Roosevelt Says U.S. Efforts to Save Jews of Europe Will Not Cease Until Nazis Crushed

The government of the United States is greatly interested in the plight of the Jews in Europe and will not cease its attempts to save those who can be rescued “until the Nazi power is forever crushed,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared in a message to the Emergency Conference to Save the Jews of Europe made public here today. The President’s message, which was accompanied by a message from Secretary of State Cordell Hull, declared:

“I am glad to transmit a message from the Honorable Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, which has my full concurrence. You are aware of the interest of this Government in the terrible condition of the European Jews and of our repeated endeavors to save those who could be saved. These endeavors will not cease until Nazi power is forever crushed.”

The Secretary of State’s message stated, in part, that: “The rescue of the Jewish people, of course, and of other peoples likewise marked for slaughter by Nazi savagery, is under constant examination by the State Department, and any suggestion calculated to that end will be gladly considered. An intergovernmental agency has been created designed to deal with these problems. You will readily realize that no measure is practicable unless it is consistent with the destruction of Nazi tyranny; and that the final defeat of Hitler and the rooting out of the Nazi system is the only complete answer. This Government in cooperation with the British Government has agreed upon those measures which have been found to be practicable under war conditions and steps are now being taken to put them into effect.”

Speaking on behalf of the Conference, Prof. Max Lerner welcomed the messages from the President and Secretary of State Hull as “generous and sympathetic,” but declared that the intergovernmental agency created by the United States and Britain is not adequate to meet the problem of saving the Jews. “Only a governmental agency specifically charged with the task of saving the Jewish people in Europe and given sufficient authority to act can successfully accomplish the task,” he said. Since it does not consider that its efforts have been completed the Conference has decided to become the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, Prof, Lerner announced.

Addressing the conference this afternoon, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York demanded that the governments of all the United Nations announce now that those Nazi leaders responsible for the slaughter of the Jews will be tried for murder after the war. Pointing out that our government cannot urge other nations to act before it does so itself, Mayor La Guardia urged the admittance of refugees to the United States. He emphasized, however, that emigration is not a solution to the problem of the Jews and other minorities, who, he said, must be guaranteed equal rights in all countries.