Fiorello LaGuardia, Director-General of UNRRA, declared at the UNRRA General Council meeting here today that 1,200 to 1,500 Jews were daily fleeing from Poland to Germany. He added that UNRRA would continue to give assistance to these refugees unless the Council specifically ruled against it.
LaGuardia was taking issue with a British Government statement yesterday that Britain held that Jews arriving from Poland were not eligible for UNRRA help. He declared: “A persecuted people leaving a country–and that is the case of Jews leaving Poland–are entitled to benefit from all the help and assistance that UNRRA is permitted to give displaced people.”
As a “conservative estimate,” he continued, 60,000 to 70,000 Jews would flee from Poland. “We, as a humanitarian organization, cannot ignore that problem, I am sure that those who will come to the American zone will receive food and shelter.” He absolved the Polish Government of being involved in pogroms in its territory.
The United States would have to take the lead in solving the problem of displaced persons, he declared, adding that, as soon as Congress met again, he would suggest that current United States immigration schedules be disregarded to permit admission of 100,000 displaced persons “as an emergency entrance.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
