of the murders put an end to the expectation of many Jews that they would be able to resettle in Poland after the end of the Nazi German occupation and precipitated a mass exodus of Polish Jewry. Bożena Szaynok, a historian at Wrocław University estimated that from July 1945 until June 1946 about fifty thousand Jews crossed the Polish border illegally. In July 1946, almost twenty thousand decided to start a new life abroad. Polish Minister Marian Spychalski, motivated by political and humanitarian reasons, signed a decree allowing Jews to leave officially without visas or exit permits, and the Jewish emigration from Poland increased dramatically. In August 1946 the number of emigrants increased to thirty thousand. In September 1946, twelve thousand Jews left Poland. By the spring of 1947, wrote Bernhard and Szlajfer, the number of Jews in Poland – in large part arriving from the Soviet Union – declined from 240,000 to 90,000 due to mass migration. Britain demanded that Poland halt the Jewish exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful. The flight (berihah) of Jews was motivated by the post-Holocaust absence of Jewish life in Poland as well as the raging civil war against the Communist takeover, in as much as the efforts of strong Polish-Jewish lobby at the Jewish Agency working towards the higher standard of living and special privileges for the immigrants from Poland. Yitzhak Raphael, director of the Immigration Department – who lobbied on behalf of Polish refugees – insisted on their preferential treatment in Israel, wrote Devorah Hakohen. Reaction of the Catholic Church Six months before the Kielce pogrom, during the celebration of Hanukkah, a hand grenade had been thrown into the headquarters of the local Jewish community. The Jewish Community Council had approached the Bishop of Kielce, Czesław Kaczmarek, requesting that he admonish the Polish people to refrain from attacking the Jews. The bishop refused, replying that "as long as the Jews concentrated upon their private business Poland was interested in them, but at the point when Jews began to interfere in Polish politics and public life, they insulted the Poles' national sensibilities". Similar remarks were delivered by the Bishop of Lublin, Stefan Wyszyński, when he was approached by a Jewish delegation. Wyszyński stated that the widespread hostility to Jews was provoked by Jewish backing of Communism (there was a widespread perception that Jews were supportive of Soviet-installed Communist administration in Poland; see