Polish town that before World War II was in the Poznan province
The Refugee Camp
Between November 1938 and August 1939, Zbaszyn was the site of a camp for Jews who had been expelled from Germany. On October 27, 1938, the Germans began arresting Jews of Polish nationality in Germany, in order to expel them to Poland. The immediate cause for this decision by Germany was a decree that the Polish Ministry of the Interior had issued on October 6, 1938, according to which the passports of Polish citizens residing abroad would have to be checked and revalidated; passports not revalidated by October 29, 1938, would no longer entitle their bearers to return to Poland.
The Expulsion from Germany
Most often, only the head of the family was expelled, but sometimes wives and children were also included. The deportees were taken by train to the Polish border. The Germans estimated that some 17,000 persons had been deported, but precise figures were not available. The German action took the Polish authorities by surprise. The deportees included the Grynszpan family from Hanover; in revenge, their son, Herschel Grynszpan, shot a German diplomat in Paris, an act that the Nazis used as a pretext to launch the Kristallnacht pogrom.
The Arrival of the Deportees
At first, most of the deportees coming over the border near Zbaszyn were kept close to the point where they had crossed into Poland, but later on they were taken to Zbaszyn. By October 31, 1938, the police had listed 5,799 expellees arriving in Zbaszyn, but other sources indicate that some 10,000 reached the town. The central Polish authorities forbade Jews to leave the town. They hoped that the large numbers of Jews near the border would put pressure on the Germans to begin negotiations to hasten their return to the homes from which they had been driven. Aid to the Deportees. In the initial stage, the local inhabitants of Zbaszyn responded to the authorities' appeal and provided the refugees with warm water and some food. On the afternoon of October 30, help arrived from Warsaw, supplied by Emanuel Ringelblum and Yitzhak Gitterman of the Joint Distribution Committee, who were to form the General (Jewish) Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland. A committee to help the refugees was also set up in Zbaszyn. The refugees were housed in army barracks and in buildings forming part of a flourmill, and 1,500 of them were accommodated in private dwellings. Expenses were covered by the aid committee. The refugees organised cultural and educational activities. When negotiations with the Germans dragged on, the refugees were issued permits to leave the town.
The Closure of the Camp
At the end of November 1938, the authorities decided to close down the camp in stages. At the time, there were about 4,000 refugees in Zbaszyn. They sought out relatives and friends in Poland, and many Jewish communities rallied to their aid. Some obtained emigration visas and left the country; a number of the young people joined Zionist agricultural training camps. German-Polish Negotiations Regarding the Deportees. Negotiations between the Poles and the Germans came to an end by January 24, 1939. Deportees were permitted to go back to Germany, in small groups, to settle their affairs. The proceeds of liquidation of their businesses were to be deposited in blocked accounts in Germany. The Polish government, for its part, enabled the families of the deportees to join them in Poland. These arrangements took until the summer of 1939, and, most probably, a small number of refugees were still on their temporary stay in Germany when war broke out on September 1, 1939.
