Ignacy Schwartzbard, Jewish member of the Polish National Council, protested today to the exiled Polish Government against the publication in the official Dziennyk Polski of a letter allegedly smuggled out of Warsaw charging the authorities of the Jewish ghetto with persecuting converts, while at the same time admitting that the converts were living on Jewish charity.
Schwartzbard termed the purported letter “an incredible attack on the honor of Polish Jewry and an obvious attempt to sow hatred between Poles and Jews, both in Poland and among the emigrants.”
The letter, published on the front page of the Polish newspaper, described the plight of Catholic Poles forced into the ghetto because their grandfathers and great grandfathers had been Jews, but who themselves had nothing to do with Judaism.
“They are persecuted by the Jewish local authorities, consisting of Jewish nationalists,” the letter said. “They are unable even to pray because, of course, there are no Catholic priests or churches in the ghetto. They live in the worst sanitary conditions, together with the poor Jewish masses. They must live on Jewish charity. Some are employed as messenger boys. There are many suicides among them.”
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.
