The American Red Cross, in a statement issued here today, urges Jews in the United States to utilize its world-wide communication system to locate their relatives in Poland and other Nazi-occupied parts of Europe. The Red Cross communication system reaches behind enemy lines, transmits messages to enemy-occupied territory, and even penetrates into enemy internment camps, the statement said.
Explaining that the Inquiry Unit of the American Red Cross was established shortly after the invasion of Poland and is expanding constantly, the statement emphasizes that this unit “has already located many Jewish families in Europe and elsewhere, thereby relieving the minds of relatives in the United States.”
“One of the many cases,” the statement declares, “affected a Jewish mother and young son, relatives of a Rochester, N. Y. family. Driven from their home by the invasion of Poland, mother and son wandered from place to place in search of a refuge. The Red Cross first made contact with them on October 1, 1940 when they were located in Breslau, Germany. From there they were traced to Lwow, Poland, and later to Berlin, Germany. Subsequently, mother and son became separated, the boy being found in Teheran, Iran and his mother in Samarkand, Russia.”
Correspondence between citizens or residents of the United States and their friends or relatives in Axis-occupied countries is transmitted through the Red Cross in both directions on official civilian message forms. A message containing family news of no military value and restricted to 25 words may be written on one side of the form. Space for the addressee’s reply is provided on the reverse side. Both sender and addressee use their own handwriting. The message is delivered to the person making the inquiry through his local Red Cross chapter.
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.
