The Destruction of Brok - Bulletin No.6

This bulletin was intended to publish the work of the Committee for collecting material about the destruction of the Jews in Poland, describing the destruction of the town of Brok. The town before the war is described as peaceful, with good relations between Jews and non-Jews, including the ethnic German population of the area. The bulletin describes how, at the beginning of the war, aerial bombardment damaged the town, and refugees flooded it. Jewish youth fled east. At first the Germans appeared friendly, although they took goods with no payment, but after a short while they drove the population out of the houses while the town burnt, drove them into the church, and shot randomly, killing with no provocation. The population was held in the church while the town burned almost entirely, and the men were deported to a concentration-camp at Ostrow Mazowiecka. The majority of the women and children who were homeless left Brok. Many of the ones who remained were killed by the Germans. The German and Polish population of the region plundered Jewish property and ships in their absence. Bulletin No. 6 is an extract from a volume of protocols /statements provided by a group of Polish-Jewish refugee writers and journalists who fled to Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1939 they formed a committee to collect evidence on the condition of the Jews in Poland under Nazi occupation.