Economic Distress Among Polish Jews Described in Bid for Government Aid

The Jewish Economic Committee has submitted a memorandum to the directors of the State Labor Fund, the Minister of Social Welfare and the Prime Minister’s Office, describing the economic distress among the Jewish population, and demanding government assistance.

“The economic crisis has hit the Jewish population severely,” says the memorandum, “and has ruined the opportunity for livelihoods of thousands.

“In many branches of industry as much as 80 percent of the Jewish workers are unemployed, and among Jewish artisans unemployment is between 60 and 80 per cent. Conditions in trading are almost as bad.

“About 200,000 Jewish families in Poland are living below the poverty line,” the memorandum declares, “and more than 100,000 Jewish families are utterly destitute.

“The Jewish professional and intellectual classes are finding themselves increasingly deprived of all means of earning their livelihood.

“The public works started by the State Labor Fund for the relief of unemployment and by the various enterprises which it subsidizes do not employ Jewish workers,” the memorandum complains.

“Taking into account the peculiar economic structure of the Jewish population,” the memorandum proceeds, “we consider that it is essential that the Labor Fund should allocate funds specifically for the alleviation of the distress among the Jewish population.

“The Jewish Economic Committee therefore appeals to the Labor Fund (1) to insist that in all the enterprises subsidized by the Labor Fund there must be no religious or national discrimination in engaging workers; (2) to subsidize the employment relief work of the Jewish communities; (3) to grant credit aids to the Jewish productive cooperatives, Jewish industrialists and Jewish agriculturists; (4) to require the District Government offices to include Jews who are in distress in their first-aid economic relief activities, such as the provision of free meals, etc.; (5) to create new employment openings for those sections of the Jewish population that have been rendered declassed on account of the economic crisis, by providing them with opportunities to settle on the land.

“The Jewish Agricultural Organization, which has 750 branches in towns and villages,” says the memorandum, “will undertake their agricultural training, but the work will need a sum of five million zloty.”