Show by tosha bialer i feature through spec special ifil arrangement with wi th Col colliers hers weekly my husband my son and I 1 are the only persons in america to have escaped from the ghetto set up by germany in warsaw the amazing set of circumstances by which we escaped cannot be told because it would mean death to all who aided us of those whom we left behind I 1 can say little this is the third winter they will have passed through and how many will survive I 1 cannot say there ther e can hardly be many left now of the that were once there I 1 who lived with them through dark years who shared their bitter fate humbly bear witness to their martyrdom anything I 1 may say or write about it is in memory of those who died a tribute to the courage and determination of those who are still living I 1 join with them in a prayer for a new world in which they will resume their place as free human beings location of the ghetto the ghetto as set up by the nazis after they took possession of warsaw included the oldest and most deteriorated sections of the city a district that had been an eyesore for years and should have been torn down long ago it comprised many blocks completely destroyed by bombing without a habitable building left standing with intentional foresight not one park playground or public garden was included behind the high ghetto walls there was no access to the river banks the modern jewish hospital the liberal jewish synagogue and th the e old peoples home were left outside the germans were set on our destruction with cold logic they concluded that overcrowding inadequate housing malnutrition and reduction to subhuman standards would save them the trouble and ammunition required to massacre half a million people outright against this situation the jewish council a religious committee took over the responsibility as best they could the president was a mr Czern iakow a fine man I 1 say was advisedly beca few weeks ago we learned that he committed suicide sui when the germans directed him to draw up a list of people for deportation business with outside world all ali business with the outside world had to be handled through the commissar for jews of the german government ern ment I 1 never saw him helas he was a remote personality but his shadow fell deeply across our lives A court building was the only place where our world met the outside world here jew and christian were allowed to see each other for the last time here men terminated old partnerships started by fat liers a or grandfathers here husbands and wives met to say goodby good by to see each other no more for the nuremberg law has been applied in poland and marriages between jews and non jews had to be dissolved we had no electricity no radios no telephones no musical instruments no street cars the post office would handle nothing but postcards and every card was examined by a german censor our official bread allowance was five pounds per month one morning we woke up to find a number of jews lying dead in kupiecki Ku street they had been caught outside the wall shot down and then the bodies thrown into the ghetto we never knew whether they had passes or not the germans never bothered about little technicalities like that for our own sake and that of our families we were always terrified at any harm coming to our jailers day after day we saw friends and relatives murdered in retaliation for deeds in which they had no share no knowledge on one occasion a polish policeman had been killed while on duty the gestapo carried out an extensive search in the course of which a building at 9 street put up a stubborn resistance for several hours when the defenders were finally overcome 53 male inhabitants of that building were dragged out and shot early in 1942 batches of deportees from germany began to arrive five or six hundred at a time after being despoiled of whatever they had they would be moved on we were told they were to go to a reservation near lublin actually most of them left in charge of extermination squads according to the stories these squads had several ways of disposing of their charges one was to shut 50 or 60 of them up in a truck and then fill it with poison gas another was as t to 0 I 1 leave v e them starving by the roadside or simply machine gun them |