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JewishHistoryעברית

Forced emigration of Jews from Poland, 1968

Date
19 June 1967 – 1971Hebrew date: 11th of Sivan, 5727
Location
PolandPoland
Then part of
Polish People's Republic
Perpetrators
  • Polish United Workers' Party leadership under Władysław Gomułka (State)
  • Government of the Polish People's Republic under Premier Józef Cyrankiewicz (State)
  • Ministry of Home Affairs under Mieczysław Moczar (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Expelled (estimate)
12,927 – 13,000[1]12,927 registered departures naming Israel, 1968–1971 (source 1). The POLIN Museum describes about 13,000 (source 2).
Country

15% – 29% of the Jewish population of Polish People's Republic (c. 1946)[7]

Worldwide

0.11% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1960)[4]

Category
Expulsion, Persecution
Confidence
Medium

Summary

On 19 June 1967 Władysław Gomułka, first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, told a trade-union congress that applause for Israel in "Zionist circles of Jews – Polish citizens" could produce a "fifth column," and he urged those who felt addressed to emigrate. After militia broke up a student rally in Warsaw on 8 March 1968, the party blamed "Zionists"; on 8 April the Politburo recommended instructions for the departure of citizens of Jewish origin, and Premier Józef Cyrankiewicz told the Sejm three days later that emigration would meet no obstacle. Those who left had to name Israel as their destination and relinquish Polish citizenship, and they received a one-way travel document stating that the holder was not a citizen of the Polish People's Republic. Dariusz Stola records 12,927 such departures from 1968 to 1971, about a quarter of whom reached Israel; the POLIN Museum calls this a forced migration of about 13,000 Jews that ended organised Jewish life in Poland, and Jewish Virtual Library describes it as the last mass migration of Jews from Poland, in 1968-69, produced by the anti-Jewish policy adopted after the 1967 war.

Sources

  1. Dariusz Stola, The Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland, 1967–1968. Central European University, Jewish Studies
  2. March '68. Historical facts. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
  3. Poland Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 12,079,000[4]c. 1960DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1960 in the 2024 Year Book chapter.
  • Polish People's Republic: 45,000 – 88,000[7]c. 1946Shapiro and Sapir (AJYB 1948–49) estimate 88,000 Jews in Poland for 1947–48 (including some displaced persons). USHMM's 1945 remainder article states that by 1950 Poland's Jewish population was reduced to about 45,000. No opened source gave a single mid-1945 census figure for the People's Republic borders.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
  22. Population of Israel/Palestine by Religion (1553–Present). Jewish Virtual Library (citing CBS, British Mandate publications, Bachi and others)
  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
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  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  33. Jews in Arab Countries. American Jewish Year Book excerpt, Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1978)
  34. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Farhud. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  35. Joseph Rothschild (tabulated), Interwar East European Census Data. Lawrence University course materials
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  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
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  39. Jewish Losses during the Holocaust: By Country. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  40. Andrzej Żbikowski, Extermination of Polish Jews. The genesis and course of Operation Reinhard. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute)
  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
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  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
  60. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book 1981 (estimates for 1979), via Berman Jewish DataBank (1981)
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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