EXHIBITION AT THE EMANUEL RINGELBLUM JEWISH HISTORICAL INSTITUTE
Anna Majchrowska, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny
Temporary exhibition from 29 August to 15 December 2019 at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute.
Polenaktion
On 31 March 1938, given the expected mass return of Polish Jews living in Germany to Poland, the Polish Parliament passed a law depriving them of their citizenship. According to the provisions of the Act, Polish citizens residing uninterruptedly abroad for at least five years after the establishment of the Polish State may be deprived of their citizenship. In mid-October 1938, a regulation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was issued, which ordered every Polish citizen residing outside the country to submit their passport for registration in a relevant consulate and to obtain a control note confirming the validity of the document. Holders of passports without annotation were not entitled to cross the Polish border after 29 October 1938.
On 26 October 1938, the head of the Reich Security Service, Reinhard Heydrich, issued a decree on the immediate expulsion of all Polish Jews from Germany. They received a deportation order and were transported to the border with Poland at their own expense, in sealed trains. They could only take 10 Marks and some clothes with them. They deported entire families, single men and women, as well as children and young people without the care of adults. The action was carried out in both large cities and small villages. The Polish consul in Leipzig, Felix Chiczewski, reacted to the displacement by opening the door of the General Consulate and providing shelter to more than 1,300 people.
On 28 October about 17,000 Jews with Polish citizenship arrived at the border stations in Zbąszyń, Bytom, Chojnice and Wschowa. Several thousand of them, being stateless, were stranded at the border between the German and Polish army cordons. The majority, i. e. about 8,000, were transported to Neu Bentschen (today's Zbąszynek), from where they were transported across the border to the Polish town of Zbąszyń on the Berlin-Warsaw railway route, which had a population of about 5,400 inhabitants. A transit camp was set up on the site of the former barracks.
Aid
Many people who were picked up in the middle of the night found themselves in Zbąszyń in slippers and pyjamas. 1] They had no money, clothes, or everyday objects; they were on the brink of a nervous breakdown. In the first few days, some of the deportees went to their families living in Poland. Later on, the authorities closed the town - leaving Zbąszyń required the permission of the authorities, money for a ticket and certainty that one had a place to go. [2]
Wszystkie zdjęcia w artykule: Grzegorz Kwolek, ŻIH.