After the Holocaust · Poland · 1946 / 1968
A blood libel and a later state campaign made Jewish return and citizenship unsafe again.
Explore PolandPublished by WTJPublication updated
1946 / 1968
After the Holocaust · Survival does not end the accusation
A blood libel and a later state campaign made Jewish return and citizenship unsafe again.
Kielce, 1946
On 4 July 1946, a false accusation concerning a missing child triggered attacks on Jewish survivors in Kielce. Civilians and members of state forces participated in the killings. The blood libel had survived the Holocaust and could still turn a neighbour’s identity into supposed evidence of danger.
The state’s campaign of 1968
In 1968, Poland’s communist authorities conducted an anti-Jewish campaign under the label of anti-Zionism. People were dismissed and pressured to emigrate. Jews with very different lives and political views were treated as collectively suspect. A political vocabulary gave older exclusion another route into state action.
Departure after belonging
Many of those pushed out in 1968 had been born in Poland or rebuilt lives there after the Holocaust. Their loss of work and security demonstrates a repeated reversal: citizenship could be hollowed out by officials declaring a minority disloyal. The accusation did not describe a real uniform Jewish political position.