The House Foreign Affairs Committee late today was drafting a consolidated bill on relief in Poland which would require Germany to give guarantees against diversion of supplies, after hearing Chauncey McCormick, president of the Commission for Polish Relief, give testimony indicating that German proposals made to date were unsatisfactory.
The bill, as it was being written, authorizes President Roosevelt to appoint a committee to administer Polish relief funds through the American Red Cross, the Commission for Polish Relief or other agencies. This presidential committee would pass on guarantees of impartial distribution of relief before the funds would be allocated to the organizations.
Sol Bloom (Dem.,N.Y.), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “Feeling the need of haste in making relief available for Poland, we decided to give the President and the committee he will appoint if the bill is passed by Congress discretionary power to decide on guarantees by the belligerents.”
The committee had met to consider action on six bills which would authorize appropriation of between $10,000,000 and $20,000,000 for Polish relief, and will meet again tomorrow. McCormick said that between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000 was needed for immediate relief.
Regarding the question of distribution, McCormick told the committee that his organization was seeking to obtain from the German Government fuller guarantees that its relief would be distributed and supervised by Americans.
McCormick said the Commission for Polish Relief had written to Dr. Hans Thomsen, German Charge d’Affaires in Washington, asking written assurances that any supplies sent into Poland by the Commission would be distributed under American supervision. Thomsen’s reply, containing assurances similar to those accepted by the Red Cross last week–that a commission representative would be permitted to enter the Government-General to receive, regulate and observe the distribution–was not completely satisfactory, and it was indicated that further guarantees would be sought.
“The big problem now,”McCormick said, “is to satisfy the Allies that supplies sent by American relief agencies into Poland will not be diverted by the German Government.”
Representative Flannery and other Congressmen were dubious as to whether Thomsen’s letter represented the final position of the Nazis.
Text of Thomsen’s letter to McCormick follows:
“In reply to your esteemed letters of January 9 and January 15, I may inform you that I have received instructions from my Government along the following lines?
“The German Government agrees to the relief work among the civil population in the Government-General for the occupied Polish territory which your organization is carrying out or intends to carry out. The German Government is prepared to grant transportation facilities and exemption from duty for the shipments imported for these relief purposes. You are aware that in order to make preparatory arrangements for this relief work, Mr. Gamble (Arthur Gamble, Commission representative in Berlin) was recently received by the Governor-General in Cracow. On that occasion Mr. Gamble conferred also with representatives of polish relief organizations in order to ascertain their needs. As a result of these conferences the German Government will grant permission upon special application for a qualified representative of the committee on Polish relief to enter the territory of the Government-General in order to receive the American shipments for Polish relief, to regulate their distribution in conformity with the German Red Cross, and to observed this distribution. It is understood that these American shipments are being forward to the civil population of the Government-General exclusively and that they will at no time be at the disposal of or claimed by German authorities.
“It seems that the German Government by this action has approved your suggestion to the extent that the Commission for Polish Relief is fully enabled to carry out its work. (signed) Hans Thomsen.”
While the Commission for Polish Relief found the German terms unsatisfactory for the purposes of a long-range, large-scale program, the American Red Cross proceeded with its emergency program under the German guarantees. It announced the name of six agencies in Nazi Poland which it plans to use for distribution of supplies sent from the United States.
Distribution will be under the supervision of the two Red Cross delegates, James T. Nicholson and Wayne Chatfield Taylor. Other agencies may be added by Nicholson, who will arrive in Cracow on Thursday. Agencies which Nicholson plans to use for the distribution, which will be arranged in cooperation with the German Red Cross, are: Polish Red Cross, Polish Self-Help, Catholic Diocesan Society, America Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, TOZ Society for Protection of Health of the Jewish Population, and the Warsaw Jewish Hospital.
Taylor arrived in Berlin today from Geneva to aid in expediting the Red Cross shipments which left Genoa on Saturday under personal convoy of a Red Cross agent. Nicholson cabled that he had been given permission by the German Government for an extended stay in the area in order to observe the distribution and that all facilities were being accorded the Red Cross, including duty-free handling of the relief supplies and special transportation to expedite the shipments.
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