Friclay, 'April 7, 1944

THE JEWISH NEWS

WRB Pledges All-Out Aid
For Speedy Rescue of Jews

Refugee Board Using All Power and Prestige of the U. S.
to Save Victims of Nazism, Director Pehle
Tells Joint Distribution Committee

By Special Correspondent of The Jewish News

CHICAGO, Ill.—The War Refugee Board is using all the
power and prestige of the United States to save the victims
of Nazi persecution who can still be rescued, and the diplo-
matic, fiscal and military agencies of the government as well
as the facilities of the Office of War Information, War Ship-
ping Administration and other agencies have been marshalled

for the job.
This positive declaration was
made on Sunday by John W.
Pehle, executive director of the
War Refugee Board, in an ad-
dress to 500 Jewish communal
leaders from 10 midwestern
states at the Midwest' Conference
of the Joint Distribution Com-
mittee held here at the Stevens
Hotel.
$17,000,000 This Year
The two-day conference, which
began on Saturday night, discus-
sed plans for the expenditure of
$17,000,000 this year for overseas
relief and rehabilitation work by
the JDC, reports of which were
submitted by Joseph C. Hyman,
national executive vice-chairman,
and Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, vice-
chairman.
The committee sponsoring the
conference was headed by James
H. Becker of Chicago and in-
cluded Sidney J. Allen, Fred M.
Butzel, Meyer L. Prentis, Abra-
ham Srere and Henry Wineman
of Detroit.
Michigan delegates at the con-
ference were: from Detroit: Miss
Ann Brooks, Fred M. Butzel, Dr.
Leo M. Franklin, A. C. Lappin,
Theodore Levin, Miss Rose Lewis,
Meyer L. Prentis, Miss Esther R.
Prussian; from Jackson: Louis
Glick and Sam Goldfarb; from
Lansing: M. S. Segar; from Ann
Arbor: Osias Zwerdling.
Greatest Challenge
In his address Mr. Pehle de-
clared "the present military situ-
ation in the BalkanS presents the
greatest challenge to the Board
in changing the attitude of the
enemy. President Roosevelt's re-
cent warning to Germany and
her satellites of the consequences
of further persecutions in their
territories, and the subsequent
British endorsement of that
warning have provided heavy
ammunition on the psychological
warfare front.
"Cooperating with the War
Refugee Board, the Office of War
Information and the B r i t i s h
Broadcasting Co. have carried
and will continue to carry that
message in every language to
every land."
. Magnificient Job
Paying tribute to the work of
the JDC, he said: -"It has done
a magnificent job. Its experience,
its personnel, its know-how, and
its funds have been of invalu-
able assistance to the work of
the War Refugee Board in res-
cuing the helpless, homeless and
stateless refugees of Europe." He
added that the WRB had re-
ceived excellent suggestions from
the chairman of the JDC's Eu-
ropean committee "who knows
the problems first hand."
Vatican Aiding Refugees
The information that Protes-
tants and Catholics, including
Pope Pius himself, are offering
sanctuary and assistance Jewish
refugees and to Jewish popula-

•

tions in Nazi controlled terri-
tories, was revealed by Mr. Hy-
man in his address.
"We owe much," he said, "to
Christian organizations and Pro-
testant and Catholic welfare
agencies for their genuine and
sympathetic helpfulness time and
again."
Problem Will Be Less
The creation of the War Refu-
gee Board, he declared, had given
JDC assurance that "we shall
now be able to employ a sub-
stantial part of every JDC dollar
for the actual purposes of rescue
and feeding. Our problem will
be less—how can it be done?—
and more how n-mah have we to
spend?
"The entry of the agencies of
our government into the overseas
relief and rehabilitation field has
in a very literal sense untied our
hands. Things that were impos-
sibilities for many years now
seem well within the realm of
attainment. We can reach into
places that were barred and tight
shut. We can explore avenues of
help that have been closed to
us."
Mr. Hyman also made clear
that the establishment of the
United Nations Relief and Re-
habilitation Adm inis tr a ti on

would in no way minimize the
need of the fullest support of
the JDC and of other experienced
private agencies.
"It would obviously be impos-
sible," he said, "for any private
agency or group of agencies to
meet the vast problems of mass
relief. But as UNRRA officials
themselves have declared, the
UNRRA could not perform all
the welfare services which need
to be performed and which will
be required as countries are torn
from Hitler's grip.
Jewish Problem
"The Jewish problem particu-
larly will need special attention
becauSe Jews have had every-
thig taken from them and they
will need not only relief but a
broadly planned program of re-
habilitative aid over a long pe-
riod, of the kind which JDC pro-
vided for the Jews of Eastern
Europe after the last war.
"Furthermore, it is important
to bear in mind that UNRRA's
resources will be limited and that
it will have to confine itself to
the countries now occupied by
the enemy. The JDC operates
today in many neutral countries
in addition to its work in the
occupied and liberated areas.
Each change in the military situ-
ation brings a corresponding
change for better or for worse in
the relief picture."
Asks Jews to Prepare
Warning that American Jewry
would be required to face far
greater responsibilities toward its
co-religionists overseas in the
immediate and postwar future
was yoked by Rabbi Jonah B.
Wise, vice-chairman of the Joint
Distribution Committee who is
also co-chairman of the United
Jewish Appeal for Refugees,
Overseas Needs and Palestine,
through which funds are raised
for the support of the JDC pro-
gram.
"We have not yet even begun

:with JENNIFER JONES -

WILLIAM EYTHE
'CHARLES BICKFORD • VINCENT PRICE • LEE J. COBB

HENRY KING
PERLBERG

'GLADYS COOPER • Directed by

FOX_

7-

WITI11/1,101
PKTUIlt

THEATRE
NOW

and

' in the New Melodrama

WITH OPEN EYES

Prices: Mat.: 60c, 90e, $1.20, $1.80

Evenings: 00c, 90c, $1.10, $1.80, $2.40

2nd Big Week

The Story of Russia's Motherland
With a Gun in Her Hand.

"NO GREATER
LOVE"

Spoken in English

Plus: "IRAN"

0

Where Roosevelt, Churchill and
. Stalin Made History.

Upon this important occasion we ex-
press our felicitations to the entire
community. May you all be blessed
with an abundance of good health,
happiness, comfort and security.

...and for Future Happiness

BONDS

Year by This Season's Cast

Sunday Matinee and Evening
April 9

BETWEEN FRIENDS ITS

Wei r

Columbia at
Woodward

HELD OVER ! !

!

WAR

Concluding Performances of the

DINA HALPERIN

CINEMA

B UY

TWELFTH AND SEWARD
TRinity 2-0100

Featuring the Guest Star

NEW YORK (JPS1—A resolu-
tion proposing the convening of
a Pan-American Congress for
Jewish Culture immediately af-
ter the war was adopted by the
Central Jewish Culture Organi
zation at its third annual con-
ference here. The organization
is mainly interested in the pro-
motion of Yiddish literature and
Yiddish schools. The conference
also decided to increase and ex-
pand its literary reading circles
in all large Jewisla population
centers.
Labor Zionist delegates with-
drew from the conference tem-
porarily when S. Mendelson, a
representative of the Polish-
Jewish Bund, delivered his ad-
dress. The Polish-Jewish Bund
leaders in this country had peti-
tioned the President against the
Jewish Commonwealth resolu-
tions.

Let's Not Forget

LITTMAN'S PEOPLE'S THEATRE

Tuesday Evening, April 11

JEWISH HEROES RANK
FOURTH IN SOVIET ARMY
NEW YORK, (JPS)—Although
numerically only in seventh
place among the nationalities of
the Soviet Union, the Jews "rank
fourth and lead the remaining
110 nationalities" in number of
decorations won in the war, it is
reported by Maurice Hindus,
writing from Moscow to the
New York Herald Tribune. This
confirms earlier Independent
Jewish Press Service reports.

Pan-Am. Congress
For Jewish Culture
Planned After War

PASSOVER
GREETINGS

FRANZ WERFEL'S

Limited
Engagement

to count the heavy toll of the
destruction of Jewish life in Eu-
rope," Rabbi Wise declared. "At
the present moment, even though
the JDC's appropriations are
larger than they have been since
the years immediately following
the first World War, we are
chiefly meeting emergency needs.
When we can finally begin the
process of rebuilding Jewish com-
munity life abroad, we shall have
to develop new standards of gen-
erosity in America. We shall not
be asked merely to give but to
give to the point of sacrifice."
Allocated 8 Million
Paul Baerwald of New York,
national chairman of the JDC,
speaking at Saturday night's
dinner meeting at the Standard
Club, announced that in the first
eight months of this year the
JDC had allocated $8,000,000. He
said that the increased appropri-
ations were the direct result of
the spread of destitution and suf-
fering among Jews in Western
Europe and the Balkans. •
Mr. Baerwald expressed con-
fidence that there is increasing
hope for the remnants of Eu-
ropean. Jewry.

Twerify-sever:

OF MOTION PICTURE ACHIEVEMENT!

A MIRACLE

Prodliced—by WILLIAM

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