The second anniversary of the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto, during which 40,000 poorly armed Jews held off the German Wehrmacht for 42 days, was marked here tonight at a mass meeting in the Hotel Commodore attended by 2,000 people, who joined in a mass recital of Kaddish. The meeting was arranged by the American Federation of Polish Jews.
A demand that German war criminals guilty of crimes against Jews be tried before Jewish tribunals was made at the meeting by Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, president of the federation. A message from Governor Thomas E. Dewey paid tribute to the “tens of thousands of Polish Jews who died as martyrs in a desperate resistance against the Nazi oppressors. I join in the fervent prayer,” Governor Dewey’s message said, “of the American Jews of Polish background that the Jewish culture of Poland may be revived and brought to now flower in a Polish nation devoted to liberty and personal freedom in a world at peace.” Other messages were received from Senator Robert F. Wagner, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, and Reps. Emanuel Celler and Helen Gahagan Douglas.
A tribute to the late President Roosevelt and a pledge of support for President Truman were voiced by Herbert C. Pell, former American representative on the United Nations War Crimes Commission, who was one of the featured speakers.
Two other observances of the anniversary of the ghetto revolt are slated for tomorrow. The Jewish Labor Committee has arranged a photographic and documentary exhibition, “Heroes and Martyrs of the Ghettos,” which opens tommorow night. The opening ceremonies will be addressed by Gov. Dewey. At Carnegie Hall, at the same time, the American League for a Free Palestine will hold a “Never Back to the Ghetto Rally.”
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.
