The members of the sub-committee of the Anglo-American inquiry committee touring displaced persons camps in the American zone in Germany today declared that they have found no evidence that the trek of Polish Jews into the American zone is “organized.”
“This is not an internationally organized movement,” American member Bartley Crum declared. “These people are coming here into the American zone en route to Palestine. What we have here is something similar to the underground railway for slaves we had in the United States,” he said, adding that there is no question, but that “these people have made up their minds that they have no future in Germany.”
Sir Frederick Leggett, the British member of the unit, asserted “they are being helped, as would naturally be expected, by Jewish committees in the towns through which they happen to pass.”
Both committee members pointed out that the infiltrees “certainly are not fat,” and that they had suffered “great hardship and agony.” The committee also noted that “all have a quiet, but very fierce, determination to reach their goal, and they are ready for anything that is likely to be put in their way. There does not seem to be the remotest chance of their returning to Eastern Europe or staying in Germany–the very soil of Germany is repellent to them,” Crum and Leggett concluded.
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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.
