What was the status of the Polish Jews in Germany prior to WW2?
Upvote:5
I think your question is based on false assumptions. Not all immigrants are illegal and nothing was "simple" about citizenship, anyway.
Look at the map of Europe at the beginning or the end of World War One. Poland was split between her major neighbours. The Treaty of Versailles recreated Poland with aftershocks for many decades.
Many ethnic Poles had migrated to big cities and industrial areas of Germany at the end of the 19th century.
Upvote:5
Your understanding of the factual situation is essentially correct.
Here is an excerpt from a (multi-)book review by Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of the era:
After the German annexation of Austria (or Anschluss) in March 1938, some twenty thousand Jews with Polish citizenship living in Austria tried to return to Poland. After humiliating pogroms, Austrian Jews were subjected to a systematic policy of expropriation and forced emigration devised by Adolf Eichmann. As these methods were then applied to German Jews, Polish diplomats feared that the tens of thousands of Polish Jews living in Germany would also seek to return. The foreign ministry decided to exclude Polish Jews abroad from the protection of the Polish state.
Right after the Anschluss, the Polish government demanded that all of its citizens living abroad register with embassies—and in October, right before the deadline, instructed its ambassador in Berlin not to stamp the passports of Jews. The Germans could see where this was headed, and responded by deporting about 17,000 Polish Jews to Poland in late October. Very often these were people whose entire lives had been spent in Germany and whose connection to Poland was quite limited. Grynszpan’s parents, for example, had moved to Germany in 1911, before an independent Poland had been established. Their children had been born in Germany.
Grynszpan’s parents had sent their son, then fifteen years old, to an aunt and uncle in Paris in 1936 to spare him from Nazi repression. By 1938, both his Polish passport and his German visa had expired, and he had been denied legal residency in France. He faced what his biographer Jonathan Kirsch perceptively calls the “existential threat of statelessness.” His aunt and uncle had to hide him in a garret so that he would not be expelled. They shared with him a postcard from his sister, mailed right after the family was deported from Germany to Poland: “Everything was finished for us.”
However, I submit that the lens of "illegal immigration" is a completely anachronistic one for the pre-WWII era.
I presume you are trying to draw some contemporary insights but there are probably none to be had except that the Nazis were monsters and far too many people and countries were indifferent bystanders who did nothing to stop them. Standard fare.
As far as I know, most countries - with the insalutary exception of the US -did not place limits on immigration back then; it was just not that much of an issue.
Moreover, the question is not really - and has never been - whether the German policy towards the Jews (and others) was legal (I guess in a narrow sense it was - there was no UDHR back then, for example). Rather, whether it was cruel and inhumane.
For example, were the Nuremberg Laws illegal as such? Probably not, as they were duly voted in by the Reichstag etc. But they sure were evil, cruel, and inhumane. And they should have been stopped in time by those who could have done so.
More post
- 📝 Looking for a particular documentary about the history of long distance communication
- 📝 Why did Paris name a metro station and a street after Étienne Marcel?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did English become Lingua Franca of the modern world?
- 📝 How significant was the US military role during the NATO campaign in Libya?
- 📝 In the early 1900s, how did US politicians treat black dignitaries from other countries?
- 📝 Was Princess Elizabeth a van/ambulance driver/mechanic during WW2?
- 📝 Worth of an old 1/4 tanka coin when it was active 1516-1526
- 📝 Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
- 📝 How pervasive was the idea that we had reached "the end of history" in America during the ninties?
- 📝 Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century?
- 📝 What are the historical inaccuracies in Repin's "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks"?
- 📝 Why did the Umayyads spare some of the male members of the Family (Ahl-al-Bait) after Karbala?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Were bicycles widespread in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why was the US army slow to adopt the use of radar prior to Pearl Harbour?
- 📝 History of the Garani village in FYROM
- 📝 Historical precedent for using bodyguards as special forces?
- 📝 Piece of cloth in bullets in pistols around the pirate age
- 📝 What was the original colour of the Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheatre)?
- 📝 What is the difference between a Division Pioneer and a Regimental Pioneer?
- 📝 Has there been a soldier who refused a direct illegal order and was not prosecuted for insubordination (post-1945)?
- 📝 What language(s) were spoken in 11th century Romania?
- 📝 Why did countries declare exclusive economic zones of up to 200 nautical miles?
- 📝 What did Julius Lippert lecture on after WWII?
- 📝 Instances of the UN defusing serious crises
- 📝 Why did Theodore Roosevelt send his daughter Alice with Taft on a diplomatic mission to Asia?
- 📝 Why is this Latin text black but the Latin numerals are red?
- 📝 Why didn't Thailand have to pay more for its involvement in WW2?
- 📝 What is the source and history of "green on blue attack" expression?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the status of the Polish Jews in Germany prior to WW2?
- 📝 What was the status of Arab Christians during the crusades?
- 📝 What was the legal status of an East German once he had reached West Germany?
- 📝 What was used instead of toilet paper in the US and the UK prior to 1900?
- 📝 What was the church's attitude to "magic" prior to the 15th century?
- 📝 From 1936-45 what was the prescribed punishment in Nazi Germany for failing to join or participate in the Hitler Youth?
- 📝 What was the relative social status of a "grazier" in Victorian England?
- 📝 What was the largest land area that Germany has ever controlled?
- 📝 What was the status of Shia Muslims in the Ottoman empire?
- 📝 Did more Jews live in Poland than any other country, prior to the Holocaust, because of how Polish laws and people regarded Jews?
- 📝 What was the primary method the Jews used to make a fire at the time of Jesus?
- 📝 What was the status of specialized workers during Greek times?
- 📝 What was the social status of a man who failed the civil service exams in Imperial China ( 1200 - 1800 AD )?
- 📝 What was the status of specialized workers during the Roman times?
- 📝 What was the status of peasants who left to join the People's Crusade?
- 📝 What was the process to join the army in WW2 England?
- 📝 How did Jews feels in the Confederate States of America and what was their political position?
- 📝 What was the reason that Poland wanted a part of Germany north of Stettin/Szczecin and west of the Oder?
- 📝 In WW2 USN ships, what was the weight of a typical boiler?
- 📝 What was the true status of Hessian mercenaries?
- 📝 In regards to Vichy vs Free France, what was the status of Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy?
- 📝 In Germany 1935, what happened to the Jews in the armed forces?
- 📝 What was the dominant Soviet strategy for invading Germany in the 1980's?
- 📝 How long did Jews in hiding take to reveal themselves at the end of WW2? What was their reception?
- 📝 What was the constitutional status of Finland within Russian Empire?
- 📝 What was the area of Nazi Germany at its height?
- 📝 What was the trend of forced labor in Germany and its conquered territories during WWII?
- 📝 Was the treatment of US diplomats in Germany after the declaration of war during WW2 typical?
- 📝 What portion of the finance industry was British prior to WWI?
- 📝 What was Richard Owen's status within the Royal Society in 1858?