Polish Envoy in London Denies Anti-semitism, Says Situation is Misrepresented

The Polish Ambassador to Great Britain denied to a delegation representing the Board of Deputies of British Jews and other Jewish organizations here today that there was any anti-Semitic intent in the recent events in Poland and said he was deeply disturbed by what he claimed was a misrepresentation of those events by the delegation.

The delegation, headed by Alderman Michael Fiddler, president of the Board of Deputies, included representatives of the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women and the Inter-University Jewish Federation. They visited the Polish envoy to protest Poland’s official campaign to blame Jews — characterized as “Zionist” elements in Poland — for recent student unrest and riots and urged that the campaign be called off immediately to prevent a dangerous situation from developing further. The Ambassador agreed that an opportunity should be found in the very near future for the Polish Government to clarify its views on the matter.

The delegation noted that mounting a campaign against a handful of surviving Polish Jews, the remnant of three million who were destroyed by the Nazis, could serve only to discredit the Polish Government in international circles, to encourage neo-fascist and neo-Nazi elements wherever they exist and to invite comparison between the present Warsaw government and the avowedly anti-Semitic pre-war Poland regimes. Any attempt to make 20,000 Polish Jews the scapegoat for internal dissensions in Polish with which they have nothing to do is “both evil and grotesque.” they said. They reminded the Ambassador that Jews have lived on Polish soil for a thousand years, that this was Human Rights Year and that Poland was about to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.