The migration of Jews to Palestine was a challenge with which Poland had to face after WW2. Despite enormous suffering that the Jewish community has suffered as a result of the German plan of extermination, the British mandate authorities in Palestine continued to maintain a constant low level of permissions (called certificates) issued the Jewish emigrants to the Middle East. This situation became a reason for illegal immigration programs and the formation of the organization Bricha (Escape). Jewish organizations helping these immigrants were very active also in Poland, since Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors were looking for a way to leave Europe and come to the land of Israel. Between 1944 and summer of 1946 about 100 thousand Jews left Poland. The first official statement of the Polish Prime Minister Osobka-Morawski at the end of 1945 expressed support for the idea of building an independent Jewish state, and pledged support for efforts to achieve this goal. PM Osobka-Morawski also referred to the on-going Jewish emigration, declaring that the Polish government, while hoping that the remaining Jews in Poland would "feel good", it will not lay obstacles in emigration to Palestine.
In the summer of 1946, as a result of the events of the Kielce pogrom, there has been a significant change in the state of Polish-Jewish relations. On one hand, the broad masses of the Jewish community, seized with fear of the outbreak of anti-Semitism, decided to leave Poland. Under these conditions, Zionist organizations had undertaken intensive work and thanks to an unofficial agreement with the Polish authorities a big wave of Jewish refuges left Poland. By the end of 1946 about 70 thousand Jews left Poland.
The position of active support of Jewish emigration has changed in the autumn of 1946, partly because of growing tensions in this field in relations with the Great Britain and Czechoslovakia. In the first months of 1947, the borders were sealed and the Jews were allowed to leave only on the basis of Polish visa endorsed by the British mandate authorities.
Since 1955, there had been a gradual increase in the number of applications and approvals for the Jewish migration from Poland: in 1955 2,500 Jews applied for a passport, in 1956 the number rose to 19 thousand. Overall in the late fifties another 40 thousand people left Poland, of whom a large group were repatriated from the Soviet Union. Anti-Semitism was one of the main triggers for the Jewish migration.