Anti-Jewish Violence of Polish Troops, 1918–1920: The Case of Bobruisk

Abstract

ABSTRACT An examination of anti-Jewish violence on the part of Polish troops stationed in Bobruisk (Bel: Babruǐsk; Pol: Bobrujsk) between 1919 and 1920 puts into relief the interconnectedness of antisemitism and Polish nationalist discourse at the time of the consolidation of the Polish state. The relationship between Polish forces and the town's majority — Jews — reflects both Poland's colonial ambitions in the East and the emerging political vision of the future Polish state, in which ethnic minorities were to be second-class citizens. This article analyzes Jewish, Soviet, and Polish sources from the period, discussing both symbolic and actual violence against the Jews. Placing the events in Bobruisk in the wider perspective of the wave of pogroms that accompanied the advance of Polish troops in the so-called Kresy, Poland's eastern borderlands, it uses the micro-scale of one town to shed light on the factors that triggered the antisemitic violence.