Polska dyplomacja wobec “kwestii żydowskiej” w latach 1932–1939 Polish diplomacy and the “Jewish Question,” 1932–1939

According to American historian Holly Case, the quasi-scientific way of presenting problems and issues as “questions” that required “solutions” can be traced back to the nineteenth century, when a whole series of such “questions” emerged, from “Polish” to “Transylvanian.”1 Whereas the “Jewish question” has a particularly sinister ring to it, given the genocidal ways in which it was attempted to be addressed, in particular by Nazi Germany, historian Kinga Czechowska resists the temptation of a priori analysis. She argues that in the years 1932–1939, which correspond to Józef Beck's term as Poland's foreign minister, Polish diplomats’ application of the term “question” (problem, kwestia, zagadnienie) to Jewish affairs was influenced not by racial antisemitism but socioeconomic factors related to the presence of large numbers of Jews in the country. Czechowska's study, which stems from her PhD dissertation, tackles the “Jewish question” as a number of issues concerning the relationship of the Polish state to its Jewish citizens. It is largely a synthesis of past studies on different aspects of Beck's “Jewish” policy, but it also casts light on new facts related to this multifaceted topic and offers new interpretations.In the first chapter, Czechowska lays out the character and structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the personalities occupying important positions therein, in order to elucidate why it was concerned with the “Jewish question.” The second chapter deals with the Polish diplomats’ preoccupation with Jewish affairs as subject to the Minority Treaty of 1919 and the Geneva Convention of 1922. In particular, it discusses Warsaw's attempt to use the provisions of the latter agreement to protect the Jewish population from Nazi Germany in Upper Silesia after 1933. In the third chapter, Czechowska offers an analysis of the connections between Polish Jews and the domestic “Jewish question”: on the one hand, of the relationship between Warsaw and Jewish organizations around the globe and, on the other hand, of the influence of these organizations on the Western perception of the Jewish situation in Poland. The fourth chapter is about the attitude of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs toward Jewish emigration, which it began to promote starting in 1936, as both the domestic and geopolitical circumstances called for such promotion. The last chapter continues this thread, adding to it the issue of re-emigration, in particular the expulsion of Polish Jews from Nazi Germany, which Warsaw attempted to prevent. It also discusses the foreign ministry's position on the worsening attitudes toward Jews in Poland.There are a number of good points made in the book, which should be underlined. Czechowska claims that the term “Jewish question,” understood as a significant presence of Jews in a given country, became widely used in international relations during the Paris Peace Conference, referring to Wilson's policy of guaranteeing the rights of national minorities in postimperial Europe. She also determines that Beck's declaration (for many, infamous) of September 13, 1934, regarding Poland's application of the provisions of the 1919 Minority Treaty, bore no effect on the Polish policy towards its Jewish citizens. One of the book's most interesting contributions is the discussion of the attempt to use the 1922 Geneva Convention regarding Upper Silesia to protect the Jewish minority in the German part of the region after 1933. Czechowska shows that Polish diplomats of Jewish background, such as Anatol Mühlstein, participated in the behind-the-scenes activities aimed at inspiring third parties, such as Quai d'Orsay, to support Warsaw's efforts.I take some issues with the latter half of the book, however. Czechowska correctly points out that in 1936, Polish diplomats began to link the “Jewish question” with emigration and colonial demands, and that this connection was determined by a combination of domestic and foreign factors and circumstances. What deserves praise is that she does not treat 1936 as a turning point a priori, instead showing the earlier inspirations for promoting Jewish emigration from Poland, such as the aide-mémoire sent by Tadeusz Gwiazdoski on the “Jewish question” in March 1933. She rightly emphasizes the importance of Palestine in the Polish plans for mass Jewish emigration, in the formation of which some Jews participated, for example, Lord Melchett, a British politician of the Mosaic faith—even before the riots in Jaffa in April 1936. Nonetheless, while the “Jewish question” became a colonial issue because Palestine was a mandate of Britain, and because the Freeland League was interested in African territories, Czechowska does not elucidate the reasons for the inclusion of the “Jewish question” as one of Beck and Wiktor Tomir Drymmer's “colonial theses.” Nor does she list the other reasons for targeting Jews for emigration to “colonial” territories, in particular the Ministry's perception of their usefulness as commercial intermediaries not only in countries such as Mozambique and Colombia, but also in Madagascar—according to one of the concepts created by the foreign ministry, a Jewish elite was supposed to head a Polish-Ukrainian settlement in that French territory. Lastly, Czechowska does not discuss the influence of the Italian aggression against Ethiopia on Beck's colonial (and therefore also Jewish) policies.Although based on a wide array of Polish and international sources, the book is a missed opportunity to discuss the elephant in the room, that is any potential antisemitism (of socioeconomic, religious, or racial sort) in Beck's ministry. I would be far from assuming a preponderance of antisemitism at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but Czechowska meanders around the question. She writes in the introduction that “questions about possible antisemitic motivations inherent in research on the ‘Jewish problem’ are both interesting and difficult to determine.” (p. 15) While this is a true statement—diplomats rarely list reasons of antisemitic nature for their decisions—she makes few attempts to determine the presence, degree, or absence of antisemitism, which would require comparing diplomatic sources with other sorts of documents. Czechowska discusses the pressure of the radical right on the Piłsudskiite camp and the populist speeches of Bogusław Miedziński in the late 1930s on the one hand, and the influence of Polish diplomats of Jewish background, such as Gwiazdoski and Mühlstein, on the other. (Interestingly, she does not mention the figure of Wiktor Ormicki, or rather Nusbaum, whose demographic and geographical studies were widely used by the foreign ministry to promote the argument about the “faulty” socioeconomic structure of the Jewish population.) Unfortunately, Czechowska's strict adherence to diplomatic sources dramatically limits the degree to which she can challenge the traditional interpretation of Beck's ministry as being permeated by socioeconomic antisemitism.Other minor issues can be listed, too. While breathtaking, the bibliography includes sources from the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, but not from the YIVO or the Joint Distribution Committee, where one could find, for instance, the correspondence regarding the Joint's plan to purchase Angola for Poland, in which Jacob Landau, a figure discussed in the book, played an important role. Notwithstanding such smaller imperfections, as well as the more serious deficiency mentioned earlier, Czechowska's book, especially if translated into English, will become an important contribution to the historiography of Polish-Jewish relations.