Speech #900211085

That was the terrible tragic fact. Here I speak from personal knowledge for I peddled my poor unwanted wares to the capitals of the western world where there was no readiness anywhere to accept any considerable number of surviving Jewish displaced persons. I testified here in Washington in the spring of 1947 before a House Committee concerned with the Stratton Bill to liberalize U.S. immigration quotas. By the time the Eightieth Congress had finished with this bill it became legislation not to admit but to exclude considerable numbers of Jewish displaced persons who came from eastern Europe. Then Israel burst into existence and for the first time in nineteen centuries Jewish immigration was in Jewish hands. Almost overnight the displaced persons camps were liquidated. All Jews not only the young and the strong. but the old and the infirm. the halt and the blind. the widows and the orphans. all were welcomed home.