Anti-jewish Outbreaks in Polish Provincial Towns Continue: “revenge for Waclawski” Students Shout Be

The dead National Democratic student Waclawski who was killed in Vilna is being exploited as a martyr by the National Democratic Party to stir up new anti-Jewish outbreaks. (Now there is a real dead body in Vilna and the National Democrats have seized on it with ghoulish glee, inciting people by accusing the Jews of murdering a National Democratic student, the chief Government organ, the “Gazeta Polska”, wrote several days ago, adding that if it were not for the National Democrats instigating the disturbances the students would have gone on peacefully with their studies, instead of knocking each other about, so that no matter whose the hand that struck him down, it was the National Democrats who murdered Waclawski).

As part of the campaign, Waclawski’s brother has been brought down from Vilna to Warsaw and has been given a big official reception at the National Democratic Party headquarters, at which the Jews were represented as the murderers of his brother. He has now gone on to Cracow to continue his anti-Jewish propaganda there.

In the same way, memorial services are still being held for Waclawski in various towns throughout the country, usually followed by anti-Jewish demonstrations and disorders, when the congregations leave the place of worship.

At Czenstochovo, students and others coming out of the Cathedral after a memorial service had been held there for Stanislaw Waclawski, attacked Jews in the streets. The attacks were repeated in the afternoon. Antisemitic cries were raised in the streets, and windows were smashed in a number of Jewish houses. Several arrests were made by the police.

In the Warsaw suburb of Brudno, a group of National Democratic students from Warsaw went about shouting “Revenge for Waclawski!”, and beating Jews. Two Jews, Aaron Rapper and Feivish Lomstein, were injured, and the hooligans escaped before the police arrived on the scene.

Another band of hooligans attacked Jews in the Warsaw suburb of Romberchov, smashing windows in Jewish shops and in the synagogue. Fifteen of the hooligans were arrested, among them several students.

In the town of Bialystock a crowd of school youths assembled outside the Jewish Community building shouting abuse and threats against the Jews. An attack was made on one of the synagogues, and slight damage was done.

The town of Lowicz is quieter now, but isolated attacks on individual Jews are still being made. The Jewish population is complaining that the Director of the local secondary school is taking no action against the pupils who took part in the anti-Jewish demonstrations. One of the Jews injured in Lowicz, a man named Hodes, is in a critical condition.

An outcry has also been raised by the action of the Lowicz Law Court in dismissing to-day a Jewish girl named Lieberman, the only Jewish employee in the court, explaining that it has something to do with the investigation which the police are conducting into the disorders in the town. The Jewish press is demanding a real explanation of her dismissal.

Jews have been attacked also in Pabianice, near Lodz, and in Kovel Windows in Jewish houses have been smashed and several Jews have been beaten by school youths in the streets.

At this evening’s session of the Warsaw City Council a resolution was introduced by some of the members protesting against the anti-Jewish disturbances, and appealing to the population to keep the peace. The National Democratic members vigorously opposed the resolution, and finally walked out of the meeting hall, so that there was no quorum, and the Council had to adjourn without proceeding with the resolution.

At the same time the “Gazeta Warszawska” and the other National Democratic papers which at first were conducting a virulent agitation against the Jews, are refraining from publishing any further anti-Jewish incitement. It is suggested that the two sections of the National Democratic Party, which respectively instigated and opposed that anti-Jewish outbreaks, have agreed that for the present the Party Press should suspend its activities in connection with the outbreaks until the Party as such has decided its attitude. A prominent National Democratic Party leader, whose name is not given, has told the Yiddish daily “Moment” that the outbreaks were instigated by the Radical section of the Party without the consent of the official Party leaders, who immediately tried to stem the agitation. The anti-Jewish character was only a pretext, he added, because it is generally agreed that the Jews have in the past year delivered up their quota of Jewish corpses for dissection, and that the numbers of Jewish students at the Universities now is no greater than when the National Democratic Minister of Education, Professor Glombinski, was in office.

The Radical section of the National Democratic Party was, however, anxious to start a series of disturbances all over the country to embarrass the Government, and made use of the ever-popular anti-Jewish slogan, so that actually the Jews were the innocent victims of the warfare of the National Democratic Opposition against the Government.

Meanwhile, Warsaw itself remains quiet, but in Jewish circles there is a fear that it may be only a lull before another storm.