840.48 Refugees/3839
The British Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
On the 29th of March, Mr. William Strang47 handed to Mr. Dunn48 the draft text of the instructions sent to His Majesty’s Ambassador at Ankara and to His Majesty’s Minister at Berne with the purpose of arranging with the Turkish and Bulgarian Governments (the latter by way of the Swiss Government) for the evacuation to Turkey from Bulgaria of 30,000 Jews who were, it was understood, to be deported to Poland.
The State Department will no doubt have received from the United States Ambassador at Ankara a telegram to the effect that it is the agreed view of the United States and British Ambassadors that there is no prospect whatever of persuading the Turks to agree to receive the 30,000 Bulgarian Jews, and that the only possible solution of the problem would be to arrange for their transport to some other destination.
The State Department are also aware of the attitude of the Swiss Government who feel unable to make to the Bulgarian Government an official communication requesting that no obstacle be placed on the departure of the 30,000 Jews from Bulgaria.
In the meantime, representations have been made to the Ambassador in writing by Dr. Weizmann,49 and to the British Secretary of State verbally by Rabbi Wise50 and Judge Proskauer51 in favour of the Jews in Bulgaria. His Majesty’s Ambassador has been instructed to reply to these representations by calling attention in the first place to the fact that practical arrangements are under way for the evacuaion of 4500 Jewish children and 500 accompanying adults from Bulgaria, and suggesting that the communication to the Bulgarian Government of a further scheme before this first scheme is completed [Page 293] might give the Bulgarian Government an excuse to delay the present operation while considering the more ambitious proposal. Lord Halifax52 is also authorised to draw the attention of the Jewish representatives to the improbability of the Bulgarian authorities agreeing to the issue of exit permits to any man of military age.
Lord Halifax would finally propose to quote to the Jewish representatives an extract from a speech by Viscount Cranborne in the House of Lords on March 23rd in which he said “The capacity of Great Britain and of her Colonial territories to maintain vast quantities of refugees is dependent and must be dependent in war-time on two vital and inter-related considerations. Those are shipping and food. Already our resources are greatly stretched”.53
- Acting Assistant Under Secretary of State in the British Foreign Office.↩
- James C. Dunn, Adviser on Political Relations, Department of State.↩
- Chaim Weizmann, President, Jewish Agency for Palestine.↩
- Stephen S. Wise, President, World Jewish Congress.↩
- Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, President, American Jewish Committee.↩
- British Ambassador in the United States.↩
- Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, vol. 126, col. 852.↩