Speech #780145179

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I wish to offer my sincere congratulations and praise to the President and to the State Department for their announced setting up of a War Refugee Board to take action for the immediate rescue from the Nazis of as many as possible of the persecuted minorities of Europe. This War Refugee Board. comprised of Secretaries of State. War. and Treasury. has been asked by the President to cooperate fully with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The President stresses. says the White House statement. "that it was urgent that action be taken at once to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities in Europe." We had at Evian a conference back in 1938 for the rescue of refugees. We had a Bermuda conference last year. Unfortunately those two conferences involved blueprints. surveys. plans. explorations. but no action. Whatever relief there was you could have put intoa very tiny capsule. Now there will be a repetition of those two failures unless the President and the State. War. and Treasury Departments appoint to t7.) War Refugee Board a personnel and aides who are liberal and courageous in their outlook and who are generoushearted. and who are saturated with the knowledge of oppressed peoples and who. above all. recognize "the soft. sad music of humanity." One of the reasons why unfortunately those two prior conferences did not emerge successfully was due to a certain unfortunate attitude on the part of some of the men in the State Department. who guided more or less the views of one delegate. Luckily the ma:i particularly who is in charge of refugees and visas in the State Department. and who directed the Bermuda policies. is on his way out. It augurs well. therefore. that this new Refugee Board will be unaffected and not influenced by this particular gentleman. Eight valuable years have been lost since Evian. In the meanwhile over 3.000.000 Jews have been slaughtered in "Festung Europa." but only after they have gone through the most excruciating pain and torture. For these 8 years we have been repeatedly told only through victory can we achieve rescue of refugees. Meanwhile millions are dead and dying. The dead need no rescue.