Eliot Wadsworth of the American Red Cross told the House Foreign Affairs Committee today that the Red Cross was limiting relief in Poland, under the present arrangement with the German Government, to medicine and clothing valued at $250,000, a large part of which will be used to stock hospitals wrecked by Nazi bombardment.
Thus far, Wadsworth said, supplies valued at $80,000 have reached Cracow, where they will be distributed to Jewish and Polish organizations through the German Red Cross. If James T. Nicholson, Red Cross observer in Cracow, fails to find that the supplies actually reach Poles and Jews, the distribution will cease, he said in reply to questions from Congressmen as to why the German Red Cross should be allowed a hand in distributing American supplies.
The committee, holding hearings on bills to provide Federal funds for Polish relief, heard witness after witness tell of desperate conditions in a land where nearly all food, fuel, money and clothing had been confiscated by the Nazis and shipped to Germany. Witnesses insisted that unless distribution of American relief supplies was supervised from start to finish by Americans, it would be diverted to Nazi uses.
Chauncey McCormack, president of the Commission for Polish Relief, said that $50,000,000 was needed to provide food and clothing for distressed Poles, that negotiations were being conducted with Britain and France to raise part of this amount and that he believed the United States should give $20,000,000.
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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.
