All Jews Must Be Taken out of Poland, Dr. Margoshes Reports Upon His Return from Warsaw

Estimating that there are no more than 60,000 Jews in Poland, and that a third of them are still living as “maranos” using non-Jewish identity documents secured during the Nazi occupation, Dr. Samuel Margoshes, who this week returned from a trip to Poland on behalf of the World Jewish Congress, today told a press conference that “ninety-nine percent of all these Jews want to leave the country” and must be removed immediately, since their lives are in danger.

Not a day passes without Jews being killed by anti-Semitic and anti-Government terrorist groups, Dr. Margoshes reported. The Government is very pro-Jewish, he emphasized, and is doing all it can for the surviving Jews, but it is helpless to deal with the fascist underground movement.

Declaring that it does not matter to what country the Jews are taken, as long as they leave Poland immediately, Dr. Margoshes said: “Those who have relatives in the United States want to go to America, others look to emigration to Palestine. American Jews must send affidavits to their relatives in Poland, if they really wish to help them.” He urged Jewish organizations in the United States to impress upon the State Department the necessity of giving priority visas to Jews in Poland as is being done for displaced Jews in Germany under President Truman’s order.

Jews repatriated from the USSR to Poland, Dr. Margoshes said, do not intend to remain on Polish soil. They consider Poland a corridor through which they can reach other countries. Many of the Polish Jews who were in Silesia are now suffering from the same “zoological anti-Semitism” displayed by the majority of the non-Jewish population in Poland, he stated. They are leaving Silesia, because of the anti-Jewish atmosphere introduced by Poles who are being sent there as new settlers. At the same time, Dr. Margoshes pointed out that some Poles risked their lives during the Nazi occupation to rescues Jews from the Gestapo.