Eye-witness reports of conditions in the Lublin Jewish “reservation” which reached here today said pneumonia, typhoid and dysentery were spreading rapidly and the few physicians on hand were unable to check the epidemics.
There are 54,000 Jews from Bohemia-Moravia and other Nazi dominated lands now in the Lublin area, the reports said. When thousands reached Lublin they were told there were no accomodations for them and they were sent back 25 miles, forced to spend days and nights in the fields in a temperature of 8 degrees above zero. sometimes even women and children were forced to sleep in the open in near-zero cold. Consequently there were many deaths from pneumonia.
Jewish men, including doctors and scientists, were put to work at carpentry, road-building and menial tasks connected with the camp, while women and children were forced to work in the fields 12 hours daily under armed guard.
“Inattentiveness at work” and other alleged offenses were punished as in German concentration camps — by flogging, solitary confinement and a semi-starvation diet. Several men were shot while trying to escape and others were severely punished when captured, the reports said.
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.
