Senate Resolution Asks Use of Ellis Island As “free Port” for Refugees

A resolution urging the U. S. Government to provide a temporary haven of refuge for Jews from Nazi Europe at Ellis Island and other special centers was introduced in the Senate yesterday by Sen. Guy Gillette of Iowa.

In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today, Senator Gillette said that he hoped for Presidential action even before passage of the resolution. “The resolution is, at bast,” he said, “but the expression of the views of the Senate. It urges the President to provide temporary havens, and it was introduced to crystallize the opinion of the Senate so that the President might feel free to act.”

The measure makes the War Refugee Board responsible for determining the groups to be accepted, and provides that “transportation and other facilities be made available, consistent with the effective prosecution of the war.” The victims of Nazi oppression would be maintained “until the President has determined that they may be returned to their homeland without undue risk to their personal safety.”

Declaring that the War Refugee Board has “accomplished wonderful things, but it has reached a point where it needs help.” Gillette stressed that his resolution “has nothing to do with Palestine or with the political problems involving providing a homeland for the Jewish people. It has nothing to do with changing in any way our immigration laws or policies.”

“We have in this country at the present month more than 100,000 prisoners of war,” Gillette told the Senate. “We are feeding and clothing them, and when the war is over they will be returned safely to their homes. We ought at least to do this much for the thousands of harmless and defenseless people who are the especial victims of Nazi brutality and sadism and who have committed no crimes but have been marked for brutal death for no reason other than their racial derivation or religious adherence.”