And in the midst of this catastrophe the old struggle between the
Poles and Jews has continued with unabated ferocity. The local relief
committees refused to accept Jews as representatives, denied Jews any
help whatsoever and even drove them away, by intimidation and force,
from the relief stations supported by their own people. Of seventy-one
relief committees operating in Poland, fifty-two contained no Jewish
members, although the Jews constituted nearly one-half of the urban
population and thirteen to fourteen per cent. of the rural population
in these places. In the other nineteen committees the Jewish membership
constituted scarcely ten per cent. of the total, although the Jewish
population ran from thirty-five to sixty-eight per cent. of the total
population in the cities and from ten to fifteen per cent. in the rural
districts.[43] And =in most of these places the Jews had contributed
the major part of the relief funds.= Even institutions supported solely
by Jewish contributions were expropriated by the Poles.
Thus “the magnificently equipped Hospital for the Wounded, in Warsaw,
created at the expense of the Jewish Kehillah, which had refitted
the Roman Hotel for the purpose, has been running until now under
the official name of the Warsaw Local Relief Committee. But this has
turned out to be an anti-Semite organization without a single Jewish
representative, its board being made up of rabid Judeophobes, who feel
no scruples in the methods and means of their anti-Jewish policy.
Private donations, the personal labor of Jews—all this has gone into
Polish institutions, all this has disappeared in the Polish river-bed,”
declares “Novy Voskhod,” Sept. 11 (24), 1914.
The present attitude of the Jews of Russia toward this problem is well
reflected in a letter, published in a recent issue of “Evreyskaya
Zhizn,”[44] from a Jew, the owner of a salt mine, who had been invited,
among others, to contribute salt for the poorer people of Warsaw,
without distinction of race or creed. He replied, in effect, that the
proposal met with his deepest sympathy, but he took the liberty of
inquiring as to who would have charge of the distribution of the salt.
“Everybody knows,” he wrote, “the intolerant attitude of the Polish
Relief Committee toward the Jews. This makes us doubt whether your
high principle would be carried out conscientiously if administered
by Polish hands. The Warsaw Committee is particularly distrusted, and
it would be extremely unpleasant for me to feel that the necessaries
that we contributed should be withheld from our own fellow Jews. On the
other hand, we would welcome gladly every effort on the part of Russian
organizations to undertake to cooperate with Poles and Jews in this
matter to insure an equitable distribution.”
When the Central Citizens’ Committee of Warsaw was dissolved by the
German governor of Poland, in September, 1915, its accounts showed
that it had distributed over eleven million roubles ($5,500,000)
since the outbreak of the war, =of which the Jews received scarcely
100,000, although they constitute one-sixth of the population and
the funds had been gathered with the express understanding that the
distribution be absolutely without discrimination between Poles and
Jews.= The Liquidation Commission which disposed of the balance on hand
at the time of the dissolution of the Central Committee—some 1,290,000
roubles—allotted it all to Polish institutions. =Although there are
300,000 Jews in Warsaw, the majority of them in dire need, not a rouble
was offered for their relief.=
Finally it must be noted that the occupation of Poland by the German
forces has afforded little relief to the Jews, as the scarcity of food
in Germany precludes the shipment of any considerable quantities of
provisions to ameliorate the distress of the starving Jews of Poland.