Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

m Gutsze, a Baptist, helped Henry Swiatkowski, who later became a minister of justice, to escape from the concentration camp in OSwiecim-Brzezinka [Auschwitz- Birkenau].*' Many people were hidden in church buildings and in church members homes. Two women from the Warsaw church helped in passing conspiratorial messages.** Among Baptists were many converted Jews, who went through the most difficult time, fighting not only for their faith, but for their lives. Many believers died of hunger, while others were martyred. Nonetheless, there were even happenstance baptisms in the ghetto.* Changes after World War Il After World War II, negotiations at Potsdam and Yalta left Poland in the Communist bloc under the influence of the Soviet Union. Polish land east of the Bug River was given to the Soviet Union, resulting in mass migra- tions. From 1945 to 1950, about three million Germans; one-half million Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians; and about one-half million Poles emigrated from the Soviet Union to the new Poland. Many believers from what had been eastern Poland started new churches in the western and northern parts of Poland.“ After World War II, many Catholics from central and eastern Poland relocated to the regained territory in western Poland. The Catholics did not tolerate Protestants, viewing all Protestant denominations as part of a “German faith’. The view that every Pole should be Catholic became even more powerful,* leading to problems among denominations. The Roman *! Stanislaw Markiewicz, “Polski Koscidt Chrzescijan Baptystéw’, Problemy Wyznan i Lai- cyzacji, vol. 30, no. 12 (1988), p. 5. * Aleksander Kircun, “O zborze warszawskim w czasie okupacji’, Stowo Prawdy, no. 3 (March 1974), p. 28. *’ Rachmiel Frydland, “Uszedtem z rak oprawcéw’, Slowo Prawdy, no. 7-8 (July-August 1976), pp. 9-12. “* Waclaw Hryniewicz (ed), Ku Chrzescijanstwu jutra: wprowadzenie do ekumenizmu (Lub- lin: KUL, 1997), p. 193. *° Andrzej Sakson, “Dziatalnos¢ Koscioléw i wyznan ...’, Euhemer: Przeglad Religioznawczy, 175 Catholic Church took over most Protestant church buildings. Roman Catholic priests accused Baptists and other Protestants of cooperation with the Germans. The Catholic Church used the ex post principle, first occupying buildings, and then legalising their possession of them by false accusations against the previous owners.” Until the 1960s, many Catho- lics viewed Baptists as non-Christian and non-Polish. Catholics held the German heritage of the Baptists against them, and Baptists were consid- ered heretics and sectarians. Despite persecution by the Roman Catholics, about thirty churches and religious associations were approved after the war by the new Communist government of the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL). While about 90% of the Polish people declared themselves members of the Roman Catholic Church,” the legal situation of Baptist Church changed dramatically. It was a long pr