•

FridaY, Wy 26, -1944

Jewish Leaders Condemn
`Hebrew Liberation' Group

Purchase of 'Embassy' Labelled rBuffooluery' and 'Irrespon-
sible';'NeW Committee Headed by Peter R Bergson
of Jewish Army and Emergency Group

T1-1E . JEWISH NEWS

Weekly Review of the News of the World

(Compiled From Cables of Independent Jewish Press Service)

AMERICA

A plan to raise $1,000,000 this year to sup-
- port -its - activities, which include the settlement
and care of 3,500 Jewish refugee orphans in
Birobidjan and various relief measures, was
announced by the American Birobidjan Com-
mittee (Ambijan) at a dinner to celebrate the
10th anniversary of Birobidjan, the Jewish Au-
tonomous Region in the Far Eastern zone of the
Soviet Union.
A- contest in Hebrew Culture and Civil-
ization, open to all students enrolled in New
York City high schools and junior high schools
was held here last week in the form of a one-
hour examination. The first of its kind in
the history of the public school system, it was
sponsored by the Jewish Culture Council of
the Jewish Education Committee of New York.
Rev. Edward Lodge Curran, Coughlinite
leader in Brooklyn, was repudiated by George
H. Gladwell, a Roman Catholic, in a letter to
. the editor of the New York Herald Tribune,
in which he said that Father Curran did not
represent the Catholics, and while he attacked
internationalism, he will be unable to deny
that "the Papacy is normally a very strong
international organization."
' Two Boston Jewish youths, Peter Berger
and Norman Isaacs, both 16, were attacked and
beaten by a gang of 15 to 20 night-roaming
hoodlums who later assaulted members of
Hecht House, a Jewish community center.
Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Bos-
- ton Symphony Orchestra, has been informed
of his brother Nicholas' dea
th in Leningrad in
1941 at the hands of the Nazis, by his sister
who has been evacuated to the east by the
Soviet Government.

Special to The Jewish' News
WASHINGTON — The setting up of. a' "Hebrew Committee of
National Liberation," with an "embassy" on Massachusetts Avenue's
"Embassy Row" has aroused a storm of indignation and protest.
Under the leadership of Peter H. Bergson, director of the Com-
mittee for a- Jewish Army, League for a Free Palestine, Emergency
Committee to Save the Jewish People, American Friends of a
Jewish Palestine and numerous other committees with different
names, all stemming kom the same source -- all behind the Re-
visionist plan of publishing full-page or nearly-full page advertise-
ments soliciting funds through coupons — seven men met* in the
unfurnished 30-room "embassy" which was the old Iranian building.
It was purchased for $63,000 and it now flies the White and Blue
flag.
The "Demands" of the Newly Formed Group
Bergson's group seeks to secure representation in the councils
of the United Nations. It demands the right to form a "Hebrew
Army." It does not claim to speak for the Jews of America. The
"liberation" committee's statement proclaims the Hebrew Nation.
"a co-belligerent in the United Nations' war against the Axis ty-
ranny," and it declares that the Jews "have contributed more
fighters to the common struggle than most of the United Nations."
This new outburst of Revisionism brought attacks from out-
standing American Jewish -leaders and organizations.
Speaking for the Zionist Organization of America, Dr. Israel
Goldstein, president, characterized the new committee as "comic
opera drollery" and "buffoonery."
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress,
charged the new committee with rendering the "greatest disservice"
to the Jewish people.
Condemned by Conference, Zionist Council
The • American Zionist Emergency Council, representing all
PALESTINE'
Zionist factions, branded the new committee as "a handful of young
Jewish Palestine's maritime industry has
men who are attempting to perpetrate a colossal hoax upon the 'made
its own unique contribution to the Allied
American people."
war effort, with many Tel Aviv port workers
The American Jewish Conference, charging that the new corn-
volunteering for service with the Royal En-
mittee-"pretends to see a distinction between 'Jews' and 'Hebrews'
igneers and the Stevedore Company, one thou-
which no Jew would be able to appreciate or understand," points
sand youths volunteering for the Royal Navy
out that the group - "pretends to speak in the name of the 'Hebrew
and a large number of youths enlisting in the
nation' in Palestine, but it has no mandate from the Jewish National
Merchant Marine, it was announced on Mari-
Assembly, which is the authorized and democratically 7 elected
time Day which is held annually on the anni-
spokesman of the Jews of Palestine."
versary of - the inauguration of the Tel Aviv
jetty in 1936. The announcement was made by
the Jewish Maritime League.
A new religious workers group, known as
Religious Workers' - Action, composed of 1,000
members and headed by Dr. Leibowitz, lecturer
in physiology at the Hebrew University, was
formally admitted last week into the Histad-
ruth, General Jewish Federation of Labor.
Elections of the Assephath Hanivcharim,
Secretary Eden Tells Commons That Shifts Will Not Be
Palestine's Jewish Representative Assembly,
Permitted 'Under Any Circumstances'; 19 of 21
will be held in the middle of June. - The mili-
tary authorities granted approval to all Pales-
Amnestied Soldiers' Refuse to Leave Cells
tine Jewish volunteers, wherever they are,
to cast their votes and have facilitated the for-
LONDON, (JTA)—The transfer of Jews from the POlish Army
warding of ballots. The last session of the
to the British will not be permitted any longer "under any cir-
present Assembly will be held May 2.
cumstances"- Foreign Secretary Eden told the House of Commons
this week. This applies to the Polish-Jewish soldiers who were store hours 10-6;
Mondays 12:30-9'
amnestied by President Raczkiewicz and who are refusing to leave
the places where they are imprisoned unless they are admitted to
the British forces, •Eden said.
Pointing out that the amnesty decree annulled all punishment
imposed by a • Polish court-martial upon the 21 Jewish soldiers who
left the Polish Army because of anti-Semitism and sought to enter
British units, Eden said that the pardoned men have been sent to a
central Polish replacement depot from - • where they will be assigned
to various units in aCcordatice with their previous training.
Meanwhile, the commission appointed by the Polish National
Council to inquire into anti-Semitic conditions in the Polish -Army
met and elected 'Adam. Ciolkosz, Socialist, chairman. Emanuel
Szerer, Jewish Socialist, was named secretary.
The crisis in the Polish National Council precipitated by a mo-
tion offered by Socialist deputies, last week demanding the resig-
nation of Gen.. Marjan Kukiel, defense minister, for his failure to
curb anti-Semitism in the Polish Army, 'continued when the Coun-
cil resumed debate on -the motion.
Representatives of the anti-Semitic Endek Party and of the
PaderewSki• Party told the Council that their members will vote
against the motion. The representatives of the Polish Peasant Party
have not yet indicated their stand, btit it is expected that their at-
titude will be made clear soon. Emanuel .Szerer announced that he
will vote for the motion.
Szerer, challenging the statements of the Endek Party, said
that anti-Semitism among Polish soldiers and officers "is not a bogy,
but a reality." He pointed out that he opposed the transfer of
Jewish soldiers from the Polish Army to the 'British because the
Jewish Socialists in Poland consider Poland their home.

Jews in Polish Army Barred
From Transfer to British

After months of investigation the Nazi au-
thorities have at last discovered the means used
by Jews to escape from Poland into neutral
territory, according to boasts by the Schles-
sische Zeitung, published, in Breslau, Germany.
The newspaper reports that Jews escaped on
coal-trains leaving Silesia for Switzerland. The
cars used by the Jews were ventilated, and
food -and water were provided for the clandes-
tine passengers. On one train raided by the
police, nine Jews were found, on another 11
Jews were discovered, the newspaper reports.
Whether incidental or indicative of a move
by high German officials to prepare a "good
record" for themselves when called up by
United Nations commissions investigating Nazi
atrocities, conditions for Jews in the ghetto
at Theriesenstadt, Czechoslovakia, have greatly
improved. At one time one of the worst ghettos,
conditions there have changed since -the ap-
pointment of a new governor, it was reported.
by the Stockholm correspondent of the London
News Chronicle.
A large number of Jewish men and women
in Denmark under, years of age are en-
gaged at forced laor in Germany and kept
segregated from the non-Jewish workers, the
newspaper SWensky Dagebladed reports.
Ronianian authorities were called upon by
German-language Bukarester Zeitung 'to Mk)
the influx of Jews from Hungary. The Jews,
the newspaper charges, flee Hungary because
of impending deportations and come to Ro-
mania to register with a Jewish underground
organization for rescue by the U. S. ' War
Refugee Board via Constanza.
Without divulging their names, the press of
Stockholm reports the rare feat of two Polish
Jewi*. - youths, members of a forced labor
battallon, -Who donned German uniforms, hop-
ped into a German plane and landed safely
in Sweden.
The municipality of. Casablanca agreed to
the payment of 100,000 French francs to the
local Jewish Community Council to compensate
for damages incurred to the Council's property
by Arab rioters some months ago.
Four Jews, described as "aliens," were among
nine members of a French partisan unit sen-
tenced to death by a Nazi court martial in
Paris, according to 'Vichy radio.
Proposals for an exchange of "the 200,000
Jews in France for Vichyites in North Africa,"
were made by the Vichyite pro-Nazi news-
paper Le Peuple, in an, editorial addressed to
General Charles de Gaulle.
Formation of a Soviet Jewish news agency,
Ispa, for the dissemination among newspapers
in the Soviet Union and abroad of news per-
taining to Russian Jewry, was announced in

Moscow. Leib Kwitko, Yiddish poet, will head
Ispa.

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Pole Premier Says: Anti-Semitism "Magnified"
NEW YORK (JPS)—The volume of publicity given to the
charges of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army was described by
Stanislaw 1VIikolajszyk; Prime Minister of the Polish Government-in--
Exile, as indicative of likely attempts in the future to "magnify
out of all proportions certain errors of Poles in official positions,'
according to Raymond Daniell, London correspondent of the New
York Times.

enough to combat it.

OVERSEAS

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Council Seeks to Deprive Commander of Power
LONDON (JPS)—In a move intended to placate Soviet Russia
and to appease public opinion aroused over anti-Semitism in the
Polish Army, the Polish National Council passed a resolution re-
questing that President Raczkiewicz divest Commander-in-Chief
Gen. Kazimierz Sosnkowski of all political powers and cancel his
appointment as successor to the President. The Council is acting
as an advisory body and final action is up to the President. The
Council is also expected to ask the removal of War Minister General
Marian Kukiel.
Tom Driberg, M. P., announced that nine of the 21 soldiers who
had been amnestied after Court-martial by Polish military courts,
wrote him that they would commit suicide rather than return to
the Polish forces.

War Minister Again Blamed for Anti-Semitism
LONDON, (JTA)—Leaders of the Polish Socialist Party this
week reiterated their demand for the resignation of Gen. Marjan
Kukiel, Polish Minister of War, charging him with responsibility
for anti-Semitism in the Polish Army. The resignation of Gen.
Kazimierz Soskowski, Polish Commander-in-Chief, was also asked.
They voiced these demands at a session of the Polish National
Council. Members of the anti-Semitic Endek Party asserted that
the issue of anti-Semitism in the Polish Army has been exagger-
ated, but deputies of all other groups who participated in the de-
bate agreed that anti-Semitism does exist in the ranks of the
Polish armed forces and that the High Command has not done

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