Acute hunger prevails among the Jews in Bira Bidjan, according to a statement in the “Emes.”
The paper says the situation is particularly prevalent in the settlements of Bira, Icor, Birecan and Nikolavka.
In the same paper it is stated that the administration of the government grain trust in Bira Bidjan has definitely refused to settle Jewish newcomers, warning them it is best not to come.
In Stalinfeld, the paper reports, Jews were driven from the office of the local grain trust. Corroboration of this report is offered by the representative of the Comzet, governmental department for settling Jews on the land and in industry, who now wires that new Jewish setlers are simply ridiculed by the local authorities, and that many of them are forced to sleep in the open, because officials refuse them shelter.
Regarding the hunger situation, the “Emes” says that even when Jews are given work, they receive such small rations, it is “insufficient even to satisfy the minimum of requirements.”
In Bira Bidjan only actual laborers are fed in the collective kitchen, but their wives and children are not permitted to enter the kitchen.
The paper asks immediate intervention by the Comzet.
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.
