The Joint Distribution Committee last year provided aid to nearly 1,000,000 distressed Jews in Europe, Asia and Africa, and spent 58,516,000 in relief, resettlement and reconstruction activities, comprising the most extensive aid program ever undertaken by a completely voluntary, non-government relief organization, it is revealed in the 1946 annual report of the organization, which will appear tomorrow.
The work of the J.D.C. is hailed by Robert P. Patterson, Secretary of War, and Dean Acheson, Under-Secretary of State, in messages appearing in the report. A supplement to the report covering the first five months of 1947 discloses that this year’s appropriations are running ahead of last year’s record as the JDC increases and expands each phase of its program. Through May of this year the Committee has appropriated $36,000,000 as against $22,000,000 for the same period last year.
Edward M.M. Warburg, JDC chairman, declared in a foreword to the report that the spirit and the sense of purpose of the Jewish survivors themselves” is the most important aspect of the current European scene. “Without this heroic spirit our accomplishments would be meaningless,”Mr. Warburg writes, “for the Jews of Europe have taken our dollars and made them live.”
In a review of the JDC’s activities during the year, Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman, states that 1946 opened with “the vast majority of the Jewish survivors of Europe cold, hungry, homeless, destitute, despondent and sick. By the year’s end,” Mr. Leavitt’s report continues, “it could be seen that in its major objectives–relieving suffering and keeping the 1,500,000 survivors alive–the JDC efforts had achieved success. The Jews who were hanging so grimly on to life at the start of 1946 still live today and are beginning to revive.”
PROVIDED 55,000,000 POUNDS OF SUPPLIES
Among the JDC programs that have helped Europe’s Jews survive the post-war period,Mr. Leavitt reported, were the committee’s huge supply program, which provided Europe’s Jewish men, women and children with more than 55,000,000 pounds of food, clothing, medicines and other supplies last year, and aid in the rebuilding of Jewish communal life on the continent, including support to more than 750 communities and local organizations. In addition, the JDC in 1946 carried out the largest child-care operations in its history, aiding 110,000 Jewish children.
In its extensive medical care and health program, designed to meet the health needs of a Jewish population ravaged by years of torture and systematic starvation, the JDC last year gave support to 165 hospitals, clinics, dispensaries, tuberculosis sanataria, convalescent homes and similar institutions. Educational programs carried out by the JDC helped nearly 60,000 Jewish children and young people continue their education, the report discloses.
The major disappointment in 1946 was caused by the reluctance of governments to grant substantial immigration opportunities to the homeless and uprooted Jews in the displaced persons’ camps, Mr. Leavitt points out, noting that “the large-scale migration of displaced Jews from Europe which was confidently expected to take place during this period did not come to pass.”
At the same time, the full number of displaced persons who might have found new homes in the U.S. under President Truman’s directive did not reach these shores. Under available migration opportunities, the JDC last year helped approximately 27,000 Jews to leave Europe. Shanghai and other areas to find haven in Palestine, and it financed emigration to Palestine for 15,000 Jews under the existing certificate system.
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