Action to restore to German Jews property stripped from them by the Nazis and pensions granted them by pre-Hitler governments was among the demands voiced here in a series of resolutions adopted at the closing session of the first world conference of the Council for the Protection of Jews from Germany. The Council consists of representatives of emigre Jews from 16 countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas.
The resolutions included a demand that the 200,000 Jews still in Germany be enabled to rebuild their lives and that those who wish to enter Palestine be allowed to go there. The conference denounced the “intolerable state of affairs” which allows Germans to hold unlawfully property taken from Jews, and urged early promulgation by the Allied Control Council of a restitution law, a draft of which has been prepared for the American zone.
The delegates called for resumption of payment of pensions and annuities to German Jews living abroad, the use of heirless Jewish property for resettlement of Jews under Jewish auspices and full representation on any body formed for that purpose. They also asked that property abroad belonging to German Jews be exempt from enemy property controls.
The delegates at the conference represented German Jews living in the United States, Palestino, France, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Australia, South Africa, India, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile and the Dominican Republic.
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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.