Jewish Spokesman in Polish Parliament Says He Would Have Liked to Speak Not As Jewish Representative

I should have preferred to speak here not as the representative of the Jewish population, but that the affairs of the Jewish population of this country should be so regulated that I should be able to stand here and speak only as a citizen, but unfortunately, conditions are not like that yet, Deputy Dr. Rosmarin said in the Seym when he spoke on behalf of the Club of Jewish Deputies in the debate on the budget of the Ministry of the Interior.

It is a question of three million people, Dr. Rosmarin went on. Fourteen years after the liberation of Poland, I must declare here that the Jewish question has not been advanced by one iota. It is true that the Governments since the Rising of May 1926 have broken with antisemitism as a programme, but they have not set up a programme of their own. The Party which dominated the Government until May 1926 had a programme on the Jewish question. That programme was to annihilate Jewry, to destroy the Jews, to bring about a state of affairs which would compel the Jews to leave Poland. But Jews do not allow themselves to be pushed out of the way like that. They cannot be expelled to the moon or driven into the sea, and therefore something must be done to meet their requirements.

When it comes to dealing with the Jewish population, Dr. Rosmarin continued, the Government adopts a reactionary attitude, Because it refuses to deal with the secular representatives of the Jews, and leans on the dark elements of the Jewish population, and accepts their reactionary ideology.

JEWS ARE CAPABLE OF BECOMING FIRST CLASS ELEMENTS IN STATE DR. ROSMARIN SAYS: WE ARE ONLY WAITING FOR A GOVERNMENT THAT WILL UNDERSTAND THAT

The Jews are capable of becoming first class elements in the State, Dr. Rosmarin said. We are only waiting for a Government that will understand that. Unfortunately, the Government has always been afraid of what the National Democrats will say. The National Democrats are so splendidly organised that when they find themselves faced not by a programme but by the shadowiest idea in the mind of anyone to solve the smallest Jewish demand, it at once raises an alarm.

The fact that the Government Parliamentary Club has found room in its ranks for three Jewish Deputies is no solution of the Jewish question, Dr. Rosmarin proceeded, nor is it a solution of the Jewish problem that the Minister of the Interior stood up in Parliament and condemned the anti-Jewish excesses.

What would you have, he asked – that a Minister in a civilised State should stand up in Parliament and shout: Bravo, pogromists # “Go on, and kill the Jews”?. Does the Government think that the excesses came spontaneously? I am prepared to prove to the Government that it was the National Democratic lectures and teachings on which the students are fed day by day, and on which Polish public opinion is nurtured that were the cause of the anti-Jewish outbreaks. Prove to me, Dr. Rosmarin said, that one single newspaper engaged in this despicable agitation day after day against a population of three million people is ever suppressed. “The enemy is not the individual Jew, but all Jewry” is their cry. If any Jewish newspaper wrote like that about the Poles, I am sure that the Government would find ways and means of putting a stop to its agitation. And the National Democrats still shout that the Government is with the Jews. The fact is that the Government is afraid of what the National Democrats will say, and what that section of public opinion which stands behind the National Democratic terrorists will say.

I must remind the Minister, Dr. Rosmarin said, that it was his Ministry that issued the notorious paragraph in the Jewish Community Election Ordinance which gives the right to Government officials to interfere in matters concerning the voter and his religious belief. Under this paragraph it is even permissible to deprive a man of his vote in the Jewish community elections if he is not religious. I am sure that in the end the Minister will issue an order allowing his officials to interfere in the internal affairs of Jewish life.

MY PARTY IS ENGAGED IN LIFE AND DEATH STRUGGLE WITH COMMUNISM FOR SOUL OF JEWISH YOUTH: WE DO NOT ASK GOVERNMENT TO HELP US BUT WE ASK IT NOT TO HINDER US: YET MEMBERS OF OUR SCOUTS ORGANISATION ARE PROSECUTED AS COMMUNISTS

My party is engaged in a life and death struggle with Communism for the soul of our Jewish youth, Dr. Rosmarin went on. We do not ask the Government to help us in this fight, but we do ask that it should not hinder us. We have started a Jewish Scouts Organisation, “Hanoer”. In the Cracow district it has been legalised by the authorities who treat it with understanding. But in Eastern Galicia the organisation has been subjected to many difficulties because there is always some informer who goes to the authorities and says that these young people in our organisation are Communists, and our scouts are consequently being called upon repeatedly to appear in court to answer charges because they belong to “Hanoer”.

YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO SHUT YOUR EYES TO JEWISH QUESTION DR. ROSMARIN SAYS: THINGS CANNOT GO ON LIKE THIS: JEWS WILL STAND TEST IF IT COMES TO DOING THEIR DUTY TO STATE BUT GOVERNMENT MUST DEAL WITH THEM AS PEOPLE WHO DO THEIR DUTY TO STATE

I will not speak now of the impoverishment of the Jewish population, Dr. Rosmarin added, but the Minister of the Interior, being the Minister for Minority Affairs, should realise that the Budget does not contain a single item for Jews, apart from the miserable 200,000 zlotys for Jewish religious requirements.

I tell you here, Dr. Rosmarin concluded, that you will not be able to close your eyes to the Jewish question as certain parties are doing, and think that in that way they have settles everything satisfactorily. Things cannot and will not be allowed to go on like this.

The Jews will stand the test, he said, when it comes to doing their duty to the State, but we must have a Government which will deal with them as people who do their duty to the State.

MINISTER DENIES GOVERNMENT IS INFLUENCED BY NATIONAL DEMOCRATS: SAYS DR. ROSMARIN’S ARGUMENTS DO NOT JUSTIFY SUCH ASSERTION

The Minister of the Interior, M. Pieracki, in replying to the debate referred to Dr. Rosmarin’s speech, saying that though Dr. Rosmarin had reproached the Government that it was under the influence of the National Democrats in its policy towards the Jews and the National Minorities, he wanted to say without intending in any way to belittle the importance of the National Democratic Parliamentary Club, that he was not at all influenced by its power. The arguments which Dr. Rosmarin has used here, he said, certainly are not sufficient to justify his assertion that the Government is allegedly restricting the citizenship rights of the Jewish minority.