When the Grand Mufti , Hajj Mohammed Amin El- Husseini (1893-1974) visited Hitler in Germany, both plotting the end of all Jews. In 1921, the Jewish high commissioner of England, Sir Herbert Samuel--titled but knew little of what was going on, appointed Husseini the mufti of Jerusalem and head of the Supreme Moslem Council. By 1936 as chairman of the Arab Supreme Council, he organized the Palestine disturbances (attacks on Jews) for which he was sentenced for exile in 1937.
In looking at this chart, Poland's Jews suffered the most being they had a large Jewish population. The Soviet Union had the 2nd largest population both in their country and death in the Holocaust. Surprising to me is 3rd of Hungary with 564,507 listed in the Holocaust.The Holocaust where 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the name of Hitler.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. Jews in Concentration Camps, doomed for the gas chambers
Poland: Jews lived here since the 9th century and either came from Germany, Bohemia or another area. It's not known if they came from the South of the Kingdom of Kiev or the Byzantine Empire but they were reinforced by KHAZAR elements. Most likely they were traders. There was a revolutionary rising in 1863 and Jews wanted equal rights for a change. It's effect was for Jews to assimilate and so they then held key positions in foreign trade, in timber, grain and metal trades, and in all branches of finance and industry and in the free professions such as doctors, lawyers, etc. .jpg%20Jews%20in%20Poland%20and%20Russia.jpg)
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The effect of this was anti-Semitism at the end of the 19th century. Their capabilities in these fields overwhelmed the community, not understanding their capabilities. The anti-Semites were supported and encouraged by the clergy, so the press launched a campaign against the Jews. Political groups loved that. A pogrom took place in Warsaw in 1881.
In 1939, Poland had over 3 million Jews. When Nazis occupied Poland, Jews underwent wholesale massacre. Ghettos were set up in Lodz, Bialystok, etc., a prelude to concentration camps and the gas chambers (death). Jews from other areas were brought to Poland to be killed there. A few managed to escape to Russia and a return, only to walk into another pogrom against them. So shameful of the Poles. So, between 1948 and 1958, about 140,500 Jews left Poland for Israel. after the Six-Day War in 1967, a strong anti-Semitic reaction in the government deprived Jews of leading positions in various walks of life and led to a further emigration. The number remaining in 1990 was about 16,000. The Jewish population in Poland is estimated to be around 10,000 people today. This is a significant decline from the pre-Holocaust era, when Poland had one of the largest Jewish communities in the world.
Dedicated to Professor Alexander Lerner, two of whose daughters, aged five and three, were killed by the Nazis in 1941, and whose own sixteen year struggle to leave the Soviet Union for Israel is now successfully concluded: The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert: September 1939: the trapping of Polish Jewry: p; 84 "
The German Forces crossed into Poland in the early hours of Friday, 1/Sept.,1939. For six and a half years Poland's Jews had watched with alarm the violent anti-Semitism imposed by Nazi Germany first upon German, then upon Austrian and finally upon Czech Jewry. They knew, at first hand, from Polish anti-Semites what mob hatred could do. But Polish Jewry had its own means of defense, its own press, its own institutions, and its own representation in the Polish parliament......On that first day of the German invasion, 193,950 Jews lived in Warsaw, the Polish capital. This was a third of Warsaw's population; a greater number of Jews than were left in Germany. Only in New York where two million Jews lived, were there more Jews in a single city. In the whole of Palestine there were only a few thousand more Jews than in Warsaw alone."
Russia/Soviet Union: Jews lived in Crimea, Caucasus, Khazars, Lithuania, Turkestan, Ukraine, etc. In 986, Jews participated in a disputation on the occasion of Duke Vladimir's conversion to Christianity. A Jewish gate is mentioned in the 12th century at Kiev, and the Jewish quarter there was looted in 1113, a time when Russian Jews attended western yeshivot (schools) and addressed questions to the German rabbis. By 15th century, Jewish traders from Lithuania disseminated a Juaizing sect in Novgorod and Moscow and this precipitated a dramatic reaction, because in 1563, 300 Jews were drowned at Polotsk and Vitebsk on refusing to accept baptism.
By 1667, the Jews were expelled from Eastern Ukraine upon its annexation to Russia. Clauses prohibiting Jews from visiting the country were inserted in treaties signed by Russia with foreign powers in 1550 and 1678. Jews were then expelled (expulsed) orders were issued in 1727, 1738, and 1742. In 1753, 35,000 Jews were driven out of Russia. In 1762, Catherine II, the empress, permitted all aliens to live in Russia except Jews. By the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795, the great Jewish masses of White Russia (Belarus), the Ukraine, Lithuania and Courland became Russian subjects and , for more than a century, the great majority of the world's Jews were under the reactionary rule of the Czars. The law in 1786 restricted Jews could only live in the towns, while Catherine II created the Pale of Settlement-allowing Jews to live there but not other places in Russia.
Things got better by 1802 when a Council for Jewish Affairs was established. Two years later, the PALE was defined, restricting Jews in the villages (1807-1808) and the activities of the Council (Kahal) was limited involving religion and charity. Russia also prohibited the traditional Jewish costume. It took measures to promote agriculture work for the Jewish people. Napoleon came along in 1812 in an invasion but the Jews remained loyal to Russia. Alexander I (1801-1825) was benevolent but later turned reactionary toward the Jews so again some 20,000 Jews were expelled from the provinces of Vitebsk and Mohilev in 1824 with remaining Jews kept from the frontier.
During Nicholas I reign, about 600 oppressive enactments on Jews were published who regarded them as an injurious element. By 1827, military service was brutally imposed on Jews. The frontiers of the Pale of Settlement, where they were allowed to live, were restricted in 1835 and remained effective until 1915 during WWI. Jewish books were censored in 1836, and in 1848, Jewish Council meetings were abolished. From Fiddler on the Roof: saying goodbye to father
The Nazis, who invaded Russia in 1941, aimed at exterminating the Jewish population. So, of the 500,000 Jews in White Russia, now called Belarus, landlocked country of eastern Europe. Until it became independent in 1991, Belarus, formerly known as Belorussia or White Russia, was the smallest of the three Slavic republics included in the Soviet Union (the larger two being Russia and Ukraine).
Only half escaped to the interior and up to 200,000 were slaughtered. The Soviet government established the anti-Fascist Committee to appeal to World Jewry in 1941 but immediately the Nazi peril had passed, , an anti-Jewish trend asserted itself; many outstanding Jews disappeared. Stalin died in 1953. All who survived were released.
"In the areas of Einsatzkommando killings, east of the river Bug, spring and summer had brought an upsurge of killings, now the ground was once again soft enough, but not too waterlogged, for the digging of pits for mass graves. At Radziwillow, in Volhynia, 3,000 Jews were rounded up for slaughter on May 29th. But a group of young men, among them Asher Czerkaski, organized a break-out. 1,500 Jews were shot; but a further 1,500 reached a temporary security of the nearby forests. "
"Another area in which the killings continued was south Russia. In the Kherson region, more than 70,000 Jews were murdered, many of them farmers. No hamlets, however remote, could escape the thoroughness of the search. On May 17, in the village of Clhaplinka, 3 Jewish families were found and shot. "
Well, things remained bad for Jews. The 1959 census showed 2,268, 000 Jews, but after 1967, Russian Jews demanded the right to emigrate to Israel and this was achieved in the early 1970. In 1980 when I made aliyah, many Russians were also entering at the same time though the doors were closed for them most of the time. I was in a class of 40 of mainly Russian Jews, and we were all learning Hebrew. Russians knew how to study a foreign language ! My paternal grandparents had come from Lithuania to the USA and never did learn English.
Resource:
https://holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/3-6-things-short-lesson.pdf
The new Standard Jewish encyclopedia
The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert, a history of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War, copyright 1985;
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