(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)
Forty thousand Russian and Armenian refugees have been placed in employment by the International Labor Office of the League of Nations, since it took over the refugee work of the League at the beginning of 1925, according to the memorandum submitted to the seventh Assembly of the League of Nations by M. Albert Thomas, Director of the Office.
It is estimated that over 1,000,000 Russian and Armenian refugees are scattered throughout Europe and China. The International Labor Office is directly concerned with the unemployed and destitute, numbering approximately 190,000 of whom 90,000 are Russian and 100,000 Armenian refugees.
Many of the refugees have been placed in French industry and agriculture. Owing to the close collaboration established between the International Labor Office and the competent French ministries, the Office has been able to place in France an average of 1,000 refugees a month. The High Commissioner for refugees advances to families, subject to reimbursement, the sum necessary for their transport and settlement expenses in agriculture. Arrangements have also been made with the French Ministry of Agriculture for the adoption by French agricultural families for Armenian refugee orphans, on favorable conditions.
Offers have been obtained from Belgian mine-owners for the employment of 500 refugees in Belgian mines. Groups of Russian refugee miners have already been sent from Bulgaria and Esthonia, and further groups will be recruited among the Russian unemployed in Germany. Certain Luxembourg factories have accepted Russian refugee workers from Germany.
Owing to the state of unemployment prevailing in most European countries, the Office is directing its efforts towards the transfer of large groups of refugees to immigration countries oversea.
Several hundred Russian refugees from China have been settled in Western Canada, thanks to the active cooperation of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways. In addition, the Canadian Government has intimated its willingness to receive on the recommendation of the Office, Russian agricultural students for settlement on Canadian farms.
Houdini will be buried in the family plot in the Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, N. Y. Rabbi M. Harris and Rabbi B. A. Tintner will officiate at the services, and there will be eulogies by Loney Haskell, Secretary of the Jewish Theatrical Guild, and others.
His body may lie in state at the National Vaudeville Artists’ clubhouse, the Hippodrome or a public funeral parlor, it was said at the Keith-Albee vaudeville offices, with which Houdini was closely associated.
It is expected that the funeral services will be held at noon on Thursday or Friday from the Elks’ clubhouse in West Forty-third Street, in accordance with a request of Houdini.
The Jewish Home for the Aged, Talmud Torah, and the Jewish Children’s Home of Rochester, N. Y., each received bequests of $300, the Keren Hayesod $200, and three other Jewish societies $100 each in the will of Joseph Abramson filed for probate.
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.
