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I think I am done with the expansion; all other sources (cited in bibliography) are I think available only through a physical trip to a library in Poland. As for the other sources, a number are open access; I located Soroka in the Library Genesis, and as for Brock and Pietrzyk, I received a copy from an editor who had access to it (my university did not); it is partially visible in Google Preview and if anyone wants a copy, send me an email. Some sources are in Polish but most are OCRed and therefore can be machine translated if anyone wants to verify some facts. PS. I want to thank User:Nihil novi for his copyedit, the article reads much nicer thanks to that! -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:57, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Let's abstract the this case to others. Probably none of us would be surprised that Picasso's or David Bowie's visits to Warsaw get omitted from some of their biographies, but that sources about Warsaw bang on about both. WP would likely be willing to incorporate those sources about Warsaw into articles about those people. But I agree, there would be editorial assessment of how much of such material is WP:DUE, because every city in the world would like a mention. By the same token, specialists on say Italian history might want this article to mention Kot's role in Italian-Polish relations. But as far as I can see from Fleming, the Polish-Jewish relations aspect to Kot is pretty important in connection with the roots of the creation of an entire country - the state of Israel. And there are some fascinating trivia out there, such as that he had a functional enough relationship with Jewish groups in the BM of Palestine for them to offer him military support in the form of commandos to be inserted into occupied Poland - he declined, explaining that they wouldn't stand a chance, because the Polish Resistance ones being airdropped in were getting wiped out already. Fleming (and possibly Gutman) also show Kot was at the centre of a dance the Poles and Jews were in with the British, who were activity attempting to block Jewish emigration from Poland to the BM of Palestine while the Poles were in favor of it; as well as the Soviets, who were trying to fill the Anders Army being formed in the USSR with Jews from the Gulags. As to his alleged antisemitism, that's not the only aspect to his role in PJR: afaics the Hebrew article doesn't even mention it, and afaics Fleming doesn't assert it in his own voice, but notes the allegations of it. This brings us to Wikipedia's standard WP:NPOV technique of incorporating controversies, and that's "It has been said that X is a Y" instead of us saying "X is a Y". Wikipedia doesn't ask us to parrot what sources say in its own voice (whether fringe voices or otherwise) but it does ask us to point out any controversies. Personally I'd place Fleming as the most useful on the three sources on all this, with Gutman coming a close second. I won't propose content in a hurry, and would ask you both to read the Gutman PDF and Fleming's sections on Kot available in Google books. As to Kot being misunderstood; well, we can only say so if it's verifiable in a WP:RS; but editors could take into account that it's verifiable that promoting the creation of Israel and actively supporting that struggle militarily was something that certain antisemites and Zionists had a very close alliance on, albeit for opposite reasons. A complex, nuanced subject as well as a volatile one. - Chumchum7 ( talk) 04:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
User:Piotrus, to answer your question, based on the WP:RS yes I do support Churchill's antisemitism being included in his article - within the context of the worldwide antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s and alongside his Zionism and horror and fury about the Holocaust (on which I think the record shows he had a better record than Roosevelt). It's also worth noting Churchill threatened to court-martial the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, in connection with the latter's well-documented Nazi sympathies. For that matter, I'd also support inclusion for Edward's brother King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth [8] Cheers, - Chumchum7 ( talk) 09:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Kot, too, writes in his report to the Foreign Minister in London, that "the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation — their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to the Soviets, informing on Poles, and other acts of the sort." This one-sided accounting, listing only injuries to Poles and reminding Jews of them — injuries for which the Jews were collectively blamed — and the total disregard for Poland's anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish policy between the wars, in particular the violence and organized persecution of the late thirties was but the first in a whole series of claims invoked to "justify" discrimination against Jews serving in the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union. Another claim that recurs in the Polish sources is that the Jews, by and large, are physically inferior and are not suited for active military service. This is what Kot wrote: "The liberation of Polish citizens in accordance with the agreement was greeted by the Jews with great enthusiasm. The decent ones among them rejoiced at Poland's achievement, while the inferior element sought to cover up their past behavior by vociferous identification with Poland. It was from this element that large numbers streamed to enlist in the Armed Forces. Not knowing what to do with themselves, they decided that it was obligatory to join the Armed Forces, and once having joined they almost always became a burden. They were found unfit for military service or they were deferred for a time, and meanwhile they would noisily demand that the relief work be continued." The claim that the Jews were "unfit for military service" undoubtedly had much deeper roots. Amongst the Poles, and in particular amongst the professional soldiers, the opinion was commonly held that the Jews were cowards by nature and were not suited for military service or useful on the battle-field.
I'd suggest at least a line summarizing this. It's not the only thing he writes about Kot. In order to build WP:CONS, please read the paper in the PDF I've linked for you. Please also search for Kot's name in Fleming at Google Books. It provides a somewhat more distanced depiction, describing allegations rather than misdemeanor itself. There's no conflict here with Lukas etc, we include all perspectives per WP:NPOV. I'd suggest it goes into a comprehensive paragraph or a section headed Kot and Polish-Jewish relations. Cheers, - Chumchum7 ( talk) 13:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
While questions from the above discussion bear consideration and resolution, I believe this article meets the six criteria for WPBiography B class. Carter ( talk) 15:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I removed a comment by personal acquaintance, much of the article is using eulogies by friends as sources. I returned the section on antisemitism that uses detached historians as sources. Kot is described as "aggressively antisemitic" and ignoring eulogies by friends, is mostly covered in history for his firebrand politics.-- Pestilence Unchained ( talk) 08:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm leaving here what was discussed on the review page. It needs to be summarized in the article carefully and in context, and not just in one or two sentences. A search should be made for other sources.
1. Mieczysław B. Biskupski, War and Diplomacy in East and West: A Biography of Józef Retinger, Taylor & Francis, 2017, p. 157:
... Retinger orchestrated a series of meetings between the Polish exile government and British Jews. This was a particularly sensitive topic because Polish-Jewish relations had become severely strained in the last years of the Sanacja regime [1926–1939], and antisemitism had been growing alarmingly. The agent decided to discuss these issues with Stanislaw Kot, a devotee of Sikorski, but poorly chosen because of his aggressive antisemitism. In his closing remarks, which must have left the representatives of the British Board of Deputies of British Jews flabbergasted, Kot suggested that the Jews be relocated somewhere between the Baltic and the Black Sea, a new pale of settlement. The Jews understandably rejected the notion.
2. Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 111–112:
Meanwhile, the London government's Council of Ministers received a report from the Polish ambassador to Soviet Russia, Stanisław Kot. Dated November 25, 1941, Kot's report, "News from the Homeland," took up the theme of Polish-Jewish relations. ... Another cause of Polish-Jewish antagonism, as Ambassador Kot stated, was ... [that] Poles "hate [the Germans] with a passion" and "hold their heads up high" while working for the future of a sovereign, free state. But, according to Kot, the majority of Jews had not devoted themselves to the Polish cause. Speaking of Polish perceptions, he stated that "in contrast [to Poles], Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants, etc." ... Kot maintained ... [the Poles now believe] "that the Jewish element was, is and will – unfortunately – always be foreign ... [because] they lacked a common spiritual basis with a higher moral value than the material one." ... The most disturbing aspect of Ambassador Kot's analysis was his portrayal of general Polish views on the Jews. Tapping into age-old stereotypes of Jews and money, Kot wrote the following:
Polish society is terrified of excessive Jewish influence. It is afraid that the need to import foreign capital into a decimated Poland would give the international financial Israelite magnates excessive power in the country, and that this might, in turn, enchain the country to "an economic Jewish slavery." Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland, a fervent wish of the Polish nation.
3. Michael Fleming, Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 87:
The British were advised of anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland by Stanislaw Kot, minister of the interior ... In January 1941, Kot received a report from Prince Janusz Radziwill, a Polish aristocrat and leading figure in the nationalist and anti-Semitic Conservative Party during the 1930s ... Kot secretly passed the information on to the [British] Foreign Office's Frank Savery on 9 January 1941 ... [Radziwill said]: "the last broadcast of Minister Stancyk ... contains a promise that in liberated Poland, Jews will have equal rights with Poles. This speech made a disastrous impression in Poland even amongst the workmen belonging to the Polish Socialist Party. ... When the war is happily over, the Jewish question will not cease to be a question of extreme actuality in Poland ..."
Kot's motive in passing this information to Savery was probably to advise the British of some of the tensions the Polish Government in Exile was trying to deal with. There is also the possibility that he wanted to provide justification for his assertion, in conversations with representatives of British Jewry in France held in spring 1940, that the majority (two-thirds) of Jews would have to leave Poland after the war (Michlic 2006: 148; Stola 1995: 73), a position for which Kot was later criticized.
4. Joanna Michlic, Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, pp. 148–149:
[Discussing citizenship legislation] ... politicians who officially represented the government made contradictory statements to the effect that the majority of Polish Jews would have to leave Poland after the state had regained its independence. In early 1940 Stanislaw Kot 1885–1975), minister of information, and Edward Racynski (1891–1993), the ambassador of the government-in-exile in London, presented such a proposal in separate conversations with representatives of British Jewry in France. In his memoirs, S. Brodetzky, one of the members of the British delegation, captured the nature of such contradictions: "Professor Kot gave a long history of the Jews in Poland, which, he said, had treated Jews well for centuries. But Jews were a foreign body in Poland; they did not even speak Polish ... He said that there were too many Jews in Poland, Hungary and Romania. About a third of them could remain, the rest would have to go elsewhere."
SarahSV (talk) 20:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
5. Gil S. Rubin, The Future of the Jews: Planning for the Postwar Jewish World, 1939–1946, Columbia University, 2017 (PhD diss), p. 47.
I'm not suggesting using a PhD thesis as a source directly, but its sources on Kot can be used, namely (a) Selig Brodetsky, Memoirs: From Ghetto to Israel, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960, p. 198, and (b) "Will Emigrationism be Resurrected?" The Jewish Chronicle, 12 April 1940, which said Kot supported disenfranchising Jews by nationalizing the economy and by Jewish postwar emigration. Rubin has a book coming out by the same name.
Yet the initial hopes of Jewish leaders over the commitment of the new Polish regime to Jewish equality quickly waned as they learned that leading members of the government had been advocating for the ‘evacuation’ of the majority of Polish Jews after the war and sought the support of Zionist leaders for their plans. ... In a subsequent meeting between Brodetsky [president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews] and Stanisław Kot, internal minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile, Kot insisted that only about a third of Polish Jews would be allowed to remain in Poland after the war and sought Brodetsky’s support for the resettlement of the remainder of the Jews outside Poland.88
- Footnote 88: Kot in fact suggested that such an emigration scheme would apply also to Jews in Hungary and Romania [quoting Brodetsky 1960, p. 198]: "We spent several hours with Prof. Kot. It was an amazing conversation. Prof. Kot gave us a long history of the Jews in Poland, which, he said, had treated the Jews well for centuries. But the Jews were a foreign body in Poland; they did not even speak Polish. Many Jews had come to Poland from Lithuania. He said there were too many Jews in Poland, and Hungary and Romania. About a third of them could remain; the rest would have to go elsewhere. ‘Where?’ I asked, ‘Palestine?’ ‘No, not Palestine,' he said, 'The Arabs are against it. We could take an area around Odessa from the Russians after the war, and settle the Jews there.' We said we could not consider it."
6. "Polish Government Has Submitted Proposals to Halt Nazi Extermination of Jews". Jewish Telegraph Agency, 8 December 1942:
The Polish Government has submitted proposals on means of halting the Nazi slaughter of Jews in occupied Poland and is making every effort to see that these proposals are carried out by the United Nations, Prof. Stanislaw Kot, Polish vice-Premier, declared today at a press conference here.
Vice-Premier Kot expressed regret that public opinion in the democratic countries is not ready to believe the extent of the Nazi atrocities in Poland. He emphasized that the Polish Government has been informed that the extermination of the Jews in Poland by the Nazis has assumed “tremendous dimensions” and declared that his government is in constant contact with Jewish organizations in England and America conveying to them the information received.
7. "Polish Statesmen Stress Future Poland Must Be Free of Anti-semitism". Jewish Telegraph Agency, 21 January 1943:
Similar sentiments were voiced by Stanislaw Kot, former Polish ambassador to Russia and a member of the Polish cabinet, speaking at a reception in his honor in Tel Aviv yesterday ... Prof. Kot said that he shared "his government’s conviction that after the war Poland must be a democratic state, free of anti-Semitism, in which we will welcome the loyal friendly cooperation of all Jewish citizens, who will have equal rights, and we will support your national aspirations to develop Palestine." Prof. Kot told his audience, which included leaders of the Yishuv, that "not a single Jewish refugee in Russia has been denied aid." He added: "I take this opportunity to thank American Jewry for rushing aid which was distributed without discrimination." Chief Rabbi Herzog, David Ben Gurion, Mayor Israel Rokach and other Jewish leaders also spoke.
8. Yisrael Gutman, "Jews in General Anders’ Army In the Soviet Union". Yad Vashem Studies. 12, 1977:
The surge of Jews to the ranks of the Polish Armed Forces [forty percent, according to Stanislaw Kot] aroused suspicion and dismay. ... In a letter to the Polish Foreign Minister in London on November 8, 1941, Kot writes that "the Soviets delayed by various means the release of the Polish element who were in better health and spirits, sending instead the handicapped and the Jews." ... Kot, too, writes in his report to the Foreign Minister in London, that "the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation — their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to the Soviets, informing on Poles, and other acts of the sort." This one-sided accounting, listing only injuries to Poles and reminding Jews of them — injuries for which the Jews were collectively blamed — and the total disregard for Poland's anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish policy between the wars, in particular the violence and organized persecution of the late thirties was but the first in a whole series of claims invoked to "justify" discrimination against Jews serving in the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union.
Another claim that recurs in the Polish sources is that the Jews, by and large, are physically inferior and are not suited for active military service. This is what Kot wrote:
The liberation of Polish citizens in accordance with the agreement was greeted by the Jews with great enthusiasm. The decent ones among them rejoiced at Poland's achievement, while the inferior element sought to cover up their past behavior by vociferous identification with Poland. It was from this element that large numbers streamed to enlist in the Armed Forces. Not knowing what to do with themselves, they decided that it was obligatory to join the Armed Forces, and once having joined they almost always became a burden. They were found unfit for military service or they were deferred for a time, and meanwhile they would noisily demand that the relief work be continued.
There is more about Kot in Gutman, too much to quote. For example: "Kot explained that from the Polish standpoint all citizens, regardless of ethnic origin or race, enjoyed equal rights, and this equality applied both to the amnesty being granted and to the privilege of enlisting in the Polish Armed Forces." Some or more of the above is also in Norman Davies, Antony Polonsky, eds., Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939–46, 1991, p. 361ff.
SarahSV (talk) 06:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
9.
Dariusz Stola, "Ignacy Schwarzbart's Lost Battle with Emigrationism", in Andrzej K. Paluch, Sławomir Kapralski, eds., The Jews in Poland, Volume 2, Jagiellonian University, Research Center on Jewish History and Culture in Poland, 1999, p.
192:
There is much evidence that the year 1939 did not fundamentally change the view of Polish politicians on the matter. On the contrary, we have plenty of statements made as early as a few months after the new government's formation, testifying to the persistence and the influence of emigrationist theories among Polish politicians in exile. For example, Minister Kot told a delegation of the Board of Deputies of British Jews that there were too many Jews in Poland, that "the surplus will have to emigrate" and the rest assimilate like Jews in the West. Several times he emphasized that the Jews had to leave Poland and that a suitable area had to be found for them, preferably on the Black Sea. The meeting with the Polish home affairs minister produced, to put it in diplomatic language, considerable misgivings among his interlocutors.
SarahSV (talk) 03:07, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
10. Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, HarperCollins, 2007, pp. 456–457:
In the late fall of 1942, Stanislaw Kot, a former minister of the interior and ambassador to the Soviet Union, as well as a close political ally of Prime Minister Sikorski, arrived for an extended visit to Palestine.
Given the contrary agendas of the Polish government-in-exile and the Jewish leadership in Palestine, their negotiations did not turn into helpful exchanges between the victims of a common enemy. Kot accused the Jews of Poland of lacking loyalty to their homeland and at some point threatened that if the issue of Polish anti-Semitism was not dropped, the Poles would publicize the brutal behavior of the Jewish police and possibly the callousness of the councils toward their fellow Jews.
11. Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, New York: Random House, 2006, pp. 199–201:
The December 3, 1941, conversation between Polish and Soviet statesmen— Prime Minister Sikorski, General Anders, the Polish ambassador in the USSR, Professor Stanisław Kot, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Stalin—has a permanent place in history books ... The [following] brief exchange ... came up later during the same meeting ...
... General Anders proceeded to describe in detail the supply and manpower problems he encountered while organizing the Polish army. ... "Anders: Perhaps there are even more of our people, but that includes a substantial Jewish element ... which does not want to serve in the army. Stalin: Jews make poor soldiers. Anders: Many among the Jews joining the army are speculators or convicted smugglers; they will never make good soldiers. ... Stalin: Yes, Jews make poor soldiers." ...
... To be labeled collectively as poor soldiers, or as people shirking their patriotic duty, cast the Jews to the bottom of the emerging Soviet status hierarchy. ...
One month after the conversation with Stalin, Ambassador Kot filed a dispatch informing the Soviet Foreign Ministry that "the NKVD was a source of suggestions that Jews are the worst element in the military, cowardly, always complaining, and that it would be desirable to get rid of this element." Constantly attuned to what Stalin desired, Soviet institutions immediately picked up on his moods, and proceeded ... "to work towards the Führer."
12. Jan T. Gross, "A Tangled Web", in Deák et al., The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 119, n. 18:
Karski's report can be found in the Hoover Institution archives ... Karski was instructed, as he told me when I queried him about the document, to draft a sanitized version, omitting his description of the anti-Semitism prevailing in the Polish society, by a close confidant of then Prime Minister General Władysław Sikorski, Professor Stanisław Kot. Polish raison d'etat vis-à-vis the Allies required that the matter be covered up, he was told.
SarahSV (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
13. Judith Tydor Baumel, Walter Laqueur, "Rescue", The Holocaust Encyclopedia, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 537:
Too much to quote. Kot visited Palestine in early November 1942. He told David Ben-Gurion and other Jewish Agency leaders that the "biological destruction of the Jews is taking place in Poland".
I add:
1. Antony Polonsky, "What made the massacre at Jedwabne possible?", The Polish Review, 2001, pp. 415–416:
Others were more unbridled in their condemnations.... Stanisiaw Kot, the Polish Ambassador to the USSR, and a close confidante of Polish Premier General Wladyslaw Sikorski, expressed similar views:
... the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation - their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to Soviets, informing on Poles and other acts of the sort.21
It is not possible here to discuss at length the truth of these allegations, (we have done so elsewhere and have attempted to show that they are at best half-truths, reactions to national humiliation and to the sense that it would be very difficult to re-establish the Polish claim to most of the territories incorporated by the Soviets.)22 Rather, attention should be drawn to the widespread acceptance of the stereotype of the pro-Soviet and anti-Polish Jew, which certainly widened the gulf between the two communities.
-- Pestilence Unchained ( talk) 01:47, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
1. David Engel, Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1943-1945, The University of North Carolina Press, 1993:
Thus far, however, the Western Allies had given no more indication of sensitivity to the outcry of the Polish people for salvation from German terror than they had of support for Poland's eastern borders(...)Critical Polish interests were indeed being threatened and the immediacy of the threat called for a bold and imaginative response.Within this context the Jewish demands for action to rescue Polish Jewry were received by the government-in-exile in London(...)Thus the idea began to circulate among some Polish officials that the best way to respond to the Jewish demands might be to offer the Jews of the free world a straightforward political deal:the Polish government would take action along the lines put forth by the various Jewish organisations provided that the same organisations would use their supposed influence in the West both to advance the Polish cause on the diplomatic front and to encourage Allied action not only on behalf of threatened Jews but on behalf of threatened Poles as well.This approach had first been tried by Stanislaw Kot—apparently on his own initative—during his discussions with Jewish leaders in Palestine. In response to the Reprezentacja's demand that the government ... instruct Poles in the homeland to come to their aid of their Jewish fellow citizens, the ambassador had suggested that Jews ought to issue a public declaration for the return of Lwow and Wilno to Poland. He had also insisted that the Jews cease publicising allegations of Anti-Jewish discrimination in the evacuation of the Polish Jewry from the Soviet Union—allegations that the government-in-exile felt might seriously damage Poland's image in the West and thereby strengthen Soviet hand. Later he had told Yitshak Gruenbaum that the Polish government had certain demands of its own vis-a-vis the Jews, including one regarding organised Jewish support for Allied reprisals against the Germans and for Poland's territorial claims in both the east and the west.
...The initial Jewish response to Kot's demand had been negative.None of the Jewish leaders with whom the Polish diplomat had met, had indicated any willingness to consider striking a bargain along the lines he had suggested(...)Indeed, Polish officials in the Middle East were aware that the Soviets had recently intensified their own efforts to win Palestinian Jewish public opinion to their side in their dispute with the Poles.In considering their response to Jewish demands for rescue then Polish leaders needed to balance their hope that Jews would intervene diplomatically on Poland's behalf with their sense that the Jews weren't likely to do so and with their fear that the Jews might even publicly support the Soviet side. In this situation Kot, for one, appears to have been willing to make a favourable gesture towards the Jews ... In a cable to London dispatched on 2 February 1943, he stated that he had "devoted much time and patience to Jewish matters, hoping to alleviate the constant suspicion and ill feeling" that prevailed toward Poland in Palestine as well as "to remove the troublesome suggestions that go forth from here to America" and he hinted that he would be transmitting to the government a number of recommendations about how it might be possible to secure Jewish cooperation in the future ... The most important of these recommendations, he declared, was to accede to the Jewish demand for the government to assure neutral countries that the Polish Jews who found asylum in them would be readmitted to Poland once the war ended. He also expressed his support for the creation of a special bureau of Jewish affairs within the Polish prime minister's office ...
Engel later describes how these proposals were adopted (in short: some rejected some accepted) by Government in exile, but it doesn't directly mention Kot and I believe it is suitable for place about Polish-Jewish relations during WW2, rather than here.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 14:45, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
2. David Engel In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939-1942 on pages 65-66.
Kot was not known for any personal hostility towards Jews, nevertheless he apparently saw in the Black Sea scheme an escape from a dilemma in which Poland had been placed by virtue of its alliance with Britain.
3.Michael Fleming Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust page 327
Kot framed the postwar movement of Jews out of Poland by referring to the concentration of Jews in certain economic activities and the economic problems in pre-war Poland. Kot noted that following the economic crisis of 1929, anti-Semitism in Poland took a reaL(rather than theoretical) form, The discussion also mentioned possible Jewish settlement of Palestine. Kot suggested that the war offered various options for Jewish emigration from Poland including to southern Russia along the Black Sea. Kot did not completely alienate the British Jews he spoke to(Selig Brodetsky, Leonard Stein and Adolf Brotman) as Brodetsky wrote to Kot on 16th July 1940 wishing to renew the friendly discussions which had the pleasure of having you at Angers and invited him to lunch or dinner.
4. "Pan ambasador mija się z prawdą!" Odpowiedzi na "Memoriał" Stanisława Kota do Gen : Andersa z lutego 1943 r. Rutkowski, Tadeusz Paweł Zeszyty Historyczne / Instytut Literacki. Z. 151 (2005), pages 95-135
[11]
Kot nie posiadał uprzedzeń w stosunku do Żydów i faktycznie zatrudniał wiele osób narodowości żydowskiej w aparacie opieki Ambasady i jej delegaturach./ Kot held no prejudices towards Jews and actually employed numerous persons of Jewish ethnicity in care apparatus of the Embassy and its outposts.
It would indeed be helpful, as SarahSV writes above, to track down the books and articles from which the above quotations are taken.
Quote 5, from Antony Polonsky's article in The Polish Review, no. 4, 2001, pp. 415–16, is badly mangled.
In quote 2, from Joshua D. Zimmerman, when Kot is quoted as saying, "Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland..." it would be helpful to get access to Kot's actual wording in Polish, as "the country" is likely a metaphrastic (over-literal) rendering of "Kraj" (which, in this context, would be a sort of metonym for "Poland"); while I would expect "the London circle" to more accurately be "London circles" (koła londyńskie).
Quote 3, from Michael Fleming's 2013 book, quotes not Kot but Janusz Radziwill, and probably mistranslates him to boot, when it has him say, "When the war is happily over, the Jewish question will not cease to be a question of extreme actuality in Poland ..." What is rendered as "actuality" was probably, in the Polish original, "aktualne" – which in English would be "topical", not "actual".
One wonders what other errors, mistranslations, and misinterpretations appear in this and other sources.
When someone is ready to venture to the appropriate libraries and archives, perhaps we could be given access to all the pertinent Polish- and English-language sources?
Nihil novi ( talk) 09:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Nihil Novi and Piotrus have three times removed the tag without resolving the issues. [13] [14] [15] The article should cover the following (it currently doesn't even mention the word "Holocaust" apart from the citations):
SarahSV (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Template:POV says:
Place this template on an article when you have identified a serious issue of balance and the lack of a WP:Neutral point of view ... An unbalanced or non-neutral article is one that does not fairly represent the balance of perspectives of high-quality, reliable secondary sources. ... You may remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:Kot
- There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved.
- It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.
- In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
I'd appreciate it if we could follow that. SarahSV (talk) 07:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Piotrus: From what I see your only argument for {{ undue}} is that these events aren't mentioned in the biographies you found online. Thing is, Sarah found multiple highly respectable RS that do mention them, and there's nothing in WP:NOTABILITY that says that lack of inclusion in a biography should be given equal weight to inclusion in a different kind of RS. Am I wrong? François Robere ( talk) 17:18, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the " World War II" section contains an unclear sentence: "this incident aside the civilian administration under Stanisław Kot has been described as 'much more open and helpful to the Jews' compared to Polish military authorities." Could we get clarification, please? Nihil novi ( talk) 05:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
We need page numbers for the sources. The current page ranges are too large: e.g. 95–212, 93–112, 95–118, 37–58. SarahSV (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Before I edited it, the article said: "He attended elementary school in Rzeszów", and didn't say anything else about his schooling. This was sourced to:
First, that citation is missing the names of the three editors and the page number; 407–428 is too large a range. I've fixed the citation and introduced page numbers using {{ sfn}}.
However, that source didn't say he attended elementary school in Rzeszów. It said he attended high school in Rzeszów, so I changed that, but given that he went to university, he probably attended gymnasium. The blurb in Polish from his USHMM archive page says that he attended gymnasium in Rzeszów and elementary school in Czarna and Sędziszów. I don't know whether that's a good source. It's an unsigned blurb that accompanied the digital images of his papers, which are held in "Zakład Historii Ruchu Ludowego" in Warsaw. But it's more specific about his education than the other one, so it should be used until a better one is found. SarahSV (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, the same source is cited again with the citation written differently. This time the author and chapter title are omitted but the three editors are named, and there is a page number but no page range:
SarahSV (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I am surprised that this article doesn't mention Kot's involvement in Ehrlich and Alter affair. It was a considerable international diplomatic event that is covered by number of scholarly sources. The Erlich‐Alter affair Shimon Redlich Soviet Jewish Affairs, 9(2), Volume 9, 1979 24–45.
Erlich's and Alter's contacts with Polish and British representatives in the USSR also throw light on the outcome of their plan and their personal fate They had never considered themselves under the sole custody of the NKVD and had established contacts with foreign diplomats and journalists, first in Moscow then in Kuibyshev. They became part of the small international colony moved in mid-October from Moscow to the temporary capital on the Volga. Their closest connections were, naturally, with Polish Embassy staff, especially Ambassador Stanislaw Kot. Less than two weeks after their release they submitted to him, orally and in writing, a declaration of their beliefs and intentions. They made it clear that they considered themselves representatives of the largest Jewish political party in Poland and as such had an immense stake in Poland's future. They stressed their triple allegiance — to international socialism, Poland and the Polish-Jewish population. A focal point of the declaration was an appeal to Polish Jews in the USSR to join the Polish Army, then being formed on Soviet territory. As for the future Polish state, they considered one possibility only — that of complete independence and true democracy. Although they spoke of the necessity of social reconstructionand criticized the pre-war capitalist Polish regime, they made no reference whatever to any future Soviet influence. (...) In his written response, Kot stated that there was no need for assistance in recruiting for the Army, since there was already a steady flow of volunteers. He assured the two Bundists that Jews were treated as equals in the Polish Army by soldiers and officers alike, including Commander-in-Chief Anders. He promised there would be no discrimination against Jews in terms of material assistance provided by the Embassy to Polish refugees in the USSR.20 (...) Kot asked them to be extremely careful not to let the NKVD win over Polish citizens against their own government. Initially, he expressed reservations about Erlich's and Alter's cooperation with the Soviet security apparatus and advised them not to involve themselves in the planning of Soviet propaganda activities.21 However, after further discussion, he reported to London that, although they were occupied organ ising a Jewish Anti-Hitlerite Committee this was "completely loyal to the Polish Government". (...) Only in the afternoon of 5 December was the first Soviet official statement on the arrest issued. Ambassador Kot sought to convince Vyshinsky that the re-arrest of Erlich and Alter would be damaging both for the Soviet Union and Poland. He warned of the certain negative reaction of Jewish public opinion in the US, an argument he used again and again. Vyshinsky's reply was a total surprise to Kot — Erlich and Alter were accused of working on behalf of Germany, a version to which the Soviets would cling in the years ahead'' From January 1942 onwards, the arrest of Erlich and Alter became a test case for the Polish citizenship issue. The Soviets and the Polish Embassy reiterated their respective interpretations. The Poles referred constantly to the fact that Erlich and Alter had been released in September 1941 as Polish citizens, and that this was never questioned even in the first weeks after their arrest. The exchange of notes ended in April with a curt Soviet announcement that the Soviet Foreign Ministry considered the Erlich-Alter case "closed".52 On the eve of his departure from the USSR in mid-1942 Kot attempted to convince Vyshinsky, somewhat naively, that the arrested should be allowed to leave the Soviet Union with him; Kot would assume responsibility for their behaviour abroad. In reply to Kot's argument that there could be no question as to Erlich's and Alter's Polish citizenship, Vyshinsky remarked cynically, "Warsaw will get along without Erlich and Alter".53
There's much more of course but I don't want to copy more from the source text.
I would suggest to dedicate a separate section for the Henryk Ehrlich and Victor Alter affair-it was a major notable diplomatic and international event involving numerous actors(Masaryk,Eden,Breckinridge Long and even Roosevelt himself) in which Kot was actively involved. -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 17:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
As the most prestigious Jewish personalities among the Polish refugees in the USSR the two Bundist leaders were consulted by the Polish officials on Jewish affairs. They also became involved in the recruitment of Jews into the Polish Army. Both Poles and Soviets sought to use this issue, each accusing the other of discriminating against Jewish volunteers...
Another crucial issue on which the Bundist leaders took an unequivocal stand was that of the Eastern Polish territorities annexed by the USSR in 1939. Kot attempted to use the Jewish refugees, particularly those from the annexed areas, for political purposes. He considered them to be the most pro-Polish minority in those territorities: The Polish Government-in-Exile was interested in gaining the support of public opinion outside the USSR against changes in the pre-1939 Polish-Soviet borders; in this respect Jewish public opinion in the USA and other Western countries was regarded as highly important. Alter was convinced that his and Erlich's support could significantly assist Polish claims...
Ambassador Kot sought to convince Vyshinsky ( Andrey Vyshinsky, senior Soviet functionary. -FR) that the re-arrest of Erlich and Alter would be damaging both for the Soviet Union and Poland. He warned of the certain negative reaction of Jewish public opinion in the US, an argument he used again and again.
[21] -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 01:39, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 10:05, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
[23] W roku 1933 został pozbawiony katedry z powodu zorganizowania w roku 1930 protestu profesorów Uniwersytetu jagiellońskiego przeciwko aresztowaniu przywódców tzw. Centrolew In 1933 he was stripped of his position at the university due to organizing protest of professors of Jagiellon University against arrests of leaders of so called Centrolew
Also his Polish biography mentions that he was attacked by Endecja movement as philosemite Stanisław Kot, 1885-1975: biografia polityczna, Volumes 1885-1975, Tadeusz Paweł Rutkowski, page 96. -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 01:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Trudno się temu dziwić, ponieważ wielu wybitnym polskim naukowcom pochodzenia żydowskiego, z przyczyn, jak stwierdzają biografowie „pozanaukowych”, utrudniano awans. Jeden z najwybitniejszych historyków, Józef Feldman, z trudem przebrnął przez habilitację, ponieważ jeden z profesorów przygotował złośliwe pytania, na które nie sposób było odpowiedzieć (sytuację uratował prof. Stanisław Kot, oświadczając, że jeśli Feldman nie dostanie habilitacji, on zrzeka się katedry, ponieważ także nie zna odpowiedzi na zadane pytania)28 Page 100 Syn bedzie Lech... Asymilacja Zydow w Polsce miedzywojennej 2006 by Anna Landau-Czajka [24], Anna Landau-Czajka is a historian specializing in Polish-Jewish relationship and history at University of Warsaw. Can I ask Nihil Novi to translate? -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:00, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
David Engel describes in more detail the Black Sea idea In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939-1942 on pages 65-66. It wasn't invented by Kot but proposed by Roman Knoll. About Kot Engel states, I quote, Kot was not known for any personal hostility towards Jews, nevertheless he apparently saw in the Black Sea scheme an escape from a dilemma in which Poland had been placed by virtue of its alliance with Britain. He mentions that it was rejected Brodetsky and Leonard Stein and afterwards it wasn't further pursued. He does mention that Poland sought emigration of Jews and established close ties to Revisionist wing of Zionism movement.
"Pan ambasador mija się z prawdą!" Odpowiedzi na "Memoriał" Stanisława Kota do Gen : Andersa z lutego 1943 r. Rutkowski, Tadeusz Paweł Zeszyty Historyczne / Instytut Literacki. Z. 151 (2005), pages 95-135 [26] Among others statesKot nie posiadał uprzedzeń w stosunku do Żydów i faktycznie zatrudniał wiele osób narodowości żydowskiej w aparacie opieki Ambasady i jej delegaturach. Kot held no prejudices towards Jews and actually employed numerous persons of Jewish ethnicity in care apparatus of the Embassay and its outposts.
przez odmawianie obywatelstwa polskiego mniejszościom narodowym. Wielokrotnie uświadamiałem czynnikom wojskowym niebezpieczeństwo , jakie grozi interesom polskim, jeśli Wojsko z powodu swojego rozgoryczenia o zachowanie mniejszości pod okupacją, czy też pod wpływem odruchów nacjonalistycznych pójdziena lep machiawelskiej polityki Sowietów(...)Zachowanie czynników wojskowych wywołał9 wzburzenie i protesty wśród polskich obywateli z mniejszości nie tylko u Zydów, co było natychmiast przez agentów NKWD wykorzystane przeciwko Polsce jako wyraz nie tylko antysemityzmu polskiego-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Ping User:Nihil novi: I noticed some text quoted in references is not translated from Polish. Would you mind...? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
The Katyn Massacre and Polish-Soviet Relations, 1941-43 George Sanford Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 95-111
The London government accepted the official Soviet figures of over 9000 army officers and 181,200 soldiers detained in the USSR. It rejected the claim by the Soviet ambassador in London Ivan Maisky that only 20,000 Polish PoWs were held on Soviet territory by the summer of 1941. Stanislaw Kot, the newly-appointed Polish ambassador to Moscow, was instructed to work for the rapid release of all Poles held in Soviet prisons and camps as well as to protect all Polish civilians throughout the USSR by establishing a network of consulates."7
Kot only received a confused and embarrassed reaction to the question: 'What happened to 7500 officers?', which he raised directly with deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky for the first time on 7 October 1941.24 Vyshinsky was better prepared the second time on 14 October, when he cited the figures of 387,932 Polish citizens confined in the USSR, 71,481 in prisons (sentenced or under investigation), 291,137 deported (in four great waves during 1939-40) or held in special settlements, and 25,314 detained as PoWs.By 1 October 345,511 had been released leaving only 42,421 still detained.25 Kot bluntly refused to accept the accuracy of these figures as most of the 9400 officers held in the USSR had not been accounted for. The Polish record states that 'the discussion became loaded with irritation'.26
After these preliminary skirmishes Kot met Stalin for the first time in the Kremlin on 14 November(...) The charade played out by him and Prime Minister Viachyslav Molotov when Kot asked for the release of all Polish soldiers according to the Supreme Soviet amnesty and pointed out that not a single officer had returned from Starobelsk is well known. Pressed directly by Kot on the obvious existence of detailed lists of the missing officers from the three camps - the Poles had learnt by now that each officer had been interrogated individually - Stalin phoned, or pretended to hone, the NKVD to ask them whether all the Poles had been released!
The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948 Krystyna Kersten writes on page 44 that as condition for negotiations about creation of new Polish government Stalin categorically demanded removal of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski and ministers Marian Kukiel and Stanislaw Kot-- I believe his role in Katyn Massacre revelations need to be emphasised more, the article currently lacks several important aspects of his life, this being one of them.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 22:40, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Biruitorul ( talk · contribs) 06:46, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Greetings. I’ll be reviewing this article imminently.
It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria- no
It contains copyright infringements- no
It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include{{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags. (See also {{QF-tags}}).- no
It is not stable due to edit warring on the page.- no
@ Biruitorul: Thank you for the extensive review. I have done all that you asked, I think, through see a few replies/comments above. Please let me know if there are any further outstanding issues. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:36, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
It’s my pleasure to pass this article, now that Piotrus has taken care of a few small issues. The writing is fluent. As to sources, while I have not verified most of them (these being either offline or in Polish), the article does reflect what I have been able to check; as for the rest, I trust Piotrus’ research abilities. The article deals with Kot’s life while situating him in context, and does so neutrally. There are no issues with the images, and the current version is stable. - Biruitorul Talk 12:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
The Squirrel Conspiracy (
talk)
17:46, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
? Source: https://collections.ushmm.org/findingaids/RG-15.658_01_fnd_pl.pdf ; http://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Organon/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17-s267-281/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17-s267-281.pdf
Improved to Good Article status by Piotrus ( talk). Self-nominated at 04:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC).
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I think I am done with the expansion; all other sources (cited in bibliography) are I think available only through a physical trip to a library in Poland. As for the other sources, a number are open access; I located Soroka in the Library Genesis, and as for Brock and Pietrzyk, I received a copy from an editor who had access to it (my university did not); it is partially visible in Google Preview and if anyone wants a copy, send me an email. Some sources are in Polish but most are OCRed and therefore can be machine translated if anyone wants to verify some facts. PS. I want to thank User:Nihil novi for his copyedit, the article reads much nicer thanks to that! -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:57, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Let's abstract the this case to others. Probably none of us would be surprised that Picasso's or David Bowie's visits to Warsaw get omitted from some of their biographies, but that sources about Warsaw bang on about both. WP would likely be willing to incorporate those sources about Warsaw into articles about those people. But I agree, there would be editorial assessment of how much of such material is WP:DUE, because every city in the world would like a mention. By the same token, specialists on say Italian history might want this article to mention Kot's role in Italian-Polish relations. But as far as I can see from Fleming, the Polish-Jewish relations aspect to Kot is pretty important in connection with the roots of the creation of an entire country - the state of Israel. And there are some fascinating trivia out there, such as that he had a functional enough relationship with Jewish groups in the BM of Palestine for them to offer him military support in the form of commandos to be inserted into occupied Poland - he declined, explaining that they wouldn't stand a chance, because the Polish Resistance ones being airdropped in were getting wiped out already. Fleming (and possibly Gutman) also show Kot was at the centre of a dance the Poles and Jews were in with the British, who were activity attempting to block Jewish emigration from Poland to the BM of Palestine while the Poles were in favor of it; as well as the Soviets, who were trying to fill the Anders Army being formed in the USSR with Jews from the Gulags. As to his alleged antisemitism, that's not the only aspect to his role in PJR: afaics the Hebrew article doesn't even mention it, and afaics Fleming doesn't assert it in his own voice, but notes the allegations of it. This brings us to Wikipedia's standard WP:NPOV technique of incorporating controversies, and that's "It has been said that X is a Y" instead of us saying "X is a Y". Wikipedia doesn't ask us to parrot what sources say in its own voice (whether fringe voices or otherwise) but it does ask us to point out any controversies. Personally I'd place Fleming as the most useful on the three sources on all this, with Gutman coming a close second. I won't propose content in a hurry, and would ask you both to read the Gutman PDF and Fleming's sections on Kot available in Google books. As to Kot being misunderstood; well, we can only say so if it's verifiable in a WP:RS; but editors could take into account that it's verifiable that promoting the creation of Israel and actively supporting that struggle militarily was something that certain antisemites and Zionists had a very close alliance on, albeit for opposite reasons. A complex, nuanced subject as well as a volatile one. - Chumchum7 ( talk) 04:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
User:Piotrus, to answer your question, based on the WP:RS yes I do support Churchill's antisemitism being included in his article - within the context of the worldwide antisemitism of the 1920s and 1930s and alongside his Zionism and horror and fury about the Holocaust (on which I think the record shows he had a better record than Roosevelt). It's also worth noting Churchill threatened to court-martial the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, in connection with the latter's well-documented Nazi sympathies. For that matter, I'd also support inclusion for Edward's brother King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth [8] Cheers, - Chumchum7 ( talk) 09:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Kot, too, writes in his report to the Foreign Minister in London, that "the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation — their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to the Soviets, informing on Poles, and other acts of the sort." This one-sided accounting, listing only injuries to Poles and reminding Jews of them — injuries for which the Jews were collectively blamed — and the total disregard for Poland's anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish policy between the wars, in particular the violence and organized persecution of the late thirties was but the first in a whole series of claims invoked to "justify" discrimination against Jews serving in the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union. Another claim that recurs in the Polish sources is that the Jews, by and large, are physically inferior and are not suited for active military service. This is what Kot wrote: "The liberation of Polish citizens in accordance with the agreement was greeted by the Jews with great enthusiasm. The decent ones among them rejoiced at Poland's achievement, while the inferior element sought to cover up their past behavior by vociferous identification with Poland. It was from this element that large numbers streamed to enlist in the Armed Forces. Not knowing what to do with themselves, they decided that it was obligatory to join the Armed Forces, and once having joined they almost always became a burden. They were found unfit for military service or they were deferred for a time, and meanwhile they would noisily demand that the relief work be continued." The claim that the Jews were "unfit for military service" undoubtedly had much deeper roots. Amongst the Poles, and in particular amongst the professional soldiers, the opinion was commonly held that the Jews were cowards by nature and were not suited for military service or useful on the battle-field.
I'd suggest at least a line summarizing this. It's not the only thing he writes about Kot. In order to build WP:CONS, please read the paper in the PDF I've linked for you. Please also search for Kot's name in Fleming at Google Books. It provides a somewhat more distanced depiction, describing allegations rather than misdemeanor itself. There's no conflict here with Lukas etc, we include all perspectives per WP:NPOV. I'd suggest it goes into a comprehensive paragraph or a section headed Kot and Polish-Jewish relations. Cheers, - Chumchum7 ( talk) 13:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
While questions from the above discussion bear consideration and resolution, I believe this article meets the six criteria for WPBiography B class. Carter ( talk) 15:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I removed a comment by personal acquaintance, much of the article is using eulogies by friends as sources. I returned the section on antisemitism that uses detached historians as sources. Kot is described as "aggressively antisemitic" and ignoring eulogies by friends, is mostly covered in history for his firebrand politics.-- Pestilence Unchained ( talk) 08:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm leaving here what was discussed on the review page. It needs to be summarized in the article carefully and in context, and not just in one or two sentences. A search should be made for other sources.
1. Mieczysław B. Biskupski, War and Diplomacy in East and West: A Biography of Józef Retinger, Taylor & Francis, 2017, p. 157:
... Retinger orchestrated a series of meetings between the Polish exile government and British Jews. This was a particularly sensitive topic because Polish-Jewish relations had become severely strained in the last years of the Sanacja regime [1926–1939], and antisemitism had been growing alarmingly. The agent decided to discuss these issues with Stanislaw Kot, a devotee of Sikorski, but poorly chosen because of his aggressive antisemitism. In his closing remarks, which must have left the representatives of the British Board of Deputies of British Jews flabbergasted, Kot suggested that the Jews be relocated somewhere between the Baltic and the Black Sea, a new pale of settlement. The Jews understandably rejected the notion.
2. Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945, Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 111–112:
Meanwhile, the London government's Council of Ministers received a report from the Polish ambassador to Soviet Russia, Stanisław Kot. Dated November 25, 1941, Kot's report, "News from the Homeland," took up the theme of Polish-Jewish relations. ... Another cause of Polish-Jewish antagonism, as Ambassador Kot stated, was ... [that] Poles "hate [the Germans] with a passion" and "hold their heads up high" while working for the future of a sovereign, free state. But, according to Kot, the majority of Jews had not devoted themselves to the Polish cause. Speaking of Polish perceptions, he stated that "in contrast [to Poles], Jews usually break down as soon as they can crawl to the occupier, [even] serving as Gestapo informants, etc." ... Kot maintained ... [the Poles now believe] "that the Jewish element was, is and will – unfortunately – always be foreign ... [because] they lacked a common spiritual basis with a higher moral value than the material one." ... The most disturbing aspect of Ambassador Kot's analysis was his portrayal of general Polish views on the Jews. Tapping into age-old stereotypes of Jews and money, Kot wrote the following:
Polish society is terrified of excessive Jewish influence. It is afraid that the need to import foreign capital into a decimated Poland would give the international financial Israelite magnates excessive power in the country, and that this might, in turn, enchain the country to "an economic Jewish slavery." Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland, a fervent wish of the Polish nation.
3. Michael Fleming, Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 87:
The British were advised of anti-Jewish sentiment in Poland by Stanislaw Kot, minister of the interior ... In January 1941, Kot received a report from Prince Janusz Radziwill, a Polish aristocrat and leading figure in the nationalist and anti-Semitic Conservative Party during the 1930s ... Kot secretly passed the information on to the [British] Foreign Office's Frank Savery on 9 January 1941 ... [Radziwill said]: "the last broadcast of Minister Stancyk ... contains a promise that in liberated Poland, Jews will have equal rights with Poles. This speech made a disastrous impression in Poland even amongst the workmen belonging to the Polish Socialist Party. ... When the war is happily over, the Jewish question will not cease to be a question of extreme actuality in Poland ..."
Kot's motive in passing this information to Savery was probably to advise the British of some of the tensions the Polish Government in Exile was trying to deal with. There is also the possibility that he wanted to provide justification for his assertion, in conversations with representatives of British Jewry in France held in spring 1940, that the majority (two-thirds) of Jews would have to leave Poland after the war (Michlic 2006: 148; Stola 1995: 73), a position for which Kot was later criticized.
4. Joanna Michlic, Poland's Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present, University of Nebraska Press, 2006, pp. 148–149:
[Discussing citizenship legislation] ... politicians who officially represented the government made contradictory statements to the effect that the majority of Polish Jews would have to leave Poland after the state had regained its independence. In early 1940 Stanislaw Kot 1885–1975), minister of information, and Edward Racynski (1891–1993), the ambassador of the government-in-exile in London, presented such a proposal in separate conversations with representatives of British Jewry in France. In his memoirs, S. Brodetzky, one of the members of the British delegation, captured the nature of such contradictions: "Professor Kot gave a long history of the Jews in Poland, which, he said, had treated Jews well for centuries. But Jews were a foreign body in Poland; they did not even speak Polish ... He said that there were too many Jews in Poland, Hungary and Romania. About a third of them could remain, the rest would have to go elsewhere."
SarahSV (talk) 20:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
5. Gil S. Rubin, The Future of the Jews: Planning for the Postwar Jewish World, 1939–1946, Columbia University, 2017 (PhD diss), p. 47.
I'm not suggesting using a PhD thesis as a source directly, but its sources on Kot can be used, namely (a) Selig Brodetsky, Memoirs: From Ghetto to Israel, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1960, p. 198, and (b) "Will Emigrationism be Resurrected?" The Jewish Chronicle, 12 April 1940, which said Kot supported disenfranchising Jews by nationalizing the economy and by Jewish postwar emigration. Rubin has a book coming out by the same name.
Yet the initial hopes of Jewish leaders over the commitment of the new Polish regime to Jewish equality quickly waned as they learned that leading members of the government had been advocating for the ‘evacuation’ of the majority of Polish Jews after the war and sought the support of Zionist leaders for their plans. ... In a subsequent meeting between Brodetsky [president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews] and Stanisław Kot, internal minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile, Kot insisted that only about a third of Polish Jews would be allowed to remain in Poland after the war and sought Brodetsky’s support for the resettlement of the remainder of the Jews outside Poland.88
- Footnote 88: Kot in fact suggested that such an emigration scheme would apply also to Jews in Hungary and Romania [quoting Brodetsky 1960, p. 198]: "We spent several hours with Prof. Kot. It was an amazing conversation. Prof. Kot gave us a long history of the Jews in Poland, which, he said, had treated the Jews well for centuries. But the Jews were a foreign body in Poland; they did not even speak Polish. Many Jews had come to Poland from Lithuania. He said there were too many Jews in Poland, and Hungary and Romania. About a third of them could remain; the rest would have to go elsewhere. ‘Where?’ I asked, ‘Palestine?’ ‘No, not Palestine,' he said, 'The Arabs are against it. We could take an area around Odessa from the Russians after the war, and settle the Jews there.' We said we could not consider it."
6. "Polish Government Has Submitted Proposals to Halt Nazi Extermination of Jews". Jewish Telegraph Agency, 8 December 1942:
The Polish Government has submitted proposals on means of halting the Nazi slaughter of Jews in occupied Poland and is making every effort to see that these proposals are carried out by the United Nations, Prof. Stanislaw Kot, Polish vice-Premier, declared today at a press conference here.
Vice-Premier Kot expressed regret that public opinion in the democratic countries is not ready to believe the extent of the Nazi atrocities in Poland. He emphasized that the Polish Government has been informed that the extermination of the Jews in Poland by the Nazis has assumed “tremendous dimensions” and declared that his government is in constant contact with Jewish organizations in England and America conveying to them the information received.
7. "Polish Statesmen Stress Future Poland Must Be Free of Anti-semitism". Jewish Telegraph Agency, 21 January 1943:
Similar sentiments were voiced by Stanislaw Kot, former Polish ambassador to Russia and a member of the Polish cabinet, speaking at a reception in his honor in Tel Aviv yesterday ... Prof. Kot said that he shared "his government’s conviction that after the war Poland must be a democratic state, free of anti-Semitism, in which we will welcome the loyal friendly cooperation of all Jewish citizens, who will have equal rights, and we will support your national aspirations to develop Palestine." Prof. Kot told his audience, which included leaders of the Yishuv, that "not a single Jewish refugee in Russia has been denied aid." He added: "I take this opportunity to thank American Jewry for rushing aid which was distributed without discrimination." Chief Rabbi Herzog, David Ben Gurion, Mayor Israel Rokach and other Jewish leaders also spoke.
8. Yisrael Gutman, "Jews in General Anders’ Army In the Soviet Union". Yad Vashem Studies. 12, 1977:
The surge of Jews to the ranks of the Polish Armed Forces [forty percent, according to Stanislaw Kot] aroused suspicion and dismay. ... In a letter to the Polish Foreign Minister in London on November 8, 1941, Kot writes that "the Soviets delayed by various means the release of the Polish element who were in better health and spirits, sending instead the handicapped and the Jews." ... Kot, too, writes in his report to the Foreign Minister in London, that "the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation — their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to the Soviets, informing on Poles, and other acts of the sort." This one-sided accounting, listing only injuries to Poles and reminding Jews of them — injuries for which the Jews were collectively blamed — and the total disregard for Poland's anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish policy between the wars, in particular the violence and organized persecution of the late thirties was but the first in a whole series of claims invoked to "justify" discrimination against Jews serving in the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union.
Another claim that recurs in the Polish sources is that the Jews, by and large, are physically inferior and are not suited for active military service. This is what Kot wrote:
The liberation of Polish citizens in accordance with the agreement was greeted by the Jews with great enthusiasm. The decent ones among them rejoiced at Poland's achievement, while the inferior element sought to cover up their past behavior by vociferous identification with Poland. It was from this element that large numbers streamed to enlist in the Armed Forces. Not knowing what to do with themselves, they decided that it was obligatory to join the Armed Forces, and once having joined they almost always became a burden. They were found unfit for military service or they were deferred for a time, and meanwhile they would noisily demand that the relief work be continued.
There is more about Kot in Gutman, too much to quote. For example: "Kot explained that from the Polish standpoint all citizens, regardless of ethnic origin or race, enjoyed equal rights, and this equality applied both to the amnesty being granted and to the privilege of enlisting in the Polish Armed Forces." Some or more of the above is also in Norman Davies, Antony Polonsky, eds., Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939–46, 1991, p. 361ff.
SarahSV (talk) 06:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
9.
Dariusz Stola, "Ignacy Schwarzbart's Lost Battle with Emigrationism", in Andrzej K. Paluch, Sławomir Kapralski, eds., The Jews in Poland, Volume 2, Jagiellonian University, Research Center on Jewish History and Culture in Poland, 1999, p.
192:
There is much evidence that the year 1939 did not fundamentally change the view of Polish politicians on the matter. On the contrary, we have plenty of statements made as early as a few months after the new government's formation, testifying to the persistence and the influence of emigrationist theories among Polish politicians in exile. For example, Minister Kot told a delegation of the Board of Deputies of British Jews that there were too many Jews in Poland, that "the surplus will have to emigrate" and the rest assimilate like Jews in the West. Several times he emphasized that the Jews had to leave Poland and that a suitable area had to be found for them, preferably on the Black Sea. The meeting with the Polish home affairs minister produced, to put it in diplomatic language, considerable misgivings among his interlocutors.
SarahSV (talk) 03:07, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
10. Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination, HarperCollins, 2007, pp. 456–457:
In the late fall of 1942, Stanislaw Kot, a former minister of the interior and ambassador to the Soviet Union, as well as a close political ally of Prime Minister Sikorski, arrived for an extended visit to Palestine.
Given the contrary agendas of the Polish government-in-exile and the Jewish leadership in Palestine, their negotiations did not turn into helpful exchanges between the victims of a common enemy. Kot accused the Jews of Poland of lacking loyalty to their homeland and at some point threatened that if the issue of Polish anti-Semitism was not dropped, the Poles would publicize the brutal behavior of the Jewish police and possibly the callousness of the councils toward their fellow Jews.
11. Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz, New York: Random House, 2006, pp. 199–201:
The December 3, 1941, conversation between Polish and Soviet statesmen— Prime Minister Sikorski, General Anders, the Polish ambassador in the USSR, Professor Stanisław Kot, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Stalin—has a permanent place in history books ... The [following] brief exchange ... came up later during the same meeting ...
... General Anders proceeded to describe in detail the supply and manpower problems he encountered while organizing the Polish army. ... "Anders: Perhaps there are even more of our people, but that includes a substantial Jewish element ... which does not want to serve in the army. Stalin: Jews make poor soldiers. Anders: Many among the Jews joining the army are speculators or convicted smugglers; they will never make good soldiers. ... Stalin: Yes, Jews make poor soldiers." ...
... To be labeled collectively as poor soldiers, or as people shirking their patriotic duty, cast the Jews to the bottom of the emerging Soviet status hierarchy. ...
One month after the conversation with Stalin, Ambassador Kot filed a dispatch informing the Soviet Foreign Ministry that "the NKVD was a source of suggestions that Jews are the worst element in the military, cowardly, always complaining, and that it would be desirable to get rid of this element." Constantly attuned to what Stalin desired, Soviet institutions immediately picked up on his moods, and proceeded ... "to work towards the Führer."
12. Jan T. Gross, "A Tangled Web", in Deák et al., The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath, Princeton University Press, 2006, p. 119, n. 18:
Karski's report can be found in the Hoover Institution archives ... Karski was instructed, as he told me when I queried him about the document, to draft a sanitized version, omitting his description of the anti-Semitism prevailing in the Polish society, by a close confidant of then Prime Minister General Władysław Sikorski, Professor Stanisław Kot. Polish raison d'etat vis-à-vis the Allies required that the matter be covered up, he was told.
SarahSV (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
13. Judith Tydor Baumel, Walter Laqueur, "Rescue", The Holocaust Encyclopedia, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 537:
Too much to quote. Kot visited Palestine in early November 1942. He told David Ben-Gurion and other Jewish Agency leaders that the "biological destruction of the Jews is taking place in Poland".
I add:
1. Antony Polonsky, "What made the massacre at Jedwabne possible?", The Polish Review, 2001, pp. 415–416:
Others were more unbridled in their condemnations.... Stanisiaw Kot, the Polish Ambassador to the USSR, and a close confidante of Polish Premier General Wladyslaw Sikorski, expressed similar views:
... the Poles feel very bitter towards the Jews for their behavior during the Soviet occupation - their enthusiastic welcome of the Red Army, the insults which they directed towards the Polish officers and men who were under Soviet arrest, offering their services to Soviets, informing on Poles and other acts of the sort.21
It is not possible here to discuss at length the truth of these allegations, (we have done so elsewhere and have attempted to show that they are at best half-truths, reactions to national humiliation and to the sense that it would be very difficult to re-establish the Polish claim to most of the territories incorporated by the Soviets.)22 Rather, attention should be drawn to the widespread acceptance of the stereotype of the pro-Soviet and anti-Polish Jew, which certainly widened the gulf between the two communities.
-- Pestilence Unchained ( talk) 01:47, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
1. David Engel, Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1943-1945, The University of North Carolina Press, 1993:
Thus far, however, the Western Allies had given no more indication of sensitivity to the outcry of the Polish people for salvation from German terror than they had of support for Poland's eastern borders(...)Critical Polish interests were indeed being threatened and the immediacy of the threat called for a bold and imaginative response.Within this context the Jewish demands for action to rescue Polish Jewry were received by the government-in-exile in London(...)Thus the idea began to circulate among some Polish officials that the best way to respond to the Jewish demands might be to offer the Jews of the free world a straightforward political deal:the Polish government would take action along the lines put forth by the various Jewish organisations provided that the same organisations would use their supposed influence in the West both to advance the Polish cause on the diplomatic front and to encourage Allied action not only on behalf of threatened Jews but on behalf of threatened Poles as well.This approach had first been tried by Stanislaw Kot—apparently on his own initative—during his discussions with Jewish leaders in Palestine. In response to the Reprezentacja's demand that the government ... instruct Poles in the homeland to come to their aid of their Jewish fellow citizens, the ambassador had suggested that Jews ought to issue a public declaration for the return of Lwow and Wilno to Poland. He had also insisted that the Jews cease publicising allegations of Anti-Jewish discrimination in the evacuation of the Polish Jewry from the Soviet Union—allegations that the government-in-exile felt might seriously damage Poland's image in the West and thereby strengthen Soviet hand. Later he had told Yitshak Gruenbaum that the Polish government had certain demands of its own vis-a-vis the Jews, including one regarding organised Jewish support for Allied reprisals against the Germans and for Poland's territorial claims in both the east and the west.
...The initial Jewish response to Kot's demand had been negative.None of the Jewish leaders with whom the Polish diplomat had met, had indicated any willingness to consider striking a bargain along the lines he had suggested(...)Indeed, Polish officials in the Middle East were aware that the Soviets had recently intensified their own efforts to win Palestinian Jewish public opinion to their side in their dispute with the Poles.In considering their response to Jewish demands for rescue then Polish leaders needed to balance their hope that Jews would intervene diplomatically on Poland's behalf with their sense that the Jews weren't likely to do so and with their fear that the Jews might even publicly support the Soviet side. In this situation Kot, for one, appears to have been willing to make a favourable gesture towards the Jews ... In a cable to London dispatched on 2 February 1943, he stated that he had "devoted much time and patience to Jewish matters, hoping to alleviate the constant suspicion and ill feeling" that prevailed toward Poland in Palestine as well as "to remove the troublesome suggestions that go forth from here to America" and he hinted that he would be transmitting to the government a number of recommendations about how it might be possible to secure Jewish cooperation in the future ... The most important of these recommendations, he declared, was to accede to the Jewish demand for the government to assure neutral countries that the Polish Jews who found asylum in them would be readmitted to Poland once the war ended. He also expressed his support for the creation of a special bureau of Jewish affairs within the Polish prime minister's office ...
Engel later describes how these proposals were adopted (in short: some rejected some accepted) by Government in exile, but it doesn't directly mention Kot and I believe it is suitable for place about Polish-Jewish relations during WW2, rather than here.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 14:45, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
2. David Engel In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939-1942 on pages 65-66.
Kot was not known for any personal hostility towards Jews, nevertheless he apparently saw in the Black Sea scheme an escape from a dilemma in which Poland had been placed by virtue of its alliance with Britain.
3.Michael Fleming Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust page 327
Kot framed the postwar movement of Jews out of Poland by referring to the concentration of Jews in certain economic activities and the economic problems in pre-war Poland. Kot noted that following the economic crisis of 1929, anti-Semitism in Poland took a reaL(rather than theoretical) form, The discussion also mentioned possible Jewish settlement of Palestine. Kot suggested that the war offered various options for Jewish emigration from Poland including to southern Russia along the Black Sea. Kot did not completely alienate the British Jews he spoke to(Selig Brodetsky, Leonard Stein and Adolf Brotman) as Brodetsky wrote to Kot on 16th July 1940 wishing to renew the friendly discussions which had the pleasure of having you at Angers and invited him to lunch or dinner.
4. "Pan ambasador mija się z prawdą!" Odpowiedzi na "Memoriał" Stanisława Kota do Gen : Andersa z lutego 1943 r. Rutkowski, Tadeusz Paweł Zeszyty Historyczne / Instytut Literacki. Z. 151 (2005), pages 95-135
[11]
Kot nie posiadał uprzedzeń w stosunku do Żydów i faktycznie zatrudniał wiele osób narodowości żydowskiej w aparacie opieki Ambasady i jej delegaturach./ Kot held no prejudices towards Jews and actually employed numerous persons of Jewish ethnicity in care apparatus of the Embassy and its outposts.
It would indeed be helpful, as SarahSV writes above, to track down the books and articles from which the above quotations are taken.
Quote 5, from Antony Polonsky's article in The Polish Review, no. 4, 2001, pp. 415–16, is badly mangled.
In quote 2, from Joshua D. Zimmerman, when Kot is quoted as saying, "Unease exists around the growing question in the country of whether or not the London circle, under the philosemitic Anglo-Saxon influence, will successfully resist Jewish influence in Poland..." it would be helpful to get access to Kot's actual wording in Polish, as "the country" is likely a metaphrastic (over-literal) rendering of "Kraj" (which, in this context, would be a sort of metonym for "Poland"); while I would expect "the London circle" to more accurately be "London circles" (koła londyńskie).
Quote 3, from Michael Fleming's 2013 book, quotes not Kot but Janusz Radziwill, and probably mistranslates him to boot, when it has him say, "When the war is happily over, the Jewish question will not cease to be a question of extreme actuality in Poland ..." What is rendered as "actuality" was probably, in the Polish original, "aktualne" – which in English would be "topical", not "actual".
One wonders what other errors, mistranslations, and misinterpretations appear in this and other sources.
When someone is ready to venture to the appropriate libraries and archives, perhaps we could be given access to all the pertinent Polish- and English-language sources?
Nihil novi ( talk) 09:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Nihil Novi and Piotrus have three times removed the tag without resolving the issues. [13] [14] [15] The article should cover the following (it currently doesn't even mention the word "Holocaust" apart from the citations):
SarahSV (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Template:POV says:
Place this template on an article when you have identified a serious issue of balance and the lack of a WP:Neutral point of view ... An unbalanced or non-neutral article is one that does not fairly represent the balance of perspectives of high-quality, reliable secondary sources. ... You may remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:Kot
- There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved.
- It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.
- In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
I'd appreciate it if we could follow that. SarahSV (talk) 07:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Piotrus: From what I see your only argument for {{ undue}} is that these events aren't mentioned in the biographies you found online. Thing is, Sarah found multiple highly respectable RS that do mention them, and there's nothing in WP:NOTABILITY that says that lack of inclusion in a biography should be given equal weight to inclusion in a different kind of RS. Am I wrong? François Robere ( talk) 17:18, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The first paragraph of the " World War II" section contains an unclear sentence: "this incident aside the civilian administration under Stanisław Kot has been described as 'much more open and helpful to the Jews' compared to Polish military authorities." Could we get clarification, please? Nihil novi ( talk) 05:34, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
We need page numbers for the sources. The current page ranges are too large: e.g. 95–212, 93–112, 95–118, 37–58. SarahSV (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Before I edited it, the article said: "He attended elementary school in Rzeszów", and didn't say anything else about his schooling. This was sourced to:
First, that citation is missing the names of the three editors and the page number; 407–428 is too large a range. I've fixed the citation and introduced page numbers using {{ sfn}}.
However, that source didn't say he attended elementary school in Rzeszów. It said he attended high school in Rzeszów, so I changed that, but given that he went to university, he probably attended gymnasium. The blurb in Polish from his USHMM archive page says that he attended gymnasium in Rzeszów and elementary school in Czarna and Sędziszów. I don't know whether that's a good source. It's an unsigned blurb that accompanied the digital images of his papers, which are held in "Zakład Historii Ruchu Ludowego" in Warsaw. But it's more specific about his education than the other one, so it should be used until a better one is found. SarahSV (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, the same source is cited again with the citation written differently. This time the author and chapter title are omitted but the three editors are named, and there is a page number but no page range:
SarahSV (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I am surprised that this article doesn't mention Kot's involvement in Ehrlich and Alter affair. It was a considerable international diplomatic event that is covered by number of scholarly sources. The Erlich‐Alter affair Shimon Redlich Soviet Jewish Affairs, 9(2), Volume 9, 1979 24–45.
Erlich's and Alter's contacts with Polish and British representatives in the USSR also throw light on the outcome of their plan and their personal fate They had never considered themselves under the sole custody of the NKVD and had established contacts with foreign diplomats and journalists, first in Moscow then in Kuibyshev. They became part of the small international colony moved in mid-October from Moscow to the temporary capital on the Volga. Their closest connections were, naturally, with Polish Embassy staff, especially Ambassador Stanislaw Kot. Less than two weeks after their release they submitted to him, orally and in writing, a declaration of their beliefs and intentions. They made it clear that they considered themselves representatives of the largest Jewish political party in Poland and as such had an immense stake in Poland's future. They stressed their triple allegiance — to international socialism, Poland and the Polish-Jewish population. A focal point of the declaration was an appeal to Polish Jews in the USSR to join the Polish Army, then being formed on Soviet territory. As for the future Polish state, they considered one possibility only — that of complete independence and true democracy. Although they spoke of the necessity of social reconstructionand criticized the pre-war capitalist Polish regime, they made no reference whatever to any future Soviet influence. (...) In his written response, Kot stated that there was no need for assistance in recruiting for the Army, since there was already a steady flow of volunteers. He assured the two Bundists that Jews were treated as equals in the Polish Army by soldiers and officers alike, including Commander-in-Chief Anders. He promised there would be no discrimination against Jews in terms of material assistance provided by the Embassy to Polish refugees in the USSR.20 (...) Kot asked them to be extremely careful not to let the NKVD win over Polish citizens against their own government. Initially, he expressed reservations about Erlich's and Alter's cooperation with the Soviet security apparatus and advised them not to involve themselves in the planning of Soviet propaganda activities.21 However, after further discussion, he reported to London that, although they were occupied organ ising a Jewish Anti-Hitlerite Committee this was "completely loyal to the Polish Government". (...) Only in the afternoon of 5 December was the first Soviet official statement on the arrest issued. Ambassador Kot sought to convince Vyshinsky that the re-arrest of Erlich and Alter would be damaging both for the Soviet Union and Poland. He warned of the certain negative reaction of Jewish public opinion in the US, an argument he used again and again. Vyshinsky's reply was a total surprise to Kot — Erlich and Alter were accused of working on behalf of Germany, a version to which the Soviets would cling in the years ahead'' From January 1942 onwards, the arrest of Erlich and Alter became a test case for the Polish citizenship issue. The Soviets and the Polish Embassy reiterated their respective interpretations. The Poles referred constantly to the fact that Erlich and Alter had been released in September 1941 as Polish citizens, and that this was never questioned even in the first weeks after their arrest. The exchange of notes ended in April with a curt Soviet announcement that the Soviet Foreign Ministry considered the Erlich-Alter case "closed".52 On the eve of his departure from the USSR in mid-1942 Kot attempted to convince Vyshinsky, somewhat naively, that the arrested should be allowed to leave the Soviet Union with him; Kot would assume responsibility for their behaviour abroad. In reply to Kot's argument that there could be no question as to Erlich's and Alter's Polish citizenship, Vyshinsky remarked cynically, "Warsaw will get along without Erlich and Alter".53
There's much more of course but I don't want to copy more from the source text.
I would suggest to dedicate a separate section for the Henryk Ehrlich and Victor Alter affair-it was a major notable diplomatic and international event involving numerous actors(Masaryk,Eden,Breckinridge Long and even Roosevelt himself) in which Kot was actively involved. -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 17:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
As the most prestigious Jewish personalities among the Polish refugees in the USSR the two Bundist leaders were consulted by the Polish officials on Jewish affairs. They also became involved in the recruitment of Jews into the Polish Army. Both Poles and Soviets sought to use this issue, each accusing the other of discriminating against Jewish volunteers...
Another crucial issue on which the Bundist leaders took an unequivocal stand was that of the Eastern Polish territorities annexed by the USSR in 1939. Kot attempted to use the Jewish refugees, particularly those from the annexed areas, for political purposes. He considered them to be the most pro-Polish minority in those territorities: The Polish Government-in-Exile was interested in gaining the support of public opinion outside the USSR against changes in the pre-1939 Polish-Soviet borders; in this respect Jewish public opinion in the USA and other Western countries was regarded as highly important. Alter was convinced that his and Erlich's support could significantly assist Polish claims...
Ambassador Kot sought to convince Vyshinsky ( Andrey Vyshinsky, senior Soviet functionary. -FR) that the re-arrest of Erlich and Alter would be damaging both for the Soviet Union and Poland. He warned of the certain negative reaction of Jewish public opinion in the US, an argument he used again and again.
[21] -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 01:39, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 10:05, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
[23] W roku 1933 został pozbawiony katedry z powodu zorganizowania w roku 1930 protestu profesorów Uniwersytetu jagiellońskiego przeciwko aresztowaniu przywódców tzw. Centrolew In 1933 he was stripped of his position at the university due to organizing protest of professors of Jagiellon University against arrests of leaders of so called Centrolew
Also his Polish biography mentions that he was attacked by Endecja movement as philosemite Stanisław Kot, 1885-1975: biografia polityczna, Volumes 1885-1975, Tadeusz Paweł Rutkowski, page 96. -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 01:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Trudno się temu dziwić, ponieważ wielu wybitnym polskim naukowcom pochodzenia żydowskiego, z przyczyn, jak stwierdzają biografowie „pozanaukowych”, utrudniano awans. Jeden z najwybitniejszych historyków, Józef Feldman, z trudem przebrnął przez habilitację, ponieważ jeden z profesorów przygotował złośliwe pytania, na które nie sposób było odpowiedzieć (sytuację uratował prof. Stanisław Kot, oświadczając, że jeśli Feldman nie dostanie habilitacji, on zrzeka się katedry, ponieważ także nie zna odpowiedzi na zadane pytania)28 Page 100 Syn bedzie Lech... Asymilacja Zydow w Polsce miedzywojennej 2006 by Anna Landau-Czajka [24], Anna Landau-Czajka is a historian specializing in Polish-Jewish relationship and history at University of Warsaw. Can I ask Nihil Novi to translate? -- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:00, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
David Engel describes in more detail the Black Sea idea In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939-1942 on pages 65-66. It wasn't invented by Kot but proposed by Roman Knoll. About Kot Engel states, I quote, Kot was not known for any personal hostility towards Jews, nevertheless he apparently saw in the Black Sea scheme an escape from a dilemma in which Poland had been placed by virtue of its alliance with Britain. He mentions that it was rejected Brodetsky and Leonard Stein and afterwards it wasn't further pursued. He does mention that Poland sought emigration of Jews and established close ties to Revisionist wing of Zionism movement.
"Pan ambasador mija się z prawdą!" Odpowiedzi na "Memoriał" Stanisława Kota do Gen : Andersa z lutego 1943 r. Rutkowski, Tadeusz Paweł Zeszyty Historyczne / Instytut Literacki. Z. 151 (2005), pages 95-135 [26] Among others statesKot nie posiadał uprzedzeń w stosunku do Żydów i faktycznie zatrudniał wiele osób narodowości żydowskiej w aparacie opieki Ambasady i jej delegaturach. Kot held no prejudices towards Jews and actually employed numerous persons of Jewish ethnicity in care apparatus of the Embassay and its outposts.
przez odmawianie obywatelstwa polskiego mniejszościom narodowym. Wielokrotnie uświadamiałem czynnikom wojskowym niebezpieczeństwo , jakie grozi interesom polskim, jeśli Wojsko z powodu swojego rozgoryczenia o zachowanie mniejszości pod okupacją, czy też pod wpływem odruchów nacjonalistycznych pójdziena lep machiawelskiej polityki Sowietów(...)Zachowanie czynników wojskowych wywołał9 wzburzenie i protesty wśród polskich obywateli z mniejszości nie tylko u Zydów, co było natychmiast przez agentów NKWD wykorzystane przeciwko Polsce jako wyraz nie tylko antysemityzmu polskiego-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 02:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
Ping User:Nihil novi: I noticed some text quoted in references is not translated from Polish. Would you mind...? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
The Katyn Massacre and Polish-Soviet Relations, 1941-43 George Sanford Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jan., 2006), pp. 95-111
The London government accepted the official Soviet figures of over 9000 army officers and 181,200 soldiers detained in the USSR. It rejected the claim by the Soviet ambassador in London Ivan Maisky that only 20,000 Polish PoWs were held on Soviet territory by the summer of 1941. Stanislaw Kot, the newly-appointed Polish ambassador to Moscow, was instructed to work for the rapid release of all Poles held in Soviet prisons and camps as well as to protect all Polish civilians throughout the USSR by establishing a network of consulates."7
Kot only received a confused and embarrassed reaction to the question: 'What happened to 7500 officers?', which he raised directly with deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Vyshinsky for the first time on 7 October 1941.24 Vyshinsky was better prepared the second time on 14 October, when he cited the figures of 387,932 Polish citizens confined in the USSR, 71,481 in prisons (sentenced or under investigation), 291,137 deported (in four great waves during 1939-40) or held in special settlements, and 25,314 detained as PoWs.By 1 October 345,511 had been released leaving only 42,421 still detained.25 Kot bluntly refused to accept the accuracy of these figures as most of the 9400 officers held in the USSR had not been accounted for. The Polish record states that 'the discussion became loaded with irritation'.26
After these preliminary skirmishes Kot met Stalin for the first time in the Kremlin on 14 November(...) The charade played out by him and Prime Minister Viachyslav Molotov when Kot asked for the release of all Polish soldiers according to the Supreme Soviet amnesty and pointed out that not a single officer had returned from Starobelsk is well known. Pressed directly by Kot on the obvious existence of detailed lists of the missing officers from the three camps - the Poles had learnt by now that each officer had been interrogated individually - Stalin phoned, or pretended to hone, the NKVD to ask them whether all the Poles had been released!
The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948 Krystyna Kersten writes on page 44 that as condition for negotiations about creation of new Polish government Stalin categorically demanded removal of General Kazimierz Sosnkowski and ministers Marian Kukiel and Stanislaw Kot-- I believe his role in Katyn Massacre revelations need to be emphasised more, the article currently lacks several important aspects of his life, this being one of them.-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 22:40, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
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Reviewer: Biruitorul ( talk · contribs) 06:46, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Greetings. I’ll be reviewing this article imminently.
It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria- no
It contains copyright infringements- no
It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include{{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags. (See also {{QF-tags}}).- no
It is not stable due to edit warring on the page.- no
@ Biruitorul: Thank you for the extensive review. I have done all that you asked, I think, through see a few replies/comments above. Please let me know if there are any further outstanding issues. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:36, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
It’s my pleasure to pass this article, now that Piotrus has taken care of a few small issues. The writing is fluent. As to sources, while I have not verified most of them (these being either offline or in Polish), the article does reflect what I have been able to check; as for the rest, I trust Piotrus’ research abilities. The article deals with Kot’s life while situating him in context, and does so neutrally. There are no issues with the images, and the current version is stable. - Biruitorul Talk 12:25, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
The Squirrel Conspiracy (
talk)
17:46, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
? Source: https://collections.ushmm.org/findingaids/RG-15.658_01_fnd_pl.pdf ; http://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Organon/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17-s267-281/Organon-r1980_1981-t16_17-s267-281.pdf
Improved to Good Article status by Piotrus ( talk). Self-nominated at 04:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC).
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Hook eligibility:
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px. |
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|
QPQ: Done. |
Overall:
(
t ·
c)
buidhe
09:02, 31 July 2020 (UTC)