Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Wokół genezy pogromu Żydów w Kielcach 4 lipca 1946 r.: Nowe źródła, fakty i interpretacje, by Ryszard Śmietanka-Kruszelnicki. 2026. Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (IPN), Kielce

Prolonged Kielce Child-Disappearance Manipulations (Agitprop): Pre-Conditioning the Polish Population

On the Origins of the Pogrom Against Jews in Kielce on July 4, 1946: New Sources, Facts, and Interpretations–is the title of this scholarly Polish-language work. I focus on information that is seldom mentioned elsewhere.

KIELCE CHILD-DISAPPEARANCE MANIPULATIONS: HENRYK-BLASZCZYK-KIDNAPPING TALE PRECEDED BY WEEKS OF WHISPERS OF JEWS KIDNAPPING POLISH CHILDREN

According to the standard Pole-blaming narrative, the Poles, backward and bigoted and stupid as they are supposed to be, reverted to medieval tales of ritual murder done by Jews, and performed the pogrom. The truth is radically different. It was in the government’s interest to cultivate Kielce child-disappearance manipulations. For weeks before the pogrom, there was an obviously-intentional sustained campaign of rumor-mongering (agitprop) designed to induce Poles to reasonably believe that Polish children are disappearing. Smietanka-Kruszelnicki [hereafter SK] comment, “In June 1946, rumors began to spread in Kielce about Polish children disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Just before the pogrom on July 4, a rumor surfaced that a dozen or so children had gone missing. Accusations of kidnapping were leveled at the Jewish community.” (p. 123; See also p. 71).

For more on the manipulative games surrounding the imagined Blaszczyk kidnapping, see:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2024/01/24/the-truth-about-the-kielce-pogrom-its-kidnap-no-hoax/

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/kielce-pogrom-facts-kakolewski/

MANY-HOUR DELAY IN SUPPRESSING THE KIELCE POGROM REMAINS INEXPLICABLE WITHOUT COMMUNIST INTENTIONALITY

According to the standard Kielce narrative, the Communist authorities failed to suppress the pogrom, for so many hours, merely because they were incompetent. This is nonsense. SK comments, “After analyzing the strength and deployment of various security forces in Kielce in 1945-1946, Marek Jończyk noted: ‘All key points in the city were under the complete control of the UBP, the MO, and both the Polish and Soviet military.'” (p. 22). In addition, “To summarize the above considerations, it can be concluded that the Polish Army units stationed in Kielce were prepared to effectively counter ‘unrest’ or ‘threats,’ and any speculation about the ‘weakness’ of the repressive forces in Kielce in mid-1946 does not accurately reflect the state of affairs.” (p. 107).

JUDEOCENTRIC CONTEXTUAL VACUUM: ANTECEDENT COMMUNIST TERROR IGNORED

Standard Jewish treatments of the Kielce pogrom completely ignore the antecedent trauma faced by the Poles, where life was cheap. Author SK thus corrects this, “Documents from the security apparatus show that 5,235 people were arrested in the Kielce Province in 1945, and 3,585 in 1946. The experiences related to numerous crimes committed by Red Army soldiers (murders, rapes of women, robberies), particularly during the summer months of 1945, as well as the effective actions of NKVD units targeting the independence underground, left a deep impression on the residents of the Kielce region.” (p. 21).