Jews throughout Poland today made effective a one-day general strike as a protest against stiff sentences meted out by a Radom court to eleven Jews for participation in the Przytyk pogrom of March 9 and failure to punish murderers of two Jewish victims of the excesses.
All Jewish shops in Warsaw were closed from noon until two o’clock. Demonstrations were staged in several districts of the city, police arresting some of the participants.
Non-Jewish factory workers also joined the strike. Jewish shops in Przytyk were closed all day.
All Jewish organizations participated in the strike except the Agudath Israel, extreme orthodox group. The Bund, Jewish labor organization, called its own walkout.
Jewish newspapers appeared, featuring photographs and biographies of the two Jews killed and some of the scores injured in the riots. Pictures of the convicted Jews also were published. Haint, Yiddish daily demanded that the Jewish members of Parliament resign in protest.
Reports from Lwow, Cracow, Lodz and Wilno, all large industrial centers, said the strike was completely successful.
A Christian student in Wilno asked the local rabbinate to admit him to Judaism, declaring he was determined to suffer with the persecuted Jews. He was advised to apply to the Cracow rabbinate because old Wilno laws inherited from the Russian regime forbid conversions.
The strike was the second to result from the Przytyk pogrom. Last March 17, virtually the entire Jewish population of 3,500,000, joined by Polish labor, staged a general strike in protest against the Government’s failure to check anti-Semitic excesses.
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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.
