The first eye-witness story every to come out of the Lublin ghetto was recounted here today by a correspondent of the Neue Zeitung. The correspondent of the Swiss paper was permitted by the Nazi authorities to visit Lublin.
Reporting that “fifty thousand Jews are crammed into an area where only ten thousand could live under any condition approaching normal,” the Swiss correspondent declares that thousands of Jews are housed in veritable catacombs without access to air and in almost total darkness.
“The misery and filth in which the Jews are compelled to live is beyond human imagination,” the neutral journalist writes. “Never have I felt such deep pity overcome me as here the sight of the deep misery concentrated in that small portion of the earth. The houses are small and dilapidated and some carry signs at the entrances warning of the presence of infections diseases.”
“Standing in the street and watching a Jewish peddler selling half-rotten food, I heard a moaning voice from a low cellar window begging me to move on because I was shutting out the one ray of light coming through the window into the cellar. I entered the house and found in the dark, damp cellar, a family of four. The furniture consisted of two small chairs, a rickety bench, two mattresses on the bare floor, and as few cooking. To my astonishment I found another family living in a basement under the cellar without any daylight at all.”
The Swiss correspondent estimates that the Jewish population in the Lublin ghetto will be increased by 10,000 since more Jews are being sent in from various parts of Poland as well as from Germany.
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.
