Major Eliot Attacks Meader Report on Displaced Jews for “distortions and Inaccuracies”

The charge that the situation of the displaced Jews in the U.S. zone in Germany, as presented to the Senate War Investigating Committee by its counsel George Meader, is “distorted into an ugly picture” is made today by Maj. George F. Eliot in an article in the New York Herald-Tribune. (The section of the report dealing with DP’s was first revealed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Nov. 22.)

Emphasizing that he recently visited the U.S. zones in Europe and studied the problems of the displaced Jews, Maj. Eliot says that the Meader report cannot be taken seriously because it contains many false statements. He takes issue particularly with the part of the report which says that the Army authorities suspect that the Joint Distribution Committee is financing the transportation of Jews fleeing into the American zone.

“This can only be characterized as either a deliberate or a grossly negligent distortion of the truth,” Major Eliot states. “The slightest inquiry would have enabled Mr. Meader to discover that the influx of Jewish refugees has its origin in Poland, that virtually all those reaching the American zone are Polish Jews fleeing for their lives from the rising horror of anti-Semitic outbreaks in their native country, and that the borders of the American zone of Germany are open to them by the settled, humanitarian policy of the United States government and the Army authorities.

“Furthermore, the slightest inquiry would have enabled Mr. Meader to find out that the American Joint Distribution Committee, financed by the contributions of American can Jews through the United Jewish Appeal, has been engaged wholly in the humanitarian task of caring for the frightened, suffering Jewish population of Europe, in Poland and in every other country where there are Jews remaining alive after the Hitlerian holocaust. The Joint Distribution Committee takes care of these people wherever it finds them–at home or on the move, in camps or in cities.

“Of its work, the Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, said only last Monday, addressing the annual convention of the United Jewish Appeal: “There is meanwhile the need to lighten the load these victims of Nazism carry, to alleviate the hardships of their present existence to bring cheer to them in their plight, to make provision for their resettlement in brighter lands. It is a pressing need. Your response has been generous and whole-hearted in the past. I am confident that you will carry on the work so well begun. Does Mr. Meader want this work discontinued? And why does he try to give the impression that the Army wants it discontinued?”

RIDICULES MEADER’S SNEERING REMARKS; DOUBTS HIS ABILITY AS INVESTIGATOR

“As for Mr. Meader’s sneering remark that the Jewish refugees “all seem to be coming into our zone,” how does it happen that Mr. Meader did not trouble to inform himself that the American zones of Germany and Austria are the only places in Europe where a Jew fleeing from anti-Semitic terror in Poland or elsewhere in eastern Europe can be sure of refuge and shelter?

“Again to quote the Secretary of War: ‘Hundreds of thousands of homeless people have found their way to the United States zones of military occupation in Europe. They have been given a temporary haven in their flight from misery and persecution. Their gratitude has been shown by prayers and tears. Many of them the Army was under no obligation to receive. Closing of the zone borders had been sanctioned by Allied agreement. Yet the American heart, sympathetic to the oppressed, could not fall back on legalistic decision. The Army took these people in, fed them, clothed them and gave them shelter.

“These are all established facts, quite available to Mr. Meader. They are known to every American reporter in Germany, or who has recently been in Germany. They are facts in which every American should take pride. But in Mr. Meader’s report they are distorted into an ugly picture, with a hint of some underhanded conspiracy in the background. There seems to be something wrong with Mr. Meader’s ability as an investigator–or perhaps his heart is less sympathetic to the oppressed than it is to an opportunity for partisan criticism.”