Leading New York Newspapers Urge Strong American Support for War Refugee Board

Strong American support for the War Refugee Board established by order of President Roosevelt is pledged today in editorials appearing in the leading New York newspapers which point out that by his appointment of this Board, the President silenced once and for all enemy propaganda to the effect that the United Nations are not concerned with the fate of the Jews in Europe.

Emphasizing that the War Refugee Board “has a difficult task before it,” the New York Times editorial says: “We may be sure that all measures within the power of this Government will be taken. For a beginning, the stranded people who huddle in terror in the ports now available to our ships can be removed to temporary havens outside Europe, where they can be fed and clothed. To that extent, at least, the Nazi lust for extermination can be balked while we get on with the prime and titanic business of crushing the forces that have brought this horror upon the world.”

The New York Herald-Tribune, in an editorial, writes: “How many victims can be saved from Germany itself no one knows; but organizations in touch with underground groups in occupied Europe are hopeful that many can be rescued from, and perhaps through, the Balkan satellite nations. Once temporary camps have been set up to receive the refugees in neutral or Allied nations, the Board will cooperate with the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Committee.

“The President urged immediate concrete action, an urgency dictated ‘to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities in Europe.’ The American lead in setting up powerful machinery to obtain such action will have wide approval. For growing realization of the frightful lengths to which the Hitler regime will carry its philosophy of brutality has made a do-nothing policy more and more untenable,” the editorial concludes.