All in a Life-time

by Henry Morgenthau; French Strother

APPENDIX

REPORT OF THE MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES TO POLAND

American Commission to Negotiate Peace,
Mission to Poland.
Paris, October 3, 1919.

To the American commission to negotiate peace.

Gentlemen: 1. A mission, consisting of Mr. Henry Morgenthau, Brig. Gen. Edgar Jadwin, and Mr. Homer H. Johnson, was appointed by the American commission to negotiate peace to investigate Jewish matters in Poland. The appointment of such a mission had previously been requested by Mr. Paderewski, president of the council of ministers of the Republic of Poland. On June 30, 1919, Secretary Lansing wrote to this mission:

It is desired that the mission make careful inquiry into all matters affecting the relations between the Jewish and non-Jewish elements in Poland. This will, of course, involve the investigation of the various massacres, pogroms, and other excesses alleged to have taken place, the economic boycott, and other methods of discrimination against the Jewish race. The establishment of the truth in regard to these matters is not, however, an end in itself. It is merely for the purpose of seeking to discover the reason lying behind such excesses and discriminations with a view to finding a possible remedy. The American Government, as you know, is inspired by a friendly desire to render service to all elements in the new Poland—Christians and Jews alike. I am convinced that any measures that may be taken to ameliorate the conditions of the Jews will also benefit the rest of the population and that, conversely, anything done for the community benefit of Poland as a whole will be of advantage to the Jewish race. I am sure that the members of your mission are approaching the subject in the right spirit, free from prejudice one way or the other, and filled with a desire to discover the truth and evolve some constructive measures to improve the situation which gives concern to all the friends of Poland.

2. The mission reached Warsaw on July 13, 1919, and remained in Poland until September 13, 1919. All the places where the principal excesses had occurred were visited. In addition thereto the mission also studied the economic and social conditions in such places as Lodz, Krakau, Grodno, Kalisch, Posen, Cholm, Lublin, and Stanislawow. But automobiling over 2,500 miles through Russian, Austrian, and German Poland, the mission also came into immediate contact with the inhabitants of the small towns and villages. In order properly to appreciate the present cultural and social conditions, the mission also visited educational institutions, libraries, hospitals, museums, art galleries, orphan asylums, and prisons.

3. Investigations of the excesses were made mostly in the presence of representatives of the Polish Government and of the Jewish communities. There were also present in many cases military and civil officials and, wherever possible, officials in command at the time the excesses occurred were conferred with and interrogated. In this work the Polish authorities and the American Minister to Poland, Mr. Hughes Gibson, lent the mission every facility. Deputations of all kinds of organizations were received and interviewed. A large number of public meetings and gatherings were attended, and the mission endeavoured to obtain a correct impression of what had occurred, of the present mental state of the public, and of the attitude of the various factions toward one another.

4. The Jews first entered Poland in large numbers during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when they migrated from Germany and other countries as the result of severe persecutions. Their language was German, which subsequently developed into a Hebrew-German dialect, or Yiddish. As prior to this immigration only two classes or estates had existed in Poland (the owners and the tillers of the soil), the Jewish immigrant became the pioneer of trade and finance, settling in the towns and villages. As time went on it became generally known throughout Europe that Poland was a place of refuge for the Jews, and their numbers were augmented as a result of persecutions in western Europe. Still more recently, as a result of the expulsion of the Jews from Russia, on account of the enforcement of the pale of settlement, and of the May laws of 1882, their number was further increased.

5. Notwithstanding the fact that Poland has been a place of refuge for the Jews, there have been anti-Jewish movements at various times. The present anti-Semitic feeling took a definite political form after the Russian revolution of 1905. This feeling reached an intense stage in 1912, when the Polish National Democratic Party nominated an anti-Semite to represent Warsaw in the Russian Duma and the Jews cast their vote for a Polish Socialist and carried the election. The National Democratic Party then commenced a vigorous anti-Semitic campaign. During the German occupation this campaign was temporarily reduced. At the end of the Great War the chaotic and unnatural state of affairs in which Poland found itself gave good ground for a condition of social unrest, which, together with the world-stimulated tendency toward national self-determination, accentuated the feeling between Jewish and non-Jewish elements. The chauvinistic reaction created by the sudden acquisition of a long-coveted freedom ripened the public mind for anti-Semitic or anti-alien sentiment, which was strongly agitated by the press and by politicians. This finally encouraged physical manifestations of violent outcroppings of an unbalanced social condition.