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German Red Cross Workers Refused to Give Food to American Jewish War Prisoners

February 21, 1945
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German Red Cross workers refused to sell food to a group of American war prisoners which included several Jews, it was revealed here today by Dr. Ernest Gruenberg, 29, of New York City, who arrived in Moscow over the week-end after fleeing from a German camp in Poland.

The young Jewish physician, formerly an interne at St. Elizabeth’s H capital in Washington, D.C., told how while being transferred from one camp to another a group of Yank prisoners paused at a wayside station near Poznan, Poland. They asked a Red cross “fraulein” to sell them some soup. When, in reply to her query, they said that there were Jews among them, she refused to sell them anything.

Capt. Gruenberg, who was captured in Normandy on June 8, two days after D-Day, eluded, together with two other officers, the guards who were transferring them westwards to another camp and bid until the Red Army arrived. After a series of adventures which took them across most of Poland and parts of Russia, they arrived here Saturday evening.

While imprisoned by the Germans, he was forbidden to act as a doctor in the person camps, and, therefore, organized a school for his fellow officers, despite difficulties placed in his way by the Nazis.

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