Jews Throughout British Empire Will Observe Day of Mourning Next Sunday

Central Jewish organizations here today proclaimed Sunday, December 13, as a day of mourning and fasting by all Jews in the British Empire for the two million Jews massacred by the Nazis in Europe.

The call for the observance of the day of mourning was issued by Chief Rabbi Hertz following an emergency conference of leading members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the British section of the World Jewish Congress and the Agudas Israel orthodox organization. The two Jewish members of the Polish National Council were present at the conference.

The Zionist Review, official Zionist organ, today severely criticized the London press and radio for its “conspiracy of silence” with regard to the reports of the Nazis massacres of Jews. The Zionist publication complains that despite the fact that the news of the Nazi mass-extermination of Jews has been confirmed by Allied Governments, not a single daily newspaper in London carried any editorial comment on it, nor was the news broadcast by the British radio. “It is difficult to find adequate words of condemnation for such an attitude which is not worthy of the great traditions of British democracy,” the article says.”

A Channukah message to the Jews in Nazi Europe was broadcast from here today. The Jews in the ghettos were told of Jewish efforts in America and Palestine to avenge their dead and were urged to “keep up their courage since the day of the liberation of Europe from the Nazis is approaching.”

Further reports from Jewish underground groups in Poland reaching here yesterday disclose that there are only 400 Jews left in the ghetto in Lublin of the more than 60,000 who were formerly confined there. A pound of potatoes in the Warsaw ghetto costs $5 and a loaf of bread $18. These prices are ten times higher than those outside the ghetto walls.