The Administration must take a stronger position at once to alleviate the plight of Jews in Communist Poland, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. New York Democrat seeking the Presidential nomination, said here today. Kennedy said he deemed the Administration’s response to the Polish Government’s anti-Semitism “to be inadequate in view of the worsening dilemma of the Jews in that country.”
He referred to the meeting of the Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last week with State Department officials, indicating that the Government should have taken a public stand against the mounting wave of anti-Semitism in Poland. Kennedy said, “now is the time for action. There are appropriate steps we can take as a Government to dramatize to the authorities in Warsaw that we abhor their increasing application of political anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism.” He stressed that the U.S. “cannot tolerate the revival of anti-Semitism in a land where so many innocent men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.”
He urged that “the Polish Government honor its statement that Jews would be allowed to leave Poland and immediately issue exit visas to all those who want to go.” He advocated “emergency refugee legislation in the Congress in Washington to allow Jews, many of whom are concentration camp survivors, to find refuge in the U.S. He added that “this is more than just an anti-Semite campaign. It is an attack on freedom itself. Anti-Semitism is being used in an attempt to blame Jews for emerging new demands for liberty that are heard from the Polish people and to confuse the issue.”
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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.
