FOUR EDITORS SLAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 41, 22 January 1943, Page 7

FOUR EDITORS SLAIN

FIGHT WITH GERMANS

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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 lias jjiist been received by 'the Polish Government. A few weeks ago, Gestapo agents assisted by an S.S. dctachment, surrounded a small one-storey house ii> a suburb of Radom which they suspected of housing a secret newspaper. A printing machine, had. been set iup 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 serionsh r wounded. Finally the Germans succeeded in setting fire to the house and all the. hcroic defenders perished in the flames. They were thrown into a pit near the scene of the light. The following night unknown persons exhumed their bodies, placed, them in coffins and reburied 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.