And the Jews, Too

Christians were not alone in suffering Communist persecution in Eastern Europe. The Communists were also waging war on Jewry behind the Iron Curtain.

A report on the fate of 650,000 Jews who survived in the satellite countries was released last week by the Jewish Labor Committee, a welfare group composed chiefly of American labor-union leaders. Excerpts:

In Poland, "a thorough purge is going on in all phases of Jewish life . . . Politically conscious peoples are being forced to liquidate their past, and confess to crimes they never committed. Those who are able [to do so] flee the country."

In Rumania, "poverty, unemployment and homelessness became the Jews' [fate] ... In 1948, the liquidation of Jewish civic, educational and cultural life took place at a rapid pace . . . There are no more Jewish schools, Jewish cultural groups, Jewish communities, Jewish organizations. A small, powerful Communist group reigns over the Jews in Rumania."

In Czechoslovakia, Communist Deputy Kapun strikingly echoed Nazi sentiments while discussing the question of returning Jewish property which the Nazis had stolen. (Despite promises, the Communists have returned only a fraction of such property.) Said Comrade Kapun: "Before the war, the Jews had Germanized themselves . . . We cannot trust their patriotism. The pot in which food was spoiled once smells bad even though it has been thoroughly cleansed."

The Jewish Labor Committee's report concluded: "On the one side we observed a spirited attempt of the Jews in the various [Iron Curtain] countries to rebuild their culture and their institutions . . . and on the other side the success of the Communist regimes in ... smashing Jewish life, including [the Jews'] instruments of self-government and their very souls."

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