The Delegate’s Office of the Polish Government-in-Exile and the “Jewish question” (1940-1945)

Abstract

Before as well as during the years of occupation, a durable settlement of Poland’s “Jewish question” claimed the foremost attention of Polish politicians. While the Government-in-Exile did not tie itself to a specific scenario for the living together of Poles and Jews in the postwar period, influential figures in the exile government and its underground Delegate’s Office (Delegatura Rządu) spoke up for mass emigration of Poland’s Jewish minority. They backed up this claim reasoning that the Jewish population behaved disloyal in the Eastern Polish territories occupied by the Red Army. Resting on archival material and on the underground press edited by the Delegatura Rządu, this article delineates the thoughts of some of those officials as well as views expressed in the wider debate inside the ethnic Polish community. An analysis of the discourse on the “Jewish question” shows that Jewish representatives perceived the constant calls for Jewish emigration as a threat. Anxiety mounted when they became aware that people active in the underground were ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the expulsion of the Jews from the socioeconomic life, which was part of the Nazi program. As a consequence, trust was lacking on which to build a common front against the invader. Under the conditions of a brutally rampant occupation regime that strengthened the radicals and set ethnic groups at each other, mistrust could not be overcome. In 1945, some journalists close to the Delegatura Rządu ended up in anti-Jewish obsessions reminiscent of the pre-war period. They became part of the legacy that lingered on in the era of Polish national communism.