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infamous example of an anti-Semitism based on the language of economic logic and “civilized”

behavior, rather than on hatred. But the government also argued that a more proactive emigration

policy would offer the best set of solutions to what was increasingly seen as Poland’s “Jewish

problem.” If those on the right had long advocated for the emigration of Jews, Sanacja government

officials increasingly applied scientific language in an effort to deal with the problem of

“overpopulation,” and they researched plans to physically move Jews into what they saw as

“underpopulated” areas of the world, often colonial or semi-colonial spaces like Madagascar. 101 The

uneasy and asymmetric alliance between certain Zionist groups, Polish state officials, and European

colonial powers, all of which were invested in permanently moving Polish Jews to locations beyond

Europe, indicated how a faith in demographic programs was widespread, as was the breathtaking

lack of empathy for individuals who would be moved in the process. 102

This more radical approach was not based on a fear of Jewish birthrates overtaking those of

Poles, as was the case in relation to the Ukrainian-speaking Orthodox Slavs. Statistics collected via

the census and by Polish academics indicated that the ethnically Polish population was actually

103
growing at a faster rate than its Jewish counterpart in the towns of the kresy. For some who wished

to further develop Polish (by which they meant Catholic) influence, this decline in the proportion of

Jews proved encouraging. In a March 1938 speech delivered at a Volhynian regional meeting of the

Polish Motherland Schools organization, one local Polish leader noted with satisfaction that the

percentage of Poles in Volhynia’s towns had doubled, from 12% in 1921 to 25% in 1931, a statistic

101 The right-wing Kwartalnik Instytutu Naukowego do Badań Emigracji i Kolonizacji had already proposed in 1926
that the institute must also occupy itself with the problems of the migration of ethnic minorities, including the
question of Jewish emigration, since there are “too many Jews in Poland.” See Rok 1, no, 1 (December 1926), 154.
For more on the justification that Polish plans for Jewish emigration were not “racist” but were instead based on
“overpopulation,” see also Szymon Rudnicki, “Anti-Jewish Legislation in Interwar Poland,” in Anti-Semitism and
Its Opponents, 60.
102 See Snyder, Black Earth; Zahra, The Great Departure, particularly Chapter 4.
103 In his report on demographics in Kowel county in 1936-37, Rühle pointed out that small population growth rates
were noted in districts with large percentages of Jews. See Rühle, “Studium powiatu kowelskiego,” 341.

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