A resolution urging displaced Jews in Europe to “think profoundly” and wait before deciding to return to Poland was adopted here at the two-day country-wide conference of the Austrian Refugee Freeland League. Twenty-two delegates, claiming to represent 3,000 displaced Jews in nine camps in Austria who are affiliated with the League, participated in the parley.
Emphasizing that the displaced Jews have been “thrown into utter despair” by the American DP immigration law “which practically excludes the Jewish displaced” persons,” the resolution appealed to Jewish communities in Latin America, South Africa and Australia to support the “liquidation of the camps in Germany, Austria and Italy” and stressed that the “Surinam project must be realized in the near future because it is our hope for a new and peaceful life.”
The realization of the Surinam project–which provides for the resettlement of 30,000 refugee Jews on the Butch Island in the West Indies –“can in no way be locked on as a rivalry or hindrance to Israel,” the conference resolution said. It greeted the Jewish state and declared that “Israel must become the outpost in the struggle for life of Jewish communities throughout the world.”
In a special appeal to American Jewry, the Refugee Freeland League called open the Joint Distribution Committee, HIAS, the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Labor Committee to “join immediately in the effort for beginning the immigration to and the colonization of Surinam.” The appeal warned that unless a “united and earnest effort is made to dissolve the DP camps, the demoralization of the Jews in them will increase to such an extent that for years to come it will not be possible to ameliorate this situation.”
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.
