Jewish Fighters in Warsaw Ghetto Were Dressed in German Uniforms to Confuse Nazis

A detailed report disclosing that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto used German guns and were dressed in German military uniforms and helmets when they waged their heroic resistance against the Nazi “liquidation” of the ghetto, is published in the clandestine Polish publication “Polska” which reached here today. The German equipment, the paper says, was obtained by the Jews when they captured Nazi factories in the ghetto at which Jewish workers were employed in compulsory labor.

The Jewish fighters, the underground paper reports, were assisted by firemen, air-raid wardens and nurses. Prior to the beginning of the battle, all Jewish women, children and aged men were secreted in underground shelters in the ghetto which were reinforced by cement and secretly interconnected, the publication states.

“The fight began when several Jews who were deported by the Nazis from the Warsaw ghetto to an unknown destination escaped en route and made their way back to the ghetto,” the underground paper declares. They revealed the terrible truth that the Jewish deportees were being massacred on the road. This led to Jewish defiance of a new Nazi order to assemble another 5,000 Jews for deportation. Gestapo units, entering the ghetto to enforce this order, were met with showers of bullets from the roofs and were forced to retreat. Whereupon the Germans brought up four tanks firing chaotically into houses, but the tanks too were forced to withdraw. Incendiary bombs were then dropped by the Nazis from planes. The Jews replied by setting on fire the ghetto workshops where German war material was produced.”

AXIS JOURNALISTS FIND GHETTO LITTERED WITH BODIES OF JEWS AND GERMANS

The Polish underground paper declares that soon after the Nazis succeeded in “liquidating” the ghetto, they brought to Warsaw a group of Axis journalists protected by a unit of Nazi elite guards. “Smoke was still rising from the burning buildings when the journalists entered the ghetto,” the paper reports. The streets were littered with rotting bodies of Jews and of Germans and it was difficult to identify among the killed, Jew or German, since the Jews were wearing the captured Nazi uniforms to confuse the German soldiers.

“The representative of the Nazi propaganda department who escorted the journalists admitted that every Jewish house had been turned into a fortress, making the siege for the Germans very difficult,” the Polish organ continues. Although the police were ordered to guard the sewers leading to the ghetto, the Jews in the ghetto nevertheless succeeded in getting food and arms through secret channels. “The Jewish battle in the ghetto gave much encouragement to the Polish population,” the paper concludes.