The possibility of rescuing German Jews from concentration camps in unoccupied France is emphasized in a report by Eduard Oungre, one of the directors of the HIAS-ICA Emigration Association made public here today by the HIAS.
Oungre, who conducts the HIAS-ICA work in unoccupied France and who went to Lisbon now to confer with his colleagues on emigration problems, reports that numerous refugees who have been exiled by the Nazis from Western Germany and interned in a camp in unoccupied France, can be rescued through emigration to overseas lands if legal and material aid is made available to them through contact with their relatives and friends in the United States and South America.
Oungre estimates that of the 13,000 persons expelled from Western Germany there are more than 7,000 Jews, including man, women and children. They are all kept in Camp Gurs. “While no mass release is contemplated by the French authorities of those in the camp, release of internees is possible if they can emigrate abroad,” the report states, adding that the HIAS-ICA office in unoccupied France “has carried through a survey with a view to paving the way for such action.”
More than 600 files pertaining to emigration cases have thus far been transferred from American consulates in Germany and Belgium to the American consulate in Marseille, as result of the HIAS-ICA’s efforts, Oungre reports. This will enable several hundred inmates of Camp de Gurs to secure their immigration visas and be released in order to emigrate to the United States.
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