Emphasizing that it is difficult to estimate the number of Jews who remain alive in occupied Poland, Edward Warszawski, the first Jew to succeed in reaching London from Warsaw after the battle in the ghetto, today told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “it is possible that there are still in Poland today between 100,000 and 500,000 Jews.”
“Strange as it may seem,” the escaped Jew said, “there was a great wave of optimism among the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the battle that raged there. The Warsaw Jews, aware of the fact that they would eventually be crushed by the superior military force of the Germans, were nevertheless imbued with the spirit that the Jewish people will live long after the Germans are defeated in this war.
“Intense cultural activity and a wonderful revival of religious feelings marked Jewish life in the ghetto despite the fact that conditions became worse for them with every day,” Mr. Warszawski continued. “At the same time Jews continued to secure arms smuggled into the ghetto for months through various ways.”
The escaped Jew, who took the name of Warszawski in order to keep his real name secret from the Germans, who believe he was killed in the ghetto uprising of which he was one of the leaders, said that many Poles helped the Jews at the risk of being severely punished by the Germans. One of every six Poles suffered in one way or another from the extermination methods which the Germans began to apply to the Polish population after “disposing” of hundreds of thousands of Jews, he stated.
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.
