Klaus-Peter Friedrich

Die polnische Regierungsdelegatur und ihr „jüdisches Problem“ 1940–1945

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

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.

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