EUR Files
The Executive Director of the War Refugee
Board (Pehle) to
the Secretary of State
Washington, January 22,
1945.
I have noticed in the press that you are to participate in the
forthcoming international conference. Recently, the War Refugee
Board has received several urgent requests from Jewish organizations
in this country for the issuance of a United Nations’ warning to the
German Government and the German people against further
extermination and other forms of persecution of Jews in Germany and
German-occupied territory. It occurs to me that, if you find it
feasible to do so, this matter might be raised by you at the
conference.
As you know, we have never been able to get the Russians to join us
in any of our past statements, other than the Moscow Statement on
Atrocities issued on November 1, 1943. It is my feeling that if a
new warning to the Germans were issued by President Roosevelt, Mr. Churchill and Marshal Stalin, it might have a marked
effect, particularly at this stage of the war.
For your convenience, alternative drafts of such a warning are
attached.
[Attachment 1]
Draft A
A declaration released by us on November 1, 1943, has warned
Germans and their remaining satellites against continuing their
ruthless campaign of atrocities, massacres, and mass-executions.
Since that time, new evidence has been discovered in territories
liberated by the United Nations, indicating that these cruelties
are being continued. In liberated United Nations territory—in
the Soviet Union, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Yugoslavia,
in Greece, in Norway, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in
Luxemburg, and in France, as well as in the territories of
Germany’s former allies—in Italy, in Hungary, in Bulgaria, and
in Rumania, evidence has been piling up of brutal treatment and
barbarous murder of nationals of the United Nations and of Jews
of whatever nationality. There are indications that German
troops and officials, previous to retreating, prepare to
exterminate large numbers of local inhabitants and of Jewish
deportees and internees in the territories still occupied by
Germany, and that they prepare to extend this policy of
mass-extermination to foreign deportees and to Jews of whatever
nationality within German territory.
In the face of this evidence and of these indications, we
consider it our solemn duty once more to issue this solemn
warning that all participants in this savage scheme of
mass-murder, whether they are
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in high station or in low, will be fully
and promptly punished. All those who share the guilt will share
the punishment. Once more we repeat: Let those who have hitherto
not imbrued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they
join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three
allied Powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the
earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that
justice may be done. Our common determination to see justice
accomplished is and will be supported by the full strength of
our military might and the will of an aroused mankind.
[Attachment 2]
Draft B
Despite the protests of the whole civilized world, the Nazis, in
their hour of defeat, apparently are preparing to complete in
frenzied hatred the systematic mass murder of the Jews
regardless of nationality and other groups in German and
German-occupied territory. We, in the hour of victory, again
call upon the German Government and the German people to cease
these acts of unspeakable savagery.
Let the Germans and their collaborators understand that all
participants in this program of persecution and death shall
receive full and prompt punishment; that all who share the guilt
shall share the punishment. Let them know that this warning is
supported by the determination and the full military might of
outraged and victorious peoples.
