The Polish Government, whose anti-Zionist campaign of last spring was conceded by its own leaders to have degenerated into an anti-Semitic witchhunt, emerged today as the most vociferous attacker of “Zionists,” Jewish and other liberal elements among all of the Warsaw Pact nations that participated in the Soviet-led invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia. According to reports reaching here, the officially controlled Polish press and other mass communications media have mounted an all-out attack on alleged “Zionists” and on Czech writers and intellectuals linked to that country’s reform movement. The Poles are blaming them for trying to subvert Socialism in Czechoslovakia and said their action necessitated the invasion of their homeland to rescue it from “counter-revolution.”
The blasts in the Polish press, television and radio were heard against the background of ominous reports from reliable quarters that Soviet intelligence agents in Prague secretly rounded up writers and journalists and that at least 11 of them were beaten unconscious before they were driven to an undisclosed destination. Listed among the victims was the prominent Czech novelist and journalist Ladislav Mnacko, a non-Jew who went into self-imposed exile in Israel following the June, 1967 Six-Day War to protest against his Government’s pro-Arab policies. His wife, a Jewess, is in Israel. Reportedly safe in Vienna today were Dr. Eduard Goldstuecker, a prominent Czech-Jewish writer and president of the Czechoslovak Writers Union, Ludvig Ashkenazai, Jan Grossman and other writers and artists, Jewish and non-Jewish. Arnold Lustig, another well known Czech-Jewish writer, arrived in Israel with his wife and daughter yesterday from Italy where they had been vacationing when the invasion of Czechoslovakia began. He does not intend to return to Prague.
Mr. Goldstuecker, Mr. Mnacko, Pavel Kohout and other liberal Czech writers and intellectuals were singled out in a Warsaw television broadcast as “defenders and supporters of aggressive Israel.” The Polish commentator, Czeslaw Berenda charged in a broadcast from Prague that Zionists are among the “most active and zealous proponents of counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia.” Mr. Berenda said that they had been “very active in the radio and press witch-hunt lodged against the Communist Party.” He added that these are the same people who “bitterly attacked” Poland in March when the Warsaw regime accused “Zionists” of a leading role in the student demonstrations and riots.
On Saturday, Premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz of Poland strongly defended the invasion of Czechoslovakia and predicted that “there will be a time when those circles who succumbed to the propaganda of cosmopolitan and counter-revolutionary forces (in Czechoslovakia) will understand who is their friend and who is their enemy.” “Cosmopolitan” in Marxist jargon is a word used to describe Jews suspected of “Zionism” and, as such, was often employed during the purge of Jews from high Government and party posts in Poland last spring, and has been similarly used in Russia. Mr. Cyrankiewicz, himself a survivor of Auschwitz, delivered his remarks in an address to a Communist Party audience on the eve of the 29th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland.
The London Sunday Observer reported that plans were being made throughout Western Europe to cope with the wave of refugees from Czechoslovakia. According to the report, the refugees include large numbers of actors, musicians, architects and journalists. The Sunday Telegraph reported from Prague that the visa section of the British Embassy was crowded for two days after reports spread that Czech frontiers would be closed. “Many of the applicants were Jews,” the paper said. The Guardian said in a dispatch from its correspondent Hella Pick in Bucharest that “clearly Moscow does not like Rumania’s independent stand in foreign policy.” Among other things that irritated the Soviets are Rumania’s continued diplomatic relations with Israel and the recent purchase from Israel of Soviet-made tanks captured during the Six-Day War, the correspondent reported.
(A report that the State Department was keeping touch with “the possibility of growing anti-Semitism in the Warsaw Pact countries” and its possible effect on the fate of Czechoslovakia’s Jews was made in New York by Bertram H. Gold, executive vice-president of the American Jewish Committee. He said the organization “expressed its concern about our fellow-religionists in Czechoslovakia” during a meeting last week with Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the Department, “arranged by us on the subject of Biafran relief, and with a dozen representatives of different faiths present.”)
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.
