Official Warsaw Ghetto Ceremony Occasion for Polish Attack on Jews Abroad

Poland’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Kazimierz Rusinek, used the officially sponsored memorial ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as the occasion for an attack on world Jewish organizations and leaders for allegedly ignoring desperate appeals for help from the beleaguered ghetto in 1943. According to the full text of Rusinek’s speech, delivered April 18 at the cenotaph on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto and received here today, the Polish official named the late Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, the Joint Distribution Committee, the World Jewish Congress and “the present leaders of Israel” in his charges. Rusinek’s speech was in line with the Warsaw regime’s current campaign against alleged “Zionists” and against Jewish organizations and individuals outside Poland that have branded its campaign blatant anti-Semitism.

The memorial ceremonies, according to eye-witnesses, had the aspects of a military display rather than an occasion of mourning. There was a guard of honor, a military band and army units in dress uniforms who presented arms as the Polish national anthem was played. Polish Jews were represented by the executive committee of the Jewish Social and Cultural Association, an organization that has been one of the prime targets of the regime’s attacks. Also present were the editorial staffs of the Yiddish journals, Folkstimme and Yiddishe Shriften, the staff of the Jewish Historical Institute and actors of the Yiddish State Theater, all groups that have come under attack in the Polish press in recent weeks. Groups representing Jewish cooperatives and old-age homes in Warsaw and Lodz also attended. Foreign representation was small. Only small groups from Communist-front organizations in Argentina and France attended.