Nazis Admit Mass Executions in Poland; 100 Slain in One Town

Official admission of Nazi massacres of Jews in towns of the Lodz province, in Nazi Poland, was revealed here today with the arrival of the German newspaper Schlesische Zeitung of Breslau. The newspaper publishes extracts of reports on the massacres submitted by Nazi police officials.

One item in the reports relates that in the township of Lask, “100 Jews were executed because during searches for arms in many houses Jews resisted.” The police learned, this report continues, that Jews had surrounded a synagogue in Lask to prevent entry of the Germans. The Germans thereupon opened fire on the Jews and “hundreds were killed,” the report states, and the synagogue was then put to the torch.

The account continues: “Jewish streets were strictly closed. Jews were entirely forbidden intercourse with peasants of the neighborhood, from whom they had been coaxing milk, potatoes and cabbage. Because of a typhoid epidemic, Jews were allowed to use Jewish physicians on condition that the physicians provided their own medicines.”

In the town of Sieradz, the report continues, 36 Jews were shot dead “for firing on German soldiers.” Nine Jews and one Jewess were publicly lashed for failing to salute police officers in Pabianice. In the town of Kolo, 217 Jews “caught stealing food” were publicly lashed. “Among the thieves,” the report states, “were the town’s rabbi and his 13 pupils.”

The Breslau paper also reports that 3,600 Jews are in a concentration camp in the Radom district awaiting trial “for hiding arms.”

The task of the Nazi officials, the report states, was made easier because “in some houses a large number of Jews committed suicide before we entered to arrest them. In many houses, Jews resisted with iron bars and axes. More than 100 criminals of this kind were executed on the spot.”