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Teletype message
From: The SS and Police Fuehrer in the District of Warsaw
Warsaw, 27 April 1943.
Ref. No.: I ab/St/Gr—16 07—Journal No. 555/43 secret.
Re: Ghetto Operation
To: the Higher SS and Police Fuehrer East, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer and General of Police Krueger—or deputy.
Cracow
Progress of operation on 27 April 1943. Start: 0900 hrs.
For today's operation I formed 24 raiding parties with the same task as on several days of last week; they had to search the former Ghetto in smaller groups. These search parties pulled 780 Jews out of dug-outs and shot 115 Jews who resisted. This operation was terminated about 1500 hrs.; some of the parties had to continue to operate because they had found more dug-outs.
At 1600 hrs. a special battle group, 320 officers and men strong, started cleansing a large block of buildings situated on both sides of the so-called Niska Street in the Northeastern part of the former Ghetto. After the search the entire block was set on fire, after having been completely cordoned off. In this action a considerable number of Jews were caught. As before, they remained in the dug-outs, which were either below the ground or in the lofts of the buildings until the end. They fired their arms to the last moment, and then jumped down into the street, sometimes from as far up as the fourth floor, having previously thrown down beds, mattresses, etc., but not until the flames made any other escape impossible. A total of 2,560 Jews were caught today within the former Ghetto, of whom 547 were shot. Moreover, Jews in a not ascertainable number perished when dug-outs were blown up, or in the flames. The sum total of Jews, formerly residing in the Ghetto caught in this action, now amounts to 31,746.
We learned from an anonymous letter that there were a considerable number of Jews in a block of buildings adjoining the Northeastern part of the Ghetto, but outside of it. A special raiding party under the command of 1st. Lt. of Police Diehl was dispatched to attack these buildings. The raiding party discovered a gang of about 120 men, strongly armed with pistols, rifles, hand grenades, and light machine guns, who resisted. They succeeded in destroying 24 bandits in battle and arresting 52 bandits. The remainder could not be caught or destroyed, since darkness intervened. The buildings, however, were surrounded at once, so that an escape will hardly be possible. This cleansing action will be continued tomorrow. Moreover, we arrested 17 Poles, among whom 2 Polish Policemen, who should have been aware, among other things, of the existence of this gang. In this operation we captured 3 rifles, 12 pistols, partly of heavier caliber, 100 Polish "pineapple" hand grenades, 27 German steel helmets, quite a number of German uniforms, tunics and coats which were even furnished with ribbon of the East medal, some reserve magazines for machine guns, 300 rounds of ammunition, etc. The leader of the raiding party had a difficult task because the bandits were disguised in German uniform, but despite this fact, he did his duty with great efficiency. Among the bandits who were caught or killed, there were some Polish terrorists who were identified with certainty. Today we succeeded furthermore in discovering and liquidating one of the founders and leaders of the Jewish-Polish resistance movement. The external appearance of the Jews whom we are catching now shows that it is now the turn of those Jews who were the leaders of the entire resistance movement. They jumped from the burning windows and balconies, abusing Germany and the Fuehrer and cursing the German soldiers.
SS-men who descended into the sewers discovered that a great number of corpses of perished Jews are being washed away by the water.