President of Jewish Community of Zagreb Arrested; Zagreb Bishop Appeals for Jews

The arrest of Dr. E. Cohn, president of the Jewish community of Zagreb, capital of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, and his deportation to an unknown destination, was reported here today.

The report said that of the Jewish community of Zagreb, which numbered 10,000 persons in 1936, only about 1,000 men, women and children remain. The others have been deported from the city and are being held in several concentration camps. It is known that 3,000 of the deported Jewish women are held in a camp near Novogrodisca while 1,500 men are isolated in a camp near Jasenovac.

The Jewish community of Zagreb, small as it is, is trying to send food parcels and cigarettes to the victims in these two camps. The community is allowed to send one parcel a month, the weight of which must not exceed four kilograms, to each Jewish internee. In addition to giving aid to the interned Jews, the Jewish community in Zagreb still manages, despite great financial difficulties, to take care of 230 aged Jews in the city living in four homes for aged, one of which is also being used as a hospital for Jews.

The Vatican radio last night reported that as a result of a protest by the Archbishop of Zagreb, Nazi-controlled Croatian authorities have withdrawn an order instructing police to register all Jews, including “those who had become Catholics.”

Fearing that the Jews would be taken to concentration camps, the Archbishop of Zagreb “lodged an energetic protest against these measures” early in March with Dr. Ante Pavelich, Croatian puppet premier, the Vatican radio said. The broadcast reported that a few days later the Archbishop defined his attitude toward this order in a sermon in which he said: “No worldly power, no political organization in the world, may persecute a man on account of the race to which he belongs.”