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preserve and extend access to The Polish Review. http://www.jstor.org A City in Flux: Warsaw’s Transient Populations During World War I Author(s): Robert Blobaum Source:
The Polish Review, Vol. 59, No. 4 (2014), pp. 21-43 Published by: on behalf of the University of Illinois Press Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/polishreview.59.4.0021 Accessed: 18-05-2015 21:31 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Polish Review, Vol. 59, No. 4, 2014 © The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois Robert Blobaum A City in Flux: Warsaw’s Transient Populations During World War I
World War I caused drastic changes in the population and demogra- phy of Warsaw, which began the conflict as a provincial city of the Russian empire and emerged from it as the capital of a newly independent Poland. Over the course of the war, significant numbers of residents left Warsaw as military conscripts, deportees deemed undesirable or unreliable by Russian authorities, evacuees fleeing the German occupation of the city, and excess male laborers driven out by high wartime unemployment. These losses were partially countered by the influx of wounded soldiers, wartime refugees, and postwar returnees. The net effect was to leave the population of Warsaw roughly one-sixth smaller in 1919 than it had been in 1914, but also more Jewish and female, with larger proportions of very young and elderly, all of which would pose challenges for the Polish capital as it entered the interwar period.
In recent discussions of the outbreak of World War I on the occasion of its centennial, much of the attention has been focused on the political and diplomatic decisions that resulted in war, on cause more than effect. Capital cities—namely, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg—have served as settings and symbols in this discourse. However, the approach and outbreak of war had immediate im- pacts throughout Europe, no more so than in Warsaw, which in July and August 1914 was not a capital but the third city of the Russian empire. Especially in the war’s first year, Warsaw was a frontline city in tremendous flux, one that witnessed massive shifts in population as a consequence of mobilization, evacuations, deportations, and male labor out-migration, on the one hand, and the arrival of wave after wave of refugees and wounded soldiers, on the other. The situation would settle down somewhat following the establishment of a German occupation regime in Warsaw in August 1915, particularly after the city had been cleared of its refugees, only to be TPR 59_4 text.indd 21 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
22 The Polish Review disturbed again following the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 and the return of tens of thousands to the city who, both voluntarily and in- voluntarily, had been part of the wartime migration to the east. In the meantime, Warsaw’s demography had been dramatically if not permanently altered, between men and women, and between Poles and Jews, which had their own consequences for gender and ethnic relations.
The purpose of this article, therefore, is to discuss Warsaw’s transient popula- tions during the Great War, to provide some best estimates of their numbers, to compare those numbers to what we know about the wartime experience of some other European urban centers, and to think about how Warsaw’s experience as a city in flux during the war years shaped its future as independent Poland’s restored capital. Mobilization and Conscription Despite the widespread notion that Poles served as cannon fodder fighting one another in the armies of the belligerent imperial powers of Germany, Austria- Hungary and Russia, the evidence from Warsaw suggests that a relatively small proportion of its male population of military age actually served in “foreign armies” in World War I. Part of the reason is the evacuation of the Russians just one year into the war, the other is the German failure to raise a Polish army to fight on behalf of the Central Powers.
In Warsaw, the addition of 4,500 reservists to the Russian army in late July and early August 1914 seemed to have little impact on the normal course of daily life, although the presence of fewer workers in the city was noted. These workers were the most conspicuous social group subject to mobilization, and they reported to some sixteen points in the city, accompanied by family and friends. 1 At the end of the mobilization, the points where reservists reported for service, such as the university, were returned to civilian use. 2
were reminded that in families with two males of military age, the younger male was exempt if the elder one was already serving. 3 This rule acted as a constraint on the number of conscripts from Warsaw, and, over the next year, six additional call-ups led to the addition to the Russian army of slightly more than 12,000 soldiers, for a total of between 16,500–17,000 before the Russian evacuation of the city in August 1. “Wiadomości bieżące: Z miasta,” Kurjer Warszawski 210 (August 1, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. Four thousand five hundred families of reservists from Warsaw were entitled to receive Russian state assistance for food purchases (“Zapomogi dla rodzin rezerwistów,” Kurjer Warszawski 242 [September 2, 1914, morning ed.]: 3). 2. “Po mobilizacji,” Kurjer Warszawski 221 (August 12, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 3. “Przed poborem,” Kurjer Warszawski 246 (September 6, 1914, Sunday ed.): 3. TPR 59_4 text.indd 22 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions warsaw’s transient populations 23 1915. 4
that some 5,000 conscripts from Warsaw serving in the army at the end of 1914 were scheduled to be examined for signs of tuberculosis. 5 When one adds the more than 3,000 volunteers from Warsaw who rushed to the Russian colors in the first weeks of the war, we arrive at a figure of around 20,000 Varsovians who entered the Russian army from the end of July 1914 to the summer of 1915. 6
This estimate, of course, does not include an unknown number of soldiers from Warsaw serving in the Russian army before the outbreak of the war. Nonetheless, the number of men of military age from Warsaw recruited to serve in other military formations did not rise appreciably following the Russian evacuation. German ef- forts to recruit Polish volunteers, as Jesse Kauffman notes, failed miserably, netting a total of only slightly more than 2,000 in the entire General Government (the Ger- man zone of the occupied Polish Kingdom), which means that those from Warsaw could have numbered a few hundred at best. 7 For their part, the Polish Legions, which numbered approximately 20,000 men in November 1916, had been recruited entirely from Austrian Poland and the Austrian zone of occupation in the Polish Kingdom. Efforts to augment this Polish force under German supervision proved disastrous, in part because of Józef Piłsudski and his followers’ refusal to take an oath of allegiance to the Kaiser in the summer of 1917 and their subsequent arrest and internment.
Thus, mobilization and conscription had a relatively minor impact on War- saw’s demographic situation. Had Warsaw remained under Russian control for the duration of the war, the number of its young men drafted into the Russian army might have reached approximately 70,000, or 8 percent of a total prewar popula- tion of 885,000, a rate of recruitment that would have been similar to that in Berlin. 4. The exact number from the September 1914 draft is unavailable but probably ranged between 2,000 and 2,100. This estimate is based on precise data from subsequent call-ups in November 1914 and January, February/March, May, and June 1915, which each led to the enlistment of between 2,000 and 2,070 soldiers in Warsaw; see “O powołaniu do spełnienia powinności wojskowej w m. Warszawie w r. 1914,” Nowa Gazeta 535 (November 14, 1914, afternoon ed.): 3, “Pobór 1915 r.,” Nowa Gazeta 32 (January 21, 1915, afternoon ed.): 2, Kurjer Warszawski 58 (February 27, 1915, afternoon ed.): 3–4. 5. “Wojna a gruźlica,” Kurjer Warszawski 358 (December 29, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 6. “Ochotnicy wojenni,” Nowa Gazeta 358 (August 7, 1914, morning ed.) 2, “Ochotnicy,” Nowa Gazeta 366 (August 11, 1914, morning ed.): 2, “Ochotnicy,” Nowa Gazeta 367 (August 12, 1914, morning ed.): 1, and “Ochotnicy,” Kurjer Warszawski 217 (August 8, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. The mainly Russian and Polish volunteers in Warsaw were joined by dozens of Czechs and who as Austrian citizens simultaneously petitioned to be accepted as Russian subjects; see Archiwum Państwowe m. st. Warszawy (hereafter, APW), Zarząd Oberpolicmajstra Warszawskiego (hereafter, ZOW), file no. 1114. 7. See Jesse Kauffman, The Elusive Alliance: War, State-Building, and the Search for Order in German-Occupied Poland, 1915–1918 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2015).
TPR 59_4 text.indd 23 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
24 The Polish Review However, less than one-third of that number actually served, at most 2.5 percent of the city’s prewar inhabitants. To put Warsaw’s numbers in perspective, they can be compared to Greater London, where 1.1 million, or 15 percent of the total population, served, or metropolitan Paris, where 900,000, or 20 percent of the total population served. 8
of 89,000 were mobilized immediately, compared to Warsaw’s 4,500. 9 Yet Warsaw, like other urban centers, would become feminized during the war, with women holding a 32 percent advantage over men by 1917, 10 the causes of which we need to seek elsewhere.
Before we end our assessment of the impact of military service on Warsaw’s demography, we need to deal with a final transient group: the thousands of wounded soldiers who appeared in the city in the fall of 1914. Already in August, the Red Cross began to receive offers from private individuals, primarily women, to serve as nurses and nurses’ aides, while others offered to care for the wounded in their homes. 11
response to an appeal by the Women’s Section of the Warsaw Citizens Committee, as the city began to receive its first significant contingent of wounded soldiers. 12
encounters of its residents with wounded soldiers returning from the front and moving scenes of public solidarity with the soldiers. The streets along which the wounded were conveyed became lined by tens of thousands of people, who offered the soldiers flow- ers, cigarettes, and other tokens of empathy. Hats were doffed as a sign of respect as the wounded passed by. Włodzimierz Perzyński, a columnist for Tygodnik Illustrowany, was particularly moved by the behavior of these ordinary Varsovians, recording his belief that “Warsaw has never been so calm as it is now.” When someone asked him whether Warsaw had become a “nicer” place since the war began, Perzyński answered that, based on all his observations, “Warsaw has found itself.” 13 Meanwhile, crowds also formed at hospitals to see whether husbands, sons, and brothers were among the 8. Adrian Gregory, “Lost Generations: The Impact of Military Casualties on Paris, Lon- don and Berlin,” in Capital Cities at War, 1914–1919, ed. Jay Winter and Jean-Louise Robert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 1: 63–64, 72. 9. Roger Chickering, The Great War and Urban Life in Germany: Freiburg, 1914–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 117. 10. Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, Warszawa w czasie pierwszej wojny światowej (Warsaw: Państwowe Instytut Wydawniczy, 1974), 83. 11. “Pomoc sanitarna,” Nowa Gazeta 378 (August 18, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 12. “Sanitarjuszki waszawskie,” Kurjer Warszawski 235 (August 26, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. The Warsaw Citizens Committee was registered by the Russian authorities on August 3, 1914 to assist the city administration in dealing with the immediate emergency caused by the outbreak of the war and in the organization of the Warsaw home front. 13. W. Perzyński, “Z tygodnia,” Tygodnik Ilustrowany 36 (5 September, 1914): 656–57. TPR 59_4 text.indd 24 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
warsaw’s transient populations 25 wounded. While local hospitals posted lists of all soldiers, the press began to publish the names of wounded soldiers from Warsaw who had been admitted. 14
died from their wounds in Warsaw in the last four months of 1914. An undated docu- ment from this period in the Warsaw police files contains a list of places designated for treating the wounded in the city. Twenty-one were operated by the army, with beds for 5,575 soldiers and 73 officers. Seven were operated by the Red Cross, with beds for 2,497 soldiers and 137 officers. Ten were operated by the city administration for 2,870 soldiers and 118 officers. Finally, 25 were operated by private institutions, groups and individuals with beds for 951 soldiers and 85 officers. The imperial family also sponsored an infirmary named for the Grand Princess Maria Pavlovna, with beds for sixty soldiers. Thus Warsaw’s capacity for caring for the wounded returning from the front was 11,933 soldiers and 415 officers. 15 Given the city’s proximity to the fighting, this capacity was easily overwhelmed, and in 1915, wounded soldiers who could be moved by train were evacuated farther to the east. Nonetheless, based on the available data, it is safe to say that the wounded soldiers who resided temporar- ily in Warsaw until the end of 1914 far outnumbered the number of conscripts sent from Warsaw to fight on various fronts. Refugees
Weeks before the first wounded soldiers from the Russian imperial army began to appear in Warsaw, the Warsaw Citizens Committee at its August 11, 1914, noted the arrival of refugees, people “without means,” and frequently without passports, from Kalisz, which had been heavily bombarded, as well from Konin and Koło. By the next day, the Committee realized that it would need to become involved in their care while it sought free rail passage for refugees to points farther east. Finally, at its second of two meetings on August 14, 1914, the Committee resolved to establish a separate Commission for Refugees, with the immediate task of finding nighttime shelters. 16 By that time, according to Committee social activist Franciszek Herbst, the number of refugees in Warsaw already had reached the thousands. Many of them made their way to Dolina Szwajcarska, whose recreational facilities were converted into the Committee’s main refugee shelter, while others found temporary lodging with families and friends or, if they could afford it, in Warsaw’s hotels. 17 Slightly more 14. “Przyjęcie rannych,” Kurjer Warszawski 237 (August 28, 1914, afternoon ed.): 3; “Na ulicach Warszawy” and “Ze szpitali,” Kurjer Warszawski 239 (August 30, 1914, Sunday ed.): 4, 5. 15. APW ZOW 1109. 16. APW, Komitet Obywatelski Miasta Warszawy (hereafter, KOMW), 1914–16, protocols no. 15, 16, 19, and 20 of August 11, 12, and 14, 1914, respectively. 17. Franciszek Herbst, “Działalność społeczna i samorządowa,” in Warszawa w pamiętnikach pierwszej wojny światowej ed. Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1971)., 287. TPR 59_4 text.indd 25 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
26 The Polish Review than three weeks later, the Committee had offered shelter to some 12,000 people, only a fraction of the total of those seeking refuge in Warsaw from the fighting. 18
ed refugee crisis, with effects extending well into 1916 and even beyond, particularly for Polish-Jewish relations. However, it is difficult to estimate their numbers in any precise terms, for several reasons. First, accurate figures are available only for refugees who received public assistance in the form of meals and shelter, the burden of which fell almost entirely on local nongovernmental organizations, especially the Warsaw Citizens Committee and Jewish community institutions. Independent Polish and Jewish estimates from early February 1915 noted that barely one-tenth of the city’s refugee population at the time, which was estimated at between 50,000 and 60,000, were actually living in public shelters. 19 By my own count, between one- fourth and one-third of the refugees who came to Warsaw during the war received some form of public assistance, if not temporary lodging, then free or subsidized meals, clothing, and part-time employment. Thus the Christian refugee section under the Warsaw Citizens Committee served a total of 60,000 people during the first year of the war. A separate section for Jewish refugees, which was created in mid-October 1914 and reported to and was partially subsidized by the Committee, sheltered some 20,000 people during the same period and provided meals to many more.
20 However, it must be reiterated that the majority of Warsaw’s refugees did not receive public assistance, which was also true of other central European cities during the war. For example, refugee camps in Vienna, which sheltered primarily Jews who had fled the ravages of war and the Russian army in Galicia, at no point held more than 20 percent of the 100,000 Jewish refugees who arrived in the city. 21
ing the war, especially during its first year? We do have some time-specific snapshot estimates. According to Peter Gatrell, Warsaw had become home to 100,000 refugees by the end of 1914, approximately one-eighth of Warsaw’s total population at the time, a figure corroborated in contemporary Russian and Polish press accounts. 22
19. These estimates came from the Central Citizens Committee, which operated through- out the Polish Kingdom and was dominated by the Polish National Democrats, and by the Central Jewish Committee formed in Petrograd [St. Petersburg]. Since the vast majority of refugees in Warsaw at the time were Jewish, it is possible that a lower proportion of Jews seeking refuge in the city were lodged at public shelters; see Jan Lutosławski, “W sprawie opieki nad bezdomymi,” Kurjer Warszawski 35 (February 4, 1915, afternoon ed.): 1–2; and “Centralny komitet żydowski,” Kurjer Warszawski 38 (February 7, 1915): 5. 20. Herbst, “Działalność społeczna i samorządowa,” 287–90. 21. David Rechter, The Jews of Vienna and the First World War (London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2001), 72, 78. 22. Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia During World War I (Bloom- ington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 17. At the end of January 1915, the Polish daily Kurjer TPR 59_4 text.indd 26 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
warsaw’s transient populations 27 However, this is a peak rather than static number. In fact, Warsaw’s refugee popu- lation was in a constant state of flux as one contingent replaced another, often on a daily basis. By the end of August 1914 dozens of refugees had begun to return to their homes in the Łowicz and Kutno areas, and in early September the number of meals served at the Dolina Szwajcarska facility dropped from 3,000 to 1,000. How- ever, a week later that number rose again to 3,000 with the arrival of new refugees from Kalisz and Mława. As the front moved ever closer to Warsaw in October, thousands more came from various locations in the Polish Kingdom and from the city’s unincorporated suburbs. According to Witold Żukowski, head of the Warsaw Citizens Committee’s Refugee Section, some 65,000 refugees had sought shelter in Warsaw during the October crisis alone. 23 However, after that crisis had passed with the retreat of German forces from the city’s gates, the majority of refugees from Warsaw’s immediate vicinity sought to return to their homes and properties, only to find them in ruin.
During the October crisis, the Warsaw Citizens Committee, with its shelters overflowing, began to make plans for sending the refugees farther east, in the direc- tion of Siedlce. 24 As various plans for the relocation, resettlement, and evacuation of Warsaw’s refugees followed in succession, a change in public attitudes toward the refugees also became discernable. The original sympathy for the plight of refu- gees expressed in Warsaw’s Polish press before the October crisis was replaced by concerns about the spread of contagious diseases and “freeloading” among the refugees. 25 Wincenty Kosiakiewicz, in a lead article published in Kurjer Warszawski, argued that evacuation of the refugees should be placed at the forefront of the city’s agenda, which should target those who had reportedly refused offers of employment, preferring to live off private philanthropy instead. Kosiakiewicz fell short of calling for coercive methods to remove these refugees from Warsaw’s shelters, but did call for exerting “moral pressure” to get them to leave. 26 Another means of containing the number of refugees receiving public support was to limit the categories of those accepted. In mid-February 1915, for example, the Refugee Section of Warsaw Citizens Committee announced it would no longer accept unwed males of working age. 27
It should be noted that the change in attitudes toward refugees expressed in the mainstream Polish press in Warsaw corresponded to a change in their ethnic Warszawski was calling for the resettlement of a reported 100,000 refugees from Warsaw to the east of the Vistula River; see “Nadmiar ludności,” Kurjer Warszawski, 29 (January 29, 1915, morning ed.): 3. 23. “65 tysięcy bezdomnych,” Kurjer Warszawski 287 (October 17, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 24. APW KOMW 1, protocol no. 65 of October 10, 1914. 25. “Wsród bezdomnych,” Kurjer Warszawski 291 (October 21, 1914, afternoon ed.): 3; and “Usuwanie bezdomnych,” Kurjer Warszawski 315 (November 14, 1914): 2. 26. Wincenty Kosiakiewicz, “Ewakuacja bezdomnych,” Kurjer Warszawski 327 (November 16, 1914, afternoon ed.): 1–2. 27. “Z sekcji bezdomych,” Kurjer Warszawski 52 (February 21, 1915): 5. TPR 59_4 text.indd 27 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
28 The Polish Review composition. At the early phase of the war, as refugees began to arrive in Warsaw from the western provinces of the Polish Kingdom, little public heed was paid to their religion or ethnicity, although many of them were Jewish. 28 However, the turning back of the German attack on Warsaw in October 1914 proved devastating for the Jews. As German forces were temporarily rolled back through small towns like Skierniewice and Rawa later that fall, observers would note that the frontline of battle had seemingly crossed the middle of their Jewish districts, from which the Russian army then expelled entire populations, forcing tens of thousands to seek refuge in Warsaw. 29 These forcible expulsions of Jews from the immediate front zone toward the interior involved a handful of communities before January 1915, after which time a more systematic policy of coordinated mass expulsions of Jews began in earnest. 30 In the spring of 1915, Russian Army headquarters and the Warsaw Governor-General coordinated the mass expulsion of Jews from some forty towns in the vicinity of Warsaw, affecting roughly 100,000 individuals, 80,000 of whom appeared in the city shortly thereafter. 31
Such was the context in April 1915, when, in response to directives from the Warsaw Governor-General to accelerate the evacuation of Warsaw’s overwhelmingly Jewish refugee population to the east bank of the Vistula, the Warsaw Citizens Com- mittee developed a plan that divided the refugees into four categories, with those residing outside public shelters—the vast majority—the last on the list for resettle- ment.
32 When the plan was implemented by an Evacuation Commission in mid-May 1915, it immediately encountered resistance among part of the refugee population. Thus, “moral pressure” quickly gave way to measures executed “energetically” to force the departure of those who “qualified.” 33 By the end of June, the numbers of refugees served by the Citizens Committee’s Christian and Jewish sections had been reduced by more than half, and, with the relocation of the refugees in full swing, hotel vacancies began to appear in Warsaw for the first time in months. 34 As the 28. Herbst, “Działalność społeczna i samorządowa,” 287–88. 29. Stanisław Dzikowski, Rok wojny w Warszawie: Notatki (Kraków: Centralne Biuro Wydawnictw NKN, 1916), 30–33. The Russian army’s actions at the end of October had also reportedly led to an influx of 4,000 refugees from Grodzisk alone, who were followed by hundreds more from Mława; see “Żydzi bezdomni,” Nowa Gazeta 509 (October 30, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 30. Daniel Graf, “Military Rule Behind the Russian Front, 1914–1917,” Jahrbücher für Ge- schichte Osteuropas 22 (1974): 398. 31. Eric Lohr, “The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages and Violence During World War I,” Russian Review 60 (July 2001): 409–10. 32. APW KOMW 2, protocol no. 150 of April 17, 1915, and presidium protocol no. 69 of April 23, 1915. 33. APW KOMW 2, protocol no. 159 of May 20, 1915. 34. APW KOMW 2, presidium protocol no. 92 of June 26, 1915; “Bezdomi” and “W ho- telach,” Kurjer Warszawski (June 19, 1915, morning ed.): 4. TPR 59_4 text.indd 28 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions warsaw’s transient populations 29 resettlement proceeded, however, the front began to close in again on Warsaw, bring- ing new refugees to the city’s edges. Although many were redirected immediately to shelters on the Vistula’s east bank, 35 as the Russians began a final withdrawal from the city in the last weeks of July, a tremendous influx of refugees from Piaseczno, Jeziorna, Wyszków, Radzymin, and Nasielsk forced the Citizens Committee, which had already repurposed some of its existing shelters, to approve the creation of a new facility at the freight station of the Warsaw-Vienna railroad. 36 As for those refugees transferred to the east-bank towns and settlements of Otwock, Falenica, Józefów, Świder, and Płudy in May, Stanisław Dzikowski would later observe them “living like wild animals,” struggling to survive by stealing produce from the gardens of local residents. 37
new authorities ordered a resettlement of the city’s refugees. These mainly recent arrivals were given until mid-September to relocate. 38 Nonetheless, more than a month later, the recently appointed Warsaw Governor-General Hans von Beseler reported to the Kaiser that there were still more refugees in the German- than the Austrian-occupied zone of the Polish Kingdom, especially in Warsaw, but that the occupation authorities were “now prepared” to remove them. 39
bone of contention in Polish-Jewish relations. Acting in concert with the Jewish refugee assistance organizations in Warsaw and provincial relief committees, the German authorities successfully reduced the number of “homeless Jews” receiving public assistance to some 7,000. According to the Polish nationalist daily Gazeta Poranna 2 Grosze, however, there were still a “significant number” of unregistered Jews from other parts of Poland, whose presence in the city was fueling inflation. 40
refugees in Warsaw, particularly from the Austrian occupation zone east of the city. Their numbers were again rapidly reduced, so by the summer of 1916 Gazeta Poranna mentioned merely 4,000 Jewish refugees as a “burden” on “Polish institutions.” 41 35. “Zbiegowie,” Kurjer Warszawski 140 (May 22, 1915, afternoon ed.): 4; “Napływ zbiegów,” Nowa Gazeta 234 (May 26, 1915, morning ed.): 2. 36. “Z chwili,” Nowa Gazeta 340 (July 29, 1915); APW KOMW 2, protocols no. 178 of July 25 and 182 of July 29, 1915. 37. Dzikowski, Rok wojny w Warszawie, 46. 38. Dunin-Wąsowicz, Warszawa w czasie pierwszej wojny światowej, 177; Herbst, “Działalność społeczna i samorządowa,” 305. 39. Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (hereafter, AGAD), Cesarsko-Niemieckie Generał- Gubernatorstwo w Warszawie (hereafter, CNGGW) 1, Report of General Hans von Beseler on the Development of Administration of the Warsaw General Government, October 23, 1915), 4. 40. “Bezdomni żydzi,” Gazeta Poranna 2 Grosze 324 (November 24, 1915): 2. 41. “Ewakuacja bezdomnych,” Nowa Gazeta 568 (December 12, 1916): 4. As late as October 1917, Polish nationalists were still complaining that only 1,228 persons had been evacuated by TPR 59_4 text.indd 29 3/12/15 11:37 AM This content downloaded from 141.211.155.157 on Mon, 18 May 2015 21:31:13 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 30 The Polish Review Deportations
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