The American Jewish Congress today asked President Truman to veto the “misnamed” displaced persons bill and to call a special session of Congress to “redeem America’s pledges to give succor to the victims of Nazi persecution who are still homeless.”
A letter to Truman, signed by Rabbi Irving Miller, executive committee chairman of the A.J.C., Called for a vote of the bill “because it sets almost insuperable obstacles to the admission of any substantial number of the actual victims of Hitler’s terror while opening the door wide to former Nazis solely on the basis of the ‘ethnic origin’ It thereby sets a new pattern for racist legislation which is offensive to American principles.”
The letters pointed to the warnings by Senator Claude D. Pepper and others that the restrictions of the bill make it a measure which is anti-Semitic in effect, if not in purposes. The “out-off” date of Dec. 22, 1945, the letter said, would bar thousands of present inmates of DP camps. This date, it added, “was clearly adopted to exclude the many Jews who were forced to flee Poland during the pogroms of 1946.” The bill also would end hopes for the migration of 6,000 homeless persons now stranded in Shanghai, the letter added.
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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.
