Jewish Claims Conference to Make First Allocation to Jews in Hungary

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany has decided to make its first allocation to a Jewish community in a Communist country, to the Hungarian Jewish community, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Claims Conference and of the World Jewish Congress, reported here today.

Dr. Nahum Goldmann, who recently met with Hungarian Jewish leaders, said that the Hungarian Jews had accepted the right of the Claims Conference to supervise the spending of any funds it allocates and its right to send its own officials to inspect the program, These are conditions for grants by the Claims Conference to any community project.

The WJC leader revealed that Czech Jewry and Polish Jewry are expected to request similar allocations soon. The Hungarian Jewish application is for funds to collect documents and other research materials pertaining to the community destroyed by the Nazis. Dr. Goldmann said that as a result of the WJC-Hungarian Jewish parley the Hungarian leaders plan to renew contact with the World Jewish Congress either by rejoining it or by cooperating with it.

World Jewish leadership, Dr. Goldmann disclosed, has reached the conclusion that it is necessary to make a world issue of Soviet Jewry’s right to live a Jewish life and of the right of individual Jews to emigrate from the USSR. An anti-Soviet campaign is not contemplated, he stressed, but it is felt that raising the issue of Jewish rights will receive wide support, even in Soviet circles. He admitted that it would be a prolonged struggle, but not a hopeless one.