More than 2,000 refugees from Greater Germany are stranded on four small steamers and barges in Rumanian waters of the Danube.
Interviewed by reporters here, they tell of Jews being beaten to death on the streets of Vienna, Prague and other cities, and assert that the local Czech population is enraged by the atrocities committed by young Nazis sent into Prague with specific instructions to terrorize the Jews.
On the small German ship Saturnus are 811 of the refugees, including women and children. All are undernourished and without medicaments. Thirty are sick. Another 500 are on the barge Spirula, which has been wandering on the Danube under the most primitive circumstances. Seven hundred more are on two Yugoslav boats.
Among the refugees are formerly well-to-do merchants, industrialists, lawyers, engineers, editors and artists. Penniless now, they are neither permitted to land in Rumania nor able to continue their trip. Jewish communities have undertaken to feed the refugees but they are not in a position to help them in their emigration efforts.
Two of the women refugees died on the steamers. Two others gave birth on the barge. Some of the refugees have been released from Nazi concentration camps on their pledges to leave the Reich. Those on the German ship Saturnus have been warned by the captain that they will be returned to Germany unless they succeed in landing within a few days or are transferred to another ship.
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.
