A delegation of the Federation of Polish Jews in America, headed by Benjamin Winter, president of the Federation, presented a memorandum to the Polish Minister in the United States, Tytus Filipowicz, in which the deplorable economic conditions of Polish Jewry today were cited and an economic conference in Poland to end the plight of the Jews there was proposed. The memorandum was presented to the Minister at a luncheon on Sunday at the Hotel Delmonico. The idea of the conference was suggested by a recent interview with Mr. Filipowicz by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The Minister in his reply promised to forward the memorandum immediately to his government in Warsaw. He declared himself in favor of an economic conference in Poland, as proposed by the delegation, but also thought that “as much can be accomplished in this country as in Poland, since the perspective is quieter here.”
“The spread of large cooperatives in Poland,” the memorandum said, “is resulting in the displacement of great numbers of Jewish middle men. Added to this, in all such industries as are nationalized, a virtual boycott of Jewish workers prevails.
“Jews in large numbers are as a result seeking to become artisans, but here too they are faced by the difficulties placed in the way of opening technical schools. The burden of taxation also falls heaviest on the Jews and only the most meagre credit facilities are available to them.”
The memorandum also mentioned the fact that certain restrictions against the Jews which were in force when Poland was still a part of Czarist Russia haven’t as yet been abolished. It also called the Minister’s attention to the fact that Jews are being discriminated against in government employment, to such an extent that even the Jewish head of the Bureau for Jewish Religious Affairs was dismissed and a non-Jew appointed in his stead.
“Economically, the situation of the Jews in Poland seems to be more tragic than ever in the history of our motherland,” says the memorandum. “We recognize full well that the war left its aftermath of distress and economic destruction which accounts in
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
