American military authorities were instructed as early as April to pay more attention to displaced Jews in the camps in Germany, it was learned here today by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Further instructions on this subject were issued to them a few weeks later, emphasizing that the care of displaced persons was a principal Allied objective. These instructions definitely requested that care and living conditions of the displaced Jews be improved. The instructions were re-iterated in June when the military authorities were ordered to establish special assembly centers for Jews who did not wish to return to their native lands, and to allow Joint Distribution Committee teams to work in these centers.
“PICTURE MORE HOPEFUL THIS WEEK,” SAYS JEWISH ADVISER TO GEN. EISENHOWER
Major Judah Nadich, special adviser on Jewish affairs at Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters, today said that some such Jewish assembly centers are already in operation and that more will be opened before winter, following President Truman’s letter to Gen. Eisenhower urging the improvement of the situation of displaced Jews in the camps in the American-held zone. He emphasized that “the picture is altogether more hopeful this week than it was three weeks ago.”
(Official Army circles last night, after first stating that the Harrison charges of appalling conditions prevailing among the displaced Jews in the camps in the American zone, were based on “old information,” later admitted that these conditions were improved only about ten days ago, after Gen. Eisenhower made a personal tour of all displaced persons camps, and ordered Gen. George S. Patton Jr. to improve drastically the conditions in the camps in the Third Army territory.)
Maj. Nadich admitted that the displaced Jews are still receiving an “unbalanced diet” of 2,000 calories a day, but added that “this deficiency is being partly met by the use of Red Cross packages, originally destined for American war prisoners. He predicted that the clothing problem will also be solved, revealing that arrangements are now being made to distribute large relief shipments of clothing that have arrived from the United States.
The Jewish advisor to Eisenhower said that there were certain cases of discrimination against the displaced Jews and that they took place in the territory under Gen. Patton’s administration. He was hopeful that the Jewish refugees will find more employment and emphasized that they are urgently in need of tools and raw material.
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.
