Thousands of Israelis attended today a huge rally here commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising at which the Polish Communist regime was assailed for its current anti-Jewish campaign.
The rally, which was called by the World Organization of Polish Jews, was attended by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to demonstrate the Government’s support of Polish Jewry though he did not speak.
The principal speaker was Information Minister Israel Galilee who described the current campaign against Polish Jewry as a “nightmare.”
He denounced M. Rozcnek, the Polish Deputy Minister of Culture, who used the occasion of the observance of the ghetto revolt in Warsaw to accuse “Zionists” of using Nazi methods against the Arabs and to charge that world Jewry had deserted Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The Organization of Nazi Victims in Israel declared in a statement issued before the rally that Rozcnek was unfit to hold his office as secretary of the Polish underground fighters organization.
Mr. Galilee said that the “spirit and tenor” of Rozcnek’s remarks “evoke tones which are sweet to the ears of the Nazi SS” and that the remarks “arouse deep repugnance in every civilized person, particularly if he has not forgotten the events of more than 25 years ago which led to the destruction and enslavement of Poland as well as the heinous holocaust wrought on our people.”
He declared with bitterness that Poland, “upon whose soil Jewish genocide took place, where millions of our brethren and people of other nations were slaughtered, should have been the last country to fall prey to anti-Semitic propaganda which is now engulfing it.” He charged that the Polish Communist leaders “do not even stop short of inciting hatred, making libelous attacks, carrying out purges and imposing a regime of terror.” He added that “the insidious attacks on Polish Jews remind us of the doctors’ libel in Moscow.”
He linked the attacks on Polish Jews with Soviet policy in the Middle East and said that “the unity of our nation in mutual assistance tendered by Jews everywhere is a splendid human phenomenon which is stronger than the power of the Polish rulers.” He added that the day was not distant when “the inciters shall be brought to book” and that the anti-Jewish campaign in Poland “will turn into a source of moral power for the state of Israel.”
The Organization of Disabled Persons denounced Polish authorities for failing to invite an official Israeli delegation to the opening of the Jewish pavilion in Auschwitz. The statement asserted that to open the pavilion “without Israel’s official participation and without the presence of the remnants of the concentration camps and Jewish fighters constitutes a desecration both of the memory of the dead and the feelings of those still alive.”
(It was reported from Warsaw in London that the commemorative ceremony at the cenotaph on the site of the ghetto, which had been fixed for yesterday by Polish officials, was postponed at the last moment and was held today instead. There was no official explanation but the officials allowed the state-controlled press to blame Dr. Nahum Goldmann for protesting the Saturday date. The ceremony was reported to have been impressive as a military parade but, in contrast to the 20th anniversary, there were no foreign Jewish delegations present and Polish Jews seemed to be isolated and depressed.)
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.
