Plans to communicate with Christian and non-sectarian organizations and to consult the government authorities in Washington concerning the possibilities of sending food and medical supplies to the starving population of Poland were drawn up here at a special conference of the major Jewish organizations in the country called by the General Jewish Council, it was announced today by the Council.
Participating in the conference were representatives of the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Labor Committee (constituents of the General Jewish Council) and the American Jewish Congress. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was unofficially represented.
It was pointed out at the conference that the problem of sending food and medicaments to the unfortunate Jews in Poland has long been considered an urgent necessity in Jewish circles. Heartrending reports reaching here daily tell of growing hunger and disease. The entire population of Poland, Jewish and non-Jewish, faces the danger of complete annihilation. Rations assigned to the civilian population of Poland by the Nazi authorities are hardly sufficient to keep a human being alive. Especially gruesome, however, is the situation of the Jews confined within the walls of the ghettos and who receive only a fifth of the rations allotted to the rest of the population. No less dangerous, it was pointed out, are the sanitary conditions in the overcrowded ghettos. Lack of medicaments and adequate medical care for the starving population has resulted in the spread of epidemics which rage today in Warsaw, Lodz, Lublin and other cities.
As the possibilities of providing any direct relief to the people of Poland is bound up with a great number of difficulties which are related to the conduct of the war between the United Nations and the Axis, the conference decided to “thoroughly investigate all possible methods of providing direct relief which will meet with the approval of our government.” A subcommittee was appointed to begin work immediately and do all in its power to find a speedy solution to this problem.
Participants in the conference included; Morris D. Waldman, Dr. Max Gottschalk and Dr. Simon Segal of the American Jewish Committee; A. C. Horn and Leonard Finder of B’nai B’rith; Adolph Held, Nathaniel Minkoff and Jacob Pat of the Jewish Labor Committee; Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Carl Sherman and Rabbi Maurice Perlzweig of the American Jewish Congress; Joseph C. Hyman and Dr. Bernard Kahn of the Joint Distribution Committee. Isaiah Minkoff represented the General Jewish Council.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
