Yiddish is the language of instruction in nine elementary and three high schools in Poland, but their textbooks are filled with Communist propaganda that exerts considerable influence on the minds of the youngsters, it was reported here today by a refugee interviewed on Radio Free Europe, the American radio station that broadcasts to the satellite states of the Soviet bloc.
Daily services are being held in Lodz and Wroclaw, the former German city of Breslau, he said, whereas the synagogue in Warsaw opens its doors only on the Sabbath, While kosher butcher shops still exist in the centers of Jewish settlement, their number is dwingling.
All cultural affairs, as well as old age homes and orphanages, are run by the Communist-directed “Jewish Cultural and Social Union.” Its literary magazine “Yiddishe Shriften” has a circulation of 5,000. Four times a week it publishes a Yiddish paper, the “Folkshtimme.” One of the most meritorious institutions left in Poland, the Jewish Historical Institute at Warsaw, employs a staff of 18.
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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.
