title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Matters improved for a time under the rule of Józef Piłsudski (1926–1935). Piłsudski countered Endecja's 'ethnic assimilation' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality. The years 1926–1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski's appointee Kazimierz Bartel. However, a combination of various factors, including the Great Depression, meant that the situation of Jewish Poles was never very satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Piłsudski's death in May 1935, which many Jews regarded as a tragedy. The Jewish industries were negatively affected by the development of mass production and the advent of department stores offering ready-made products. The traditional sources of livelihood for the estimated 300,000 Jewish family-run businesses in the country began to vanish, contributing to a growing trend toward isolationism and internal self-sufficiency. The difficult situation in the private sector led to enrolment growth in higher education. In 1923 the Jewish students constituted 62.9% of all students of stomatology, 34% of medical sciences, 29.2% of philosophy, 24.9% of chemistry and 22.1% of law (26% by 1929) at all Polish universities. It is speculated that such disproportionate numbers were the probable cause of a backlash.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The interwar Polish government provided military training to the Zionist Betar paramilitary movement, whose members admired the Polish nationalist camp and imitated some of its aspects. Uniformed members of Betar marched and performed at Polish public ceremonies alongside Polish scouts and military, with their weapons training provided by Polish institutions and Polish military officers; Menachem Begin, one of its leaders, called for its members to defend Poland in case of war, and the organisation raised both Polish and Zionist flags.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: With the influence of the "Endecja" (National Democracy) party growing, antisemitism gathered new momentum in Poland and was most felt in smaller towns and in spheres in which Jews came into direct contact with Poles, such as in Polish schools or on the sports field. Further academic harassment, such as the introduction of ghetto benches, which forced Jewish students to sit in sections of the lecture halls reserved exclusively for them, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas ("Numerus clausus") introduced in 1937 in some universities, halved the number of Jews in Polish universities between independence (1918) and the late 1930s. The restrictions were so inclusive that – while the Jews made up 20.4% of the student body in 1928 – by 1937 their share was down to only 7.5%, out of the total population of 9.75% Jews in the country according to 1931 census.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Although many Jews were educated, they were excluded from most of the government bureaucracy. A good number, therefore, turned to the liberal professions, particularly medicine and law. In 1937 the Catholic trade unions of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to Christian Poles. In a similar manner, the Jewish trade unions excluded non-Jewish professionals from their ranks after 1918. The bulk of Jewish workers were organized in the Jewish trade unions under the influence of the Jewish socialists who split in 1923 to join the Communist Party of Poland and the Second International.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland had reached its zenith in the years leading to the Second World War. Between 1935 and 1937 seventy-nine Jews were killed and 500 injured in anti-Jewish incidents. National policy was such that the Jews who largely worked at home and in small shops were excluded from welfare benefits. In the provincial capital of Łuck Jews constituted 48.5% of the diverse multiethnic population of 35,550 Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and others. Łuck had the largest Jewish community in the voivodeship. In the capital of Brześć in 1936 Jews constituted 41.3% of general population and some 80.3% of private enterprises were owned by Jews. The 32% of Jewish inhabitants of Radom enjoyed considerable prominence also, with 90% of small businesses in the city owned and operated by the Jews including tinsmiths, locksmiths, jewellers, tailors, hat makers, hairdressers, carpenters, house painters and wallpaper installers, shoemakers, as well as most of the artisan bakers and clock repairers. In Lubartów, 53.6% of the town's population were Jewish also along with most of its economy. In a town of Luboml, 3,807 Jews lived among its 4,169 inhabitants, constituting the essence of its social and political life.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The national boycott of Jewish businesses and advocacy for their confiscation was promoted by the Endecja party, which introduced the term "Christian shop". A national movement to prevent the Jews from kosher slaughter of animals, with animal rights as the stated motivation, was also organized. Violence was also frequently aimed at Jewish stores, and many of them were looted. At the same time, persistent economic boycotts and harassment, including property-destroying riots, combined with the effects of the Great Depression that had been very severe on agricultural countries like Poland, reduced the standard of living of Poles and Polish Jews alike to the extent that by the end of the 1930s, a substantial portion of Polish Jews lived in grinding poverty. As a result, on the eve of the Second World War, the Jewish community in Poland was large and vibrant internally, yet (with the exception of a few professionals) also substantially poorer and less integrated than the Jews in most of Western Europe.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The main strain of antisemitism in Poland during this time was motivated by Catholic religious beliefs and centuries-old myths such as the blood libel. This religious-based antisemitism was sometimes joined with an ultra-nationalistic stereotype of Jews as disloyal to the Polish nation. On the eve of World War II, many typical Polish Christians believed that there were far too many Jews in the country, and the Polish government became increasingly concerned with the "Jewish question". Some politicians favored mass Jewish emigration from Poland. The Polish government condemned wanton violence against the Jewish minority, fearing international repercussions, but shared the view that the Jewish minority hindered Poland's development; in January 1937 Foreign Minister Józef Beck declared that Poland could house 500,000 Jews, and hoped that over the next 30 years 80,000-100,000 Jews a year would leave Poland. As the Polish government sought to lower the numbers of the Jewish population in Poland through mass emigration, it embraced close and good contact with Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, and pursued a policy of supporting the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The Polish government hoped Palestine would provide an outlet for its Jewish population and lobbied for creation of a Jewish state in the League of Nations and other international venues, proposing increased emigration quotas and opposing the Partition Plan of Palestine on behalf of Zionist activists. As Jabotinsky envisioned in his "Evacuation Plan" the settlement of 1.5 million East European Jews within 10 years in Palestine, including 750,000 Polish Jews, he and Beck shared a common goal. Ultimately this proved impossible and illusory, as it lacked both general Jewish and international support. In 1937 Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck declared in the League of Nations his support for the creation of a Jewish state and for an international conference to enable Jewish emigration. The common goals of the Polish state and of the Zionist movement, of increased Jewish population flow to Palestine, resulted in their overt and covert cooperation. Poland helped by organizing passports and facilitating illegal immigration, and supplied the Haganah with weapons. Poland also provided extensive support to the Irgun (the military branch of the Revisionist Zionist movement) in the form of military training and weapons. According to Irgun activists, the Polish state supplied the organisation with 25,000 rifles, additional material and weapons, and by summer 1939 Irgun's Warsaw warehouses held 5,000 rifles and 1,000 machine guns. The training and support by Poland would allow the organisation to mobilise 30,000-40,000 men.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: By the time of the German invasion in 1939, antisemitism was escalating, and hostility towards Jews was a mainstay of the right-wing political forces post-Piłsudski regime and also the Catholic Church. Discrimination and violence against Jews had rendered the Polish Jewish population increasingly destitute. Despite the impending threat to the Polish Republic from Nazi Germany, there was little effort seen in the way of reconciliation with Poland's Jewish population. In July 1939 the pro-government "Gazeta Polska" wrote, "The fact that our relations with the Reich are worsening does not in the least deactivate our program in the Jewish question—there is not and cannot be any common ground between our internal Jewish problem and Poland's relations with the Hitlerite Reich." Escalating hostility towards Polish Jews and an official Polish government desire to remove Jews from Poland continued until the German invasion of Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The number of Jews in Poland on 1 September 1939, amounted to about 3,474,000 people. One hundred thirty thousand soldiers of Jewish descent, including Boruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Military, served in the Polish Army at the outbreak of the Second World War, thus being among the first to launch armed resistance against Nazi Germany. During the September Campaign some 20,000 Jewish civilians and 32,216 Jewish soldiers were killed, while 61,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans; the majority did not survive. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were released ultimately found themselves in the Nazi ghettos and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other Jewish civilians in the ensuing Holocaust in Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In 1939, Jews constituted 30% of Warsaw's population. With the coming of the war, Jewish and Polish citizens of Warsaw jointly defended the city, putting their differences aside. Polish Jews later served in almost all Polish formations during the entire World War II, many were killed or wounded and very many were decorated for their combat skills and exceptional service. Jews fought with the Polish Armed Forces in the West, in the Soviet formed Polish People's Army as well as in several underground organizations and as part of Polish partisan units or Jewish partisan formations.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Soviet Union signed a Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939 containing a protocol about partition of Poland (generally known but denied by the Soviet Union for the next 50 years). The German army attacked Poland on 1 September 1939. The Soviet Union followed suit by invading eastern Poland on 17 September 1939. Within weeks, 61.2% of Polish Jews found themselves under the German occupation, while 38.8% were trapped in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Based on population migration from West to East during and after the German invasion the percentage of Jews under the Soviet-occupation was substantially higher than that of the national census.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Soviet annexation was accompanied by the widespread arrests of government officials, police, military personnel, border guards, teachers, priests, judges etc., followed by the NKVD prisoner massacres and massive deportation of 320,000 Polish nationals to the Soviet interior and the Gulag slave labor camps where, as a result of the inhuman conditions, about half of them died before the end of war.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Jewish refugees under the Soviet occupation had little knowledge about what was going on under the Germans since the Soviet media did not report on the goings-on in territories occupied by their Nazi ally.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Many people from Western Poland registered for repatriation back to the German zone, including wealthier Jews, as well as some political and social activists from the interwar period. Instead, they were labelled "class enemies" by the NKVD and deported to Siberia with the others. Jews caught at border crossings, or engaged in trade and other "illegal" activities were also arrested and deported. Several thousand, mostly captured Polish soldiers, were executed; some of them Jewish.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: All private property and – crucial to Jewish economic life – private businesses were nationalized; political activity was delegalized and thousands of people were jailed, many of whom were later executed. Zionism, which was designated by the Soviets as counter-revolutionary was also forbidden. In just one day all Polish and Jewish media were shut down and replaced by the new Soviet press,<ref name="geni/Lutsk">Dr Pawel Goldstein, Lutsk (Luck) Ghetto. Geni.com.</ref> which conducted political propaganda attacking religion including the Jewish faith. Synagogues and churches were not yet closed but heavily taxed. The Soviet ruble of little value was immediately equalized to the much higher Polish zloty and by the end of 1939, zloty was abolished. Most economic activity became subject to central planning and the NKVD restrictions. Since the Jewish communities tended to rely more on commerce and small-scale businesses, the confiscations of property affected them to a greater degree than the general populace. The Soviet rule resulted in near collapse of the local economy, characterized by insufficient wages and general shortage of goods and materials. The Jews, like other inhabitants of the region, saw a fall in their living standards.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Under the Soviet policy, ethnic Poles were dismissed and denied access to positions in the civil service. Former senior officials and notable members of the Polish community were arrested and exiled together with their families. At the same time the Soviet authorities encouraged young Jewish communists to fill in the newly emptied government and civil service jobs.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: While most eastern Poles consolidated themselves around the anti-Soviet sentiments,<ref name="B/C/S"></ref> a portion of the Jewish population, along with the ethnic Belarusian and Ukrainian activists had welcomed invading Soviet forces as their protectors. The general feeling among the Polish Jews was a sense of temporary relief in having escaped the Nazi occupation in the first weeks of war. The Polish poet and former communist Aleksander Wat has stated that Jews were more inclined to cooperate with the Soviets. Following Jan Karski's report written in 1940, historian Norman Davies claimed that among the informers and collaborators, the percentage of Jews was striking; likewise, General Władysław Sikorski estimated that 30% of them identified with the communists whilst engaging in provocations; they prepared lists of Polish "class enemies". Other historians have indicated that the level of Jewish collaboration could well have been less than suggested. Historian Martin Dean has written that "few local Jews obtained positions of power under Soviet rule."


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The issue of Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupation remains controversial. Some scholars note that while not pro-Communist, many Jews saw the Soviets as the lesser threat compared to the German Nazis. They stress that stories of Jews welcoming the Soviets on the streets, vividly remembered by many Poles from the eastern part of the country are impressionistic and not reliable indicators of the level of Jewish support for the Soviets. Additionally, it has been noted that some ethnic Poles were as prominent as Jews in filling civil and police positions in the occupation administration, and that Jews, both civilians and in the Polish military, suffered equally at the hands of the Soviet occupiers. Whatever initial enthusiasm for the Soviet occupation Jews might have felt was soon dissipated upon feeling the impact of the suppression of Jewish societal modes of life by the occupiers. The tensions between ethnic Poles and Jews as a result of this period has, according to some historians, taken a toll on relations between Poles and Jews throughout the war, creating until this day, an impasse to Polish-Jewish rapprochement.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: A number of younger Jews, often through the pro-Marxist Bund or some Zionist groups, were sympathetic to Communism and Soviet Russia, both of which had been enemies of the Polish Second Republic. As a result of these factors they found it easy after 1939 to participate in the Soviet occupation administration in Eastern Poland, and briefly occupied prominent positions in industry, schools, local government, police and other Soviet-installed institutions. The concept of "Judeo-communism" was reinforced during the period of the Soviet occupation (see Żydokomuna).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: There were also Jews who assisted Poles during the Soviet occupation. Among the thousands of Polish officers killed by the Soviet NKVD in the Katyń massacre there were 500–600 Jews. From 1939 to 1941 between 100,000 and 300,000 Polish Jews were deported from Soviet-occupied Polish territory into the Soviet Union. Some of them, especially Polish Communists (e.g. Jakub Berman), moved voluntarily; however, most of them were forcibly deported or imprisoned in a "Gulag". Small numbers of Polish Jews (about 6,000) were able to leave the Soviet Union in 1942 with the Władysław Anders army, among them the future Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin. During the Polish army's II Corps' stay in the British Mandate of Palestine, 67% (2,972) of the Jewish soldiers deserted to settle in Palestine, and many joined the "Irgun". General Anders decided not to prosecute the deserters and emphasized that the Jewish soldiers who remained in the Force fought bravely. The Cemetery of Polish soldiers who died during the Battle of Monte Cassino includes headstones bearing a Star of David. A number of Jewish soldiers died also when liberating Bologna.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Poland's Jewish community suffered the most in the Holocaust. Some six million Polish citizens perished in the war – half of those (three million Polish Jews, all but some 300,000 of the Jewish population) being killed at the German extermination camps at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chełmno or starved to death in the ghettos.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Poland was where the German program of extermination of Jews, the "Final Solution", was implemented, since this was where most of Europe's Jews (excluding the Soviet Union's) lived.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In 1939 several hundred synagogues were blown up or burned by the Germans, who sometimes forced the Jews to do it themselves. In many cases, the Germans turned the synagogues into factories, places of entertainment, swimming pools, or prisons. By war's end, almost all the synagogues in Poland had been destroyed. Rabbis were forced to dance and sing in public with their beards shorn off. Some rabbis were set on fire or hanged.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Germans ordered that all Jews be registered, and the word ""Jude"" was stamped in their identity cards. Numerous restrictions and prohibitions targeting Jews were introduced and brutally enforced. For example, Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, use public transport, or enter places of leisure, sports arenas, theaters, museums and libraries. On the street, Jews had to lift their hat to passing Germans. By the end of 1941 all Jews in German-occupied Poland, except the children, had to wear an identifying badge with a blue Star of David. Rabbis were humiliated in "spectacles organised by the German soldiers and police" who used their rifle butts "to make these men dance in their praying shawls." The Germans "disappointed that Poles refused to collaborate", made little attempts to set up a collaborationist government in Poland, nevertheless, German tabloids printed in Polish routinely ran antisemitic articles that urged local people to adopt an attitude of indifference towards the Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Following Operation Barbarossa, many Jews in what was then Eastern Poland fell victim to Nazi death squads called "Einsatzgruppen", which massacred Jews, especially in 1941. Some of these German-inspired massacres were carried out with help from, or active participation of Poles themselves: for example, the Jedwabne pogrom, in which between 300 (Institute of National Remembrance's Final Findings) and 1,600 Jews (Jan T. Gross) were tortured and beaten to death by members of the local population. The full extent of Polish participation in the massacres of the Polish Jewish community remains a controversial subject, in part due to Jewish leaders' refusal to allow the remains of the Jewish victims to be exhumed and their cause of death to be properly established. The Polish Institute for National Remembrance identified twenty-two other towns that had pogroms similar to Jedwabne. The reasons for these massacres are still debated, but they included antisemitism, resentment over alleged cooperation with the Soviet invaders in the Polish-Soviet War and during the 1939 invasion of the Kresy regions, greed for the possessions of the Jews, and of course coercion by the Nazis to participate in such massacres.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Some Jewish historians have written of the negative attitudes of some Poles towards persecuted Jews during the Holocaust. While members of Catholic clergy risked their lives to assist Jews, their efforts were sometimes made in the face of antisemitic attitudes from the church hierarchy. Anti-Jewish attitudes also existed in the London-based Polish Government in Exile, although on 18 December 1942 the President in exile Władysław Raczkiewicz wrote a dramatic letter to Pope Pius XII, begging him for a public defense of both murdered Poles and Jews. In spite of the introduction of death penalty extending to the entire families of rescuers, the number of Polish Righteous among the Nations testifies to the fact that Poles were willing to take risks in order to save Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Holocaust survivors' views of Polish behavior during the War span a wide range, depending on their personal experiences. Some are very negative, based on the view of Christian Poles as passive witnesses who failed to act and aid the Jews as they were being persecuted or liquidated by the Nazis. Poles, who were also victims of Nazi crimes, were often afraid for their own and their family's lives and this fear prevented many of them from giving aid and assistance, even if some of them felt sympathy for the Jews. Emanuel Ringelblum, a Polish-Jewish historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote critically of the indifferent and sometimes joyful responses in Warsaw to the destruction of Polish Jews in the Ghetto. However, Gunnar S. Paulsson stated that Polish citizens of Warsaw managed to support and hide the same percentage of Jews as did the citizens of cities in Western European countries. Paulsson's research shows that at least as far as Warsaw is concerned, the number of Poles aiding Jews far outnumbered those who sold out their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation of Warsaw 70,000–90,000 Polish gentiles aided Jews, while 3,000–4,000 were szmalcowniks, or blackmailers who collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting the Jews.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The German Nazis established six extermination camps throughout occupied Poland by 1942. All of these – at Chełmno (Kulmhof), Bełżec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz (Oświęcim) – were located near the rail network so that the victims could be easily transported. The system of the camps was expanded over the course of the German occupation of Poland and their purposes were diversified; some served as transit camps, some as forced labor camps and the majority as death camps. While in the death camps, the victims were usually killed shortly after arrival, in the other camps able-bodied Jews were worked and beaten to death. The operation of concentration camps depended on Kapos, the collaborator-prisoners. Some of them were Jewish themselves, and their prosecution after the war created an ethical dilemma.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Between October 1939 and July 1942 a system of ghettos was imposed for the confinement of Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest in all of World War II, with 380,000 people crammed into an area of . The Łódź Ghetto was the second largest, holding about 160,000 prisoners. Other large Jewish ghettos in leading Polish cities included Białystok Ghetto in Białystok, Częstochowa Ghetto, Kielce Ghetto, Kraków Ghetto in Kraków, Lublin Ghetto, Lwów Ghetto in present-day Lviv, Stanisławów Ghetto also in present-day Ukraine, Brześć Ghetto in presend-day Belarus, and Radom Ghetto among others. Ghettos were also established in hundreds of smaller settlements and villages around the country. The overcrowding, dirt, lice, lethal epidemics such as typhoid and hunger all resulted in countless deaths.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: During the occupation of Poland, the Germans used various laws to separate ethnic Poles from Jewish ones. In the ghettos, the population was separated by putting the Poles into the "Aryan Side" and the Polish Jews into the "Jewish Side". Any Pole found giving any help to a Jewish Pole was subject to the death penalty. Another law implemented by the Germans was that Poles were forbidden from buying from Jewish shops, and if they did they were subject to execution. Many Jews tried to escape from the ghettos in the hope of finding a place to hide outside of it, or of joining the partisan units. When this proved difficult escapees often returned to the ghetto on their own. If caught, Germans would murder the escapees and leave their bodies in plain view as a warning to others. Despite these terror tactics, attempts at escape from ghettos continued until their liquidation.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Since the Nazi terror reigned throughout the Aryan districts, the chances of remaining successfully hidden depended on a fluent knowledge of the language and on having close ties with the community. Many Poles were not willing to hide Jews who might have escaped the ghettos or who might have been in hiding due to fear for their own lives and that of their families.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: While the German policy towards Jews was ruthless and criminal, their policy towards Christian Poles who helped Jews was very much the same. The Germans would often murder non-Jewish Poles for small misdemeanors. Execution for help rendered to Jews, even the most basic kinds, was automatic. In any apartment block or area where Jews were found to be harboured, everybody in the house would be immediately shot by the Germans. For this thousands of non-Jewish Poles were executed.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Hiding in a Christian society to which the Jews were only partially assimilated was a daunting task. They needed to quickly acquire not only a new identity, but a new body of knowledge. Many Jews spoke Polish with a distinguished Yiddish or Hebrew accent, used a different nonverbal language, different gestures and facial expressions. Jews with the specific physical characteristics were particularly vulnerable.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Some individuals blackmailed Jews and non-Jewish Poles hiding them, and took advantage of their desperation by collecting money, or worse, turning them over to the Germans for a reward. The Gestapo provided a standard prize to those who informed on Jews hidden on the 'Aryan' side, consisting of cash, liquor, sugar, and cigarettes. Jews were robbed and handed over to the Germans by "szmalcowniks" (the 'shmalts' people: from "shmalts" or "szmalec", Yiddish and Polish for 'grease'). In extreme cases, the Jews informed on other Jews to alleviate hunger with the awarded prize. The extortionists were condemned by the Polish Underground State. The fight against informers was organized by the Armia Krajowa (the Underground State's military arm), with the death sentence being meted out on a scale unknown in the occupied countries of Western Europe.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: To discourage Poles from giving shelter to Jews, the Germans often searched houses and introduced ruthless penalties. Poland was the only occupied country during World War II where the Nazis formally imposed the death penalty for anybody found sheltering and helping Jews. The penalty applied not only to the person who did the helping, but also extended to his or her family, neighbors and sometimes to entire villages. In this way Germans applied the principle of collective responsibility whose purpose was to encourage neighbors to inform on each other in order to avoid punishment. The nature of these policies was widely known and visibly publicized by the Nazis who sought to terrorize the Polish population.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Food rations for the Poles were small (669 kcal per day in 1941) compared to other occupied nations throughout Europe and black market prices of necessary goods were high, factors which made it difficult to hide people and almost impossible to hide entire families, especially in the cities. Despite these draconian measures imposed by the Nazis, Poland has the highest number of Righteous Among The Nations awards at the Yad Vashem Museum (6,339).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Polish Government in Exile was the first (in November 1942) to reveal the existence of Nazi-run concentration camps and the systematic extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, through its courier Jan Karski and through the activities of Witold Pilecki, a member of "Armia Krajowa" who was the only person to volunteer for imprisonment in Auschwitz and who organized a resistance movement inside the camp itself. One of the Jewish members of the National Council of the Polish government in exile, Szmul Zygielbojm, committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allied governments in the face of the Holocaust in Poland. The Polish government in exile was also the only government to set up an organization (Żegota) specifically aimed at helping the Jews in Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Warsaw Ghetto and its 1943 Uprising represents what is likely the most known episode of the wartime history of the Polish Jews. The ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on 16 October 1940. Initially, almost 140,000 Jews were moved into the ghetto from all parts of Warsaw. At the same time, approximately 110,000 Poles had been forcibly evicted from the area. The Germans selected Adam Czerniakow to take charge of the Jewish Council called Judenrat made up of 24 Jewish men ordered to organize Jewish labor battalions as well as Jewish Ghetto Police which would be responsible for maintaining order within the Ghetto walls. A number of Jewish policemen were corrupt and immoral. Soon the Nazis demanded even more from the Judenrat and the demands were much crueler. Death was the punishment for the slightest indication of noncompliance by the Judenrat. Sometimes the Judenrat refused to collaborate in which case its members were consequently executed and replaced by the new group of people. Adam Czerniakow who was the head of the Warsaw Judenrat committed suicide when he was forced to collect daily lists of Jews to be deported to Treblinka extermination camp at the onset of Grossaktion Warsaw.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The population of the ghetto reached 380,000 people by the end of 1940, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was only about 2.4% of the size of the city. The Germans closed off the Ghetto from the outside world, building a wall around it by 16 November 1940. During the next year and a half, Jews from smaller cities and villages were brought into the Warsaw Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal, and 669 kcal for Poles, as opposed to 2,613 kcal for Germans. On 22 July 1942, the mass deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began. During the next fifty-two days (until 12 September 1942) about 300,000 people were transported by freight train to the Treblinka extermination camp. The Jewish Ghetto Police were ordered to escort the ghetto inhabitants to the Umschlagplatz train station. They were spared from the deportations until September 1942 in return for their cooperation, but afterwards shared their fate with families and relatives. On 18 January 1943, a group of Ghetto militants led by the right-leaning ŻZW, including some members of the left-leaning ŻOB, rose up in a first Warsaw uprising. Both organizations resisted, with arms, German attempts for additional deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka. The final destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto came four months later after the crushing of one of the most heroic and tragic battles of the war, the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Uprising was led by ŻOB ("Jewish Combat Organization") and the ŻZW. The ŻZW ("Jewish Military Union") was the better supplied in arms. The ŻOB had more than 750 fighters, but lacked weapons; they had only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and several grenades. A developed network of bunkers and fortifications were formed. The Jewish fighters also received support from the Polish Underground (Armia Krajowa). The German forces, which included 2,842 Nazi soldiers and 7,000 security personnel, were not capable of crushing the Jewish resistance in open street combat and after several days, decided to switch strategy by setting buildings on fire in which the Jewish fighters hid. The commander of the ŻOB, Mordechai Anielewicz, died fighting on 8 May 1943 at the organization's command centre on 18 Mila Street.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: It took the Germans twenty-seven days to put down the uprising, after some very heavy fighting. The German general Jürgen Stroop in his report stated that his troops had killed 6,065 Jewish fighters during the battle. After the uprising was already over, Heinrich Himmler had the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Square (outside the ghetto) destroyed as a celebration of German victory and a symbol that the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw was no longer.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: A group of fighters escaped from the ghetto through the sewers and reached the Lomianki forest. About 50 ghetto fighters were saved by the Polish "People's Guard" and later formed their own partisan group, named after Anielewicz. Even after the end of the uprising there were still several hundreds of Jews who continued living in the ruined ghetto. Many of them survived thanks to the contacts they managed to establish with Poles outside the ghetto. The Uprising inspired Jews throughout Poland. Many Jewish leaders who survived the liquidation continued underground work outside the ghetto. They hid other Jews, forged necessary documents and were active in the Polish underground in other parts of Warsaw and the surrounding area.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was followed by other Ghetto uprisings in many smaller towns and cities across German-occupied Poland. Many Jews were found alive in the ruins of the former Warsaw Ghetto during the 1944 general Warsaw Uprising when the Poles themselves rose up against the Germans. Some of the survivors of 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, still held in camps at or near Warsaw, were freed during 1944 Warsaw Uprising, led by the Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa, and immediately joined Polish fighters. Only a few of them survived. The Polish commander of one Jewish unit, Waclaw Micuta, described them as some of the best fighters, always at the front line. It is estimated that over 2,000 Polish Jews, some as well known as Marek Edelman or Icchak Cukierman, and several dozen Greek, Hungarian or even German Jews freed by Armia Krajowa from Gesiowka concentration camp in Warsaw, men and women, took part in combat against Nazis during 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Some 166,000 people lost their lives in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, including perhaps as many as 17,000 Polish Jews who had either fought with the AK or had been discovered in hiding ("see:" Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński and Stanisław Aronson). Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Germans and more than 150,000 Poles were sent to labor or concentration camps. On 17 January 1945, the Soviet Army entered a destroyed and nearly uninhabited Warsaw. Some 300 Jews were found hiding in the ruins in the Polish part of the city ("see:" Wladyslaw Szpilman).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The fate of the Warsaw Ghetto was similar to that of the other ghettos in which Jews were concentrated. With the decision of Nazi Germany to begin the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe, Aktion Reinhard began in 1942, with the opening of the extermination camps of Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, followed by Auschwitz-Birkenau where people were killed in gas chambers and mass executions (death wall). Many died from hunger, starvation, disease, torture or by pseudo-medical experiments. The mass deportation of Jews from ghettos to these camps, such as happened at the Warsaw Ghetto, soon followed, and more than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943 alone.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In August 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto in Białystok. About 50,000 Jews from the city and the surrounding region were confined in a small area of Białystok. The ghetto had two sections, divided by the Biala River. Most Jews in the Białystok ghetto worked in forced-labor projects, primarily in large textile factories located within the ghetto boundaries. The Germans also sometimes used Jews in forced-labor projects outside the ghetto.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In February 1943, approximately 10,000 Białystok Jews were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. During the deportations, hundreds of Jews, mainly those deemed too weak or sick to travel, were killed.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In August 1943, the Germans mounted an operation to destroy the Białystok ghetto. German forces and local police auxiliaries surrounded the ghetto and began to round up Jews systematically for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp. Approximately 7,600 Jews were held in a central transit camp in the city before deportation to Treblinka. Those deemed fit to work were sent to the Majdanek camp. In Majdanek, after another screening for ability to work, they were transported to the Poniatowa, Blizyn, or Auschwitz camps. Those deemed too weak to work were murdered at Majdanek. More than 1,000 Jewish children were sent first to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Bohemia, and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were killed.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: On 15 August 1943, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising began, and several hundred Polish Jews and members of the Anti-Fascist Military Organisation () started an armed struggle against the German troops who were carrying out the planned liquidation and deportation of the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. The guerrillas were armed with only one machine gun, several dozen pistols, Molotov cocktails and bottles filled with acid. The fighting in isolated pockets of resistance lasted for several days, but the defence was broken almost instantly. As with the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, the Białystok uprising had no chances for military success, but it was the second-largest ghetto uprising, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Several dozen guerrillas managed to break through to the forests surrounding Białystok where they joined the partisan units of Armia Krajowa and other organisations and survived the war.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The estimates of Polish Jews before the war vary from slightly under 3 million to almost 3.5 million (the last nationwide census was conducted in 1931).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The number of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust is difficult to ascertain. The majority of Polish Jewish survivors were individuals who were able to find refuge in the territories of Soviet Union that were not overrun by Germans and thus safe from the Holocaust. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 800,000 Polish Jews survived the war, out of which between 50,000 and 100,000 were survivors from occupied Poland, and the remainder, survivors who made it abroad (mostly to the Soviet Union).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Following the Soviet annexation of over half of Poland at the onset of World War II, all Polish nationals including Jews were declared by Moscow to have become Soviet nationals regardless of birth. Also, all Polish Jews who perished in the Holocaust behind the Curzon Line were included with the Soviet war dead. For decades to come, the Soviet authorities refused to accept the fact that thousands of Jews who remained in the USSR opted consciously and unambiguously for Polish nationality. At the end of 1944, the number of Polish Jews in the Soviet and the Soviet-controlled territories has been estimated at 250,000–300,000 people. Jews who escaped to eastern Poland from areas occupied by Germany in 1939 were numbering at around 198,000. Over 150,000 of them were repatriated or expelled back to new communist Poland along with the Jewish men conscripted to the Red Army from Kresy in 1940–1941. Their families were murdered in the Holocaust. Some of the soldiers married women with the Soviet citizenship, others agreed to paper marriages. Those who survived the Holocaust in Poland included Jews who were saved by the Poles (most families with children), and those who joined the Polish or Soviet resistance movement. Some 20,000–40,000 Jews were repatriated from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, up to 240,000 returning Jews might have resided in Poland mostly in Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków, Wrocław and Lower Silesia, e.g., Dzierżoniów (where there was a significant Jewish community initially consisting of local concentration camp survivors), Legnica, and Bielawa.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Following World War II Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, with its eastern regions annexed to the Union, and its western borders expanded to include formerly German territories east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. This forced millions to relocate (see also Territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II). Jewish survivors returning to their homes in Poland found it practically impossible to reconstruct their pre-war lives. Due to the border shifts, some Polish Jews found that their homes were now in the Soviet Union; in other cases, the returning survivors were German Jews whose homes were now under Polish jurisdiction. Jewish communities and Jewish life as it had existed was gone, and Jews who somehow survived the Holocaust often discovered that their homes had been looted or destroyed.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Some returning Jews were met with antisemitic bias in Polish employment and education administrations. Post-war labor certificates contained markings distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. The Jewish community in Szczecin reported a lengthy report of complaints regarding job discrimination. Although Jewish schools were created in the few towns containing a relatively large Jewish population, many Jewish children were enrolled in Polish state schools. Some state schools, as in the town of Otwock, forbade Jewish children to enroll. In the state schools that did allow Jewish children, there were numerous accounts of beatings and persecution targeting these children.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The anti-Jewish violence in Poland refers to a series of violent incidents in Poland that immediately followed the end of World War II in Europe. It occurred amid a period of violence and anarchy across the country, caused by lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet-backed communist takeover of Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The best-known case is the Kielce pogrom of 4 July 1946, in which thirty-seven Jews and two Poles were murdered. Following the investigation, the local police commander was found guilty of inaction. Nine alleged participants of the pogrom were sentenced to death; three were given lengthy prison sentences. The debate in Poland continues about the involvement of regular troops in the killings, and possible Soviet influences.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In a number of other instances, returning Jews still met with threats, violence, and murder from their Polish neighbors, occasionally in a deliberate and organized manner. People of the community frequently had knowledge of these murders and turned a blind eye or held no sympathy for the victims. Jewish communities responded to this violence by reporting the violence to the Ministry of Public Administration, but were granted little assistance. As many as 1500 Jewish heirs were often murdered when attempting to reclaim property.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Several causes led to the anti-Jewish violence of 1944–1947. One cause was traditional Christian anti-semitism; the pogrom in Cracow (11 August 1945) and in Kielce followed accusations of ritual murder. Another cause was the gentile Polish hostility to the Communist takeover. Even though very few Jews lived in postwar Poland, many Poles believed they dominated the Communist authorities, a belief expressed in the term "Żydokomuna" (Judeo-Communist), a popular anti-Jewish stereotype. Yet another reason for Polish violence towards Jews stemmed from the fear that survivors would recover their property.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: After the war ended, Poland's Communist government enacted a broad program of nationalization and land reform, taking over large numbers of properties, both Polish- and Jewish-owned. As part of the reform the Polish People's Republic enacted legislation on "abandoned property", placing severe limitations on inheritance that were not present in prewar inheritance law, for example limiting restitution to the original owners or their immediate heirs. According to Dariusz Stola, the 1945 and 1946 laws governing restitution were enacted with the intention of restricting Jewish restitution claims as one of their main goals. The 1946 law carried a deadline of 31 December 1947 (later extended to 31 December 1948), after which unclaimed property devolved to the Polish state; many survivors residing in the USSR or in displaced-persons camps were repatriated only after the deadline had passed. All other properties that had been confiscated by the Nazi regime were deemed "abandoned"; however, as Yechiel Weizman notes, the fact most of Poland's Jewry had died, in conjunction with the fact that only Jewish property was officially confiscated by the Nazis, suggest "abandoned property" was equivalent to "Jewish property". According to , the state actively sought to gain control over a large number of "abandoned" properties. According to Krzyżanowski, this declaration of "abandoned" property can be seen as the last stage of the expropriation process that began during the German wartime occupation; by approving the status-quo shaped by the German occupation authorities, the Polish authorities became "the beneficiary of the murder of millions of its Jewish citizens, who were deprived of all their property before death". A 1945 memorandum by the Joint states that "the new economic tendency of the Polish government... is against, or at least makes difficulties in, getting back the Jewish property robbed by the German authorities." Later laws, while more generous, remained mainly on paper, with an "uneven" implementation.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Many of the properties that were previously owned or by Jews were taken over by others during the war. Attempting to reclaim an occupied property often put the claimant at a risk of physical harm and even death. Many who proceeded with the process were only granted possession, not ownership, of their properties; and completing the restitution process, given that most properties were already occupied, required additional, lengthy processes. The majority of Jewish claimants could not afford the restitution process without financial help, due to the filing costs, legal fees, and inheritance tax. While it is hard to determine the total number of successful reclamations, Michael Meng estimates that it was extremely small.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In general, restitution was easier for larger organizations or well connected individuals, and the process was also abused by criminal gangs.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: "Movable" property such as housewares, that was either given by Jews for safekeeping or taken during the war, was rarely returned willfully; oftentimes the only resort for a returnee looking for reappropriation was the courts. Most such property was probably never returned. According to Jan Gross, "there was no social norm mandating the return of Jewish property, no detectable social pressure defining such behavior as the right thing to do, no informal social control mechanism imposing censure for doing otherwise."


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Facing violence and a difficult and expensive legal process, many returnees eventually decided to leave the country rather than attempt reclamation.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Following the fall of the Soviet Union, a law was passed that allowed the Catholic Church to reclaim its properties, which it did with great success. According to Stephen Denburg, "unlike the restitution of Church property, the idea of returning property to former Jewish owners has been met with a decided lack of enthusiasm from both the general Polish population as well as the government".


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Decades later, reclaiming pre-war property would lead to a number of controversies, and the matter is still debated by media and scholars as of late 2010s. Dariusz Stola notes that the issues of property in Poland are incredibly complex, and need to take into consideration unprecedented losses of both Jewish and Polish population and massive destruction caused by Nazi Germany, as well as the expansion of Soviet Union and communism into Polish territories after the war, which dictated the property laws for the next 50 years. Poland remains "the only EU country and the only former Eastern European communist state not to have enacted [a restitution] law," but rather "a patchwork of laws and court decisions promulgated from 1945-present." As stated by Dariusz Stola, director of the POLIN Museum, "the question of restitution is in many ways connected to the question of Polish-Jewish relations, their history and remembrance, but particularly to the attitude of the Poles to the Holocaust."


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: For a variety of reasons, the vast majority of returning Jewish survivors left Poland soon after the war ended. Many left for the West because they did not want to live under a Communist regime. Some left because of the persecution they faced in postwar Poland, and because they did not want to live where their family members had been murdered, and instead have arranged to live with relatives or friends in different western democracies. Others wanted to go to British Mandate of Palestine soon to be the new state of Israel, especially after General Marian Spychalski signed a decree allowing Jews to leave Poland without visas or exit permits. In 1946–1947 Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Israel, without visas or exit permits. Britain demanded Poland to halt the exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by the Zionist activists including Adolf Berman and Icchak Cukierman, under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine "Berihah" ("Flight") organization. "Berihah" was also responsible for the organized Aliyah emigration of Jews from Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, totaling 250,000 survivors. In 1947, a military training camp for young Jewish volunteers to Hagana was established in Bolków, Poland. The camp trained 7,000 soldiers who then traveled to Palestine to fight for Israel. The boot-camp existed until the end of 1948.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: A second wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime between 1957 and 1959. After 1967's Six-Day War, in which the Soviet Union supported the Arab side, the Polish communist party adopted an anti-Jewish course of action which in the years 1968–1969 provoked the last mass migration of Jews from Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Bund took part in the post-war elections of 1947 on a common ticket with the (non-communist) Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and gained its first and only parliamentary seat in its Polish history, plus several seats in municipal councils. Under pressure from Soviet-installed communist authorities, the Bund's leaders 'voluntarily' disbanded the party in 1948–1949 against the opposition of many activists. Stalinist Poland was basically governed by the Soviet NKVD which was against the renewal of Jewish religious and cultural life. In the years 1948–49, all remaining Jewish schools were nationalized by the communists and Yiddish was replaced with Polish as a language of teaching.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: For those Polish Jews who remained, the rebuilding of Jewish life in Poland was carried out between October 1944 and 1950 by the Central Committee of Polish Jews ("Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich", CKŻP) which provided legal, educational, social care, cultural, and propaganda services. A countrywide Jewish Religious Community, led by Dawid Kahane, who served as chief rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, functioned between 1945 and 1948 until it was absorbed by the CKŻP. Eleven independent political Jewish parties, of which eight were legal, existed until their dissolution during 1949–50. Hospitals and schools were opened in Poland by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and ORT to provide service to Jewish communities. Some Jewish cultural institutions were established including the Yiddish State Theater founded in 1950 and directed by Ida Kaminska, the Jewish Historical Institute, an academic institution specializing in the research of the history and culture of the Jews in Poland, and the Yiddish newspaper "Folks-Shtime" ("People's Voice"). Following liberalization after Joseph Stalin's death, in this 1958–59 period, 50,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Some Polish Communists of Jewish descent actively participated in the establishment of the communist regime in the People's Republic of Poland between 1944 and 1956. Hand-picked by Joseph Stalin, prominent Jews held posts in the Politburo of the Polish United Workers' Party including Jakub Berman, head of state security apparatus "Urząd Bezpieczeństwa" (UB), and Hilary Minc responsible for establishing a Communist-style economy. Together with hardliner Bolesław Bierut, Berman and Minc formed a triumvirate of the Stalinist leaders in postwar Poland. After 1956, during the process of destalinisation in the People's Republic under Władysław Gomułka, some Jewish officials from "Urząd Bezpieczeństwa" including Roman Romkowski, Jacek Różański, and Anatol Fejgin, were prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms for "power abuses" including the torture of Polish anti-fascists including Witold Pilecki among others. Yet another Jewish official, Józef Światło, after escaping to the West in 1953, exposed through Radio Free Europe the interrogation methods used the UB which led to its restructuring in 1954. Solomon Morel a member of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland and commandant of the Stalinist era Zgoda labour camp, fled Poland for Israel in 1992 to escape prosecution. Helena Wolińska-Brus, a former Stalinist prosecutor who emigrated to England in the late 1960s, fought being extradited to Poland on charges related to the execution of a Second World War resistance hero Emil Fieldorf. Wolińska-Brus died in London in 2008.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In 1967, following the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states, Poland's Communist government, following the Soviet lead, broke off diplomatic relations with Israel and launched an antisemitic campaign under the guise of "anti-Zionism". However, the campaign did not resonate well with the Polish public, as most Poles saw similarities between Israel's fight for survival and Poland's past struggles for independence. Many Poles also felt pride in the success of the Israeli military, which was dominated by Polish Jews. The slogan "our Jews beat the Soviet Arabs" (Nasi Żydzi pobili sowieckich Arabów) became popular in Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The vast majority of the 40,000 Jews in Poland by the late 1960s were completely assimilated into the broader society. However, this did not prevent them from becoming victims of a campaign, centrally organized by the Polish Communist Party, with Soviet backing, which equated Jewish origins with "Zionism" and disloyalty to a Socialist Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In March 1968 student-led demonstrations in Warsaw ("see Polish 1968 political crisis") gave Gomułka's government an excuse to try and channel public anti-government sentiment into another avenue. Thus his security chief, Mieczysław Moczar, used the situation as a pretext to launch an antisemitic press campaign (although the expression "Zionist" was officially used). The state-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign resulted in the removal of Jews from the Polish United Worker's Party and from teaching positions in schools and universities. In 1967–1971 under economic, political and secret police pressure, over 14,000 Polish Jews chose to leave Poland and relinquish their Polish citizenship. Officially, it was said that they chose to go to Israel. However, only about 4,000 actually went there; most settled throughout Europe and in the United States. The leaders of the Communist party tried to stifle the ongoing protests and unrest by scapegoating the Jews. At the same time there was an ongoing power struggle within the party itself and the antisemitic campaign was used by one faction against another. The so-called "Partisan" faction blamed the Jews who had held office during the Stalinist period for the excesses that had occurred, but the result was that most of the remaining Polish Jews, regardless of their background or political affiliation, were targeted by the communist authorities.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: There were several outcomes of the "March 1968 events". The campaign damaged Poland's reputation abroad, particularly in the U.S. Many Polish intellectuals, however, were disgusted at the promotion of official antisemitism and opposed the campaign. Some of the people who emigrated to the West at this time founded organizations that encouraged anti-Communist opposition inside Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: First attempts to improve Polish-Israeli relations began in the mid-1970s. Poland was the first of the Eastern Bloc countries to restore diplomatic relations with Israel after these have been broken off right after the Six-Day's War. In 1986 partial diplomatic relations with Israel were restored, and full relations were restored in 1990 as soon as communism fell.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: During the late 1970s some Jewish activists were engaged in the anti-Communist opposition groups. Most prominent among them, Adam Michnik (founder of "Gazeta Wyborcza") was one of the founders of the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). By the time of the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, only 5,000–10,000 Jews remained in the country, many of them preferring to conceal their Jewish origin.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: With the fall of communism in Poland, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has been undergoing a revival. Many historical issues, especially related to World War II and the 1944–89 period, suppressed by Communist censorship, have been re-evaluated and publicly discussed (like the Jedwabne pogrom, the Koniuchy massacre, the Kielce pogrom, the Auschwitz cross, and Polish-Jewish wartime relations in general).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Jewish religious life has been revived with the help of the Ronald Lauder Foundation and the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture. There are two rabbis serving the Polish Jewish community, several Jewish schools and associated summer camps as well as several periodical and book series sponsored by the above foundations. Jewish studies programs are offered at major universities, such as Warsaw University and the Jagiellonian University. The Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland was founded in 1993. Its purpose is the promotion and organization of Jewish religious and cultural activities in Polish communities.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: A large number of cities with synagogues include Warsaw, Kraków, Zamość, Tykocin, Rzeszów, Kielce, or Góra Kalwaria although not many of them are still active in their original religious role. Stara Synagoga ("Old Synagogue") in Kraków, which hosts a Jewish museum, was built in the early 15th century and is the oldest synagogue in Poland. Before the war, the Yeshiva Chachmei in Lublin was Europe's largest. In 2007 it was renovated, dedicated and reopened thanks to the efforts and endowments by Polish Jewry. Warsaw has an active synagogue, Beit Warszawa, affiliated with the Liberal-Progressive stream of Judaism.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: There are also several Jewish publications although most of them are in Polish. These include "Midrasz", "Dos Jidische Wort" (which is bilingual), as well as a youth journal "Jidele" and "Sztendlach" for young children. Active institutions include the Jewish Historical Institute, the E.R. Kaminska State Yiddish Theater in Warsaw, and the Jewish Cultural Center. The Judaica Foundation in Kraków has sponsored a wide range of cultural and educational programs on Jewish themes for a predominantly Polish audience. With funds from the city of Warsaw and the Polish government ($26 million total) a Museum of the History of Polish Jews is being built in Warsaw. The building was designed by the Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Former extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Treblinka are open to visitors. At Auschwitz the Oświęcim State Museum currently houses exhibitions on Nazi crimes with a special section (Block Number 27) specifically focused on Jewish victims and martyrs. At Treblinka there is a monument built out of many shards of broken stone, as well as a mausoleum dedicated to those who perished there. A small mound of human ashes commemorates the 350,000 victims of the Majdanek camp who were killed there by the Nazis. Jewish Cemetery, Łódź is one of the largest Jewish burial grounds in Europe, and preserved historic sites include those located in Góra Kalwaria and Leżajsk (Elimelech's of Lizhensk ohel).


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Great Synagogue in Oświęcim was excavated after testimony by a Holocaust survivor suggested that many Jewish relics and ritual objects had been buried there, just before Nazis took over the town. Candelabras, chandeliers, a menorah and a ner tamid were found and can now be seen at the Auschwitz Jewish Center.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The Warsaw Ghetto Memorial was unveiled on 19 April 1948—the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw ghetto Uprising. It was constructed out of bronze and granite that the Nazis used for a monument honoring German victory over Poland and it was designed by Nathan Rapoport. The Memorial is located where the Warsaw Ghetto used to be, at the site of one command bunker of the Jewish Combat Organization.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: A memorial to the victims of the Kielce Pogrom of 1946, where a mob murdered more than 40 Jews who returned to the city after the Holocaust, was unveiled in 2006. The funds for the memorial came from the city itself and from the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Polish authors and scholars have published many works about the history of Jews in Poland. Notable among them are the Polish Academy of Sciences's Holocaust studies journal as well as other publications from the Institute of National Remembrance. Recent scholarship has primarily focused on three topics: post-war anti-Semitism; emigration and the creation of the State of Israel, and the restitution of property.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: There have been a number of Holocaust remembrance activities in Poland in recent years. The United States Department of State documents that:


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In September 2000, dignitaries from Poland, Israel, the United States, and other countries (including Prince Hassan of Jordan) gathered in the city of Oświęcim (Auschwitz) to commemorate the opening of the refurbished Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue and the Auschwitz Jewish Center. The synagogue, the sole synagogue in Oświęcim to survive World War II and an adjacent Jewish cultural and educational center, provide visitors a place to pray and to learn about the active pre–World War II Jewish community that existed in Oświęcim. The synagogue was the first communal property in the country to be returned to the Jewish community under the 1997 law allowing for restitution of Jewish communal property.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: The March of the Living is an annual event in April held since 1988 to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. It takes place from Auschwitz to Birkenau and is attended by many people from Israel, Poland and other countries. The marchers honor Holocaust Remembrance Day as well as Israel Independence Day.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: An annual festival of Jewish culture, which is one of the biggest festivals of Jewish culture in the world, takes place in Kraków.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In 2006, Poland's Jewish population was estimated to be approximately 20,000; most living in Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków, and Bielsko-Biała, though there are no census figures that would give an exact number. According to the Polish Moses Schorr Centre and other Polish sources, however, this may represent an undercount of the actual number of Jews living in Poland, since many are not religious. There are also people with Jewish roots who do not possess adequate documentation to confirm it, due to various historical and family complications.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: Poland is currently easing the way for Jews who left Poland during the Communist organized massive expulsion of 1968 to re-obtain their citizenship. Some 15,000 Polish Jews were deprived of their citizenship in the 1968 Polish political crisis. On 17 June 2009 the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw launched a bilingual Polish-English website called "The Virtual Shtetl", providing information about Jewish life in Poland.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: In 2013, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened. It is one of the world's largest Jewish museums. As of 2019 another museum, the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, is under construction and is intended to open in 2023.


title: History of the Jews in Poland

text: However, most sources other than YIVO give a larger number of Jews living in contemporary Poland. In the 2011 Polish census, 7,353 Polish citizens declared their nationality as "Jewish," a big increase from just 1,055 during the previous 2002 census. There are likely more people of Jewish ancestry living in Poland but who do not actively identify as Jewish. According to the Moses Schorr Centre, there are 100,000 Jews living in Poland who don't actively practice Judaism and do not list "Jewish" as their nationality. The Jewish Renewal in Poland organization estimates that there are 200,000 "potential Jews" in Poland. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency for Israel estimate that there are between 25,000 and 100,000 Jews living in Poland, a similar number to that estimated by Jonathan Ornstein, head of the Jewish Community Center in Kraków (between 20,000 and 100,000).


title: Despotism

text: Despotism (, "despotismós") is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot; but (as in an autocracy) societies which limit respect and power to specific groups have also been called despotic.


title: Despotism

text: Colloquially, the word "despot" applies pejoratively to those who use their power and authority to oppress their populace, subjects, or subordinates. More specifically, the term often applies to a head of state or government. In this sense, it is similar to the pejorative connotations that are associated with the terms "tyrant" and "dictator".


title: Despotism

text: The root "despot" comes from the Greek word "despotes", which means "master" or "one with power." The term has been used to describe many rulers and governments throughout history. It connoted the absolute authority and power exercised by the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, signified nobility in Byzantine courts, designated the rulers of Byzantine vassal states, and acted as a title for Byzantine Emperors. In this and other Greek or Greek influenced contexts, the term was used as an honorific rather than as a pejorative.


title: Despotism

text: Due to its reflexive connotation throughout history, the word "despot" cannot be objectively defined. While "despot" is closely related to other Greek words like "basileus" and "autokrator", these connotations have also been used to describe a variety of rulers and governments throughout history, such as local chieftains, simple rulers, kings, and emperors.


title: Despotism

text: Of all the ancient Greeks, Aristotle was perhaps the most influential promoter of the concept of "oriental despotism". He passed this ideology to his student, Alexander the Great, who conquered the Achaemenid Empire, which at the time was ruled by the "despotic" Darius III, the last king of the Achaemenid dynasty. Aristotle asserted that oriental despotism was not based on force, but on consent. Hence, fear could not be said to be its motivating force, but rather the servile nature of those enslaved, which would feed upon the power of the despot master.


title: Despotism

text: Within ancient Greek society, every Greek man was free and capable of holding office; both able to rule and be ruled. In contrast, among the barbarians, all were slaves by nature. Another difference Aristotle espoused was based on climates. He observed that the peoples of cold countries, especially those of Europe, were full of spirit but deficient in skill and intelligence, and that the peoples of Asia, although endowed with skill and intelligence, were deficient in spirit and hence were subjected to slavery. Possessing both spirit and intelligence, the Greeks were free to govern all other peoples.


title: Despotism

text: For the historian Herodotus, it was the way of the Orient to be ruled by autocrats and, even though Oriental, the character faults of "despots" were no more pronounced than the ordinary man's, though given to much greater opportunity for indulgence. The story of "Croesus of Lydia" exemplifies this. Leading up to Alexander's expansion into Asia, most Greeks were repelled by the Oriental notion of a sun-king, and the divine law that Oriental societies accepted. Herodotus's version of history advocated a society where men became free when they consented lawfully to the social contract of their respective city-state.


title: Despotism

text: The concept of despotism, and especially Oriental despotism, entered European political thought with Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws" in the 18th century. The idea was not new or unique to Montesquieu's work, but Montesquieu's work is widely regarded as having been the most influential on modern political thought.


title: Despotism

text: In its classical form, despotism is a state in which a single individual (the "despot") holds all the power and authority embodying the state, and everyone else is a subsidiary person. This form of despotism was common in the first forms of statehood and civilization; the Pharaoh of Egypt is an exemplary figure of the classical despot.


title: Despotism

text: Edward Gibbon suggested that the increasing use of Oriental-style despotism by the Roman emperors was a major factor in the fall of the Roman Empire, particularly from the reign of Elagabalus: As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture, however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate-house, conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white. The grave senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism. ("The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Book One, Chapter Six)


title: Despotism

text: The word itself seems to have been coined by the opponents of Louis XIV of France in the 1690s, who applied the term "despotisme" to describe their monarch's somewhat free exercise of power. The word is ultimately Greek in origin, and in ancient Greek usage, a despot ("despótès") was technically a master who ruled in a household over those who were slaves or servants by nature.


title: Despotism

text: The term now implies tyrannical rule. Despotism can refer to any absolutist or dictatorial regime or leader that uses their power in a cruel manner.


title: Despotism

text: However, in enlightened absolutism (also known as benevolent despotism), which came to prominence in 18th century Europe, absolute monarchs used their authority to institute a number of reforms in the political systems and societies of their countries. This movement was quite probably triggered by the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.


title: Despotism

text: The Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu believed that despotism was an appropriate government for large states. Likewise, he believed that republics were suitable for small states and that monarchies were ideal for moderate-sized states.


title: Despotism

text: Although the word has a pejorative meaning nowadays, it was once a legitimate title of office in the Byzantine Empire. Just as the word "Byzantine" is often used in a pejorative way, so the word "despot" now has equally negative connotations. In fact, Despot was an Imperial title, first used under Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180) who created it for his appointed heir Alexius-Béla. According to Gyula Moravcsik, this title was a simple translation of Béla's Hungarian title "úr", but other historians believe it comes from the ancient Greek "despotes" (literally, "the master"). In the Orthodox Liturgy, if celebrated in Greek, the priest is addressed by the deacon as Despot even today.


title: Despotism

text: It was typically bestowed on sons-in-law and later sons of the Emperor and, beginning in the 13th century, it was bestowed to foreign princes. The Despot wore elaborate costumes similar to the Emperor's and had many privileges. Despots ruled over parts of the empire called Despotates.


title: Despotism

text: The United States Declaration of Independence accused King George III of "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinc[ing] a design to reduce [the people] under absolute Despotism".


title: Despotism

text: According to Montesquieu, the difference between absolute monarchy and despotism is that in the case of the monarchy, a single person governs with absolute power by fixed and established laws, whereas a despot governs by his or her own will and caprice.


title: Edwin Hodge

text: Edwin Martel Basil Hodge (born January 26, 1985) is an American actor. He is recognized for portraying Dante Bishop in "The Purge" film series, and is the only actor to appear in all of the first three films.


title: Edwin Hodge

text: Hodge was born on January 26, 1985, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Aldis Basil Hodge and Yolette Evangeline Richardson, but he was raised in New York. Hodge's mother is from the state of Florida and his father from Saint Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands. He is the older brother of actor Aldis Hodge.


title: Edwin Hodge

text: Hodge guest starred on an episode of the TNT series "Leverage" which stars his younger brother. He guest starred on an episode of "One Tree Hill".


title: Edwin Hodge

text: Hodge played the role of "the Bloody Stranger" in the horror film "The Purge" (2013) and its sequels "" (2014) and "" (2016); "the Bloody Stranger" was revealed to be named Dante Bishop in the third film. He also appeared in the horror film "As Above, So Below" (2014).


title: Edwin Hodge

text: In 2019, Hodge played the role of Clayton Poole, husband of NASA astronaut Danielle Poole, in the first season of the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series "For All Mankind."


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Curtis Sliwa (; born March 26, 1954) is an American activist, radio talk show host and founder and chief executive officer of the Guardian Angels, a nonprofit organization for unarmed crime prevention. Sliwa was the Republican nominee for the 2021 New York City mayoral election, which he lost to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Curtis Sliwa was born on March 26, 1954, into a Catholic family of Polish and Italian descent, in Canarsie, Brooklyn. He has two sisters. He attended Brooklyn Prep, a Jesuit high school from which he was later expelled, and graduated from Canarsie High School. In his youth, he worked as a delivery boy for the "Daily News", where he was awarded the title of "Newsboy of the Year" and a trip to the White House after he saved several people from a burning building while on a paper route.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Prior to founding the Guardian Angels, he was night manager of a McDonald's restaurant on Fordham Road in the Bronx.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In May 1977, Sliwa created the "Magnificent 13", a civilian group dedicated to combating violence and crime on the New York City Subway. At the time, the city was experiencing a crime wave. The Magnificent 13 grew and was renamed the Guardian Angels in 1979. The group's actions drew strong reactions, both positive and negative. Membership of the Guardian Angels showed 80 percent of them were either black or Hispanic in ethnic origin. Unarmed, the group required training in karate and fulfillment of legal requirements for citizens' arrest for all members before they were to be deployed. Sliwa's red beret is a component of the Guardian Angels' uniform.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Mayor Ed Koch, a critic of Sliwa and of the organization, launched an investigation into the Guardian Angels, which according to "The Washington Post", proved "so positive that the Guardian Angels will soon be awarded some sort of official status." Then-Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo was a rare early advocate of the organization, being quoted saying "[t]hey are a better expression of morality than our city deserves".


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In 1992, Sliwa admitted that he and The Guardian Angels faked heroic subway rescues for publicity. He also admitted to having claimed falsely that three off-duty transit police officers had kidnapped him.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In the early 1980s, he expanded operations to Buffalo, and was often critical of local police policies and practices. One incident involved Guardian Angels member Frank Melvin, who was fatally shot by a Newark police officer in December 1981 after an officer claimed they mistook his unzipping of his jacket – to display his Guardian Angels emblem – as a threat. Sliwa claimed that the killing of Melvin – an African American – was racially motivated, and had been done by a white officer who was being protected by the police department, rather than by the Hispanic officer identified as the shooter. An Essex County grand jury cleared both officers of charges related to Melvin's death.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: On June 19, 1992, Sliwa was kidnapped and shot by two gunmen after entering a stolen taxi in Manhattan. The taxi picked up Sliwa near his home in the East Village, and a gunman hiding in the front passenger seat jumped up and fired several shots, hitting him in the groin and legs. The kidnapping was foiled when Sliwa leapt from a front window of the moving cab and escaped. Sliwa underwent surgery for internal injuries and leg wounds.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Federal prosecutors eventually charged John A. Gotti, the son of Gambino crime family leader John Gotti, with the attempted murder and a raft of other charges. Prosecutors claimed that Gotti was angered by remarks Sliwa had made on his radio program about Gotti's father. However, after three attempts to try him, the last on September 20, 2005, three separate juries were unable to agree to convict Gotti on any of the charges brought against him, and the charges were dropped. Jurors later told reporters they did believe he had a role in Sliwa's shooting. Prosecutors declined to re-try Gotti and dismissed the charges against him. Sliwa said he would seek damages in civil court.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Michael Yannotti, a Gotti associate, was also charged with shooting Sliwa in the incident but was acquitted. Yannotti, however, was sentenced to 20 years on an unrelated racketeering charge. Still, Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin said evidence suggested Yannotti was the shooter.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa has been a radio broadcaster for three decades, most of that time on WABC-AM, where he began his career in 1990. In 1994, the then city-owned and operated WNYC hired Sliwa, who had been released by WABC. Some, including Sliwa, have suggested that he was given access to the station by newly-elected Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom he had supported in the 1993 mayoral race.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa has become a populist conservative radio talk show host. Since 1996, he has hosted various radio programs on WABC, and in 2000, he became the co-host, with attorney Ron Kuby, of the long-running "Curtis and Kuby in the Morning". The show lasted eight years before Citadel Broadcasting replaced the team with Don Imus. His longtime broadcast partner was lawyer Ron Kuby, with whom he had multiple times hosted in the past "Curtis & Kuby" weekday radio show at noon, on WABC-AM in New York City. Starting in June 2017, Sliwa's co-host was attorney and television commentator, Eboni Williams. His most recent co-host was Juliet Huddy, who joined the show in February 2019.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: The "Curtis Sliwa LIVE" program began national syndication on December 1, 2008. WABC retained Sliwa until November 2009, when his show was cancelled after a contract dispute. He hosted both the morning and evening "drive time" shows on WNYM-AM 970, but as of January 2, 2014, Sliwa returned to WABC, replacing Rush Limbaugh who moved to WOR-AM. Prior to his mayoral campaign, a Bronx lawyer lodged a complaint against Sliwa, alleging he was promoting his mayoral candidacy on his show, which would violate campaign laws. Sliwa said he was considering quitting his show, but would only make a decision after he garnered enough signatures to appear on the ballot for the Republican primaries. After officially declaring his candidacy in March 2021, Sliwa's radio program went on hiatus.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In September 2016, Sliwa launched a successful hostile takeover of the Reform Party of New York State. The party lost its ballot access in the November 2018 elections.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In December 2019, Sliwa declared in an interview that he hated then-President of the United States Donald Trump, calling him a "screwball and a crackpot". In February 2021, weeks after Trump left office, Sliwa switched from the Reform Party to the Republican Party. Sliwa changed parties and lost control over the Reform Party after losing the required votes to keep the Reform Party on the ballot. Bill C. Merrell regained control over the NYS Reform Party and is now again NYS Chair of the Reform Party. The official state Party is again affiliated with the National Reform Party.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa announced on March 8, 2020, that he would be running for mayor of New York City in 2021 as a Republican, seeking to become the 110th mayor of New York City.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Once friends, the primary race turned Sliwa and Fernando Mateo into bitter rivals. The Manhattan, Queens and Bronx Republican parties endorsed Mateo, while the Staten Island and Brooklyn Republican parties endorsed Sliwa. Sliwa criticized Mateo for donating to the 2017 re-election campaign of Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, and Sliwa also accused Mateo of breaking the law; Mateo replied that Sliwa's accusations were bogus and shameful.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: During the campaign, Mateo and Sliwa clashed over loyalty to former president Donald Trump. Mateo believes the claims that Trump won the 2020 presidential election; by contrast, Sliwa did not support Trump in either 2016 or 2020, and does not support Trump's claims of election fraud. The unofficial results showed Sliwa winning by 72 to 28 percent.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa has run on a platform opposing the defund the police movement, supporting a property tax overhaul so that working-class residents would not pay higher property taxes than wealthy citizens, keeping in place the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test while increasing opportunities for vocational training in charter schools, and focusing on fiscal restraint. He also opposes the killing of unwanted animals and supports making all animal shelters no-kill shelters.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa campaigned on beginning a trial program, if elected, to test out the feasibility of universal basic income in New York City.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa lost to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in a landslide defeat in the general election on November 2, 2021. Sliwa conceded that same night, calling for unity in order to "save" New York City.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa has been married four times. He wed his second wife, Lisa Evers, in 1981. At the time, she was National Director of the Guardian Angels and co-hosted a WABC-AM radio show called "Angels in the Morning". She is also a martial arts expert who briefly trained with the World Wrestling Federation in 1986.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In 2000, Sliwa married his third wife, Mary Galda, a former WABC employee who also served as The Guardian Angels' national director. They have one son, Anthony Chester.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: Sliwa was in a relationship with Melinda Katz, the Queens County District Attorney, and separated from her in 2014; they have two children together, conceived in vitro over the previous five years. She is named in a court case involving Sliwa, accused by his ex-wife Mary of diverting money to Katz while still married to Mary, as part of a plan to build a "nest egg" with Katz prior to moving in with her.


title: Curtis Sliwa

text: In 2018 Sliwa wed longtime girlfriend, animal activist & attorney Nancy Regula at the Howe Caverns. They live on the Upper West Side with their many rescue cats.


title: Lena Raine

text: Lena "Kuraine" Raine (born February 29, 1984), also known as Lena Chappelle, is an American-Canadian composer, producer, and video game developer. Raine is best known for her work on the soundtracks of "Celeste", "Minecraft" and "Guild Wars 2". She has composed music for various other video games, including "Deltarune" and "".


title: Lena Raine

text: Raine had an early exposure to music due to participation in choir at a young age. Her father was also a violinist. Through a "Sonic the Hedgehog" fan community she was introduced to MIDI arrangement, first making MIDI versions of songs she knew and then making original music. She later attended Cornish College of the Arts for a degree in music composition.


title: Lena Raine

text: Raine is best known for her work on the soundtracks of "Celeste" and "Guild Wars 2". She worked on "Guild Wars 2" at ArenaNet for six years, initially as a Game Designer before composing soundtracks for the game. At ArenaNet, she and Maclaine Diemer were in-house composers of the music for the game's 2015 expansion, "". She left ArenaNet in 2016.


title: Lena Raine

text: In 2018, Raine released the text adventure "ESC" on itch.io. Raine was the developer and composer for "ESC", with visuals created by Dataerase. In 2019, she released her debut album, "Oneknowing". She composed music for "Minecraft", creating four new pieces of music which were included in the 1.16 "Nether Update" in 2020. A year later, she returned to Minecraft, composing six new tracks for the 1.18 "Caves & Cliffs: Part II" update, alongside fellow video game composer Kumi Tanioka. Raine created the soundtrack for the adventure RPG "", and assisted with the soundtrack for the second chapter of "Deltarune", both released in 2021.


title: Lena Raine

text: Raine was nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) and won American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Video Game Score of the Year in 2019. Her soundtrack for "Celeste" was also nominated for Best Score/Music at The Game Awards 2018.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: The Kissing Booth 2 is a 2020 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Vince Marcello and written by Marcello and Jay Arnold. As a direct sequel to the 2018 film "The Kissing Booth" and the second installment in the "Kissing Booth" trilogy (itself based on "The Kissing Booth" books by Beth Reekles), the film stars Joey King, Joel Courtney and Jacob Elordi.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: The film was released on July 24, 2020, by Netflix. Like its predecessor, the film received generally negative reviews from critics. A third installment was released on August 11, 2021.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Elle's senior year begins with classmates gossiping that she and Noah will eventually break up, making her fear elevate as Noah has befriended an attractive British girl named Chloe on Instagram.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Elle and Lee are planning the kissing booth again for the Charity Fair, and he is trying to convince her to ask Marco Peña, the new transfer student known as the new "Noah Flynn," be one of the kissers. Beating Marco on the dancing game, she forces him to participate in the booth. Noah suggests Elle apply to Harvard, which clashes with her plans to study at University of California, Berkeley with Lee (where their moms met and became friends). Elle does it secretly.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Talking with her father about college tuition, Elle learns money is a problem, and decides to participate with Lee in a dance competition with a cash reward for first place. She visits Noah in Boston, meeting his new friends and Chloe, making her more insecure. She finds Chloe's earring under Noah's bed, which causes her to leave Boston. Confronting Noah, he assures her nothing has happened between him and Chloe and he asks her to trust him, though she is still skeptical. Lee has an accident on one of their practice sessions (later revealed to be fake) and proposes that Marco become her dance partner, which she isn't too happy about but eventually does. As Marco and Elle start spending time together, they grow closer, and an attraction starts between them.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Unbeknownst to Elle, Lee's having problems with Rachel, as Elle goes everywhere with them and does not give them alone time. After leaving Rachel waiting at the movies, she asks Lee to talk with Elle, which he promises but never does. The Halloween Dance arrives, and Lee forgets to tell Rachel they changed costumes (Rachel was a marshmallow while Lee and Elle were going to be crackers making a smore), upsetting her even more. Elle shares a dance with Marco, almost kissing him but stops upon hearing people gossiping about her.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Lee finds in his car trunk Elle's applications to Harvard, angering him. Elle and Marco excel at their performance, and she kisses him at the end of their dance, not knowing Noah was in the crowd, causing him to walk away.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: Thanksgiving dinner happens at Flynn's, where Noah arrives with Chloe, upsetting Elle, who Lee confronts for not telling him about her application to Harvard and Rachel is upset with her as well. During dinner, Rachel discovers Lee never spoke with Elle and leaves. Catching up with her, Rachel breaks up with him. Elle tries to convince Rachel to reconcile with Lee but is unsuccessful. She also returns the earring to Chloe, who confirms it's hers. She reveals to Noah in a bar that one night she slept in Noah's room when he was out and lost it.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: The carnival day arrives, and Lee and Rachel reconcile after being blindfolded and kissing at the kissing booth. Elle is also blindfolded and is approached by Marco, who wants to talk with her about their feelings. She admits there is an attraction between them but tells him she loves Noah and goes looking for him at the airport. Chloe tells her that he went to look for her, and Elle finds him in the park where they first kissed. Noah confesses to being embarrassed he wasn't doing as well at Harvard as he initially thought. He also wants a relationship with Chloe like Elle has with Lee. Elle and Noah reunite.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: A few months later, Noah returns, and Elle, Lee, and Rachel graduate. Lee shares with Elle that he was accepted at Berkeley and asked if she received a response. She answers she was waitlisted at both Berkeley and Harvard. When Elle opens both envelopes in her room, it turns out she was accepted to both universities, forcing her to make a decision: go to Harvard with Noah or Berkeley with Lee.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: In February 2019, it was announced Joey King, Joel Courtney and Jacob Elordi would reprise their roles, with Vince Marcello directing from a screenplay he wrote alongside Jay Arnold, with Netflix distributing. In May 2019, Maisie Richardson-Sellers and Taylor Zakhar Perez joined the cast of the film, with Meganne Young, Carson White and Molly Ringwald reprising their roles.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: The film was released on July 24, 2020 on Netflix. It was the top-streamed film in its opening weekend, while the first film ranked third. It placed second in its sophomore weekend, with "Forbes" noting it as "one of the most popular movies ever on the platform." In October 2020, Netflix reported 66 million households watched the film over its first four weeks of release.


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Joey King makes "The Kissing Booth 2" better than it could have been, but this slapdash sequel will leave viewers puckering up for all the wrong reasons." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: The Kissing Booth 2

text: IndieWire's Kate Erbland gave it a grade C+, and wrote: "While it offers some necessary growth for all of its characters, "The Kissing Booth 2" can never resist looking and acting like dozens of other offerings of its genre ilk, unable to grow beyond basic complications and done-to-death dramas. And yet there are hints that its evolution has a few more tricks left to employ, its winking conclusion only one of them." Clarisse Loughrey of "The Independent" gave the film a score of 2 out of 5 stars, writing: "To "The Kissing Booth 2"’s credit, it’s not as aggressively problematic as its predecessor."