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15,000 Jews Housed by American Military Government in Special Camps in Germany

September 14, 1945
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Eight special camps for Jews, which house over 15,000 persons, have been established in the American zone in Germany, the Manchester Guardian reports today. The two biggest camps, each of which have about 5,000 inmates, are located at Feldafing and Landsberg. There are six smaller camps, in each of which there are about 1,000.

Camp Zeilsheim, near Frankfort, has an English-Hebrew banner across its entrance gate proclaiming it the “House of Israel,” the Guardian correspondent reports. Some of the 800 people there are working for the army outside the camp. Workshops for tailcring, shoemaking and carpentry have been established, but they lack equipment. One hut has been converted into a synagogue.

English and Hebrew classes are held daily. They are attended by 113 youngsters between the ages of 13 and 17. There are no younger children in the camp. Their standard diet totals about 2,000 calories daily, which the correspondent says is not sufficient to allow them to recover from the years of starvation they have endured. Occasionally their diet is supplemented by Red Cross parcels.

The chairman of this camp is a 35-year-old Polish Jew whose parents, brothers and sisters died in Poland during the German occupation. Eighty percent of the survivors in the American zone are Polish Jews, the Guardian dispatch discloses. It says that only five percent of them want to be repatriated, while almost all the others would like to emigrate to Palestine.

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