other Jews were attracted by the openness of the Communist government to accept them. Some Jews changed their names to Polish sounding names, fueling speculation of "hidden Jews" in subsequent decades; however, Steinlauf says that the reality of Jewish representation in government was "nowhere near" the Żydokomuna stereotype. In parallel, Steinlauf writes that 1,500 to 2,000 Jews were murdered between 1944 and 1947 in the worse spate of anti-Jewish violence in the history of Polish-Jewish relations. These attacks were accompanied by classic blood libel, brought international notoriety to Poland, and reinforced the notion that the Communist government was the sole force that could protect the Jews. However, most Jews were convinced by the widespread pogroms that Poland held no future for them. By 1951, when the government banned immigration to Israel, only 80,000 Jews remained in Poland and many of them did so since they believed in the Communist government. The combination of the effects of the Holocaust and postwar antisemitism led to a dramatic mass emigration of Polish Jewry in the immediate postwar years. Of the estimated 240,000 Jews in Poland in 1946 (of whom 136,000 were refugees from the Soviet Union, most on their way to the West), only 90,000 remained a year later. Regarding this period, Andre Gerrits wrote in his study of Żydokomuna, that even though for the first time in history they had entered the top echelons of power in considerable numbers, "The first post-war decade was a mixed experience for the Jews of East Central Europe. The new Communist order offered unprecedented opportunities as well as unforeseen dangers." Stalinist abuses During Stalinism, the preferred Soviet policy was to keep sensitive posts in the hands of non-Poles. As a result, "all or nearly all of the directors (of the widely despised Ministry of Public Security of Poland) were Jewish" as claimed by Polish journalist Teresa Torańska among others. A recent study by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance showed that out of 450 people in director positions in the Ministry between 1944 and 1954, 167 (37.1%) were of Jewish ethnicity, while Jews made up only 1% of the post-war Polish population. While Jews were overrepresented in various Polish Communist organizations, including the security apparatus, relative to their percentage of the general population, the vast majority of Jews did not participate in the Stalinist apparatus, and indeed most were not supportive of Communism. Krzysztof Szwagrzyk has