On a Downward Path. The Jews of Białystok, 1918-1939: Demography, Economics, Disintegration, Conflicts with Poles.

Piotr Wróbel

 

From the very beginning of the existence of the Jewish Diaspora, autonomous centres of cultural, political and economic life developed. After Mesopotamia, Spain and the Rhineland, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth became such a centre. In the eighteenth century, perhaps half of world Jewry lived within its borders. The decline of this East European Jewish community dates from the end of the nineteenth century, hastened by the events of the First World War. Some Jews emigrated to America and to Palestine--the new  centres of Jewish culture. Those who stayed were often living on the ‘brink of destruction’ in Celia Heller’s phrase and the situation of many of them continually deteriorated. This was the situation in Białystok, a city which in the nineteenth century had become an important centre for the Jewish population and which had become of one of the largest centres of industrial production on the Polish lands. The First World War and the changes following it in East-central Europe undermined the vitality of the city and the situation of the Jews residing within it. In these new conditions, a number of basic factors worked against them which also decisively defined the situation of Jewish society in interwar Białystok.

 

Demography

The first of these factors was the large number of Białystok Jews. Even before 1914, Białystok had aroused the interest of statisticians and sociologists because of the rate of growth of the Jewish population. This growth, which began in the middle of the nineteenth century and was connected with the beginnings of the textile industry, was likened to the demographic explosion in Łódź.  There, however, in the nineteenth century, the Jewish population increased ‘only’ 30-fold, whereas Białystok saw a 60-fold increase in its population.[i]

Table 1: The Population of Białystok between 1765 and 1914

Year

Total

Jews

Non-Jews

Percentage of Jews in total population

1765

3,400

761

2,639

22.4

1808

6,000

4,000

2,000

66.6

1847

--

6,714

--

--

1857

13,787

9,547

4,240

69.0

1861

17,000

11,873

5,127

69.8

1895

62,993

47,783

15,210

76.0

1910

76,000

52,123

23,877

68.5

1914

89,703

61,500

28,200 (16,400 Catholics)

68.6

Source: J. Bachrach, Demografie fun der yidisher bafolkerung in Bialystok (Białystok, 1937), 10.

 

Throughout the  nineteenth century, Jews constituted the majority of the city’s population which reflected their economic situation at the time. As this began to deteriorate after 1914, the percentage of Jews decreased. Significant changes came about with the outbreak of the First World War. The Russian mobilization and evacuation, the destruction caused by the war, the German dismantling of industrial equipment, contributions and requisitions caused the departure of several thousand inhabitants. According to the data of the German occupying authorities, the population of Białystok in 1916 amounted to 54,260, of whom 40,900 were Jews (around 72 per cent).[ii]

After the end of the war, the repatriation of Poles from Russia, the influx of Polish while-collar workers and intelligentsia, the absorption of surrounding villages by the city, the emigration of Jews and the fact that Białystok had lost its attraction as a city and no longer drew in newcomers all meant that by 1921, out of a population of 76,792, 37,186 (48.7 per cent) declared themselves to be of Jewish nationality and 39,602 (51.6 per cent) said they were of the Mosaic faith. Nevertheless, the Jews continued to constitute the city’s largest ethnic group alongside 46.6 per cent of Polish nationality, 1.8 per cent Russian, 0.8 per cent Byelorussian, 1.9 per cent German, and 0.2 per cent other. By religion--38.6 per cent were Catholic,  6.2 per cent Orthodox,  3.2 per cent Protestant, 0.3 per cent other Chnstian denominations  and 0.1 per cent other).[iii]

The same phenomena continued to operate in the inter-war period. In the years 1918-39 the non-Jewish population of Białystok grew three times faster than the Jewish population (according to general data, not taking into account the inaccuracies in registration of the movement of the population).

 

Table 2: The Increase in the Population of Bialystok 1923-28

Year

Overall increase

Increase of Jews

Increase of non-Jews

1923

2,197

566

1,631

1924

1,454

488

966

1925

2,042

250

1792

1926

1251

135

1,116

1927

839

221

618

1928

2,041

628

1,413

1929

9,644

2,288

7356

Source: Bachrach, 14

There were few Jews now among newcomers and they dominated the numbers of those leaving. It was not only the former workers employed by various industries which had been ruined by the permanent state of crisis who were leaving. ‘What will become of our youth who are studying,’ asked Unzer lebn in 1932. For lack of a local institution of higher education, the young Jews of Białystok headed for all the university cities of the country--they went mainly to Warsaw and Vilna--or even more frequently--due to the numerus clausus in force in Poland--they went abroad. In 1932, 278 Białystok Jews pursued further education, among them 124 in Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, Belgium and Germany. Returning home again was often an unattractive option and a difficult one, if only because they were obliged to have their degrees recognized by the Polish Ministry of Education.[iv]

Thus during the interwar period, Jews ceased to be the city’s largest ethnic group, although they continued to be a significant one, different and distinct in the eyes of society.

Table 3: The Population of Białystok 1929 and 1931

Year

Total Population

Jews

Percentage of Jews

1929

90,244

43,150

47.8

1931

91,335

39,165

42.8

 Source: Bachrach, 14-5.

Table 4: The Population of Białystok in 1936 according to Nationality

Population

Poles

Jews

Russians

Germans

Others

Percentage of Jews

99,722

50,758

42,482

359

2,094

798

42.6

Source: Bachrach, 15.

Table 5: The Population of Białystok in 1936 according to Religion

Population

Catholic

Jewish

Orthodox

Protestant

Others

Percentage of Jews

99,722

45,474

43,880

8,177

2,892

299

43

Source: Bachrach, 15.

 

Thus in the course of the interwar years, Jews ceased to be the largest ethnic group in the town, though they remained a very large and visible group. They lived mainly in the central districts of the city, particularly to the west of the Palace park and south of Kościuszko Square in the area of Lipowa, Surażska, Cicha, Gęsia, and Ciemna Streets, and Sienny and Rybny Squares. The Jewish district also continued along the other side of Kościuszko Square, along Zamenhoff Street, its buildings chaotically crowded together, lacking even basic sanitation. The poor condition of much of centre of Białystok was described by Maria Dąbrowska in 1924:

Repulsive three-storey blocks built of cream, pale rose-coloured or red bricks arranged in patterns, they are encrusted, ornamented, vulgarized. Innumerable shops whose dirty windows appear ready to collapse at any moment under the pressure of the gaudy displays which repel rather than attract, the purple and golden oranges, heaped up in every corner, appear in this hideousness like a luxuriant hot stain. Nowhere as much as here does one get the impression of a swarming, dirty and clammy crowd…Let us look into the hallways of some of these buildings, into their courtyards. From every side one is assailed with a sour disgusting smell. Everywhere streams of  stinking, dirty water, flow in a thick liquid to the gutters. And apart from this there lurks in every one of them some ‘ancient’ stinking ‘pit’--something which infects the whole house and which means that the whole place is full of damp, poisoned apartments, unfit for habitation.[v]

Apart from the crowded centre, Białystok did not give the impression of an industrial town. It was dominated by single-storey, small wooden houses scattered

throughout the extensive suburbs which were also inhabited by the Jewish population.

 

Professional structure

A second factor adversely affecting the Jews of Białystok was the traditional professional structure of a population concentrated mainly in trade, crafts and (to a greater degree in Białystok than in Poland as a whole)--in industry. In 1921, of 100 Białystok trading enterprises, 93 were in Jewish hands (78.3 per cent in 1928). For industry the figure was 89 per cent.[vi] In all, in 1921, according to the data of Józef Leszczyński, there were 1,654 Jewish industrial and handicraft enterprises. 39 per cent of them functioned without additional hired labour. The remainder employed 6,363 workers, among them 2,930 Jews (46 per cent) Jews.[vii]

 

Table 6: Jewish Industry in Białystok in 1921

Branch of Industry

Number of Jewish Enterprises

Enterprises not employing hired labour

Number of Workers in Enterprises employing hired labour

Number of Jewish Workers in Enterprises employing hired labour

Textiles

371

99 (26.7 per cent)

4,375

1,401 (32 per cent)

Clothing

684

298 (43.6 per cent)

732

675 (93.4  per cent)

Food

136

39 (28.6 per cent)

391

130 (58.8 per cent)

Metal

101

44

99

89 (89.9 per cent)

Building

109

80

82

55 (67.1 per cent)

Timber

49

19

86

74 (86.0 per cent)

Machine tools

46

23

142

45 (31.7 per cent)

Leather

51

12

224

166 (74.1 per cent)

Chemical

20

4

79

68 (86.1 per cent)

Typographic

19

4

36

33 (91.7 per cent)

Cleaning

46

23

69

44 (68.8 per cent)

Entertainment

2

-

36

33  (80.6 per cent)

Rubber

1

-

7

7 (100 per cent)

Stone Work

5

2

3

3 (100 per cent)

Paper

14

7

11

11 (100 per cent

 Source: Hershberg, Pinkos Bialystok, 289-91.

Table 7: Size of Enterprises employing Jewish workers

Size of Enterprise

Total number of workers

Jewish workers

1 worker

404

387 (95.8 per cent)

2-3

773

723 (93.5 per cent)

4-5

380

326 (83.8 per cent)

6-10

573

428 (74.4 per cent)

11-15

331

165 (50.0 per cent)

16-20

304

64 (21.1 per cent)

21-30

524

126 (24.2 per cent)

31-50

598

125 (21.1 per cent)

Over fifty

2,476

586 (23.7 per cent)

Source: Hershberg, Pinkos Bialystok, 91.

 

Outside the textile industry, Jews worked mainly in small enterprises and

workshops. Somewhat different figures are given by Eliezer Heller in his survey, compiled on the basis of a questionnaire carried out in Poland by the American Joint Distribution Committee with the support and co-operation of Jewish industrialists and craftsmen.[viii] In Białystok this survey took in all industrial-craft enterprises (1,840) since there was hardly a firm in the city which did not employ Jews. According to Heller, in 1921 there were 3,409 Jewish hired workers, that is 49.5 per cent of all hired labour. A significant proportion of hired workers, particularly in the large enterprises were women, mainly non-Jewish. (See Tables 8 and 9) Heller’s figures also enable one to see the disproportion between Christian and Jewish trade in certain areas.

 

Table 8: Firms and Wage-earners in the Clothing and Shoe-making Sectors in Białystok in 1921

Branch of Production

Number of firms

Total Number of Workers

Jews

Non-Jews

Women’s clothes made to order

142

203

198

5

Women’s ready-made clothes

10

32

32

-

Women’s ready-made coats

6

21

21

-

Corsets

3

-

-

-

Men’s clothes made to order

129

193

192

1

Men’s ready-made clothes

34

63

61

2

Military uniforms

10

15

15

-

Trousers

1

1

1

-

Cheap clothing

4

-

-

-

Children’s clothes

4

9

9

-

Furriers

6

3

3

-

Capmaking

18

17

17

-

Needlewomen

33

22

21

-

Underclothing

2

1

1

-

Leather-stitching

58

75

75

-

Shoes made to order

194

155

133

22

High-heeled shoes

30

47

27

20

Machine-made shoes

3

9

8

1

Cheap shoes

4

-

-

-

Cloth shoes

9

9

8

1

Shoe accessories

3

-

-

-

Women’s hats

7

12

12

-

Men’s hats

3

2

2

-

Ornamentation for hats

5

4

4

-

Source: E. Heller, Zydowskie przedsiębiorstwa przemysłowe w Polsce, vol.lII, xviii

Table 9: Women as a percentage of the Labour Force in the Textile industry in Białystok in 1921

Branch of Production

Percentage of women among Jewish wage-earners

Percentage of women among non-Jewish wage-earners

Total textile industry

31.7

59.2

Shredding houses

59.6

59.7

Spinning factories

47.2

78.4

Weaver’s shops

24.9

20.1

Finishing

-

17.2

Source: E. Heller, Zydowskie przedsiębiorstwa przemysłowe w Polsce, vol.lII, xviii

  

The majority of Jewish workers in Białystok (aside from those involved in the textile industry) worked in plants which were on the whole poorly equipped and unmechanized. In enterprises with ‘mechanical machinery’, the Jews made up 34.9 per cent of the the workforce. In those with ‘non-mechanical’ machinery they made up 96.1 per cent and in those with without machinery 83.9 per cent.[ix]

Throughout the entire inter-war period the Jews dominated the free professions in Białystok.[x] However, few were to be found among the local or public service officials. They were also under-represented among those who committed crimes. They were distinguished, then, by their peacefulness and relatively small participation in the social margins, so to speak. In 1928, 610 people were arrested in Białystok including 227 Jews. Among the latter, the most frequently recorded crime was robbery without break-in (90 cases), resistance to authority (32),’strike terror’ (22) and fraud (12). There were no cases of murder or manslaughter amongst them or cases of attempted robbery, burglary, or violence.

 

Table 10: Jewish Criminal Prisoners in Białystok 1923-28

Year

Total prisoners

Jewish prisoners

Percentage of Jews

1923

435

43

9.9

1924

622

75

12.0

1925

453

42

9.3

1926

393

39

9.9

1927

511

55

10.8

1928

218

17

7.8

Source: Wiadomości statystycnze, 139.

Table 11 Jewish Prostitutes in Białystok 1925-28

Year            Professional Prostitutes                                    Women moonlighting as prostitutes

 

Total

Jewish

Jewish percentage

Total

Jewish

Jewish percentage

1925

233

24

10.3

149

12

8.0

1926

268

15

9.3

176

14

7.9

1927

215

16

7.4

141

2

1.4

1928

199

16

8.0

123

5

4.0

Source: Wiadomości statystycnze, 141.

 

Economics

The falling proportion of Jews in the overall number of inhabitants of Białystok was a reflection of the effects of the most negative factor on the situation of  local Jews: the city’s poor economic situation. In the last few years preceding the First World War, Białystok’s industry had been in full swing and was expanding intensively. There had been substantial new investment and local production, based on the most modern technology, reached a standard to which it was never to return. In 1914, the textile industry alone employed 6,970 workers; it was with good reason that the city was nicknamed ‘the Manchester of the North’.[xi]

 

Table 12: The Structure of the Białystok Textile Industry in 1914 and 1921

                                        Factories with more than 100 workers

Year

Number of factories

Number of Workers

Horsepower of machinery

1914

14

2,878

1,218

1921

9

1,967

621

 

                                       Factories with 51-100 workers

1914

14

1,036

215

1921

15

1.088

605

 

                                       Factories with 21-50 workers

1914

54

1,776

491

1921

43

1.443

335

 

                                       Factories with less than 20 workers

1914

137

1,253

154

1921

15

219

302

 

                                        All factories

 

1914

219

6.970

2,078

1921

119

4,757

3019

Source: Werwicki, 212-4.

 

 

The growth of the city before the First World War was accompanied by the flourishing of the Jewish community. In 1897, 87.3 per cent (3,168) of Białystok’s 3,628 merchants and shopkeepers were Jews and Jews also owned the majority of industrial and craft works.[xii] This domination was not weakened by the anti-Jewish propaganda of Christian tradesmen, an attempted boycott of Jewish enterprises, or the first cooperatives. In 1879 the community created a committee to help needy Jews, which operated from 1905 as the Jewish Charitable Society. In 1912 it was among the city’s most active institutions, boasting 1,305 members and an annual expenditure of around 30,000 roubles in its budget. In 1882 a home for old people and paralytics was opened and in 1885 the Linas hatsedek society was founded for the care of the sick and opened its own clinic and dispensary. There was a Jewish hospital and in 1906 a society for the care of orphans and abandoned children was founded. In the years 1910-14 the Great Synagogue was built at the cost of 50,000 roubles. Białystok was also an important centre of Jewish political and cultural life.[xiii]

The city’s development was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Martial law was imposed, those suspected of revolutionary activity were arrested and resettled, mobilization was introduced, wages were temporarily withheld and factories were closed. They were reopened a month after the beginning of the conflict and obliged to provide military supplies at unfavourable prices under threat of high fines. The situation worsened radically with the German offensive in the east in the spring of 1995. In May 1915 the Russians forbade the export of cloth from the factories of Białystok, in July they began to dismantle and destroy them and  from the beginning of August they evacuated some of them into the depths of the Empire. Many buildings were blown up or damaged. The retreating Russians set fire to some buildings, and destroyed the city’s power station and the viaduct above the railway. Around 24 per cent of textile factories in the Białystok administrative district (outside the town itself) were destroyed. In Białystok itself, all larger enterprises were rendered inoperable and some were destroyed. More than half the region’s workforce was left unemployed. Białystok’s industry lost a significant part of its machinery, the capital held in Russian banks, raw materials and markets.[xiv]

On 26 August 1915 the Germans entered Białystok and put the city and its environs under the military control of the Oberkommando-Ost--a harsher regime than that in the German-occupied Congress Kingdom. Confiscations began, contributions were levied and a rigorous control of trade imposed, foodstuffs were rationed and people were deported for labour to Germany or at the least beyond the city’s boundaries. An impenetrable barrier sealed Białystok off from the Congress Kingdom. The German authorities set about requisitioning industrial equipment. Production was suspended in over half the textile works. There was a lack of fuel and food, epidemics began to break out in the difficult sanitary conditions and there was an increase in mortality, prices soared (the price of potatoes increased by 400 per cent on pre-war prices, meat by 477 per cent, bread by 240 per cent, sugar by 500 per cent and so on.[xv]

In the second half of 1916, the Germans, perhaps with the future annexation of Białystok in mind--modified their economic policies. They eased the national and cultural pressure and mobilized and helped many enterprises, particularly the textile industry, to supply the army’s needs. In particular, they re-opened the larger factories owned by Jews who had the trust of the occupying authorities and were favoured by them.[xvi] Despite problems with raw materials, the poor economic situation of 1916-18 meant that enterprises which had survived the beginning of the war, now expanded their production. New enterprises sprang up and in 1918 70 per cent of Białystok’s pre-war work-force was back in employment.[xvii]

 

Table 13: Percentage of factories wholly or partially inoperative in Białystok between 1914 and 1920

Year

All factories

Textile factories

Clothing factories

1914

4.7

3.9

5.5

1915

11.6

10.7

11.5

1916

24.8

51.1

13.9

1917

18.8

30.4

13.0

1918

13.6

19.9

9.4

1919

6.6

10.5

4.4

1920

7.1

8.1

5.3

Source: Heller, xxxvii

 

The defeat of the Reich and regaining of independence ended the war-time ‘little stabilization’ in Bialystok’s industry. The Germans ceased to buy its products and  factories ground to a halt. The factory owners and craftsmen hid the money they had

accumulated in order to restart their businesses in better times. The situation of workers deteriorated, tension and revolutionary moods were dominant in a city still occupied by the Germans.[xviii]

On 19 February 1919 the Polish Army entered Białystok. At first, there was no change in the situation of Białystok’s industry. Not till mid-1919 did it begin to supply the Polish armed forces and administration. However, the new order had certain negative aspects. Białystok remained a frontier city. The soldiers stationed there and those passing through did not refrain from robbery and looting. The requisitioning of food and goods was re-introduced. Travelling restrictions were maintained for several months. A train ticket to Warsaw or Vilna could be bought only with a special permit.Fearing the black market, restrictions were imposed on the amount of merchandise transported; for example one could not take more than one hundred cigarettes and twenty cigars by train. The currency was in chaos. Factory owners lacked money to rebuild their works, and to buy machinery and scarce raw materials.Problems with coal meant a restricted electricity supply. Poles repatriated from the Soviet Union flooded into the city and there were also prisoners of war. The aulhorities in Warsaw declined to help, under the pretext, among others, that the Białystok region was not yet formally united to Poland and was under the administration of the Civil Government of the Eastern Lands. The antisemitic slogan ‘Support Polish trade’ appeared once again in Białystok’s Polish press.[xix]

This uncertain situation did not, however, frighten off industrialists. Alongside

providing supplies for the army and administration, they supplemented their income significantly by trading illegally with Russia across the poorly guarded, or as yet non-existent, eastern border. These war-time conditions affected mainly the workers. There were no labour agreements, in the labour books introduced in many enterprises they were assigned work for only two weeks at a time and thus lived in constant fear of dismissal. Undernourishment and high prices prevailed. Halfway through 1919, typhus appeared, along with other epidemics. The first quarter of 1920 was marked by strikes: shoemakers, bakers, textile workers, tailors, factory office workers, cigarette factory workers, hotel staff, waiters and concierges all demanded pay rises.[xx]

On 28 July 1920 the Red Army entered the city. At the last moment before their arrival, many Jews managed to leave Białystok. Part of the Jewish population supported the Białystok Temporary Polish Revolutionary Committee which recognised Yiddish as an equal official language alongside Polish and Russian. As soon as they crossed the front, many other Jews left for small Polish towns and villages, most often in search of food. The Russians requisitioned foodstuffs, goods, and money. lndustry once again glound to a halt. The Bolsheviks announced its nationalization and proceeded to attempt to reactivate it.[xxi]

On 22 August  1920, after quite heavy street fighting, the Poles regained

Bialystok. Once again, a group of workers left the city together with some entrepreneurs ruined in the course of the latest events. The new military requirements, the seizure of the area around Vilna by Żeligowski and the creation of Central Lithuania (Litwa środkowa) meant that there were once again favourable circumstances for trade and industry. This was to last barely a couple of months. Halfway through 1921 orders for military supplies dried up, the eastern border was tightly sealed, and in the new intemal markets--in Małopolska and Wielkopolska--the industrialists of Białystok came up against strong competition from Łódż and Bielsko-Biała. Białystok’s industry, having regained 70 per cent of its prewar production levels, again found itself in a state of recession. The number of textile workers was reduced by 50 per cent and some of them worked only a three-day week. In addition, smaller Jewish establishements were rendered less competitive due to the observance of the Sabbath--especially when after the introduction of Polish rule the rigorous observance of Sunday as a day of rest was implemented. A wave of strikes spread through the city from May to the end of 1921.[xxii]

 

Table 14: Degree of Activity in Białystok factories in 1921

No of                  No of                                  Number of Days Worked

Factories  Workers                     1-2                               3-5                                  6

 

 

Factories

Workers

Factories

Workers

Factories

Workers

All (1716)

6,363

92 (5.4 per cent)

45 (0.7 per cent)

286 (15.6 per cent)

421 (6,6 per cent)

1,356 (79.0 per cent

5,897 (92.7 per cent)

Textile (423)

4,369

2 (0.5 per cent)

1

52 (12.3 per cent)

314 (7.2 per cent)

369 (87.2 per cent

4054 (92.8 per cent)

Source: Heller, 126-127.

Table 15: Jews who worked on Saturday and Sunday

Type of    No of         No of         work on Sat.      work on Sun      Work Sat, Sun Don’t work Sat,Sun

Industry   factories     workers   Factories Workers  F            W          F          W        F            W

All

Q1,184

2,930

103

579 (19.8%)

986

1991 (67,9%)

31

122 (4.2%)

28

238 (8,8%)

Textile

332

1,401

93

538 (38,4%)

196

609 (43.5%)

8

40 (2.9%)

21

214 (15.2%)

Clothing

436

675

-

-

674

674 (99.9%)

-

-

1

1 (0.1%)

Source: Heller, 130-1.

 

Given the loss of Russian markets and the fall in orders from the military, the industry of Białystok began to concentrate on the search for foreign markets. In 1922 119 textile works employed 4,757 workers (in 1914 there were 6,970 people working in 219 factories - see Table 12). Jewish commercial travellers made for the south and the Far East. Export began to China, Japan, the Baltic states and to the Balkans, while the Bessarabian market (now in Romania) was regained. Successful competition with the English was waged for the market in India and South Africa: cheap blankets, quilts, and shawls even reached the market in Great Britain. Export continued to expand and by 1925 it absorbed 30 per cent of Białystok’s entire production.[xxiii]

However, the closed border with Russia meant that goods destined for the Far
East often spent six to eight months in transit. This created serious problems for capital turnover, particularly as the authorities did not agree to allow taxes to be paid in instalments and did not make credit easily available. Large enterprises in particular were further hit by the currency reform of 1924. In the inflationary period preceding it, the internal market was very strong. After the fiscal reforms consumer demand, which had been artificially increased by inflation, decreased since the population had stocked up on goods for some years ahead. Raw materials and the cost of labour rose. Cash flow decreased, possibilities for speculative transactions came to an end, excessive taxation became a problem. Export was made more difficult by the high tariffs imposed by countries protecting their own textile industries.[xxiv]

All this affected the larger enterprises most. Even old, once very solid firms, now faced bankruptcy. Some factory owners sold their machinery to Łódż and to foreign buyers. The more energetic transported their entire factories to Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Many enterpreneurs in categories IV and V were not in a position to buy up ‘patents’--industrial licences--and began to trade illegally. Strikes broke out. In February 1925 there were 5,927 registered unemployed--according to the press there were almost 7,000. The crisis continued until the summer of 1926 when in July  statistics revealed ‘only’ 2,800 unemployed. Despite this in Białystok, as in the whole of Poland, especially central Poland, there was a distinct decrease (of almost 15 per cent) in the proportion of Jews involved in trade (78.3 per cent in 1928).[xxv]

From mid-1926 until the end of 1928 the industrial climate in Białystok was relatively stable. It was aided by the coal strike in Britain and the increased export of Polish coal. The town’s economy experienced concentration and monopolization; the Union of Białystok Heavy Industry gained particular importance. The city’s textile works were easily able to change their production profile. The Polish government, wishing to improve the trade balance, announced the introduction of premiums for the export of textile goods. In 1928 there were 440 enterprises in the city employing 5,772 workers, including 197 textile factories providing work for 3,694 workers (not counting 288 home workshops and 520 looms and a similar number of cottage workers).[xxvi]

Despite this temporary success, the businessmen of Białystok continued to be

interested in Soviet-Polish relations and the possibility of renewing trade with Russia.  The post-May governments were better disposed towards the industry of Białystok. The battle did not cease however against attempts to restrict hours of work and against excessive taxation. A particular burden was the industrial tax calculated according to

turnover which meant that the same goods passing through successive links of the apparatus brokerage could be taxed several times.[xxvii]

In December 1928 the entrepreneurs of Białystok were still in buoyant mood. To their concern, the winter was initially very mild and already in the autumn there had been a collapse in exports to China and Japan, for which 80 per cent of Białystok’s textile goods were destined. Increasingly high protective tariffs were incroduced by other countries, the internal market underwent further contraction and in 1929, due to problems with the market, production collapsed in the Białystok textile industry. The slump continued until 1931 when there were 24 fewer working firms in all lines of trade than there had been in 1928.[xxviii]

 

Table 16: Factories and Workers in the Białystok Textile Industry 1929-1934

Year

Factories

Workers

1929

76

3,306

1930

80

3.264

1931

78

3,876

1932

86

4,808

1933

87

4,807

1934

82

4.909

Source: Werwicki, 220

Table 17: Production and Export of the Białystok Textile Industry during the Great Depression

 

Year                                  Total Production                        Production for Export

 

Thousands of tons

Value in millions of zl.

Tons

Value in millions of zl.

1929

5,000

30

1,200,674

7

1930

4,000

22

946,113

5

1931

4,500

20

1,675,721

7

1932

3,250

16

733,627

4

Source: Hershberg, 296.

 

In 1931, Białystok enjoyed an increase in export, production and employment but only because of the rise in British imports, due to the Sterling crisis and the political crisis which it caused which encouraged English entrepreneurs to buy in more goods as they awaited a further increase in protective tariffs at the end of the year.

In 1932 a further fall in production occurred. Many firms suspended operations and moved abroad: to Romania, France, even--according to Andrzej Werwicki[xxix]--to the Soviet Union.

One consequence of the crisis was a rise in unemployment. In January 1931 there were around 5,000 unemployed: 2,896 manual workers and 236 white-collar workers did not receive any benefits.[xxx] People from the neighbouring small towns where unemployment was even worse were drawn to Białystok. In 1932 employment prospects improved a little, but production decreased and a large group of workers was taken on only on a temporary basis and only part time. In January there were 6,394 registered unemployed, mainly textile workers, in August there were 2,455, in November 2,393.[xxxi] Some trades--for example coaltraders--hardly worked at all.[xxxii]

Life in the city became hard for most of its inhabitants. The factory owners tried a number of ways to lower pay. Strikes were forever breaking out. There were sharp clashes between workers from the large industrial works and the cottage workers who had no one to lobby to improve their conditions. There were coal shortages. The     authorities announced more moratoria on the sale of industrial licenses and the payment of rent-charges, but the interested parties had no money anyway. Once more there were

reported incidents of the most terrible diseases. Bitter moods prevailed. After New Year

1931 one newspaper wrote that there was hardly a person in the city who could say with abandon ‘ikh hob sich gebavet’.[xxxiii]

Taking the country as a whole, the industry of Białystok was among the most badly affected by the Great Depression. After the stagnations and recessions of 1918-19 and 1921-6 more factories were closed down. The competition from Łódż grew ever more acute and Łódż-Białystok industrial organizations were formed. As inequalities between regions of the country deepened, Białystok became ever more typical of Poland ‘B’. The Białystok industrialists asked each other depressing questions--did further inevitable degradation await them? Could they maintain stabilization within the postwar limited framework? Many replied that without the opening of Russian markets there was no question of an improvement in the situation.[xxxiv]

In 1933 production once again was able to expand and exports to increase--mainly to the Far East, China and India. Some of the industrialists switched to cheaper products--cut-price ‘tandeta’ goods or to the trade and re-processing of rags. The costs of production were ceaselessly lowered which was mirrored in the poorer variety and quality of products. Meant for poorer purchasers, they competed successfully with the products of other firms. There were cases of manufacturers in Łódż buying up goods made in Białystok and reselling them. In 1935 the situation worsened once again. In November 1936 after a wave of bankruptcies, there were 2,823 unemployed in the city. In 1937 Białystok hardly felt the general boom in the rest of the country’s economy--in April there was a general strike of textile workers since wages had fallen beneath 1933 levels.  Furthermore, the people of Białystok maintained that the owners of spinning factonies were laying off people in order to force even worse conditions on the workers, even though they had profitable export agreements. In 1938 Białystok (in its current borders) had 212 industrial works employing 8,767 people, including 101 firms with 5,988 employees in the textile industry. The majority of these were medium firms; the smaller firms had not survived the Great Crisis, and the larger firms had failed to compete with the export trade of Łódż and Bielsko. The textile industry in Białystok during the interwar period did not exceed 70 per cent of production levels of 1914 and did not return to the level of employment of that time. It did not succeed in rebuilding its machine base and, not counting a few periods of relative stabilization, it did not emerge from permanent crisis.[xxxv]

 

Disintegration

The disintegration of Jewish society in Białystok was bound up with the deteriorating economic position of the Jews. This could be seen in the elections to the kehila (the communal council). The first took place on 15 December 1918. The situation at that time was bad for the people of Białystok, but there was jubilation at the ending of the war. An intense election campaign began. The Zionists even produced a newspaper for the occasion, Frayhayt, which agitated in favour of its candidates. In the synagogues the rabbis called on the Orthodox to vote. The political parties presented their programmes and plans. A pre-election meeting was held on 25 November in the Palast cinema. All the printers’ establishments, in which the majority of Białystok Jews were employed, were busy producing election literature. The city was divided into 10 electoral districts. It was decided that the kehila-- like the Sanhedrin--should have 71 seats, although only 70 were eventually filled. Over 13,000 people voted.[xxxvi] The Bund received most votes and had 15 councillors, the socialist Faraynikte had 10. In this way, the left gained 25 seats and became the greatest force on the kehila.  The right had 18 councillors (10 Orthodox, 5 hasidic and 3 others). The various Zionist factions elected 19 councillors (General Zionists 12, Tseirei-Zion 5, Poalei-Zion 2). The remaining 8 seats were won by the centre, with some leanings to the left (2 Folkists, 2 Democrats, 2 Craftsmen, 2 Non-party).[xxxvii]

In Augusr 1920, the Białystok ‘Revkom’ disbanded the kehila,  occupied its buildings and confiscated some of its funds.  After the Bolsheviks left the council returned to work, but felt the effects of the crisis for several years. The majority of parties abandoned it, leaving only the General Zionists and the Orthodox. The kehila lost the trust of Joint, it had no money to maintain its institutions and allowed itself to be supplanted by the newly-formed philanthropic and self-help funds. It metamorphosed into a kulturgemeinde which concentrated on running the communal registry of births, deaths and marriages maintaining the cemetery, and so on. In 1925 a movement emerged in
the synagogues to rebuild and renew the commune which called for compulsory taxes to provide income for the kehila expenditure and lobbied the authorities for autonomous religio-cultural rights.[xxxviii]

In April 1928 the government issued a decree creating a uniform structure for religious communes, and elections to commune councils were announced. This time around 7,000 people took part in them in Białystok, but divisions among the electorate were even greater than before. The Orthodox received 4 mandates, the Bund 3, General Zionists - 3, Aguda - 3, craftsmen - 2, Balebotim (petty bourgeoisie) - 2, Poalei-Zion - 1, democrats - 1, small traders 1, Mizrachi - 1.  Some synagogues also had their own lists--the Choroszcz synagogue gained one mandate and the synagogue ‘na Piaskach’ gained 2. The delegates of the latter then began to work together with the Zionists, much to the astonishment of the general public. ‘Are all those who pray at Piaski Zionists?’. they asked.[xxxix]

In 1932, the commune council elections provoked less interest. ‘He who takes upon himself the mountain of problems that consitutes the running of the commune condemns I himself to several years of unproductive labour,’ wrote Unzer Lebn. Around 5,000 people voted, alongside the synagogue lists there also appeared the lists of certain guilds.[xl] In 1936, according to Polish administrative sources, 32 per cent of council seats were gained by the Geneeral Zionists, 25 per cent were Orthodox, 14 per cent were economic associations, 9 per cent were Bund and Mizrach, 6 per cent were Revisionist Zionists, and 5 per cent were Poalei Zion. In the last elections in 1938 the left were more successful. The Bund gained one third of the mandates, but of 39,165 Jews in Białystok, only 3,511 paid communal contributions.[xli]

The party struggles which marked the elections continued on the kehila. At its very first meeting on 21 December 1918 an argument broke out concerning the competence of the newly elected body and over religious affairs. The left wished to exclude religious questions completely from the council’s area of activity and to make it an exclusively secular organ. The right insisted that religious questions take precedence over all others. An analogous argument was conducted over the character of the schools

maintained by the commune and the language in which pupils were taught One of the

council meetings in December 1919 ended in a row: the right and left were quarrelling over the order of meetings: should one first discuss the salaries of rabbis or those of teachers. When the right-wing deputies won the vote the left attempted to obstruct it. At the same time the Orthodox and hasidim loudly demanded that the problem of meat should be discussed first. As a result, not a single point on the day’s agenda was dealt with.[xlii]

Meanwhile, Jewish factory owners had no confidence in the kehila in which representatives of the left and of the poorest sectors of the population held sway. When the Poles took over Białystok on 20 February 1919, the wealthy Jews of the city sent a protest to the new authorities against the activities of the kahal. This memorandum, signed by 52 people, could have threatened the newly elected commune executive if Jewish members of the city council had not intervened.  The protestors did, however, have a point. On 27 July 1919 Henry Morgenthau arrived in Białystok at the head of a commission sent by President Wilson to examine the situation of Polish Jews. This commission was welcomed with great ceremony, particularly by the Zionists. A solemn gathering was held, disrupted by the performance of one of the leftist members of the kehila, who claimed that there was no need to greet the visitors with quite so much pomp because they were representatives of imperialist America while in Białystok the majority belonged to the proletariat.[xliii]

At first the sessions of the kehila attracted great attention on the part of the Jewish public, but this interest soon waned. Cricticism of the kahal’s work began to grow. It was attacked for maintaining an excessively large and expensive personnel. The council admitted this, but there was not much it could do since plans to reduce its staff immediately provoked quarrels among the political groupings who had placecd individuals of their political persuasion in the adminstration, created competing  department which fought over the distribution of the budget. These conflicts soon intensified. The most uncompromising faction in the council was the Bund. It called on the council not to be so compliant in the face of pressures from the Polish authorities,

to square its accounts more frequently, to pay more attention to the needs of Jewish

children and schools, to be more than just the mouthpiece of the Zionists, and to increaseassistance to the poor and unemployed. According to the Bialystoker veker, it was a scandal that a man employed in ritual slaughter earned l,300 zloties a month during the Great Depression. After the budget session in 1920, the Bund and Poalei Zion boycotted the kehila for several months.  The Bundist Bialystoker veker even  compared its activity to a barren woman, attacking its passivity and its preoccupation with trivial affairs.[xliv]

The situation of the council was difficult. Fewer and fewer people, paid kehila taxes and then unwillingly and irregularly. Every so often, the commune’s employees and the teachers in commune-maintained schools threatened to strike, demanding an increase in their wages. The commune maintained a cemetery, a refuge, baths, a few cheap kitchens, a boarding school, and a hospital. In schools they provided extra food for undernourished children, including the ‘drop of milk’ action. In the summer vacations were organized for the poorest, in the winter an allocation of clothes, shoes and coal was made to schools and poor households. From time to time the commune buildings needed renovation; without outside help there would not have been enough money for everything.

On 1 April 1919 envoys from the Joint (the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), arrived in Warsaw. In its work of rebuilding Jewish settlements destroyed in Europe this body now turned its attention primarily to Poland. Immediately after the arrival of the American guests, a delegation arrived in the capital from the Białystok kehila with requests for help. Successful talks followed and from 6 May 1919 the kahal received regular support from Joint, becoming also its intermediary for all the kehilot of the former gubernia of Grodno. At the same time, the following organizations were active in Białystok: a benevolent committee which assigned 30 per cent of its supplies from American aid to Jews, an independent office for help to children and the representatives of the American Relief organisation. During the first months following the war parcels and money arrived by post in Białystok almost daily, sent by individual donors from abroad, mostly former inhabitants of Białystok now living in the States.[xlv]

All this helped to improve the commune council’s situation in the short term. In the summer of 1920, in response to the threat from the east, the Joint, the American Jewish Relief Organization and other organizations suspended their activities. Many members of the kehile council fled the city dividing the commune’s funds among those who were left. Part of these funds were requisitioned by the Bolsheviks, part disappeared without trace. The kahal ceased to operate and only the hevra kadisha  continued to function without a break. After the war, the kehila, which was now boycotted by some parties, found itself in a deep crisis. It did not enjoy the trust of the American Red Cross, Relief or the Joint. The latter had already established its own branch in Białystok in 1919 and in autumn 1920 called its own independent committee of experts made up of citizens.

Private individuals and various institutions made applications to it, bypassing the kahal. Its financial situation which had been supported almost entirely by American aid was now in a pitiful state. The cultural institutions linked with the kehila stagnated, since in the face of more urgent needs, there were never enough funds. The Jewish hospital functioned poorly. In 1932 the commune reduced rabbis’ salaries by 15 per cent. The kahal’s debts grew, reaching 121,500 zloties in 1939.[xlvi]

Religion still had considerable sway over the Jews of Białystok. There were several yeshibot and several dozen synagogues in the city which had been built mainly at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. The majority of workers did not work on Saturdays unless forced to do so by the regime of a large factory under threat of losing their jobs. (See Table 15). There were very few illegitimate children and criminals. However, an erosion in traditional practices did occur in response to the worsening economic situation, the strengthening of the left, the modernization of society and the decrease in prestige, scope and effectiveness of the commune’s activities. In 1919 a fierce argument took place over the price of kosher meat between the butchers and the rabbis who forbade the eating of meat at all for a certain time. A battle was conducted over
breaking the monopoly of the hevra kadisha which imposed scandalous charges for burials. The city’s’Kultur-liga’ established an instruction centre which helped to run Jewish secular schools. Cinemas were hugely popular but some films, which were also shown also by Jewish entrepreneurs and advertised in the Jewish press, provoked the protests and outrage of the commune. The role of rabbis diminished--in 1939 there were 96 in the Białystok region, but only two had completed higher education.[xlvii]

The fundamental factor behind the disintegration was the political division between
the Jews.  Every existing Jewish political grouping in Poland could be found in

Białystok. After the war, some of these groups took several months to make contact with national organizations and to enter into the all-Polish structure, but later also became suspended between Warsaw and Vilno since the cultural and political influence of the latter was probably stronger in Białystok. Some of the parties active in the city possessed only few, and relatively inactive members. Despite this they were not inclined to compromise, they fought bitterly among themselves and created their own, competing cultural, economic, youth, educational and sporting organizations.

 

Table 18: Jewish Social Organizations in Białystok in 1939

Youth and Sporting Organizations

Name

Number of sections

Number of Members

Jewish Sports Organizaion ‘Shomria’

2

85

Jewish Gymnastic and Sports Organization ‘Makabi’

7

964

Jewish Workers’ Club ‘Kraft’

2

160

Jewish Workers’ Sports Club ‘Hapoel’

7

429

Workers’ Union of Physical Education ‘Jutrznia’

3

151

Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Union ‘Nordia’

1

60

Jewish Sports Club ‘Stern’

1

29

Hashomer hatsair

10

560

Hehaluts

22

504

Hanoar hatsioni

2

230

Brit Trumpeldor

17

866

Hashomer haleumi

2

80

Academic Youth Circle ‘Lamatorah’

2

50

Hehaluts hatsair

5

147

Hehaluts hamizrahi

1

20

Brit hahayal

5

147

Tsukunft

13

511

Skif

5

155

Zionist Youth Circle ‘Kidma’

1

50

Jungbor

1

15

 

Economic Organizations

Gmilus hesed

65

16,214

Jewish Cooperative Banks

24

7,037

Union of Jewish Artisans

19

2,080

Merchants Union

24

1,605

Union of Property Owners

3

1,805

 

Social Organizations

T.O.Z (Society for the Protection of Health)

13

1,980

Linas hatsedek

25

5,169

Bikur holim

6

1,099

Bialystok Society for the Care of Orphans

8

1,395

League for the Support of Workers in Palestine

7

275

ORT

1

130

Jewish Emigrant Aid Society

1

25

Union of Jewish Veterans in the Struggle for Polish Independence

2

150

Union of War Victims

2

350

WIZO

6

363

 

Cultural and Educational Organizations

 

Kultur-liga

7

350

Talmud-Tora

3

1,400

Union of Jewish Schools

10

624

Tarbutt

36

2,160

Frayhayt

4

277

Yavne

12

749

Jewish People’s Libraries

8

496

The (illegible word) Memorial Libraries

3

218

Association for the Promotion of Hebrew Culture in Białystok

1

150

Horev

3

610

Friends of the Hebrew University

1

80

Union of  Jewish Writers and Journalists

1

40

Source: CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, 53-6

 

Of  the 96 rabbis living in Białystok in 1939, 59 were orthodox, 15 non-party, 7 were Zionists, and 15 belonged to Mizrahi.[xlviii]

In their relations with Polish society, the Jewish parties usually acted independently. On the Białystok City Council there was, it is true, a ‘yidish-birgerlekhe’ fraction which. towards the end of the twenties, had almost more members in the council than any other grouping.  However, it suffered internal divisions and was not even able to achieve equal budgetary rights for Polish and Jewish schools and, apart from its Bund representatives, generally remained passive. In the elections to the City Council of 13 December 1927, 30,203 votes were cast of which 28,731 were valid. The following lists were entered:

Table 19: Lists Participating in the Białystok City Council Elections of 13 December 1927

2. Polish Socialist Party and class-based Trade Unions

4. General Jewish Workers’s Alliance--Bund

6. Hitahduth--Democratic Zionist

7. Non-Party

8. Citizens of the Orthodox Religious Community

10. United Polish Electoral Committee

11. Artisans of the Town of Białystok

12. United Jewish National Bloc

13. Electoral Committee of Property Owners

15. Polish Electoral Committee of Economic Work

16. United Electoral Committee of War Veterans

 

Table 20: Result of Elections to City Council 13 December 1927

List number

2

4

5

6

7

8

10

11

12

13

15

16

Number of votes

2407

3862

178

431

1060

1125

4940

1384

6016

2684

2831

1811

Number of Seats

3

6

-

-

1

2

8

2

9

4

4

3

Source: Wiadmości Statystyczne, 164-165.

Table 21: Nationality and Religion of City Councillors elected on 13 December 1927

                                                       Nationality                                         Religion

Profession            No. of       Polish     Jewish     German    Catholic   Orthodox Protestant Jewish     

                         seats

Total seats

82

 

 

 

35

2

2

42

Industrialists

41

20

20

1

18

1

1

21

Merchants

4

-

-

-

-

-

-

4

Artisans

3

-

-

-

-

-

-

3

Workers

6

-

-

-

3

-

-

3

Officials

4

-

-

-

3

1

-

-

Private clerks

5

-

-

-

-

-

-

5

Teachers

7

-

-

-

4

-

1

2

Lawyers

4

-

-

-

3

-

-

1

Doctors

3

-

-

-

1

-

-

2

Engineers

1

-

-

-

1

-

-

-

Journalists

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

1

Railwaymen

2

-

-

-

2

-

-

-

Source: Wiadmości Statystyczne, 165-166.

 

Before the elections to the Sejm in 1930, some local Jewish politicians attempted to undermine the position of the Jewish deputy from Białystok, Heszel Farbstein, who had first been chosen in a by-election of 15 June 1919 from the list of the Temporary Jewish National Council. They claimed he was not fulfilling the task he had been set. He was accused of failing to respond  to local, needs, that he was evasive and too submissive to the Zionist leader Izaak Gruenbaum whose policies were attacked. At the commune’s council meeting it was decided to nominate a permanent resident of Białystok to the Sejm. Gruenbaum always recommended someone from the inside for a parliamentary deputy --said the embittered councillors of the Białystok kahal--and we have our own good politicians. Farbstein, they claimed, were he chosen not from Gruenbaum’s list but from their own would have a completely different attitude towards them. After many quarrels and intrigues led by the wealthy and ambitious industrialist Abraham Tiktin, a local list was established in Białystok, but it met with no success. A large group of Jews voted for non-Jewish organizations.[xlix]

The Bund was a major force the city. In the 1922 elections to the Sejm it gained 5,500 votes in Białystok (the PPS gained 2.5 thousand), and in 1928 more than 7,000. In elections to the board of the fund for the sick in February 1926, 1933 workers out of 3,593 voted for the Bundists (the PPs and class trade unions 126 votes, Christian unions - 903, NPR - 688 and the Left list, declared void at the last moment, gained 375).[l] The Bund was the best organized party, the most active and attracted most resistance fram the other Jewish groups. The Bund itself aimed its strongest attacks at the Zionists, accusing them of deluding the workers with utopian plans and extracting their last permies for contributions, which would not change anything anyway. The Bund saw a particularly large influx of members in 1938 after the liquidation of communist organizations. In the interwar period it cooperated more and more frequently with the PPS with whom it slood in the Sejm elections of 1928.[li]

In Jewish society the closest organization to the Bund, albeit weaker and much less active, was Poalei Zion. In 1939 the Polish authorities calculated that it had around 200 members in the city. There was no information at all on Poalei Zion Left.[lii] The Bundists’ main rivals were the Zionists who were very active and commandcd large funds. Every kind of activity was held In the ‘Syjon’ community centre. Every year all the Zionist holidays were celebrated in great style. While the Bundists were celebrating the jubilee of the October Revolution, the Zionists arranged a great celebration to mark the anniversary of the Balfour declaration. In 1939 the Białystok branch of the Zionist Organization in Poland numbered around 600 members according to the authorities. The New Zionist Organization (Revisionists) had around 200 members, and the Organization of Orthodox Zionists, ‘Mizrachi’, also around 200 members.[liii]

Another relatively large organization--around 500 members in 1939--was the Białystok ‘Aguda’--the Organization of Orthodox Jews in Poland. It was distinguished, however, by its peacefulness and passivity so that a voievode known to be hostile to the Jews was able to write of it, ‘The members and leaders of this party are marked by great  loyalty to the State and its authorities’.[liv] The smallest, though no less radical group in Białystok was that of the assimilationists. They counted amongst their members the city’s Deputy-mayor and supporter of the Sanacja, the lawyer Żemilski, who was also

co-director of Głos Obywatelski which supported the current authorities and was regarded by some Jews as bordering on the antisemitic. Almost all the assimilationists were newcomers to the city. Directly after the First World War there were hardly any representatves of the Polish intelligentsia in Białystok. Polish-speaking administrators  and representatives of the free professions, including a group of assimilated Jews, arrived mainly from Galicia.[lv]

 

Conflicts with the Polish Population

Another factor undermining the position of the Jews was the growing conflict with local Poles, which grew with varying degrees of intensity from the beginning of the twentieth century. During the First World War, the Poles often accused the Jewish population of collaboration with the Germans. Similar accusations were also leveled at the end of 1918  On the one hand, Poles pointed to the profitable cooperation between textile industnalists and the occupiers’ war machine and to the fact that both the partly socialist communal council elected in December 1918 and the temporary one preceding it worked harmoniously with the German military council. The latter governed the city until February 1919 and agreed to a number of requests from the kehila: it released three Białystok Bundist leaders and stopped requisitioning food products.[lvi]

At the same time, the council opposed the first orders and acts of the Polish authorities and embarked on projects of which the Poles disapproved. In addition, the Poles were often of the opinion that Jews regarded the emerging Polish state as an ephemeral creation. On 28 November 1918 a provisory commune council organized a great demonstration protesting against the Lviv pogrom. On 30 March 1919 the Polish Government Commissar in Białystok issued a decree that all notices, posters, signboards and so on ‘should bear a Polish text correctly edited and orthographically executed.’ This was a demand impossible to fulfill and the commune appealed to the commissar to withdraw his order. Meanwhile, the Poles grew irritated by or ridiculed the mistakes they made. The authorities also ordered the reporting of infectious diseases and prepared a census of the city’s population. Many Jews, however, refused to cooperate with statistical information gathering. In the Jewish district a rumour began to circulate that this was a preparation for mobilization. The Poles condemned this lack of civic responsibility and accused the Jewish press of publishing false information concerning the persecution of Jews.[lvii]

In 1919, it was declded to subject the communal council budget to the control of the authorities. In the kehila--as A.S. Hershberg admits--there was an
insufficiently rigorous control of finances and they were badly managed. Subsidies were collected for medical care and schools which did not exist. On 21 April 1920 a govemment inspector arrived in Białystok who carried out an inspection of the kehila’s provisions department. The inspection did not go well--all five of the department’s workers were arrested and accused of defrauding the state treasury of supplies given to the commune to be distributed to children.  The council rejected the accusation and as the result of a second inspection all the arrested were released.However, the kehila leadership decided not to carry on distributing supplies to children.[lviii]

   In 1918 and in early 1919, in the course of a discussion over whether Białystok should be subject to the Civil Administration of the Eastern Lands (Zarząd Cywilny Ziem Zachodnich) or be directly incorporated into the Republic, a group of Jewish activists suggested establishing Białystok as a free city or including it in Lithuania, as had been put forward in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in February 1918.. Some Jewish politcians were of the opinion that within the Lithuanian state, the Jews would constitute an ethnic group equal in status to the not much larger population of Poles and Lithuanians, and not just a persecuted national minority.

This subject was broached several times, for example, in August 1919 when the province of Białystok was created by an act of the Sejm. In October 1919 Le Temps in Paris published an article on the Tardieu commission, an arm of the Council of Five, which suggested that Białystok not be incorporated into Poland when demarcating the country’s eastern boundaries.  The Jewish press of Białystok responded very keenly to this news, expressis verbis expressing the hope, that the new border would in fact correspond to that of 1815. The Russian-language anti-Polish Golos Bielostoka had been propagating the idea of a plebiscite since spring 1919.[lix]

On 7 October, Dos Naye Lebn, whose attitude towards Poles was not among the most hostile, published an article entitled ‘The Fate of Białystok’:

The Polish Sejm has confirmed the city’s place within the Republic. But this is a confirmation of the rule of force and decisions which result on this basis cannot be treated as conclusive The Versailles Treaty said not a word about the Polish eastern borders and the question of Białystok’s allegiance is always left hanging in the air; any solution attempted through the Tardieu commission and a Polish act of force can only prove to be temporary.[lx]

In a subsequent issue, Dos Naye Lebn argued that Poles--despite the extravagant deference shown them--made up barely over one third of the city’s population and mocked the stories that in Warsaw the Marshal of the Sejm was being inundated with demands by delegates from the border regions demanding to be included in Poland ‘in the name of the whole population’.[lxi]

The Polish side reacted with indignation or fury. The Central Polish National Committee (Centralny Komitet Polski Narodowy) had been active in the city since the war and from 1918 had campaigned for the Białystok region to be incorporated into the Republic. Among other things it had sent a memorandum to representatives of the different political groupings in the Sejm stating how the population of Białystok awaited this union with the motherland ‘with longing’. There was, therefore, some anger at the warnings from Golos Bielostoka that the Committee was unnecessarily provoking the Polish population. This argument was linked with the minorities treaty that had been forced on Poland, with the apparent participation of the Jews, as in Białystok. This led Dziennik Białostocki to a characteristic antisemitic utterance:  The Polish sword is not fighting on the  the Berezina and Dzwina against the bands led by the Jew Bronstein-Trotski in order to allow a plebiscite on the lands of Białystok’.[lxii]

The question of conscription to the Polish Army also contributed to grave disagreements in the summer and autumn of 1919. Posters were plastered around the city summoning all men born in 1900 and 1901 to report to the conscription commission. Many people from all religious backgrounds responded to this summons. In neighbouring villages and small towns the conscription took place without disturbance, but the inhabitants of Białystok’s Jewish quarter were uneasy. Rumours circulated about signing pledges which bound one to several years of service, imminent mobilization and the recruitment of subsequent year groups. The conscription commissions
did indeed often act in an arbitrary manner; they included older men on their lists and and would not accept, admittedly often forged, Russian documents testifying to age. The Jewish press reported roundups of conscripts. As always, when Jews were taken into the army they feared that they would have to shave their beards, eat non-kosher food and break many other religious regulations.[lxiii]

The kehila therefore turned for help to ‘their’ deputy Farbstein. He managed to learn from the Minister of Military Affairs that conscription was not compulsory and did not affect those who declared that they were not Polish citizens. The authorities gave assurances that they would not undertake any action against them and asked that any abuses should be reported. The kehila therefore organized a legal department. It gathered information about injustices perpertrated against Jews, appealed to young people to report if they did not belong to the 1900 and 1901 year groups but had been called up anyway, and appealed to the conscription commission to supply a list of Jewish men who had been issued military papers despite the documents they had presented showing they were older. The recruiting board refused to cooperate with the kehila’s legal department, replying that they were very busy and had no time to enter into additional correspondence and procedures. Conscription continued regardless of the kahal’s efforts and the minister’s declaration
concerning the voluntary character of conscription in the borderlands. Daily more Jews received their military papers.[lxiv]

In the kehila deputy Farbstein was accused of doing too little to defend the people of Białystok. He should intervene more energetically, they demanded. However Farbstein was actually in London at the time. The kehila therefore sent a protest to the Ministry of Military Affairs in which it presented the following arguments:

1. the eastern borders of Poland had not yet been finally established and the fate of Białystok was not yet settled;

2. after the border had been established the people of Białystok should have the opportunity to decide their citizenship, which was at variance with conscription;

3. a large number of the city’s residents were from the interior of Russia and had been forced to remain by the Germans. Conscription was not therefore in accord with international law.

The Polish authorities did not reply to this protest and the kehila sent two delegations to Warsaw. The first received confirmation in the Ministry of Military Affairs that conscription was of a voluntary character, but the Minister of Internal Affairs, Stanisław Wojciechowski, categorically refused to receive the second delegation. The kehila then issued a new protest to the consulates in Warsaw of states which were signatories of the Versailles Treaty. The Jewish press of Białystok continued to express its indignation: conscription was illegal and they were being unfairly accused of a lack of patriotism--they claimed--since there had not yet been a single official decision about the position of the city in regard to the state.[lxv]

Conscription was not the only subject provoking disagreement. On 10 May 1919, on the orders of the General Commissar of the Eastem Lands (Komisarz Generalny Ziem Wschodnich), surrounding villages were incorporated into the city as suburbs of ‘greater Białystok. The city’s area increased from 2,700 to 4,400 hectares. The Jewish population greeted this with indignation and protests since the newly incorporated areas were decidedly Polish and the elections to the city were approaching, set for 7 September 1919. They wish to dissolve us in a mass of peasants--wrote the Jewish press. For its part Dziennik Białostocki claimed:

It is clear that only he who has command of the Polish language can be elected, and the official language of the city council and the local administration will naturally be Polish.[lxvi]

The Jews boycotted the first elections to the city council and the question of local representation continued to cause Polish-Jewish conflict throughout the entire inter-war  period. It began as early as the beginning of 1919 in the Temporary Civic Committee (Tymczasowy Komitet Miejski). The language in which proceedings were conducted was a constant source of dispute since some councillors did not know Polish and spoke in Yiddish. On 1 July 1919 the Commissar of the Govemment of the Polish Republic in Białystok decreed that every member of the Temporary Committee should sign a declaration ‘that he has command of the Polish language both written and spoken.’ The Jewish councillors failed to provide such a declaration and when summoned to do so a second time left the meeting. The Poles were  indignant: where in the world was the ‘jargon’ permitted in meetings of civic authorities? Were there no trustworthy people among the Jews who are able to speak Polish?[lxvii]

In the end some of the Jewish members of the Temporary Civic Committee were replaced but a new conflict was brewing about the decree concerning the Provisioning Department and the sphere of activity of the kehila. The Poles were of the opinion that it was demanding money from the civic authorities for the needs of its own institutions, but did not wish to allow the city to participate in the running of these institutions. The needs of the kehila were great and the Temporary Civic Committee lacked funds. The Jews attacked the Poles saying that Jews did not hold half the posts in the civic personnel--as the agreement had stipulated--and that some officials embarked on projects without the approbation of a plenum of the Temporary Committee. The Jewish faction demanded that those who were informally employed should be dismissed. The Poles replied that the employment of staff was a matter for directors of individual departments and that it should be decided on the principle of suitability for the work--which included knowledge of the Polish language.[lxviii]

Because of all these conflicts on 20 August 1919 the Jewish faction left the Temporary Civic Committee. On 7 September the elections to the Town Council took place which were boycotted by the Jews. On 15 September the Council held its first plenary session.  It was opened  by Dr Czyżyk, the government commissar. He reminded the assembled of the Polish tradition of tolerance and then proceeded place the entire responsibility for the Polish-Jewish conflict in the city on ‘the Litvaks’ and particularly on ‘those elements among them who are currcntly in power in Russia’. The Białystok council--he claimed--is the only one in the entire Republic which is purely Polish. The Jews had distanced themselves from the elections and from political life but they would lose nothing by participating  and he  expressed the hope that Polish-Jewish relations would be harmoniously settled for the good of Białystok and for the whole of Poland.[lxix]

Dr Czyżyk’s speech appeared in the press and was greeted sceptically by most Jews. This scepticism was entirely justified. The new council, freed from Jewish opposition, made the polonization of the city one of its main tasks. Jewish administrators were dismissed, a Polish administrative system was set up which later functioned with no changes throughout Ihe entire interwar period. The city’s funds were disproportionately shared between the Jewish and Polish populations. Jewish schools were particularly neglected, whereas at the very first council session high salaries were approved for the members of the civic authorities. Successive elections took place in 1921. This time the Jews did not boycott them, but were able to create only a relatively weak faction, which grew stronger after 1927 (see Tables 19 and 20).  Despite this, a city budget satisfactory to Jews was never approved. They accused the City Council and magistracy of a lack of consistency, incompetence, chauvinism, giving way to the central authorities, ill will, making bad appointments, passivity, and squandering common funds for party aims, such as subsidizing the Sanacja paper Głos Obywatelski.[lxx]

 In January 1930 a symbolic incident occurred in the City Council during a solemn gathering to celebrate its tenth anniversay. The Bund delegates distributed and requested permission to read a proclamation in which they listed the shortcomings of the municipal government, criticizing its activities to date and the attitude of the supreme authorities towards it. The Chairman of the council forbade the reading of the  document. The Bundist and PPS councillors then left the ceremony.[lxxi]

This was a protest against the activities of the administration, which functioned particularly badly and inefficient precisely within the borderlands. For many years after

the First World War it still continued to implement old Russian decrees. Almost a year after the creation of ‘greater Białystok’ some authorities and state institutions only recognized its boundaries when it suited them. For several months after permits had been officially abolished allowing the purchase of train tickets for the Warsaw- Białystok -Vilna line, these documents continued to be demanded, although in the capital one could manage without one at certain stations. Prime Minister Grabski did not hide his complete reluctance to save Białystok’s industry which, in his opinion, was in any case doomed to decline apart from perhaps five factories working for the home market.[lxxii]

The Jewish population of Białystok thus had a mistrustful and anxious attitude to the authorities and administration. Letters from America came to the city in parcels and were taken to their addressees by special kehila postmen. When a department to deal with usury and speculation was opened in 1919, people in the Jewish district were alarmed at what might result. Swindlers professed themselves outside state control and with no greater effort continued to extort money from the terrified shopkeepers. There was a widespread conviction that the growing degradation of Jewish trade was provoked, to a large degrce, by a disproportionate allocation of concessions, a rigorous observation of the law concerning Sunday rest and other discriminatory measures adopted by the administration.[lxxiii]

Meanwhile, a large number of Polish office-workers and Poles in general living in

Białystok did not really know or understand the Jewish question and were prone to antisemitic stereotypes. One of the most common was the stereotype of  Żydokomuna--the identification of organized Jewry with communism. Certainly, the Council of Workers’ Delegates founded in November 1918 which worked closely with the German Soldiers’ Council was absolutely dominated by Jewish activists and parties.[lxxiv] In the summer of 1920 after the Red Army had been expelled from Białystok, the Polish General Staff accused the Jews of fighting on the Bolshevik side defending the city and included this view in its official communique.  It later circulated as the ‘true’ version of events which the Jews were unable to obliterate either by explanation or protest. Public opinion which was hostile to the Jews was not in the least impressed by the fact that there was also one Jew among the 16 citizens of Białystok who were shot by the Bolsheviks, that the entire Civic Committee without exception, then acting as a temporary authority in the newly liberated town had rejected this accusation, and that not one of the basic books on the battle in Białystok mentioned Jews fighting on the side of the Red Army. When the Jewish Deputies protested the story in the Polish Parliament, the Minister of Military Affairs observed that the front-line units knew best whom they were fighting.[lxxv]

The stereotype of  ‘Judaeo-communism’ was strengthened in the minds of the masses by the activities of the Communist Party of Poland. The Jews constituted a majority of its members in the city. Everybody could see this during communist demonstrations and in jail after the arrests of party members. Communism became a significant influence in the army and in the educational system. According to the police, there were 586 members of the communist party in Białystok in January 1931. It was claimed that they had also penetrated some legal Jewish organizations. According to the police 20 per cent of the members of Makabi sympathized with the communists, 5 per cent of those of Kraft and 5 per cent of the member of the Jewish People’s Library.[lxxvi] More obvious was communist propaganda activity which denounced Polish plans to ‘attack the Soviet Union’ and called for its defence and the ‘popularization of the achievements of socialist construction’ in the ‘Country of the Soviets’. Communists celebrated the anniversary of the October revolution and similar holidays and refused to participate in national celebrations.[lxxvii] The communist hostility to the Bund did not prevent antisemites in seeing in its activity further proof of the natural affinity of Jews and revolution. The attempt of Jewish industrialists to re-open the prewar trading links with Russia was similarly interpreted.[lxxviii]

The stereotype of ‘Judeao-communism’, the belief in a world-wide Jewish conspiracy (why else did the Jews receive assistance from America), religious prejudices, the serious economic situation and the Nazi example all led to an increase in antisemitism in Białystok. In  April 1939, a change was introduced in the provincial borders in Poland. The Białystok province lost some western, ethnically Polish districts and become more similar to other borderland provinces. The percentage of Jews among the population also grew. The provincial authorities decided to counteract this. On 26 April 1939, voievode Henryk Ostaszewski sent an extensive memorandum to the MSW Political Department entitled ‘The problem of strengthening the position of Poles in the Białystok province.’[lxxix] This document illustrates clearly the view of the local civil servants on the ‘Jewish question’ and how it should be dealt with.

The memorandum highlighted the growing demographic and economic threat allegedly posed by the Jewish population:

The majority of Jews are characterized by low ethical and moral standards. Jewish society, professing an extreme materialistic world-view and having only its own interests in mind, is driven by very particular principles, and it is mainly thanks to these that it has attained the high level of ownership in many areas as it
currently enjoys. There is no question of this element feeling any attachment to the State, or any positive point in obliging it to be part of the general organism of the state. Local Jewry will always go in whatever direction it feels its own interests and profit lie. This is the psychological result of having no homeland, maintaining links with world Jewry, and holding extreme materialistic attitudes. With these premises in mind, one must accept that if it is a question of extending Polish property ownership in the cities, then the urgent Jewish problem takes precedence, and demands a specdy and satislactory solution.[lxxx]

Until now actions strengthening Polishness through pushing out Jews have been carried out chaotically and without any system. The Polish element had, indeed, been awakened from its torpor and had been made aware of the magnitude of the danger, but at the same time undertakings had not been coordinated and’ ‘petty administrative difficulties’ had only ‘united Jewish economic forces, awakened their vigilance, and had even mobilized the influence and capital of world Jewry to fight against the influences and of world Jewry (through the actions of the Joint).[lxxxi]

The Governor then set out the statistical situaion and proposed to authorities a long-term plan for strengthening local Polish industry. In the first stage Polish
factories had to be supported more effectively by giving them state orders and credit and by making access to raw materials easier. The timber industry should be more closely linked with the bodies administrating state forests. The governor also recommended action against speculation, a requirement that bookkeeping be done Polish, the elimination of Jewish contact with villages through a ban on personal trade and barter which was ‘particularly demoralizing’ and provided an easy field for swindlers. The frontier belt should also be widened to 100 kilometres and Jews should be removed from it, they should not be given transport concessions, Polish co-operatives should be strongly supported.[lxxxii]

This first stage of the plan was aimed at undercuttining the economic situation of
the Jewish population and compelling it to emigrate. The second stage, however,

would be the decisive one. It foresaw, among other things, a ban on acquiring property in villages and cities by Jews ‘as a foreign element with only a weak attachment to the

state…All Jewish organizations of a socio-political character possessing funds at their

disposal abroad should be liquidated.’ The kehila’s activities should be limited to religious affairs. Proportional norms were to be maintained in all economic areas.[lxxxiii]

The existence of Jews in intenvar Białystok was, of course, not only an unbroken

chain of torment. The city enjoyed a vibrant cultural and social life. The influence of not,

too distant Vilna, with its Jewish Scientific Institute (YIVO) could be clearly felt. There

were a several Jewish theatres in the city, literacy and Jewish education was developing. There were dozens of eating houses, including 20 restaurants which were open late into the night. Visitors could stay at the hotel ‘Ritz’ whose standards were on as European level. In the buildings of guilds and social organizations balls, social  gatherings, lectures, celebrations and so on were held regularly.[lxxxiv] Even in 1921, not the best of years for the Jews, on 29 January Dziennik Białostocki in its regular column i: aewish life’ announced the following possibilities for the evening: ‘In Sjon hall a ball and great concert; In the Modem cinema a lecture by B. Michalewicz on Culture and the Jewish proletariat;  In the Linas hatsedek hall a piano recital by the pianist Źurawiew; in the Tajna kuchnia restaurant Sosnowa Street a meehng for all artisans
of Białystok’.

But the brighter aspects of everyday life could not change the overall situation and it would be difficult to say what the future held for Polish, as well as Białystok Jews, if it had not been disrupted by war and extermination. It is, however, even more difficult imagine a happy solution to the Jewish question without a radical improvement in the economic situation of the whole country together with changes in mentality of the majority of Poles, born out of years of battle with, and denationalization by foreign dominating powers.

 

 



[i]J. Bachrach, Demografie fun der yidisher bafelkerung in Bialystok (Białystok, 1937). 10-11.  Bachrach’s statistics are confirmed by other works including the  Encyclopaedia Judaica,vol.IV (Jerusalem, 1971), 807; H. Mościcki, Białystok (Białystok, 1933) 175.

[ii]Ibid., 12.

[iii]Ibid., 13; Wiadomości statystyczne miasta Białegostoku za lata 1921-1928 (Białystok, 1929), 9; Miesięcznik Statystyczny GUS, vol.V (1922), quoted by J. Joka, ‘Z dziejów walk klasowych proletariatu Białegostoku w latach 1918-1939’, in Studia i materiały do dziejów miasta Białegostoku, vol. 1 (Białystok, 1968), 294.

[iv]Unzer Lebn, 7 October 1932.

[v]Maria Dąbrowska, ‘Brzydkie miasto’ in Pisma rozproszone, vol.l (Kraków, 1964),

274.

[vi]I. Schiper, Dzieje handlu żydowskiego na ziemiach polskich (Warsaw, 1937), 610;

Encyclopaedia Judaica, op. cit., 807.

[vii]A.S. Hershberg, Pinkos Bialystok, vol. II (New York, 1950), 291.

[viii]E. Heller, Zydowskie przedsiębiorstwa przemysłowe w Polsce, vol.lII: Białystok (Warsaw, 1922).

[ix]Ibid., p.xl.

[x]Wiadomości statystycnze, 136-7.

[xi]A. Werwicki, ‘Z badań nad rozwojem i przyczynami zastoju przemyslu Białegostoku w latach 1919-1939’, in Studia i materiały, vol. 1, 209-10.

[xii]Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. lV, p.807.

[xiii]H. Mościcki, 191-4;  M. Goławski, Białystok (Białystok, 1933), 34-5

[xiv]M. Taboryski, Robotnicy żydowscy w ruchu robotniczym Białostoćczynyy w latach I wojny światowej’, Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 1984 (1984), no. 3-4, 86-8; A. Werwicki, op.cit., 210; H. Mościcki, op.cit., 209-10.

[xv]M. Taboryski, 88-9; H. Mościcki, 213-15; J. Joka, 286

[xvi]M.Taboryski, op.cit., p.92-3.

[xvii]Idem, 92-5; H. Mościcki, 215-17.

[xviii]A. S. Hershberg, 269-72.

[xix]Idem, 270, 289; Dos naye lebn, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, and 21 October, and 6, 8, and 20 November 1919; Dziennik Białostocki, 25 and 29 April, and 11 and 12 July 1919; A. Werwicki, 210.

[xx]A. S. Hershberg, 289; J. Joka, 292, 300; Dziennik Białostocki, 1 May 1919; Dos naye lebn, 13 October 1919.

[xxi]A. S. Hershberg, 281, 289.

[xxii]Ibid., 289-92; I. Schiper, 586; J. Joka, 298.

[xxiii]A. S. Hershberg, 292; I. Schiper, 613-4.

[xxiv]A. S. Hershberg, 292; I. Schiper,602; J. Joka, 215.

[xxv]A. S. Hershberg, 292-3; I. Schiper, 603-8; J. Joka, 307-15; Dos naye lebn, 4 and 14 January 1927; Bialystoker Handelstsaytung, 21 December 1928.

[xxvi]J. Joka, p.329; A. Werwicki, 217; A. S. Hershberg, 295; Bialystoker Handelstsaytung, 21 December 1928.

[xxvii]Dos naye lebn, 9 January 1927; Bialystoker Handelstsaytung, 17 and 21 December 1928; J. Tomaszewski, ‘Położenie drobnych kupców żydowskich w Polsce w latach wielkiego kryzysu (1929-1935)’, BŻIH (1977), no.2, 41.

[xxviii]Bialystoker Handelstsaytung, 21 December 1928; Werwicki, 220.

[xxix]Werwicki,  220.

[xxx]Dos naye lebn, 15 January 1931.

[xxxi]Idem; J. Joka, 32.

[xxxii]Der Bialystoker veker, 28 February 1930.

[xxxiii]Unzer lebn, 6 October 1932; Dos naye lebn, 2 and 19 January 1931; J. Joka,

322-9.

[xxxiv]Der Bialystoker veker, 1 February 1930; J. Tomaszewski, 37; Werwicki, 221.

[xxxv]Bialystoker Frymorgen, 1 December 1935; Białostocki Kurier Nowości, 19 October 1933; A. S. Hershberg, 297-301; A. Werwicki, 224-7.

[xxxvi]A. S. Hershberg, 269-70.

[xxxvii]Ibid., 270.

[xxxviii]Ibid, 282, 287-8.

[xxxix]Unzer lebn, 13,17,19, 25, and 28 October 1932.

[xl]Ibid., 30 October and 10 November 1932. Centralne Archiwum KC PZPR, Urząd Wojewódzki Białostocki (henceforth UWB) 266/l-1, 32-3.

[xli]Centralne Archiwum KC PZPR, Urząd Wojewódzki Białostocki (henceforth UWB) 266/l-1, 32-3.

[xlii]A. S. Hershberg, 271; Dos Naye lebn, 5 and 11 December 1919.

[xliii]A. S. Hershberg, 272-5; Dziennik Białostocki, 29 July 1919.

[xliv]Unzer lebn, 17 October 1932; Dos naye lebn, 11 December 1919; Der Bialystoker veker, 28 February 1930; A. S. Hershberg, 276.

[xlv]Dos naye lebn, 3, 5, 15, 20, and 31 October 1919; Dziennik Białostocki, 29 December 1920; Unzer lebn,17 October 1932; A. S. Hershberg, 271, 274-5.

[xlvi]A. S. Hershberg, 278-81; CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, 33; Dziennik Białostocki, 27 November 1920 and 6 January 1921; Der Bialystoker veker, 28 November 1930; Unzer lebn, 28 October and 10 November 1932.

[xlvii]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, 32; Der Bialystoker veker, 4 November 1927; Unzer lebn, 7 October 1932; Dziennik Białostocki, 23 December 1919; Dos naye lebn, 3 October 1919 and 7 January 1927.

[xlviii]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, 33 Dziennik Białostocki, 2 May 1919; Dos naye lebn, 5 and 13 October 1919, and 2 October 1931; Der Bialystoker veker, 11 November 1927 and 28 November 1930.

[xlix]Dos naye lebn, 19 and 23 January 1931.

[l]Der Bialystoker veker, 23 and 30 March 1928; J. Joka, 315.

[li]Der Bialystoker veker, 4 and 11 November and 29 December 1927, 8 February, 23 and 30 March 1928, 7 Feburary 1920; J. Joka, 318.

[lii]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/I-1, p. 113; Der Bialystoker veker, 4 November 1927.

[liii]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, pp. 113-15; Der Bialystoker veker, 4 November 1927; Dziennik Białostocki, 22 January 1921.

[liv]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/l-1, 110.

[lv]Der Bialystoker veker, 1 February 1930.

[lvi]A. S. Hershberg, 270.

[lvii]ibid., 271; Dziennik Białostocki, 25 April, 2 May, 11 July, and 5 August 1919.  

[lviii]Dziennik Białostocki, 21 September 1921; A. S. Hershberg, 277.

[lix]H. Mościcki, 229; Z. Sokol, ‘Czasopismiennictwo białostockie w latach 1919-1939’, in: Studia i materiały vol, 382.

[lx]Dos naye lebn, 7 October 1919.

[lxi]Ibid., 6, 7, 8, and 26 October 1919.

[lxii]Dziennik Białostocki, 9 April, 28 May, 11 and 13 June, and 10 October 1919.

[lxiii]Ibid., 2 July 1919; Dos naye lebn, 6, 7, 21 October and 18 November 1919.Dos naye lebn, 20 and 21 October, 6 and 8 November 1919.

[lxiv]Dos naye lebn, 20 and 21 October, 6 and 8 November 1919.

 

[lxv]Ibid., 7, 19, 20, 23, 28, 30 October, and 3 December 1919.

[lxvi]Dziennik Białostocki, 9 July 1919; Dos naye lebn, 3 October 1919; H. Mościcki, 230.

[lxvii]Dziennik Białostocki, 23-25 July 1919.

[lxviii]Dos naye lebn, 7 October 1919; Dziennik Białostocki, 11, 17, 18 April, and 30 June 1919.

[lxix]Dos naye lebn, 10 October 1919; Dziennik Białostocki, 21 August 1919.

[lxx]Der Bialystoker veker, November 1927; 30 March 1928, 7, 1, 21, 28 September

1930, 31 January 1931; Dos naye lebn, 19, 20 October, 21 November 1919, and 7 January 1931; Dziennik Białostocki, 15 January 1921; H. Mościcki, 231

[lxxi]Der Bialystoker veker, 28 February 1930.

[lxxii]Ibid., 1 February 1930; Dziennik Białostocki, 14 April 1920; Dos naye lebn, 8 October and 6 November 1919; A. S. Hershberg,.293.

[lxxiii]Bialystoker Frymorgen, 1 December 1935; Dos naye lebn, 8 and 1 October 1919; I. Schiper, 607-8.

[lxxiv]Komuniści Białostocczyzny(Bialystok, 1959), 8.

[lxxv]A. S. Hershberg, 283-7.

[lxxvi]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/II-1, Statement on the organizational state of the KPP, 26, 65, 149 and others.

[lxxvii]Ibid., pp.29, 119 and others. Ibid., pp.66, 15 and others; Dos naye lebn, 20 October and 9 January 1927; Der Der Bialystoker veker, 4 November 1927.

[lxxviii]Ibid., pp.66, 15 and others; Dos naye lebn, 20 October and 9 January 1927; Der Der Bialystoker veker, 4 November 1927.

[lxxix]CA KC PZPR, UWB 266/I-1.

[lxxx]Ibid., 5-6.

[lxxxi]Ibid., 2-13.

[lxxxii]Ibid., 128-37.

[lxxxiii]Ibid., 139-156.

[lxxxiv]Der Bialystoker veker, 28 February 1930; Dos naye lebn, 3 and 5 October 1919; Z. Sokół,’Publiczne bibliotekarstwo w Białymstoku (1919-1939) BŻIH (1977), no.3; J. Kowalczyk, ‘Oświata w Białymstoku w latach 1919-1939’, in: Studia i Materiały, vol.I; Unzer lebn, 4 October 1932; M. Dąbrowska, 273; Bialystoker frymorgen, 1 December 1935; Bialystoker handeltsaytung, 17 December 1928.