At least 100 Jews were injured this week—one of them fatally—in anti-Jewish riots which took place in different parts of Poland. In the city of Grodno alone there were sixty Jewish victims.
The Polish authorities confiscated the newspaper which reported the details of the riot. It has also seen to it that the news of these riots should not reach the foreign press.
These are the first riots which have broken out since the death of Marshal Pilsudski. The Polish authorities claim that the riots were organized by underworld elements. According to press reports from Warsaw it seems, however, that they were inspired by anti-Semitic political parties.
ALL EYES ON THE MARSHAL’S SUCCESSOR
The eyes of Polish Jewry are now turned towards General Edward Rydz-Smigly, successor to Marshal Pilsudski, and towards Premier Valery Slawek who was Pilsudski’s right-hand man. Should these two leaders of the present Polish regime fail to take the same strong measures against anti-Jewish excesses as did the late Pilsudski, then there is reason to fear that the riots of this week are only the beginning of a series of anti-Jewish events on a large scale.
Delegations from the Jewish communities where the riots took place appeared before the central government in Warsaw to plead for protection. While thirty Poles are now under arrest as the ringleaders of the riots, at least 300 Jews in Grodno alone registered as having suffered heavy property damages.
The riots in Grodno started from a clash between Jewish and Polish youths in a dance hall. A Polish youth was stabbed. This was the signal for an organized attack on Jewish pedestrians, for smashing windows of Jewish houses and for pillaging Jewish stores.
As the police did not display sufficient activity in checking the wild mob, a Jewish self-defense was organized on the spot to protect Jewish life and property. Eight of the leaders of the self-defense were arrested. They were, however, later released when the authorities established that nothing remained for the Jews to do but to defend themselves as best they could.
PANIC LASTED OVER THREE DAYS
The panic in Grodno lasted more than three days during which Jews were afraid to appear on the streets. Mothers feared to send their children to school. At least a dozen of the sixty Jews injured in Grodno are still in the hospitals. One Jewish youth was stabbed to death by the rioters.
The excesses in Grodno found an echo in the city of Suwalki and in two other townships where similar anti-Jewish excesses were staged by organized anti-Semitic forces. The excesses broke out by a whistle signalizing that everything was ready to start the riot.
While the riots took place in the provinces, the leaders of the Government Party started negotiations with Jewish leaders in Warsaw to secure the support of the Jewish population in the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The Jews were offered by the Government Party six seats in the Polish parliament.
AGUDATH ISRAEL SCHOOLS PUT ON PUBLIC BASIS
Simultaneously, the government proclaimed the religious schools of the Agudath Israel, a Jewish orthodox pro-government party, as full-fledged elementary public schools, privileged to enjoy the same rights as government schools.
The schools maintained by the Agudath Israel are only a small fraction of the general school system in Poland which receives no government subsidy and enjoys no special rights. Of the 160,000 children attending Jewish schools in Poland a very small proportion attend the religious schools of the Agudath. The majority of Jewish parents send their children to the modern Jewish schools where all subjects are taught in Yiddish or in Hebrew. These modern schools were ignored by the government this week while special rights were given to the religious schools of the Agudath.
KAHN REPORTS ON POLISH SURVEY
A graphic picture of the Jewish situation in Poland today, not long after the death of Pilsudski, was given this week in New York by Dr. Bernhard Kahn, European director of the American Joint Distribution Committee. Dr. Kahn just returned from a survey which he made in Poland, and his report to the Joint Distribution Committee in New York is heartbreaking.
Dr. Kahn relates in his report that almost all of the 160,000 Jewish children of school age come to their clasrooms hungry, since even bread is a luxury in their homes. He reports that in Warsaw alone 60,000 Jews depend on bread-lines and soup kitchens. A million Jews of all ages—a third of the entire Jewish population—lives on charity. Doctors, lawyers and other professionals have been reduced to a starvation level. About 150,000 Jewish workers are unemployed and have no unemployment insurance. Jewish industrialists are being squeezed out of their positions by heavy taxation and by all kinds of economic restrictions. Among those considered as employed are people earning just a dollar or two a week.
SITUATION LIKENED TO FAMINE YEARS
The situation of Polish Jewry is now back to where it was during the famine years which were experienced in Poland immediately after the war. Jews are dying of hunger and the necessity of opening soup kitchens to feed thousands of them is one of the immediate problems.
The Polish government does nothing for its unfortunate Jewish citizens, although it realizes that the economic ruin of millions of Jews must soon affect the entire country. Leaving the Jews to their fate the Polish government continues to add pressure to their economic life by all kinds of economic discriminations.
Side by side with the gloomy picture drawn by Dr. Kahn on the Jewish situation in Poland, is the report on the prosperity in the Jewish colonies in Crimea which was made public this week by the Soviet government. While Jewish children in Poland suffer hunger, the Jewish children in the Crimean Jewish colonies enjoy good nourishment and are well provided for. Not a single Jewish colony in Crimea is without a school. Not a single Jewish settlement there is without medical care. Food is plentiful not only for the youth but for everybody. Life goes on without any worries for the future.
THOUSANDS DREAM OF GOING TO SOVIET
Under such circumstances there is little wonder that hundreds of thousands of Jews in Poland dream of proceeding to Soviet Russia. There may be no place for them in Crimea, but the Soviet government is firm in its decision to permit Polish Jews to settle in Biro-Bidjan for which an added four million roubles were allocated this week by the Soviet government to promote the Jewish agricultural work there.
The sad life of the Jews in Poland as compared with the life of the Jews in Soviet Russia is stimulating not only Polish Jews to proceed to Biro-Bidjan but also Jews from the Baltic countries, and from Rumania, particularly from the Bessarabian part of Rumania which formerly belonged to Russia and where the entire population is suffering under the Rumanian regime.
QUOTA SYSTEM FOR RUMANIAN UNIVERSITIES
A decisive step against the Jews in Rumania was taken this week by the Minister of Education, Dr. Constantin Angelescu, who ordered all universities in Rumania to make drastic cuts in the number of students in the Rumanian universities. These cuts will affect the national minorities and chiefly the Jews, since the entire issue revolves around the question of how to reduce the number of Jews in the professions of medicine, law and in commerce.
This order of the Rumanian Minister of Education means that the campaign which the anti-Semitic student bodies in Rumania carried on during the last few months against Jewish students has had successful results for these bodies. The order is obviously a capitulation of the present government to the demand of Dr. Vaida-Voevod, former Rumanian Premier, who has insisted that a “numerus valachius” be introduced in Rumania to eliminate the Jews from commerce and the professions.
FALSE REPORT FROM ALBANIA
A false alarm was given this week with a report that the Albanian government invites Jews for settlement in Albania. This report was, however, denied from Tirana, the capital of Albania. Members of the government explained that only those who wish to invest capital in Albania will be permitted to enter the country. Even in the case of such immigrants, the applications for entrance will be closely examined, the Minister for Public Welfare made clear in his explanation.
This again leaves Palestine and Biro-Bidjan the only places still open for Jewish immigration. There are naturally more people anxious to proceed to Palestine than to Biro-Bidjan, but there are many Jews, especially among the youth and the artisans, who would be willing to proceed to Biro-Bidjan if they were only given the facilities to do so.
ZIONISM SUFFERS GREAT LOSS IN DR. LEVIN’S DEATH
The Jews in Palestine and the Zionists all over the world suffered a great loss this week when Dr. Shmarya Levin, the veteran Zionist leader, died suddenly last Sunday in Haifa. Dr. Levin was one of the most brilliant orators in the Zionist movement and was considered the most able organizer. He organized the Zionist movement in America in the years after the War and was also responsible for bringing the Jews in Germany nearer to Zionism. He was buried in Tel Aviv side by side with Bialik and Achaad Ha’am.
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.
