Jewish Groups Urge Truman to Revoke Permission Given Anders to Visit United States

The American Federation for Polish Jews, acting in behalf of a number of Jewish organizations, has called on President Truman to deny an audience to the former commander of the Polish Second Corps, General Wladyslaw Anders. It has also asked that the President act to revoke permission granted to General Anders to come to the United States.

Organizations endorsing this action include: Federation of Ukrainian Jews; Federation of White Russian Jews; Riga-Latvian Relief; Borisover Relief Society; Progressive Workmen’s Circle Committee.

In the letter to the President, the Federation called General Anders “an arch enemy of the Jewish people” and “a moving spirit behind anti-Jewish activities in Europe and the Near East.” The letter cited a long record of criminal activities perpetrated by Anders’ army composed in part of 30,000 former Wehrmacht men, officered by unregenerate Nazis, some of them former chiefs of extermination camps. The record includes:

1. Discrimination against and persecution of Jews in his army as well as of civilian evacuees in the Polish camps in the Near East and Italy.

2. Excesses by his troops in Palestine, including the murder of peaceful Jewish settlers in Rehovoth in September, 1946. These troops, evacuated from Jewish Palestine, later served as mercenaries in the feudal Arab armies which invaded Israel in May, 1948.

3. Numberless murders and pogroms of Jews in Poland, including the Kielce pogrom in 1946, which were directly attributed to Anders’ headquarters in Britain.

Denouncing General Anders’ visit as not only “an affront to all American Jews,” but as “an attempt to extend anti-Semitic activities to American soil,” the American Federation for Polish Jews concluded by requesting President Truman to deny Anders’ request for an audience and to use his influence to cancel the General’s visit as “undesirable and unwelcome.”