Jewish Organizations and the Creation of the U.S. War Refugee Board

Abstract

Confronted by the Holocaust, the Anglo-American Alliance moved slowly to meet this unique tragedy during World War II. Refusing the initial appeal of Jewish organiza tions in the free world that food and medical packages be dispatched to the ghettos of Europe, London and Washington argued that supplies would be diverted for the Germans' per sonal use or would be granted the Jews just to free the Third Reich from its "responsibility" to feed them. A license granted in December, 1942, for such shipments had minimal effect. The World Jewish Congress' subsequent plan to rescue Jews through the use of blocked accounts in Switzerland received the U.S. Treasury Department's approval in mid-1943, but the State Department and the British Foreign Office pro crastinated further. Jewish groups failed at times to measure up to the catastrophe but the fundamental obligation lay with the Allied councils of war, which discriminated in their un willingness to save a powerless European Jewry. The per sistence of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and his staff in bypassing State and ultimately confronting Franklin D. Roosevelt in January, 1944, along with increasing calls from Congress and the public for a presidential rescue com mission, resulted in the executive creation of the U.S. War Refugee Board. The lateness of the hour and Hitler's ruthless determination to complete the murder of all the Jews of Europe made the odds for the new board's success more than questionable.