The difficulties which holders of American immigration visas face in Europe when their visas expire due to the shortage of transportation facilities to the United States are emphasized in a report issued today by the European headquarters of the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association.
The report reveals that more than 36,000 Jews were assisted by the Association to emigrate from Germany to various overseas lands since Hitler came to power in 1933.
“Many people,” the report states, “reach Lisbon with expired American visas or with visas which are about to expire. The renewal of such visas requires protracted formalities. This creates for many refugees an extremely difficult situation, rendered still more painful by the fact that the Portuguese authorities themselves require earliest departure of the refugees who crowd Lisbon and other Portuguese cities.”
The report points out that the problem of emigrants whose visas expire is growing now more and more serious in view of the fact that one has to wait now many weeks, and sometimes months, before he can secure passage. “The communications with North and South America are being served by barely half-a-dozen steamers of small tonnage and places are reserved on them months ahead,” the report says.
Reviewing emigration possibilities from Nazi-held Poland, the report states: “Since the occupation of Poland by Germany, all regular emigration from this country has become impossible. However, the American consulate in Warsaw, before closing its offices, accepted new applications for visas through the offices of the JEAS, a committee in Poland affiliated with the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association.”
Some 9,000 persons registered for visas through the JEAS during the three weeks prior to the transfer of the American consulate from Warsaw to Berlin, the report discloses. It adds that two months ago the JEAS office in Warsaw was reorganized and incorporated in the Juedische Soziale Selbsthilfe under the name of Abteilung Verwandten hilfe, the address of the office remaining the same.
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