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Jewish Legislators in Poland Pledge Fight on Anti-semitic Bills; Refute “outsiders” Charge

May 26, 1938
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Sharply refuting an assertion by the Government’s Camp of National Unity that Polish Jewry was outside the nation, the Jewish Deputies Club today declared it would combat every attempt to introduce anti-Jewish legislation” founded on alien models and based on the ideology of brute force.”

The statement was in reply to the party’s contention, adopted after a three-day conference devoted chiefly to discussion of the Jewish question, that Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews constituted a political factor connected with the general Jewish group outside the Polish State, had separate national aims, weakened Polish national forces and interfered with national evolution.

The club, comprising Jewish members of Parliament, warned that such a contention could be applied to every national minority and would only lead to separation of minorities and weakening of the State. Its application to the Jewish minority, the club asserted, was merely a “hypocritical pretext” to justify other points in the Camp’s program aiming to deprive Polish Jews of their civil rights.

Pledging to fight anti-Jewish legislation, the club stated that the Jewish population would not bow to lawlessness and would not surrender its rights and possibilities of a cultural, social and economic life, but would battle obstinately for equality and preservation of constitutional rights in letter and spirit.

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