Action by the UNRRA and the United Nations to recognize a central international Jewish body as an integral part of the post-war relief and rehabilitation machinery, was asked today by the World Jewish Congress on the basis of the unique problems of relief and rehabilitation of Jews created by Hitler’s ten-year war upon the Jews.
In a documented memorandum presented to the Council of the UNRRA now meeting in Atlantic City, in association with spokesmen of 17 communities representing the Jews of German-occupied Europe, the World Jewish Congress analyzes the needs of the Jewish population which may still be alive at the end of the war; describes the character of the aid required and points out the advantages of the association of a Jewish central body with the UNRRA.
Three million Jews, the remainder of what was formerly a Jewish population of 8,500,000 in Nazi-occupied Europe, will depend upon organized relief for their rehabilitation at the end of the war, it asserts. It is the only population in Axis Europe which in its entirety will depend for its future existence on the character of that aid. Among these are one million Jewish children, states the memorandum.
COORDINATION OF ALL JEWISH RELIEF AGENCIES SUGGESTED
Declaring that the needs of the Jewish population are special and unique with respect to feeding, medical care, housing, economic readjustment, repatriation and spiritual revival, the World Jewish Congress proposes:
1. The recognition of a Jewish central authority, internationally organized, to deal with the whole complex of Jewish relief problems, which are described as not being geographically localized. Within such a Jewish central agency should be coordinated all national Jewish relief agencies.
2. The establishment in each country where relief is to be administered of a central Jewish body, the function of which should be to determine Jewish relief needs within the given area, and to define and coordinate the relief work of various subordinate organizations.
3. The establishment in each community of advisory councils, consisting of local Jewish representatives, for the purpose of consultation on the spot wherever important decisions are to be reached.
The memorandum points out that about 1,100,000 Jews live on curtailed food rations in the satellite states; 750,000 are in enlarged Hungary; 270,000 are in Rumania and 50,000 in Bulgaria. “In these three Axis lands alone, where the economy is primarily agrarian, the relief needs of the non-Jewish population will be quite limited,” the memorandum says.” Only the Jewish minority have suffered acutely because of pauperization as well as discrimination in rationing. In Poland, in the Baltic area and in occupied Soviet territories there are about 1,900,000 Jews, including 350,000 deportees from other lands. In these areas those who live through the war will require emergency feeding as swiftly as humanly possible.”
WANT FEEDING PRIORITIES FOR JEWS IN LIBERATED COUNTRIES
Assuming that it will be the policy of the UNRRA to undertake immediate feeding where the situation is most acute, and in the event that it is not possible to ship food to all starving populations simultaneously, the World Jewish Congress
In addition to the general relief which will be administered, it calls for the reestablishment of Jewish convalescent homes and the restoration of destroyed Jewish medical institutions as corollary to a vast medical program. It calls attention to the vast task of reuniting children separated from their parents. It emphasizes the necessity of a huge reeducation program in view of the destruction of Jewish educational institutions and enforcement of illiteracy upon the Jewish child population of Nazi-occupied Europe. It foresees a very large program of resettlement and migration, in view of the complete uprooting of the Jews from their former homes, and the anticipated and understandable unwillingness of Jews to return to lands of former persecution.
It calls attention to the necessity of restoring the system of Jewish religious and communal institutions either destroyed, confiscated or desecrated by the Nazis. It calls attention to the necessity of establishing at least temporary synagogues; creating facilities for rabbis to move about freely in liberated localities; and the creation of facilities for the opening of new religious schools and rabbinical seminaries.
“A special form of representation is required in order to safeguard the vital needs of the distressed Jewish people, and is an elementary consideration of justice and humanity,” the memorandum points out. At the same time it calls attention to the fact that the most effective technique of assuring true rehabilitation is truly maximum self-administration on the part of the aided population. “The special needs of European Jewry will not be resolved with the establishment of a quasi-public Jewish body, advisory to government institutions. Jewish representation in post-war relief would have to rest on a more solid footing,” the memorandum emphasizes.
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.
