Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, after a conference today with Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles and other high officials of the State Department, declared that Hitler has ordered the annihilation of all Jews in Europe by the end of this year.
“This nows is substantiated in documents furnished to me by the State Department this afternoon,” Dr. Wise said. “It is one of the last made acts of destruction which Hitler will perpotrate before he is called to judgement.”
Declaring that a representative of President Roosvelt, who returned a short time ago from a mission abroad, told him that “the worst fears about the fate of the Jews under Hitler are true,” Dr. Wise estimated that “one-half of the five million Jews in the territories occupied by the Nazis have arleady been destroyed.”
Dr. Wise said that he has been receiving reports for three months indicating that Hitler has been extremely wrathful because the extermination of the Jews has not proceeded more quickly. “The Nazis,” he declared, “have used various means of killing off large portions of the Jewish population, including poison and asphyxiation, but have now found that the most efficient method is for a doctor to inject an air bubble into the victims’ veins. In this way a single doctor can kill 100 persons in an hour.” He added that the Nazis have set a value of fifty marks, about ten dollars at pre-war rate of exchange, for each corpse, and are reclaiming them for soap fats and fertilizer. Corpses are also being exhumed for this purpose, he said.
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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.
