INTERNATIONAL: Five- Year-Hope

Five-Year-Hope

In London last week, the delegates of 27 States who recently met at Evian-les-Bains to discuss aiding European refugees set up their new permanent bureau. Earl Winterton, lofty Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was elected chairman.* His first job was to hear complaints from Britain’s own dominions. The Northern Rhodesian Legislative Council, spokesmaned by Sir Leopold Moore, angrily protested a rumor that 500 German Jewish families would be sent to settle in Rhodesia. “Why,” exploded Sir Leopold, “can we not have instead 500 British colonists who are not Jews?”

Speaking for the U. S., Delegate Myron C. Taylor estimated that in the case of Germany alone some 650,000 persons (Jews, part-Jews classed as non-Aryans, and persecuted Catholics) face ejection, not to mention possible Jewish emigrations from Poland, Hungary, etc. At the present rate of refugee departures from Germany, declared Mr. Taylor, it would take 16 years for all the refugees to leave. He therefore urged the London secretariat to set itself the goal of so speeding departures from Germany that the exodus will be complete within five years.

Few of the other delegates made helpful suggestions. French Delegate Senator Henry Bérenger explained that France, which has taken in the bulk of refugees who have fled Germany, now finds she has “arrived practically at the point of saturation, which permits her no longer to receive further refugees without upsetting the equilibrium of her social structure.” M. Bérenger cried: “The hunting of a man, confiscation of his property, a concentration camp beyond which there is only the graveyard as a horizon—all this is contrary to human dignity and can result only in the catastrophic disturbance of relations between nations!” Such language was not calculated to soothe Adolf Hitler, whose help would be most useful in getting Jews out of Germany. Already forbidden to take money with them, German Jews were recently forbidden by new Nazi decrees to take even their household goods and movable possessions. They were ordered to pay on such goods as jewelry, furs and furniture, an export tax of 100%. A further decree barred German dealers from bidding on goods auctioned by non-Aryans, and provided that if a Jew, having failed to sell goods at auction, offers them for sale a second time but fails to find a private buyer, they should automatically be forfeited to the State. Why the Nazis went to this length was not apparent, since it would have been more in accord with Aryan forthrightness simply to order Jews to stay and starve or emigrate naked.

Meanwhile, Czechoslovakia also reached the refugee saturation point. She announced that a batch of 400 Austrian refugees who had been allowed temporary refuge in the country would be forcibly driven back into Germany at the first opportunity. Working in the dead of night, Czechoslovak police took 15 such refugees to a remote spot on the German border, and drove them over undetected by German frontier guards. Prepared for the worst, the Bureau last week tentatively added 60,000 Italian Jews to its list of potential refugees.

Meanwhile, in the Reich, would-be refugees continued to haunt U. S. consulates, searching U. S. telephone books for the addresses of Americans who might be their relatives. A typical letter received last week in the U. S.: “Dear Sir, “My name is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .,and as my mother is a born G . . . . . . . and has relations in America, I think to be on the right address. I am 18 years of age, was born in Vienna and am of a very good family. By profession I am bodicemacer and am thoroughly versed in all commercial branches. I am perfect in German, English, French, Spanish and speak some Italien.

“As I am forced to emigrate from Germany, I beg to ask you for an Affidavit and hope that you will not refuse my request, but help a young girl, who will be thankful to you her whole life for this noble action.

“I am diligent and ambitious and so I am sure to make my way anywhere, and you may be certain, that I should not be a burden to any one.

“Hoping, that you will not leave my request without fulfilment, I thank you beforehand on the best, and I am looking forward to your kind reply, which I beg to send me as soon as possible.”

*George Rublee, 70, international lawyer and longtime legal adviser to the U. S. Government was appointed director of the prospective refugee bureau, prepared last week to sail for London to take charge.