Swedish Government Issues Passports to Jews in Hungary to Protect Them from Deportation

The Swedish Government has agreed to issue another 1,000 passports to Jews in Hungary so as to afford them Swedish protection and prevent their deportation from the country, it was announced here today by Eliahu Dobkin, head of the Immigration Department of the Jewish Agency. Five thousand such passports have already been issued and delivered to Jews in Hungary, he stated.

An appeal to Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin to save the remnants of Hungarian Jewry will be sent by the Palestine Federation of Labor as a result of reports reaching here which state that mass-deportations of Jews from Hungary have been renewed. Other reports emphasize that the situation of the Jews in Czechoslovakia has changed for the worse in the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, the Palestine Jewish Labor Council, after a special meeting presided over by David Remez, leader of the Histadruth, today telegraphed an appeal to Stalin, as well as to the British Embassy in Moscow for delivery to Churchill, asking the rescue of Jews still remaining under German occupation. The appeal reads: “In these days of great hopes, when the eyes of the entire world are centered upon your discussions for speedy victories, the end of the war, and the settlement of problems of nations and peoples after the hostilities cease, we, the Jewish organized labor of Palestine, appeal to you at this twelfth hour to safeguard the lives of the remnants of the Jewish people who are still under Nazi rule. Jewish organized labor, as well as the entire Jewish community in Palestine, is prepared and anxious to receive them here. We depend upon you.”

A message received here from Kaunas reports that when the Germans retreated from the city they took with them five rabbis, including the two prominent spiritual leaders Abraham Grodzensky and Elchanan Wasserman.