Rescue

Toward rescuing the persecuted peoples of Europe from their persecutors the world last week made slow but steady progress.

> The Czecho-Slovak Government, in sharp contrast to Nazi Germany's crude attempt to cash in on world sympathy for the plight of the Jews, announced that it would finance the emigration of 10,000 Jews and non-Jews who had fled to Czecho-Slovakia from Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Money for the evacuation will come largely from Great Britain's $50,000,000 loan to Czecho-Slovakia; the rest will be donated by the Government.

Half of the 10,000 are Jews, for whose admission into Palestine the Government has already completed arrangements. Of the 5,000 non-Jews, 1,000 will go to Canada, 2,500 to Bolivia, the rest to other South American countries, where they will settle on collective farms to be equipped by the Czecho-Slovak Government.

> A delegation representing the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) of Philadelphia, an organization remembered in Germany for its relief to starving, homeless Germans in the post-War years, returned to the U. S. and announced that high Nazi officials had approved a four-point program for relief to the Jews: 1) under Quaker direction, transient camps will be set up outside Germany, where emigrants can be fed and housed until they can be sent to new homes; 2) with the cooperation of the Nazi Government, 150,000 younger Jews, able to act as breadwinners for their families, will be established as soon as possible in new colonies in other countries; 3) these Jews will be allowed to send back funds to pay for the removal of their families from Germany; 4) for the 200,000 Jews who, German authorities admit, are too old, ailing or poor to be removed, the Quakers will be allowed to establish relief stations in Germany. Said Quaker Rufus Jones, by no means so pessimistic about the Quaker mission as he had been when premature publicity impelled Nazi Goebbels' Der Angriff to jeer at it: "Our visit was very effective. . . . We feel a certain spirit of love and service similar to our work in post-War Germany was deeply felt not only in high Government places, but among the people as well."

> In Rome, U. S. Ambassador William Phillips called on Premier Mussolini, presented a memorandum from President Roosevelt "suggesting" to Il Duce that Ethiopia be used as a haven for Europe's Jews and that the Italian leader use his influence with Adolf Hitler to persuade the Nazis to let German Jews emigrate with enough capital to start life anew. On the Ethiopian suggestion Il Duce reportedly turned thumbs down. Pleased by the fact that the U. S. overture was made just one day before President Roosevelt's anti-dictator message to Congress, which apparently indicated to Italian officials that the speech was directed largely against Nazi Germany, Il Duce reputedly agreed to try to find some compromise solution of the Jewish question with his Axis partner.

> Most spectacular fund being collected for Europe's refugees, largely for the Jews in Germany, is the Lord Baldwin Fund in Great Britain. Last week, with contributions pouring in from Britons of all classes at the rate of $100,000 a day, the Baldwin Fund topped the $1,500,000 mark still going strong.

> To Berlin last week went tuft-bearded Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, ostensibly to act as godfather at the christening of the grandchild of Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, but actually to continue discussions begun with Dr. Schacht in London last month on the possibility of arranging a much-needed international loan for Germany. In return for it, the Nazi officials would agree to let their Jews go free. In Paris, on his way to Berlin, presumably to discuss the same scheme, was U. S. Lawyer George Rublee, director of the 32-nation Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees. He has not been able to buttonhole a single high Nazi official since his organization was set up at Evian, France last summer.

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