adoption of the 1922 resolution on minority rights which was passed over the veto of Germany.
With the German delegates abstaining from voting, the League Council decided to invite the United States to participate in the autonomous governing body that is to direct relief for the German refugees and arrange to settle them on foreign soil. The body is to be composed of representatives of fifteen States, including the United States, the Netherlands, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
The Council’s President, Raoul Amador of Panama, is to confer with representatives of these nations regarding the choice of a high commissioner of the refugee committee. Once appointed, the committee will be completely divorced from the League of Nations Assembly and have complete power to direct the channels of refugee relief and arrange for their domestication on other terrain.
The resolution itself, proposed by France eleven years ago, originally proclaimed the obligation of all League members to maintain the same standard of rights toward minorities.
The second paragraph, which provoked resistance by Reich delegates, read:
“The Assembly considers that the foregoing principles are applicable to all categories of nationals who differ from the majority by their race, language or religion.”
Obviously directed against German treatment of the Jews, the definition of a minority group was denounced by the Reich spokesman, Dr. Friedrich von Keller, on the grounds that the refugee question is Germany’s personal business since the Jews do not constitute a minority.
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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.
