The News-Chronicle reported today that Nazis entered the Polish town of Ostrovie near Warsaw, forced all the Jewish men to dig a large pit and then lined them up before the ditch and shot them down from behind with machine-guns so that their bodies fell into the newly-dug grave. The paper quoted ten Polish refugees “of good standing” who reached Budapest as vouching for the truth of the massacre report.
The military force entered the town and looted it, the refugees said. A squad entered the house of a rich Jewish merchant and ordered him to hand over all valuables, but he instead set fire to the building and escaped.
A few hours later, the report said, the Gestapo ordered all Jewish men, women and children to parade to the market square. The men were given picks and shovels and ordered them to dig a large ditch. When they had finished it they were lined up an executed.
The refugees related other incidents of men being buried alive, women being shot without reason and prisoners being allowed to die by the hundreds of exposure.
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.
