Nazi cruelties inflicted upon Jews in Gestapo prisons are described today in the official organ of the Polish Government, which announced last night that it had compiled a list of 3,000 Nazi war criminals in Poland selected for post-war trial on charges of instigating atrocities against the civilian population, including the mass-executions of Polish Jews and the introduction of ghettos.
The first ten Nazi leaders slated for punishment include the German governor for Poland, Hans Frank, charged among other things with the establishment of ghettos; Ludwig Fischer, the Nazi governor for Warsaw, responsible for mass-executions of Jews. and the Gestapo leader S. Globotchnik, charged with killing thousands of Jews in the Lublin district.
The torture of Jews in the prisons was related in testimony given by a Polish civilian who succeeded in escaping from Poland after being held for six months in a Gestapo prison in Warsaw. He revealed that Jews are shot daily in the courtyards of the prison after being compelled to dig their own graves.
JEWISH PRISONERS COMPELLED TO DANCE AND SHOUT “HITLER IS A GREAT MAN”
The Jewish prisoners, his report states, are separated from the non-Jewish when taken into the prison yard for exercise. Then they undergo a special kind of exercise which consists of holding hands and dancing around in a circle shouting “Hitler is a great man.”
“The favorite sport of the Gestapo guards is to force non-Jewish prisoners to punch the faces of the Jewish prisoners,” the eye-witness writes. “Jewish new-comers are forced to sleep during the first two weeks of their confinement in a cupboard containing two pails which serve as an improvised lavatory. They always faint. But when other prisoners try to help them by opening the cupboard door, the Gestapo guards who keep an all-night watch rush in and beat up all the prisoners in the cell.”
The escaped Polish civilian also relates a story of how a Jewish prisoner in the Warsaw jail went mad and shrieked as he had been taught to,” I am a dirty Jew,” when witnessing another Jew being tortured in the cell. The tortured Jew was charged by the Gestapo with having a large stock of clothing hidden away.
“In front of all of us prisoners, the Gestapo men tried to force the Jewish merchant to ‘confess’ that the charge against him was justified and to reveal where the clothing was hidden,” the Pole writes. “When the Jew repeatedly denied the charge, he was lashed with a loather whip interwoven with strands of steel wire. He collapsed and was left on the floor unconscious for several hours. When he regained consciousness, the torture was resumed in front of us with such brutality that it was no wonder that one of the Jewish prisoners became insane.”
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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.
