ADSS 3.1.131 Janikowski to Maglione: Anti-Jewish agitation in Poland

Stanislaw Janikowski (1891-1965) was a counsellor and charge d'affaires at the Polish Embassy to the Holy See from 1937 to 1939 after which he remained in Rome for the rest of the war.  His note addressed to Cardinal Maglione, the Secretary of State again points to the considerable amount of information making its way to Rome.  Regardless of whether or not the information was entirely accurate, what is clear is that the Germans were engaged in vigorous anti-Jewish propaganda using traditional Catholic stereotyping of Jews to fuel potential violence. 

Persecution of Jews in Warsaw had begun immediately after the arrival of the German troops and while establishment of the ghetto was still some months away, Jews, their homes and businesses, were already targets of random and planned German violence. 

Vilna had been the scene of a major anti-Jewish riot in October 1939 where local police sided with the Antisemites.  At the same time an estimated 14,000 Polish Jews had fled to Vilna to escape the Germans.

Holy Week had been a traditional time on the Christian calendar for expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment in reaction to the focus in Catholic liturgy and piety on the suffering of Jesus.  However, religiously induced pogroms, such as the one mentioned here, were rare in the 20th century.  I suspect much of the information could well have been more myth than fact.

Stanislaw Janikowski

ADSS 3.1.131 Stanislaw Janikowski, Polish charge d’affaires to Maglione

Reference: AES 3128/40

Location and date: Rome, 05.04.1940

Summary: German propaganda in Poland setting Christians against Jews.  Attacks on Jews during Holy Week.  Vandalism in a synagogue at 90 Wilkomierska Street. ‘Pogrom’ in Vilnius. 

Language: French

Text:

German propaganda, together with that part of the press in neutral countries dependent on Germany, are trying to poison relations between Christians and Jews in Poland.  To this effect they are spreading rumours about “pogroms” that would take place in Poland. 

It should be noted that in the first place, no “pogrom” could take place without the support, at least passively, of the people.

We are also aware from various sources, all completely reliable, that there are organised groups, paid and protected by the “Gestapo”, who tried to plunder Jewish shops in Warsaw, on Friday 22 March [1940].  This looting was organised for Good Friday, to confirm the German rumour, that during Holy Week Catholics have cause to hate the Jews.

The German press and its affiliates propagated the notice that a “pogrom” took place in Vilna in 24 March, Easter Sunday. Here is what actually happened as reported by the authentically informed press in Vilna.

“On Sunday last, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, a group of thieves entered the synagogue at 90 Wilkomierska Street.  They were seen by the guard there, who forced them to flee before they forced the locks to the room which held the utensils used for worship”.

Note from the Secretariat of State.

06.04.1940.  This note was brought by Monsignor Meystowicz, ecclesiastical advisor to the Polish Embassy to the Holy See.(1)  It confirms the very sad news coming from their country. He wants the Holy See to lift its voice in comfort, and deplore the many evils inflicted on Poland.  The ambassador of Poland made the same request.(2)

Cross references: 

(1) Valerian Meystowicz, (1883-1982) was ordained in 1924.  He worked as secretary to Archbishop Romuald Jalbrzykowski until 1932.  He was appointed as a counsellor to the Polish Embassy to the Holy See from Vilna where he taught canon law.  He moved to Rome at the outbreak of the war and remained there for the rest of his life. 

(2) Casimir Papee, (1889-1979), Ambassador 1939-1958.

ADSS 8.497 Note of Casimir Papee on massacres of Jews Poland

 While most of the posts on the deportation and murder of the Jews so far have focussed on the Slovakian Jews, the Vatican was also aware of the growing scale of murder of Jews across the rest of Europe.  Casimir Papee (1889-1979), the Polish ambassador, incarcerated with other Allied diplomats in Vatican City, received information from varying sources about conditions in German-occupied Poland.  This information was duly passed on to the Secretariat of State and from there it would have almost certainly been passed to Pope Pius XII.  

The Jews of Vilna had lived under the insecurity of German terror since the invasion in June 1941.  Except for a brief period of relative stability between January and March 1942, Vilna's Jews were gradually murdered or worked and starved to death.  By the time the ghetto was liqudated, nearly 40,000 Vilna Jews were dead.

Between 1920 and 1939 Vilnius / Vilna was a part of Poland.  During the war the city was occupied by Soviet forces, September 1939 - June 1941, German troops June 1941-July 1944, and returning Soviet forces in July 1944.  Shortly afterwards Vilna was declared part of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic.

The references to Warsaw confirmed what was known about the deportation of Jews to Treblinka that had commenced on 24 July 1942.  By early October 1942, 310,000 mostly Warsaw Jews had been murdered.  Papee sources were very accurate both in the number of Jews killed and the means of their deaths.

All this was adding to the pressure building up among many of the Allied diplomats who were urging the pope to make an unambiguous statement condemning the mass-murder of European Jewry.

Reference: Nr 49/SA/122 (AES 7258/42, orig)

Title: Note of Casmir Papee, Polish Ambassador to the Holy See

Location and date: Vatican City, 03.10.1942

Summary statement: News concerning the massacre of Jews in Poland.

Language: French

Text:

The massacre of the Jews by the Germans in Poland has attracted public notoriety.[1]  These slaughters are done in large groups, by various means, inter alia, by asphyxiation in buildings especially adapted.

1. According to information from a very reliable source it is confirmed that the ghetto of Vilnius, where there were originally 80,000 Jews, then reduced to 30,000 and finally to 12,000. (This fact was already known.) Around Vilna, Niemencyzn (village of 2,000 inhabitants), 600 Jews were killed; in Nowa Wilejka, 100 killed; in Ejsyzki 200 killed.

2. It is reported from another source the ghetto of Warsaw is methodically emptied. Part of this ghetto, known as “The Little Ghetto” is already empty. Each day groups of more than a thousand Jews are taken along by rail to Lublin, towards the East.  It appears, according to information coming from a citizen of an Axis state who had seen “from the edges”, that the Jews are initially concentrated in a camp, or they are put to death; it is, in any case, established that their families never hear of them again.  One expects that during the next months the entire Jewish population of the ghetto - comprising 300,000 Jews – will be deported, and that their dwelling places in this part of the city will be intended for Aryans.

 [1] Cf ADSS 8.493, 496.