Terrible distress in the flood-stricken areas of Poland has been found by an investigator for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, it was revealed today.
In the Jewish quarter Pieklo, in the town of Nowy Sancz, there are about 350 Jewish families living in desperate poverty. They are all unemployed artisans, pack carriers, etc. The Jewish quarter looks like a devastated cemetery. The hovels in which those people lived are in ruins. The streets are heaped high with mud carried in by the floods, making them impassable. These 350 families have been given shelter in the synagogues and Talmud Torah schools.
Over 2,000 Jews have been rendered homeless. The local people, Jews and non-Jews alike are doing their utmost to help, but they are unable to cope with the great need.
The situation is equally desperate in the districts of Jaslo Mielec and Mlinowa.
In many places the wells are polluted.
The Jewish communities of Sandomierz and Szczuczyn have appealed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency to make public opinion aware that there are hundreds of Jewish families in these places absolutely destitute and starving.
The general population is helping the Jewish sufferers. In Grzybow, Madam Paszkowa, a non-Jewish brewery owner, has taken in fifty-two children from Nowy Sancz. In many villages the peasants are sharing their bread with the Jewish refugees.
The board of the Warsaw Jewish Community has decided to issue an appeal to the Jewish population of Poland to help the flood victims.
The Rescue Committee in Warsaw includes as Jewish representatives the president of the Representative Council of the Warsaw Jewish Community, M. Trockenheim the vice-president of the Jewish Community; M. Lerner, and M. Stueckgold, member of the board of the Warsaw Jewish Community.
The Jewish Community of Warsaw has undertaken to raise a considerable sum for the rescue work, and it is calling upon all the other Jewish Communities in the country to do the same.
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.
