Samuel Zygelbojm, Jewish Member of Polish National Council, Dies Suddenly in London

Samuel Zygelbojm, Jewish member of the Polish National Council, who escaped from the Nazis after having organized a Jewish underground movement in occupied Poland, died suddenly today. He was 49 years old and suffered from chronic stomach ulcers.

Zygelbojm was held as a hostage by the Nazis in Poland immediately after the occupation of Warsaw. When released, he became a member of the Warsaw Jewish Council which supervised Jewish life in the ghetto. He escaped from Poland when the Nazis were seeking to re-arrest him as one of the organizers of the underground movement and succeeded in reaching Paris. After the fall of France, he came to the United States, but left for London in 1942 when the Polish Government-in-Exile appointed him a member of the Polish National Council to represent organized Jewish labor in Poland.

Born in Chelm, Poland, he joined the Jewish Socialist Party “Bund” in Poland at the age of 14. In 1924 he held the post of secretary general of the Federation of Jewish Labor Unions in Poland. In 1926 he was elected a member of the Warsaw Municipal Council.

During his stay in London as a member of the Polish National Council, Zygelbojm maintained contact with the Jewish underground movement in Poland and was greatly responsible for informing the world concerning Nazi atrocities in the ghettos, from where he constantly received information through neutral countries. In one of his last speeches in London he declared that he would not survive the annihilation of the Jews in Poland. He died a day after a Polish clandestine radio announced the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto after heroic Jewish resistance there.