Poles Throw Flowers over Ghetto Walls in Warsaw As Rosh Hashanah Gift to Jews

Sympathy with the Jews in Nazi-held Poland was demonstrated this Rosh Hashanash by Poles in Warsaw gathering in groups near the Jewish ghetto and throwing flowers and baskets of fruits over the ghetto walls, it was reported here today. The Jews in the ghetto have not seen any fruit for several months, since the Nazi authorities issued an order prohibiting Jews from buying fruits and vegetables.

Simultaneously the Polish secret radio broadcast on Rosh Hashanah a message in Polish and in Yiddish demonstrating the unity which exists between the Polish and Jewish population under the Nazi occupation. The broadcast urged the Jews to bravely carry their burden of Nazi oppression and emphasized that though this Rosh Hashanah is being met by Polish Jewry under conditions of unprecedented misery and persecution, it can be hoped that the new year will bring them liberation in a restored free Poland. The broadcast was announced as “being sent by Polish Christians to the Jews of Poland.”

Assuring the Jews that “every Pole, Catholic as well as Protestant, shares the persecution, torture and degradation which the Jews suffer under the common enemy called Hitler,” the broadcast expressed “brotherly greetings” to the suffering Jews on the occasion of their New Year and told them to feel that the walls of the ghetto have not separated them from the Polish people.

On the other hand the Nazi-controlled Polish press came out with articles bitterly attacking Poles for continuing to maintain relations with Jews. The Nowy Kurier Warszawaki complains that there are still Poles who are helping the Jews. The paper threatens that the property of such Poles will be confiscated and that the owners will be sent into the Jewish ghetto.