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Zionism in East European Countries is Now Underground Movement, U.S. Labor Group Reports

July 10, 1949
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The Zionist Labor Committee for Relief and Reconstruction today made public a report on Conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe stating that Zionist organizations in countries behind the Iron Curtain have been forced to go underground as a result of anti-Zionist campaigns being conducted in those countries.

The report says that in recent weeks jails in Hungary and Rumania are being “packed with Zionist fighters.” Every Jew who is suspected of wishing to go to Israel is being arrested, the report adds. It emphasizes that thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe now live “a life of persecution and are afraid to remain in their own homes.”

Jewish Communists in Eastern Europe are aiding their respective governments to “throw a scare into the Jewish population not to participate in any Zionist activity and not to think of leaving their homes and proceeding to the Jewish homeland,” the report states. Zionist leaders in Eastern Europe, particularly Labor Zionist officials, the report notes, are now entirely dependent on help emanating from abroad.

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