The American Red Cross has encountered difficulties with the German authorities over the Nazis’ attempts to exclude Jews from extension of Red Cross relief in Poland.
Red Cross headquarters said today that it had not yet been able to distribute medical supplies valued at $25,000 to homeless and sick Poles. The Red Cross has definite knowledge that Jews in Poland are excluded from receiving German relief and the relief organization is insisting that its assistance be administered without discrimination.
After a survey of the Warsaw area Red Cross delegates abroad are now in Berlin in an attempt to reach an agreement. The Germans have agreed in principle to the Red Cross demands that medical supplies purchased by the Red Cross be distributed without discrimination, but have not yet agreed to allow the Americans to supervise the distribution.
The Red Cross will not issue the medical supplies unless it has some assurance that they will not be distributed by the Germans according to the Nazi formula, which excludes Jews.
Similar difficulties are being encountered by the Quaker organization, whose effort to distribute cod liver oil and milk to children in Poland have so far been blocked by the Nazi policy of controlling issuance of all relief, which excludes Jews. This question is now under negotiation in Berlin. The Quakers are determined not to undertake relief unless it is on a strictly non-sectarian basis, according to a statement to the J.T.A. by Clarenc Pickett, director of the American Friends’ Service Committee.
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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.
