Major American Jewish Organization Oppose Ethnic Basis for Dp Selection

Major national and local Jewish organizations today told a Congressional committee holding hearings on immigration that they objected strongly to the provision in the Displaced Persons Act which allocates 50 percent of German and Austrian quotas to the so-called Volksdeutsche or “ethnic Germans,” were expelled from Eastern Europe, and that they “vigorously opposed” the prorating of visas among the elements or groups composing the DP population.

In a written statement presented to the Sub-committee on Immigration of the ##se Judiciary Committee, the Jewish organizations urged that the benefits of the DP ## be extended to displaced persons who managed to establish themselves temporarily outside the zones now covered by the law, and that the cut-off date be advanced to January 1, 1949. This would “extend relief to displaced persons who are recent victims of totalitarianism.”

The statement vas submitted in behalf of six national Jewish organizations–American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans, Union of American Hebrew Congregations–and twenty-six local Jewish councils in all parts of the country, by Lester ##tteman, chairman of the committee on immigration of the national Community Relations Advisory Council, a coordinating body.