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As already noted, Warsaw’s refugee crisis, particularly at the end of 1914 and first half of 1915, was exacerbated by the Russian army’s mass expulsions of Jews in a broad zone behind the front line, some of whom were subsequently deported to the Russian interior as “enemy aliens,” that is, a category of Russian subjects that conflated ethnic Germans, Muslims, Jews, and other non-Slavic groups. 42 While
Jewish subjects of the tsar residing in Warsaw before the war were left in relative peace, the widespread belief among Russian army commanders that Jews consti- tuted an “unreliable element” who posed a security risk to Russian troops and were engaged in wholesale espionage on behalf of the Central Powers certainly made them anxious.
Even though Jewish behavior in Warsaw remained loyal and beyond politi- cal reproach, many Warsaw Jews sought additional insurance by changing their German-sounding names to Slavic ones. 43 Jewish leaders also became justifiably alarmed, first by the idea and then by the reality of state confiscations of property from Warsaw’s ethnic Germans toward the end of 1914, viewing the violation of property rights on the basis of ethnicity as a slippery slope that could easily extend to the Jewish community. 44 The steep nature of that slope was revealed in January 1915, when the Warsaw Governor-General ordered the closing of all German sport- ing, cultural, and philanthropic associations in the city. 45
tially aimed at citizens and subjects of enemy states. Starting on December 26, 1914, commanders of the Northwest front coordinated the deportation to the east of all Austro-Hungarian, German, and Ottoman subjects from the Polish Kingdom, al- lowing exceptions for Slavs “who were in no way suspected of spying.” 46 Following the decision of the authorities to deport subjects of enemy states from Warsaw by February 14, 1915, the Warsaw and Central Citizens Committees, as well as the chancery of the Warsaw Superintendent of Police, would be besieged by thousands the Jewish community from Warsaw over the previous six months; see “Nie chcą wyjeżdżać,” Gazeta Poranna 2 Grosze 288 (October 20, 1917): 2. 42. Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign Against Enemy Aliens During World War I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 1. 43. “O zmianę nazwiska,” Nowa Gazeta 576 (December 10, 1914, morning ed.): 2. 44. In November 1914 the state began to entertain the idea of confiscating the city’s “Ger- man” gasworks, with its assets of approximately 1 million rubles in cash, certificates, and bonds, which were then indeed sequestered before the winter holidays; see “Konfiskaty,” Nowa Gazeta 541 (November 18, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2; “Sekwester Zakładów Gazowych,” Nowa Gazeta 600 (December 24, 1914, morning ed.): 2. 45. “Zamknięcie zrzeszeń niemieckich w Warszawie,” Nowa Gazeta 31 (January 21, 1915, morning ed.): 2. 46. Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, 124. TPR 59_4 text.indd 30 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 31 of people attempting to confirm their identity, their Polishness, and their loyalty to the Russian state. The citizens committees were especially busy as people, many of whom were Poles with German surnames, stood in line for hours. 47 A reported 20,000 subjects of belligerent states, officially classified as “civilian prisoners of war,” filed petitions in Warsaw to stay in the city; those of German or Hungarian descent, however, were subject to unconditional deportation. 48 As the citizens committees handed out thousands of “guarantees” to people threatened with expulsion from the city, news of the extension of the deadline and the initiation of a more orderly process would serve to calm some nerves. 49
Thereafter, subjects of foreign states who remained on the deportation lists were to be directed to Petrograd (renamed Saint Petersburg) or to Bucharest. Those directed to the Romanian capital, after receiving proper documentation from the Warsaw Superintendent of Police were then sent to the U.S. consulate for additional papers. At this time, the neutral United States served as a caretaker of German and Austrian subjects in Entente states. On the evening of February 23, 1915, the first 560 German subjects were expelled from Warsaw. 50 For the expelled foreign subjects directed to Bucharest in converted freight cars, the U.S. consulate in Warsaw pro- vided up to 18 rubles (approximately US$8) per person in support. 51 However, for those seeking to remain in Warsaw on the basis of a “guarantee” from the citizens committees, recommendations from the three imperial Russian subjects were re- quired. 52
gave guarantees to 3,281 persons of Polish ancestry who were subjects of foreign states threatened with deportation while rejecting 89 other requests. 53 Thousands of other guarantees were issued by the Central Citizens Committee, the Warsaw Provincial Citizens Committee, the Land Credit Society, the Czech “Beseda” orga- nization, and the Slavic Literary Society. 54 By June 1915, as the Russians prepared their own evacuation of the city, some 14,890 enemy subjects had been deported from Warsaw, while 7,199 were allowed stay, nearly all of whom were Polish. 55 47. “Wydalanie poddanych zagranicznych,” Kurjer Warszawski 42 (February 11, 1915, morn- ing ed.): 3. 48. “Wysiedlanie jeńców cywilnych,” Nowa Gazeta 64 (February 10, 1915, afternoon ed.): 3. 49. “Wydalania poddanych zagranicznych,” Kurjer Warszawski 43 (February 12, 1915): 3. 50. “Wyjazd Niemców,” Kurjer Warszawski 55 (February 24, 1915, morning ed.): 2: “Wydalanie obcych poddanych,” Nowa Gazeta 87 (February 24, 1915, morning ed.): 2. 51. “Dla wydalonych poddanych obcych,” Kurjer Warszawski 56 (February 25, 1915, morn- ing ed.): 3. 52. “Dla poddanych zagranicznych,” Kurjer Warszawski 44 (February 13, 1915, morning ed.): 2–3. 53. “Echa wydalania obcych poddanych,” Nowa Gazeta 95 (February 28, 1915, morning ed.): 3; “Usuwanie obcych poddanych,” Kurjer Warszawski 60 (March 1, 1915, afternoon ed.): 2. 54. “Poddani zagraniczni,” Kurjer Warszawski 45 (February 14, 1915): 3. 55. Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire, 127. TPR 59_4 text.indd 31 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 32 The Polish Review
While we have fairly precise figures on the subjects of enemy states expelled from Warsaw, the data available for Russian subjects classified as “enemy aliens” are less certain. Before the war, some 420,000 Germans resided in rural areas of the Polish Kingdom, with another 100,000 in urban locations, all of whom were threatened with the prospect of deportation after February 1915. 56 According to Peter Gatrell, some 200,000 Germans were deported from the Polish Kingdom to Siberia, which was followed by the expropriation of their property. 57 As was the case with their Jewish counterparts, their forced removal was originally based on security arguments, but the subsequent transfer of their property to Russians and other “reliable elements” suggested an agenda more akin to ethnic cleansing. How- ever, the number of the tsar’s German subjects removed from Warsaw can only be guessed. Like Warsaw’s Jews, they were much more secure inside the city than in its surroundings. We know that shortly after the majority of Warsaw’s foreign German subjects had been expelled, hundreds of ethnic German families from Żyrardów and its surrounding areas suddenly appeared in Warsaw, where they were temporarily lodged in refugee shelters until they could be removed farther east. 58 Evacuees While deportations and forced resettlement from Warsaw were confined mainly to its resident foreign subject and refugee populations, the final evacuation of impe- rial Russian institutions from Warsaw in the summer of 1915 also took on a coercive character as thousands of local residents were swept up in its wake. Actually, there were two partial evacuations before the summer of 1915, one that accompanied the outbreak of the war and a much more substantial evacuation during the crisis of October 1914.
The first departures occurred on the eve of the war’s outbreak and the first days of August in an atmosphere that bordered on panic, fed by rumors of an imminent Russian evacuation. Indeed, in the middle of July a contingency plan had been distributed within the ranks of the Warsaw police to guide their actions in the event of the enemy’s approach and the evacuation of Russian troops. 59 The mere prospect of Russian evacuation was sufficient to promote a run on local commercial banks on July 30, as city residents began to withdraw their savings in the wake of German rejection of a British offer of mediation following the partial Russian mobilization the previous day. 60 In response, the banks closed, leading to a suspension of credit transactions, a shortage of money in circulation, the interruption of wage payments, and a general disruption of commerce. Large crowds then filled Warsaw’s train 56. Ibid., 130. 57. Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking, 23–24. 58. “Wysiedleni z Żyrardowa,” Nowa Gazeta 106 (March 6, 1915, morning ed.): 3. 59. APW ZOW 1107. 60. “Wiadomości bieżące,” Kurjer Warszawski 209 (July 31, 1914): 1. TPR 59_4 text.indd 32 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 33 stations as families of Russian officials began to flee, never to return, which had an immediate impact on the employment of domestic servants, the largest component of Warsaw’s female labor force.
While the departures of Russian families at the war’s outbreak had not been ordered, they nevertheless involved thousands. By comparison, the partial evac- uation of October 1914, when a joint Austro-German offensive brought enemy armies to the approaches of the city before they were repulsed, involved hundreds of thousands. The October crisis was accompanied by alarms and rumors of varying reliability, the dropping of a dozen or so bombs from German aircraft, the sounds of artillery fire from Warsaw’s suburbs, and panic buying of food, which drove up prices by 30–50 percent. 61 A number of Russian state institutions were evacuated by the second week of October, according to the contingency plan distributed the previous summer, and a militia formed under the auspices of the Warsaw Citizens Committee mustered in preparation for taking up responsibility for the preserva- tion of order in the city. However, as Russian forces put up a determined defense, the City Magistrate and the police suspended their planned departure. As soon as the immediate danger passed, those government officials and agencies that had left Warsaw were instructed to return. 62
According to Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz, who based his information on contemporary press accounts, some 260,000 people left Warsaw as the city came under threat of a siege in October 1914. 63 Because the Russian population of the city comprised no more than 5 percent, or 40,000–45,000 of the city’s total prewar inhabitants, and because Jews had more to fear from Russian forces outside the city than from staying behind in the event of a German occupation, we can only as- sume that the vast majority of those who left were Polish residents. These Poles fled for political reasons (namely, prominent pro-Russian conservatives and National Democrats), because they were Russian state employees and were evacuated with their institutions, or because they simply desired to get out of harm’s way.
The majority of those who fled in October would return in November 1914. According to figures published in Kurjer Warszawski, 75,000 people arrived in War- saw in the first half of November and another 125,000 in the second half. Although an estimated 50,000 of these arrivals consisted of refugees, the remaining 150,000 61. At the end of September, with the first spotting of a Zeppelin west of the city, growing fears of a German occupation found expression in a number of rumors that pro-Russian forces in the city worked hard to dispel; see “Zeppelin nad Warszawą,” Nowa Gazeta 451 (September 27, 1914, morning ed.): 5. For example, when a temporary power outage occurred, the rumor spread that Germans had captured the electric power plant; see Ignacy Grabowski, “Nie przeszkadzajcie,” Kurjer Warszawski 265 (September 25, 1914, afternoon ed.): 2. 62. For a contemporary description of the evacuation and return of Russian state agencies and officials in October 1914, see “Z dnia wczorajszego,” Kurjer Warszawski 283 (October 13, 1914, morning ed.): 3. 63. Dunin-Wąsowicz, Warszawa w czasie pierwszej wojny światowej, 82. TPR 59_4 text.indd 33 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 34 The Polish Review were returnees. Those who did not return, however, were the main contributing factor in the city’s population decline, which at the end of December consisted of 80,000–100,000 fewer inhabitants than at the beginning of the war. 64
The partial evacuation of October 1914 served as a dress rehearsal for the final and far more damaging evacuation of Russian power from Warsaw at the end of July and beginning of August 1915. Despite all official statements to the contrary, the evacuation of the city actually began two months before the government and the army finally quit Warsaw for good. In early June, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich decreed that all those who were not permanent residents of the city, employed in public service, or were without specified occupation and had come to Warsaw since July 1914 would be resettled. According to subsequent elaborations and explana- tions, this action was not expected to affect those who had come to the city from the suburbs or as refugees; nonetheless, some 70,000 nonpermanent residents were forced to leave Warsaw within the month. 65 Among their number were the “Prus- sian” and “Austrian” Poles who, just a couple of months earlier, had been allowed to remain in the city.
They were soon joined by the vast majority of the city’s prison population, which was not inconsiderable. Since the outbreak of the war, Warsaw had become a repository for prisoners from other evacuated cities, and some 5,000 had already been dispatched to the empire’s interior provinces. Now, as the Russians began to evacuate Warsaw, the departure of prisoners was accelerated, beginning with another 2,000 at the beginning of July. 66 They would soon be joined by 3,000 politi- cal prisoners, many of them students and intellectuals who had been arrested as a precautionary measure on the eve of the evacuation and were now deported to the Russian interior. 67 64. “Bezdomi w Warszawie,” Kurjer Warszawski, 357 (December 28, 1914, spec. ed.): 2. 65. “Z powodu rozkazu Wodza Naczelnego,” Nowa Gazeta 250 (June 5, 1915): 2; “Wylu- dnienie Warszawy,” Nowa Gazeta 294 (July 2, 1915, morning ed.): 2. In the middle of June, an order was issued to police to register all persons, regardless of sex and age, who had come to Warsaw since July 1, 1914. This was to be carried out in every home, every hotel, all “furnished rooms,” and inns. Those without employment in state service or the private sector, or in con- nection with the army, were not refugees from the war zone, or were not family members of soldiers at the front were required to leave the city immediately; see “Rozkaz do policji,” Kurjer Warszawski 163 (June 15, 1915, morning ed.): 3. 66. “Wysyłanie więźniów,” Kurjer Warszawski 177 (29 June 1915, afternoon ed.): 3. 67. Dunin-Wąsowicz, Warszawa w czasie pierwszej wojny światowej, 17. The Warsaw District Prosecutor had recommended the release of the less important prisoners under investigation, but this was rejected by the Warsaw Governor-General, who agreed with the Special Deputy for Police Affairs that such prisoners could be released only after they had been evacuated to the empire’s interior (APW ZOW 147). Indeed, some five hundred were subsequently released later that autumn, most of them students and members of scouting organizations; see “Los zesłańców z Warszawy,” Nowa Gazeta 458 (October 7, 1915, afternoon ed.): 2. TPR 59_4 text.indd 34 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 35
Families of imperial officials who had not left Warsaw the previous summer and fall also began to depart at this time, again leaving a number of domestic servants in the city without employment. 68 They were followed soon enough by husbands and fathers in Russian service. According to the evacuation plan worked out a year earlier and partially implemented in October 1914, Russian state institutions and their personnel were evacuated in the course of three days at the end of July on 21 trains that carried some 14,700 passengers eastward across the Vistula. 69 Among the last to leave, aside from rearguard units consisting of mounted police and Cossacks covering the army’s retreat, were 4,000 police employees, including members of the Warsaw County Land Guard, the Okhrana, the gendarmes, and the city police. 70
Some 11,000 ethnic Russians—mainly women, children, and the elderly—stayed behind to share the tribulations of Warsaw’s Polish and Jewish residents for the rest of the war. 71
The evacuation included not only administrative offices and state officials, but also industrial plant, technical personnel, and, at times, entire factory crews with their families. As late as July 19, 1915, rumors of the impending forced removal of factories to the Russian interior were denied, and the government claimed instead that all factories currently functioning in Warsaw would continue their operations without interruption. 72 Then on July 23, the government announced—despite its assurances of less than a week before—that industrial firms and factories involved in military production would be evacuated but that all others would continue to operate normally so long as they had the necessary fuel and raw materials. 73 A sum of 500,000 rubles (approximately $175,000) was assigned to the Warsaw Governor- General to cover various expenses connected with the evacuation of Warsaw in- dustrial enterprises to the interior provinces of the empire. 74 In mid-July 1915, lists 68. “Z kontroli służących,” Kurjer Warszawski 178 (June 30, 1915, afternoon ed.): 2. 69. APW ZOW 1065. 70. APW ZOW 1067. 71. “Ubodzy Rosjanie,” Kurjer Warszawski 184 (June 5, 1916, morning ed.): 2. 72. “Nieusprawiedliwiona panika,” Nowa Gazeta 323 (July 19, 1915, afternoon ed.): 2. 73. “W sprawie zakładów przemysłowych i fabryk,” Nowa Gazeta 330 (July 23, 1915, morning ed.): 1. On August 1, the Warsaw military governor, Lieutenant General Aleksandr Turbin, issued a proclamation informing the population that the evacuation of machines and factories engaged in military production was designed solely to keep them in operation for the pur- poses of state defense and to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Turbin promised that all affected workers would be able to continue their employment, if they wished, and would be transported to their new places of employment at state expense. There they would receive the same wages they had received in Warsaw and would be paid for wages lost from the time that their factory or plant had been dismantled. Moreover, the families of these workers were promised transfer payments similar to those received by families of reservists called up to active duty (APW ZOW 1068). 74. APW ZOW 1067a. TPR 59_4 text.indd 35 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 36 The Polish Review detailing demand for 7,320 workers from six branches of industry in the Moscow industrial region were received by the Warsaw Superintendent of Police. 75 Evacu-
ated managerial personnel and technical personnel received 200-ruble stipends and evacuated workers 100-ruble payments to cover the costs of their relocation. 76
Vistula. Despite the strenuous efforts of the Warsaw Citizens Committee to save them, the city’s new electric trolley lines had been dismantled the day before and transported out of the metropolis. 77 At the last minute, the retreating Russians also dynamited train stations and a number of factories. The first German vehicles en- tered the city at 7:00 A.M., followed by cavalry patrols, then infantry. Around 10:00 A.M., strong Russian machine-gun fire from Praga was answered by the Germans. Dozens of civilian spectators were killed in this and similar exchanges until August 7, when the Russians abandoned the east-bank suburb, which had become deprived of both water and electricity, the target of artillery guns from the west bank, looted by demoralized Russian soldiers, and the scene of fires and explosions. 78
More physical damage was done to Warsaw in the evacuation of 1915 than from German bombing and artillery shelling the previous October. Already at the begin- ning of July 1915, the city numbered 190,000 fewer inhabitants than it had at the onset of the war, a decline of nearly 25 percent, 79 to which the flight and departure of tens of thousands of others during the course of that month would contribute even further. According to Alexander de Rosset, another contemporary observer, those of Warsaw’s residents who hastily fled with the Russians were economically and socially privileged, a repetition of the situation the previous fall. 80 Many of them would return a few months later, just as they had after the October crisis, which makes it difficult to estimate with any precision the numbers of those who were swept up in the final Russian evacuation of the city. Moreover, several other factors contributed to Warsaw’s population decline during the first year of the war. Not least among them was voluntary male labor out-migration, which, more than mobilization and conscription, led to the city’s demographic feminization. 75. APW ZOW 1068. 76. APW ZOW 1067a. For an example of the costs associated with the evacuation of individual factories contained in this file, on July 29, 1915, the Michał Żeleński Steel Factory, which employed 210 individuals, presented a bill for 77,420 rubles to cover workers’ wages and administrative salaries for three months, the dismantling and transportation of machines and materials, and additional transfer payments for the families of one hundred married workers. 77. APW KOMW 2, protocol no. 103 of KO Presidium of August 4, 1915. 78. Herbst, “Działalność społeczna i samorządowa,” 302. 79. “Wyludnienie Warszawy,” Nowa Gazeta 294 (July 2, 1915, morning ed.): 2. 80. Aleksander de Rosset, “Warszawa w dniach przełomu,” in Warszawa w pamiętnikach, 87.
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warsaw’s transient populations 37 Male Labor Out-Migration
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