A Pole was sentenced to 14 months at hard labor by a court in Legnitz, in Western Poland, on charges of anti-Semitic hooliganism, it was reported here today from Warsaw. The Pole, Jan Horoszkewicz, was convicted of having insulted and attacked two Polish Jews–Abraham Moneta and Mendal Tastowsky–and of shouting anti-Semitic remarks. Horoszkewicz also attacked a policeman summoned by the Jews.
During the trial, Moneta told the court that he was a survivor of several concentration camps, including the notorious Mautthausen, and that he had lost a leg in the war.
Asserting that only a few Jews remain in Poland after the terrible slaughter there, the public prosecutor said that Jews “are, of course, citizens like the rest of us, entitled to the protection of the law. Furthermore, we shall not tolerate in Poland anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic hooliganism, and we shall eradicate it for good so that there is no trace of it within the Polish people.”
Following the trial, the father of the accused went up to Moneta, apologized for his son’s behavior, and said he thought the sentence was just.
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.
