Tom Driberg, Independent M.P., who raised the question of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army which precipitated last week’s debate in the House of Commons, today stated that he does not believe that the further conversations which Foreign Secretary Eden has promised to hold with the Polish Government on the subject of stamping out anti-Jewish discrimination in the Polish armed forces will be effective if they are limited merely to the general question of anti-Semitism and do not deal directly with the question of transferring from the Polish to the British army and heavy all those Jewish soldiers and sailors who wish to change.
“I do not believe that you can stamp out anti-Semitism by instructions and through the issuing of orders-of-the-day, or by anything else of that formal nature,” Driberg said. “Perhaps more brutal and blatant manifestations could be checked, but I am afraid that the underlying feelings and less obvious manifestations will still remain. In the course of this war I have met a large number of Polish officers who unfortunately have certain fixed prejudice against Jews. I have seen it again and again among almost all Polish officers with whom I have come in contact.”
Emphasizing that he was convinced that the existence of these strong anti-Jewish feelings among Polish officers forced Jewish soldiers to leave the ranks of the Polish Army during the last few weeks and come to London to appeal for a transfer into the British armed forces, Driberg stated: “The story of these men is absolutely convincing. They are for the most part highly trained combat soldiers and they emphasize most strongly that they are not trying to run away from the war duty of fighting men. On the contrary. They want to do the fighting where they believe they can do it most effectively – in the ranks of the British Army.”
Declaring that “anti-Semitism is intolerable in the midst of war,” Driberg said that the Jewish soldiers in the Polish Army are “in a state of helpless agony and distress of spirit.” He pointed out the Polish authorities and the British Foreign Office together with the War Office had arranged for the transfer to the British armed forces of 200 Jews from the Polish Army and he could not see, therefore, why the transfer of 600 more Jews should be refused.
The independent M.P. revealed that the Jews who were transferred from the Polish forces have written him expressing their joy and relief at “once more being treated like human beings instead of like outcasts and scum.” The transferred Jewish soldiers told him that Polish officers had boasted that they have “two bullets, one for a Jew and the other for a German, which will be used when the Polish forces reach the continent.”
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.
