Scenes reminiscent of war time when all relief offices were besieged by refugees, are taking place daily now at the Berlin Palestine bureau. Hundreds of Jews, old and young, men, women and children crowd the corridors of the office building clamoring for Palestine visas since Palestine is now practically the only country open to the Jews, even if restrictedly. Officials at the bureau despair of being able to accommodate the flood of applicants, especially since only a thousand certificates have been granted by the Palestine Government.
Many of the visa-seekers come from the provinces, spending their last pfennings in making the trip. They tell pitiful stories of their ruined shops and lost means of livelihood and beg the bureau officials to save, at least, the younger members of the family.
The majority of the applicants have never been Zionists but they want to go to Jerusalem or anywhere, because no one knows what further cruelties or persecutions are in store for the Jews in Germany.
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.
