Protests Held in Paris, Elsewhere Against Upcoming Secret Trials in Poland

More than a thousand Frenchmen – members of Parliament and former Cabinet ministers among them – attended a rally organized by the French Union of Eastern European Jews to protest the anti-Semitic measures of the Polish Government and the cultural and religious repression of Soviet Jews. The principal speaker, Gen. Pierre Koenig, charged that the Soviet and Polish Governments were “directing the anti-Semitic movements” all over Eastern Europe. Salomon Friederich, speaking on behalf of the sponsoring group, declared that Hitler and Stalin were “not dead but have, on the contrary, formed a new alliance.”

The rally coincided with the beginnings of world-wide student protests against the secret trials that the Warsaw regime will start shortly against Jewish students and faculty members arrested last spring for allegedly instigating the uprising of Polish students who demanded democratic reforms.

(Jewish and non-Jewish students in London began an all-night silent vigil outside the Polish Embassy and the private residence of the Polish Ambassador to protest the forthcoming trials. Similar demonstrations were held on university campuses in London and in the provinces. They were organized by the World Union of Jewish Students who were joined by various non-Jewish student groups in proclaiming Nov. 18 a day of international protest against the student trials. Cables denouncing the trials were sent by student groups to Secretary-General U Thant of the United Nations, to the British Foreign Office and to the Polish Embassy.)

(In Tel Aviv today, local students Joined the movement with the publication of protest statements directed to the Warsaw regime. They denounced the use of anti-Semitism as a weapon in Poland’s internal political struggles and expressed concern over the safety of the surviving Jewish community in that country. The students said their protest was not against the Communist regime in Warsaw but against a regime that exploited anti-Semitism.)

(In Buenos Aires today Zionist students sent a letter to the Polish Ambassador, Bernard Bogdanski, calling the planned trials “discriminatory.” They wrote that the fact that many of the students facing trial are Jewish “indicates a form of discrimination inconsistent with the principles of Justice and equality, and tarnish the Socialist tradition.” Jewish students at the University of Buenos Aires cabled the Ambassador, “We are deeply concerned by the arrests and trials of students in Poland as we protest and request their freedom. Stop discriminatory measures against Jews.”

Also in Buenos Aires, Argentine Jews of Polish origin drafted a note of protest to be sent to Wladyslaw Gomulka, newly re-elected head of the Polish Communist Party, in which they demanded an end to the persecution of Poland’s small surviving Jewish population. The situation of Polish Jews was discussed at a meeting which took note of the continuing “anti-Zionist” campaign in Poland; the purge of the last Jew from the Warsaw Politburo – Vice Premier Eugeniusz Szyr; and secret trials, which will soon start, of Jewish students and faculty members. The meeting resolved to ask Mr. Gomulka to permit Jews to emigrate to be reunited with their families in Israel and to permit Jews remaining in Poland to continue Jewish lives and maintain contacts with Jews abroad.)