Building Housing Big Jewish Organizations Damaged in London Raid

Woburn House, which houses the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Joint Foreign Committee, the Anglo-Jewish Association, the Council of German Jewry and other major Jewish organizations, was damaged by Nazi bombs in a recent air raid, British censorship authorities permitted to report today.

Bombs also hit the building housing the Federation of Polish Jewish Relief Organizations and the premises of the Polish-Jewish Relief Fund, on Soho Street. A number of refugees and others sheltered in the building during the raid were killed. Jewish refugees were also killed in the West Central Settlement, where they were sheltered.

Among the buildings damaged during the recent raids are several synagogues in London and in Hull, the Jewish Institute and the West Central Boys’ Club in London. A synagogue and a Beth Medrash in Hull were so severely hit that they are feared to be beyond repair, but the Arks of the Covenant in both buildings were miraculously unscathed and the Scrolls of the Law were saved. The Western Synagogue on Alfred Place in London was completely demolished.

Miss Winifred Ortweiler is the second Jewess to be awarded the new British Empire Medal. Under the most difficult conditions and at the risk of her life she rescued three persons from a bombed building. Miss Ortweiler joined the St. John Ambulance Sisters after she had been rejected in 1938 by the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force because her parents were not British-born, having been naturalized in 1896. On the same ground she was turned down by the Information Ministry’s Censorship Department.

Lance Corporal C.S. Perlman and Private Juvary of the Australian forces have been awarded the Military Medal for “gallant and distinguished service” in the Middle East.