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Efforts to Secure Stay for Shanghai Dp’s in U.S. Fail; Must Leave Today for Germany

June 21, 1950
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The group of 108 DP’s who entered the United States from Shanghai will be shipped to Germany tomorrow aboard the U.S. naval transport General Sturgis, a spokesman for the Justice Department said this afternoon. All but 15 of them are Jewish.

The group will go back to Germany to await screening by the International Refugee Organization. It was reported here, however, that President Truman has issued orders to John J. McCloy, U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, specifying that the group is to be granted temporary haven in Germany in an I.R.O. DP camp rather than in a German administered camp. When and if they pass screening requirements, they will be returned to the U.S. on an I.R.O. ship. It was pointed out here that their return to Germany, where members of the group once suffered in DP camps, was due to technicalities in the DP law.

Accepting an offer by United Service for New Americans to defray all cable costs, the State Department today cabled a list of the refugees to American consulates in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Yokahama, Manila, Breman, Hamburg, Frankfort and Munich, and instructed the consuls to search their files for the dossiers of members of the group. Location of the dossiers would make it necessary for the refugees to undergo again the preliminary screening required before a U.S. visa can be issued. The consuls have been advised to forward any dossiers they find in their files to Washington or to a central point in Germany, where the refugees will be screened.

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