The first ghetto walls in modern history closed today around 300,000 Jews of Warsaw as an order issued by the Nazi authorities for segregation of the Jews went into effect.
The eight-feet-high concrete wall surrounds a district of about 100 square blocks in the poor northwestern section of the devastated former Polish capital. An increase in disease, already widespread, was foreseen in reports reaching here as a result of overcrowding in the ghetto–in some buildings there are seven persons to a room–and scarcity of food.
The wall, which has been under construction for several months, has 18 entrances, all of which are heavily guarded. Under the German decree special permits are necessary to enter or leave the segregated area.
In dividing the city, the Germans reserved the finest and largest section–the southeastern area–for themselves, and the 800,000 Poles were given all the rest of the city, except for the ghetto. Jews and Poles obliged to change their residence as result of the redistribution were permitted to take along only bedding, household linen and personal belongings, leaving their furniture behind.
At the same time, it was reported that following an announcement that Germans would be settled in the Radom district, the Nazi authorities ordered 2,000 Jews to leave. The Radom Jews will be resettled elsewhere, according to German dispatches.
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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.
