Polish Authorities Release Academician Who Aided Jews

The Polish autharities have released Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, a Catholic academician who aided Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, and was imprisoned and held without charges under the martial law regime earlier this year. His release was reported to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Stefan Grayek who just returned from a 10-day visit to Poland where he participated in the preparation for next year’s 40th anniversary commemoration of the Ghet to uprising and conferred with Polish leaders.

Only recently the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith in New York had asked the Polish government to free Bartoszewski who is a professor of history at the Catholic University in Lublin. The request was made by Rabbi Ronald Sobel, chairman of the ADL’s national program committee, in a letter to the Charge d’Affaires of the Polish Embassy in Washington, Zdzislaw Ludwiczak.

Grayek told the JTA that the Polish authorities also reiterated their promise to remain vigilant and prevent any anti-Semitic publication or broadcast. He said the government officials with whom he met promised to act vigorously to prevent any anti-Semitic act and to prosecute anyone guilty of such acts.

Grayek, who heads the Warsaw Ghetto survivors organization in Israel, met with several Polish ministers in Warsaw, including Religious Affairs Minister Jerzy Kuberski and senior aides. He said he was told among other things that Poland will invite a large number of Jewish and Israeli representatives, including a member of the Israeli Cabinet, to the ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising next April.

The Polish government plans to treat the Ghetto commemoration as an event of great importance and will give it maximum publicity, Grayek said. Poland, in addition, will send a high-level delegation to Israel for the Ghetto uprising commemoration there next year, he said.