Tag #108546 - Interview #88474 (Jakub Bromberg)

So in 1938 or 1937 this Prystor introduced a proposal to ban ritual slaughter. Ritual slaughter means that, before you eat fowl, if it’s healthy, you take it to the shochet. He had a special knife and he killed these animals. With one stroke he’d cut the throat. [The method of slaughter is a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness. This method is painless, causes unconsciousness within two seconds, and is widely recognized as the most humane method of slaughter possible.] Then he’d wait for the blood to drain and good bye. And these representatives in the Sejm decided that you have to shoot an animal, because that’s more humane. But it wasn’t such an easy thing, because there were also Jewish representatives in the Sejm, so these discussions went on forever, about what is humane and what isn’t. Jews would claim that if an animal was strong, for example a bull or a calf, then after the first shot it would go crazy and you had to shoot twice, three, several times before you killed the animal, so it suffered more. Jews claimed that if you cut the throat it all goes quicker. The blood is drained and that’s it.