A World Jewish Congress delegation to the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe, headed by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, completed a visit to Czechoslovakia and is now in Hungary with Rumania and Yugoslavia the next countries on the tour.
In Prague, the Jewish leaders were received by leaders of the federations of Jewish communities in Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia, headed by presidents Dr. F. Fuchs and Dr. Benjamin Eichler, and by Dr. A. Kollman, Prague Jewish community chairman. A special meeting of the two federations, attended also by delegates of outlying communities, heard Dr. Goldmann express appreciation for the invitation to the delegation and a tribute to the loyalty of the remnants of Czech Jewry to their community. He presented a survey of the position of the Jewish people throughout the world and said the problems of the Jewish people could be solved only by close cooperation between the Jewish communities of the East and the West.
The Jewish leaders visited the sites of the Theresienstadt Nazi concentration camp and Lidice, the town where the Nazis murdered every male in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhold Heydrich, the Nazi head for occupied Czechoslovakia. They also placed wreaths at the Martyr’s Memorial in the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague and attended Friday evening services in Prague’s main synagogue where they joined hundreds of congregants in prayer.
The visitors took part in a festive session in Budapest of the Council of Jewish Communities of Hungary on the 25th anniversary of Hungary’s Liberation from the Nazis. Dr. Goldmann told the assembled 300 Council members and leaders of outlying communities that he associated himself with the tributes on the occasion to the Red Army. He urged Hungarian Jewry to assure the survival of the decimated Jewish community. The delegation visited various Jewish institutions, including the house where Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism, was born in 1860.
The delegation includes Dr. G.M. Riegner, WJC secretary general, Armand Kaplan, deputy director of the WJC international affairs department, and Dr. S.J. Roth, executive director of the WJC European division, who joined the group in Hungary.
The delegation will spend another two days in Hungary before leaving for Rumania where the delegation members will meet with Jewish community and religious leaders.
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.
