Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the World Jewish Congress Administrative Committee, and Samuel M. Schmidt, representative of the Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivos of Europe, were among those who arrived on the refugee-crowded United States liner Washington today.
Dr. Goldmann plans to spend a month in the United States to confer with leaders of the American Jewish Congress and others on the war’s effects on the Jewish situation and measures to aid the Jews in Europe. He also plans to confer with United States Government officials.
Schmidt, who is publisher of the Cincinnati weekly Every Friday, spent three months in Lithuania investigating the situation of the yeshivos and of Polish Jewish refugees. He praised the Lithuanian Government’s handling of the refugee problem, but said that some of the younger elements among the officials were infected with chauvinism and anti-Semitism. He said the Government was seeking to cope with the problem. His remarks referred to the situation as it existed before the Soviet entry into Lithuania.
There are 2,300 yeshiva students continuing their studies in 19 yeshivos in Lithuania, he said. There are also 1,200 chalutzim (Zionist pioneers). The total number of Polish Jewish refugees in Lithuania is between 14,000 and 15,000, he added.
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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.