J. D. B. News Letter

A distressing picture of the extent of the misery and despair that exists among Polish Jewry has been painted in Parliament by two of the Jewish Deputies of the Government Party, Deputy Jaeger, of Lvov, and Deputy Minzberg, the President of the Jewish Community of Lodz, and one of the leaders of the Polish Agudath Israel.

The system that has been pursued by the Government in economic life hitherto must be radically changed in many directions, said Deputy Jaeger. In trading and artisanship one must now speak not only of a crisis, but of complete liquidation. This is so particularly in Jewish trading and Jewish artisanship, on which two million Jews are dependent for their living. The twelfth hour has already struck for them. Only the ruins are left, and if the Government wants to do anything to help them it must not lose one minute, or it will be too late.

In travelling through the townships of Galicia, Deputy Jaeger went on, I have come into personal contact with the plight of the small traders and the small artisans, and I am really seized with horror when I think how these people live. From every part of the country there is a cry of woe going up —one vast prayer for help, and from all that I have seen I am convinced that this cry for help is but a pale reflection of the terrible reality. There is no longer any material left for a study of the Jewish question in Poland. We are now faced with the immediate necessity of salvaging millions of broken lives.

There are in Poland today two million starving Jews, who till recently were still trading and working.

In dealing with their problem, we must not think for one minute of the fact that these starving people are Jews. Above all, the State must not think of that. It must not look on with indifference while tens of thousands of trading and artisan licenses held by Jews are lapsing, depriving of every means of existence immense numbers of people who have always distinguished themselves by their capacity and industry, with considerable advantage to the State. Something must be done. Something immediate. A real program to be carried into effect at once; no waiting for reports, no appointment of commissions of inquiry. We must put a stop instantly to this process of pauperization of the Jewish population, because it creates a grave menace to the State as a whole.

I do not doubt the goodwill of the Government in regard to the Jewish question, Deputy Jaeger went on, but the differences between the Centre and the Wings of the Government Party result in hitting the Jewish population. The extermination policy which is being applied against Jews, the withdrawal of licenses from Jews who have grown grey at their work in the tobacco, alcohol, salt and other concessions, that is certainly not the intention of the Government.

The taxation policy is killing trading and pauperizing the entire Jewish population, and yet there are plenty of demagogues who go about trying to make the Jews the scapegoat for all the difficulties in Poland. And they are not content even with that. They carry on a subterranean campaign of incitement to outbursts against the Jewish population.

It is essential, cried Deputy Jaeger to take in hand at once a big plan of shifting the structural strata of the Jewish masses. Part must be diverted to agriculture, part to the factories, and part into other productive occupations. The Jewish Communities could draw up such a plan in conjunction with the Government and local authorities. A conference should be called forthwith of representatives of the Jewish Communities, the authorities and the economic organizations.

The Jewish population believes Deputy Jaeger concluded, that the Government in which it has confidence will carry out its wish.

The specific conditions of Jewish life in Poland are such, said Deputy Minzberg, that with the best will in the world the speeches of the Jewish representatives must be mingled to a