The sum of $3,629,000 was appropriated by the Joint Distribution Committee for its relief work overseas for the first five months of 1943, it was announced here today by Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-chairman of the J.D.C. This represents an increase of nearly a half million dollars over the organization’s budgetary appropriations for a similar period in 1942.
These funds are being expended on behalf of refugees from Nazi persecution in Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Sweden, in North Africa, the Near East and Asiatic Russia and in Central and South America, Mr. Hyman said. Assistance by the Joint Distribution Committee is being continued, too, in France and to a limited extent in other occupied countries under arrangements made before America’s entrance into the war which permits responsible local committees to borrow in the Joint Distribution Committee’s name there, for post-war repayment, as well as by means of funds deposited with the committees before the outbreak of hostilities.
“At the time when all France fell to the Germans, 5,000 Jewish children were being prepared for emigration to this country,” Mr. Hyman declared. “These children were being cared for by the Ose, French medical and child-care agency, and other local committees by means of funds furnished by the J.D.C. That assistance is still reaching the children. Cabled advices received here within the last week indicate that the child care and relief work maintained by the J.D.C. in France is going on and that the monthly allocation of $80,000 formerly considered necessary has proved inadequate. The J.D.C. appropriations for France for the first six months of this year, allocated for relief before the Nazi occupation, total $600,000. In other occupied lands with which communications have been broken $300,000 has been made available for relief purposes.
“Inside the steel ring of Nazi arms there is just one European country in which the J.D.C. can operate freely,” he continued. “That is Switzerland. The J.D.C. will spend $305,000 there before the end of May for general refugee aid purposes, and $9,500 for special assistance to refugee students. In addition, as a guarantee for the maintenance of 1,000 Jewish children whom it expects shortly to evacuate from France, the J.D.C. has just set up in Switzerland a $200,000 fund.”
The high cost of caring for those refugees now in Spain who braved the dangers of a flight over the Pyrenees and the possibility of incarceration in prisons or internment camps, has necessitated the allocation of $400,000 for five months of work there, it was pointed out. J.D.C. works for their release from internment camps, assumes the responsibility for feeding and sheltering these thousands of refugees and arranges, wherever possible, for their evacuation journey to freedom.
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