American and British consulates in Germany cooperated during the Reich anti-Jewish excesses of November, 1938, to save Jews from arrest by providing them with documents indicating emigration, it was revealed today by R.T. Smallbones, former British consul at Frankfort-am-Main.
“Some of us who had seen the sufferings of the people in Germany persuaded the British Government to allow us to grant transmigration visas which would enable refugees to get out of Germany quickly and to stay two years in the United Kingdom awaiting the opportunity to emigrate to the United States and other countries,” Smallbones told the News-Chronicle.
“I worked closely with my American colleague at Stuttgart and as soon as the formalities for immigration to the United States were complete I would issue a ‘letter of promise’ which gave the refugee promise of a British visa when he could obtain his passport. These ‘letters of promise’ were regarded almost as talismans, for with them relatives of men in concentration camps could obtain their release, and possession made the holders safe against further molestation by the police and S.S. (elite guards).
“During the worst of the terror we were besieged with applicants for letters, often trying to deal with as many as 800 to 1,000 daily. People would begin to gather in the consulate garden long before dawn and by 9 o’clock, when we opened the doors, there would be hundreds waiting.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
