CHAPTER 58

The “Ghetto Benches” in the Universities

Polish Hitlerism had an especially strong influence on the Polish university students. The gangs of hooligans that would attack Jews on the street consisted mainly of university students (with a considerable admixture of underworld characters). But in addition to their attacks on Jews in general, they threw themselves with especial rage on their Jewish classmates. They decided to establish a ghetto for Jews in the university classes. They set up several benches on the left side of the classrooms and tried to force the Jewish students to sit there on these so-called “ghetto benches.”

The Jewish students strongly resisted. Instead of sitting on the “ghetto benches,” they stood during the lectures. The antisemitic Polish students wanted to forcibly make them sit there. This led to dreadful scenes in the universities, culminating in frequent fights. They fell upon and beat the Jewish students, even women, till blood flowed. The university administrators, and most of the professors (some quietly, some openly), were on the side of the hooligans. The professors who had the courage to speak out against the attacks were subjected to insult, abuse, and even physical attacks.¹

In the general battle that the Jewish students fought against the “ghetto benches,” the Bundist student association, known in Warsaw by the name Ringen (Links, as in a chain) played an active role. Ringen was not very big, but they were a select group on a highly developed intellectual and political level. In addition, their student association gave us an additional source of pride. The grown children of our leaders that were university students all belonged to the Bund’s Ringen group. The group not only participated in all the defense and protest actions of the entire Jewish student body, but also carried out its own. It clearly expressed the Bund’s approach to the problem of struggle against antisemitism and fascism in Poland, working closely with the ZNMS (Związek Niezależnej Młodzieży Socjalistycznej, Independent Union of Socialist Youth), the PPS’s student organization. They were happy to work with the Bund’s student youth association.

Often when our student group would come out on its own in a fight with the Fascist Polish students—an unequal battle against a huge mass of Polish antisemitic students—our party militia would come to their aid. One time, for example, the Ringen group decided to distribute a flyer at the entrance to the University of Warsaw with an appeal directed at the Polish students. It was clear that the antisemitic Polish students would resist the distribution of the flyers, and it would most certainly come to blows. The Ringen group, therefore, requested a group of Bundist militiamen at the entrance gate where the flyers were to be distributed.

On the morning of the day the flyers were to be distributed, a group of our militiamen went off to the university. In the quad on the other side of the gate were gathered small groups of anti-Jewish students who were in fact preparing to attack our young comrades. They noticed our group of militiamen, however, and probably understanding we were there to defend them, lost their courage to attack. In the meantime our group of students distributed all its flyers and left peacefully. As soon as they had gone, from a far corner of the university quad, a mob of students suddenly appeared. It turned out that a larger group of Oenerowcy had assembled in the auditorium and had readied themselves to attack our comrades. Fortunately, they were too late; we avoided a fight with them.

A similar situation occurred shortly thereafter at the Politechnika. But there it did result in a fight. The Bundist students distributed the flyers in front of the Polytechnic. Among them was Mikhl Klepfisz, the later hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. At the Politechnika the hooligans attacked our young comrades, and we defended them. A big fight broke out. The hooligan students outnumbered us greatly, however, and we barely escaped in one piece.

It thus often became necessary for the party militia to accompany our comrade-students, who were small in number, to help them fight off mobs of antisemitic Polish students.

Figure 109. Zalmen Frydrych addressing a Tsukunft meeting in Warsaw, 1930s. In July of 1942, disguised as a Polish railway worker, he smuggled himself into Treblinka, reporting back to the ghetto inhabitants what was happening to the Jews there. Fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; did not survive. From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.

Figure 110. Tsukunft cyclists during the first national Tsukunft convention in Warsaw, 1932. From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.

Figure 111. Zalmen Frydrych’s Warsaw Ghetto identity card. From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.

Note

1.Among the courageous professors who were not afraid to defend the Jewish students, I remember the names of: Mieczysław, Szymanowski, Kridl, Kulczyński, and also Bartel, the former Piłsudski premier.—BG