Relief Crisis Faces 7,000 Refugees in Shanghai; 200 Exiles on Dutch Border Pressed to Leave

Central Jewish organizations were faced today with urgent appeals for emergency measures on behalf of approximately 7,000 penniless Jewish refugees in Shanghai and 200 others stranded in the Dutch-German frontier station of Bentheim.

From Shanghai Jewish leaders came cables addressed to relief bodies here and in London serving notice of their inability to continue caring for the refugees unless foreign relief arrived within three weeks. According to the cables, the danger exists that the refugees, who have German passports, will be turned over to the German consulate as burdens upon Shanghai. The refugees for the last few months have been dumped in ever increasing number in Shanghai from German vessels, upon which they were placed by the Gestapo. Shanghai does not require entrance visas from immigrations holding German passports.

Meanwhile, the plight of the 200 Czech Jews who have been stranded in Bentheim since before Easter took an alarming turn when they were served with Gestapo notices that they had ten days in which to find their way out of the Reich. Under arrangements made by the Joint Distribution Committee, the refugees were being cared for by the Reichsverband, German-Jewish central organization, until they could be admitted to Holland for emigration to England and overseas countries.

A representative of the Dutch Jewish Refugee Committee has gone to London to seek intervention on behalf of the Bentheim group by Sir Herbert Emerson, director of the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee and League High Commissioner for Refugees. He was expected to assure Sir Herber that admission of the refugees to England would not involve more arrivals since the German authorities were no longer permitting Jews to leave Bohemia-Moravia.