More than 150 delegates from 15 countries–but not including representatives of the Jewish community in Poland–will participate in the first World Congress On Polish Jewry which will open January 14 at the Mann Auditorium here, it was announced at a press conference today by members of the preparations committee.
A committee spokesman said that the Warsaw Farband in declining to attend the Congress had at first claimed that they were not notified of the agenda and could not agree to discuss reparations from Poland. The Polish group still declined to attend, however, even after being assured that no such discussion of Polish reparations was contemplated.
The opening session will be a memorial meeting for the 6,000,000 Jews who perished under the Nazis. Subsequent sessions of the five-day conference will be devoted to discussions of major problems concerning the safeguarding of the heritage of Polish Jewry as well as compensation by Germany to Polish Jews.
The Congress will elect a special representative body empowered to negotiate with the Germans regarding Jewish property looted in Poland and taken to Germany. Such payments would become a means of helping thousands of Polish Jews scattered throughout the world, members of the committee indicated here.
The participants will include large delegations from Israel, the United States and Argentina and smaller groups from Great Britain, France, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Australia, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.
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