Jews in Poland Are in Constant Fear of Death, Says Underground Report

An authentic report from the Jewish underground movement in Nazi-held Poland released here today by its American representation discloses the latest developments in Jewish life in the ghettos. It emphasizes that efforts are being made to educate and feed at least twenty percent of the Jewish children, and that the death rate among adults is constantly growing and recently reached fifteen percent. “This enormous death rate is the result of hunger, tuberculosis and typhus,” the report says.

“The most dreadful thing for the Jews is that they are in constant fear of death,” the report declares. “Mass-executions of thousands of Jews of all ages, including women, take place in many cities, from time to time, without any special cause. For leaving their appointed domiciles, Jews are usually shot immediately without trial. Compulsory labor absorbs a great number of victims and those who do return home after a few months are usually gravely ill. In Lodz thousands of Jewish families are taken away from the ghetto systematically and nobody over hears from them again. They are poisoned by gas.”

MANY DREAM OF PALESTINE; ANTI-SEMITISM AMONG POLES STILL STRONG

Pointing out that the Jewish underground movement faces “great and painful” losses in some cities as a result of the Nazi measures, the report says: “The Jewish opponents of our movement have remained the same. Some of them still dream of Palestine; others are passively awaiting deliverance. Only our movement is strengthening the belief in the future existence and independence of our country and a happy Jewish community there. We are opposed to emigration as a solution of the Jewish problem and plead the cause of civic, national and cultural equality. We demand national-cultural autonomy for Jews in a free, independent and Socialist Poland, which will be a part of a free federation of Socialist European States.

“Because of the Nazis’ propaganda, anti-Semitism among the Poles is still quite strong,” the report continues. “Part of the underground press of the ONR and OZN, the two Polish anti-Semitic parties, is anti-Semitic, as it was before and approves of the extermination policy of the Nazis, simultaneously deprecating their barbarous methods. Another part of the underground press, unfortunately, remains silent about this inhuman and – ? the national point of view-injurious anti-Semitic policy. Only the publications of the Polish Socialists, of the WRN (these initials represent the names of three radical groups) and some of the other democratic papers are fighting anti-Semitism with determination.”