to Yiddish, proceeded very slowly, and when both the teachers and the pupils had made significant progress in the acquisition of the language, at the end of the school year a conference of the teaching staff and parents of a given school was organised to discuss the issue of language. A representative of the Board of Education (a Jew in Jewish schools) [10] was also present at such meetings. He stated that because the teachers and students were experiencing major difficulties due to the introduction of Yiddish as the language of instruction, because very few of them were fluent in that language, and because Lvov was in Ukrainian territory, it would be more rational and reasonable to teach in Ukrainian. With this statement, the representative of the Soviet authorities contradicted the beautiful words and principles of freedom and equality of rights in the USSR. I even know for a fact that one of the teachers, who knew Yiddish very well, tried to polemicise with the representative of the board of education during that meeting. He declared that he saw no reason to exchange Yiddish for Ukrainian, which neither the teachers nor the students knew and in which [11] they were even less fluent than in Yiddish.784 [10a] As the meetings about the elimination of Yiddish and the introduction of Ukrainian were not held in all schools simultaneously, the teachers who had already been informed in the schools which had already adopted the resolution to cancel Yiddish began secret consultations to counteract the Ukrainisation and the elimination of Yiddish, which had assumed its due position and had been sufficiently acquired after a great effort. When the leadership learned about the opposition’s intentions, the komsorg and other representatives of the school authorities stated: “For your information, we shall not tolerate any opposition. The Soviets have smashed far more powerful opposition”, thus announcing that Ukrainisation must take place. Consequently, soon afterwards, no objections were voiced during teaching-staff meetings. [11a] It was characteristic that very often the teaching-staff meetings discussing the exchange of Polish for Yiddish and Yiddish for Ukrainian were attended by the same representatives of the board of education. And the same individual who had enthusiastically advocated the introduction of Yiddish, giving impassioned speeches about Jewish culture and the importance of the planned change, was now supporting Ukrainisation with equal zeal.
