Polish Peasants Bringing Hidden Jewish Children to Local Jewish Organizations

The Central Jewish Relief Committee here today reported that hundreds of Jewish children, sheltered in churches and in the homes of Polish peasants during the German occupation, are being turned over to Jewish communities in the liberated part of Poland where homes for Jewish orphans are being established under the supervision of Jewish leaders.

"The most pressing problem before the Central Jewish Relief Committee in Poland is how to provide for the needs of hundreds of these Jewish orphans whose parents were killed by the Germans," the report states. "While the number of surviving adult Jews in the liberated sections of Poland has been ascertained rather accurately, the number of surviving Jewish children is growing constantly."

Information concerning rescued Jewish children reaches the Jewish Relief Committee almost every day. Polish families bring Jewish children to Jewish organizations and report how thy sheltered the children all during the Nazi occupation. There are also cases of Catholic priests informing Jewish organizations about groups of Jewish children who had been hidden in monasteries. Among the Jewish orphans is a group from the German extermination camp at Maidanek.

The Polish Provisional Government in Lublin is now considering requests submitted by the Central Jewish Relief Committee for government aid in placing the Jewish waifs in special institutions. The children rescued from Maidanek, together with a number of other Jewish orphans, are now in a children’s home in Otwook, near Warsaw. The building belonged to the Jewish community before the war, and the Provisional Government undertook to cover the cost of furnishing and maintaining the orphanage. Other Jewish orphanages, which are now being established in Lublin, Bialystok and Praemyszl, will also receive government support, the Jewish Relief Committee hopes.