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Charge Polish Authorities Falsify History with Regard to Jewish Resistance Role

April 4, 1973
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The Association of Polish Jews in Great Britain accused the Polish government today of trying to falsify history with regard to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and other Jewish acts of resistance against the Nazis. A statement issued by David Kupferman, acting chairman of the group and Edward S. Madames, Its honorary secretary, claimed that the Polish authorities “are deliberately misrepresenting the events of that era, and especially the events relating to Jewish resistance.”

They said that “pressure has been brought to bear upon the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland to present the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto not as a heroic act of the Jews of the ghetto but merely as an episode within Polish resistance to German occupation.” The statement said that pressure was exerted on individual Jews as well as on Jewish bodies invited to attend a symposium of Jewish scholars in Warsaw.

“This symposium is being officially organized by the Jewish Historical Institute which has of late been forced to become an instrument of official Polish propaganda. This falsifying of Jewish history started under Gomulka and is being practiced with greater intensity by his successors,” the statement said.

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