At a meeting last week in Warsaw, Krajewski said, the union’s board unanimously decided to suspend Szadaj from board membership and remove him from his position as its treasurer.
It also decided to downgrade the Jewish communities of Gdansk and Poznan to the status of group affiliate with no legal status.
“In addition,” Krajewski said, “the union is determined to make a financial audit of both the union and the Gdansk Jewish community by an independent internationally recognized auditing firm.”
Krajewski said the scandal broke earlier this year, when it was discovered that Szadaj was being reimbursed twice for expenses incurred on official trips to Warsaw — once by the union, and once by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. “It was not a lot of money, but when asked to explain the situation he refused,” Krajewski said. Other financial irregularities were subsequently discovered.
Jewish organizations tried to keep the affair quiet, but after Szadaj was removed from his position as the local JDC-sponsored social relief worker in Gdansk, he gave an interview to a Gdansk newspaper.
In the interview, Krajewski said, Szadaj did not mention the accusations against him but instead attacked the union’s president and executive director. Among other charges, he accused them of a lack of financial discipline.
He claimed, too, that the union leadership wanted to sell off some of the hundreds of Jewish cemeteries in Poland.