American Jewish Organizations Submit Plans to the Bermuda Conference

The Joint Emergency Committee for Jewish Affairs, consisting of the leading national Jewish organizations in the United States, today announced that it has submitted to the State Department-for transmission to the Bermuda Conference-a far-reaching program which includes a number of specific proposals on rescuing the Jews in Europe.

The Committee’s program, developed in a comprehensive memorandum, proposes that the United Nations approach Germany and other Axis countries on the matter of permitting Jews to emigrate, and that a number of sanctuaries be set up for refugees in Allied and neutral countries. To provide such sanctuaries, the committee urges that immigration barriers in the United States, England, Latin America and Palestine be adjusted, and the possibilities in several British territories, in Africa and the Caribbean, be explored. Financial guarantees are suggested for “such neutral states as have given temporary refuge to Jews coming from Nazi-occupied territories and to provide for their feeding and maintenance and eventual evacuation.”

The memorandum also proposes the establishment of an intergovernmental agency fully empowered to take appropriate measures for the provision of international identification passports for stateless refugees, and for the organization of a system for the feeding of Jewish persons held within Axis countries. The Joint Emergency Committee consists of representatives of the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, Jewish Labor Committee, American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, Synagogue Council of America, Union of Orthodox Rabbis, the American section of Agudath Israel and United Palestine Appeal, with the Joint Distribution Committee and the General Jewish Council represented by observers.

The World Jewish Congress today announced that it has addressed a memorandum to the Bermuda Conference asking for effective measures to save Jews in Nazi countries as well as the delivery of food to Jews in the ghettos. A memorandum to the Bermuda parley was also sent by the ORT.