The Jewish Leader Sens Open Letter to Mayor Curley Exposing Record of General In Command of Poles Recruited In America.
In an open letter addressed to Mayor Curley, THE JEWISH LEADER a local newspaper charges that General Josef Haller, Polish Commander-in-Chief, who is soon to visit this city, is a notorious anti-Semite, having been proved guilty of numerous atrocities against the Jews of Poland, and as such is not fit to be received as an official guest of the city of Boston.
The letter quotes official Polish documents to prove that General Haller was guilty of perpetrating excesses upon Jews, and says that any official recognition accorded to the General would be an affront to the Jews of this city as well as all other decent and fair-minded citizens.
Addressed to the Mayor, the letter reads as follows:
“It has been reported that General Josef Haller, the Polish military commander-in-Chief, who has been invited to this country by the American Legion, is to be the guest of this city. We wish to express our deep sense of regret that the City should sponsor the visit of this notorious General and we earnestly request that you deny to General Haller any official reception or honors that may in any way be construed as a manifestation of esteem toward him on the part of the City of Boston.
“Such honors should be reserved for men and women of distinction, for such as have earned universal fame and the admiration of their fellow men. General Haller cannot by any stretch of imagination be included in this category. Nothing that he has done entitles him to distinction and recognition, but on the other hand, what he has done, entitles him to a niche in the Hall of Hamans.
“General Haller is condemned in the eyes of the civilized world as the man who is guilty of those bloody outrages against the Jewish population in Poland, which occasioned the world-wide protest in 1919. His soldiers, the notorious “Hallerites”, who, strange to say, were legionnaires brought from America, committed the most dastandly crimes against innocent and defenseless men and women, whose sons were dying on the battlefields for the sake of Poland’s liberty. General Haller was branded as a criminal by his own government.
“Captain Peter Wright, a member of the British Mission to Poland, in his report to the British Government, in 1920, made the following statement regarding anti-Jewish excesses in Poland:
“The worst offenders are soldiers, and the worst soldiers in this respect are those of General Haller’s army, which was largely recruited in America”.
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.
