The Jewish-populated city of Berdichev, once known as the “Jerusalem of Volhynia,” is now completely destroyed, a Nazi radio broadcast today reported from Berlin. The city had been occupied by the German army after the Russians were forced to retreat from the Zhitomir region.
The correspondent of the Swedish pro-Nazi newspaper Aftonbladet, who just returned from a trip to the Nazi-occupied Baltic countries and the city of Bialystok, today continues to describe his impressions. He expresses strange sympathy with the sufferings of the Jews of Bialystok which he says “is now a half-destroyed, burned city.” More than 50,000 Jews, he says, were evacuated by the Soviet authorities in six days preceding the German occupation of the city. They included men, woman and children.
“The evacuation,” the correspondent writes, “was ordered by the Soviets on July 26 and had to be completed on August 1st. It was a big movement in a half-destroyed, burned city. Jewish women and children, tired, barefooted and hungry, stood against the walls of their destroyed homes. Many of them had no place to go, although it was mandatory that they leave the city.”
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.
