CHILD MIGRANTS TO PALESTINE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24882, 23 May 1946, Page 5

CHILD MIGRANTS TO PALESTINE

JEWISH SPOKESMAN’S STATEMENT

THOUSANDS TRYING TO GAIN ENTRY GENEVA, May 21. “Thousands of Jewish children from central and eastern Europe are on the move in an attempt to reach Palestine/’ said a spokesman for Youth Alijeh, the department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine which handles child immigration. “No frontier is too difficult for these children. They manage to filter through the most strictly guarded borders. Forty thousand, mostly orphans, have been assembled in camps m all parts of Europe, and the numbers are increasing daily .from every corner of Europe.’’ He attributed the mass migration to appalling living and food conditions, increasing anti-Semitism, and the search for lost parents and relatives. The spokesman disclosed that 100,000 Jewish children had not yet been traced. Thousands who were living with German and Polish peasants were too frightened to reveal their identity. The spokesman’s statement was made at a conference of Youth Alijeh, which decided that 40,000 of the 100.000 Jews who will be admitted to Palestine if the British-American report is adopted, would be children. The spokesman added that he hoped Britain, Sweden and Switzerland would accept sick children into their countries pending their transfer to Palestine.