Article from the Amsterdam Evening Recorder, "War Refugee Board"

War Refugee Board

(New York Herald Tribune)

By his appointment of a War Refugee Board "to take action for the immediate rescue from the Nazis of as many as possible of the persecuted minorities of Europe," the President silences once and for all enemy propaganda to the effect that the United Nations are not concerned with their fate - not, in particular, with the fate of the Jewish people. For the President expressed the expectation that the board would have the cooperation of all members of the United Nations and other foreign governments. To insure the board adequate powers he appointed to It the Secretaries of the State, Treasury and War Departments and directed teh facilities of those departments be put at its disposal.

It is a difficult task entailing rescue, transportation, maintenance, and relief. How many victims can be saved from Germany itself no one knows; but organizations in touch with underground groups in occupied Europe are hopeful that many can be rescued from, and through, the Balkan satellite nations. Once temporary camps have been set up to receive the refugess in neutral or Allied nations, the board will cooperate with the Inter-Governmental Refugee Committee and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Committee.

The President urged immediate concrete action, an urgency dictated "to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities in Europe." The American lead in setting up poweful machinery to obtain such action will have wide approval. For growing realization of the frightful lengths to which the Hitler regime will carry its philosophy of brutality has made a do-nothing policy more and more untenable.