So rigid a censorship was maintained by the authorities over the press, that it was not until December 6th, eleven days after the anti-Semitic excesses had been initiated in Lemberg, that Polish Jewry even in the capital city of Warsaw was aware of the extent and seriousness of the disturbances.
Foreign public opinion was more fully aware of the gravity of the events and their sweeping character than was Polish Jewry, as a result of the strict watch maintained by the Polish censor. These disclosures are made in an article which appears in the “Morning Journal,” written by A. Seltzer, the paper’s Warsaw correspondent.
The Jewish press, Mr. Seltzer says, was dependent upon the official Polish Telegraphic Agency for its reports of the riots, in which 500 persons suffered injury, he says, and were advised by the authorities to print only the “Pat” stories. Days passed, he says, without the papers receiving either telephoned or telegraphic reports from their correspondents in Lemberg.
When papers from abroad arrived, describing the extent of the excesses, the reports were received with skepticism and regarded as exaggerated.
It was not until December 6th, when the Club of Jewish Deputies submitted its interpellation to the Polish Sejm, in which the disturbances were described in detail and the Jewish injured listed, that the Jewish press and the Jewish Community were informed of the actuality. The interpellation was permitted publication, only because the law provides that all documents submitted to the Sejm may be published, Mr. Seltzer revealed.
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.
