Grodno Police Refused to Protect Jews, Spread Anti-semitic Rumors, is Charge

Grave charges that the police authorities in Grodno, Poland, are to a great extent responsible for the recent anti-Jewish riots there are made in a memorandum received here to-ay by the Polish Embassy. The memorandum was submitted by the Federation of Polish Jews in America.

Emphasizing that “the Jews in a number of Polish cities are still apprehensive and panic-stricken” because the hooligans responsible for the Grodno anti-Jewish riots have not yet been punished, the Federation inquires of the Polish Embassy here “as to what further steps the Polish government has taken to prevent the recurrence of murderous attacks on Jews.”

The memorandum submitted is based upon authentic information compiled in Grodno. It charges the Grodno police with deliberately not protecting the Jewish population from the hooligans and also with helping to spread the anti-Semitic rumors which led to the riots.

“This attitude on the part of the police authorities,” the memorandum states, “makes it easy to understand why of the few hundred participants in the Grodno pogrom, only some fifteen have been placed behind bars, and why the evidence cited even against these fifteen is of the flimsiest possible.”

The memorandum asserts that the plans for “the concerted pogrom action” in Grodno had been worked out in advance. It emphasizes that no members of the police force were to be seen in the streets of Grodno when the anti-Jewish riots started.

“The military, whenever approached for help, replied with cold indifference that they could not do anything without orders,” the memorandum relates. “When the president of the Jewish community asked the Governor over the telephone to intervene, the latter shouted angrily into the receiver, ‘I shall not permit you to interfere in my affairs.'”