Friday, October 13, 1944

Rescue of Jewish Children
In France an Epic of War

First of Thousands of Youngsters Now Being Re-united with
Their Parents; Deiaili of Underground's Heroism and
Sacrifice in Hiding Them From Nazis Revealed

PARIS (JTA) — One of the bravest epics of the war

and the German occupation is being revealed in Paris as the

firSt of thousands of hidden Jewish children are being re-
united with the parents froth whom they were separated. in
order to save them from deportation.
The details of the greatest human rescue- set=up since

the American underground rail-G>
way of pre-Civil war days are
Many Orphaned
jitst now coming to light. Catho-
Dr. Minkowski told the Jewish
lic priests and Protestants aided Telegraphic Agency correspond-
Jews in placing half of the Jew- ent that he believes that .about
ish children in Paris in the half the hidden children • will
.countryside with friendly French eventually be returned to their
or spiriting them out of the families, but that provision will
Couhtry.
have to be made for the others.
After. July, 1942, when the Many of these are children who
Germans suddenly swooped. were so young when their par-
down on the Jewish quarter of ents were deported that they
, Paris and arrested 20,000_ women have, no knowledge of t he m,
and children, the remaining while most. have been orphaned.
Jei.vs began the underground
Minkowski said that the chil-
task of hiding youngsters. While dren without families will re-
man y families managed, indi- quire considerable assistance and
vidually, to place their children appealed for aid from abroad.
with French farhilies, three or- At the same time, he paid tri-
ganizations undertook mass bute to the Joint Distribution
placement. They were the OSE- Committee, whose fund s, he
the Jewish Health Society — the said, had financed ninety per
Federation of Jewish Societies cent of the child rescue work.
and the Zionist Youth Organiza-
One hundred Jews destined
tion.
for deportation by the Germans
Directed Campaign
were abandoned in • the town of
Dr. Eugene MinkOwski, presi- Nevers in the Orleans region
dent of the OSE, directed much when American troops turned
of this • risky campaign. In two the German retreat into a rout,
rears the OSE hid 600 children according to information reach-
in northern France and 2,500 in ing here.
the southern part of the country.
Stranded in Nevers
A similar job was undertaken
The Jews, among whom are
by Mme. Rebecca Youchnovsky,
who was in charge of the Paris the Paris bankers, Lucien Levy
office of the Federation of Jew- and M. Mendez, were loaded
ish Societies, while her husband, onto trains in Southern France,
Dr. Aaron Youchnovsky, con- together with 100 captured mem-
ducted a dispensary there. The bers of the resistance movement,
Federation placed 700 children. and were being transported to
a concentration camp when they
Together with the OSE,it car- were .stranded in Nevers.
ried on a never-ending detailed
Jewish property confiscated
check-up which would do honor
to the most elaborate New York under the anti-Jewish laws of
social service agency. Yet every the Vichy regime will be return-
thing was done in enforced ed to the former owners, it was
secrecy, every contact was car- officially announced here. This
ried on through intermediaries. was decided at. a Cabinet meet-
ing this week.
Records Kept Secret
It is understood that a special
Records of the children, with
their false names and the key office will be established by the
to their identities was kept government to take up t h e
secret in the home of Mme. claims of Jews requesting the
Paulette Karnovsky, whose hus- return of their confiscated pos-
band Alex was killed during the sessions. Many complications are
battle for Paris. Mme. Karnov- expected, since thousands of
sky. and a group of women — Jews whose property was con-
fiscated were among those de-
including non-Jews — travelled ported to extermination camps
throughout the country for a in Poland.
monthly check-up on the condi-
Many administrators of "Ar-
tion of the children. The com-
yanized" Jewish property disap-
mittee even managed to send
peared after the liberation of
•oys to the youngsters.
Paris. It is asserted that they
The foster families were paid either retreated with the Ger-
in advance, monthly, for caring man armies, or changed their
for the child. The average pay- places of residence in order to
inent ranged around 900 francs, avoid punishment. H o w e v e r,
and was made through devious many Jewish enterprises "Ar-
channels. The money was Often yanized" by Vichy officials were
hidden in the bottom of a shop- listed with the central Jewish
ping gasket or carried by a third body established in Paris under
party. Several women were ar- the occupation to deal with af-
rested while doing this work, but fairs of the Jewish community,
everything was carried out to and are now in the hands of
the last painstaking detail, Sev- Jewish leaders here.
eral young • women members of
the Zionist youth group were Not a Single Jew
captured and executed by the Remains in Verdun
Gestapo while engaged in guid-
VERDUN, France (JTA)—The
ing groups of children to safety. extent to which the Germans
Leave Children Behind
sought to annihilate the Jews in
In addition to those hidden by France even in the smallest vil-
the OSE and the Federation, lages is best seen here in the
about 800 were placed in French vicinity of Verdun.
homes through the efforts of
The correspondent of the Jew-
Mme. Juliette Stern, who work- ish Telegraphic Agency was told
ed in the Union Generale de numerous stories of how Jews
Juifs de France, a German-or- sought to escape from the Ger-
ganized• agency. Frequently the mans after the occupation. In the
Gestapo deported adults leaving village of . Etain where there
the children behind to be placed were only four . JewiSh families,
in institutions. With the coopera- he did not find a single Jew.
tion of women leaders of Catho- These four Jewish families had
lic and Protestant organizations, maintained a tiny synagogue, but
Mme. Stern was able to spirit the Germans burned it down.
the 800 children out of the Ger-
In Verdun itself there were
Man institutions using various some 30 Jewish families who had
devices.
resided there for many years,
Two Catholic priests named and a larger number of Polish
Father Chaillut and Father Du and other immigrant Jews. To-
Vaux were also very active in day. not a single Jew remains in
this • work. Du . Vaux, himself, Verdun.
placed 40 children and. secured
medical aid for many. expectant
CARD OF THANKS
mothers. He secured funds from
The . family of Mrs. Ada Gore-
bankers and other w e a l t h y lick wish to gratefully acknowl-
Frenchmen. Of the 400 children edge the kindness and sympathy
about BO have already been re- of their family and friends in
wu. .ted with their parents,
their recent bereavement.

.

THE JEWISH NEWS

Page Five

only 85 Survived Nazis'
Vilna Massaete Sept. 19

Congress in Favor
of Zionist Program,
New Volume Shows

NEW YORK—A•volume con-
taining endorsements of Jewish
aspirations in Palestine by more
than 400 members of the Senate
and House of Representatives-
77% of the United States Con-
gresS—was issued for the first
time by Dr. Abbe Hillel Silver,
executive committee chairman of
the American Zionist Emergency
Council.
Entitled "America and Pales-
tine," the book, a 500-page vol-
ume, has been published and is
being distributed by the Council,
which is leading the drive to
bring about the repeal of the
British White Paper policy, for
Palestine and the establishment
of that country as a free and
democratic Jewish Common-
wealth.
"America and Palestine" is a
documented history of the Amer=
ican.. Government's traditional
policy of friendship for the
Zionist program from the first
World War up to the . present
time. Beginning with President
Wilson's Declaration in 1919 that
"the Allied nations, with the full-
est concurrence of our Govern-
ment and people, are agreed that
in Palestine shall be laid the
foundations of a Jewish Com-
monwealth," the book includes
all official pronouncements on
the Palestine question, by the
Executive and Legislative bran-
ches of the American Govern-
ment up to and including the
present administration.

JTA Correspondent Relates Horrible Story of Murdell
Carried On Two Days Before German
Army's Retreat from Estonia

By RAYMOND A.'DAVIES
-
TALLINN. Estonia (JTA) — Only about 85 men and women .
of the thousands of Vilna. jews who were sent by the Germans to
slave labor in Klooga, Estonia, succeeded in escaping the massacre
carried (nit by the Nazis on Sept. 19, two days before the retreat
of the German army from Estonia, this correspondent established
upon his arrival here.
The majority of the surviving Jews are doctors, lawyers and
dentists. They all have relatives in the United States, Palestine and.
Argentina. Some of them poured out their stories of horror to the
JTA correspondent, relating how they were deported in September,
1943, from Vilna and assigned to slave labor building fortifications
to be used against the Russians.
They remained in barracks at the Klooga camp, 35 miles from
Tallinn, until two days before the German. retreat when several
thousand slave laborers, most of them Jews, were either. burned
alive or machine-; untied and their bodies burned.
Some of the bodies seen by this correspondent at the place
where the mass-murder occurred were only partly burned. There
were headless trunks lying fully clothed with Mogen Dovid insignias
on their arms. There were also human bodies burned black, charred
like logs of wood and heaps of ashes from bodies which had been
consumed completely. ,
The mass-murder lasted for 12 hours, the stir -shying Jews testi-
fied. They told how German doctbrs killed all Jewish new-born
babies calmly and systeMatically under instruction from Berlin and
how some babies were simply thrown into boilers. They consider it
a miracle that they succeeded in escaping on the day when the
mass-murder started, when the air around the Klooga camp was
filled with horrible shrieks of the victims suffering their last
agonies. -

Executed Police Chief
Deported Jews to Death

ROME (JPS)—Pietro Caruso,
Police Chief .pf Rome during the
period of the Nazi occupation,
was . sentenced to death for de-

livering victims to the Gestapo.
Among the prosecution exhibits
was a memorandum submitted -
by the Jewish Community Coun-
cil, charging Caruso with hay-.
ing drawn up for the Gesta p o a
list of Rome's most prominent
Jews for deportation.

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