Secretary Morgenthau Calls Upon American Jews to Help Liberated European Jewry

Liberation of Jews in Europe by the Allied armies will multiply opportunities for American Jews to be of service to their needy European brethren. Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, stated last night addressing a meeting of the Jewish Welfare Fund of Chicago, attended by more than 2,500 persons.

The meeting was also addressed by Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee and Dr. James G. Heller, national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal. The JDC and the UPA derive their funds from the United Jewish Appeal. Judge Ulysses S. Schwartz, president of the Jewish Welfare Fund, presided.

Describing the activities of the War Refugee Board, Mr. Morgenthau told the meeting that “with a small staff in Washington, with a handful of able representatives in strategic neutral countries, the Beard has carried on a host of activities in relief, rescue and psychological warfare – all designed to save the lives of appressed peoples.”

Mr. Morgenthau emphasized that Jews in America, who have been spared the horrors which Jews have lived through in German-occupied countries, have a solemn obligation to those who experienced them. “We have an obligation to those millions whom the war will have left homeless and hungry, uprooted and driven to distant places, bereft of any means to start their lives anew,” he stated, “We cannot turn car heads aside and look the other way.”

The meeting was also addressed by Elmer Stevens, president of the Community and War Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, which will begin its campaign for $12,980,000 early in October. The Jewish Welfare Fund this year will receive $1,500,000 from the Community and War Fund of which it is a part.