D

Page Twenty

THE JEWI S H NEWS

Friday, October 12, 1.945

World Jewry's Plight Spurs War Chest Workers k

Dr. Heller Describes
Survivors' Sufferings

Moved to action by the tragic plight of the
million and a half of the' surviving Jews in
Europe, many hundreds of Jewish workers this
week volunteered for service in the War Chest
campaign, under the direction of the Detroit
Service Group of the Jewish Welfare Federation.
It is believed that 2,000 men and women will
enroll as workers under the direction of the Ser-
vice Group and that the Jewish - community's
efforts in the great humanitarian, drive will again
be an outstanding contribution towards the sue-
. eess of the War. Chest.

Meeting for the first time since the formation of
the War Chest under the auspices of the Allied Jew-
ish Campaign, more than 200 local leaders on Mon-
day attended the opening campaign luncheon at Hotel
Statler to hear the stirring addresses of Dr. James G.
Heller, national chairman of the United Palestine
Appeal, and of Robert MacRae, the managing director
of the War Chest.

He related his visit at Hapoel Hamizrachi' School
Kfar Hanoar Hadati with the 50 children who had
come to Palestine from Teheran after roaming through
forests and traveling to their destination for more
than two years. He gave a graphic description of the
350 children, all of whose parents were killed, who
learned to fend for thernselves, who knew how to
"handle guns, who often had to kill in self-defense, who
had to steal -in order to secure a minimum of (their
food requirements, who wandered over the face of.
Russia, landed in Teheran, were refused admission
into Palestine but finally were brough there by way
of India.
"These youngsters became upright and normal
boys and girls, they became wholesome and sound
again," 'Dr. Heller said.

6 Years Training in Buchenwald

Among his graphic descriptions was his report
of the arrival of • the British ship Mataroa which brought
1,300 refugees from Central Europe. He went aboard
this ship and the newcomers wept with tears of happi-
ness. Included among the refugees was a little boy
who had lived in the Buchenwald camp for six years
and on whose arm were tattooed in blue the Buchen-
wald number running in the millions. The youngster
told him that his only desire is to settle in a kibbutz
in Palestine. To Dr. Heller's question what training
he had to go there he replied: had six years' train-
ing in Buchenwald."
Dr. Heller concluded his address with a challenge
to the gathering to indicate why the 5,000,000 Jews in
America—half of the surviving sons and daughters of
our people in the entire world—had been spared as
free people.
"There should be gratitude in our hearts," he de-
clared. "We must reach out to our people who have
suffered for no other reason than that they come
from the same stock as we do. We must help them
with great generosity."
Mr. Blumberg, upon the conclusion of the meet-
ing, appealed for workers to register with the Detroit

2,000 Jews Volunteer
To Carry on Campaign

ante is being, provided for 75,000 stateless and non-
repatriable Jews who are still living in, fourteen
camp areas in Germany and Austria.
2. In reply to urgent appeals for help from ap-
proximately 80,000 Jewish survivors in Poland, J.D.C.
is now shipping ever-increasing quantities of supplies
to help stave off the ravages of 'hunger and distress.
In September 250 tons of powdered milk, 10 tons' of
marmalade, 10 tons of vegetable fats, 21 tons of medical
supplies- and instruments were ordered shipped to
Poland from Sweden and Denmark. .
3. J.D.C. is now providing aid for 30,000 of the 170,000
Jews in France.
4. J.D.C. is required to proVide relief for 12,000
refugees from Austria and Eastern Europe who are
located in Italy and to meet critical food and housing
needs of 9,000 Jewish survivors in Greece.
5. Through neutral sources J.D.C. is now supplying
funds to help 600,000 Jews in Romania, Hungary and
Bulgaria. J.D.C. is also continuing its assistance to
250,000 Polish Jews in Asiatic Russia and to the
Jews in North Africa, Spain, Portugal and Sweden,
6. Following the liberation of Jewish refugees in
Shanghai, J.D.C. continued to make provision for re-
lief and rehabilitation for more than 12,000 men.

-
United Palestine Appeal

1. The U.P.A. must make possible large-scale set-
tlement in the Jewish National Home in Palestine to
provide a home for great numbers of Jews of Europe
who do not want to return to their former homes.
2. The rising influx of refugees has increased the
demands upon the I.T.P.A. agencies for immigration
and relief to newcomers, including training activities
and relief abroad, transportation, the care of im-
migrants on arrival and the construction and mainten-
ance of camps and housing.
•
- 3. U.P.A. must expand 300 existing argicultural
settlementsand make pbssible the establishment of
new rural centers to provide for the absorption of
large numbers of immigrants from Europe.

Appeal to Workers by Robert MacRae

Irving W. Blumberg presided at- Monday's lunch-
-Fon meeting; and Henry Wineman, vice-chairman of
the War Chest campaign, introduced Dr. Heller.
- Mr. ' MacRae admonished the gathering that the
war is not over for the sufferers in Europe; that it
is not over "for the Jews who have suffered brutalities
that are beyond comprehension." .
"The job will. not be completed as long as there
are human needs," Mr. MacRae stated.
. Mr. Wineman appealed to his fellow-workers to
resolve to proceed at once with solicitations for the
War Chest and to keep at the job until the War Chest
drive is a • complete suttees:
Dr. Heller's address was a touching report on his
experiences in Europe and in Palestine and his find-
ings during his recent .tour of his study of the status
of the Jews in Europe.

Declares "The Responsibility Is Ours"

Declaring that, his task is to explain the great
emergency which calls for maximum effort • in the
present drive, Dr. Heiler expressed confidenCe that
Detroit, with a background of unprecedented generos-
ity in all past humanitarian' efforts, will respond nobly
to the War Chest appeal.
Describing the war-time measures that were taken
by the relief agencies and the War Refugee Board to
provide relief for the needy, even by sending supplies
behind the military lines, by parachutes, Dr. .Heller
declared:
"Thank God that that time - is over, that 1,600,000
of the 8,000,000 Jews in Europe have come out of the
fiendish device of furnaces in which hundreds of thOtis-
ands were burned. But today they are the most
*taw hapless and most helpless people in the world, and
the responsibility for their welfare is ours."'
Quoting the Polish and Hungarian Jewish delega-
tions with whom he conferred recently in. London and
who described the pitiful plight of the surviving Jews,
Dr. Heller referred, to the Harrison report - to Presi-
dent Truman and declared:
"The amount of food and clothing available for
the survivors is woefully. little. These people are
:utterly property-less; The type of UNRRA and other
relief they must receive is truly mounmental."

Reports JDC Funds Exhausted

The Joint Distribution Committee, Dr. Heller re-
ported, has already expended the entire amount that
is. available for .1945. He reported' that JDC is to
receive a total of $21,500,000 from the anticipated total
Of 137,000,000 to be raised by the United Jewish Ap-
peal of which it is a constituent agency. JDC, he stated,
has already committed itself for the entire amount
it- is to receive from the United Jewish Appeal, and
its leadership admonished American Jewry-, that a
way will have to be found to secure an. additional
$15,000,000 with which to operate 'in support of the
tragic position of European .Jewry.
: . Referring to activities in behalf' of Palestine's re-
construction; Dr. Heller stated that for the 'year
commencing -Oct.. 1, • 1945, the Jewish Agency ha's a
budget of $51,000,000. Should Prime- Minister Attlee
respond to President Truman's appeal for the immedi-
ate admission of 100,000 Jews, he declared :that a sum
of more than $200,000,000 will have to be raised through
loans and investments.

Service Group at the office of the Jewish' Welfare
Federation, CO. 1600, 51 W. Warren.
The War Chest campaign offices are at Hotel
Statler where reports will be received on the activities
of all workers.

UJA Appeals for Action to- 1600 Cities

NEW YORK.—Asserting that the Jews of the
United States were the major hope for the relief and
reconstruction of the Jewish survivors of war and
Hitlerism in Europe, Rabbi James G. Heller, William
Rosenwald and Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, national chair-
men • of the' United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Over-
seas Needs and Palestine,, announced that its constitu-
ent agencies were expanding their program of relief
and rehabilitation in war-ravaged Europe and mass
settlement in the Jewish National Home in Palestine
to bring prompt assistance to Jews in distress and
large• numbers of the homeless during the approaching
critical winter months.
.
The United JewishAppeal, which is the largest
unified fund-raising body ever organized by the Jews
of the. United ,States, provides the resources for the
support of the far-ranging programs of three major
American organizations—the Joint Distribution Com-
mittee, the United Palestine Appeal \ and the National
Refugee Service.
An urgent appeal was addressed by the National
Chairmen to more than .1,600 communities now carry-
ing on campaigns in support of the United Jewish
Appeal to make an unprecedented effort in behalf of
the nationwide drive so that its constituent organiza-
tions might "avert tragic suffering and despair among
those who have survived the cruelest persecution in the
history of mankind."
Rabbi Heller, Mr. Rosenwald and Rabbi Wise
outlined as follows the current needs and activities
of the agencies represented in the United Jewish
Appeal:

Joint 'Distribution Committee

1. Thirty-five J.D.C. welfare workers are now op-
erating in the former concentration camps in Germany
in the American and British zones, and another ten
workers will soon augment this staff. Special assist-

. 4. U.P.A. is required to assist in the speedy re-
conversion of Palestine's economy from wartime to
peacetime production. New industries, developed
with the aid of the U.P.A. to give maximum support
to the Allied war effort in the Middle East, must now
be converted for the production of consumer goods in
order to enlarge the employment opportunities for
newly arrived refugees from European lands.

National Refugee Service

1. During --the period of economic reconversion,
N.R.S. must increase its assistance to refugees former-
ly employed in war work.
2. N.R.S. faces a new major responsibility to the
918 refugees who may soon be released from Ft. Ontario
at Oswego, New York.
_ 3. The N.R.S. location unit is meeting constantly
increasing demand for its services in finding war-lost
kin for America and locating American relatives for
refugees abroad.
4. The N.R.S. migration department also faces in-
creasing calls for help, both from relatives and local
refugee-assistance committees in the United States and
from refugee-arid organizations abroad.

.

• Immediate Needs in Palestine

But the $51,000,000 budget, Dr. Heller said, is in-
tended for the immediate activities, for the settlement
of only 18,000 Jews, for the eradication of tuberculosis,
for the solution of the serious housing problem and to
provide for the resettlement of 30,000 Jews who are
serving in the Jewish Brigade and other armed forces
which were recruited in Palestine.
Dr. Heller's description of the status of some • of
the refugees whom he had interviewed in Palestine
formed the most deeply moving portion of his address.
He told of a woman who had found shelter in -a Polish
peasant's home and managed to get to Palestine with
the aid of the underground.

Allied Jewish Campaign workers

commenced activities in behalf of the War Chest at the luncheon
meeting at the Statler on Monday. This photograph shows the leaders seated at the speakers' table. Dr. James
G. Heller, guest speaker, is on the extreme left. This and. the other photographs on this page were taken at the
luncheon meeting for The Jewish News by its staff photographer, M. Safron.

