The first post-war international conference of the Hashomer Hatzair, left-wing labor Zionist group, closed today at Fontainebleau after adopting resolutions pledging to continue immigration into Palestine, by force, if necessary. Delegates from France, Belgium, England, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Bavaria, Italy and Tunisia attended the conference.
Mordechai Orenstein, a leader of the Histadruth and a member of the Jewish National Council of Palestine, who has just returned from a visit to Eastern Europe, told the meeting that the Jews who are fleeing Poland are, in most cases, fleeing insecurity, rather than actual a danger, although, he added, there is no doubt that some Jews have been murdered. The westward drive of these refugees, he said, was spontaneous and needed no organizations.
Orenstein revealed that joint efforts to rebuild Jewish life in Poland are being made by members of the Communist Party and the Jewish Socialist Bund, who were bitterly opposed to each other’s program in pre-war days. Cooperative enterprises have been established and schools set up. He reviewed the situation in other Eastern and Central European nations, stating that in Czechoslovakia Jews still hope to resume their place in the country’s economic life, despite the strong anti-Semitism in Slovakia.
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