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Downtown Center Children’s Camp Vanishes During Probe

August 19, 1934
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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Camp Docen, the Downtown Center camp at Coram, L. I., whose unfitness for children was reported in the Jewish Daily Bulletin last week, has disappeared into thin air, it was learned Friday through Dr. A. T. Davis, Suffolk County Health Officer.

In a letter to the Department of Public Welfare Dr. Davis said that there are no longer children, counsellors or supervisors on what was formerly the camp grounds.

The major point in the defense of Rabbi Jacob Bienefeld, head of the Downtown Center, in his hearing before Magistrate Richard McKiniry earlier this week was the supposedly great work Camp Docen is doing for undernourished children.

Camp Docen and Camp Phillipsport, the United Relief Association’s camp near Ellenville, New York, were recently the subjects of a Department of Public Welfare investigation which revealed that they are not deserving of public support.

Charles A. Helmquist, director of the Sanitation Department of the New York State Department of Health, wrote to Deputy Commissioner Stanley H. Howe that neither of these camps are on the State’s list of camps and that-there is no record that licenses have been issued to them.

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