While the mass expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany has been halted pending outcome’ of berlin-warsaw negotiations next week, reports to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency indicated today that 15,000 persons had been driven across the border into Poland before the deportations were stopped.
Meanwhile, deportees who had not yet crossed the frontier were seeing returned to their homes to await result of the conversations to regulate the status of polish Jews in Germany. Fate of the 15,000 already driven into Poland will also be determined by the negotiations.
Reports reaching here from various frontier posts where the deportees are concentrated drew a picture of nazi barbarism at its worst in the expulsion drive. among the exiles were many sick and elderly men, women and children, Jewish relief organizations and red Cross units were exerting every effort to relieve their tragic plight. From the border town of Zbonszyn, where 5,000 deportees arrived Friday night, it was learned that a train from hamburg, with 1,000 Jewish passengers on it, had been stopped three and a half miles from the frontier. storm troopers with” fixed bayonets and machine guns ordered the refugees to alight and then drove them through the darkness toward the border, warning them against looking backward. children who screamed were warned their heads would be cut off if they did not keep quiet.
A number of cold, hungry boys and girls, some of them ill, all still dressed in their school uniforms and carrying school books, were among thousands of exiles who arrived at Katowice. all had been taken from their schools and, without even a chance of bidding their parents farewell, had been herded into trains and taken to the border.
A Jewess who broke her leg en route from a point in the interior of Germany was forced to continue her trip to Katowice. polish Jews from towns bordering the frontier were literally driven across roads and fields to the border.
From other deportee centers on the frontier, it was reported that many children had been driven from orphanages and sick persons from hospitals, and forced to join the tragic trek to the frontier.
Chief focal point of the refugee trains were Zbonszyn, where 5,000 were discharged Friday and Saturday; Chojnice, where 5,000 were unloaded, Kattowice and Bytem. Those whose papers were in order were permitted to go on to Cracow, Lwow, Lodz, Stanislaw and Kalomy, where the local Jewish community organizations provided relief. representatives of the Warsaw Refugee Aid Committee were sent to all frontier posts where deportees were to be found.
Reprisal deportations of German citizens, most of them Jews, were halted by the Polish Government when announcement of the negotiations was made.
Official circles in Warsaw told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Nazi expulsion order referred only to individuals due to undergo examination by the polish consular authorities. The Polish press is publishing only the briefest of communiques, issued by the Polish Telegraphic Agency. Two newspapers that published their own reports were confiscated.
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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.
