The World Jewish Congress today urged the International Refugee Organization to drop its contemplated plan to consolidate DP camps in Germany. The W.J.C. charged that such action would mean that Jewish DP’s would be placed in the same camps with non-Jewish groups.
In a letter to J. Donald Kingsley, I.R.O. director-general, Dr. Robert Marcus, political director of the W.J.C., pointed out that “since many of the non-Jewish DP’s are openly anti-Semitic, it would not be in the best interests of all concerned to house Jews and non-Jews in the same camps.” He said that only 11,000 Jewish DP’s remain in Germany and that by the end of this year they would all be resettled in Israel or elsewhere. Dr. Marcus stressed it would be unwise to change the policy of separate DP camps for Jews and non-Jews.
Mr. Kingsley, in a radio broadcast today, called the world refugee problem “a formidable and expanding time bomb” and issued a warning on the fate of DP’s left in Germany. He said: “I dread to think of what will happen in Germany if any large numbers of the displaced persons are left there when the I.R.O. goes out of existence early next spring. Already, German newspapers are beating the drums against them–against these people who suffered for so long at their hands.”
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.
