Official Washington will ignore the message to President Roosevelt of Frank van Gildemeester, Dutch Protestant president of the International Committee to Aid Jewish Emigres, asking for aid in floating a $50,000 bond issue in the United States to finance a colonization project in Ethiopia, a source close to the White House said today. Gildemeester’s record and his alleged connections with the Gestapo in Vienna are well known to the State Department, it was said.
Gildemeester’s message to the President said: “I speak to you in the name of tens of thousands who are convinced that only colonization on a large scale can finally guarantee that the Jews may keep clear out of pogroms. Plans for such colonization have been prepared for over a year with firm intentions and with site in Ethiopia. I know full well that the American people and their President have never failed to serve humanity.
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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.