Polish military and judicial authorities have launched a concerted drive to stamp out the bandit groups which have been terrorizing Jews throughout Poland for more than a year and which have been responsible for the death of several hundred.
A detachment of 40 which operated along the rail lines between Lukow and Miedzyrzec, dragging Jews from trains and killing them, was rounded up by the militia after a fierce engagement during which ten bandits were killed.
At Katowice, a military court this week sentenced to death three brigands who had murdered many Jews in the Katowice-Bielske district. Two of their confederates received terms of life imprisonment and fifteen years, respectively. At Bialystok a fascist leader named Waclaw Maliszewski and his assistant have been sentenced to be hanged, while in Cracow another military tribunal doomed the leader of a band which dragged Jews from trains between Cracow and Nowy Sacz. Ten other members of the group received terms ranging from three to fifteen years.
In Stettin, a criminal court sentenced a militiaman, Karel Dobrzanski to life imprisonment for firing into a group of Jewish children, gravely injuring two of them. Dobrzanski pleaded that he “couldn’t pass Jews in the street without getting excited.” In pronouncing the verdict, the president of the court said that “the murder of Jews is Poland’s greatest shame.” He added that he had refrained from imposing the death sentence because of the defendant’s “poor mentality.”
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.
