Page Sixteen
Friday; February 25, 1944 - g
UNRRA Scope and Functioitit
By HARRY GREENSTEIN
Chief, Welfare Branch,
Division of Program and Requirements, UNRRA
Editor's Note: Mr. Greenstein's important state-
ment on the scope of the UNRRA is reprinted from
News and Notes of the Council of Jewish Federations
and Welfare Funds. It serves to clarify the functions
of the UNRRA in its relation to Jewish and other
social service agencies.
O
N NOVEMBER 9, 1943,
upon invitation of the United States Government,
delegates from 44 nations, representing approximate-
ly 80 per cent of the population of the world, met
in the East Room of the White House and attached
their signatures to the Agreement creating the United
Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
(UNRRA).
The Agreement stipulates that each member
government, insofar as its appropriate, constitutional
body shall authorize, shall contribute to the support
of UNRRA, in order to:
"Plan, coordinate, administer or arrange for the
administration of measures for the relief of victims
of war in any area under the control of any of the
United Nations through the provision of food, fuel,
clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical
and other essential services; and to facilitate in such
areas, so far as necessary to the adequate provision
of relief, the production and transportation of these
articles and the furnishing of these services . . ."
The Agreement further provides that while hos-
tilities or other military necessities exist in any area,
UNRRA shall not undertake activities therein with-
out the consent of the Military Command of that
area and subject to such control as the Command
may find necessary. The determination that such
hostilities or military necessities exist in any area
shall be made by its Military Commander.
Committees Set Up
The policy-making body of UNRRA is the
Council, composed of one representative from each
of the 44 nations, and those associated with them in
the war. It meets not less than twice a year. The
executive and administrative work is in the hands
of a Director General, elected by the Council. The
following important standing committees have been
set up: a Committee on Supplies; a Committee on
Financial Control; and two Regional Committees—
one for Europe, and one for the Far East. These,
together with five technical standing committees,
will assist and advise the Director General on matters
of policy.
Twenty Years Ago This Week
Compiled From the Records of the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WARSAW—Jewish deputies in. the Polish Par-
- liament are gratified at the resignation of War
Minister Kazimierz Sosnkowski, who has been
succeeded by former Premier Wladyslaw Sikorski.
The Jewish Sejm Club had decided to oppose the
government because of the inclusion of Sosnkow-
ski, but has now decided to reserve judgment.
JERUSALEM—Colonel Frederick H. Kisch, po-
litical advisor to the Zionist Organization in Pales-
tine, has decided that the Zionists would agree to
a national representative government in Palestine,
as stated by Naj-el-Assil, when the latter reported
concerning the draft of a treaty between the King
of the Hedjas and the British government. Nuj-el-
Assil is King Hussein's London representative.
(Editor's Note: Brig. Kisch, chief engineer of
the British 8th Army, was killed in action in
Africa four months ago, after _ assisting in the
Allied conquest there.)
BERLIN—Concurrent with the approaching
elections to the Reichstag a wave of anti-Semitism
has spread throughout Germany. Anti-Semitic
forces have triumphed in practically all elections
to provincial parliaments and a sweeping anti-
Jewish campaign is expected to be launched as
part of the election campaign for the Reichstag
seats.
WARSAW—Plans for the formation of an
autonomous Jewish State in the Crimea are going
forward and a report is expected shortly from the
commission appointed by the Soviet government
to investigate the feasibility of the project, it is
learned here. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency
correspondent in Moscow reports that Dr. Joseph
Rosen, director of reconstruction activities in
Russia for the Joint Distribution Committee, who
is now in Moscow to liquidate the JDC activities,
believes that if the plan for a Crimean Jewish
State is carried through, it will be possible to
spur lagging interest in the United States con-
cerning the Russian Jews.
WASHINGTON—If the Jewish people combine
to defeat the immigration bill proposed by him,
"their children will live to regret it," Congressman
Albert Johnson, chairman of the House Immigra-
tion Committee told a Jewish Telegraphic Agency
correspondent. He did not elaborate. Jewish groups
are opposing the bill which sets the quota at two
percent of the 1890 figure, a year during which
there was little Jewish immigration. Influential
sections of the press and Secretary of State
Charles Evans Hughes have come out against the
measure_
NEW YORK—Participation by American non-
Zionists in the Jewish Agency for Palestine seemed
assured this week following a conference between
non-Zionist leaders led by Louis Marshall, Her-
bert Lehman and Cyrus Adler, with Dr. Chaim
Wei zmann and other Zionist leaders.
On the clay following the signing of the UNRRA
Agreement, the delegates of the 44 nations, their ad-
visers and assistants arrived in Atlantic City, and for
a period of three weeks settled down to the serious
business of trying to solve a post war relief and re-
habilitation problem more vast, more complicated
than the world has ever known.
Epidemics Widespread
Reports presented in Atlantic City by the dele-
gates from the war-ravaged countries related in detail
the appalling toll that war has exacted in their re-
spective countries. Millions are undernourished and
dying of slow starvation, easy victims of epidemics.
Hunger and disease are the two central problems in
all the occupied countries. Typhus fever is wide-
spread in eastern Europe; malaria is highly epidemic
in the southeastern part; tuberculosis has increased
on the continent from 50 to 200 per cent.
Dr. Thomas Parran, Surgeon General of t h e
United States, in a report to the Conference stated
"that pregnancy has become a virtual sentence of
death because food is inadequate to support life for
mother and unborn child." Professor Andre Mayer
pointed out in the French report that life expectancy
in France has fallen by 10 years, that half of the
Frenchmen between 20 and 40 who die are victims
of tuberculosis.
Unprecedented Destruction
The Polish report called attention to the un-
precedented policy of attempted extermination of the
entire nation by the Nazis who are applying a policy
of systematic persecution expressed in mass murders
and imprisonments. The report stressed the specially
tragic situation of the Jews and the Jewish children
who have perished together with their parents and
relatives during the liquidation of the ghettos in
Poland. These children died with the adults, mowed
down by machine guns, perishing in sealed death
trains, executed by electrocution and in gas chambers.
The reports indicated further that in most of
subjugated Europe there is long drawn out famine
and chronic hunger, the devastation of continuous
exploitation, people stripped of practically all their
possessions.
The number of human beings uprooted and ren-
dered homeless by the European war alone was put
at 20 to 30 million. There is nothing to compare
with the havoc and destruction which has thus far
taken place, with greater destruction still ahead of us.
The scope of UNRRA was limited to relief and
rehabilitation measures and a distinct line was drawn
between them and long-range economic reconstruc-
tion. Each country which has not in itself been - a
battlefield will contribute, where possible, one per
cent of its national income. This will place the cost
to the United States at about $1,350,000,000. All ap-
propriations to be made by the member nations must,
of course, be approved by their respective govern-
ments.
Distribution of Relief
Nations which have gold and foreign exchange
will pay for their supplies, but the richer countries
will not be permitted to buy up short supplies that
are needed for immediate relief to the poorer coun-
tries.
Relief will be extended to enemy countries but
they will be compelled to pay in full and to yield
any surplus they may hold.
In the distribution of relief—there is to be no
discrimination because of race, religious creed, and
a firm stand will be taken against the use of food
and supplies as a political weapon.
Emphasis will not be put on the raising of pre-
war standards of relief in the countries to be aided
but rather on the giving of immediate assistance to
meet emergency needs.
Every effort will be made to help countries to.
help themselves as rapidly and as completely as posL
sible.
The Council also went on record indicating its
desire "to enlist the cooperation and to seek the par-
ticipation of appropriate foreign voluntary relief
agencies to the extent that they can be effectively
utilized in relief activities for which they have special
competence and resources, subject to the regulation
of the Director General and in consultation with the
respective governments."
Private Agency Role
It is interesting to note that the voluntary relief
agencies in the Middle East, in England in the United
States have recognized the need of planning their
activities in relationship to the international relief
and rehabilitation program. In Cairo the Council
of Voluntary Relief Organizations has been created.
Certain British organizations have formed a Council
of British voluntary societies. This Council is a con-
sultative body serving as a channel through which
the British societies, while retaining their own in-
dividuality, can place their resources at the service
of UNRRA.
Within the past few months voluntary relief
agencies in the United States and also abroad have
formed an American -Council of private agencies
with a similar purpose in mind. •
The tasks facing UNRRA will be so vast that
it will need to mobilize the resources of both public
and private agencies that can be made available. Only
in" this way can we hope to avoid chaos and starva-
tion abroad and achieve the peace and economic se-
curity for which we are striving.
Weekly Review of the News of the World
(Compiled From Cables of Independent Jewish Press Service)
AMERICA
See Also Page 3
Differences over the language of instruction
in the school of Bengazi, North Africa, have
developed between the British authorities and
the Jewish community, it is revealed in a
letter received by the World Jewish Congress.
The schools there are about to open after being
closed since the outbreak of the war. The Bri-
tish authorities want to have Arabic as the
- language of instruction in the schools: The
Jewish community demands that Hebrew
schools be established for the Jews, with
Hebrew as the language of instruction, and
Arabic and English to be included in the
curriculum.
A Nazi plot to sterilize all Jews surviving
in Czechoslovakia, was revealed by Dr. Herbert
Ripka, Czech Minister of State, in a short wave
broadcast from London to his compatriots in
their occupied homeland, according to the
World Jewish Congress.
Rear Admiral Monroe Kelly, -Commandant .
of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was accused by
the newspaper PM of blocking an investigation
i
by the regional office of the Fair Employment
Practice Committee into allegations of dis-
criminatory practices at the Navy Yard.
Edward Lawson, regional director of the
FEPC, reported at a forum that despite edu-
cational campaigns to eliminate economic dis-
crimination "the tendency to deny persons
employment at their highest skill because of
their religion is mounting, rather than dis-
appearing."
The memory of 93 girls, pupils of the ultra-
Orthodox Beth Jacob Schools of Poland, who
by a collective suicide last year frustrated - a
Nazi plan to ship them to military brothels,
will be commemorated by the establishment
of a village in Palestine.
Albert Glasstal, inmate of the Home of Old
Israel, raised $129,410 in War Bonds and
Stamps, topping his pledge of $1,000 for each
of his 101 years.
The Nazis have completely exterminated all
Jewish children in Poland and "scores of thou-
sands" of Polish children in a "diabolical at-
tempt to exterminate the Polish nation," the
United Press reports in a dispatch from London
quoting Wladislaw Banaczyk, Polish Minister
of the Interior. -
S/Sgt. Tony Saffa felt that he would dis-
tinguish himself even in o r e, if he had a
Mezuzah around his neck in the Italian fight-
ing. He spied one on Pft. Philip Fruchtman,
formerly of this city, and asked .him where
he too could obtain one. "I've been trying
hard as anything to get one," he said. He then
told that he is a Catholic, an Italian-American,
but had lived. for years among Jews and re-
spects and trusts their religious symbols. Pfc.
Fruchtman wrote his wife and asked her to
mail a mezuzah . to S/Sgt. Saffa. It is already
on its way to Italy.
.PALESTINE
It is expected that 320,000 persons will par-
ticipate in the forthcoming elections for the
Assephath Hanivcharim, Jewish Palestine's.
General Assembly or "Parliament," as com-
pared with 80,000 who voted in the last elee
tions held in 1931. The elections . will take
place on May 24.
A loan of £300,000 has been granted to the
Jewish National Fund by a group of banks
headed by the Anglo-Palestine Bank. The loan,
at 4 per cent annual interest, is to be repaid
half at the end of six years and the balance
in seven years.
Zvi Amramoff, 33, a barber, died after he
had been shot when returning home in the
Kerem Abraham quarter of Jerusalem. He was
shot by a British policeman who challenged
him for fcrentification. It has been established
that Amranoff was an innocent victim.
OVERSEAS
Mahmud Ghana in, Egyptian Minister of
Commerce, arrived in Jerusalem at the head
of an Egyptian delegation to negotiate the
exchange of manufactured goods and other
commodities between the two countries.
Eighty more French and Arab' educators
were dismissed from the staffs of government
schools in North Africa after they were found
to have participated in pro-fascist activities
and in the dissemination of anti-Semitic propa-
ganda along Nazi lines, it was announced in
Algiers by the French Committee for National
Liberation. Forty French and Arab pro-fascist
judges Were dismissed, and 20 Jews were
appointed to judgeships in Morocco and Al-
geria.
The Paris radio announced that 70 persons,
of whom 43 were Jews, will go on trial shortly
on charges of sabotage and armed attacks
against members of Germany's armed forces.
German news sources report that Hungarian
government has begun the evacuation of Jews
from Budapest. Fifty thousand are scheduled
for deportation to Carpatho-Ruthenia.
The London Daily Sketch . reports from
Ankara that Nazi diplomats in Turkey are
giving this simple explanation for the deser-
tion of three of their number to the British.
Embassy. The wife of Karl Alois von Kleckow-
ski, one of the three; is Jewish.