The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

memorandum and received a comparable response from the Chief of the Division of
Western European Affairs, James Clement Dunn. 156
During October 1937 the Polish Government enacted a policy of “ghetto benches”
in which Jewish students would be segregated from non-Jews in academic institutions.
Many foreign and domestic critics assailed this new policy. The President of the
American Federation of Teachers, Jerome Davis, representing 25,000 members,
condemned such an action as representing the “most serious possible violation of the
solemn obligation assumed [by the Polish Government] towards [its] minority peoples”
and was an anathema to the American aid and support that restored Poland to
independence, freeing it from the “yoke of centuries.” On December 6 and 16, 1937
respectively, the American Youth Congress (three million members) and the American
division of the International League for Academic Freedom called on the Polish Minister
of Education to disavow such discriminatory policies as “alien to the spirit of academic
knowledge and of free cooperation in the pursuit of knowledge that is so essential to the
world of scholarship.” The American Committee on Religious Rights and Minorities
called on the Polish Government to end its anti-Semitic policies that were neither “just
nor humane.” The Committee requested that the League of Nations and other
governments provide “outlets for [Poland’s] surplus population.” The Institute for
International Education warned on December 20, 1937 that the creation of “ghetto
benches” represented the “beginning of the regimentation” of Polish academic life and
156 Schneiderman, ed., American Jewish Year Book Review of the Year 5698, 99-100.
108