War Refugee Board Report - Turkey
FINAL SUMMARY REPORT
OF THE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WAR REFUGEE BOARD.
Washington — September l5, 1945.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
WAR REFUGEE BOARD 506
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
Office of the
Executive Director
September l5, l945
The Honorable The Secretary of State
The Honorable The Secretary of the Treasury
The Honorable The Secretary of War
Sirs:
As Executive Director of the War Refugee Board, I have the honor to submit to you herewith my final summary report of the activities of the Board.
Respectfully,
William O’Dwyer
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction l
The Board, Its Functions and Staff 3
Members and Functions 3
Executive Director 4
Representatives Abroad 4
Washington Staff 6
Cooperation with Other Governments and International Organizations 7
Relations with Private Agencies 11
Government Funds for Board Purposes l4
Programs and Projects 16
1. Rescue l7
Rescue of Victims in the Balkans l9
Rescue from Sweden 27
Rescue from Switzerland 29
Rescue from Spain and Portugal 36
Special Negotiations for Release of Jews from the Nazis 39
2. Psychological Warfare 46
3. Relief 56
4. Havens of Refuge 6l
North Africa, Palestine, Italy and the Middle East 6l
The United States — Emergency Refugee Shelter, Oswego, New York 64
War Crimes 70
The Remaining Problem 72
INTRODUCTION
The Nazis, commencing in l933, undertook a sinister campaign to exterminate the Jews and other minority groups under their control as a principal means toward the ultimate subjugation of the free peoples of the world. Waged with fury and calculated determination, this campaign reached unprecedented heights in l943 when systematic mass murder in cold blood, mechanized atrocities, organized brutality and deliberate starvation were the order of the day for millions of innocent people in Nazi Europe. The conscience of democratic peoples everywhere was shocked and offended by such cold and thorough persecution of helpless peoples selected for death because of their race, religion or political belief.
The repulsion, abhorrence and anger aroused in Americans were manifested to the world when President Roosevelt, on January 22, l944, established a special governmental agency, the War Refugee Board, to rescue as many as possible of these helpless victims, as an integral part of the total war against Nazi principles. The Executive Order creating the Board declared: "It is the policy of this Government to take all measures within its power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death and otherwise to afford such victims all possible relief and assistance consistent with the successful prosecution of the war." This extraordinary Order not only stated the Government's policy in unmistakable - 2 - terms but provided the Board with the powers and the means necessary to carry it out. This report is a summary of how the Board translated the government's policy into action.
THE BOARD, ITS FUNCTIONS AND STAFF
The Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of War, the top-ranking Cabinet officers, were named the members of the Board, which was directly responsible to the President. High tribute is due Secretary Hull, Secretary Stettinius who succeeded Mr. Hull, Secretary Morgenthau and Secretary Stimson for the close personal attention they gave to-the problems of the Board in the midst of their other arduous war duties.
The functions of the Board as prescribed by the President included without limitation "the development of plans and programs and the inauguration of effective measures for (a) the rescue, transportation, maintenance and relief of the victims of enemy oppression, and (b) the establishment of havens of temporary refuge for such victims." The Board was directed to enlist through appropriate channels the cooperation and participation of foreign governments and to cooperate with existing international refugee, relief and rescue organizations in the execution of such plans and programs.
The State, Treasury and War Departments were directed to execute at the request of the Board such parts of the Board's plans, programs and measures falling within their respective spheres. All agencies and departments were directed to supply or obtain such information assistance, and facilities as the Board might require in carrying out the provisions of the Order. The Board and the three – 4- departments named were further authorized to accept the services or contributions of private persons or organizations, state agencies, or the agencies of foreign governments in carrying out the purposes of the Order. The full text of the Board's charter is attached as an exhibit to this report.
Executive Director
John W. Pehle, Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury and former Director of Treasury's Foreign Funds Control, was appointed Executive Director of the Board. He served most ably in this capacity until January 27, l945, when he resigned to take charge of the Treasury's Procurement and Surplus Property Division. Under Mr. Pehle1s brilliant guidance, the basic programs and policies were established that made possible the saving and protection of thousands of Nazi victims. Under my direction (since January 27, l945), the basic existing policies and programs were continued to the fullest extent possible. It became my chief task, however, to meet the intensified emergencies that developed in the months immediately preceding the surrender of Germany.
Special Representatives Abroad
Promptly upon the formation of the Board, steps were taken to station Special Representatives of the Board in the strategic areas of Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Great Britain, Italy and - 5 - North Africa. These representatives were accorded diplomatic status and designated as Special Attaches on war refugee matters to the respective United States Missions by the Department of State. War refugee matters in Spain and the Soviet Union were handled through the United States Embassies without special Board representation.
The Board's Special Representatives were not for the most part professional refugee relief workers. They were, however, men of outstanding competence who selflessly and devotedly tackled their difficult assignments of saving helpless people in the enemy's hands. The Board obtained extraordinary authority under the Trading with the Enemy Act for them and instructed them to cut red tape and take bold action wherever necessary. They had the task of handling Board relations with the respective United States Missions in an unprecedented and delicate field. In a few cases, with the consent of the local Mission, they even had to deal directly with representatives of the enemy. The only medium of communication with Washington and other Board offices abroad was by cable. . In the coordination and direction of the field operations of private agencies, the Board's representatives were obliged to distinguish between relief groups doing effective and honest work and those groups and individuals of dubious motives. In this difficult work, however, they were fortified by the strength of the full support they constantly received from the Board in Washington.
Washington Staff
The Board operated with a small staff in Washington composed largely of highly-trained professional people including several refugee specialists. This small staff which never exceeded 30 persons was possible both because of the competence and deep interest of the personnel and because, as authorized in its Executive Order, the Board utilized to the extent possible the personnel, supplies, facilities and services of the State, Treasury and War Departments.
- 7- COOPERATION WITH OTHER GOVERNMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
The Board from the outset made every effort to enlist the cooperation and participation of other governments and interested international organizations. All United States diplomatic officers abroad were instructed to aid in effectuating the Board's programs. They were directed to urge the governments to which they were accredited to lend every possible assistance to this Government's efforts to save the persecuted minorities in Nazi hands and to take affirmative action similar to that of the United States in creating a special War Refugee Board. Special instructions were sent to the United States Missions in neutral countries to urge those governments to accept all refugees who might succeed in reaching their borders and to make public that they would do so. At the same time, in order to facilitate acceptance of this proposal, the United States Government through the War Refugee Board assured the neutral governments that it would arrange for the maintenance of newly arrived refugees and for their evacuation to other places of safety as soon as possible.
The cooperation and help of strategic neutral countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey were keystones in many of the Board's programs.
The Holy See and the Vatican hierarchy throughout Europe were solicited time and again for special assistance both as a channel -8- of communication to the leaders and people of enemy territory and as a means of rendering direct aid to the suffering victims of Hitler. The Catholic clergy saved and protected many thousands and the Vatican rendered invaluable assistance to the Board and to the persecuted in Nazi hands.
The principal international organizations concerned with the problems of refugee rescue, maintenance, transportation, relief, rehabilitation and resettlement were the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Intergovernmental Committee was founded in l938, and included in its membership the United States, Great Britain, Russia, many of our other Allies and some of the neutral countries. The Committee's primary concern was the rehabilitation and resettlement of refugees, arid it had found it difficult for political and other reasons to undertake any rescue and relief operations in enemy territory. Shortly after its creation, the Board invited Sir Herbert Emerson, the Committee's director, to come to Washington for consultation." During his visit an agreement concerning working relations between the two organizations was reached. The Board's efforts to save and bring relief to victims inside enemy territory were to be assisted to the extent possible by the Intergovernmental Committee and the latter was to be supported by the Board in any rescue work the Committee might decide to finance or undertake. The two -9-organizations also agreed to keep each other advised of their respective programs and operations to prevent duplication and to ensure full support of programs requiring joint or cooperative effort. In addition, the Board obtained an allocation of $2,000,000 from the President's Emergency Fund for payment to the Committee as the United States Government's share of the Committee's l944 operational budget. The Committee spent the bulk of these funds for refugee relief operations in France, Hungary and Rumania, using the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee as its agent.
The Board asked for and obtained UNRRA help in connection with the finding of temporary shelters for rescued victims, for their transportation to such havens and their maintenance in transit. UNRRA camps in the Middle East, Italy and North Africa were prepared for the reception of thousands of rescued refugees from Yugoslavia, Italy and Spain.
The services of the neutral International Committee of the Red Cross were solicited and obtained chiefly for official Board relief deliveries inside enemy territory and as a channel of communication to Nazi officials and collaborators. The Board also appealed to the Committee time and time again to take direct and aggressive action to obtain humanitarian treatment for the helpless minorities being persecuted so viciously by the Germans. For many months, however, request after request from the Board met with the answer that the Germans would not permit the proposed action. During the - l0 - final months of the war, the International Red Cross undertook negotiations with the Germans and finally obtained permission to station personnel in the principal German concentration centers. The Committee in these last months also delivered Board food parcels by the thousands on trucks provided by the Board and manned with Red Cross personnel.
-11 - RELATIONS WITH PRIVATE AMERICAN RELIEF AGENCIES
The creation of the Board and the pronouncement of a firm national policy to save the persecuted minorities of Europe immediately placed the full force and prestige of the United States Government behind all efforts to save these innocent people. The established private American relief agencies concerned with refugee problems had for many years before the outbreak of war in Europe tried to save and bring relief to the victims of Nazi persecution. After hostilities commenced, the economic blockade of Europe and the prohibitions against trading or communicating with the enemy made it impossible for these agencies to continue to finance and carry out effective relief and rescue work inside German-controlled areas.
One of the most important functions of the War Refugee Board was to enable these private agencies fully to utilize their resources for rescue and relief work. They had seasoned personnel in the neutral countries, established contacts with underground and resistance workers in enemy territory, deep concern for the problem and quickly available funds. The Board requested all interested private organizations to submit plans and suggestions to the Board and to consult with and advise its staff concerning the development of techniques and programs. The response of the agencies was a - 12 - magnanimous offer to help the Board in all possible ways. The work of the Board became a joint undertaking of government and private agencies arid' valuable time was gained by making immediate use of all readily available facilities.
The Board operated where only a government could operate and the private agencies wherever they could. The Board obtained for the private agencies governmental permission to send funds into enemy territory, governmental permission to communicate with persons in enemy territory, the help of United States diplomats in dealing with other governments, the use of government communication channels, and the guidance of government officials in developing and organizing programs of rescue and relief in enemy territory.
The private agencies, on their part, rendered invaluable and outstanding service to the Board in the development, financing and execution of plans and projects. No feasible program suffered for lack of funds, because of the generosity of the private agencies..: The agencies which worked most closely with the Board were the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Vaad Hahatzala Emergency Committee of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish Labor Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People, the National Refugee Service, the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid - l3 - Society, Zionist Organization of America, the Poale Zionist Organization, the American Friends Service Committee, the Unitarian Service Committee, the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the American Christian Committee for Refugees, the International Rescue and Relief Committee, the A. F. of L. Labor League for Human Rights, the CIO War Relief Committee and the American Relief for Norway. Other organizations too numerous to mention which were interested in the Board's programs made many helpful contributions.
Approximately ?20,000,000 in private funds were licensed by the United States Treasury Department for transfer abroad for private rescue and relief projects, which were coordinated and carried out under the guidance and control of the Board's representatives abroad. Over ^15,000,000 were provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, over $l,000,000 by the Vaad Hahatzala Emergency Committee, and over £.300,000 by the World Jewish Congress.
- 14 - GOVERNMENT FUNDS FOR BOARD PURPOSES
The amount of government funds expended for all Board purposes was very small. Initially, arrangements were made with the Bureau of the Budget for the allocation from the President's Emergency Fund of $l,000,000 for administrative and other expenses of the Board. The Board spent approximately $4.65,000 of this amount, the balance being returnable to the President's Emergency Fund as unobligated during the period ending December 31, l944, or unexpended funds returned from abroad.
In conformity with the provisions of the Russell Amendment requiring Congressional appropriations for the operation beyond one year of agencies created by Executive Order, the Board in December 1944 requested and was granted an allocation by the Congress of the sum of $l50,000 from the President's Emergency Fund, to finance its administration and operations for the last six months of the fiscal year l945. From the unexpended balance of approximately $68,000 of this appropriation, the Board sought and obtained in June l945 permission from the Congress to use £l6,000 for expenses of liquidation in the fiscal year 1946.
The sums of $1,068,750 and $1,l25,000 from the Congressional Appropriation for Foreign War Relief were directed by the President on September l2, l944, and January 3l, l945, respectively, to be - 15 - allocated for the purchase, packaging and shipping of War Refugee Board food parcels destined for civilian detainees in German concentration camps.
Private donations totaling $l0l,374..00 were received by the government for War Refugee Board purposes. The largest donation of $l00,000 was made on January 27, l944., by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, and contributions of over a thousand dollars were received from individuals. All of these contributions wore used for Board projects and not for administrative expenses.
- 16-
PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS
The task of saving and bringing aid to innocent and helpless people in the hands of the enemy was complex, hazardous and difficult. The main obstacle which faced the Board was the adamant attitude of the enemy. The Nazis were determined to wipe out innocent minorities and did not regard them as being protected by any law, national or international. They would allow no consideration of conscience, decency or law to relax their grip on any of the peoples under their subjugation. Only considerations of the need for labor in the German war effort and possible advantage in retaining valuable hostages in case of defeat would govern the Nazis in allowing any of these people to live. Nevertheless, the Board, armed with the authority granted in its Executive Order, directly and forcefully attacked the problem within the framework of the successful prosecution of the United Nations war effort. Time was very short and the situation very extreme. The Board took the position from the beginning that precedent and red tape had to be eliminated and bold unprecedented action taken if any lives were to be saved.
The programs planned and developed by the Board were of four kinds. First, were the measures designed to save refugees from persecution and death by effecting their physical evacuation from - l7 - enemy territory, by concealing them from the enemy, or by arranging for their extraordinary acquisition of the status of protected nationalities. Second, were tho more widely aimed psychological measures which sought to influence the Hitlerite forces, particularly their subordinates and satellites, not to cooperate in the Nazi policy of persecution and extermination of minorities and in the atrocities against Jews and other civilians. Third, were the means by which the Board attempted to obtain better conditions for the deportees and detainees in German concentration camps and to sustain their lives until their ultimate rescue or liberation. Fourth, were the efforts made to find and establish temporary havens of refuge for those who could escape from enemy control.
1. Rescue
The operations planned and developed by the Board to pull victims out of enemy hands to; the safe neutral areas contiguous to . Nazi territory involved complex problems of planning, organization, coordination, negotiation and the use of unusual techniques. Full use had to be made of the "resourcefulness, ingenuity and contacts of resistance groups and underground operators. Evacuation from German-controlled territory for specially marked victims was not possible on an official and open basis. Funds and supplies were sent in to trusted agents in enemy areas to hide refugees from the – 18 - Nazis, maintain and safeguard them and transport them through underground channels to safety. Lesser German officials Wore bribed. False identification papers were supplied. Food was provided families of the resistance groups who concealed and protected the refugees. Border officials were bribed to pass refugees. Exit and entrance visas were procured and transportation by boat or by rail was' provided for evacuation to safe areas. Tens of thousands were rescued from tho Nazis by these clandestine means.
The financing of rescue operations by means of funds transferred from the United States was made possible by an important change in policy of the Treasury and State Departments immediately prior to the establishment of the Board. It was decided that the United States Government, in view of military developments favoring the Allied armies and because of the compelling humanitarian considerations, would permit established private agencies to transfer funds from the United States to their representatives in neutral countries to finance the rescue of persecuted peoples under Nazi control. A basic Treasury Department license under the Trading with the enemy Act was devised te cover all such transfers. This license authorized tho necessary communication with persons in enemy territory and the financing of rescue operations under specified controls and techniques designed to bring no financial benefit to the enemy. After the establishment of the Board all requests for licenses of this type were channeled through it and issued only upon its - 19 - recommendation, ensuring coordination and government direction of all rescue programs.
The British Government formally objected to our government's new licensing policy taking the position that our licenses afforded the enemy an opportunity to acquire foreign exchange for use in the prosecution of the war. The United States State Department, with the concurrence of the Board and the Treasury Department, replied that our government had concluded that the saving of lives far out- weighed any possible danger involved in permitting the enemy to acquire relatively insubstantial quantities of foreign exchange and that we intended to continue the licensing policy we had boon pursuing for several months. As a matter of fact, the controls specified in our licenses with respect to the acquisition of local currencies for use in enemy territory were so tight that of the more than twenty million dollars transferred to neutral areas for Board projects only a trickle of free exchange seeped into enemy areas. Most of this went into the hands and private hoards of individual border guards. Throughout the existence of the Board no payment of ransom to the enemy was permitted to be made.
Rescue of Victims in the Balkans. When the Board was created in January l944 a gateway of escape from the Balkans to Palestine through Turkey was technically open to a small number of refugees - 20 - fleeing the Germans.' The routes of escape were by boat across the Black Sea from Rumania to Turkey and by rail through Bulgaria. The Board undertook to develop a steady flow of refugees over these routes through Turkey. To do this primarily required Turkish Government cooperation in the entrance and transit of refugees and British cooperation in their reception in Palestine. It also required the expansion and financing of underground operations in the Balkans and the use of indirect pressures to obtain exit from Rumania and Bulgaria.
The Board was fortunate to obtain for its representation in Turkey the services of Mr. Ira A. Hirschmann, a public-spirited New York businessman who had gone to Ankara early in January l944 for the sole purpose of investigating the possibilities of rendering aid to Nazi victims in the Balkans. With the wholehearted cooperation and assistance of United States Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt, Mr. Hirschmann rendered outstanding and unusually successful service to the Board. He returned to the United States in September l944 and was succeeded by his able assistant, Mr. Herbert Katzki who had spent many years in foreign refugee relief work.
The most serious bottleneck in opening the door of escape from the Balkans was Turkey. Representations were therefore made to the Turkish Government for consent to admit into its territory all refugees from Axis areas who might reach the Turkish border. Assurances were given the Turkish Government that the Board would arrange for maintenance of - 2l - refugees in Turkey as well as for their eventual removal to other places. At the urgent request of the Board's representative, the British Embassy in Ankara assured the Turkish Foreign Office that all Jewish refugees arriving in Turkey would be given Palestine immigration visas. The Turkish Government finally agreed to grant increased numbers of entrance and transit visas and transportation facilities, and generally to cooperate in this Government's program to rescue Nazi victims.
The Board succeeded in developing a sporadic flow of refugees through Turkey. Approximately 7,000 persons were brought out by boat across the Black Sea from Rumania or by rail through Bulgaria, then across Turkey to Palestine. The rescue operations were financed and carried out by private American and Palestinian agencies, under the direction of the Board's representative in Ankara. By far the largest number were rescued by the Jewish Agency for Palestine working with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. By means of established underground connections developed with infinite care and the discreet use of funds provided in large measure from America, refugees were collected, concealed from the Nazi-controlled Rumanian officials and placed on small vessels in the port of Constanza. Accommodations on small boats sailing the Black Sea without the protection of safe conducts from the belligerent powers were secured at exorbitant prices. Refugees willing to – 22 -face any hazard to attain safe haven were herded by the hundreds on ships built to carry 20 to 50 passengers. The "Mefkura", carrying 300 refugees from Rumania, was tragically lost when it was sunk by enemy fire just off the Turkish shores.
The Board attempted to develop a supplemental large-scale legal operation. For many months it negotiated with the Turks for the chartering of seaworthy passenger vessels and finally succeeded after assuring the Turks (with the assistance of the War Shipping Administration) that the United States Government would replace any Turkish ship lost in the rescue operations. The Board also attempted to obtain safe conducts for these boats from the belligerent powers. All agreed except the Germans. The Nazis were adamant in refusing to grant safe conduct despite repeated approaches made on behalf of the Board through the governments of Sweden and Switzerland and the International Red Cross. None of the Board's ships ever sailed to rescue refugees.
Rescue from Rumania by sea was supplemented by rail evacuations through Bulgaria to Turkey. l392 refugees were brought out to final safety in Palestine over this route. Exit permits were obtained through underground connections in Bulgaria and transit visas and facilities for train travel across Turkey from the Turkish Government.
539 refugees were able to escape from Greece by means of small fishing craft and other vessels plying the Aegean Sea to the - 23 - Turkish coast, between January l944 and February l945. They were all sent on to Palestine.
Approximately l50,000 Jews had been deported in October l94l from Bessarabia and Bucovina to Transnistria, a German-controlled area between. the Dniester and Bug Rivers. There were housed' in deplorable camps in a territory virtually destroyed in the course of the German-Russian fighting. Epidemics broke out and thousands died. At the time of the Board's creation, reports were received that some 50,000 Jews still alive in Transnistria were in the direct line of the retreating German armies. Despite the fact that the United States and Rumania were at war, the Board's representative in Ankara, was able to arrange for the Rumanian Government to transfer these people from Transnistria to Rumania and later facilitate their emigration from Rumania. Rumania finally agreed, and late in March l944, 48,000 Jews were moved from Transnistria '' . i to Rumania. Many of them, mostly children, were transferred with other refugees from Rumania to Palestine.
The Board's efforts to save the persecuted Jews in Hungary required the use of every resource and technique 'developed for the rescue of people in the hands of the enemy. Hungary, the last - 24 - remaining refuge for Jews in Axis Europe, had an abnormal population of about one million Jews. When the German army overran Hungary in March 1944., all these Jews were in mortal danger. Reports soon came through of a wave of violent persecutions of the Jews in Hungary and the War Refugee Board geared its programs to the pressing emergency.
Direct rescue was difficult from Hungary which was surrounded by Nazi-controlled territory. Intense psychological pressures were therefore exerted on the authorities and people of Hungary. Strong warnings and condemnations were issued by the President, by the Congress, the Secretary of State, Archbishop Spellman and other prominent American Christians to the people of Hungary.
Appeals were made to the neutral governments to offer safe haven to Hungarian Jews and to inform the Nazis of their willingness to receive these suffering people* The governments of Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal were urged to issue protective citizenship to Jews in Hungary claiming family or business ties with those countries. Many thousands were granted such special neutral protection.
Raoul Wallenberg, a young Swedish businessman, volunteered to proceed to Hungary for the War Refugee Board to aid in the rescue and relief of the persecuted Jews. The Swedish Government granted him diplomatic status and stationed him in Budapest for the purpose of rendering protection to these people. The Board furnished - 25 - Wallenberg detailed plans of action, but made it clear that he could not act in Hungary as a representative of the Board. Wallenberg, supplied with funds from the Board and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, carried on a relentless campaign in Hungary in behalf of the Jews. He issued Swedish protective passports by the thousands and hired extra buildings as official Swedish quarters to house several hundred rabbis and communal leaders under the protection of the extraterritoriality which attached to such buildings. He constantly pressed the Hungarian authorities for better treatment of Jews and succeeded in having thousands brought back to Budapest from the forced labor marches. In all, approximately..20,000 Jews received the safety of Swedish protection in Hungary. As a measure of the devotion of Wallenberg and as proof of the risks involved in his activities, the Board received word on April 4, l945 that he was missing. Despite repeated attempts to trace his whereabouts he was reported dead early in June 1945
The many warnings and appeals addressed to the Hungarian authorities by the United States and other democratic peoples resulted in the Horthy puppet government sending a message in July l944 through the medium of the International Red Cross to the Governments of the...United States, and Great Britain stating that Hungary was willing to permit the emigration of certain categories of Jews. This offer in effect said "we will permit Jews to leave Hungary if - 26 - the United States and Great Britain will take care of them." It was publicly accepted by the United States and by the British Government, but no Jews were ever formally released by the German- controlled Horthy government.
Despite the difficulties in effecting direct rescue from Hungary, unremitting efforts were made to assist underground rescue operations by developing avenues of escape and finding havens of refuge in neutral and Allied territories. In addition, funds from America were transferred to Hungary via Switzerland and Sweden to keep Jews in hiding, to sustain them pending rescue or liberation, and to finance the rescue work of resistance groups in Rumania and Slovakia. These groups helped thousands to escape from Hungary through underground channels. Rescues were also developed through Yugoslav Partisan territory which had well established contacts with underground workers in Hungary. The flow of refugees through this channel was accelerated as the result of Board negotiations with Marshal Tito's representatives and the Allied military authorities in Italy. Relief supplies were provided for the maintenance of refugees in Yugoslavia and arrangements were made for evacuation from Yugoslavia to Italy by boat or plane. Approximately 7,000 Jews were enabled to escape from Hungary by this route.
The Gestapo deported and killed the Jews in Hungary until the Russian armies defeated the Germans in that, area. At that time there were only l00,000 Jews in all Hungary. Since the end of hostilities – 27 - in Europe, however, thousands of Jews have returned to Hungary, either from their hiding places or from German labor camps.
War Refugee Board
Wikipedia
The War Refugee Board, established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1944, was a U.S. executive agency to aid civilian victims of the Axis powers. The Board was, in the words of historian Rebecca Erbelding, "the only time in American history that the US government founded a non-military government agency to save the lives of civilians being murdered by a wartime enemy."[1]
There was increasing and persistent significant publicity and pressure on the Roosevelt administration to help the abandoned Jews of Europe. The campaign was led by the Bergson Group led by Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson). The activist group had significant support by many leading senators and congressmen mostly from states without significant Jewish voters, from Eleanor Roosevelt, famous Hollywood and Broadway personalities and other prominent citizens. President Roosevelt acted after considerable additional pressure from his friend, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. and his team at the Treasury. Roosevelt "stressed 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".[2]
The WRB was created when a group of young Treasury Department lawyers, including John Pehle, Ansel Luxford, and Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., grew frustrated by State Department delays surrounding a license for relief funds to help Jews escape Romania and France. While the Treasury Department had granted the World Jewish Congress permission to send the money to Switzerland in July 1943, the State Department used various excuses, delaying permission until December, a full eight months after the program was first proposed. Josiah DuBois also found evidence that the State Department had actively tried to suppress information about the murder of the Jews from reaching the United States.
When the Treasury staff learned about the State Department's obstructions, they wrote a report entitled Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government to the Murder of the Jews, first drafted by DuBois. The report was written to convince Morgenthau that it was time to go to the President with their complaints. Morgenthau, John Pehle, and Randolph Paul met with Roosevelt on January 16, 1944. He agreed to create the War Refugee Board, issuing Executive Order 9417.[3] Credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied countries, through the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg and others, the War Refugee Board is the only major effort undertaken by the United States government to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust.[2]
Creation
The immediate cause for Roosevelt's action was pressure from the staff of the Treasury Department's office of Foreign Funds Control and its chief, John W. Pehle. Pehle's office had authorized a number of charitable groups to use funds in the U.S. regulated under the Trading with the Enemy Act to pay for food, medicine, and other aid to refugees and other civilian victims of the war in Europe. Those efforts were systematically blocked by some officials in the U.S. State Department. Specifically, in July 1943, the Treasury Department issued a license to the World Jewish Congress to use funds in the United States to pay some of the costs of evacuating Jews from Romania and France. (This should not be confused with another initiative, by the Romanian government, to "sell" Jews for approximately $50 a head, with which it had no connection.)
Various State Department officials delayed the license for the next five months. Treasury officials, led by a staff lawyer, Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., investigated how and why the license had been held up. In their research, which was aided by some whistleblowers in the State Department, they discovered that in addition to blocking licenses for use of money to aid refugees, the State Department had also sent foreign missions orders not to forward information about Nazi atrocities—specifically about the Holocaust—to Washington. At the end of 1943, DuBois wrote a memorandum, "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews", which said the State Department was "guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from Hitler".
DuBois took his memorandum to Treasury General Counsel Randolph E. Paul, who agreed to put his signature on it and forward it to Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr. After a series of meetings, Morgenthau agreed to take his staff's concerns to the President. Morgenthau, Paul, and Pehle met with President Roosevelt in the White House on Sunday, January 16, 1944.
Roosevelt got an oral briefing on the facts and conclusions in the Treasury Department's memorandum, and immediately agreed to deal with the issues by creating a War Refugee Board, consisting of three cabinet members, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Secretary Morgenthau, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson (Morgenthau had suggested that instead of Stimson, Leo Crowley, Director of the Foreign Economic Administration be appointed, but Roosevelt decided to appoint Stimson instead.) On January 22, 1944 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9417 creating the Board.[3] The Treasury Department did not act in a vacuum. By the end of 1943, Roosevelt was also getting intense pressure to act on the issue from members of Congress, including Sol Bloom and Emanuel Celler; Jewish organizations, most notably Stephen Wise and the American Jewish Congress, and Peter Bergson and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe. Two Congressional resolutions had been introduced in November 1943, calling on Roosevelt to create a commission to formulate and effectuate plans for the relief and rescue of Jews. The Senate was scheduled to vote on the resolution in late January; the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held hearings, and testimony from these hearings further discredited Breckinridge Long of the State Department.
Composition
John W. Pehle, the assistant to the secretary of treasury, was appointed Executive Director of the board, which was directly responsible to the president. Its members included the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, and a staff, mainly pulled from inside the Treasury Department. Though they were officially restricted to a maximum staff of thirty, some government employees (including Pehle) were considered "detailed" to the WRB, raising their staff to seventy in the summer of 1944. Brigadier General William O'Dwyer later succeeded Pehle as executive director until its dissolution at the end of World War II.
The Board appointed representatives in Turkey, Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Great Britain, Italy, and North Africa.[1]
Activity
The WRB developed and implemented various plans and programs for:
· Rescuing, transporting, and relieving victims of enemy oppression
· Establishing of havens of temporary refuge for such victims
The War Refugee Board enlisted the cooperation of foreign governments and international refugee and rescue organizations in carrying out these functions. Such neutral countries as Switzerland, Sweden, and Turkey were of particular importance, serving as bases of operation for the rescue and relief program. The Vatican rendered some assistance, mostly towards the very end of the war, primarily as a channel of communication to enemy regimes, such as the fascist government of Slovakia. The board obtained the cooperation of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the International Committee of the Red Cross in rehabilitating and resettling refugees, finding temporary shelters for rescued victims, transporting these victims to the shelters and providing for their maintenance in transit, and making relief deliveries inside enemy territory.
The WRB worked closely with private U.S. relief agencies in formulating, financing, and executing plans and projects. A Treasury Department licensing policy that permitted established private agencies to transfer funds from the United States to their representatives in neutral countries aided in financing the rescue of persecuted peoples living under Nazi control. Under this licensing policy, it was possible to communicate with persons in enemy territory and to finance rescue operations with certain controls designed to bring no financial benefit to the enemy. Approximately $15 million in private funds was made available in this way. The board obtained blockade clearances for food shipments of private relief agencies for distribution by the International Red Cross to detainees in Nazi concentration camps and supplemented these private projects with a food-parcel program of its own financed from the emergency funds of the president.
Through the efforts of the War Refugee Board, refugee camps were prepared in North Africa and safe haven was arranged in Palestine, Switzerland, and Sweden.
In August 1944 the WRB brought 982 Jewish refugees, who were in Italy from many countries to The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, in New York. These refugees were admitted outside the immigration quota laws, but given no status, and it was intended that they would be repatriated to their home countries at a (successful) war's end.
The WRB used the example of Fort Ontario to influence other countries to also allow additional refugees over their borders.
The WRB lobbied Roosevelt to publicly condemn the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, which he did on March 24, 1944.[4]
By attracting international attention to the Hungarian government and putting pressure on them, the WRB contributed to the cessation of deportations of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz, possibly saving many of the Jews of Budapest. The Board sent the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, and others to protect the Jews of Budapest. Through the WRB, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint,) funded Wallenberg's rescue work there. The work by Wallenberg in Hungary was one of the most successful and important rescue efforts by the War Refugee Board.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of Jews rescued by the War Refugee Board, since so much of their work was done behind enemy lines and involved psychological warfare and other intangible rescue activities. One historian, David Wyman, credits them with saving as many as 200,000 people; the WRB staff themselves estimated they saved tens of thousands. However, near the end of his life, WRB director Pehle described the work as "too little, too late" in contrast with the totality of the Holocaust.
With the close of the war in Europe, the work of the board was at an end. By the terms of Executive Order No. 9614, the board was abolished on September 15, 1945.”[5]
References
1. Erbelding, Rebecca (2018). Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe. New York: Doubleday.
2. "Executive Order Creating the War Refugee Board (January 1944)".
3. "Franklin D. Roosevelt: Executive Order 9417 Establishing the War Refugee Board". The American Presidency Project. January 22, 1944.
4. Text of Statement on Atrocities
5. 10 Federal Register 11789, September 15, 1945
Staff - War Refugee Board
John W. Pehle
“John W. Pehle (1909 – 1999) was an American United States Department of the Treasury lawyer and one of the authors of the Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, a 1944 document exposing the United States Department of State's alleged cover-up of the Holocaust. He became the first director of the War Refugee Board.[1]
Pehle was born in Minneapolis and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Creighton University, followed by a Bachelor of Laws and Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.[2]
From 1934 to 1940, he was a lawyer in the Office of the General Counsel for the Department of the Treasury. Later, he became director of the Treasury Department's foreign-funds control and assistant to the secretary of the Treasury.
He was the first director of the War Refugee Board, created in 1944, while he continued work for the Treasury Department's Foreign Funds control. Early in 1946, he left the War Refugee Board, where he was succeeded by William O'Dwyer.
In 1946 he entered private practice, as senior partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Pehle & Lesser and successor firms; and, later, in the Washington office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
He died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1999.[2][3]
1. "Background & Overview of the War Refugee Board". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
2. "Obituaries". Washington Post. 1999-03-27.
3. Wolfson, Leah (2015-08-13). Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1944–1946 (in Arabic). Rowman & Littlefield.”
Josiah E. DuBois Jr.
Josiah Ellis DuBois Jr. (October 21, 1912 – August 1, 1983) [2] was an American attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department who played a major role in exposing State Department obstruction efforts to provide American visas to Jews trying to escape Nazi Europe. In 1944, he wrote the Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, which led to the creation of the War Refugee Board.[3] After the war, he was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials prosecuting Nazi war crimes, particularly in the prosecution of holocaust chemical manufacturer I.G. Farben.
DuBois was born in Camden and raised in Woodbury, New Jersey, the eldest of at least eight children born to Josiah DuBois Sr. and Amelia Ayles DuBois. In 1934, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Dubois served as special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, 1944–45; general counsel of the War Refugee Board, 1944; member of the Allied Reparations Commission, Moscow, 1945; member of the U.S. delegation to the Potsdam Conference, 1945; and deputy chief counsel for War Crimes in charge of the I.G. Farben case, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947-48 [4]
DuBois wrote the famous Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, which Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. used to convince President Franklin Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board in 1944.[3][5][6] Randolph Paul was also a principal sponsor of this report, the first contemporaneous Government paper attacking America's policies during The Holocaust.
This document was an indictment of the U.S. State Department’s diplomatic, military, and immigration policies. Among other things, the Report narrated the State Department’s inaction and, in some instances, active opposition to the release of funds for the rescue of Jews in Romania and German-occupied France during World War II, and condemned immigration policies that closed American doors to Jewish refugees from countries then engaged in their systematic slaughter.
The catalyst for the Report was an incident involving 70,000 Jews whose evacuation from Romania could have been procured with a $170,000 bribe. The Foreign Funds Control unit of the Treasury, which was within Paul’s jurisdiction, authorized the payment of the funds, the release of which both the President and Secretary of State Cordell Hull supported. From mid-July 1943, when the proposal was made and Treasury approved, through December 1943, a combination of the State Department’s bureaucracy and the British Ministry of Economic Warfare interposed various obstacles. The Report was the product of frustration over that event.
On January 16, 1944, Morgenthau and Paul personally delivered the paper to President Roosevelt, warning him that Congress would act if he did not. The result was Executive Order 9417[7] creating the War Refugee Board composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury and War. Issued on January 22, 1944, the Executive Order declared that "it is the policy of this Government to take all measures within its power to rescue the victims of enemy oppression who are in imminent danger of death and otherwise to afford such victims all possible relief and assistance consistent with the successful prosecution of the war."[8]
DuBois was put in charge of the IG Farben trial at the Nuremberg Military Trials (1946-1949). Later, he wrote the seminal account of that trial, The Devil's Chemists.[9]
Works
· Generals in Grey Suits: The Directors of the International 'I. G. Farben' Cartel, Their Conspiracy and Trial at Nuremberg. London: Bodley Head. 1953.
· The Devil's Chemists (PDF). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. 1952. Archived from the original
1. Shenon, Philip (1983-08-04). "J.E. Dubois Dead; Aided Jews in War". Retrieved 2018-05-07.
2. U.S. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014
3. "David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies:
4. Truman Library - Josiah E. Dubois, Jr. Oral History Interview
5. "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews". The Jewish Virtual Library. January 13, 1944.
6. Text of report, at website of TV show American Experience, a program shown on PBS.
7. "Franklin D. Roosevelt: Executive Order 9417 Establishing the War Refugee Board". The American Presidency Project. January 22, 1944.
8. Morse, A. (1968). While Six Million Died. Random House. pp. 92–93.
9. Heller, Kevin Jon (2011). The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 26.
10. "Ex-Army Men Hit as 'Red' Backers" (PDF). The New York Times. 10 July 1947. p. 13.
11. Tannenbaum, R. F. (1953-01-01). "The Devil's Chemists, by Josiah E. Dubois, Jr. - Commentary Magazine". Commentary Magazine.
12. Medoff, Rafael (2008). Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., and the Struggle for an American Response to the Holocaust. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
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For further reading about Holocaust rescue, please visit HolocaustRescue.org