1098
Information about the Jews in Poland has began to be publicize in Polish chronicles
1170
Warsaw Jews administered the Polish mint. Many coins had Hebrew inscriptions.
1203
Jews were granted freedom to have their own land in Galicia.
1264
The General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz was issued by the Duke of Greater Poland Boleslaus the Pious on September 8, 1264 in Kalisz. The statute served as the basis for the legal position of Jews in Poland and led to creation of a Yiddish-speaking autonomous Jewish “nation within a nation”, which lasted until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. The statute granted exclusive jurisdiction over Jewish matters to Jewish courts and established a separate tribunal for matters involving Christians and Jews. Additionally, it guaranteed safety and personal liberties for Jews such as freedom of religion, trade, and travel.
Early 1300
Population of Jews in Poland almost reached a thousand.
1333-1370
Casmir the Great issued a series of Charters protecting Jews.
1356
Jews were granted sovereignty. in their public affairs.
1388-1390
The Jews were protected and given special privileges under the rule of the Grand Duke Vitovt.
1399
First known case of Jews being persecuted in Poland.
1407
Jews in Crakow are assaulted by rioters
Late 1400
Jewish communities are expanding, there are 60 known in Poland. Jewish population estimated around 20,000 to 30,000
1494
Jews constrained to enter in a district in Cracow, in the first Jewish ghetto, Kazimierz.
1515
Rabbi Shalom Shachna founds Poland’s first yeshiva (yeshiva is an institute of learning where students study sacred texts, primarily the Talmud) in Lublin
1525-1572
Rabbi Moses Ben Israel Isserles lives in Krakow, where he founds a yeshiva and writes a commentary to the Shulchan Aruch (The Shulchan Aruch is a codification, or written manual, of Halacha (Jewish law), composed by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the 16th century)
1500s and early 1600s
Jewish social, cultural and economic life flourishes; population estimated at 80,000 to 100,000. Some Jews expelled from Spain migrated to Poland
1573
Confederation of Warsaw of 1573 guarantees religious tolerance in Poland (The Warsaw Confederation (January 28, 1573), an important development in the history of Poland and Lithuania, is considered the formal beginning of religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in fact is the first such document in Europe. While it did not prevent all conflict based on religion, it did make the Commonwealth a much safer and more tolerant place than most of contemporaneous Europe, especially during the subsequent Thirty Years’ War.)
1648-49
Chmielnicki revolt and pogrom brings 30 years of bloodshed and suffering to Jews in Poland, bringing an end to the golden age in Poland.
- Historian Jacob Rader Marcus summarizes the situation as follows:
“In 1654 neighboring Russia turned against Poland, a year later the Swedes poured in from the north, and all these groups, including the native Poles, ravaged and massacred defenseless Jewish victims throughout the land” (The Jew in the Medieval World, 1896).
- The Eyewitness Chronicle details:
“Wherever they found the szlachta, royal officials or Jews, they [Cossacks] killed them all, sparing neither women nor children. They pillaged the estates of the Jews and nobles, burned churches and killed their priests, leaving nothing whole.” (Eyewitness Chronicle)
1700-1760
Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, founds modern Chasidism
1764
Jewish population is estimated to reach about 750,000; Jews worldwide has a population estimated at 1.2 million
1772
Severance of Poland begin between Russia, Prussia and Austria
1772-1815
More than 1,200,000 Polish and Lithuanian Jews were assimilated under Russian rule during the Westward expansion of Russia.
1795 and 1882
Laws passed constraining Jews to the Pale Settlement in Russia.
1800s
A spike in growth of Jewish population (in 1781, 3,600 Jews in Warsaw or 4.5 percent of population; in 1897, 219,000 Jews in Warsaw or 33.9 percent of population)
1830
Polish revolt against Russian rule.
1862
Jews are given equal rights
1863
Second Polish revolt against Russian rule.
1897
Jewish population estimated to reach 1.3 million in Poland
Early 1900s
On eve of World War I, relationship between Poles and Jews is distorted, with the decline of Jewish influence and rise in Jewish nationalism.
1917-1918
Three partitioning powers of Poland collapse. (The Partitions of Poland (Polish Rozbiór or Rozbiory Polski) happened in the 18th century and ended the existence of a sovereign state of Poland (or more correctly the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). They involved Prussia, Russia and Austria dividing up the Polish lands between themselves.)
1918
Massacre and pogrom in Lvov, part of the major reign of terror against the Jews
1920
Russian Polish War (May to September).
1921
Jewish population estimated to reach 2,989,000, making up 10.5 percent or more of Polish population
1923
Poland reformed and declared as a sovereign country.
1926
Poland shifts from democratic to authoritarian rule.
1930
Rabbi Meir Shapiro founds Hachmei Yeshiva in Lublin; it is destroyed by the Nazis and its synagogue reopens in 2007
1933
The concentration camp in Dachau opens (Dachau is a town in Upper Bavaria, in the southern part of Germany. It is a major district town of the administrative region of Upper Bavaria, about 20 km north-west of Munich)
1937
Buchenwald concentration camp opens (A village of central Germany near Weimar. It was the site of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II)
1938
Poland participates with Germany and Hungary in the disunion of Czechoslovakia.
October 28
17,000 Polish Jews in Germany were expelled. Poland denies admission; 8,000 are stranded in the border town village called Zbanzyn.
November 9&10
Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria and the Sudentenland; 200 synagogues destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen).
November 12
Decree was issued, forcing all Jews to transfer retail businesses to Aryan hands. (There are several definitions of the word Aryan. For the most part it means non-Jewish and of Nordic decent. Some people believe that it means Nazi this is not true. Today it is often used for anyone who is white with no mixed blood in them. The word comes from arya which means noble)
November 15
all Jewish pupils were stripped off their right to study in German schools
December 12
A fine was levied against the German Jews for the destruction of property during Kristallnacht. (Night of Broken Glass) also known as Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany.
Late 1930s: Rise of Hitler in Germany and new round of pogroms in Poland
1939
Jewish population more than 3.3 million, with almost 400,000 in Warsaw, or one-third of the city’s total population
1939
September 1
Invasion of Poland by German troops and the start of WW2. Widespread pogroms and mass executions in Poland.
September 21
Heydrich issues directives to establish ghettos in German-occupied Poland.
September 27
Polish Jews were put into forced labor
October 12
Nazis begin deporting Jews from Austria and Moravia to Poland.
October 20
First Polish ghetto established in Piotrkow. (Piotrkow Trybunalski is a town in central Poland about 26 kilometres south of Lodz; it is one of Poland’s oldest cities. Piotrkow was part of Russia between 1815 until 1915, before reverting back to Poland in 1919, it was an important industrial centre, principally for the manufacture of textiles, wood and glass products)
November 23
Jews in Poland forced to wear an arm band or star.
1940
January
First resistance actions by Jewish youth in Poland.
May 7
Lodz ghetto sealed: 165,000 people in 1.6 square miles.
May 20
Auschwitz concentration camp was established
November 15
500,000 people were sealed in Warsaw Ghetto
December
Emmanuel Ringelbaum (Emanuel Ringelblum was a Polish-Jewish historian, politician and social worker) begins work on secret archives of Jewish life in Warsaw ghetto.
1941
July 31
Heydrich implemented the Final Solution by the order of Goering
October
Establishment of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) for extermination of Jews; Gypsies, Poles, Russians and others were also murdered at the camp.
October 14
German Jews deported to Lodz, Poland (beginning of general deportations from Reich).
December 8
Chelmno death camp begins functioning: 340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and Czechs murdered by April 1943. Jewish partisans begin operating in Minsk area.
1942
January 15
Nazis begin transporting Jews from Lodz to Chelmno death camp.
January 20
Wansee Conference in Berlin: Heydrich outlines plan to murder Europe’s Jews. (Wansee conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee)
March 17
Extermination begins in Belzec: by the end of 1942, 600,000 Jews murdered.
April-May 1943
Warsaw Ghetto uprising
April
Transports from ghettos to death camps extend over Poland.
May
Extermination by gas begins in Sobibor killing center; by October 1943, 250,000 Jews murdered.
June 1
Treblinka death camp opens.
July 28
Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) set up in Warsaw ghetto.
October 4
All Jews in German concentration camps ordered deported to Auschwitz
Winter
Deportation of Jews from Germany, Greece and Norway to killing centers: Jewish partisan movement organized in forests near Lublin.
1943
January 18
Warsaw ghetto Jews launch first civilian armed resistance to Nazis: four days of street fighting.
March
Liquidation of Cracow Ghetto.
March 13
New crematoriums open in Auschwitz.
April 19
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins as Germans attempt to liquidate 70,000 inhabitants; Jewish underground fights Nazis until early June.
June 11
Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union Deportation of Jews from Polish and Soviet ghettos to death camps ordered.
October 14
Inmate uprising in Sobibor death camp.
October 20
UN War Crimes Commission set up.
1944-1950
Mass emigration of Jews from Poland continues to deplete population, leaving about 57,000
1944
May 15
Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews; by June 27, 380,000 sent to Auschwitz.
June 6
allied invasion at Normandy.
July 24
Russians liberate Majdanek killing center.
October 7
Revolt by inmates at Auschwitz: one crematorium blown up.
October
Last gassing in Auschwitz.
November
Last Jews deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz.
1945
January 11
Soviet troops take Warsaw.
January 17
Evacuation of Auschwitz; beginning of death march.
January 25
beginning of death march for inmates of Stutthof.
April 6-10
Death march of inmates of Buchenwald.
April 30
Hitler commits suicide.
May 8
Germany surrenders; end of Third Reich.
August 15
World War II ends.
Russia annexes Poland
1946
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence against the Jewish community in the city of Kielce, killing 37 and injuring more than 80.
By 1950
Stalinization of Poland stirs up anti-Semitism (Stalinization: Totalitarian communism based on the political methods of Joseph Stalin. Power is exclusively in the hands of the Communist Party, which is organized on rigidly hierarchical lines. The leader is presented, by state propaganda, as the selfless and benevolent parent of the nation. Economic policy is based on enforced industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. The general population is controlled by a vast bureaucracy and all opposition and internal debate is ruthlessly repressed by the secret police.
1956
Polish Communist leader Wladyslaw Gromulka comes to power. The Rebirth of anti-Semitism resulted in some 30,000 to 40,000 Jews leaving country
1970s and 1980s
About 6,000 Jews resides in Poland
2007
Jewish population estimated to reach 30,000
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