Foreign Policy Association Reviews Jewish Search for Refugee Havens

Concluding that international agreements and largescale financing will be essential in translating plans of the Agro-Joint and the Refugee Economic Corporation for post-war settlement of European Jews in overseas countries, the Foreign Policy Association, in a survey of possibilities of mass-settlement of refugees published today, reveals that since the outbreak of the war these two Jewish organizations have explored many proposed places of haven, including Alaska, Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China Cuba, Lower California, New Zealand and Peru.

“Although the mass resettlement of refugees in specially created colonies has never been attempted, certain efforts have been successfully made by the Jewish Colonization Association,” the review points out. “By 1939 this organization, which was endowed in 1891 by a wealthy Jewish philanthropist of German descent, Baron de Hirsch, had established over 500 settlements in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Palestine, Poland, Turkey, Rumania, and the U.S.S.R.; and had 18,400 families on its more than two million acres of land. In accordance with its founder’s conviction that migrations to cities would create tensions between Jewish immigrants and native populations, the Association stresses the training of colonists for agricultural life and aids the colonists to buy their own land by arranging long-term credits for those who lack capital.

“In the mid-1930’s, as the number of European refugees increased and immigration barriers rose to unprecedented heights throughout the world, new plans developed for mass colonization in relatively empty spaces of the globe. So far as these projects concerned the tropics and subtropics, they involved the much debated issue of whether or not large-scale settlements of people from temperate lands are possible in regions near the equator. In answering this question, actual experience in the few recently established tropical colonies may be useful.

“At the Evian Conference in 1938 the Dominican Republic offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees from Europe. A group of men in the United States subsequently organized a Settlement Association to establish colonies based on subsistence homesteads, with approximately 500 forming the first contingent. These 500 were settled at “Sosua,” in the north-western part of the Republic, before war suspended further immigration. At present the chief needs of the colony are more land and a larger proportion of women among the settlers. In January, 1943, health conditions were reported by a U.S. Army consultant in tropical diseases to be very good for a subtropical area, thanks to adequate medical care and the adjustment of diet and work hours to local conditions. The record of the Dominican settlement has brought inquiries from three South American countries regarding the possibility of similar colonization projects in their territories.

INVESTIGATIONS IN BOLIVIA AND MINDANAO

“In the Yungas district of Bolivia, the Refugee Economic Corporation and the Agro-Joint set up a small colony. These two groups succeeded in bringing Jewish refugees out of La Paz, the capital city, where they had congregated, creating certain tensions. The Bolivian colony, now consisting of 170 people, demonstrates the desirability of future immigration of settlers.

“On the eve of World War II several investigations of prospective resettlement sites were made by governments and private organizations. Similarly, Mindanao, southernmost island of the Philippine group, was investigated by a group of American exports in the summer of 1939, after the Philippine government had agreed to admit 10,000 refugees for a colony. The Refugee Economic Corporation secured options on 12,500 acres of land for a large ranch and selected 800 settlers, but the war interrupted their transportation,” the review says.