Polish Authorities Report Liquidation of Organization Helping Jews to Leave Country

Polish border police reported today the liquidation of a “big organization” engaged in smuggling Jews and others out of the country.

The announcement followed the seizure of a group of Jews and six Poles as they sought to cross the Polish-Slovak frontier. A number of arrests were made, according to the announcement, of people who provided way stations along the underground railway and sheltered the refugees. A number of these were in the town of Walbrzych. They included the rabbi of the town, Rabbi Nisan Gesang.

An appeal to world Jewry to send a qualified rabbi to conduct the Yeshiva at Lode was made today by Rabbi David Kahane, chief Jewish chaplain of the Polish Army, at the annual meeting here of the Association of Rebbis in Poland. Rabbi G. Efrusi, representative of the Chief Rabbi’s office of Israel, promised to seek help on his return home and try to send a suitable rabbi to Lodz for the post.

Rabbi Kahane said that all appeals for a Yeshiva rector had so far been made in vain, adding that there was also a lack of sufficient rabbis in Poland to meet the needs of the needs of the Jews in this country. He asserted that it was the task of the rabbis to continue the tradition of Jewish religious life in Poland while, thanks to the aid of the Polish Government, the Association of Rabbis would carry on their religious work unhampered. For that reason, the chaplain said, the Association supports the “victory of the Polish People’s Democracy.”

Rabbi Efrusi promised to inform the Jewish community in Israel about the unhampered development of religious life in Poland and assured the rabbis that Israel would always work with Poland toward peace. A tribute of one minute’s silence was given to those who fell in the defense of Israel.