The 1,166 Jewish refugees from all over Europe who disembarked here yesterday from the British steamer Matarda are a cross-section of the surviving Jews of Europe. Among them are former inmates of concentration camps, a partisan who accounted for several Nazis and some youngsters who spent the war years training for agricultural work in Palestine.
Children from the Bergen-Belsen camp, all of whom are orphans, showed a JTA correspondent their hands upon which the Nazis had tatooed prisoner numbers. A boy from Oswiecim had his number burnt into his arm, and a third boy proudly displayed some money circulated in the Buchenwald camp, which he had been given for "good work." The money could be used to purchase small articles at a commissary inside the camp.
Young Shmuel Baumfolk, 13, who left Warsaw on May 28, told the correspondent that he had fought with the partisans in poland and killed four Germans. In sharp contrast was an octogenarian who had survived four years in concentration camps. This male "Scheherazade" attributed his survival to the fact that he beguiled his guards by telling them jokes.
Officers of the Criminal Investigation Department caught three youths born in the German colonies of Sarona and Wilheka who were trying to slip into the country as refugees. How they were able to board the Matarda was not disclosed, but it was announced that they would be returned to Germany.
The hardiest arrivals are the Halutzim from England who have been on training farms for several years. The happiest-if one can single out any group-are brides for whom bridegrooms had been waiting for seven, eight and, in some cases, ten years.
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.
