A statement by the Polish Ministry of Information that artists had been regimented in Soviet Poland was made the basis of an anti-Jewish tirade today by the Polska Walczenca, Polish military weekly.
Embellishing the factual government statement in an anti-Semitic vein, the weekly charged that Polish artistic activity was now wholly under Jewish control. The article caused some surprise here in view of the Polish Government’s statement on Friday in which it formally dissociated itself from the anti-Jewish Polish weekly, Jestem Polakem. The Government said that organ was not supported by the Polish community and declared its activities were unanimously condemned as harmful to the Polish cause and Polish unity.
The Ministry of Information said today that all painters in Soviet Poland had been exempted from manual labor but had been compelled to join the government-sponsored Artists Cooperative. In this organization the artists are placed in two categories: first, the “Chudozniks,” or “imaginative and creative painters;” second, the “uncreative” commercial artists.
Only the “Chudozniks” are permitted to paint portraits of Joseph Stalin and other political leaders. The “Chudozniks” are directed by a Russian named Dimitrenko, who hails from Kiev and is not an artist, it was said. All the members are obliged to paint at least seven hours daily, the Ministry stated.
The military weekly said that Dimitrenko was an “Aryan” but contended that the “Chudoznik” executive comprises several Jews from Lwow.
“The leader of the ‘uncreative’ section is a certain Mr. S. a Jew from Cracow, former pupil of the Academy of Fine Arts and former inmate of the Bereza concentration camp for political offenders,” the weekly said.
The weekly asserted that the fact that this Mr. S. of “such high artistic distinction,” is the leader of this section shows that “race and political opinion” apparently are a criterion for membership in the cooperative, implying that all Jews are Bolsheviks.
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.
