Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Private War: Memoirs of a Doctor Soldier 1933-1944, by Eugene Slawomir Lazowski. 1991

Gross Overabundance of Jews at Universities Provoked the Ghetto Benches. The Polokaust By Starvation German Plan is Largely Thwarted By Courageous Polish Black Market Activity

The author, a medical doctor, starts with life in late 1930’s Poland, and then focuses on the horrors of the Nazi German occupation of Poland.

THE GHETTO BENCHES: MILITANT STUDENT ACTIVISM AT POLISH UNIVERSITIES IS DONE TO CREATE MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR POLES IN JEWISH-DOMINATED FIELDS

Lazowski writes, “The main issue was the disproportionate number of Jews and Poles in the white collar professions. 10% of the Polish population was of Jewish descent, but 40% of lawyers and over 50% of doctors were Jewish. The right wing students demanded that the number of Jews in the professions should reflect their number in the general population. Their demands became emphatic. The harassment of Jewish students began by trying to force them to sit on the left in the classroom, separating them from the rest of the class. Anyone who came to their defense was harassed. Deliberately most of the students ignored these demands. Students in uniform began to sit scattered on both sides of the classrooms. Fist fights became quite common.” (p. 22).

This kind of aggressive conduct must be kept in perspective, and not reduced to a Poles-against-Jews thing. Rightists have copied leftists, who have always engaged in aggressive activism, even in recent times. In the USA, in the 1960s and again in the 21st century, SDS and Antifa types have tried to force their will on the universities: They tried to get students and professors removed from their positions, speakers disinvited, students blocked from attending classes, etc. Failing that, they have tried to shout down speakers.

So, from that perspective, the ghetto benches were neither unusual nor onerous.