American Jewish Committee Protests Reported Mass Deportation of Hungarians to U.S.S.R.

A statement protesting against the reported mass deportation of inmates of internment camps in Hungary to the Soviet Union as slave laborers was issued here today by the American Jewish Committee. “It is known that thousands of Jews were arrested in Hungary because of their sympathy for the West or their pro-Zionism,” the statement said.

“By these deportations Hungary intensifies its cruel treatment of thousands of people, including a large proportion of Jews. First they were forced out of their usual economic pursuits, then imprisoned for violating the economic regulations of the new order. Blocked on all sides, these Jews were not permitted to emigrate to Israel, although other Iron Curtain countries, including Rumania, allow some of them to do so. Now, on top of this treatment, Hungary yields to the Soviet Union’s demands by shipping these people to Russia for slave labor.”