Social Worker Tells of the Wretched Plight of Roumanian Jews

Scenes of stark misery and suffering among the Jews of the poverty-stricken Marmorosch district of Roumania, where children not infrequently must take turns wearing clothes in which to go to the soup kitchens and breadlines supported by the Joint Distribution Committee, are revealed by Herr Simon Hirsch, prominent Roumanian child welfare worker, according to the Roumanian newspaper, “Ej Kulet”, copies of which have just reached here.

Children whose tattered clothing affords no protection from the bitter winter and early spring are carefully wrapped in rags by their anxious parents and carried to the feeding stations where they are given milk or soup and bread—in most of the cases the only sustenance they receive, Herr Hirsch reports.

ONE PAIR SHOES FOR SIX

Brothers and sisters alternate in going to the stations because there is not enough clothing in the family to let them all go at once. And in most of the Marmorosch Jewish families, there are five or six or more young children, Herr Hirsch observes. In one family with six children he discovered, there was but one pair of shoes, shapeless, dilapidated and torn, but the unfortunate youngsters awaiting their turn to don these precious coverings, had to do without their meager meal because it was too cold for them to go barefoot and there weren’t even enough rags with which to wrap their feet.

At Borsa, where Herr Hirsch discovered the six children with the single pair of shoes, the director of the feeding station pointed out two sad-faced little girls who visited the station every day and omniverously swallowed their daily portion. Hardly old enough one would think, to comprehend another’s pain or suffering or wants these two little girls would drink their milk or have their soup, but despite their unrequitted hunger, never ate the bread that was given them. Instead, they secreted it in their clothes and brought it home for the other members of their unhappy family.