J. D. B. News Letter

texts, without any flagrantly apparent violation of the Constitution and of the rights officially guaranteed to us.

You protest against numerus clausus legislation, we were told in effect. Very well. We shall manage without legislation.

So we got our numerus clausus and we could do nothing to get rid of it. It is nothing tangible that it is possible to get hold of and fight. As soon as you try to grasp it you find that there is nothing there. There is no law. There is only an atmosphere and a result, and you cannot point to any particular point and say that it is there.

Then came the Pilsudski regime, and still no change. The University authorities belong overwhelmingly to the National Democratic camp, and they utilize the principle of autonomy enjoyed by the Universities to work their will there.

To begin with, they divided the students into two sections, one which enjoys all rights, and to whom all doors stand open, and the other, the Jews, whose rights are restricted and who are admitted only to a very limited extent and that only to certain branches of knowledge.

The National Democratic University authorities took in hand with zest the task of clearing the Jews out of the Universities. Jewish students found all sorts of obstacles put in their way,, which prevented them from entering the Universities. They were not allowed into the laboratories, into the dissecting rooms, into the University workshops. The numerus clausus is a fact, though it rests on no legislation. Officially there are all sorts of ways of explaining it away, of making it appear that there is no such thing, but it is there all the same.

How free and independent education is in the Polish Universities can be seen from the fact that at the Medical Faculty of the Polish Universities, for instance, only 10 percent of Jews have obtained admission during the past several years. And we know that those other Jews who have been refused enrolment in this Faculty have been barred only because they are Jews. They have not been barred because they could not pass the entrance examination, or because they are not suited for a medical career, for generally they are much better qualified than most of the non-Jewish students who were admitted.

As a result of this, thousands of young Jewish people were compelled to take the staff of the wanderer in their hand, and to go out into exile. They went away into distant foreign lands, and they tried to obtain their education. Of course, that did not solve the problem of discrimination against the Jewish students of Poland. And only those who had means could go abroad to live and study there.

The rest simply had to abandon their idea of higher education. Even those with means were in many cases unable to keep it up till the end, and had to give up their attempt and come back home. Even those fortunate few who managed to overcome all difficulties and completed their studies and obtained their diplomas, did not find their problem solved. For when they came home with their foreign diplomas they found new restrictions applied against them, which made it impossible for them to have their diplomas registered so that they could practice their professions. It is true that this practice is not new, and that it is not confined to Poland. All Universities have always retained the right of exercising control over the achievements of students at foreign Universities, but in this case the right was used not to control the foreign diplomas but solely to keep Jews who hold foreign diplomas from being able to practice their professions in Poland.

There are cases of people who have obtained their diplomas with flying honors at important foreign Universities being told to start their studies all over again from the beginning in Poland, and having no way out, some agreed to do this. And in the same way as happened years ago, when they were compelled to go abroad to study, they again found the doors of the Polish Universities barred against them.

Is it any wonder that our Jewish student youth is seething and protesting and demanding action to put a stop to this anomalous state of affairs? They are being pushed down into an abyss of despair. It is high time that the authorities who are in power today should take up this question seriously, especially now, in this difficult and responsible period of transition through which Poland is passing.