Gomulka Reportedly Defied by Party over Dampening Anti-zionist Drive

The attribution of student unrest in Poland to a “Zionist plot” by the Polish Communist regime continues to evoke sharp protests in this country today despite reports that Polish Communist party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka was trying to ease the anti-Zionist campaign, reportedly in the face of defiance from members of his party.

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith announced it was completing a “fully documented study and analysis” of the anti-Semitic aspects of the situation in Poland. Dory Schary, ADL chairman, called the campaign “the oldest political maneuver in the world and one of the nastiest.”

(The New York Times reported from Warsaw yesterday that the Communist party was defying Gomulka’s effort to dampen down the anti-Zionist campaign and that “observers here believe that the defiance within the party on the ‘Zionist’ issue constitutes a greater threat to the authority” of Gomulka than the student arrest.)

In Cleveland the Jewish Community Federation urged the public to write or wire protests to the Polish Ambassador in Washington. D.C. The Zionist Organization of America executive committee, meeting in Grossingers, N.Y., urged all Americans “to join in defense of Polish Jews by making plain to all, the anti-Semitic nature of the attack upon them.” The appeal was contained in a resolution which also urged the United States Government “to protest Polish excesses against Jews.”

Bayard Rustin, a Negro civil rights leader, declared in a statement here that “a pogrom atmosphere” was being created in Poland to make “the tiny minority” of Polish Jews “the scapegoat” of the regime. He added that “the black community in this country, so long the victims of ‘scapegoatism,'” was “especially sensitive to outbursts” against all other minorities and that “their struggle is our struggle.”