SLAWOJ-SKLADKOWSKI, FELICJAN°

SLAWOJ-SKLADKOWSKI, FELICJAN ° (1885–1962), Polish politician. From May 15, 1936, to September 1939 he was Poland's prime minister and minister of interior. The period of Slawoj-Skladkowski's premiership was marked by political and social unrest. His government endorsed the antisemitic program of the *ozon to distract the Polish masses from the real problems of the prewar crisis. His declaration "nobody in Poland should be injured. An honest host does not allow anybody to be harmed in his home" reflected his policy toward the Jews. Nevertheless, sources of livelihood were taken away from Jews; Saturday was made a market day, markets were held far from town, many butcher shops were closed because of the *sheḥitah law (January 1937), commercial licenses for Jews were restricted, as were bank credits for Jewish businessmen and craftsmen, excessive taxes were imposed, etc. The anti-Jewish economic boycott had official government support. The *numerus clausus was imposed against Jewish students who were placed on ghetto benches at the universities, and the number of Jews in the free professions (physicians, lawyers, etc.) was considerably reduced. Riots against students and the picketing of Jewish shops were considered a "natural instinct of cultural self-defense and tendency for economic self-sufficience." When riots and pogroms broke out in Radom, Czestochowa, Brest-Litovsk, Vilna, and Lvov, Jewish property valued at over 3 million zlotys was destroyed. The Slawoj-Skladkowski government encouraged rioters, intervening only against Jewish self-defense groups.

bibliography:

S. Segal, The New Poland and the Jews (1938), 64–86, 143; R.L. Buell, Poland: Key to Europe (1939), 299–306; I. Gruenbaum, in: eg, 1 (1953), 113–6; J. Rothschild, Pilsudski's Coup d'Etat (1966), 398–9.