THE JEWISH NEWS
Friday, August 21, 1942
Jews' Plight in Unoccupied
France Growing Desperate
Dr. Schwartz, JDC Official, Back From Survey of Conditions
Under Vichy Regime, Reveals Many
New Problems
NEW YORK.—The situation of the Jewish popula-
tion in unoccupied France is growing increasingly worse,
it was disclosed here this week in an announcement that
Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, European chief of the Joint Dis-
tribution Committee, had returned' to his post in Lisbon
from the unoccupied zone, where he consulted with Jewish
welfare leaders on new problems
which have arisen in connection
with the administration of relief. Refugees Continue
The J.D.C. is supported by con..
tributions of American Jews to To Reach Palestine
the United Jewish Appeal for
•' - fugees, Overseas Needs and 13 Interned German Jews
Palestine, which also raises funds
Freed by Australia; 51
for the United Palestine Appeal
and the National Refugee Service.
Escape Arab Ruler
New_ Laws Add Hardships
In making the announcement,
Joseph C. Hyman, the J.D.C.'s
executive vice chairman, said that
•
recent Vichy decree estab-
lishing a Union of Jews in France
represented a serious develop-
ment insofar as rendering aid was
concerned. This body, he ex-
plained, has been made respon-
• ible for all Jewish welfare ac-
;vities. The Union is composed
of two sections, one for the occu-
•ied and the other for the un-
• upied zone, and each is di-
ted by nine Jews under the
• pervision of the Department
or Jewish Affairs of the Vichy
•vernment.
Mr. Hyman pointed out further
at Vichy laws providing intern-
,. nt or compulsory labor for
ews who entered France after
935 if they showed no means of
pport, the exclusion of large
. umbers of Jews from numerous
• ofessions, and other discrim-
:tory measures, were creating
eater and greater hardships for
oreign and native Jews alike.
addition, he said, the 10,000
I ews in the internment camps
d the 8,000 to 10,000 in labor
• pas were undergoing extreme
.—vation and constituted a spe-
al problem.
J.D.C. Increases Allotments
The growing distress of Jews
. France, Mr. Hyman declared,
as reflected early in the spring
.f this year in a 25 per cent in-
• ease in the J.D.C.'s monthly
otments for that country, from
.1,000 monthly to $75,0000.
• Thus far, Mr. Hyman explained,
J.D.C. is concentrating its
fforts on behalf of 70,000 refu-
" ees in unoccupied France, since
ey are bearing the brunt of con-
. 'tions. He added, however, that
J.D.C. help may soon have to
nabrace increasing numbers of
• :tiN.,e Jews in the unoccupied
sne."
r Five organizations, Mr. Hyman
id, carry out the bulk of J.D.C.
istance in France. These are
e Comite d'Assistance Aux Ref-
gies, the Camp Commission, the
ederation of Jewish Societies,
.e Ose and the Hicem.
rt
In spite of the obstacles of
wartime transportation, Jewish
refugees continue to arrive in
Palestine from the four corners
of the globe, with the aid of the
United Palestine Appeal, which
derives its funds from the United
Jewish Appeal for Refugees,
Overseas Needs and Palestine.
Last week, 13 German refu-
gees, who had been sent to an
Australian internment camp from
England at the start of the war,
arrived in Palestine on a boat
from "down under." They had
been released by the Australian
Security Officer and provided
with immigration certificates by
the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
At the same time, 51 Jews from
Yemen in Southeastern Arabia
who had escaped despite the to-
talitarian Arab ruler's ban on
migration of Jews, arrived on a
small boat from Port Sudan.
All these new immigrants were
cared for with funds of the Unit-
ed Palestine Appeal and pro.-
vided with industrial and agri-
cultural training to take their
places in Palestine's all-out war
effort. The United Palestine Ap-
peal is affiliated with the Joint
Distribution Committee and Na-
tional Refugee Service in the 1942
United Jewish AppeaL
Heartening news has been re-
ceived of the rescue of Jewish
children from the European bat-
tlefields. Nine youngsters from
Poland arrived in India after a
long journey across the U.S.S.R.
and are continuing to Palestine.
The Jewish Agency has sent 270
certificates for children to Ru-
mania and Hungary, in the hope
they may escape to Turkey, then
proceed overland to Palestine.
Jewish Handiwork
Checked Advance
Of Nazis in Egypt
Chaplain Reveals Entire
Defense Works Were
Built by Jewish Sappers
LONDON (JTA) — In an ar-
ticle appearing in a local paper,
Major A. Rabinowitz, senior
Jewish chaplain with the Jewish
forces in the Middle East, this
week revealed that the entire
defense works which helped to
check the offensive of the Nazi
army in Egypt, had been built
by Jewish sappers.
"I am proud of the fact that
these defenses .are 100 per cent
the work of Palestine Jews," the
Jewish chaplain says in his ar-
ticle.
The Jewish units which par-
ticipated in the building of the
defenses included a Jewish com-
pany of artisan workers attached
to the Royal Engineers, a sim-
ilar unit attached to the Royal
Army Service, and a transport
unit. All members of these or-
ganizations, including the com-
manding officers, are Jews.
Predicts Levinthal
Will Be Re-Elected
Dr. Goldstein Says Z. 0. A.
Prexy Will Be Retained in
Office a Second Year
WASHINGTON (JPSP— The
assumption that Judge Louis E.
Levinthal, Philadelphia, presi-
dent of the Zionist Organization
of America, will automatically be
re-elected for a second one-year
term at the annual convention in
New York in October was voiced
in a statement released here by
Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of
the Jewish National Fund.
Saying that "the Zionist con-
vention should avoid the min-
utiae of organizational questions
and concentrate on the larger
aspects," Dr. Goldstein declared
that "fortunately the question of
who is going to be the next pres-
ident of the Z. 0. A. will not
divert the attention of the Zion-
ists at this convention. Judge Le-
vinthal has borne the arduous re-
sponsibility of his high office
with energy, alertness, tact, gen-
iality and a sense of self-dedica-
tion to his task. He should be
commandeered for another term."
Bnai Brith Adopts Battleship Massachusetts
eturn of Russian
every to Fold is
ailed by Writer
WASHINGTON — "The pros-
, t of a rapproachment be-
• een Soviet Jewry and World
ewr-y, after a quarter of a cen-
t y of estrangement, constitutes
• event of great historic im-
;•rtance in the life of our peo-
•le," declares Dr. Chaim Zhit•
owsky, chairman of the Corn-
- • 'ttee of Jewish Writers and
• tists in the United States, in a
•pyrighted article in the Sep-
-. ber issue of the National Jew-
• Monthly, published by Bnai
• ith. It was written on the oc-
-ion of the first anniversary of
•• appeal for Jewish unity issued
• Soviet Jews, Aug. 24, 1941.
In his article Dr. Zhitlowsky
-hats out that Soviet Jewry's
turn to the_ fold" has made
•- ible "a new world unity of
• wry upon a totally different
. is than before." Historically,
avers, all such unity in the
• t has been upon either a sec-
. = r, religious, philanthropic or
tional basis, and thus restrict-
.
Page Three
Eyewitness Tells Horrifying
Tale of Massacre of 72,000
Escaped Woman Teacher Describes Nazi Reign of Terror in
Minsk; Wounded Buried With Dead in Pits
Made With Explosives
By S. S. RODOFF
J.T.A. Correspondent in Russia
KUIBYSHEV, (J.T.A.)—An eye witness account of
the massacre of 72,000 Jews by the Nazis in the city of
Minsk-35,000 of them in one day in 1941 and the re-
mainder at three other times in 1942—was given here in
the form of a sworn affidavit to the Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee by Sophia Ozerskaya, a Russian teacher, who
-
succeeded in escaping from 4,
Minsk after being under the from the outside world with brick
Nazi occupation for about a year. walls. Later, they changed their
The witness, who is half-Jew- plan and contented themselves
ish, owes her life to the fact that with erecting barbed wire fences.
the Nazis took her for non-Jew- No Jew was allowed to leave the
ish since her documents listed ghetto without a special permit_
her father as a Belorussian. Miss Whenthis permission was grant-
Ozerskaya's mother, being Jew- ed, the Jew had to don a large
ish, was among the 35,000 Jewish yellow badge that his race might
victims massacred by the Nazis be apparent to the Germans out-
side the ghetto.
on Nov. 7.
Herded Into Ghetto
"Yellow Badge or Death"
"Immediately after the occu-
"To appear in the street out-
pation of Minsk by the Nazis," side the ghetto without a yellow
the testimony of Miss Ozerskaya badge meant to be instantly
reads, "the occupational authori- killed," Miss Ozerskaya contin-
ties set aside 12 small, narrow ues. "Any Nazi has the right to
streets into a ghetto for the Jew- shoot at any passerby who might
ish population. Tens of thousands appear to him to be a Jew and
of Jews from Minsk and its sub- who does not wear a yellow
urbs were driven into this ghet- badge. Many Russians, Poles and
to to languish in starvation amid Belorussians who were mistaken
the debris of burned-down hous- in the street for Jews were shot
es, and lived themselves in on the spot by Hitlerites. At the
wrecked houses with fallen roofs. same time the wearing of the
"At first the Nazis planned to yellow badge by Jews exposed
(Continued on Page 15)
completely isolate the ghetto
the nations
finest
new fall
suits
have
arrived at
HARRY
SUFFRIN
IMPORTED CHESTER BARRIES . . . GGG
FASHION PARK . • . WALL STREET
CUSTOM SHOP . . . EAGLE . . . ETC.
SSA ce,
4 3 . ,
Amos
c‘"
-4
tdn,
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varieties, you will find only that type of
clothing firmly established in quality suprem-
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Savings policy of the Smallest Margin of
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$25 to $65
-
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to a certain extent.
Leaders of Bnai Brith's Amos Lodge in Boston gather around
the drum which is one of many musical instruments contrib-
uted by the lodge to the ship's band of the new United States
Battleship Massachusetts, together with one-year subscriptions
to 168 different magazines, following a poll of the crew taken
by the ship's officers. L. to R. Quincy Abrams, District 1 Bnai
Brith program director; Lt. J. H. Moody, chaplain of the U.S.S.
Massachusetts; Charles Van, Bnai Brith leader; Lt. ,Comm.
C. A. Paul, chief of Navy Morale for the First Naval District;
Max Ulin, Amos Lodge secretary; and Dr. S. Goldman, Amos
Lodge president.
Charge Accounts Invited
HARRY SUFFRIN
SHELBY ST. at STATE
Open Evenings