The head office here of the Jewish Health Organization, Toz, states that it is receiving scores of letters every day from towns and townships all over the country, depicting the terrible misery that exists among the Jewish school children.
The Warsaw Talmud Torah Centre, it says, writes that every day the supervisors are besieged by hundreds of fathers and mothers coming to ask them for bread for their children.
Bialystock reports that the textile factories are closing down. Those thrown out of employment will not receive any assistance because they have not been working full 26 weeks, as the new law requires, and their children are literally dropping with hunger.
A letter from Lutzk says: The children have stopped coming to school. When they are asked the reason, they break into tears and say—we are hungry. We have not the strength to drag to the schools.
A report from Brisk says that there are 1,820 school children under the supervision of the Toz. Forty per cent of them come to school unbreakfasted. A large proportion of the children are suspected of being consumptives. The city school doctor has published an alarming article on the subject in the local press. Help is urgent, the letter says.
A letter from Novodvor says that it is impossible to look on unmoved how the children come to school hungry, barefooted, in these frosts.
Kremenitz reports that a large part of the Jewish population there are artisans, whose work used to sell throughout the whole surrounding area. Today there is no market for their products. They are absolutely penniless, and their children are starving.
Vilna reports that the position of the Jewish poor children in the city and district of Vilna is critical. They are going about hungry day after day.
Dr. Schabad, one of the leading Jewish communal workers in Vilna, writes: The situation of the children under the supervision of the Toz is desperate. Worst of all in the Vilna district. The children are emaciated, weak, apathetic, neglected. This question of food for the children must not be delayed another minute.
Pinsk writes: 1,565 children under the supervision of the Toz are going about hungry. For that reason they are not attending school regularly. Their fathers are unemployed artisans and former shopkeepers and small traders who have had to close down their businesses.
Grodno reports: The suffering of the children here is indescribable. Delegations of teachers come to Grodno from the district all around, and tell terrible tales about the distress.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
