Abraham Herman, president of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society which recently announced a program of contacting relatives in Europe, today reported that his organization received a list of more than 10,000 names of Jewish refugees who, for the most part, succeeded in escaping from Southern France, a year ago, when the Vichy authorities, at the behest of Hitler, began a series of deportations of Jews to “unknown destinations.”
The list was compiled by the Union of Swiss Jewish Welfare Societies, an affiliate of the Hias-Ica Emigration Association. It was forwarded to Hias with the urgent request that they undertake immediately an energetic effort to locate American relatives and friends of the men, women and children who, the Union declares, “are all without any means.” The refugees implore their relatives and friends in the Western Hemisphere to come to their aid by remitting funds for their immediate needs and by planning, if possible, their rescue through emigration to new havens of freedom in the Western Hemisphere or in Palestine.
“Through its branch offices and cooperating welfare agencies in the United States, Hias hopes to locate the relatives and thus bring about the sending of relief for the subsistence of the refugees, practically all of whom are quartered in camps,” Mr. Herman stated in his announcement.
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