UNRRA officials did nothing to halt the forcible deportation of the 600 Jews who had fled for their lives from the wave of anti-Semitic terror in Poland, immates of Camp Karlov, the United Nations displaced persons center here, told this correspondent today.
An UNRRA team, stationed at this displaced persons center at the time when the terrified Jews were herded into trains and started back to Poland simply stood by and did nothing. In silence, they watched the Eighth Armored Division troops, equipped with machine-guns and rifles as well as armored vehicles, round up Jews and force them aboard the trucks that took them to the railroad station for the fateful trak back to Poland.
That supine UNRRA team has since been replaced by another team headed by R.R. Carpenter, and it is a unit that knows nothing of these compulsory deportations, which were in violation of the ruling by Gens Dwight D. Eisenhower that United Nations nationals and persecuted peoples who do not desire to return to their homelands–or whose lives would be endangered in so doing-shall not be returned by force.
At present there are only 22 Jews at Camp Karlov of all those hundreds who had arrived here after fleeing the terror in Poland. These remaining Jews are being held here pending arrangements for their admittance to refugee camps in Germany.
Like the Jewish contingent of refugees, non-Jewish Poles had also crossed into the American-held territory from Poland, but the directives issued to the 22nd Corps of Patton’s Third Army were to return Jews only to Poland.
According to officers now stationed at Camp Karlov, some members of AK, the Polish reactionary, anti-Russian and anti-Semitic organization, have passed through Camp Karlov enroute to German camps. The belief is expressed here that these Poles are infiltrating into Polish camps in Germany for purposes of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. They are described as young, well-dressed and all identically equipped.
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.
