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New Disorders in 4 Areas

May 20, 1937
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New anti-Jewish disorders were reported today in four towns in various parts of Poland while police in Brzesc thwarted attempts to set fire to a Jewish settlement house named for Felix M. Warburg, New York banker and philanthropist.

The Warburg house, built after the World War with the aid of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, houses homeless Jews.

Disorders broke out yesterday in Kamien-Koszyrski near Kovel, in the same district as Brzesc. Windows of Jewish homes were broken and several shops demolished. Destruction of the largest shop in the town, owned by Abraham Klerman, was prevented by the police chief, who dispersed anti-Semites with a drawn revolver.

The Jews of the town did not dare leave their homes today although the authorities gave assurances they would not permit a new outbreak. Reports published abroad that wholesale evacuation of Jews had occurred were ascertained to be unfounded.

Ten Jews were beaten by Nationalists in Baranowicz, near the Russian frontier. One of them, Mendel Goldberg, was seriously injured and removed to the hospital Police restored order, making two arrests.

A Nationalist entered a drugstore in Pruszkow, near Warsaw, made a small purchase, and left a bomb which exploded and demolished the shop. The owner, Abraham Koss, was wounded.

Windows of several Jewish houses and a synagogue in Nowoswiciany, in the Wilno district, were broken last night by Nationalists.

Meanwhile, Moshe Lezerovich, correspondent of the Warsaw Yiddish daily Haint, who had been held under arrest for three days in Brzesc for photographing victims of the disorders, arrived in Warsaw in custody of police for trial on charges of “inciting the Jews of Brzesc to make a pogrom on the Poles.”

Polish newspapers in the capital today ignored the tense situation in Brzesc, with the exception of the Socialist Robotnik, which published an appeal to the Polish people by Stefania Stempolowska, well-known Polish nationalist campaigner during the Czarist regime.

“Filled with shame and sorrow I express the deepest sympathy for the victims of the barbarous disorders in Brzesc,” she said. “In the belief that the Polish people will immediately organize relief for these victims, I subscribe twenty zlotys.”

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