The national executive committee of the American Jewish Congress, at its meeting here last night, issued a warning to Jews in this country against understanding results of the local elections recently held in several West German states which were marked by victories for neo-Nazi groups. The meeting was attended by 50 members from various cities.
Pointing out that a recent criticism survey by the occupation authorities in West Germany had revealed that active resistance to a Nazi revival could be recruited from an more than 20% of the population, the A.J.C. executive committee urged the West German Government and the Allied authorities to take “the strongest measures against the Fascists and non-Nazi groups and their spokesmen to make certain that the current towards the revival of Nazism does not swell into a flood destroying any hope for a stable democracy in Germany.”
Shad Polier, chairman of the executive, pointed out that the revelation by the State Department that its Visa Nazism is drafting regulations which will make former and even present members of the Nazi, Fascist or Falangist parties immediately eligible for immigration into the United States should convince even “the most skeptical of the urgency of scrapping the McCarren-Walter Immigration Act, which is scheduled to go into effect on December 24.”
Deploring the fact that no action to repeal the measure can be taken until Congress meets in January, Mr. Polier urged that in the meantime President Truman and Secretary of State ### “should take immediate action to put a stop to this dangerous nonsense.” Under the Act, Mr. Polier pointed out, members of any “totalitarian” group may be admitted as immigrants if they can prove that they actually opposed totalitarianism for five years or were “involuntary members.”
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.
