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Systematic Exclusion of Polish Jews from Jobs, Housing, Schools Reported Underway

August 16, 1968
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Polish Jews are being systematically excluded from jobs. housing and schools in a pattern of quiet persecution that seems to have replaced the anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist tirades launched by the Warsaw Government and the Communist Party earlier this year. According to reports just received here from Warsaw, only those Jews who are for the present irreplaceable can hold their jobs and they are periodically reviewed to see if a non-Jewish Pole with suitable qualifications is available.

British Jews meanwhile are urged to boycott Polish goods. In an advertisement to appear in the Jewish Chronicle tomorrow, the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen called on fellow Jews to “remember the discrimination against Jews in Poland when buying such Polish goods as butter, eggs, cucumbers, vodka, etc.” A spokesman for the Association told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the boycott was not directed against the Polish people but against the Government and its continuing anti-Semitic campaign.

According to reports from Warsaw, Jews who formerly held high positions in fields of scholarship or technology are being offered jobs as bus conductors when they seek employment. Many Jewish school children have been discharged before the term’s end and their parents are told to find new schools. In cases where the children’s academic records are outstanding, the excuse is given that the schools are overcrowded or that the youngsters do not “fit in.” Many Jews have lost their apartments as a result of having lost their jobs because in many cases the flat goes with the job. These people have to fend for themselves and often live under appalling conditions in the big cities, the reports said.

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