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9,000 Refugees in Shanghai Dependent on Charity; Hospital Needs Held Urgent

September 12, 1939
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About half of the 18,000 Jewish refugees in Shanghai are totally dependent on charity or private help from abroad, it was stated today by J.M. Alkow, Los Angeles business man who has spent considerable time in China, on his arrival here.

Alkow, who is honorary secretary of the European Emigrants’ Associated Hospitals Committee in Shanghai, said the hospitalization situation was particularly serious. He said he had received a cable from Dr. Frederick Reiss, president of the committee and head of the Shanghai Leprosorium, declaring the situation was desperate and that funds were “urgently needed.”

According to Alkow, many of the refugees are suffering from internal and nervous diseases as a result of terms in Nazi concentration camps. He said virtually all the refugees were dependent on public facilities for hospitalization, but the Shanghai (International Settlement) municipality had demanded that the Jewish Community take care of the refugee ill.

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