Great anxiety was expressed here today over the fate of German-Jewish refugees interned at Camp Drente in the Dutch-German frontier town of Westerbork.
Efforts to learn from Amsterdam whether there had been time to evacuate the camp before the German invasion have been unavailing. It had been understood that the Dutch authorities would evacuate the camp as soon as it was found necessary to evacuate the civilian population from the district. According to unconfirmed reports published here, the Nazi invaders have penetrated the district in which the camp is located.
In Luxemburg, which has been occupied by the Nazis, the position of the few hundred Jewish refugees there must be considered desperate, while the local Jewish community of 3,000 is entirely at the mercy of the Germans.
Holland has 25,000 refugees from the Reich and Belgium has 14,000 whose position is precarious. Efforts are expected here to evacuate as many as possible from the immediate war zones. The Youth Aliyah (immigration) movement is trying to rush transportation of 150 children now in Holland.
Holland’s native Jewish community totals 150,000, residing mainly in large cities which are Nazi bombing targets. The 70,000 Jews in Belgium are similarly distributed.
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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.
