A detailed description of the Nazi destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and the slaughter of most of its inhabitants was presented in the Supreme Court of Capetown when Jack Ryback, who came to the Union in 1938, was granted an order declaring his wife and son dead. The wife and son were last known to have been living in the ghetto in 1942.
The description of the end of the ghetto was presented by Jacob Lichterman, who had himself lived in Warsaw until 1943 and who had witnessed the destruction by fire of the ghetto. In an affidavit presented by Mr. Ryback, Mr. Lichterman, cantor of the Vredehoek Synagogue, stated that during 1945 and 1946 he had assisted the Central Committee of Jews in Poland with the compilation of a list of the few survivors of the holocaust and that the name of Ryback had not appeared among the survivors. He added that he believed that the Rybacks had either died in the ghetto or had been removed earlier to be exterminated in a death camp.
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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.
