JEWISH NEWS A Weekly Review VOL. 8, NO. 19 34.40, 22 Detroit 26, Mich. of Jewish Events January 25, 1946 10c; $3 Per Year $2,000,000 Drive Launched to Save European Jewry They Can Smile Again: Orphaned by Nazi brutality and enslaved in peat pits, this sister and brother are two of many thousands rescued and resettled in the Jewish National Home with the aid of the United Palestine Appeal. UPA fundS will help them adjust to their new surroundings and provide financial assistance, vocational training, temporary housing. An agricultural settlement built with UPA funds by the Keren, Hayesod on Keren Kayemeth land will become their permanent home in the Jewish homeland. Funds for this great effort will be provided by Detroit's Allied Jewish Campaign for $2,000,000. Jewish homelessness and suffering in Europe have reached such disastrous propor- tions that only an unparalleled relief, reh abilitation and reconstruction program can stave off further mass deaths among the 1,2 50,000 Jewish survivors in Europe. This message was brought to the boards of directors of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit and the Detroit Service Group, and a group of Detroit Allied Jewish Cam-. paign leaders, Tuesday evening, at a conf erence and dinner meeting held at Hotel Statler, by a delegation of nationally kno wn American Jewish leaders. The visiting leaders came to Detroit to stress the urgency of the plight confront- ing the Jews who are still alive today. The conference was called to formulate De- troit's program of action and participation in the record United Jewish Appeal cam- paign of 1946 for $100,000,000 to "assure the survival of the Jewish people, whether they choose to stay in Europe, or to build a new life in Palestine, or to begin anew elsewhere." qe Tuesday's meeting served to set in to motion the campaign for Detroit's $2,000,000 share in the $100,000,000 driv e. The decision was unanimous to start the drive through the reconstituted Allied Jewish Campaign machinery. Included in the visiting • delegation, se veral of whom recently had returned from a first-hand survey of shattered Jewish communities in Europe, were George Backer, a member of the board of directors of the J oint Distribution Committee; George Al- pert of Boston, noted attorney and communal leader; Chaplain Herschel Schacter, who returned recently from Germany; Ru dolf Sonneborn, chairman of the National Council of the United Palestine Appeal, and Henry Montor, executive vice-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal. "Jewish suffering on three continents is today so vast, so profound, so universal that one is virtually at a loss to encompa ss its scope," Mr. Alpert told the Detroit meeting. Stressing that American Jewry d are not sidestep the • challenge of destiny to rebuild the Jewish people, Mr. Alpert said: "The statistics of murder, of exter mination, of extinction by disease, hunger and the bayonet must now give way to the statistics of mercy. A Child Dies in Germany: In mid - December, 150 Jewish women and children set out from Lodz, Poland, hop- ing to find food, clothing and lodging in Berlin. Not all of , them made their goal. One of those who failed was a three- year-old boy who died of starvation in his mother's arms as the mother and others struggled. along a railroad track. This is the picture of that tragedy. Its memory can be eradicated through Detroit's UJA drive for $2,000,000. "Never has there been such a panorama of worldwide grief, and never before have the Jews of America been called up on to do so much. The world never again can be free until the innocent Jewish vic tiros of oppression are rescued from their present plight. You have the facts. Let your conscience do the rest." Mr. Sonneborn, member of the administrative committee of the United. Jewish Appeal, emphasized that emigration to P alestine remains the only hope of large numbers of the Jewish survivors in Europe. "Their sole alternative to emigration," he said, "was to return to lands drenched with the blood of their dear ones and the s cenes of 'their inhuman persecution and degradation'." "Palestine today, as in the past, stands ready and willing to absorb as many as possible of the Jewish refugees from Europe who are anxious to begin life anew in the Yishuv," the speaker declared. "How ever, if Palestine is to become the sanctu- ary for the 'weary masses of European Je ws, the present rate of growth and de- velopment in Palestine will have to be greatly accelerated. "One thing is clear," he continued, "the remnants of the Jews in Europe cannot go on living indefinitely in displaced persons camps. Polish Jews cannot possibly return to Poland where even today bitter and bloody pogroms are thinning the ranks of the Jewish survivors. They are traveling on foot, by truck, by train, by any means of transportation, to Palestine. They cannot be stopped now from reaching the goal which nurtured them in their darkest hour." Pointing out that the Nazis were 80 per cent Y efficient in their systematic pro- gram to annihilate the Jews of Europe, Mr. Backer, an official of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York, asked: "Can we be 100 per cent efficient in saving and rebuilding the lives of every one of the the 1,250,000 survivors, despite their starva- tion, despite their tuberculosis, despite their mental degradation after years of con- centration camps and hiding in cellars? "We must see to it," he continued, "that the excellent life-saving organizations which we have set up to represent American Jewry have sufficient funds in 1946 so that they do not haVe to save one life at the expense of another. Let us be 100 percent efficient in saving and rebuilding the lives of ALL Jewish survivors." _ Chaplain Schacter, the first Jewish chaplain with the United States armed forces to enter the notorious Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald, declared that condi- tions there defied adequate description. . He stressed that the fate of the Jewish survivors of Europe . hinged on the success of the $100,000,000 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal. "Let us remember," he said, "that the work of relief and rehabilitation could not be carried on without the Joint Distribution Committee; that the program for the development and upbuilding of Palestine as a sanctuary for the rescued Jews of Europe could not be carried on without the United Palestine Appeal; and that the men, women and children coming to the United States to begin life all over again would hardly know where to begin without the adjustment as- for sistance of the National Refugee Service." Enlist Service in $2,000,000 Drive r . Brotherhood Week: Annual American Brotherhood Week will be observed throughout the land during the week of Feb. 17-24, Hon. Harold E. Stassen, former governor of Minnesota, Captain in the U. S. Navy, is national chairman. Federal Judge Frank A. Picard, chairman of the Michigan Chapter of the American Christian Palestine Committee, is State chairman of Brotherhood Week celebrations. The Allied Jewish Cam- paign is again in force as the Detroit Jewish community's instrument for the great relief responibilities for the surviv- ors in Europe. Machinery for the $2,000,000 drive—Detroit's share in the national United Jewish Ap- peal for $100,000,000—has al- ready been set in motion. Enlist NOW as a volunteer worker in the campaign by calling the office of the Jewish Welfare Federation, 51 W. Warren Ave., CO. 1600. (Excerpts from addresses of the four New York lead- ersers who addressed Tuesday's meeting appear on Page 24 of this issue.) Judge William Friedman and Abraham Srere, presi- dent and chairman of the board of governors of the Jewish Welfare Federation, presided at the board meeting of the Federation at 4 p. m., preceding the evening dinner and conference, and at the conference. Plans for Detroit's forthcoming drive were outlined by Isidore Sobeloff, executive director of the Federation. Personal testimony of the impressions they had gathered at the Atlantic City United Jewish Appeal con- ference in December were given by the Detroit delegates —Mrs. Joseph M. Welt, Theodore Levin, Judge Friedman, Fred M. Butzel and Mr. Sobeloff. Others who participated in Tuesday's conference were Irving Blumberg and Maurice Enggass, president and chairman of the board of the Detroit Service Group.