American Jewish Conference Gives Narshall Proposals on German Peace Treaty

A delegation of the American Jewish Conference today submitted to Secretary of State Marshall, who is leaving in a few days for the Moscow Conference, detailed proposals on restitution of property and human rights for inclusion in the German peace treaties. It also presented an 850-page volume reviewing “Nazi Germany’s War Against the Jews,” as it was revealed at the Nuremberg trials.

The delegation, which was headed by Louis Lipsky, chairman of the executive committee of the Conference, met with Assistant Secretary of State John H. Hildring, who said he would transmit its proposals to Secretary Marshall. The delegation also urged that many of the suggestions it made regarding the German treaty be incorporated into the Austrian treaty. Its memorandum contained the following major points:

1. Germany must acknowledge her guilt for her crime against the Jews and punish those who were responsible and those who benefited.

2. Human rights and fundamental freedoms must be secured for all, discriminatory legislation abolished and anti-Semitism outlawed.

3. Germany must pay reparations to the Jewish people, indemnify Jews who were victims of Nazi persecution, and restore property taken from the Jews.

4. Property of Jews who were murdered and who left no heirs must be turned over to an international Jewish body for the purpose of relief and resettlement of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.

5. Jews must have the right to emigrate from Germany and to take their belongings with them, and Jewish displaced persons now in Germany must have continued protection of Allied or international authorities, but Germany must contribute to their maintenance.

6. The treaty provisions must be supervised and enforced by international machinery.

Copies of the proposals and the book were also handed to the British Ambassador, Lord Inverchapel, Andre Berard, Minister Counselor of the French Embassy, and Michael Vavilov, First Secretary of the Soviet Embassy.

Col. Bernard Bernstein, legal counsel to the Conference, who was in the delegation to Hildring, told a press conference that the guilt of Germany and Austria in their persecution of Jews should be recognized and preserved as a permanent record in the peace treaties. He pointed out that the surviving Jews in the occupied zones of Europe are in “thoroughly insecure areas.” They should be continued under the jurisdiction of the great powers, he said, until they are able to emigrate to Palestine or elsewhere.