Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Miecyzlaw Rakowsky and Religious Affairs Minister Jerzy Kubersky have pledged their government’s efforts to combat any outbreaks of anti-Semitism in their country, it was reported here yesterday by American Joint Distribution Committee president Henry Toub and JDC executive vice president Ralph Goldman. They said the two Polish officials told them during their visit to Poland last week that “the welfare of the Jewish community is our concern and that of all Polish citizens.”
Taub and Goldman held a press conference to report on the reopening of direct JDC efforts to aid Poland’s estimated 6,000 Jews after a 14-year break. The direct aid program was cut off following the Six-Day War. The JDC leaders said nearly 2,000 Polish Jews, most of them aged, subsist on JDC aid and indicated that the martial law regime was cooperating with the JDC in its work. Taub said he felt that Jews in Poland were not suffering more from anti-Semitism today than before martial law was imposed on the country last December. He and Goldman said the Polish leadership had also promised efforts to encourage “cultural” life for the country’s Jews. The government was making plans to mark officially the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising this year and there would be government efforts to rehabilitate ancient Jewish synagogues in Warsaw and Lodz, the JDC officials said.
They reported that the JDC was able to send into Poland, for Jews there, 925 aid packages via Frankfurt during January and another 925 packages were scheduled shortly to go to Jews in Kattowice and Wroclaw. The JDC officials said this aid was financed by Jewish communities in Western Europe.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
