of the “Home Army” (ZWZ-AK) and the Polish Government Delegate's Office at Home (Delegatura) towards the Extermination of the Polish Jewry*
The article focuses on the attitudes of the Polish resistance and the mainstream press in Poland towards the Jews, from the beginning of the mass extermination (the spring of 1942); the reactions of the Polish resistance to the accelerated rate of the annihilation; the circumstances under which the Jewish department in the headquarters of the Union of Armed Combat (Związek Walki Zbrojnej –ZWZ) in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa – AK) was formed; the Jewish issue's presence in the press published by the Home Army and the Delegatura, the Polish Government Delegateʼs Office at Home (Delegatura Rządu – DR); and the transmission of information on the annihilation of the Polish Jewry to the Polish Government in Exile in London.
The article also examines contacts between the Polish resistance and the Jewish Combat Organization in Warsaw; the stance adopted by the Polish underground institutions, civilian and military alike, towards the Warsaw ghetto uprising; and in cases of armed resistance in ghettos in the provinces, the attitude of both command and field operatives levels towards Jewish escapees from the ghettos and Jewish partisans; the issue of the acceptance of Jews and people of Jewish origin into the ranks of the ZWZ-AK, and the nature and activities of the Jewish department attached to the Delegatura. The article further devotes special attention to an analysis of the attitude of the Home Army and the Delegatura towards extortion, and to the whole range of opinions within Polish resistance circles towards Polish-Jewish relations and the “Jewish Issue”. The period covered by the article ends in August 1st 1944.
* We would like to thank the Institute of National Remembrance [Instytut Pamięci Narodowej] – IPN, for generously permitting us to publish the Hebrew translation of the articles written by Dariusz Libionka and Andrzej Żbikowski. The Polish original was published in Polacy i Żydzi pod Okupacją Niemiecką 1939-1945, Studia I Materiały, Warszawa, 2006, edited by Andrzej Żbikowski.
