File No. 860c.48/30a
The Secretary of State to the Minister in the Netherlands ( Garrett)
1043. Repeat Berne, Copenhagen, Stockholm. For your information. After April 1 amount of relief remittances permitted by this Government to go to Poland monthly for relief all nationalities will not exceed $300,000 of which $200,000 general relief, and $100,000 individual remittances. To supplement this, Department is contemplating permitting relief societies to purchase second-hand clothing or inexpensive new clothing in countries adjacent to Germany for shipment to and distribution in Poland. Please ascertain and report by cable if local representatives of relief societies can obtain adequate written guarantees from German authorities that such shipments to Poland will be permitted and will not be seized and that distribution in Poland by neutral agents of relief societies will be carried out unmolested by German authorities, civil or military; also that German authorities will not seize in Poland a stock of clothing to offset such quantities as may be forwarded to Poland by American relief societies. Report in detail terms of guarantees of German authorities.