Felix M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee’s campaign for $3,500,000, said tonight in an address broadcast nationally over the National Broadcasting Co. network, that the extent to which the J.D.C. would provide aid for the Jews of Germany and finance vocational retraining would depend on contributions from the public.
“How far we can go with these plans will depend on the giving public,” Mr. Warburg said. “Based on the performance of the past and what must be done in the immediate crisis, we expect contributions much larger than ever before. We cannot heal the wounds of cruelty to the souls of the afflicted in Germany, nor the daily humiliation which they suffer undeservedly, but we can lend them a helping hand.”
Reviewing the work of the J.D.C. in the past 22 years in 50 countries, he said about $2,000,000 of the $3,500,000 quota would be allocated to aid Jews of Germany. In speaking of institutions for retraining German Jews he said, that youths were working “with ardent devotion” and were “determined to show the world that Jewish youth can do the hard physical labor of the world.”
Describing settlement of German Jews, he said, “they go as pioneers, as Jewish pioneers, to carry with them the traditions and the vitality of their people and its culture.” He described at length J.D.C. relief and reconstruction work in Poland, Russia, Palestine, Austria and other countries.
Joseph G. Hyman, secretary of the J.D.C., today made public a report that the organization had spent $27,000,000 in Poland from 1914 to 1935. In addition, various funds, food and clothing were remitted at the instance of relatives in America and $1,294,300 was invested in free loan societies.
Mr. Hyman said that if the J.D.C. met its quota it intended to allocate $1,115,000 of it this year for aiding Jews in Eastern Europe, of which at least 60 to 70 per cent would go to Poland. He said the committee will devote a very substantial sum to agricultural and trade school work of the ORT and other societies.
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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.
