The hope that the forthcoming Bermuda Conference on refugee problems “will not be a repetition of the Evian conference” and that Jews will be represented there and Jewish views heard, was voiced today by Prof. Selig Brodetsky, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, addressing a conference called by British Jewish organizations to demand action to rescue European Jews.
Referring to the United States State Department’s note proposing the parley, in which it was declared that action is not intended to aid “any particular race or faith” and a similar statement in the House of Lords by Viscount Cranborne, Prof, Brodetsky emphasized that “on no other people has a declaration of death been pronounced.”
The meeting today urged that the Bermuda Conference decide on the following twelve practical measures to aid the Jews in Europe:
1. Announcement by the Allied Governments that asylum will be found for all refugees who are able to flee Nazi-held territory.
2. Visas for Allied countries should be placed at the disposal of the consulates of neutral countries. The United States should consider filling its still unexhausted quotas for refugees.
3. Establishment of refugee camps in the territory controlled by the Allies
4. Full use of the especially favorable facilities for immigration offered by Palestine.
5. Transport and transit arrangements should be made as quickly as possible in order to utilize the 34,000 Palestine immigration certificates still available for Jews.
6. The emigration of Jews in the Balkan countries to Palestine should be facilitated by extending the transportation facilities from Turkey and Bulgaria.
7. Provision should be made for Allied and neutral shipping to transfer the refugees from Spain and Portugal to refugee camps in Palestine.
8. Assurances must be given to neutral countries concerning the maintenance of any refugees they admit.
9. International machinery should be set up to speed the rescue of the Jews
10. Nationals of the United Nations should be exchanged for nationals of the Axis powers.
11. Approach the British Dominions and Latin America for assistance in sheltering the refugees.
12. Approach Germany and her satellite states with the proposal that they allow the Jews, particularly children, to leave.
Speakers at the conference, in addition to Prof. Brodetsky, included M. Easternman, representing the World Jewish Congress, who stressed the fact that first reports of the atrocities against Jews began to leak out eighteen months ago and two to three million have been killed since, Berl Locker, speaking for the Jewish Agency, who denounced the White Paper of 1939 and demanded its abolition; H. A. Goodman of the Agudas Israel; Dr. Ignacy Schwartzbart and others.
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.
