Quakers to Rush Supplies to Poland As Nazis Permit Non-sectarian Relief

The American Friends Service Committee said today that distribution of milk and cod liver oil to children in Poland would begin as soon as the supplies could be rushed to the stricken territory, after the Commission for Polish Relief had received word from Berlin that the German Government had given permission for non-sectarian relief.

Clarence E. Pickett, director of the Quaker relief organization, told the J.T.A. by telephone from Washington that the Quaker assistance would supplement that of the official Nazi organizations and would concentrate largely on aid to Jews since they were excluded from official relief.

The news that the Reich authorities had given permission to the Commission for Polish Relief to conduct its assistance on a non-sectarian basis — having previously excluded Jews from all benefits — was received yesterday in a trans-Atlantic telephone call from W.C. McDonald, a representative of the commission in Berlin.

McDonald and Homer Morris, of the Friends’ committee, were the first two representatives of the American Commission to visit Warsaw after the Nazi occupation. McDonald was to meet Frederic C. Walcott, treasurer of the commission, and J. Edgar Rhoads and Arthur Gamble of the Quaker organization, reaching Naples on the Italian liner Rex today, and proceed immediately to Berlin and Warsaw.

“Following the siege of Warsaw, the needs in the city are very great,” the commission said. “Emergency supplies are to be purchased in the Scandinavian countries and rushed to Warsaw by way of Danzig.”