The Ministry of Education closed all high schools and colleges in Warsaw today as disorders arising from Nationalist attempts to force Jewish students to occupy “ghetto” benches in classrooms spread from Wilno to this city, Lwow and Cracow.
Many Jewish students of the Technical High School here, which was founded by the Jewish industrialist Wavelberg, were severely beaten by Nationalist students of the school. The anti-Semitic students wrecked the quarters of the Jewish Students’ Union.
Meanwhile, police guarded all entrances to school buildings to prevent occupation by Nationalist students seeking to enforce anti-Jewish demands.
With a cordon of police surrounding the grounds of the University of Warsaw, prevented by the school’s autonomy from entering, 800 Nationalists who had occupied the buildings yesterday were still barricaded there.
Demands of the Warsaw University students for anti-Jewish restrictions are being coupled with agitation for reduced tuition fees.
With Wilno still in a ferment from a four-day student “hunger strike,” new anti-Jewish excesses broke out in that city over a report that a Jew had stabbed a Christian child. It later developed a nine-year-old Polish boy had stabbed Meir Rabinowicz, seven-year-old Jewish child, who was in the hospital today.
A number of Jews were severely injured in the disorders. Windows of Jewish houses were broken. Thirty-eight persons were arrested, including some Jews. Ten Jews were seized at the headquarters of the Maccabee sports organization.
Jewish leaders consulted with police authorities and the Wilno governor. The latter promised strong measures to end disorders. Jewish communal heads decided at a meeting to draw up a register of injured persons and damages.
Several students were arrested after Nationalists had stoned Rector Jacowicki’s house in protest against the compromise measure offered them following the end of their “hunger strike.”
Before last night’s demonstration, the governor of Wilno received two Jewish delegations and promised measures to avoid recurrence of Sunday’s excesses.
The governor said the authorities would not differentiate between Jews and non-Jews and all guilty of participating in disorders would be punished.
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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.
