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Polish Underground Instructs Members to Spread Ritual Murder Rumors Against Jews

January 29, 1947
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The underground organization WIN (Freedom and Independence) has instrusted its members to provoke anti-Jewish disturbances, according to testimony by a WIN member on trial before a high military court at Katowice on charges of espicnage and illegal propaganda activities.

The prosecution sited one of the “reports” circulated among the underground group, which charged that in the city of Tarnowskis Gory a Jew had kidnapped a Polish girl for purposes of ritual murder. He revealed that after distribution of this “report” rumors spread in the city that a young girl had been kidnapped. They were tracked down to a WIN member who actually had taken a youngster from her home and hidden her in order to provoke a disturbance.

Four of the loaders of the WIN “espionage and information” division were sentenced to death, while others of the group received sentences ranging from eight to fifteen years.

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