The recommendation now made in London by Mr. James G. McDonald, the High Commissioner for Jewish and Other Refugees from Germany, that his office should be liquidated at the end of this year and replaced by a new organization directly responsible to the League of Nations will be welcomed by every person who has any feelings of sympathy for the plight of German Jewry.
This recommendation, coming as it does two days after the anti-Jewish riots in Berlin, needs no convincing arguments. The best argument for it is the night of horror which the Jews of Berlin went through last Monday during the anti-Jewish attacks on Kurfuerstendamm.
There is no doubt that the number of Jewish refugees from Germany will again increase now, as a result of the terroristic activities upon which the Nazi government entered. Resigned for the last few months to the idea of remaining persecuted in Germany rather than to lead the miserable life of a refugee abroad, many Jews in Germany will now be compelled to change their minds. Their lives being in danger in the Reich, a good number will prefer to suffer as refugees outside of Germany than as candidates for brutal physical attacks within Germany.
WHERE IS THE LEAGUE?
The League of Nations, which is both the tribune of world conscience and the instrument for justice for nations, has done very little for the Jews in Germany, as well as for those Jewish victims who are now scattered throughout the world as German refugees. The office established by members of the League of Nations to deal with refugee problems was neither maintained nor even supported by the League of Nations as such. Mr. James G. McDonald, the High Commissioner who supervised this office, had a job of which he could hardly be envied.
It is, therefore, no wonder that Mr. McDonald has now lost his patience and has come out with a clear-cut proposal that the League of Nations should once and forever take over the obligations and the responsibilities for dealing with the problem of the refugees from Germany. The League of Nations—and only the League of Nations—can deal with this problem effectively. No other institution, no matter how much goodwill it may enjoy on the part of certain statesmen in different countries, could be successful in providing constructive relief for the refugees.
THA LEAGUE’S INDIFFERENCE
Mr. McDonald, in his report which he made in London yesterday, points out that during the last two years, since the Nazis came to power, ten million dollars had been spent for refugee work. Of this sum, the League of Nations did not contribute anything. A small loan given to Mr. McDonald to defray initial expenses to establish his office was repaid to the League of Nations in full. Most of the ten million dollars spent for the refugees came from Jewish relief organizations.
This is far from just. The League of Nations, unable to do something for the Jews in Germany directly, since Germany is no longer a member of the League, could, however, do much for those German Jews who are out of Germany and who need the assistance of the League.
MCDONALD’S CHALLENGE
The case of the German Jewish refugees is no now experience to the League of Nations. It dealt with similar cases during the repatriation of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians. Why the League is indifferent to the refugees from Germany is difficult to explain. Mr. McDonald’s suggestion in London is actually a challenge to the League to make clear, once and for all, its attitude: is it ready to do for the German refugees as much as it did for refugees from other nations, or are the German refugees going to be left to their own fate?
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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.
