A million dollar campaign to save as many Jews as possible from German-occupied and Nazi-dominated countries was proclaimed here today at a special session of the Assefath Hanivcharim, the Jewish National Assembly of Palestine. This is the largest campaign ever proclaimed in Palestine for relief for Jews in other countries.
Immediately after announcement of the million-dollar drive, the Jewish Federation of Labor in Palestine announced that it will contribute $200,000 toward it. The entire sum is to be raised within one month, to be known as “The Month for the Diaspora.”
The official opening of the campaign was proceeded by reports concerning the position of the Jews in Europe delivered at the session of the Assembly by three outstanding leaders of the Yishuv who were sent to Turkey to study the possibilities of rescuing Jews from the Balkan countries and other lands under Nazi domination and control. Two of these leaders are members of the executive of the Jewish Agency, Moshe Shertok and Dr. Emil Shmorak. The third is Isaac Ben-Zvi, president of the Jewish National Council of Palestine.
Reporting on the possibilities of saving Jews in Europe, Mr. Shertok, who discussed the question with high Turkish officials in Istanbul, emphasized that “we are no longer facing a blind wall.” There are loopholes, he said, through which it is possible to see what is happening to the Jews inside Nazi Europe and to extend help to the victims.
POSSIBILITIES OF RESCUE DIFFER IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES
“The position of the Jews differs in various countries, hence the possibilities of rescue vary,” Shertok reported. There are places where admission to forced labor camps is the only means of rescue because a Jew who is not interned is free game. Information reaching us from Jewish labor camps indicate that the interned Jews there are trying to utilize these camps as ‘Hachsharah’ centers to prepare themselves for work in Palestine. Jewish children are being taught Hebrew under the most trying circumstances in the hope that they will eventually succeed in reaching Palestine.”
Emphasizing that the Jews in Palestine were on the verge of being in the hands of the Nazis if the enemy had not been defeated on the Egyptian front, Shertok urged the Jewish population in Palestine to see to it that the million dollar campaign is carried out successfully and that the maximum number of Jews are rescued from Europe. “We are obliged to save as many of them as we can because without that reservoir of newcomers the continuation of our work will suffer,” he pointed out, adding that “no sacrifice should be considered too great.”
ONLY 200,000 JEWS LEFT IN POLAND; 300,000 REMAIN IN RUMANIA
Isaac Ben-Zvi, president of the Jewish National Council, reporting on his mission to Turkey, described the plight of the Jews in the Balkan countries. He stated that reliable information which he secured during his visit to Turkey indicates that of the 60,000 Jews in Salonika not a single one remains. “In January of this year thousands of Jews in Salonika were living in the hope that they would be rescued,” he reported, “but two months later the Nazis started the mass-deportations of Jews from the city at the rate of 5,000 a day crowding them into cattle trains. It is very doubtful whether twenty percent of them reached their destination.”
“Of the 800,000 Jews who lived in Rumania before the war there are today no more than 300,000 left, Mr. Ben-Zvi continued. “About 30,000 of them are in Transnistria. Of the 75,000 Jews in Yugoslavia only a small fraction is left.”
Dr. Emil Shmorak, executive member of the Jewish Agency, reported that during his stay in Turkey he established that only 200,000 Jews remain in Nazi-held Poland. It is not known, however, whether this total includes the Jews who are confined in camps for forced labor, he emphasized. “There are growing possibilities for rescue, let us utilize them to the very maximum,” he declared.
The session of the Assefath Hanivcharim also heard fervent appeals from Chief Rabbi Herzog and Chief Rabbi Uziel asking the Jews of Palestine to spare no efforts and sacrifices in saving as many Jews as possible. The ultra-Orthodox Agudas Israel Organization also issued an appeal to the Jews of Palestine to make the million-dollar drive a success.
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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.
