IN the course of my research into the security apparatus in the Polish People's Republic, I have often thought about writing on the ethnic make-up of the organization, but somehow I could not summon the courage to do so. After all, the subject is problematic in terms of the degree of its mystification, its moral and political delicacy, and poverty of access to relevant sources. But given the centrality of the issue in recent discussions of the extent and intensity of antisemitism in Poland, I feel I cannot avoid it.

I shall not become entangled here in the problem of Jews and communism, which continues to engage academics of all types and in many languages. Neither do I have any ambition to enter the area of Polish–Jewish relations, which has been hotly researched. However, the issue of Jews in the Urzędy Bezpieczenśtwa (Polish security apparatus, UB) includes that of the relationship of Jews to communism as well as of Poles to Jews, and also perhaps of Jews to Poles.

The disproportionate number of Jews in the communist movement and in radical leftist movements in general is unquestioned, though the time frame is difficult to define: from a certain moment, and certainly from the 1950s, there was an outflow of Jews from these movements rather than the reverse. Furthermore, only a (usually insignificant) minority of Jews laid claim to the possibility of entry (for example, in the Jewish state itself). In spite of this, and regardless of their many and varied motivations, this disproportionate number influenced the attitude of Poles and other nationalities towards Jews in general, and was at times the subject of controversy among Jews themselves.

Since the 1980s the issue has often been addressed in Polish literature and commentary. Although I know of no bibliography on the subject, my impression is that there are significantly more antisemitic texts devoted to it than texts that try to analyse or justify the choices made by Jews. The narrower goal of this short chapter is merely to follow up a statement by ‘Abel Kainer’ that ‘some of the[se] speculations … should be confronted with the most detailed factual data possible’.