Ninety-eight percent of the Jews who remained in Poland after September, 1939, died as a result of the war, according to a detailed statistical report issued yesterday by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes, set up by the Polish Government.
One of nine sections of the report, headed “Extermination of Polish Jews,” provides a statistical study and a documented record of what happened to 3,474,000 Jews in Poland from the outbreak of the war on Sept. 1, 1939.
Because of the lightning-like advances of the Germans at the beginning of the war, the report says, 2,317,000 Jews remained within the Nazi zone of occupation while 1,157,000 were within the territory annexed by the Russians prior to the war’s outbreak.
Tracing the course of German policy towards the Jews, the report points out that the concentration of Jews in urban areas facilitated German persecution and eventual extermination. In a chapter entitled, “Phases and Methods of the Solution of the Jewish Problem under the German Occupation,” it is noted that the Germans started to carry out their program of extermination on the first day after the war started. Although Poles were considered citizens of an inferior race in the districts incorporated by the Nazis, Jews were excluded from even this category and therefore were deprived of the state’s protection.
This contempt for the Jews and their exceptional legal status led to a series of discriminatory regulations which, by Nov. 23, 1940, compelled them to wear distinguishing marks. Previously, they had been deprived of the rights of travel and changing residence, and their right to hold property was at first limited and later completely abolished.
Furthermore, Jewish communities had to contribute gold, silver, furs and other valuables to the Germans. Food rations allowed the Jewish population were smaller and poorer in quality than those allowed the Poles, the Commission added.
OUTLINES METHODS USED BY NAZIS TO WIPE OUT JEWISH POPULATION
Beginning in 1940, ghettoes were instituted in many Polish cities and towns. For this purpose the worst districts of each community were chosen, resulting in overcrowding, disease and death.
Besides the ghettoes the Germans established other “institutions of extirpation:” forced labor camps, training camps and finally concentration and extermination camps.
The Commission report tells in detail of the outrages committed by the Germans against the Jews. There were robberies, “searchings,” contributions, confiscations, taking hostages, beatings and tortures, mockery, humiliation and organization of insulting performances (which were later filmed,) compulsory labor, rapes, desecration of sacred objects, burning of synagogues and Jewish libraries, expulsions and individual and collective executions, the report said.
By dividing the Nazi policy of extermination of the Polish Jews into two phases, the Commission found that up to the time of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in June 22, 1941, 500,000 Jews had perished. From the summer of 1941 to February, 1945, 2,300,000 Jews died at the hands of the Germans. The Commission also reports that 1,000,000 non-Polish Jews were killed in Poland by the Germans. These Jews came chiefly from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, France, Belgium, Italy and Greece.
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