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Refugee Relief Cost in Poland Put at $1,000,000 for Last 8 Months

August 7, 1939
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A total of 5,000,000 zlotys (about $1,000,000), which was donated by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and other foreign relief organizations, was spent in Poland during the past eight months for the support of refugees from Germany, it was revealed today in a report of the Warsaw Refugee Aid Committee received by central relief bodies in Paris.

The refugees included the several thousand Jews deported from Germany and interned at the Polish border station of Zbonszyn and 1,200 who crossed the Polish border form Czecho Slovakia after the German occupation. The report stated that of the 3,000,000 zlotys raised in Poland, 2,000,000 was in cash and 1,000,000 in kind.

Praising the J.D.C. for the assistance it gave, he report emphasized that a minimum of $100,000 monthly would be required for refugee work in Poland since the problem was becoming more acute in view of the thousands of new refugees being continually forced across the German border.

Polish Jewry ,itself greatly weakened by prevailing economic conditions, finds it more difficult to carry the burden of the refugee problem to the extent which it done in the past eight months, since the Reich began to drive Jews into Poland, the report said.

The plight of thousands fleeing from Czech territory was described in detail. Many refugees wander day and night along the frontier until they are able to penetrate into Poland where they come hungry, penniless and without clothing to the aid committee, which provides them with shelter, food, legal advice and emigration facilities.

The American consulate in Warsaw, the report said, is speeding up action on cases of those entitled to United States visas because they had applied for them either in Germany or in Prague. Records of these applicants, including deposited affidavits, are requested by the Warsaw consulate from the respective American consulate in the Reich and upon their transfer, the refugees receive their visas in Warsaw.

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