THE JEWISH NEWS

Page Twenfy

Friday, November 16, 1945

Joint Distribution Committee Ready to Proclaim
$50,000,000 Fund Drive to Aid European Jewry

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Helen Waren's Address
Brings Tears at Parley

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Jewish News Correspondent at Conference

C L E V E L AN D,—Formation of the East
Central Region of the Joint Distribution Commit-
tee by delegates from five states, at a conference
at Hotel Cleveland last Sunday, marked the be-
ginning of great and unprecedented fund-raising
activities for the relief and rehabilitation of
1,400,000 surviving Jews in Europe.

Revealing that only $19,000,000 is expected from
United Jewish Appeal collections in this country dur-
ing 1945, Dr. Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-presi-
dent of the JDC, Moses A. Leavitt, secretary of JDC;
and other leaders stated that if a minimum of rescue
work is to be achieved during the coming year, even un-
der improved conditions in Europe, a minimum of $50,-
000,000 will be needed for overseas work.
The $50,000,000 asked by JDC, in a program
which is expected to be proclaimed at the annual
meeting of the JDC National Council and board
of directors in New York on Dec. 9, includes al-
locations regularly made to the Jewish Agency for
Palestine for transportation of immigrants to Pales-
tine. But it is exclusive of the regular Palestin-
ian needs for which the campaign will be conducted
by the United Palestine Appeal.

Fred M. Butzel a Vice-President

Judge Maurice Bernon of Cleveland was elected
president of the East Central Region. Fred M. Butzel
of Detroit is one of the vice-presidents. Members of
the executive committee include the following from
Michigan:
Sidney Allen, Clarence H. Enggass, Abraham Srere,
Mrs. Joseph M. Welt and Henry Wineman, Detroit;
Philip E. Newman, Grand Rapids; William Present and
Harry Greenberg, Lansing; 'Louis Rudner and Max
Gealer, Flint; Milton Orwin, Kalamazoo; Arthu'r Simon
and Jacob I. Levy, South Bend; Nathan Rosenfeld,
Jackson; Paul Weiner, Muskegon.
David A. Goldman, president of the Junior Service
Group of Detroit, was chosen chairman of the program
committee of the National Youth Advisory Council
which held its sessions simultaneously with the Region.
Detroit delegates at the conference included Mr.
and Mrs. Henry Jassy. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Silver,
Abe Sudran, Miss Esther R. Prussian, Miss Rose Lewis,
Miss Elaine Prussian, Miss Goldie Goldstein, Miss
Ruth Shefer.

Three Outstanding Occurrences

Three outstanding occurrences made the Cleve-
land gathering an event of nation wide significance:
I. The question and answer period during
which Mr. Leavitt, Mrs. Cecelia Razovsky David-
son, Albert H. Liberman of Philadelphia and Ben-
jamin B. Goldman provided inforMation regardino.
the JDC activities and refuted unwarranted reports
regarding the relief agency's activities.
2. The soul-stirring address of Miss Helen
Waren, noted actress who, as a member of a USO
group of actors, was able to render great service
to relief activities in Italy and in Germany.
3. The announcement of the need of a mini-
mum of $50,000,000 for the coming year's relief
efforts.

In Sweden, where the basic relief is provided by
the government, JDC provides the Jewish community
with $25,000 a month for the supplementary activities.
Will JDC make possible the selection of its board
by contributors? This question, which has been raised
by critics who charged the relief agency with lack
of democratic principles, was answered with a call
to all Council members and contributors to attend the
Dec. 9 meeting in New York and to join in the selec-
tion of the governing bodies.

Cooperating With Jewish Agency

JDC leaders also pointed out that the relief move-
ment continues to cooperate with the Jewish Agency
for Palestine in colonization efforts and in making pos-
sible the transportation of the thousands being settled
in Palestine. The Jewish Agency has been receiving
$80,000 a month from JDC for this purpose.
The JDC evaluations of the agency's position
were impressive and served to clarify many mis-
understandings. At one point, Mr. Leavitt branded
as "a vicious lie" the spread of rumors that JDC
had failed to fulfill its duties.
The latter point received emphasis in the opening
remarks of Miss Helen Waren, brilliant actress who
left the Broadway success, "The Searching Wind," to
go on a USO tour. In the course
of her travels she discovered
the plight of her people and
returned to dedicate herself to
work of relief and rehabilita-
tion among Jews who continue
to be persecuted in Europe.
Miss Waren declared that
she was upset by the questions
raised preceding her address.
The answers, she declared, can
not be given in words. One
can visualize the tragedies
only after having traversed the
highways and after having
seen the horrors, to be assured
HELEN WAREN
forever.
"Then," she cried out, "one asks no more
questions, because you are haunted night after
night, remembering the smell of rotting flesh.
Every time I laugh I feel a sense of guilt. Every
time I pass a perfume counter I smell again the
rotting bodies."

Eye-Witness Story Brings Tears

Her description of her experiences was so deeply
moving that men and women CRIED LOUDLY. Never
has an audience been so moved by an eye-witness ac-
count of tragedy.
Miss Waren pointed out that when she left with
the USO group it was with no particular considera-
tion of the Jewish problem. She went abroad as an
American citizen to assist in raising the morale of
servicemen. Then she began to get glimpses of what
was transpiring, "and I felt the pain of my brother
Jews. I saw them clinging to a hopeless life. The very

,

Military Blamed for Delays

The information offered by the panel participants,
especially by Mr. Leavitt, with regard to the JDC
program, included the following:
While the Vaad Hahatzalah has been recognized
as an important cooperating agency in dispensing re-
lief in the field of religious reconstruction, it remains
questionable whether its activities should spill over
into the field of relief.
The problem of refugee children is the most pressing
of all issues facing relief workers. Mrs. Davidson
pointed out that one group of 525 children which she
took out of Buchenwald included only 20 girls.
Relief to Jews in Russia had to be sent on a non-
sectarian basis, in accordance with Soviet rules, but
this type of relief has been sent to areas with pre-
ponderant Jewish populations.
Unable to get licenses for JDC workers to pro-
Ceed to Europe, because of the army's insistence that
it would carry on the relief activities, the JDC was
prevented from rendering assistance it was prepared to
provide immediately after V-E Day. Mr. Leavitt stated
that JDC did everything it could, "but it was not
enough." He added that "it was the fault of the
military and of the authorities, and it was not a lack
of motive or desire on our part."
"Conditions have improved over those of last June,
but the surface has just been scratched and the great
task continues in the field of rescue and rehabilitation.

UNNRA Reaches Only Fraction of Jews

UNRRA, the participating leaders pointed. out,
operates only in territories wher 25 per cent of the
surviving Jews live, and they receive aid in propor-
tion to their numbers. The other 75 per cent of the
survivors depend entirely upon aid coming from the
JDC. UNRRA officials have stated that they can pro-
vide relief for only 10 per cent of the Jews.
The Polish government has given some help
to Polish Jews, but not a penny in relief money
' has been received from the governments of
Romania and Hungary.
Credit was given to Switzerland and Sweden as
the only governments which have given immense sums
for relief of refugees. It was pointed out . that Switz-
erland alone had spent $50,000,000 for relief of refugees
of all faiths.
But even in these countries, JDC suppletriehtary
funds were necessary in order to prevent suffering.

AT THE LUNCHEON MEETING OF THE J.D.C. IN
CLEVELAND: Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jassy of the Detroit
delegation are on the right.

last glimmer of hope is the way they wear the yellow
badges as a symbol of defiance. They say the word
Shalom which I learned there—bearing scars of po-
groms and of fighting."
In Italy, Miss Waren saw the work of rehabilita-
tion, and the most important task she witnessed was
the rehabilitation of children who are supported by the
JDC and the Palestinian soldiers. "I am shocked by
the disunity and by friction when unity is desired,"
she exclaimed. "The JDC and the Jewish Agency
work together: When you face the problem of blood
flowing in quarts, you must think in terms of stop-
ping the drain."
Relatine, personal experiences, she told how child-
ren who had been suspicious, who were compelled to
carry guns to fight for their lifes, became social beings
under the care provided for them. "We must go on
reassuring them," she said.

Describes Experiences in Germany

Describing her experiences in Germany she stated:
"All the pathos, the misery and the tragedy I had seen
in Italy did not prepare me for the horrors in Ger-
many.' Before going there, she told of having met
with Ruth Kluaer of the Jewish Agency and Dr. Joseph
J. Schwartz and Arthur Greenleigh of the JDC. "These
men," she reported, "give constantly of their hearts.
Dr. Schwartz is practically a skeleton."
The Jewish representatives told her that they
were not permitted to get to Germany and that she,
as the first Jewish civilian to go there, had a great
responsibility. They told her of existing conditions,
corresponding with the expose in the Earl Harrison
report long before that report was written.
Miss Waren charged that Jews live in camps
with Poles and Romanians and Hungarians who had
collaborated with the Nazis. • These, she charged,
are now named as overseers in these camps and
the lives of Jews are made miserable.
Through the grapevine of a strong Jewish under-
ground she was given facts •about the sufferings of
our people, and she was able to EFFECT SOME

75 Pct. of Survivors
Depend on JDC Help

RESCUE EFFORTS by getting some Jews into sani-
tary homes, by smuggling some into Italy.

War Not Over for These People

She charged: "The war IS NOT OVER for these
people. There has not been a victory. There are mass
murders going on." She accused the brutal overseers
of being "fascist swine." -
Relating. a conversation she had with Mrs. Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt regarding the existing conditions, she
said that Mrs. Roosevelt pledged her help to secure
housing for Jews in Jewish environments. When Mrs.
Roosevelt asked her whether it is possible to hope for
rehabilitation of Jews in their former homelands, Miss
Waren reported that she told her that she is not pre-
pared to sacrifice Jews to swine on a sacrificial altar,
that there is no chance of European rehabilitation for
them, that the sufferers must be asked where they
want to go—and they state emphatically that they
insist on going to Palestine!"
Miss Waren added that she warned that Jews
can not be asked to return to walls against which
their husbands or wives or children were shot, that
they can not be returned to villages where their
children were burned alive.
And Mrs. Roosevelt pledged her help!
(Since Miss Waren had her conference with
Eleanor Roosevelt, the latter wrote as follows in her
column:
("There is in Europe at the present time a group
of 100,000 displaced persons—the miserable, tortured,
terrorized Jews who have seen members of their
families murdered and their homes ruined, and who
are stateless people, since they hate the Germans and
no longer wish to live in the countries where they
have been despoiled of all that makes life worth living.
Naturally, they want to go to Palestine the one place
where they will have a status, where they will feel
again that sense of belonging to a community which
gives most of us security.
("President Truman has asked Great Britain for
consideration of their condition and permission for their
admittance to Palestine. Prime Minister Attlee may
discuss these and other matters with the President in
Washington soon.
("It seems to me urgent that these people be given
permission to go to the home of their choice. They
are the greatest victims of this war. We might as well
face the fact that we may be asked to assume some
responsibility; and, if so, we should be prepared to
assume it. Our consciences can hardly be clear when
we read about and see the pictures of these emaciated,
miserable people who suffer while we sit comfortable
and let them die at the rate of 50 per day—which is
what is happening now, I am told.")
Miss Waren said to Mrs. Roosevelt: "These
Jews want to go to Palestine. You must help get
them there and American Jews will sacrifice and
pay for their rehabilitation."
To her audience. Miss Waren said: "I give myself.
I love the theater. It is an essential part of me. But
I give it up because this is no time to think of myself.
Mrs. Roosevelt promised to help. But it is up to you.
The survivors in Europe say they need you. They say:
WE WANT TO GO HOME! We must help them with,
money, with Palestine, toward a life of hope and self-
respect."
(In her address in Cleveland on Saturday at the-
convention of the Pioneer Women's Organizations, Miss
Waren described at length what she had learned from
the Palestinian soldiers in Italy and from the Zionist un-
derground workers who assisted many in escaping
to Palestine, and pleaded for great efforts in behalf of
speedy settlement of large numbers in the Jewish
Homeland).

Funds for Needed Relief Lacking

Mr. Hyman, in the concluding address of the after-
noon, after the formation of the East Central Region,
warned that at present "we do not have the funds to
give the needed relief." He pledged continued co-
operation with the Zionist Organization and the Jew-
ish Agency for the settlement of tens of thousands of
Jews, but pointed out that large numbers will remain
in Europe and pleaded for all possible help for these
remaining sufferers.
The East Central Region includes Michigan, Ohio,
Indiana, Kentucky and Western Pennsylvania.

J. D. C. Reaches Agreement for
Cooperation with Polish Federation

An important announcement made this week is to
the effect that the Joint Distribution Committee and
the American Federation of Polish Jews have reached
an agreement for cooperation.
The agreement provided for the formation of a
special committee to study the problem_ of relief and
rehabilitation of Polish Jews, the committee to include -
five representatives from each organization, with two
co-chairmen.
A letter addressed to Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum, presi-
dent of the Polish Federation, by Paul Baerwald, -
chairman of the JDC, states:
"The Federation on its part will conduct a campaign ,•
for relief of Polish Jews, and will turn over to the
JDC for distribution for special projects by mutual
agreement between the JDC and the Federation, 75%
of the net proceeds of such a campaign collected direct-
ly by the Federation. The balance of 25% of the net
proceeds will be retained by the Federation for its
own relief activities in behalf of Polish Jews to be dis-
tributed for such purposes directly by the Polish Fed- .
oration. Where organizations send in funds directly -
to the JDC as a direct result of the Federation cam-
paign, such amounts will be credited to the Federation."
The Polish-Jewish Federation is to conduct drives
for non-relief and political purposes separately from
drives for relief.

