Poland Grossly Violating Minority Rights of Jews Institute of Politics Told; is Largely Responsible

The Institute of Politics in session here was informed yesterday of Poland’s violation of the minority treaties as relates to Jews in both the economic and educational fields by Max J. Kohler, prominent Jewish legal authority and communal worker.

Mr. Kohler, who assisted in the drafting of the minorities clauses of the peace treaties at the Paris Peace Conference, aroused the ire of Edward Weintal, press attache of the Polish Embassy, who was present at the round table discussion.

Mr. Kohler charged that most of the distress suffered by the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland, who comprise about a fourth of all the Jews in the world, may be laid to the door of Poland for its violation of the specific provisions intended to safeguard the rights of the Jews.

The very first articles of the Polish Minorities Treaty prohibiting civil, political, religious and linguistic discriminations have been grossly violated from the outset and are still being violated, while the Czaristic laws continued in force until last year.

The representation of 40 to which the Jews were entitled on the basis of population and membership at large in the lower house of the Polish Legislature was reduced, as was also the right of the Jews to 7 members in the Senate.

Further, says Mr. Kohler, a decree in 1927 forbade the use of Yiddish and Hebrew in public assemblies in Galicia while the use of these languages for transmitting telegraph and telephone messages was seriously curtailed.

The right of the Jews to enter various professions and public life have been curtailed by what Mr. Kohler termed “ingenious restrictions not specifically naming the Jews.”

Mr. Kohler asserts further that the lack of adequate schools which has brought about the curtailment of the entrance of Jews to vocational, secondary, high schools and universities, is further aggravated by the failure of the government to assign “equitable shares” of public funds for the Jewish schools which serve as substitutes for the public schools closed to them. The government, he said, has persisted in granting the Jewish schools a mere pittance despite the numerous protests.

The infractions of the economic treaty rights are absolutely crushing in their effect upon the Jews, Mr. Kohler states. The Jews, he points out, bear the burden of taxation, paying about 31% of the taxes even though they constitutetion system, he says, has been so devised as to fall upon the urban population, the Jews being mostly city dwellers, while the majority of the Polish population is rural.

The Land Reform initiated by the government for the purpose of reducing the agricultural population has also hit the Jews. This it did, he said, “by forcing landed proprietors owning more than a certain amount of land to sell but 10% of the population. The taxa-the surplus with a view to investing the proceeds in the cities and inducing their employees to move from the country to the cities. But practically all of these were non-Jews, though business and trade competitors for the Jewish city-dwellers thus suddenly arose. In order to aid these non-Jewish transplanted farm laborers and their Christian city-dwelling competitors, the government next embarked on a series of State enterprises. It established large credit funds, which were loaned to city traders, industrialists and employees, but practically shut the Jews out of the receipt of such aid. Next, they proceeded to nationalize whole industries in which the Jews had been largely employed and then appointed as Government employees therein practically only non-Jews. One important industry after another was thus nationalized, including the tobacco, salt and alcohol industries, Jewish employees being forced to give way to Christians. It has been estimated that more than 700,000 Jews had been deprived of the means of earning their livelihood by these devices before the economic depression set in,” Mr. Kohler asserted.

Mr. Weintal, the Polish Embassy’s press attache, took issue with the statements made by Mr. Kohler and asserted that the application of minorities treaties to the situation of Polish Jews has no practical value whatsoever. He claimed that there has not been a single instance of a petition by a Jewish minority being submitted to the League of Nations under the terms of the minorities treaties.

Referring to Mr. Kohler’s charges regarding the taxation system, Mr. Weintal asserted that the system as devised places the greater responsibility upon the commercial and industrial population, of which the Jews form a large part.