Twenty-seven young Jews have committed suicide in DP camps in the U.S. zone in Germany in the last three months in despair at ever being admitted to Palestine or any other country, Sidney Flatow, former UNRRA director of the Zeilsheim camp, asserted today.
Mr. Flatow, who is now executive director of the American Federation of Polish Jews, told a press conference that morale in the camps was steadily deteriorating as a result of the fact that UNRRA does not have the funds or personnel to provide adequate care, and the red tape which has made “a farce” of President Truman’s directive to admit 3,900 displaced persons into the United States every month.
Charging that there have been numerous cases of Jewish DP’s being beaten by American troops, Flatow said that the soldiers are under the influence of “German frauleins, the most unregenerate of all Germans and the darlings of the American boys.”
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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.