U.S. Intellectuals, Including Leftists, Hit Poland for Anti-semitism

A group of prominent Americans some of whom have been frequently associated with left wing causes has sent an open letter to the Polish Government condemning “the recent revival of anti-Semitism in Poland, inspired and abetted by some leaders of the same Government that in the past had combatted it with the utmost vigor.” The letter was transmitted to Warsaw through the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the Polish Mission to the United Nations.

The signatories included 32 writers, critics, university teachers, editors and actors, among them Ossie Davis, the Negro actor and playwright; Paul M. Sweezey, editor of the Monthly Review; Maxwell Geismar, author and critic; James Aronson, founder and former editor of the National Guardian; Yuri Suhl, author of ‘They Fought Back,’ a documentary of Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe; Millen Brand, author of the recently-published novel “Savage Sleep”; Albert Maltz, novelist and screen writer; Morris U. Schappes, historian and editor of the magazine “Jewish Currents”; Dr. Annette T. Rubinstein, author and critic; and Prof. Frederic Ewen, biographer of playwright Bertolt Brecht.

The letter said, “We dare not, through silence, make ourselves accomplices in this heartbreaking incredible catastrophe. We must urge with the utmost solemnity that the Polish Government stop this self-destructive course while a remnant of Polish Jewry and of the Government’s socialist honor yet remain to be saved.”