An appeal for legislation to force the return to the Jewish community of an estimated 40,000 Jewish children still in Christian foster homes throughout Europe will be made to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights by the Commission on the Status of Jewish War Orphans in Europe, it was revealed here last night by Dr. Isidor Grunfold, chairman of the commission, who arrived to this country from London.
Dr. Grunfeld stated that in France and Belgium such children have been made wards of the state, but there is no legal compulsion for the foster parents to register the children with the state, making it extremely difficult for the Jewish community to recover them. In Poland and Hungary there are no legal obstacles to the return of the children, he said, but the foster parents to a great extent refuse to surrender them.
He described the situation in Holland as worst of all, asserting that their care is in the hands of an interdenominational committee and that the children would be permitted to decide for themselves whether they wished to return to Judaism, after consultation with Jewish advisors.
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.
