More than 1,000 victims of spotted fever in the densely crowded Warsaw ghetto have been put to death by gas in a new move by Nazi military authorities to check the epidemic of this disease, also known as fleck typhus, which has spread throughout the eastern front area and is taking a heavy toll of German troops, it is learned here today from reliable sources.
The starvation prevalent in the Warsaw ghetto is one of the chief factors in the extent of the epidemic, since the emaciated Jews are unable to fight off its ravages. At the same time that the Germans resorted to execution to stop the disease, however, they decreased the ration of Polish Jews, it is reported here today, to the point where the 500,000 Jews in the ghetto receive only 100 tons of potatoes as their rations for an entire week.
As a result of the epidemic and the large number of Nazi wounded that are being brought to Warsaw from the Russian front, the German authorities have been forced to employ Jewish doctors, it is also learned here. Some of the Jewish doctors, it is reported, have even been ordered to work in German military hospitals.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.