“In these two cases it happened that I came out as a Pole defending the honor of Poland, because I believe that Poland does not require such outrageous falsifications and slanders for its regeneration. If they were not so painful to relate, I could give you a whole series of such incidents.”
Even the Polish clergy, usually anti-Semitic, felt compelled to protest against the excesses of their followers. Thus in January, 1915, the priests of Plotsk, headed by Archbishop Kovalsky, interceded on behalf of the Jews with the Russian authorities who had made numerous arrests upon the denunciations of Polish agitators.
So outrageous was the attitude of the Poles that at a Conference of Progressive Deputies of the Duma held at Petrograd in January, 1915, resolutions were passed to extend no help whatever to the Polish Deputies in any of their nationalist projects in the Duma because of their attitude toward the Jews.
The Polish weekly, “Glos Polsky,” published in Petrograd, contains an interview with Professor Milyukov on the Polish question:
“Our point of view is that along the River Vistula live not only Poles, but that there also lives another people, the Jewish people, which has a right to be recognized....
“When the Polish question will be taken up in the legislative chambers, we shall demand that the fundamental act should guarantee the rights of the Jewish minority as well....”[25]
At several conferences of Russian, Polish and Jewish communal workers which took place in Petrograd and Moscow in January, 1915, the majority of the Russians expressed their solidarity with the Jews in this matter.[26]
Even the most reactionary Russians foresaw danger to Russia in the Polish campaign of vilification against the Jews. Thus the “True Russian” (anti-Semitic) leader, Orloff, after a visit to Poland, declared: “I have seen nothing bad on the part of the Jews, although the Poles made up all sorts of accusations against them. But in these Polish reports you feel prejudice, vindictiveness, hatred, nothing else.... The Jews are loyal and brave, and it is most inadvisable to pursue a policy which might convert six million subjects into enemies.”[27]
The Kuzhi Case