An offer to permit Polish Jews to emigrate to Israel if they wished, made recently by Communist Party chief Wladyslaw Gomulka, was “a mere ruse” according to Israel’s former Minister to Warsaw, Katriel Katz. He told the Times today that Jews in Poland don’t dare apply for exit visas because they would be fired immediately from their jobs and would become marked men.”
Mr. Katz who is recovering in a London hospital from injuries sustained in a plane crash last week, said that “the Gomulka regime, in order to dealgrate the student revolt and preserve itself is once again reviving the old Polish fear of Germany and its a traditional anti-Semitism by suggesting that there is an alliance between West Germany and Zionist agents against Poland.” Mr. Katz formerly served as Israel’s Ambassador to Russia. He is presently chairman of the Yad Vashem, the memorial and archives on the Nazi holocaust in Jerusalem.
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