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5,000 Polish Jews Flee into Czechoslovakia Despite Dangers of Journey

July 15, 1946
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Nearly 5,000 Jewish refugees from Poland have arrived in Czechoslovakia since the pogrom at Kielce, posing a difficult problem for the Jewish community and the Joint Distribution Committee.

Food and lodging for the fugitives, most of whom are en route, via Austria and the American zone in Germany, to Palestine, is difficult to arrange, but with the assistance of governmental authorities provision is being made for the arrivals.

Although rivers along the Czechoslovak-Polish frontier are swollen, greatly increasing the dangers and hardships of their journey, hundreds of Jews arrive daily. Events in Poland have created such panic among them that the difficulties of their flight are ignored.

Some of the refugees charge that members of the police and the militia participated in the assaults on Jews or refrained from curbing the attackers. Jews from Lodz said that when they complained to the local police that the windows of their homes had been smashed, they were told: “What are you complaining about, you’re still alive.”

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