Nine members of the twelve-man Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, who gathered in Vienna tonight to compare notes, after taking testimony from Jews in Germany and Poland, found that they all had the same thing to report: Everywhere they went they found virtually no hope for revival of Jewish life in Europe and ninety to one hundred percent of the Jews visited desire to go to Palestine.
Bartley Crum, who with Sir Frederick Leggett, toured the American zone in Germany, told a press conference today that “if we don’t clear out the DP camps in the U.S. zone in Germany, we will have mass suicides of Jews, or they’ll try to fight their way into Palestine.”
Adding that the inmates of these camps were “the only people I have seen in Europe with inner security, because they feel they can rebuild their lives in Palestine,” Crum said: “My recommendation would be to clean out these camps and let these people go where they want to go. Out of simple decency, these people should be given a chance. That is impossible in these camps.”
Frank Buxton, speaking for himself and Wilfred Crick and Sir Reginald Manning-ham-Buller, all of whom arrived from Poland this afternoon, said that he had been sickened by what he saw in the remains of the Lodz ghetto. The Jews of Poland, he said, fear that their lives are in danger, if they remain. “As repatriated Jews pour into Poland from Russia, others pour out of Poland into the American zone of Germany,” he added. “Poland is becoming a transmission belt. The Jews of Poland apparently have no idea of going to the United States.”
MASS DEMONSTRATION FOR PALESTINE GREETS SUB-COMMITTEE IN LODZ
In Lodz, Buxton reported, the sub-committee was met by a demonstration of 2,500 people, who marched through the streets to their hotel, carrying banners and flags reading: “Open the Gates of Palestine.” A delegation consisting of former partisans and veterans of the Polish Army called on members of the committee, and urged the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Outside, the crowd sang Hatikvah.
A committee elected by a Zionist congress held in Warsaw last week, also called on the Anglo-U.S. probers in the Polish capital, and presented to them an urn containing the ashes of Jews murdered in crematoriums and a piece of soap made from fat rendered from the bodies of executed Jews. The Zionist spokesmen said that the urn represented the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland murdered by the Nazis, and voiced the hope that Jews would receive partial compensation for their sufferings through the establishment of a Jewish state. “These people do not want to remain in Poland,” Buxton concluded. They regard it as their graveyard.”
Judge Joseph Hutcheson, American co-chairman, speaking for his sub-committee, which went to the British zone in Germany, reported that it had gone to the Honne Camp, on the site of Bergen-Belsen, where there are 10,000 Jews among 20,000 residents. “We found a feeling not of hope, but of Palestine,” he said. “In one camp, we were told that the inmates had been informed that they could ask to emigrate to the United States, but none did.
“I saw little children–not many–but they looked well. However, I was told by the camp director: ‘You should have seen these children before.’ I replied: ‘I do not think that they should be reminded and I do not want to be reminded. ‘” Hutcheson said that the camp was cold and the people were living in barracks.
DOUBTFUL WHETHER COMMITTEE WILL BE ABLE TO GO TO HUNGARY, RUMANIA
Crum said tonight that he doubted whether the committee would be able to go to Hungary or Rumania, but asserted that he was not distressed by any refusal to enter these territories, since the major problems are the Polish Jews and the displaced persons camps. He reported that the three other members of the committee, MacDonald, Phillips and Aydelotte, would arrive this week.
The proposed schedule of the committee for the next week or so is as follows: Hutcheson, Singleton, Buxton and Morrison will take testimony in Vienna for five days and then go to the Russian zone in Austria, if possible. Aydelotte, Manningham-Buller and Crick will visit the American zone. MacDonald and Crossman will go to the French zone. The entire committee will fly to Cairo on Feb. 28 for five days of hearings, after which it will hold hearings in Palestine for three weeks.
An “international incident” nearly developed on Friday, when the sub-committee led by Crum and Leggett, who were accompanied by Judge Simon Rifkind, advisor on Jewish affairs to the commanding general of the American forces in Germany, a Soviet liaison officer, and this correspondent, and several other newsmen, were stopped at the Czech-Austrian border by Czechoslovak guards who suspected the party of having filched secret war trial documents. After a half-day delay, the party was allowed to continue.
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.
