Plight of Jews in Europe Reviewed in Special Magazine Supplement

A special 20-page supplement to the New Republic, liberal weekly, entitled “The Jews of Europe – How to Help Them,” will appear tomorrow. The supplement contains articles touching on the various aspects of the position of the Jews in Europe, tracing the rise of Nazi-fostered anti-Semitism and outlining a program of rescue.

In a lead editorial, the magazine states that “impatient Gentiles and timorous Jews had better reconcile themselves to the fact that the fate of the Jewish people is one of the issues in this war. It is true that the Jews suffer from the political disadvantage that by the very law of their being they can produce no Quisling or Laval to intercede for them with Hitler, and consequently no Darlan to resell their allegiance to the democracies. They have nothing to bring to the political markets; they have already given to the Allied cause all they have. Nevertheless, the moral issues in this war cannot be permanently evaded and must be brought into the open. Shall Hitler decide the issue on the first front, or the democracies? Is this a war for power or is it a war for freedom?”

Other articles demand that anti-Semitism be outlawed after the war, that the persons responsible for the persecution of the Jews be punished, that asylum be found for refugee Jews in Britain, America and Palestine, that food be sent to the starving populations of the ghettos, and that an international agency be created, aside from the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, to deal with the Jewish problem in Europe.

Discussing the role of such an agency, the publication writes: “The situation calls for the appointment of an Allied Commission provided with the necessary resources and armed with adequate powers to deal solely with the task of bringing aid to the Jews of Europe. It should work in close liaison with the military authorities, and in every appropriate case seek to provide arms for those who will use them as did the Jews of Warsaw in their last heroic stand against the Gestapo troops. Secret supplies should be sent under proper safeguards through channels now available, to localities where they could help to maintain morale and life itself. The commission would also seek to organize means of escape through the underground; and it would generally take full advantage of the discontent and corruption which permeate the whole of the machinery of Hitler’s New Order.”

In advertisements appearing in the supplement, the Jewish Labor Committee, the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Committee for a Jewish Army ask public support for the various proposals to aid the Jews in Europe and to foster good will between Jews and Christians in the United States.