Spread of Disease in Warsaw Feared As Rations Are Cut Anew

Fearing the spread of epidemic diseases in Warsaw as result of reduced food rations, which have been cut to one-third of the former amount, the Nazi authorities in the Warsaw ghetto issued an order that every inhabitant of the ghetto under 40 years of age must undergo anti-typhoid vaccination, it was reported here today from Nazi-held Poland.

(More than 239,000 persons, including 91,000 children, in Warsaw have been reduced to a food ration providing only 700 calories a day, whereas 2,000 a day is the minimum human standard, according to a cabled message from W. C. McDonald, Warsaw representative of the American Commission for Polish Relief, made public in New York by Chauncey Mc-Cormick, president of the commission. It said nearly 250,000 persons were on soup lines in Warsaw alone.)

The reduction of the food rations in Warsaw has especially hit the Jewish population, which even previously received only one-half the rations given to Poles. Coupled with the impossible dwelling situation in the ghetto, the starvation diet on which the Jews have now been put must inevitably lead to the outbreak of infectious diseases, reports said.

Jewish leaders in Warsaw are endeavoring to cope with the situation by trying to maintain as many public kitchens as possible. Some of the kitchens, including those established for children, will be able to function only three days a week because of the shortage of food for the kitchens under the new ration system.

Great hope is laid by Warsaw Jews upon the approaching Passover week, when matzoth and other Passover foodstuffs are expected to reach Jews in Nazi-held Poland from Hungary, under a reported arrangement reached by the Joint Distribution Committee and approved by the German authorities.

At the same time it is reported from Warsaw that the Jewish community has instituted special Jewish courts to deal with Jewish cases and has also organized a post-office system within the ghetto. Mail reaching the ghetto is being distributed by Jewish mailmen, most of them war veterans. It is expected that the entire administration of the post-office in the ghetto will be turned over to the Jews.

The revival of Yiddish in the ghetto is growing as result of the Jews’ isolation. Assimilated Polish Jews who never used the Yiddish language are now readjusting themselves to the new conditions of life by studying Yiddish, without which no one can hope to secure work in any of the institutions of the Jewish community.

A report from Nazi-occupied Poland reaching Switzerland states that all 2,000 Jews of the township of Glowne, between Lodz and Warsaw have been expelled and herded into summer barracks in a suburb which was proclaimed as a ghetto. A special post office has been established for the Jews, more than 1,400 of whom must be fed in free kitchens. A detachment of 40 young Jews has been chosen as special Jewish police for the ghetto.

Reports from Tarnow, Galicia, reveal the tragic position of the Jews there under the Nazi regime. Some 13,000 Jews depend entirely on the food they get from free soup kitchens. The situation of the Jewish community in Tarnow is becoming more and more precarious because of growing poverty among the local Jews and also because of the many hundreds of Jews from other cities who are being driven by the Nazis to the town and become a burden upon the local Jewish relief institutions.