Rumania Gives Financial Aid to Refugees

The Rumanian Government is acting with generosity toward the some 1,5000 Jewish refugees from Poland, it was ascertained here today. Not only is the Government permitting them to remain in certain areas, except near the frontier, but it this week began paying 100 lei (about 75 cents) daily toward the maintenance of each adult and 50 lei for each child.

This fairly generous sum for self-support is being paid to refugees residing in the provinces. Those living in Bucharest do not receive the stipend since the authorities wish to discourage their remaining in the capital. It is assumed that this maintenance will be deducted from the Polish gold fund that the former Polish Government succeeded in removing from Warsaw before the Nazi conquest was completed.

Meanwhile, the entire refugee relief budget, totalling 1,500,000 lei monthly, has thus far been covered by a small group of Jewish industrialists, all immigrants from Russia and Poland who have lived in Rumania for several years. The Union of Jewish Communities in Rumania is abstaining from refugee work fearing that this may become an additional burden on already overburdened Jewish communities.

Primary need for the refugees, requiring an expenditure of about $5,000, is winter clothes, underwear and shoes, since all left their homes without even a change of underwear.

At the premises of the Jewish Relief Committee today, this correspondent saw hundreds of recently well-to-do merchants, industrialists, doctors and lawyers from Poland standing in line waiting for slips entitling them to free meals and lodging. There were few women and almost no children among them since the women and children for the most part were unable to retreat fast enough before the advancing Nazi troops and were either overtaken or were lost on the way.