The ancient barbaric methods of the Pharaoh who forced the Jews in Egypt to build cities without supplying them with straw for bricks was emulated by the Nazis in Minsk who ordered the Jews there to build ghetto walls without supplying them with materials, Russian guerillas returning from Minsk where they operated in the rear of the German armies, reported here today.
The Russian partisans related that General von kube, the Nazi commissar for Minsk, when ordering the Jews to build the the walls of the ghetto, addressed them as follows: “We have no intention of furnishing you with the materials for the construction of the walls. We shall compel you to follow the example of your ancestors in ancient Egypt by immuring your children if you get no other material.” The Nazi general then ordered a group of German soldiers to hunt up some Jewish children “in order to teach the Jews how the building of the ghetto walls can be accomplished.”
JEWS WRECK THEIR HOMES TO SAVE THEIR CHILDREN
Driven to despair by the brutal order of the Nazi leader, one of the Jews who was in the group addressed by ven Kubo, turned to his follow-Jews and shouted in front of the Nazi general: “Brethren, let us demolish our living quarters for building material and save our children from death:” The Jews then left for their homes and, under the taunts of German soldiers, wrecked a number of houses in the ghetto area, thus securing enough material to create the ghetto walls without on dangering the lives of their children.
The Russian press today also reports that a Russian worker in Minsk was shot on the spot by Nazi soldiers when he offered to take the place of the Jewish professor Siterman whom the Nazis were torturing by harnessing him, in lieu of a horse, to a watercart and compelling him to deliver water every morning to local Nazi institutions. Prof. Siterman, who was one of the most famous physicians in Russia, saved thousands of lives when he served in the Minsk hospital prier to the Nazi invasion of that city. He was loved and highly esteemed by the entire non-Jewish population. The Russian man who offered to replace him was one of the patients whom the Jewish professor cured of a severe illness. He was deeply moved to see the professor being tortured publicly every morning and paid with his life for his act of mercy, which proved to be in vain. The professor died from the torture inflicted upon him.
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.
