The Jewish community council in Cracow, which acted as the central body for all the Jews in occupied Poland, has been dissolved by the German authorities, it was learned here today. All members of the council, including Dr. Michael Weichert and David Hilfstein who headed the body, have been deported, the report reaching here from Poland says. The Cracow Jewish council was the last Jewish representative body in occupied Poland.
A Jew who succeeded in escaping from Poland told Jewish organizations here that the majority of the Jews still left in Poland are held in concentration camps in the Lublin area. He estimated that hundreds of thousands of Jews were executed in the Sobibor camp which, he said, was constructed under the supervision of an engineer named Moser who is the head of the Public Works Department in Cracow.
The escaped Jew said that Franz Holzheimer, a leader of the Nazi Elite troops and inspector of river service, who was brought from Hanover to Poland, conducted the executions of the Jews in the Sobibor camp. He is now supervising similar activities at camps in the Lublin area. The administrators of various camps in this district include Eugen Grimmeisen from Tomaszow-Mazowiecki; Johann Loefler, Theodor Ontyd, Paul Hrachowy – all from Mittelsdorf near Stollberg; Max Hilbert from Niederwischnitz and Joseph Napierala from Opole in Silesia, the Jewish informant testified.
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.
