JEWISH REFUGEES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24986, 21 September 1946, Page 8

JEWISH REFUGEES

QUESTION OF HIGH POLICY PERSONS WHO SHOULD BE HELPED (P.A) WELLINGTON, Sept. 20. The question of the admission of further Jewish refugees to New Zealand is merely brought by the Select Committee on Population to the notice of the Government. The committee questions the advisability of recommending any preferential treatment to any particular type of immigrant. It emphasises, however, that some obligation on New Zealand’s part in connexion with displaced persons in Europe is inescapable. Evidence before the committee showed that the Jewish population in New Zealand totalled about 3700 —a ratio of 22 Jews in each 10,000 — and most of these are British subjects. The Jewish community stated that a considerable number of Jewish people living in the Dominion had close relatives, including children in some cases, who were still living in “impossible circumstances” in Europe. They said also that there is a great number of orphans.

Representations were made to the effect that inquiries had been made covering the whole of the Jewish community in New Zealand as to the number of these people who should be helped, and the present estimate was that the number was about 500. Such immigrants would not be a charge on the public purse, but all responsibility for their housing and maintenance would be accepted by the Jews already in the Dominion. The parents concerned were mostly aged people who would be cared for by their children and would not _ need separate housing, and orphan children would be, to all intents and purposes, adooted by Jewish families here. “No person -who has followed the trials of the Jewish race over the last decade can but feel considerable sympathy for them,” states the committee. “We have discussed this subject at some length, and in view of the fact that matters of high Government policy are concerned and that the Government has over the years, particularly before the war, accepted a number of such Jewish refugees, we think that we will have fulfilled our responsibilities in this regard If we bring this matter to the notice of the Gov-