EDITORS SLAIN

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13802, 20 November 1942, Page 6

EDITORS SLAIN

FIGHT WITH GESTAPO NEWSPAPER STAFF The following account of the heroic death of the editors of an underground Polish newspaper in a fight with the Gestapo and S.S. Elite Guard has been received by the Polish Government in England. A few weeks ago, Gestapo agents assisted by an S.S. detachment, surrounded a small one-story house in a suburb of Radom which they suspected of housing a secret newspaper.

A printing machine had been set up in the cellar and one of the ground floor rooms was used as an editorial department, camouflaged as a public stenographer's office. There the editor and his assistants did their work. At the time the Germans put in an appearance, four people were working there, including one woman. As all possibility of escape had been cut off they decided to barricade themselves in. destroy all documents, and defend themselves. The fight that ensued lasted for several hours during which three of the German assailants were seriously wounded. Finally the Germans succeeded in setting fire to the house and all the heroic defenders perished in the flames. They were thrown into a pit near the scene of the fight. The following night unknown persons exhumed their bodies, placed them in coffins and re-buried them, setting up crosses above the graves. Within two days the Germans had destroyed the crosses, thrown the bodies out of their coffins and levelled the graves.