First Postwar Jewish Delegation Visits Poland As Part of UJA Study Mission

A group of 35 American Jewish leaders, headed by Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, executive vice-president of the United Jewish Appeal, arrived here today from a four-day visit to Poland, the first by an American Jewish group to postwar Poland.

The Jewish leaders, part of a 138-member UJA Study Mission to Europe and Israel, gathered here, conferred in Poland with religious and cultural leaders of the Jewish community. They were welcomed by the Mayor of Warsaw, Janusz Zarzycki, at the Municipal Palace in Warsaw.

Mayor Zarzycki emphasized the Nazi slaughter of the Jews in Poland and the determination of the Polish Government to give all possible aid to the remaining Jews to restore their economic and cultural life. The Mayor declared that no anti-Jewish discrimination existed in Poland, and that all doors were open to Jews in Government in every type of school and in state enterprises. That evaluation was confirmed by Jewish community leaders in Warsaw in their talks with members of the UJA delegation.

Rabbi Friedman told the Warsaw leaders that American Jewry was interested not only in honoring the memory of the 3,000,000 Polish Jews murdered by the Nazis, but also in the 30,000 surviving Jews now living in Poland. He stressed aid to the survivors by the Joint Distribution Committee, and thanked the Polish authorities for cooperating with the JDC to make the JDC’s work effective in all fields.

The UJA delegation also visited Cracow and the Jewish institutions there, including an ancient synagogue where the Nazis executed 30 Poles for helping Jews. Polish authorities erected a memorial in the synagogue yard for the executed Poles, making the synagogue the only one in the world with a memorial for non-Jews.

The UJA leaders also visited Auschwitz and Birkenau, two camps where more than 3,000,000 Jews from various Nazi-occupied countries were gassed. The UJA leaders placed wreaths at the two camp sites and at the monument in Warsaw for the Jewish Ghetto Martyrs.

The religious Jewish community in Warsaw and the Central Cultural Organization of the Jews of Poland each tendered a dinner to the American visitors, at which candid talks were given about the life and problems of the Jews in modern Poland. Samuel Daroff of Philadelphia, replying on behalf of the delegation, assured the leaders of Polish Jewry of the continued interest of American Jewry in their fate. He pledged intensified aid to strengthen Polish Jewish morale and its economic position.

It was felt among both visitors and hosts that the visit had greatly strengthened the ties of Polish Jewry to world Jewry, and had given the Polish Jews the feeling that they were not isolated from world Jewry.