840.48 Refugees/707: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Poland ( Biddle )
32. Your 160, August 30, noon. Please repeat your telegram and any future ones on this subject to Embassy, London, for Rublee.
We are fully alive to the desire of Poland to encourage substantial emigration and Polish representatives at Geneva and here have long emphasized the desire of their Government that international action in this field shall not be limited to refugees from Germany.
One of the principal preoccupations of this Government in connection with its proposal for international assistance for refugees, a preoccupation which is also felt acutely by the British and French Governments, is that our efforts on behalf of German refugees must not, if it can possibly be avoided, encourage persecution by other Governments aimed at forcing out unwanted sections of their populations and the dumping of these people onto the hands of international charity. Please bear this carefully in mind in all conversations you may have on the subject.
You may advise Beck along the following lines:
We do not look at the problem of unwanted populations and involuntary emigrants in any narrow light and we of course realize that the problem is not confined to any one area. On the other hand, the problem and the numbers of people involved are vast, and the interests of the countries of potential settlement must be given fully as much consideration as those of the countries of origin. This Government’s initiative in calling the Evian meeting was prompted primarily by the necessity of speedy action to meet the particular acute situation created by the Anschluss. Some progress is being made in dealing with that situation, but progress must inevitably be very slow and a number of years will be required to reach anything like a solution of the Austro-German problem. The reception which has so far met our efforts to meet the German problem and the limited opportunities for settlement which it has so far been possible to find give no encouragement whatever to any hope that a “global” solution of the problem might be possible.
[Page 784]We seriously doubt that it will be possible for any of the American representatives on the Intergovernmental Committee to be in Geneva during the forthcoming meeting of the Assembly. We should nevertheless be very happy to have transmitted to them any ideas on the subject which Beck may care to communicate to you.
We are repeating this message to London.