Jewish displaced persons in Europe are not being resettled proportionately as fast as other displaced persons, an exhaustive study of the European refuges problem made by the National Planning Association reveals today.
In spite of International Refugee Organization agreements barring racial and religious discrimination, “there is evidence that recruiting officials of receiving countries have practiced discrimination–at least indirectly,” the report states. “Furthermore,” it points out, “many resettlement plans call for miners, lumbermen, heavy industrial workers, and other categories of workers in occupations which genially are not found among Jews, who are chiefly artisans and professional people. This drastically reduces their opportunities for resettlement unless they can be completely retrained.”
The report points out that Jewish DP’s are fearful of settling in Europe “due to continued anti-Semitism there.” They quote estimates that all but ten to 15 percent of the Jews in the American area of Germany wanted to go to Palestine. “Doubtless the Arab-Jewish difficulties of the late spring of the year lessened this proportion,” it adds. The report therefore recommends that “countries other than Palestine should take more Jewish immigrants.”
“Even if Arab-Jewish conflict had not become so great as to necessitate the suspension of refugee immigration to Palestine by the Preparatory Commission of the I.R.O. on May, 19, 1948,” it states, “immigration there would not have completely solved the problem. I.R.O. had counted on immigration to Palestine of 75,000 refugee Jews by the end of 1948, but had actually sponsored transfer of only 6,000 since July 1, 1947.”
Discussing the American displaced persons act passed in June the report charges that the law, in effect, discriminates against Catholic and Jewish DP’s because of the cut-off date of Dec. 22, 1945. As many Jews and Catholics arrived in Germany, Austria and Italy after that date, it is pointed out, “the effect of the … provision to lessen the numbers of those groups who can enter the U.S. under the new act.”
The report recommends that the United States “provide sufficient flexibility in the administration of its recent legislation authorizing admission of 205,000 displaced persons, outside the already established quotas, so as to make it possible for this number to be admitted.” It also urges this government to “take immediate action to fulfill its responsibilities” under the act and appeals to state government private agencies to move quickly too.
For those DP’s who cannot be resettled in Europe new homes should be found for them elsewhere, the report states, making sure that the DP’s have some freedom of choice as to their new homes and are well acquainted with the living and working conditions in the country to which they might go.
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.
