Inny tytuł:

Myth versus reality : crime of Jewish people in the Second Polish Republic : the case of Lublin Province

Współtwórca:

Polskie Towarzystwo Historyczne ; Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Wydawca:

Polskie Towarzystwo Historyczne ; Wydawnictwo Neriton ; Instytut Historii PAN

Miejsce wydania:

Warszawa

Opis:

Bibliogr. s. 200-205. Indeks ; 214 s. : il. ; 24 cm ; Streszcz. ang.

Abstrakt:

Criminal community in the Second Polish Republic was, naturally, multiethnic. The vast majority of them were Polish, but in many parts of Poland there were more or less numerous criminals of Jewish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German, Russian or other ethnicity. In the then Lublin province, analysed here, the number of non-Catholics was over 20 percent of the population, comprising mainly of the Orthodox-Church and Judaism followers. The Jews were concentrated mostly in cities and towns of Lublin province, creating together with Polish people, and, farther eastwards, also Belarusian and Ukrainian, multiethnic society of the former Congress Kingdom. This was mirrored by religious and ethnic structure of the communities commonly called the dregs of society, including criminal ones. The percentage of Jews convicted for criminal offences (the book does not include so-called political crimes) in relation to the overall rate of convicted in Lublin province over the twenty years of the Second Polish Republic’s existence did not exceed 8 percent. On the scale of the whole country the rate increased slightly, reaching 10 percent. It should be remembered, though, that the rate of Jews in the general population was circa 10 percent, thus, there is no reason to speak about their excessive representation within criminal community. The rate, however, was different in the case of individual offences. There were, on the one hand, crimes against life and health, which were not committed by Jews almost at all (here we should include also theft), while on the other hand there were specific offences against property (mainly: usury, fencing, swindle, forgery, bribery), offences against compulsory military service and procuration, with the rate over 10 percent of Jews among the whole number of the convicted for the crime in question. A detailed statistical image of the interwar crime rate in the Second Polish Republic which would allow for denomination was created with the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric prevalent at that time, with its focus on crimes perpetrated by Jews. The comparison, included in the chapters two and seven, between the description of actual state of the community of Jewish criminals and its picture presented in the anti-Semitic press made it possible to indicate, term and describe negative stereotypes, as well as more or less deliberate distortions and false opinions present in the propaganda of pre-war anti-Semites. Three chapters are a thorough analysis of three select groups of offences which were committed by relatively significant proportion of Jews: procuration, offences against compulsory military service and two crimes against property: fencing and swindle. The book attempts to thoroughly analyse the relations within criminal communities between criminals of different religions and nationalities. We can see clearly that the interethnic boundaries were frequently crossed, and while this phenomenon was known to historians as the traces of those contacts are seen in a specific jargon used by thieves, that contained words from Yiddish and Hebrew, it has never been thoroughly examined. As it turns out, a significant role was played in this case not only by the specificity of life of criminals (dens, common jargon, hermetic community), but also by prison walls. Prisons, where Jewish prisoners were put in cells with Poles and were subject to the prison regulations customised mainly to the needs of Catholic (Polish) prisoners (no kosher food, the Polish language taught in schools), generated a peculiar acculturation. Although they did not become conscious citizens of the Polish state, it was much more easy for them to live within the reality of the contemporary times than for a majority of Jews living their day-to-day lives in almost total isolation from communities other than Jewish.

Szczegółowy typ zasobu:

Książka

Format:

application/pdf

Identyfikator zasobu:

oai:rcin.org.pl:63800 ; 978-83-7543-257-2

Źródło:

IH PAN, sygn. II.13049 ; IH PAN, sygn. II.13048 Podr. ; kliknij tutaj, żeby przejść

Język:

pol

Język streszczenia:

eng

Prawa:

Licencja Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa-Bez utworów zależnych 4.0

Zasady wykorzystania:

Zasób chroniony prawem autorskim. [CC BY-ND 4.0 Międzynarodowe] Korzystanie dozwolone zgodnie z licencją Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa-Bez utworów zależnych 4.0, której pełne postanowienia dostępne są pod adresem: ; -

Digitalizacja:

Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Lokalizacja oryginału:

Biblioteka Instytutu Historii PAN

Dostęp:

Otwarty