Sometime in 1920, about a year after being drafted into the Polish army during the Polish-Soviet war, my Zaide (grandfather) absconded and made his way to Germany. In this post I explore why and how he made this fateful decision to leave his family and native land and to enter, illegally, into Germany.
When he was born, either in 1899 or 1900, his home town of Zambrow was under Russian rule. Zambrow was located in the eastern part of what was called the Kingdom of Poland, also known as Congress Poland, which had been part of Russia since the “third partition” of Poland in 1795.
It is doubtful he had ever been to Germany before 1920, but, during World War 1, Germany came to him.
The war began in August, 1914. On the eastern front, German troops, backed by Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers), fought against Russia. Within a year, the German army occupied all of the lands that later became Poland, and further east, much of the Ukraine as well as the Baltic states. Germany maintained control over vast expanse of territory until the war’s end, late in 1918. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_I)
The end of German occupation, in November 1918, came suddenly and unexpectedly. The German army disintegrated. Most German troops went home. Poland then declared its independence.
And so, before he had reached the age of 20, my grandfather had lived under Russian rule, then under German occupation, and then, briefly, as a citizen, as well as soldier, of a new Polish nation. Given a choice of living in Russia (which after the war became part of the Soviet Union), Germany or Poland, he may well have viewed Germany as his best option.
My grandfather wanted no part of Polish army service. (see previous post: Escape from Poland). Germany was the nearest county to which to escape. But Germany may also have represented a refuge and land of opportunity. In addition, he was probably already thinking about making aliyah (moving to Palestine), and Germany was the primary transit point between Eastern Europe and immigration to Palestine and the West.
The experience of Jews in Eastern European lands controlled by Germany during the First World War was far different from the destruction Germany would wreak on Eastern Europe’s Jews in the next world war.
Most Jews favored Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Central Powers) in their fight against Russia. Jews living under Russian rule generally welcomed the arrival of German troops. Czarist rule had been marked by repression, censorship and harsh mandatory army service. Some Jews even joined Polish forces to fight alongside the Central Powers. In the early part of the war, some 30,000 Poles moved to Germany to replace German workers who had been drafted into the army.
The Germans called their rule over Eastern Europe “Ober-Ost.” It was a military occupation maintained through a minimal military presence. (https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/occupation_during_and_after_the_war_east_central_europe) Its policy was driven mainly by Germanization, to move Jews and other ethnicities away from loyalty to Russia to loyalty to Germany and to “develop German methods and German culture.” This effort was abetted by German Jews, who founded the “Committee for the East” to disseminate pro‑German propaganda among the Jews in Poland. (Barvani, World War I and the Jews, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/wwi-and-the-jews/). “Compared to the discrimination and hardships visited on Jewish communities under Russian rule, Ober-Ost’s professed maxim of absolute neutrality towards ethnic groups seemed to represent a considerable improvement in their condition, . . . ” (Liulevicius, War Lands on the Eastern Front, p. 120).
While the Ober-Ost policy was designed to benefit Germany and reflected a belief that Germany needed to inculcate German kultur (culture) to the uncultured eastern peoples, the policy did bring benefits to those being occupied. Germany helped develop the region economically, building roads, telegraph and rail lines. The German army instituted health programs, such as vaccinations, to eliminate diseases. (https://mida.org.il/2014/05/18/prelude-lebensraum-germanys-occupation-eastern-europe-wwi/)
Moreover, Germany permitted the growth of Jewish cultural institutions, which had been repressed under Russian rule. The result was “a major revival of Jewish political life” (Polansky, Jews of Poland and Russia, Vol. 2, p. 13). Unlike the Russians, the Germans allowed students to be taught in their native tongue (in addition to mandatory German language instruction), spurring a growth in Yiddish language instruction. (Liulevicius, p. 125). An office of Jewish affairs was set up to represent Jewish interests. (Polansky, p. 19). Political groups such as Zionists and Bundists were allowed to organize more freely. The Yiddish theatre thrived. Jewish newspapers banned by Russia re-emerged and many new ones sprouted. (Polansky, p. 13.) My grandfather’s embrace of Zionism likely occurred during his years living under German occupation.
A natural affinity existed between Jews and their German occupiers. Of all the peoples living under the Germans, only the Jews spoke a language that Germans could understand: Yiddish. The Germans were “well disposed” toward the Jews based on the latter’s “language skills [and] ties to German kultur.” (Liulevicius, p. 120). As a result, Jews were favored over other occupied peoples. (Ibid., p. 140). My grandfather likely felt equally comfortable speaking German as he did Polish. And so, when the German soldiers left, my grandfather may have felt a desire to follow them back to Germany.
My Zaide wasn’t the only one looking to Germany as an escape from oppression. Germany had been a major destination during the era of mass Jewish migration from Eastern Europe which began in the 1880s, either as a way-station en-route to Britain or the U.S. or as a final destination. In the ten years preceding World War I, more than 700,000 Jews entered Germany in order to immigrate to the west. Germany encouraged Jews to enter the state, whether legally or not, because they benefited economically “from the lucrative business of transporting Eastern European Jews to England and America via the ports of Hamburg and Bremen.” (Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, p. 14).
After the war, the Weimar Republic–as Germany was known between the end of the First World War and the Nazi takeover in 1933–became the destination for hundreds of thousands of refugees escaping Russia after the communist takeover in October of 1917 and subsequent Russian civil war. Tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews fleeing from pogroms and anti-Semitic developments that broke out after World War I also found refuge in Germany. These Jews created a vibrant center of Jewish culture, centered mainly in Berlin, the German capital. My Zaide was certainly not the only Jew to have left Poland because of the Polish-Soviet war, and he joined thousands of other Jews who looked to Germany as a refuge in turbulent times.
It was fortuitous that my grandfather, while serving in the Polish army, was stationed not on the Eastern Border with Russia but on the Western Border with Germany. While the reason he was drafted was the conflict with the Soviets taking place on Poland’s eastern border, the Western border with Germany was also unsettled. After World War I, border disputes between new states broke out all over Europe. Just as the border between Poland and the Soviet Union was contested, so too was the border between Poland and Germany.
A series of conflicts between Poland and Germany broke out soon after the war officially ended. By December 1918, Poland was mobilizing troops to fight for territory it claimed. In response, German World War I soldiers banded together to form a paramilitary volunteer force known as the Freikorps. (https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1834&context=etd:) Both sides claimed areas inhabited by a mixed population of ethnic Germans and ethnic Poles. One area in particular, Silesia, was marked by violent uprisings by Poles aimed at taking this area by force. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_Uprisings) Eventually the area was divided between the two countries after a plebiscite (vote of inhabitants) and an accord reached through the League of Nations. (https://erikatting.weebly.com/upper-silesia/upper-silesia-and-the-league-of-nations)
Owing to these conflicts, Poland had a significant number of forces on its western border. My grandfather was one of them, and he took advantage of his good fortune to escape from his Polish unit and make his way to Germany.
To enter Germany, he had to evade German forces guarding the border to prevent infiltration. Again, however, fortune was on his side. Entering Germany illegally, while not a certainty, was far from an impossible task. Germany’s ability to police its border was complicated by the fact that the exact border had yet to be demarcated. In addition, the Poland-German border stretched for hundreds of miles, making it unlikely that German forces could have effectively monitored illegal entry along the entire length of the border. And, once across the border, my grandfather could have passed for an ethnic Pole living on the German side of the border.
Polish-German border after World War I and Silesian plebiscites
Moreover, Germany did not have a tradition of strict border control. Before World War I, “German states were forbidden to seal their borders to Russians or Austrians as a group.” (Wertheimer, p. 13). In addition, in 1920, the year my Zaide entered Germany, Germany was inundated by refugees seeking to escape violence from the Russian Civil War. Germany was unable to cope with the numbers of what would today be considered “illegal” immigration from the east into Germany. German officials “could not manage to stem the flow of illegal migrants across the borders; the smuggling of human and other cargo continued unabated despite the best efforts of frontier guards.” (Ibid., p. 14). Professional smugglers worked to evade or pay off border guards who were eager to profit from the transport of illegals migrants across the frontier. (Ibid., p. 15.) In addition, the new Weimar state was still weak, saddled with reparation payments demanded under the Treaty of Versailles and struggling to rebuild the country and economy following the devastation of World War I. Germany was therefore in no position to strictly police its borders. (Brinkman, From Green Borders to Paper Walls)
My Zaide was part of a wave of immigration flowing from eastern Europe into Germany following World War 1. It would appear that most of these would-be immigrants did not let legalities and procedures stop them from making their way into Germany. They were escaping oppression as well as risk to life and limb and willing to face arrest at the border and possible deportation. While my grandfather was able to find some level of security in Germany, he became essentially a stateless person, neither a legal resident of Germany nor able to return to Poland.
It is ironic that the very state that would exterminate his family some two decades later would, in 1920, hold the key to his survival and escape route from Europe.