The 32 governments participating in the refugee-aid conference agreed today to constitute the conference as a permanent institution which will meet from time to time. The next session will open in London August 3 and the governments will be represented by their diplomatic representatives in London.
The United States will be represented by Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, but Myron C. Taylor, American delegate to the Evian conference, and other members of the American delegation will remain in Europe to participate in the meeting. A permanent secretariat will also be established in London with an American as permanent director of its activities and the chairman expected to be an Englishman.
The terms of reference worked out today must be approved by the participating governments before the August session. It is learned that the terms are so worded as not to exclude the possibility that the conference will eventually deal with the problem of refugees from other countries besides Germany and Austria.
Most Jewish and non-Jewish private delegations left Evian tonight expressing satisfaction and optimism over the outcome of the conference. Rabbi Jonah B. Wise and Dr. Bernhard Kahn, of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, before leaving submitted to the conference a statement summarizing the organization’s work for refugees and expressing the hope that governments participating in the conference would endeavor to discourage legal and other discriminations against refugees.
The statement urged the opening of negotiations with the German Government to obtain permission for Jewish emigrants to take out capital. It endorsed the recommendations of the Liaison Committee of the League of Nations High Commission for German Refugees and demanded provisional asylum rights for those whose life and liberty were endangered.
The statement gave assurances that the J.D.C. would cooperate with other organizations in finding possibilities of overseas settlement, but disagreed with statements that the problem could be solved by mass settlement in some empty country. Such settlement, it was stated, might be valuable in addition to individual immigration.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
