J.D.C. Spent $2,654,500 for Relief of Europe’s Jews

Reporting that American Jews contributed $2,654,500 for the relief of Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe from the Spring of 1933 to September, 1935, the American Joint Distribution Committee emphasized that the conditions of the Jews are becoming increasingly worse.

The report made public today shows that $902,000 was spent in Germany in efforts to ameliorate distress, to retrain dislodged Jews and for emigration. It was also reported that $947,500 was contributed for German refugees in various countries.

In addition, the J.D.C. spent $805,000 for distressed Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe, who were said in the report to be “suffering from almost complete economic prostration.”

The report, written by Joseph C. Hyman, secretary of the J.D.C., warned that conditions of the German and Eastern European Jews are such that “millions face complete destruction unless the work of the Joint Distribution Committee can continue on an even larger scale.

In the period covered in the report, the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland aided 80,000 individuals seeking to emigrate to lands other than Palestine, of whom 32,000 actually left Germany. About 38,000 sought advice on emigrating to Palestine and 3,700 actually emigrated there, exclusive of 4,300 tourists and 3,000 persons in the capitalist category. Of 40,000 foreign born individuals forced to leave Germany 30,000 received assistance to enable their return to their native lands.

Nearly 13,000 Jewish youths were enabled to change their vocations through retraining. It is estimated that some 69,000 more require vocational guidance and readjustment.

By the end of 1934, forty-nine loan societies were established in Germany, and 100,000 applications for economic aid handled.

Ninety schools were established which cared for 20,000 of the 63,000 German Jewish children. Employment bureaus placed 16,000 out of 123,000 applicants in jobs.

The Palestine Economic Corporation, the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation and the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation were reported to have rendered increased service during the past year.

The report declared: “The situation of the refugees in all countries has become most precarious…Due to the increasingly onerous legislation against all foreigners in these days of economic stress, the status of the refugees in various countries has become alarmingly insecure…

“While a large number of the refugees, at the outset, were in a position to tide themselves over for a short period of time, either with their own resources or with the aid of relatives and friends, as time wore on, they were obliged to consume their meager resources. The problem then increasingly became one, not alone of furnishing actual physical and palliative relief to a considerable number of refugees who had to be housed and fed, but it became primarily a problem for creating employment opportunities, finding new occupations and adjusting numbers of refugees to the life of the lands in which they found themselves.”

The report laid stress on the grave situation created by the German regulation which stops remittances to Germans abroad. This affects thousands of adults and children who had been receiving support.

Discussing the Eastern European situation, the report declares:

“While palliative aid has had to be rendered not alone last year but this year in sections of Poland, Galicia and Rumania, the chief emphasis of the J.D.C. activity continues to be the support of constructive programs of economic aid and the extension of credits, the vocational training of children and youth, aiding Jewish artisans and workmen in plying their trades, the maintenance of large-scale medical-sanitary associations in Poland and bordering lands and the granting of contributions to the various school systems of the Jewish populations as well as the preservation of the most important and vital institutions of religious and cultural training.”