U.S. Army Transfers to I.r.o Authority to Remove Jewish Refugees from Dp Camps

The removal of Jewish refugees from camps for displaced persons into refugee centers will from now on be conducted by the International Refugee Organization according to an agreement reached hers today between the U.S. my and the I.R.O.

The agreement affects Jews from Rumania and Hungary who entered the U.S. zone a Germany after April 21, 1947. Those Jewish refugees are not classified as displaced persons and, under the existing regulations, cannot remain in DP camps or be ?ven any food rations which the Army supplies to displaced persons. During the past seek several hundred have been removed by the Army from DP camps in which they lived ##nce their “illegal” entrance into the U.S. zone.

German officials are seeking to set up a single camp for all “illegal” refugees in a former Wehrmacht barracks near Mittenwald, near the Austrian border, but ?is may meet with the opposition of the American military authorities who want the I.R.O. to supervise the Jewish refugee centers.

The U.S. Army has begun to issue new identity cards to all displaced persons already holding cards. The document bears the fingerprints and photograph of the dearer and is issued to all camp residents, including infants. Army authorities emphasized that issuance of the cards was not a screening operation, but was designed or the “protection and care of DP’s legally resident” in the camps.

Brig. Gen. Thomas Harrold chief of the Army’s civil affaire division, today assured the Central Jewish Committee that German police will not be allowed to enter Jewish DP camps to make arrests as has been requested by German officials. A delegation from the Committee told Gen. Harrold that the displaced Jews could never permit the entry of the Germans into their camps and warned that if such permission were ranted, the only result would be bloodshed.