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One-fifth of Jewish Population Left Communist Germany

March 9, 1953
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After spending five days studying the situation of Jewish refugees in Berlin and conferring with the new American High Commissioner for Germany, Dr. James Conant, Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the American Jewish Congress and of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, today left for Jerusalem to attend a meeting of the Jewish Agency executive.

Dr. Goldstein conferred with Dr. Conant in Bonn Friday and discussed with him the problems involved in the West German payment of reparations to Israel as well as the payment of restitution to Nazi victims by the Bonn Government, as pledged in the agreement with world Jewish organizations. Other matters of interest to Jews were discussed, it is reported, and Dr. Goldstein gave the Commission his impression of the refugee situation in West Berlin, which he had studied for four days last week.

Before leaving Berlin, Dr. Goldstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that some 20 percent of the postwar Jewish population of East Germany had left and were now in the west. He reported that although small numerically, the Jewish refugees reaching Berlin were large in proportion to the number of Jews in the Soviet-controlled area.

Dr. Goldstein had nothing but high praise for the Berlin Jewish community and the American Joint Distribution Committee for the job they had done in caring for refugees, Dr. Goldstein also reported that he had found West Berlin Mayor Ernst Reuters interested in bringing about a bulk settlement of Jewish heirless property claims pressed by the Jewish Successor Restitution Organization.

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