About 650 small children, mainly Jewish, are still held in the dreaded internment camps for foreigners in unoccupied France where they suffer from malnutrition, confinement in unsanitary quarters, insufficient clothing and inadequate attention, according to a detailed report received here today.
Over 400 Jewish children are at the Rivesaltes camp where the authorities have given permission for the Ose and other private relief agencies to work. These organizations, the report discloses, work in close cooperation, supplementing each other’s activities and avoiding duplication.
In addition to periodic visits by specialists and child-care workers, there is a representative of the Ose residing at the Gurs camp, through whom contact is maintained with all organizations. This representative, in addition to aiding the children there, distributes food and clothing and cooperates with the Red Cross and interned doctors in maintaining an infirmary, and with the camp authorities, on camp hygiene problems.
The report describes further the measures taken to safeguard the health of the general Jewish population and to aid needy doctors. It concludes by pointing out that ninety percent of its budget for children’s work and for its activities in the internment camps has been supplied by or through the Joint Distribution Committee.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
