840.48 Refugees/1123
The Chargé in Luxemburg (Waller) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 16.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that the Government of Luxemburg has now announced that it will not, until further notice, permit any more Jewish refugees to enter the Grand Duchy under any circumstances. This action has been taken with the utmost reluctance, and only after several weeks during which the Grand Ducal Government granted temporary residence permits to a large number of Jews in Germany to enable them to escape confinement in concentration camps to which they would otherwise have been sent. The Government of Luxemburg announces that it will gladly cooperate with other countries in receiving and giving residence permits to as many of these unfortunate persons as possible, when and if, international action along these lines can achieve definite results.
[Page 848]The Department will recall that the Grand Ducal Government greatly desired to participate in the Evian Conference, inasmuch as the Government knew that Luxemburg would be one of the first “safety zones” available to hundreds of Jews as soon as new measures made a new exodus necessary. It is impossible to make a close estimate of the number of refugee Jews now in the Grand Duchy. The head of one of the Jewish organizations here tells me that practically every Jewish family in the country is sheltering one or more friends or relatives from across the border. He admits that two out of three Jewish refugees now in the Grand Duchy have entered illegally. Local authorities are not deporting these persons to Germany, inasmuch as this would bring unduly harsh penalties upon them, and the police are, under verbal instructions, turning a blind eye upon the Jews clandestinely here, wherever possible.
The entire police force and gendarmerie of the country reinforced by certain army units, are maintaining as rigid a border patrol as is possible, but when hundreds of fear-crazed and desperate men are seeking in forest and mountain regions a chance to slip over an undefended frontier, it is easy to comprehend that a good many will be successful. If the situation were reversed, it is safe to say that very few Luxemburgers could get into Germany, but in this case, the German authorities are not only eager to allow Jews to get out, but in many cases notably during September, bundled helpless groups over the frontier in unwatched places, and threatened them with dire punishment if they attempted to return or confessed that they had been forcibly put into Luxemburg.
The City of Luxemburg, with a high per capita ratio of automobiles to the population, has had not one traffic policeman for more than two months,—all are guarding the frontier.
Many hundreds of Jews who have succeeded in reaching Luxemburg have applied at American Consulates in Germany for immigration visas to the United States. In this case, they call at this Legation soon after their arrival to implore that the Consular Section of these offices write to Vienna, Stuttgart, or Berlin, to request that their dossiers be sent to Luxemburg in order that this office may in due time arrange for them to be examined and receive their visa at Antwerp. Belgium will not admit them without a letter from this office granting them an appointment for final examination and issue of visa at the Consulate General at Antwerp. Until this week, the Government of Luxemburg would grant residence permits for three months to Jews in Germany having at least 12,000 Luxemburg francs, at the request of their relatives here, and every refugee who had registered at Stuttgart or Vienna was certain that his turn for a visa [Page 849] would be less than three months. His friends would then come to this office and beg for a letter to the effect that Mr. Blank, having a serial number 12,906, for example, at the American Consulate General at Stuttgart, would receive a visa quota number within three months! While this office has obviously been unable to supply any such letters, it has in many cases telephoned the Consulate General at Stuttgart, at the applicant’s expense, and after verification of the latter’s serial waiting number, given him a statement that, all other things being equal, he might expect to be examined for a visa within a certain number of months. A great deal of time has been taken up during the last three weeks in this work alone, but it is a comfort to realize that through such cooperation it has been possible for a great many helpless and persecuted people to receive shelter and a waiting place in Luxemburg.
Respectfully yours,