British Jewry will launch its appeal for funds to help German Jewish refugees at a huge mass meeting to be held here on March 27, it was announced today.
Anthony Rothschild will preside at the meeting. Lord Reading, Lord Melchet and Sir Osmond E. d’Avigdor Goldschmidt, will be the principal speakers. The British Central Relief fund has set April 15 as German Jewish Day in London. In the provinces April 8 has been designated for special collections for German Jewish relief.
According to a report of the Central Relief Fund issued today, pound203,800 was collected for German Jewish relief last year.
“The greatness of the tragedy which befell the German Jews is inadequately recognized even today,” the Central Relief report declared, pointing out that for the “first time in history the persecution of the Jews and the German disaster is a matter of international as well as communal importance.”
IMPORTANCE OF PALESTINE
The report stresses the importance of the Zionist organizations and Pal stinian institutions, pointing out that the most effective work for rebuilding the shattered lives of German Jewish refugees was carried out in Palestine where more than 9,000 German Jews have settled since the advent of Hitlerism.
The rise of the Nazis has resulted in the rise of an entirely new type of Jewish refugee. Most of the refugees are professional people hence making the relief task infinitely more difficult especially in view of the fact that the immigrants are no longer welcomed in the United States and other countries as they were at the time of the Czarist persecutions in 1905, the report declared.
The financial report of the Central Relief fund showed that over fifty per cent of the funds collected were spent in Palestine, pound5,000 having been allocated to Hebrew University and pound1,750 to the Haifa trade schools, in order to create openings for German Jewish professors ousted from German schools.
Sir Osmond Goldsmid, in commenting on the report, pointed out that only one and one half per cent of the total was for overhead expenses.
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