ABSTRACT
Aid from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) for Polish Jewry began during the First World War, even before Poland was reconstituted as an independent state. The JDC continued to support Polish Jewry, insofar as it could, during the Second World War. In 1945 the JDC went to considerable lengths in Poland, laying the foundation for extensive rehabilitation operations there. This notwithstanding, activity of this kind was of secondary importance in the larger context of relief to the Jews of Poland. Implementation of the plan to resettle and rehabilitate the Jewish refugees, both those who had gathered in Poland in 1944-45, and those expected to return upon repatriation from the USSR, became an evident objective necessity in early 1946. The Jewish cooperative movement took on great momentum when large-scale JDC aid began in 1946. The JDC aided the cooperatives and their union, Solidarnosc, in cash and with the import of equipment and raw materials unobtainable in Poland.
