The District Governor of Lwow and the police department of that city are accused of direct responsibility for the anti-Semitic excesses there, because they failed to take adequate precautions to prevent the disturbances whose imminence was evident a fortnight before they occurred, in an interpellation submitted today by the Club of Jewish Deputies to the Polish Sejm.
At the outset of the disturbances, the police of Lwow were not only passive but actually sided with the attackers, the interpellation charges, and cites instances to support its contention that from first to last, the police sympathized with the rioters. Jews who defended themselves were arrested while the police refused to come to their rescue, and actually took part in the baiting of the Jews, the interpellation asserts.
The interpellation shows that in the five day period from November 26th to December 2nd, 399 Jews registered for first aid treatment. The majority of them suffered from serious head injuries as the result of being beaten up with iron bars or stabbed with knives.
The interpellation contains an exact list of all the injured with full names and addresses.
The Club of Jewish Deputies will demand that the victims be paid damages.
A fortnight before the mass attacks began, individual incidents directed against the Jews occurred in Lwow, such as the breaking of windows and attacks on Jewish stores. Jews were attacked on Szeinacha Street, especially in the evening hours. The press drew the attention of the authorities to the growing disquiet in the district and the particular danger to which the Jews, worshipping in the district synagogue, were exposed, says the Kolo memorandum.
Immediately after the death of Grotowski, the Jewish population became aware that provocation on a large scale was afoot, the memorandum says.
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.
