Harried by disease, hunger, Nazi sadism and plunder Warsaw’s entire Jewish population of more than 400,000 was reliably reported today to be facing extinction within a comparatively short time.
Unless help arrives soon, annihilation of the entire Jewish community of the former Polish capital is a matter of months. This was the conviction expressed in an eyewitness report of the latest developments in the Nazi-held city, received here through a trustworthy source.
According to the eyewitness account, all sources of income have been closed to Jews and those not actually dying of starvation and disease are using up their last savings.
The Jewish Community organization is continuing to supply 500 Jewish workers daily for compulsory removal of debris and other public works. Nevertheless, Nazi street hunts for Jews still continue. No Jew who leaves his home is sure of returning. Humiliations and tortures continue to be inflicted upon the impressed Jewish workers who are forced to dance, sing, undress and belabor each other.
Plundering of Jewish homes is unabated. Any German is free to enter a Jewish home and take whatever strikes his fancy. German soldiers, however, have been forbidden to enter private homes or restaurants and cafes with the exception of the Cafes Bristol and Europa, which are barred to Jews and Poles. So-called legal robbery of Jewish house on the pretext of arms searches is also continuing, although on a somewhat reduced scale
Polish and Jewish schools are still closed to classes and are being used as children’s canteens. Many Jewish streets continue to be cordoned off with barbed wire, ostensibly to keep troops from entering and contracting typhus, which is still wide-spread.
The property of the five former Warsaw Jewish dailies has been confiscated and all their equipment has been removed to the Reich. The trucks of the Haint, however, are still seen in the streets with their Yiddish inscriptions intact.
Many Warsaw Jews have been heavily fined for failure to wear the ghetto armlets decreed by the Nazi authorities. Jewish shops still open are forced to display special signs with the Mogen David on a blue background.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
