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Soviet Body Cheers Denunciation of Chetto Benches at Polish School

November 3, 1939
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G.E.R. Gedye, New York Times correspondent in Moscow, reported today that the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) loudly applauded when a deputy denounce the ghetto benches in Lwow University, a “custon taken over by the Poles from the Soviet moment — Nazi Germany,” as the correspondent put it.

According to the Times account, the deputy “told of what he had seen of Polish persecution of Ukrainian and Jewish minorities, including restrictions upon the use of their own language and national customs. He told how, even after the occupation of Lwow by the Red Army, he had visited Lwow University and found a large number of students in a lecture room standing while others were seated, with many benches empty.

“On inquiry he discovered that those standing were all Jewish students who had been ordered to do so for several years and had been so beaten and terrorized by Poles that they dared not break the habits forced upon them by continued terror even thought the Red Army was within the gates of the city.”

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