Frank Goldman, president of B’nai B’rith, last night called on President Truman to veto the displaced persons bill now before him for signature. In a letter to the President, Mr. Goldman termed the bill “as callous a rejection of the pleas of innocent and worthy refugees as there is to be found in the pages of American history.
“It is deeply to be regretted,” he said, “that those deserving individuals who would be able to enter the United States under the harsh terms of this racially restrictive bill may well be sacrificed if you veto this legislation. In the final analysis, however, their salvation, and the salvation of all other displaced persons, rests with the enactment of an honest and democratic bill.”
Mr. Goldman took exception to the sections of the bill which provide that a displaced person, to be eligible for immigration under the bill, must have been in an Allied camp on or before December 22, 1945, and which assign 30 percent of the total quota of 200,000 to farmers and require that 40 percent of the DP’s must come from the Baltic states. “These provisions militate against the Jews,” he asserted. “The cream of this ironic jest is the Volksdeutsche provision which requires half of the German and Austrian quotas to be filled by former Nazis who were Hitler’s advance agents in his efforts to destroy democracy. In the 105 years of its existence, B’nai B’rith has never witnessed Congressional action so violative of American principles of equality and fair play,” Mr. Goldman said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
