As at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal every place was filled with fugitive Sephardic Jews, so during the Cossack-Polish war fugitive Polish Jews, wretched in appearance, with hollow eyes, who had escaped the sword, the flames, hunger, and pestilence; or who, dragged by the Tartars into captivity, had been ransomed by their brethren, were seeking shelter everywhere. Westwards, by way of Dantzic and through the Vistula district, Jewish-Polish fugitives wandered to Amsterdam, and were forwarded thence to Frankfort-on-the-Main and other Rhenish cities. Three thousand Lithuanian Jews came to Texel in the Netherlands, and were hospitably received. Southwards many fled to Moravia, Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary, and wandered from those places to Italy. The prisoners in the armies of the Tartars came to the Turkish provinces, and some of them drifted to Barbary. Everywhere they were received by their brethren with great cordiality and love, cared for, clothed, and supported. The Italian Jews ransomed and supported them at great sacrifice. Thus, the community of Leghorn at this time formed a resolution to collect and spend a quarter of their income for the liberation and maintenance of the unfortunate Polish Jews. The German and Austrian communities, also, although they had suffered under the calamities of the Thirty Years' War, exercised that brotherly feeling which they rarely professed with their lips, but cherished the more deeply in their hearts. The number and misery of those escaped from Poland were so great, that the German communities and probably others were obliged to devote the money intended for Jerusalem to the maintenance of Polish Jews. The Jews of Jerusalem dependent on alms, who were drained by the pasha and his subordinates, felt the want of their regular support from Europe. They soon fell into such distress, that of the 700 widows and a smaller number of men living there nearly 400 are said to have died of hunger.