The Massacre of the Jews of Poland | The Jewish Story | Unpacked

After the expulsions from Western Europe, Ashkenazi Jews found a new home in Poland. In the 17th century, Poland was home to one third of the world’s Jewish population, and was considered the center of Jewish life. Polish Jews became prosperous economically and religiously, but also faced escalating persecution.

Jews were blamed for the Black Plague and the destruction of church property but the worst was yet to come with the rebellion of the Cossacks, a group of Eastern Europeans made up of runaway serfs, bandits and traders.

The organizer of this rebellion was Bogdan Chmielnicki, or “Chmiel the Wicked,” who banded the Cossacks and peasants of Ukraine into armies that led pogroms, savagely destroying more than 300 Jewish towns and massacring thousands of Jews over nine years.
Despite these atrocities, Polish Jewish life was slowly rebuilt, but Chmielnicki will forever be remembered as one of Jewish history’s unforgivable villains.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:31 Jewish settlement in Poland and the Jewish Golden Era
01:00 Escalating persecution
01:43 Bogdan Chmielnicki's rise to power
03:08 Jews as an active arm of the oppressive Polish system
03:36 The massacre of Jews
04:47 Rebuilding Jewish life in Poland
05:03 Ukrainian national hero
05:26 Outro

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- Melinda Goldrich
- Shmuel Katz

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About The Jewish Story: Understand three thousand years of Jewish history in these short videos based on the book Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5,000-Year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith by the renowned historian Sir Martin Gilbert. Learn the Jewish story from the ancient Israelites of the Bible to Hellenization, the Jews of the Middle Ages to modern day, and more.

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#History #Jewish #Pogrom

[SENSEOFLIBERTY]

Also murderers of Polish people are national heroes of Ukrainians - UPA. I never understood why Ukrainians glorify murderers. It's completely stupid.

[RokolaFilms]

Some Jews were hated by Cossacks and Polish peasants because, given special rights to collect taxes, in many cases they had increased burden of taxation to enrich themselves, or at least that what was believed.

[indianiecworld]

You failed to mention that the Ukrainian rebellion also claimed many Polish lives. And Ukraine contrary to what you said didn't end up free, the rebellion was eventually ended by Polish magnate Jarema Wisniowiecki, who punished many cossacks with impaling

[argus]

Ukraine was not "conquered" by Poland. The territories were part of the Great Lithuanian Principality and later became part of Rzeczpospolita.

[MsKOLOBOK]

In all European countries, pogroms and persecutions were committed every 50-100 years, history tends to repeat itself, that is, it is cyclical

[otwieraczdopiwa]

To say Ukrainian territories were "conquered" by Poland is a major oversimplification - but it's not entirely false. They were already under the rule of polish kings within Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was not really as Lithuanian as it seems on the surface, as Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian historians all see the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as their heritage. The Grand Duchy was Lithuanian by name and at the beginning it was started by Lithuanian tribes, but after conquering more and more eastern slavs tribes it was russified. By "russified" I mean adopting the culture of eastern slavs, not Russia, as Ruthenians, eastern slavs, formed variety of different "city states" - Rus of Kiev, Rus of Moscow / Great Duchy of Moscow, which later became Russia etc etc). Huge part of "Grand Duchy of Lithuania" nobility was in fact of Belarusian or Ukrainian origin.

So the Grand Duchy of Lithuania formed the commonwealth with the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Dukes of Lithuania became polish kings (starting a dynasty of Lithuanian origin, Jagiellonians). At the beginning there were two separate countries ruled by the same person, but after the union of Lublin, they became one federation state with the clear distinction between polish kingdom's territories and Lithuanian/eastern slavs territories. In the meantime Ukrainian territories were incorporated to the Kingdom of Poland from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (more proper term would be "transferred"). The ruler of both countries, polish king and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Zygmunt August, was trying to achieve federalization of Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth. The federalization was supported by Polish nobility and strongly opposed by part, if not majority, of Lithuanian nobility. Territories of Ukraine, which polish historians later called "Kresy" (btw, both terms - Ukraine and Kresy - mean more or less the same, which is "borderlands"), where transferred on the pretext of retrieving the "Red Rus", which in fact was conquered and ruled in the past by polish king Casimir III the Great during Piast dynasty at the begging of XIVth century. So there was some historic background to support polish claim to transfer Ukrainian territories from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. And yes, this move was aimed against part of the ruthenian nobility. Thus the term "conquer" is not true, however it's not entirely false.

[ak]

I've read several times in books over the years of a phenomenon that when a person writes a history of how group A oppressed group B, he's writing about group B. Because group B is the focus, the author fails to mention that group A did the same thing to groups C & D.

So when people read the story many years later they understandably come to the false conclusion that group A never oppressed groups C & D. I'm pretty sure this phenomenon has a name, but it escapes me at the moment.

[waldemargalka]

There are historical falsehood here. In those times, there was no Poland per se but the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania which included Ruthernia (there was no Ukraine per se). The Cossack rebellion was against 'an oppression by the Poles.' The Commonwealth's king decided to reduce the number of so-called Registered Cossacks - the Cossack soldiers on the Commonwealth's pay roll. The Cossacks wanted the Cossack registry EXPANDED instead and wanted a was against the Ottomans which the king did not want. So the Cossacks rebelled and Chmielnicki joined them as their leader. Please be historically accurate.

[voyageur]

The citizens of Poland have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem of Jerusalem as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are 7, 112 (as of 1 January 2020) Polish men and women recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, over a quarter of the 27, 712 recognized by Yad Vashem in total.

[kacpersokoowski]

Poland was completely innocent in this massacre (the rebels weren't "Polish serfs", either).

It was an anti-Polish rebellion (Poles were massacred as much as Jews).

But the whole your way of speaking in this video doesn't give any hint of it. Is it honest, my friends?

[krzysztofgorecki]

Bohdan Chmielnicki, Zaporizhia hetman, leader of the Cossack uprising against the Commonwealth, died on August 6, 1657. In Ukraine, he is considered a national hero. In Poland, many consider him a traitor.and this movie is so stupid.

[jamahariya]

How can you call Poland opressive?
We were the only country where there was religious tolerance!

[homointernetus]

First of all, there is no described system of the Republic of Poland who was specific and there is no well described historical context of times too. In Poland, there was a noble democracy at these times in world dominated despotic monarchies and feudal system . Generally, the Cossacks rebelled many times and were not rebellion against the Republic only against individual magnats and nobility. Cossacks were people Zaporizhia strongly mixed with peoples migrating from the lands of the Commonwealth, etc. from reason regular Tatar invasions they created a specific military democracy conflict consisted in the fact that the Cossacks wanted to make there more registry Cossacks in the Polish armies on what was not able to afford Poland, they considered themselves as free people too what generated a conflicts becouse such a status in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had only nobles Polish and Lithuania who gathered in the Seym and decided about the country and elected the king . Conflict escalated in real hate to state from times Chmielnicki when this conflict strongly turned into real bloody conflict . In reality they cant get free status from any other country then Poland where was freedom of nobles any other countries it were despotic monarchies . When Chmielnicki later separated the Cossacks from the Commonwealth ( where there was religious tolerance ) they make many massacres of Jews this is true and this is little destroy hypothetical thesis too it was possible to give Cossack high status in Commenwealh of some nobles etc . Russia later destroy Zaporizhia sietch and their freedom

[CrossOfBayonne]

I have to say that the Jewish population had it worse than any other minority when it comes to discrimination and persecution, Even before the Holocaust during World War II there were campaigns that targeted them especially in Tsarist times which is why many came to America in the early 1900s

[plrc]

I see the attitude towards Chmielnicki is starting to change in Ukraine. I'm very content with that, because Chmielnicki was the person that harmed Ukraine the most in its history, at least all subsequent tragedies of Ukraine are consequances of his actions (because he subjugated Ukraine to Russia via so called Pereiaslav agreement). We can trace them untill today. Chmielnicki was the man who dug grave for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and for Ukraine.

[ccncius]

Polish proverb: They weep as they whip you.

[moshehim]

On the subject of pogroms in the Ukraine, you should also do pieces about the Kiev pogroms of 1881-82, the the Kishinev pogroms of 1903-1905, and especially the Petliura pogroms of 1917-1920.

[isaacrodri]

May HaShem punish the wicked murderer everlasting!This breaks my heart into pieces!

[danirey]

Why is that when things turn sour people always wanna look for scapegoats?

[Whatsahandle]

What did they do to make people so angry at them? It has to be something