Second Exodus

An old woman dressed in black tearfully says goodbye to her son and daughter-in-law while the couple's children, too young to fully comprehend what is happening, anxiously cling to their parents' legs. An old grey-haired man, whose erect bearing conveys a sense of dignity that decades of persecution could not break, silently embraces his son, who might be a fledgling engineer or doctor. Fearing that his self-control is about to break, the father abruptly turns and walks swiftly out of the railroad station. A tearful, pretty girl of 20 drags a suitcase aboard the train.

The train is the Chopin Express, which at 7:10 each night slips out of Warsaw's bleak Gdansk station for its twelve-hour trip to Vienna. Invariably, in its second-class, slat-seated carriages huddle a handful of families, single men and young women, all with tear-streaked faces, hugging their bundles and small suitcases. They are the Jews of Poland, virtually bereft of all worldly possessions and torn from their loved ones, who have made the heart-wrenching decision to leave their homeland forever. In the past year, some 7,000 Jews have left Poland; another 7,000 or 8,000 are either in the process of completing the departure proceedings or waiting to wind up their affairs before applying for exit visas. If the present trend continues, all that will remain behind in another year or so will be some 10,000 Jews, most of them too old or infirm to start a new life abroad.

The Jews are leaving for good reason, reports TIME Correspondent William Mader after a trip through Poland. In few places outside the Arab world are Jews so badly treated. Jewish children sometimes are beaten up by their fellow students. Adult Jews are subjected to snubs and taunts. Worse still, their jobs are increasingly uncertain. Scores of Jews have been purged from high-ranking government positions, and those Jews who have managed to hang on to lesser jobs live in daily fear that one day they, too, will be sacked. In the major cities, the synagogues have fallen into disuse because so many Jews have left. Those who remain meet for prayers in private homes.

Poland's Jews are victims both of a current power struggle and of historic anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. The instigator of the latest persecution is former Interior Minister Mieczyslaw Moczar, who seized on last spring's outbreak of student unrest to stir up the Poles against "Zionist" agitators. By doing that, Moczar, a rabid nationalist, hoped to undercut the position of Party Boss Wladyslaw Gomulka, whose wife is Jewish. In the process, Moczar inflamed old Polish antagonisms against the many Jewish Communists who fled to Russia during World War II and then return to Poland with the invading Soviet army in 1944. Supported by the Soviet overlords, the Jewish Communists dominated the early postwar Polish party and helped to impose on the country a stern, sometimes brutal, Stalinist rule that was not broken until Gomulka came to power in 1956.

Legal Unperson. In a successful countermove against Moczar, Gomulka managed late last year to halt the official witch-hunting campaign against Jews. Among other things, he wanted to reassure the remaining Jewish technicians and industrial managers, whose departure would seriously harm Poland's already ailing economy. Despite his efforts, popular anti-Semitism has remained at a high pitch. As a result, the exodus of Jews continues, even though the government makes emigration a punishing experience. In order to qualify for an exit visa, which costs the equivalent of two months' salary, a Jew must first renounce his Polish citizenship, thus becoming a legal unperson with no civil rights during the remainder of his stay. In addition, he must pay whatever assessment state inspectors may make for "damage" to his dwelling and turn over to the state most of his personal property.

Permitted to take out only $5 in cash and a few suitcases of clothing, the Jewish emigrant is then allowed to depart for Vienna, where aid agencies will help him resettle in Israel or in the West. The departure of Poland's Jews is an ironic and tragic turnabout. Though the Nazis exterminated some 3,000,000 Polish Jews, they failed to accomplish what the Poles themselves, admittedly with less violent methods, seem likely to achieve--making Poland judenrein, or entirely free of Jews.

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