Memorandum on Equal Rights for Jews Submitted to All Nations Attending Peace Conference

A memorandum submitted on June 28 to the Big Four Foreign Ministers on behalf of the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Conference and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which stressed that the position of the surviving Jews in Europe must be regarded as a matter of international concern, was distributed today to the delegations of the other seventeen countries meeting here at the Peace Conference.

Jews living in former enemy countries, although safeguarded by the fundamental laws governing the rest of the population, require the protection of an appropriate international authority, the memorandum said. It added that although the United Nations charter promises universal protection of human rights, this promise has no legal or practical bearing on Jewish problems which should be dealt with in the peace treaties.

The United Nations, the memorandum stated, has not yet been given the power to protect human rights, nor does it possess the machinery to take over the tasks of restitution of property, rehabilitation and resettlement, provision for which can, and should, be made in the peace settlements. The statement goes on to say that although it is recognized that the situation in each country differs, certain principles characteristic of all emerge. These are:

Former enemy countries should be compelled to abrogate all discriminatory laws and all disabilities arising from them and they should dissolve and ban all fascist bodies and organizations. These provisions should be permanently incorporated into the country’s fundamental legislation, and laws should be enacted which would make incitement to racial and religious hatreds violations of criminal law.

JEWS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO MAINTAIN RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

Also, persons who committed crimes against Jews should be prosecuted and punished as guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity; there should be full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms; there should be inalienable rights for the Jewish communities to maintain and foster their collective ethnic, religious, and cultural identity, and these institutions should receive the said protection and assistance from the government granted other groups.

Also, there should be by simple, speedy procedure full restitution and reestablishment of Jewish private and institutional properties, rights, interests and positions, and compensation for all losses should be granted; Jews of former enemy nationality should be exempted from all measures of expropriation and confiscation applied to and charged upon former enemy nationals; since existing legislation regarding the disposition of heirless property was not intended to deal with the problems arising out of mass annihilation and cannot therefore be applied to the heirless property of many thousands of murdered Jews, the peace treaties should include provisions transferring such property to an appropriate Jewish body which can use it for rehabilitation, reconstruction and resettlement.

Wherever territorial changes take place Jews should have the same right to choose their nationality as other sections of the population; finally, Jews should be guaranteed the right of emigration from the former enemy countries.

The Hungarian Government was urged in the memorandum to maintain perpetually the cemeteries of the destroyed Jewish communities and to pay the costs of exhumation to Jewish burial places of those Jews who died as a result of persecution. The statement also urged that the Jews in Libya be guaranteed their cultural and religious traditions and be allowed the autonomous administration of their internal affairs.

It was announced that at a later date a memorandum outlining the final proposals for securing Jewish rights in the satellite countries would be submitted to the Peace Conference, as well as to the individual delegations, either by the World. Jewish Congress, American Jewish Conference and the Board of Deputies of British Jews alone or in conjunction with other Jewish organizations.