[A.
Destruction of the Jewish existence in Poland
1929-1939]
[5.12. JDC work for Jewish children and schools in
anti-Semitic Poland]
[Work for children makes JDC
popular - funds of JDC for children organization CENTOS and and the
health organization TOZ]
The question as to whether
work for children was relief work exercised some of the minds at the
JDC offices. To Kahn, at any rate, it was quite obvious that this was
constructive work of the highest order, and he insisted on devoting
roughly one-third of his Polish budgets to the support of various types
of activities for children. This, of course, was in line with the
traditional Jewish approach to social work generally and made JDC
popular among the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe. A large percentage
of these budgets went to two organizations that dealt mainly with
children: CENTOS and TOZ.
[Supplement: At the other hand the Jewish organizations made themselves
unpopular at the "Christian" population because "Christian" children
received no help].
[Figures of Jewish children
programs in anti-Semitic Poland]
The number of children requiring the attention of CENTOS, the child
care agency, grew considerably in the 1930s. Only a small number of
them could be accepted into institutions providing full-time care;
these were mostly either orphans or half orphans. In 1937 there were
8,047 of these youngsters. However, the total number of children that
CENTOS looked after, partly or wholly, grew from 15,102 in 1933 to
32,066 in 1937. These included youths in vocational training
institutions (they were included as JDC institutions in the figures for
vocational training given above) and summer camps.
[JDC cooperation with children
organization CENTOS]
JDC actually supplied about 12-13 % of CENTOS's budget, in line with
its policy of helping others to help themselves. But these percentages
were very important for the men who ran CENTOS. They could then go to
the Polish government and municipalities and point to American help (in
foreign exchange) as a weighty argument in their demand for Polish
contributions. These contributions added another 17 % to their budget,
and the rest was largely covered by membership contributions. This was
a unique system of organization whereby CENTOS had over 45,000
registered members who owned, and theoretically ran, the organization
and its institutions. They were, of course, recruited from the
wealthier segments of the Jewish population, and there too, the fact
that CENTOS had been set up by JDC and continued to enjoy its support
was adduced as an argument in collection drives. (p.204)
[The work of TOZ with the poor
Jewish families - TOZ medical facilities]
A similar structure characterized TOZ, though TOZ was smaller and
weaker than CENTOS. The task of TOZ was not limited to children; it had
to look after the health of the poorer sections of the Jewish
population, young and old. It had only 11,191 members in 1937, and its
budget was 1.4 million zloty, or less than half of the 3 million zloty
budget of CENTOS. But it, too, spread its 142 institutions all over
Poland, and tried to introduce modern hygienic methods into slums and
poverty-stricken townships and villages.
One of its main achievement was the organization of lectures by various
types of experts. Its 46 stations for mothers and babies gave valuable
advice at very little cost to large number of women who could not
afford to visit doctors. It had six X-ray installations and 29 dental
stations, some of them mobile. It ran three Jewish hospitals, 33
ambulatory clinics, and 12 anti-TB dispensaries in 1938.
With regard to TOZ, JDC help was relatively larger than with CENTOS and
amounted to 28 % of the TOZ budget. But Polish governmental and
municipal help amounted to only 9.4 %, and the percentage of the budget
covered by local Jewish contributions was about the same as for CENTOS.
JDC supervised closely the expenditures and general activities in both
cases through its Warsaw office.
[JDC network for children summer
camps]
One of the most important types of work with children encouraged by JDC
was the network of summer camps. The reasoning behind this network was
that children who suffered privations throughout the year should spend
the summer in healthful surroundings, with adequate medical attention
and with plenty to eat, (p.205)
Table
14: Summer Camps in Poland
|
Year
|
No. of
camps
|
No. of
children
|
| xxxxxxxx1935xxxxxxxx |
222 |
37,286xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
|
| xxxxxxxx1936xxxxxxxx |
428 |
58,661xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
| xxxxxxxx1938xxxxxxxx |
636 |
102,615xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
(p.205)
relatively speaking. In 1934 some 35,000 Jewish children went to summer
camps supported by JDC-subsidized institutions. These included not only
CENTOS and TOZ, but also the various Jewish school networks.
Direct participation of JDC in these camps ranged from 10 % of the
budget in 1936 to 7.2 % in 1938; but apart from JDC's direct
participation, the various organizations that ran the colonies were
themselves JDC-controlled or -subsidized or both, and the expenses of
these camps were part of their regular budgets.
The problem of starving children could not, of course, be solved by a
few weeks of summer vacation.
[If also "Christian" children get summer camps in Polend is not
mentioned. If not there is a big subliminal base for envy of the
"Christian" population].
[Poverty of Jewish children in
Poland]
Very large numbers of Jewish children went to school in the mornings
without breakfast. The choice was whether to give them something to eat
at school or let them go hungry. There was no question as to the
response from JDC, despite its opposition in principle to direct
relief. In the face of the deteriorating Polish situation and the
approach of war in Europe, some JDC officials in New York asked whether
some of these expenses could be cut; Kahn lost his usual patience and
retorted: "Try to be hard and do not give any money for feeding and
clothing and see what will happen. I hear so much about your wanting to
be drastic - try it!"
(End note 64: 44-21, Kahn's letter, 7/25/39 [25 July 1939])
They did not [cut].
[1940-1943 the ghettos would cut, under the eyes of the Polish Catholic
- extremely anti-Semitic - population. Many Jewish children have
survived on farms with helping on farms, and later were defined as
"Christians" to hold them there for further help on the Polish farm,
because the men were killed in the war...]
The problem of Jewish children in Poland was very closely bound up with
the question of Jewish culture and religion. JDC's main task was to try
to save the economic and social structure of European Jewry; but it
could not, and did not want to, close its eyes to cultural and
educational problems. Cyrus Adler, head of the American Jewish
Committee, served as chairman of JDC's Cultural and Religious
Committee. In 1935 he states: "Hard as the situation is, if no effort
is made to save the minds and the soul of the Jewish people, there will
not be any Jewish people left to save."
(End note 65: Executive Committee, 3/26/35 [26 March 1935])
There was some truth in that statement, though the danger was less one
of immediate cultural assimilation than of physical, economic, and
ultimate cultural degradation and decline. As it turned out, the spirit
of the Jewish people bore up remarkably well in the face of the most
horrendous obstacles. (p.206)
[Orthodox Jewish families get no
state schools for their Jewish children]
The first and most urgent problem was that of schooling. Polish schools
were making it increasingly difficult for observant Jewish children to
attend classes. In the 1930s the special Polish schools where Jewish
children were excused from writing on Shabbat began to close down. The
same fate awaited Jewish private schools.
The pretexts were usually of a purely formal nature, that is,
nonobservance of regulations regarding the size of rooms, facilities,
and the like that were ignored as far as the Polish schools themselves
were concerned.
[Jewish schools have no money for
renovations - Kahn's warnings that closed Jewish schools will never
reopen]
Then there were Jewish schools that had to be renovated for reasons
other than the pressure by Polish authorities; these schools, which
depended largely on voluntary contributions, were rarely in a position
to build or renovate without financial aid.
In 1934 Kahn was warning New York that "the schools, once closed, will
never be allowed to reopen" by the Poles. "The institutions, fallen to
pieces and deteriorated considerably, will cost very much more to
restore if they are allowed to go to pieces altogether."
(End note 66: R17, letter by Kahn, 11/3/34 [3 November 1934])
In the early 1930s Kahn was experiencing great difficulties in getting
allocations for physical facilities for Jewish schools, but the
situation eased somewhat later on as a result of increased funds. It
was then that he stated his view that schools were as productive as
industry and indicated his opposition to those in New York who wanted
to increase "productive" investment at the expense of schools.
[Jewish schools in anti-Semitic
Poland: Figures]
The Polish Jewish school structure was itself a model of confusion. At
the end of 1935 a total of 523,852 children were registered in various
types of institutions, government and private, from the primary grades
to the age of 18. Of these, 343,671 studied in Polish schools,
including those where certain allowances were made for Shabbat
observance. This accounted for about 2/3 of the Jewish children;
the rest, 180,181 children, studied at Jewish institutions of different
kinds. The largest of these were the religious primary schools,
traditional
chadarim, where
Jewish law and religious observances were the main studies. These
schools were said to have close to 50,000 pupils.
Some 35,585 girls studied in specially set up, rather primitive
religious institutions that paralleled (p.207)
the
chadarim. About 16,000
boys of high
school age studied at various types of
yeshivoth (higher institutions
of traditional learning); thus over 100,000 children attended 963
religious educational institutions.
Of the rest, the most important were the Tarbuth schools, where most of
the subjects were taught in Hebrew rather than Polish or Yiddish,
though both the latter languages were also taught. There the stress was
on modern secular schooling, with a careful balance of the sciences,
humanities, and sports. Needless to say, this network of schools was
under Zionist influence [because Hebrew was foreseen for Palestine and
Yiddish should be exterminated and not been spoken in Palestine]. A
total of 44,780 children studied in its 269 institutions. These
included 9 secondary schools, from which much of the young Zionist
leadership between the two world wars in Poland came.
Also Zionist, modern, and religious were the 299 schools of the
Yavneh
group, which had 15,923 pupils. Yavneh was under the influence of
religious Zionist parties.
A special network of Yiddish schools (167 primary and 2 secondary) was
organized by circles close to the Bund; this network was called
Cisho.
A total of 16,486 children studied in those schools; the trend was
left-wing, Yiddishist, and anti-Zionist [because they thought Jews
should not leave their home countries].
There was also a small network of 16 schools with 2,343 children
(Szulkult), which tried to combine Yiddish with Hebrew [a
multi-cultural schooling system].
That was the complete picture of Jewish elementary and secondary
schooling in Poland.
(End note 67: All the figures are taken from a detailed report by
Neustadt, dated 5/10/36 [10 May 1936]: Jewish Private and Public
Instruction in Poland; 46-reports)
To this one must add the 167
yeshivoth
for young adults, with their
31,735 pupils, who formed the backbone of traditionalist Jewry in
Poland.
JDC paid special attention to the yeshivoth, mainly because
Adler saw in them a certain guarantee for Jewish existence in Europe,
and also because the many Orthodox supporters of JDC had the right to
expect financial aid for the yeshivoth. Besides the yeshivoth, JDC also
supported the Jewish Scientific Institute (YIVO), which had its main
center in Vilna. In 1939 a JDC leader said of YIVO that its
achievements made "the Hebrew University [in Tel Aviv?] look childish
in
accomplishment".
(End note 68: 44-21, Committee on Poland, 4/11/39 [11 April 1939])
This may have been somewhat exaggerated, but there was no doubt that
YIVO was an institution of quality and had a right to expect JDC help.
(p.208)
[JDC help for the Jewish schools
in anti-Semitic Poland]
JDC had the choice of supporting all the different trends in Jewish
education or none. The schools represented various types of political
thinking no less than various trends in education, and JDC could not
appear to be partisan to any particular trend. Subsidies therefore went
to all types of schools; but the principle of supporting only capital
investments, not current budgets, was carefully observed. This was
sometimes rather liberally interpreted - for example, when it came to
various types of teaching aids; but generally speaking JDC support went
toward construction, repairs, acquisition of essential school
equipment, and the like.
From 1933 to 1939 JDC school expenditures trebled,
(End note 69: From $ 44,000 to $ 121,000)
and while the total sums were quite small, a great deal was done with
them. As in other cases, JDC made its support conditional on the
raising of local funds. Without JDC contributions these funds would
never have materialized. With them, many schools in Poland either were
built or were salvaged for the use of thousands of pupils.
[Late 1930s: The last years of
Jewish schools in Poland]
Yet despite all these efforts Jewish schools continued to shut down all
over Poland in the late 1930s. In the Cisho network alone, 63 schools
with 8,400 pupils were closed down by the Polish government between the
two world wars, under a variety of pretexts. Kahn suspected that the
Poles would attack the Tarbuth network as well. The same pattern that
we observed in other areas was repeated here: the funds that JDC had at
its disposal in Poland simply did not allow for any radical cure of the
massive illness the Jewish economic and social structure was suffering
from. Without JDC help, it must be presumed, the situation would have
been considerably worse; with it, it was bad enough.
