Polish Jewish ex-serviceman who bore arms under the Polish flag in the struggle against Nazi Germany in World War II bitterly denounced the Communist regime in Warsaw last night for its current campaign to blame Poland’s small surviving Jewish community for inciting student unrest in that country. At a mass rally held by the Polish Jewish Ex-serviceman Association here, speaker after speaker, among them representatives of British-Jewish ex-servicemen and a former leader of the Polish underground resistance army, voiced “bitterness” and “disgust” with what they branded a”shameful anti-Semitic campaign.” They pointed out the irony of that campaign taking place in the middle of Human Rights Year and on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising which the Polish Government itself planned to celebrate.
Rabbi M, Steinberg, a rabbinical court official and former Polish Army chaplain, addressing the rally pointed out that “there are student demonstrations everywhere, east and west, but it took Poland to make Jews the scapegoats for such demonstrations. Many of the students have never seen a Jewish face. But now they are told it was the Jews who brought them out to the streets,” he said.
Juzef Galinski, former Polish underground leader, said he wished to associate himself and his comrades with the protest. He said that those who are conducting the anti-Semitic campaign do not speak for the Polish nation which rejects “such a disgusting campaign.”
The rally adopted a resolution denouncing the anti-Jewish campaign as a “Nazi-type propaganda drive against Polish Jews.”
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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.
