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Palestine Meeting Urges United Nations to Take Action on Nazi Massacre

August 3, 1942
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The leaders of the United Nations and the Jews of the world were urged to do all in their power to halt the Nazi massacres of Jewish civilians in the occupied countries of Europe, in an appeal issued by a mass-meeting here on the occasion of “Polish-Jewish Day,” called to protest the butchery of Poland’s Jews and to commemorate the Nazis’ victims.

The meeting, which was attended by thousands of people, including Polish and Jewish leaders and the consul-generals of many of the United Nations, heard addresses by Isaac Gruenbaum, Polish-Jewish leader, who spoke on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Palestine; Isaac Ben-Zvi, president of the Jewish National Council; Eliezer Perlson, vice-mayor of Tel Aviv; Rabbi Yankelevitch, representing the Agudas Israel and Dr. Olshevsky, leader of the Polish Democratic Club. A message expressing “his personal sympathy” was received from United States Consul-General Lowell C. Pinkorton, who was unable to attend.

Most of the speakers struck the same notes: expressing sympathy with Polish Jewry, demanding reprisals against the Germans and the opening of Palestine to Jewish refugees now and after the war. Rabbi Yankolevitch demanded the shipment of food and medicine to the Polish ghettos. A message greeting the Jews in the ghettos and urging them not to despair “because the day of deliverance and peace is close at hand,” was issued by the meeting.

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