Lehman Says Jews Must Be Allowed into Palestine in Message to Kielce Memorial Meeting

Large-scale immigration into Palestine “must be permitted immediately” as the “only chance for security and peace” for many of Europe’s Jews, former Governor Herbert H. Lehman declared tonight in a message to a memorial meeting at the Hotel New Yorker for the victims of last week’s pogrom in Kielce. The meeting was under the auspices of the American Federation for Polish Jews.

So long as the Jews remain in Poland, Mr. Lehman said, “they must be assured of full protection and the restoration of their rights.” He added that he believed the Polish Government was making a “sincere effort” to stop anti-Semitic outbreaks. “The cowardly, bestial attacks on innocent men, women and children in Kielce and other parts of Poland has shocked the conscience of humanity,” he declared.

Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, president of the American and World Federations for Polish Jews, addressing the meeting, charged the British Government with giving aid to the instigators of anti-Jewish terrorism in Poland. Great Britain, he added, “does not want a strong, democratic Poland. In Poland as elsewhere Britain exercises its old doctrine divide et empera (divide and reign) with almost Macchiavellian finesse. To achieve its purpose Britain supports, finances and harbors on its soil the most sinister coterie of reactionary forces of the old Polish regime which antedated Hitler in anti-Semitic ferocity.”