A Zionist leader who left Warsaw on Oct. 29 and came here by way of Cracow and Vienna revealed today that 500 Viennese Jews, destined by the Nazis for the Lublin “reservation,” had been transported to the town of Niski, on the border of Western Galicia, which is remote from Lublin.
He said that the Judaica Institute in Warsaw and a majority of the city’s synagogues, including that on Tlomacka Street, had escaped the bombardment undamaged. He stated also the there were no epidemics in Warsaw at the time he left.
According to the Zionist leader, the Germans have made Cracow the capital of Nazi Pol-and, explaining that Warsaw was too badly damaged to serve as the political center of the are The real reason, however, is their fear of proximity to the Russians, the Zionist said.
The refugee also disclosed that large sums arriving from the United States for Jewish relatives in Poland have been taken by the Nazi authorities, who give the addressees German marks at the official rate of exchange. Part of the food and clothing parcels sent from the United States are confiscated for the Nazi Winter Relief fund.
Officials of the Cracow Jewish Community, according to the Zionist, are required to stand at attention when Gestapo agents enter to give their daily orders. A vice-president was beaten when he kept his hands in his pockets.
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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.
