Polish Education Minster Hits Segregation Demands; Army Ban Shelved

Jews were heartened today by the apparent shelving of proposals to bar Jews from the army and the Education Minister’s address in Parliament warning that the drive to segregate Jews in universities might weaken the country and “push Poland to anarchy.”

Plans announced by Deputy Bakon to prohibit Jews from serving in the army were not included in the Parliament agenda, reportedly because of army leaders’ opposition.

The War Ministry is the only ministry in which there is no anti-Jewish discrimination, declared Deputy Leib Minzberg, announcing Jewish deputies’ support of the War Ministry budget. He said that the army had not been injected with anti-Semitic poison, adding that the Jewish deputies’ vote signified the solidarity of the Jewish population with the army.

Declaring it was impossible to ignore anti-Jewish outbursts in almost all universities “stimulated by the wish to drive the Jews out of colleges even by terror,” Education Minister Swietoslawski declared: “I consider it impossible to order segregation.”

The Minister warned that other universities would be closed like Wilno University if necessary. He emphasized that 50,000 students risked losing a year’s study if institutions were closed. He expressed regret that some older persons were supporting the demands of anti-Semitic youths for Segregation of Jews.

The number of Jews in Polish universities and colleges has dropped to the point where it does not exceed the proportion of Jews in the general population, and Education Ministry spokesman declared, speaking on the Ministry’s budget.

Jewish circles pointed out that he had failed to specify the proportion of Jewish students was much smaller in such colleges as medicine, dentistry and law, and that they were being pushed into the so-called non-practical facilities like philosophy, history and the natural sciences.