Jews seeking to escape from Nazi Poland to Soviet territory frequently had to submit to such mutilation as removal of an eye, it was charged here today by Dr. M. Kleinbaum, former vice-president of the Polish Zionist Organization.
(A possible motive for the mutilation was believed to be the Nazi desire to prevent emigrating Jews from joining military forces fighting Germany. Berlin reports have stated that the authorities were reluctant to permit emigration of Jews of military age.)
Dr. Kleinbaum left Poland shortly after the occupation and stopped off here en route to Palestine. He told a meeting that nothing thus far published in the world’s newspapers had adequately pictured the suffering endured by some 1,000,000 persons in Poland.
Russian-occupied Bialystok, Dr. Kleinbaum said, affords startling confirmation of the charges of Nazi mutilation of fleeing Jews. Many one-eyed Jews, he declared, could be seen in the city’s streets. The Zionist leader asserted that famine was spreading everywhere in Russian-occupied Poland. He said the great industrial center of Bialystok was silent. Thousands of jobless, he stated, had been sent on to work mines in central Russia while others have been shipped to Biro-Bidjan.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
