Rabbi Tells of Harrowing Flight from Nazi Terror

Chief Rabbi Vogelman of Kattowice and Professor Zweig of the University of Cracow are among the Polish refugees now in Bucharest.

Dr. Vogelman relates that he left Kattowice a few hours after the German invasion began, traveling for four days toward the Rumanian frontier in cattle wagons with other refugees.

Pursuing German planes, he says, bombed and machine-gunned refugees on all roads and railway lines leading to Rumania. One bomb even fell in Rumanian territory near Crisciatic killing five persons.

Unbelievable cruelties being perpetrated by the Nazis, Dr. Vogelman states, were stopped only by the Russian advance.

At the same time, new facts were revealed here showing that at least a section of the Polish army and population had persevered in anti-Jewish hatred even in the nation’s hour of greatest distress and despite the heroism displayed by Jewish soldiers and civilians.

Polish cart drivers refused to take on Jewish refugees as passengers, fearing reprisals. Polish officers held up cars with Jews leaving bombarded towns, requisitioning the cars for their own families and leaving Jewish women and children on the roads. Among Jews suffering such treatment was the well-known manufacturer Gruber who was trying to escape with his wife and mother. Gruber’s car was stopped by a Polish major who requisitioned it for his own private purposes.

Horrifying details about the slaughter of Jews in Warsaw are related by a diplomat reaching Bucharest via Germany. The envoy said he had helped bury hundreds of Jewish bodies scattered in the Nalewki quarter on Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish New Year. He said courtyards of apartment houses had been turned into burial grounds since the Jewish cemeteries had been filled during the first days of the war.