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American Red Cross Transmits Appeal for Prose of German Massacres of Jews

July 4, 1943
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The American Red Cross has transmitted to the International Red Cross an appeal that it investigate Nazi atrocities against Jews in occupied Poland, it was learned here today. The appeal was drawn up by the American Representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of Poland. It reads:

“For more than a year we have been continuously receiving authentic reports from Poland, that the German authorities no longer limit themselves to shutting the Jews of Poland within ghetto walls, that they are no longer satisfied with starving the Jewish population. In May, 1942, we received the first report that the German authorities have commenced with a plan of annihilation of the three and a half million Jews of Poland through mass-shootings, poisonous gasses and by means of other horrible methods. There are reports, from the same date, which tell of mass-deportations of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the ghettos; deportations carried out in a manner which spells death for the deportees.

“Since February 7, 1943, the remnants of the Jewish population have been waging armed resistance, during further attempts at deportation. That is sufficient evidence of the desperate state of the Jews. The governments of the United Nations, the public opinion of the entire anti-Fascist world, high-ranking representatives of the Christian world, of science and literature, have protested against these unheard of acts. However, despite the millions of victims on the part of the Jewish civilian population, despite all warnings and protests, the Germans continue their ‘work.’

“In this hour of greatest peril for the remnants of the Jewish population of Poland, we appeal to you, in the name of humanity and justice, in the name of the most elementary laws of culture and civilization, to employ immediate means in order to investigate the inhuman treatment that is being meted out to the Jews in the ghettos, concentration camps and labor camps by the German authorities, and to fulfill your obligation and help rescue those that are still alive.”

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