A warning that the Joint Distribution Committee’s extensive emigration and resettlement program may come to a sudden halt owing to a lack of funds was sounded here today by Dr. Joseph Schwartz, European J.D.C. director. Dr. Schwartz said that funds allocated for emigration for the rest of 1950 will be exhausted by the end of this month, “which may cause 75,000 Jews in Rumania, Poland and Iraq to lose their chance of emigrating to Israel.”
In the last five years, he reported, the J.D.C. spent $50,000,000 to move 500,000 Jewish displaced persons to Israel, the United States and other countries. Some 85 percent of the J.D.C. aided emigrants were transported to the Jewish state, 45,000 went to the United States, and some 30,000 proceeded to Latin America and the British Dominions.
“The migration movement,” the J.D.C. official stated, “has altered the entire aspect of the Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. While 250,000 Jews were living in DP camps in Germany, Austria and Italy three years ago,” he added, “only 17,000 still remain in the camps today.” Reviewing the J.D.C. program of emigration aid for Jews in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yemen, North Africa, Poland, Rumania and Iraq during the last few years, Dr. Schwartz asserted:
“With three months still to go, and thousands clamoring for emigration aid, a crisis situation has developed, caused by the Committee’s inability to pay for further emigration.” Dr. Schwartz urged intensified support of the United Jewish Appeal, adding: “If the funds are forthcoming, a decent future is assured for tens of thousands of human beings whose destinies we control, but if the response we hope and pray for is not there it means their final catastrophe.”
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.
