George Rublee returned today from his six month mission as director of the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, convinced that the emigration terms he negotiated in Berlin would result in “great alleviation” of the Jewish plight in Germany. The plan, Mr. Rublee told reporters on board the Queen Mary, will make it possible for 150,000 Jews to emigrate within an “outside limit” of five years and “will make possible orderly emigration, instead of the chaotic exodus existing until now.”
The principal problems now facing the Intergovernmental Committee, the 70-year-old Washington lawyer and friend of President Roosevelt said, are (1) to find places for the emigrants to go to and (2) to find a means of financing the emigration. Regarding the first, Mr. Rublee said that investigations were now in progress or contemplated in British and Dutch Guiana, in the Dominican Republic, where he said there were “good possibilities,” Northern Rhodesia and in the Philippine Islands, specifically the island of Mindanao.
Regarding the second, he said that it would cost at least $1,000 for each emigrant — more if mass colonization was contemplated — (thus making a minimum of $150,000,000 for the 150,000 proposed emigrants). The core of the solution of the financial problem, he said, would be a private international corporation which would raise its funds through a loan or in any other way it sees fit.
Mr. Rublee declined to discuss the nature of the memorandum containing the German Government’s “unilateral” terms on emigration, but he did state that he believed there would be no further anti-Jewish excesses in Germany like the November pogroms and he also stated that the emigration plan did not involve increased commercial export of German goods.
“I held three talks with Dr. Hjalmar Schacht (then president of the Reichsbank) and nine with Dr. Helmut Wohlthat (ministerial director of the Economics Ministry),” Mr. Rublee said, “The result was that I brought back to report to the Intergovernmental Committee a document which set forth what the German Government is willing to do in order to make emigration orderly instead of chaotic.”
While the Intergovernmental Committee is concerned with refugees regardless of race, the plan negotiated in Berlin covers only Jewish emigration, Mr. Rublee said, because “the German Government refused to negotiate about the non-Jews.” Asked what faith he put in the likelihood that the German Government would carry out its terms, Mr. Rublee said he was convinced that the officials who negotiated with him were “sincere” and “in earnest” and said he understood that they had their orders from the highest authorities. He said he believed that Dr. Schacht’s removal as Reichsbank president had no connection with the negotiations.
Mr. Rublee will report to Secretary of State Cordell Hull next week and will see President Roosevelt sometime later.
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