Red Cross Will Facilitate Sending Food to Ghettos in Occupied Countries, London Hears

Negotiations for the purpose of arranging the shipment of food to the starving Jews in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe through the facilities of the International Red Cross are approaching their final stages, it was learned today from well-informed sources here.

These sources report that a plan has been prepared under which a monthly quota of at least one thousand packages of food would be dispatched from Britain alone. Quotas would be allotted to Jewish organizations in other democratic countries that wished to send food.

A special meeting of organizations interested in the problem of alleviating the wide-spread starvation in the ghettos has been called for this coming Thursday, July 23, by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which has been very active in the campaign to secure British permission for such mercy shipments. At this meeting, the details involved in executing the plan will be discussed, and it is expected that an official announcement will be forthcoming there.

For many months, ever since the first “mercy ship” was sent to Greece with food for the starving population there, Jewish groups in England and America have been conferring with their respective governments in an attempt to secure permission to ship the food through the British blockade. A few weeks ago the subject was discussed on the floor of the House of Commons, at which time Foreign Minister Anthony Eden stated that the “British Government is acutely aware of the horrors and deprivations inflicted upon the people in occupied countries and has facilitated schemes for food relief without impairing the blockade.” In May, United States Ambassador Anthony Drexel-Biddle and the Polish Premier Sikorski conferred on the problem.