Vodka Pogrom

If Jan Grotkowski had not had too much vodka Saturday night before last he would still be alive, 300 citizens would be uninjured; the Gmilus Chassodim Synagogue would not have been bombed; and members of the Polish Tank Corps might have had their usual furlough last week.

Jan Grotkowski with a party of friends celebrated the end of a week's work at the University of Lwow (pronounced Lvoof) by getting a skinful of vodka at a local Cafe. Into the same Cafe came four self-assured young Jews: M. Katz, S. Keller, N. Schmer, and Isaac Tune, accompanied by a complaisant young lady of the town. The sight offended Student Grotkowski. Loudly and insolently he insulted them. Some member of the Katz, Keller, Schmer & Tune party stabbed him in the back.

It does not take much to set anti-Semitism raging in Poland. Two days later 60,000 Gentiles of Lwow (scarcely any of whom had ever heard of Jan Grotkowski before) marched in his funeral procession. As the crowd poured out of the cemetery somebody started shooting from the windows of a nearby building. Another student, one Zamorski, dropped wounded, crying "I'm shot! I'm shot."

There was something strange about Student Zamorski. Surgeons at the hospital dug out of his body not lead but tin. Finally he confessed that the wound was caused by the premature explosion of a home-made bomb in his own pocket.

At Lwow's Commercial Academy savage young Gentiles formed a double line with clubs in their hands. All Jewish students, even the girls, were forced to run the gantlet, to stagger away with bruised bodies. Jewish passengers were dragged off street cars and clubbed. Somebody threw a bomb into Gmilus Chassodim Synagogue, blew out all the windows.

Like poison gas, intolerance spread through Poland. At Vilna, students were injured. Shopkeepers were beaten at Czesstochowa. The rector nipped a riot at Warsaw Polytechnic Institute by locking the gates. Rioters looted a Lwow jewelry shop, set fire to a Warsaw Jewish clubhouse. In Poznan jeering students beat up Jewish Professor Kasimierz Nowakowski. There was a fine riot in Krakow.

Polish authorities replied to Jewish protests from all over the world by sending tanks and armored cars to Lwow, censoring every Polish press mention of the rioting, blaming everything on those overworked scapegoats, the Communists.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.