An optimistic view concerning the future disappearance of anti-Semitism in liberated Europe was voiced here today by Sir Clifford Heathcote-Smith, representative of the Intergovernmental Committee for Refugees.
Speaking to the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sir Clifford pointed out that anti-Semitsm without Nazi and Fascist stimulus has died a sudden death in liberated Italy. This, he said, will be the case in other countries after the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany.
“As the battle line in Italy swept northward,” Sir Clifford stated, “Italian peasants hid and sheltered Jews, saving them from seizure and deportation to death at the hands of the retreating Germans.”
The representative of the Intergovernmental Committee emphasized that repatriation and reinstatement of Jewish refugees as full citizens in their native lands would be the best method of handling the problem of Jews dislocated by the war. “Wherever possible, the dislocated should be repatriated to their homelands and given equal rights and full citizenship. Where this is impossible, the Intergovernmental Committee will attempt to find new homes for them,” Sir Clifford said.
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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.
