II. The greatest wave of deportations of German Jews and Christians of Jewish origin to Poland has been going on since the middle of October. Seven thousand Jews were deported from Berlin to Litzmannstadt on the nights of October 18/19 and 19/20. 20,000 Jews of the Rhineland are already there, or are en route. 2,000 are to be transported from Prague. Deportations from Vienna have already been going on for some time. A number of Jews from Breslau is believed to be engaged in labour in the Bohemian Riesengebirge. <270> According to our spokesman, the able-bodied men who have been deported to Poland are constructing roads behind the Eastern front whilst the able-bodied women are employed in ammunition factories. In Litzmannstadt hut camps are said to be provided as temporary lodging, but we have no particulars about this. The deportees were allowed to take only a handbag and 10 RM. with them. Sufficient protection against the cold will be out of the question. One may assume that these measures are the beginning of the complete deportation of the Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from the Reich and the Protectorate. This concerns people the majority of whom, owing to their mental powers having been overcharged for many years, will be unfit to cope with these new hard measures. III. In view of its Christian responsibility the Provisional Ecumenical Council of the Churches cannot heedlessly close its eyes to this misery of the refugees in Poland. As it practically can no longer carry out its own relief work, it feels all the more its duty to intervene with the competent bodies towards quick relief action. The Jewish organizations, generally speaking, are no longer in a position to undertake effective steps on behalf of their co-religionists. The Jewish question touches the centre of the Christian message: neglect of the Church to raise its warning and protective voice here, and do all in its power to help, would be disobeying its God. It is, therefore, the duty of the Christian Churches, and especially of their Ecumenical representative, the Provisional Ecumenical Council, to intervene on behalf of the persecuted.