A grim insight into the ghetto conditions prevailing in Nazi-occupied Poland is offered in a letter from Warsaw made public here today by the American Friends of Polish Democracy. The letter establishes that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto receive no bread and that an average of 300 Jews die daily there.
“The Jews,” the letter tells, “are entitled to six pounds of bread monthly, just a little over 3 ounces a day. But the right to buy this small quantity of bread means nothing in reality, for we are never able to obtain it. For. the past two months we have not seen a loaf of bread. No other food is available. We are actually starving.
“A two pound loaf of bread costs 30 zlotys, approximately $5.50, on the illegal market, whereas the “official” bread – which we cannot obtain – costs only 10 cents for a 2 pound loaf. Every month more and more people are dying. An average of 300 people die daily in the Warsaw ghetto, many of them of starvation.”
Commenting on this letter, the American Friends, pointed out that the significance of these figures is appalling. “300 people dead daily – 100,000 dead in a year – 20% of the total population of the Warsaw ghetto Every fifth Jew in Warsaw faces probable death within a year – such is the result of the Nazi occupation,” says the comment.
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.
