Major Jewish organizations today endorsed the bill for amendment of the Displaced Persons Act proposed by a minority of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but only with the proviso that the term “German ethnic origin,” the allocation of United Statos funds to finance the transportation to this country of the so-called Volksdeutsche and the charging of visas issued to displaced persons against the future immigration quotas of their countries of origin be eliminated.
Identical letters to all members of the Senate embodying these views were signed by Irving Kane, chairman of the National Community Relations Advisory Council and Rabbi Bernard J. Bamberger, president of the Synagogue Council of America. The Jewish organizations in their letter held that “displaced persons legislation should be limited to persons defined as Displaced Persons by the constitution of the International Refugee Organization.”
The proposal to allocate $2,500,000 of American funds to finance the overseas transportation to the United States of the Volksdeutsche, to whom the minority Senate bill would assign one-half the total German quota of immigration visas, is termed “a move unprecedented in our immigration history.”
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