Jewish Communists Seek to Halt Return of Jews from Russia to Poland

Jewish Communist leaders in Poland were charged today with seeking to prevent the repatriation of Polish Jews from the Soviet Union to Poland. The charge was made in a statement issued by Adolph Held, national chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee, on the basis of secret minutes of a conference in Warsaw which came into possession of the JCL here.

The Warsaw conference was a plenary session of the leaders of the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, a Communist-dominated organization with branches in Polish towns where Jews reside. It took place last month parallel with a meeting of the Jewish section of the United Workers Party of Poland which is the Communist Party in the country.

Mr. Held said in his statement here today that “impeachable” information received from Warsaw following the Jewish conference indicates that “a major drive conducted by three leading Jewish Communists in Poland–Shaman Zacharias, Yudel Korman and Michael Mirsky–is now under way to prevent further repatriation of Polish Jews from the Soviet Union on the ground that they will not remain in Poland but will emigrate immediately to Israel.”

The Jewish Labor Committee leader added that according to the same information, Deputy Minister of Interior Snek and the director of the national minorities department of the Communist Party have rejected the suggestion of the Jewish Communists that emigration of Jews from Poland be halted. However, they made no decision on the demand that the repatriation of Jews from the Soviet Union to Poland be discontinued.

“It is obvious.” Mr. Held stated, “that a small clique of influential Jewish Communist leaders in Poland, seeing their own cause rejected and spurned by the remnants of the Jews in Poland, are determined to crush the Jewish community there.”