United Hias Starts Year-long 75th Anniversary; Opens Hall of Records

The United Hias Service started today a year-long program of celebration of its 75th anniversary with a ceremony dedicating a permanent and international Hail of Records at its headquarters. Several hundred delegates from various organizations attended the function.

Ben Touster, chairman of the 75th anniversary committee, said that the Hall of Records contains data on Jewish migration dating back more than half a century. The Records will be accepted by the U. S. Government as proof of entry and residence in the United States. Mr. Touster explained that the Hall of Records is named after the late Wilhelm Weinberg, Jewish financier who immigrated to this country following the Nazi occupation of the Lowlands, and from whose residuary estate funds were provided for the establishment of the Hall.

Carlo L. Israels, United Hias president, pointed out that the records contain data on immigrants who rose to great renown in this country, and throughout the world. They include such names as: Albert Einstein, Mischa Elman, Gregor Piatagorsky, Mark Chagall, Alexander Kerensky, David Ben Gurion, Itzhak Ben Zvi, Franz Werfel, and others.

General Joseph M. Swing, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner, declaring that the records would be accepted by the government as proof of entry and residence in this country, said: “Such is the reputation that United Hias enjoys with the organization which I head, that if you say an immigrant was here, according to your records–he was here”

Plans for expanding the Hall of Records at United Hias were revealed by James P. Rice, executive director of the agency, who said that negotiations have been initiated to add certain Jewish immigration files, now in Portugal, to the some 1,000,000 records already classified in New York. The Portugal records were brought there during World War II, as the Germans occupied Western European countries one by one.