Forty thousand Jewish persons in Bessarabia are starving in the famine districts of Akerman, Irgeiev, Teleneschte, Bender, Ismail, Romanovka, Arzif, etc, Dr. Jacob Lestschinsky, who has just returned from a tour in Bessarabia, stated to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative here.
The entire Jewish population of Bessarabia, he said, which depends for its livelihood almost entirely on agriculture or grain-trading, has been terribly hit by the failure of the crops for the last two years. The Jewish Rescue Committee in Kishineff urged Dr. Lestschinsky to ask the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to make known the conditions in Bessarabia to the Jewish press, so that public opinion should be able to rally to the aid of the starving Jews.
In addition to the 40,000 Jews who have been entirely deprived of their means of livelihood, and must be provided for out of public funds, the whole Jewish middle class of Bessarabia has been economically ruined and impoverished. Dr. Lestschinsky passed twelve stations on the Kishineff-Akerman line which are renowned as grain-trading centres. All of them were at a complete standstill. The big granaries are all empty and closed. In many of the homes which Dr. Lestschinsky visited, he found the conditions too terrible for description. He often found a family of seven or eight children, without a scrap of clothing on their backs, and at five o’clock (Continued on Page 4)
Dr. Lestschinsky says that everyone in Bessarabia, especially in Kishineff, recalls with gratitude the great help which the Hilfscverein der Deutschen Juden rendered Bessarabian Jewry in 1903, and they are hoping that the Hilfsverein will now again join the Committees in England and in France in providing aid for the starving Jews of Bessarabia.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learns that the Hifsverein has already on its own initiative decided to start work on behalf of the starving Jews of Bessarabia, and has allocated a considerable sum for the purpose. It is also issuing an appeal to its members and to German Jewry as a whole.
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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.
