Dr. Chaim Szoszkes, Warsaw Jewish leader, arriving here en route to New York, reported today that 160,000 Jews remained outside the Warsaw ghetto when the Nazi authorities suspended execution of the order for segregation of the city’s half million Jews.
Before leaving Warsaw several days ago Dr. Szoszkes was a member of a Jewish delegation which appealed to the Nazi military authorities for revocation of the Gestapo order on the ground that to move the 160,000 Jews into the ghetto would increase the danger of epidemic, which might spread from the segregated area and affect the Army.
The delegation pointed out that the ghetto, comprising the district from Nalewki to Zelazni Bramy, was devastated and could hardly sustain its present population in the overcrowded, half-ruined houses, and to increase the concentration would increase the typhoid and other epidemic diseases. This argument was believed to have brought about postponement of the removal of the 160,000 Jews from other quarters.
Dr. Szoszkes estimated that 10,000 Jews had been slain in Warsaw during the German bombardment.
Aaron Pincus, a Jewish resident of Paris who returned here yesterday from Lodz after spending three months in Poland, declared that the Nazis were determined to make Lodz “Judenrein” within the shortest possible time.
Pincus gave the following details of developments in Lodz: The military authorities called in the three leading rabbis of the city, cut off their beards and told them they would be shot if Jews were found gathering in synagogues. Even on Yom Kippur the synagogues were closed, under military orders. No more than three Jews are permitted to gather in one place for holding prayers.
Jewish enterprises must remain open on Saturday, despite the Sabbath, and on Jewish holidays. Jews are seized in the streets and taken away for forced labor. This practice is being extended to women. Recently, the wife of the Jewish poet, Moshe Broderson, and the wives of other prominent Jews were forced to clean soldiers’ lavatories. Jews are therefore keeping to their homes for fear of being drafted for labor.
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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.
