2,700 Hear Mcdonald Appeal for Refugees

Commodore Gathering Hears Speech by High Commissioner Via Trans-Atlantic Phone From Rome-Leaders of American Jewry Attend

The United Jewish Appeal drive to fill the New York quota of $1,200,000 was officially inaugurated last night when a gathering of 2,700 people attended the opening ceremonies at the Hotel Commodore and heard James G. McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, describe actual conditions in Europe of the refugees from the Hitler terror. Mr. McDonald spoke via trans-Atlantic telephone from the Hotel Excelsior in Rome.

Outstanding leaders in American life, including many prominent Jewish leaders, business men, scientists and professionals, attended the affair, eager to do their share in alleviating the catastrophic condition in which 600,000 Jews find themselves today because of the rise of Nazism.

The gathering launched the local drive of the $3,000,000 nationwide campaign conducted jointly by the American Palestine Compaign and the Joint Distribution Committee, which is headed by I. Edwin Goldwasser, Nathan Straus Jr. and Ira M. Younker.

NEEDS ARE DESPERATE

In his address from abroad, which was broadcast over Station WMCA Commisioner McDonald offered concrete examples of the suffering and martyrdom of the refugees from Hitlerism, declaring:

“If you who are listening could sense as we do here on this side of the water the poignant sufferings and the desperate need of thousands of helpless men, women and children, exiles because of race, religion or political opinion, your response would at once assure essential funds for relieving the destitute and to enable them to rebuild their lives elsewhere.”

Mr. McDonald declared that an article in the Voelkische Beobachter, the official Nazi organ, referred to his work as creating little interest, and asserted, “This is a challenge for you. You can meet it effectively by a generous response to the appeals made to you.”

The full text of Commissioner McDonald’s address is printed on another page of today’s Jewish Daily Bulletin.

Felix M. Warburg, national chairman of the Appeal, expressed confidence that New York Jewry would do its part in the drive, and explained that the first million dollars of the national goal of $3,000,000 would be divided equally between the Joint Distribution Committee and the American Palestine Campaign for use in aiding refugees from Germany. The remaining $2,000,000 will be allocated by a committee for work among Jews still in Germany and German Jews now in Palestine. Members of this committee include Dr. Cyrus Adler, Paul Baerwald, Louis Lipsky, Judge Julian W. Mack, Morris Rothenberg, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise and Mr. Warburg.

THE WANDERING JEW

Mr. Warburg continued:

“This year, since the Hitler regime in Germany, it looks very much as if another active period for the ‘Wandering Jew’ is before us. Those of us who receive nearly daily reports of the humiliation to which our brethren are exposed and the deprivations that are their lot in consequence of their being thrown or pushed out of their position by absolutely unfair and foul means, grew more and more amazed that such things can be permitted in what we consider civilized times. Germany, known to a great many of us as the beautiful, orderly country where education and science bloomed, had deteriorated into a military camp where hatred and intrigue are taught to the children.”

An appeal to the Jewish women of America to help raise funds for their persecuted brethren was voiced by Mrs. Roger W. Straus, chairman of the Women’s Division of the New York drive, which last week adopted a quota of $200,000.

“I want to make a plea for those of our kin in Germany who I consider are the worst sufferers in this tragedy-the women and the children,” she said.

Louis Lipsky, national chairman of the American Palestine Campaign, who recently returned from Palestine, declared that Jews must rely on themselves alone in aiding German Jewish refugees.

“Despite the current efforts of Mr. McDonald,” he said, “the only open door through which a substantial number of the exiles have passed during the last twelve months is the door that opens into Palestine. Down the road that leads from Berlin to Trieste and thence to Haifa, there came, since the advent of the new German government last spring, over ten thousand Jews from Germany, out of a total entering Palestine in 1933 of over 40,000. From the heavily clouded skies of the German Reich and the sultry atmosphere of refugee camps in other European lands, into the sunny Land of Promise, the exiles are now moving with regularity and system; and as the road becomes more familiar and the possibilities of the land become more generally known, a way is being prepared for thousands of others to follow them in due course”.