Formation of a National Refugee Consultative Council was announced today by Dr. William Haber, executive director of the National Refugee Service. The council’s function will be to establish effective cooperation and clearance with the Committee for Catholic Refugees, the American Committee for Christian-German Refugees, the American Friends Service Committee and other groups engaged in refugee work.
In a report on the N.R.S. published in the current issue of Notes and News, organ of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, Dr. Haber announced that the organization’s resettlement department had resettled 2,044 persons in various parts of the country during the first eight months of 1939, as compared with 1,256 for the whole of the previous year.
Dr. Haber said that the N.R.S. employment department had made 369 placements during the month of August, an increase of 23 per cent over July, without in a single instance involving the replacement of an American worker.
The organization’s relief and service department, Dr. Haber reported, handled a total of 6,227 applications in August as compared with 4,402 in July. The work of this department has been considerably increased, Dr. Haber pointed out, “because newer arrivals are largely without resources, apply earlier for aid, and need many more types of service.” The department is concerned not only with emergency relief and maintenance, medical care and family service, but also with problems of adjustment to American social and economic conditions, and other forms of aid and guidance. Dr. Haber reported that the migration department received in August 8,318 requests for information, advice or some form of service by mail, and 3,048 applications in person.
Full-time field representatives have been assigned since Oct. 1 to each of seven regions, Dr. Haber disclosed, in which the department of research and statistics is assembling and analyzing refugee data designed to provide an accurate guide for the placement, retraining, resettlement and relief activites of the organization.
Concluding his report, Dr. Haber said that the N.R.S. “for the near future envisages careful exploration of the possibilities of placement of refugees in agriculture; an expansion of the vocational training activities; further extension of community organization and the furtherance of its resettlement program.”
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.
