In post-war Poland, of the more than three million people of the Jewish ethno-religious minority, less than 250 thousand people were left. More murders followed, 41 in total, all committed against people identified by the crowd as Jews. Soon a large crowd gathered around them, shouting slogans against the government, the communist secret service UB and against the Jews.ĭuring the time the militiamen were searching the house, the mob killed the first person. On their way to the place pointed out by the boy, the militiamen told people where they went and why. At the time rumours circulated in town about ritual murders of children committed by Jewish inhabitants, and thus the parents jumped to the conclusion that their son had miraculously escaped from such a deadly trap. He told his parents that he had been kidnapped and imprisoned in a basement. In the morning of July 4th, 1946, a boy came back home after a few days of absence. Historians know today that there was a grain of truth in this statement: it was indeed a provocation, only its authors were the communist authorities. The official propaganda spoke of “a provocation by reactionary elements” and claimed that among the angry mob members of the anti-communist (in the wording of the propaganda: fascist) Anders’ Army were to be seen. In the tense atmosphere, which after the referendum prevailed all over the country, a bloody pogrom of the Jewish inhabitants of Kielce occurred. A few days before the events described by her, on June 30th, a referendum was held, in which 10 million Poles, the majority of people entitled to vote, demonstrated their negative attitude towards the newly installed communist authorities in Warsaw. Kersten depicted the first few days of July 1946 in post-war Kielce, one of the larger towns in southern Poland. “Kielce – July 4th, 1946” read the title of an article by Polish historian Krystyna Kersten, published in the 38th issue of Tygodnik Solidarność on December 4th, 1981(1).
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