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Warsaw Ghetto Finally Liquidated Despite Heroic Resistance, Secret Polish Radio Says

May 12, 1943
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Despite the almost super-human resistance put up by the Jews of Warsaw – aided and armed by the Polish underground – the ghetto there has been completely liquidated by Nazi troops, according to a broadcast by the secret Polish radio SWIT, heard here last night.

The Polish broadcaster was heard appealing to Poles in the Warsaw area to assist those Jews who succeeded in fleeing the ghetto, by providing shelter and food.

SWIT also announced that Leon Blum, former premier of France, is now confined in the newly established concentration camp at Majdanek in central Poland. It added that many Jews who fled the Warsaw ghetto and were subsequently apprehended are also confined there as are leading Jewish political figures from various occupied European countries.

The new camp holds about 15,000 prisoners, divided into five sections, the broadcast said. The first is for Jews; the second for Jews and Poles who have been sentenced to death; the third for prisoners transferred from Pawiak prison in Warsaw; the fourth for victims of street roundups; the fifth being reserved for women. Under command of S.S. troops, the warders are both Germans and Ukrainians. The barracks are said to be unheated and full of vermin, with daily rations consisting of 300 grams of bread and a half pint of soup.

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