Hias Starts Registration of Refugees’ Relatives in U.S. and Western Hemisphere

An extensive plan for registering names and addresses of American relatives and friends of refugees and potential emigrants who may be alive in the ghettos, slave labor camps, concentration camps and in the numerous hideouts that are known to be in existence in various parts of devastated Europe, has been approved by the National Board of Directors of the Hias, it was announced here today. The registration will be carried out in the United States and in other countries of the Western Hemisphere where branches of the Hias-Ica Emigration Association are functioning.

“Adequate machinery is being set up with a view to carrying out, as early as possible, the refugee relatives’ registration program,” the announcement said. “The data which will thus be gathered, classified and made available to the Hias-Ica branches in all parts of the world, will be of the greatest service to both the American relatives and the refugees and deportees whose whereabouts will be ascertained for the purpose of relief and emigration as soon as conditions in a given theatre of operations will permit.”

“A program of a similar character undertaken by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society during World War I served to reestablish contact between hundreds of thousands of American Jews and European Jews. It led, in many cases, to the temporary relief of many families who were in dire need and to their eventual immigration to other parts of the world and reunion with those of their kin who had their welfare at heart,” the announcement pointed out.