JEWISH COMMONWEALTH

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 June 1943, Page 5

JEWISH COMMONWEALTH

PALESTINE PROPOSAL

SYDNEY, June 11

The establishment of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations is urged by Dr. Michael Traub, official delegate oi. the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Di. Traub who is concluding a goodwill mission to Australia, will leave soon for New Zealand, and will later go to America. In Australia he has delivered hundreds of lectures to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. When the war began, there were about 7,000,000 Jews in European countries now under Axis rule, said Dr. Traub, in an interview. Up to the end of last year 2,000,000 of them had been murdered. Hundreds oi thousands more had been murdered since. Should the announced policy oi Hitler continue unchecked, it was not. impossible that by the time victory was won the larger part of the Jewish population of Europe would have been exterminated. Thus between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 Jews in Nazioccupied Europe were in danger ol annihilation, and action to rescue them should start immediately, lhe present population of Palestine was 1.500,000 Jews and Arabs. Three or four million more Jews could be setjiled there, provided they were'granted the right to apply their pioneering ability in colonising the country on a -modern basis. The. establishment oi this centre would not only solve the problem of Jewish homelessness, but would also be a vital constructive factor in the cultural and economic revival ol the Near East.

STERILISATION IN HOLLAND

LONDON, June 11

The Germans have begun to sterilise Jews in Holland, according to Reuter’s Stockholm correspondent, who says that the first victims were Jewish husbands of childless, mixed marriages. Jews are given the choice of deportation to Poland or sterilisation. Several were taken from the Westerbork camp to Amsterdam and told to make their choice. Dutch Church leaders have sent a joint protest to the German Commissioner (Seyss-Inquart), indignantly demanding the cessation of the practice. Dutch doctors have unanimously refused to collaborate in “this new infamy.”