Text of Mcdonald Speech

(The following is the full text of the speech delivered by James G. McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for refugees from Rome to the United Jewish Appeal at the Hotel Commodore.)

“Though 4,000 miles away I welcome this opportunity to take part in the New York opening of the United Jewish Campaign for the aid of refugees from Germany. Tonight fresh from visits to ten refugee centers in as many countries, I will try to give thorough and complete examples picturing some of the phases of the actual situation.

“If you who are listening could sense as we do here on this side of the water the poignant suffer### and the desperate needs of thousands of helpless men, women and children, exiles because of race, religion or political opinion, your response would at once assure essential funds for relieving the destitute and to enable them rebuild their lives elsewhere.

VISITS WITH REFUGEES

“Let me therefore take you with me, figuratively of course, for a series of visits to the refugees. A fortnight ago in London I talked with the wife of a young exiled doctor, a specialist in skin diseases. Because he was Jewish, and too young to have fought in the World War, he was unable to continue his practice and had no choice but to leave his homeland. He repeatedly tried to secure permission to practice elsewhere in Europe, but rigid restrictions made this impossible.

“Now he is in Paris waiting with Diminishing hope for an opening overseas. In the meantime the family’s reserves have been exhausted and the wife with an infant child have been given shelter in an English home. ‘I am willing to go anywhere and do anything provided my husband is given permission to practice,’ the wife said, adding that ‘the endless waiting is more than I can bear.’

“That story could be told of hundreds of doctors, lawyers and professors whose conditions grow worse daily, for the committees caring for the refugees are having growing difficulties in securing funds; and some, like the Geneva committee, will be compelled to discontinue their work altogether unless they receive prompt aid from America.

“In Paris last week I listened to accounts from four coordinated Jewish organizations trying to liquidate the refugee problem in the French capital. Much has already been done, but the seepage of refugees from Germany continues. Meanwhile those who had funds are reduced also to ask for help.

VIENNA HARD PRESSED

“Vienna is pressed by the recent tragedy and the threatening clouds of the future. Even there the Jewish community is trying to help the refugees, but funds are lacking and outside aid is imperative.

“Prague is next to Paris as a center for German exiles. There the Jewish organizations are working in full harmony and assisting each other. The efforts in behalf of the non-Jews are headed by a Jewish woman, who has secured permission from the government to allow twenty refugee families to live in a hunting lodge near Prague. Tragedies are not lacking and the community needs help to carry on work for the non-Jews.

“In Warsaw the plight of the refugees is desperate. The Jewish community there is so poor that it can do but little, though it does that bit generously. I visited the Jewish quarter in Warsaw and also the villages, where the young men ardently desire to go to Palestine. In one village I was shown the local treasure, which consisted of a colored sketch of a Palestinian scene with Weizmann and Sokolow in the center. This sketch embodied the most cherished hope of thousands of Polish Jews to settle eventually in the Jewish National Home. Everything which increases the absorptive capacity of Palestine helps to solve related refugee problems.

“In another village I was shown in a cooperative loan office the entries recording the advances made by the Joint Distribution Committee and I realized how much these loans so far away meant to tens of thousands who were enabled to earn a livelihood. But whatever was done by American money is only a fraction of what should be done if these families are to be raised to the living standard of even the American poor.

“In Copenhagen and Stockholm local committees are doing their utmost for the refugees, but local resources are nearing exhaustion. In Holland the government donated a tract of land for training the refugees in agriculture. This is a model enterprise which can be followed everywhere if necessary, to readjust the refugees from the city to the land. In Brussels and Antwerp, committees are working actively.

“Thus in all countries bordering Germany, national committees are striving to meet the problem thrust upon them by conditions in Germany. The inevitable question is, are these conditions improving? I wish I could answer yes, but I cannot.

“Within the last few years there has been distributed through the length and breadth of Germany a special issue of a virulent anti-Semitic publication. That paper features the most grotesque, cruel and absurd charges which have been made against the Jews within 1,500 years. Shocking, lurid illustrations depicting beastly scenes. Incitement for unreasoning violence could hardly go further. This is the culmination of years of a campaign of racial and religious hatred against an innocent and helpless people.

APPEALS TO AMERICA

“Surely under the circumstances America should spare no effort to support Jewish religious, philanthropic and cultural institutions in Germany. In all the neighboring countries the refugees’ problem of how to remain is most difficult. Committees with outside help can carry on the daily relief work, but to restrain the refugees for immigration and settlement in Palestine and elsewhere, larger funds are needed from America and England.

“The British group is approaching its goal and the results of the effort in America will be watched with anxious interest. This is not merely a relief problem, although relief is sorely needed. This is a question of the fundamental human rights. A few days ago there appeared in the Voelkische Beobachter, which is the official Nazi organ, an article referring to the work of the High Commissioner under the headline, ‘Kein Interesse Mehr Fuer Die Emigraten.’

“That is a challenge for you. You can meet it effectively by a generous response to the appeals made to you.”