Increasing shortages of food in Nazi occupied Poland has led to a further cut in bread rations for Jews, resulting in famine conditions, it was reported here today from Warsaw. The price of bread has risen from five cents per kilo before the war to nine zlotys, approximately $1.80, the report said.
Nazi censorship in occupied Poland is permitting the starving Jews to write to their relatives abroad, particularly to those in America, about the catastrophic shortage of food-stuffs, in order to stimulate the sending of food parcels from foreign countries. It is openly admitted by the Nazi authorities that an epidemic of typhus and other diseases can hardly be avoided in the ghettos as a result of the food dearth.
The news agency "Radio" in Switzerland picked up a broadcast from the secret Police radio station in which a movingly pathetic picture was given of hunger conditions, there, especially in the ghettos. The speaker told of the children’s stomachs "swelling up from hunger as one common condition frequently to be seen.
Letters from Jews in the Warsaw ghetto reaching Geneva make a plaintive plea for food. "Save us from a death by hunger. There no hope of getting any food here", one letter which passed the Nazi censorship says.
Intervention on the part of Jewish mutual aid institutions in the Government General with the German Red Cross has resulted in permitting the distribution of condensed milk for Jewish charity institutions. Thousands of cans of milk are reported to have been distributed.
The Gazetta Zydowska, Nazi censored Jewish organ in Warsaw reports that in the city of Cracow there are today only 10,875 Jews left.
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.
