Ousting of American consular officials from Poland by the Nazi authorities has raised the problem of how to distribute the approximately 5,000 immigration visas available for Poland under the present American quota, expiring at the end of June.
Hardly more than a thousand visas have been issued under the present quota of 6,000, since distribution was halted when the war began. More than 5,000 applicants registered with the American consulate in Warsaw for years could be rescued from Nazi-occupied Poland if they were able to utilize the unissued visas.
The HIAS-ICA Emigration Association here has advised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York of the situation in the hope that some action can be taken on the American side to find a way out-of the impasse.
One possible solution would be for the American consuls, who are now in Berlin, to make periodic visits to Polish territory to distribute the quota visas assuming that obstacles to this plan can be surmounted.
There are also thousands of Polish citizens outside Poland who have applied for visas. The visas might be assigned to them if it proved impossible to issue them within Poland. Such applicants are clamoring for visas from American consulates in Lithuania, Rumania, Hungary, France and England.
At present, American consulates in these countries are restricted in the number of visas they may issue to Polish citizens. The American consulate in Paris can issue 10 to 15 monthly, in contrast with the thousands of applicants, who include many Polish Jews who had lived in Germany before the war. Other Polish Jews are still in Germany.
Polish citizens in Germany may be the beneficiaries of the undistributed visas when the Warsaw American consulate establishes itself in Berlin.
The American procedure regarding Russia furnishes a precedent for reassigning the visas. While no American immigration visas have been issued within Soviet Russia for the past 20 years, visas under the Russian quota are issued to persons outside Russia who can prove that they were born in Russia.
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.
