More than 4,000 refugees have emigrated from Europe to Palestine this year largely through “the generous assistance of the Joint Distribution Committee,” it was announced today by Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-chairman of the JDC, quoting a letter of thanks to Chaim Barlas, director of the immigration department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
Mr. Barlas, in a report from Jerusalem, stated that during the eight months from August, 1940, to April, 1941, while he was in Turkey, more than 3,800 immigrants reached Palestine via that country, including: 1,688 from Rumania. 1,100 from Kaunas, Lithuania, 273 from Yugoslavia, 90 from Moscow, and 250 from Istanbul.
In his letter addressed to Morris C. Troper, Mr. Barlas added that about 600 additional immigrants had reached Palestine via Turkey from April to the middle of June 1941. “May I take this opportunity of thanking you for your kind cooperation in enabling this work during the time of my stay in Turkey. I am sure that to a great extent it is due to the generous assistance of the Joint Distribution Committee in financing the action that this work could be performed,” the letter said.
Mr. Barlas praised the “kindly attitude” of the Turkish Government toward the refugees. Negotiations with the Turkish authorities were complicated however, he reported, by their fear that some of the emigrants in transit might remain in Turkey, thus creating a “refugee problem.” Finally the Turkish Government granted passage to a group of 180 emigrants from Rumania as an experiment. After all of them had left Turkey, the Government issued an order stating that “to assist Jews who are being persecuted in their countries of origin, the Government has agreed to grant transit visas through Turkey to refugees holding immigration certificates of the Palestine Government.”
Instructions to this effect were sent to Turkish Consulate authorities abroad. Special difficulties arose in bringing emigrants from Kaunas because of the dissolution of the Palestine bureaus in the Baltic countries after their annexation by Soviet Russia. To meet this difficulty, the transit visas were sent to the Turkish Consul in Moscow, who issued them in accordance with lists supplied to him. As almost all the emigrants arrived in Istanbul penniless, the question of financing the migration was a problem in itself, Mr. Barlas reported. While in Istanbul, he appealed to the Joint Distribution Committee and as a result received the aid which he acknowledged in his letter to Mr. Troper.
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