The enrichment of American culture through the contributions of refugees and the urgent necessity of saving anti-Nazi writers still in Europe were stressed tonight by prominent authors, Americans and exiles, who addressed 1,500 persons attending a Pan-American Dinner for Writers in Exile at the Hotel Commodore Proceeds of the dinner, which was sponsored by a publishers’ committee and the League of American Writers, will be used to rescue at least 20 writers believed to be in danger in Europe.
Those on the speakers list included two recently-arrived authors, Lion Feucht-wanger and Franz Werfel, and also Cass Canfield, Fannie Hurst, Louis Bromfield, Pearl S. Buck, Arthur Garfield Hays, William Saroyan, Genevieve Tabouis and Jules Romains. Clifton Fadiman was toastmaster.
Fadiman pointed out that there were still more than a hundred anti-Nazi writers in France, all needing money and steamship tickets and many needing visas. He read a message from Prof. Albert Einstein urging rescue of these writers as an “invaluable service” to the cause of freedom and justice and to America.
Miss Hurst asserted that the giving of asylum to exiled authors was “a noncontroversial high command to those nations who still operate within the framework of democracy.” Miss Buck declared that the exiles coming here could use their experience with dictatorships in Europe to help America guard against Fascism here.
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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.
