Washington Leader Indicts Brown for “whitewashing” Polish Jewish Situation

David A. Brown, publisher of the “American Hebrew,” who recently characterized as exaggerated news emanating from Poland about the misery of the Jews there, was made the subject of a stinging indictment in a statement issued to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today by Paul Himmelfarb, Washington communal leader, who has just returned from an extended visit in Europe where he devoted his time to a study of Jewish conditions in various countries.

Challenging Mr. Brown to cite facts which would uphold his views, Mr. Himmelfarb declared that in no country in Europe are the Jews as miserable and poverty-stricken as in Poland. Saying that Mr. Brown’s remarks were obviously the result of imagination rather than a study of the actual situation, Mr. Himmelfarb asserted that “not only is Mr. Brown uninformed but his views, given wide publicity, unfortunately, are likely to be very harmful to the Jews of Poland who have sufficient misery now without having it multiplied by the unsolicited criticisms of a superficial and incompetent observer.”

Mr. Himmelfarb, a business man, is a prominent figure in the Washington Jewish community, being Vice-President of the United Hebrew Charities, a leading personality in the Zionist movement there, and a member of the board of practically every important Jewish institution in the city. During his tour of Europe, Mr. Himmelfarb visited England, Holland, Germany, Palestine, Austria and Poland. The statement which he made is as follows:

“I was deeply shocked upon reading in the ‘Jewish Daily Bulletin’ of the statement attributed to David A. Brown to the effect that reports reaching this country of Jewish conditions in Poland are exaggerated and that the Jewish situation in that country is far from being the terrible thing that it is described to be. My amazement arose from two causes. In the first place, I was surprised that a man who has been in public life as long as Mr. Brown and who is presumed to have a sense of responsibility should have permitted himself to make a statement that is, on its very surface without basis. In the second place, I have just returned from Poland and am in a position to know that he has no facts whatsoever on which to base a judgment which is not only uninformed but likely to be very harmful to the Jews of Poland who have sufficient misery now without having it multiplied by the unsolicited criticisms of a superficial and incompetent observer.

“Mr. Brown’s views emanate from Warsaw. There are two phases of life in that city. On the one side are the cabarets and amusement places and luxurious hotels, where life goes on much as it does in our own country. But on the other side are the Jews who live in conditions of squalor and poverty which are indescribable. Undernourished, living in physical conditions that are dangerous to health and horrible for their minds, these Jews stand as a striking rebuke to the superficiality of Mr. Brown’s comments. Mr. Brown could not possibly have visited the Jewish hovels and talked with men and women from whom hope in the future has completely vanished. I did not content myself with relaxation in Warsaw’s Bristol Hotel. I visited the Jewish districts. And then I went from one town to another stopping off at the loneliest railroad junctions as well as the larger centers of Jewish population. Where autos could not penetrate I hired a team of horses. For my visit to Europe was purely for the purpose of seeing how Jews there live at first hand.

“Whether I was in Warsaw, Rovno, Lotsky, Lvov, Olika, Dubnow, Bermel, Truvitz, or Dmidavka, I saw hunger, unemployment, despair. I am safe in saying that ninety percent of the Jews of Poland are not making a living at the present time. Mr. Brown has whitewashed the Polish Government when he contends that economic conditions in Poland are alike for Jews and non-Jews. Even the slightest intimacy with the facts points in an entirely different direction. In the first place, the majority of Polish Jews try to make a livelihood from some mercantile trade. But the Government makes this practically impossible, by the inequitable and crushing burden of taxation which it levies upon the merchants. Officials are ruthless in the collection of taxes, with the result that innumerable Jewish merchants find their property confiscated, their shops locked because they haven’t the zlotys necessary to pay the Government.

“In the struggle for employment between Jew and Pole, the latter is always given the preference, without regard to the merits of the case. This applies to public works as well as to private establishments. Jews who have hopes of escaping from the pressure upon the merchant class find their way barred to the Universities and other higher institutions of learning. Their entry into the professions is halted by almost insuperable obstacles.

“But at the present time, in view of the critical conditions which exist, it is important that American Jews should be made to realize the immediate problem rather than confuse them with discussion of fundamental causes. These are not isolated cases but are typical of the entire country. The remnant of Polish Jews that is self-sustaining can not possibly cope with the problem.

“I believe that it is the duty of every person who returns from Poland to plead with his fellow Jews in America to do what they can immediately for Polish Jewry. It is not only money for food that is essential. Those who have clothes of any kind should turn them over to local agencies for shipment to Poland. With the Winter fast approaching, it means that Polish Jews will be the victims of the cold as well as of undernourishment.

“I consider it nothing less than cruel that Mr. Brown should have minimized the situation, that he should have pretended to give a review based on nothing more substantial than observations from a hotel window. It is unfortunate that Mr. Brown’s views were given wide publicity. For my part, I can say that in no country in Europe are the Jews as miserable and poverty-stricken as in Poland. How can things be different when sources of livelihood are cut off from them by Government or private discrimination?”