Pogroms in Modern Poland, 1918-1946

Poland's era of independence between the two world wars was bookended by waves of pogroms. The first section of this chapter concerns the more than 130 pogroms of 1918-1921; many of them initiated by Polish military troops as they entered towns and cities of the new Poland. The second section concerns the pogroms of 1935-1937 instigated by right-wing nationalists, the most infamous being the Przytyk pogrom of March 9, 1936. Both pogrom waves should be conceived as a part of a larger construct of shifting economic and political relations rather than as isolated events or simple manifestations of antisemitism. The final section reveals the post World War II pogroms (1945-1946) as adhering to a similar pattern, though exacerbated by prior Nazi occupation and genocide and the postwar communist takeover.