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PLIGHT OF THE
JEWS
Refugees From
Europe
Children are being bought in
Europe to-day— bought like food
or clothing or any other commo
dity. Professional smugglers are
getting 400 dollars a neaa iui
them, delivered across the ooi-
der of one or other of the few
countries left neutral in this war.
But this trafficking in human
lives has a humanitarian purpose
— rescue from the horrors of
Nazi persecution. It is to plead
for support for this organised
smuggling that Bishop C. V. Pil
cher, coadjutor bishop of Sydney,
has come to Melbourne at the in
vitation of the United Overseas
Jewish relief fund, which last
night launched a £50,000 appeal
for Jewish victims of Nazi bru
tality at a meeting at the St.
Kilda town hall.
Describing the appeal as a life-
saving one, Bishop Pilcher re
ferred in an interview yesterday'
to the systematic slaughtering of
the Jews in Nazi Europe. Up to
a year ago about 2,000,000 had
been exterminated, but since then
the rate of murder had been ac
celerated, and to-day over
4,000,000 had been done to death
by mass-murder methods that
employed such technique as gas
chambers, "death, trains" and
whole armies of firing squads. To
save those who were left from a
similar fate was a tremendous
humanitarian duty that tran
scended all such petty considera
tions as to whether one was Pro
testant or Catholic or Jew.
Palestine was the main place
of refuge, Bishop Pilcher con
tinued, and this "wedding of the
mother land with the daughter
people" had immensely benefited
the Arab population. Eventually,
he hoped, not thousands but mil
lions of Jews would find refuge In
Palestine as Its development pro-
eressed. At the same time he be
lieved that there was a great
human need for the democracies
to relax their immigration restric
tions to provide shelter for the
refugees from Hitler's Europe.
Canada had set a fine example in
this direction; since her Govern
ment had let down the immigra
tion barriers some 800 refugees
smuggled out. through Spain and
Portugal hnd found safety there.
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