JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I decided to share the entire Ploish Labour Fights for Freedom, Equality, Independence because it is pretty scarce and its content is very powerful and deserves to be read. It is only 12 pages long but there is a lot in there. The pamphlet was printed in London by Liberty Publishers in 1944, though I cannot tell if it is before/during/after the Warsaw Uprising. There photo on the front cover ("Graves of Warsaw's defenders in one of the public squares...") may reference those killed in the Uprising, so it may well be printed in August at the beginning of the battle, as there is no direct reference to it in the text. By the end of the Uprising there were 10,000 of these defenders who would be killed as well as 200,000 people living in the city.
Of particular note here are the four pages devoted to the Nazi/German treatment of children. There are also specific references to the deathcamps/KL Treblinka, Majdanek, and Oswiecim (Auschwitz).
(There is an impressive lineage for libraries holding this title as found in WorldCat. Of the 12 copies located worldwide, only three are in the US (NYPL, Harvard, Notre Dame); the others are found in England (University College, LSE, British Library), Israel (Yivo and National Library), France (Bib Nationale, Paris), Poland (Nardowa and Dukat), and the IISG (Amsterdam).)
This is an ocr of the original—all bold appeared in the original.
CHILDREN ARE DYING
“It is not surprising, therefore, if among the Polish children, who lack food, clothing and warmth in the winter, and who lead the most wretched existence, epidemics...”
CHILDREN IN PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS
“The Polish children are not even spared the grimmest forms of persecution. They share with the adults the sufferings which the Germans are visiting upon the Polish nation. They crowd the prisons and die at the hands of executioners, together with the adults.”
“Between 11th and 28th November, 1942, for example, a large number of women, together with 60 children, were brought into the Pawiak prison in Warsaw. Children from 12 years of age and upwards are being sent to the notorious camp at Oswiecim. Children under 12 sent to Oswiecim are not admitted to the barracks. They are killed on the spot.”
“From the very beginning of the occupation the Germans have made it clear that, even when dealing with children, they will not hesitate to employ the severest measures. Immediately after the September campaign in Poland the Germans murdered, in Bydgoszcz, nearly one hundred Polish boy scouts, who faced the firing squad singing the Polish national anthem. In application of the principle of collective responsibility, when many Poles perished in mass executions for deeds they never committed, children died with their parents, either shot or burned alive.”
THE FATE OF JEWISH CHILDREN
“It is well known how thousands of Jewish children have perished side by side with grown-up Jews during the so-called “ liqui- dation of the ghettos.” Those children died with their elders, mown down by the sweep of machine-guns, in sealed death-trains, by electrocution, and in poison-gas chambers. Many are the descriptions of German brutality against Jewish children which have filtered through to London. One of the most horrible was the deportation from the Warsaw ghetto by death-train of the model Jewish orphanage, together with its founder, the well-known doctor, educationalist and writer, Janusz Korczak, who refused to desert the children. Germans beating Jewish women in the streets of the ghettos tore children from their arms and beat out their brains on the pavement.” [In the case of the orphanage the children and the director were sent to Treblinka]
“ . . . All men, women and children from 80 villages, in all about 21,000 people, have been taken to a camp near Zamosc. From the towns of Zaklikow and Krasnobrod, the whole population has been taken. In the last few days 7,000 people daily have been brought into Lublin, about 15 per cent, being deported for work in Germany and the rest sent to the camp at Majdanek. There is news that a part of the latter have been murdered there by gas.”
“ . . . The proceedings have spread to the districts of Bilgoraj, Janow, Tomaszow, Hrubiezow, Krasnystaw, Zamosc, Lubartows, and Pulawy. Of these districts some, such as Bilgoraj, are without any population at all. Only cattle roam the fields. Large numbers of people are being killed on the spot. Some of the children have been kicked to death, the rest have been segregated, children up to 13, and women and old people over 50 being carried off to be destroyed. It has been confirmed that in gas chambers in Majdanek alone, in the days of 2nd to 5th July, two train-loads (30 wagons each) of children, women and old people have been murdered. Males from 15 to 50 are being sent in various directions—we have no idea where. About 100,000 of the population are roaming about the countryside and hiding in the woods, fired upon with guns and from airplanes.”
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