The Denver Jewish news., 1923-01-03
Ukrdinian Territorists Or.
ganizdtions
THE DILEMMA OF 100000 JEWS IN
EASTERN GALICIA
By BEN LEVI

The Ukrainian insurrection in
Eastern Galicia has become perma-
anent feature of life in that country.
against the Polish military and civil
occupation and against the Polish
landowners and their estates. So far
about 100 Polish estates-farms,
crops, and all, have been destroyed
\ by the incendiaries. The terrorist
\ organization of the Ukrainians in
working so rapidly and with such
exactitude that the Polish Admini -
tration has been unable to trace n
single incendiary. Polish gendarrnes
who go into the villages to act as
spies never return. They are four 4
dead in one of the adjoining felis.
The conflict knows no respite, And
the terror is not only on the side of
the terrorists. The Poles, too, are not
idle. Every day hundreds of the Tx
Enthusiastically professors, bar
risters, doctors, students, and the
more intelligent of the workers-are
arrested and hurried away into the
Polish prisons. They are not tried
openly before court of law, but
punished without trial-thrashed and
tortured. The methods which have
been adopted by both sides in their
warfare are savage, and as things
are going it is certain that much
blood will yet flow in Eastern Ga
licia. 1t is not possible to put four
and half millions of Ukrainians
into prison. And every act of re-
venge on the part of the Poles stirs
the population still more and brings
the danger of mass rising nearer.
1t is impossible to describe the feel
ings of the Ukrainian peasantry.
They are boiling with rage. And
when they decide as a mass to rise
against the Poles-and no one can
say how soon that will be-woe to
Eastern Galicia.
This is the moment of which the
Jewish population stands in fear. At
organized movement, the terrorists
are working under strict discipline,
and there are no traces of anti-Sem-
itism. Even so, the Jews feel the eff
fects. Among the estates which have
been burned down were several
which belonged to Jews. 1t may
have happened by mistake or the ter
rorists may have suspected or known
that the owner of the estate was in
friendly relations with the Poles
However that may be, good many
Jewish farms have been destroyed
both on these Jewish estates and also
or Polish estates where the Jewish
farmers rented their lands. Jewish
firmers, agricultural workers, ovei-
sc.rs, and other have consequently
beer thrown out of employment and
are ruined. Who can say what
things will be like when the terror,
now confined to organized bands,
spreads until it involves the whole of
the Ukrainian peasantry? The Jew
ish poplation, numberly 100000 souls
may well fear for their lives.
That such state of affairs may
not be as remote as people in other
ent armed rising in the frontier zones
of Eastern Galicia. For about twelve
days the districts round Tarnopol,
Brody, Zlotschow, Tchortkow, Bor-
scchtow, right up to behind the Strij,
were converted into a battlefield.
Strong, well-armed bands appeared in
the woods. Some were uniformed as
Russian cossacks, some as Polish po-
lice. They robbed, they burnt, they
destroyed. The whole country in
which they operated has been laid
waste. They attacked the Polish mil
itary guards they killed the police,
and before dawn they had disappear
ed into the woods. Their activity was
much less disciplined, and consequent
ly Jews, too, suffered to greater ex-
tent. Jews were waylaid on the road,
their horses were taken out of the
shafts, they were robbed of their
money, and at times even of their
clothes. So far no Jew has been
beaten. There has been no organiz-
ed mass attack upon the Jews, but
it is impossible to forecast anything,
and no one can say that these things
will not be.
On top of all this came the cleo
tions of the Polish Seim in Warsaw.
The Polish Government insisted on
extending the elections to Eastern
Galicia, thinking in this way to dem
onstrate to the world that Polish oc-