Report Marek Edelman Freed

The release of Dr. Marek Edelman, one of the last surviving leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, has been confirmed by Polish refugee sources in Paris. He was one of several thousand Solidarity officials arrested when the Polish government imposed martial law two weeks ago.

Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, who had intervened with the Polish authorities on Edelman’s behalf, welcomed the news. “We are, of course, gratified by the release of Dr. Edelman but we remain deeply disturbed by the Polish government’s apparent scapeg#ating of the pitifully small remnant of the Jewish community in an attempt to suppress the Solidarity movement,” he said.

Schindler had earlier cabled Polish Prime Minister and Communist Party chief Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski to order Edelman’s “immediate release.” According to the refugee sources he was freed last Wednesday.

POLISH EMBASSY, JEWISH OFFICIALS CONFER

Meanwhile, in Washington, representatives of B’nai B’rith International and the American Jewish Committee met with Polish officials at the Polish Embassy. At the invitation of the Embassy officials, who had earlier refused to meet with the Jewish spokespersons, Warren Eisenberg and George Spectre, director and associate director, respectively, of the International Council of B’nai B’rith, and George Szabad, vice president, and Hyman Bookbinder, Washington representative of the AJCommittee, called on the Polish government to disavow publicly all anti-Semitic actions.

Embassy press counselor Lucjian Mieczkowski told the Jewish representatives that Polish policy “remains the same as it was last March” when the government headed by then Communist Party secretary Stanislaw Kania repudiated anti-Semitism following an anti-Jewish rally in Warsaw. He said he would forward the B’nai B’rith and AJCommittee statement which asked the government to reaffirm the March declaration.