An attempt to “explain” the anti-Semitism of pre-war Poland is made by the Polish Students Association in Great Britain in a booklet entitled “Polish Youth, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” issued today by the Polish Ministry of Propaganda.
Declaring that Polish anti-Semitism flows from the conflict of economic interests and not from a sense of racial superiority, the authors of the booklet emphasize that anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland resulted from the fact that the country had a large Jewish population, the majority of whom lived in towns. The booklet quotes statistics to show that “proportionally the number of Jewish students was larger than Polish.”
“It is only natural,” the publication says, “that such a state of affairs should create a whole series of economic problems.” It points cut that “the unpreportional percentage of Jews in the Polish universities resulted in pretests and even in action on the part of the Polish youth groups who wished to restore balance in the professions.” It mentions that a numerous clauses of ten percent was instituted against Jews in the medical colleges in Poland, but adds that “such restriction was, however, never introduced in Poland by law.”
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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.
