1,200,000 Jewish Children Perished in Europe; Only 150,000 Survived, Godard Reports

Only about 150,000 out of a total of 1,350,000 Jewish children who lived in central and eastern Europe before the war have survived the Nazi terror, declared Senator Justic Godard, prominent French leader and president of the World Union OSE, organization for child care, health and hygiene among Jews, who arrived in New York today on an official French government mission.

Speaking at a reception given in his honor by the American OSE at the Commodore Hotel, Senator Godard, who was a candidate for President of France and a minister in several French cabinets, described the plight of the Jewish children, most of them orphans, who have been saved from various concentration camps. About 8,000 Jewish children have survived the horrors of Buchenwald and Belsen, most notorious German camps, he estimated.

The French leader reported that there are now about ten thousand Jewish children underthe care of the OSE in French, over 7,000 of whom are placed with families and about 2,500 of whom are being taken care of in the fourteen institutions and children’s homes of the OSE in Frence. Homes for additional 700 children are now being prepared by the OSE which now maintains 26 medical dispensaries for these children in France, he said.

Recalling the agreement recently reached with the French covernment according to which the French OSE has been authorized to assume care and hospitalization of the Jewish orphans released from German camps, Senator Godard declared that the French government assured a Jewish delegation this week that the Jewish refugee children from Germany, whom French authorities in Paris recently placed under the care of a non- Jewish welfare organization, will be transferred to Jewish institutions. The guest emphasized the generosity toward the Jewish war refugees shown by the French governmental authorities.