One of the first acts of the Allied Military Government in liberated Rome was to rescind all anti-Jewish legislation and to rested to the Jews their homes and property, it was reported today from Rome by Alexander H. Uhl, foreign editor of the New York newspaper P. M.
Mr. Uhl estimates that between 4,000 and 5,000 Jews remain in Rome today as compared with the 12,000 who were there under the German-Italian administration. “Jews are coming out of their hiding places, and almost the first spot that you will find them is the synagogue,” he reports. “For it is here that the one rabbi who thus far has come back is holding thanksgiving services three times daily. It is here that the scattered remnants of a people can find each other.”
A full census will begin shortly, when each Jew will tell what he knows of those who are gone, Mr. Uhl reveals. About 3,000 Rome Jews were deported by the Germans to Germany or Poland. Of these, two-thirds were old men and children. The day before the Fifth Army entered Rome, about 1,500 Jews held in prison were carries away in sealed trainees. Forty-four Jews were shot in reprisal for a bomb attack on Nazi troops in the streets of Rome during the German occupation. Hundreds of Jews died from hunger and illness. The fate of the rest is still unknown, Uhl cable.
Mr. Uhl describes how the Jews lived in mortal fear in the ghetto, how they were terrorized by German soldiers; how they were forced by the German authorities surrender a ransom of fifty kilograms of gold under a twenty-four hours altimatrum; how sympathetic Christians helped them to raise the gold by offering their own jewels as gifts; how the Germans ransacked the Rome synagogue and confiscated 1,200,000 liras in cash held there for charitable work, and how – in spite of payment of the ransom – they arrested Jews in their homes and deported them to Poland in cattle trains, separating husband from wives and parents from children. He disclosed that the Pope gave sanctuary to Jews, and that as soon as the first Allied units entered Rome, two officers of the Allied Military Government visited the synagogue to make contact with the Jews and see what could be done for them.
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