Scores of Jews fled from suburbs of Czestochowa today before anti-Jewish attacks spreading from the Western Polish city, where serious rioting broke out over the weekend. Complete order reigned within the city today.
Jewish families sought refuge in the center of the city or neighboring towns of Bedzin and Zawiercie while rioters set fire to a Jewish-owned timber yard and attacked a flour-mill owned by Abraham Brettler and a cabinet factory.
Many Jews were injured, at least five of them seriously, and homes and shops pillaged or set afire in the disorders which followed the murder of a Polish railway porter, allegedly by a Jewish butcher.
With tension at a high pitch, the Czestochowa Jewish Community began to register damages suffered by the Jews. The five wounded Jews are Abraham Plawner, Moilach Shapiro, Josef Czestochonski, Grillek, and Dr. Ignacy Schreiber, a high school teacher.
Reports received here listed twenty large stores and scores of smaller ones demolished during the weekend’s rioting. The Yiddish daily Haint said the rioters shouted, “Long live the national police!” as they attacked Jews’ houses and shops.
In an appeal to the city’s inhabitants, the Mayor of Czestochowa warned them not to take recourse to lynch law to avenge the murder of the porter, Stefan Baran.
“Such regrettable incidents harm not only the name of Czestochowa as a religious center of Poland, but the whole Polish State and people,” the Mayor declared.
A check-up today showed that during the rioting, which began Saturday night, the houses of the Jewish tradesmen, Koppel and Haberman, a baker named Eilenberg and a carpenter named Weissenberg were completely demolished, even the bedding cut up and the feathers scattered.
Several large bombs were hurled at Jewish houses, including that of the industrialist, Dr. Leopold Cohn, which was damaged.
Senator Moses Schorr, chief rabbi of Warsaw, intervened with the Interior Ministry, demanding that the authorities take more energetic steps to save the lives and property of the Czestochowa Jews, who number 26,000 in a population of 120,000.
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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.
