The Morgenthau report was the 1919 US mission that investigated the pogroms against Jews in Poland, including the Pinsk massacre. Through 2015 the opening described Morgenthau attending "a packed service for the 35 Jewish victims of the Pinsk massacre of April 1919," and credited him "as an opponent of the open anti-semitism of Dmowski." Today the opening says the mission investigated "alleged Polish pogroms," and the reference to Dmowski's antisemitism is gone, with massacre appearing zero times in the opening though it survives twice in the article. A reader today learns the mission investigated "alleged" pogroms, and not that it was formed partly in response to a documented antisemitic Polish nationalist, or that it directly examined a massacre with named victims.
Read line by line and written up by hand.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01. “massacre” appeared 3 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2.
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The opening as it read in 2010
Morgenthau report was a report issued by the United States ' commission led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , Homer H.1Samuel to investigate reports of mistreatment of Jews in Poland . The report was published on October 3, 1919.2Western public opinion has been increasingly aware of primarily newspaper reports of mistreatment and atrocities committed against Jews in Eastern Europe , following the aftermath of the First World War and flare up of several local conflicts (such as Polish-Ukrainian War and Polish-Soviet War ). In June 1919, Herbert Hoover , then head of the American Relief Administration (ARA) and after discussions with Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski , wrote to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson warning that the reports of atrocities were damaging the reputation of Poland, a nascent ally being cultivated by the U.S. to counter Soviet Russia . Hoover, whose ARA oversaw relief efforts in Europe, secured the support of Padrewski through blunt warnings that the reports of atrocities against Jews "could develop into a most serious embarrassment to all of us in connection with the relief of Poland." Such pressure for government action reached the point where President Woodrow Wilson sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The Morgenthau commission was dispatched by United States to verify those reports. Morgenthau's delegation was met by thousands of Polish Jews in Warsaw and other Polish cities it visited, who viewed him as a savior, although Morgenthau—an assimilationist critical of Jewish nationalism—was shunned by Polish Zionist leaders. While the Polish Jewish press gave the delegation a warm welcome, the non-Jewish Polish press response ranged from cool to overtly hostile with instances of open expressions of anti-Jewish hostility. The daily Robotnicza called for a complete boycott of Polish Jews, while the leading weekly Mysl Niepodlegla accused Wilson of siding against the Polish people in favor of Jews who "live upon usury, fraud, receiving of stolen goods, white slavery, counterfeiting and willful bankruptcy." While Paderewski had welcomed the investigation, Morgenthau found hostility in other Polish political circles, especially from the camps of National Democratic Party ("Endecja") leader Roman Dmowski and his rival, Chief of State Jozef Pilsudski . Compared to Paderewski, who had substantial U.S. support, Pilsudski at the time was regarded as a less reliable military adventurer, and was described by Morgenthau as a "high-class pirate." Pilsudski resented the interference of Morgenthau's mission in Polish affairs, although he was acknowledged as an opponent of the open anti-semitism of Dmowski and a leader committed to a liberal policy towards Jews and other minorities that respected their rights. Morgenthau immersed himself in meetings with representatives of all segments of Polish society from all sides of the dispute. He attended a packed service for the 35 Jewish victims of the Pinsk massacre of April 1919, noting afterward that "This was the first time I ever completely realized what the collective grief of a persecuted people was like." The Morgenthau report ultimately identified eight major incidents in the years 1918–1919, and estimated the number of victims at between 200–300 Jews. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none were blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents investigated by the Morgenthau mission was the Pinsk massacre . In Pinsk, a Polish officer accused a group of Jewish civilians who had gathered at a town meeting to discuss the distribution of American relief aid of being Bolsheviks and of plotting against the Poles. Thirty-five of the men were taken hostage, robbed, and summarily shot. Women were separated from the men and stripped and beaten. The Morgenthau mission issued a strong condemnation of the commander responsible: While it is recognized that certain information of Bolshevist activities in Pinsk had been reported by two Jewish soldiers, we are convinced that Major Luczynski, the Town Commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous readiness to place credence in such untested assertions, and on this insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately established by a consultation with any well known non-Jewish habitant. In Lviv (then Lwów or Lemberg) in 1918, after the Polish Army captured the city, seventy-two Jews were killed by a Polish mob that included Polish soldiers. The report states that in Lemberg Lviv "disreputable elements [from the Polish Army] plundered to the extent of many millions of crowns the dwellings and stores in the Jewish quarter, and did not hesitate to murder when they met with resistance." In Warsaw , soldiers of Blue Army assaulted Jews in the streets, but were punished by military authorities. Some other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers such as the New York Times , although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in Ukraine . The result of the concern over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the Versailles Treaty protecting the rights of minorities in Poland . In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance. While critical of some local Polish authorities on scene, the commission also stated that in general the Polish military and civil authorities did do their best to prevent the incidents and their recurrence in the future. It concluded that some forms of discrimination against Jews was of political rather than anti-Semitic nature, rooted in political competition. The report specifically avoided use of the term " pogrom ," noting that the term was used used to apply to a wide range of "excesses," (Morgenthau's preferred term) and had no specific definition. Tadeusz Piotrowski , noted that Morgenthau reasons for avoiding the word pogrom was based on the chaotic conditions existing within a war zone. Morganthau noted that it would be unfair to condemn the entire Polish nation for the acts of renegade troops or mobs, and believed the attacks were not premeditated or the result of a preconceived plan. He noted, howewer, that "It is believed that these excesses were the result of a widespread anti-Semitic prejudice aggravated by the belief that the Jewish inhabitants were politically hostile to the Polish State." Jadwin and Johnson submitted their report separately from Morgenthau's. As described by one historian Morgenthau emphasized that Jews had been deliberately murdered based solely on the fact that they were Jews, while Jadwin and Johnson concluded that the violence against Jews was largely rooted in Jewish separatism and commercial competition that the problem in Poland was due in large part to Jewish separatism and commercial competition. Assessments of the mission's works varied, with supporters and critics alternately concluding that it had debunked allegations of Polish anti-semitism, while others considered it to have supported these allegations. Hoover considered the mission as having done a "fine service," while others considered its findings to be a "whitewash" of Polish atrocities. Possible bias of Morgenthau report has been discussed by some scholars. Andrzej Kapiszewski has written that the report was influeneced by U.S. foreign policy objectives at the time. Neal Pease wrote: To protect Poland's international reputation against widespread, if exaggerated, accusations of mistreatment of her large Jewish minority, Washington dispatched an investigatory commission led by Henry Morgenthau, one of the most prominent American Jewish political figures. Morgenthau was selected for the job precisely because he was known to be sympathetic to Poland, and his report largely exculpated the Polish government, exactly as expected. Some contemporary responses in the Jewish press accused Morgenthau and Samuel, the Jewish members of the commission, of having prsented a "whitewash" of the massacres, and charged them with being guilty of treason.3
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 351845220.
The opening as it stood in 2015
The Morgenthau report was a report issued by the United States ' commission led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , Homer H. Johnson , Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin , and from the British side Sir Stuart M.Samuel to investigate reports of mistreatment of Ashkenazi Jews in Poland . The report was published on October 3, 1919. Western public opinion had become increasingly aware, primarily from newspaper reports, of mistreatment and atrocities committed against Jews in Eastern Europe , following the aftermath of the First World War and the flare-up of several local conflicts (such as the Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Soviet wars). In June 1919, Herbert Hoover , then head of the American Relief Administration (ARA), after discussions with Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski , wrote to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson warning that the reports of atrocities were damaging the reputation of Poland, a nascent ally being cultivated by the U.S. to counter Soviet Russia . Hoover, whose ARA oversaw relief efforts in Europe, secured the support of Padrewski through blunt warnings that the reports of atrocities against Jews "could develop into a most serious embarrassment to all of us in connection with the relief of Poland." Such pressure for government action reached the point where President Woodrow Wilson sent an official commission to investigate the matter. The Morgenthau commission was dispatched by the United States to verify those reports. Morgenthau's delegation was met by thousands of Polish Jews in Warsaw and other Polish cities it visited. although Morgenthau—an assimilationist critical of Jewish nationalism—was shunned by Polish Zionist leaders. While the Polish Jewish press gave the delegation a warm welcome, the non-Jewish Polish press response ranged from cool to overtly hostile with instances of open expressions of anti-Jewish hostility. The daily Robotnicza called for a complete boycott of Polish Jews, while the leading weekly Mysl Niepodlegla accused Wilson of siding against the Polish people in favor of Jews who "live upon usury, fraud, receiving of stolen goods, white slavery, counterfeiting and willful bankruptcy." While Paderewski had welcomed the investigation, Morgenthau found hostility in other Polish political circles, especially from the camps of National Democratic Party ("Endecja") leader Roman Dmowski and his rival, Chief of State Jozef Pilsudski . Compared to Paderewski, who had substantial U.S. support, Pilsudski at the time was regarded as a less reliable military adventurer, and was described by Morgenthau as a "high-class pirate." Pilsudski resented the interference of Morgenthau's mission in Polish affairs, although he was acknowledged as an opponent of the open anti-semitism of Dmowski and a leader committed to a liberal policy towards Jews and other minorities that respected their rights. Morgenthau immersed himself in meetings with representatives of all segments of Polish society from all sides of the dispute. He attended a packed service for the 35 Jewish victims of the Pinsk massacre of April 1919, noting afterward that "This was the first time I ever completely realized what the collective grief of a persecuted people was like." The Morgenthau report ultimately identified eight major incidents in the years 1918–1919, and estimated the number of victims at between 200 and 300 Jews. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none were blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents investigated by the Morgenthau mission was the Pinsk massacre . In Pinsk, a Polish officer accused a group of Jewish civilians who had gathered at a town meeting to discuss the distribution of American relief aid of being Bolsheviks and of plotting against the Poles. Thirty-five of the men were taken hostage, robbed, and summarily shot. Women were separated from the men and stripped and beaten. The Morgenthau mission issued a strong condemnation of the commander responsible: While it is recognized that certain information of Bolshevist activities in Pinsk had been reported by two Jewish soldiers, we are convinced that Major Luczynski, the Town Commander, showed reprehensible and frivolous readiness to place credence in such untested assertions, and on this insufficient basis took inexcusably drastic action against reputable citizens whose loyal character could have been immediately established by a consultation with any well known non-Jewish inhabitant. In Lviv (then Lwów or Lemberg) in 1918, after the Polish Army captured the city, seventy-two Jews were killed by a Polish mob that included Polish soldiers. The report states that in Lemberg Lviv "disreputable elements [from the Polish Army] plundered to the extent of many millions of crowns the dwellings and stores in the Jewish quarter, and did not hesitate to murder when they met with resistance." Some other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers such as the New York Times , although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in Ukraine . The result of the concern over the fate of Poland's Jews was a series of explicit clauses in the Versailles Treaty protecting the rights of minorities in Poland . In 1921, Poland's March Constitution gave the Jews the same legal rights as other citizens and guaranteed them religious tolerance. While critical of some local Polish authorities on scene, the commission also stated that in general the Polish military and civil authorities did do their best to prevent the incidents and their recurrence in the future. It concluded that some forms of discrimination against Jews was of political rather than anti-Semitic nature, rooted in political competition. The report specifically avoided use of the term " pogrom ," noting that the term was used to apply to a wide range of "excesses," (Morgenthau's preferred term) and had no specific definition. Tadeusz Piotrowski , noted that Morgenthau reasons for avoiding the word pogrom was based on the chaotic conditions existing within a war zone. Morganthau noted that it would be unfair to condemn the entire Polish nation for the acts of renegade troops or mobs, and believed the attacks were not premeditated or the result of a preconceived plan. He noted, however, that "It is believed that these excesses were the result of a widespread anti-Semitic prejudice aggravated by the belief that the Jewish inhabitants were politically hostile to the Polish State." Jadwin and Johnson submitted their report separately from Morgenthau's. As described by one historian Morgenthau emphasized that Jews had been deliberately murdered based solely on the fact that they were Jews, while Jadwin and Johnson concluded that the violence against Jews in Poland was largely rooted in Jewish separatism and commercial competition. Assessments of the mission's works varied, with supporters and critics alternately concluding that it had either debunked allegations of Polish anti-semitism or provided support for them. Hoover considered the mission as having done a "fine service," while others considered its findings to be a "whitewash" of Polish atrocities. The possibility of bias in the Morgenthau report has been discussed by some scholars. Andrzej Kapiszewski has written that the report was influeneced by U.S. foreign policy objectives at the time. Neal Pease wrote, "To protect Poland's international reputation against widespread, if exaggerated, accusations of mistreatment of her large Jewish minority, Washington dispatched an investigatory commission led by Henry Morgenthau, one of the most prominent American Jewish political figures. Morgenthau was selected for the job precisely because he was known to be sympathetic to Poland, and his report largely exculpated the Polish government, exactly as expected." Some contemporary responses in the Jewish press accused Morgenthau and Samuel, the Jewish members of the commission, of having presented a "whitewash" of the massacres, and charged them with being guilty of treason.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 659480258.
The opening as it stood in 2020 37 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
The Morgenthau report , officially the Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland , was a report compiled by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , as member of the "Mission of the United States to Poland" which was appointed by the American Commission to Negotiate Peace formed by President Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of World War I .The purpose of the mission was to investigate "alleged Polish pogroms" and the "treatment of the Jewish people" in Poland.The mission consisted of three American members: former US ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin of Engineer Corps, and professor of law Homer H.They were selected to investigate accounts of mistreatment of Jews in the newly-reborn Second Polish Republic .The report by Morgenthau was published on October 3, 1919.The final report "denied the authenticity of the pogroms" but it noted "isolated excesses" of antisemitic nature, in which approximately 300 Polish Jews died, which it attributed to the chaos of the post war situation.It also cleared the Polish government of any role or support for the incidents, although it did chastise it for insensitivity with regard to Jewish issues, and suggested "culpable negligence".Morgenthau also criticized both Zionism and Polish nationalism as well as "widespread antisemitic prejudice" created by contemporary social and political conflicts.The report stated that the condition of Jews in Poland was not satisfactory and could be improved but also noted that the situation had been widely exaggerated.Morgenthau called for improvement in Polish-Jewish relations which required good willed people to stand up against "extremists on both sides".Popularly regarded as the definitive statement of the commission, in effect, it was a minority opinion released one month ahead of the joint Jadwin-Johnson deposition.The Jadwin-Johnson deposition agreed with the Morgenthau report that no pogroms had occurred, but it downplayed the criticisms of Polish government found in the previous report.It also blamed "German propagandists" for spreading the image of Poles as "barbarous anti-semites".Concerning the burning question of the inquiry, he denied the authenticity of the alleged pogroms and cleared Warsaw of direct responsibility for the isolated 'excesses' that had occurred, attributing them above all to 'the chaotic and unnatural state of affairs' of the preceding year." — Google Books, preview
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 941347861.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023
The Morgenthau report , officially the Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland , was a report compiled by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , as member of the "Mission of the United States to Poland " which was appointed by the American Commission to Negotiate Peace formed by President Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of World War I . The purpose of the mission was to investigate "alleged Polish pogroms" and the "treatment of the Jewish people" in Poland. The mission consisted of three American members: former US ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin of Engineer Corps, and professor of law Homer H. They were selected to investigate accounts of mistreatment of Jews in the newly-reborn Second Polish Republic . The report by Morgenthau was published on October 3, 1919. The final report "denied the authenticity of the pogroms" but it noted "isolated excesses" of antisemitic nature, in which approximately 300 Polish Jews died, which it attributed to the chaos of the post war situation. It also cleared the Polish government of any role or support for the incidents, although it did chastise it for insensitivity with regard to Jewish issues, and suggested "culpable negligence". Morgenthau also criticized both Zionism and Polish nationalism as well as "widespread antisemitic prejudice" created by contemporary social and political conflicts. The report stated that the condition of Jews in Poland was not satisfactory and could be improved but also noted that the situation had been widely exaggerated. Morgenthau called for improvement in Polish-Jewish relations which required good willed people to stand up against "extremists on both sides". Popularly regarded as the definitive statement of the commission, in effect, it was a minority opinion released one month ahead of the joint Jadwin-Johnson deposition. The Jadwin-Johnson deposition agreed with the Morgenthau report that no pogroms had occurred, but it downplayed the criticisms of Polish government found in the previous report. It also blamed "German propagandists" for spreading the image of Poles as "barbarous anti-semites". Concerning the burning question of the inquiry, he denied the authenticity of the alleged pogroms and cleared Warsaw of direct responsibility for the isolated 'excesses' that had occurred, attributing them above all to 'the chaotic and unnatural state of affairs' of the preceding year." — Google Books, preview
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1178625304.
The opening as it stood in 2025
The Morgenthau report , officially the Report of the Mission of the United States to Poland , was a report compiled by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. , as member of the "Mission of the United States to Poland " which was appointed by the American Commission to Negotiate Peace formed by President Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of World War I . The purpose of the mission was to investigate "alleged Polish pogroms" and the "treatment of the Jewish people" in Poland. The mission consisted of three American members: former US ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Brigadier General Edgar Jadwin of Engineer Corps, and professor of law Homer H. They were selected to investigate accounts of mistreatment of Jews in the newly-reborn Second Polish Republic . The report by Morgenthau was published on October 3, 1919. The final report "denied the authenticity of the pogroms" but it noted "isolated excesses" of antisemitic nature, in which approximately 300 Polish Jews died, which it attributed to the chaos of the post war situation. It also cleared the Polish government of any role or support for the incidents, although it did chastise it for insensitivity with regard to Jewish issues, and suggested "culpable negligence". Morgenthau also criticized both Zionism and Polish nationalism as well as "widespread antisemitic prejudice" created by contemporary social and political conflicts. The report stated that the condition of Jews in Poland was not satisfactory and could be improved but also noted that the situation had been widely exaggerated. Morgenthau called for improvement in Polish-Jewish relations which required good willed people to stand up against "extremists on both sides". Popularly regarded as the definitive statement of the commission, in effect, it was a minority opinion released one month ahead of the joint Jadwin-Johnson deposition. The Jadwin-Johnson deposition agreed with the Morgenthau report that no pogroms had occurred, but it downplayed the criticisms of Polish government found in the previous report. It also blamed "German propagandists" for spreading the image of Poles as "barbarous anti-semites". Concerning the burning question of the inquiry, he denied the authenticity of the alleged pogroms and cleared Warsaw of direct responsibility for the isolated 'excesses' that had occurred, attributing them above all to 'the chaotic and unnatural state of affairs' of the preceding year." — Google Books, preview
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1295831892. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
“massacre” appeared 3 times in this article's opening at its peak. Today the opening has none; the body has 2. Read the current article and compare.
2010
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Oct '23
2025
massacre
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antisemitism
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hostage
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined between 2010 and 6 October 2023.
Then
report issued by the united states ' commission led by henry morgenthau
Now
report compiled by henry morgenthau
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
