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?gator of Kielce Pogrom Surrenders to Police; Will Not Be Punished

April 18, 1947
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Jan Ruczaj, the leader of a band which carried out pogrom in Kielce last year, in which 41 Jews were killed, has surrendered to the ##sh authorities, it was announced today over the Warsaw radio. Although he ##tted that he organized the pogrom, he will not be punished because of the amnesty ##ted by the Polish Government to members of ##-## underground groups.

Ruczaj was also the man who kidnapped a Polish child and forced him to sad a rumor that the Jows had attempted to murder him for ritual proposes. was this rumor which precipitated the attack on the headquarters of the Jewish ##tral Committee in Kielce. A gang led by Ruczaj gave the rioters planned direction.

Charles Ball, a 13-year-old Jewish boy, today received one of Poland’s highest military awards for his activities with Jewish partisan forces during the war. When ##.J. Zwaski, aide to Marshal Michal Zymierski, Polish Defense Minister, asked ## boy to identify himself, Charles said: “I am a Jew who fought against the Nazis ##a Jew.”

The boy fled the Zamosc ghetto together with 41 other Jews who Joined the ##tisans. Charles was a courier between his group and the partisan general ##mand. His mother was killed in a battle. He is now in the Guzik Memorial Home ## Jewish orphans in Otwock.

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