The reported presence in Nazi Poland of Quaker relief representatives was described as “highly unlikely” today by Clarence E. Pickett, executive secretary of the American Friends Service Committee.
(The German radio on Sunday broadcast a report that Nazi Governor General Hans Frank had received American Quaker representatives in Cracow, had thanked them for their “good intentions” and had promised full facilities for traveling in Nazi-occupied territories to investigate the situation and to carry out relief activities.)
Mr. Pickett told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that as far as he knew the Nazi authorities have not yet permitted Quaker representatives to enter Poland. The position, he said, has not changed since Jan. 10, when he issued a statement in Washington after a conference with President Roosevelt describing the relief situation in Poland as a “rotten mess” and declaring that efforts to initiate relief action had been temporarily abandoned until the Nazi authorities agreed to permit American supervision of relief distribution to guarantee that it was done on a non-sectarian basis.
Mr. Picket said that the only two Quaker representatives in Europe at this time were Arthur Gamble, who was in Berlin, and J. Edgar Rhoads, who was in Rome.
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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.
