Status of Stateless Refugees Will Soon Be Stabilized in Liberated Countries

Stateless persons in France, Belgium and Holland will not have to wait until the entire military operation is completed before taking the preliminary steps toward acquiring a home, Patrick Malin, vice director of the Inter-governmental Committee on Refugees, said today.

Malin, who recently returned from London to attend the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitations meeting in Montreal told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that a French national, nominated by the French government, will be named to represent the Inter-governmental Committee within a matter of days. “Then,” he said, “the question of the future of stateless persons, those holding Nansen passports, and the Spanish political refugees will be given immediate attention.”

Declaring that he “pessimistically estimated that at least 10 percent of the 25,000,000 displaced persons would not be able to be repatriated during the first mass repatriation,” Malin said there were for the “non-repatriables” three possibilities, 1. the eventual return to former places of residence over a longer period of time; 2. the creation of new homes–through immigration or settlement; 3. absorption in the country of asylum.

Only a small part of the two and one half-million non-repatriables will be Jews, Malin predicted, because of the mass exterminations. Displaced Dutch, French, and Belgian Jews are expected to return home, and only small numbers of Austrian and German Jews still remain alive. Those who emigrated early in the Hitler regime will probably want to remain in their adopted countries, Malin contended.

Asked about Palestine, Malin said that the Inter-governmental Committee could have no “political opinion” about the country but that every attempt would be made to use as much of the immigration quota as possible for refugees.