The Jews In Poland

Southland Times, Issue 23183, 26 April 1937, Page 4

The Jews In Poland

The latest measure against the Jews in Poland was reported in a cable message published on Saturday. “Poland’s 3,500,000 Jews,” stated the message, “are virtually banned from public life by an official decree forbidding them to join the new totalitarian government party, the only party permitted in Poland.” According to views expressed by prominent Jews, the ban amounts to an official acceptance of the popular attitude which brands the Jews as racially inferior. This may not seem to mean very much when it is remembered that anti-Semitism is as old as Polish nationalism: a government which has permitted boycotts and persecution is merely defining a policy that has long been put into practice. Exclusion from public life is no new disability for the Jews of Poland. Industry is coming to be stateowned or state-controlled, and wherever new industries have come under the care of the Government there has been an immediate thinning of Jewish workers. Only one instance is needed to emphasize this point. The tobacco industry employed 3000 Jews while it was in the hands of private enterprise; but since it has been controlled by the Government the number has fallen to 102. It is clear, of course, that this sort of thing has been done in response to political pressuie. A government that wishes to keep the support of the majority must continue the old persecution of the Jews, even though these unfortunate people amount to a mere 10 per cent, of the total population. Outside observers are sometimes puzzled to account for the hatred and cruelty shown towards an industrious minority. To a certain extent the movement continues inevitably from the past. A history that contains a dark record of pogroms must have achieved a momentum, so that old feuds are carried on into the new age; and in times of economic strain it is easy to make the Jew a scapegoat for the nation. And Poland, it must be remembered, is a country that knows poverty. Three-quarters of its population are peasants, and onethird of the peasant households are established on farms of less than five acres. In the cities exactly half the registered workers are unemployed. The Jews are hard-working and progressive. Given a reasonable opportunity, they thrive quickly under conditions that would be too much for the average Pole. Beyond these facts it is scarcely necessary to look for the new boycott reported from Warsaw. The boycott, however, has been the cause of consternation; and it is possible that there may be political repercussions. It was suggested in the cable message that the Jews “must . . . unit in self-defence. This will not be easy, partly because of repressive measures that can be carried out against a minority by an authoritarian government, and partly ’ because the Jews have been excluded almost completely from industry. Yet it is not impossible. They have always been most successful as small traders and business men; but according to The American Hebrew there are 120,000 Jewish peasants in Greater Poland. These figures are not impressive when they are compared with the total Jewish population; but they mean more when it is known that the peasants have formed a federation of their own. At a conference held in Lemberg (the scene of one of the most dreadful pogroms in Polish history) the spokesmen “displayed a determined spirit to continue to increase the number of Jewish agriculturists. They all claimed that if the Jewish peasants were well organized, they could command the respect of their non-Jewish neighbours and resist all anti-Semitic terror campaigns.”- It would seem, then, that the Jews are ready to thrive in the small holdings that are being deserted by Polish peasants. If they can organize themselves before the signs of their success and a continued poverty in the cities tempt a new persecution they may yet become a political force in the country. But this would depend on an increase of influence for the Socialists and Communists, which are the only two parties that condemn antiSemitism; ~~d at the present time Poland seems to be firmly established in a dictatorship of the rinht-