JDC Sends Aid to Panic-stricken Jews in Hungary

Several thousand Jews in Hungary have been thrust over the border into Nazi-occupied Galicia during the past fortnight, according to advices reaching New York yesterday from reliable sources. The movement grows daily in speed and intensity.

The expulsion measures were directed primarily at Jews who were stateless or held Polish passports, but now they also include those of German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian nationality. Length of residence in Hungary or naturalization apparently made little difference, as among the victims of expulsion were people who, although born in Galicia, had resided in Hungary for twenty years or longer and had become Hungarian citizens.

Advices reaching the Joint Distribution Committee from its American staff representative in Budapest, indicate that expulsions can be prevented in individual cases if the prospective deportee can prove that he is prepared to emigrate overseas. Evidence must be presented of definite immigration possibilities as well as a fixed booking on a trans-Atlantic ship.

An emergency grant was made by the J.D.C. late in July for first-aid to the panic-stricken refugees who were being rounded up on the Hungarian border for deportation. Funds were administered by a local refugee committee, through which the J.D.C. has for some time conducted widespread programs of refugee aid and rehabilitation in Hungary.

The plight of the thousands of Jews already thrust over the border is uncertain in the extreme. News reaching New York from Budapest indicates that the anti-Semitic Ukrainian population is driving the newcomers into the forests and is threatening them with dire fates.