Most of the Jewish displaced persona camps in Europe can be closed by June 30, 1940, barring “unforeseen events” in Israel or elsewhere, Dr. William Hater, retiring adviser on Jewish affairs to the United States Army in Germany, said In a report to Army Secretary Kenneth C. Royall released today. Dr. Haber made the prediction in a final report on his work in Europe from January, 1946 to January, 1949.
Jewish displaced persons have been leaving the U.S. zones of Germany and Austria at the rate of 4,000 to 5,000 a month, Dr. Haber said. With the expected progress in the American displaced persons program, especially if liberalizing amendments to the law are adopted, he said, a substantial number of Jewish DP’s will be eligible for admission to the United States. In addition, he said, the Israeli Government has tentative plans to remove all Jewish displaced persons in Germany and Austria who wish to go to Israel by September of this year.
Resettlement is the only real solution to the problem of Jewish displaced persons, Dr. Haber said, reporting that “the past year represents a period that has shown the greatest advance in the solution of the Jewish displaced persons problem since the end of the war.” During that time, he said, approximately 37,600 Jewish DP’s were resettled from the American zone in Germany and about 9,000 from the U.S. zone in Austria. At the end of last year, he said, approximately 75,000 Jewish displaced persons remained in the U.S. zone of Germany and about 9,7OO in the U.S. zone of Austria.
Dr. Haber praised the role of the Army in the care of the Jewish DP’s. U.S. Army officials and their staffs, he said, had generally “followed a pattern which has raised the dignity of the people and has given them a feeling of security.” Friction which once existed between the Jewish DP’s and the Army because of the seemingly static nature of the problem has been eliminated now that the mass movement of the DP’s eat of the occupation zones appears to be in full swing, he stated. He particularly praised the Army for assisting in the movement of Jewish DP’s to Israel and criticized the International Refugee Organization for it3 failure in this respect.
WARNS ANTI-SEMITISM STILL DEEPLY ROOTED IN GERMANY
Dr. Haber warned that “anti-Semitism is still deeply rooted in Germany. It manifests itself in many ways,” he said. “In the de3ecraticn of cemeteries, in pro-vocative articles in the press, in publicly holding the Jewish displaced persons exclusively responsible for the black market, in occasional blood libel rumors, and in the obvious public antagonism against the Jews with whom the Germans come in contact.” Germans themselves admit that anti-Jewish acts, especially again3t Jewish DP’s, might occur if the occupation authorities left, ho said, and most of the young people of the German Jewish community “have definite intentions of quitting their country.”
Dr. Haber declared that he thought it would be “a crucial error” for U.S. authorities to yield to German pressure to bring the Jewish displaced persons under the control of German police, ostensibly for better law enforcement. “Although the Jewish displaced persons problem is in its liquidation phase,” he said, “the time has not yet come when the Jewish displaced persons can be safely transferred to the Jurisdiction of the German authorities.”
Dr. Haber said that a law providing for the restitution of identifiable property, confiscated by the Nazis from racial, religious and political persecutes, was operating in the American zone, but that none existed in the British zone and the one in the French zone was inadequate because it did not make any provision for the transfer of heirless property to a successor organization.
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.
