Jewish Community Dying in Hostile Poland

By JOSEPH POLAKOFF
Chief, JTA Washington bureau
(CoP7 , 12ht, 1972. sr* t•r.)
Warsaw's last synagogue is
crumbling into a ruin in the shab-
biest sector of the Polish capital's
great expanse of monuments and
squares. Adjoining it is a mostly
abandoned four-story ma sonr y
building that once was a nursing
home and hospital for aged and
indigent Jews of pre-Holocaust
Warsaw. That also is disintegrat-
ing into oblivion. And so is the tiny
remnant of Poland's 900-year-old
Jewish community that only 33
years ago numbered more than .
3.000,000—a population larger than
present-day Israel's.
The synagogue, about a mile
from the famous Ghetto Memorial,
virtually surrounded by heaps
..1 scrap metal. 00 lumber and

easing materials bounded by
barbed wire Once a handsome
structure with
three
levels of
it now stands forlorn with
many of its window s broken the
shades on its exterior Land, long
Its %cry
foundation,

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The condition of the main con-
gregational area is somewhat
better but only by comparison.
Hundreds of religious books,
many of them leather-bound in
the 18th-Century style that im-
migrants brought with them to
half the world and treasured to
their last days, are heaped on
tables against a wall like dis-
carded paperbacks in a second-
hand store.
Low curtains outline the wom-
en's section. The galleries for-
merly for women that occupy three
sides are closed except for one

small section where matzos are
baked.
The German army when it oc-
cupied
Warsaw used the syna-
Q.-ale for a warehouse and thus
spared it from destruction
Extinct ion of Poland s
Jew ry
can he expected within the next
few >ears Since the exodus fol-
:owing the 19611 puree. emigration
been in driblets Not !-
Only 7.000 now remain . Counting
those in mixed marriages, the to
Warsaw
tal increases to 12.000
and Lodz haye about eat n.
The remainder IN scattered among
17 other communities I kihilias
each of which ha , its place of
worship
Jewish education is nil.
This information w,-, s imparted
to the JTA reporter in an inter-
view- with the president of Poland's

Jewish religious organization.
Isaac J Frenkiel.- and his wife.
Esther, in the communal office on
the third floor of the old hospital.
Frenkiel who is 57 and a mechan-
ical engineer, spoke in Yiddish;
his wife in German. Both are sur-
vivors of
concentration camps.
Their home is in Lodz. They com-
mute frequently to Warsaw, 130
miles by road, to perform com-
munity business.
The Frenkiels pointed out that
Poland has few Jewish adoles-
cents. As soon as it is possible
for Jews to transfer them to
Israel or elsewhere they are
moved out of Poland. The Fren•
kiels' own three children are in
Israel.
There is a daily minyan at the
Warsaw synagogue. On Saturday
mornings about 80 attend. On the
High Holidays it is crowded. Mar-
riages and Bar Mitzvas are rare.
"What about circumcisions?"
Frenkiel was asked. The commu-
nity leader pulled out a surgical
instrument for that purpose from
the top drawer of his desk and
exclaimed: "This hasn't been used
in three years."

bu•

From $•9 50

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goo to boy from Avis Ford

away. Within the vestibule large
layers of peeling old paint droop
like the ears of an old elephant
waiting to die.

• 12 M.I. IS

354-3100

AVIS FORD

12—f"dry, August 4, 1972

Other sources said that the
Polish Jewish organization for cul-
t•re and social affairs (Kultur-
Farband) has branches in 20 com-
munities, seven fewer than before
she 1988 exodus. The Yiddish State
Theater in Warsaw and a Jewish
Historical Institute, both govern-
ment supported, still function. The
Yiddish-Polish weekly Folks-
Snyme whose circulation is about
3,000 is the only periodical.

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Anti-Semitism persists in Po-
land despite all that has hap-
pened. Officials and journalists
assigned to inform the media
people who accompanied Presi-
dent Nixon to Warsaw on the
last leg of his Moscow summit
trip stressed that "Poles and
Jews" get along well together.
They seemed not to recognize
the prejudice inherent in the
term "Poles and Jews."

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A young editor said he could
5: understand why the Western
world talked about anti-Semitism
in Poland. It is unfair. he said,

b , cause the expulsion of Jews in
1968 was not based on their Jew-

1.Thne,s but for their failure to
, , irk in harmony with government
policy.

The younz man was impatient
her he was asked to reconcile his
statements with the facts that Po-
land broke off diplomatic relations
ssith Israel's immediately after the

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his - Day War and that a few days

later Poland's Communist Party

Chief Gomulka referred to the
Jews as a "fifth column. - Despite
his impatience. the editor also was
i'eminded that after the student
riot= early in
1968, Poland's
media charged that the entire pro-
test movement was a Jewish or
Zionist conspiracy when actually
only a few of the involved student
leaders, professors and writers
were Jewish. Anti-Zionism was a
cloak for anti-Semitism as Gom-
ulka himself indicated when dur-
ing the protest he "invited" the
"Zionist Jews" to leave Poland.
About 15,000 emigrated. Many of
them held high positions in polit-
ical, economic, scientific, indus -
trial, cultural and university life.
Nevertheless, the young editor
was unimpressed. "That's all over
n .w." he said.

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VOTE
AUG. 8

Against Self Interest Politics

For the best
for
Wayne County

/49:.

cro-;

BARRY L.

Fc-A,ek

HOWARD

Wayne County Commissioner

Our

25.5

Yea,

Serving and Saving

it would be out otleosu,. to so , ve

Signed Ed

YOU

Klein A Lou Garth,

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What Howard Stands For

• Administrative Assistant to Mayor Gribbs
• Member Mayors task force on
licensing procedure
• Coordinator of Mayors Youth Problem ,.

• Increase the number of Wayne County

Prosecutors

•

•

New facilities far County Jail
increase the number of Juvenile Cou!

Task Co.-ce

• and others

„ uod you know you

-14th DISTRICT #246

Experience

963 - 9474

• Helped establish commun it y
treatment centers
• Former AZA president
• Member Cong. Et"nai David
• Univ. of Mich. Honors Graduat,
• U of D Law School

•
•

•

Establish o coun , y Senior Citizens Dec'
Add men to the Snerifis Dept
to combo? Of v4 Abuse
Expand the sire and facilities c'
the Youth. Home

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