Show JEWS OF RUSSIA IN CONDITION ruined and starving reports investigator new york the wracking exi experience I 1 of a three months nightmare journey through a gray huddled awen bieth century inferno of misery want and helplessness was wag recounted by miss irma may of new york city who returned on the steamship parts direct 11 from a tour of the alio hunger region ot of poland gallela and bessara bia where hundreds of thousands of jewish families after a ten years struggle against the impoverishment of the war are now crushed in a final tragedy of industrial ruin destitution and starvation as a result of the latest economic collapse in eastern europe miss may who was abroad on a visit when the first reports of the new jewish disaster in europe reached this country ou was waa commissioned byr bap cable by david A brown national chairman of the united jewish camp campaign for a overseas chest to complete the reconstruction tasks undertaken by the american jewish joint distribution committee in russia and the eastern european countries to obtain firsthand information of actual conditions and the extent of the breakdown of trade and industry affecting the jews of these countr lea inquiry begun in january she started on her mission early lu in january and in the last three months has journeyed from city to city fro from village to if village flage in all the largo large jewish sections of poland galicia and bes sa sarabia rabla her reports by radio and letter to mr brown based on authenticated statistical information make up a day by day chronicle of human ruin tind and despair crowded with intimate detail of the sulT suffering ering of workers broken by months and years of unemployment of merchants stripped of their last resources of proud and poor alike leveled to bread lines and soup kitchens of women and children starving and freezing and waiting in piteous resignation for death more than a million jews of poland one third the entire jewish population of the country are at present absolutely sol without any menns means of support and their only hope of being 4 saved from extinction miss may declares rests on tho the early arrival of relief funds from america the jewish cities of Bes sarabia miss may found present a repetition of the polish picture of impoverishment stagnation and helpless misery due to a two years crop failure the lil historic jewish agricultural communities cities of this region are shattered by want famine and disease child mortality in Bes sarabia has readied reached per cent as a result of severe malnutrition and lack of medical aid and favus and I 1 itinger hunger typhus are spreading ominously the food allowance of jewish families in this section of Bes sarabia all available food supplies are rationed by local 11 hunger committees Is a few ounces of corn meal and id a fraction of a pound of potatoes a doy apy frenzied struggle for broad bread miss mays final experiences in poland represent a peak of the appalling panorama of physical and moral breakdown in which a piteous frenzied struggle for bread hopeless submission to squalor and disease and a panic of self destruction as an escape from unbearable suffering and degradation bespeak the utter collapse of the ancient communal structure of jewish life in poland and threaten the extinction of millions of lives of men women and children in brest litovsky miss may found the poorest of the poor mostly war widows aws still living in the ruins of the synagogues in which they took shelter when they returned ns as refugees and ana exiles of siege and evacuation after the razing of city la in the last withdrawal of the russian armies from the fortress utterly depleted by the destruction of the military occupations and coun ter occupations scarcity of work and food an air the struggle against broken down rudimentary living conditions the local community Is incapable of re lievi nir the plight of these people war orphans and children born bom in the years of famine and internal turmoil are growing crowing up as waits with weakened constitutions and no outlook for a normal adjustment to or derly productive life |