US Government Agencies That Aided Jews and Other Refugees

 

Department of the Interior


Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, 1933-1946

U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, was a strong advocate for providing refugees safe haven in the United States or its territories.  Specifically, he recommended settling refugees in Alaska or in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Neither proposal was implemented.

[Brennan; Feingold, 1970, pp. x, 96-97, 127, 150, 155-157, 265, 303; Gruber, 2000, pp. 4-12, 28-29, 33-35, 40-41, 60, 123, 143-144, 167, 173-174, 188, 193, 195, 201, 208, 214-217, 219, 238-240, 243; Harold Ickes Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Ickes, 1954; Morse, 1967, p. 76; Penkower, 1983, p. 74; Wyman, 1986, pp. 47, 55, 146, 148, 271, 273-274, 313, 317.  Ickes, Harold L. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1954). Gruber, Ruth, 2000, pp. 4-12, 28-29, 33-35, 40-41, 60, 123, 143-144, 167, 173-174, 123, 188, 193, 195, 201, 208, 214-217, 219, 238-240, 243.]
 

State Department


James Grover McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

James Grover McDonald became the Chairman of the Foreign Policy Association in New York in 1919.  He served the Association until 1933.  At that time, McDonald was appointed as head of the newly-created League of Nations Office of High Commissioner for Refugees in Germany.  His appointment as an American Commissioner to the League was ironic, since America did not belong to the world organization.  His efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees found little support in either the US State Department or the British or French Foreign Offices. 

McDonald resigned his post as High Commissioner for Refugees on January 1, 1936.  In his 27-page letter of resignation, he documented Nazi Germany’s racial policy against its Jews.  He further described his post’s powerlessness due to it being separated from the direct authority of the League of Nations.  He called on the world to act to pressure the German government to stop the persecution:

“The developments since 1933, and in particular those following the Nuremberg legislation, call for fresh collective action in regard to the problem created by the persecution in Germany.  The moral authority of the League of Nations and of State Members of the League must be directed towards a determined appeal to the German Government in the name of humanity and of the principles of the public law of Europe.

“But convinced as I am that desperate suffering in the countries adjacent to Germany, and an even more terrible human calamity within the German frontiers, are inevitable unless present tendencies in the Reich are checked or reversed, I cannot remain silent… When domestic policies threaten the demoralization and exile of hundreds of thousands of human beings, considerations of diplomatic correctness must yield to those of common humanity.  I should be recreant if I did not call attention to the actual situation, and plead that world opinion, acting through the League and its Member-States and other countries, move to avert the existing and impending tragedies.”

One of McDonald’s chief aims was to seek safe havens for Jewish refugees.

Throughout the war, McDonald supported the rescue of refugees through immigration to the United States.  These policies were continually opposed by the State Department.  After the war, he was appointed the first American Ambassador to Israel, a position he held until 1951. 

Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., US Ambassador to the European Governments in Exile and US Ambassador to Poland

On August 26, 1942, Ambassador Biddle forwarded an eight-page memorandum prepared by Ernest Frischer, who was a member of the Czechoslovakian State Council in Exile.  This report detailed the wholesale organized murder of Jews by the German government.  Biddle thought this document was so important that he forwarded it directly to President Roosevelt.  Biddle was a personal friend of Roosevelt.  This report had a significant impact on US diplomats in Washington.  As Ambassador to Poland in 1938, Biddle sent a report to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull warning him regarding Nazi Germany and the dangers of a future Holocaust.  He advocated that something be done to protect Jews.  In his memorandum, he stated: 

“Nazi officialdom considered world opinion bankrupt.  They believed people abroad would undoubtedly throw up their hands in horror, but they would do nothing about it…I consider these recent Nazi excesses in addition to those recently perpetrated against the Catholic clergy in Vienna and subsequently the Protestant clergy…as nothing short of a challenge to modern civilization.” 

Biddle warned Cordell Hull of the dangers of uncontrolled Nazism in Hungary and Romania as well as the three and a half million Jews who were in danger of Nazi domination in Poland.

Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Assistant US Secretary of State, Washington, DC, 1940-1945

On February 16 and 23, 1940, the Assistant Secretary of State Berle tried to persuade Secretary of State Cordell Hull to help Jews based on reports of deportations of Jews to concentration camps.  He also tried to persuade the State Department to condemn Nazi persecution of Jews.  Later, Berle helped liberalize State Department policy toward issuing visas.  In late 1943, Berle approved a license for a transfer of funds to save Jewish rabbis in Czechoslovakia.  Berle stated that the “no ransom” policy was no longer pertinent.

H. Shoemaker, Former US Ambassador to Bulgaria

H. Shoemaker, the former US Ambassador to Bulgaria, makes a broadcast appeal to the Bulgarian people to resist the impending deportation of Jews.  The appeal was radioed to Bulgarian from the Bulgarian-American Committee in New York City.

 

The President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees (PACPR)


The President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees (PACPR) was established in 1938 by American refugee advocates to keep President Roosevelt informed on refugee and relief issues.  From 1938-1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the American Jewish Congress underwrote the cost of PACPR.  After 1941, they paid for the administration costs.  PACPR was the only refugee rescue program run by the US established during this period of the refugee crisis in Europe.

[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Historic Archives, New York City; Breitman; Feingold, 1970, pp. 25-26, 35, 69, 81, 86, 92-94, 98, 110, 112, 139-141, 144-145, 147-148, 155, 157;  FDR Library and Stephan Wise Papers, Goldfarb Library, Brandeis University; Morse, 1967, pp. 204, 295-296; Penkower, 1983, pp. 115, 248, 360n9; Wyman, 1984, pp. 37, 47, 54, 111, 125, 129, 1330134, 198, 263, 315, 411.]

James Grover McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Chairman of PACPR

McDonald became the Chairman of the Foreign Policy Association in New York in 1919.  He served the Association until 1933.  At that time, McDonald was appointed as head of the newly-created League of Nations Office of High Commissioner for Refugees in Germany.  His appointment as an American Commissioner to the League was ironic, since America did not belong to the world organization.  His efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees found little support in either the US State Department or the British or French Foreign Offices.  Throughout the war, McDonald supported the rescue of refugees through immigration to the United States.  These policies were continually opposed by the State Department.  After the war, he was appointed the first American Ambassador to Israel, a position he held until 1951. 

[London, L. Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948: British immigration policy, Jewish refugees and the Holocaust, pp. 83-84. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 204, 455, 954-956, 1187, 1237. Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ: (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 14, 18, 25-26, 31, 52, 76, 80, 92, 127, 139, 142, 144-147, 152, 156, 160, 162-164, 213, 286.  Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 45-46, 315. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 148, 160, 167-168, 171, 187-190, 205, 209, 211, 295-296, 303. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 69, 113, 248, 250.  His papers were donated to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.  US State Department Diplomatic Records, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Archives II, College Park, MD.  Breitman, Stewart & Hochberg, 2007.]

Hamilton Fish Armstrong, PACPR Committee Member, Editor, Foreign Affairs

[Friedman, 1973, p. 239.]

Paul Baerwald, PACPR Committee Member, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)

[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Historic Archives, New York City. Friedman, 1973, pp. 81, 205, 239.]

Reverend Samuel McCrea Cavert, PACPR Committee Member, Federal council of Churches

Joseph Chamberlain, PACPR Committee Member


[Joseph Chamberlain Papers, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York City; Feingold, 1970, pp. 25, 39-40, 96, 152, 265; Freidman, 1973, pp. 45, 51, 99, 110, 113, 238-239, 2252, 266; Morse, 1967, pp. 160, 163, 165.]

Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel, PACPR Committee Member

[Friedman, 1973, p. 239.]

George Warren, PACPR Committee Member

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, PACPR Committee Member, President World Jewish Congress (WJC)

 

The Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR)


The Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGCR) was founded during the Evian Conference in Evian, France, in 1938.  It remained largely inactive until it was revived during the Bermuda Refugee Conference in 1943.  Its purpose was to aid refugees who were forced to emigrate from Germany and Austria due to religious persecution, political persecution or for reasons of racial origins.

[Morse, 1967, pp. 43, 52, 56, 59-61, 67, 74, 94-95, 214-215, 218-219, 228-231, 233, 236, 241, 244-248, 250-251.]

George Rublee

George Rublee was an American lawyer of Huguenot ancestry.  He was partner in the law firm of Covington, Burling and Rublee.  Rublee had extensive experience in International Relations.  He had helped in delicate negotiations at the US embassy in Mexico, and was a consultant for the US delegation in 1930 at the London Naval Conference.  He was a strong advocate for the League of Nations.

Rublee became director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGC) after having been persuaded by Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 to take the job.

Rublee tried to convince member states of the IGC to facilitate rescue and relief by making immigration easier for German and Austrian refugees.

Herbert Emmerson

 

National Refugee Service (NRS), formerly National Coordinating Committee (NCC)


[Feingold, 1970, pp. 25, 152, 265; Friedman, 1973, pp. 47, 113, 178, 238, 252; Papers and Historic Files, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; Wyman, 1984, pp. 127, 128, 271, 274.  American Committee for Christian German Refugees, 1945; Close, 1953; Davie, 1947; Duggan & Drury, 1948; Genizi, 1976; Genizi, 1983, pp. 96-136; Gutman, 1990, pp. 32-33, 1065-1066; Nawyn, 1981, pp. 159-181; Ross, 1981; Zucker, 2008.]

Joseph Chamberlain, (USA), Director, Chairman of the Board
William Rosenwald, President
Paul Felix Warburg (JDC)
Albert Abramson
Arthur D. Greenleigh
Executive Committee:
Harry Greenstein
William Haber
Joseph C. Hymam (JDC)
Executive Officers:
William Haber
Ann S. Petluck
Cecilia Razovsky
Albert Abramson
Stella Baruch
Milton Feinburg
Arthur Greenleigh
Augusta Mayerson
Ephraim Gomberg
 

War Refugee Board, US Treasury Department, 1944-45


The United States War Refugee Board (WRB) was created in response to the disclosed failure of the US State Department and other branches of the US government to aid and protect refugees in World War II.  Until 1944, the US State Department, in fact, obstructed virtually all of the immigration of refugees to the safe haven of the United States. 

In 1944, officials at the US Treasury Department discovered that State Department officials were obstructing Jewish relief efforts in Romania and France.  They also discovered evidence of earlier State Department efforts to inhibit and shut the flow of information from Switzerland about Hitler’s final solution.

In a separate finding, it was disclosed that Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long had given a Congressional committee highly inaccurate and inflated estimates of the number of refugees who had entered the United States since 1933.

Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau (and friend of Roosevelt) approached Roosevelt with this damning information about the State Department.  This report stated flatly that the State Department’s failure to act, gross procrastination and general obstruction of actions contributed to the deaths of millions of European Jews and other refugees.

A report was written by Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., and was presented to Morgenthau.  Morgenthau toned down this report and submitted it to the President.  Embarrassed, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order on January 22, 1944, creating the War Refugee Board.  The WRB was to be supervised by agents of the Secretary of the Treasury.

The WRB was, however, hampered by Roosevelt’s almost complete lack of interest and support.  Roosevelt only allocated one million dollars for the WRB.  The actual rescue operations had to be privately funded by Jewish rescue organizations, particularly the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which raised $17 million for use by the WRB.

By the end of 1944, the WRB played a crucial role in saving the lives of thousands of Jews and other refugees.  Thousands of Jews were evacuated from Nazi-occupied territory, as were more than 20,000 non-Jews.  More than 10,000 refugees were protected within Axis Europe by clandestine activities financed by the WRB.  Further, the WRB took measures to protect refugees holding Latin American passports and visas.  Diplomatic pressure by the WRB, reinforced by its program of threatening Nazis with post-war prosecution, was instrumental in saving thousands of Jews in Transnistria who were moved to safe areas in Romania.

The WRB similarly placed diplomatic pressures on Nazi and Arrow Cross officials and helped end the deportation of the Jews of Budapest, Hungary.  Thousands of Jews in Budapest survived the war, in part due to the efforts of the WRB.  Raoul Wallenberg was acting as an agent of the War Refugee Board. 

The War Refugee Board was in part responsible for saving more than 200,000 Jews in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. 

At the time, the WRB’s most publicized project was the evacuation and resettlement of 982 Jewish refugees who were brought from Italy to an old Army camp in Oswego, New York.

The War Refugee Board had received only a small Congressional appropriation of $1,150,000 for its work in Europe.  Most of the Board’s actual operating expenses of $20,000,000 were provided by private American Jewish charitable organizations.  More than 75% of this amount, $15,000,000, was contributed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York.  The Union of Orthodox Rabbis contributed $1,000,000.  The World Jewish Congress gave $300,000.

Henry Morgenthau tasked Randolph Paul to prepare a report documenting the State Department intentional delays in reporting on the murder of Jews and hindering action which could have saved Jews.

The paper was prepared by Assistant General Counsel for the Treasury Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., with the help of John Pehle, of the Foreign Funds Control Division.

An eighteen page report was prepared by Paul, DuBois and Pehle.  It was entitled “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.”  The following are excerpts of this report.

“[State Department officials] have not only failed to use the Governmental machinery at their disposal to rescue Jews from Hitler, but have even gone so far as to use this Governmental machinery to prevent the rescue of these Jews.

“They have not only failed to cooperate with private organizations in the efforts of these organizations to work out individual programs of their own, but have taken steps designed to prevent these programs from being put into effect.

“They not only have failed to facilitate the obtaining of information concerning Hitler’s plans to exterminate the Jews of Europe but in their official capacity have gone so far as to surreptitiously attempt to stop the obtaining of information concerning the murder of the Jewish population of Europe.

“They have tried to cover up their guilt by:
(a) concealment and misrepresentation;
(b) the giving of false and misleading explanations for their failures to act and their attempts to prevent action; and
(c) the issuance of false and misleading statements concerning the ‘action’ which they have taken to date.”

The report stated that a year had passed since the first news of the murder of Jews and an official acknowledgement by the State Department.

“While the State Department has been thus ‘exploring’ the whole refugee problem, without distinguishing between those who are in imminent danger of death and those who are not, hundreds of thousands of Jews have been allowed to perish.

“According to Earl G. Harrison, Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, not since 1862 have there been fewer aliens entering the United States.  Frankly Breckinridge Long, in my humble opinion, is least sympathetic to refugees in all the State Department.  I attribute to him the tragic bottleneck in the granting of visas… It takes months and months to grant the visa and then it usually applies to a corpse.”

Morgenthau summarized the findings of Paul, DuBois and Pehle in a 16-page report.  It was entitled “Personal Report to the President.”  Morgenthau, Paul and Pehle then went to the White House on January 16, 1945, and submitted the report to Roosevelt.  It stated, in part:

“You are probably not as familiar as I am with the utter failure of certain officials in our State Department, who are charged with actually carrying out this policy, to take any effective action to prevent the extermination of the Jews in German-controlled Europe… Although they have used such devices as setting up intergovernmental organizations to survey the whole refugee problem, making it appear that positive action could be expected, in fact nothing has been accomplished… Whether one views this failure as being deliberate on the part of those officials handling the matter, or merely due to their incompetence, is not too important from my point of view.  However, there is a growing number of responsible people and organizations today who have ceased to view our failure as the product of simple incompetence on the part of those officials in the State Department charged with handling this problem.  They see plain anti-Semitism motivating the actions of these State Department officials and, rightly or wrongly, it will require little more in the way of proof for this suspicion to explode into a nasty scandal.”

Morgenthau concluded his report stating:

“The facts I have detailed in this report, Mr. President, came to the Treasury’s attention as a part of our routine investigation of the licensing of the financial phases of the proposal of the World Jewish Congress for the evacuation of Jews from France and Rumania.  The facts may thus be said to have come to light through accident.  How many others of the same character are buried in State Department files is a matter I would have no way of knowing… This much is certain, however.  The matter of rescuing the Jews from extermination is a trust too great to remain in the hands of men who are indifferent, callous and perhaps even hostile.  The task is filled with difficulties.  Only a fervent will to accomplish, backed by persistent and untiring effort, can succeed where time is so precious.”

[Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 9, 145, 182-183, 190-204, 210-216, 219-220, 246-248; Breitman, 1986; Feingold, 1970; Friedman, 1973; Morse, 1967; Penkower, 1983; War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York; Wyman, 1970; Wyman, 1984.]

Washington, D.C.:
Henry Morgenthau, US Secretary of the Treasury
John W. Pehle, Executive Director, War Refugee Board (WRB), (b. 1909), Jan. 22, 1944- Jan. 27, 1945
General William O’Dwyer, executive director, WRB, Jan.27 – Sept.15, 1945
Randolph Paul, HQ WRB, Washington, DC
Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., General Council, (1912-1983), HQ WRB, Washington, DC, Jan.22, 1944 – Jan.27, 1945
James H. Mann, HQ WRB, London, May 1, 1944 – Feb.28, 1945
Myles Standish, HQ WRB, Washington, DC, Staff Assistant, (former Vice Consul, Marseilles, France, 1937-1941; Marino, 1999)
Field Agents:
James H. Mann, HQ WRB, London, May 1, 1944 – Feb.28, 1945
Ira Hirschmann (1901-1989), Turkey, 1944-1945
Herbert Katzki Oct. 1944-1945, Turkey (JDC Representative)
Leonard Ackermann, North Africa, Italy, and Metiterranean Area, April 1944- Oct. 1944
Roswell McClelland (b. 1914), Geneva, Switzerland, AFFSC, 1944-1945
Ivar Olson, US Financial Attaché, Stockholm, Sweden, March 1944-1945
Robert C. Dexter, Lisbon, Portugal, 1944-1945
Raoul Wallenberg●+ (1912-?; Sweden), in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-1945, see Wallenberg Mission, Budapest
James Saxon, WRB Representative, Mediterranean Area, Assistant to Leonard Ackermann
Albert Abrahamson, Assistant Executive Director, Feb.9 – Dec. 31, 1944
Joseph B. Friedman, Assistant Executive Director, Jan.22, 1944 – Jan.15, 1945
Florence Hodel, Assistant Executive Director, Jan.22, 1944 – Sept.15, 1945
Lawrence S. Lesser, Assistant Executive Director, Jan.22, 1944 – Jan.31, 1945
Ward Stewart, Assistant Executive Director, Jan.22-Dec.14, 1944
Isadore M. Weinstein, Special Assistant to the Executive Director, March 24 – Sept.29, 1944
Anne Laughlin, Special Assistant, Feb.21, 1944 – Sept.29, 1945
Benjamin Akzin, Special Assistant, March 11, 1944 – March 15, 1945
Paul McCormack, Special Assistant, March 6, 1944 – July 11, 1945
Matthew Marks, Attorney, Jan.22, 1944 – Jan. 31, 1945
Milton Sargoy, Attorney, March 27– Oct. 10, 1944
Emanuel Borenstein, Staff Assistant, June 16 – Sept.2, 1944
David White, Administrative Officer, Feb.26, 1944 – Aug.31, 1945
Kathryn C. Cohn, Information Specialist, March 1, 1944 – Sept. 15, 1945
Elizabeth B. Towler, Reporter and Correspondence Specialist, Jan.22, 1944 – Sept.15, 1945


Henry Morgenthau, US Treasury Secretary

Henry Morgenthau was the Secretary of the United States Treasury.  He was the highest ranking Jew in President Roosevelt’s cabinet.  He was instrumental in the creation of the War Refugee Board in January 1944.  As early as the fall of 1942, news about the treatment of Jews in Eastern Europe began to arrive in Washington.  Morgenthau blamed the State Department for thwarting efforts to admit Jews who should have been legally able to enter the United States under the existing quotas.  After discovering the complicity of the State Department in preventing Jewish immigration, Morgenthau prepared a report entitled “A Personal Report to the President.”  It was delivered to Roosevelt on January 16, 1944.  In the report to Roosevelt, Morgenthau wrote:

“We knew in Washington, from August 1942 on, that the Nazis were planning to exterminate all the Jews of Europe.  Yet, for nearly 18 months after the first reports of the Nazi horror plan, the State Department did practically nothing.  Officials dodged their grim responsibility, procrastinated when concrete rescue schemes were placed before them, and even suppressed information about atrocities in order to prevent an outraged public opinion from forcing their hand…The Treasury’s responsibility for licensing monetary transactions abroad meant that we had to pass on the financial phases of refugee relief plans.  This gave us a front-row view of those 18 terrible months of inefficiency, buck-passing, bureaucratic delay and sometimes what appeared to be calculated obstructionism…Cautious and temporizing by nature, these officials always preferred committees to action…Lacking either the administrative drive or the emotional commitment, they could not bring about prompt United States action on behalf of the desperate people.”

After the meeting, Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board.  Morgenthau was empowered to organize this rescue effort under the auspices of the US Treasury Department.

[Breitman, 1986; Feingold, 1970; Friedman, 1973; Morse, 1967; Penkower, 1983; Wyman, 1970; Wyman, 1984.]

John Pehle, Executive Director, War Refugee Board (WRB), 1944-45

John Pehle, of the US Treasury Department, discovered documents that implicated the US State Department in actively preventing the legal immigration of Jewish refugees to the United States.  Pehle went to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau with this devastating information.  Morgenthau then went, with Pehle, to meet with Franklin Roosevelt.  As a result, the War Refugee Board was created by an Executive Order signed by Roosevelt on January 17, 1944.

Before his appointment to the War Refugee Board, Pehle was the director of the US Treasury Department’s Division of Foreign Funds Control.  This department regulated funds transfers overseas by private organizations.  Pehle became aware that those funds destined to be used for relief or rescue of Jews were being intentionally obstructed or blocked by State Department objections.

Pehle fought the State Department obstructionism in the granting of licenses to charitable organizations for the purposes of promoting rescue and relief in Europe.  In September 1943, Pehle authorized a license to the World Jewish Congress to send funds to rescue Romanian and French Jews. 

Pehle kept a record of all the instances that the State Department stalled or blocked rescue attempts by purposefully obstructing the transfer of money.  Pehle often met with Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to protest its purposeful inaction.

Pehle tried to convince the Allied Air Forces to bomb the rail lines from Hungary to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland.  He forwarded Swiss WRB Representative Roswell McClelland’s recommendation, which was based on the Czech underground’s intelligence, which supplied rail routes, train schedules, and bombing locations.

Pehle sent the information to Undersecretary of the Army John J. McCloy.  McCloy replied on July 4, 1944:

“The War Department is of the opinion that the suggested air operation is impracticable.  It could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations and would in any case be of such very doubtful efficacy that it would not amount to a practical project.”

Later, Pehle sent McCloy a report about the death camp at Auschwitz, including eye witness accounts of the murder of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

“If the elaborate murder installations at Birkenau were destroyed, it seems clear that the Germans could not reconstruct them for some time… I am convinced that the point has now been reached where such action is justifiable if it is deemed feasible by competent military authorities.  I strongly recommend that the War Department give serious consideration to the possibility of destroying the execution chambers and crematories in Birkenau through direct bombing action.”

McCloy rejected the plan as infeasible, impractical and dangerous.

Just five weeks after Pehle’s appointment as Director of the War Refugee Board, he reported to Morgenthau:

“(1) The Balkan bottleneck had been broken.  Because of American guarantees of maintenance made to the Turkish government, rail transports carrying 150 children every ten days were crossing through Bulgaria and Turkey bound for Palestine.  Within twenty-four hours after Hirschmann learned that Rumania would permit 1,000 Jews to leave Constanza if the Allies supplied the necessary vessels, Hirschmann destroyed the myth of a shipping shortage by obtaining the necessary commitments from Myron Black, field director of the War Shipping Administration, and Admiral Land of the Mediterranean Fleet Command.

“(2) The Spanish-North African bottleneck had also been broken.  As in the case of Turkey, the French government had been persuaded to keep its borders open to transient refugees passing through to Camp marechal Lyautey near Casablanca.

“(3) Neutral intermediaries, including the Vatican, had been drawn in to refugee work to press Nazi puppets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, and Slovakia to halt the deportation of Jews to death camps.  The International Red Cross was cooperating with the board in bringing persons from Poland and Slovakia, where they faced certain death, to places of relative safety, like Hungary and Rumania, or to Switzerland.

“(4) At the same time the WRB was successful in getting the Office of War Information to step up its propaganda to Germany and satellite countries, emphasizing the pending retribution that the Allies would seek for the heinous crime of genocide.”

After the founding of the WRB, Pehle was named the Executive Director, with a staff of 30 employees.  Pehle supervised the overall operation of the WRB.  By the end of the war, the WRB may have saved as many as 200,000 Jewish refugees.

[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 13-16. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 504, 990, 1549, 1596.  Wyman, David S. Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1939-1941. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1968).  Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 183-184, 189, 203, 205, 210-214, 224-225, 244, 258, 286-287, 291, 294-297, 304, 324, 364. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 81-85, 88, 90, 92, 97, 310-314, 318, 323-326, 329, 333-337, 340-341, 346, 348, 353, 356, 359-360, 362, 372, 377-379, 382-383. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 56, 117, 126, 129-130, 132, 139-142, 164-165, 170, 174, 188, 192, 197-198, 201-205, 208-209, 212, 251, 258, 286. Hurwitz, Ariel. “The struggle over the creation of the War Refugee Board (WRB).”  Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 6 (1991), 17-31.  Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ:(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 183, 228, 239-241, 245, 248, 251-254, 257, 259-260, 262-263, 265, 270, 273-274, 277-283, 288, 292. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 401, 403-404, 409, 411.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 187, 190-198, 200-202, 207-209.  Friedman, 1973, pp. 150-151, 209, 213-222, 292, 227, 240.  Gruber, 2000, pp. 10-11, 24, 26, 28, 128, 143, 194, 216-217.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.  American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Historic Archives, New York City.]

Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., Treasury Department Official, War Refugee Board, 1944-45

Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., was an official in the US Treasury Department and an assistant to Henry Morgenthau.  He and John Pehle discovered information in secret reports and internal memos that indicated that the State Department had intentionally suppressed information about the murder of Jews in Eastern Europe.  Dubois further discovered that the State Department had intentionally undermined virtually all efforts to rescue Jews.  Dubois wrote an extensive report, which he delivered to Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau.  This document was entitled, “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews.”

Dubois served with Pehle until the end of the war.  The WRB was credited with saving more than 200,000 Jews and other refugees in the war.

[DuBois, Josiah E., Jr., The Devil’s Chemists. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 990-991, 1549. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 13-16. Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 182, 186-187, 190n, 203n, 239, 258, 287. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 88, 313, 324, 340-341. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 130-133, 199. Hurwitz, Ariel. “The struggle over the creation of the War Refugee Board (WRB).”  Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 6 (1991), 17-31.  Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ:(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 239-241, 245, 267-268. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 401.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 187-192, 194-195, 200.  Friedman, 1973, pp. 209, 216, 218.  Gruber, 2000, pp. 22-28, 54, 217.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.]

Randolph Paul, War Refugee Board, 1944-45

Randolph Paul, along with Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., alerted Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to the thwarting of refugee immigration to the United States by the State Department.  Paul worked tirelessly to help save Jews from the Nazis in beleaguered Europe.

[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 13-16. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 990. Hurwitz, Ariel. “The struggle over the creation of the War Refugee Board (WRB).”  Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 6 (1991), 17-31.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 401.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 187-191.  Feingold, 1970, pp. 240, 245.  Freidman, 1973, p. 29.  Morse, 1967, pp. 78-79, 88-90.  Penkower, 1983, pp. 131-133, 139, 146.  Wyman, 1984, pp. 183-184, 191, 203.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.]

Field Agents of the War Refugee Board, 1944-45

Ira Hirschmann, Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People in Europe, 1943, and War Refugee Board representative in Turkey, 1944-45

Ira Hirschmann was an early American activist in helping to save Jewish refugees in Europe.  He volunteered and was appointed with the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People in Europe, which was also known as the Bergson Group. 

Hirschmann volunteered and was later appointed head of the Middle East Delegation of the War Refugee Board (WRB) stationed in Istanbul, Turkey.  Hirschmann worked throughout the period 1944-45 for the rescue of Jews in Nazi occupied territories of Central and Eastern Europe.  He helped Jews throughout the Balkans and in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary.  He worked with Vatican Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli and US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt and Yishuv representative Chaim Barlas in Turkey to help save Jewish refugees. 

Hirschmann was responsible for a success in March 1944 when he persuaded Alexander Cretzianu, the Romanian ambassador to Turkey, to insist that the Romanian government transfer 48,000 Jews in Transnistria to a safe zone in Romania.

In his final report to the War Refugee Board, Hirschmann reflected:

“It bears repetition that it is regrettable that the Board, which has demonstrated its vitality and the success of its operations, was not created a year or two ago.  There is no doubt from the evidence at hand that additional thousands of refugees could have been saved… the mere existence of this Board and its representatives in Turkey acted as a catalytic agent in spurring the morale of the destitute and terrorized citizens in the Balkans… it provided for the victims a ray of hope which resulted in lifting their own morale and an eleventh-hour self-sustaining effort on their own part.”

In 1946, Hirschmann was appointed to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to inspect Jewish displaced persons (DP) camps.

[Hirschmann, Ira A. Life Line to a Promised Land. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1946).  Hirschmann, Ira. Caution to the Winds. (New York: David McKay Co., 1962). Hirschmann, Ira A.  The Embers Still Burn. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949).  Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. (New York: New York University Press, 1993).  Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 669-672. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 314-321, 329, 332, 356-358, 365-366, 382-383. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 163-174, 188, 200. Levin, Nora. The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968), pp. 560, 587-589, 630, 634-635, 658-659.  Feingold, Henry. The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1944. (New Brunswick, NJ: (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 33, 221, 246, 254, 262, 272, 281-292. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 395, 404-406.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 143, 215-216.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.  Wyman, 1970.  Wyman, 1984.]

Leonard E. Ackermann, War Refugee Board representative in North Africa and Italy, 1944-45

Leonard E. Ackermann was the War Refugee Board representative in North Africa and Italy in 1944-45.  He had only very limited success in effecting the rescue and relief of Jews.

[Friedman, 1973, p. 214.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.  Wyman, 1970.  Wyman, 1984.  Wyman, 1986, pp. 228, 261.]

Dr. Robert C. Dexter, War Refugee Board representative in Portugal, 1944-45

Dr. Robert C. Dexter was the War Refugee Board’s agent in Portugal.  He was formerly the European representative of the Unitarian Service Committee and had convinced the Portuguese government to admit large numbers of Jewish refugee children who had escaped from France through Spain.  Many of these children lacked proper identification papers.  Dexter complained that the War Refugee Board would have been more successful had they had adequate representation in Spain and had backing of the US Embassy there.

[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 213.  Feingold, 1970, p. 284.  Friedman, 1973, p. 214.  Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 334.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York; Wyman, 1970; Wyman, 1984.  Wyman, 1986, p. 227.]

James Mann, War Refugee Board

James Mann worked closely with John Pehle at the Treasury Department.  He was appointed War Refugee Board liaison within the US State Department.  His job was to expedite and facilitate War Refugee Board overseas cables that were routed over State Department signals and communication supplies.  Given the antipathy of the State Department to refugee advocates, this was a difficult assignment.

Mann later was sent to London, England, to represent the Board there.  Mann sent a message from the Polish Government-in-Exile:

“…that the War Refugee Board again explore with the Army the possibility of bombing the extermination chambers and German barracks at largest Polish concentration camps which, they state, are sufficiently detached from the concentration camps to permit precision bombing.”

Ultimately, the US Army refused to bomb the rail lines leading to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

[Morse, 1967, pp. 314, 359.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.]

Roswell McClelland, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), War Refugee Board (WRB) representative in Geneva, 1944-45, and Marjorie McClelland

Roswell McClelland was a volunteer with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) operating in France and throughout Europe in the early part of the war.  He was successful in helping a number of Jews escape the Nazis. 

In 1944, McClelland was appointed the representative of the War Refugee Board in Geneva, Switzerland.  He was involved in numerous rescue activities, including the negotiation with SS official Kurt Becher for the release of Jewish internees in concentration camps at the end of the war in March and April 1945. 

McClelland proposed that the Allied air forces bomb the rail lines from Hungary to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

“It is urged by all sources of this information in Slovakia and Hungary that vital sections of these lines especially bridges along… Csap-Kaschau-Presov-Lubotin-Nowysacz in direction of Oswiecim… be bombed as the only possible means of slowing down or stopping future deportations… There is little doubt that many of these Hungarian Jews are being sent to the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in western Upper Silesia where, according to recent reports, since early summer 1942, at least 1,500,000 Jews have been killed.”

Pehle sent the recommendation to John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War.  McCloy replied on July 4, 1944.

“The War Department is of the opinion that the suggested air operation is impracticable.  It could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations and would in any case be of such very doubtful efficacy that it would not amount to a practical project.”

McClelland, one of the great American rescue and relief operatives, reflected on his wartime efforts:

“Such was the fight on one of the War Refugee Board’s fronts, with its sorties and skirmishes, its trenches stormed and its ground gained—and lost—in the uneven struggle to succor and to save some of the victims of the Nazi assault on human decency.  Its successes were slight in relation to the frightful casualties sustained; yet it is sincerely felt that its accomplishments constitute a victory, small in comparison to that far greater one carried by force of arms, but which nevertheless adds a measure of particularly precious strength to our cause.”

Roswell McClelland’s wife, Marjorie, was active in the rescue of Jews as well.

[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 122, 157, 459, 953, 1253, 1596. Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 36, 232-233, 237, 245-250, 284-286, 289, 294, 324. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 330-332, 358-359, 372-373, 381, 383. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 187, 191, 202, 208-211, 213, 218, 223, 234, 236, 236n35, 252, 258, 260-261, 263, 277. Hurwitz, Ariel. “The struggle over the creation of the War Refugee Board (WRB).”  Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 6 (1991), 17-31.  Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 220, 397, 404, 406, 412-415, 420, 422-424, 429-430.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 151, 202, 217-220.  Feingold, 1970, pp. 255, 275, 278, 279.  Friedman, 1973, pp. 214, 216, 227.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.]

General William O’Dwyer

[Gruber, 2000, pp. 200, 203, 212, 216, 218-219, 222-223.  Morse, 1967, p. 383.  Penkower, 1983, p. 262.  Wyman, 1984, pp. 271, 271n, 273, 284, 286-287, 406.

Ivar Olson, War Refugee Board representative in Sweden, 1944-45

Ivar Olson was the War Refugee Board (WRB) representative in Sweden 1944-1945.  Olson recruited Swedish private citizen Raoul Wallenberg to head the WRB’s rescue efforts of the Jews of Budapest in 1944-1945.  The rescue of Jews in Budapest was one of the most successful actions of the WRB during World War II. 

[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1439, 1549, 1596. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.).  The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945. (New York: Pantheon, 1984), pp. 229-231, 241, 243. Koblik, Steven. The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945. (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 49, 51, 63, 73-75, 124, 158-159, 252-253, 261-267. Morse, Arthur D. While Six Million Died: A Chronicle of American Apathy. (New York: Random House, 1967), pp. 348-349, 363. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust.  (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 200, 267-270, 273-274, 276, 279. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 404, 421.  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 212-213.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.  Feingold, 1970, pp. 224, 258-259, 279, 292.]

Raoul Wallenberg●, Secretary of the Swedish Legation and US War Refugee Board representative in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45

Raoul Wallenberg volunteered as a civilian employee of the American War Refugee Board in 1944.  He was credentialed as a diplomat by Sweden and arrived in Budapest on January 9, 1944.  His mission was to save as many Budapest Jews as possible.  Raoul Wallenberg redesigned the Swedish protective papers.  Wallenberg issued Swedish diplomatic papers to thousands of Hungarian Jews.  He prevented the Nazis from deporting and murdering Jews in the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.  With his staff of Jewish volunteers, Wallenberg rescued thousands of Jews who were being forced on death marches.  He also established dozens of safe houses throughout Budapest.  He tirelessly protected the safe houses from Nazi and Arrow Cross raids.  In January 1945, Raoul Wallenberg was arrested by the Russians and disappeared. He was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1963.  In 1981, Wallenberg was bestowed the title of honorary citizen of the United States, at that time, an honor reserved only for Winston Churchill.  In addition, he has been honored all over the world for his life-saving activities.  After 60 years of investigation, his whereabouts or fate in the hands of the Soviet Union has never been proven.

[Wallenberg, Raoul, translated by Kjersti Board. Letters and Dispatches, 1924-1944. (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1995).  Yahil, L. “Raoul Wallenberg: His Mission and His Activities in Hungary.” Yad Vashem Studies, 15 (1983), pp. 7-53.  Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 788, 840, 845, 849, 850, 853, 1085-1091, 1130, 1132. Asaf, Uri. Christian support for Jews during the Holocaust in Hungary. In Braham, Randolph L. (Ed.) Studies on the Holocaust in Hungary, pp. 65-112. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), p. 107. Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948), pp. 231, 355, 364-365, 369, 371, 378-379, 381-383, 391, 405-407, 410-411, 413-414. Levine, Paul A. From Indifference to Activism: Swedish Diplomacy and the Holocaust: 1938-1944. (Uppsala, Sweden: 1998), pp. 247, 265-266, 277. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1588-1591. Skoglund, Elizabeth R. A Quiet Courage: Per Anger, Wallenberg’s Co-Liberator of Hungarian Jews. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997). Lévai, Jenö, translated by Frank Vajda. Raoul Wallenberg: His Remarkable Life, Heroic Battles and the Secret of his Mysterious Disappearance. (Melbourne, 1988, originally published in Hungarian in 1948).  Breitman, Richard and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jews. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 212-219.  War Refugee Board Papers and Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL), Hyde Park, New York.]