The Sentinel, v.123 no. 10, 1941

              September 4, 1941 THE SENTINEL
Biro Bidjan Jews
Prepared to Fight
Moscow, Aug. 31 (JTA) - A
resolution stating that the Jews in
Biro Bidjan, autonomous Jewish
district in Far Eastern Russia, are
ready to go to the Russo-German
front to fight the invading Nazi
armies was adopted at a mass meet-ing
held in a Biro-Bidjan sewing
factory.
"We will never allow the enemy
to conquer our country," the resolu-tion
reads. "The cooperation of all
the peoples of the Soviet Union will
lead to the defeat of Hitler's
armies. If necessary, we will go to
the front to defend our honor and
freedom to the last drop of blood."
Publish Death List
Of Bucharest Pogrom
New York, Aug. 31 (JTA)-A list
of 117 Rumanian Jews killed in
Bucharest during the Iron Guard
pogroms of last January 22 and 23,
was made public here by the United
Rumanian Jews of America.
Charles Sonnenreich, president of
the organization, stated that the list
came from "reliable sources," and was
being released for the benefit of Amer-icans
who have relatives there and
wish to learn their fate. He announced
that he hoped soon to obtain lists of
Jewish victims in other cities, includ-ing
Jassy, Kishinev, Akkerman and
Bender.
Jews Await Japan's Anti-
Jewish Drive on Sept. 7
Tokyo, Sept. 1 (WNS)-The small
Jewish population of Japan awaited
with apprehension the opening on
September 7 of the first organized
anti-Jewish campaignein the history of
the country which will seek to impress
upon the Japanese people the fact that
"Jews are the enemies of the world."
Former Premier General Senjuro
Hayashi has banded together the coun-try's
extreme nationalist elements into
an anti-Semitic organization which,
according to all indications, will
operate with the same cold ruthless-nessowhich
characterized theStorm
Troopers in Nazi Germany and the
fanatically anti-Semitic Iron Guards
in Rumania.
Confirmation of the report that the
anti-Jewish campaign will take on a
witch-hunting character was furnished
by the newspaper "Hochi" which re-ported
that the anti-Semitic leaders
have decided to merge the anti-Jewish
drive with the current anti-espionage
campaign.
Branches of the anti-Jewish organ-ization,
which will sponsor its first
mass meeting at Asakusa on Septem-ber
7, will be established throughout
the country to disclose "the menace
of espionage and Jews," the anti-
Semitic leaders declared.
The newspaper "Hochi" commented
that hitherto, Japan has been imitat-ing
the famous three monkeys who
hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.
but henceforth the nationalists will
tighten the anti-espionage and anti
Jewish drives.
It should come as a surprise to no
one, therefore, if Jews are arrested
here soon and charged with acting in
behalf of foreign governments. It ap-pears
inevitable, too, that strict eco-nomic
sanctions will be apulied against
the Jews.
U. S. Shipping Men See Foreign Plot
To Extort Huge Sums From Refugees
Reissue American Visas
To Jews Held in Morocco
Lisbon, Aug. 31 (JTA)-The United
States Consulate at Casablanca has
begun examination of the cases of
eighty Jewish refugees held in intern-ment
camps near that city whose
American immigration visas expired
while they were awaiting transpor-tation.
M. Spanien, representative of the
HIAS-ICA Immigration Association,
who flew to Casablanca from Marseille
to aid 322 interned Jewish refugees
there, reported that several of the ex- pired visas have already been renewed.
The consular authorities are referring
to Washington the cases in which the
refugees have close relatives in oc-cupied
territories.
The Brazilian consul in Casablanca,
Mr. Spanien reported, has asked his
government for permission to proceed
in the cases of those refugees who had
Brazilian visas which expired while
they were stranded here.
These 322 refugees sailed from
Marseille in three French ships bound
for Martinique where the passengers
were to trans-ship for their final des-tinations.
The French government,
however, ordered the ships to remain
in North African ports to avoid the
risk of detention by British patrols
and their passengers were interned.
About 390 of the original 700 passen-gers
have already been enabled to
uroceed on their way. At present
among the refugees still at Casablanca
85 hold valid South American visas, 57 have Mexican visas, twenty have
Cuban visas and twenty are in pos-session
of visas for various other
countries.
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Jewish Dock Workers Flee
From Loading Nazi Goods
Istanbul, Sept. 2 (WNS) - Thou-sands
of Jewish dock workers from
Salonika, in Nazi-occupied Greece.
have fled into the mountains to join
Greek anti-Nazi guerilla fighters to
avoid loading Nazi supply ships headed
for Soviet Russia, according to reports
received here.
These reports stated that the Nazi
occupation authorities in Salonika
summoned the local Jewish community
leaders andtordered them to mobilize
all Jewish stevedores, rated among the
best in the world, for service on the
Nazi-controlled Black Sea ports of
Constanza and Sulina.
These ports serve as the Nazi
Army's depot for supplies to the Ger-man
troops invading Soviet Russia. A
shortage of skilled dock workers has
seriously impaired the Nazi shipment
of badly-needed food supplies and war
materials to the front.
Most of the Jewish stevedores fled
from the city when they learned of the
Nazi plan to send them to Constanza.
Nazi officials rounded up the remain-ing
160 stevedores and promptly
shipped them to the Rumanian sea-port
to load the Nazi supply ships.
When the Nazis discovered the
flight of the Jewish dock workers,
they called in Jewish community lead-ers
and ordered them to supply thou-sands
of Jews for compulsory labor.
Failure to comply with this order, the
Nazis warned, will result in the arrest
of 500 prominent Jews of Salonika.
New York, Aug. 31 (WNS)-The
Spanish and Portuguese governments
are compelling European refugees to
pay scandalous rates for transporta-tion
on their old, over-crowded
freighters while crack American liners
are sailing from Lisbon to New York
partially empty, it was charged here
by American shipping men.
The plot to extort huge sums from
these refugees, most of whom are
forced to turn over their life-savings
for a ticket on an unsanitary and, in
many cases, unsafe Spanish or Portu-guese
ship, came to light this week
when it was reported that the crack
American liner Excambion was en
route to the United States with 72
empty berths, while two foreign ves-sels,
one Spanish and the other Portu-guese,
were U. S.-bound with hun-dreds
of passengers more than they
can possibly accommodate.
En route to the United States now
are the Navemar, a 5,000-ton Spanish
freighter, which normally carries from
18 to 28 passengers, now bringing in
more than 1,100 refugees, and the
Portuguese ship Mouzinho, which has
never carried more than 220 pas-sengers,
but is now on the high seas
with about 600 passengers.
While these dilapidated vessels are
asking and receiving anywhere from
$600 to $1,200 for a ticket, up-to-date
American ships are coming in with
room to spare at rates which are hun-dreds
of dollars less. The Maritime
Commission forbids the Export Line
non-Jewish immigrants.
Of the 500 immigration certificates
granted to the Jewish Agency, 100 will
be reserved for Jewish refugees from
Poland now in Russia and another 100
will be assigned to Jewish refugees
from Poland now stranded in Japan.
The remainder will be assigned for the
immigration of Jewish laborers, chiefly
for, agricultural work.
Of the 250 certificates which will be
distributed by the government, fifty
will be assigned for Jewish capitalist
immigrants, seventy-five will be re-served
for Jewish youth under the
Youth Aliyah, thirty will be granted
to parents of Palestine residents,
thirty will be issued to rabbis and the
remainder is to be divided among other
categories of Jewish immigrants.
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to charge more than $320 for a ticket
on the Excambion.
Recently, the Spanish liner Ciudad
de Seville brought in 555 passengers,
most of them refugees, under condi-tions
which local shipping men de-scribed
as shocking and outrageous.
The food and sleeping accommodations
were so bad that the refugees neither
ate nor slept, subsisting on black
bread and tea during the voyage.
George C. Gaede, general passenger
manager of the American Export Line,
told newsmen here that he was at a
loss to explain the situation. "Last
December," he said, "we had 14,000
passengers booked. Sincetthen we've
brought 7,500 persons to American
shores from Lisbon. Of course, we
have noticed from time to time un-usual
transfers of passengers from our
lines to Spanish and Portuguese lines."
Shipping men said it was significant
that many refugees transferred from
American to Spanish or Portuguese
ships at the last minute despite the
fact that conditions on the foreign
boats were unquestionably inferior.
They advanced the theory that the
Portuguese government refuses to is-sue
exit visas unless the refugee sails
on one of its own ships.
While this charge cannot be proved,
it appears the most logical explanation
for a situation which finds refugees
traveling on rotten, overcrowded
boats, paying exorbitant sums, while
American liners, with much cheaper
rates, come in one-third or one-half
empty.
Plan New Rabbinical
College Near Yavne
Jerusalem, Aug. 30 (JTA) -
Plans for the construction of a
$200,000 building for a Talmudic
college to be known as Keren
Yavne, were completed here by the
Jewish National Fund.
The college, which will be built
on JNF land near Yavne, the an-cient
seat of Jewish learning, will
be financed from the bequest of
Rafael Gotte, a Russian Jew. It
will face the Hapoel Hamizrachi
settlement. The architectural plans
for the building were selected from
amoig many submitted in a nation-wide
contest. Ben Uri, well-known
Palestinian architect, was chosen as
the prize winner.
Paris Raids on Jews
Continue; Many Seized
Vichy, Sept. 2 (JTA) - Raids on
Jews in Paris continue with many
Jews arrested. In the Fourth Ward
of the city all Jewish residents were
ordered to report to police head-quarters,
it was reported here from
Paris.
Further details of the law which
permits the Commissioner for Jewish
Affairs to appoint temporary admin-istrators
to liquidate Jewish industrial,
commercial and artisan enterprises
were made known here. They disclose
that the Commissioner is authorized to
advance sums to the owners of the
liquidated Jewish establishments from
the account of theiblocked proceeds
from the sale of their property. The
precautions included in the law which
provide supervision of the temporary
administrators of Jewish property
were ordered as a result of the large
number of complaints from the Nazi-occupied
part of France that many of
the appointed "Aryan" administrators used their position for personaltprofit
and for frauds.
Immigration Certificate
Arrangement Reached
Jerusalem, Aug. 30 (JTA) - The
Executive of the Jewish Agency for
Palestine has reached an arrangement
with the Palestine government over
th dsrb tin f te 50 im mira-
The arrangement provides that 500
of the certificates be* distributed by the
Jewish Agency while 250 are to be
distributed by the government, in ad-dition
to 100 immnigration certificates
which the government reserved for