Committee in Russia Criticizes Miss Szold for Statement Not Made by Her

The charge that Miss Henrietta Szold, leader of the Hadassah movement, is disseminating “irresponsible” information on the situation of Jewish refugee children in Russia is made today in a statement issued by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee here.

The statement reads: “The New York Herald Tribune of January 31 carried an interview by Dorothy Dunbar Bromley with the Zionist leader Miss Henrietta Szold who is organizing relief for Hadassah in Palestine. Miss Szold is reported as having said that at least 10,000 orphaned Jewish children must be taken out of Soviet Russia because ‘no special provisions are being made for them. Miss Szold does not mention the source of her information the source of her information, nor does she explain why precisely 10,000 children must be taken out of Russia. She also does not say what kind of children and what are the ‘special previsions’ that are lacking. Miss Szold’s irresponsible statement has no basis whatsoever.”

(The statement attributed by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee to Miss Szold was not made by her according to information available here. The misunderstanding is due, apparently, to the fact that Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, after quoting a letter from Miss Szold concerning the Polish-Jewish refugee children, added, on the basis of other information which she received in the New York headquarters of the Hadassah, that “at least ten thousand more of these children, it is believed, remain to be taken out of Russia, which has been able to make no special provision for them.”)

HUNDREDS OF ORPHANED JEWISH CHILDREN BEING CARED FOR IN SPECIAL HOMES

At the same time the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee today published a report stating that hundreds of orphaned Jewish children from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, White Russia and the Ukraine are being sheltered in children’s homes in Ivanovo-Voznessensk, about 160 miles east of Moscow.

Shortly after the Nazi invasion of Poland and the Baltic countries, many of the schools and children’s homes there were moved to Moscow, the report said. Among these were the Beth Jacob home in Bialystok and the Druskin Gymnasium from Lithuania. When the Nazi threat to the Russian capital became acute last year, the children, together with their teachers and other members of the staff of the institutions, were moved farther eastward to Ivanovo-Voznessensk. Here they are continuing their education, including, instruction in the Yiddish language and literature. At Ivanovo is also located a home for Jewish infants, where many youngsters are being cared for.