The half-million DP’s in the American zone, including 150,000 Jews, were today urged to return to their countries of origin by Elliot Shirk, zone representative of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. He warned them against waiting and hoping “to obtain support for great national colonization movements.”
Shirk told the DP’s that they were “trading concrete possibilities for a hypothetical promise of something better in the future.” The choice, he said, was between continued dependence, or perhaps being thrown on their own resources in Germany or repatriation. He also announced that he had requested representatives of the DP’s to attend a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee in Frankfurt May 12 to discuss repatriation.
A group of more than 500 displaced Jews is expected to leave the British zone for Palestine early in May, it was learned today. This will be the second group to leave under the British plan to divide the Palestine immigration quota between Cyprus internees and Jews from their zone. Some 260 will leave from Belsen, while about 300 will be chosen from various other camps.
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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.