War Refugee Board Starts Sending Food to Jews in Germany; J.D.C. Cooperates

A huge program for feeding Jewish internees in labor and concentration camps in Germany has been initiated by the War Refugee Board, through the efforts of its executive director Brigadier-General William O’Dwyer, it was revealed here today at a press conference of the Joint Distribution Committee addressed by Moses A.-Leavitt, secretary of the organization, and presided over by Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-chairman.

The food will be brought into Germany from neutral countries on trucks by representatives of the International Red Cross. The J. D. C. has been sending food to Jewish internees in German camps, Mr. Leavitt revealed. He reported that according to the latest information received by the JDC, there are about 140,000 Jews, mostly Hungarian, being used by the Germans as slave laborers in the Vienna regime. There are also about 10,000 Jews in the Bergenbelzen camp, near Hanover. which is now about to fall to the advancing British Army. Many Jews are still interned in Theresinstadt, he said.

The Joint Distribution Committee is now sending an average of 60 tons of food and clothing a week to Polish Jews in the USSR, and in liberated Poland, in addition to 10,000 parcels a month for individual Jews whose addresses are known, Mr. Leavitt reported. Percels are also being sent by the J. D. C. to reconstituted Jewish communities in the liberated Baltic countries and Poland for distribution on among local Jewish families.

It was disclosed at the conference that the J. D. C. has spent $10,000,000 during the first four months of this year for relief for Jews abroad. The latest appeals for relief received by the J. D. C. during the last few days are from 150,000 Jewish survivors in Budapest and from the surviving Jews in Greece.