewish industry and finance. The first consisted of the middlesized landowners and the Christian middlemen, who were eager to eliminate their Jewish competitors in agriculture and relatedfields,including the marketing of produce. In foreign affairs, they were particularly anxious to have Hungary tied to the aggressive policies of Nazi Germany for the restoration of Hungary's historical frontiers, and thereby to assure the reacquisition or expansion of their landholdings. The other stratum consisted of the gradually expanding industrial and commercial "Christian bourgeoisie," which wanted to advance its interests by the expansion of the armaments and other state industries in which they had preference and, above all, by the restriction and eventual elimination of their competitors, the well-established Jewish middle class. This stratum, it appears, not only was one of the pillars of the counterrevolutionary Right, but also in a way owed its emergence to rightist support. The major support of the Right radical movements came from the impoverished gentry and their heirs, the army officers, and from the increasingly urbanized lower middle class. In the 1930s, these were joined by a sizable number of industrial workers and landless peasants whose socialization these movements were particularly eager to achieve.10 In the absence of any legal

10

The cause of the smallholding and landless peasants was also championed by a number of dedicated, but generally equally ineffective, groups of which by far the most important was that known as the "Village Explorers" (Falukutatok). An amorphous group that included journalists, historians, sociologists, and economists as well as novelists and poets, the explorers shared a common disillusionment with Gömbös' social demagoguery and a common desire to bring about meaningful reforms as urgently as possible. For this purpose, these modern-day populists, including Geza Feja, organized themselves in 1937 into a "March Front," historically identifying themselves with the revolutionaries of March 1848. However, in the late 1930s, their dichotomous character was fully revealed: some of them, including the poets Jozsef Erdelyi and Istvän Sinka, became associated with the ultra-Right movements; others, including Imre Koväcs, Peter Veres, and Jozsef Darvas, turned to the Left. The latter were also instrumental in establishing the "National Peasant Party" (Nemzeti Paraszt Part) and were closely associated with the ideas and policies of the so-called "third road" (Harmadik tit) approach first crystallized by the writer Läszlo Nemeth. This approach had called for active resistance against both German and Russian expansionism. For a critical view of the Populists' policies, see Asher Cohen's "Giz'anut veantishemiut basmol hapopulisti be Hungaria. Hasofer vehamedinai Peter Veres" (Racism and AntiSemitism in the Populist Left in Hungary. The Writer and Politician Peter Veres) in Dapim lecheker tekufat hashoa (Studies on the Holocaust Period), Tel Aviv 1978, 1, pp. 176-188.

Right Radicalism in the Post-War Period

923

political outlet at the extreme Left, these elements of the working and peasant classes were naturally attracted under the conditions of the depression by the demagogic promises of social and economic reforms that the extreme Right offered them. 11 Ironically, while the Right radicals represented an increasing threat in the 1930s, they also served as the mainstay of a system dominated by the landed aristocracy. This was especially true of the impoverished gentry, which as civil servants and officers retained the mentality of the aristocracy, and of the new middle classes that aspired to advance their status by challenging the position of the Jews in industry and business rather than that of the aristocratic ruling class. The new, economic basis of anti-Semitism which came to the fore in the wake of the changes brought about by Trianon was further broadened by the consequences of the depression. The anti-Semitism fostered by the identification of Jewish bankers, industrialists, and businessmen as the main causes of the country's economic ills was a convenient vehicle not only for channelizing the discontent of the masses, but also for detracting attention from the inequities of the antiquated semi-feudal regime. Under these conditions, the ruling aristocracy both welcomed and feared the appearance and development of the Right radical movements. Some of these managed to become formidable political parties; others succeeded merely as pressure groups having considerable political nuisance value. These parties and movements underwent frequent changes and mergers determined primarily by the changing political aspirations of their founders and leaders. Despite the number of their adherents and the character of their leadership, the Right radical parties did not acquire any major influence until the late 1930s, and did not attain power until after the German occupation in March 1944. [ . . . ]

11

T h e Hungarian Communist Party was outlawed de facto shortly after the victory of the counterrevolutionary forces in 1919. De jure, it was declared illegal under L a w N o . ΠΙ of 1921 relating to the "More Effective Protection of the Order of the State and Society." T h e antisedition provisions of the law were effectively exploited by the counterrevolutionary as well as the post-World War Π regimes. The law prohibited, inter alia, agitating or inducing others "to subvert by force or destroy the legal order of the state and society especially by advocating the forcible establishment of the exclusive domination of one particular social class." Particularly pernicious was the provision that called for the punishment of "any person who makes or spreads a false statement calculated to reduce the respect for the Hungarian state and nation or to detract from its good name."

BERNARD KLEIN

Hungarian Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s* I

It was the economic crisis which gave the final impetus to the right-radical replacement of the liberal conservatives in power in 1932. The newly appointed prime minister was Gyula Gömbös, a right-radical leader of the counterrevolution, who had gained fame as an extreme antisemite and was involved in various racist organizations in the 1920's. Gömbös' appointment as premier caused considerable consternation in the Jewish community, which was aware of his design to replace Jews in Hungary's economy. Gömbös, however, surprised them when he announced in Parliament that he had revised his former anti-Jewish position: I wish to speakfrankly.Among the Christian sects I, as a Protestant, desire peace deeply. But I also want it with the Jews. Hungarian Jewry could expect me to speak with them openly and honestly from this platform . . . To Jewry I say openly and honestly, I revised my viewpoint. That part of Jewry which recognizes that it has a common fate with our nation, I wish to consider my brothers as much as my Hungarian brethren. I saw in the war Jewish heroes. I know Jews who have the golden medal and I know that they fought courageously. I know leading Jews who pray with me for the Hungarian fate and I know that that part of Jewry which does not want or cannot fit into the nation's social life, the Jews themselves will be the first do condemn . .

Many Hungarians have questioned the sincerity of Gömbös' statement and claim that he made it for public consumption in order to pacify Jewish opinion, gain Jewish capitalist support and the confidence of foreign governments. The Hungarian writer, Bela Kovrig, for example, claims that at the time that Gömbös announced his revision, his close associates spread the

* From: Bernard Klein, "Hungarian Politics and the Jewish Question in the Inter-war Period," Jewish Social Studies28,1966, pp. 79-98, abridged pp. 83-94. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 Kepvisehöhazi Naplo (Parliamentary Record) [Kepvisehöhäz], 118 session, October 11,1932, p. 55.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

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rumor that he actually had not changed and that he intended to carry out his racial program through the land reform bill and other legislation.2 There is also the possibility that Gömbös had made such an announcement in response to a suggestion by Bethlen and Regent Miklos Horthy. It is, however, probable that Gömbös had really revised his racial antisemitic views but that he still wanted to introduce discrimination against Jews in economic life. While professing a revision of his opinion about the Jews, Gömbös and the right-radicals resorted to various methods through which they hoped to restrict Jewish participation in Hungary's economy. In the liberal professions they planned to attain this goal by reverting to a strict interpretation of the numerus clausus law. This law was introduced by the Teleki government in 1920 and aimed to restrict the number of Jewish students in universities and schools of higher learning to 5 °/o, corresponding to the Jewish proportion of the population.3 The numerus clausus law had many loopholes and gave leeway to different interpretations. University officials, members of the faculty, and government officials could argue whether the prescribed proportion meant 5 % of those originally registered, or of those who applied or of those who attended the previous year. Government officials could also intervene successfully for sons of their favorite Jewish friends. In Bethlen's days the numerus clausus law was applied very liberally. Bethlen had friendly relations with the wealthy Jews. Both he and officials of his government were, therefore, ready to intervene on behalf of the wealthy Jewish applicants.4 Bethlen also needed foreign capital

2

3

4

Bela Kovrig, Magyar Tdrsadalompolitika 1920-1945 (Hungarian Social Policy from 19201945), New York 1954, Π, p. 166. For the text and interpretation of the numerus clausus law see Läszlo Toth and Geza Ribary, A Zsidok egyenjogusitäsära es kiilön jogrend aid kelyezesere vonatkozojogszabalyok (The Equalization of Jews and the Laws Placing them in a Separate Category), Budapest 1939, pp. 53-55; Gyula Gabor, Α Numerus Clausus es α Zsidö Egyetem (The Numerus Clausus and the Jews in College), Budapest 1924, pp. 21-22. Of 7,513 students in the Budapest University, the Jewish students in the faculty of theology were to be 50, in law 500, in medicine 400, in pharmacy 100, in philosophy 300. In 1925 Jewish groups contested the numerus clausus law before the Council of the League of Nations arguing that it violated article 58 of the Trianon treaty. As a result the Hungarian delegation promised to liberalize the restrictions, a promise the Hungarian government fulfilled in 1928. The complaint against the numerus clausus was lodged by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association and not by the Hungarian Jews, in order to avoid any accusation of disloyalty. The Jewish Minority in Hungary. The Hungarian LawNo. 25 of the Year 1920 before the League ofNations, 10 and 12 December, 1925, London 1926. Statistical evidence substantiates the fact that Jewish university students came from wealthy families. This is illustrated in Magyar Statsztikai Közlemenyek (Hungarian Statistical Communications) [Közlemenyek] 90, 1934, p. 17, where the occupational distribution of the student

926

Bernard Klein

investment and a loan from the League of Nations in order to industrialize the country. An antisemitic policy was not in his interest. Both domestic and foreign capitalists, many of whom were Jews, would have been reluctant to invest in a country which pursued an official antisemitic policy. Hence Jewish students, most of whom were wealthy, had little difficulty in entering the universities. In 1928, Bethlen's minister of education, Count B. Klebelsberg, fulfilling a promise to the League of Nations, introduced some liberal changes in the numerus clausus law, which enabled more students to receive an opportunity for a university education.5 In 1932, at the time the liberal conservatives yielded their power to Gömbös, the percentage of Jews enrolled in the universities was 14.3 %. This percentage was far in excess of the 5 % the rightradicals visualized. But because of the continuous right-radical need for capitalist and foreign support, official circles could not take the initiative in reducing it. This was left to the student organizations which accomplished it through widespread demonstrations. In the inter-war period student demonstrations were regular occurrences in Hungarian universities in the month of November.6 Their purpose was to prevent Jewish students from attending classes for a considerable number of days until they were dropped because of excessive absence.7 But they were particularly violent and widespread during the Gömbös period, and especially in 1933 and 1935. Usually the pretext given for these demonstrations was that Jews had attacked or insulted non-Jewish students or a Hungarian leader or a traditional symbol.8 Through such pretexts theright-radicalsintended to create the image that the demonstrations were spontaneous. But anyone familiar with the Hungarian situation knew that the pretexts had no objective substance. The mere fact that the riots were anticipated and that non-Jewish students warned their Jewish friends to stay away from school on those days9 and that the riots occurred simultaneously in all four universities and the Polytechnic High School of Budapest, proves that some organized forces were behind them.

5 6 7 8

9

families is given. Of the 1,965 Jewish students enrolled in the universities and higher schools of learning in 1932/33, 781 camefromfamilies whose occupation was commerce and credit, 347 from mines and industry and 628 from the intellectual professions. The occupational distribution was similar in other years. Toth and Ribary, op. a t , pp. 55-56. State Department Files [State] 864.00 P.R./95, Montgomery (12 December 1935). Ibid:, 864.4016/82, Osborne (October 12, 1932). Pester Lloyd, October 12, November 16,18. 21,24,1933; Kepviselöbäz, 129 Session (November 29, 1932). Kepviselöbäz, 129 Session, pp. 428-430.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

927

Hungarian official circles, when conceding that these demonstrations were organized, usually blamed the pro-nazi parties from outside the universities.10 Undoubtedly, the pro-nazis participated in these demonstrations. But to place the entire responsibility upon the pro-nazis would obscure the true facts. It was common knowledge in Hungary that those responsible for the demonstrations were the student organization leaders, especially of the Turul, who had close contacts with the government. Officially, the student organizations denied they had anything to do with the demonstrations. Yet they never failed to justify them or to propound the student demands for a reduction in the number of Jewish students and strict observance of the numerus clausus.n Many examples attest to the truth of this assertion. In 1933 three student organizations submitted a memorandum to the senate of the university in Budapest in which they demanded that Jews be seated in separate places in lecture halls, and that representatives of the student organization should serve on the committee of accreditation to make sure that the numerus clausus was strictly observed.12 On this basis they were willing to guarantee the restoration of order. At a meeting with Gömbös and the minister of education, Balint Homan, the student organizations forwarded similar demands, a strict observance of the numerus clausus, the denial of positions to those with foreign degrees until all graduates of Hungarian universities were placed, and the establishment of a permanent placement office for graduates to counteract the industrial boycott against Christian students.13 The Turul was especially active in heralding the anti-Jewish views of the students. It demanded ghetto benches for Jewish students and justified the demonstrations on the basis of economic difficulties the students faced.14 In its publication, Bajtars, the Turul demanded that Jews should pay a head tax and double the amount of taxes of other citizens, and that the income of Jews be regulated so that it should not be more than that of the average workers. In this fashion the wealth was to revert to Hungarians.15 In 1934 the Turul instituted a registration boycott which caused considerable consternation among liberal Hungarian elements.16

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Ibid., pp. 460-464; Pester Lloyd, December 1, 3, 1933. Pester Lloyd, November 26,1933, November 23,1935; Budapest! Hirlap, November 23,1936. Pester Lloyd, November 30, 1933. Ibid., December 8, 1933. Ibid.., December 6, 1933. Ibid., December 17, 1935; Budapesti Hirlap, November 28, 1935. Budapesti Hirlap, November 30, 1933, January 20, 21, 1934; Pester Lloyd, January 11, 20, 1934.

928

Bernard Klein

These demonstrations were not discouraged by the Gömbös government or the other right-radicals. In fact, whenever a discussion arose in Parliament about the numerus clausus, the rigth and center applauded its existence.17 Officially, the Gömbös government had to condemn the demonstrations if for no other reason than that public disturbances were not welcome and that they damaged Hungary's reputation in the western world.18 The government, therefore, closed the universities for a few days or weeks until the demonstrations stopped and threatened to keep them closed for the entire semester. The government also dispatched officials to investigate the cause of the demonstrations.19 But this was as far as it went, and even this was half-hearted, as the students realized. At the same time Gömbös, Homan, and other leading rightradicals expressed their solidarity with the student demands and justified their actions.20 During the 1932 demonstrations Homan claimed that they were a result of economic dissatisfaction, the inability of graduates to find positions, and of envy of the wealthy Jewish students. He minimized the demonstrations by arguing that they were a common phenomenon in central Europe and by blaming the Jews as well. He said in Parliament, "As minister of culture, I consider it my duty to defend the academic freedom of Jews. But I also consider it my obligation to promote the future of Christian students and help them in their present plight." He claimed that he hated to see responsibility attributed to one side only and to make all Christian students responsible for the acts of a few.21 The mere fact that Gömbös and Homan negotiated with the students to stop the demonstrations, promised them concessions, including a strict observance of the numerus clausus, and to appoint a placement officer, encouraged the student leaders.22 The students became so defiant that on one occasion they issued an ultimatum saying that, unless Homan kept his promises within a short time, they would withdraw from the universities.23 Occasionally, these students became unmanageable. Miklos Kozma, the new minister of the interior, refused to meet a student delegation in 1935 because of his concern for preserving order and Hungary's prestige abroad. But this was an excep-

17 18

19 20

21 22 23

See Kepviseiohdz, 7 Session (May 7, 1935), p. 58 as an example. Pester Lloyd, November 22, 1935.

Ibid.

Ibid., October 28, November 18,25,1932; BudapestiHirlap, October 29,1932; Kepviselöbaz, 130 Session (November 29, 1932). Pester Lloyd, December 8, 1933. Kepviselöbaz, 130 Session, pp. 461-464. BudapestiHirlap, December 10, 1933.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

929

rional case. Usually government officials were solidly behind the students, who could otherwise not have persisted in their demonstrations.24 The effects of these demonstrations and the policies of Gömbös' government are best reflected in the statistics of enrollment during this period. Of the 1 2 , 1 1 1 university students in 1 9 3 2 / 3 3 , Jews numbered 1 , 7 3 0 , or 1 4 . 3 %. This number declined continuously, and in the last year of Gömbös' rule, 1 9 3 6 / 3 7 , the Jewish students numbered only 8 7 1 of a total student body of 1 0 , 4 4 3 , or 8.3 °/o. The same situation prevailed in the combined enrollment in the universities, technical schools and specialized academies of higher learning. In 1 9 3 2 / 3 3 there were 1 , 9 6 5 Jews among the 1 6 , 3 2 6 students, or 1 2 . 0 %, and in 1 9 3 6 / 3 7 they were only 1 , 0 1 7 of the 1 3 , 8 2 1 students, or 7 . 3 %.25 There was also a decline in the number of Jewish students accepted in the universities. In 1 9 3 1 / 3 2 Jews represented 1 4 . 1 % of students who entered the universities for thefirsttime. Thisfiguredeclined to 6 . 1 % in 1 9 3 6 / 3 7 and 4 . 6 % in 1 9 3 7 / 3 8 This sharp decline cannot be ascribed solely to a decline in the Jewish population or to emigration. Those who attended the universities stemmed from the assimilated and rich homes whose birth rate was low and who had no desire to emigrate. Indeed, had natural circumstances been permitted to prevail, the number of Jewish students should have increased. In Trianon Hungary the children of wealthy Jewishfinanciersand businessmen refused to enter the commercial field. They preferred the professions and arts. The obvious conclusion is, as one of Hungary's leading statisticians acknowledged,27 that the riots of the Christian students were greatly responsible for the decline. They caused a strict adherence to the numerus clausus. Further, the rich Jews had little access to officials surrounding Gömbös.

2 6

24 25

26

27

Ibid. January 21, 1934. Magyar Statisztikai tildrrryv (Hungarian Statistical Yearbook) 40, pp. 253-254; 41, pp. 276277; 42, pp. 278-279; 43, pp. 288-289; 44, pp. 270-271; 45, pp. 278-279. Gyulajanki, "A föiskolai hallgatok szama az 1930/31-1937/38 tanevekben," (The Number of Students in the Higher Schools from 1930/31 to 1937/38) Magyar Statisztikai Szemle (Hungarian Statistical Review) 16 August 1938, pp. 777-785. The absolute figures for first year students in the threefacultiesof law and political science, medicine, and philosophy for these years substantiate this picture. In the faculty of law and political science there were 79 Jews of 1,762 students in 1931/32, or 15.8 %. This number declined to 66 out of 1,366, or 4.8 %, in 1937/38. In the faculty of medicine there were 86 Jews out of 434, or 19.8 % in 1931/32, whereas in 1937/38 they were only 14 out of 272, or 5.1 %. In the faculty of philosophy there were 96 Jewish students amongst 740 in the first year, or 13.0 °/o. In 1937/38 there were only 21 Jews among the 414 students, or 5.1 %. Alajos Koväcs, A Csonkamagyar-orszdgi Zsidosdg a statisztika tükieben (Rump-Hungary's Jewry in the Light of Statistics), Budapest 1938, p. 47.

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Bernard Klein

It also seems that Gömbös and hisright-radicalgovernment contemplated the reduction of Jewish participation in some liberal professions to five per cent. We do not possess sufficient evidence to prove that legislation was prepared to introduce such a numerus clausus law for all professions. But one example is extant. The government had prepared a bill which demanded that officers of the bar should be elected in accordance with the proportion of nationality, race, and religion in the nation.28 It was obvious that the bill was aimed at Jewish preponderance in the bar. However, the government had to modify the bill because of opposition from the lawyers. Nonetheless, the minister of justice received power to dissolve the administration of the bar if it was not in harmony with the national interests, and he could also appoint a ministerial commission to supervise it. 29 In the areas of commerce, finance and industry, Gömbös resorted to pressure and persuasion. His government published statistical data on the proportion of the different denominations in industry in order to point out the large number of Jews.30 It further sent out "blue" questionnaires to the selfemployed and to industrial concerns inquiring about the religion to which they and their employees belonged. Gömbös claimed that the purpose of the questionnaires was to gather statistical information. But everyone knew that the government had this information or could obtain it in other ways. Their only purpose was to pressure Jews into dismissing Jewish employees and replacing them with non-Jews.31 The government also issued orders to various firms which specified how many Christian youths they should hire. Gömbös hoped that these youths would eventually acquire the various skills to establish and manage such concerns. The Jewish firms could not refuse these demands. Hungary's economy was controlled by the government and their prosperity and existence depended on it. But they circumvented the government's intentions by merely paying these employees their salaries without giving them an opportunity to acquire the necessary skills or to rise to higher positions. As a result many youths felt useless and became convinced that they could further their interests only by joining the extremerightor pro-nazi movements and assume power themselves. The government further tried to persuade the Jews to admit Christians into their concerns. Gömbös once asked the "other side" to realize that Christian 28 29 30 31

Pester Lloyd, 1 August, 26 September 1935. Ibid., September 13, 1936. Ibid., February 13,1936. Ibid., February 23,1936; Kepviselöhäz, 93 Session (February 19, 1936), pp. 460-465.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

931

youths must be given an opportunity in the economy.32 In defending his religious policy in Parliament, Gömbös acknowledged that there was a greater proportion ofJews in business and industry which was to the disadvantage of Christians. But he expressed the hope the Jews would realize that and follow higher principles without government pressure.33 Statements of such a nature coming from Gömbös could not go unheeded. In his attempts to persuade the Jews to voluntarily reduce their numbers in the economy, Gömbös was joined by some people in the democratic and liberal conservative ranks. In an article in the Pester Lloyd, "The Jewish Question as Seen through Hungarian Eyes," 34 Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinsky, the leader of the National Radical Party, argued Jews should realize that a balanced relationship must be established between their numbers and their influence in economic and cultural life. If the Protestants, who were true Hungarians, would be out of proportion, there would arise an anti-Protestant movement. How much more was this to be expected in regard to a people with a long history, which was not fully assimilated. He, therefore, urged a reduction of Jews in the economy for their own benefit and encouragement of Hungarians to enter the industrial and commercial fields.35 Bethlen also argued that Jews were over-represented in the economy. But he conceded that it was a result of circumstances because no one else wanted or could enter industry and commerce. He suggested that landowners replace the Jews by selling their land and entering industry, mines, and mobile capital. Such a replacement, he claimed, would remove the harmful opposition to industry, which existed only because it was in non-Christian hands.36 Simultaneous with the efforts to reduce the already existing Jewish role in the economy, government and right-radical forces were on guard not to permit further Jewish expansion or entrance into new fields. Right-radical deputies in Parliament protested against permitting Jews or business interests to buy land,37 and Gömbös did everything in his power to prevent it. 38 Jews could not easily adopt Hungarian family names, and this made their contacts with Hungarians more difficult.39 In a campaign launched by the government

32 33 34 35

36 37 38 39

Pester Lloyd, November 28, 1935. Kepviselöhdz, 93 Session, pp. 463-465. April 23,1933. Bajcsy-Zsilinsky, despite his defection from the extremist tendency of the 1920's had not yet escaped from the right-radical ideology. Kepviselöhdz, 83 Session (January 31, 1936), pp. 199-206. Ibid., 115 Session (March 26,1936), pp. 582-587). Interview with a Parliamentary deputy. Kepviselöhdz, 30 Session (June 12, 1935), p. 489; 39 Session (June 26, 1935), pp. 200-202.

932

Bernard Klein

in 1933 to provide work for university graduates, Jews were omitted from the compiled lists of unemployed students in order to decrease Jewish participation in the nation's economy.40 The national-socialists and right-radicals opposed Jewish immigration into Hungary. In 1933 they circulated rumors that 10,000 Jews had migrated from Germany and would take away bread from the already starving Hungarians.41 M. Petrovacs, of the Christian Social-Economic Party, claimed that one hundred German Jews had already replaced Christian workers at a sugar mill at Hatvan and that another hundred Jewish families were colonized at Sarkad in the Bihar province. He argued that Hungary could not colonize foreigners when she failed to supply her own unemployed and that Hungary should not accept people whom Germany could not tolerate.42 The nationalsocialist deputy, Zoltan Mesko, argued in the same vein and was applauded by the right-radicals in the Government, Smallholder and Christian SocialEconomic parties.43 There was probably little truth to the contention that a mass immigration from Germany was under way. At least Ferencz KeresztesFischer, then minister of interior, denied the existence of such an immigration and claimed the families to whom Petrovacs referred were all Hungarian citizens who had the right to work anywhere in any field.44 At the same time he assured Parliament that the government was on guard against any immigration and that it took stringent steps to prevent the influx of undesirable elements, whether Hitlerite or anti-Hiderite, who might take away the bread of a Hungarian.45 Rumors also spread that 10,000 Galician Jews had entered Hungary. 46 At the end of 1935 the government conducted raids along the entire north-eastfrontier.A Parliamentary deputy accused the gendarmerie of having dragged Hebrew-school children to the municipal building for identification. Kozman, the minister of interior, defended his ministry by arguing that those foreigners were undesirable because they were smugglers and that Hungarian Jewry itself opposed the infiltration of east-European Jews. He reassured Hungarian Jews that it was to their advantage and to the nation's to prevent the penetration of the undesired eastern Jewish elements.47

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47

Ibid., 39 Session, pp. 200-203. Ibid., 217 Session (November 22, 1933), pp. 153-154. Ibid., 174 Session (May 4, 1933), pp. 85-90: 176 Session (May 9, 1933), pp. 204-210. Ibid., 184 Session (May 19, 1933), pp. 77-79; 154 Session (March 1,1933), pp. 426-427. Ibid., 184 Session, pp. 89-92. Pester Lloyd, June 3, September 1, 1933. Kepviselöbäz, 73 Session (December 12,1935), p. 519; 128 Session (May 13,1936), pp. 407409. Ibid., 61 Session (November 20,1935), pp. 149-152.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

933

Thus it seems quite clear that Gömbös was determined to force a decline of Jews in the economic domain and to replace them with those opposed to the liberal-conservative economic and social system. However, the rightradicals spared no efforts to reject charges of antisemitism and defended their policies through such devices as making a distinction between two kinds of Jews: the loyal, native, assimilated Hungarian Jew and the foreign, destructive, east-European Jew, who possessed a ghetto personality. The first group they claimed to respect; the latter they wanted to expel for the benefit of the Jews themselves.48 In his introductory speech quoted above, Gömbös already made such a distinction. The right-radicals and pro-nazis also differentiated between Jews who entered Hungary before 1900 or before World War I and those who came later. They pretended that the former they were willing to consider Hungarians. The latter were to be sent back to Poland because they took away the bread of Hungarians.49 In the Hungarian Jewish community such differences were not noticeable. In Budapest, where approximately 50 % of the Jewish population lived, most Jews were assimilated, belonged to the upper strata of the population, spoke only Hungarian and were Hungarian nationalists and patriots. The same situation prevailed elsewhere in Hungary. In the subsequent nazi period these distinctions proved to be dangerous. The persecutions against Jews were justified on the bais that they were directed against foreigners and not against the true Hungarians. The right-radicals and the pro-nazis tried to portray their antisemitism as a struggle against communism and not against the Jews as such. Because of the great number of Jews associated with the Bela Kun regime, the Hungarians considered the Jews, especially the intellectuals, as having a predilection for communism. 50 A decline ofJews in the intellectual field, therefore, meant less danger of communism. Despite the attempts to explain Hungarian antisemitism as a struggle against Jewish economic preponderance and communism, it was obvious that its cause was much deeper. The various statements made in Parliament

48 49 50

Ibid., 173 Session (May 3, 1933), pp. 28-33; 196 Session (June 9, 1933), pp. 168-171. Ibid., 267 Session (April 26, 1934), pp. 444-451. Ibid., 127 Session (May 12,1936), pp. 360-366. A "communist cell" had been discovered in a Budapest business school whose directors and 34 of its 39 members were Jews, 13 of whom belonged to a leftist Zionist youth organization. The government denied that the Zionist organization had anything to do with the group, but made no attempt to reject the accusation that Jews had a predilection for communist activities. Ibid., 128 Session (May 13, 1936), pp. 450-455.

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about Jews disclose a deep hatred for which rational and economic explanations are insufficient.51 One of theright-radicalpublications, UjMagyarsag, even considered the antisemitism of the 1930's a new philosophy and way of life, a part of a new nationalism and a racial defense movement. It considered this new nationalism a great inner catharsis which would rebuild Hungarian society and solve the antisemitic problem for the benefit ofJews as well.52 Π

Right-radical antisemitism had a profound impact on the development of the various pro-nazi parties which flourished in Hungary during the 1930's and 1940's. It is difficult to find even one idea advocated by the pro-nazis which did not have its origin in theright-radicalprogram. The differences that existed between the two groups was in their methods and emphasis, not in content. The pro-nazis agreed with the right-radicals about the need to reduce the Jewish proportion in Hungary's economy. They encouraged any discriminatory action theright-radicalsadopted to achieve this aim. But they considered the right-radical methods too slow and their aims not sufficiently ambitious. Wanting to awaken the people to the great danger of Jewish predominance, the pro-nazis asked the population to boycott Jewish products and enterprises. Before Christmas 1934, Zoltan Mesko, a leader of a pro-nazi party, posted placards in Budapest which stated, "Christian brothers! Only such gifts are fit for your Christmas tree which give bread to another Christian family. Brothers! Buy from Christian industry and business!"53 A leaflet distributed in Debrecen by the pro-nazi Arrow Cross party entitled, "What is Permitted to Jupiter," 54 said, Buy only from Hungarian businessmen. Employ only Hungarian craftsmen. Jews are the enemies of each nation and would betray theirfatherlandfor a pittance. Those who side with Jewry and protect them are traitors. The Jew immigrated and dislodged the Hungarians and rule the country. Jew, shut up! In your ownfatherlandyou can do whatever you please... But here on our soil and territory you can only be a vagrant and tolerated nobody, who with his sack on his back walks with a bowed and humble expression.

51

52 53 54

Ibid., 269 Session (May 1, 1934), pp. 457-460; 7 Session (May 7, 1935), pp. 60-61; 69 Session (December 4,1935), pp. 391-394; Budapesti Hirlap, October 15, 1935. Budapesti Hirlap, October 31, 1934. Kepviselöbäz, 314 Session (December 19, 1934), pp. 492-494. It was issued in October, 1936 by Alexander Zilahy and is available in the library of the American Jewish Committee.

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935

Government circles, obviously in sympathy with the sentiments expressed in these placards, displayed utter indifference and did not punish those responsible.55 Elimination of Jews from the Hungarian economy occupied an important place in the pro-nazi program. Ferencz Szalasi, the nazi leader destined to become premier at the end of 1944, proposed to solve the Jewish problem through nationalizing the economy. Thereby he intended to expropriate the Jews, liquidate capitalism, liberalism, and communism, the forms through which the Jewish moral world system was disseminated.56 He denied that Hungarians were not adapted for commerce and industry because they adhered to traditions and wanted to be seigneurs (ur) and soldiers. This, he claimed, was an invention of the Jews and their cohorts, whose objective was to penetrate the economy and the administration. Nor was he afraid that the nationalization of the economy would cause the Jews to take their capital out of the country. Even if they carried away the mobile capital, they still could not remove the mines, the factories, and the land.57 The elimination of Jews from the Hungarian economy by their emigration was the goal of both theright-radicalsand pro-nazis, who tried to solve in this manner both the economic and Jewish questions. Both groups considered the Jews a race, not a religion, and a race which was foreign to the Hungarian community and dangerous because it aimed to dominate the world and suppress the Hungarians. Gömbös had believed in the racial concept during the counter-revolution and in the 1920's. While he may have changed these views in the 1930's, his followers did not. At an assembly of the Turul Association, Janos Sallo, its press chief, challenged a court decision that Jews were a religious denomination, not a race. He asserted that Jews were a race organized on a religious basis and hoped that the courts would review their definition.58 Szalasi also declared the Jews to be a race. He said, Hungarism59 . . . definitely establishes that Judaism is not a religion but a race. The Jews are a foreign race which has nothing in common with the Hungarians. They never brought any sacrifices for the Hungarian community and therefore have norightto live in the midst of this Hungarian moral people. Hungarism does not proclaim antisemitism (anti-jewishness) but asemitism (immunity from Jews). Hungarism would not introduce Jewish laws because laws

55 56 57 58 59

Kepviselöhdz, 93 Session (May 19, 1936), pp. 460-463. Ferencz Szalasi, Ut is Cel(Way and Goal), 1936, p. 12. Ibid., pp. 21, 23. Budapesü Hirlap, November 28, 1935. Szalasi named his ideas Hungarism.

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Bernard Klein

imply rights, whereas the Jews have no rights. They do not even have the right to live in this community, which they extorted until now.60

The differences between the two groups, however, was that the right-radicals merely implied the solution to the Jewish problem whereas the pro-nazis were explicit in their recommendation for emigration. In this it seems the pro-nazis were unanimous.61 Count Sändor Festetics, a pro-nazi leader, even suggested the Zionist program as a solution to the Jewish problem. In a Parliamentary speech he praised the Zionist movement. He proclaimed that the Jews, just as others, were a people entitled to live in their own land in accordance with their character. In fact, he said, that he once permitted the Zionist organization to use his lands for a program in which youths prepared themselves to migrate to Palestine and were trained for agricultural work. He opposed assimilation because it did not help and because it denied the individuality of a people. Jews were a nation and therefore needed a homeland and soldiers for their movement because they knew the difficulties of life and had steadfastness.62 Frequently, some democratic and liberal groups unwittingly aided the pronazis and the right-radicals in their antisemitic campaign. Käroly Peyer, and the Social Democratic Party, agreed with the right-radicals in their attitudes toward the rich Jews. The rich Jews, Peyer claimed, deserved antisemitism. The unfortunate part was that the discriminations and numerus clausus were primarily aimed at the poor Jews. The rich found means to circumvent these discriminations and were in collusion with the government against the poor workers. 63 The aristocrats, on the other hand, failed to come to the support of the Jews, despite the fact that they received support from the Jewish capitalists and were intermarried with Jews. During World War Π, when the Jewish community was in distress, the aristocracy did not offer a vigorous defense of the Jews. 64 Those who did come to the unqualified defense of the Jews were a small group of liberal and democratic representatives in Parliament. Among these were Käroly Rassay, the leader of the National Liberal Party, and Rezsö Rupert. They took the position that the Jews were a religious denomination, not a race; that there was no pure race in Hungary and that a racial policy was not only anti-Jewish but anti-Christian as well and would lead to the collapse

60 61

62 63

64

Szalasi, op. at., p. 10. Kepviselöhdz, 178 Session (May 11, 1933), pp. 359-365; 197 Session (June 12, 1933), pp. 195-202. Ibid., 266 Session (April 25,1934), pp. 395-398. Ibid., 119 Session (October 12, 1932), p. 96; 123 Session (November 8,1932), p. 205. Interview with a Hungarian aristocrat and politician.

Politics and the Jewish Question in the 1930s

937

of Christian culture.65 For this reason Rassay criticized Käroly Wolffs agitations for a Christian policy because it aimed to deprive others of their happiness.66 He also refused to join Wolff in forming a "liberal Christian" bloc because the designation implied that the other Christian groups were reactionary and because such a bloc would have excluded an important segment of the people. 67 Rassay defended the Jews in Parliament and pointed out blundy that the argument of Jewish discrimination against non-Jews was merely a subterfuge because right-radical circles would consider wrong anything the Jews did, even if they went to Palestine.68 Rupert also told Parliament that instead of scorn and hatred, the Jews actually deserved praise for their courage and patriotism and for their great contributions to the Hungarian society and economy, paying three times more taxes than all aristocrats.69 These isolated voices could, however, not persuade the right-radicals to desist from their antiJewish policies. It is amazing that despite right-radical and pro-nazi agitations and despite German support, antisemitism in Hungary did not assume the proportions of the 1940's earlier. A few explanations may be offered for this phenomenon. One reason is that these antisemitic efforts were not concentrated. The rightradicals and the pro-nazis failed to cooperate with each other. The rightradicals feared the pro-nazi appeal to the mobs which could have led to a revolution and their loss of power. They also resented German support given to the pro-nazis. The pro-nazis were also divided among themselves, had extremely low opinions of each other, and degraded each other in public and in the courts. 70 Hungarian nationalism and pride were other factors. Many Hungarians viewed the pro-nazi and racist ideology as foreign and opposed to Hungarian tradition. They had diffulty in accepting the pro-nazi and German concept of race. Because of the mixed populations in Hungary, Hungarians customarily advocated assimilation of foreign groups, not ejection. Even Szalasi had to take cognizance of this fact and he advocated conationality and autonomy to all minorities, except the Jews. 71 But the most important factor 65

66 67 68

70

71

Kepviselöhaz, 143 Session (June 8,1936), pp. 4 3 ^ 4 ; 173 Session (May 3, 1933), pp. 32-39; Felsöhdz Naplo, (June 25, 1936). Kepviselöhaz, 174 Session (May 4, 1933), pp. 77-85. Ibid., 127 Session (May 12, 1936), pp. 366-373. Ibid., 184 Session (May 19, 1933), pp. 89-92. Ibid., 130 Session (May 15, 1936), pp. 515-522. Budapest! Hirlap, (May 4,1933; June 1,1933; Pester Lloyd, February 15, March 5,1935; Jenö Levai, Horogkereszt - kaszdskereszt - nyilaskereszt (Swastika, Scythe-Cross, Arrow-Cross), Budapest 1945, p. 47; Kepviselöhaz, 133 Session (May 20, 1936), pp. 102-103. Szalasi,op. cit., p. 10; see also Gustav Gratz, "Foreign Influences," The Hungarian Quarterly 2, 1936, pp. 240-248.

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may have been the indifference of the peasants, who formed such an important segment of the population. The political neutrality and inactivity of the peasants, which was most welcome to the liberal conservatives and which the right-radicals tried to perpetuate, was a tragedy to the pro-nazis. The peasants who had been living with their scattered Jewish neighbors were totally unconcerned with the Jewish problem. The relationship between the peasants and Jews in Hungary presented an interesting social phenomenon. In contrast to other central and east-European countries where the peasants hated the Jews because of the debts they owed them, in Hungary they lived in peace and harmony. The poor peasant who received loans and other favors from his Jewish neighbor considered the Jew his friend and was grateful to him. The Hungarian peasant was hardly affected by the antisemitic wave in Germany and Hungary.72 To explain this phenomenon would require an article in itself. Suffice it to say that the peasant may have felt that the Jew was his only friend in the village. He could compare the working conditions on the estates of the aristocracy and on those of the Jews and conclude that the Jews treated him well, paid him better wages and respected him as a human being. Only after a vigorous antisemitic campaign in the 1940's was there a change in the peasant attitude. In 1944, during the deportations, there were occasions when peasants applauded the Jewish deportation. But in the inter-war period only those were antisemites who had been ostracized in the village or who had escaped to the mystic sects or had joined the pro-nazi groups. The attitude of the peasants was in sharp contrast to that of a considerable segment of the workers. The workers came in direct contact with their Jewish employers, could contrast their poverty with the employer's wealth, and developed an antisemitic attitude.

72

Some historians accustomed to think of the peasant-Jewish relationship in terms of their experiences in eastern Europe, find it difficult to believe that the relationship was otherwise in Hungary. Nevertheless, those familiar with Hungarian history could hardly refute these facts.

NATHANIEL KATZBURG

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies and Nazi Influence in the 1930s* 1 During and after the mid-1930's, the Hungarian middle-class was confronted with increasingly acute problems. What is more, their grievances assumed political expression through the vehicle of extreme right-wing movements, which gathered many adherents from this class. The ruling classes were gravely concerned, since the intensification of political and social agitation threatened the stability of the regime. They gradually came to appreciate that the required solution to the situation had to be achieved at the expense ofJews, and had to take the form of their displacement in economic life by members of the Hungarian middle-class. In operative terms, the aim was to reduce the proportion ofJews in certain branches of employment and in the professions, without, however, harming the interests of the Jewish upper class. Even in the late 1930's this was still an influential group, a fact which accounts for the caution of the government at the first stage of anti-Jewish legislation, and official endeavours to avoid alienating this class but rather to obtain its tacit consent. This strategy, as was soon apparent, could not succeed. Mounting pressure for social and economic transformations could not be satisfied unless the process was total and encompassed those positions of economic leadership which the First Jewish Law had left in Jewish hands. Hence the enactment of the Second Jewish Law, which complemented its predecessor, and extended the policy of discrimination. It also introduced the principle that race constituted the criterion for the definition of who was a Jew. The Jewish Laws of 1938-1939 represented a turning point in Hungarian Jewish policy, in that they implied a rupture in the community of interests

* From: Nathaniel Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews. Policy and Legislation 1920-1943, Bar-Dan University Press, Ramat Gan 1981, abridged pp. 214-225. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

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which had previously been thought to exist between Jews and Magyars. Subsequent anti-Jewish measures were the direct outcome of this premise. Jewish policy after the end of the 1930's was virtually formulated under the impact of internal pressures, and these continued to operate throughout the war period. But external factors also played a role in the several stages of Hungarian policy. As international condemnation of the White Terror and Jewish appeals to the League of Nations against the Numerus Clausus had shown, such influences had been apparent during the 1920's too. But it was during the war years - and in the form of German pressure - that they considerably increased. 2 From the mid-1930's onwards the Germans evinced progressive interest in the Jewish question in Hungary. As much is indicated by numerous publications on this subject,1 as well as by periodic German diplomatic reports. But until 1938-1939 this interest, at least on the official level, was confined to observation; there is no documentary evidence to suggest that any official pressure was exerted on the thrust and momentum of Hungarian policy towards the Jews. At that stage, the Germans apparendy preferred to restrict themselves to supporting extremeright-winggroups within Hungary, upon whose pressure they relied for what they considered to be a satisfactory settlement of the Jewish question. The success of this policy was indicated by the fact that the First Jewish Bill was tabled on April 8,1939, about a month after the annexation of Austria. But the proximity of the two events is deceptive. It was not the Anschluss which prompted the Hungarian government to introduce the bill.2 It is likely that under its impact the Hungarian government believed that the Law would be interpreted as a friendly gesture towards its new neighbour. Nevertheless, the idea of restrictions on the Jews was conceived in 1937 and

1

2

The main German work on the subject is Klaus Schickert, Die Judenfrage in Ungarn, Essen 1937, second revised edition 1943. Schickert's other works on the Jewish question in Hungary include "Ungarns Judenfrage als wirtschaftliches und geistliches Problem", Volk im Osten 4, 1943, pp. 41-52. He was staff member of the Nazi research institute into the Jewish question (Institut zur Erforschung derJudenfrage) in Frankfurt, and after October 1943 its acting chief. See Max Weinreich, Hitler's Professors, New York 1947. Martin Broszat, "Das deutsch-ungarische Verhältnis und die ungarische Judenpolitik in den Jahren 1938-1941", Gutachten des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München 1958, p. 186; United Restitution Organisarion, Judenverfolgung in Ungarn, Frankfurt 1959, p. 7.

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies

941

publicly announced by Prime Minister Daranyi on March 5,1938, a few days before the occupation of Austria. German involvement was probably more decisive with regard to the Second Jewish Law. Unlike the First, which was the result of lengthy considerations and debate, the second was introduced unexpectedly and hurriedly, and only a few months after Prime Minister Imredy had categorically stated that the First Law had definitely settled the Jewish question. The sudden change must be attributed to his visit to Hitler on September 20, 1938. Their main topic of discussion was the Czech crisis, then at its height; the record of the meeting3 makes no reference to the Jewish question or to any Hungarian domestic problem. Nevertheless, Imredy clearly understood that some domestic political gestures would be viewed with favour in Germany.4 Consequently, in a statement to the Hungarian Telegraphic Agency on October 18, 1938, Imredy announced that Hungary had to adapt her policy to that of the Axis powers5 and only a few days later (on October 26) he mentioned his scheme for a new Jewish law to Bethlen. This sequence of events suggests that Jewish policy was conceived under German influence,6 and as a move calculated to demonstrate Hungary's potential for "adaptation". As a bid for German favour, it succeeded. On April 28, 1939, the differences over the Second Jewish Law between the Upper and Lower Houses were resolved; on the following day Prime Minister Teleki and Foreign Minister Csäky went to Berlin to confer with German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. "After the Hungarian ministers briefly reported" - thus the record - "that the Joint Committee of both houses of Hungarian Parliament have agreed on the adoption of the Jewish Law, the Reich Foreign Minister concluded the talks by saying that he can foresee only a common German-Hungarian future. This was received on the part of the Hungarian ministers with lively agreement".7 The Germans now expected the Hungarians to tighten their measures against the Jews, and when this had not happened by the autumn of 1940, they expressed impatience. Early in November of that year the Hungarian minister in Berlin, Dome Sztojay, attributed German coolness to Hungary's treatment of her Jewish problem, and warned of the potentially decisive impact upon 3 4

5 6 7

Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, vol. 2, pp. 863-864. Peter Sipos, Imredy Bela es a magyar megujulas pdrtja (Bela Imredy and the Party of Hungarian Renewal), Budapest 1970, p. 62. Uj Magyarsdg, October 18, 1938; quoted ibid., p. 62. United Restitution Organisation, op. at., p. 2. Ränki - Pamlenyi - Tilkouszki - Jukasz (eds.), Α Wilhelmstrasse es Magyarszag (Wilhelmstrasse and Hungary-German diplomatic papers on Hungary, 1933-1944), Budapest 1968, p. 388.

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German-Hungarian relations.8 It was probably this alarming report which prompted Teleki to refer to the Jewish question in his talk with Hitler, held in Vienna on November 20, 1940, when Hungary joined the Tripartite Pact. According to the records, Count Teleki brought up the Jewish question and said that when peace was concluded the Jews would have to be moved out of Europe. The Führer replied that he regards the solution of the Jewish question for Europe as one of the biggest problems of peace. It was his intention in the future peace treaty to give all states wishing to participate in his solution the possibility in doing so by forcing France to make some of her possessions available.9 It is noteworthy that on this occassion it was Teleki who raised the Jewish question; hitherto, the subject had always been raised by the Germans. Teleki may have been prompted to do so by Sztojay's unfavourable reports; he might also have been influenced by extreme right wing attacks on his government's allegedly ineffective implementation of the Jewish Law. By volunteering to propose the deportation of Jews from Europa Teleki wished to make it clear that he too favoured a final solution of the Jewish question. However, he deliberately stipulated that this was to be attained after the conclusion of peace. All successive Hungarian governments were similarly to insist that the solution of the Jewish problem had to await the termination of the war. There is no doubt that the next Jewish Law, the Race Protection Law of 1941, enacted by Teleki' successor Bärdossy, was introduced under direct German pressure. In a testimonial in 1956 Kallay said: The connection of the Third Jewish Law (Law 15 of 1941) with the Nazi demands i s . . . clear. Bärdossy introduced the bill into Parliament immediately following his discussions with Hider and Ribbentrop.10 During the discussion of the bill in Parliament Bärdossy requested me, as a member of the Upper House, to support the bill. When I refused, he said to me in a sharp tone: "You are playing irresponsibly with the existence of the country. I know the situation and I felt the pressure. Don't you see that this is the only country in the whole German sphere of interest where there are no German soldiers? Your resistance will only evoke the brutal intervention of the Germans".11

8 9

10

11

Quoted by Sipos, αρ. dt, p. 183. Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, vol. 11, p. 635. The reference to the French possessions (meaning Madagascar), implies that Hider was at that time thinking of "solving" the Jewish question by settling the Jews outside Europe. The reference is probably to Bärdossy's meeting with Hider and Ribbentrop on March 21, 1941 {Documents on German Foreign Policy, Series D, vol. 12, pp. 331-335). Bärdossy was at that time Foreign Minister. The main topic of conversation was the political and military situation, and the role of Hungary. The Jewish question was not discussed. United Restitution Organisation, op. cit., p. 2; see also Broszat, op. cit., p. 197.

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies

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A testimonial to the same effect was supplied by the lawyer Dr. Bela Berend, who was ex-officio counsel for Bärdossy at the latter's trial in 1946. Claiming personal knowledge of the facts, he said that Bärdossy was acting under strong German pressure; had he not complied with German demands Hungary would have been occupied long before 1944. 12 These testimonials are borne out by the course of Hungarian politics under Bärdossy, when cooperation with Germany reached its height. They are also supported by the nature of the Race Protection Law. Unlike the first two Jewish Laws, which conferred considerable material benefits on the Hungarian middle class, the significance of the Race Protection Law was exclusively ideological: in fact, its underlying philosophy was totally alien to the Magyar national and religious spirit. It was presumably this legislation which Horthy had in mind when complaining to Källay that Bärdossy went too far towards compliance with German demands, especially in the Jewish question. 13 Källay maintained that the formation ofJewish labour battalions during his premiership was also closely related to German pressure. Although able to resist German demands that Hungary send 300,000 Jews to forced labour in Germany, he was compelled to establish Jewish labour camps in Hungary itself. "Without the overwhelming pressure of German Nazism" - Källay recalled - "this form of Jewish persecution could never have happened". 14 This is doubtful. Källay's reference was to the Law of 1942, which codified the whole system of Jews' labour service, hitherto based on a Ministerial Decree. But the system had originated in the Defence Law of 1939 and was in operation long before Källay took office; almost from the outset it had assumed the definite character of a discriminatory and punitive measure. N o doubt, the Law of 1942 was well received by the Germans, as any anti-Jewish measure, but its declared aim was to put labour service on a firmer legal basis. During Källay's premiership German pressure for the solution of the Jewish question intensified. His own evidence states that he attempted to handle the Jewish question primarily as a social and economic problem, and it was in these terms that he referred to it when he first addressed parliament. 15 His approach provoked a strong reaction in Berlin, where it was taken as an indication of Hungarian unwillingness to deal firmly with the entire Jewish problem. Accordingly, Källay felt compelled to shift his stand, and in a later speech, on April 20,1942, he spoke of the eventual deportation of Jews after

12 13 14 15

United Restitution Organisation, op. cit., pp. 12-13. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 4. Nicholas Källay, Hungarian Premier, N e w York 1954, pp. 78, 82.

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victory. As he subsequently pointed out, he discussed this speech in advance with leading representatives of Hungarian Jewry. 16 In the course of their diplomatic dealings with the Hungarians during 1942-1943 the Germans presented three basic demands: First, that all Jews without exception should be excluded from cultural and economic life; Second, that Jews should be compelled to wear the Yellow Star; Third, that Jews be deported to the East. 17 The Hungarian government rejected these demands. Its attitude was that every sovereign nation had to find its own way of dealing with its Jewish question. As to specifics, the Government referred to the effectiveness of the measures already taken, and claimed that in view of the extent of Jewish involvement in the Hungarian economy its nullification had to be a gradual process, in order not to destabilise the entire economic structure. Resistance to the introduction of the Yellow Star was based on the argument that the Jews constituted a high proportion of the urban population; by affording easily visible evidence of their identification, the measure might inflame passions to a degree liable seriously to endanger legal and social order. Deportations were opposed on the ground that the Hungarian government lacked the practical and technical facilities to implement such measures.18 Similar arguments were advanced by Horthy in reply to Hider's remonstrations against the "pro-Jewish attitude" of the Kallay government, at their meeting at Klessheim on April 16-17, 1943. 19 In essence, the Jewish policy of the Källay government did not differ from that of its predecessors. Kallay, like Teleki and Bärdossy before him, admitted the severity of the Jewish question and the need to settle it after the war; all three governments also implemented anti-Jewish legislation. Nevertheless, the position of the Kallay government was fundamentally unique. It was during the period after he took office that the Germans resolved to implement the total and final solution of the Jewish question in Europe; 20 consequendy German pressure on Hungary increased and became more threatening. Kallay 16 17

18

19

20

Ibid., p. 97; see also United Restitution Organisation, op. cit., p. 8. Kallay, op. cit., pp. 113; see also Randolph L. Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry, Vol. 1, New York 1963, pp. 138-139. Ranki et al. (eds.), op. cit., pp. 701-704 (memorandum by the Hungarian minister in Berlin to the German foreign ministry, December 2, 1942). Andreas Hillgruber, Staatsmänner und Dtplomatm bei Hitler, vol. 2, Frankfurt/M 1970, pp. 244-246. The Wannsee Conference on the Final Solution took place on January 20, 1942. There is documentary evidence that the real meaning of the Final Solution was known to the government in Budapest not later than October 1942, through a memorandum by György Ottlik, the editor of the Pester Lloyd and a member of the Upper House. Ottlik compiled his memorandum following a visit to Switzerland, France and Germany between August 18 and

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies

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resisted the pressure and refused to take any action which he regarded as incompatible with Hungary's sovereignty and interests. In deflecting German demands he also had an eye on the future. "To have sacrified the Jews to the Germans would have meant an irreparable liability to Hungary after the war as we then expected the post-war world to be". 21 Once the prospects of German victory perceptibly waned, Källay initiated moves designed to dissociate Hungary from Germany and to establish contacts with the western allies, with the ultimate view of extricating the country from the war. Under these circumstances a policy of Hungarian independence in its treatment of Jews was regarded as an asset, and a memorandum prepared for the western allies in 1943 made prominent reference to the Källay governments' moderate Jewish policy.22 Jewish organisations in Britain appreciated the singularity of the Hungarian-Jewish situation in Axis-dominated Europe of 1942-1943, 23 but were also concerned as to what might happen should the Källay government defect from the Axis camp. In a conversation with A. W. Randall of the Foreign Office on October 13,1943, L. B. Namier, of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in London, pointed out that his organisation was most seriously concerned at the possible consequence to the 800,000 Jews, who now enjoy comparative security, of any premature desertion of Germany by the Hungarian Government. The Jews here [in Britain]... feel that Germany could not possibly tolerate Hungarian defection, and as long as the German army was in position to do so would answer such a move by the Hungarian Government by a German occupation of the country, the result of which would be extermination of the last important body of Jewry left in Europe.24

Randall said that this argument was advanced "as a reason for Hungary not making any premature move to the Allied side". 25 In a minute by the Refugee Department of the Foreign Office it was similarly stated: September 28, 1942. In Berlin he had talks with the Hungarian minister Sztojay on Hungarian-German relations and on the Jewish question. Sztojay said that the Germans had decided not to defer thefinalsolution of the Jewish question until after the war, and referred to this question as a main issue in the relations between the two countries. Sztojay believed that the re-settlement of a considerable part of Hungarian Jewry in occupied Russia should be accelerated. Replying to a remark by Ottlik, Sztojay did not conceal that "re-setdement" actually meant execution. Ottlik reported to the Hungarian foreign ministry in a memorandum dated October 10,1942, reproduced by Karsai Elek, Α budaivdrt0lagyepüigl941-1945 (From the Buda Castle to the Border), Budapest 1965, pp. 204-205. 21 Källay, op. cit., pp. 121-122. 2 2 FO 371/34498 C9787. 2 3 FO 371/34504 C1421, minute by F. K. Roberts, dated February 9, 1943. 2 4 FO 371/34498 C12035. " Ibid.

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We have this problem very much in mind as one of the arguments against pressing the Hungarians to make an immediate open stand against the Germans which might involve the risk of German occupation.26

Viewed as a whole, Hungarian Jewish policy between 1938 and 1943 was the result of combined action by internal and external forces. The First and Second Jewish Laws were enacted mainly as a result of the pressure which emanated from the Hungarian extreme Right. It owed its effectiveness not only to the intrinsic political strength of that group but to a great extent to German support too. Another factor, equally important, was the pro-German orientation of Hungary's foreign policy. The success of the extreme Right, and its influence over Hungarian politics enabled the Germans to pursue a policy of comparatively moderate intervention with regard to the Jewish question in 1940 and 1941. Internal pressure, and the Hungarian Governments' ready cooperation in general, sufficed to keep Jewish policy on the right course from a German point of view. Only after 1942, when German plans for the Final Solution crystallised, did the demands made on Hungary become more radical and far-reaching. But it was at that point that the Hungarian Government drew the line. Concern for the retention of Hungarian sovereignty contributed towards the decision. But also decisive was the desire to improve Hungary's image in western eyes, and the fear of the future consequences which would result from the pursuit of a policy towards the Jews on German lines. 3 The formation of Jewish policy was also influenced by the position and strength ofJewry itseE Until the mid-1930's the strength of Hungarian Jewry rested on the position of its upper class, especially its prominent financiers and industrialists, and their common interests with the members of the ruling conservative liberal aristocracy. The latter appreciated the indispensible nature of Jewish economic enterprise, particularly where the attainment of foreign investments and loans were concerned. The changing political circumstances of the 1930's did not obviate the importance of Jewish involvement in the economy. Gömbös deemed it necessary to secure the cooperation of Jewish capital in his social-economic reform program - even at the price of retraction from his anti-Semitic views. In its initial stages, anti-Jewish legislation, accordingly, had to take into account possible reactions by Jewish capital.

26

Ibid., dated October 22, 1943.

Anti-Jewish Measures and Policies

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After the mid-1930's, however, the political influence of the Jewish elite gradually declined. This was due, on the one hand, to the penetration of members of the non-Jewish middle class into senior economic positions, and on the other - to shifts in the highest level of political leadership, with which the Jewish financial aristocracy had no intimate links (e. g. Teleki and Bärdossy).27 It was due to the existing structure ofJewish communal organisation and leadership that these changes were bound adversely to affect the position of the entire community. At its most senior level - the head of the Neolog Central Office and the Pest community - Jewish communal authority was vested in the upper class und the economic elite; but once this sector lost its influence with the rulers of the country (as happened after 1940) the community as a whole was deprived of the possibility of influencing the formation of official Jewish policy. Jews possessed virtually no other channel of political influence, even though they did carry weight in several of the smaller political parties which they supported. But it needs to be stressed that there were no specifically Jewish parties in Hungary (as there were in Czechoslovakia and Roumania); Jews participated in politics as individuals, not as a community, though they did support Jewish interests, and protested - often courageously against anti-Jewish legislation. [ . . . ] As is well known, deportations on a large-scale did not commence in Hungary until 1944. However, it is clear that as early as 1940 the idea of such a measure as a solution to the Jewish question had gradually permeated the public mind and had thus become acceptable.

27

All their predecessors were accessible for informal approaches by the leading group of Jewry. Even Gömbös and Daranyi, whose links with that group were less intimate than those of Bethlen, could be approached by high ranking intermediaries. One such intermediary was Andor Läzär, Minister of Justice in the Gömbös and Daranyi cabinets. Läzar was a well known lawyer, legal adviser to large corporations, "and if Chorin or the Weiss family, Pal Biro or Jenö Vida, the big banks and companies had a 'message' for the government, it could be passed through him". Läszlo Dernöi Kocsis, Politikusok esKalandomk (Politicians and Adventurers), Budapest 1973, p. 269. The author was a well-known political correspondent in the inter-war period. The persons mentioned in the quotation were some of the outstanding members of the Hungarian Jewishfinancialaristocracy. A function similar to that of Läzär was fulfilled by Tihamer Fabinyi, Minister of Commerce and Minister of Finance under Gömbös and Daranyi, who was also connected with big business.

Η . SETON-WATSON

Two Contrasting Policies toward Jews: Russia and Hungary"' Jewish communities existed in both Hungary and Russia in pre-modern times, but they were not large. They found themselves in the usual predicament of medieval Jews: the Church hierarchy was hostile on religious grounds, the indigenous merchants were hostile as business rivals, and there was latent resentment among the population as a whole, in which religious enmity was combined with the distrust of peasants toward those who deal in money. Jews received some protection from monarchs and from landowning magnates, since they could prove useful to them in various ways. The favor of kings and aristocrats was, however, unreliable, since such protectors might often find it convenient to sacrifice their Jewish proteges to their enemies. After the partition of Hungary in 1526, a Jewish community remained in the northwest, in Pressburg, in rivalry with German merchants. Under Turkish rule Jews probably fared better than under Christian. Some Sephardic Jews came into Hungary from the south, but few remained after the reconquest by the Habsburgs at the end of the seventeenth century. During the course of the eighteenth century the situation of Hungarian Jews generally improved, as a result of economic and cultural progress and of a more tolerant climate in the Habsburg lands as a whole. In Russia the theocratic regime which emerged from the centuries of Tatar yoke was unfavorable to the Jews, as to all minorities. It is possible that Jewish influences, derived from the kingdom of the Khazars and preserved under the tolerant rule of the Moslem Tatar rulers, influenced early Muscovy, but this is not, as far as I know, substantially documented. The extent ofJewish influence on the rationalist heretics, known as "Judaisers" and persecuted in late fifteenth century Muscovy, also remains obscure. But there is certainly no comparison with the influence ofJews in Spain, under Moslem rule and in the * From: Bela Vago and George L. Mosse (eds.),Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europa 1918-1945, John Wiley & Sons, New York, Toronto and Israel University Press Jerusalem 1974, pp. 99-112. Reprinted with permission of the Transaction Publisher, New Brunswick, N. J.

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first centuries after the Christian reconquest. As the balance of power within the state between Tzar and Patriarch developed, to the advantage of the former, this did not at first favor deviations from Orthodoxy. The Czar liked to use the Church as an instrument of power, but had no reason to modify its dogmatism or intolerance. The Orthodox Church, from its origins in Byzantium, was as implacably hostile to the Jews as was the Church of Rome; but whereas in Catholic countries, at least by the eighteenth century, governments were tending to give priority to secular over religious issues, and were even beginning to favor religious toleration, the rulers of Russia did not challenge Orthodox dogmas, even if, as was the case with Peter the Great, they were indifferent to them. It was not until the reign of Catherine Π that the European Enlightenment began to penetrate Russian intellectual life. The Empress did in fact make great efforts to improve the position of the Jews. The destruction of Poland was a decisive event for the attitudes of the rulers of both Hungary and Russia toward the Jews. After the Partitions, very large Jewish communities became subjects of the Russian and the Habsburg Emperors. The Lithuanian and Ukrainian borderlands were incorporated in Russia, and Galicia was included in the Habsburg Monarchy. Large numbers of Jews moved out of crowded and poor districts in Galicia and crossed the Carpathians into northern and eastern Hungary. Most settled in these regions, but substantial numbers also moved further west, especially to Budapest and to Vienna. In the Habsburg Monarchy, Jews were not prohibited from settling in the capital cities; but in Russia they were confined to the fifteen provinces of the Pale of Settlement, established by decree in 1791. It is worth noting that the large Jewish communities now incorporated in the two states lived in direct contact not with Magyars or with Russians, but with the other nationalities living in these states: in Russia with Lithuanians, Poles, Belorussians, Ukrainians and Rumanians; in Hungary with Slovaks, Ukrainians and Romanians. The Jews of Budapest form the only important exception to this statement. The newly acquired Jewish communities were characterized by the distorted social structure which resulted from the centuries of the diaspora. Overwhelmingly, they consisted of merchants, small traders, artisans and manual workers, concentrated in small towns and large villages. The community was defined by its religion, and religion placed a premium on learning, although of course within a traditional framework. As early as the eighteenth century a growing demand had been felt for the improvement of learning, both by the serious study of Hebrew and by the acquisition of modern secular knowledge. Thus on the eve of the expansion of European capitalism and science, the Jews possessed great reserves of talent for both.

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The Russian Government in the first half of the nineteenth century regarded the Jews with dislike, yet claimed that it was eager to make useful citizens of them. It reproached them for their exclusiveness, yet insisted on maintaining the Pale. The rationale behind this was that the Russian people must be protected from the contagion of a dangerous social element, but within the Pale itself the Jews must themselves be transformed. Conversion to Orthodoxy was the aim. One of its instruments was the mobilization of twelve-year-old Jewish boys as "cantonists," a form of juvenile military service during which pressure was put on them, often in very brutal form, to become Christians. This system, introduced in 1827, was abolished in 1865. Attempts were also made to setde Jews on the land, especially in the Black Sea coastal region only recently conquered from the Turks; but little success was achieved as the settlement was badly prepared and local officials were often hostile. In Hungary during the same decades the climate of opinion was much more favorable. The Hungarian educated minority - which largely but not entirely coincided with the nobility - was in opposition to the government in Vienna, and was inspired by a combination of liberalism and nationalism. There was also a growing conscious desire, most ably expressed by Count Stephen Szechenyi, for modern economic and scientific development. These ideals attracted the Jewish immigrants. A first Jewish Emancipation Law of 1840 removed many of the restrictions on residence and professional activity for Jews. In the Revolution of 1848-1849 the Jews of Hungary supported the national cause. The revolutionary leaders were grateful for this, but at the same time feared that if complete equality were granted to Jews this might provoke hostility from the peasants. There were in fact some anti-Jewish outbreaks during the revolutionary period, and the enactment of full emancipation by Parliament in 1849, on the eve of final defeat, was no more than a gesture. Under the Bach regime (1849-1867), Hungarian Jews benefited from economic opportunities, but their sympathies remained with the Hungarian national cause. One of the first measures of the semi-independent Hungarian Government set up by the Ausgleich was the enactment of full Emancipation by the law of December 22, 1867. In many respects the governments of Russia and of Hungary at the end of the 1860sfacedthe same tasks. Both were convinced of the need for economic modernization, as a necessary condition for political and military power. This had been the lesson of the Crimean War for Russia, and the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 had at least cleared away some of the most important obstacles to progress. Hungary could never achieve the level of power that Russia was capable of. However, Hungarian leaders certainly intended to make their country an important, medium-sized state within Europe, and

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they started from a higher level of general culture than Russia had yet reached. In Russia and Hungary alike the members of the upper class and the higher bureaucracy lacked any talent or inclination for business or for intellectual professions, yet in both countries it was now understood that it was most important that these activities should flourish. The Jews were a rich source of talent for them all. Moreover, within the Jewish communities, and especially among the younger age-groups, the willingness of a large section to assimilate to the Russian and the Hungarian national cultures was at its height. Though the needs of the rulers and the mood of the Jews were almost identical in both Hungary and Russia, the policies adopted and the results achieved in the two countries were quite different. In Hungary assimilation was for a half century very successful, and Hungarian Jews played an outstanding role in economic and cultural progress. In Russia a short period of improvement was followed by a renewal of restrictions and the development of new and sinister froms of persecution. In Hungary the government unreservedly encouraged capitalism. Rapid progress was made, in which both Hungarian and Austrian capital played a part. Nationalist politicians at the time, and nationalist historians since then, have argued that progress would have been greater had Hungary been more independent from Austria. Whatever may be thought of this, there can be no doubt that great progress was made, and that Hungarian Jews were active in it. There were Jewish industrialists - for example in textiles, milling and sugar and there were Jewish bankers. Indeed the large banks, which played a leading part in industrial investment, were in effect controlled by a number of Jewish big-business families. Jews also bought landed property. The biggest estates of all remained in the possession of a few Hungarian aristocratic families, some of them being entailed. But in the whole range of properties above 200 hold (ca. 280 acres) almost a fifth were owned by Jews. In the intellectual professions too Jews were very successful. Medicine was the most popular career, and by the end of the nineteenth century almost half the doctors of Hungary were of Jewish origin. For some time the university law faculties were unwilling to admit many Jewish students, but this resistance was worn down, and in 1910 Jews provided 45 percent of the lawyers. The numerical proportion was about the same in journalism. Almost all the outstanding editors and journalists in Budapest were Jews. The two main mouthpieces of the Austro-Hungarian brand of official liberalism, based on a German-Magyar cultural condominium of the Monarchy (which, be it noted, is not the same thing as a political hegemony), the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna and the Pester Lloyd in Budapest, were directed and staffed by Jews.

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This state of affairs may be described as the full productive use of the great economic and cultural talents of the Jews, or as Jewish domination of Hungarian public life (terfoglalds), depending on the political attitude of the speaker. In practice, it had elements of both. Success in business and in careers brought a large measure of social acceptance of Jews. Conversions were not numerous,1 but they offered opportunities for social mobility. In 1910 there were 307 families of Jewish origin which enjoyed the status of Hungarian nobility, and 26 families with the title of baron. Marriages between children of established noble families and Jews were not numerous but they did occur, and they sometimes served to restore the finances of declining landed estates. Converted Jews were able to make careers in the professional army, in Parliament and in the civil service. The Hungarian Jews repaid the Hungarian political class for these opportunities by loyal service to the Hungarian national cause. Jews adopted the official policy of Magyarization with enthusiasm. Not only did they accept the Magyar language, and help develop it in journalism and literature, but they gave the government strong support in its attempts to force it on that half of the population which had other languages, and which was rapidly acquiring separate national consciousnesses. In the small towns of northern and eastern Hungary, which were the centers of Magyarization in the surrounding countryside inhabited by Slovaks or Romanians, the exponents of Magyarization included not only the Magyar official and gendarme but also the Jewish lawyer, innkeeper and moneylender. The innate dislike of the peasant for the moneylender, his painful struggle to get credit on less usurious terms, became fused with his national resentment of forcible Magyarization. He tended increasingly to see in the Jews both a class enemy and a national enemy. At the same time the leaders of the Slovak and Romanian national movements, who at first consisted largely of lawyers, teachers and priests, and who needed to mobilize the peasant masses in order to make their movements effective, began to appreciate that it was important to provide their peasants with credit organizations of their own. From the "national" savings banks and cooperatives which they established, there emerged a Slovak and a Romanian petite bourgeoisie. This class did increasingly well out of its new business, but also had undoubted patriotic aims, and thus became both the economic and the national opponent of the Jews.

1

According to the Yevreiskaya Entsiklopedia, Vol. XI, pp 884-896, article on Conversion to Christianity, there were, 44,756 in the whole century in the Habsburg Monarchy, of which only a third in Hungary, where in the decade 1896-1905 the yearly average of conversions was 446.

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In Russia the political class was divided in its estimate of the need for capitalism. The connection between industry and military power was generally understood, but there was a widespread desire to achieve the end without permitting the means. Russian conservatives hoped to avoid the bogeys of individualism and of the creation of a "proletariat" (a horror-word with an almost magical quality). They hoped to preserve a patriarchal society, based on a peasant commune benevolently supervised by bureaucrats and landowners. In the last decades of the century the Ministry of the Interior became the stronghold of this ideology: all innovations and all local initiatives were viewed a priori with suspicion. Capitalism was however favored by some officials and ministers, and its stronghold was the Ministry of Finance. The paternalists were of course most unwilling to see Jews given new opportunities. The Ministry of Finance preferred to work with Russian Christian capitalists, and as a second best with foreign capitalists, even if some of these were Jews. Russian subjects who were Jews came third in priority, but insofar as they were useful they too could be encouraged. During the reign of Alexander Π the position of Russian Jews did in fact substantially improve. The "cantonist" system was abolished in 1865, and in the same year artisans were permitted to work outside the Pale, in addition to the minority of rich Jews who already possessed that right. Jews became prominent in banking. Evzel Ginzburg, who in 1871 received the title of Baron from the Grand Duke of Hesse, was permitted by the Czar to use it within Russia and to transmit it to his heir. The Polyakov family was prominent in the development of Russian railways. Within the Pale Jewish industrialists were able to go ahead with their business, but the maintenance of the Pale restrictions seriously limited the employment ofJewish business talent in Russia as a whole. In the 1860s and 1870s Jews were able to make much more use of the admittedly inadequate educational facilities available in Russia. They began to enter the professions of medicine, law, engineering and teaching, which were at last undergoing a process of expansion. The assassination of Alexander Π in 1881 brought a reversal of all these trends. It was followed by an outbreak of pogroms and then by the Temporary Rules of May 1882. The latter prohibited any further settlement by Jews in villages within the Pale, as well as the ownership or management by Jews of agricultural land there. In 1887 came the numerus clausus on Jews in schools and universities; in 1889 the requirement that non-Christian lawyers must obtain the permission of the Minister of Justice to practise (which in fact was refused during the next three decades); and in 1891 the forcible expulsions of Jews from Moscow. The Pale was maintained, in spite of the recommendation of the Pahlen Commission of senior officials in 1888 that it should be abolished.

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The experience of the Russian Jews during the next thirty years, the pogroms of 1903 and 1905-1906, the failure of the Dumas to enact emancipation and equality, the Beilis case in 1913, are far too well known to need elaboration. It would be an exaggeration to say there was absolutely no improvement in the condition of the Jews. They profited no less than the rest of the population of the Empire from the substantial economic and cultural progress in the last thirty years of the Imperial regime, and from the increase in civil liberties after 1905. However, as a community they remained objects of discrimination and humiliation. Even those who accepted Orthodoxy were seldom socially accepted. Baron Ginzburg, the Polyakovs and others met with some politeness from officials who hoped to gain something from them. During the century about 84,500 Jews were converted to Christianity in Russia, almost 70,000 of them to Orthodoxy. 2 Large numbers of these conversions were caused by pressure and fear, or by a desperate determination on the part of those who underwent them to retain their livelihood or their profession: for example, 3,000 Jews accepted conversion in Moscow at the time of the expulsions. Some converted Jews without doubt contributed gready to Russian culture: one may recall the names of Anton and Nikolay Rubinstein who did so much for Russian music; of the lawyers Gertsenshtein, Vinaver, Slyozberg and Koni; and of the philosopher S. A. Frank. However, the extent of the fusion of the Jews with Russian culture is not comparable with what was achieved in Hungary. The loss to Russia was great, and for this the rulers of Russia have themselves to blame. Even so, the extent of devotion to Russia of Jews who have left, or whose ancestors left that inhospitable land, remains a source of wonder to an observer who is neither Russian nor Jewish. One of the main themes of anti-Jewish arguments in Russia was that the Jews were a dangerous element because of their aptitude for revolutionary activity. Put in its crudest form, this is of course silly. There were admittedly many prominent Russian revolutionaries of Jewish origin (from Mark Natanson and Gershuni through Akselrod and Martov to Trotsky and Zinoviev), but the great majority of Jews as of Russians were not active revolutionaries. However, the matter is a little more complicated. The Jews of Russia were, thanks to the whole tradition ofJewish communities and the disorted character of the social structure of Russian Jewry, predisposed to intellectual professions; and they were, by the discriminatory legislation and practices of the Russian regime, arbitrarily excluded from such professions. The factors which

2

Ibid.

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made for the alienation of intellectuals in Russia from the regime, and which made for the emergence from the intellectual elite of Russia of the phenomenon of an intelligentsia, are generally well known: their isolation from their own uneducated compatriots, the contrast between European culture and Russian backwardness, between upperclass wealth and peasant misery, between modern humane ideas and the barbarous behavior of Russian bureaucrats. All these factors which impelled educated Russians to hate the regime and to sympathize with those who were trying to overthrow it, applied a fortiori to Jews, who were victims of an additional element of discrimination. Some Jews were able to obtain a modern education in Russia, or abroad. But there were larger numbers, with great intellectual abilities, who were frustrated by their inability to get the training which would develop and make use of their talents. There was, as it were, a great bottled-up reserve of unused, explosive Jewish intellectual talent. This is something which cannot be quantified, but it was something real, and it undoubtedly contributed powerfully to the sum total of revolutionary feeling in Russia. When the rulers of Russia spoke of the Jews as a revolutionary force, they were certainly sincere, and there was reality in their fear. The reality was of course of their own making. In Hungary, however, this was not the case. The Jews, as we have seen, had reason to be grateful to the Hungarian rulers, and they were extremely loyal. It is true that there were Hungarian Jewish radicals and Socialists, including men of great mental distinction such as Oszkar Jäszi and Ervin Szabo. But the rulers of Hungary were not afraid of radical intellectuals or of Socialist workers. There were only two sources of massive discontent which might represent a revolutionary danger: the suppressed and exploited peasantry, with its majority of dwarf holders or landless laborers; and the suppressed non-Magyar nationalities. With neither of these forces had the Jews either contact or sympathy. The Hungarian rulers tolerated trade unions in Budapest, but attempts to create agricultural workers' unions were ruthlessly crushed. The whole political system, including the parliamentary franchise, the county organization and the press and school laws, was designed to prevent the Magyar peasants and the non-Magyar nationalities from making themselves politically effective. The vast majority of patriotic Magyarized Hungarian Jews had no wish to see them effective, while such critics as Jäszi, who genuinely sought to reform the whole system, had no power. The pogrom as a Russian institution deserves a few words. Pogroms occurred in regions where the population was not Russian, but the orders to start them came from Russians. Ukrainian or Romanian peasants might be engaged in a class struggle with Jewish merchants: anti-Semitism arose as "the Socialism of the imbecile." This was not the motive of the Russian officials:

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they regarded Jews as a dangerous subversive element threatening Russian society. Later, especially in the years 1903-1906, Russian police officials learned deliberately to use the Jews as scapegoats against which to canalize revolutionary feeling. The pogroms of 1881, which though milder than those of 1903-1906 were even more important as a historical landmark, have, it seems to me, a more complex origin. From the 1880s onward, a new trend is visible in Russian conservatism. The old paternalism, which believed it was acting for the good of the people by excluding them altogether from any part in the political process, was gradually replaced by a sort of grass-roots populism - in the American sense of the word, the populism of the "Know-nothings," not the Socialist populism of the narodniki. This attitude was anti-intellectual, antirational, anti-European; it stressed the good sense and loyalty of the Russian peasants and their devotion to the autocracy; and it was determined to mobilize the people in defense of the autocracy. In this sense it was a democratic movement, though its enemies were those who professed any sort of European democratic doctrine, and first and foremost the Jews. It was essentially a development of the third word in Uvarov's slogan of samoderzhavie, pravoslavie and narodnost. It was associated with Russian nationalism, based on the Great Russian language, and on policies of Russification. The men of the Svyasbchonnaya Druzhina of 1881 (of whom too little is known, and who certainly had their part in the pogrom of 1881) contributed to this trend; so did Katkov, and still more did Pobedonostsev, in whom Orthodox piety and Russian nationalism are combined with a strong dose of grass-roots populism. There is no reason to doubt the sincere belief of these men that the Jews were a major source of what they regarded as the vile infections of liberalism or revolution. They did not invent anti-Semitic legends to deceive others: they believed in them. In the next generation the work was carried on by the Union of the Russian People, by such men as Krushevan (a Romanian name). The Union displayed a combination of reactionary nostalgia, streamlined mass mobilization and, of course, anti-Semitism which made it an interesting prototype of later Fascist movements. It is, however, important to note that this trend was gathering support among the Russian and Ukrainian population. That the Russian workers and peasants were solidly and profoundly democratic and Socialist, and that the pogroms were the work of only a few traitors to the working class, is a pious myth. It was workers and peasants who smashed Jewish shops and murdered Jewish children. These were not organized members of Menshevik organizations or the printers' union, of course, or cadres of the SR Party, but manual workers in town or country nonetheless. To say that

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pogroms were the work of the Lumpenproletariat does not get us much further. To say that those workers who behave like louts, behave like louts, is an empty tautology. The truth is that Russification, nationalist hysteria, antiSemitism and hate propaganda against intellectuals and undefined exploiters was an attractive demagogic package, and might well have won massive support in Russia if revolution had not come when it did. Indeed, it is arguable that precisely this package has proved very attractive in recent years to a regime which claims to be inspired by the universalist ideals of Communism. In Hungary there were no pogroms, though there was in the early 1880s a ritual murder scandal, which gave rise to a certain amount of anti-Semitic propaganda. However, it would be wrong to conclude from the record of Hungarian policy between 1867 and 1918 that there was no latent antiSemitism among the Magyars. We have already seen that the Slovak and Romanian populations in Hungary were anti-Jewish on both economic and national grounds. The Magyar peasants in central Hungary had no such powerful motives to dislike Jews, but they were not particularly friendly. The favorable attitude toward Jews was essentially the work of the political class. The Hungarian leaders of the Dualist era were men of liberal or radical antecedents. The ideals of 1848 still meant much to them, even if they constandy violated them in their treatment of their own peasants and of the non-Magyars. These men were oligarchs, with a strong belief in individual liberty and individual enterprise derived from an aristocratic tradition and perhaps also from the impact of Protestantism, which had once been very strong in Hungary and to which a large minority still belonged. This individualism went together with great pride in their own culture, the other side of which was a passionate national self-righteousness. These men had no equivalent in the political class of Russia. In their scheme of things, in their model for the future of Hungary, the Jews fitted well. With the collapse of both Imperial Russia and the Habsburg Monarchy, all this changed. Hungary experienced revolution, and Communists came to power in March 1919, under the leadership of Bela Kun, in whose government numerous prominent persons were Jews. The identification ofJews with subversion and revolution, which had been a commonplace in Imperial Russia, now became widespread among the Hungarian political class. This class too had changed its nature. The higher nobility had become much less influential, and power was passing to a middle class, largely though not wholly derived from the lesser nobility, consisting of army officers and bureaucrats. Among the latter was a substantial number of former officials who had been expelled, or had fled,fromtheir homelands when these passed under Romanian, Yugoslav

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or Czechoslovak rule. Many of these persons held the Jews responsible for their humiliations. After the collapse of Bela Kun in the winter of 1918-1919, many Jews were imprisoned, many were tortured and some were killed. During the 1920s, under the leadership of Count Stephen Bethlen, more civilized forms of government were restored. Jews could once more go about their affairs in business, the professions and the press. Overwhelmingly, they continued to be enthusiastic Magyar patriots, passionately though unsuccessfully clamoring for the restoration of the lost provinces to Hungary. In these provinces, the Jews who remained under the new states were for the most part still Hungarian in sympathy. Their loyalty to Hungary in adversity won them the dislike, and at times the persecution of the officials from Prague, Bucharest and Belgrade. Liberals and Social Democrats, among whom in Budapest were many Jews, were tolerated by the Bethlen regime provided that they paid no attention to the grievances of the poor peasants and agricultural workers. Under Bethlen parliamentary government was revived, but the regime's supremacy in the countryside was ensured by the open ballot in rural constituencies. During the 1920s there was a notable growth of industry in Hungary, in which state enterprise played an important part. Increasing numbers of Magyars, from small landowning or bureaucratic or prosperous peasant families, sought careers in business. These people found that many of the jobs they coveted were held by Jews, and that Jews of their own age-group were competing for the new positions. The slump of the early 1930s reduced the openings and so sharpened the competition, which also became very acute in the legal, medical, teaching and other professions. As a result of these trends, powerful economic reinforcement was given to the earlier political antiSemitism. The government of General Gyula Gömbös (1932-1936) largely represented this rising Hungarian middle class, which was passionately nationalist, hostile to all forms of liberalism or Marxism, and saw in the Jews both economic rivals and ideological enemies. A further powerful influence was the success of Hitler's Third Reich in reasserting German power in Central Europe in the face of ineffectual resistance from the Western Powers. Hungarian hopes of recovering lost provinces were increasingly pinned on Hitler. Gömbös' successors, and Regent Horthy, tried to cooperate with Hitler while keeping the Hungarian Fascists (who had some socially radical aims, including land reform, most distasteful to the regime) out of power. They had some success, as they regained large territories, kept power in their hands until 1944, and limited their anti-Jewish policies (designed to please Hider) to comparatively mild measures. However, as Istvän Bibo shows in his brilliant and moving essay of 1948, A zsidokerdes Magyarorszdgon,3 these policies only

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served to blind the Hungarian public to the real dangers, blunted their moral sense and systematically discouraged honest thinking and civil courage. In the end it was not the fanatical Fascist extremists of Szälasi but the respectable bourgeois group led by Imredy, the pro-Hitler wing of the regime, which organized the deportation of hundreds of thousands ofJews to extermination camps. The victims included those Jews who had been reincorporated in Hungary by the territorial changes of 1938,1939,1940 and 1941. These same Jews had been urged in 1941, as Hungarian patriots, to record themselves as Magyars for the Census of 1941, and had mosdy done so. Their names were useful then for inflating the statistics, but in 1944 they were required by Hungary only as Dead Souls. The Hungarian Jews from northern Transylvania perished almost entirely, but those who remained in the south survived thanks to the protection of a conservative Romanian general. As for the massacre ofJews in Novi Sad, which had preceded the deportations by nearly two years, that too was not the work of Fascist fanatics: its authors were regular Hungarian army officers. The truth is that scapegoats do not explain historical tragedies. We can no more blame the Hungarian horror on big landowners or Fascist cliques than we can blame Russian pogroms on police agents or undefined Lumpenproletarier. The truth is that in both countries large sections of the middle classes, peasants and workers supported the men who performed the horrors. Of Imperial Russia's successor, the Soviet Union, I need add only a few words, for the attitude of the Soviet rulers toward the Jews and toward Israel is a much-discussed and well-known subject in these days. The prominence of persons of Jewish origin in the political and economic leadership of Soviet Russia was striking in the early 1920s. But as early as the discomfiture of Trotsky and of Zinoviev in 1925-1927 the number of Jews in positions of decisive power diminished. This was accentuated by the Great Purge, a very large number of whose victims were Jews. Those who were unable to escape from Hitler's invading armies were also very numerous. In the post-war Soviet Union one may perhaps say that it was precisely that characteristic of Jews which had previously disposed them to revolutionary action or sympathy under the Czars, which now made them unacceptable to a government whose basis of legitimacy was supposed to be the preservation and extension of revolution - namely their tendency to think internationally. The creation of Israel and the existence of a great Jewish community in the United States made

3

Istvän Bibo, Harmadik Ut: politikai es törteneti tanulmänyok, edited by Zoltan Szabo for the Hungarian Writers Union Abroad, London 1960.

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plausible the accusation against the Soviet Jews of being "rootless cosmopolitans." At the same time anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli propaganda obtained for Soviet policy the same sort of political goodwill in strategically interesting Arab states as Hitler's anti-Semitism had obtained for German policy in strategically important Danubian states in the 1930s. We have seen that Russian and Hungarian policies toward Jews differed radically, but that both ended in tragedy. Both show the terrible vulnerability of a culturally very distinct, commercially and intellectually very gifted community in a society which is undergoing forced economic modernization and which lacks either capitalist or liberal traditions. In such conditions the protection of a strong and liberally-minded but small upper class can be beneficial for a time; but if this class is maintaining itself in defiance of the wishes of large social and national groups among its subjects, its protection must be precarious; and when it loses power, its proteges have to face the hatred of those whose aspirations it had frustrated.

Part VI Poland

H E R B E R T A . STRAUSS

Poland - Culture of Antisemitism Although Polish-Jewish culture was destined to become the dominant influence on Jews in the modern world, though sea-changed in migration, it was unique among European Jewish settlements in every dimension one cares to analyze. The folk communities they perpetuated through the modern era had remained archetypes of Jewish tradition. Their network of secular, especially political organizations, shaped Jewish politics in Palestine/Israel and the English-speaking-world. Vasdy superior in numbers to any other Jewish immigrant group, Jews from Eastern Europe shaped the institutional patterns created earlier, e. g. by German Jewry in the United States, transformed their personnel, entered their boards, and redefined their functions. That the destruction of European Jewry, the almost total obliteration of Polish Jewry, were perpetrated on Polish soil engraved the archetypal quality of Polish Jewry that much more deeply on 20th century Jewish culture. It was a culture touched by numerous ironies and wrenching incongruities. Since 1945, acculturation and integration have become hallmarks of Jewish life, modernization the outstanding quality of life in the Jewish state. Polish Jewry has bequeathed only one aspect of this condition, the organizational and cultural self-maintenance of a group whose core members are committed to perpetuating it. Its collective experience in Poland was cut short before the still marginal but growing tendency to acculturate became a notable public presence. Polish Jewish gut memory preserved the experience of living in differentiated Jewish in-groups, and it harbored a collective memory of seeing the world around Jewry as hostile. Certainly, with the onset of the Great Depression in Poland in 1931, and with the government of the colonels following Pilsudski's death in 1936, Jews felt under attack, ostracized, despised. During the Nazi occupation, Poles failed to overcome the minority barriers created earlier and to solidarize with their Jewish fellow-citizens, if indeed they were perceived as fellow citizens, notwithstanding the as yet not fully or finally documented Polish aid and sacrifice for the prime victims of Nazi machine terror. This imprinted on Jews in Poland a siege mentality. That emancipation

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was not a collective experience on Western levels or models influenced the behavior of immigrant communities at least for a generation or two. Reenforcing the deep shock created by the Holocaust, it marred the unprecedented success story of post-1945 Jewish life and laced the collective sense of security with unconscious anxieties inherited from another time and place. This gap between historic perception and historic realities belongs to as yet unrecognized tribal experiences lasting through the changes inherent in migration and resetdement. It has formed Jewish self-understanding together with the holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel. At the base of this unique mentality of Polish Jewry, the hard facts of PolishJewish relations are easily discernible. They are articulated or presupposed in these readings, no matter what slice of reality they select for scrutiny. No other Central and West European Jewry equaled the number of Jews and their communal organization. Jews made up ten percent of the new Polish state. They were concentrated in urban centers or migrated to such centers. In some of these, Jews made up from 20 to 33 % of the population - there had been Jewish majorities in Polish cities in the 19th century. They represented a major minority - properly called a compact minority - in a state whose political myopia destroyed the opportunity, if it was ever present, to unify the diverse cultural groups into a political commonwealth modeled on Swiss or Soviet (constitutional!) models. Jews took part in Polish politics by forming exclusively Jewish parties based on the Jewish vote and Jewish interests. They were perceived like other non-Polish-speaking minorities professing alien, nonCatholic religions (like Ukrainians or Protestants) in this political context. Besides in language and religion, Jewish occupations also differed from the Polish structure. Jews were concentrated predominandy in non-agrarian pursuits: in 1921,42 % were counted in industry and the crafts, 37 % in trade, with just 4 % in agriculture. The same 1921 census counted 60 % of gainfully employed Poles in agriculture. One reading suggests refinement in the census categories used that make these differences still more significant (Marcus). They had been brought about by centuries of forcing Jews into occupations were gentry, nobility, or church rulers were able to exploit them. In principle, they resemble West European Jewish occupational distributions. What turned them into basic factors in Polish antisemitism was the general backwardness of Polish economic development. The thesis does no apply that antisemitism was "caused" by decaying capitalism. Here capitalism was as yet undeveloped, industry and the factory system established in some manufacturing areas (textile, coal, iron, later armaments) coexisted with a numerically weak middle class and a mostly rural and pre-industrial handicraft economy. Jews had pioneered industrial

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development, banking, and international trade and finance. Yet, developments had not been sufficiently differentiated to absorb a new (and newly trained) generation in the cities, pushing for what was considered the proper "Polish" share of the economic pie. Economic "Polonization" corresponded to the inability of Polish political elites and a broad spectrum of Polish political parties and organizations to break the confines of Polish self-perception as Catholic and Polish-speaking natives. This most basic flaw, inherited from past strife and over a century of Diaspora Polish nationalism before 1918 and the emotionalized labor of breaking the fetters of empires, provided one of the more basic explanatory contexts for Polish antisemitism in the inter-war period. Whether it meted out a more severe treatment to Jews as compared to other minorities is a moot point if understood as a quest for a comparative de facto answer. But, as a guide to Polish antisemitism, even during the several periods of improvement in Polish-Jewish relations, it has excellent heuristic value. The entire older generation of Polish Jewish scholars that created the field of Polish-Jewish political, economic, and social history has reported on the extraordinary violence and ubiquity of antisemitism in Poland. The readings in this chapter taken from younger historians reflect their experiences only in part. Yet, even a contemporary positivistic and quantitative economic historian like Marcus feels constrained to insert this oris de coeur'mxoa discussion of the period beginning in 1931 and ending only with the German attack on Poland in 1939 (p. 1108): The popular appeal of antisemitism, and its significance in the contest for power,filledthe Jews with horror. The humiliation of being daily vilified and abused, unfairly accused, and physically threatened is difficult to imagine by anyone fortunate enough not to have experienced it.

On antisemitism among Poles, the essays in this chapter reflect a range of judgments and use several methodologies to arrive at syntheses. Some of the readings approach this issue through a comparative perspective. Politically, the Jewish minority, looking back at a history of pogroms and oppression under Czarist domination, was disgusted by war- and post-war-violence against Jews by Poles and/or on Polish soil. It now supported attempts at the Versailles Peace Conference to write international guaranties of its minority status into postwar Polish politics. The ensuing national resentment among Polish politicians about this limitation of the new sovereignty - ascribed to American and English Jewish influence - caused minority guaranties to be honored in the breach. Jewish politics in inter-war Poland was expressed through political parties (Orthodox, Orthodox-Zionist, Zionist, Socialist-Bundist, being the major ones) derived from internal Jewish political history and the failure of

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emancipation/integration as viable Utopias for the Jewish "masses." At least one reading (Marcus) raises the revisionist (if unrealistic) question if more positive attitudes towards the as yet vulnerable and thus triumphalist Polish nationalism might have changed Polish resentment, since only the recessionist Orthodox party Agudatk Yisrael cooperated with the government (in exchange for political favors). Other readings (Mendelsohn, Davies) stress the effect of Polish mono-nationalism on ethnic-national minorities and the need of Polish politicians to limit centrifugal tendencies - but Jews, having no territory, would hardly have been a threat in this direction! The famed "zydokommuna" (Jewish Bolshevism, in Nazi parlance) was a useful propaganda stereotype and Buergerschreck among all extreme Right parties at the time, vide Nazism, even if examples ofJewish intellectual and political extremism could be demonstrated as "environmental support." (That post-war Communist politicians and intra-party power blocks did not refrain from using antisemitic stereotypes and racial suspicions suggests that antisemitism had been a cultural norm even among Communists: there is evidence that in post-war indoctrination, the imposition of Soviet-style communism on postwar Poland was blamed on "Stalin's Jews" - the provisional government installed at Lublin in 1944/1945 - to be replaced by truly Polish national communism.) The generalization offered above for a consistent Polish government policy towards Jews is refined and detailed in Gutman's discussion of interwar politics. The essay anchors "entrenched Jew-hatred as a constant element in the political and social atmosphere in Poland" in the murderous turbulences to which war and revolutionary anarchy exposed Jews between 1918 and 1923. (Davies' detailed explanation of the local forces and accidental circumstances at work in some of these pogroms does not reflect on the long-range impact of these experiences on perpetrators and victims alike. The political center of nationalist and antisemitic policies was the Endek party (National Democratic Party), comprising the middle and lower middle classes, the intelligentsia and extended over the countryside and into radical youth organizations (Marcus). Main periods of influence were the immediate post-war and the last eight or nine years of the Republic when Endek aggression and violence spilled over into open terror in the streets and the universities (Heller). Beyrau suggests further that while the party had lost political influence with the establishment of the Pilsudski regime (1926) and had lost its "moderate" nationalist center to government parties, Pilsudki's successors used antisemitism to include Right extremists in their power base to oppose workers' and peasants' unrest more effectively. Nationalism, Polonization, Catholic folk and church antisemitism while traditional, served to rationalize the use of the street and of government

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(or institutional) policies to gain economic or career advantages. During the Pilsudski era, ideology and policy did not coincide, increasingly so with the start of the Depression. Several readings point to influences or parallels of Polish aggression and policies with Nazi antisemitism - Poland had been the first state to conclude a non-aggression pact with nazi Germany in January 1934. That thus of the twenty years of the Republic (1918-1939), at best seven are being described as relatively free of street terror, supports the perception of Polish antisemitism as a political, ideological, and religious norm for the period. Marcus' observation that the small crafts and trade segments of the Jewish community suffered decidedly more from street terror than from government economic discrimination, that could be neutralized or turned aside in several ways in the 1930s, supports Beyrau's view that the economic backwardness, low productivity, lack of investment, and overpopulation, had locked Jews and Christians into misery and stagnation. That, statistically, Jewish income averages lay above those of gainfully employed Polish Christians (Marcus) even during the Depression, merely hides the yawning gap between the small Jewish entrepreneurial class and the Jewish poor, about half of them living under the poverty line. The forces and structures on which this type of analysis is brought to bear in these readings suggest a near inevitability as majority and minority faced each other in what appeared like predetermined conflict situations. The method no doubt loads the case for hostility as the basic mode - yet, Jews in Poland played increasingly significant roles in the professions (law, medicine, government service). As late as 1938/39, 8.2 % of university graduates (4,100 students) were Jews (the percentage was almost 25 in 1921/22) (Beyrau). Numerous clauses and professional boycott campaigns were directed against persons who functioned within the Polish economic and intellectual system. Jews also served in the Polish armed forces, fought the German army and SS troops and the cruelties and murders of the occupation, even if the National Army directed from London incurred a massive burden of guilt by failing to cooperate effectively with the Jewish underground. Somewhat surprisingly, quantitative studies of Polish Jewish group relations for most of these situations appear not to have been undertaken, for reasons probably influenced by post-war Polish Communist policies towards its remaining Jews and towards Jewish scholarship. Also missing is a systematic study of the Polish church, its public and published documents, its archives and educational systems, concerning Catholic attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. Readings generally assert that nationalism and Polonization were shared goals for Right wing parties and dignitaries alike - vide the frequently cited pastoral letter issued by the Primate of the Polish Church, Cardinal Hlond, in 1936 (e. g., Heller).

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Compared to the religious-cultural ideologies, however, the significance of the church's role as a large landowner appears less significant as a motive in its antisemitism. Church land was included in land reform distributions (Davies). On the attitudes of peasants towards Jews and their mobilization for antisemitic parties like Endek, or on their role in pogroms, information appears to be spotty and, in part, contradictory. Most writers dealing with the politics and economics of antisemitism consider Judaeo-phobia an urban phenomenon, with the streets, parliament legislation, the universities as stages of action. Publicity, from dailies to books, serves as a source for information. The countryside and the peasantry - 60 °/o of the Polish population was engaged in agriculture in 1921 (according to census figures, cf. readings Gutman, Beyrau, Davies) - remain largely neglected in histories of PolishJewish relations. For one region and an earlier period (Galicia, late 19th century) Golczewski presents evidence that antisemitism was mobilized by populist demagogues. He stresses, however, that "anti-Judaism was a long established sentiment, and the rural population . . . in the 1890s was more easily won over by traditionally established arguments . . . " (Golczewski p. 1001). For Czarist-controlled Poland and for Jews in Russia, readings suggest (cf. last chapter, pp. 1172 ff.) as well that peasants appeared in villages or towns in the 1881 disturbances, riding horse-drawn waggons and, after hearing a presumably topical sermon, ready to begin looting Jewish properties and stores. The mass murders of the immediate post-war period ("the wave of pogroms sweeping Poland in 1918-1920") took place in a "long list of cities and towns in eastern Poland" (Gutman, p. 1046). For the economically declining and capital-starved Polish agriculture of the inter-war period, Davies graphically diagnoses conditions like rural over-population, under-capitalization, lack of credit institutions, low or falling commodity prices, as the basic causes of "usury" and peasant demoralization (alcoholism) - both traditionally blamed on the Jews. That the ensuing rural unrest and strikes led to the Warsaw government's scapegoating of Jews and a stronger role for Right radical antisemitism has been mentioned earlier. Still, none of the readings touching upon rural distress offers insights into rural attitudes towards Jews. Was anti-Jewish action confined to what Jews and historians, urbanized alike, were finding in their urban and literate sources, or saw before their eyes in the cities and towns? The questions raised here and discussed in socio-economic and political terms by most analysts need to be supplemented by studies concentrating on long-range and structural factors presupposed or just mentioned parenthetically in traditional document-oriented analysis. One of the long-range contexts, the controlling impact of Catholic church and folk attitudes has already

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been allued to - the specific local or national form of Catholic policy embraced by an institution that, perceived itself, since the Counter-Reformation, as wedged in between powerful non-Catholic blocks from all directions of the compass beyond its frontiers. Its church folk had been largely untouched by the liberalizing and modernizing currents represented by the aristocratic bishops and cardinals of the West (in spite of Pio Nono) and/or its educated middle class. Unlike Western contexts, there had been no liberal-dominated Zeitgeist in the Polish Diaspora whose nationalism rested on more elementary ideological premises such as religion, folk worship, and nationalism taking its cuesfromthe military value system of the pre-industrial nobility. In a political atmosphere described as "radical" for the inter-war period (Marcus, Beyrau, Davies, Heller) and prone to street violence in chronically depressed economic conditions for much of the (over-) population and for most of the period, the Polish form of church anti-modernism, as suggested by the documents (so far out of context, however), formed most likely one of the constant and long-range bases for the events described in these readings. Two of the readings stress the quality of Polish and Jewish group images and relations as long-range structures forming Polish antisemitism. One of these, the belief that Poles viewed Jews as a caste, originated, of course, with Max Weber's sociological analysis. It has long been critically dealt with by Jewish social historians like Salo W. Baron, but had been revived by the more contemporary Polish-Jewish historians Aleksander Hertz and Celia Heller. Several strains of observed (or experienced!) behavior among Poles as well as Jews are obviously borne out by studies unencumbered by this conceptual freight. They cite empirical evidence for the ascription of inferior status to Jews and observe its psychological and behavioral results for majority-minority relations. They point to racist stereotyping of Jews. As a matter of the historic record, the image of Jewish inferiority inspired the fascist street gangs of the twenties and thirties. The authors also adduce evidence for the warping of mutuality and self-images in social interaction from daily life to inter-marriages. Heller's conceptualization fails, however, to differentiate adequately between the alien or foreign image and the caste image for the effect of stereotyped hatred on perceptions. The main difficulty with the concept of caste remains that the closed character of the Indian model does not hold true for the 19th and 20th centuries social mobility and cultural interpenetration even for backward Polish social conditions. Ideologicallyfreightedalso is the "Volksklasse "concept adduced by Beyrau. It is derivedfromthe work of Abram Leon1 where it represents a class struggle 1

Abram Leon, The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, New York 1970.

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interpretation of the facts of Jewish-Polish structural economic and social differences. Beyrau properly points out the historic function of the occupations Jews had been forced into for modern antisemitism as well as for movements for Jewish self-assertion like Zionism or Diaspora autonomy. By the period investigated in these readings, simplified class schemes, however, had long been abandoned. The community "had already outgrown its ancient forms" but had not yet reached socio-economic and cultural stability when its life was cut short. Terms like caste and people's class need to be tested against the differentiated social, cultural, political, etc. group structure of Polish Jewry. It can be reconstructed from the sources. It might well demonstrate a range of group perceptions and auto-stereotypes that renders the models implied in these terms part of the large social change affecting Polish Jewry. It might also show the vitality that characterized the inner and organizational life of the Jewish community as it modified Jewish social psychology as well as Jewish social structure. It might take account of the mostly ignored progress ofJewish integration into Polish society. Still, both concepts, properly modified and empirically controlled, suggest long-range dimensions in Jewish-Polish and Polish-Jewish relations, as either groups' was engulfed in its modernization. Pursuing the quest for Polish traditions relating to Jews one step further, the final reading of this chapter, in its own words, uses a "semiotic" analysis of Polish folklore materials concerning Jews, defining the texts as "mythologies [that reflect] the group's global ideas about its existence in the world and/or normative rules on how to live." 2 The methods of interpretation used form not only part of a needed study of Polish sub-literary and sub-official-religious beliefs - they also open up layers of the image of Jews and Judaism typical for countries whose urban development had been of relatively recent date, as was the case of Poland: 60 °/o of Poland's population, as pointed out above, were actually engaged in agriculture, mostly of a small or marginal nature, and peasants must be presumed to carry over their mentalities into urban environment at least for first generation migrants, if not for much longer. For the present context, the significant gain achieved is not necessarily the well-known bi-polarity of the magic world view, or of the tremendum et numinosum of religious experience. Contacts with the forces beyond the surface of daily experience, the suppressed role of pre-Christian forces now turned into devils, are part of European mythology. Bartoczewski properly draws attention to the standard elements of the Jew image he sees in Polish

2

D . M . Segal, "Problems in the Semiotic Study of Mythology," D . D . Lucid (ed.), Soviet Semiotics, Baltimore 1977, pp. 59-60.

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folklore texts. He correctly stresses that his interpretation of Polish mythology concerning Jews reveals standard features typical of mythological thought. They must not be over-interpreted as pertaining exclusively to Jews. Significant, however, is the content of the features ascribed to Jews specifically. They reveal a structure of stereotyping that includes physical features, customs experienced as ridiculous and worthy of being mocked, a view of Jewish economic and social behavior reflecting the fundamental value clash between "true work" (physical) and "mere trading." Marcus' analysis of economic development had already drawn attention to this pre-commercial and preindustrial value system probably general in European countries prior to the development of commercial classes. The folklore image of the Jewish religion recognizably carries on similarly general European associations e. g. with the pig ("Judensau") or the goat, and preserves the myth of Jewish ritual murder, the blood libel, and belief in the supernatural power ofJews and their religious leaders - for better and worse in line with this view. Obviously, theology and church doctrine were able to look back at a long history of placing distance between theological purity and folk "superstitions." We need considerably more study and international comparisons to penetrate the peasants' world in a period that revived a virulent political antisemitism. Only then can we answer the question how this premodern image of the Jew related to modern antisemitism. The way these customs and views are "caked" together, to use Sumner's phrase of 1904, the way it was mobilized by political or other interests - and by the church seeing folk religion as one of its bulwarks against modernity - points to a potentially fertile field of investigation. Appeals to the cosmology of this Jew image are traceable in Nazi propaganda during the Holocaust period. They typically represent one of the double-faced thrusts of the Holocaust, the archaic interpenetrating the technological hubris.

N O R M A N DAVIES

Polish-Jewish Relations: Historie Background"' Zydzi The Jewish Community In the centuries preceding the Partitions, the Polish - Lithuanian Republic had progressively attracted to itself the largest Jewish community in Europe. The Jewish estate had multiplied faster than any other social group. The great catastrophes of Chmielnicki's Rebellion and of the Massacre of Human proved to be only temporary setbacks. From some 200,000 at the time of the Republic's formation in 1569, the total number of Jews had increased to almost 800,000 at the moment of the Republic's demise. During the nineteenth century, the lands of partitioned Poland harboured the main reservoir of Jewish manpower and intellectual dynamism in the world, and, until the great Exodus to America reached its height, contained four-fifths of world Jewry. In the words of Responsa No. 73, of the great Cracovian rabbi Moses Isserles 'Remuh' (1510-72): 'It is better to live on dry bread, but in peace, in Poland.' Similarly, in one of the puns so beloved of Hebrew scholars, Polin (Poland) stood for 'poh-lin: Here, one rests'.1 As a result of changing political conditions, the term 'Polish Jew' possessed several different connotations. In its original sense, it simply referred to the Jewish population of the former Polish state, and included people who came to think of themselves not as 'Polish' but as 'Russian', 'Galician', or even 'German'Jews. In later times, it referred either to Jewish citizens of the reborn

* From Norman Davies, God's Playground, A History of Poland in Two Volumes, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981, Π, 1795 to the Present, abridged pp. 240-252, 404-414. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 The most convenient source of reliable information on Polish Jewry is to be found in the articles of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1971, especially under 'Poland', xiii. 710-790. The standard work, Simon M. Dubnow, The History ofthe Jews in Russia and Poland, Philadelphia 1916-20, 3 vols., is still useful, if somewhat tendentious. See also Michal Borwicz, A Thousand Years offewish Life in Poland, Paris 1955; Bernard Weinryb, The Jews ofPoland, Philadelphia 1973; and Irving Howe, World of our Fathers, the Jews of Eastern Europe, New York 1976.

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Polish Republics, or else to that sector of East European Jewry which was assimilated into Polish language and culture. In the course of the nineteenth century, the Jewish community was subjected to the forces of radical change which beset all remnants of the defunct Republic. In many ways, its transformation followed a path parallel to that of the wider Polish community. At the outset, its fortunes centred on the system of separate estates of the realm, whose ancient legal privileges were now set to be destroyed. At the end, it was a modern nation united only by the bonds of common origins and of common identity. As with many other social groups, the old order had to be dismantled before the new one could be assembled. In the process, many elements of the old order were lost forever. Confusion and insecurity were increased, not diminished. As the peasants, too, were to find, emancipation was not necessarily equivalent to liberation. Jewish Emancipation proceeded at a different pace, and by different methods, in each of the three Partitions. In the immediate aftermath of 1773, both Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa began by expelling numerous poor Jews back into Poland in a move to 'protect' their new Christian subjects. In Galicia, important reforms were initiated in 1782 by Joseph Π, who viewed Jewish autonomy as an anachronism. By introducing state education and military service, and by abolishing the kabaL, he sought to bring the Jews into the mainstream of public life and German culture. In Russia, after some vacillation, Catherine Π pursued the simpler aim of keeping the Jews apart from the population at large. In 1786, she restricted Jewish residence to the cities, and from 1791 to a Pale of Settlement which was gradually expanded over succeeding decades to cover twenty-five western gubernias of the Empire. With the exceptions of the Crimea and Bessarabia, the territory of the Pale as finally defined in 1835 coincided very largely with the lands annexed by Russia from Poland - Lithuania. In the Duchy of Warsaw, the decree of 1807 on personal liberty, which ended serfdom, was suspended in relation to the Jews, and was never fully implemented. In Prussia, where Frederick Π had extended limited protection to wealthy Jews in certain specified professions, full civic equality was established in 1812. Thus, by the end of the Napoleonic period, many ambiguities and disabilities remained. In the Congress Kingdom, as in Prussia, the granting of civil equality in 1822 was attended by the abolition of the kahal. Other restrictions, such as the clauses De non tolerandis Judaeis in municipal charters, remained in force until 1862. In the Prussian provinces newly acquired by the Treaty of Vienna, the principle ofJewish Emancipation was not put into effect until 1847; in Austria, it had to wait until 1848, and in some minor respects, until 1867; in the realms of the Tsar, it was never permanently established. In the Russian Empire, the draconian measures of

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Nicholas I, briefly relaxed under Alexander Π, were swifdy reinstated in the reign of Alexander ΙΠ. According to the May Laws of 1882, the regulations of the Pale were to be strictly enforced; Jews were to be barred from the senior ranks of the army and bureaucracy, and from buying land; they were to be given only limited access to secondary and higher education, to the professions, or to posts in local government. Further relaxations introduced in 1905-6 had little time to take effect before the Empire itself was swept away. Thus, if in the old Republic, the children of Israel had sometimes felt that they were bondsmen in the Land of Egypt, in Russia, they knew for certain that they had been carried off into the Babylonian Captivity. In all three Partitions, the imposition of the institutions of the authoritarian state affected every aspect ofJewish life. The gradual reduction in the jurisdiction of the kahal, and the growth of the powers of the state authorities, meant that the Jews for the first time became full citizens of the countries in which they lived. Whereas in Poland - Lithuania, they had managed their own affairs in their own way, they now had to assume a civilian identity similar to that of all other citizens. For one thing, they incurred the wrath of officialdom, and the resentment of other tax-payers and conscripts. For another thing, in order to be taxed and conscripted, they needed to appear on the official Registers; and in order to be registered, they needed to be given surnames. In Austria and Russia, registration proceeded from 1791; in Prussia, which at that time included Warsaw, it was carried out by the Judenreglement of 1797. In Galicia and in Prussia, the Jews were often awarded surnames according to the dictates of German officials, who used the occasion to exercise their limited sense of poetic invention. In this way, the world was given the Apfelbaums, Rosenblums, Weingartens, Goldfarbs, Silbersteins, Schwartzkopfs, and Weissmanns. In the Russian Pale, the Jews frequently adopted a surname based on their family's city of origin or, like the ex-slaves in America, on the name of the noble proprietor of the estate where they lived. Thus in addition to the Warschauers, Wieners, Posners, Minskers, and Pinskers, there appeared Jewish Potockis, Jewish Czartoryskis, and Jewish Wisniowieckis. Official hostility was expressed in a variety of ways. In Galicia, special taxes were imposed on religious practices. The candle-tax, and the levy assessed on the attendance roll of the synagogues, penalized the Jews' devotion to their religion. In the Congress Kingdom, a liquor-tax struck specially hard at Jewish licensees. In Russia from 1805, military conscription frequendy took the form of the wholesale deportation of entire age-groups of Jewish youth to distant garrisons of the Empire. In this respect, the Jewish towns of the Pale suffered the same brutal treatment as the settlements of petty Polish nobility. Under Nicholas I, Jewish conscripts came under heavy pressure to submit to Chris-

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tian baptism. Repeated attempts were made to suppress Jewish education. In 1835, the use of Hebrew in schools, and in official documents, was formally banned - though to little immediate effect. In the second half of the century, the Russification of public life affected the Jews no less than the Poles. The endemic pogroms which followed the May Laws were largely organized by official provocateurs. The appearance of the police-sponsored Jew-baiting gangs, the Black Hundreds, was but the latest expression of a rooted conviction in official circles that all Jews were potentially disloyal. Social mobility gready increased. No longer confined to their own ghettos, Jewish families could try to migrate to the suburbs, to the countryside, or even to foreign countries. In Galicia, it was often said in jest that the only successful expedition of 1848 was the Long March of the Jews on the two miles from Kazimierz to Cracow. In Russian Poland, in Warsaw and Lodz, wealthy Jewish families moved out from the city centres. In some cases, they moved over the frontier into Galicia where they were free to buy land. Economic constraints and severe overcrowding forced increasing numbers to emigrate abroad. Between 1800 and 1880, the natural increase of the Jews of the Pale was in the order of 500 per cent. Similar conditions prevailed in Galicia. At the end of the century, the threat of active persecution increased emigration and turned a steady stream into a stampede which continued until the First World War. Although statistics vary, there can be little doubt that more Jews left the Polish lands than stayed behind. They went in stages: first to Vienna or Berlin, then to England or France, and above all to America. Some were well prepared, and departed legally. Invited by their Landmannschaft or 'Regional Council' abroad, they were provided with tickets for the journey and with work when they arrived. Others departed illegally, especially from Russia, and could make no preparations. At the ports of embarkation, they sold themselves to redemption agents, who gave them a free passage to America in exchange for three, five, or seven years' bonded labour on arrival.2 Political and cultural disintegration proceeded apace. In a world where traditional structures were visibly crumbling, the attitudes of the Jewish community polarized on all the issues of the day. Conservative elements, unable to rule by authority, sought at all costs to preserve the purity of the Orthodox Jewish religion. The Chassidic challenge, first mounted in the eighteenth century, gained farther strength in the nineteenth. Radical elements, reacting strongly against the authoritarian habits of the kahal, were pushed in the directions of Assimilation, of Socialism and Marxism, and 2

Markus Wischnitzer, To dwell in safety: the story of Jewish migration since 1800, Philadelphia 1948.

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eventually of Zionism. Modern Jewish leaders worked to reconcile the numberless antagonisms which arose not only within the bounds of the Jewish community itself, but equally between the Jews and each of the nationalist movements of the region. By 1918, when the collapse of the partitioning powers heralded a new era, the spectrum of Jewish politics revealed every conceivable permutation of social, religious, and ideological interests. None the less, the traditional practices of Judaism maintained their hold on the Jewish masses throughout the nineteenth century. Whilst the schism between the Mitnaggedim and the Chassidim continued, the influence of Reformed Judaism, emanating from the rabbinical Conferences in Germany in the 1840s, made only a marginal impact in the Polish lands. Polish Jewry was noted both for its piety, and for its devotion to religious scholarship. Among the Orthodox, the ancient art of Pilpul (literally, Pepper) or 'theological hairsplitting', continued to find its practitioners. The older religious academies in Cracow and Vilna were joined by new foundations, such as the famous Yeshivot at Valozhin (Wolozyd) in Lithuania, which flourished from 1803 to 1893 or at Mir near Grodno which was active from 1815 to 1939. The principles of religious education were thoroughly revised, and from the socalled Musar movement received a strong injection of ethics. Among the new generation of educators, a distinct trend towards asceticism was apparent, notably at Nowogrodek. Among the Chassidim, the impact of the Habad was strong both in Central Poland and in Lithuania, marking off the western and northern communities from the more popular, mystical trend in the east. From the example of Elimelech of Lizensk (Lezajsk, 1717-87), who first expounded the role of the zaddik, veritable dynasties of learned Chassidic leaders were founded at Przysucha, Koch, Beiz, Mi?dzyboz, and above all, at Gur (Gora Kalwaria), near Warsaw. The Alter family of Gur were widely regarded as hereditary sages of the Sect, and their court became the object of popular Jewish pilgrimages as fervent and as uplifting as those which brought the Catholic peasants to the nearby Bernardine church and Calvary Way. In the course of time, the Orthodox rabbis abandoned their hopes of suppressing the Chassidim. Having lost all jurisdictional powers, they had no means of enforcing religious conformity. Although never reconciled to Chassidic practices, they were increasingly concerned to form a common religious front for the defence of Judaism against the numerous reform movements of the age.3 The first of these reform movements was that of the Haskalah or 'Jewish Enlightenment'. Founded in Berlin in the late eighteenth century in the circle 3

See Harry M. Rabinowicz, The World ofHassidism, New York 1970; idem, New York 1960; S. H. Dresner, The Zaddik, New York 1960.

Guide to Hassisdtsm,

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of Moses Mendelssohn, it sought to modify the exclusively religious content ofJewish education and to integrate the Jews into the mainstream of European culture. Its disciples, known as maskilim or 'men of understanding' gained many adherents in the towns of Silesia, and at the turn of the century in Galicia, where over one hundred Jewish schools, using German as the language of instruction, were founded. In 1816, the Rabbi of Lemberg thought fit to place them under a ban. In the subsequent period, the movement spread into the Russian Pale, where the first Jewish school of the new type was opened at Human in 1822, and to a much smaller degree, into the Congress Kingdom. For a time it gained the approval of the Tsarist authorities who recognized an instrument for disrupting the solidarity of the Jewish community and for setting the Jews on the road to political subservience. In this they were sadly mistaken, for in the long run the principal achievement of the Haskalah, whilst undermining religious Judaism, was to sow the seeds of modern Jewish nationalism.4 In due course, the maskilim were challenged by reformers who wanted to extend the ideals of the Haskalah into the political and social spheres. Not content with limited educational aims, the Assimilationists wanted the Jews to abandon their exclusive communities and to participate fully in all branches of public life. Throughout Jewish History, of course, Jews who wished to escape from the constrictions of the ghetto, had always possessed the option of accepting the dominant religion, language, and culture of the country in which they lived. In the Polish lands, isolated converts to Christianity had followed this course for longer than anyone could remember; and the Frankists of the 1760s had provided an instance where the phenomenon briefly assumed mass proportions. But at that stage, no one had advocated Assimilation as a policy for the Jewish community as a whole. In the early nineteenth century, however, with the influx of French Revolutionary ideas, new voices were heard. In 1816, when the Berlin scholar, D. Friedlander was asked for an opinion, his pamphlet on 'The Improvement of the Jews in the Kingdom of Poland' strongly supported the replacement of the Yiddish language by Polish, as a first step to the closer integration of the Jews into Polish life. In the 1820s, a group of Warsaw bankers and intellectuals calling themselves 'The Old Testament Believers' adopted Friedlander's programme as part of their campaign to abolish the local kahal. At this juncture, Joachim Lelewel was speaking of Poles and Jews as 'brothers walking hand in hand' towards a common future. In the November Rising of 1830-1, many Jews gave their

4

J. S. Raisin, The Haskalah Movement in Russia, 1913; republ. Westport 1972.

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lives for the Polish cause.5 A Jewish Militia was formed to assist in the defence of Warsaw. In 1848 in Galicia, Rabbi Dov Beer Meisels (1798-1870) of Cracow openly urged his flock to support Polish political demands. In the following decade, this same leader, now Chief Rabbi of Warsaw, joined prominent members of the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie, such as Leopold Kronenburg and Herman Epstein, in a concerted movement to reconcile Polish and Jewish interests in religious, cultural, and economic matters. Kronenburg's newspaper, Gazeta Codzienna (Daily Gazette), edited by the novelist Ignacy Kraszewski, was specifically launched for the purpose of promoting Polish-Jewish understanding. In the political crisis of 1861-2, vividly portrayed in Kraszewski's novels Dzieciqe starego miasta (A Child of the Old City, 1863) and Zyd (The Jew, 1865), Warsaw's Jews played a leading role in the patriotic demonstrations. Synagogues were closed in solidarity with the Catholic churches, in protest against police excesses: rabbis appeared in the company of priests and pastors at public services and funerals; Chief Rabbi Meisels was arrested, and imprisoned. Here was the high point of the assimilationist trend. In a mood of patriotic euphoria, it looked to many that the common humanity of Poles and Jews would overcome their mutual rivalries and suspicions. During the January Rising of 1863, a Jewish journal, Jutrzenka (The Morning Star), edited by Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909), boldly called for the total integration of Jews into Polish life.6 It was not to be. The collapse of the Rising bred widespread disillusionments. Many Jews, like many Poles, felt that their sacrifices had brought no concrete benefits; and each was tempted to blame the other for the resulting tribulations. Assimilation slowly faded from fashion, first in Russian Poland, and then in the other Partitions.7 In many ways, it was a noble ideal, fuelled by the desire to surmount the ancient barriers which divided peoples who lived in the same land, breathed the same air, 'were subject to the same diseases', and might have been 'healed by the same means'. Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of most Jewish leaders, Assimilation was heading in the direction of the complete submergence of a separate Jewish identity. To both conservatives and radicals, it seemed that the Jews were being asked to solve their problems by going into voluntary liquidation. As the Jewish historian Dubnow commented, 'Polo5

6

7

Abraham Duker, "The Polish Insurrection's missed opportunity, 1830-4 "Jewish Social Studies 28, 1966, pp. 212-232. Artur Eisenbach, "Les droits civiques des Juifs dans le Royaume de Pologne, 1815-63," Revue des EtudesJuives 123,1964, pp. 19-84; idem, Kwestia Rawnouprawnienia Zydow w Krolestwie Polskim, Warsaw 1972. See Ezra Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation to Zionism in Lvov," Slavonic and East European Review 49, 1971, pp. 521-534.

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nisation of the Jews assumed menacing [sic] proportions'.8 Henceforward, Jewish reformers increasingly execrated such assimilationist ideas as continued to circulate, turning instead to projects which sought not to transcend the Jewish heritage, but to reinforce and to expand it. The Hebrew Revival sprung directly from the work of those earlier maskilim who, as part of their educational experimentation, had dared to use the sacred language of the Scriptures as a medium for secular literature. It displayed many of the features of other cultural revivals which all over Eastern Europe in that same era were rescuing moribund national languages from oblivion. In Galicia, thefirstpioneer of modern Hebrew was Jozef Perl (17741839) of Tarnopol, whose satirical writings made fun of the obscurantist habits and attitudes of the Chassidim. On the Russian side of the frontier, the scholar and philologist, Izaac Ber Levinsohn (1788-1860) of Krzemeniec, undertook the task of reconstituting the vocabulary and syntax of Hebrew for contemporary usage. In the hands of their successors, the Hebrew language was adapted to a variety of literary genres, some purely artistic, others overtly political. The historian Nachman Krochmal (1785-1840) of Tarnopol, whose Guide to the Perplexed of the Age appeared in 1851, is sometimes seen as the first ideologist of Jewish Nationalism. His outlook was shared by Abraham Mapu (1808-67) of Slobodka near Odessa, who wrote historical novels, and by a long line of Hebrew maskilim poets. Prominent among them was Jehudah Loeb Gordon (1830-92) of Vilna, whose poem Hakitzah Ammi (Awake, my people) came to be regarded as the credo of the Haskalah in the Pale. Secular attitudes and the cultivation of Hebrew went hand in hand, and from 1863 were systematically promoted by the Society for the Dissemination of Jewish Culture in Russia. By the end of the century, Hebrew was sufficiently well developed for its most enthusiastic promoters to think of turning it to everyday use in their homes. Unable to realize their ambitions in the conservative social atmosphere of the established Jewish communities, where their linguistic innovations were often thought to be downright sacrilegious, they began to contemplate emigration to Palestine. In this way, a direct intellectual link can be observed between the Haskalah, the Hebrew Revival, and cultural Zionism.9 The Yiddish Revival occurred at a slighdy later date. Whereas Yiddish - a branch of Middle High German exported to Poland-Lithuania in the Middle Ages and commonly known as zargon (jargon) - had been mainly preserved by the oral tradition, it, too, in the hands of modern publicists and gram8 9

Dubnow, op. at., Π, p. 213. Menachem Ribalow, The Flowering of Modem Hebrew Literature, New York 1959.

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marians, was converted into a literary and political medium. In Poland especially, where opposition to the secular use of Hebrew was strongest, Yiddish came to be preferred in the Jewish press and in Jewish secular literature. Written in the Hebrew alphabet, it was first used for popular prose and poetry in the sixteenth century, and was later developed by the Chassidim for disseminating the chronicles and legends of their sea. Later it was adopted for modern prose composition and for poetry and drama. Interestingly enough, many of its practitioners, such as Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1915) of Zamosc, began their careers as Polish and Hebrew writers, moving into Yiddish at the turn of the century. Owing to the Nazi Holocaust, however, the best known of modern Yiddish writers, Isaac Bakvish Singer (born 1904, in Radzymin), will probably be the last.10 The language issue was of crucial importance. In 1897, the mother tongue of over 90 per cent of the Jews in the Pale and in Galicia was still Yiddish; Hebrew, as the scriptural language, was no more spoken in everyday life than Latin was spoken by Catholic Poles or Old Church Slavonic by Russians. At the same time, a certain proportion of Jews had always possessed a working knowledge of German, Polish, or Russian as a means for communicating with their Gentile neighbours. Now, a distinct element among the educated classes could be seen to be abandoning Yiddish altogether. An estimate of 1913 put the proportion of Jews in the Pale with Polish or Russian as their mother tongue at 7 per cent. Hence the longterm effects of secularization were divisive in some respects and cohesive in others. The assimilatory trend had helped to narrow the gulf between East European Jewry and the Gentile population at large. In this, in Prussia and in western Galicia, where Yiddish-speakers could adapt most readily to the German environment, it was very successful. Simultaneously, it served to erect new barriers, not only between the Jew of German culture and the Jew of Polish or of Russian culture, but also between the assimilated on the one hand and the unassimilated on the other. The midcentury Hebrew trend was confined to a marginal intellectual elite; whereas the later educational and publishing ventures in Yiddish were directed at the masses. At the end of the century, the cultural patterns were far more complicated than at the beginning. The principal catalyst in changing Jewish attitudes at the end of the century had undoubtedly been provided by the repressive legislation of the May Laws, 10

Charles Madison, Yiddish literature: its scope and major writers, New York 1971. See also Irving Howe and E. Greenberg (eds.), A Treasury of Yiddish Stories, New York 1958, and Voicesfrom the Yiddish, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1972; Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The Golden Tradition, New York 1967; M. Samuel, Prince of the Ghetto, New York 1973, (on I.J. Peretz); Isaac B. Singer, Of a World that is no more, New York 1970, etc.

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and by the accompanying pogroms. The physical violence which erupted at this time in central Russia was largely avoided in the Vistula provinces. The anti-Jewish riot sparked off in 1881 in Warsaw by news of the Tsar's assassination seems to have been a spontaneous affair, and there was no instance in Warsaw or Lodz, as in Moscow or St. Petersburg, where unregistered Jews were expelled en masse from their homes. Yet the psychological trauma among all sections of Jewry was enormous. Limited acts of violence gave rise to unlimited rumours, and to fears of further violence to come. As a result, and in some cases overnight, moderate men and women became radicals, and radicals became extremists. The trend towards Assimilation received a setback from which it never recovered. The various cultural movements were seen to be inadequate to the needs of the day. Zionism - Jewish Nationalism - had reached the moment of take-off.11 The disturbances of 1882 aggravated the problems of Polish Jewry in a very specific manner, however. As a result of the pogroms, considerable numbers ofJews from the Russian areas of the Pale sought refuge in the Polish gubernias, or in Galicia. The newcomers, known in Poland somewhat inaccurately as Litvaks or 'Jews from Lithuania', differed from the native Jews in two important respects. In the first place, embittered by their humiliating experiences, they contained an unusually large element of political militants. In the second place, the educated people among them were largely Russian-speaking, and as such essentially indifferent to Polish interests. Their arrival proved unsettling in the extreme, and was resented no less by the leaders of Orthodox Polish Jewry than by the Polish Catholics. Their influx seriously damaged the Polish orientation, hindered the process of assimilation into Polish culture, and accelerated a wide variety of radical political programmes. Many of them used their sojourn in the Polish provinces as a staging-post on their way to Western Europe, America, or Palestine. But many stayed behind to take a conspicuous part in the socialist, communist, and Zionist movements. In Polish eyes, these 'alien Jews' were largely responsible for disrupting the supposed harmony of earlier Polish-Jewish relations. Unwittingly, they certainly did much to launch the popular stereotype of the'Zydo-komuna, associating Marxism and Communism with Russian Jewish intellectuals, which was destined to enjoy a long currency in Poland. [.. .] The political stance of the leading circles was unashamedly nationalist. 'Polishness' became the touchstone of respectability. The dominant parties of the constitutional period - the PPS (Polish Socialist Party), the PSL (Polish

11

J. Frumkin et. al., Russian Jewry 1860-1917, New York 1966.

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Peasant Movement), and the National Democrats all shared the concern for national unity which under the later Sanaga regime assumed overriding priority. In practice, this left very little scope for minority interests or for those political groups, whether conservative or revolutionary, which were not impressed by the nationalist fashion. The Catholic Church was pushed on to the fringes of political life, whilst the Communist Party (KPRP), by boycotting the first elections, expressly preferred an underground existence. The army, in contrast, which had played such a prominent role in the formation of the Republic, represented a political instrument of the first importance. In the era of the 'Colonels', which followed Pilsudski's death in 1935, it assumed a dominant position.12 The fires of Polish nationalism were fuelled by the fact that the ethnic minorities were so large. According to the linguistic criteria of the 1931 census, the Poles formed only 68.9 per cent of the total population. The Ukrainians with 13.9 per cent, the Yiddish-speakingjews with 8.7 per cent, the Byelorussians with 3.1 per cent, and the Germans with 2.3 per cent, made up nearly one-third of the whole. In specific areas, they constituted a dominant majority. Their cultural sensitivities were sharpened by marked economic discrepancies. For historical reasons far beyond the ken of the new Republic, the Ukrainian community of the south-east consisted overwhelmingly of poor, illiterate peasants. The Jews, crowded into their small town ghettos, provided a disproportionate section both of the pauperized proletariat and of the rich professional and entrepreneurial classes. The Germans in the western towns constituted a small but relatively wealthy bourgeoisie. Although the civil equality and cultural autonomy of the minorities were formally guaranteed by articles 95,101, and 110 of the March Constitution, their separate aspirations were fundamentally incompatible with the aims of national unity as conceived by government Polish circles. From the start, the Poles were thrown into competition with the equally uncompromising nationalisms of their fellow citizens. None the less at the 1922 elections, the Block of Nationalities returned 81 out of 444 deputies from about 16 per cent of the vote, and to the end of the decade strove to work within the system. From 1930, it transferred its support to the official BBWR (Block for Co-operation with the Government), seeking protection, as its leaders saw it, from the still greater danger to its freedoms from the rampant National Democrats. By that time, however, Polish officialdom had lost its initial willingness to meet the special demands of

12

O n the question of integration, see H. Zielinski (ed.), Drogi integraqi spoleczenstwa w Polsce XIX-XX, Wroclaw 1976, including Piotr Slawecki, "Kilka uwag ο roli wojska w procesach integracyjnych i dezyintegracyjnych Π Rzeczpospolitej," ibid., pp. 193-215.

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the national minorities. For the rest of the life of the Second Republic, intercommunal tensions steadily intensified.13 Close on five million Ukrainians formed the largest single minority, compactly settled along the length of the Carpathian mountains as far west as the River Poprad, and distributed more unevenly in the south-eastern districts of Przemysl, Rawa Ruska, Kowel, Luck, Rowne, Krzemieniec, Drohobycz, and Kolomija. After the failure of the West Ukrainian Republic and of Pilsudski's alliance with Petliura, the Ukrainian population was obliged to postpone all aspirations towards autonomy. But they retained the social and cultural organizations founded in Galician days; and a number of national parties, both radical and liberal, were free to operate. The old Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (USDP), continued to function intermittently in the Polish Republic, but its efforts were minimized by the schism that drove half of its members into the illegal pro-soviet communist underground, and the other half into close co-operation with the PPS. A similar fate overtook the Sel-Rob (Ukrainian Socialist Peasant-Workers' Union). The Ukrainian Socialist-Radical Party (USRP) with its journal Hromadskiy Holos (Communal Voice) recruited significant support among the peasantry in Volhynia and in the Stanislawow district. In the company of the liberal Ukrainian NationalDemocratic Union (UNDO), which had inherited many of the older social, cultural, and co-operative organizations together with the newspaper Dilo (The Cause) in Lwow, it participated in Polish parliamentary life. Yet none of these patties could stem the rising hostility of the Polish community at large against Ukrainian separatism. Bit by bit, conciliatory polities gave way to terrorism. The illegal Ukrainian Military Organization (UOV) and its successor from 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) operating from sanctuaries in Germany and Austria, launched the campaign of sabotage and murder which in the 1930s undermined all foreseeable hopes of reconciliation. The assassination in 1931 ofTadeusz Hoiowko (1889-1931), a prominent socialist theoretician and associate of Pilsudski, and in 1934 of the Minister of the Interior, Col. Bronislaw Pieracki (1895-1934), provoked the Sanacja regime into vicious reprisals. Minor partisan campaigns in 1932-3 in Volhynia, Polesie, and in the Lesko area, were answered by the advance of the Polish army and police in strength, and by the razing of villages suspected of harbouring the rebels. The internment camp at Bereza Kartuska was first

13

S. Horak, Poland and her national minorities, 1919-39, New York 1961. See A. Groth, "Dmowski, Pilsudski and ethnic conflicts in pre-1939 Poland," Canadian Slavic Studies 3, 1969,pp. 69-91;S.J.Paprocki(ed.),IM.Pologneetleprrjblemedesmmorites:recueild'informations, Warsaw 1935.

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constructed in 1934 to accommodate the prisoners of this emergency. Many Ukrainian schools were closed; Ukrainian peasants unable to read or write in Polish were struck from the electoral register by over-zealous officials. Polish military colonists were settled in frontier areas. The Ukrainian national movement, alienated in Poland and horrified by the stories of forced collectivization and mass starvation across the border in the USSR, looked increasingly towards Germany for comfort and support.14 Three million Jews suffered from other difficulties, from economic regression, from a demographic explosion, from growing racial discrimination, and not least from excessive publicity. At the same time, for the twenty years of the Second Republic, many spheres ofJewish life in Poland experienced a last brief period of relative well-being. Jewish schools, both primary and secondary, educated a whole new generation of youngsters. Several private Jewish school systems - the Khorev system run by Agudat Israel, the secular Hebrew Tarbut system of the Zionists, the Yiddish CYSHO, and the bilingual, PolishHebrew Yavne system of the Mizrachi - competed both with each other and with the Polish state schools. The Jewish press flourished, both in the Polish and Yiddish languages. Nasz Przeglad (Our Review) in Warsaw, Chwila (The Moment) in Lwow, and Nawy Dziennik (New Daily) in Cracow, enjoyed wide circulation. The Jewish theatre, especially in Warsaw and Wilno, reached the peak of its achievement. Jewish film-makers produced scores of Yiddish movies. Jewish scholars earned wide reputations. Jewish writers of the Yiddish 'New Wave' issued theirfirstrebellious manifestos. The Yidischer Visnshaftlekher Institut (Jewish Scientific Institute, YTVO), founded in Wilno in 1925, the central agency of Yiddish activities, could fairly claim to be one of the foremost centres ofJewish culture in the world. Jewish politicians of the most variegated persuasions operated freely, both in municipal and in parliamentary politics. In the first Sejm of 1922, the Jewish caucus claimed 35 members, surpassing the representation of the socialists. In the Pilsudski era, the Agudat Israel threw its weight behind the BBWR. Even in the 1935-9 period, when all democratic parties were curtailed, a few Jewish deputies and senators continued to sit. Figures such as Rabbi Moshe Elihu Halpern or Yitzhak Gruenbaum, the Zionist leader, were men of national standing. In the 1930s, the ascendancy of the conservative parties was overtaken by the Zionists, whose influence, however, was fragmented into at least seven main groupings - the Revisionists,

14

W. Napier, "The Ukrainians in Poland: an historical background," International Affairs 11, 1932, pp. 391-421; M. Felmski, The Ukrainians in Poland, London 1931. See also E. Reviuk, Polish Atrocities in the Ukraine, New York 1931; W. Szota, "Zarys rozwoju O U N i UPA," Wojskawy PrzegLjd Historyany 8, 1963, pp. 163-218.

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the Mizrachi, the General and Galician Zionists, the Hitahdut (United Zionist Labour Party), and the two factions of Poale Zion. Outside the Sejm, especially in the Jewish Trade Unions, the Bund carried considerable weight. Jewish members featured prominently both in the PPS and the KPP. At the local level, the Jewish communal organizations, the kehillot, functioned under the supervision of the government Stamsta. By the law of 1927, they were elected by Jewish male suffrage and were empowered to raise their own finances. Jewish social bodies, from hospitals and orphanages, to sports clubs, musical societies, and insurance and co-operative associations, proliferated in all areas. Jewish middle-class life, in particular, moved along in an aura of confidence and affluence. In 1919, Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer, a Zionist, gained the distinction of being Poland's first woman deputy. In 1938, Lazar Rundsztejn, a Jewish fly weight, won his class in the national boxing championship. Anyone who has seen the remarkable records which these people left behind them, and which have been collected in YTVO's post-war headquarters in New York, cannot fail to note the essential dynamism of Polish Jewry at this juncture. All was not well; but neither was it unreliefed gloom. 15 Two million Byelorussians shared the experience of their fellow Ruthenians, the Ukrainians. Together with 'Western Ukraine', 'Western Byelorussia' formed the heart of Poland's most backward region, the so-called 'PolskaB' (Second Class Poland), and had no separate political or administrative status. After an initial period when far-reaching concessions were made in the realm of a free press, democratic elections, national education, and political organizations, 1924 saw the onset of an official reaction against incipient Byelorussian separatism. The Byelorussian language, now wedded to the Latin alphabet, was given little support; and three hundred Byelorussian schools were turned over to Polish teachers. The Byelorussian Hramada (Commune), a socialist peasant movement, was broken up by police action in 1928, and its leaders imprisoned. In the 1930s the Byelorussian countryside took its share of punishment from the Sanacja's pacification campaigns. Polish officialdom tended to favour Byelorussian Catholics, whom they classified as Bialopolaki (White Poles), whilst suspecting the Orthodox Byelorussian Rusini (Ruthenes) of potential irredentism. A new wave of oppression began in 1935 when more schools, Orthodox churches, and cultural societies were 15

For a martyrological assessment of pre-war Polish Jewry, see Celia S. Heller, On the Edge of Destruction, New York 1977. A more convincing introduction to the subject is contained in the illustrated album, Image before my eyes: a photographic history of Jewish life in Poland, L. Dobroszycki and B. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett (eds.), New York 1977-1978,2 vols. See also Η. M. Rabinowicz, The Legacy ofPolish Jewry: a History ofPolish Jews in the Inter- War Years, 1919-39, New York 1965.

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closed down. By 1939, the Byelorussians were still largely unpoliticized. The few that were politically active showed little enthusiasm for the Polish connection. They were due for a rude awakening.16 Close to one million Germans were served by a plethora of political, cultural, and social organizations, many of which were amalgamated in 1931 in the central Rat der Deutschen in Polen (Council of Germans in Poland). The German Socialist Workers Party in Poland (DSAP) was formed in 1925 from older German socialist groups working separately in Upper Silesia, Lodz, and Poznaii. It ran its own trade unions and youth movement, whilst co-operating closely with the PPS. Both these organizations were opposed by a nationalist Jungdeutsche Partei (Young German Party) operating from Bielsko (Bielitz). In the 1930s, the entire German community felt the shock-waves of Hitler's rise to power, and from 1935 was courted by the local Landesgruppe-Polen (Regional Group-Poland) of the Nazi Party and its press organ, Idee and Wille (Idea and Will).17 Other national minorities, including the Russians and Lithuanians of the north-east, and the Czechs of the extreme south-west, had insufficient numbers to influence anything but the local scene. The temper of political life was unremittingly radical. All the leading personalities of the 1920s from Wincenty Witos the Peasant leader and three times Premier, to Ignacy Daszynski, the Socialist, and to Pilsudski himself, professed distinctly radical ideas. Even the National Democrats, who formed the main opposition both to the early coalition governments and to the later Sanacja regime, must be described as 'Right-Radicals' whose stance on most issues of the day was anything but conservative. The traditional conservative movements, such as those which had once operated in Galicia or were centred on the clerical and landowning interests, were relegated to sulky subordination. A society in which two-thirds of the population was engaged in subsistence agriculture and where one-third consisted of national minorities, could hardly afford the gradualist, liberal climate of prosperous and well-established western countries. The task of reintegrating Polish society into a coherent whole began as soon as the Second Republic was created. The task was formidable. The material resources, and as it proved the time available, were extremely limited. Accord-

16

17

N. Vakar, Belorussin: the making of a new nation, Cambridge, Mass. 1956. Stanislaw Elski (pseudonym), Sprawa biahuska: zarys historyczno-polityczny, Warsaw 1931. J. C. Hesse, "The Germans in Poland," Slavonic and hlast European Review 16,1937, pp. 93101. See also The German Fifih Column in Poland, Poland: Ministry of Information, London 1941; S. Potocki, Poloienie mniejszosci niemieckiej w Polsce 1918-38, Gdansk 1938.

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ing to the Census of 1921, the geographical distribution of the population put 25 per cent in the towns and 75 per cent in the countryside; the occupational structure was made up of manual workers (27 per cent, of which almost half were agricultural labourers); peasants (65 per cent); intelligentsia and professions (5 per cent); entrepreneurs (2 per cent) and landowners (under 1 per cent). Yet statistical analysis does little to describe the full extent of social problems. Old loyalties and old patterns of behaviour died hard. The impact of new all-Polish institutions - Schools, Civil Service, Taxation, Army - was bound to be slow. Little could be done by way of financial initiatives to subsidize significant common enterprises. Industrialization continued modesdy in channels forged before independence. Inevitably perhaps, tensions increased. Indeed, in the 1930s, serious polarization was observable both between the state authorities and the masses, and between the dominant Polish majority and the other national minorities. One of the few factors militating for social cohesion was to be found abroad, where the repellent prospect of incorporation into Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia gave all Polish citizens, irrespective of their differences, a strong sense of common interest. In a rural society, agrarian problems automatically took priority. At first, great hopes were placed in Land Reform, as demanded by the PSL. On 10 July 1919, the Sejm declared in favour of breaking up estates of more than 400 hectares: and on 15 Juli 1920, at the height of the Red Army's offensive, a law was passed providing for the purchase of surplus land at half its market value. Neither action brought results. Finally on 20 Juli 1925, at the third attempt, the Sejm set a minimum target of 200,000 hectares per annum to be parcelled out among the peasants at full market value. Altogether, between 1919 and 1938,2,655,000 hectares passed into peasant hands; over one-fifth of the landed estates of Church, State, and private landowners were diminished, and 734,000 new holdings were created. In itself, this was a considerable achievement. But in the event, it did little to relieve the pressure on the land or the poverty of the multiplying peasant masses. By virtue of hard experience, it was found that the conditions in the countryside were actually deteriorating. After a brief revival in 1928-9, the rural economy fell into a decline from which it never fully recovered. In the next decade, farm prices were halved; the cash income of peasant families dropped to almost one-third; government subsidies to agriculture were quartered. As borrowers defaulted on loans, credit was suspended. Investment in machinery virtually stopped. The rate of parcellation slowed to a crawl. In so far as the crisis in Poland was caused by the world recession, it was not exceptional. But the lack of finance, both state and private, which might have ameliorated the most acute effects, led to far

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greater suffering than in Western Europe. Social ills multiplied. Peasant families could not feed their children, or, for want of the obligatory pair of shoes, could not send them to school. Usury flourished, together with drunkenness. The Jewish money-lender and tavern-keeper for no fault of his own, attracted general disgust. Sequestrations of debtors' property, violently executed, were violently resisted. Political militancy increased. The Zwiqzek Rolnikaw (Farmers' Union) founded in 1929 by members of the PSL 'Wyzwolenie' opposed the lethargy of the government-sponsored Central Society of Agricultural Circles (CTKR). The reunited Stronnictwo Ludowe attracted growing support, and was held responsible for the disturbances which occurred with mounting frequency. [...] Clearly, tensions in the countryside were running high. No one could have dreamed that within a couple of years these same rural backwaters would offer the only tenuous refuge from disturbances of a far more catastrophic kind. The problems of the industrial proletariat, though real enough, were less fundamental than those of the peasantry. In a stage of limited industrialization, the Polish worker often regarded the chance of employment in industry as an extra bonus, as a stroke of good fortune; and he could usually return to his village in hard times. Industrial wages, which to modern eyes look derisory, ensured an income that was twice as high as that of the average peasant family. Official unemployment figures which reached a maximum of 446,000 or 10 per cent of the industrial labour-force in 1936, ignore the far more serious unemployment concealed in the over-populated rural areas, usually estimated at between 5 and 6 million, or up to 45 per cent overall. In this situation, the workers' tolerance of harsh conditions was much higher than it has since become. The problems which arose were of a different order than those encountered in Western Europe, where an over-all unemployment rate in Great Britain of 10 per cent in the 1930s was regarded as a unique national catastrophe. It is amazing how little trouble there was. Within the limitations imposed by the economic crisis, much was done.

EZRA MENDELSOHN

The Jewries of Interwar Poland* One cannot speak of a single "Polish Jewry" in the interwar period, just as one cannot speak of a single "Czechoslovak Jewry," "Romanian Jewry," or "Latvian Jewry." In each of these countries, which either did not exist or (in the Romanian case) existed within very different borders prior to World War I, the Jewish communities were divided by divergent historical, cultural, religious, and political traditions, as were the non-Jewish majority peoples among whom they lived. In Poland the three major Jewish communities were those of Galicia, Congress Poland, and the kresy. There was also the remnant of a once populous Jewry in the former German provinces of Poznaii, Pomorze, and Silesia; but most of this Jewry had migrated to other regions of Germany during the nineteenth century, leaving only about 30,000 Jewish inhabitants at the time of the rebirth of the Polish state. This tiny community, which constituted less than one percent of the general population in the formerly German lands, was the only representative in Poland of a Westernized Jewry of the German, Bohemian-Moravian, or Austrian type. In former Galicia, on the other hand, the Jews made up 9.3 percent of the population (in 1931). Galician Jewry was basically of the East European type, lower middle class and proletarian, extremely conspicuous in local commerce (there was little industry in this very backward land) and in the cities, but still retaining a strong shtetl component. Jewish Orthodoxy was traditionally very strong; efforts at religious reform made little headway, and Hasidism possessed in this region one of its greatest strongholds in all Eastern Europe. Indeed, it was from Galicia that the adherents to Hasidism, with their black coats, white stockings, and long side curls (peyes), symbols of Jewish foreignness and peculiarity in the eyes of gentiles, spread to such neighboring regions as Bukovina, Moldavia, northern Transylvania, and Subcarpathian Rus. In * From: Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1983, abridged pp. 17-23, notes. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

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many of its characteristics, Galician Jewry was similar to the Jewry of the Russian Ukraine. As distinct from Russian Jews, however, Galician Jews lived under favorable political circumstances, at least since their emancipation in 1867; they enjoyed equality of rights, were admitted without difficulty to government schools and universities, and made significant inroads into the professions and even into the government bureaucracy. Although the majority suffered from economic misery, which explains the large migration of Galician Jews to the New World in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they were not terrorized - there were few Russian-style pogroms in this Austrian province. The coexistence of an Eastern-type Jewry and Westerntype political conditions produced important results. Large numbers of Jews took advantage of the situation to attend government schools, and inevitably a process of acculturation took place. If on the eve of World War I most Galician Jews still spoke Yiddish, more and more were speaking Polish, which had by then replaced German as the major cultural orientation of the modernizing Jewish population. We shall see that in the interwar years Galician Jewry was the most polonized of all the great Polish Jewries. The growing Polish cultural orientation was accompanied by a powerful feeling of loyalty toward the Habsburg regime. The Jews in Galicia, as in the Hungarian lands, had good reason to feel grateful to the ruling dynasty which had emancipated them and had refrained from pursuing an anti-Jewish policy on the Russian model. Like Russia, Galicia was a stronghold not only of Hasidism but also of its great enemy, the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement. Though the Galician Maskilim (advocates of the Enlightenment) did not go so far as their German colleagues, some of whom advocated radical religious reform, they, too, propagated the cause of modernization, acculturation, and integration. To the Maskilim the Hasidic masses, with their outlandish dress, "fanatic" ways, and unbounded faith in the powers of their rebes (rabbis, in Hasidic parlance), represented all that was negative, and even disgusting, in the Jewish tradition. In Galicia, moreover, as in Russia but not in Germany, the Haskalah produced a revival of Hebrew letters which was later championed by the Zionist movement. The Galician Haskalah gave birth to two sharply divergent views on the Jewish future, one calling for Jewish-Polish assimilation and for the eventual merging of Jews with the Polish nation, the other calling for an affirmation of modern Jewish nationalism. The former option, which appealed to the Jews to become "Poles of the Mosaic faith," was not encouraged by the Polish majority, which unlike the regime in Vienna was strongly antiSemitic. The rise of modern anti-Semitism in Galicia, along with the peculiar ethnic situation in the eastern half of the province, led many acculturated Jewish youths to Jewish nationalism of one kind or another. By the eve of

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World War I, Zionism was a powerful movement in Galicia, and Jewish Yiddish-oriented socialism, though much weaker than in Russia, was also in evidence. Galicia was divided into two parts. In the smaller, western region, whose capital was Cracow, the Jews were the only sizable ethnic and religious minority. In the more populous, eastern region, however, there was a large Ukrainian population, which during the course of the nineteenth century developed a strong nationalist movement of its own. The existence of three nationalities in eastern Galicia lent to this region a special character. Among other things it had the effect of retarding Jewish assimilation and encouraging Jewish nationalism, which was inspired to some extent by the Ukrainian example. The bitter nationalist rivalry between Poles and Ukrainians, however, was also a potential danger for the Jews, who found themselves caught in the middle and whose polonizing tendencies were bound to be resented by the Ukrainians. In this sense the Jewish condition in eastern Galicia resembled that in such other multiethnic regions as Transylvania, Slovakia, and Bohemia.1 The largest of all Polish Jewries in the interwar period, comprising over 50 percent of the total number of Polish Jews, resided in the central provinces of the state, which were more or less coterminous with prewar Congress Poland.2 Here, too, the Jewish community was basically of the Eastern type, in both demographic and economic structure, but since this region was more urbanized and economically more developed, the number of small-town Jews was relatively low. Moreover, in the two great cities of Congress Poland, Warsaw and Lodz, there emerged a wealthy Jewish industrial and commercial class which had no real parallel in Galicia. This class, which played a key role in the economic development of the region, took the lead in the movement calling upon Jews to polonize, and financed the important Polish-language Jewish press during the 1860s and 1870s. The ethnic situation in Congress Poland as well as the rapid urbanization of the area encouraged such a movement, since here, as in western Galicia, the Jews were the only important minority group. By the end of the nineteenth century, some Jews in this region were thoroughly polonized and had come to view themselves as Poles of the 1

2

See Ezra Mendelsohn, "From Assimilation to Zionism in Lvov: The Case of Alfred Nossig," The Slavonic and East European Review 49, no 117,1971, pp. 521-534; idem, "Jewish Assimilation in Lvov: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman," Slavic Review 28, 4, 1969, pp. 577-590. Prewar Congress Poland included the historically Lithuanian province of Suwalki, the northern part of which was annexed to the independent state of Lithuania after World War I. The central provinces of interwar Poland include Bialystok Province, the eastern part of which was not part of prewar Congress Poland.

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Mosaic faith, despite the fact that political power was exercized not by the Poles, as in Galicia, but by St. Petersburg. Indeed, Congress Poland provides an unusual example of Jewish willingness to accept the cultural orientation of yet another oppressed minority nationality. (In Transylvania, Slovakia, Bohemia, and Bukovina, the Jews gravitated toward the culture of the politically dominant nationality.) Some Jews even went so far as to take part in the various Polish revolts against Russian rule which broke out in 1794,1830, and 1863. 3 Alongside the small but important modernized and polonized Jewish community in Congress Poland stood the much larger Orthodox sector. As in Galicia, Hasidism was extremely powerful; one of the most important of all East European Hasidic leaders, the Rebe of Ger (Gora Kalwaria), maintained his court in a town near Warsaw. As was not the case in Galicia, the Haskalah movement in Congress Poland had never been very strong; the modernizing elite had gone over immediately to Polish, while the Orthodox masses remained in their traditional religious, Yiddish-speaking world. Observers of the Jewish scene in prewar Congress Poland were invariably struck by the domination of two extremist groups - extreme Orthodox and extreme assimilationist. A modern Jewish nationalist politics, which rarely flourished in the absence of a Haskalah tradition, was weaker here than in Galicia, and to a great extent was "imported" from Russia proper by Lithuanian-Belorussian Jews (known as Litvaks). The Litvaks had penetrated Congress Poland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, attracted by the great economic opportunities there; they had brought with them a Russian cultural orientation and such modern political doctrines as Jewish socialism and Zionism. It was in part thanks to them that Warsaw, with the largest Jewish community in the Russian empire, had become by the end of the nineteenth century an important capital of modern Jewish politics.4 Nonetheless, the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, who visited the region in 1903, reported that the Polish (as opposed to the Russian) Jews were "a people divided into assimilationists of the worst type and Hasidism, so that there is practically no Zionism."5

3

4

5

On Jewish history in Congress Poland, see Artur Eisenbach, Kwestia mwnouprawnienia Zycbyw w Kmlestwie Polskim, Warsaw 1972; Yankev Shatski, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe, 3, New York 1953, pp. 27-94. Rafael Mahler, Ha-hasidut ve-ha-haskala, Merhavya 1961, pp.209-286. The subject of Jewish-Polish assimilation is treated in Ezra Mendelsohn, "A Note on Jewish Assimilation in the Polish lands," in Bela Vago (ed.), Jewish Assimilation in Modem Times, Boulder 1981, pp. 141-150. Moshe Mishinsky, "Regional Factors in the Formation of the Jewish Labor Movement in Czarist Russia," Yivo Annual ofJewish Social Science 14, 1969, pp. 27-52. The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, 2, A, London 1971, pp. 276-277.

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Relations between Poles and Jews in Congress Poland had their euphoric moments. We have already noted that some Jews collaborated with the Poles in the revolts against Russian rule, and in 1862 the short-lived, semi-independent Polish regime of Aleksander Wielopolski, which one year later raised the flag of revolt, issued a proclamation abolishing many restrictions against Jews. 6 After the collapse of the revolt, however, the situation deteriorated. Conflict between the Jewish and the growing Polish middle class in this industrializing region was particularly sharp, and exclusivist Polish nationalism, directed against efforts at russification, was also very strong. Congress Poland, therefore, was fertile ground for the development of the National Democratic (Endek) movement, which was anti-Semitic from its inception. In 1912 Roman Dmowski organized a boycott against Jewish-owned stores in this region as "punishment" for the Jews' support of a socialist candidate in elections to the Russian Duma (parliament). In pre-1914 Congress Poland, as was not the case in Hungary, the nationalist leaders of the numerically dominant nationality viewed the Jews not as potential allies in its national struggle, but as a disloyal element which constituted a serious obstacle to Polish national goals. The Jewish historical experience in the kresy was different in many ways from that of the Galician and Congress Poland Jewish communities. Before World War I the kresy, with the exception of the Russian Ukrainian province of Volynia, was part of the "North West" region of the Russian empire. In Jewish parlance this part of the Pale of Settlement (the area within the empire where Jews were allowed to live) was known as Lithuania-Belorussia, or simply as Lithuania, and thus, as we have seen, the Jews themselves were referred to as "Lithuanians" (Litvaks). As a result of the war, the Lithuanian Jewry was partitioned among four states - independent Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, and the Soviet Union. The population of the North West region and Volynia was made up of Lithuanians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews. Historically, the ruling nationality was Polish, but the Polish population was numerically weak (though influential in the cities and among the landowning class) and unable to impose its culture upon the majority. In an area dominated by small and relatively backward nationalities, the modernizingjewish population adopted Russian culture; virtually no Jews here knew Polish in the prewar period, and the great majority spoke Yiddish. But if some Jews in this region, as in Congress Poland and in Galicia, were inclined to acculturate, there was less effort to assimilate here than elsewhere. It was

6

Eisenbach, op. cit., pp. 456-544.

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obviously more logical to hope to be accepted as a Pole of the Mosaic faith in Warsaw or in Cracow than to be accepted as a Russian of the Mosaic faith in Vilna, where there were few Russians. The multinational character of the region also militated against strong assimilationist tendencies, as did certain internal Jewish developments. Lithuanian Jewry was no less Orthodox than was Congress Polish Jewry; the most celebrated of all East European yeshivahs were located in the region, and Lithuania was also the birthplace of such great Talmudic sages as Elijah of Vilna (1720-1797) and Israel Salanter (1810-1883). But the relative weakness of Hasidism is one reason why the Haskalah movement found in the Lithuanian-Belorussian lands particularly fertile soil. The cities of this region, in particular Vilna, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," became major centers of the Russian Haskalah, which was characterized by its Hebraic character and, at least in some cases, by its protonationalist spirit. In Lithuania, too, but to an even greater extent than in Galicia, the children of the Haskalah became the founders of modern Jewish politics. The Jewish socialist party known as the Bund was founded in Vilna in 1897. Zionism was strong here, from the very beginning, and the religious Zionist movement known as Mizrachi was established in Lithuania early in the twentieth century. The leaders of the secular political factions were russified, but certainly not assimilated, Jewish intellectuals, whose Jewish nationalism cannot be explained without reference to the peculiarities of the environment in which they lived. If politically ambitious Jewish intellectuals in Warsaw were likely to join Polish movements, in Vilna they were much more likely to join Jewish movements. In terms of demography and economics, the Jewish communities in Lithuania-Belorussia and Volynia were not unlike the community in Galicia. The notorious economic backwardness of the region meant that the Jews constituted an important part of the urban population (sometimes even the majority) and were predominant in commerce, but it also preserved the shtetl as a viable institution. Relations between Jews and gentiles were probably better here than elsewhere; the pogroms of the tsarist period did not seriously affect the Lithuanian-Belorussian lands, nor did right-wing Polish political movements make serious inroads here in the prewar years. It may well be that here, as in other backward regions such as Subcarpathian Rus, the retarded nature of the national movements of the local nationalities and their failure to develop an important commercial and professional class were responsible for the fact that anti-Semitism of the Congress Poland variety was less in evidence. If the distinctions among the former Austrian, German, and Russian lands which made up the new state of Poland did not disappear during the interwar period, neither did the distinctions among Galician Jews, Congress Poland

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Jews, and Lithuanian Jews. They placed their stamp on Jewish cultural and political life in the new republic, and, although by 1939 the Jews of Vilna, Lwow, and Warsaw had much more in common than they had had in 1918, the following pages will demonstrate that throughout the interwar years the differences remained significant. [...]

FRANK GOLCZEWSKI

Rural Anti-Semitism in Galicia before World War Ρ This is not the first time that I have dwelt on the problems of rural antisemitism in Galicia before the First World War. In a previous work about Polish anti-semitism between 1881 and 1922,1 tried to describe the phenomenon of rural anti-semitism as compared to its urban forms.11 tried for the first time to give an idea of the motives of the political propagandists who fostered anti-semitic campaigns. At that time I had access to the mass of pamphlets issued in the Nowy S$cz county by the Union of the Polish Peasant Party (Zwi^zek Stronnictwa Chlopskiego), which was founded in 1892 by the clergyman Stanislaw Stojalowski and the brothers Jan and Stanislaw Potoczek.2 As far as I am able to evaluate myfindings,their foremost importance lies in the fact that in them I could trace the development of anti-semitic activity from the form of mass propagation of the idea to the turmoils of 1898 and their aftermath, as documented in the trials of the wrongdoers. Nevertheless the discussion of this problem is far from exhausted. Even though there seemed not to be too much difference between the Potoczek paper Zwiqzek Chlopski and the papers of the Stojalowski group we could only suppose a certain degree of representation for the full range of political motives of the populist groups. However, access to Stojalowski's own papers (Wieniec Polski and Pszczolka) was secured, and it became obvious that, in addition to the motives in the Potoczek paper, there were some new aspects of

* From: Frank Golczewski, "Rural Anti-Semitism in Galicia before World War I," in Chimen Abramsky, Maciej Jachimczyk and Antony Polonsky (eds.), The Jews in Poland, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1986, pp. 97-105, abridged. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 Frank Golczewski, Polnisch-jüdische Beziehungen 1881-1922: Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus in Osteuropa, Wiesbaden 1981, especially pp. 60-84. 2 For a first essay to describe the history of this party see Stanislaw Antori, "Dzieje ruchu ludowego S^deczyzny (!) w latach 1870-1919" (The history of the peasant movement in the years 1870-1919), RoanikS^decki,NawyS^czS, 1967, pp. 65-113, where only some citations hint that there might have been something like anti-semitism in its ideology.

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anti-semitism evident. While in Nowy Sg.cz political motives were not entirely clear and most anti-Jewish arguments were based on the peasant-inn-keeper relation (and a lot of more or less mysterious legends), a more political or even party political aspect should not be underestimated with Stojalowski. The importance of this lies in the fact that we can easily construct a correlation between this national populism and anti-semitism in Galicia on the one hand and other contemporary forms of pre-Fascist movements in the rest of Europe. It must be borne in mind that both French, Italian and German forms of populism had a leftist (social revolutionary) aspect,3 were portents of antisemitism, and led directly to the Fascist or national-socialist parties that had a much greater importance in the course of history than their largely unknown precursors. Galician poverty is a commonly accepted fact. In the late nineteenth century not only was Galicia the least industrialized part of partitioned Poland, but the agriculture of this kingdom was very under-developed. So, with an agricultural population of 74 per cent (as compared to 60 per cent in the Kingdom of Poland), in all of Europe only Ireland had an equal proportion of dispersed peasants who had only very few contacts with urban centres. It was through urban centres however that modernization both in economic and social terms was initiated. The only escape from a very low standard of living in a country where sixty people had to support themselves on one square kilometre and where the per capita income was one half of that in the Kingdom of Poland (which did not flow with milk and honey either) was emigration, which brought about a drain of the more mobile and enterprising parts of the population. The effects of this on the rural areas (as distinct from the very few 'real' towns) were deleterious as there were neither models of modernization nor the necessary capital to finance reform. The few forms of credit offered were mostly consumers' credits that were unable to increase productivity - on the contrary, the wide acceptance of this form of credit hindered any real effort to change the situation. In 1888 an industrialist who was a member of the Galician State Council, Stanislaw Szczepanowski, described Galician poverty in real terms and tried to form a programme of economic development interned to reform Galicia. Szczepanowski should not be branded as a judeophile, but in his book, which found much acclaim in his time and has until now been regarded as a statistical 3

For Otto Böckel's populist anti-semitic anti-conservative slogans against 'Juden, Junker und Pfaffen' in the 1880s, see for example Hermann Greive, Geschichte des modernen Antisemitismus in Deutschland, Darmstadt 1983, pp. 68-69.

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authority, he showed that the economic situation of Christians and Jews in Galicia varied to only a small degree.4 Although there was an obvious differentiation in economic activities, there was no visible preponderance of so-called Jewish wealth. Szczepanowski came to the conclusion that both Christians and Jews lived on the brink of economic disaster: 'the average Galician works for half a man and eats for one fourth', he wrote, blaming poverty on the low productivity and poor quality of economic entrepreneurship in the country.5 There were two ways to change this situation. One was represented by the rural co-operative movement, which tried to build up capital by exploiting the divergent interests of the Polish peasants and the Jewish intermediaries, using anti-semitic phrases to support their argument. Szczepanowski, on the other hand, argued that even though the ruinous situation of Christians and Jews was basically the same, only with the latter was there a certain prospect of success in accumulating the necessary capital for bringing about a more industrialized and more modern economy.6 Hist argument was basically a psychological one: the Pole, no matter if he was a landowner, a civil servant or a lowly peasant, had a certain degree of secure income, and even though it consisted of natural resources he was not forced to save up money as much as his Jewish intermediary, who was totally dependent on the money economy and therefore nearer to the possibility of death by starvation because of changes in his economic situation. This situation encouraged the Jewish people to save money. As a consequence Szczepanowski saw a possibility for economic development only when the country succeeded in combining the efforts of Poles and Jews in order to accumulate the capital necessary to modernize economic life and raise productivity. I quote these theories only to support the argument that the anti-semitic and populist activity of groups like Stojafowski's was not the only, and certainly not the best, way to escape from the economic dilemma of Galicia. It consumed a lot of economic and political energy developing a religiously motivated class struggle instead of working together towards a common goal. But there was another dilemma: the different groups that wished to achieve the economic improvement of Galicia were in principle able to co-operate. This conclusion can be drawn from the fact that both the Stojalowski group

4

5 6

Stanislaw Szczepanowski, Νξάζα Galicyi w cyfrach i program energkznego rozwoju gospodarstwa Krajawego (The misery of Galicia in figures with an energetic programme for national development), Lwow 1888. Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 135.

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and the Polish Social Democrats, under Ignacy DaszyAski, were in close contact. As late as 5 January 1897 Stojalowski wrote to Daszytiski: 'From the Social Democratic Party I am only divided by the gospel - it is the common ownership of land and means of production that I demand. I do not know if I will become a party-member, but I am a Social Democrat/ It was Daszydski who administered Stojalowski's Teschen papers during his detention.7 All other populist politicians were, at one time or another (together with Stojalowski) members of the same political movement and they left it because of issues that had little or nothing to do with ideological differences. [.. .] What can be seen is a basic instrumentalization of the Polish-Jewish problem for party political aims. This is a frequent motive as far as the bourgeois groups are concerned, but there is a certain degree of acceptance among scholars that the rural anti-semitism in Galicia was based more in reality, influenced by the existing economic and political system, and therefore not as much to blame as is the case with similar utterances to be heard from the bourgeois milieu. In referring to the justifications expressed in the Stojalowski papers I will try to show that this was not so. In my opinion anti-semites in modern history are not homogeneous. In order to understand this historical development one has to divide anti-semitic persons into three groups8: Firstly, the violent activist, a man unable to think independently, who falls prey to slogans and who is driven by a kind of uncontrollable desire to act against people whom he considers to be 'foes'. Anything ranging from a priest's sermon to a well-placed pamphlet will be sufficient to set him into motion. He will accept arguments without question, as long as they confirm the psychological frame of reference into which he has been socialized. The point is that this person is the only active one: he is the one who transforms anti-Jewish slogans into actions. Even thought these people are the most visible, to me they are not the real anti-semites. They are those who are able to live peacefully together with the Jews, and even to build up friendly relations, as long as they are not incited to hatred by outside influences. Those who incite the potential activist, I call propagators. They have a certain superiority over the aforementioned activists. They are those who are able to serve as propagandists among the peasants (as far as rural Galicia is concerned). Clergymen, teachers, journalists and others to whom any kind of authority is attached by the lower classes belong to this group. They are more 7 8

See Ignacy Daszyriski, Pamiqtniki (Memoirs), Warsaw 1957, vol. 1, ρ 139. As I have tried in my book Polnisch-jüdische Beziehungen, p. 358-361.

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eloquent than the peasants, but still of their world and thus able to influence their activity. I stress this similarity of social background in order to underline the difference between the populist agitators of Galicia and the so-called Narodniki of Tsarist Russia, who were not understood by the countryfolk and were often turned over to the state police. The Galician agitators were close to the peasants, usually former peasants or clergymen who appeared to be 'friends of the people'. The peasants could look up to them, and it was these 'friends' who supplied the motives and gave the sign to act. The third group is the smallest, but the most important. They are the politicians, who need not even be convinced of the sense of anri-semitic theories, but who are fully aware that, with the support of anti-semites they can fulfil their political aims. They co-operate with the Jews if it serves their ambitions (we know of such moves by Roman Dmowski) but they are very quick to profess the most radical opinions as soon as they realize that this is the way to bring about political victory. As I have shown, Stojalowski was ready to co-operate with Daszyhski when they were both hunted by their enemies. On the other hand they could express the utmost hatred for each other as soon as this seemed to be politically opportune. Here we come to the point of my paper: in reviewing the motives that were professed by the peasants and tracing them back to the populist papers and then to their political authors, we gain an insight into the mechanics of political anti-semitism. It was not the peasants who were interested in this problem, but their political leaders, who could incite them to act violendy. This is of very great importance since it provides an opportunity to judge other ways of inciting uneducated masses to act for political ends. The most effective means of inciting the people of Galicia was the propagation of the idea that the Jews owned fabulous riches. It was not only in these times that the name of Rothschild conjured up a picture of an incredible and mysterious financial empire which is not so easily associated with such names as Getty or Ford. While in Potoczek's paper wefindthe delightful calculation that a division of only a part of Rothschild's money among the Jews of Galicia would have made each of them an incredibly rich person,9 in Stojalowski's Wieniec Polskiwe have a similar picture of a Rothschild family that could buy the whole of Cisleithania for their money. This is followed by the prophecy that the Jews would one day buy up Galicia and tell the Poles: 'Take your

9

Ibid., pp.

67-68.

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priests and churches and get off, this is not your country'.10 The implication is quite clear: the Polish peasants are encouraged to revolt and take the country from those 'rich Jews' - chasing them out of Galicia. This argument could easily be explained as a psychological device to induce the rather passive peasantry to action, but in this paper this would lead too far. Wealth is closely identified with power - a concept which brings us to the point where the links between populism and socialist attitudes must be considered. The manner by which the Jews come into the possession of their wealth is, more often than not, supposed to be criminal. The socialist concept of exploitation is applied to the relation between the Jew and the Polish peasant, the latter serving as an illustration of the former, which supports the case for the acceptance of the populist arguments by modern Marxist interpreters. We know many cases of statements in which Jewish exploitation, the role of the Jew as a capitalist, as an innkeeper and as the destroyer of lowerclass morals andfinancesis described.11 But we should not take these arguments at face value. Bear in mind the following (about a Catholic capitalist): 'Even if this may be unjust, it is always better a Catholic becomes rich than a Jew'.12 Or 'If you enter a Christian inn on a holiday you do not commit a sin as you do with a Jewish one.'13 Here it is possible to detect the 'anti-capitalist' trend of populism. It was not the capitalist or the intermediary or the innkeeper the populists were against, but the Jew who filled those roles - without, of course, thinking of the historical conditions of his entering them. By welcoming a Catholic trader or innkeeper they do nothing except stimulate Christian-Jewish economic competition without any effect on the quality of the economy itself. This can be compared with the National Democrats' statements as they started their boycott movement in 1912. Economic in-fighting is nothing unusual, but on the other hand it is not something that deserves the ennoblement handed out for merit in the economic amelioration of a country. It was solely because the peasants accepted the notion that a Jewish innkeeper or trader cannot but cheat - as he is ordered by his Talmud to do14 10 11

12 13 14

Wieniec Polski (1898), pp. 138-9, 'Zydowskie majätki'. Pizcz0tka(\S9S), p. 134: Ά woman that brings eggs, butter, cheese, etc. to the market must sell for the price the Jews like (which isfabulouslylow, of course), because that mob closes ranks and defines prices at will; they buy cheap and sell expensive and that is how they get rich.' Pszczolka (1898), p. 194. Wieniec Polski {1898), p. 189. See such statements as 'They are so furious against us Catholics that you tremble with fear', or 'the Talmud orders them to kill us whenever possible . . . to cause damage to our means and our health', Wieniec Polski (1898), p. 188, Ό Zydowskich tajemnicach'.

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that the populist agitators were able to distinguish between Jews and Christian traders: the more you examine their arguments, the less clear their objective economic aims become; only the anti-Jewish aspect remains stable. But there is a political correlative to this analysis. In the elections of June 1898 there was strong competition between the Stapinski populists and Stojalowski's supporters. It was again on the 'Jewish theme' that Stojalowski fought out hisrivalrieswith fellow populists; this is the new trend found in Stojalowski's papers but not in Potoczek's. There, in fact, were no ideological differences between Stojalowski and Stapinski, but nevertheless Stojalowski had to fight him in order to have his candidate elected. He fell back upon his favourite tactic, stating that Stapmski had been bought by the Jews. In his election paper he wrote about the fight between his own Christian-populist candidate Lewicki and the 'candidate of the Jews', Stapinski.15 Under the title 'Stapmski and his friends' he described the advocates claiming to be Stapmski's helpers.16 He stresses the fact that the names of Stapmski's helpers, Nebenzahl, Lewenthal and Tygermann are traditionally Jewish. He continues by suggesting that it was the Jewish communities who called for a Jewish vote for Stapinski (there is good reason to assume that this was correct) and on the basis of this he declares that 'anybody who will now still vote for Stapmski gives cause to consider him as a traitor to the populist cause'.17 After the elections - in which Stojalowski's candidate was defeated - Stapinski is again described as a 'deputy of the Jews' will',18 as was Bojko, another more leftist populist politician and deputy whom he called a 'servant of the Jews from the (liberal) paper Kurjer Lwowski (parobek zydow kurjerowych).19 There are other quotations confirming that anti-Jewish slogans and insinuations were often used as weapons in populist party politics of those days. What emerges is the first use ever detected of the instrument of antisemitism inrivalriesbetween groups of exactly the same descent. The lack of ideological differences made it necessary to instrumentalize the 'Jewish question' even when the political adversary was not a Jew at all. That the situation in 1922 was quite similar should be obvious. As in 1898, the Pilsudski-ite rival of the National Democrat Dmowski's candidate was discredited by opponents who called him 'their president' (Ich prezydent).20 Wieniec Polski (1898), p. 285. Ibid., p. 286-287. '7 Ibid., p. 287. 18 Ibid., p. 352. 19 Ibid., p. 354. 2 0 See Golczewski, op. at., 1981, pp. 342 ff. 15 16

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Similarly with Stapinski, he had nothing to do with the Jews other than that the Minorities' Block had voted for him after the Block's own candidate had to step down from the rostrum. Gabriel Narutowicz was murdered some days later by a painter who believed the politician was indeed the 'Jews' president'. In 1898 there were precedents - shortly after the election, riots took place which precipitated the declaration of a state of emergency in 33 Galician districts.21 As in 1922 the most vital protagonists of anti-semitism disclaimed any responsibility for the outbreak of the turmoil and tried to blame it on the Jews themselves. There were efforts by many to dissociate themselves from violent anti-semitism and criticism of those who had been incited to violence by the propaganda. Instead of 'force', 'politics' would be used against the Jews. But none of this changes the fact that rural anti-semitism in Galicia was mostly of the same kind as that which became visible in later election campaigns in urban areas. Again it is clear that it had become a well-established political weapon, and that the events of 1898 are to be considered as forerunners of those of 1922. Stojaiowski's journals provide an enormous wealth of material, and in conclusion it seems appropriate to ask what a historian can extrapolate from this source. Indeed is it important and rewarding to concentrate on this rural anti-semitism in Poland? The answer is definitely, yes. What we are forced to realize is a strict class difference (even though the contrary is stated in the journals themselves) between the political perpetrators of populism in Galicia and the people to whom it is addressed. The division of people involved in acts of anti-semitism into the three groups mentioned above, was not first formulated in relation to the Galician situation, but it is confirmed by the facts established there. Populism was not a purely political movement, but an instrument used by certain politicians to elevate themselves into power - as is nearly every political ideology. With Stojaiowski's group there is clear evidence of the exploitation of economic wrongs for private political aims which do not themselves promise an improvement of the economic situation. The elimination of the Jewish intermediaries does not help the economy at all, unless it is combined with an improvement of rural productivity. Szczepanowski said so in 1888, and there is still reason enough to agree. Also the use of anti-semitic arguments to bring people into political power seemed to be helpful. Anti-Judaism was a long-established sentiment and the rural population that could vote for the first time in the 1890s was more easily

21

Pszczoika (1898), pp. 197-198.

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won by traditionally established arguments than by appeals for temperance and harder work. It might have been a psychological trick to bring about less drinking and more labour by sponsoring anti-semitic slogans, but it should be clearly stated that while the anti-semitic slogans were accepted, the thinking behind them was not. The strange application of economic arguments proves that the Stojaiowski peasant movement in Galicia was not a 'leftist' one, although it had a social revolutionary quality, certainly. We know that it was directed against Jews as well as land-owners and the upper clergy, but in the context of anti-semitism it had a quality which could be considered right of centre. Gino Germani wrote: It is in populist movements that the coexistence of opposite right and left ideologies is most prominent. Populism often becomes a mass movement only in societies where typical Western European leftist ideologies of the working class fail to develop into mass parties. Populism is a multi-class movement. Populism probably defies any comprehensive definition.22

Even though Germani wrote about Latin American movements, there are many similarities between his findings and the rural situation in Galicia. However, I would not agree that Galician populism defies definition. Certainly it does not fit into our established patterns of political thinking, but this is only a reason to revise them. As our political culture is mainly one of right/ left dichotomy, the investigation into Galician anti-semitism in the 1890s and in 1918-19, when it broke out again in an even more violent form, is cause to ask ourselves if this dichotomy really does describe historical realities, as well as present realities. There are other ways in which the sources mentioned may be helpful. Historians often find themselves in difficulties when they are forced to work on discrepancies between propagandistic statements and their perception or transformation into historical reality. What we see in Galician rural antisemitism is that a propagandist structure was transformed into activity. It was Stojafowski himself who accused the peasants, after the outbreak of riots, of acting unwisely. But he was ready to admit that they had done something that was in line with the demands of the current political climate. Again it was a selective realization of these theoretical demands, with only the negative and the destructive being realized since they were in accord with human motivation. It takes more effort to support the positive, innovative, productive ways to improve a given position, and they are less easily realized. The lesson is that propaganda must be tailored to the lower instincts if it is to be found attractive.

22

Gino Germani, Authoritarianism, Fascism and National Populism, New Brunswick, NJ, 1978, p. 88.

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It was the victory of the politician that was the objective; any real improvements that might follow were only of secondary importance. This is a fact any good propagandist knows and will exploit, but one which the more idealistic historian is reluctant to accept. The positive ideals of the populist leaders attract much attention from present-day politicians and historians. When we realize that in those days the more negative traits were more central to historic reality, we should ask ourselves if we should not review this way of looking at the past.

N O R M A N DAVIES

Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth Century Poland"" This essay aims to outline some of the main features of Poland's pre-war society, and to relate them to the study of Polish-Jewish relations. It is not a research paper, and does not present any farts that are not widely known. What it does is to stress the multinational character of old Poland, and to place the bilateral problems of Poles and Jews within the multilateral complexities of ethnic relations as a whole. It warns against the tendency of some modern historians to view the past anachronistically, or to reduce the complex realities to a simple confrontation between Poles and Jews. Nowadays, the ethnic make-up of modern Polish society is remarkably and artificially homogeneous. Contemporary Poland is overwhelmingly Polish. As a result of the mass murders, mass deportations and comprehensive frontier changes of the Second World War and its aftermath, young Poles can grow up without ever hearing their neighbours speak a different language or practise a different religion. Very few Poles under the age of 45 or 50 - i. e. the great majority of the population - can ever remember having a German or aJewish or a Ukrainian classmate or neighbour, or can remember seeing a recognisable 'resident foreigner5 in their midst. Although they know, of course, that pre-war Poland contained many so-called 'minorities', the present state of affairs has inevitably strengthened traditional nationalist mythology linking the Polish 'land' exclusively with the Polish 'nation'. Government propaganda has undoubtedly played its part: but it was perhaps inevitable that an uprooted postwar generation of Poles should yearn for a national past in which their own antecedents held pride of place and where the 'minorities' played only a marginal role. Post-war historiography has certainly reflected this feeling. Similarly, it is entirely natural that post-war Jewish opinion, traumatised by the Holocaust and properly impressed by the creation of the Jewish state of * From: Polin. A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies 4,1989, pp. 143-158. Basil Blackwell for the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

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Israel, should be dominated by the Zionist perspective. Zionism (in the sense of modern Jewish nationalism) naturally stresses not only the existence but the distinctness of the Jewish nation in the past, as in the present. The thousandyear sojourn of the Jews in Poland is viewed less as an integral part of Polish history; but rather as a lengthy stage of the Jewish nation's Long March through the world's wildernesses, begun in Zion and ending in Zion. The starting point of this discourse must obviously lie with the extremely complex kaleidoscope of ethnic settlement which developed in the Polish lands over a thousand years and more. Contrary to the picture painted by the Polish nationalist 'Autochthonous School', it is doubtful whether one can fairly talk at any period of history of a broad Polish heartland inhabited exclusively by Poles and overlapping with areas of non-Polish settlement merely on the outer fringes. In reality, the areas of mixed settlement both in West and East formed by far the largest part of the whole. By the late nineteenth century the cradle of historic Poland in Posnania (Wielkopolska) contained a large and growing German element. The Kresy or Borderlands in the East, with their mixed populations of Poles, Lithuanians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians were more extensive than the provinces which form the 'centre' of modern Poland today. The whole country, from Silesia in the west to deepest Ukraine in the east, was overlaid by what elsewhere I have called 'the Jewish Archipelago'. Jewish settlement was naturally very thin in the rural countryside. But it was concentrated in the small towns, the shtetlach, in the provincial centres, and in the growing cities, where, as often as not, the Jews would form an absolute majority in their particular ward or locality. In addition, the imperial regimes of the nineteenth century imported large numbers of foreign bureaucrats - Prussian Germans from Berlin, Austrian Germans from Bohemia or Vienna and Russians from St Petersburg - to administer their Polish provinces. Given these complex patterns, I often think that it is misleading to describe Poland's multinational society in terms of the statistical 'Polish majority' on the one hand, and of the so-called 'national minorities' on the other. In a very real sense, most people in early twentieth century Poland lived in conditions which nourished their perception of being an exposed minority, surrounded by potentially hostile foreigners, and wearied by the universal feelings of insecurity. In particular, it would be wrong to identify automatically the majority population as the social oppressors, and the national minorities as the oppressed. Both the Polish and the Jewish communities displayed a wide range of social and economic standing, and in various times and locations different groups of Poles and Jews could sometimes be regarded as advantaged, sometimes as disadvantaged, elements of society. The lines between

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rich and poor, or between privilege and underprivilege, did not follow the ethnic divide. If one examines the distribution of the Polish 'majority', for example, - say in 1921 at the first independent census - it soon becomes clear that there were not many provinces or towns of the reborn Republic which ethnic Poles could feel were exclusively 'theirs'. Having passed the entire nineteenth century as a minority group within Russia, Prussia or Austria, and having developed all the complexes to match, the nationalistic element within the Polish community now realised with no small sense of frustration that the new Poland did not measure up to their dreams. All too often, from their point of view, the Poles were still a minority, or at best an embattled and marginal majority, within their own land. In many of the former Prussian districts, the German element still maintained an economic, if not always a numerical supremacy. In the east, although the Polish landowners still dominated the social scene, the Poles were heavily outnumbered by Byelorussians and Ukrainians. In the urban centres, the Jewish presence was strong, and sometimes dominant. In Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the Jewish element, which was set to decline in relative terms, nonetheless stood only slighdy below the 50 per cent mark. For Jewish readers, especially in America, the picture of an isolated Polish minority living in a predominantly Jewish town and feeling uneasy at their predicament, may seem to be standing history on its head. And, of course, it wasn't the norm; but it was common enough in the eastern provinces. Memoirs and personal reminiscences of life in the former East Galicia, for example, in towns such as Buczacz, or Brody, or Podhajce in the late 1930s, recall Polish apprehension as the Betar movement marched its young people round the market square to chants of 'We will conquer Palestine' or 'We're not scared of Arabs'. In this case, Polish-Jewish tensions were tempered by the shared fears of local Ukrainian activists who tended to view both Poles and Jews as fair game for harassment. After all, there was a long history in those parts dating back to Chmielnicki's Revolt (1648) and the Massacre of Human (1768), when vengeful peasants on the rampage had slaughtered both Poles and Jews indiscriminately. On the other hand, one needs to remember that the interests of the Polish community were supported by the full panoply of state power: whilst the interests of the 'minorities' were not. The reigning mood of Poland's state authorities in the inter-war period was 'unremittingly nationalist'. The prevailing convention, especially among the lower levels of the bureaucracy, was to view the Second Republic as a Polish state. As a result, the dealings of the Polish community with the other nationalities could not be conducted on the basis of equality. In terms of attitudes, the imbalance could only increase the

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embitterment of the 'minorities', which in turn fuelled the fears and suspicions of the Poles. In terms of political power and action, however, it gave the Polish community a commanding position. In the 1930s, there was no way that Polish Jewry could have properly defended itself against discriminatory legislation or against petty harassment by officialdom: no way that Poland's Ukrainians could have matched the firepower and resources of the army and the state police in their murderous campaigns of 'pacification'. In my view, it was these specific conditions, where each of the ethnic communities had reason to feel insecure, that fostered the rise of rival nationalisms on all sides, and the growing threat of intercommunal violence. Nationalism - with its mission for strengthening the separate identity of each community, and its later stage of demanding a separate homeland for each nationality fed on the tensions and flourished in proportion to people's anxiety. Regrettably, it also diminished the chances for maintaining mutual toleration and intercommunal harmony. Yet one glimpse at the maps shows that the nationalists' hopes for creating national homelands for each of the nationalities of the region could never have been archieved by natural evolution. To create a Poland exclusively for the Poles, a Ukraine for the Ukrainians, a Lithuania for the Lithuanians, or an Israel for the Jews required the unscrambling of a thousand years of social development, together with a degree of brute force and political compulsion which no one in pre-war Poland possessed, or even imagined. During the Second World War, of course, the situation changed radically. The arrival of the Nazis and the Soviets, both of whom possessed the political will and the logistical capacity for social engineering on a mass scale, sounded the knell for Poland's multinational society. The Nazis with their plans for German Lebensrawn and their predilection for mass murder, the Soviets with their practice of mass deportation, and the Allied Governments with their acquiescence in wholesale territorial and demographic changes, combined to bring Poland's traditional society to an end. The ethnic conflicts of pre-war Poland were not so much solved as destroyed (together with millions of people whose existence or address had not suited the plans of the Nazi and Soviet social engineers). In the meantime, and especially in the rising tensions of the 1930s, each of Poland's ethnic communities increasingly felt itself to be caught in a trap from which there was no obvious escape. The Poles, inflamed by nationalistic elements with growing influence, felt that all the 'minorities' were ever more 'anti-Polish'. The Germans of Poland, won over by Nazi propaganda, felt that they were under attack by 'anti-German' oppressors. The Ukrainians, whose nationalist movement had sprouted an active terrorist wing, increasingly felt

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that their Polish, Jewish (and Russian) neighbours were 'anti-Ukrainian'. The Polish Jews, who in their scattered settlements were least able to defend themselves, increasingly felt that all other groups in Poland - Poles, Germans, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians - were 'anti-semitic'. It is no simple matter to determine how far these mutual fears and hatreds were subjective, and how far they were based on cold, rational analysis. Yet it is impossible to deny that they were on the increase on all sides. In the 1930s, each of the communities spawned activist groups who in their different ways were all beginning to think of radical solutions to (what they considered) an intolerable dilemma. The Polish National Democrats, and even more their radical and illegal offshoot, the ONR-Falanga, began to talk not merely of compulsory Polonisation of the minorities, but also of assisted emigration, even of expulsion. The Nazi 'Fifth Column' began to plan, and to arm, for a German invasion. The Ukrainian O. U.N., apart from its terrorist campaign against the Polish authorities, aimed to attach themselves to the Nazis' bandwagon. The Polish Zionists were training young Jews in agriculture, with emigration to Palestine in view; and the Zionist-Revisionists were organising Jewish self-defence units. None of these radical groups had the means to put their wider schemes into operation. Not everyone in Poland, however regarded the ethnic mix as a recipe for disaster. The entourage of Pilsudski, a native of the Wilno region whose inhabitants were familiar with particularly complicated patterns of ethnic settlement, had no sympathy for ethnic nationalism, tending instead to look for a revival of the multinational traditions of the old, pre-Partition Commonwealth. Pilsudski's outlook prevailed in the upper echelons of the Polish Government until his death in 1935. Similarly, each of the 'minority' communities contained groups and individuals resolutely opposed to the nationalist trend amongst them, dreaming instead of turning Poland into a 'Switzerland of the East'. Within Polish Jewry, for instance, the Zionist movement met stalwart opposition bothfromconservative, religious groups and, on the Left, from the Bund. The Bund, though it was actively nationalist in the cultural sphere especially in the promotion of Yiddish education and literature - would have nothing of the Zionist plans for a separate Jewish homeland. The vision of the Bund, as of Polish socialists in general, was of a multinational Poland, where each ethnic community could preserve its identity, but live with its neighbours in harmony and justice. Laster apologists for the Bund have claimed that by the late 1930s it had assumed 'the leadership of Polish Jewry'.1 1

See Bernard Johnpoll, The Politics ofFutility: the GeneralJewish Workers'Bund of Poland. 191743, Ithaca 1967, p. 195.

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As things worked out, Poland's ethnic cauldron was knocked over by the Second World War before it ever reached spontaneous boiling point, and it is difficult to say whether, if left to itself, the situation would have developed into a generalised ethnic conflagration of the sort which has erupted elsewhere in the world - say in partitioned India, or in the Lebanon. All one can say is that the prospects were not favourable. As it was, Polish-German antagonisms led to terrible local blood-lettings and mutual reprisals that did not end until Poland's Germans were forcibly expelled in 1946-7. Polish-Ukrainian antagonisms led during and after the war to genocidal massacres on both sides, with thousands of Ukrainian civilians being killed in central Poland and tens of thousands of Poles killed in Volhynia and Podolia. In that context, where existing ethnic hatreds had been further inflamed by the overt racism of the Nazi Occupation, it is doubtful whether Polish-Jewish relations could have escaped unscathed. But, as it was, by constructing hermetic Jewish ghettoes at the start of the occupation, the Nazis forcibly separated Poland's Jews from the general population at an early stage, and proceeded to murder them from 1942 onwards in isolation. By that particular arrangement, the attitudes of Poles to Jews and of Jews to Poles were for practical purposes rendered largely irrelevant. After 1945, Polish society was transformed. Polish Jewry had been literally decimated by the Holocaust and most of the survivors were intent on leaving for western Europe, America or, when possible, Palestine. Individuals apart, the only Jewish groups who chose to stay were those who for one reason or another felt committed to the new communist-led regime. It is ironic that it was in this phase of Polish-Jewish disengagement that the Kielce Pogrom of July 1946 produced an act of more flagrant and shameful anti-semitism than anything which had occurred in the critical years preceding the outbreak of war. Poland's Germans had either fled, or in 1945-7, were forcibly expelled. Poland's Ukrainians were either incorporated into the USSR by frontier changes, or forcibly deported or dispersed following the civil war of 1945-7. Moreover, throughout the war, the Soviet authorities had observed a narrow definition of Polish nationality - which excluded all nonCatholics, and/or non-Polish citizens before 1939. As a result, large numbers of non-Poles who might otherwise have take up residence in Poland were prevented from leaving the Soviet Union, even during the post-war 'repatriation' campaigns. The outcome was the ethnically 'Polish Poland' which we know today. The implications of this multinational context for the study of Polish-Jewish relations are considerable. I wouldn't claim that the following observations are completely original but they may help to throw some new light on the subject,

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and to keep it away from the confrontational posture, which can still be encountered in some quarters. I Before the Second World War, Polish-Jewish relations formed but one aspect of a much more complicated ethnic mix, and cannot be judged in isolation, or simply as a bilateral issue.

As often as not, Polish-Jewish relations formed one axis of a trilateral ethnic framework. In Silesia, for example, where the Jews were assimilating fast into German culture, Poles, Jews, and Germans all contributed to the ethnic pattern. In Wilno, or in Lwow, the Jewish community held the middle ground in the complicated relations of Poles and Lithuanians, or of Poles and Ukrainians. In Lodz, the Polish-Jewish-German triangle - so eloquently reconstructed in the main protagonists of Reymont's novel, Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land) - requires that consideration be paid to all three sides of the problem. The events in Lwow (Lemberg) in November 1918 provide a concrete example of the odd conclusions that can be reached if the Polish-Jewish relationship is artificially extracted from the wider, multi-ethnic context. At the end of a week-long battle for the city between Polish and Ukrainian forces, elements of the victorious Polish soldiery went back into certain streets, where they claimed to have been fired at by civilians, and massacred the inhabitants. An estimated 340 innocent persons were killed. Some two-thirds of the victims were Ukrainians. The remaining seventy or so were Jews. Many history books refer to these events as the 'Lemberg Pogrom', and cite it as one of the worst instances of Polish anti-semitism in action. Yet one has to wonder whether a massacre in which the majority of victims were Christians can fairly be described as a 'pogrom'. It is conceivable, of course, that two distinct atrocities occurred - one a pogrom of Jews inspired by Polish anti-semitism; the other a military massacre, four times as large, inspired by Polish antiUkrainianism. Or perhaps, a gang of embittered soldiers, brutalised by a vicious local war, simply went on the rampage, and killed every 'foreigner' they could find. Some clarification is necessary.2

2

O n e of the first reports to reach the west described the events in Lemberg as 'one of the worst pogroms in Polish history' Manchester Guardian, 30 Nov. 1918. Later, in 1919 in a series of articles written by Israel Cohen and entitled 'Pogroms in Poland', the Times followed the same line. See Israel Cohen, Travels in Jewry, London 1952. Independent investigations by British and American missions, however, could not establish any clear conclusions. The British Embassy in Warsaw in particular thought that press reports had been inaccurate. In his covering

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Π The condition of any one of Poland's numerous ethnic communities can only be fairly described in relation to other elements within Polish society. Comparisons with western Europe, or with North America, are not very relevant.

For example, it is very understandable for present-day Americans to study the condition of their forebears in Poland, and to feel indignant at the poverty and oppression which they had to endure. Polish Americans, American Jews and others are all apt to undertake the same exercise, and to reach the same conclusions with respect to tbeir own particular forebears. The greatest wave of emigration from Poland to North America took hundreds of thousands of starving people of various nationalities from Galicia - Poles, Jews, Ukrainians in the decade or so before the First World War; and it is a sobering thought for their descendants living comfortably in the suburbs of Chicago, New York, or Toronto to compare their grandparents' life with their own. However, if the aim is to understand the realities of early twentieth-century Polish society, as opposed to the consequences of migration, one should be studying, above all, the interdependence and mutual hardships of all elements of Galician society, where the Jewish masses no less than the Polish and Ukrainian peasantry, were forced to live on the hunger line. In this way, one might learn that the various ethnic communities, despite their differences, had much in common. What is not in order, I think, is for a historian to take the misfortunes of his own group in isolation and to pretend that their misfortunes were somehow unique or isolated.3

3

letter to the Samuel Report in June 1920, Sir Horace Rumbold wrote: 'It is giving the Jews very little real assistance to single o u t . . . for reprobation and protest the country where they have perhaps suffered least.' Norman Davies, "Great Britain and the Polish Jews. 1918-20,"Journal of Contemporary History 8, no. 2, 1973, pp. 119-142. A persistent offender in this regard is Martin Gilbert, whose Jewish History Atlas, London 1976, is one of the most popular introductions to the subject. Gilbert would argue no doubt that his atlas is limited by definition to the Jewish experience. But that does not save it from numerous misleading statements. For example, when, on his map of 'The Chmielnicki Massacres' (p. 530) he writes, .. his followers joined with the Polish peasants in attacking the Jews . . . Over 100,000 Jews were killed; many more were tortured or ill-treated; others fled . . . ' , the reader might easily get the erroneous impression that the Chmielnicki massacres were directed mainly, if not exclusively at the Jews. In fact, there were virtually no Polish peasants at that period in the areas marked on Gilbert's map, and the attacks on the Jews were but one part of the terrible vengeance wreaked by the Cossacks and their associates on everyone whom they regarded as the agents of feudal oppression. Similarly, on his map of 'The Jews of Austria-Hungary, 18671914' (p. 73), Gilbert marks a wide area of Galicia 'in which 5,000Jews died each year through starvation, 1880-1914'. Again, the unsuspecting reader might be led to assume that the Jews of Galicia were the main or even the only victims of starvation. There is nothing in the text to

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m Regional variations were very marked. Polish-Jewish relations in western districts, where Germans often predominated, could not be the same as in certain eastern districts, where the Poles formed a small but powerful landed elite surrounded by a largely Lithuanian or Ruthenian peasantry.

The same might be said of the Jewish community which in the western provinces was largely associated with the prosperous 'modernised' German bourgeoisie, but in the east consisted largely of an impoverished, traditionalist society. Arguably, in cultural no less than in economic terms, the Jews of Posnania or Silesia were separated from the Ostjuden of Lithuania or East Galicia by a gulf even wider than the barriers which separated them from their Polish and German neighbours. Ethnic divisions alone cannot begin to explain these variations. IV In so far as the ethnic divisions were correlated, at least in part, with social structures, it is essential to identify the socio-economic interests which underlie many of the traditional attitudes of the various communities to each other. Polish Jewry was the one major group which had never been subjected to serfdom, and comparisons between the lot of Polish Jews with that of black slaves in America are misconceived.

In the feudal society of the Old Polish Commonwealth, the Jews had formed a separate social and legal estate, but one which, through the arenda system, worked closely with the nobility. Attitudes deriving from former centuries often persisted long after the destruction of the Commonwealth in 1795, or the final abolition of serfdom in 1864. The Jews continued to fulfil many of the same social and economic functions which they had carried out in feudal times - being very strongly represented in the professions, as doctors and lawyers, in urban services and in trade and commerce. Of course, from the Jewish perspective, the changes wrought by a modernising society which saw the rise of an aggressive, and establishment of an expansive Polish state bureaucracy, were often seen in a negative light - even as a concerted 'antisemitic' attack on the Jewish community. From the perspective of the peasants, however, and especially of the Byelorussians and Ukrainians of 'Polska B', who saw little escape route from their life of illiteracy and provincial

indicate that the Polish and Ukrainian peasants of Galicia were starving in even larger numbers. Indeed, it was the desperate condition of the peasantry, on whom most of the Jews depended for their livelihood, which drove up to a quarter of the surviving population of the province to emigrate to the United States in those last two decades before the First World War.

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backwardness, the Jewish community could easily be seen as a continuing agency of their former servitude, and as an obstacle to progress. None of these 'perspectives' is necessarily impartial, or scientifically accurate; and all viewpoints need to be weighed in the balance. But for anyone familiar with Polish social history, the fashionable perspective which tries to liken the position of the Jews in Poland to that of the descendants of black slavery in the USA must surely be the least convincing.4 V Nationalism is a force which has afflicted every ethnic community in Eastern Europe, and Zionism, with its goal of building a separate Jewish homeland in Palestine, should probably be seen as a variant of the other nationalisms prevalent in the area, rather than a phenomenon sui generis. The divisions and conflicts which theriseof Zionism provoked within Polish Jewry, as well as with their neighbours, could be profitably explored in the light of similar developments provoked by theriseof ethnic nationalism in each of the other communities of the Polish lands.

At this point, I should probably declare my own interest. In my studies of Polish history, I have always felt that 'Nationalism', though all-pervasive, is a phenomenon which on balance has done more harm than good. One of the minor upsets of my early career occurred when MyslPolska, the organ of the Polish National Democrats in London denounced me as a communist agent. Later, having written one of the first non-nationalist histories of Poland, which pays due attention to all the non-Polish elements of the story, I received the applause of all sections of Polish opinion, except the Nationalist one. Before falling foul of certain distinguished and undistinguished commentators in the USA, I had the honour to be attacked as 'anti-Polish' in that fount of wisdom, the Tydzien Polski.5 With this background, I tend to look at Zionism in the light of my understanding of the parallel Polish experience. I see Zionism (meaning Jewish 4

5

Even Ezra Mendelsohn, whose brilliant article "Interwar Poland: good or bad for the Jews?" in The Jews in Poland, ed. C. Abramsky et al, Oxford 1986, p. 138. Avoids any direct equation between American racism and Polish antisemitism, cannot entirely resist the analogy. 'Few, if any American intellectuals,' he claims, 'would deny that America was (and still is) an anti-black country. Possibly one reason why Polish scholars are reluctant to state that Poland was an antiJewish country is that they are accustomed to regard Poland as a victim and victims are extremely reluctant to admit that they have victimised others. But such things are possible'. To which, Amen. This is the heart of the matter. The study of Polish-Jewish relations is constantly bedevilled by the fact that both sides have had good reason to think of themselves as victims and underdogs. Both sides are reluctant to admit that they have victimised others; and it is only the exceptional scholar who can rise above the recriminations and admit that attitudes among his own people have sometimes been less than charitable. (See Note 12.) See Tydzien Polski, London, 6 September 1986, p. 6 and references.

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Nationalism in the broad sense) as encompassing both the national independence movement of the Jews, on the one hand, as well as the narrower or 'integral' ethnic Nationalist element on the other. In this line of reasoning, the broad and tolerant concept of Zionism, as practised by the founding fathers of Israel, strikes me as a cousin of the Polish Independence Movement of the early twentieth century; and David Ben-Gurion as a fellow-spirit to Jozef Pilsudski. By the same token, the narrower, militant and nationalistic concept of Zionism, as practised by say the Zionist Revisionists and others, I take to be a relative of the Polish National Democrats. In this connection I was encouraged to read a recent comment along these lines by my colleague, Neal Ascherson, an author well versed in the history of Poland in the twentieth century: 'Perhaps, to be really pessimistic, the lasting legacy of pre-war Jewish politics in Europe is not democracy, but the blind 'national egoism' which some Zionists in Poland learned from the Nationalism preached by Roman Dmowski.'6 Further to the Right, on both the Polish and the Jewish spectrum, I see further similarities between the extreme fascisants of both sides. In the continuing debates between the advocates of Pilsudski and Dmowski - as between those of Ben-Gurion and Begin, (though I know much less about it) I do not conceal my critical but committed adherence to the cause of the nonNationalists. Of course, despite the accusations of careless critics, I have never advocated any exact equivalence between the characteristics of Polish and Jewish Nationalism: but I do maintain that it is a fruitful line of enquiry. I do not believe that the intense antipathy which Polish and Jewish Nationalists have tended to feel towards each other should blind us to the common mentality and philosophy which underlies each of their positions. The same would apply, in my view, to the relationship of Polish and German, or Polish and Ukrainian Nationalists. Just because Roman Dmowski saw German nationalism as Poland's prime enemy and campaigned against it throughout his career as the principal threat to Poland's survival, we are not entitled to conclude that Dmowski did not borrow many of his ideasfromGermany, before transposing them for his own

6

Neal Ascherson, "Peace Now and Israel's Nemesis," The Observer, London, 3 January 1988. In their common opposition to Nationalism, both Polish and Jewish, the pre-war Bundists made no bones about what their opponents had in common. 'Zionism has become an ally of anti-semitism,' wrote Henryk Erlich in a polemic against the historian, Szymon Dubnow, in 1938. 'The worsening situation of the Jews throughout the world is exploited by the Zionists. The Zionists regard themselves as second-class citizens in Poland. Their aim is to be first-class citizens in Palestine, and to make the Arabs second-class citizens . . Q u o t e d by Antony Polonsky, "The Bund in Polish Political Life, 1935-39," draft paper for the Jerusalem Conference, January 1988. Fifty years later, Ehrlich's words sound almost uncannily prophetic.

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intensely Polish purposes. One of the themes of my writings which has won least approbation from the admirers of Dmowski, is that where I suspected Pan Roman of 'wanting to build a new Poland in the image of Prussia'.7 This is not the place to explore the phenomenon in detail but I have long ruminated on the truth of a half-remembered aphorism by Oscar Wilde to the effect that 'excessive hostility is often the mask of secret affinity'. VI Xenophobia - the hatred of foreigners - is one of the deplorable features of all nationalist movements, which, in their eagerness to strengthen the separate identity of their own group, inevitably weaken the sense of solidarity with other groups. All nationalities complain of persecution and oppression by their neighbours; and it would be pertinent to enquire how far the antipathies, which undoubtedly increased between Poles and Jews, reflected the painful, but predictable tensions of an impoverished multinational society beset on all sides by Nationalist fervour.

In its extreme form, I suppose, the question being asked is: can anti-semitism be regarded as a variant of other forms of xenophobia, with essentially similar well-springs and characteristics, or is it something of an entirely specific and unique nature? In the context of Polish-Jewish relations, one has equally to ask whether the 'anti-semitism' which Jews often see among Poles is the same sort of phenomenon as the 'anti-Polonism' which Poles often see among Jews? Or perhaps, are not all the dialectical 'anti-Usisms' a reflection of the insecurity which all ethnic groups experience in turbulent, multinational societies and which strengthen the distinction between 'us' and 'them'? Obviously, one of the difficulties lies in the elastic definition of the term antisemitism, which in modern usage has been turned, especially in America, to all sorts of inappropriate uses. Along with others, I am one of the people who has tended to restrict my use of the term, not because 'an irrational hatred of Jews' is not a very real and deplorable fact of modern history but because it has been confused with all sorts of non-pathological positions, from 'a dislike of bagels' to well-intended criticism of Israeli Government policy.8 7

8

On Dmowski's ambivalent attitude to Germany, see Norman Davies, Heart of Europe: a Short History of Poland, Oxford 1984, pp. 138-139. 'Although Dmowski would have been the last to admit it, his model for this ideal [Poland] derived from the earlier German nationalists of the Blut und Boden school, the original purveyors of the mystical link between 'the blood and the soil'. By the same token, one might fairly suspect Dmowski of subconsciously wishing Poland to resemble that powerful, prosperous, ethnically cohesive and reunited imperial Germany, which consciously, he so much feared and hated . . . ' For a summary of my views on the uses and abuses of the term 'anti-semitism', see "Poles and Jews: an Exchange," New York Review of Books, 9 April 1987.

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I would also count it essential to distinguish between attitudes which are the product of real political, cultural and socio-economic rivalry between nationalities (and in that case, however deformed and exaggerated, possess some sort of genuine rationale) and other attitudes which derive from thorough-going racist ideology. For example, I thought it distasteful to listen the other day to a BBC interviewer asking the Israeli Ambassador whether the attitude of the Israeli Government towards the Palestinian Arabs was not reminiscent of the Nazis' attitude towards the Jews. The tensions between Jews and Poles in prewar Poland, emanating from the long-standing rivalry of two communities inhabiting the same country, also bear little resemblance to the relationship of the Jews and the Nazis during the Holocaust. The two relationships are different in kind, and not simply in degree. Incidentally, one of the most paradoxical aspects of Polish-Jewish relations during the war concerns the parallel efforts of Poles and Jews to win the support of the British. It so happened that in 1942-3, at the height of Britain's life and death struggle with Nazi Germany, the British forces in Palestine found themselves under attack from militant Zionists. As a result, when Zionist delegations in London were trying to persuade HMG that the Jews were a member of the Allied nations, the British were not disposed to agree.9 At that same juncture, the Polish Army of General Anders made its appearance in Palestine, en route from Persia and the Soviet Union, and immediately found itself embroiled in the British-Jewish contest. Several thousand Jewish soldiers from Anders' Army deserted the Polish rank and prompdy took up arms against their erstwhile British patrons. To the Poles, such events can only have strengthened their claim to be Britain's first and most loyal ally. Yet they were not repaid in kind for their loyalty. When the chips were down at the end of the war, the British did not speak out for Poland's independence, in whose defence the War had originally been declared. Instead, in line with the USA, they conceded Poland's interests to the demands of the most recent, and their most powerful ally, the Soviet Union. Naturally, one cannot deny that some sort of link exists between Nazi ideology and the ethnic conflicts surrounding the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. In order to spin their hideous, pagan fantasies, the Nazis had first to draw on the existing body of German and especially Austrian anti-semitism, and on earlier conflicts between Jews and Christians, as well as on other 9

When a Zionist delegation headed by Lewis Namier approached the Colonial Office in London in 1943 with a plea to admit Jewish children to Palestine, and 'to regard the Jews as an Allied people suffering more than any others at the hands of the oppressor,' a British official minuted: 'This is a major fallacy'. Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, London 1981, p. 98.

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hatreds born of the German nationalists' contempt for Germany's neighbours. On this score, one might only add that Nazi ideology did not consist merely of a monstrous, inflated version of anti-semitism. It was a theory of Master Racism, which was directed not only against the Jews but in different degrees against many other groups as well.10 Nazi policies against the Poles, for example, were no less genocidal for the fact that they aimed to eliminate particular political and cultural classes rather than the Polish nation as a whole. vn Although the goals of Nationalism have been achieved in Poland, and the Nationalities separated out into their respective homelands, a balanced view of history requires an equal appreciation of those individuals and movements who opposed Nationalism in all its forms, striving instead for the multinational harmony which was destined not to be.

It is one of the ironies of modern Polish history that the Nationalists' goal of an ethnically 'Polish Poland' was achieved not by Dmowski's right-wing National Democrats but by the allegedly left-wing Communists. Since 1945, in order to legitimise Poland's new territorial arrangements, the ruling Party has propagated an ideology where old-fashioned Polish Nationalism has been mingled with 'revolutionary' Marxism-Leninism.11 The whole post-war generation has been schooled in an ultra-nationalist, intellectual framework where the eternal Polish nation and the eternal Polish macierz (homeland) between the Oder and the Bug have been taken for granted. In such a system, an awareness of Poland's links with the various non-Polish peoples of Poland was not necessary. The memory of Poland's multinational heritage, when not actively suppressed, was ignored. Yet one of the features of the Polish 'Revolution' of 1980-1, when respect for the official idology was cast to the winds, was the marked resurgence of interest in ethnic matters, including PolishJewish history. Since then, the authorities have not cared to reverse the trend 10

11

See, for example, Max Dimont, Jews, God, and History, New York 1978, p. 389. 'We must realise the fact that Nazism was not just anti-semitic, but anti-human. . . . If the Christian reader dismisses what happened in Germany as something which affected a few million Jews only, he . . . has betrayed his Christian heritage . . . And if the Jewish reader forgets the 7 million Christians murdered by the Nazis, then he has not merely let 5 million Jews die in vain but has betrayed his Jewish heritage of compassion and justice.' On the post-war marriage of Polish Nationalism with Marxism-Leninism within the ideology of the ruling Party, seeDavies, 1984, op. αί.,ρρ. 149-151; also God's Playground. A History of Poland, Vol. Π 1795 to the Present, Oxford 1981, p. 551: 'The exclusive, intolerant approach to the problem of national identity, which among other things had distinguished the PPR and the PZPR from the pre-war KPP, marks the ultimate victory of the basic ideas of Dmowski's National Democracy.'

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and, as recent conferences have testified, Polish-Jewish studies have become a subject of widespread and serious concern in Poland. Even more heartening to my mind is the newfound readiness of Polish scholars to re-examine some of the moral implications of Polish Nationalism and not to flinch before a discussion of even the most shameful episodes and attitudes. It is in this context, in my personal view, that the initiative of Professor Jan BloAski in Tygodnik Pcrwszechny at the beginning of last year, must be most warmly applauded. Bkmski's compatriots need not agree with every detail of his argument; but they must recognize thefinemixture of courage, modesty and self-criticism which raised the debate onto a higher plane. In my view, Blohski has set an example which all parties to the Polish-Jewish debate could profitably follow.12 On the Jewish side it is also clear that Zionism triumphed at the end of the war, and that in the last twenty years or so, the more nationalistic elements within Zionism have risen to prominence. (This in itself is an interesting parallel with the shift of political attitudes within independent Poland between the wars - a marked shift to the right occasioned by continuing tensions at home, and unresolved threats from abroad.) Certainly, the political atmosphere is bound to affect the conduct and direction of academic studies and debates, in the Diaspora no less than in Israel. In which case, one might conclude that in prevailing circumstances, if we are to understand the rich variety and achievements of pre-war Polish Jewry, there may be a special need to emphasize the non-Zionist and non-nationalist elements of the story and to explore in greater depth, and with greater sympathy, the aims and aspirations of those numerous Jews who were committed to life in Poland and who strove to improve the lot of all nationalities in the land of their birth. I am well aware that interventions of this sort may not meet with universal approval. Having myself made a minor foray in that direction, I know only too well that one can be rewarded with a nasty bout of earache.13 But

12

13

Jan Blonski, "Biendni Polacy patrizqa na Getto," Tygodnik pawszechny, Krakow, 11 January 1987. Norman Davies, "The Survivor"s Voice," being a review of Hanna Krall, Shielding the Flame: an Intimate Conversation with Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader ofthe Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Translated by Joanna Stasinska and Lawrence Weschler. Preface by Timothy Garton Ash. New York, 1986, in New York Review ofBooks, 20 November 1986. This review, which expressed a positive view of Edelman, of the Bund, and of Hanna Krall's book, has inspired three lengthy, and less than positive responses: from Abraham Brumberg in New York Review ofBooks, 9 April 1987; from Lucy S. Dawidowicz, "The Curious Case of Marek Edelman," Commentary 83, no. 3, March 1987; and from Jon Wiener, "When Historians Judge Their Own," The Nation, 21 November 1987. Each response has in turn provoked extensive correspondence, notably in the New York Review ofBooks, 9 April 1987; in Commentary 84, no. 2, August 1987; and in The Nation, 5 March 1988.

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the outcry only convinces me all the more that the attempt is worth the making. One positive aspect of the present situation, which enables us to take an optimistic stance in the wake of former tragedies, is the fact that Polish-Jewish relations are very largely the concern of historians. For better or for worse, Poles and Jews no longer inhabit the same multinational society where their various aspirations were constantly interrupted by everyday fears and alarms. As a result, Polish and Jewish scholars, and rash interlopers like myself, have a real opportunity to study the past in relative tranquillity, and to recreate that international harmony of purpose which many people in former Poland longed for, but few enjoyed.

PAWEL K O R Z E C

Polish-Jewish Relations during World War I'" During the first stage of the war, the situation of the Jews on Polish soil controlled by Russian armies and in Eastern Galicia, temporarily occupied by them, became nearly catastrophic. In spite of the fact that the war between the occupying powers opened new political prospects for the Polish people, the Endeks and the so-called realists (conservatives) intensified their conciliatory and subservient policy toward the czarist government. Polish deputies to the Duma made super-loyalist declarations of fidelity to Nicholas Π and to the "common Slav fatherland." In this new situation, one of the components of mutual understanding between the Endeks and the czarist government was undoubtedly the common policy of harassing the Jews, who under the circumstances, were entirely at the mercy of military commanders. In response to Polish leaders' declarations of loyalty, the Russian commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch, issued the famous manifesto promising autonomy to Polish territories under czarist rule. As a gesture of magnanimity and in order to counter pro-Polish move by the Habsburgs, Poles were admitted to minor government posts in the "Polish Kingdom." These posts were, of course, given to the Endeks, who gained considerable political power thereby. By the end of August 1914, the situation of the Russian armies on the front line had deteriorated considerably. As usual, Jews were blamed for the defeats suffered by the Russians. The Endeks accused Jews of being pro-German and pro-Austrian. Moreover, Jews were accused of espionage on behalf of Germany and Austria. Prince Nikolai Nikolaievitch, himself an outspoken anti-

* From: Pawel Korzec, "Antisemitism in Poland as an Intellectual, Social, and Political Movement", in Studies on Polish Jewry 1919-1939. The Interplay of Social, Economic and Political Factors in the Struggle of a Minority for Its Existence, edited by Joshua A. Fishman, Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, New York 1974, pp. 12-104, here pp. 29-43, 49-52. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher.

Polish-Jewish Relations during World War I

1023

Semite, readily adopted this accusation. A special bureau set up at Russian headquarters to combat espionage, acting on information provided by Polish antisemites, took draconian reprisals against alleged Jewish spies. The troops, aided by the civil population, organized pogroms. As a protective measure against Jewish, "spies," General Ruzskij ordered them to take Jewish hostages in Polish cities which were temporarily recaptured from the Germans. Nikolai Nikolaievitch eventually ordered evacuation of all Jews from the front-line region and in particular from areas surrounding fortresses. Thus, for instance, Jews were expelled from Skierniewice, Grodzisk, and Nowa Aleksandria.1 The conquest of Polish territories by the armies of the Central Powers in 1915 saved the Polish Jews. After the Russian troops had been expelled from Poland, new prospects opened before the Polish people. Although the allies continued to recognize St. Petersburg's decisive voice in Polish affairs, it became evident that a restoration of a status quo was not possible and that the creation of an independent Polish state was preordained. Thereby the question of the status of the two million Jews as well as the problem of Polish-Jewish relations was automatically put on the agenda. Remembering the ordeals the Polish Jews had previously endured, Jewish leaders from Poland as well as from Western Europe and the USA were fearful for the future. This anxiety was all the more justified sincerightistpoliticians had great influence among the Polish refugees in Switzerland and in France. Vigorous activity was undertaken by the Endek leader, Roman Dmowski, who after having escaped from occupied Poland, was acknowledged and supported by the Allied Powers as the leader of the strongest party. 1

The Jews in the Eastern War Zone, New York, 1916, a selection of documents concerning the role the Poles played in Russian military reprisals against the Jews. See also Simon Dubnow, Mein Leben, Berlin 1937. In connection with this problem, an almost unknown episode in the diplomatic history of World War I deserves to be mentioned. Even before World War I, American and West European Jewish leaders tried to obtain a statement from the Pope against Catholic persecution ofJews. It was an urgent matter in view of the tragic lot of the Jews near the Russian front. At the initiative of Jewish leaders from the United States and France, contact with the Vatican was established through the French Catholic politician F. Deloncle. After lengthy correspondence and two papal audiences granted to Deloncle, Benedict XV issued an appeal to Catholics recommending that they treat Jews in keeping with the principles of brotherhood and humanity. At the same time he dispatched secret instructions to the Polish hierarchy, urging them to put an end to anti-Jewish persecutions. In the meantime essential changes occurred with regard to the Jewish question in Poland. Highly interesting documents concerning the socalled Deloncle mission are available in the archives of the Alliance Israelite in Paris, which the author intends to publish shortly. On the Deloncle mission, see also David Movshovitsh [Mowshowitch], "Polish-yidishe farhandlungen in oysland in der ershter velt-milkhome" [Polish-Jewish negotiations abroad during the First World War], YTVO-bleter 16, pp. 110-213.

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Other Polish politicians in exile, even those representing the rightist groups, understood that it was in their interest to allay the fears of the Jews and to gain support or at least a neutral attitude from the influential Jewish organizations in France, Great Britain, and, above all, the United States. In these circumstances, efforts to make contact and to talk gained momentum. The first manifestation of these trends was an interesting document, entided the "Pacte de Lugano," of May 1916, preserved in the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris. This document has not been mentioned in either Polish or Jewish historiography. As there are no signatures on the preserved copy, it is impossible to establish the names of those who took part in the conference or of the signatories of the original document (or, indeed, to establish that the conference itself was ever convened rather than merely contemplated). The document is important because it shows that long before the act of November 5, 1916, and the February revolution in Russia, Jewish representatives adhered to the demand for Polish independence.2 During the second half of the war, the problem of restoring an independent Polish state was coming more and more to the fore as one of the major issues to be settled by a future peace treaty. On November 5,1916, Germany and Austria-Hungary proclaimed the creation of an independent Polish state, and in Warsaw, before the end of 1916, an Interim Council of State was formed. A year later, executive authorities of the new, and still only formally independent state were organized. The newly formed government was headed by Jan

2

Archives de l'Alliance Israelite Universelle [AIU], vol. 2, p. 43. The Lugano Pact was undoubtedly a byproduct of the Deloncle mission mentioned above. In his letter of February 18,1916, to Louis Marshall, the president of the American Jewish Committee, Deloncle wrote that the Holy See would examine the possibility of establishing contact between Polish representatives in Switzerland and Jewish representatives "en vue des conversations pratiques sur les meilleurs manieres d'appliquer le 'droit commun' aux juifs et aux catholiques de Pologne." These soundings may have brought about some quick results, as is suggested by the alleged text of the Lugano Pact. Its preamble reads as follows: "Les soussignes reunis le mai 1916 ä Lugano (Suisse) et desireux d'etablir une collaboration permanente et sincere entre les catholiques et les Israelites de la Pologne Independente ont approuve aujourd'hui la declaration suivante . . . " [This preamble is followed by six points which constitute the subject matter of the pact: Article one outlines the general principles of mutual understanding and cooperation between the Catholics and the Jews in Poland; article two deals with the problem of Jewish nationality; article three examines the language problem; article four, religion and religious self-government; article five specifies principles of cooperation in economic, social, and cultural activities (and cooperation within the framework of municipal government). Most interesting is article six, which provides for the Pope's mediation in case of a breach by either side.] Generally speaking, the wording of the Lugano Pact was fairly vague. Some of its articles, e. g., that on nationality, were less favorable to Jews than were the provisions of the National Minorities Treaty which was signed later.

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Kucharzewski, who made every effort to make the Jewish population forget its sad memories of the 1912 elections. After his installation as head of the government, he received a delegation from the Jewish press. He very much regretted the conflict generated at the elections by his candidacy. He assured the Jews that he was not an antisemite and that Jews would enjoy equal rights in nascent Poland. Similarly, the representative of the Warsaw authorities in London, August Zaleski, assured Jewish leaders about the future legal status of Jews in Poland.3 The collapse of the czarist regime and the acceptance of the principle of Poland's independence by the Russian interim government introduced additional elements into the situation. In July 1917, a Polish National Committee, headed by Roman Dmowski, the leader of the National Democrats (Endeks), was created in Paris. The Allied Powers recognized the committee as the official representative of Poland, and appointed to it their own representatives. Jews, however, as well as Polish progressive groups, were alarmed by the appointment of Dmowski as head of the PKN (Polski Komitet Narodowy). Neither intervention by prominent Jewish leaders with the governments of the Allied Powers nor contacts with representatives of the Polish National Committee4 could allay fears as to the future of the Jews in the nascent Polish state. [.. .] The Birth ofthe Polish State. The political situation in the newborn state was an extremely complex one. After the collapse of the governments of the occupying powers, local authorities cropped up in many regions of the country. In former Galicia, for instance, a Liquidatory Committee was set up which declared itself the temporary government of that region. In Lublin a leftwing so-called People's Government was formed, headed by the socialist Ignacy Daszyhski. In Warsaw the Polish Regency Council appointed by the German occupants continued to stay in power. The Polish people, split by deep political rifts and provincial antagonisms, needed a man of great authority, able to patch up, be it for a short while, their internal differences. That man was Jozef Pilsudski. Freed from a German jail on the demand of the Regency Council, he arrived in Warsaw on November 11, 1918. Various political groups had pinned their hopes on him. For the popular masses he was the symbol of action, the founder of the Polish Legions that had fought for a period (1914-1917) against the Russians - even before there was a Polish state. The conservatives, including the Polish Regency Council, regarded him as the only person capable of establishing a barrier against the revolutionary storm gathering on both the east and the west. The Jewish political groups were also 3 4

See Movshovitsh, op. cit., pp. 114-117. For more details on these negotiations, see

ibid., pp.

118-130.

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extremely anxious that a strong government soon take over because the anarchy which then prevailed hurt the Jewish population more than any other. As early as the day after Pilsudski assumed his responsibilities as chief of state, which under the circumstances were tantamount to almost dictatorial powers, he received representatives of the Jewish community in an audience lasting an hour and a half. Izchak Grünbaum, who represented the Central Committee of the Zionist Organization in Poland, read a statement in the name of the delegation calling attention to the difficult situation of the Jews resulting from rampant antisemitism and economic boycott. The statement emphasized the willingness and readiness of the Jews to cooperate in the reconstruction of Poland and in the preservation of a democratic regime. It expressed full support for the new Government and, in particular, for Pilsudski. The statement included the following requests: (1) the creation of a democratic system of popular local administration which would meet the specific needs of the Jewish population and which would be elected on the basis of a democratic electoral law - a democratically elected Jewish National Council would be convened in order to attain that goal; (2) the charging of this Council with the drafting of a Jewish Constitution to be submitted to the Polish Constituent Assembly for ratification; (3) the creation, within the government, of a Department of Jewish Affairs, to be aided by a Temporary Jewish National Council consisting of representatives of the Jewish political parties. The Council's chairman would discharge the functions of a state secretary.5 As one can see, the statement embodied all the demands essential to national and personal autonomy and was a bold response to the idea of selfdetermination of nations, which was one of the ideas basic to a future peace. The statement extended that idea to other national minorities as well. The principle of autonomy for the Jewish population and the effort to create Jewish National Councils were, at the time, current in almost all the newly bora states of Central and Eastern Europe. Pilsudski listened attentively to the statement and promised to take strong measures against antisemitism. Thus, the first contacts with the chief of state made the Jewish leaders hopeful, more so in that leftist and centrist groups prevailed in the new government headed by the socialist Moraczewski. To be sure, nobody knew the latter's true intentions. Moreover, while Pilsudski was not an antisemite he was too shrewd a politician to commit himself entirely to 5

L. Halpern, "Polityka zydowska w sejmie i senacie Rzeczypospolitij Polskij, 1919-1933" [Jewish politics in the assembly and senate of the Polish republic], Sprawy Narodawosciawe 1, 1933.

Polish-Jewish Relations during World War I

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the defence of the Jews and thereby deepen the gulf which separated him from the powerful right. Even before decisions were made by the government, Jewish leaders proceeded to act. A session of the Jewish Preliminary Conference was held from December 26-30,1918. It was attended by 498 delegates from 144 cities and towns, representing political parties, cultural and trade organizations, groups of Jewish representatives on municipal councils, Jewish communities, and the clergy. In inaugurating the conference on behalf of the Organizational Committee, Grünbaum stated that the conference, representing the organized Jewish population in Poland, was a historic event. He called on it to lay the foundations of the future national edifice and to become the exponent of the will of the Jewish masses in Poland. The following resolutions were adopted by the conference: (1) that a national congress of all the Jews of Poland be convened by March 1919 at the latest on the basis of an electoral law to be determined by the Preliminary Conference; (2) that this congress determine the forms of Jewish self-government and decide questions regarding religious matters; (3) that the congress review the situation of the Jews all over the world in relation to the problem of creating a Jewish National Home in Palestine.6 The conference appointed a Temporary Jewish National Council of 40 persons as a caretaker organization until the convening of the congress. It included representatives of all the Zionist groups, of some Orthodox groups, as well as of cultural and economic organizations. Its presidium included I. Grünbaum, Η. Farbstein, A. Podliszewski, and many other prominent leaders. On the other hand, all of the non-Zionist left and a large proportion of Orthodox Jewry were hostile to the Temporary Jewish National Council, thus weakening its political impact. In the meantime, important political events in Poland had taken place, which greatly affected the situation of the Jews. On January 5, 1919, rightist forces tried to overthrow Pilsudski. The coup d'etat was foiled and Pilsudski, seeking an agreement with the rightists, seized the occasion to make radical changes in the government. Ignacy Paderewski, the famous musician who was politically affiliated with the right, was appointed prime minister of the new government and his first measure was to set the date of the Constituent Assembly elections for January 26, 1919. Under these circumstances the Jewish National Council had no choice other than to launch a major political campaign. It decided to run a political Ibid.

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slate of its own in all the electoral districts and issued an appeal calling on the Jewish communities to unite and to forget internal party quarrels. However, all the political parties turned a deaf ear to that appeal. The Orthodox group, the Folkists, the Poale Zion, and the Bund ran their own candidates. Because of this internal division and also because of the discriminatory electoral law which discouraged national minorities, the Jews did not receive adequate representation in the Polish parliament. Jews, who accounted for 11 percent of the population, acquired only 3 percent of the seats.7 In all, eleven deputies were elected, six of them representing the Jewish National Council.8 The election proved irrefutably that a large majority ofJews were faithful to nationalist ideas. All the political groups except the assimilationists demanded recognition of Jews as a national group and protested against their consideration as only a religious community. This was by no means merely a formal question, because the problem of recognizing the national identity ofJews was closely linked to the question of autonomy, with all its implications. On this essential question, however, the Jews were confronted with the staunch opposition of all Polish parties, and it was symptomatic that the PPS was in this respect more intransigent than the rightist groups.9 Opposing the Jewish demands for autonomy, the PPS entrusted its deputies ofJewish origin (Lieberman and Diamand) with the task of refuting the Jewish arguments. They argued that the demand for autonomy smacked of nationalism, that it would lead to the further isolation of the Jews, etc. In fact, it was the same old

7

8

9

The electoral law merged urban districts with a Jewish majority into rural districts with no Jewish inhabitants at all. As a result of this stratagem, and also because of party dissensions among the Jews, a Polish deputy needed 12 to 20 thousand votes to be elected, whereas it took about 45 thousand votes to get one Jewish seat in the parliament. They were: I. Grünbaum, Ο . Thon, Α. Μ. Hartglas, J. Rosenblatt, S. Weinzieher, and S. Farbstein. The Folkists had two deputies, N . Pryhicki and S. Hirszhorn; the Poale Zion one deputy, I. Schipper. In April 1919, a delegation of Polish Jews (O. Thon, Ν . Sokolow, and others) started talks in Paris with the Polish delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference about granting Polish Jews the status of national minority. The Jewish delegation submitted a scheme for the establishment of Jewish autonomy in Poland to its Polish counterpart, which was represented by Wladyslaw Grabski, Stanislaw Kozicki, and others. The PPS leader, Leon Wasilewski, who was that party's expert on national minorities problems, was also present. In his report on the talks, Wasilewski alerted the Polish government, informing it that Dmowski seemed to be willing to make some concessions to the Jews. " O n e has the feeling," he wrote, "that the Endeks want to recognize the Jews as a national entity, expecting in return some benefit for their party. They are telling us that in return for such a concession we could get the support of the Lithuanian Jews, the anti-Polish campaign would be stopped, and there are even prospects of a loan [to Poland]." Wasilewski's report dated April 28,1919. Headquarters of the Adjutant General's Office, file 16, doc. 733/5. Archives of the Pilsudski Institute in N e w York.

Polish-Jewish Relations during World War I

1029

PPS political line, inflagrantcontradiction of resolutions and directives of the Second International concerning personal and cultural rights of national minorities (The Hague, summer 1916); its real purpose was to eliminate competition within the Polish socialist movement. Thus, a strange and paradoxical situation arose. The popular government of the socialist Moraczewski and his administration did not recognize any political representation of the Jews, and went out of its way to impose on them some sort of religious self-government. The new Paderewski government continued that line. On February 7,1919, only three days before the opening of the Constituent Assembly, a government decree was issued which imposed on Jews an internal organization scheme based on local religious communities.10 Thus the first stage in the struggle for Jewish rights ended in defeat. But these political failures were dwarfed by grim events directly menacing the lives ofJews in many towns and cities in the new Polish state. The wave of pogroms that broke out the very day the Polish independent state was proclaimed soon engulfed the whole country. The bloodiest pogroms occurred in Lwow and dozens of other towns in former Galicia. Everywhere in the country, robberies, beatings, and other acts of persecution were frequent. All these acts of violence were accompanied by an unremitting inflammatory campaign against the Jews in the Endek press; they were accused of killing Polish children, of shooting at Polish soldiers, of collaboration with the occupying powers, etc. The situation was all the more dangerous because both the civil and military police and, above all, the troops happily joined in the violence. Every passage of troops was marked by destruction, violence, and plunder. Jews were not very safe at home or in the street, and even less so on highways and trains. Jews were brutally dragged from their homes, forced to perform hard labor, and were ill-treated and humiliated. The military police searched Jews on trains and whipped them, assailed them at railway stations, took everything they carried from them, and beat them up. At the Lapy station near Bialystok, during a two-month period, the military police dragged Jews out of the trains and whipped their naked bodies. Even in Warsaw, Jews did not feel secure. In the center of the city, on Przejazd Street, Jews were dragged into barracks, beaten up, and forced to do humiliating work. Besides mass pillage, Jews were exposed to other, more organized, forms of expropriation. The troops, at the time very scantily provisioned, practiced many kinds of official and unofficial requisition. Allegedly fighting speculation, the police and the military police carried out far-flung requisitions in stores, shops, and apartments, seizing goods, and inflicting heavy punish10

Verbatim minutes of the 5th Session of the Sejm, Feb. 24, 1919.

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ment. Here and there, local military commanders, encouraged by lack of discipline and control, used the slightest pretext to impose collective contributions on Jews, who were victimized by severe reprisals if they refused to pay. Alarming stories in the press and intervention by Jewish leaders were to no avail. In answer to memorandums and reports from Jewish leaders, Moraczewski's center-left government promised to open an investigation and put an end to violence but, in fact, it did not control the situation. Chief of state Pilsudski was too busy with plans for an anti-soviet crusade and with settling inner political strife, and did not want to risk displeasing the army by taking severe measures against antisemitic violence. The situation deteriorated after the takeover by the Paderewski rightist government. Every time the problem of anti-Jewish violence was brought up in the Sejm, the Jewish deputies were interrupted by brutal and cynical remarks from the Endek deputies. The ministers, when questioned on the subject, either gave no answer at all or tried to dodge the issue by minimizing the accuracy of the reports. They usually maintained that the Jewish campaign about "alleged" pogroms was intended to defame the Polish nation and to weaken its position in the international arena. Jewish deputies, it was insinuated, were acting on behalf of Germany, Soviet Russia, etc. Cynical indeed were the accusations made by deputies W. Korfanty (the famous leader of the 1919 uprising in Silesia against the Germans), Reverend Okon, Reverend Lutoslawski, Wincenty Witos (the leader of the peasant party), and many others. In view of the approaching Versailles Peace Conference, the Paderewski government felt obliged to mitigate the exasperating impact which the appalling reports coming from Poland had on "Western public-opinion. The Paderewski government, however, did not take measures against pogroms or other instances of anti-Jewish persecution, but instead preferred to deny the incontestable facts. Polish press agencies and diplomatic representatives distributed denials and biased accounts of what was happening in Poland. Thus, in order to counter information in the Jewish press abroad, a pamphlet was published in Paris by a French reporter-writer, Stephane Aubac, who was closely linked to the Polish embassy in Paris. A tendentious concoction of bits of information and declarations, the pamphlet's conclusions were the same as those of the Endek leaders. It claimed that the reports about ill-treatment ofJews in Poland were false and were part of an anti-Polish campaign. The Jews, it concluded, were entirely and solely to be blamed for the conflict between Poles and Jews.11 11

Stefan Aubac, Les dessous d'une campaigne: La question juive en Pologne et les opinions socialistes surles "pogroms", Paris 1919.

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It is not the purpose of this article nor is it here even possible to describe the extent of the wave of pogroms that engulfed Poland in the years 1918-1919. Besides, the subject has been discussed by many other authors.12 Suffice it to say here that is was one of the most tragic episodes in the history of Polish Jewry, and the deep shock it elicited all over the world was equaled only by the impact of the terrible massacre of Jews shortly afterward in the Ukraine. It is necessary, however, to dwell on the political background of the antisemitic wave and the pogroms that raged in the former Habsburg province of Galicia, where the situation of the Jews before World War I was relatively favorable. Hostile activities against Jews by peasants and the lowest levels of society began almost immediately after the retreat of Austrian troops from that region in 1918. In view of the expanding wave of pogroms, a spontaneously created Jewish National Council in Cracow began to set up selfdefense groups headed by Jews who had been officers in the Austrian army. In view of the serious situation, the interim authority there, the so-called Polish Liquidatory Committee, not only approved but also supplied the groups with arms and helped them to recruit men. Formally, the self-defence groups were under orders from the Military Command of the Polish Liquidatory Committee. Self-defence groups were dispatched to neighboring cities and thus contributed to allaying the fears of the Jews living there. A statement issued by Poale Zion leaders held the decision of the PLC on Jewish self-defence groups to be evidence of sound judgment on the part of Polish leadership. However, a few days later the military commander of Cracow, General Roja, ordered his troops to surround the headquarters of the Jewish selfdefence organization, arrest its commanders, and seize its entire stock of weapons. Members of the self-defence groups were ordered to surrender their arms. Moreover, General Roja's order insinuated that the Jews had set up the self-defence groups without having been authorized to do so. The local and national press wrote of a military plot prepared in Cracow, caches of arms discovered in the synagogue's basement, etc. Jewish protests were cynically dismissed and ignored.

12

Here are a few basic publications: a. La situation des juifs en Pologne. Rapport de la Commission d'etudes designee par la Conference Socialiste Internationale de Lucerne, Paris 1920. b. La question juive devant la Conference de la Paix, Paris 1919. c. Kowalsky, L'antisemitisme polonais, Lausanne 1919. d. L. Chasanowitsch, Les Pogroms antijuifs en Galicie et en Pologne en novembre et decembre 1918, Stockholm 1919. [Much material on this item is also to be found in the Bulletin du Comite des Delegations Juives aupres de la Conference de la Paix, as well as in the verbatim minutes of the sessions of the Polish Sejm.]

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The disarming of the Jewish self-defence groups and the inflammatory press campaign were in fact tacit encouragement to violence. During the month of November 1918, there were pogroms and other forms of violence in about 110 towns and settlements. The most horrible ones took place in Lwow, Brzesk, Chrzanow, and Przemysl.13 It is necessary to note the peculiar character of the events in Eastern Galicia.14 In that region the Ukrainian peasants accounted for about twothirds of the population, but land was almost exclusively in Polish hands. An additional "argument" in support of the Polish character of the region was the fact that there were only a few Ukrainians in the towns, where the population was divided into two roughly equal parts consisting ofJews and Poles. Despite the fact that in other Polish provinces assirnilationists15 were generally not recognized as Poles, in Galicia, for obvious reasons, Polish politicians considered the Jews to be Poles. The situation of the Jews was a difficult one. To join either side was political folly fraught with dangerous consequences. There was only one alternative: proclaim neutrality and appeal to both belligerent sides to respect it. Whereas the principle of neutrality proclaimed by the Jews was fully respected by the Ukrainians (during the two weeks in which they held Lwow no anti-Jewish riots occurred), the Polish military commanders considered their neutrality a manifestation of an anti-Polish attitude. After the city of Przemysl was captured by the Poles, the Polish troops staged a pogrom on November 11th and 12th, and the commander of the district, Colonel Tokarzewski, posted a bill which accused the Jews of having violated their pledge of neutrality and of having lent support to the Ukrainians. At the same time he imposed a heavy penalty on the Jewish population. Tokarzewski's claims were refuted by a proclamation of the Polish National Council in Cracow, which confirmed the neutral attitude and behavior of the Jews. The penalty ordered by Tokarzewski was rescinded.16 However, the accusation 13

14

15

16

Chasanowitsch, op. cit., pp. 20-22, 146-147. See also the archives of the Institute of Party History in Warsaw, Warsaw Correspondents' Bureau [AZHP WBK], from March 4 and 5, 1919. Galicia, the southern province of Poland, had been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire before World War I. It was subdivided into Eastern and Western Galicia. Eastern Galicia was populated largely by Ukrainians. Its capital was Lemberg (Lwow). The capital of Western Galicia was Cracow. As sociopolitical groups, the so-called assirnilationists came into being as early as 1863. In 1919, various provincial groups united to form the Union of Poles of the Mosaic Faith. They opposed separatism and autonomy, and campaigned for equal civil rights. They lost their minor influence with the constant growth of antisemitism. Their headquarters was in Lwow. Chasonowitsch, op. cit., pp. 22-25.

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that the Jews violated neutrality was repeated in many towns and its purpose was to justify pogroms and other "reprisals." On November 22, 1918, after two weeks of heavy fighting, Polish troops got the upper hand and captured the capital of Eastern Galicia, Lwow, from the Ukrainians. The Polish troops immediately began a bloody pogrom. During the pogrom the Polish military headquarters issued a proclamation accusing the Jews of having taken part in the fighting on the side of the Ukrainians, of treacherous activities against Polish troops, etc. Thus, the Polish headquarters instigated the pogrom; moreover, it placed responsibility for it on the Jews themselves. The pogrom in Lwow was a horrifying one and shocked the outside world. 17 The pogrom in Lwow encouraged further reprisals against the Jews in the whole region of Galicia. Jews were dismissed from posts in the education, administrative, and transportation systems. Jewish schools and cultural and philanthropic organizations were ordered closed. The Jews in Galicia were thus injured in the extreme by the incorporation of the province into the Polish state. A horrible crime was committed by the military command of the city of Pinsk, in the Polesie region, almost in the presence of a delegation from JewishAmerican philanthropic organizations. On April 5, 1919, a conference attended by about 100 people was held in the local Zionist club house to discuss the manner of distributing American food supplies. Although the meeting had been approved by the local military commander, soldiers surrounded the People's House in the evening. All participants were arrested, hauled to the military headquarters and tortured; thereafter, on orders of the military commander, Major LuczyAski, four persons were executed by a firing squad. An American delegate, B. Zuckerman, who witnessed the execution, urged the Jewish members of the Polish Sejm to immediately intervene with the authorities. Their intervention averted the execution of the 60 other Jews who had been arrested. On April 10th, the Jewish deputies lodged an interpellation on the subject of the Pinsk massacre. The minister of defense, General Lesniewski, cynically declared that the assembly in the People's House in Pinsk had been attended by Communists and that the Jews in Pmsk were preparing an armed uprising. He therefore declared that the measure taken by Major Luczyhski was entirely justified. However, the shock of that carnage was too deep, and on the demand of Jewish and Socialist deputies, the Sejm agreed to dispatch an investigating 17

Ibid., pp. 22-25, 61-71.

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commission of 10 members including two Jews. Upon the submission of a report many months later, the Sejm voted a bill of compensation for the victims of the massacre.18 These acts of terrifying violence stirred the conscience of all progressive Polish groups. In the Sejm, the PPS deputies spoke out against pogroms, though some of their leaders maintained an ambiguous attitude. For example, Ignacy Daszyhski, who in principle condemned the pogrom, tried nevertheless to minimize their impact when dealing with representatives of western Socialist parties. In many places, Workers' Delegates Councils, then in existence in Poland, also denounced the pogroms in special resolutions, and a few Socialist members of municipal governments in certain cities followed their example. A conservative, Dr. Leo Bilmski, former finance minister under the Habsburgs, vigorously condemned pogroms. The prominent Polish writer, Andrzej Strug, accused the Polish government and press of a conspiracy of silence.19 These courageous voices were, however, stifled by the lies and denials of Polish press agencies, and those in various communiques distributed by Polish officials. During the first six months of its existence, Poland won in world opinion the grim reputation of a state where national minorities were oppressed and persecuted. This fact had a notable impact on the character of the National Minorities Treaty which was forced upon Poland in Paris. [...] After a short period of relative tranquility, the situation of Polish Jewry began to deteriorate in 1919, as a result of the general deterioration of the political situation in Poland. Pilsudski's supporters lost their influence; the rightists gained ground. It was partly the fault of the Allied Powers: panicstricken because of the alleged menace to Poland posed by the revolutionary movement, they refused to recognize the Warsaw government. Applying tremendous pressure, they imposed a rightist government on the country, including some prominent politicians who had belonged to the Polish National Committee in Paris, headed by Dmowski, the leader of the extreme chauvinist group. The central military support of the rightist government consisted of the so-called blue divisions commanded by General Jozef Haller, formed and equipped in France and dispatched to Poland after the Paderewski government had been set up. In the martyrology of the Polish Jews during the years 1918-1920, the "Haller boys" (hallerczycy) won sad repute as the worst torturers of the Jews. Pilsudski readily made certain concessions to the rightists. Their accession to power certainly weakened his political position, but on the other hand, 18 19

Verbatim minutes of the 29th Session of the Sejm. Chasanowitch, op. cit., pp. 90-99.

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Poland's recognition by the Allies, the receipt of "Western arms, and the arrival of Haller's troops enabled him to carry out his cherished plan: a crusade against Soviet Russia. Shortly after the Versailles Peace Treaty had been signed, Polish troops - without a declaration of war - opened hostilities in the east, occupying large territories in Belorussia and the Ukraine. Pilsudski, whose ambition was to create an anti-Russian federation of Slav nations, naturally under Polish hegemony, placed Petlura's troops (in the Ukraine) and those of General Batachowicz (in Belorussia) under his own protection. It was a hard time for the Jews in Poland, especially for those who lived in the newly captured territories. The Polish troops, in particular "Haller's boys" and the regiments from Great Poland (the western province of Poland), engaged in violence, looting, and other atrocities against the Jews. At every railway station on their journey east, the soldiers harassed each passing Jew and sacked the nearby houses. Very often Jews were pushed off the moving trains. "Haller's boys" and the "Poznati boys" specialized in "civilizing" the Jews: they caught Orthodox Jews, especially the aged, and cut off their beards with bayonets in the presence of excited mobs. Officers and the police tacitly approved of these barbaric acts.20 Still worse was the situation in the newly recovered territories in the east, where the military acted with no restraint. The Polish troops, Petlura's soldiers, and Balachowicz's squads staged pogroms in almost every town they captured. Jewish youths were placed in concentration camps, Jewish communities were obliged to pay largefines,etc. The military and civil authorities approved of and often encouraged these atrocities. Pogroms usually started on the pretext that Jews had fought against Polish troops and were sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. Propaganda launched by Polish authorities and the Polish press, pretending that these were not pogroms but simply police actions against the Bolsheviks, was efficient enough to counter public protests in the West. It is impossible to describe even in part the horrors which raged in the Ukraine and Belorussia. The bloodiest pogroms should however be men-

20

Much factual material on atrocities committed by Polish troops was presented in the reports of foreign missions to Poland, in the foreign press, and despite severe censorship, in the Jewish and the Socialist press in Poland. In the socialist paper Robotnik of June 8, 1919, a writer reported about the ordeal of Jewish passengers who were brutally dragged off the trains at Lukow railway station by the famous "Haller boys" and other scum. Pointing out that these violent acts were committed by an army whose commander-in-chief was Pilsudski, the newspaper asked, "Should one believe that he [Pilsudski] has lost his prestige and influence with the army? Don't the military authorities realize that these atrocities are bound to demoralize the troops and that encouraging them to engage in pogroms may prove disastrous?"

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tioned, like the one in Vilna (which took place even though the city had been captured without a fight) and the pogroms in Lida and Minsk. The situation remained essentially unchanged even after the April 1919 offensive of the Polish troops failed and the Poles were pushed back by the Soviet Army, which had penetrated as far as the suburbs of Warsaw. The new premier, Wladyslaw Grabski, before going off to seek aid from the West, tried to reach an agreement with the Jewish leaders in order to propitiate Western public opinion. But, after Grabski, a new coalition government headed by Wincenty Witos took over.21 Despite the fact that it included a few representatives from the left wing, e. g., Daszynski, this new government continued the policy of violent antisemitism favored by Witos himself. The press and the military propaganda apparatus claimed that one of the main reasons for the military defeat was the treason, espionage, and diversion practiced by Jews on behalf of the Bolsheviks. When one of Pilsudski's closest collaborators, General Sosnkowski, was appointed minister of defense, he ordered the internment of Jewish officers, among them a great number of volunteers, in the Jablonna camp near Warsaw. Jewish soldiers were discharged and transferred to disciplinary labor battalions. A wave of protest obliged the gowernment to abolish the Jablonna camp, but under mysterious circumstances the train transporting the liberated Jewish officers to their respective military units ran off the rails and many officers were killed or injured.22 With the new Polish offensive in the summer of 1920, new calamities befell the Jewish population. Jews were evacuated by force from the front zone near Warsaw, as they had been in 1915 by czarist troops. Rumors were deliberately spread that with the return of the Polish troops, Jews would be cruelly punished. Under the circumstances, thousands of Jewish youths left their homes and fled with the retreating Red Army. These refugees were afterwards captured, imprisoned, beaten up, and sometimes even executed. The headquarters communiques told about Jewish espionage and treason, and many Jews were sentenced to death by court-martial. Among those court-martialed was Haim Shapiro, the Rabbi of Plock, who was executed by afiringsquad as

21

22

Polish-Jewish talks began during the short-lived Grabski government. The initiative allegedly came from the Jewish leader Alfred Nossig. At the July 1920 conference held at the Council of Ministers headquarters, deputies from both Polish and Jewish parliamentary groups were present, including Daszyiiski and Schipper. This fact resulted in a conflict between Schipper and the Poale Zion, which accused him of collaboration with the "pogrom"-government in order to whitewash it in the eyes of foreign observers. See R. Korsch, Zydawskie ugmpawania wywrotawe w Polsce, Warsaw 1925, p. 196, and Griinbaum's speech at the 172nd Session of the Sejm. Olivier d'Entschegoyen, Pologne, Pologne, Paris 1915, p. 93.

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a spy. Sometimes, when it was known or believed that several Jews had participated in local governments formed under the temporary aegis of the Red Army, the entire Jewish population in these towns was held responsible by the Polish authorities.23 Only after the war was over, in the autumn of 1920, when progressive groups in the Polish community voiced uneasiness, did the Witos government feel obliged to put an end to these injustices. [ . . . ]

23

Verbatim minutes of the 172nd Session of the Sejm, October 14, 1920. Griinbaum's speech.

YlSRAEL GUTMAN

Poles and Jews between the Wars: Historic Overview* Renewed Poland and the Jews The period between the wars, two decades of the independent Polish Republic, is an era in which the relations between the Poles and the Jews were characterized by increasing tension and conflicts: the earmark of hostility which had grown ever since the end of the nineteenth century reached previously unheard of peaks during this period, having grown over the hundreds of years the Jews had lived on Polish territory. It is customary to think that anti-Semitism of Poles was an endemic phenomenon, persisting in all ages. There is no way to encompass the entire complex of relations between Poles and Jews throughout the generations within the framework of a limited review. At any rate, the balance of the encounter is not always negative or even primarily so, when viewed against the background of the history of the Jews in Europe. The very fact that the Jews were concentrated in Poland, where they found over centuries a refuge when being pursued and forced to flee or to move from the West or the East, for a variety of reasons, indicates that Poland demonstrated a certain degree of tolerance. It was there that Jewish inner autonomy and economic activity developed in the cities, a desirable development from the point of view of certain strata in Polish society. At the end of the First World War, Poland was granted renewed independence after a hundred and thirty years of partition and political subjugation. Many people in Europe and the U.S.A. viewed the resurrection of Poland as the correction of an historic injustice. The Polish question had constantly bothered Europe during the nineteenth century. The Poles proved their deeply-entrenched national tenacity, rebelled frequently and fought against the conqueror in wars already lost before they began, whereas from the point * From: Yisrael Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski, Unequal Victims. Poles andJews during World War II, Holocaust Library, New York 1986, pp. 1-26 (Chapter One). Reprinted with permission of the author.

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of view of the champions of social progress the chaining of Poland was a sin oppressing the conscience of Europe. The actual resurrective process did not evolve as the result of a Polish victory or a Polish decisive contribution on the battlefield, but rather as the product of an extremely propitious political constellation, from the Polish point of view, which came about as a result of the First World War. Their traditional enemies and the occupiers of their land were defeated (Imperial Germany), were in the throes of a revolution and a civil war (Russia), or completely disintegrated as a political unit (Austria-Hungary). In addition, Poland benefited from the political bargaining which followed the First World .War, from France's desire to establish in the east and the south-east of Europe a set of independent states allied to her and serving to counterbalance German power, and from the strong anti-Bolshevik attitude in western Europe. This political climate aided Poland to expand borders, especially in the east, which encompassed more than just the territory inhabited by a Polish ethnic majority· In retrospect one may wonder whether these conjunctural advantages did not over a longer period of time prove to work to Poland's disadvantage. Poland's resurgence not only was achieved at the expense of a conflict with the powers to her east and her west, but also generated border disputes with neighbors to the north (Lithuania) and the south (Czechoslovakia). Poland's firm national cohesion and pride in her glorious history contributed to the stability of the new state, but, on the other hand, they dictated political norms and ambitions unsuitable to a new state troubled by numerous difficulties. Above all, even during the period of her independence, Poland continued in its tradition of excessive political dissension, many factions and sectors applying pressure in the parliamentary and public sphere, and weak governments frequendy replaced one another. Poland between the wars was a relatively large state inhabited by over thirty million people. The division rife among the powers created considerable differences economically, socially and legally. Three quarters of the Polish population were peasants, largely without land or dependent upon a small plot of ground, while a handful of aristocratic magnates controlled vast estates. Poland was divided into two zones which differed visibly regarding economic development. The western part was the more advanced than the east. The Polish city was weak and backward in urban and industrial development. Those urban centers which did break through and achieve an impressive level of development in certain fields (textile products in Lodz and in Bialystok) were to a large extent dependent upon the huge Russian consumer market which, as a result of the war and consequent changes, was now cut off from

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them. Moreover, Poland had to undergo reunification and establish its economy in a Europe split by sharp political differences and in the throes of a severe economic depression. Another significant Polish deficiency during the period between the wars stemmed from the country's national composition. Against the background of internal Polish cohesion and the Poles' pronounced claims, the problem posed by the minorities, who made up about a third of the inhabitants of the country (Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Germans and Lithuanians primarily), stood out very clearly. Most of the minorities represented national units which maintained relations with their compatriots or with the states in which their peoples lived, across the border. Ukrainians and Byelorussians constituted a majority in regions adjacent to the eastern border, and, as a result, a separatist spirit and irredentist activity in these areas became an inevitable phenomenon. At the beginning of the period, there were in Poland two general and loosely defined trends or, more precisely, guidelines regarding policy towards the minorities. The National Democratic Party (Endeks), which encompassed a large segment of the Polish middle class and lower-middle class and intelligentsia, and whose influence was strongest mainly in the western provinces of Poland, maintained that the decisive principle was the basing of the state on the supremacy and control of the Poles, i. e., not a Polish state encompassing several peoples with the Poles as the majority and main nucleus, but rather "Poland for the Poles."1 The Endeks wanted to follow a policy of Polonization towards the minorities in the east, assuming it would be possible to assimilate these sectors and to integrate them into the lower strata of the Polish population; whereas with regard to the Germans they were in favor of expulsion by purchasing their lands and other methods. The position adopted by the Endeks with regard to the Jews was especially virulent. The Jews were, in their opinion, a foreign element which had exploited the political weakness of Poland and settled there. The Jews had served the enemies of Poland for generations, and even in the independent Polish state they tended to adopt anti-Polish positions, maintaining contacts with therivalsof Poland abroad, and constituted an obstacle to the economic development of the country.2 In addition, the main exponent of this ideology, 1

2

Andrzej Chojnowski, Koncepqa polityki narodawos'dawej nadawpolskich w latach 1921-1939, Warszawa 1979, pp. 18-26; Roman Wapinski, Narodawa Demokracja 1893-1939, Wroclaw 1980, pp. 35-47, pp. 154-156. Andrzej Ajnenkiel, Od rzadöw ludowych doprzewrotu majowego, Zarys dziejow politycznych Polski, 1918-1926, Warszawa 1977, pp. 215-234. The situation was bluntly described by Roman Dmowski, leader and theorist of the National Democrats (Endeks), in his book "Polish Policy and the Rebuilding of the State": "The fatalist policy of the Polish state in the centuries preceding partition, led to such widespread judaization

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Roman Dmowski, claimed that Jews, except for some exceptional cases, were incapable of being assimilated into Polish society and thus should not be forced to do so. The Jewish character and mentality were foreign and dangerous to the essence of Polishness. Therefore "the Jewish problem in Poland should be solved". During the early years of the period they strove to arrive at such a "solution" by removing the Jews from economic life, cultural fields and professions, boycotting Jewish factories and businesses, maintaining a numerus claususin the universities, and other similar steps. In this initial stage their struggle against the Jews was carried on mainly at the parliamentary level with public opinion at home and abroad having considerable influence in determining the positions and operative steps adopted by them. During the thirties, and especially the later part, the attitudes of the Endeks became more extreme, as did those of the splinter groups which broke awayfromthis party or operated in secondary groupings outside it. The unambiguous demand to expel the Jews from the country was voiced, while accelerating this process of expulsion by violent means. A Polish publicist and politician from the conservative right wing, Stanislaw Mackewicz (Cat) stated later that "Dmowski held that the Jews were in more complete control over the Poles' economic life than the foreign conquerors were over their political life, and his anti-Jewish sentiments were far stronger than his feelings against the conquerors."3 Another attitude towards minorities was represented by Poland's prominent leader between the wars, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, and the moderate socialist camp, together with liberal strata of the population and parts of the organized peasantry. The policy favored by this sector was the setting up of a kind of federation of peoples under the auspices of the Poles, granting farreaching autonomy in internal affairs and education at various levels, including higher education, to the ethnic groups living in defined areas. The federative idea as an alliance of Slavic peoples against the hegemony of Russia never reached fruition because of the political situation, and also because the various Slavic groups didn't discern any advantage in the superiority and precedence of the Poles over the Russians. In actual practice, autonomousrightswere not

3

of the country that the Jewish population (in Poland) exceeded that of the entire rest of the world. Poland thus virtually acquired the status of a Jewish European homeland and came to be regarded by the Jews as the new Land of Israel. They appointed for the Poles afatesimilar to that of the Canaanite tribes, who formed the original population of the biblical Land of Israel. This aim could be easily achieved by causing Poland to enter a decline - surrendering Poland to a foreign government which could use Jewish aid in order to establish Poland's authority" . . . Roman Dmowski, Polityka Polski i odbudowanie Panstwa, Warszawa 1925, p. 36. Stanislaw Mackiewicz (Cat), Ο jedenastej - pawiada aktor - sztuka jest skoticzona, polityka Jozefa Becka (London), p. 48.

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granted to the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians, and those tentative steps taken in this direction were the result of a bitter parliamentary struggle and the outbursts of Ukrainian and Byelorussian groups and organizations in the eastern territories. Actually, neither of these two schemes involving the territorial minorities was ever realized in full. The Polonization plans for the minorities encountered stiff opposition; attempts to settle Poles in border regions and to alter the ethnic structures of the area led to the formation of an irredentist movement; as for autonomous rights, the system of the carrot and the stick was employed, the impression of the stick being the more apparent. Pilsudski and the socialists showed moderation and occasionally even understanding in connection with the Jewish minority. Though this group had no consistent and explicit political policy in connection with Jews, many of them supported the idea of integrating the Jews into the economic life of Poland, opposed legislative discrimination against Jews (the socialists did, however, through a distorted interpretation of social legislation for all, support the closing of Jewish stores and the cessation of Jewish labor on Sundays, thus farthering the strong discrimination against Jewish small merchants and workmen), and some of them viewed the assimilation of the Jews ?s a desirable solution in the more distant future. Pilsudski himself was not anti-Semitic; at any rate, he made no use of anti-Jewish slogans or incitement in his political activity or in his methods when in power. Many Jews saw him as a friend of the Jews and as their benefactor. There is, on the other hand, no sign in the writings and speeches of Marshal Pilsudski of any attachment for the Jews. It is more likely that the Jews, accustomed to systematic hostility on the part of Polish leaders, saw in Pilsudski, who did not revile Jews and on occasion even tended to listen to their complaints with understanding, a positive personality and a benefactor in the Polish political panorama. Pilsudski's heirs adopted extreme anti-Semitic positions, raised the massive emigration of Jews to the level of a prerogative in their internal and external political activity, publicly declared their support of an economic boycott of the Jews, despite their mild dissociation from the violence introduced into the streets of the cities, the towns and villages by the Endeks, and especially the radical splinter groups of youths with fascistic overtones. From the point of view of the regime and the forces predominant in Poland, the period between the World Wars can be divided into four secondary periods. The first stage lasted from 1918 to 1922, the formative years during which the borders stabilized, a war was fought with Communist Russia, and the basis was laid for the parliamentary regime of Poland. As we shall see, this was also the period of anti-Semitic arguments and the outburst of pogroms

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which served to entrench Jew-hatred as a constant element in the political and social atmosphere in Poland between the wars. The second stage, extending from the convening of the first regular Polish sejm (Parliament) between the wars to the Pilsudski coup d'etat of May 1926, is considered the era of Polish parliamentarism. It is more appropriate to speak of the dominance of the sejm, the legislature, in Polish life than it would be to talk of real democracy during the period. One of the obviously detrimental phenomena, which has roots deeply entrenched in Poland's political history, is the multiple split into parties and social strata striving to perpetuate their differences rather than to exploit whatever they had in common. The Polish Governments replaced each other every few months, the executive authority was dependent upon the unstable support of factions in the legislature, and parliamentary maneuvering used up most of the energy which was never devoted to thorough planning and continuous execution. The Endeks were the dominant element or partner in most of the Governments during this period. Pilsudski took no part in the Government until 1926 but directed his darts against the exaggerated political diversity and demanded the strengthening of the authority of the President and Government at the expense of that of the Parliament. The Marshal enjoyed widespread popularity among the masses as a national hero who had established Polish independence, and was supported by the army; on the other hand, the right-wing factions, the Endeks, and part of the large peasant camp, who were dependent upon more electoral support, strove to maintain the strength of the Parliament in the governmental structure. In May 1926 there came about the coup initiated by Pilsudski and his confederates, the fate of which was actually decided after the army came out in support of the Marshal. Pilsudski was also supported by liberal circles, by the socialists and by the vast majority of the Jews. At first the reforms he carried out in his capacity as sole ruler, despite the severe reduction of the authority of the sejm were of a calming nature, and there was even a temporary strengthening of the economy, mainly because of the helpful international situation. Concerning the Jews positive steps were taken which produced a high level of expectation. However, in 1930, a change occurred, expressed in far-reaching oppression of opposition to the left and right, in sharp attacks against the Parliament, and in signs of the economic depression, which, while becoming a worldwide phenomenon, was especially strong in Poland. In foreign policy, the non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany signed at the beginning of 1934 was the most notable and significant step. Some Polish historians claim that the Marshal suggested to France, in light of Hitler's rise to power, that Poland and France initiate a common preventive war, and that France rejected the suggestion, but no irrefutable proof of this claim has been found. On the other

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hand, it is clear that Pilsudski held that of the two giant powers between which Poland found itself, the German connection was preferable, for Germany was less of a threat than Soviet Russia. The non-aggression pact with Germany quickly led to firm, close relations, first developing in Pilsudski's lifetime, and steadily strengthening after his death. The fourth and last stage in the history of Poland between the wars extended from Pilsudski's death in 1935, until the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Pilsudski and his supporters did not set up an organized and united political party. Pilsudski, who favored "sanacja," political resuscitation, linked up splinter parties, groups representing social strata and various organizations into a loose political bloc. It was reasonable that this leader, whose roots originated in revolution and in Polish romanticism and whose political beginnings were socialistic, acted pragmatically when in power, and preferred practical and immediate considerations to programmatic platforms. He brought together the capitalists and big landowners, on the one hand, and trade-union representatives who had abandoned socialistic ideological principles, on the other. His operative regime itself was entrusted to a group of his adherents, mosdy Pilsudski's followers from the days of the "legions" during the First World War, called the "colonels." The cement which kept this checkered and variegated bloc together was the leader's own charismatic personality. After his demise, his heirs were helpless. Dissension in various fields, as well as personal frictions, surfaced immediately within the ruling faction, and these various differences were not resolved until the fall of the Republic. Basically, they constituted a group lacking vision and political understanding. Jozef Beck is known to have been especially influential as the executor of the views of the Marshal in the field of foreign policy, and he was mainly responsible for piloting the political ship during the stormy period of the late thirties in Europe and the outbreak of the conflict with Germany. Beck engaged in intrigue, becoming involved both in his relations with friends and in his contacts with opponents; and when his pro-German political conception proved groundless, he neither dared reveal the truth to his countrymen nor tried to avoid a conflict by means of limited concessions until it was too late.

The Character of Anti-Jewish Opinions and Policy As we have already pointed out, this last stage - from the point of view of the Jews - was one of legal persecution, of ever-more-powerful attempts to force them to emigrate, and of unleashed violence. In contrast to the Slavic minorities, the Jews lacked territorial concentration, being scattered throughout the entire country, especially in its central and

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eastern provinces. In this respect, the situation of the Jews was analogous to that of the German minority; however, the Germans, who made up a significant stratum of the population in some of the cities, were also firmly entrenched in agriculture and industry in the western districts, previously part of Prussia. The greatest difference was that the German minority had a patron and power outside the country, always ready to defend them - the German state. The change that took place with the restoration of an independent Poland emphasized the demographic factor involving the Jewish minority. Earlier the Jews had been one of many minorities or ethnic sectors in the Russian Czarist State, the Prussian Empire or in Austria-Hungary. The new situation dramatically highlighted the Jewish population. According to the 1921 census, the Jews constituted some 10.5 % of Poland's total population, in absolute terms 2 , 8 5 5 , 0 0 0 individuals. This quantitative aspect stands out even more in light of the fact that the Jews were a distinctly urban element. According to this same census, only 22 % of the overall Polish populace lived in the cities, whereas with the Jews, the proportion was reversed, 76.4 % of them were citydwellers. In the large cities of Poland - Warsaw, Lodz, Wilno, Cracow and Lwow - there were concentrated about a quarter of Polish Jewry, their percentage of the population of these cities being between 24.8 % and 36.1 °/o, i. e., from a quarter to over a third of the residents. In numerous towns in the eastern regions the Jews made up absolute majorities, while in Lublin, which had nearly 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 inhabitants during the twenties, the Jews comprised around 40 °/o, with a similar percentage in Bialystok. In addition to the quantitative factor and the Jewish urban preponderance, their professional composition drew the most attention to Poland's Jews. According to the 1921 census, 41 % of the Jewish wage-earners engaged in trade, with another 34 % in industry and crafts. The 1931 census shows a certain shift - the merchants dropping to 36 % with 42.2 % ofJews engaged in industry and skilled labor. However, in 1931, the differences were clear between Jews and Poles with respect to their concentration in these various occupations. While only 4 °/o of the Jews made their living from agriculture, only 6 % of the Poles were engaged in trade, however, their concentration in agriculture was still over 60 °/o.4

4

O n demographic and economic data with respect to the Jewish community in Poland between the wars, see: Rafael Mahler, Yehudei Polin Beyn Shtei Milhamot Ohm, Historiyab Kalkalit Sotzialit be-Or ha-Statistikah (Polish Jewry between the World Wars, a socio-economic history in the light of statistical data), Tel-Aviv 1968; S. Bronsztejn, Ludnosc zydowska w Polsce w okresie miedzywojennym, Warszawa 1963.

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According to Jewish sources, an anti-Semitic drive began in Poland immediately following the regaining of political independence, for no specific reason whatever. Yitzhak Gruenbaum, the outstanding Zionist leader of Polish Jewry, claimed that the Polish masses were trying to express the change experienced in their new status of sovereignty, by maltreating the Jews.5 The Jewish historian Ben-Zion Dinur states in an article about Polish Jewry, that after the Poles had achieved independence "the war against the Jews began to be waged in ways and to degrees completely different from those customary earlier. Before the Polish renaissance this war could only rely on popular forces: a movement, propaganda, an organization. However, after the First World War, the entire governmental complex was at the disposal of this persecution mania."6 There were two events which occurred immediately after independence which left a deep impression: a) the minorities pact, b) the wave of pogroms leveled against Polish Jewry during the Polish War against Bolshevik Russia. The Minorities Pact, or the Little Versailles Pact, did not affect the Poles alone, but applied rather to the new and enlarged states in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe after the First World War. After it became obvious that under no conditions could the principle of national self-determination be fully realized, it appeared necessary to guarantee the rights of ethnic and religious minorities doomed to remain as such according to the new political maps. The Jews had a significant part in the political struggle for these pacts and for their actual wording. Representatives of American, English and French Jewry exercised considerable political influence for the minority rights while the Jewish populations of eastern European states set up committees, held conventions and dispatched delegations to France to safeguard their interests. The representatives of Polish Jewry viewed the very matter of the pact as tantamount to recognition of them as a national minority (in actual fact, the status of Jews as a national minority was not recognized, the emphasis being placed on religious freedom) and as a change to organize and function in Poland with the status of a national minority. The Poles, together with others, held - and not unjusdy - that the very imposition of a pact on certain kinds of states and not on all states, was a clear interference in their internal affairs and a limitation of their political sovereignty, especially since the supervision of the pact was placed in the hands of the future League of Nations. Under these circum-

5

6

Yitzhak Gruenbaum, article from "Milhamah li-Zhuyot Leumiyot" (The battle for national rights), from Milhemet Yehudei Polanyah (The battle of Polish Jewry) 1920, p. 78. Benzion Dinur, Dorot ve-Reshumot, (Generations and records), Historical writings, volume 4, Jerusalem 1978, p. 201.

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stances, the representatives of the new and enlarged countries (especially the Rumanians and the Poles) initiated a vigorous campaign against the pacts, and when their attempt was defeated, their anger was directed mainly against the Jews. In Polish historiography and before public opinion the pact was portrayed as a plot of international Jewry.7 In time it became clear that the Jews had gained very little, if at all, from the pact and its meaning. The Polish authorities found ways and means to bypass the explicit paragraphs of the Pact, to frame laws and actually discriminate against the Jews. The Jews, for their part, avoided appealing to the League of Nations, as they learned very quickly that a complaint of this sort might very well worsen their plight. In actual practice it was the German and Ukrainian minorities who exploited the pact and lodged numerous complaints with the League of Nations. In 1934, on the eve of joining the League by the Soviets, Poland took advantage of the weakness of the League to cancel the Pact unilaterally, and announced from the podium of the League that she no longer saw herself as obligated to the Minorities Pact. The expectations of organizing as a separate national entity by virtue of the rights granted by the pact were not realized either. The Zionist parties, which were the main driving force in Poland behind the organization as a separate national sector, strove to change the Jewish communities into cells of the new organization, and the Federation of Communities into the supreme organ of the Jewish national minority. The Polish regime, however, restricted the authority of the community to religious services and some limited fields of welfare and education, and prevented the formation by the communities of a supreme coordinating and executive body with broad authority, encouraging, on the other hand, the orthodox circles with their adaptive approach, to run the communities. At the same time, the political organs, and especially the Zionist parties, did not forgo the political struggle on behalf of the Jewish minority, the major arenas of which were transferred to the Polish sejm and to the minority factions. Not only did the Poles hold the Jews responsible for the imposition of the pacts, but also viewed this very political organization of the Jews and the 7

A noted Polish publicist wrote in his book on the League of Nations: "How was the idea of minority protection conceived? The history of the Peace Council gives a decisive answer. The minorities agreement was initiated solely by the Jewish delegations." Aleksander Bregman, Liga Narodaw, 1920-1930, Warszawa 1931, p. 93. Another Polish author stated that "the new system for the protection of minorities assumed a concrete form for the first time in the provisions of the agreement approved by the Super-Powers Conference of May 17,1919. The initiator of this system was without doubt the Jewish delegation". Witold Sworakowski, Miedzynarodowe zobawiazanie mniejszosciowe Polski, Warszawa 1925, p. 50.

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raising of national political claims as insulting conduct and a breach of faith. According to Polish opinion, or at any rate, the main sectors of the public, the Jews, as tolerated guests on Polish soil, were obliged to support the desires of the Polish national entity on political questions with no reservations of any kind. The wave of pogroms sweeping Poland in 1918-1920 left a much worse impression and an undercurrent of bitterness and enmity. The anti-Jewish rioting was a kind of side-effect of the war the Poles were waging against the Bolsheviks to fix Poland's eastern border. Most of the murders were perpetrated in a whole line of cities and towns during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20. Jews were accused of favoring communism, of treason and of espionage. In Lwow, a city whose fate was disputed, the Jews tried to maintain their neutrality between Poles and Ukrainians, and in reaction a pogrom was held in the city under the auspices of the Polish army, in which seventy-two Jews were killed and hundreds were injured. In a long list of cities and towns in eastern Poland pogroms and riots were carried out. An incident which occurred in the city of Pinsk caused a deep shock. A group ofJews gathered in the People's Palace in the city on April 5,1919, to divide the aid sent them by their relatives and by organizations in the U.S.A. The army broke into the building, accused those present of holding a communist conspiratorial gathering, and without conducting any sort of investigation or inquiry summarily executed thirty-five Jews.8 The authorities tried to hush up the incident, but the wave of rioting and pogroms had severe repercussions abroad. The Poles attempted to shirk all responsibility and cynically claimed that the reports of rioting and pogroms were merely sick propaganda intended to destroy the image of the Poles in world public opinion. The Poles were especially irritated by the use of the term "pogrom", which was identified, in their opinion, with the savagery of the "inferior Russians" and which was unsuitable to describe the Polish national character. The harsh impression made by the reports of the wave of pogroms crossing Poland had significant influence on Poland's status during the discussions on the peace treaty. With the agreement of the Poles, committees from abroad were sent to Poland (one committee headed by Henry Morgenthau from the U.S.A. and one including Stewart - the brother of Herbert - Samuel of Great Britain), to check into the events in Poland on the spot. These committees became inundated in the morass of claims made by both sides, but, despite all the attempts to hide or detract from the severity

8

For details on the Pinsk pogrom, see Ezriel Shohat, "Parshat ha-Pogrom be-Pinsk ba-Hamishah be-April 1919" (The Pinsk Pogrom of April 5,1919), in Gal-Ed, On the History of the Jews in Poland, Tel-Aviv 1973, pp. 135-173.

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of the incidents, concluded that hundreds had been murdered in the wave of libel, evil and anarchy unrestrainedly ravaging Poland. In 1920, the rioting subsided and the regime tended to stabilize. The Polish constitution approved in March 1921 was without a doubt progressive in spirit, guaranteeing equal rights to minorities, freedom of faith and religion and the right of each minority to use its own language. However, the enforcement of these singularly democratic laws and the guarantees of the Minorities Pact was made dependent upon detailed decrees and regulations cancelling the existing rules dating from the period of the conquest, which were still in force in the various provinces. This translation of the constitution into practical terms was a long time in coming, and the courts, unfortunately, operated according to the stipulations of the Czarist constitution. One of the bothersome questions was that of citizenship. The authorities refused to recognize the citizenship of refugees who had moved from place to place during the war and who were unable to prove with documents their permanent residence within the new established Polish borders. (One of the common claims was that a stream of Jewish masses from various parts of Russia, called "Litvaks," was flooding Poland and leading to the expansion of Russian culture and anti-Polish feeling.) A protractive and intensive campaign was waged about the mandatory rest day on Sundays. Officially, resting on Sunday was compulsory before the war as well, but the regime did not trouble to enforce this ruling on Sabbathobserving Jews. The Polish authorities exploited the fact that the Minorities Pact made no explicit statement on this point, and even before the end of 1919 rushed to enact a law prohibiting the opening of stores (except for certain kinds of services) and enforcing a cessation of labor on Sundays. The sting of this prohibition, aimed at Jewish trade, had severe effects. In June 1923 the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish sejm approved a bill enforcing a numerus clausus at the universities. This proposal aroused a wave of protest in the foreign press, and it was apparently the personal intervention of the French premier Poincare that led the Polish government to retreat from its plan. However, shelving the bill did not mean giving up the numerus clausus in actual practice. In this case clever use was made of the autonomy granted to academic institutions to bring about a reduction or disqualification of Jewish applicants. As a result of the maneuvers within university walls, the number of Jewish students accepted and trained for the professions followed a steady decline. In the academic year 1921/22 the Jews comprised 24.6 °/o of the students in the institutions of higher learning. From that time on their number decreased constantly so that in the last year of the Republic, 1938/39, they comprised no more than 8.2 %, i. e., less than the

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numerus clausus. As a matter of fact, during the last stage of the period the extreme factions of the the Polish right demanded enactment of a numerus nullus. This discrimination is even more apparent since the Jews were an urban element, and the vast majority of university students in Poland came from the urban stratum. However, the most severe discrimination, which caused irreparable damage to Jewish livelihoods, was in the field of economic policy. Throughout the period between the wars, the extreme right wing in Poland had preached an economic boycott of the Jews and encouraged the development of Polish trade, often not along lines recommended to develop the economy but rather as competition aimed at removing theJews. In the same way as other states which had achieved independence accompanied by a sharp change in their internal regimes, so did the Polish state have widespread authority, especially in the later phases in planning economic policy; furthermore it controlled the major financial resources and means of credit. Yitzhak Gruenbaum stated that the Polish etatism "had an anti-Semitic soul." The government nationalized a whole list of industries, such as the tobacco industry, which had previously been in the hands of the Jews. Not only were the Jewish owners in thisfieldremoved, but also Jewish laborers, and, since the tobacco and alcohol trades were handed over to people with special permits, this also served to undermine the status of the Jews. Credit sources were either closed to Jewish traders or operated with severe discrimination. The Jews made almost no inroads into the state or municipal administrations; for example, in Warsaw 16 % of the Poles were employed by the state or in general public services, while the percentage of Jews so engaged was only 0.8 %. The Jews made up about 40 % of the population of Lublin, whereas in the municipality only 2.6 % of the workers were Jews. In Warsaw two Jews worked in the City Street Car Authority which employed 4,392 workers. We shall also see that the reverse system determined taxation policy. Where collecting taxes was concerned, the heaviest burden was imposed on urban commerce, the small Jewish merchant bearing the brunt. According to Hartglas, a former member of the Jewish faction in the sejmjews paid ten times more in taxes than their Polish competitors.9 Paradoxically, the steps taken to improve and further the economy also were to the detriment of the Jews. Thus the organization of the cooperative

9

A. Hartglas, "Milhemet Yehudei Polin al Zehuyoteihem ha-Ezrahiyot veha-Leumiyot" ("The battle of Polish Jewry for their civil and national rights"), in Bet Yisrael be-Polin ("The House of Israel in Poland"), vol. I, Jerusalem 1948, p. 142. The estimation is of course exaggerated, but it expressed the feeling of discrimination and a great factual disproportion of taxation regarding the Jews.

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movement supported by leftist elements as well, removed many burdensome intermediary units between the countryside and the cities, but at the same time wiped out many Jewish livelihoods. The widespread claim, traces of which are still found in Polish publications today, was that the Jews were extremely wealthy or lived at a level above the average, and controlled key positions in Polish economic and financial life. The truth is that only a minimal number engaged in international trade, banking and industry; between five and ten per cent of the entire Jewish population were wealthy or had above average incomes or even enjoyed average urban conditions. The vast majority of the Jews was made up of people constantly struggling to subsist and of masses living under conditions of poverty, including total destitution.10 Visitors to Poland from abroad were stunned by the filth and poverty of the Jewish neighborhoods and the cries of distress emanating from them. The Jewish international welfare organizations, especially the Joint, that attempted to aid the needy and also to help Jews maintain their workshops and their jobs despite the economic war waged against them, were at best able to rehabilitate individuals or small groups but could not bring about any basic change in the situation. Many tried to make inroads into industry, but this proletarization process also encountered difficulties. The slow development of industry created limitations in the absorption of workers, whereas the workers in many existing factories opposed the introduction of Jews to their ranks. This situation worsened during the economic crisis, when a high degree of unemployment was characteristic of the entire economy. Jewish craftsmen were compelled to take a practical examination but the examiners were not satisfied with professional skill, using their ignorance of the Polish language, for example, as an excuse to refuse the Jews permits in their fields. The professional potential of the Jews was suppressed rather than exploited, as the Poles

10

See Jacob Lestschinsky's article, "Ha-Pauparizatziyah shel ha-Hamonim ha-Yehudim" (The pauperization of the Jewish masses) in the jubilee edition of the Yiddish newspaper Haynt printed in Warsaw. According to Lestschinsky, Polish Jewry at the end of the 1930s could be divided into the following categories: (1) Extremely poor (living solely on charity or supported by relatives) 400,000 12.4 % (2) Poor (in frequent need of support, but with a small income) 300,000 9.2 % (3) Poor (in need of support only during festivals) 600,000 18.4% (4) Earners of a minimum living wage (not in need of support) 1,000,000 3 0 . 8 % (5) Earners of a sufficient income (to cover their needs) 600,000 18.4% (6) Moderately well-to-do and prosperous 300,000 9.2 % (7) Wealthy and extremely wealthy 50,000 1.6% 3,250,000 100 < "Haynt"

YavelBukh (1908-1938), p. 150.

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doggedly poured out the baby with the bath water. The professions suffered a considerable shortage of skilled manpower. Poland had fewer doctors than most of the other countries of Europe, but this did not interfere with blocking the entrance of the Jews to the medical profession or with preventing Jews who had studied medicine in foreign universities from engaging in the practice of medicine within Polish borders. The Jewish fight against anti-Semitism and economic and social oppression was mainly parliamentary. During the first stage after the war, Jewish members of Parliament, or the Jewish faction, concentrated on fighting for the achievement of national rights and strengthening autonomous Jewish institutions. Before the elections to thefirstregular sejm in 1922, an attempt was made to detract from the importance of the minorities by means of gerrymandering and an electoral system aimed at reducing the representation of the minorities. In response, the minorities coalesced into a single coordinated bloc for the coming elections, and because of their united front they achieved an impressive result. The faction leading the Zionist forces in the bloc together with the Zionist representatives from Galicia, who did not participate in the bloc, numbered twenty-eight members of the sejm and eight senators; and after the orthodox members and those of the Trade Center joined the national faction it came to thirty-four members of the sejm and twelve of the Senate (only a single Jewish representative, Prylucki, representing the Folkists, remained outside the Jewish faction). The large faction headed by Yitzhak Gruenbaum left its mark on the Polish Parliament and waged numerous stubborn struggles in defense ofJewish interests. In certain cases the minorities succeeded in serving as the balance of power between the right and the left in deciding vital questions in the life of the country. In this way, for instance, Gabriel Narutowicz, a liberal close to Pilsudski, was elected first President of the state thanks to the support of the minorities. However, he was assassinated after only a few days in office by an extreme nationalist, and following the public storm which took place. The Jewish members of Parliament came to the conclusion that it would be better for them not to exercise parliamentary power to decide general questions on which the Poles were divided into rival camps. However, in the 1928 elections the bloc and particularly the Jewish faction did not repeat its success of the previous elections, and parliamentary minority power decreased. In 1925, when Wladyslaw Grabski was the Polish Premier, an attempt was made to reach an accord with the Jewish minority, known as "Ugoda"agreement. Since the practical results were very limited and almost valueless, strong opposition was voiced in the Jewish camp, claiming that in return for

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vague obligations the Jewish faction had abandoned its independent oppositionary stand and stirred up the other minorities against the Jews. Despite the difficulties and the economic pressure affecting the Jewish masses, there were in Poland a number of Jews holding central positions in industry and international trade, and the Jewish representation in the professions, such as medicine and law, was significant. The prominent role played by Jews and people of Jewish origin in the various branches of Polish culture was remarkable. Some of the best known poets and authors, composers and renowned musicians, outstanding figures in the world of theater and key figures in the field of publishing - were Jews who had assimilated into Polish cultural life, and into Polish society as well. However, the Polish right wing and actually a great part of Polish society rejected this integration even of single Jews into their cultural and political life (some of the leading Socialists were ofJewish descent). In the period after the war, one of Pilsudski's followers, Pobog-Malinowski, the author of a comprehensive book on the history of Poland in modern times, who had emigrated to London, claimed that these assimilated Jews had two hearts - a Polish one and a Jewish one.11 On the other hand, the great Polish poet of Jewish descent, Julian Tuwim, who did not convert, but drifted completely away from the Jewish community and its affairs, bemoaned the fate of Polish Jewry during the Holocaust, and stated that to the overwhelming majority of Poles "I am and shall remain a Jew". 12 Thus it was not the divided heart of these people that prevented them from identifying completely with their Polishness, but rather their rejection by so many of the Polish people. This applied not only to a respected artist in the Polish language, like Tuwim, but also to a poet like Antony Slonimski, who was actually the grandson of the founder of the periodical Hatseftra, Chaim Zelig Slonimski, but was baptized while yet a child. Nevertheless, the anti-Semites refused to accept him as a true Pole. It should be noted that the anti-Semitism and the anti-Jewish policy between the wars were not successful in dampening the vitality and the dynamic development of the Jews. In the Jewish quarters, despite the suffering from poverty and oppression and incalculable distress, there took place variegated cultural and sociopolitical activity. Jews read a great deal, they wrote books, published newspapers, belonged to political parties of various stripes, were active in clubs and organizations of various kinds. They did all this out of identification and great enthusiasm stemming from their faith that by their actions they were contributing to the correction of the injustices both 11

12

Wladyslaw Pobog - Malinowski, Najnowsza historia polityczna Polski, Vol. Π, 1914-1939, London 1967, p. 806. Tuwim Julian, "My Zydzi polscy . . .".Jerusalem 1984 (English version), p. 17.

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in Jewish life and in universal human life. There is a clear disproportion between their humble and base condition, on the one hand, and the measure of their hopes, their energy and their feeling that they were living in a period of great change, on the other. In this period, Polish Jewry dominated world Jewry in many fields. In Poland the ideological and national streams of the Zionist factions and movements and of the "Bund" and the "fblkists" were ripening and crystallizing. In Poland there was the great concentration of Orthodox Jewry, the tzaddikim with their faithful adherents, yeshivoth and numerous Torah institutions. In Poland Yiddish and Hebrew literature was blossoming, and in the cities and towns of Poland there was a widespread network of educational streams in both languages. From Poland there came the main flow of pioneers to Eretz Yisrael; the fourth Aliya was in the main composed of Polish Jewry. The first Prime Minister after the coup d'etat by Pilsudski, Professor Kazimierz Bartel, included in his coup d'etat statement a paragraph concerning the Jewish minority. His words were published in a separate pamphlet, and, Gruenbaum, who generally tended to a severely critical approach, perceived Professor Bartel as a "progressive, energetic man", and noted that "he did not refrain from declaring that the government would not operate according to an anti-Semitic economic policy, appreciating that such a policy could only cause damage to the entire state . . . This statement, so unlike any which had ever been made by a Polish Prime Minister from the day of liberation and political rebirth, could be viewed as the forerunner of a new era for the Jews, with the fulfilling of most of their demands, except for those of a national character."13 However, this "springtime" of Polish-Jewish relations did not last long. After a year and a half of thawed hostility and an honest attempt on the part of the government to improve the situation of the Jews, things began to slow down and to reverse direction, until the former status was once again restored. Certain matters did indeed straighten out even later, like the question of the regulation of citizenship for those Jews whose civil status had not previously been recognized by the State. The deterioration in the policy towards the Jews and in their status in various areas began as already mentioned in 1930. The most important of these was the destruction of the democratic structure of the State. The regime held elections in an atmosphere of pressure and the disqualification of rivals. In these elections the Jews lost their parliamentary power and their significant national representation. On the other hand, the Endeks 13

Yitzhak Gruenbaum, "Ha-Gorem ha-Antishemi" (The anti-Semitic factor), in Entziklopediyah shel ha-Galuyot, Varshah I, Jerusalem-Tel Aviv 1953, p. 109.

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who had despaired of the chance to overthrow Pilsudski's "sanation" regime by democratic means, abandoned, to a large extent, the methods of proper parliamentary struggle and began to directly incite the masses. Their strength grew among the peasants and especially among the youth and the academic sector where fascist tendencies were rife. The Endeks, in their propaganda, accused the regime of protecting the Jews and of giving in to Jewish interests. The government's attitude towards the Jews was influenced by the fear of successful Endek propaganda and of profascistic radicalism penetrating Pilsudski's camp as well. However, the regime had not yet adopted an antiSemitic line as official policy, and in certain cases, such as during the anti-Jewish riots the Endeks incited at the universities, actually rose in defense of the Jews. The Critical Years 1935-1939 Immediately after the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Polish regime supported the boycott which Jewish circles initiated against German goods, and Polish consular representatives in Germany prevented harm from being done to Jews of Polish citizenship. However, drastic change occurred in 1934, after Poland signed a non-aggression pact with Germany. Prominent Nazi leaders began to visit Warsaw, and a close relationship between the two countries developed in many areas. In 1935, after the death of Pilsudski, the last obstacle preventing the adoption of an open, official anti-Semitic policy by the regime was removed. The period after the death of Pilsudski was characterized by friction and quarreling within the group of diadochs who replaced Pilsudski. He personally did not leave behind an organized, ideological testament or a clear, consistent political line. Ever since he took over the government, he had ruled and alone made political decisions, and personal appointments. Even in his weakness during his last years, illness having removed him from the center of political activity, he still kept control of foreign policy, while other fields were entrusted to people who were considered his adherents. After his demise, his pupils and heirs - people lacking the qualities of political wisdom and leadership - began to claim the right to speak and govern in his name. Finally, the rule was divided between the President of the state Moscicki and the new head of the Army Rydz-Smigly and their men. Despite the political tension and the dangers developing around Poland, the politicians did not strive to achieve a national front to unite all the citizens of the state and its political parties, including oppositionary forces, into a body fit to deal with emergency conditions. The tendency was to wipe out concrete social conflicts and problems by increasing nationalistic feeling and campaigning against minorities, especially Jews. Pobog-Malinowski, in the volume of

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his history dealing with the period between the wars, devotes over ninety pages to the final chapter called "Poland without Pilsudski."14 Over many pages Malinowski describes the gossip and intrigues in which the leaders of the state were engaged. Later on, the author devotes approximately twenty pages to Polish-Jewish affairs, and the remainder - reduced quantitatively to very little - is devoted to the political hardships and the dangers threatening Poland just before the Second World War. It seems to us that the form and the tone adopted by Malinowski accurately reflect the attention and importance ascribed by the government and public opinion to the subjects occupying the country at that time. There were three focal points of political power in Poland during these last fateful years. The President of the State, Ignacy Moscicki, an elderly man lacking independent political insight, apparently wielded much official authority, but everyone viewed him as a transient phenomenon. Alongside him, the power of the Army Commander, the newly appointed Marshal, RydzSmigly, grew stronger and more entrenched. The Marshal was a narrowminded man who, instead of devoting himself exclusively to strengthening Poland's defenses, preferred to further his own political ambitions and semidictatorial status. The third point of focus, a man actually lacking public support, but considered a faithful, pupil who correctly interpreted the intentions of the late leader, was the Foreign Minister, Jozef Beck. A few members of the Government gradually realized that no substantial ideological rift separated them from the radical Endek right, and that mutual cooperation had been prevented in the past by the personal antagonism between Pilsudski and Dmowski. This supposition, however, was not interpreted as possible grounds for the fusion of a right-wing political bloc, but rather as an indication that the government was striving to attract and lead the rightist elements. Fascist circles, encompassing dissenters from the Endek camp, young people eager to gain power, accepted the overtures. It became obvious that the extreme anti-Jewish platform was one of the links between the sides. At the same time, the Endeks who interpreted the government's adoption of an anti-Jewish policy as an attempt to inherit the slogans and positions traditionally and legitimately held by their party, naturally leaned towards more extreme positions and incitement of the masses. The Catholic Church in Poland played a considerable and not always calming role in the renewed, extreme anti-Semitic campaign. In Shepherds' Episdes from the heads of the Church, along with ill-concealed reservations concerning the imported racism and pious affirmations that "very many Jews 14

Pobog-Malinowski, op. at., Vol. Π, the chapter 16, pp. 765-858.

Poles and Jews between the Wars

1057

are believers, decent, honest, merciful and charitable", we find emphasized that "it is a fart that Jews (and here they aren't very many, but merely Jews, in general) batde against the Church, tend towards free thinking and form the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement, and activity striving for revolution . . . In trade relations it is better to prefer our own industry to others, to skip over Jewish shops and Jewish stalls in the market, but no permission is granted to loot Jewish shops, to destroy goods belonging to Jews, to break windows, to throw bombs at their homes . . ."15 Among the priests, the real shepherds of the congregations, many belonged to or leaned towards the Endeks and did not refrain from preaching in the spirit of their party. Officially the Polish Catholic Church refrained from identifying with a specific political camp. From the middle of the thirties, priests espoused wild incitement in open fascist and pro-Nazifashion,and though they were in the minority, they clearly had a damaging influence. The priest Stanislaw Trzeciak, who preached for years from the pulpit of one of the important churches in the center of Warsaw, and was a lecturer at the Theological Seminary, was especially popular. He was an almost declared agent of a Nazi propaganda institute, the Weltdienst; he wrote books, pamphlets and many articles, and spoke before a crowd in praise of anti-Semitism and viewed Hitler as "the whip of God." In the words of an American historian, E. D. Wynot, the Polish government adopted an anti-Jewish line as an official component of government policy during this period, the last years before the outbreak of war.16 Though circles close to the government made no claim, as the Endeks did, that the Jews were striving to conquer the Polish state in dark and mysterious ways, they did agree that the Jewish intelligentsia was capable of gaining control of Polish spiritual life, and above all, that there were too many Jews in the state, who should vacate their places in favor of the excess village population of Poland flowing to the cities. The government weakly expressed its reservations concerning the increasing acts of violence and the spreading atmosphere of violence, but gave its blessing to the economic boycott, i. e., the economic war against the Jews. The Jewish sociologist, Jacob Lestschinsky said that "it is impossible to accuse the Polish government of organizing savageries against the Jews. But it is possible, and necessary, to accuse it of laying the foundations for the pogroms; in their passivity towards the propaganda which of necessity leads to pogroms; in their dismissal, without punishment, of the small attacks and riots, which encourage the hooligans and which become, as time passes, 15 16

A. Hlond, "Wielkopostny list pasterski", Przewodnik Katolicki, February 29, 1936. E. D. Wynot Jr. "A Necessary Cruelty", Current History 48, 1938.

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stabbings with knives and killings; and finally - in reducing the punishment meted out to murderers and stabbers."17 There is no doubt that the mild reaction to the violent wave engulfing Poland during the period between 1935-1939 and bringing in its wake hundreds of fatalities in the cities, villages and university campuses, was interpreted as the government's acquiescence or even complicity in the situation. Moreover, the token punishments meted out to murderers and rioters by the courts on the one hand and the harsh treatment of Jews attempting to defend themselves, as in the case of the pogrom in the town of Przytyk in March 1936, on the other hand, were also interpreted as encouragement to violence. It should be stressed that Polish liberal groups, as well as the Socialist Party, and dissidents from Pilsudski's camp, publicly condemned both the violence and the tactical hypocrisy of the government, and even demonstrated in protest, in certain instances declaring strikes and joining in defensive actions taken by the Jews, which were organized by the Bund and various Zionist factions. When separate benches, a sort of "bench ghetto," were introduced in the universities, the Jews refused to sit and listened to the lectures while standing. In identification with the Jewish students, a few of the professors including famed scholars decided to stand as well, an act which brought them under attack, including physical confrontations with rioters. In 1936 the ruling team trying to stabilize their rule began to set up the OZN (Oboz Zjednoczenia Narodowego - The Camp of National Unity), a political movement in place of the former bloc headed by the "colonels" which was dissolved, aimed at letting the wind out of the sails of the opposition and establishing a body of widespread support for the regime. Although the most attractive and persuasive means at the disposal of the rulers was the economic and political power and influence in light of gradual economic improvement after the crisis, they also attempted to phrase a programmatic platform for the new bloc. The organizational and ideological crystallization processes moved forward slowly, revealing a lack of efficiency and common ideological base. The leader summoned to organize and shape the new body, Colonel Adam Koc, favored totalitarian models, and thus devoted most of his efforts to attracting the fascist youth and its leaders. The principlesfinallydetermined by this pro-government movement can be summarized in three points: a) A centralist government recognizing the supremacy of the army and guided by its commanders; b) The supremacy of the Polish nation and the rejection of the minorities, especially the Jews, as "foreigners"; c) The supremacy of the 17

Yakov Leszczynski, "Ha-Praot be-Polin", in Dappim le-Heker ha-Shoah ve-ka-Mered. (Pages for the study of the Catastrophe and the Revolt), 1952, p. 45.

Poles and Jews between the Wars

1059

Catholic Church. In contrast to the supra-party camp which functioned in Pilsudski's time and included the assimilationists and the Jewish orthodoxy, the leaders of the new body declared that the Jews had no place in their ranks. The anti-Semitic policy which reached climactic expression at this stage 1938 and the beginning of 1939 - concentrated on two fields: a) internal affairs - an economic boycott and gradual anti-Semitic legislation; b) external affairs - accelerated activity in both internal and external policy to force the Jews to emigrate and to seek out new places to absorb them.18 The Jews waged a bitter and stubborn campaign against the bill proposed to cancel the existing system of slaughtering animals in Poland, which met the requirements of Jewish Kashmtb (dietary laws). Officially the proposers claimed to have been guided by "humanitarian" considerations, and the fact that the existing system of slaughter increased the suffering of the animals. However, everyone knew that the real intention behind the "humane" excuse was to remove tens of thousands of Jews from the meat industry, which was one of the few economic sectors where Jews still had some influence. This law, amended slightly after a vigorous campaign, greatly disappointed religious Jewry who generally supported the government and viewed independent Jewish politics as a disturbing factor harmful to the Jews. Laws were being prepared to abrogate the formal equality of rights of the Jews. A private bill of this kind was presented by members of Parliament from the Government camp and, though at the time only a trial balloon as intended, the apparendy actual comprehensive legislation was prevented only by the deterioration of the security conditions on the eve of the outbreak of war in 1939. Decisions to enact an "Aryan clause" and to expel the Jews were taken by a whole series of professional and trade unions, such as physicians and lawyers. These elements of racism penetrated the ranks by means of the Fascist youth organizations, and some youth leaders in the Endeks preached racial discrimination. It was determined that not only a religious person or one identifying himself as a Jew would be considered Jewish, but also anyone of "Jewish origin"; conversion does change a Jew into a Christian, but cannot make him a Pole. J. Giertych, the most extreme of the young Endeks demanded that converts be denied the right to vote and to be elected. Of course, many Jews needed no Polish pressure to awaken in them the desire to leave Poland. The steep drop in emigration during the thirties was 18

On OZN, see Edward D. Wynot Jr., Polish Politics in Transition, The Camp ofNational Unity andtbe Struggle far Power, 1935-1939, Athens 1974; about the policy of Camp of National Unity (OZN) toward the Jews: Emanuel Melzer, Meawak Mediny be-Malkodet,Jehudey Polin 1935-1939 (Political strife in a blind alley, the Jews in Poland 1935-1939), Tel-Aviv 1982.

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caused by the sealing of the gates to the countries where the Jewish emigres had streamed over the generations, especially the United States, by means of a "quota", a restrictive number, and by a steady decrease in permits to immigrate to Eretz (the Land of) Israel. Both by international standards and by those of Eretz Israel, Jewish institutions preferred to assist Jews to leave Germany, followed by Austria and Czechoslovakia, i. e., Jews living under the direct control or immediate threat of the Nazis, than to aid Jews of eastern European countries in which anti-Semitism was growing, like Poland or Rumania. The restriction of the Palestine mandatory rule decreased the emigration from Poland to Palestine drastically. The Poles tried various ways to accelerate the Jewish exodus, a task to which the Polish Foreign Office lent a special hand. This activity had from a historical perspective one very characteristic aspect. The Poles had ambitions of becoming a world power, and so demanded colonies for themselves in the international arena; these colonialistic dreamsfittedin with their plans to find a refuge for the Jews. The idea of a Jewish emigration to the island of Madagascar was especially popular. The Poles approached the French and suggested that they place the island at the disposal of the Jewish emigrants from Poland, and a special delegation including Jews set out to determine whether or not conditions were suitable for large-scale emigration. Polish diplomacy backed the demands of the Zionist establishment to expand the immigration to Eretz Israel, and in Poland the Irgun and the Hagana (Jewish military underground organizations which operated in Palestine) held training courses under the auspices of the Polish government. A visible link was created between the revisionist disciples ofJabotinsky and the Polish ruling circles. The Land of Israel, however, was considered only one possible destination; incapable of solving the problem to the extent that Poland required, many other variegated solutions had to be considered. In this matter talks were also held with the Nazi leaders and with the Third Reich authorities, with whom Poland maintained close relations. When Hitler, in a conversation held in September 1938 with the Polish ambassador to Berlin, J. Lipski, observed that after solving the Sudeten problem he would be free to deal with the question of the colonies, and that in this connection a way would also be found to solve inter alia, the problem of Polish Jewry, the Polish diplomat did not claim that the question of Polish Jews was an internal Polish concern, but rather noted that if Hitler would find the desired solution, the Poles would erect a monument in his honor in the heart of Warsaw.19

19

J. Lipski, Diplomat

in Berlin, 1933-1939,

London 1968, p. 411.

Poles and Jews between the Wars

1061

In effect, the Jews were in a trap with no way out. On the one hand, the Polish state was urging them to leave, the extreme elements in this connection using violence and not stopping even at violence, whereas, on the other hand, the world was closed before them. The economic situation and abject poverty of the Jews of Poland was sufficient to create in them a strong desire to leave, but, as we have said, this longing had no practical outlet. During the years 1931-1935, 51,300 Polish Jews emigrated to Palestine, and from 1936-1938 only 14,500. The decrease was of course the result of Arab riots and the restrictionist policy of the British Government. In all, around 400,000 Jews emigrated from Poland during the interwar period. The place, time and energy devoted to the "Jewish problem" in Poland, both in Government policy and in Parliament, in the opposition parties' public and political activity, in the press and in public opinion, turned the matter into a central social and political issue, often distracting attention from the real crises and dangers threatening Poland. Gleefully the Nazis took careful note of the anti-Semitic campaign in Poland, as can be seen from extensive descriptions devoted to the matter in reports relayed to Berlin by German diplomats in Warsaw. Neither are proofs lacking that the Nazis were active in stirring up this campaign, which helped in attaining their own political aims. Certain groups of Pilsudski's followers did not wish to acquiesce in the policies of his heirs to power, their anti-Semitic policies and pro-Fascist leanings being among the main factors in their rejection. They abandoned the pro-Government camp and, together with liberal circles, founded the Democratic Club. The Polish Socialists were most consistent in their defense of the persecuted Jews, but in reaction to a pamphlet published by a Bund leader, Victor Alter, claiming that the mass emigration of Jews from Poland was no solution to Poland's real problem, there was published another pamphlet. Written by a Polish Socialist named Borski, it claimed, leaving no room for doubt, that even among the strata of Polish laborers the demand for Jewish emigration was widespread.20 During thefinalmonths before the outbreak of war, the attitude of Government circles and of most of the Poles toward the Jews underwent a change. The call for national unity in light of the concrete threat of war included the Jews and was aimed at them as well. 20

J. M. Borski, Sprawa Zydowska a Socjalizm, polemika ζ Bundem, Warszawa 1937. The author writes in this pamphlet, "It is a well-known fact that rabid anti-Semitism is on the increase in Poland. Jews are not employed in agricultural work, and are barred from public institutions, monopolies, state-owned factories, municipal concerns and large privately-owned factories. Were the Jews to be 'reinstated' and the offensive and unjust restrictions abolished, it can easily be imagined what anti-Semitic agitation would ensue." (p. 14)

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Jews joined in the patriotic effort with enthusiasm for two reasons. First, because of the change of attitude of the Poles and secondly, and primarily, because in the light of Hitler's threat, all their many accounts with Poland and the Poles faded into obscurity. However, the rapprochement between Jews and Poles, which developed in the course of digging trenches, collecting money and joining the army, and finally in a common blood sacrifice, did not present a fundamental long-range change. The sharp anti-Semitic attitudes and action of independent Poland between the wars was apparendy in contradiction to the spirit of a long lasting Polish fight for liberation under the slogan "for your and our freedom." In the limits of our introductory remarks we could not deal with the profound reasons for the anti-Jewish stand during the period; we could only point to the most decisive trends and events of the time. In any case, the anti-Jewish wave which engulfed the two decades of the Polish independent Republic had a fateful influence on the developments of Polish-Jewish relations during the second World War.

DIETRICH BEYRAU

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939"" T h e monstrous, industrially-executed extermination of the Jews by the Germans has led us almost t o forget the tradition of anti-Semitism of the fist that broke out again and again in interwar Poland. 1 T h e form and content of public manifestations ofJew-hatred changed in the course of these twenty years; they included traditional pogroms as well as an ideological anti-Semitism that deepened into an almost all-embracing world-view. In the confusion of the founding of the state, especially during the Polish-Ukrainian struggle for Lemberg (Lvov) in 1 9 1 8 and the Polish-Soviet war of 1 9 2 0 - 2 1 , armed Polish groups were responsible for numerous excesses against Jews, especially in the eastern parts of Poland. 2 W i t h the stabilization of the Republic, these were

* Translated from the German by Belinda Cooper: "Antisemitismus und Judentum in Polen, 1918-1939," Geschichte und Gesellschaft 8,1982 (2), pp. 205-233. Reprinted with permission of the author. 1 Polish historiography has shown little interest in anti-Semitism as a separate area of research. It is touched upon only in the framework of the history of right-wing parties and the Jewish minority. Cf. R. Wapüiski, Roman Dmowski, Warsaw 1979, p. 19, pp. 37, pp. 51, pp. 65, p. 75, 98; A. Micewski, Roman Dmowski, Warsaw 1971, p. 347 ff.; J. J. Terej, Rzeczywistosa polityka. Ze studiow nod dzie jami najnowszymi Narodowej Demokraqi, Warsaw 1971, pp. 63; idem, Idee, mity, realia. Szkice do dziejow Nasodawej Demokraej; Warsaw 1971a, p. 96, pp. 102. J. R. Wedrowski, Stony Zjednoczone a odrodzenie Polski, Breslau 1980, p. 161 claims that the existence of anti-Semitism in Poland is a "false myth." However, in serious Polish historiography this position is the exception. That the treatment of anti-Semitism is not free of inhibitions and taboos is shown by a controversy between J. Borkowski and J. Zarnowski. Cf. J. Borkowski, "O spoleczenstwie Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej," Przeglad Humanistyczny 18, 1974, 7(106), pp. 107-135, pp. 130; J. Zarnowski, "W sprawie ksiazki Spoleczehstwo Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej," KwartalnikHistoryczny [=KH] 84,1977, pp. 659-677, pp. 672 ff., Cf. also J. Tomaszewski's review of C. S. Heller (see note 2) in Biuletyn Zdcrwskiego Instytutu Historycznego [= BZIH] 1979, No. 109, pp. 113-115. 2 L. Chasanowitsch, Die polnischen Judenpogrome im November und Dezember 1918, Stockholm 1919; S. Segal, The New Poland and the Jews, New York 1938, pp. 142 ff; I. Cohen, "My Mission to Poland (1918-1919)," Jewish Social Studies [= JSS] 13, 1951, 2, pp. 149-172; Ju. Larin, Evrei i antisemitizm ν SSSR, Moscow 1929, p. 39; Η. Μ. Rabinowicz, The Legacy of Polish Jewry. A History of Polish Jews in the Inter-War Years, 1919-1939, New York 1965, p. 31;

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replaced by boycotts3 and more subtle forms of psychological and physical violence. Starting in the late 20's, universities became the sites of rowdy student anti-Semitism, leading to the establishment in 1937 of so-called "ghetto benches" in university lecture halls.4 In the mid-1930's, towns such as Przytyk and Minsk Mazowiecki, as well as larger cities such as Cz§stochowa, experienced pogroms towards which the authorities behaved with remarkable passivity.5 All these incidents were accompanied by journalistic campaigns; the right-wing press, later the government organ as well, propagated the ouster of Jews from the Polish economy and their emigration. These actual and verbal attacks were aimed at a minority that numbered over three million in 1931, almost 10 °/o of the population of the Polish state. In large cities such as Warsaw, Lodz, and Lemberg, almost one-third of the population belonged to the Jewish minority. Jews were generally concentrated in separate quarters of the city. In small cities, especially in the east, they could make up half or even the majority of the inhabitants.6 They differed from their Christian surroundings in religion, which was not yet limited to a simple private faith or a service on the holidays; it also pervaded social life with its laws and rites, especially among small-town Jews. In addition, there was the language (Yiddish), often special clothing and physical gestures - characteristics that markedly distinguished the Jews from the rest of the population in the

3

4

5

6

P. Korzec, "Antisemitism in Poland as an Intellectual, Social and Political Movement," inj. A. Fishman (ed.), Studies on Polish Jewry, 1919-1939, New York 1974, pp. 12-104, pp. 37 ff. (reprinted in this volume); C. S. Heller, On the Edge of Destruction. Jews ofPoland Between the Two World Wars, New York 1977, pp. 49 ff. (parts reprinted in this volume); T. Komarnicki, Rebirth of the Polish Republic. A Study in the Diplomatic History ofEurope, 1914-1920, London 1957, pp. 297 ff.; F. Golczewski, Polnisch-jüdische Beziehungen 1881-1922. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Antisemitismus in Osteuropa, Wiesbaden 1981, pp. 181 ff. J. Schiper, Dzieje handht iydowskiego na ziemiach polskich, Warsaw 1937, p. 645 f.; L. Motzkin, LecampagneantisemiteenPologne,Paris 1932,p. 108 f.; Rabinowicz, op. cit.,p. 72 f.; S. Rudnicki, "Oboz Wielkiej Polski w okresie kryzysu gospodarczej," Przeglad Historyczny [= PH] 62, 1971, pp. 251-270 ff., 255 f., 269 f.; Terej, op. cit., pp. 45, 62, 64; Heller, op. cit., pp. 115 ff. Motzkin, op. at., pp. 11 ff.; W. Pobog-Malinowski, Najnowsza historiapolityczna Polski 18641945, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, London 1956, p. 642; Rabinowicz, op. dt., pp. 99 ff.; Terej, 1971 a, op. cit., p. 129 f.; Heller, op. cit., pp. 118 ff. Motzkin, op. cit., pp. 121; Rabinowicz, op. cit., pp. 57; Korzec, op. cit., p. 87; Terej, op. cit., pp. 63 ff. J. Lestschinsky, "Die Umsiedlung u. Umschichtung des jüdischen Volkes im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts," Weltwirtschaßiches Archiv 30, 1929, pp. 123-156; 32, 1930, pp. 563-599; 30, 1929, pp. 144 ff., pp. 152 ff.; A. Ruppin, Die Soziale Struktur derJuden, Vol. 1-2, Berlin 193031; Vol. 1, p. 96, p. 102, p. 114 f., p. 401 f.; P. H. Seraphim, Das Judentum im osteuropäischen Raum, Essen 1938, pp. 298 ff., p. 71 If., pp. 716 ff.; S. Bronsztejn, "The Jewish Population of Poland in 1931," The Jewish Journal of Sociology 6, 1964, pp. 3-29, p. 7.

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1065

cities and the countryside. This externally-visible "Yiddishkeit" predominated above all in small villages, the "shtetl." In large city centers, it had generally been subjected to a process of adaptation to the urban civilization.7 Among the upper-class bourgeoisie and factory workers it took the suspicious nose of the anti-Semite, as Stanislaw Lec put it derisively, to distinguish Jews from non-Jews.8 A particular vocational structure was characteristic of Polish Jewry. While in 1931 almost 60 % of the ethnic Polish population worked in agriculture, 20 % in industry and crafts, but only 3.5 % in trade, 42 % of the Jews worked in industry and crafts, 37 % in trade, but only 4 % in the agricultural sector.9 Their social significance above all in trade, and crafts, and industry can be inferred from the fact that in 1 9 3 1 , 6 2 % and 2 6 °/o, respectively, of the people employed in these sectors came from the Jewish sector of the population.

7

8

9

Cf pictoral representations of the quite heterogenous Jewish phenotype between the wars by R. Vishniac, Polish Jews, New York 1947; L. Dobroszycki and B. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Image Before My Eyes: A Photographic History of Jewish Life in Poland, 1864-1939, New York 1977. "You can tell anti-Semites by their noses too. The suspicious noses." St. Lec, Neue unfrisierte Gedanken, Munich 1964, p. 30. Cf A. Mazur, "The Role of Predisposition in Identifying Jews,"/55 35, 1973 p. 290 f. and the literature there. Distribution of the Polish population in vocational branches in 1931 according to religion in percent: Vocational Branch

Agriculture Industry and business Trade Transport and Communication Freelance professions and public administration Domestic personnel and other In millions

Catholics (= Poles)

Orthodox Unitarians (= Ukrainians & White Russians)

Protestants (= Germans)

Jews

59,7 20,9 3,5 4,6

90,8 4,5 0,6 0,8

60,1 23,8 4,8 1,6

4,3 42,2 36,6 4,5

4,9

1,2

3,9

6,3

6,4

2,1

5,8

6,1

100,0 20,67

100,0 7,10

100,0 0,84

100,0 2,11

Source: J. Lestchinsky, "The Industrial and Social Structure of the Jewish Population of Interbellum Poland," YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 9, 1956-57, pp. 243-269, p. 248.

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They made up 27 % and 20 %, respectively, of the medical and educational professions.10 Even these short remarks indicate that the relationship between antiSemitism and Jewry in Poland was rooted in different social preconditions than in contemporary Germany or France.11 In order to describe, and at least begin to analyze, the unique network of relationships between the Jewish minority and the Polish majority, this essay will concentrate on the following problems: the theme of the first section is the long-term transformation of the Jewish social structure, social consciousness and relationship to the Polish environment. The second section will discuss the reactions of Polish power elites to the "Jewish question;" the principle of the nation-state and the completion of the process of becoming a nation "internally" are the key viewpoints here. These problems are closely connected with Poland's inhibited economic development between the wars. Its effects upon the Polish-Jewish relationship is the focus of the third section. In a fourth, closing chapter, I will formulate some hypotheses on the connection between blocked social transformation and Polish anti-Semitism. I. In the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic that came to an end in 1795, the Jews had formed a separate ethno-religious class. They lived in special communities (kahal, kehilla) within the social hierarchy; nationally, they were organized in the so-called Four-Country-Synode. Over the course of time, they had taken on changing but clearly defined responsibilities; at times they competed with the largely-German bourgeoisie in the cities constituted under German law. At first they were protected by the crown, later by the aristocracy.12 With the decline of the old order beginning in the 18th century, the Jews lost their previously secure status.

10

11

12

For differentiated views of the social structure of the Jews in Poland, cf., in addition to Bronsztejn, 1964, op. cit., and Lestchinsky 1956-57, op. cit., Ruppin, op. cit., vol 1, pp. 348 ff., pp. 384 ff.; G. Gliksman, Li'aspect economique de la question juive en Pologne, Paris 1929, pp. 62 ff.; S. Bronsztejn, Ludnosc zydowska w okresie miqdzywojennym. Studium statystyczne, Breslau, 1963, pp. 67 ff.; R. Mahler, "Jews in Public Service and the Liberal Professions in Poland 1 9 1 8 - 1 9 3 9 , " / S 6,1944; pp. 291-350; J. -Zarnowski, Strukturaspokcznainteligenqiw Polsce w latach 1918-1939, Warsaw 1964, p. 176. On Jewry and anti-Semitism in Germany and France, cf. W. E. Mosse and A. Paucker (eds.), Entscheidungsjabr 1932. On the Jewish Question in the Final Phase of the Weimar Republic, Tübingen 1965; Κ. D. Bracher, Die Deutsche Diktatur, Frankfurt 1979, pp. 396 ff.; E. Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, Munich, 19792, pp. 457 ff.; B. Blumenkranz (ed.), Histoire des Juift en France, Toulouse 1972, pp. 373 ff. J. Meisl, Geschichte der Juden in Polen und Rußland, Vol. 1-3, Berlin, 1921-25; S. Dubnov, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, Vol. 1-3, Philadelphia 1916-20; M. Wischnitzer, A

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1067

A Jewish bourgeoisie arose in the course of the 19th century, during the early phases of the industrialization of Warsaw and other Polish trade and business centers such as Lodz and Brody (in Galicia). The first generation made its fortune in trade and credit, and in Congress Poland through concessions and monopolies granted by the government. Together with German businessmen, it substituted in a certain sense for a "third estate" within the Polish states, and upheld a bourgeois ethic in a world that was still governed by the norms of the szlachta. The Jewish bourgeoisie, especially in Warsaw, maintained a highly-developed spirit of patronage and proved receptive to the Jewish reform movement coming from Germany. It petitioned the authorities in Warsaw (or Petersburg), with varying degrees of success, for equality with the higher urban bourgeois estates.13 Regarding the majority of unenlightened, poor fellow Jews who made a modest living in small business and crafts or, as "luftmenschen," found only occasional work, concepts for education, retraining for crafts, or settlement in agricultural colonies were drafted as in the West - and sometimes put into practice.14 Following the Crimean War, the Russian government guaranteed certain groups of Jews (academics, master craftsmen etc.) in the so-called "Pale of Settlement"15 the right to freedom of movement in the Czarist empire. In

13

14

15

History ofJewish Crafts and Guilds, New York 1965, pp. 208 ff.; B. D. Weinryb, The Jews of Poland. A Social and Economic History of the Jewish Community in Poland from 1100-1800, Philadelphia 1973. On the history and role of the Jewish bourgeoisie in the 19th century in Congress Poland, cf. R. Kolodziejczyk, Ksztahowanie sie burzuazji w Krolestwie Polskim (1815-1850), Warsaw, 1957, pp. 208 and passim; idem, Burzuazjy polska w XIX i XX wieku, Warsaw, 1979, pp. 119 ff.;J. Szacki, "RolaZydöw w zyciu ekonomicznym Warszawy wlatach 1863-1896," BZIH1959, No. 30, pp. 12-49; J. Shatsky, "Warsaw Jews and the Polish Cultural Life of the Early 19th Century," J. A. Fishman (ed.), Studies in Modem Jewish Social History, New York 1972, pp. 44-57; A. Eisenbach, Kwestia mwnouprawnienia Zydöw w Krölestwie Polskim, Warsaw 1972, pp. 220, On Galicia, cf. I. Schiper et. al. (ed.), Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej. Dzialalnosc spokczna, gospodarcza, oswiatawa i kulturalna, Vol. 1-2, Warsaw, 1937; Vol. 1, pp. 377; I. Schiper, op. cit. pp. 332 ff., pp. 436 if.; A. Wandruszka and P. Urbanitsch (eds.), Die Habsburgermonarthie 1848-1918, vol. 3, part 1-2, Vienna 1980, vol. 3, part 2, pp. 893 f., p. 914 f. Ruppin, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 324,390 ff.; Seraphim, op. cit., pp. 122; Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 15; R. Mahler, "The Social and Political Aspects of the Haskalah in Galicia," Fishman (ed.), op. cit., 1972, pp. 58-79; T. Berman, Produktwierungsmythen und Antisemitismus, Vienna 1973, pp. 43 ff.; Eisenbach, op. cit., pp. 229 ff.; B. D. Weinryb, Neueste Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden in Rußland und Polen, Breslau 1934 (reprint 1972), pp. 156 ff. The so-called "Pale of Settlement" (certa osedlosti), established 1791-1795, included essentially the eastern regions of the former Republic of Nobles, which were incorporated directly into the Czarist empire. In addition, several Ukrainian gouvemments (Taurius, Kherson, Ekaterinoslav) and Bessarabia were annexed to the "certa." Cf. S. W. Baron, The Russian Jew

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Congress Poland, in fact, all restrictions that applied specifically to Jews were repealed in 1862. At that time, the "Jewish question" seemed to fall within the perspective of general emancipation in the eastern part of Europe, just as it had in the western part of the continent since the end of the 18th century.16 It was the pogroms of 1881-82, concentrated in the west of the Czarist empire but also spreading to Congress Poland, and the discriminatory laws that followed them, that first ended early emancipatory optimism of the West European kind in Russia as well as Poland.17 In any case, the Jewish population found itself between the fronts of competing nationalities that had been struggling for national emancipation or self-assertion in the marginal areas of the former aristocratic republic since the mid-19th century.18 While in the East these nationalities were ordered hierarchically in ethnic estates until the 18th century, the intervention of the Russian bureaucracy and the peasant liberation (1861) undermined the estate structure of the subordinated peasant peoples (Ukrainians, Lithuanians, White Russians) and the Polish ruling class. The emancipation of the Jewish bourgeoisie in the spirit of assimilation thus created particular difficulties in the mixed national regions of the eastern and western periphery, where many nationalities were struggling for supremacy. When the Jews (or their upper class) tended to Germanization, as in Posen, 19 or to Russification, as in the

16

17

18

19

Under Tsars and Soviets, New York 1964, p. 21, pp. 39; M. Rest, Die russische Judengesetzgebung von der ersten polnischen Teilungbiszum "Polozeniedljaevreev,"Wiesbaden 1975, pp. 109 ff. Seraphim, op. dt., pp. 107; Eisenbach, op. dt., pp. 409 ff.; R. Rürup, Emanzipation und Antisemitismus. Studien zur "Judenfrage" der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, Göttingen 1975; L. Poliakov, Histoire de Vantisemitisme, vol. 3: De Voltaire ä Wagner, Paris 1968, pp. 231 ff.; Blumenkranz (ed.), op. dt., 1972, pp. 265 ff. On the Russian pogroms, cf. Baron, op. cit., pp. 52 ff. On the pogroms in Congress Poland and their consequences, Schiper et al. (eds.), op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 7 ff.; F. Golczewski, op. cit., pp. 41 ff.; A. Eisenbach, "Memorial w sprawie sytuaqi ludnosci zydowskiej w Krolestwie Polskim," B7JH, 1976, no. 100, pp. 35-62. On nation-building in Eastern Europe, φ Τ. Lepkowski, Polska - narodziny nowoczesnego narodu 1764-1870, Warsaw 1970; M. Hroch, "Das Erwachen kleiner Nationen als Problem der komparativen sozialgeschichtlichen Forschung," T. Schieder (ed.), Sozialstruktur und Organisation europäischer Nationalbewegungen, Munich 1971, pp. 121-39; Η. Seton-Watson, Nations and States. An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism, London 1977; J. Chlebowczyk, Procesy narodotworcze we wschodniej Europie srodkowej w dobte kapitalizmu (Od schylku XVm do poczatkow XX w.), Warsaw 1975. Schiper, op. cit., pp. 538; Ruppin, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 158 ff.; G. Schramm, "Die Ostjuden als soziales Problem des 19.Jahrhunderts," H.Maus (ed.), Gesellschaft, Recht und Politik. W. Abendrotb zum 60. Geburtstag, Neuwied 1968, pp. 353-380; W. W. Hagen, Germans, Poles and Jews. The Nationality Conflictinthe Prussian East, 1772-1914, Chicago 1980, pp. 116, 158 und passim.

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Lithuanian and Ukrainian regions,20 they attracted the particular enmity of Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. While the Russian governors in Congress Poland were not unwilling to play the Jews off against the Poles, the Polish administration (starting in 1867) in Galicia used the Jews as "Polonizers" in the eastern, ethnically primarily Ukrainian territories.21 This national-political "state of emergency," like the sheer quantity of the Jewish population, may have contributed to the fact that assimilation made relatively little progess in this area before the First World War. 22 Nevertheless, starting in the 80's of the 19th century, a comparatively narrow class of assimilated intellectuals emerged in the territories that fell either to the Soviet Union or the Polish Republic after 1921. It took a decisive part in the revolutionary movements characterized by populism or Marxism.23 Although in no way representative of the Jewish intelligentsia as a whole, the Jewish contribution to Bolshevism24 as well as to the Communist movement in Poland25 handed anti-Semitism the slogan of the "Judeo20

21

22

23

24

25

Golczewski, op. cit., pp. 96 ff.; Meisl, op. cit., vol. 3, pp. 377 ff.; J. D. Klier, "The Illustratsiia Affair of 1858: Polemics on the Jewish Question in the Russian Press," Nationalities Papers 5, 1977,2,pp. 117-135;R. Serbyn, "Ukrainian Writers on the Jewish Question: In the Wake of the Illustratsiia Affair of 1858," ibid. 9,1981,1, pp. 99-103; Dubnow, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 182 f., pp. 206 ff. Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., p. 31, pp. 53 f.; Mahler, 1944, op. cit., pp. 300 f.; Wandruszka, Urbanitsch, op. cit., vol. 3, part 1, p. 584; part 2, pp. 905 ff., 942. Polish investigations in 1921 on nationality and in 1931 on mother tongue are not considered very reliable, but can point to trends. Out of 2.8 million Polish citizens of the Mosaic faith, in 1921 2.1 million gave "Jewish" as their nationality. In 1931, out of 3.1 million Jews, 2.5 million gave Yiddish as their mother tongue, 0.2 million Hebrew. Cf. W. Markert (ed.), Osteuropa Handbuch. Band Polen, Cologne 1959, p. 37; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 30 f. Of some 11,000Jews in Greater Poland, in 1921 some 6,000 gave their nationality as German, 2,900 as Polish, and 1,500 as Jewish. In 1931, of 7,300 Jews 3,300 called their mother tongue Yiddish, 1,800 Polish, and 1,800 German. Cf. S. Kowal, Struktura spoleczenstwa Wielkopolski w miqdzywojennym dwudziestuleciu 1919-1939, Posen 1974, pp. 104 f. R.J. Brym, The Jewish Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism. A Sociological Study of Intellectual Radicalism and Ideological Divergence, London 1978; L. Baumgarten, "Rewolucjonisci Zydzi w pierwszych polskich kolkach socjalistycznych i w Wielkim Proletariacie," BZIH, 1963, no. 47-48, pp. 3-28. O. Heller, Der Untergang des Judentums, Berlin 1931, pp. 232 ff.; Ζ. Y. Gitelman, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics. The Jewish Sections of the CPSU 1917-1930, Princeton, N.J. 1972, pp. 105 ff. The ratio of Jewish members of the CPP was given as 22 % in 1931. Cf. F. Swietlikowa, "LiczebnoscokregowychorganizacjiKPPwlatach 1919-1937," Zpolawalki 13,1970,2(50), pp. 475-93, 477. On the problem of Communism and Jewry in Poland, cf. also H. SetonWatson, Osteuropa zwischen den Kriegen 1918-1941, Paderborn 1948, p. 339; Μ. Κ. Dziewanowski, Poland in the Twentieth Century, New York 1977, pp. 93 ff.; J. Zarnowski, Spoleczenstwo Lhugiej Rzeczypospolitej, Warsaw 1973, p. 221; Μ. M. Drozdowski, Spoieczenstwo, paristwo, politycy Π Rzeczypospolitej. Szkice ipolemiki, Cracow 1972, p. 86.

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Commune" (Zydo-komuna), which served in Manichean form as the embodiment of evil itself.26 As in the fascist movements of France or Germany, the fact that Jews were present both in the bourgeoisie and on the opposing revolutionary side fostered fantasies devoted to the destruction of the "freemasonic, plutocratic, socialist and Jewish moloch" in the name of a "national order." 27 More relevant for the Jewish community as a whole was Zionism, a direct reaction to the disillusionment caused by the pogroms. It found its greatest support among the Jewish middle classes, but was not limited to them. Its political spectrum after 1918 ranged from militant nationalist groups to the radical socialist Poale Zion. Together with the folkists, who rejected Zionism, that is, Jewish colonization of Palestine, they demanded guarantees of national and cultural autonomy for the Jewish minority. During Poland's parliamentary era (until 1926), the Zionists formed the leading political force among Polish Jewry. 28 National-cultural autonomy was also demanded by the lower classes breaking away from the traditional community - small artisans, peddlers (chalupnicy) and workers, organized in the radical socialist "Allgemeiner Jüdischer Arbeiterbund" (Bund). Thanks to its own fighting organization, in the 30's the Bund became the main proponent of active resistance to the Polish right and to violent anti-Semitism. In the local elections of 1938 and 1939 it captured a leading position among Jewish groups in the large cities.29 26

27

28

29

On the slogans of the "zydo-komuna" and "folks front," which suggested the identity of Judaism and Bolshevism, φ. Pobog-Malinowski, op. at., vol. 2, part l,p. 642; A. Hertz, Zydzi w kukurze polskiej, Paris 1961, p. 197; Terej, op. cit,, 1971a, p. 120; H. and T. J§druszczak, Ostatnie lataDmgiej Rzeczypospolitej (1935-1939), Warsaw 1970, p. 243; A. Polonsky, Politics in Independent Poland. The Crisis of Constitutional Government, Oxford 1972, p. 370. On contemporary theoretical support for this perception, cf. Seraphim, op. at., pp. 187 ff., pp. 266 ff.; B. Miedzinski, Uwagi ο sprawie zydowskiej wraz ζ uchwalami Rady Naczelnej OZN ζ dnia 21 maja 1938, Warsaw 1938, pp. 11 ff. J. Giertych, Ο wys'cie ζ byzysu, Warsaw 1938, p. 31 (quote). Gietych, the "chief ideologue" of National Democracy in the 30's, wrote on the topos of the world Jewish conspiracy: "Lenin's and Trotsky's entire operation was financed by Jewish bankers in New York," ibid., p. 261. On Poland's three main enemies - Jews, Freemasons and Communists, in that order - φ. ibid., pp. 140 ff. On the topos of the world Jewish conspiracy in fascist thought, φ. Nolte, op. cit. pp. 170 ff., 405 ff. I. Grünbaum, Polityka zydowska w ostatnich dziesiqcioleciach, Warsaw 1930; Schiper et al., op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 518; vol. 2, pp. 258 ff.; Hertz, op. cit., pp. 177 ff.; Rabinowicz, op. cit., pp. 108 ff.; Drozdowski, op. cit., pp. 85 f. On the beginnings of the Bund, with its focus in Lithuania, φ. authoritatively H. J. Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia. From its Origins to 1905, Stanford, Cal., 1972; Gitelman, op. cit., pp. 25 f., 55 ff., 82 ff. An account adequate to the subject on the Bund in Poland after 1918 is lacking in Polish and in western languages. Cf. Schiper et al, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 535 ff., vol. 2,

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In addition to these largely secularized organizations and parties, a large percentage of Polish Jewry, estimated at a third to a half, maintained traditional communal forms. These predominated especially in the declining villages. There, the Jewish community subordinated itself to its spiritual leaders. Like the bourgeoisie in the past, they took on the function of mediators between the Jewish and the official worlds. They agreed to concessions to new economic and social necessities in the educational system, but remained fixated on preserving the traditional religious way of life and the self-isolation of Jewish communal life.30 A typical representative of this part of the population was Agudas Israel. More an apolitical association than a party, it only reluctantly joined the parliamentary minority bloc and supported the Pilsudski regime after 1926. In return, it secured the benevolent cooperation of the authorities in protecting its dominant influence on the religious communities, where it needed to defend itself against the Zionists. It obtained government recognition of the modernized Jewish primary religious school, the so-called reformed cheder. However, it had as little success obtaining government financial assistance for Jewish educational institutions as did the other Jewish parties before 1926. In the end, it was helpless in the face of pogroms and the prohibition of Jewish ritual slaughter decreed by the Sejm in 1936. 31 The Jewish community shared with Polish society as a whole a variety of political orientations and a fragmentation into numerous organizations having political, cultural, social welfare and even financial responsibilities.32 This

30

31

32

pp. 275 ff.; B. K.Johnpoll, The Politics of Futility. The GeneralJewish Workers Bund ofPoland, 1917-1943, Ithaca, Ν. Y., 1967; L. Rowe, "Jewish Self-Defense. A Response to Violence," Fishman (ed.), 1974, op. cit., pp. 105-149; L. Gamska, "Lewica zydowskich partii socjalistycznych wobec ΙΠ Mi?dzynarodowki i KPRP," BZIH, 1976, no. 97, pp. 61-75. On the StetL, its inhabitants, and traditional Judaism, φ Μ. Zborowski and E. Herzog, Life is with People. The Jewish Little Town of Eastern Europe, Ν. Υ. 1953 2 ; Y. Sztern, "A Kheyder in Tyszowce (Tishevits)," YTVO Annual ofJewish Social Science 5, 1950, pp. 152-171; C. S. Rosenthal, "Deviation and Social Change in the Jewish Community of a Small Polish Town," The American Journal of Sociology 60, 1954, 2, pp. 177-181; Rabinowicz, op. at., pp. 127; Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit,, pp. 392 f.; C. S. Heller, op. at., pp. 144 if. The information on the quantitative ratio of traditional orthodoxy to all Jewry is only approximate. It is based upon observation and on the electoral behavior of the Jews. Cf T. Komarnicki, op. cit., pp. 298,300; Rabinowicz, op. cit., pp. 114 f., 122 f. Schiper et al., op. at., vol. 2, pp. 242 ff.; Segal, op. cit., pp. 178 ff., 189 ff.; E. Mendelsohn, "The Politics of Agudas Yisroel in Inter-War Poland," SovietJewish Affairs 2,1972, pp. 47-60; J. Tomaszewski, "Walka polityczna wewngtrz gmin zydowskich w latach trzydziestych w swiede interpelacji poslow," BZIH 1974, no. 90, pp. 63-67; C. S. Heller op. cit., pp. 173 ff. Schiper et al., op. at., vol. 2, pp. 590 ff.;N. Eck, "The Educational Institutions of Polish Jewry (1921-1939),"/559,1947,pp. 3-32; M. Eisenstein Jewish Schools in Poland, 1919-1939, New York 1950; St. Mauersberg, Szkolnictwo powszechne dla mniejszosci narodowych w Polsce w

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pluralism had its roots in the separate political cultures of the former territorial divisions, but must also be seen as a symptom of the disintegration of old ties and an expression of restricted and disorienting change. Neither anti-Semitism nor the effects of social disadvantage could hold together the forces within Judaism that were driving it apart. The party spectrum among the Jewish minority in Poland after 1918 serves as one approximate measure of the extent and intensity of secularization among Jews. The relative decline in attendance at cheder schools provides another indication of the gradual breakdown in socio-cultural isolation, particularly among the generation that had grown up in the Republic. While in 1900, in Congress Poland, around 85 % of children who had some education attended this type of school (in Galicia before 1914, only around 16 %), by 1930 this percentage had sunk to 23 °/o in the Republic. Other Jewish children of school age attended state primary schools. Only at the secondary level were most Jewish young people enrolled in private schools, as they faced more or less open discrimination in public high schools.33 Acculturation - that is, adoption of the language, clothing, customs and norms of urban Poles - proceeded in many stages. It began with the adoption of the Polish language simply as a means of communication, and ended with the complete transition to Polishness (by changing religion). Secularization and acculturation differed from analogous stages of adaptation in the West during the 19th century in the simultaneous formation of Jewish self-awareness, separate from traditional Judaism as well as from the ruling nation. This double process of acculturation and new discovery of identity can also be observed in other so-called non-historied peoples such as the Lithuanians or Ukrainians. What distinguished the Jews from these former peasant peoples that had been subordinated to the Polish or Polonized nobility was their situation as a "national class."34 This term refers to the specific social structure of Eastern European Jews; that is, their concentration in trade and business, with simultaneous social and cultural segregation. The unique constellation of the Jews can be historically derived from their function as a commercial class in

33

34

latach 1918-1938, Breslau 1968, p. 166 ff.; Z. Szajkowska, "'Reconstruction' vs. 'Palliative Relief in American Jewish Overseas Work (1919-1939),"/5S 32,1970,pp. 14-42,111-147; pp. 116,128 ff.; M. Fuks, "Z dziejow prasy zydowskiej w Polsce w latach 1918-1929," B21H 1970, no. 75, pp. 55-74; M. Grynberg, "Ruch spoldzielczy wsröd Zydow w Polsce mi?dzywojennej," BZIH1974, no. 89, pp. 65-81. Seraphim, op. cit., p. 722; deviating somewhat, but analogous in trend, Mauersberg, op. cit., p. 165. On high schools, see Mahler, op. at., pp. 346 f., and Mauersberg, ibid., p. 165. The term developed from A. Leon, Judenfrage und Kapitalismus, Munich 1971, pp. 31 ff., 90 ff.

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a largely agrarian society. The term "national class" reflects what Eastern European Zionists in particular saw as a defect: While historical, and even supposedly non-historied peoples developed into modern nations with increasingly differentiated social structures, the Jews, as an "insertion between the classes," were denied such a development.35 Resettlement (in Palestine) and restructuring (in the Diaspora) were derived from concepts that would transform the Jews into a nation (in Palestine) or a nationality (in the Diaspora). The significance of this vision seems to lie in the fact that groups that no longer found satisfaction in traditional Judaism imparted a national consciousness in keeping with the times. They provided liberation from traditional obsequiousness to the ruling classes, and aimed to lead the Jews out of a situation in which they were assigned the status of a pariah-people or inferior caste. Lenin had already used the term "caste" to describe the discriminatory and stigmatized character of Jewish segregation, which since the 19th century had no longer been chosen, but was often forced upon the Jews from outside.36 The variety of definitious regarding both the objective situation and the subjective (self) assessment ofJudaism rangefromperception as a community or folk that still lived completely within its Yiddishkeit, to self-perception as a nationality, to membership in a religious group (which was barely perceived as relevant anymore). All these terms describe a part of the reality of a social group that had already freed itself in large part from old ways of life, but had not yet found afirmposition in the new Polish society that could be accepted by all sides. The transitory state of Polish Jewry in the interwar period allows for no static, clear definitions. Although its "alienness"37 in

35

36

37

Lestschinsky, 1929, op. cit., p. 124 (quote); L. Pinsker, Road to Freedom. Writings andAdresses by Leo Pinsker, Westport, Conn., 1975, pp. 77, 90 f., 107 ff.; Β. Elieser [Ν. Syrkin], Die Judenfrage und der sozialistische Staat, Bern 1898, p. 33; D. Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, comp, by Th. R. Branstein, New York 1970, pp. 21 ff.; Berman, op. dt., pp. 98 ff. Lenin's attempt to define the Jews are largely oriented on the fete of West European Jews. Cf. V. I. Lenin, "Die Stellung des 'Bunds' in der Partei (1903)," Werke, vol. 7, Berlin 1956, pp. 8293, 89 ff.; on the term caste, which Lenin apparendy did not use systematically, φ Lenin, "Kritische Bemerkungen zur nationalen Frage (1913)," Werke, vol. 20, Berlin 1961, pp. 1-37, 14; cf. also O. Heller, op. cit., p. 134; N. Weinstock, "Einführung in Abraham Leons Judenfrage und Kapitalismus," ISP Theorie 5, Frankfurt 1977, pp. 17-42,21. The concept of "caste" is the key concept in analyzing the situation of the Jews in interwar Poland for Hertz, op. cit., pp. 74 ff. (reprinted in this volume). Cf. also C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 58 f. The term "alienness" and its changing significance not only in Polish society is a continuous topos in the relevant literature. It is used especially for the period before industrialization. Cf. generally H. Arendt, Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft. Bd. 1: Antisemitismus, Frankfurt 1975, pp. 12 ff.; Ruppin, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 35 f.; Berman, op. cit., pp. 33. On Poland and Eastern Europe, φ. Ch. Weizmann, Trial and Error. The Autobiography, London 1950, p. 20; Ben-Gurion, op. cit., pp. 39 ff.; Seton-Watson, 1948, op. cit.,p. 340; R. Mahler, "Antisemitism

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Polish society had undoubtedly decreased with urbanization and "metropolanization," even in the 20th century it remained a characteristic that separated many of the Jews from the rest of the population. Beyond all subjective assessments from within and without, this "alienness" can be connected to the different generative behavior of the Jewish and Polish populations,38 as well as the small percentage of mixed marriages; it was much lower in Poland than in Germany (until 1933), the USSR or Hungary.39 In politics, mutual distance can be seen in the fact that even in Warsaw, Jews voted almost exclusively for Jewish parries, whether socialist, nationalist, even assimilationist.40 Because of the German extermination policy after 1939, it is not possible to determine whether further transformations in Judaism as well as in Polish society would, in the end, have changed their status as outsiders, or whether it would only have modified their "alienness." The question also remains open whether the primarily nationally-understood reversion to Jewish heritage and its "modernization" was only a detour on the way to complete integration and final assimilation, or whether the majority of Jews would have reorganized into a separate nationality despite their acculturation. 41 A remarkable process can be observed starting at the beginning of the 20th century: while the secularized part of the "alien" Jewish group prepared to demand equal rights and cultural autonomy, forces were mobilizing on the opposing side that hoped to achieve an exclusive, purely ethnically-conceived Polish "state nation." 42

38

39 40

41

42

in Poland," K. S. Pinson (ed.), Essays on Antisemitism, New York 1946, pp. 145-172,158 ff.; Hertz, op. αί,,ρ. 14, pp. 21, pp. 40; C. S.Heller, op. at., pp. 62 f., 74. CJf. also the Polish terms and sayings about Jews selected and organized from an antisemitic, racist point of view in J. Sommerfeldt, "Die Juden in den polnischen Sprichwörtern und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten," Die Burg. Vierteljahresschnft des Institutsfiirdeutsche Ostarbeit Krakau 3,1942, pp. 313354. Μ. Weinreich, "Studium ο mlodziezy zydowskiej. Program i metoda," Przeglad Socjologiczny 3,1935, pp. 30-82,36; Bronsztejn 1963, op. dt., pp. 86 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1964, op. at., pp. 11 ff.; Seraphim, op. at., pp. 720 f. Ruppin, op. dt., vol. 1, pp. 210 ff., p. 217; Rabinowicz, op. dt., p. 173. L. Hass, Wybory warszawskie 1918-1926. Postawy polityczne mieszkancow Warszawy w swietle mynikow glosowania do dalprzedstawicielskich, Warsaw 1972, pp. 69 f., 73, 146. On the problem of social change, the search for identity through return to the "national" tradition, and integration, cf. Ch. E. Woodhouse and H. J. Tobias, "Primordial Ties and Political Process in Pre-Revolutionary Russia: The Case of the Jewish Bund," Comparative Studies in Society and History 8, 1965, pp. 331-360. E. Lemberg, "Soziologische Theorien zum Nationalstaatsproblem," in Th. Schieder (ed.), op. dt., pp. 19-30.

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Π. Antisemitism in the territorial regions since the turn of the century can essentially be understood as a manifestation of the formation of a bourgeois society in Poland. The economic and political program of "national solidarity" propagated by conservative-bourgeois National Democrats43 found a broad echo not only among the newly-emerging bourgeoisie; the effect of this national appeal reached far into the petty bourgeoisie, the worker and peasant classes.44 Before 1914, the slogan "Poland for the Poles" was used to create a front not only against the dividing powers, but also against alien national elements in the Polish economy - that is, mainly against Jews and, in the West, against Germans. This constellation was also found in milder form in the socialist workers' movements of Poland and Lithuania.45 The push for democratization sparked by the revolution of 1905, the political and military mobilization during the First World War, and finally the parliamentarization of the new republic took hold of the Polish as well as the Jewish communities - and deepened their differences. This became even more true as the new Poland constituted itself as a national state. Yet within its borders lived minorities that made up more than 30 °/o of the state population.46 These were not simply minorities speaking different languages, but nationalities having their own social profiles and political demands that ran counter to the state nation. White Russians and Ukrainians in the eastern 43

44

45

46

On the history of the National Democratic "camp," which experienced many organizational changes following its emergence around the turn of the century, φ , in addition to the works by Terej and Wapinski mentioned above, R. Wapinski, "Niektore problemy ewolucji ideowopolitycznej Endecji w latach 1919-1939," K H 73, 1966, pp. 861-876; idem, "Miejsce Narodowej Demokracji w zyciu politycznym Π Rzeczypospolitej," Dzieje Najnowsze 1,1969, pp. 47-62; idem, "Z dziejow tendencji nacjonalistycznych. Ο stanowsku Narodowej Demokracji w latach 1893-1939," K H 80, 1973, pp. 817-843; S. Rudnicki, "Narodowa Demokracja po przewrocie majowym - zmiany organizacyjne i ideologiczne (1926-1930)," Najnowsze Dzieje Pokki 11, 1967, pp. 27-56; Z. Kaczmarek, "Oboz Wielkiej Polski w Poznariskiem w latach 1926-1932," Dzieje Najnowsze 6, 1974, pp. 21-54. An introductory overview, mainly from a foreign policy perspective, is provided by E. v. Puttkamer, Die polnische Nationaldemokratie, Cracow 1944. J. Borkowski, "Chlopi polscy w Π Rzeczypospolitej," Najnowsze Dzieje Polski 13, 1968, pp. 71-109, pp. 73; Borkowski, Postawa polityczna chlopöw polskich w latach 1930-1935, Warsaw 1970, pp.v-1; Terej, op. at., 1971a,pp. 44 if., 52 f., 101,159; Zarnowski, 1973, op. at., p. 100,174,177, pp. 219; Hass, op. at., pp. 71,75 £, 78; T. Monasterska, Narodawy Zwiazek Rohotniczy 1905-1920, Warsaw 1973, pp. 15 ff., 36 ff.; Kowal, op. cit., pp. 117 ff. F. Gross, The Polish Worker. A Study of a Social Stratum, New York 1945, pp. 118 f.; Tobias, op. cit., pp. 50 ff.; Johnpoll, op. cit., pp. 26, 73 ff, 155 ff.; H. Piasecki, "Zydowska organizacja PPS (1893-1907)," BZIH1975, no. 96, pp. 37-66. On the differing estimates of the non-Polish population of Poland, cf. St. Horak, Poland and her National Minorities 1919-1939, New York 1961, pp. 80 ff.; Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., pp. 373 ff.; Drozdowski, op. at., pp. 57 ff.; Polonsky, op. cit., pp. 35 ff.

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"marks" (kresy), depending on their political situation, demanded independence from Poland or forms of national-territorial and cultural autonomy.47 Germans in the former imperial regions48 and Lithuanians in the Vilna region49 hoped for a revision of state borders. Following traditions already established before the First World War, a large part of Polish Jewry considered itself a national minority. The Jewish National Council, formed (provisionally) in 1918 and boycotted by some orthodox and left-wing groups, demanded (to no avail) that the Jews be guaranteed national-cultural autonomy and recognition as a national minority.50 That the Jews did not count as Polish citizens of the Mosaic faith was shown by the fact that the Polish National Committee negotiated with Jewish groups in Paris during the war and in 1919 on securing Jewish loyalty to the new Polish state and securing special protection for the Jewish population.51 The pogroms that occurred in Poland in 1918-19 mobilized American and Western European Jewish organizations. It was essentially on their initiative that the National Minority Treaties came into being, which Poland - like other countries of East Central Europe - had to sign in 1919. They were to protect the Jews and other minorities from government discrimination,52 and were considered by the Poles as limitations of their newly-achieved national sovereignty.53 In reality, they did not prevent discrimination against Jewish soldiers

47

48

49

50 51

52

53

M. Felinski, The Ukrainians in Poland, London 1931; Horak, op. at., pp. 141 ff., 170 if.; Polonsky, op. cit., pp. 84 ff., 458 ff; M. Papierzynska-Turek, Sprawa ukrainska w Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1922-1926, Cracow 1979; A. Ajnenkiel, Polskapoprzewmcie majowym. Zarys dyiejawpolitycznychPolski 1926-1939, Warsaw 1980, pp. 588 ff; N. P. Vakar, Belorussia. The Making of a Nation: A Case Study, Cambridge, Mass., 1956, pp. 119 ff. Markert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 138 ff.; T. Bierschenk, Die Deutsche Volksgruppe in Polen 19341939, Würzburg 1954; Ο. Heike, Das Deutschtum in Polen, 1918-1939, Bonn 1955; S. Potocki, Polozenie mniejszosci niemieckiej w Polsce 1918-1938, Danzig 1969. Pobog-Malinowski, op. cit., vol. 2, part 1, pp. 138 ff.; G. v. Rauch, Geschichte der baltischen Staaten, Munich 19772, pp. 102 ff.; Α. Α. Senn, The Great Powers, Lithuania, and the Vilna Question, 1920-1928, Leiden 1966. Rabinowicz, op. cit., p. 31; P. Korzec, op. cit., pp. 12-104, 33 ff. Korzec, op. οί.,ρρ. 30 f., 43 f.; Wapinski, 1979, op. at., pp. 65. Only out of consideration for Poland's international dependency did parts of National Democracy relinquish their demand that Jews be stripped of Polish citizenship rights. Cf. S. Rudnicki, "Lwowska grupa Ligi Narodewej w swietle wlasnychprotokolow ζ lat 1918-1919," PH68,1977, pp. 711-732,729. On the history and effectiveness of the minority protection treaties, φ C. A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities, London 1934, pp. 215 ff.; Seraphim, op. cit., pp. 247 ff.; Seton-Watson, 1948, op. cit., pp. 310 ff.; Komarnicki, op. at., pp. 291 ff.; G. Landauer, Das geltende jüdische Minderheitenrecht, Berlin 1924, pp. 21 ff.; K. Stillschweig, Die Juden und die Minderheitenverträge, Berlin 1936, pp. 21 ff. Pobog-Malinowski, op. cit., vol. 2, part 1, pp. 167 f.; Macartney, op. cit., pp. 234 f.

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and officers during the Polish-Soviet war of 1920-21. 5 4 Cooperation between Jewish representatives and representatives of other nationalities in the Sejm particularly aroused the hatred of the National Democrats. The murder of Gabriel Narutowicz, the first constitutionally-elected president of the Republic in 1922, for whom Jewish representatives had also voted, signaled the first high point in the anti-Semitic campaign of the National Democratic camp. 55 Three years later - while seeking to obtain loans in the U.S.A. - the government began negotiations with the Jewish parliamentary group. The government was prepared to make concessions that would give Jews equal rights in grants of public credit, representation in financial and economic institutions and employment in the civil service. Culturally, it promised among other things creation of state schools (with Jewish education) and recognition of cheder attendance as part of compulsory school attendance. This catalogue indicates the normal discriminatory practices. In return, however, it was demanded that the Jewish representatives support any government in the future on questions of principle and the budget, that they abstain in principle from opposition. The agreement, very controversial in the Jewish "club," was not put into practice in 1925. 56 The laws passed at the beginning of the Pilsudski era (beginning in 1926) as gestures of good will toward the Jews were now limited to educational and religious questions, without the state becoming financially involved. These measures were part of a general policy of reconciliation with minorities.57 The ouster of the National Democrats from the centers of power following the Pilsudski putsch and the loss of some of their voters and personnel to government-dependent parties and organizations58 facilitated radicalization within the National Democratic camp. Supported by Roman Dmowski, in

54

55

56

57 58

A. Ciolkosz, "Dzielnica zydowska obozu w Jabionnie," Zeszyty Historyczne 20, 1971, pp. 178-199; C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 51 f.; Golczewski, op. at., pp. 240 ff. H. Roos, Geschichte der polnischen Nation, Stuttgart 1979, pp. 104 ff.; Polonsky, op. cit., pp. 109 ff.; Terej, op. cit., 1971 a, pp. 102 f.; Giertych, op. cit., pp. 152 ff.; B. Singer, Ot Witosa do Shwka, Paris 1962, pp. 113 ff. P. Korzec, "Das Abkommen zwischen der Regierung Grabski und der jüdischen Parlamentsvertretung," Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas N. F. 20, 1972, pp. 331-366; A. Chojnowski, "Mniejszosci narodowe w polityce rzadow polskich w latach 1921-1926," PH 67, 1976, pp. 593-615, 605 f.; 2 . Landau, Polskie zagraniczne pozyczki panstwowe 1918-1926, Warsaw 1961, pp. 161 ff. Drozdowski, op. cit., pp. 61 f.; Ajnenkiel, op. cit., pp. 30, 39 f., 89. J. Zarnowski, "Strukture i Podloze spoieczne obozu rz^dz^cego w Polsce w latach 19261939," NajnowszeDzieje Polski 10,1966, pp. 67-82, 69 ff.; Wapinski, 1969, up. cit., pp. 58 f.; Wapmski, 1979, op. cit., p. 90; Terej, op. cit., 1971a, p. 120; Kowal, op. cit., pp. 120 f.; Ajnenkiel, op. cit., pp. 76 ff., 94.

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particular the youth associations associated with the National Democrats turned to fascist slogans.59 The youth movement in the "Greater Poland Camp" (OWP), numerically probably the largest association in 1930, and more right-wing organizations competing with it, became the actual carriers of organized anti-Semitism beginning at the end of the 20's.60 These ideologically offensive movements, anchored especially in academia and the middle classes,61 laced a regime that had lost its charismatic leader with Pilsudski's death (1935) and was threatening to disintegrate into its politically-heterogeneous components. In anti-Semitism, the colonels sought a bridge to National Democracy and the opposition farther to its right, in order to deal with worker and peasant strikes and protest movements that began to stir with the first signs of economic recovery in the mid-30's.62 The changes that took place in the government within ten years can be gauged by its policies toward the Jews. In 1928, Jewish groups were naturally included in the formation of the "Non-Party Bloc for Cooperation with the Government" (BBWR) that was to serve as parliamentary mainstay. In 1933, the government banned the "Greater Poland Camp," among other things because it had incited anti-Jewish excesses.63 When, following the disintegration of the BBWR, a new mass basis had to be created for the regime with the "National Unity Camp" (OZN) in 1937,64 Jews were denied membership.65 59 60

61

62

63 64

65

Wapinski, 1979, op. at., pp. 77; Terej, op. cit., 1971a, pp. 116; Ajnenkiel, op. cit., pp. 52. S. Rudnicki, "Program spoteczny Obozu Narodowo-Radykalnego (ONR). Stosunek do kwestii robotniczej," Zpola walki 8,1965, pp. 25-46; Rudnicki, 1971, op. cit., pp. 251-270; Terej, op. cit., 1971a, pp. 122 ff., 138 ff.; M. Windyga, "Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny w Warszawie mi^dzywojennej," Warszawa II Rzeczypospolitej 1918-1939, 1970, pp. 173-185. Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., p. 221; Terej, op. cit., 1971a, pp. 107 ft, 129 ft; Windyga, op. cit., pp. 174,185; Rudnicki 1971, op. cit., p. 258; H. and T. Jedruszczak, op. cit., pp. 224 f.; J. Tomaszewski, Polozenie drobnych kupcow zydowskich w Polsce w latach wielkiego kryzysu (1929-1935)," BZIH1977, no. 102, pp. 35-54, 45; J. M. Majchrowski, "Oboz NarodowoRadykalny-okres dzialalnosci legalnej," Dzieje Najnowsze 8, 1976, pp. 53-72, 64, 66. W. R. Malinowski, "The Pre-War Unionization of Polish Workers," Journal of Central European Affairs 5, 1945-46, pp. 176-184, 177; Gross, op. cit., pp. 140 ff.; Seton-Watson, 1948, op. cit., pp. 193; Borkowski, 1968, op. cit., pp. 105; Borkowski, 1970, op. cit., pp. 230; J. Zarnowski, PolskaPortiaSoqalistycznaw htach 1935-1939, Warsaw 1965,pp. 93 ft, 254 ft; Jgdruszczak, op. cit., pp. 216 ff. Rudnicki, 1971, op. cit., pp. 269 f.; Terej, op. cit., 1971a, pp. 131 f.; Windyga, op. cit., p. 181. T. Jedruszczak, Piisudczycy bez Piisudskiego. Pcmustanie Obozu Zjednoczenia Namdowego w 1937 roku, Warsaw 1963, pp. 107 ff., 226 ff.; E. D. Wynot, Polish Politics in Transition. The Camp of National Unity and the Struggle for Power, 1935-1939, Athens, Georgia, 1974, pp. 52 ff.; Ajnenkiel, op. cit., pp. 541 ff. The program only allowed exceptions for Jews who had "served" Poland. This apparently remained without practical consequences. B. Miedzinski, op. cit., p. 37; Jedruszczak, 1963, op. cit., p. 159; Rabinowicz, op. cit., p. 59; Wynot, op. cit., pp. 105, 107, 142 f.

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

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The ideological formulations and concepts used for the "Jewish question" by representatives of National Democracy, 66 the Catholic Church, 6 7 and the regime68 had become nearly interchangeable. The Jews were now almost unanimously considered "aliens," an economic burden, superfluous, and a morally destructive element. Unlike in 1925, "subordination to the will of the entire people" 69 became official state doctrine. Condemnation of the pogroms and excesses of the 30's served more to preserve state authority than to protect the victims. Voices were raised increasingly70 calling for limitations on the civil rights ofJews along the lines of the Nuremberg Laws, in order to force them to emigrate. Thus the government supported the Zionists in their protests against British immigration policy in Palestine; it even granted subsidies to the militant Zionist groups around Wl. Zabotynski (Jabotinsky).71 Because Palestine could not take in all Polish Jews, Madagascar was also contemplated as an area for colonization.72 ΙΠ. The claim to absolute supremacy of the Polish nation made by the National Democrats since the turn of the century included the social repression of alien nations. Based on national premises, this ideology aimed at closing the gaps in the Polish social pyramid that until then had been filled above all by Jews, and thus completing the process of becoming a nation internally once independence had been achieved in 1918. This political trend was encouraged by Poland's economic reorganization under conditions of general stagnation. The hopeless economic situation of the interwar years almost unavoidably affected relations with minorities. 66 67

68 69

70

71

72

J. Giertych, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 237 if.; Terej, 1971, op. cit., pp. 63 ff. Segal, op. di.,pp. 79 ff.;Korzec, 1974, op.rat.,pp. 83,88; W. Myslek, KosciolkatolickiwPolsce 1918-1939. Zarys historyczny, Warsaw 1966, pp. 192, 202 f., 208, 557, 569; C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 109; Terej, 1971, op. cit., pp. 60, 62 f.; A. Michnik, L'eglise et la Gauche. Le dialogue polonais, Paris 1979, pp. 11. Miedzinski, op. cit., pp. 34 ff.; Wynot, op. cit., pp. 106 ff. Declaration of the "chief of staff' of the OZN of February 17,1938, according tojedruszczak, 1963, op. at., p. 206; Ajnenkiel, op. at., p. 546. J. Cang, "The Opposition Parties in Poland and their Attitude Towards the Jews and the Jewish Problem," JSS 1, 1939, pp. 241-256, 242 ff.; Rudnicki, 1965, op. cit., pp. 30 f.; Terej, 1971, op. at., pp. 139 f., p. 160; Wapmski, 1973, op. cit., E. D. Wynot, " Ά Necessary Cruelty:' The Emergence of Official Anti-Semitism in Poland," The American Historical Review 76, 1971, pp. 1035-1058, 1041; Polonsky, op. cit., p. 469; Majchrowski, op. at., pp. 62 f. J. B. Schechtman, Fighter and Prophet. The Vladimir Jabotinsky Story, vol. 1-2, New York 1956-61, vol. 2, pp. 339 f., 354 ff., 454. Ph. Friedman, "The Lublin Reservation and the Madagascar Plan," in J. A. Fishman (ed.), Studies in Modem Jewish Social History, New York 1972, pp. 354-380, 368.

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Dietrich Beyrau

Within only twenty years, Polish society experienced harsh economic crises and only a short phase of stabilization; Poland suffered in particular from the destruction of the First World War. Only after a phase of war economy up to 1921 and an inflation that peaked in 1923 and 1924 did a short recovery period follow, from 1925 to 1929. The consequences of the world economic crisis were gradually overcome by 1936-37. By 1938 the Republic had barely reached the 1914 level of productivity; yet the population had increased between 1921 and 1939 from 27 to 35 million. This meant that per capita production in interwar Poland had actually declined.73 The Polish state had to overcome particular difficulties in integrating its economy. Until 1918 it was oriented towards the powers that controlled its territory following the divisions. On the one hand, overproduction existed in the few branches of industry aimed at foreign markets, such as textiles and the iron and steel industry; on the other hand, there was a lack of numerous complementary branches, above all in heavy industry and capital goods. As a result of the Polish-Soviet conflict, Central Poland lost a significant market for its industrial and handicraft consumer goods. Among others, Jewish businessmen, artisans and workers suffered from these losses.74 The successor states to the Habsburg monarchy isolated themselves from one another through high customs barriers. In 1925, Germany began its trade war against Poland. The U.S.A. drastically limited immigration, and the European labor market offered an insufficient substitute for Poles and Jews who wished to emigrate.75 In addition, Poland was burdened with an urban crafts and an agrarian sector, both characterized by technological backwardness and the poverty of those working in them. Agriculture still employed 63 %, in the eastern "marks" up to 90 %, of the economically active population. While large landowners with over 100 hectares owned some 45 % of all agriculturally productive land, a third of the peasants lived on dwarf farms of up to

73

74

75

On Poland's economic development in the inter-war period, φ. F. Zweig, Poland Between Two Wars. A Critical Study ofSocial and Economic Changes, London 1944; J. Taylor, The Economic Development of Poland 1919-1950, Ithaca, Ν. Y., 1952; Z. J. Wyrozembski (ed.), Materiafy do badan nadgospodarki} Polsld, Part 1:1918-1939, Warsaw 1956. For the data in the text, φ ibid., pp. 21 f., 162, 165, 170 f.; Markert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 69 ff.; Z. Landau and J. Tomaszewski, Zarys historii gospodarczej Polski 1918-1939, Warsaw 1971. Schiper, op. cit., pp. 612; Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 153 f., 156 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 55, 79; Gross, op. cit., p. 32. On the role of the Russian market for central Poland before 1914, φ I. Kostrowicka et. al., Historia gospodaraa Polski XIX i XX wieku, Warsaw, 19752, pp. 226 ff.; H. Kellenbenz (ed.), Handbuch der europäischen Wirtschafts- u. Sozialgeschichte. Teilveröffentlichung: A. Kahan et al., Ost- und Südosteuropa 1850-1914, Stuttgart 1980, pp. 86 ff. Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 175 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 91 ff.

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2 hectares.76 Overall, the peasants were the class with the lowest income and standard of living. This was especially true in the 30's, when the prices of agricultural products dropped drastically.77 The number of peasants suffering from hidden unemployment, that is, so-called rural overpopulation, is estimated at several millions.78 At the same time, open unemployment - not determined solely by the economic situation - in the cities, given a worker and employee population of some 4.5 million (1931), was between 239,000 (1930), 743,000 (1934), and some 600,000 (1938). The Jews made up an estimated third of this group.79 In the economic crisis starting in 1929-30, the agrarian and crafts sectors absorbed those elements that couldfindno adequate occupation elsewhere. In agriculture, this was above all the case for the smallest farmers. In crafts and small business, it involved a large percentage of independent artisans, street traders and peddlers, but especially the so-called chalupnicy, home-workers, who worked in their own homes for employers providing the raw material. This sector of the population is thought to have grown from 400,000-500,000 (1931) to ca. one million (1937-38). This home industry was concentrated in leatherwork and textiles and supported - in poverty - mainly Jews. Along with the unemployed, street peddlers and similar occupations, home workers were found at the lowest levels of the urban social pyramid, and suffered, like the peasants, from hidden unemployment.80 Aside from a small group of Jewish entrepreneurs and the somewhat more numerous class of the Jewish intelligentsia, the majority of Jews were selfemployed or wage laborers in small business and trade. Factory workers were only found in the private textile industry and in a few businesses in the eastern "marks." Thus the status of a "national class" remained applicable to the majority of Jews, becoming a "work ghetto" following their urbanization in the 19th century.81 76

77 78 79

80

81

Zweig, op. cit., p. 125; M. Mieszczankowski, Stmktura agrama Polski mtedzywojennej, Warsaw 1960, pp. 17 ff.; Borkowski, 1968, op. cit., p. 84. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 68 ff.; Zarnowski, op. cit.; 1973, pp. 135 ff. Zweig, op. at., p. 126; Taylor, op. cit., pp. 76 ff; Landau and Tomaszewski, op. cit., p. 38. Gliksman, op. cit., p. 84, 98 speaks of an unemployment rate among the Jews three times higher than that of non-Jews; however, he does not consider the differing occupational structure of the two groups. Cf. Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., pp. 55, 64, 191. Z. Zarembaet. al., ΟZydach iantysemityzmie, Warsaw 1936, pp. 40,46 f.; Schiper et. al. (ed.), op. cit., vol, 2, pp. 401 ff.; Zarnowski, op. at., pp. 231 ff.; Z. Landau, "Polozenie rzemiosta w Polsce w latach wielkiego dryzysu gospodarczego (1930-1935)," K H 84, 1977, pp. 57-81; J. Tomaszewski, "W sprawie polozenia materialnego Zydow polskich w latach 1918-1939," ÄZZ//1975, no. 94, pp. 93-101. Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 115 ff.; J. Tomaszewski, "Robotnicy zydowskie w Polsce w latach 1921-1939. (Szkice statystyczne)," B7JH1964, no. 51, pp. 21-39, 36 (quote).

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Dietrich Beyrau

Pauperization and occupational congestion in the agrarian and smallbusiness sectors were signs of structural failure that worsened as a result of the generally unfavorable economic situation. Against the background of such a desperate situation, the state apparatus and the forces that supported it tended to provide benefits to the ruling nation at the expense of minorities. Struggles for position and distribution took on the character of national conflicts. An example of this was agrarian reform. In the nationally-mixed border areas, one task of this reform was to ensure Polish hegemony. It protected large Polish landowners in the east, planned and in part carried out colonization programs for Polish (military) settlers in the "marks" and energetically promoted distribution of land in the west at the expense of German landowners and large farmers.82 The actual focus of "polonization," however, were the cities, the industrial and business sectors, and the administration. Here autonomous economic processes and government measures cannot be clearly separated with regard to their negative consequences for the Jewish minority. The war and the post-war period caused a general reduction in industrial production and high unemployment in the cities.83 Jewish factory work appears to have been especially hard hit. In any case, the number of Jewish factory workers in cities such as Warsaw, Lodz and Bialystok fell by 30 to 50 percent between 1914 and 1921. 84 This regression was part of a policy of nationalization that turned the Jews' traditional areas of crafts and factory work into state monopolies and replaced Jewish with Polish employees. Affected were tobacco processing, schnapps distillation and distribution, match factories, and so forth. 85 In addition, peasant cooperatives and state (foreign) trade organizations forced the Jews out of the grain, cattle and wood trades. State

82

83

84

85

On the agrarian reform and its national policy implications, cf. M. Serling (ed.), Die agrarischen Umwälzungen im außerrussischen Osteuropa, Berlin 1930, pp.17 ff., 179 ff., 187 ff.; Zweig, op. cit., pp. 131 ff.; Taylor, op. cit., pp. 73 ff.; Mieszczankowski, op. cit, pp. 268 ff., esp. pp. 270 f.; Markert (ed.), op. cit., pp. 73 ff.; P. Stawecki, Nastepcy komendanta. Wojsko apolitykaDrugiej Rzeczypospolitej w latach 1935-1939, Warsaw 1969, pp. 179 ff.; The favoring of Polish over German landownership in the West up to 1936 is disputed by Z. Wartel, "Sprawa parcelacji mijjatkow niemieckich w Polsce w latach 1920-1936," AT/84,1976.3, pp. 548-561. Similarly, Kowal, op. cit., pp. 110 ff. Zweig, op. cit., p. 36; T. Grabowski, Rolapanstwa w gospodarcze Polski (1918-1928), Warsaw 1967, pp. 11 ff. Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 169 ff.; Zaremba et. al, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 69 f. Schiper, op.cit., pp. 576 ff.; Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 170 f. Segal, op. cit., p. 129; Zaremba etal., op. cit., pp. 40 f.; Β. Vago and G. L. Mosse (eds.), Jews and Non-Jews in Eastern Europe, 19181945, Jerusalem 1974, p. 196; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 70 f.

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

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credit policy worked to the disadvantage of (private) trade, and thus in particular of Jews. 86 Numerous labor laws either ignored specifically Jewish interests or were aimed directly against them. These included, among others, laws making Sunday an obligatory day of rest (1919), 87 laws on the registration and licensing of crafts shops, and laws on the training of apprentices (1927-36). 88 The relatively highly-developed social legislation in interwar Poland applied mainly to employees and workers in state and private businesses with more than five wage workers; that is, it excluded the majority of apprentices and journeymen in small and family businesses, as well as the generally impoverished self-employed and home workers.89 The quantitative effect of the anti-Jewish boycott campaign, which affected primarily market traders and small business people, is unclear.90 Boycotts, as a rule, were instigated by National Democratic groups, especially the "League of the Green Band" {Liga Zielonej Wstazki), which was founded for this purpose after the courts in 1930 declared these types of measures admissible. The church and government had condoned this form of "polonization of the economy" since 1937. 91 It can probably not be determined whether the decline in Jewish business activity seen in the occupational statistics of the interwar period was a result of such boycott measures. A restructuring from trade to supposedly more productive businesses could be observed even before 1914, and made particular progress in dense industrial zones.92

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

Schiper, op. cit., pp. 603, 633; Gliksman, op. cit., pp. 165 f.; Segal, op. cit., p. 117, pp. 129, ρ 144; Zweig, op. cit., p. 60, 74, 126; J. Lestschinsky, Der wirtschaftliche"Zusammenbruchder Juden in Deutschland und Polen, Paris 1936, pp. 36 f., 42 ff.; Grynberg, op. cit., pp. 79 f.; J. Tomaszewski, "Polozenie drobnvch kupccw zydowskich w Polsce w latach wielkiego kryzysu (1929-1935)," B2IH1977, No. 102, pp. 35-54. Schiper, op. cit., p. 609; Rabinowicz, op. cit.; p. 47; C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 101 f.; Vago and Mosse, op. cit., pp. 196 f. Zaremba etal, op. ο'ί,,ρρ. 43 ff.;Rabinowicz, op. cit.,p. 73;Zamowski, 1973, op. a t ; pp. 245, C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 104 f. Lestschinsky, 1936, op. at., pp. 53 f.; Gross, op. at., pp. 34 f.; Landau and Tomaszewski, op. cit., p. 77, pp. 109 f.; Bronszstejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 80; Tomaszewski, 1964, op. cit., p. 27. Schiper, op. cit., pp. 645 f.; Rabinowicz, op. cit., p. 72; Zamowski, 1973, op. cit., p. 255; Leon, op. cit., p. 92. Miedzmski, op. cit., pp. 24, 32, 35; Motzkin, op. cit., pp. 108 ft, 116 ff.; Rudnicki, 1971, op. cit., p. 256,269; Wapinski, 1973, op. cit., p. 40; Borkowski, 1970, op. cit., p. 423; Terej, 1971 a, op. cit., p. 126, pp. 129 f. Lestschinsky, 1956-57, op. αί.,ρρ. 252; Schiper, op. cit.,pp. 623 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 212 ft, 222 ft; M. Lucjan, "Stowarzyszenie wzajemnej pomocy pracownikow handlowych wyznania mojzeszowego (1882-1903)." 5ΖΖΗΊ969, No. 70, pp. 21-49, p. 24.

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Dietrich Bey rau

The slogan and reality of "polonization" of the economy gained even greater force through the phenomenon known as Polish etatism. This was a legacy of the war economy of the former occupation powers in the First World War and of the emerging Polish state. "Polonization" was advanced after the war by a lack of private capital in the country. State intervention, even to the point of takeovers of often ailing but politically important sectors, increasingly expanded the government economic sector. Not until planned industrialization began in 1936 did Polish etatism resemble planned state capitalism. The buildup, begun in 1936, of a central industrial area on the San and Bug was to serve above all the armaments industry, but was also expected to stimulate the economy. After all, 100 % of the armaments industry, 80 % of the chemical industry, 40 % of the iron and 50 % of the remaining metal industries were in state hands. From 1931 on, the state industrial sector grew more quickly than the private sector.93 However, the Jews were excluded from the only dynamic branch of the Polish economy. As in state and local administration, they stood little chance of finding work within the state economy. 94 This was true even when an acute shortage of engineers prevailed; the responsible authorities preferred to leave positions open rather than fill them with Jewish experts.95 Here as in other areas, the crisis had become "anti-Semitic;"96 that is, economic arguments now often served above all as excuses to discriminate against or exclude Jews. The use of anti-Semitism as an ideology beginning at the end of the 20's certainly was connected with the fact that academic youth had set itself up as the standard-bearer of Jew-hatred. The national quietism of their bourgeois parents' generation was replaced by pseudo-revolutionary activism.97 Its object was at the same time both the Jews and Pilsudski's Sanaqa regime. The battle cry against the Jews spread more widely as the world economic crisis, state budget reductions and the temporary contraction of the state apparatus

93

94

95

96 97

Schiper, op. cit., pp. 567 ff.; Grabowski, op. cit., pp. 115 ff.; idem, Inwestycja zbrojeniowe w gospodarce Pokkimi^dzywojennej, Warschau 1963; Zweig, op. cit., pp. 64 f., 76 f f ; Taylor, op. cit., pp. 89 ff., 96 f.; J^druszczak, 1970; op. cit.; pp. 175 ff. Zaremba et al, op. cit., S. 53 ff.; Lestschinsky, 1956-1957, op. cit., pp. 243 ff.; Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 226 f.; Mahler, 1944, pp. 291 ff., 303 ff. Lestschinsky, 1936, op. cit., p. 55; Segal, op. cit., p. 200; Mahler, 1944, op. cit., pp. 333 f.; Rabinowicz, op. cit., p. 77. Zaremba et al, op. cit., p. 55; Schiper, op. cit., pp. 637 ff. H. Seton-Watson, "'Intelligentsia' und Nationalismus in Osteuropa 1848-1918," Historische Zeitschrift 195,1962, pp. 331-345; J. Lestschinsky, "The Anti-Jewish Program: Tsarist Russia, the Third Reich and Independent Poland,"/S53,1941, pp. 1 4 1 - 1 5 7 , 1 5 4 ff.; Kolodziejczyk, op. cit.,pp. 202 f.; J^druszczak, 1970, op. cit.,pp. 224 f.;Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., pp. 218 ff.; Majchrowski, op. cit., pp. 55 f.

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1085

created high unemployment among so-called brain-workers, and as the situation of the new generation of university graduates worsened dramatically.98 An inofficial numerus clausus had already been in force against Jews at Polish universities since the 20's. From the beginning of the 30's, the National Democratic student associations that ruled - and sometimes terrorized - the universities fought for a numerus nullus." The numerus clausus, employed ever more harshly under pressure from rowdy student anti-Semitism, led to a relative and absolute decrease in Jewish graduates of Polish universities. Their number sank from 24.6 % (1921-22) to 8.2 % (1938-39); that is, from approximately 8,400 to 4,100 students.100 Recognition of diplomas earned outside the country was made simultaneously more difficult.101 At the same time, positions remaining open to Jews in the civil service and freelance professions came under attack. Here the Jewish minority was still heavily overrepresented. Many freelance professional organizations had already begun to include overt or covert "Aryan paragraphs" in their statutes since the 30's. Where the state had the opportunity to intervene, as in the training of jurists, admission was made more difficult through the use of quotas.102 The overall stigmatization of the Jews led them necessarily to retreat into their own domestic and foreign organizations. Foreign assistance, especially from the U.S.A., thus played a significant, if difficult to quantify, role in the public and private life of the Jewish community.103 The world economic crisis in America, one sociologist observed, had a more immediate effect on the economy of the stetl than the domestic depression.104 Of course, American subsidies could not compensate for structural failure and the effects of economic discriminations. Even in times of modest economic recovery, as in 1929, almost a quarter of the expenditures of the Jewish religious community counting over 10,000 members were used for welfare payments. At the same time, half of the 98 99

100 101 102

103

104

Mahler, op. cit., pp. 310 f.; Zarnowski, 1939, op. dt., pp. 186 f. 193 ff. Motzkin, op. at.,pp. 11 if.,42 f.;Rudnicki, 1971, op. cit.,pp. 256;Rabinowicz, op. at., 99 ff.; C. S. Heller, op. cit., pp. 118 ff. Mahler, 1944, op. cit., p. 341; Mauersberg, op. cit.,p. 166. Rabinowicz, op. cit., p. 102; C. S. Heller, op. cit. p. 120. Mahler, 1944, op. cit., pp. 312, p. 329; C. S. Heller, op. cit., p. 128; Wynot, 1974, op. cit., p. 110. Schiper et al. (eds.), op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 407; Z. Szajkowska, "'Reconstruction' vs. Palliative Relief in American Jewish Overseas Work (1919-1939), 1 "JSS32,1970,pp. 14-42,111-147; idem, "Western Jewish Aid and Intercession For Polish Jewry, 1919-1939," Fishman, 1974, op. cit., pp. 150-241; Polonsky, op. cit., p. 470. Weinreich, op. cit., p. 35.

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Dietrich Beyrau

members could not be valuated for the (voluntary) communal tax census because of poverty.105 During the final years before the Second World War, the number of those in need of assistance in a comparatively well-off community like Lodz had risen to 40-50 %. 106 The poverty that a part of the Jewish population shared with other urban underclasses and with many peasants gained its specific characteristics through the fact that the dominant groups in Polish society had only destructive or unrealistic ideas, and the opposing left-wing forces could offer little help. Viktor Alter, one of the leaders of the Bund, described the general confusion around the "Jewish question" when he wrote, "For some, the solution to the problem lies in the physical destruction of the Jews (National Democracy); for others, in its economic starvation (the cultural anti-Semites); for a third group, in God's kingdom (the clerical Jews), for the fourth group, in a Jewish state (Zionists)." He saw in these concepts nothing but the "hopelessness of a community that has outlived itself," and the loss of perspective by classes "that history has condemned to destruction."107 IV. Viktor Alter's prognosis was in the tradition of Marxist thought. He saw anti-Semitism primarily as an instrument of the ruling classes and as a manifestation of a crisis that seemed to announce the destruction of capitalism.108 Such an interpretation must be modified to the effect that, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the most intensely anti-Semitic movements took hold of those countries and regions that can be considered comparatively backward when measured against capitalist centers. In Poland as in the rest of EastCentral-Europe, it was not the "overripeness" of capitalism, but relative backwardness, sharp drops in the economy, and territorial reformation of markets that acted as general preconditions for the broad impact of antiSemitism. Its most active supporters were recruited from the bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes that had particularly high expectations of "their" state apparatus. War, the founding of the state, and stagnation caused turbulences that hindered the development of these middle classes. Although - together with parts of the working class - they profited considerably from economic etatism,109 in the end they found themselves shut out of power after 1926. 105 106 107 108 109

Segal, op. cit., pp. 178 f.; J. Lestschinsky, "Economic Aspects ofJewish Community Organization in Independent Poland," JSS 9, 1947, pp. 319-338, 325, 329 f. Rabinowicz, op. cit., pp. 170 £f.; Lestschinsky, 1936, op. cit., p. 54; Polonsky, op. cit., p. 470. Zaremba et ai, op. cit., pp. 32 f. Rürup, op. cit., pp. 117ff.; Leon, op. cit., pp. 110; O. Heller, op. cit., pp. 128 if. Gliksman, op. cit.,p. 181; Segal, op. at., pp. 138; Schiper et αι., op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 386 f.; Hass, op. cit. p. 31, 40; Kotodziejczyk, op. cit., pp. 154, 202.

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1087

They were occupied by a cartel formed out of a "coalition" of the military, landowners, and the business and financial oligarchy, with close ties to western capital markets. 110 During the period of stabilization and modest economic recovery up to 1929-30, this power cartel enjoyed its highest level of social support and needed no anti-Semitism to achieve legitimacy. It was with the world economic crisis that middle class and especially academic antiSemitism became active, supported by the oppositional National Democrats. Because the regime had little to offer workers and peasants, beginning in the mid-30's it sought to win the approval of the urban middle classes with antiSemitic slogans. Officially-approved exclusion of the Jews, which did not first begin in 1937, was a concession that could not overcome the historical conflict with National Democracy, but promised to lure away its petty-bourgeois followers. In addition, it cost the elite regime of the generals little to make the Jews an official object of aggression by blaming them for backwardness in the small-business and agrarian sectors. The regime's loss of authority without a charismarically integrative figure left room for the development of an anti-Semitism that united traditional and modern elements. In the 19th century, Eastern Europe's popular anti-Semitism had contained an anti-urban, anti-capitalist element.111 During the civil war in the Ukraine it was still part of the city-country conflict.112 In the PolishUkrainian struggles and in the Polish-Soviet war, plundering by bands of Polish soldiers was also an expression of national and social antagonism.113 Peasant hatred ofJews remained alive in Poland after 1918, expressed in many declarations, but not in actions, by the peasants' parties.114 This might have been connected with the decreasing significance of Jews in the countryside.

110

111

112

113 114

Schiper, op. cit., p. 641, Zamowski, 1966, op. cit., pp. 6 7 - 8 7 ; idem, 1973, op. cit., pp. 276, 292,295; Z. Landau, "Oligarchia finansowa Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej," P H 6 2 , 1 9 7 1 , pp. 7 5 90; idem, "Zasigg kartelizacji przemyslu w Drugiej Rzeszypospolitej," K H 81, 1974, pp. 799-817. H.-D. Löwe, Antisemitismus und reaktionäre Utopie. Russischer Konservatismus im Kampf gegen Wandel von Staat und Gesellschaft, 1890-1917, Hamburg 1978; I. M. Aronson, "Geographical and Socioeconomic Factors in the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia," The Russian Review 39, 1980, pp. 18-31 (Reprinted in this volume). I. Trotzky, "Jewish Pogroms in the Ukraine and in Byelorussia (1918-1920)," G. Aronson et al, (eds.), Russian Jewry 1917-1967, New York 1969, pp. 7 2 - 8 7 ; Larin, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.; Lestschinsky, 1941, op. cit., p. 144. Gitelman,op. cit., pp. 191 f.; Larin, op. cit., p. 39; Golczewski, op. cit., pp. 218. J. Cang, "The Opposition Parties in Poland and their Attitude Towards the Jews and the Jewish Problem,"/SS 1,1939, pp. 2 4 1 - 2 5 6 , 2 4 8 ; Mahler, 1946, op. cit., p. 160,168;Zaremba et al., op. cit., p. 33; Borkowski, 1968, op. cit., p. 80; Zarnowski, 1977, op. cit., p. 675; Polonsky, op. cit., p. 366.

1088

Dietrich Beyrau

The standard-bearer of anti-Semitism was National Democracy. Despite its supporters in the country, it was at bottom an urban movement. Its demands and measures appealed to Christian resentments, hatred of foreigners and economic envy. The old and new middle classes,115 the clergy and, in particularly large numbers, the younger generation of academics were the carriers of this ideologically-heterogeneous anti-Semitism. Among academics, it can be understood most clearly as a manifestation of restricted career advancement. This group could expect to profit most from the exclusion of the Jews, from "polonization" of the cities. Here one can also observe a certain similarity to National Socialism among those groups that Jakob Lestschinsky (Leszczynski) called the "intellectual rabble" and the "lumpenbourgeoisie."116 This rigid nationalism, that was more interested in the exclusion then in the integration of minorities, could not but advance drastically against a background of structural and economic crises. The "superfluousness" and increasing social margmality of Eastern European Jews in the course of industrialization and commercialization became a topos of social history with Ber Borochov (at the latest), one of the founders of socialist Zionism. 117 Stanislav Andreski, an exile Polish sociologist, also joined this tradition when he observed that the path of Polish Jewry was marked by the change from a once "complementary" estate to a class that became "superfluous" with the rise of the modern nation. 118 According to this perspective, pauperization, not proletarianization, discrimination and not integration proved to be continuities that carried over into interwar Poland. This hypothesis, which legitimized Eastern European Zionism, cannot be precisely explained or refuted, because social statistics even from the 19th century are too inexact 119 and cannot be

115

116

117

118

119

On the enigmatic concept of the "old" and "new" middle class - subsumed in current Polish sociology under the headings "bourgeoisie" and "petty bourgeoisie" - cf. Th. Geiger, Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes. Saziographischer Versuch auf statistischer Grundlage (1932), Stuttgart 1967, pp. 106 f., 122 f. Citations from Lestschinsky, 1941, op. cit.,p. 152 and idem, 1936, op. dt., p. 18, Terej, 1971a, op. dt., pp. 135, 158. Β. Borochov, Nationalism and the Class Struggle. A Marxian Approach to the Jewish Problem. Selected Writing, New York 1937, Reprint Westport/Conn. 1972, pp. 59 if., 75 ff.; Gliksman, op. at.,p. 20;Leon, op. at.,pp.87 f. 90 f.;Ruppin, op. a t , Vol. l,pp. 322 f.;Bronsztejn, 1963, op. cit., p. 63; J. Lestschinsky, The Jewish People. Past and Present, Vol. 1, New York 1946, pp. 361 ff. St. Andreski, "An Economic Interpretation of Antisemitism in Eastern Europe." The Jewish Journal of Sociology 5, 1963, pp. 201-213. Ph. Friedmann, "Wirtschaftliche Umschichtungsprozesse und Industrialisierung in der polnischen Judenschaft," S. W. Baron and A. Mark (eds.), Jewish Studies. In Memory of G. A. Kohut 1874-1933, New York 1935, pp. 178-247, 181 ff.; Gliksman, op. dt., pp. 12 ff.; Bronz-

Anti-Semitism and Jews in Poland, 1918-1939

1089

compared with 20th-century statistics. The persistence ofJewish poverty, the permanence of their social marginalization and stigmatization as a pariah people cannot be denied. But Polish Jewry in the 20th century shared economic and social obstacles to development with the mass of the Polish peasants. Agrarian underdevelopment and regression following the world economic crisis, and the poverty of the urban small business sector can be seen as two mutually-dependent factors. The changing situation, often poverty, of the urban middle class, which was not limited to its Jewish component, thus seems above all a result of the "narrowness" of the market, or - as Janusz Zarnowski formulates it - as the "other side" of agrarian backwardness.120 Poland's "blocked" development may essentially be blamed for the fact that Polish Jewry in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century could be defined as a "caste" or a "national class." Jewry was at the same time both a part of the society that could not be imagined away, and an "outsider" in that society.121 Its "alienness" offered many possibilities for aggression and demagogy. Yet if one takes into account the urban-rural split and the distance between peasants and city dwellers, whose social perceptions often retained class elements,122 the group of Jewish "aliens" did not represent as abnormal a case of social segregation as may seem the case (today). This variously-extreme segregation was also a symptom of the - by no means completed - transition from a not very highly industrialized to a "completely developed" capitalist society, with its higher degree of integration and denser communication network. This developmentary deficit determined the differing levels of secularization and acculturation of the Jews, as could be seen in the party spectrum. Here certain parallels may be observed with processes occurring within the Polish peasantry. In the 30's, especially among the younger generation of peasants, a minority broke off from the largely passive majority and turned radical in a populist direction. The majority obeyed the Church, and in part also the landowners, and endured the rule of priests and civil servants whether they approved of or rejected it. 123 Even if the changes in Jewry and in the Polish

120 121

122

123

stejn, 1963, op. cit., pp. 49 ff.; Wischnitzer, op. cit., pp.216, 222 ff.; A Zarnowska, " O Skladzie narodowosciowym klasy robotniczej w Krolestwie Polskim na przelomie X I X i X X wieku," KH 80, 1973, pp. 787-815; Eisenbach, op. cit., pp. 215 f. Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., p. 254. Analogue definitions by T. Lepkowski, Polska - narodziny nowoczesnego narodu 1764-1870, Warschau 1970, p. 11; Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., p. 252; Kolodziejczyk, op. cit., p. 175; O. Heller, op. cit., p. 152. Hertz, op cit., pp. 90 f.; Borkowski, 1968, op. cit., p. 86; idem, 1970 op. cit., pp. 347 ff.; Zarnowski, 1973, op. at., pp. 94, 163, 173, 186, 290. Seton-Watson, 1948, op. cit., pp. 298 ff.; Borkowski, 1968, op. at., pp. 90 ff.; idem, 1970, op.cit., pp. 230 ff.; Zarnowski, 1973, op. cit., pp. 173 ff.

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Dietrich Beyrau

peasantry did not occur synchronously, similar transformations can be observed. They differed in their point of departure and their interests, but shared a growing demand for participation in the basic questions of state and society and renunciation of traditional subservience. This transitory condition, the obstacles to which are much clearer than the changes in the 20's and 30's, led the Jewish historian Salo W. Baron to determine, in pronounced opposition to a Marxist interpretation,124 that Polish society before 1939 was not yet sufficiendy commercialized, sufficiently "Jewish," to integrate the Jews at a new level.125 Whether at least the secondary results of economic recovery and intensified industrialization after the end of the 30's would have helped the Jews is a question that can no longer be answered. The German machinery of destruction "solved" the Jewish question in its own way.

124

125

K. Marx, Zur Judenfrage (1843), Marx-Engels-Werke (MEW) Bd. 1, Berlin 1964, pp. 347377. S. W. Baron, "European Jewry Before and After Hitler," American Jewish Year Book 63,1962, pp. 3-53, p. 12: Viewed from a historical perspective, the enormous economic difficulties confronting the Jews in the interwar period appear to have been the temporary accompaniment of a profound historical transformation. In the long run the Jewish vocational distribution, so different then, merely foreshadowed the major trends of our technological era. The sharp contrast in occupation between the Jews and their neigbors has been gradually disappearing, not so much because the Jews have changed as because the Western world has become increasingly "Jewish" in its economic structure.

JOSEPH MARCUS

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic and Social Conditions, 1918-1939* Why So Poor? The material conditions of the Jews is another important issue. Most people who have asked: why were the Jews so poor? have looked back to the nineteenth and early twenteenth centuries and usually exclusively to Jews, for an answer.1 The roots of the problem were imbedded much deeper. Jewish life was ruined by the disastrous events of the second half of the seventeenth century. At that time and in the following century, Poland fell into economic stagnation and political anarchy. The historian Korzon calls the eighteenth century in Poland the darkest age for nearly four hundred years. The whole country, of which the Jews formed economically an important part, embarked on the road that led it to become, for over two centuries, one of the most backward areas in Europe. Under the ruling feudal system, the once flourishing towns, with their large Jewish population, were at the head of the general decline. At the end of the eighteenth century, Poland had only six towns with more than ten thousand inhabitants,2 mostlys rotting infilthand poverty. This is how a contemporary Polish statist, as the statesmen and reformers of the period were called, describes the situation in 1809: Ίη what conditions the towns? There are few

* From: Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland. 1919-1939. Mouton Publishers, Berlin, N e w York, Amsterdam 1983, abridged pp. 11-13,46-49, 90-98,241-247, 342-347, 362-366, 379-381, 391-395. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. 1 Cf. e. g., Jacob Lestschinsky, "Die Umsiedlung und Umschichtung des jüdischen Volkes im Laufe des letzten Jahrhunderts," part one of an article in Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Chronik und Archivalien, 1929, Π, pp. 123 ff. (To avoid confusion I follow throughout the above English spelling of Lestschinsky's name). 2 T. Korzon, Wewnetrzne dzieje Polski za Stanislawa Augusta, 4vols, Cracow 1897-98, 1st ed. [1882-1886],

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Joseph Marcus

of them in the country, because a majority of them does not differ from villages, and the people living in the towns are only agriculturists. Handicrafts, factories there are none in our country.'3 Excluded by law from the schemes of urban organisation and under mounting pressure from their rival German burghers, the Jews were moving in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more and more to the east, the poorest part of Poland, where in tiny townships lacking the basic public facilities they formed virtually the only urban element. Biological forces were speeding up the process of retrogression. Poland's rate of natural increase in the eighteenth century, let alone earlier, is not known; that its population was rising quickly is certain. In the nineteenth century, and still later, the population of Poland increased more rapidly than elsewhere in Europe.4 It more than trebled, rising by 207 per cent, between 1815 and 1903. 5 The Jewish population was increasing even fester6 at least till the closing decades of the nineteenth century, when it began proportionately to decrease. This was due to an increase in emigration which more than offset their, according to Lestschinsky and others, faster natural growth. The effects of the enormous overpopulation of the Jews in their highly concentrated communities, surrounded for nearly 200 years by a completely static and feudal environment, were in many respects worse than those recently experienced in many areas of the southern hemisphere. In short, since the second half of the seventeenth century, because of the decaying political and economic system, Poland was not able to absorb soundly its rapidly growing population, especially its Jewish population of specific urban occupations. Initial backwardness, which made it difficult for Poland to throw-off its feudal institutions, was in the nineteenth century aggravated by policies resulting from the partition of the country. A split administration, social movements repressed, economic reforms little accomplished, interests of the native people, particularly the Jews, neglected. The nineteenth century, which witnessed such enormous technical progress in the West, had in many respects skipped over Poland. 3

4

5 6

Stanislaw Staszic, Ο Statystyce Polski [Of Poland's statistics], Cracow 1809, p. 25. The author later suggests to let the Jews build up the town and crafts, ibid., pp. 25-26. Jan Rutkowski, Historia Gospodarcza Polski do 1863r [Economic history of Poland to 1863], Warsaw 1953,1, p. 278; Π, p. 1. Ibid. From a set offigurescompiled by Lestschinsky, op. cit., p. 140, it would follow that, notwithstanding large-scale emigration to the West, Jewish population in eastern Europe increased by 323 per cent between 1825 and 1900. All these figures are not of the greatest accuracy.

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1093

When at last the winds of change started blowing over Poland, life began moving, in some areas rapidly, from country to town. The movement gained momentum in the last quarter of the century, with the Jews leading the process of industrialization. Stimulated by want and striving for equality of political rights, the Jews moved from the edge of society, which was largely made up of peasants and nobility, towards the centre, the emerging middle class; from the east towards the west of the Russian and Austrian parts of Poland, concentrating in the large towns. Rapid as the expansion of the towns was, its Jewish element was increasing substantially faster. Warsaw, for example, between 1856 and 1897, saw a rise of its total population from 157,000 to 685,000 and of its Jewish inhabitants from 41,000 to 219,0007 In their new environment the Jews were confronted by desperate conditions of life in cities which, besides a catastrophic appearance were overflowing with poverty and wretchedness. Because of a retrogressive administration, the towns largely failed to meet the problems of the nineteenth century. Lodz, a textile centre and the second largest town in Poland, had until the First World War no system of sewers. However, the basis for a more healthy development was laid: there was an improvement in transport and commercial policies, and an increasing demand for industrial products - all fostered the growth of industry. Congress Poland towards the end of the century became economically perhaps the most developed part of the Russian Empire, accounting for about 15 per cent of its total industrial output. Oppressive as the Russian occupation was politically, Congress Poland gready benefited economically from almost free access to the vast Russian market. The Jews took advantage of this, pioneering the development of modern commerce, in particular of foreign trade in that corner of Europe. Foreign trade stimulated industrial output; large-scale manufacturing, says a Polish historian, was organised foremost by the Jews, contributing to the rise of a Polish (as well as a Jewish) working class.8

7

8

Cf. Lestschinsky, op. cit., p. 153; Bohdan Wasiutyriski, Ludnose zydowska w Pobce w wiekach XIX i XX, Studium Statystyczne, Warsaw 1930, p. 37. Selection of years is conditioned by availability of statistics. Aleksander Woycicki, 'Historia rozwoju warstwy robotniczej w czasach nowszych', in St. A. Kempner (ed.), Dzteje gospodarae Polski pomzbiomwej [Economic history of post-partition Poland], Π, Warsaw 1922, p. 137.

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Galicia, under Austrian rule, experienced little industrial progress. But to the economic advancement that did take place, the Jewish contribution was even more prominent than in the Russian part of Poland. The process of material improvement and upward social mobility of the Jews was halted by the First World War, and the loss of life and property it caused. Military operations stretched over most of Polish territory and the damage equalled about one-eighth of total national wealth.9 The Jewish population suffered proportionately heavier losses and nearly half a million Jews fled westwards before the invading Russian armies.10 Yet, notwithstanding the ravages of war and its consequences - inflation, disturbed markets and economic restrictions - the contribution of the Jews in Poland was comparatively of such a dimension that, between the end of the eighteenth century and 1929, the last year before the Great Depression, per caput real income of the Jews went up by 350 per cent, while that of the nonJewish urban population declined. But this Jewish progress was neither continuous, nor as great as that ofJews in the West; nor did it involve more than about half of the people, and this to a varying extent. The result, at the end of the period, was a Jewish society of a wide polarity of wealth, more unequal in this respect than Christian urban society. The average Jew in Poland during the inter-war years was by western urban standards a poor man.*

The estimate of losses (Z1 10 billion, or $ 1.1 billion, at 1924 prices) is that by Rutkowski, op. cit., part Π, p. 416, which seems reasonable. There are, however, still higher estimates. Cf. Feliks Bocheriski, The Economic Structure of Poland, Birkenhead 1945, p. 10; Tytus Komarnicki, Rebirth of the Polish Republic, A Study in the Diplomatic History of Europe, 1914-1920, London 1957, p. 304. Yet, Jewish material losses alone were estimated by Filip Friedman, a Jewish historian, in an essay written in 1928, as 'reaching billions of dollars' (quoted by William M. Gliksman, In the Mirror of Literature, The Economic Life of the Jews in Poland as reflected in Yiddish Literature, 1914-1939, New York 1966, p. 29). To exaggerate one's riches and losses, individual or national, is a common human weakness. But the above quotation from Friedman is also characteristic of a generally regrettable situation which shows through the entire literature of the period, viz., that the Jewish 'Social Reformers' were ignorant of basic facts about economic conditions of the Jews and of the country in which they lived. 1 0 Cf. American Joint Distribution Committee, Reconstruction Committee, Report of May 15, 1924, New York 1924. * A note on income and progress. It is of historic interest to establish in some measurable terms, however broad, the absolute and relative income of the Jews towards the end of the eighteenth century, and to compare this withfiguresof nearly a century and a half later. This has never been done before. It is attempted here on the basis offiguresfor the year 1791, mentioned by Korzon in his fundamental study of that period, and my own estimate of national income in 1929. [ . . . ] 9

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1095

Striking Inequality The diverse functional distribution of incomes which was comparatively so favourable to Jews, was, as already said, responsible for larger inequality of personal incomes. And this inequality would be even larger than is indicated by Table 1 if farm incomes were included. (The disproportionally small income of the lower half ofJewish salary earners was due to the unusually high ratio of unemployment among this Jewish group.) Apart from showing a striking inequality of income distribution, especially among Jews, Table 1 suggests that in 1929, however marked the structural and social distinctions between Jews and non-Jews may have been nearly half of either population lived on, or below, the margin of subsistence. In 1929, the subsistence level in towns was considered to be an annual income of Z1600 per person. Considering the number of earners and their dependents (1.56 and 1.30 per Jewish and non-Jewish earners, respectively), it can be shown that the per caput average income of the lower half of Jewish non-farm population about Z1435 a year. Many of these people had even less than this, because even among this poorer half of population incomes varied substantially. Table 1. Poland: Selected personal distribution of non-farm income (1929) Income recipients

Non-farm, total Employers and Self-employed Wage earners Salary earners

Cumulative percentage of income received by lower half of income recipients

Per cent of income recipients sharing half of total income

Jews

Non-Jews

Jews

Non-Jews

21 21

24 20

17 11

22 10

29 13

25 28

31 25

26 29

Allfiguresare rounded o f f .

Charity and Relief Given these gloomy figures, one might ask: How did these poor people survive, especially before 1929, when the situation was even worse, and after 1929, when it was worse still? But it should be remembered that in small towns (and certainly in villages) the subsistence level was probably less than 71 600, while 'income' in all the foregoing calculations excludes certain free services, transfer payments and receipts from abroad.

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Joseph Marcus

If these items are included, the average per caput income of the poorer half of the Jewish population is near the Z1 600 borderline and ahead of the per caput income of the corresponding half of the non-Jewish population.11 This draws attention to the outstanding role played by Jewish charity, which in prewar Poland probably reached universally unprecedented proportions. It seems fair to estimate (mainly on the basis of published figures for the expenditure of Jewish institutions providing religious, educational, health, and similar services) that internal Jewish transfers from the upper half to the lower half of income recipients was nearly Z1200 million a year, or almost ten per cent of the upper halfs national income in 1929. 12 Then come remittances from relatives abroad (which were, however, not necessarily limited to the poorer half of the population), and charities abroad, amounting in 1929 to about Z1 130 million (although this figure was reduced sharply in the 1930s).13 Capital Formation Estimates related to Table 1 suggest that 0.1 per cent of Jewish income recipients, or about 1,000 families, received about 5.5 per cent of the Jewish population's total income, or about Z1140 million, and most of this accrued to about 200 families. And whatever the negative consequences of the unequal income distribution may have been, its effect on capital formation by Jews in Poland cannot be overlooked. [.. .] This extremely narrow concentration of wealth explains how, within a relatively short period, the Jews built up strong capital positions in Poland. That this occurred because Jews are formidable misers is a legend fostered, among others, by Jewish historians, although it might follow logically from erroneous assumptions about the dispersion of income, whereby many Jews would have had considerable savings to invest.

11

12

13

This shouldfinallyrefute a curious theory, popular until recently, according to which every Jewish community in the world, regardless of its geographical and economic position, normally contributes three per cent of its annual national income to Jewish charities. (Cf. esp., Abraham Menes, Le budget social juif\Y\Adis\i\, Paris 1936, p. 10) Hence, all one would need to know to estimate any Jewish community's national income would be its charity accounts, which are mostly made public. This 'iron law of philantrophy' is a flight of fantasy. My estimate following Mieczyslaw Smerek, "Bilans platniczy za rok 1930" [The balance of payments in 1930], Statystyka Polski, series B., no. 17, Warsaw 1933, esp. p. 70; see also, J. Bornstein, Rzemioslo zydowskie w Polsce [Jewish crafts in Poland], Warsaw 1936, p. 178. Cf. I. Kostrowiecka, Z. Landau and J. Tomaszewski, Historia gospodarcza Pobki XIX i XX wieku [Economic history of Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries], Warsaw 1966, p. 229.

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Re-Appraisal of Social Groups What emerges from Table 2 is, inter alia, that nearly 95 per cent of Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) 'petty-bourgeois' belonged to the lowest income group, many of them being virtually paupers. In view of this, the classification of social groups in the offical statistics is analytically inadequate. To arrive at meaningful social classification, statistics that combine data about occupation and income, and, eventually, employment, education and housing, would be required. The difficulty of compiling such statistics is enormous. But it should not be too difficult to devise a method that would relate a man's social status to his income as well as his occupation, and at least unemployment statistics must be approached more realistically than in the official figures. In Table 3 (its title is the best I could think of) I have tried to do this. In this table, a man who has no employment to gain him a minimum of subsistence is regarded as unemployed, regardless of whether he is a factory worker, a pedlar or a cobbler; it is assumed that it is immaterial how or where a man performs his work, and, as long as their incomes are about the same, whether he is a Table 2. Income distribution in the non-farm sector of Poland (1929, Polish zloties) Description

All income groups: Total Earned Unearned Group I: Total (unearned) Group Π: Total Earned Unearned Group ΙΠ: Total Earned Unearned

Number of Earners (000)

Total Annual Income (000,000)

Average Annual Income per Earner

Jews

Non-Jews

Jews

Non-Jews

Jews

Non-Jews

1,016.3 366.7 649.6

3,742.9 2,906.5 836.4

2,234.5 580.8 1,653.7

7,445.4 5,198.0 2,247.4

2,200 1,585 2,545

1,990 1,790 2,685

0.9

1.1

135.5

207.4

148,400

186,000

89.9 55.0 34.9

538.1 492.0 46.1

817.1 300.5 516.6

2,884.5 2,156.2 728.3

9,090 5,465 14,800

5,360 4,385 15,800

925.5 311.7 613.8

3,203.7 2,414.5 789.2

1,281.9 280.3 1,001.6

4,353.5 3,041.8 1,311.7

1,385 890 1,630

1,360 1,260 1,790

Notes: Earned income, i.e., received in the form of wages and salaries: 'unearned', i.e., profits and income from self-employment. Number of earners includes the unemployed. Notice that corporate profits are not included in above figures. Group classification of income: less than Z1 3,000 - Group ΠΙ; Z1 3,000-20,000 - Group Π; over Z120,000 - Group I.

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Joseph Marcus

wage earner, a shopkeeper or artisan, however great their differences in outlook might be; finally, that to qualify as 'entrepreneurs,' men are expected to have a reasonable income. Thus, in addition to conventional unemployment Table 3 introduces 'unconventional' unemployment. This is estimated by eliminating from the main occupational groups as many people as are needed to arrive at an average income of Z11,500 (roughly equivalent to 21600 per head of population) for the remainder in each group. It can then be calculated that in 1929 overall nonfarm unemployment (including the 'unemployables') of both Jews and nonJews was slightly less than 20 per cent. Though the proportion of the non-farm 'active' population (excluding the 'others' of Table 3) earning less than Z1 1,500 was actually about 33 per cent and 30 per cent for Jews and non-Jews, respectively. Table 3. Poland: Income-based structure of population (1929) Active Population Description

Jews Total

Non-farm population, total I. Entrepreneurs Π. Workers on own and others' account, total A. Gainfully occupied B. Unemployed, of which: (a) conventional unemployment (b) unconventional unemployment ΙΠ. Others, total (a) pensioners and war invalids (b) "unemployables'

Non-Jews Per cent

Total

Per cent

1,046,300 35,815 980,485

100.0 3.4 93.7

4,099,900 47,215 3,695,685

100.0 1.1 90.1

792,555 187,930

75.7 18.0

3,071,515 624,170

74.7 15.4

87,500

46.6

337,500

54.0

100,430

53.4

286,670

46.0

30,000 12,000

2.9 40,0

357,000 201,000

8.8 56,3

18,000

60,0

156,000

43,7

Number of non-farm population in this table differs by thefigureof Others'. Percentages of sub-divisions (a) and (b) refer to its main divisions.

To sum up, as more than half the non-farm population lived on the edge of subsistence, functional distribution of incomes is of limited significance. But it is important in that it explains the comparatively higher aggregate earnings of

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1099

the Jews which was, however, neutralised by their having larger families. Moreover, because Jewish incomes, compared with non-Jewish ones, were derived proportionally more from 'business' than from labour', they were more unequally distributed, which adversely affected the collective welfare of Jews, as compared with non-Jews. There was a deep gulf between a small minority at the top, and a large mass of people at the bottom; and this was perhaps the most salient feature of non-farm income distribution. [. . .] Characteristics of the Entrepreneurs The main characteristics of the Jewish textile entrepreneurs, their activities and their successes, which in many respects resembles those of Jewish entrepreneurs in other consumer goods industries, may now be outlined. Not one of the entrepreneurs, in the true sense of the word, had risen from the class of weavers, masters, or other craftsmen. They began their careers either as merchants, though of modest fortunes, or, mosdy, in subordinate positions in the industry, rising eventually to management levels. Perhaps most remarkable, almost all established relatively large-scale enterprises were based on mass production from the beginning. This no doubt partly reflected the rapid expansion of demand, but it was made possible by undeniable organisational talents, including the talent for raising captial. The rise of the plants was preceded by the founding of the banks. In addition to a branch of the Commercial Bank of Warsaw which had opened in Lodz, the Commerical Bank of Lodz was initiated in 1872 by a group of textile manufacturers and merchants, headed by David Rosenblum. A year earlier, the Discount Bank of Warsaw opened its doors. Its founders were Mieczyslaw and Jan Epstein, two sons of above mentioned Hermann Epstein, but with the cooperation of David Rosenblum, Ludwik Starkman, and a host of textile manufacturers of Lodz. I. K. Poznanski's son Hermann was later to become its managing director. It was, indeed, characteristic that many Jewish industrialists were simultaneously bankers. To some extent this may have stemmed from the prevailing estimation of banking as the most prestigious stage of business activity. But the main reason was different: all Jewish manufacturers wanted to avoid depending on bank credits. Great efforts were made not to raise capital through the stock exchange, which would have required great sacrifices at times when profits were very high. Expansion was financed partly from accumulated profits, assisted by frugal living, but mainly by mobilizing the small savings of the public, which was the role of the self-owned banks. It was a peculiar form of industrial financing but, in the circumstances, a prudent one.

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Joseph Marcus

Apart from getting production quickly under way, the main organisational talent that the entrepreneurs displayed was in export sales. The situation was unique, for the expansion of production depended almost entirely on unexplored foreign markets. The factories were built in advance of demand, in response to existing market stimuli, generated by the change in Russian commercial policy. It required a good sense of market opportunity and selfconfidence in their capacity to exploit it, to enable the entrepreneurs to bear the uncertainty involved. They were richly rewarded. Production grew by leaps and bounds and within a few years one of Europe's largest cotton textile industries was established almost from scratch. As a result, enormous fortunes were established. [.. .] Industrialization - Impact on Jews What was the wider significance of all these material successes? The primary intent of the foregoing review has not been to pay tribute to the Jewish entrepreneurs, who formed, after all, a fraction of the people, nor to indulge in national self-appreciation, but to make comprehensible the resulting historical consequences - in the first place for the Jewish community itseE For, in very broad terms, the creative activity of the Jewish entrepreneurs - the pioneering of new industries, and the promotion of new forms of economic organisation and of more efficient methods of production - brought, through self-seeking ambitions and material progress, enormous advantages for society at large. Within the life-time of a generation sustenance was given to tens of thousands of previously deprived, Jewish people and material benefits were diffused among them to an extent that Polish Jewry had probably never known before. It was the great material advancement during the nineteenth century (in this context, ending in 1914) that brought about the phenomenal improvement in the economic welfare of the Polish Jews, despite their exceptionally fast natural growth. Industrialization set in motion, suddenly and unexpectedly, a process of structural transformation, which, however insufficient, modified to a large extent the very substance of Jewish society. In the first place, the migration of Jews towards the towns gathered momentum: enormous as the emigration flow overseas had been, internal migration ofJews from the backward areas to the newly developed regions was, in the Russian part of Poland, still larger. The Jews were rapidly becoming urbanised, and were developing the out-ofdate urban centres in which they settled. They turned from a life that for centuries had been stunted and dormant in out-of-the-way villages or semirural townships to a highly active and productive one. New occupations were

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

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acquired, and, in these occupations as well as traditional ones, the social transformation opened up a venue for industrial and commercial activity at levels previously unknown. The small man without means who wanted to start a productive business found the credit system created by Kronenberg and his associates readily available. The craftsman could easily find business partners to finance his work, often enabling him to advance rapidly. In this way, within a few years of the start of industrialization, thousands of medium and small manufacturing firms established themselves. Still more numerous were the newly established retail shops and the large commercial enterprises. The close connexion between theriseof the manufacturing companies and the expansion of the distributive trade is beyond doubt. The fact that the manufacturers themselves organised the sale of their goods enhanced the opportunity for Jewish traders. It is probably not accidental that, for example, the share of the Jews in Congress Poland's trade, estimated at roughly who-thirds around the year 1913,14 corresponded with the share ofJewish textile manufacture in that year. The success of the entrepreneurs was encouraging others to emulate them, which, whether they were successful or not, promoted sound competition and ambitious effort. Industrialization also led to the emergence of a Jewish working class, though many Jewish writers attribute wrongly the rise of such a class to the efforts of socialist leaders and trade union organisers. This class, if one includes in it, as one should, semi-artisans and home-workers, grew to substantial proportions. Indeed a new phenomenon arose: the development of distinct Jewish social classes, mutually opposed, with contrasting extremes of wealth and poverty. While industrialization increased this contrast, it also reduced the number of poor Jews, notwithstanding their particularly rapid reproduction. In addition, the poor were helped by the rapidly expanding Jewish charities, generously supported by the wealthy. Not only did industrialization create new employment opportunities, it also spread secular mass education. The number of children attending schools soared and thousands went abroad to obtain higher education, many in science and technology. This gave rise to the growth of new and important professional groups, which had hardly been known before among Polish Jews. On the eve of the twentieth century, the position of the Jews in the liberal and managerial professions of Congress Poland was leading even in numbers. All this impressive progress was achieved at a time when Jews in Russia were still deprived of certain basic legal rights and were subject to occasional

14

Op. α'ί,Π, pp. 315-316.

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outbursts of physical persecution. And, however impressive it was, the scale was nowhere near the scale of progress concurrently taking place in the West; nor indeed did it measure up to the full potential of Polish Jewry. Nevertheless, it was unprecedented, and the four decades prior to the First World War will go down in history as the golden age of Polish Jewry. Impact on Poles Leaving out the German minority, the Jewish people were the first and chief beneficiaries of industrialization and the capitalist system of production, but in the long run the Poles gained far more. The pioneering work and creativity of the late nineteenth-century entrepreneurs extended beyond one lifetime, indeed beyond the life of Jews in Poland. Ultimately the sole beneficiaries of industrialization were the Polish people. Yet, in the short term - that is, in the years up to the First World War - the benefits were relatively slight. Why this was so requires explanation. In the industrialization of Poland, the Jews exercised a decisive role, and one that was comparatively greater than in any other country, not because of their cultural or religious characteristics, as hostile writers have suggested, nor because of any specific talents or conditions of their historic situation. What made it possible for the Jews to shape so strongly the industrial movement was the minimal entrepreneurial contribution of Poles. Not one large (and probably no medium) textile manufacturing enterprise was founded or owned by a Pole. In summarising Europe's gigantic material progress in the decades preceding the First World War, Aleksander Bochenski, who wrote a three-volume popular history of industry in Poland up to the year 1939, says that among all the tycoons, i.e., captains of industry and business, that emerged, only one Pole, Karol Jaroszynski, deserves to be mentioned.15 (Remarkably, even he made his fortune not in Poland, but in the Ukraine).16 This circumstance, of the majority of the population taking no part at all in the pioneering of industrialization had no parallel in any other country of Europe. The Polish people were not only slow to adapt themselves to the requirements of industrial development, but their leaders and cultural elite mostly opposed it. Naturally, the consequences of industrialization- increases in output, a rise in incomes, urbanisation, new areas of employment, and improvements in « Ibid. Ireneusz Ihnatowicz, Burzuazja warszawska [The Bourgeois of Warsaw], Warsaw 1972, p. 134.

16

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1103

technology and education - affected the whole country. But the benefits the Poles reaped were far less than those enjoyed by Jews and Germans. Although the migration of Poles from village to town in search of work was, for reasons explained earlier relatively small, the urbanisation of the Polish population did advance. By the year 1913, probably one Pole in five was already living in a town. And, although most rural workers who moved to towns remained for a relatively long time outside the factories, they were, nevertheless, almost immediately affected by the new system of production. By the end of the century a Polish working class had developed. One effect of industrialization was the Polonisation of the towns; it is no secret that up to the turn of the century Lodz and some other towns were dominated by their German inhabitants. The towns also influenced the country-side, though the greater the distance from industrialized areas, the weaker was the influence and nowhere was it very great. While, on my own estimate, between 1870 and 1913, industrial output in Poland of inter-war frontiers increased roughly eightfold, the rise in farm production was only about 50 per cent. Polish agriculture was little transformed, and therisein this output did not match the increase in population and the consequent demand for food. Yet the railways and the new market system facilitated imports and the resumption, after several decades, of some farm exports. In general, the building up of trades auxiliary to agriculture, thereby increasing the amount of work available to village artisans, and the migration of peasants abroad and to Polish towns, did slighdy raise rural living standards. Material progress, the application of technology and the enlarged scope of economic activity in the towns partly changed the character of life. Many Poles found themselves in new types of work; they were taught trades in which trained men were scarce and, by gaining general and technical education, started to ascend into new professional groups. The concern of the Jewish entrepreneurs for general, i. e., Polish education deserves mention. They particularly stood out as patrons of technical and commercial training. Until the 1870s the capital town of Warsaw had no institution for the training of managers, administrators, or merchants. The first commercial school in Warsaw was founded by Leopold Kronenberg in 1875.17 About that time, Jan Block set up the Warsaw Polytechnic. Rudolf Okret founded in Warsaw the first Polish business newspaper, the Gazeta 17

Adolf Peretz, "Zydzi w bankowosci polskiej" [The Jews in Polish banking], in Jews in Re-bom Poland, vol. I, chap. 18, p. 442. As those private schools ceased to exist during the First World War, the first commercial schools in independent Poland were opened not before the year 1928-1929.

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Handlawa. The Natansons of Warsaw were co-founders of the Museum of Industry and Agriculture, and endowed a science college, several commercial schools and scientific periodicals, and - a novelty at the time - a liberal press (Nowa Gazetd).18 L. Kronenberg and his one-time partner-banker, Matias Rosen, supported several Polish publications - as well as institutions such as the Library of Warsaw and the academy of music there.19 In Lodz, the first secondary schools that were neither German nor Russian were founded by Jewish textile manufacturers. In 1913, Hipolit Wawelberg, the Warsaw banker and 'philantropist on a scale almost without precedence in Poland',20 and his brother-in-law Stanislaus Rotwand, founded in Warsaw the Wawelberg & Rotwand College for Machine Construction and Electrical Engineering. It was here, incidentally, that in the 1930s the introduction of a numerus nullus for Jewish students in what was then a state institution became the subject of a famous legal suit, still unresolved when the Second World War broke out. The action was taken before the Warsaw courts by Andrew Wawelberg, the son of the college's co-founder, for breach of its foundation charter which forbade discrimination of any kind. These schools, among others, contributed to the emergence of a broader Polish intelligentsia - technically as well as classically educated. From the first decade of the present century, Poles also started to occupy managerial positions in industry and banking. And this new class of professional people was to provide the first civil servants of the future re-born Polish state in 1918. Indeed, historically, the most significant contribution of the pioneer entrepreneurs, besides getting industrialization under way and rooted in Polish soil, was that they provided a basis for future progresss under an independent Polish administration. Impact on Polish-Jewish Relations If someone were disposed to think that for the immense services the Jewish entrepreneurs rendered to the country they were given credit or thanks, he would be mistaken. On the contrary, Jewish achievements and economic predominance have aroused what some writers have regarded as 'the curse of exile' - all-round Polish opposition and hostility. This was probably greatest

18 19 20

I. Schiper, ibid., vol. I, chap. 19, p. 455.

Α Peretz, op. at., p. 444. The most curious reproach of Jews I have come across is the already mentioned JesskeChoinski's hateful complaint that Jews deny the Polish people's 'historic mission of martyrdom'.

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

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among those Polish groups that benefited most from the industrialization; certainly the higher up the social scale the greater was the anxiety felt and the greater the resentment expressed against the Jews. Social differences between Jews and non-Jews went far deeper than its personal characteristics: the resdess, active Jew, keen to succeed and make money, versus the stolid, passive Pole, indifferent - even hostile - to economic progress. In Poland during the nineteenth century nearly all urban activity had an incredibly low social status. Polish aristocrats and noblemen were all contemptuous of commerce and industry. One of Poland's greatest national poets, Siegmunt Krasinski (1812-1859), author of 'The Undivine Comedy', said that there is no talent or anything worthy in Poland besides the aristocrats and noblemen. Even in the nineteenth century, their code of honour did not allow them to seek wealth other than by marriage or good farming. The dominant aristocratic oudook left its impression on almost all Polish literature of the nineteenth century. The romantic writers, with their nostalgic medievalism - which even influenced Jewish social Reformers early in this century revered in Polish traditions of messianism and suffering,21 disdained material welfare and were, naturally, positively hostile to all mercantile activity. Their books give the impression that industry is disastrous and life in towns destructive, while life in the village is peaceful and merry, among the lilac and nightingales, even for the poorest peasants. The entire Polish literature, including economic history, of the period of 'the cult of the individual', says Bochenski, gives the impression that 'industry is one great national calamity'.22 While Jewish entrepreneurs were constructing the railroads, a leading Polish economist, J. Supinski, was complaining that 'the railways are an abyss in which enormous resources are being sunk, not leaving other traces than the raised dike and the rail lying on it.' 23 When Jews built industrial plants, landowners accused them of destroying agriculture, which allegedly was short of labour. When the factories began working, their owners were not only hated by the Polish literary and social elite, but also pitied, for having left the life of country delights and bohemian liberty and pleasure for the dreary surroundings of a factory, which enslaves man and destroys him.

21

22

23

Aleksander Bochenski, Wedrvwski po dziejach przemyslu polskwgo [Wanderings through the history of Polish industry], Π, Warsaw 1969, p. 233. Quoted after Stanislaw Koszutski, Rozwoj ekonomiczny Krolestwa Polskiego w ostatnim trzydziestoleciu, 1870-1900 [The economic development of Congress Poland in the last thirty years, 1870-1900], Warsaw 1905, p. 169. Cf. Wiadomosci Statystyczne, 1939, nos. 9,10 and 11, pp. 158,178-179 and 199, respectively; Petit Annuaire, 1939, p. 103, percentages and changes over years calculated.

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It should be clear that a society that largely shared such attitudes, which held material welfare unimportant and money-making contemptuous, could not produce the entrepreneurial qualities that are required in an era of capitalist industrialization. It is also not surprising that the sole promoters of industrial progress in Poland were the indigenous Jews and the foreign settlers. The Jewish bourgeoisie also became the main propagators of western ideas of liberalism. Aristocratic and Catholic-conservative Polish opinion regarded this, and 'western materialism' in general, as a threat to the Polish tradition and 'national spirit'. The anxiety was probably genuine and it developed into a continuous source of serious mutual irritation right up to the outbreak of the Second World War. Not all the Polish intelligentsia shared the views of the aristocrats and the romantic writers. In the second half of the last century there appeared writers and social activists known collectively as the 'Organic Work' group, who were champions of a retreat from romanticism, and in favour of national resurrection through material improvement, modernization and mass education of the people. But they were not numerous and had relatively little influence. When a Polish middle class finally began to emerge around the turn of the century it became the most hostile group towards Jews; its members envied the superior competitiveness of the Jews and regarded them as the main obstacle to their own advancement - a view that later became the basis of the programme of the semi-fascist National Democratic Party that depended mainly on urban middle-class support. Today, past antagonisms have disappeared, as have the Jews themselves from the surface of Poland. Poles have now mostly abandoned the romantic tradition, and take pride in their industrial progress. But on the Jews who are no longer with them are now bestowed, posthumously, civic equality: the Jew who came from abroad is regarded as another foreigner, while the native Jew is seen as just another Pole. The scale of the Jewish contribution to Poland's industrialization is still not recognized, and the subject is usually avoided, which is not difficult, because all that has to be done to obscure the issue is not to mention certain names. However, the story will have to be told eventually, because ultimately people want to know the truth about their past. [ . . . ] The Fascist Offensive However, in a different way the Great Depression was clearly and deliberately exploited to solve, at least partly, the 'Jewish problem', viz., to reduce their numbers and economic strength. But this strategy originated not with the

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1107

government, but with the Endeks. For the Jews, the political consequences of the depression were worse than its economic ones. After the Sejm elections in 1930, the battered left was to a large extent temporarily excluded from the political arena; the Endeks emerged as the main opposition party, and they asked themselves how to confront this relatively moderate right-wing, nationalist, and authoritarian government. Few people would have taken seriously from a semi-fascist party suggestions of a return to democracy and laissez-faire economics (which the Endeks formally, but insincerely professed to support). On the other hand, nationalist sentiments were popular, and anti-Semitism widespread; so, with the government unpopular and in a predicament as a result of the economic crisis, there was an unique opportunity to use anti-Semitism as a means of exploiting the dissatisfaction and prejudices of the people. So the Endeks decided to challenge the government on its alleged neglect of the 'Jewish problem', developing a forceful anti-Jewish drive as the vehicle on which to reach power. According to Hafftka, a keen contemporary observer, the start of the Endek offensive based on this strategy was marked by a newspaper article by Roman Rybarski published in July 1931:24 Rybarski was professor of economics at the University of Warsaw, but was mainly engaged in politics, as the Endeks' chief economic ideologist and spokesman in the Sejm. In this article, entided 'Jewish Policy', Rybarski attacked the government, but suggested that the Jews were responsible for its economic policy, and hence the suffering of the Polish people, 'warning' the Jews that they would pay dearly for it. One can imagine the Jewish Reformers' indignation. Having consistendy complained about this policy, they were now to be made responsible for it. In the circumstances, it was, of course, irrelevant whether the Jews approved, opposed, or had anything to do with government policy. To protest and explain the facts was merely to reinforce the effects of the Endeks' propaganda. This was then not yet understood; in any case, it required a great measure of self-restraint to remain silent. With or without the help of the protests, by the summer of 1931 Rybarski's article and the following Endek press campaign brought the so-called Jewish problem high on the agenda of public debate. Initially the Endek demands were confined to the inevitable 'restructuring' of Jews, 'stabilization' (i. e., reduction) of their numbers in the country and the economy, especially at

24

Cf. resolutions of the Supreme Council of the Endek party adopted at the end of November 1931, as quoted in Sprawy Narod awosciawe, 1931, p. 651.

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Joseph Marcus

institutions of higher education. By the end of 1931, the Endeks also formally launched a boycott against the Jews. 2 5 This was also aimed at bringing about 'stabilization5, but it led to physical violence, especially at the universities. Even before 1931 the Polish universities had been scenes of unrest and attacks on Jews. Ostensibly, the cause of scuffles used then to be the question of the use of corpses in the prosectorium. But in the autumn of 1931, the academic year started with attempts by the Endeks to prevent Jewish students from attending classes, which caused prolonged riots, culminating in several deaths, and the temporary closure of most of the universities. Such riots became an annual event, increasing in violence each year. University students were the main instrument of Endek subversion and aggression; they regarded any means admissible in the struggle against the Jews. The typical weapons of Endek students included razor-blades stuck in wooden sticks, and cudgels; otherwise, their tactics were no different from those of similar thugs in other countries - except perhaps one feature. At the agricultural faculty of the University of Lwow, when two Jewish girl-students could not be persuaded to leave the lecture room, the 'national' students let down their trousers to bare their genitals.26 But that was in 1938; in 1931, things were not yet so bad. But they deteriorated quickly as a result of the deepening economic and political crisis. They took a sharp turn for the worse in 1933, and the pace quickened from then on. In March 1933, only a few weeks after the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Endeks staged their first large-scale anti-Jewish riots in many towns and townships. By November, the appetite of the Endeks increased to such an extent that Professor Rybarski stated on behalf of his party in the Sejm that 'there is no room for the Jews in Poland', and this became the official slogan of the Endeks. 27 The example of Nazism caught the imagination of the Polish right. In the Endek press, directed by Dmowski, admiration was expressed for Hitler's aims and his anti-Jewish measures. The Nazis also provided ample finance for anti-Semitic propaganda, which became an obvious instrument of a wellplanned policy. Nazi influence also indirectly split the Endek party - the radical youth groups having seceded in the spring of 1934. Several splinter

25 26 27

Cf. Pobog-Malinowski, op. at., p. 833. Cf. Sprawy Natvdawosciawe [Sp. N.], 1933, p. 707. The 'Führer' of the O N R , Boleslaw Piasecki, had been the leader of the Catholic 'Pax' organisation, established after 1945 in rivalry to the traditional Catholic Church in Poland. In this capacity, he had been nominated to the Council of State, of which he had been a member for many years.

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parties were set up, of which the largest two were the 'Camp of National Radicals' (ONR) and the 'Falange'. While the mother party followed the Italian pattern of fascism, the O N R Falange adopted the German National Socialist model, imitating its organisation, leadership and racial doctrine. To this they added some pseudo-Catholic 'philosophy' to make their parties look respectable in Poland.28 In general, their programme, apart from such oddities as' upawszechnienie \ i. e., dissemination of asset-ownership among the entire (Polish) population (not just among the employees of each plant), emphasized the 'national revolution', culminating in calls for a 'national-Catholic' state. Hence, logically, the Jews would have to be deprived of Polish citizenship. To achieve these aims, the programme pledged 'energetic policies' (i. e., tougher than those of the Endeks) and 'direct action', for which the 'relays', the ONRFalange version of storm-troopers, stood ready. Their tactics of terror against the Jews, says a Polish historian, 'were simply those of bandits'.29 Immediately after their formation, the ONR-Falange unleashed for two months bloodthirsty disturbances against the Jews (occasionally combined with surprise attacks on state officials and offices) in scores of towns all over the country; and even worse excesses followed in the autumn of 1934. It was not long before the more militant stance of the splinter groups began to influence the mother party. To catch up with the formidable competition among youth of the ONR-Falange, the Endeks took over some of its 'energetic' slogans, and admitted many radical young men (such as J. Giertych and T. Bielecki) to positions of command. Anti-Semitism was given an even stronger emphasis, and in 1934 the Endeks embraced the racial principle (in which respect they formally departed from the policy of the Catholic Church in Poland). Yet the Endeks and the O N R still differed on what was perhaps the most important question - how to achieve their aims. The Endeks were the more realistic: revolution, they said, must be thoroughly prepared. If it was to succeed, the masses must be 'educated' - i. e., through propaganda made sufficiently aware of the Jewish problem. Also, the solution to this problem had to be phased. Thus, at first, they should concentrate on depriving ofJews of political rights and a means of living; then, later, 'direct action' would force their mass exodus. But to realize this programme, they had first to gain power

28

29

Pobog-Malinowski, op. cit., p. 793. The author himself was by no means a philo-Semite, as his book shows, but the Endek terror, let alone that of the ONR, caused revulsion and horror among many decent Poles. Andrzej Micewski, Ζ geografii politycznej II Rzeczypospolitej, 2nd ed. Warsaw 1966, p. 287. This is a popular study of the Polish right mainly.

1110

Joseph Marcus

through popular support (though they organised a secret unit of men able to perform a military coup in 1933),30 which adequate propaganda on the Jewish problem will assure. The ONR proposed immediate revolution, but the Endeks did not consider the time was ripe for this. A vicious propaganda drive began, such as Poland had never witnessed before. An example of its vehemence may be given by quoting from an article by Father J. Pradzydski in one of his ND party's newspapers, Kurier Poznanski, demanding in November 1935 'the expulsion at a quickened pace of the entire tribe of an alien race'.31 The Effect on the Jews The Endek offensive that had started in 1931 had enormous success. Within a relatively short time discussion of the 'Jewish problem' took on a new dimension and the actual position of the Jews was profoundly changed. The popular appeal of anti-Semitism, and its significance in the contest for power, filled the Jews with horror. The humiliation of being daily vilified and abused, unfairly accused, and physically threatened is difficult to imagine by anyone fortunate enough not to have experienced it. By 1934, threats were replaced by physical assaults in the streets. Many Jews sought refuge in radical opinions, some fell into apocalyptic gloom. Yet, an appreciation of the extent of the danger from the fascist tide came too slowly. Politically, the Jews were quickly forced onto the defensive, which was not unwelcome to the government, even though the anti-Semitic campaign was also indirectly directed against itself. Even in 1932, instead of continuing to insist on their national demands, the Circle and other Jewish leaders were forced to speak up in defence of the most fundamental citizen'srights.As time went by, more and more emphasis was placed on security of life and property, and almost all the other wrongs were forgotten. (When, in 1935, income-tax rates, as well as other levies, such as the compulsory loans, were sharply raised, the Jewish leaders hardly seemed to notice.) For, apart from the Endeks' campaign, political changes in Europe caused a shift in priorities and standards:

30 31

Quoted in Sp. N., 1935, p. 482. These changes did not excape the attention of the anti-Semites in Poland, as Studnicki certifies: 'Deprivation ofJews of their political rights in Germany, creates new scales of assessing norms relating to Jews; norms that five or six years ago would have shocked the international community, will appear today as very moderate'. (Cf. his, Sprawa zydowska, p. 64). These words must have been written not later than the turn of 1934, as in Poland in those days it took between one and two years to get a book published.

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when they compared their situation with that of the Jews in Germany, some Jews in Poland even reflected that their conditions were perhaps not so bad. 32 One thing the fascist campaign did not achieve - it did not reduce disunity among the Jews. Their leaders still could not stop their quarrels. An appeal to the Jewish population issued by the Jewish Circle at the time of the university riots in the autumn of 1931 said 'if only the shameless and merciless enemy does not find us split, and thus weakened. Never was there such an absolute and imperative need to close ranks as now . . , 33 But even when it came to protest against the atrocities in Germany, the Jewish leaders did it separately, as Zionists, Bundists, 'economic interests', etc. 34 After the brutal excesses in the spring of 1934, a united Jewish leadership (needless to say, excluding the Bund) was nearly achieved, mainly in order to organise some sort of selfdefence. But as soon as the terror stopped, the leaders involved separated, no less mutually discordant than before. That during all those years (and later) there was no organised Jewish self-defence was due mainly to these internal dissensions. Outside Jewish districts, from 1934 onwards, it was risky to walk, even for Jewish women and children. If the 'national' gangs ventured into Jewish residential districts, Jewish workers, shop assistants, and clerks sponstaneously came out to beat the attackers off, but there was no organised force to act in an emergency.35 An Effect on Government But probably the most important effect the fascist offensive had was on government opinion. Anti-Semitic elements, which the Sanacja did not, of course, lack, became anxious not to appear less 'patriotic' than the Endeks,

32 33

34

35

Cf. Sp. N., 1931, p. 653. The simultaneous protests in March and April 1933 also formed part of the inteiparty political contests. Cf. Sp. N., 1933, pp. 239-242. The author is, of course, aware of claims to the contrary that were made after the war, namely, that self-defence units were organised especially by the Bund. (Cf. e. g., Leonard Rowe, "Jewish Self-Defence: A Response to Violence", a chapter in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Studies on Polish Jewry 1919-1939, New York 1974, pp. 105 ff.) In his study based mainly on 'oral history' (p. 106) and confined to Warsaw, Professor Rowe claims that the Bund had organised self-defence units, that they resisted and repelled attacks on Jews, and that in the eyes of the Bund these units were more than a defence organisation; they were 'the nucleus and the vanguard of the revolution that was bound to come' (p. 108). All one can now say is that if such self-defence units existed and fought off the fascist attackers, then it was an exceptionally well-kept secret until the 1960s. The 'Haganah' and the 'Irgun Zvai Leumi' organisations decided not to use their militarily trained units for Jewish self-defence in Poland.

Ibid., 1934, p. 89.

1112

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and the latter succeeded in setting the pace for the political thinking and actions of the government. It was a classic case of how a small but militant minority can, in opposition, influence government policy. Most of the Polish governments' infamous decisions concerning the Jews and other minorities were made as a result of pressure from the Endeks and the O N R . However, with regard to the Jews' most vital need - i. e., security of life and property - the government's record in the years under review here was not bad, although it was getting progressively worse. More and more often the police failed to give proper and timely protection to the attacked Jews, while, at least in public, the government turned a blind eye to what was going on. It was unwilling to risk losing popularity, of which it had precious little, and to provide the Endeks with an opportunity, which they never missed, to accuse the government of sympathy for the Jews. This, and the feeling that they enjoyed the silent approval of a large part of the population, encouraged the fascists. Yet, in all those years, the government, in part for its own good reasons, still formally stood by its recognition of the Jews' right to equality before the law, and condemned the use of violence. Answering an anti-Jewish motion by the Endeks in the Sejm, the minister of home affairs, Boleslaw Pieracki, said in February 1934: Ί must repeat... that any physical manifestations in the racial and nationalist struggle will not be tolerated . . . In the past, Poland had the ability to co-exist with, and to include other racial tribes and nationalities. It would be fatal for the country to adopt the concept of racialism n o w . . . 3 6 In January 1934, the government got through the Sejm committee (misusing the momentary absence of opposition members to get the required two-thirds majority) the draft of a new constitution, which finally passed through parliament in April 1935. This constitution, however undemocratic (for it fully acknowledged the elitist principle), was quite emphatic on the recognition of equal civil rights for Jews and other minorities.37 (Some Jewish writers

36

37

A n English translation of the 1935 constitution is appended to the book by Robert Machray, The Poland of Pilsudski; Constitution de la Republique de Pologne du 23 Avril 1935, Warsaw 1935, with comments by Micha] Potulicki, and M . Waclaw Makowski, includes a summary of the law, passed on July 8,1935, concerning elections of the president, the Sejm and the senate. See also, Andrzej Ajnenkiel, Sejmy i konstytuqe w Polsce, 1919-1939, Warsaw 1968, esp. pp. 113 ff. Ibid., 1933, p. 709. At the same time, the Z O C E P council resolved finally to break political contacts with other national minorities, {ibid) B y then, the German minority in Poland was already mostly supporting the N a z i regime in Germany, and in 1934, also the Ukrainians, viz., one important party, the Ο U N (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists), which was patronised by Germany - its leader Colonel Konowalec was then residing in Berlin - started

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1113

have said that, ironically under the circumstances, it was even more emphatic than the previous constitution on this point.) Closer to Government In the circumstances, most ordinary Jews felt that the government was their best shield against the fascists. Even the reluctant Circle leaders began to realise this. To prepare their followers for this shift in policy, the new president of ZOCEP, A. Hartglas, told the organisation's council meeting in November 1933, not long after Grünbaum's departure from Poland, that they 'must abandon opposition to the government and move to serious co-operation with it'. 38 As it turned out, this shift in policy was never really accomplished, but meanwhile this about-turn in policy needed to be explained to the people. Thus the economic depression diverted peoples' attention from politics; the 'Jewish masses' were apathetic and unwilling to take up political struggle. In fact, at about that time, polarization of Jewish opinion, mainly to the left, began. Before the municipal elections that took place (mosdy) in June 1934, the conference of ZOCEP not only rejected a common list with the government, but also discouraged one with other Jewish parties. In central and eastern Poland, the Jews went to the ballots as split as ever, and all this while in the streets fascist gangs were on the rampage. In Galicia, a common list of Zionists, the Aguda and the 'business interests' was achieved in many places; in others, even the moderate General Zionists appeared on a united government list, which was a real change of heart, representing a repudiation of past policy. But just when belatedly many Jews were turning towards the government, the latter was losing interest in their cooperation. By 1934, anti-Jewish sentiments gained a broad popular basis. The Jews became a political liability, and their votes were no longer worth any attention, since at least the Sejm elections were no longer free. The Jews were, in any case, already disarmed, for they now depended on the government for their protection from the fascists. In January 1934, Poland signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany which was tantamount to an alliance, provoking strong Jewish protests, and

38

terrorist attacks on Jews in south-eastern Poland. Yet Griinbaum went on to advise Polish Jews to form a common front with other national minorities, in an article written in December 1934. (Cf. his Milchamot Yehudei Polania 1913-1940, Tel Aviv 1941, p. 371) Cf. e. g. Piotr Wlodarski, Zagadnienia namdowosciawe w Polsce Odrodzonej, Warsaw 1936, p. 33.

1114

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counter-accusations, even from government circles, of disloyalty to the state.39 This alliance was bound to influence Poland's home affairs. The next year, Pilsudski was to die, and the rule of the 'colonels' was to come to an end, concluding an era of Poland's history - not least for the Jews. [ . . . ] The Endeks After May 1935 While the Jewish parties were all unwilling to accept the reality of the situation, and each party considered that it alone could offer salvation, a persistent campaign of unrestrained incitement of the Jews was going on. Leading the field were the Endeks, who saw the death of Pilsudski, and the unrest in its aftermath, as their great opportunity to reach power. The hour had struck, they decided, to exploit the 'Jewish problem' in full. Its solution now seemed possible in a 'democratic' way, i. e., through the participation of the majority of the people. The minds of the people were to be won by the appeal of 'direct action'. Propaganda would incite action and then justify it. In the summer of 1935, as part of this strategy, the fascists launched the Tblksfront' bogey. This term had been used to describe the alliance between the French communists and socialists that was forged in 1934. In Poland, the illegal Communist Party made similar proposals to the PPS and the Bund. 40 But the word 'Folksfront (note the Yiddish form stressed by the letter ' F ) as used in the fascists' propaganda referred to an alleged alliance between the communists and the Jews. This propaganda was reinforced by the use of another intensely promoted term - the 'Zydokomund (Judeo-commune), which also created the spectre of a merging of identity between the two. All references to either the Jews or the communists were made in this form, and the people were made to believe that all communists were Jews, and that all Jews were communists. By assaulting a Jew you were merelyfightingcommunism, for the evil and danger

39

40

While the PPS rejected this proposal outright (through the party later reached a 'nonaggression' agreement with the communists), the Bund got involved in serious negotiations, which were provisionally concluded in August 1934, providing an agreement to co-operate, while affirming the existing differences of outlook, and the organisational and political independence of the contracting parties. The agreement was, however, not signed, because the communists went back on the terms, and the two parties reverted to their usual mutual recrimination (see, Sp. N., 1934, pp. 640-643). A detailed account of these negotiations (in a slightly different version) is given by Jan Kowalski, Trudne lata, Warsaw 1966, pp. 601 if. Cf. M. Drozdowski, Polityka gospodarcza rzadupolskiego 1936-1939, Warsaw 1963, pp. 278279. The lecture 'mysteriously' found its way into government files, from which Professor Drozdowski quotes.

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1115

of which Poles needed no explanation. Some help in this propaganda campaign was provided by the government itself, which conveniently blamed the communists for the widespread dissatisfaction and the strikes of peasants and workers, which was only to a small degree true. In short, the people of Poland were told by the fascists, that their country was threatened by a plot of the 'Zydokomuna' - or, put more blundy, a 'Jewish threat'. By 1936, the Endeks were preparing to seize power, and its 'Folksfront' and 'Zydokomuna' slogans were the main plank of its programme on which its hopes of success were pinned. A secret lecture to party workers, delivered by the deputy leader of the Endek party, T. Bielecki, makes this clear.41 The Endek campaign of hostility towards the Jews was not limited to these slogans, but the Endeks' propaganda had a limited audience - the party's leading daily newspaper, the Dziennik Narodowy of Warsaw, had a peak circulation of no more than about 30,000 copies. A much larger circulation was enjoyed by Catholic Church periodicals, which backed up the Endek propaganda. Samoobmna Namdu ('Self-Defence of the Nation' - from the Jews, of course), a paper published by the diocese of Poznan, had, for example, a circulation of one million copies in the late 1930s. 'Probably in no other country was there such a massive "catholic" "Jew-devouring" literature as in Poland', concludes Myslek in his earlier mentioned study.42 Also Church policy changed in 1935: 43 in the post-Pilsudski era it tried to increase its say in state affairs - which met, sometimes openly, with government resistance. The Church, too, increasingly referred to the communist threat and the alleged 'godlessness' of the Jews. [ . . . ]

41

42 43

Wieslaw Myslek, Kosciölkatolicki w Polsce w latach [The Catholic Church in Poland in the Years 1918-1939], Warsaw 1966, p. 265. Ibid., p. 552. This is confirmed by the contemporary Jewish observer, Leib Jaffe, Bishlichut am. Edited by Benjamin Jaffe, Jerusalem 1971, p. 197. As for a non-Jewish observer, see: On March 15,1936, in the absence of Colonel Beck, his under-secretary of state, Count Szembek, briefed Koscialkowski on foreign policy matters. Towards the end, wrote Szembek the same day in his diary, 'the Premier attacked very violently the draft law concerning ritual slaughtering. He emphasized that its motives were . . . to seek popular support of the people. Although the proposed law contradicts the Constitution, the government must limit itself to making amendments, for there is no lawyer who would dare, in view of the anti-Semitic disposition of the majority of the population, to confirm this contradiction. The Sejm is to such a degree terrorised, that if a deputy would vote against this law, he would be generally accused of having been paid by the Jews . . . Raising the issue of slaughtering is politically very helpful to the Endeks [who were not represented in this Sejm] . . . it threatens to cause difficulties in our foreign relations . . . It could even bring to a stop foreign capital inflow to Poland . . . ' Cf. Szembek, Dianusz ι tekijana Szembeka, [Szembek Diary], vols. 1-3, edited by T. Komarnicki, vol. 4 edited by J. Zaranski, London 1964-1972, ΠΙ, pp. 129-130.

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The Government Programme Winds blowing with such strength could not fail to influence government policy. By the turn of the year 1935, the anti-Semitic tide was practically uncontrollable.44 But the full effect of the undeniably successful propaganda of the extreme nationalists was not felt until a new government was installed in May 1936. This government, which liked to be called a 'strong' government, professed to continue Pilsudski's tradition, but in practice departed from it in many ways. It was more authoritarian and, because it did not have sufficient popular support, resorted to some extremist solutions borrowed from the fascists. The idea of a national state with harsher policies towards the national minorities (and, above all, towards the Jews), was gaining popularity. Although the government had no single dictator (in fact, it was split, as explained earlier, between the 'generals', the 'colonels', and the civilian 'liberals'), the 'Führer' principle of a 'single directed will' was put forward by the new leader, SmiglyRydz. He personified the militaristic character of the new regime, which, because of the growing international tension, could easily justify subordinating almost everything to the needs of the army. Defence and extreme nationalism were promoted as the rallying points around which the new regime hoped to unite the recalcitrant majority of the people. The Ozon To consolidate the Poles around the nationalist programme of the government, Smigly-Rydz, with the support of Moscicki, tried to found the Camp of National Unity (OZN, but better deprecatingly known as Ozon - in English, ozone), which was to replace the old BBWR. This represented a return to a political party basis for the government, but in a new totalitarian sense. As leader of the new party, Rydz nominated one of his closest friends, Colonel Adam Koc. On February 21, 1937, the Ideological Declaration of the O Z N was made public. The emphasis was on nationalism, defence, Catholicism, and the 'single directed will'. The economic section included promises to do 'all the right things', and was clearly designed to satisfy the aspirations of every social group. But all the promises were in purely abstract 44 45

Andrzej Grodek, Historia gospodarcza. Polski, XIX i XX wiek, 3rd ed., Warsaw 1962, p. 339. Cf. JanuszJedrzejewicz, Wsluzbie idei, London 1962, p·. 237. The author was prime minister in 1933-1934. In a note to the posthumously published memoirs, his brother, Waclaw, a former minister of education, says that Koc's declaration, when disclosed in advance of a meeting of old-guard Pilsudski-ites, did not receive one voice of support.

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1117

terms. 'Its [the programme's] only concrete thesis', noted a Polish economist years later, 'was to preach economic anti-Semitism'.45 Indeed, the section on the Jews, which was the centrepiece of the whole declaration, is said to have shocked the old Pilsudski-ites.46 They believed that the declaration, which was generally interpreted as a bid for the support of the Endeks, went too far to placate them. In direct reference to Jews, the declaration, reminiscent of the earlier outlined policy of the Catholic Church, condemned 'arbitrary and brutal anti-Jewish acts', but referred to 'the instinct of cultural self-defence' (a euphemism for the cultural isolation of the Jews) and to 'the tendency of the Polish people toward economic independence' (and to a national economy) as 'natural'. But the Endeks were still not satisfied, criticising the declaration for its failure to include the racial principle and a commitment to deprive the Jews of civil rights. These criticisms were, however, more tactical than real. Indeed, for some fascist youth, the new Ozon platform was sufficiendy attractive, and the 'moderate', so-called ABC, wing of the O N R which had formally been outlawed since June 1934, joined the Ozon's youth organisation, which put the O N R leader, B. Rutkowski, at its head. The twelve months following the foundation of the Ozon were the most perilous to the Jews. This was the year when direct action reached its peak. 47 It was, perhaps, partly for this reason that Jewish reaction to the Ozon declaration was muted, though this partly reflected a strange sense of nonchalance towards danger. Bernard Singer, a leading Jewish journalist, close to the Bund, commented that the Ozon declaration, by making anti-Semitism a state enterprise, would ensure that it went bankrupt. This lightheartedness expressed the feelings of many Jews, who thought the Ozon declaration was a bluff. By 1937, the Jews of Poland were convinced that it is deeds not words that matter. More Discriminating Measures Yet to every thinking man it should have been clear that the new policy of striving towards a 'national' economy would mean more discrimination against the Jews, and increased pressure for them to emigrate (see next

46

47

On January 24,1938, Skladkowski said in the Sejm: 'Conflicts in the Jewish matter intensified last year and led to a number of symptoms that the government, considering that every citizen has the right to peaceful life, treats as manifestations of ordinary barbarism', cf. Sp. N., 1938, p. 98. Cf. Sp. N., 1936, p. 291.

1118

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chapter). The fascists naively considered that the best way to get the Jews to emigrate was the economic boycott, towards which all governments from 1933 onwards turned a blind eye. But shortly after the 'strong' government took office, a significant change took place in this respect, as a result of a curious incident (which reminds one that too much protesting can be selfdefeating). Skladkowski, in this inaugurating speech to the Sejm, said that, among other things, his government was determined that nobody 'should be wronged' in Poland. 'An honest host does not allow anybody to be harmed in his house. Economic struggle - yes [awszem]! But no harm'.48 At these words, the Jewish deputies rose to protest, as did later the Jewish press, that the awszem was a call to an economic boycott of the Jews. The government did not deny this, for a denial would have been politically dangerous; and, in the circumstances, lack of a denial was no proof that the government initially referred to boycott. Jewish opinion was divided. Business and other moderate leaders denied the imputation, probably hoping in this way to counter the results of the protests.49 In his memoirs, Skladkowski says that the awszem was not a call to boycott - he had merely intended to ward off the extremists.50 Reading this passage of his speech carefully, it seems now that the moderates were right. In any case, the awszem would probably have passed unnoticed, if attention had not been drawn to it by the protests. Whatever the truth, which we shall probably never know, economic boycott of the Jews became formal government policy from June 4, 1936 (the date of Skladkowski's speech). In the following years, a number of new administrative laws and regulations (some of which were mentioned in earlier chapters) began to restrict the Jews in the performance of various trades and professions. From about the year 1935, Catholic professional people formed exclusive unions on a platform of fighting Jews in these professions.51 It was mainly these unions that initiated calls for racial segregation of membership in general professional associations, and for legal restrictions on their Jewish members. The peculiar way these restrictions were later applied to the various professions, deserves mention. The legislation in question was discriminatory in purpose, and depressing in its effects, but it was not openly anti-Semitic. (For example, in May 1938, a law

48 49 50 51

Ibid. Cf. Felicjan Slawoj-Skladkowski, Nie ostatnie stowo oskarzonego, London 1964, p. 226. Cf. Myslek, op. at., p. 418. In June 1939, the association of Engineers decided to exclude from membership even Christians of Jewish descent or who were married to persons of Jewish origin. Cf. Heint, 27 June 1939.

Anti-Semitism and Jewish Economic/Social Conditions

1119

empowered the minister of justice to close the lists of admission to the bar for a definite period of time, but left him free to make exceptions at his discretion. The authorities frankly admitted that the minister would only except nonJews). In the years 1937 and 1938, the various professional associations themselves adopted, or were in the course of adopting, policies requiring members to be Aryans. 52 But, by then, exclusion of Jews from employment by central and local government was virtually total. [ . . . ] The '13 Theses' of Ozon Indeed, whatever their differences, the one thing that unified the entire Polish right, i. e., the large majority of the population, was its anti-Semitism. In spite of the swing of the pendulum of power away from the extreme right, and a generally calmer internal situation, as a result of which physical excesses against the Jews considerably declined in 1938, verbal and political attacks did not decline. The most outstanding assault of the year were the so-called '13 Theses of the OZN' published in May. This referred to a 13-paragraph special resolution of the Ozon Central Council concerning the Jews. 53 This resolution was couched in terms that were stronger than anything pronounced before by a Polish government. Although it continued to condemn acts of violence against the Jews, the latter were declared to be part of an 'extra-State group, with separate national aims', from which followed the most damning conclusion that 'the Jewish element weakens the normal development of Polish national and state forces', and, therefore, hindered the realisation of Polish national aspirations. It recommended reduced participation of Jews in all branches of economic activity and their mass emigration. The '13 Theses' once again revived the Jews' sense of outrage, producing a wave of protest. Another wave followed in October, when, in a speech that pretended to define modern and specifically Polish nationalism, the 'liberal' vice-premier Kwiatkowski referred to Jews in terms similar to the '13 Theses'. Government demands for the mass departure of Jews from Poland continued well into 1939.

52 53

For the full text of the Ί 3 Theses', see Sp. N., 1938, pp. 278-279. A most unexpected confirmation comes from Grünbaum. In his Milchamot he included a letter sent to Skladkowski in January 1939 in which he says: Ί am ready to declare that antiSemitism of the German or even Hungarian or Italian type did not take control in Poland. Your government energetically defends Poland before the strong and unceasing attacks of the anti-Semitic parties that would like to follow in the steps of Germany' (p. 362).

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Appraisal of Government But these were merely words; and however much the Poles wanted the Jews to depart, these various governmental pronouncements sounded worse than they actually were. Although offensive and potentially dangerous, anti-Jewish statements in public were intended to establish the government's nationalist credentials, and to serve as a stick to beat the fascists. Anti-Semitism in Poland was not inspired by the authorities from above, but came from the bottom. It was a popular sentiment of such force in the late 1930s that every government had to give lip-service to it even if it wished to contain ist. This seems to have been misunderstood by most post-war Jewish writers on the subject, perhaps because people are apt to judge a nation by its government, although some writers may have wished to perpetuate a distorted picture deliberately. For the only way such writers could defend the policy of those parties that saw the future of the Polish Jews in Poland, and there alone, was to argue that their distress was transient, depending simply on a change in government. These writers' opinions are now merely of historical interest, but the fact that the same mistaken view was taken by pre-war Jewish leaders outside Poland had serious repercussions, for it encouraged them (or, at least, provided them with an excuse) to do nothing to help the Jews, on the grounds that there was no hope of serious exchanges of views with the last Polish government. Most Jewish leaders in Poland shared this view, but apparendy without conviction.54 Of course, apartfrombeing undemocratic and anti-Semitic, the last Polish government did include some near-fascists, and its policies and public demeanour encouraged, even if not intentionally, anti-Semitic agitation. Certainly it set a bad example to low-rank officials. But, equally, it must be stressed that in its pronouncements the government decried the use of violence against the Jews.55 Under this government, the Jews enjoyed formally (and to a considerable extent practically) the protection of the law; no openly anti54

55

None of the major outrages against the Jews were inspired by the government. In May 1937, after the pogrom in Brest-Litevsk, the government ordered an inquiry, and suspended the local prefect, and moved a senior official at the provincial governor's office to another post (cf. Jerzy Tomaszewski, 'Dwa dokumenty ο pogromie w Brzesciu', Biuktyn Zydowsktego Instytutu Historycznego, March 1964, p. 66). This indicates that part of the problem was insufficient governmental authority at places distant from the centre, as well as rampant anti-Semitism at the grassroots, including the police. Reports that Poland prepared Nuremberg-type legislation in 1938, which, it was later argued, was put off only as a result of the dramatic change in the country's external situation, were disseminated by some western diplomats, notably by Anthony Drexel Biddle, the American

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Semitic laws were passed (and, contrary to some opinions, no such legislation was prepared after the right-wing Rydz-Koc faction gave in); 56 and, notwithstanding special circumstances (described below), the government showed more mercy towards the Jewish refugees from Germany than many western democracies in 1938. Expellees from Germany A decree on the control and re-affirmation of Polish passports issued abroad had the avowed aim of withdrawing such documents from Jews living abroad. The decree was to come into force on October 29, 1938. Three days earlier, the German ambassador in Warsaw, H. A. von Moltke, demanded that the decree should be cancelled within two days, otherwise all Jewish citizens of Poland would be expelled from Germany before the decree came into force. 57 The next day Poland replied that the decree could not be revoked, but that the passport 'control' would apply only to persons wishing to enter Poland.58 On October 28, Germany expelled to Poland about 15,000 Jews holding Polish citizenship, though many had been born in Germany, some even of Christian mothers. A number slipped over the border, but most of the expellees were kept for several days or weeks in the 'no man's land' between the two countries, or at hastily set up camps at the frontier point of Zbaszyn. The conditions there were, naturally, primitive and the suffering was great. Eventually, at the beginning of November, the Polish government showed enough decency to allow into Poland, in stages, the homeless, wretched people - leaving their care, however, exclusively to the Jews. The PolishJewish community rose to the occasion and showed once again its proverbial

56 57 58

ambassador to Poland at the time (cf. e. g., Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died', London 1968, p. 232). But the informants of these diplomats were mainly leaders of the Polish opposition. There is no evidence in the literature published until now that the above reports were soundly based. Apart from the victory of the 'liberals', these reports were also unlikely to be true because it was too hurtful to Polish national pride to copy foreign models of legislation, especially when the same objective, as explained earlier, could be achieved by the 'Polish method', i. e., selective application of general legislation. This view is supported by the eighth of the '13 Theses' of the Ozon. Cf. Szembek Diary, op. dt., IV, p. 329. For the text of the decree, see p. 447. Ibid., p. 331. Cf. Sp. N., 1934, p. 89. Notwithstanding the initial shock, Jewish public opinion gave the remark the same flippant treatment it usually gave to anti-Semitic threats, ascribing Colonel Miedzinski's caustic remark to possible conjugal difficulties with his Jewish-born wife. Yet in his brochure, 'Uwagi ο sprawie zydowskiej' (Warsaw, 1937), Miedzinski, the last speaker of the Polish senate, depicts himself as a racialist.

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hospitality. Within hours, a General Aid Committee for the refugees was formed, taking command of all aspects of relief work, through some 800 ad hoc local aid committees, i. e. a committee in almost every township inhabited by Jews. All the money needed was raised locally from private Jewish donations, supplemented by a special levy imposed on Kehila taxpayers. All the refugees found rooms in Jewish homes throughout the country, and by the spring of 1939 most of them were sufficiently absorbed within the Jewish economy to support themselves. This considerate response of the Polish authorities was much less motivated by the formal Polish citizenship of the expellees, than it reflected the change for the better in the government's attitude towards the Jews. For it must be remembered that the expulsion took place after Hitler's triumph at Munich and the partition of Czechoslovakia (which, incidentally, created a Jewish dilemma that caused the parties of therightto express, in more or less guarded terms, support for Poland's disastrous action against the betrayed Czechs), and several days after the Nazis made their first territorial demands on Poland. Another indication of the government's changed attitude towards the Jews was provided when Skladkowski, the prime minister, received three Jewish delegations (two of members of parliament and one of the 'Hechalutz') within ten days in December 1938. Nothing similar had happened before during his term of office. As soon as political tension between Poland and Germany began to rise, anti-Semitism, on the surface, began to decline drastically. By then, even the 'national' youths were demonstrating against the Germans as often as they were assaulting the Jews. Compared with the preceding years, a deceptive calm descended on the Jews. [. . .] The 1920s were relatively tolerable years. Political pressure on the Jews to leave Poland did not develop before the calamity of the world depression. While the departure of the Jews from Poland (or, at least, some of them) had always been a long-term goal of the National Democrats, they did not present this demand categorically before 1931, when they embarked on their new strategy of making the 'Jewish problem' a decisive element in the struggle for power. Their demands rapidly increased after the Nazis came to power in Germany. Before that, the Sanacja, which had ruled the country since 1926, never broached this question in public. The government's views, or at least their interpretation by the Jews, is well illustrated by the shock the Jews registered when a prominent government back-bencher and close aide of Pilsudski, Colonel B. Miedzinski, expressed in the Sejm in February 193459 'deep regret that there are so many Jews in Poland'. 59

Petit Annmrre, 1939, p. 52.

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Indeed, the studied silence of the government in the early 1930s was interpreted as a refusal to take notice of the Endek demands. But gradually the atmosphere changed. Prominent government supporters started to air their sentiments in public, and attention was drawn to the number, and the alleged rapid growth, of the Jewish population, followed by demands for its restriction. Inspiration and encouragement came from Nazi Germany, whose example most Poles took as a golden opportunity to get rid of their own Jews. Indeed this view was no longer confined to the right or centre - in a policy declaration in December 1935, the radical peasants also claimed that largescale Jewish emigration was essential, and even the Polish Socialist Party envisaged far fewer Jews sharing a future socialist paradise in Poland (see later). When the 'strong' government of Skladkowski took over in 1936, large-scale emigration of the Jews became a major plank of its programme. But more than anything else, it was the continuous pressure of grave domestic conditions which brought about the change in government policy. To understand what happened, it may be useful, even at the risk of being pardy repetitive, to recapitulate the facts. Every year, before the First World War, nearly a million Poles found their way abroad, two-thirds as seasonal workers. Immediately after the war, this mass movement of Polish peasants to western Europa was resumed, while nearly half a million emigrated overseas between 1919 and 1929.60 When the Great Depression came, more than half of the emigrants of the 1920s (excluding Jews) returned home, and in each year between 1930 and 1936 repatriates outnumbered new emigrants. Meanwhile, the crisis raised unemployment to about 50 per cent in the villages and about 35 per cent in the towns, which was explained as being due to 'overpopulation'. However simplistic it may now seem, this explanation appeared irrefutable at the time. Social unrest was mounting, and the fascists opposition was growing stronger; and in 1932 and in the four following years the situation was such that Poland was constantly on the brink of collapse. This was the background to the government's emigration policy (and to its many other repressive actions). In spite of all these profund economic and social changes, and the demands for Jewish emigration, the Jewish leaders remained complacent and inactive, to an extent now difficult to believe.

60

Cf. Gilbert Maroger, L'Europe et la question coloniale, revendications coloniales allemandes, aspirations coloniales polonaises, Paris 1938. About Poland's colonial aspirations, see part 2, chap. Π, resp. pp. 263-264. See also, R. L. Buell, Poland: Key to Europe, London 1939, pp. 266 ft

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Emigration, Colonies and Bluff The Polish authorities were naturally very apprehensive. The reversal of emigration not only increased population pressure, but also brought about a sharp reduction in remittances from abroad, which during the 1920s had been by far the most important source of invisible foreign-exchange earnings. Indeed, growing balance-of-payments difficulties prompted the development of Poland's so-called 'active' foreign policy. Emigration, assigned to the sole care of Colonel Beck's Foreign Ministry, became, along with the issue of colonies and raw-materials, a vital part of this, perhaps inevitably, doublefaced policy. For the problem was to find oudets not just for Jewish emigrants from Poland, but, perhaps, more urgendy, for the millions of 'surplus' peasants and other destitute Poles. They were as much, if not more, eager than the Jews to leave the country in search of a means of living. But the government could not admit internally that Poles needed to emigrate, or needed foreign aid for that matter, for this would have offended the peoples' sense of national pride. Thus, at home, the problem of emigration was presented as being confined to the Jews. Following their departure, it was implied, the poor Poles would immediately find jobs and comfort (although in the late 1930s, the total number of gainfully employed and self-employed Jews was no larger than two years' natural growth of the non-Jewish working-age population, all of whom, year after year, reinforced the ranks of the unemployed). Away from home, Poland sought international support, suggesting schemes of assisted migration and settlement abroad. And, when these schemes proved fruidess, and unemployment continued to rise, the government turned all its attention on the Jews, and it proposed grandiose schemes to divert public opinion from the sombre present and even bleaker prospects for the future. [...] In the summer of 1937, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepared a document known as 'Colonial Theses of Poland'. This said that 'Poland must possess colonial territories in common with other great powers of Europe', and stressed the importance of emigration for the solution of the country's 'chronic unemployment'.61 In September of that year, at the 18th annual session of the League of Nations, Poland formally requested, for itself and other over-populated countries, economic concessions in colonial areas and a say in their administration through the Mandates Commission. The demand for colonies by a country at Poland's stage of development was grotesque, and the subject would not deserve mention here, were it not 61

Cf. Drozdowski, op. cit., pp. 86 and 175, quoting from documents of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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for its bearing on Jewish life at the time. In October 1936, at a meeting of the Economic Commission of the League of Nations, Poland's chief delegate, Professor Adam Rose, was so ashamed to mention his country's aspirations with regard to colonies that he defied Beck's specific orders. (The next day a lower-rank delegate brought up the question.)62 Beck himself did not take the matter seriously. The French ambassador to Poland recounts how, on one occasion in 1937, when discussing Poland's colonial campaign with Colonel Beck, he was interrupted by the Colonel, who said: 'It seems that I guess your thoughts, Mr. Ambassador: you think that more urgent tasks are facing Poland and we should rather start with colonising our own country'. 63 And in his memoirs Beck ruefully reflects: 'we aped great colonial plans and the violent forms of an anti-Semitic movement'.64 This disapproval in one breath, as it were, of the colonial and anti-Semitic movements was not fortuitous. No one knew better than Beck that both had common origins and objectives. Both were in a way expressions of Poland's desperate conditions and nationalist tendencies, and were intended to provide popular slogans to unite the people around the government. Thus, rising pressure at home, rapid progress of the anti-Semitic movement, and the political decline of the Jews, enabled successive Polish governments to sharply raise their targets, from a 'rational' reduction of the number of Jews (especially economically 'superfluous' Jews) in 1934, to the formal adoption of the 'national state' as an ultimate goal in the summer of 1936. At the same time various plans as to how the Jews could be made to emigrate were discussed, but no one had any idea how to put them into practice. (Hence the decision to seek a solution on the plane of international partnership.) Almost simultaneously with the earlier mentioned 'Colonial Theses', which were emphatic about the need for Jewish emigration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs prepared a major study dealing with the entire problem of Jewish emigration in relation to Poland's over-population, its defective social structure, its lack of raw-materials, etc., in the summer of 1937. 65 Its conclusion was that hundreds of thousands of Jews must leave Poland; there is no other solution for the Jewish problem. A year later, the fourth of the '13

62 63

64 65

Cf. Pobog-Malinowski, op. cit., p. 813. L. Noel, Agresja niemiecka na Polsky (translation of L'agressioti allemande centre la Pologne Une ambassade a. Vanawie 1935-1939, Warsaw 1966, p. 148. Jozef Beck, Final Report, London 1957, p. 132. Cf. J. Zieminski, Problem emigracji zydowskiej [The problem of Jewish emigration], Warsaw 1937. This book summarises the said Foreign Ministry study, of which the author, under his real name of Jan Wagner, was a leading participant.

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Theses' of OZON said: 'The solution to the Jewish problem in Poland can be achieved above all by the most considerable reduction of Jews in the Polish state'.66 Frequent demands for Jewish emigration was made by prominent government leaders well into 1939. But whatever other steps were taken to induce Jews to leave, no threats of forced expulsion were made by the government. And this, together with the fact that a feasible mass emigration plan did not exist and would in any case have been utterly prohibitive in cost, leads one to conclude that, however strong were Polish dreams to getridof the Jews (which the Nazis eventually fulfilled), the entire campaign - comprising hundreds of articles, pamphlets and speeches - which caused indescribable anguish and torment to its Jewish victims, was mainly a political manoeuvre, a mere psychological diversion from the real problems that faced the Polish people. The view that the emigration drive was mere window-dressing gets further supportfromthe so-called 'Madagascar Plan'. There are conflicting views as to the origin of this plan: it has been suggested by Polish sources that the island, then a French colony, was offered for Polish settlement by the French government, but it is more likely that the proposal was made by Colonel Beck, with polite but uncommitted French approval (just as the French foreign minister, Yvon Delbos, recognized in principle Poland's colonial demands, providing Colonel Beck with one of his greatest foreign policy 'achievements'). Whichever view is right, it was the Polish government, who in the spring of 1937 sent a commission to Madagascar to look into the possibilities of settlement there. The commission, led by Major Lepecki, included the director of JEAS in Poland, Leon Alter, and a colonisation expert, Solomon Dyk of Tel-Aviv. Its report said that the island could absorb between 15,000 and 22,000 families as agricultural settlers at the cost of about $1,000 per family.67 Numerous government-sponsored books, articles and lectures presented 'Madagascar' (as the plan was popularly called) to the Polish public as a solution to the Jewish problem. To the Jews, 'Madagascar', however unreal, was deeply humiliating; and, perhaps for that reason, inspired many jokes and satirical songs. Colonel Beck himself is reported to have admitted privately that, with 'Madagascar', he intended only to arouse hope among the poor Jews.68 At the end of 1937, a communique of the official Polish Political Information said: 'The plan of emigration to Madagascar will enter the stage of

66 67

68

Sp. N., 1938, p. 278. Mieczyslaw B. Lepecki, Madagaskar, Kraj Ludzie Kolonizacja, Warsaw 1938, was a product of this mission. See esp., p. 233. Noel, op. at., p. 148.

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realisation, with the active support of the French authorities, after the necessary organisational work and investments have been carried out'.69 This was the end of 'Madagascar'; shortly after, the whole thing was forgotten. [ . . . ] Balance of a Decade 1929-1939 There are no precise answers to the questions: 'How large was the cost to the Jews of Poland's policy of increased economic nationalism in the 1930s?' or 'What were the practical results of picketing, the boycott and the countless restrictions placed on the economic activities of the Jews?' It is not possible to estimate what would have happened if these practices had not taken place. Nor can their consequences be isolated from other influences. Broadly speaking, there is little doubt that, compared with the years immediately before the increase in discrimination, the overall position of the Jews in the Polish economy did not significantly change: in fact, in some respects it improved. Manufacturing industry was hardly affected by the boycott and [ . . . ] as a result of its adaptability during the depression and some structural changes that took place in its wake, Jewish manufacturers substantially improved their share of total output. This conclusion is based on employment figures, which - however carefully estimated - may not have satisfied a sceptical reader. But there can be no similar doubts with regard to commerce, and the statistics on commerce given below should help to dispel any scepticism about the estimates for industry. Share of Sales Increased The evidence we need owes its existence to the increased discrimination against Jews. Beginning with the year 1938, all persons applying for an annual trading licence had to state their religion. As a result, detailed statistics on commerce, according to religion, are available for the year 1938.70 If these statistics are compared with data for 1929 the following is noted: (i) of commercial enterprises classified as large- and medium-sized (...) and owned by natural persons, the share of Jews increased from 45.3 per cent in 1929 to 55.3 per cent in 1938, although this increase was due not to a real improvement but to a relatively smaller decline - i. e., the number of Jewish enterprises fell by nearly 20 per cent, while the number of non-Jewish enter69 70

Cf. Sp. N„ 1937, p. 673. A. Hafftka, chap. 41 in Jews of Re-bom Poland Π, p. 349, referring to the article 'Polityka zydowska', which appeared in the Gazeta Warszawska on 19 July 1931.

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prises fell by nearly 45 per cent; (ii) of small-sized commercial enterprises (...)> the proportion of Jewish owners declined from 55.5 per cent in 1929 to 46.6 per cent in 1938 - i. e., the number ofJewish licence holders fell by more than 26,000, while the number of non-Jewish licence holders went up by about 48,000. There are, regrettably, no similar statistics about the distribution of sales, which in 1938 were not yet recorded on the basis of religion. But, if one considers that in 1929 combined sales of the large- and medium-sized commercial enterprises were thirteen times larger than those of corresponding small-sized establishments, there can be no doubt that, in terms of sales, the relative share of Jews in commerce significantly increased between the years compared.71 In fact, I would argue that the increase was even larger than the above figures suggest, because of a new element in trading practice.72 In the 1930s, the revocation of licences held by Jews to trade with state monopoly commodities, and the exclusion ofJews from tendering for public orders was intensified, and Jews were eventually excluded totally from tendering for public orders. To combat these restrictions, Jewish owners of large- and medium-sized firms began to trade under the names of Polish patrons. How many of these concealed Jewish enterprises existed in 1938 is not known, but there must have been several hundred of them. It was galling for the merchant to have to pay off his patron (often a colonel's wife), but it was apparendy worthwhile, and not all that different from the widespread practice in the West of having tided but inactive chairmen of company boards.

71

72

Nearly all Jewish Reformers, who only considered the crude numbers of registered businesses, claimed the opposite. Cf. Ignacy Schiper, Dzieje kandhi zydowskiego na ziemachpolskich [The History of Jewish Commerce in Poland], Warsaw 1937, pp. 623-625; Jacob Lestschinsky whose article in Die Yiddische Ökonomik, 1,1937, is quoted approvingly by Bernard D. Weinryb, Jewish Vocational Education, New York 1948, p. 119; see also Raphael Mahler, "Jews in Public Service and the Liberal Professions in Poland,1918—1939,"Jewish Social Studies, New York 1944, p. 141. In general terms (i. e. referring not only to commerce), Aleksander Kahn, Chairman of the JDC Committee for Poland, wrote in his Foreword to the Report on the Activities of the American Jewish JDCfor the year 1935, that in Poland 'more than 800,000 of Jews have now been ousted from their economic positions' (p. 25). The total number of economically 'active' (incl. unemployed) Jews in Poland was little more than 1 million. It was perhaps not so new if one takes a more extended look. A Polish law passed in the early eighteenth century exempted the gentry from paying customs duties. This law did not intend to discriminate against Jews, in whose hands the import trade was largely concentrated, but to privilege the gentry. Within a short time, the merchants were almost exclusively importing through the noble services of Polish landowners. Customs duties made up a lion's share of state revenue. Its sharp Μ is considered by many Polish historians as one of the main reasons for the tragic decline of Poland in the eighteenth century.

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That Jewish businessmen recovered from the economic crisis and held their ground well is also suggested by information of a different kind. Already, in 1936, Jewish contributions to the national Winter Relief Action fund accounted for at least one-third of all. Reports of the various Jewish charitable institutions for 1937 and 1938 show, besides the General Aid Committee for refugees from Germany which was formed late in 1938, substantially larger local donations than in earlier years.73 The share of the Jews' subscriptions to the Air Defence Loan of 1939 was estimated at about 35 per cent. 74 Similarly, though perhaps less reliably, it is estimated that their share in contributions to the National Defence Fund, also in 1939, was far more than the Jewish proportion of town-dwellers (peasants were naturally not among the subscribers to the various loans or relief funds): it equalled approximately the Jews' share in the semi-voluntary state loans of earlier years. In addition to record income tax payments, carried out more prompdy than usually because of the external situation, Jews subscribed about Z1 200 million to the 1939 loans. At the same time, the budgets of the largest Jewish communities (.Kehilot), which were increasinglyfinancedby Jewish middle-class tax payers, reached in 1938-1939 unprecedented levels. Even in those exceptional years, it is unlikely that Jewish merchants and manufacturers could have raised, apparently without too great a strain, such large funds, if they had not been in a financially sound position. Some Reasons for Survival How can one explain the relative improvement of the Jewish position in commerce, despite undeniable Polish attempts to weaken it? One reason is that these attempts were limited in scope, as the problem was approached by the authorities from the point of view of Polish interests. They were afraid that, if they eliminated the Jews from productive service abruptly, they would cause, if not chaos then, at least, a serious obstacle to the government's overriding objective, which was to improve the country's desperate economic condition. While the goal of a Polish 'national' economy was constantly on the authorities' mind, and the legal machinery for the task was on hand, the aim's accomplishment was a matter of long-term strategy. In short, the Poles were not yet ready. Indeed, there were not many qualified Poles to replace the Jews in large-scale trading, and during the depression hardly anyone not yet in commerce was anxious to try his hand in it. 73 74

Cf. esp. Sp. N., 1937, pp. 675-676; 1938, pp. 318-319 and 668 ff. Heint, 16/5/1939, p. 2.

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Secondly, though this is partly an extension of the previous reason, the Jews were generally more competitive; and, especially during the long years of the economic crisis, they showed greater powers of survival than others - not only in commerce but also in manufacturing and the crafts. When the cycle turned upwards, the merchants who were still in business, having survived the worst, took full advantage of recovery and indirectly benefited from state investments, public works and rising productivity. There is no doubt at all that what made Jewish merchants more competitive was not their own skill but the inefficiency of their rivals, especially the state enterprises, including the 'consumers' co-operatives'. Once the Jewish merchants were cheaper, the support of Polish firms became a cosdy affair.75 So that when, in the spring of 1939, in the face of rising defence needs, the government was forced to cut down nonessential expenditure, the subsidies which had been paid for several years to Polish wholesalers to keep them in business, were abolished.76 While the boycott, and the physical violence organised by right-wing elements and backed by Polish traders, had little effect on large commercial enterprises, there is no doubt that these practices harmed the small Jewish trader commercially as well as psychologically and physically. But it would be wrong to attribute much of the earlier mentioned drop in the number of Jewish traders between 1929 and 1938 to repressive measures. Even before, many of the small firms could hardly justify paying for a trading licence. During the Great Depression, some of them could hardly find the small price of the licence, and charities became less willing to provide it for them. 77 It was terror rather than boycott thatfinallysucceeded in driving out Jewish traders. Jewish stall traders at markets and fairs (category V of licence) were most exposed to physical attacks, and only 3,000 took out a licence in 1938, compared with 9,500 in 1929, while the number of non-Jewish stall traders dropped by a mere 2 per cent. The government tolerated direct action and boycott against the small Jewish traders, as distinct from large firms, because this did not endanger the economy - the petty traders were dispensable. And, however reprehensible it may have been to concentrate repression on the most unfortunate section of the Jewish population, politically it made good sense, for the objective was to

75

76 77

The support was not granted only to Polish merchants competing with Jews, but formed part of a general effort to Polonise the economy. Heint, 11/5/1939, p. 5. Cf. I. Bornstein, "Akcja zapomogowa dla kupcow i rzemieslnikow na oplacanie patentow," Zagadnienia Gospodarcze, 1935, nos. 1-2, pp. 101 ff.

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induce these 'superfluous'Jews to emigrate. Many of them would indeed have done so had they been able to. Yet, while it harmed the Jews, was the boycott and the terror a commercial success? Set against expectations, the results must have been very disappointing for the Poles. For, against a background of mass and ever-rising unemployment and a steady influx of peasants to the towns (where they were promised Jewish shops), the number of Polish small traders increased between 1929 and 1938 by only 48,000, of whom 10,000 were probably recruits from higher ranks of trade ( . . . ) . Thus, even at the end of 1938, when physical and political pressures against the Jews were greatly eased, nearly half the small traders were Jewish, and the ratio ofJewish to non-Jewish stall traders was 6:5. The main reason why, despite all the pressures, Jewish traders lost little ground was that their services were substantially cheaper than their competitors'. Thanks to hard work, low costs78 and low profit margins, and in response to the boycott, the traders reduced their profit margins even further, so that their competitiveness actually improved during those difficult years. This led in the 1930s to a change of methods in the fight against Jewish traders. In the distant past, lower profit margins had been prescribed for Jews in the belief that this would improve the competitive position of their rivals by driving Jews out of business. A law passed by the Polish General Sejm in 1643 allowed profit margins of 7 per cent for Christians but no more than 3 per cent for Jews. 79 This law was passed heedless of earlier Polish observations (one dating from the end of the fifteenth century) that similar decrees by various town authorities had led to Jews getting all the trade at the town fairs. Polish traders of the twentieth century were far more sophisticated, and in the late 1930s they persistendy demanded that Jews should legally be required to charge higher prices than non-Jews. But when some urban councils conceded to these demands and issued corresponding regulations, they were invariably set aside by a higher central authority, for such regulations ran counter to government policy to keep prices down. However, at least one township, Jedwabne in northern Poland, is on record as having kept in force for several weeks in 1939 a regulation requiring Jews to charge higher prices than Christians.80

78

79

80

Schiper, op. at., says that during the depression the average cost of a Jewish trader running his petty business was about 3 per cent of sales (p. 624). Cf.M. Balaban, Zydzi Iwowscy naprzelomie XVI i XVII wieku [The Jews of Lwow at the turn of the 16th c.], Lwow 1906, p. 458: see also Schiper, op. cit., p. 66. Heint, 12/6/1939, p. 5.

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In 1939, in those towns where physical violence had not forced Jews out of fairs and market places, Polish traders petitioned their local authorities to rescind regulations, which for several years had a required stalls to be located by religion, for this concentrated Jewish stalls in a recognizable section of the market place.81 The original purpose of the regulations had been to facilitate the boycott, but they had apparently had 'perverse' results, for the peasants went straight to that section of the market where the cheaper Jewish stalls were to be found. In the end, the price factor was usually decisive, indeed to the extent that, apart from a few fanatics, most Polish consumers ignored all other considerations, including pastoral letters, instructing them to boycott Jewish traders. But, although they endured pressure from the Poles, the Jewish traders were impoverished by the impact of the Great Depression. The Experience of Sundry Groups For Jews in other occupational groups the quality of information is less reliable, but it seems they suffered equally. For petty manufacturers, whose enterprises mushroomed between 1929 and 1938, the problem of making comparisons is complicated by a change in licensing regulations made in 1932. These required that even establishments with only one employee should be licensed. But the increase of nearly 60 per cent in the overall number of small manufacturing enterprises ( . . . ) between 1929 and 1938 is too large to be attributed entirely to this change in regulations. And it is clear that the increase in the number of petty manufacturers resulted largely from the pitiable fragmentation of industry during the depression. During the same period the number of artisans' licences rose by 80 per cent,82 but this rise reflected the tendency, following the New Industrial Law for previously 'illegal' artisans to acquire a licence. The new licences were virtually all issued in towns, so it may be assumed that they were mostly issued to Jews. Indeed, the Jewish artisans' associations estimated that in 1937 their members formed a majority of all licensed artisans. Whatever its formal classification, petty industry produced, both relatively and absolutely, a larger volume of consumer goods in 1938 than in 1929. But, relative to food prices, the prices that petty producers received for their products were lower. And the proportion of artisans who suffered from 81

Ibid.

82

Cf. Concise Statistical Yearbook [CSY], Ministry of Information of Poland, Sept. 1939-June 1941, pp. 41-44. Number of artisans' licences issued in 1937. No later figures published.

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insufficient demand for their services was also probably higher in 1938 than in 1929. Thus the craftsmen and home-workers who, along with the petty traders, accounted for nearly two-thirds of all 'active' Jews, were severely affected by the events of the 1930s. Compared with these semi-proletarians, the position of Jewish manual workers deteriorated substantially less over the corresponding period. For, although as a result of natural growth, internal migration, and inter-group movement more Jewish proletarians were without work in 1938 than in 1929, the number of gainfully employed Jewish manual workers increased. Moreover, their real wages fell less than the real earnings of the semi-proletarians fell. There is also no doubt that the proportion of Jews among Poland's gainfully employed manual workers was larger in 1938 than in 1929, although their wages fell by more than those of non-Jews. This was due to the pattern of employment: while overall real wages improved during the years considered, they fell slighdy in those branches and categories (i. e., size) of industry in which most Jews worked. Incidentally, thefactthat on the whole real wages improved was due only to the catastrophic fall in farm prices. In other words, agriculture, however backward and retrogressive, was supporting industrial recovery - the very opposite of what Jewish Reformers believed to have been the case. Gainfully employed salary earners were far more numerous and, in real terms, received substantially better pay in 1938 than in 1929. But, as with wage earners, unemployment among salary earners increased proportionally more than employment. The fortunes of Jews and non-Jews in this group markedly differed. The number of Jewish salary earners went up by less than the number of nonJewish ones, and, in contrast with the latter, their real earnings declined. There were two main reasons. Firstly, salaries in the public sector, which employed very few Jews, improved gready compared with those in the private sector. Secondly, Jewish salary earners were continously being degraded. In the late 1930s, about one in two of Jewish professional people were forced to gain their living in less skilled occupations than those for which they were qualified. And in general, Jews in the liberal professions, whether salaried for self-employed, were, because of the high stakes, prestige, and nature of the work, more exposed than any other occupational group to political repression. This, and the staggering rate of unemployment, were also reflected in growing political radicalism of the professional people in the 1930s. In any case, salary earners, let alone the liberal professions, formed two of the smallest Jewish occupational groups.

1134

Joseph Marcus

Of all Jewish income groups reviewed here, 'entrepreneurs and capital owners' was the one that proportionally increased most between 1929 and 1938. Conclusions Having examined carefully all the information that I could gather, I propose the following conclusions, which vary in degree of firmness. The real (i. e. at 1929 prices) national income of Poland in 1938 was about 8 per cent higher than in 1929, but was shared by about 12 per cent larger population. Excluding the farm sector, the rise in the national income was around 15 per cent, and the rise in the urban population only slightly less (about 14 per cent). But it would probably be wrong to conclude that the urban population was not worse off in 1938 compared with 1929. There was a decline in standards of housing and social services, and incomes were probably distributed less equally in 1938 than they were in 1929. With regard to the Jews during the years compared, although their proportion of the total population fell slightly, their share of the total national income substantially increased (from 13,33 per cent to almost 15 per cent), but within the non-farm economy their share probably remained unchanged. As the proportion of Jews in the urban population significantly declined, their per caput income must have, at least comparatively, improved. On the other hand, inequality of income distribution among urban Jews probably increased more than it did among urban non-Jews. At the end of the period, the proportion of income that accrued to the upper half of the Jewish population was larger than in 1929, and the prosperous minority of Jews also owned, in real terms, more wealth. In the first eight months of 1939 Poland experienced its highest rate of industrial growth since the years of inflation in the early 1920s. It seems, therefore, that just on the eve of the Second World War the Jewish population might have been about to enjoy an economic recovery to higher standards than had prevailed at the onset of the Great Depression a decade earlier. [ . . . ]

CELIA S. HELLER

Jewish Social Status in Sociological Perspective* The chief elements of the prevalent social definition of the Jews in Poland were their foreignness and inferiority. By demanding equality, let alone the way they did it, Jews defied this definition and were perceived as offending Polish honor. The secularized Jews' behavior vis ä vis the Poles often impinged on the old caste-like structure, challenged its assumptions, and violated the hitherto governing caste etiquette. Caste, as defined by Max Weber, is a closed status group.1 the Jews of Poland were such a group - closed and with the shared status of compelling inferiority. Their caste situation, which emerged in the Middle Ages and continued throughout the period of Elective Kings and during the partitions, persisted after independence was gained.2 [.. .] The concept of caste is extremely useful in understanding the situation ofJews in interwar Poland, just as it is in understanding the situation of Negroes in the United States before the Civil Rights struggle.3 The rigidity of the social line between Poles and Jews came very close to that of the color line in the United States. The failure of the Jewish assimilationists in Poland - like the failure of the mulattoes in the United States - to be recognized as an intermediate category between Jews and Poles, testifies to the rigidity of the line. True, the * From: Celia S. Heller, On the Edge ofDestruction. Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars, Schocken Books, New York 1980, abridged pp. 58-63, 70, 74-76, 109-114, 119-125. Reprinted with permission of the author and the publisher. 1 "Now, a caste is doubtlessly a closed status group. For all the obligations and barriers that membership in a status group entails also exist in a caste, in which they are intensified to the utmost degree." In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, eds. Η. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, New York 1958, p. 405. 2 Aleksander Hertz, "Kasta," in Zydxi w Kulturze Polskiej, Paris 1961, pp. 74-104. 3 I share this conviction with Aleksander Hertz, one of the most penetrating analysts of Poland's social structure. See: Hertz, op. at., pp. 74-104; Also: Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modem Democracy, 2 vols., New York 1944; John Dollard, Caste and Class in a Southern Town, New Haven 1937.

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Celia S. Heller

Polish line had no legal basis - in contrast to the Jim Crow laws in the United States - but it wasfirmlyrooted in Polish custom and the Polish psyche. Polish norms required that any association between individual Jews and Poles must not imply social equality of Jews and Poles as groups. As a member of the Jewish group, one was an object of contempt andridicule,and occasionally of pity. Sometimes, when known personally, an individual Jew's positive traits would be recognized. "Even though he is a Jew, he is a decent human being," was a common expression in such cases. However, the Jew who claimed or implied in his behavior that Jews in general were the social equals of Poles transgressed the basic tenet of the caste system: the inherent inferiority ofJews. Such an action tended to produce in Poles a psychological reaction of distaste, disgust, and contempt. It would trigger in the mind of the Pole, and quite often in his speech, the caste labels for the Jew which symbolized his inferiority: parszywy iyd, parch (mangyJew), gudiaj (distinctive, very derogatory term the origin of which is not known), cebularz (onion-eater), etc. Generally Poles expected Jews to behave subserviently to them. Jews were conscious of these expectations, as they excelled in getting around them and, among themselves, poked fun at them. [ . . . ] "Jew, take off your hat," or an equivalent, was often used as a shorthand signal to brace oneself, or advise others to do so, before assuming the posture of inferiority in encounters with Poles. Through the centuries in Poland, such subservient behavior became habitual among Jews, as it did among Negroes in the United States. The traditional Jews in interwar Poland swiftly donned the mask of inferiority; their sense of Jewish worth, and their not infrequent sense of humor, allowed them to play the inferior role with a minimum of psychological pain inherent in the situation. The secularized Jews, especially the young, were contemptuous of such behavior as undignified and demeaning, and often defied it. Their break with the pattern was seen by many Poles as impertinence and arrogance. By amassing wealth or possessing it, individual Jews did not violate the caste line. In the eyes of Poles they behaved very much in accordance with the norms, for historically business pursuits were considered the Jews' caste function; no matter how rich the Jew might be, his inferior status was not altered, although his wealth was often resented. Even such achievements as education - not considered a Jewish caste function - were usually not sufficient to lift him completely from his lower caste position. In this position Jews were fixed by a rigid rule of ascription and from it they could not legitimately move out, except perhaps by conversion. No matter how Polonized, affluent, educated, and mobile Jews became, the inferiority of their birth was not obliterated. This "inherent" inferiority to Poles they shared with all other Jews. If an individual's parents were Jewish, he was generally considered

Jewish Social Status in Sociological Perspective

1137

to be a Jew, no matter how Polish his ways or how loudly he proclaimed himself a Pole.4 The term "Pole" was generally reserved for Christians and was seldom, if ever, applied by them to Jews. Even such expressions as "Poles of Mosaic faith" or "Jews-Poles" did not gain wide usage. Thus with the lower caste position went compelling stigmatization: The attribute of being a Jew was believed to be deeply discrediting as well as persistent. Even when their Jewishness was invisible, the fact of their origin still sufficed to justify treating them as stigmatized beings.5 The stigma of Jewish origin, hanbapocbodzenia, stuck stubbornly to those with any Jewish mixture and could rarely be entirely erased. The lengths to which many Poles went to hide any Jewish mixture, and how devastated they felt if discovered, becomes comprehensible only when one keeps this in mind.6 How strong the stigmatic quality was is reflected in the "unmasking" of the Jewish ancestry of political opponents, which was frequent in the left and the right. Another manifestation of the pervasiveness of the stigma is how Poles reacted to the rare instances of their children marrying completely Polonized Jews, ready for Catholic conversion. It is interesting, for example, to note the numerous arguments that a well-known Polish writer, Stanislaw Witkiewicz, used in the letters to his son to persuade him not to marry a Polonized Jewish girl from a wealthy home. Ironically, he was known in Poland for his enlightenment and liberalism. Witkiewicz - who had befriended Sholem Asch and whom Asch called his "teacher and guide" - warned his son about the inherent conflict that would inevitably erupt in such a marriage: Between you and her a gap will open immediately . . . because the feeling of racial and social superiority, of historical superiority, will erupt impulsively in you and in her will erupt the feeling of contempt which Jews have for the rest of humanity... Think of it, what will you do when she bears you half-a-dozen little Jews, your children?7

4

5

6

7

For an example of such a case, see: Madeline G. Levine, "Julian Tuwim: 'We, the Polish Jews,"' The Polish Review, 1972, pp. 82-89. Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management ofSpoiled Identity, Englewood Cliffs, N. J. 1963, p. 49. And yet, it must be noted that in some instances converts or their descendants did not change their surnames. No sociological study was conducted in the interwar period that will allow us to compare and generalize about those who changed their names and those who did not. I am grateful to Dr. Chone Shmeruk of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, for calling my attention to these letters. See: Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Listy do Syria, eds. Bozena Danek Wojkowska and Anna Micinska, Warsaw 1969, pp. 530-32; J. 2 . Jakubowski, "Znalazlem Naucyciela Przewodnika - Listy Szaloma Asza do Stanislawa Witkiewicza," PrzegladHumanistyczny 3, 1959; Stanislaw Pigon, "Listy Szaloma Asza," Nasz Glos 1-4, 1960. Witkiewicz's son became a very prominent writer. For a book in English about this son, see Daniel C. Gerauld, Tropical Madness: Four Plays by Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, New York 1972.

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Celia S. Heller

The very term Zyd, Jew, reflected the stigma and was charged with negative emotional content. It sounded jarring to Polish ears and brought forth a feeling of distaste. Polish writers when introducing in their work a Jewish character, actual or fictional, who was not to play the role of the villain would use the terms "a nice Jew" or "decent Jew," since "Jew" alone would clearly indicate the opposite.8 Occasionally, in personal contacts with Jews, more educated Poles would substitute "of the old Testament," "of Mosaic faith," or "Israelite," expressions that came into being in the nineteenth century but did not gain wide usage. More often, in an attempt to mitigate the negative connotations of "Jew" well-meaning Poles would use "little Jew" or "little Jewess." In such instances, they would be shocked and puzzled when reprimanded by young modern Jews for the use of these condescending terms. Assumptions and convictions ofJewish inferiority flourished despite ample objective evidence of the contrary - an example of W. I. Thomas's theorem, which in its applicability comes close to a sociological law: "If people define things as real, they are real in their consequences." The Jews were literate people in a country with a high rate of illiteracy; they gready surpassed the Poles in their concern and help for the needy members of their community; their rate of criminality and delinquency was much lower (this contrasts with the frequent association of minority status with a high rate of criminality and delinquency); they excelled in Polish schools in much larger proportions than Polish children. Despite discrimination, Jews made contributions to Polish science, learning, and culture much above what their number in the general population would warrant. But such facts, if noticed at all, were explained away and the Jews in general continued to be treated as inferiors. Jews Considered Foreigners The Jews were also treated as foreigners in Poland. Like their inferiority, their basis foreignness was assumed to be everlasting. Think of it: Here was a population that had been in Poland almost since the country's historical beginnings. Here was a people whose contribution to the development of Poland was much greater than its proportion in the total population. More-

8

The classic example in fiction is how the Jew Jankiel is introduced in Adam Mickiewicz's Pan Rar a more recent example, which also illustrates it in reference to actual people, see Jan Michalski, 55 Wroclaw 1 some extend the negative connotation of the Polish term for Jew might be a result of Russian influences. In the Russian language definetly an insulting expression. The term for Jew is Evrii.

Tadeusz.

Lat Wsmd ksufzek - Wsponnienia, Wrazenia, Rozwazania, Zbidis

Jewish Social Status in Sociological Perspective

1139

over, in contrast to the other large ethnic groups - Ukrainians and Belorussians - who wanted secession, Jews demanded at most equality in a Poland that honored their right to a pluralistic existence. No Jews asked that a portion of the land in which they had lived for many centuries be ceded to them. Yet Jews were considered foreigners. Poles regarded themselves as the indigenous population, and so considered their right to be there as self-evident. But they still regarded the Jews as intruders whose presence in Poland was due only to Polish good will. One should bring to mind that in Poland "alien" {obey) was synonymous with "different." Of long historical significance was the religious difference. True, the nineteenth century marked the beginning of the idea of separation of religious belief, Jewish, from national identity, Polish. But it never came to fruition in independent Poland. "To be Polish is to be Catholic" was the prevailing conception among the Poles. In other respects too - culturally and socially - the Jews were still quite different from the Poles when Poland became independent. Furthermore, modern Jewish leaders, invoking the Minorities Treaty, were bent on perpetuating and developing Jewish culture albeit mosdy secular - not on obliterating it. [.'..] The basis of Jewish visibility was mosdy in sociocultural characteristics, only occasionally in phenotypical traits. Poles generally maintained that they could distinguish a Jew by his external physical traits, and as with stereotypes in general, there was some grain of truth to this statement, although distorted and exaggerated; among Jews was found a greater proportion of phenotypical characteristics that are associated with Mediterranean and Oriental types within the Caucasian race than among the Poles.9 Nevertheless, the sociocultural characteristics played a larger part in making them easily distinguishable. The cultural differences that played a major part in the visibility of the Jews were (1) very different religious practices and open engagement in them, in a land which considered itself deeply Catholic; (2) differing names and especially surnames - high proportion of German surnames, contrasting sharply with those of Poles; (3) language - the wide use of Yiddish and the

9

These are two of the subdivisions of the Caucasoid race, classified by physical anthropologists on the basis of a number of associated anatomical characteristics. Rar studies of the comparative distribution of various types among Jews and Poles, see: Henryk Szpidbaum, "Strukture Rasowa Zydow Polskich," in I. Schiper, A. Tartakower, A. Haftka (eds.), Zydzi w Polsce Odrodzonej, Warsaw 1935, Π, pp. 165-184; Salomon Czortkower, Komunikat ζ Βαάαή i Dotychczasowych Resultatow Analixy Rasowej Zydow ζ Wilenszczyzny, p. 193 ff.; Sa Czortkower, "Z Badafi nad Problemami Rasowymi Zydow," Miesiqcznik Zydowski 4, 1934, pp. 97-109: Jan Czekanowski, "Anthropological Structure of the Jewish People in the Light of Polish Analyses," Jewish Journal of Sociology 2, 1960, pp. 236-243.

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characteristic Polish with its Yiddish-influenced intonation, syntax, and expressions; (4) nonverbal language - dissimilar gestures, facial expressions, body movements and mannerisms; (5) typical dress, especially among the older generation; (6) food habits and foods markedly different from those of Poles, such as the use of sharper ingredients - onions and garlic in cooking. (Poles referred to Jews in a derogatory way as onion-eaters, herring-eaters, and as garlic-smelling); (7) complete absence of religious observance among many of the assimilated and young secularized Jews, whose irreligiousness appeared more obvious than that of secularized Poles. [ . . . ] The occupational concentration constituted another condition of their potential visibility. To Poles this tended to signify Jewish economic advantages. And since the words commerce and business convey an image of economic well-being, it is necessary to point out here that oppressive poverty was real among large sections of Polish Jewry. True, in the small urban stratum of the very rich - in large business and industry but not in large landed estates Jews and individuals ofJewish origin figured prominently. But the majority of the Jewish "capitalists" were artisans (whose tiny living quarters doubled as workshops), owners of small businesses or of stalls in markets, or peddlers. As a New York Times correspondent noted during that period, often the whole stock in trade of those stall owners and peddlers was around twenty zioty (then four dollars) and their daily income one zloty (twenty American cents). He noted that "these Jewish peddlers who have given the Polish landscape a characteristic note are pictures of walking misery."10 Widespread poverty among the Jews was not alleviated, but was actually growing progressively worse during the two decades of Polish independence. But the increasing poverty of the Jews was not seen as a major problem by the dominant group. On the contrary, this increasing poverty, as we shall soon see, was to a large measure the result of the so-called solution, championed by the nationalists and imposed by the government with the approval of many Poles, to what they defined as Poland's major problem: the Jews. It is not that there were too many individuals in commerce and the professions for Poland's size.11 The fact that many of them were Jews was interpreted as damaging to Poland. Thus we come back to the social definition of Jews as a "foreign growth on the body of Poland." The society's choice of the Jews as the major problem was tied to the social definition of Jews and was due to important economic and political factors we shall delineate in the next chapter.

10

Otto D. Tolischus, "Nationalism Casts Polish Jews Aside," New York Times, February 8,

11

Simon Segal, The New Poland and the Jews, New York 1938, p. 141.

1937, p. 9.

Jewish Social Status in Sociological Perspective

1141

Once Jews were viewed as the number one problem - a problem to be solved by eliminating them through discrimination or violence - the fact that they were highly visible was convenient for the oppressors. The sociocultural differences of Jews proved as compelling as phenotypic differences elsewhere. The extremely negative social definition was a subjective factor that intensified the effect of the above objective factors in Jewish visibility. Even where the cultural differences of individual Jews were minimal, they were often perceptible to Poles. This was dramatically but painfully borne out when the Nazis marched into Poland. Frequendy, the Nazis could not at first tell some Jews apart from Poles. But there was present enough "Polish trash," as the murdered historian Ringelblum expressed it, "and they pointed out who was a Jude (the only word in German that the Polish hooligans knew immediately)."12 And after the Germans introduced and enforced the stria system of identification, including the wearing of the Star of David, such hooligans and other Poles were tempted with payments and rewards to deliver Jews who were passing. The Poles' perception of Jewish differences was heightened by the tremendous negative importance they attached to such differences, as well as the frequent exposure to them. The predisposition to be concerned with whether the person one encountered or dealt with was a Jew was rooted in the social definition of the Jew. This predisposition, heightened by the economic difficulties from which Poles had suffered in the interwar period, was activated by the anti-Semitic campaign that the Polish nationalists pushed throughout independence and that became especially vicious during the 1930s. It infused the old stigma ofJewishness with new life and new meaning. These differences reinforced prejudice and discrimination in the sense that they were utilized and served to rationalize prejudice and discrimination. To prejudiced Poles the fact that the Jews were differentfromthem in religion, culture, or occupation often constituted proof of the correctness and reasonableness of their attitude toward Jews and the way they treated them. Thus, the visibility of Jews in Poland, as is visibility in general, was determined not only by the extent of the actual differences but also by the dominant group's subjective interpretation of these differences. The Jews in Poland were in their visibility, as in their caste status, the Negroes of Poland. Their high visibility made them especially vulnerable to the widespread antiSemitism strongly planted in the Polish nation and flourishing in the interwar period: prejudice, discrimination, and violence. [. . . ] 12

E. Ringelblum, Stosunki Polsko-Zydowskie w Czasie Drugiej Wojny Swiatowej," 1958, pp. 4-37.

Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 28, Oct.-Dec.

Biuletyn

1142

Celia S. Heller

Sources of Anti-Semitism The Role of the Church The Catholic Church was the only force in Poland that might have contained the spread of anti-Semitism. It did just the opposite. There were few other places in the world where the Church possessed such strength and enjoyed such wide allegiance. In the minds of most Poles, patriotism and Catholicism were closely linked together. During the long period of foreign rule, the poetic image of Poland as the Christ of nations became the prevalent conception. It was then that the Catholic Church became an important champion of Polishness and the symbol of resistance to foreign rule.13 With independence, the Polish government recognized the centrality of the Church by according it a privileged position. Both the constitutions of 1921 and 1935 specified the preeminence of the Catholic Church among the other faiths in Poland.14 Moreover, the actual position of the Church exceeded that of the constitutional provisions. [ . . . ] Some of the major privileges of the Church were the result of the Concordat which the Polish government signed with the Vatican. Among these was religious instruction of Catholic children by priests in the private as well as in public primary and secondary schools of Poland. In 1934 attendance in the classes teaching religion was made compulsory. The church thus continued as the bastion of anti-Semitism, both in its traditional form and in the "modern" form pursued by the nationalists.15 In the past the persistence of the Jews in their ancient faith had been seen by the Church as a danger to the Catholic faith of the country; now, the growing secularization ofJewish youth in modern Poland was viewed as a new form of the same danger. [. ..] The Church feared that secularization would grow with the integration of Jews into Polish society. This fear was expressed in sermons and was a 13

Tadeusz Lepkowski, Polska - Narodziny Nowoczesnego Narodu, 1764-1870, Warsaw 1967,

pp. 165-172. 14

15

See articles 114 and 115 of the 1921 Constitution: Kazimierz Kumaniecki, Odbudowa Panstwcnvosci Pokkiej - Nawazniejsze Dokumenty 1921 - Styczen, Warsaw 1924, p. 519. For provisions of the 1935 constitution, see Waclaw Komomicki, Ustmj Panstwawy Rzeczypospohtq Polskiej, London 1943, pp. 231-234 (mimeographed). JanuszJ§drzejewicz, 7