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J.a. Launches $65,000,000 Drive in N.y.; Justice Jackson Warns of German Anti-semitism

April 16, 1947
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Deploring the fact that “we have become today world of closed frontiers, a world fearful of the stranger and hostile to the imgrant,” Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson told 1,500 Jewish leaders tonight ##at “anti-Semitism did not surrender in Germany,” that “it is not confined to the ##rman side of the lines” and that “it afflicts those who live elsewhere in the ##rld.” He spoke at a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at which the unprecedented ##5,000,000 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York was launched.Emphasizing that anti-Semitism in Germany “was not a creation of the Nazi ##portunists” but was part of the philosophical currency of this generation of Ger##ns, Justice Jackson warned that within a generation Germany may again become a dan##r to the world. “To the extent that the crimes disclosed at Nuremberg are logical ##oducts of Germanic culture, rather than merely of Nazi perversion, we must look for ##em to survive the collapse of the Hitler regime,” he stated. He added that “no##ing in the Nuremberg record encourages an expectation of voluntary political reform##ion in Germany which will make her a safe country for minorities and a peaceful##ighbor.”Touching upon the problem of the displaced persons in Europe, Justice ##ckson said: “They are hated aliens in the land where we now find them and they ##ve become unwelcome aliens in the lands from which they were taken. And there ##ey are, huddled into camps where they cannot stay permanently, with no means to ## elsewhere and no place open to them if they had means to go. Adequate justice ## these surviving people can never be done; but to keep them existing in suspense ## a form of mental torture almost as harrowing as that which the Nazis inflicted.”

JEWS SUFFER MOST FROM FEAR-RIDDEN WORLD, JACKSON SAYS

The world, he continued, has never been more fear-ridden than it is today, {SPAN}##{/SPAN} the end of a war for freedom from fear. No longer can people migrate freely and {SPAN}##tart{/SPAN} life anew in other lands, he added, pointing out that human beings, no matter {SPAN}##w{/SPAN} ready they are to be self-supporting, are wanted nowhere in the world. Their {SPAN}##ery{/SPAN} willinguess to support themselves through their own labor threatens competition which makes them unwelcome in many lands, he asserted.

“On no one do these things weigh more heavily than on the Jewish people,” he emphasized. “The record of their persecution, enslavement, murder and extermination ##s the blackest chapter in modern times. You know that anti-Semitism did not sur##ender in Germany; it is still virulent and ready, when it dares, to pursue the rem##ants of Jewry left there. You know, too, that anti-Semitism is not confined to the German side of the lines and that it afflicts those who live elsewhere in the world. doubt if anywhere at any time a better protection for minorities has ever been found ##han in our constitutional Bill of Rights, whatever inadequacies it may have or however faulty its application.”

Herbert H. Lehman, who presided at the dinner, emphasized that the Jews of ##urope look to the world for justice, but they look to American Jewry for the means to rebuild their lives. He called for maximm aid to the United Jewish Appeal. “We ##mbark now upon the great work of reconstruction designed to rebuild the shattered structure of Jewish life abroad and to prepare a welcome for the many thousands, who, weary of oppression and tyranny look for a haven in Palestine and upon our own democratic shores,” the former Governor of New York said. Other speakers included Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Louis Nizer.

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