840.48 Refugees/1652: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 7—11:46 a.m.]
791. From Pell. My 788, June 7, 11 a.m. Emerson and I thrashed out the whole refugee situation with Wohlthat 3 hours this morning with the utmost frankness and he left, as he said, greatly reassured and enlightened and determined to do everything in his power to collaborate by establishing orderly emigration from Germany in order that there might be orderly settlement on the outside.
Emerson opened the discussion by saying that recrimination was entirely beside the point. He as Commissioner and Director had merely to accept the fact that the German Government had decided on a certain line of policy, that the effect of this policy required certain intergovernmental and private action on the outside and that he had the task of attempting to correlate whatever machinery there might be in Germany with whatever machinery there might be on the outside. He then took the memorandum on refugee settlement which I handed Wohlthat in April and went over it paragraph by paragraph explaining in great detail what each country was doing and what some were prepared to do. Next he showed how the emigration from Germany had been financed from 19 [apparent omission], outlining the composition of the various private organizations and giving Wohlthat copies of their financial reports and other data. He also outlined to Wohlthat in confidence the efforts which had been made since the Rublee conversations by Mr. Taylor and others to set up [Page 118] machinery on the outside and described the present status of these efforts.
Wohlthat, for his part, described the difficulties which he had had to overcome in Berlin in order to bring the organization of emigration to its present point. He expressed the conviction that Hitler would approve the proposed legislation immediately and showed us copies of the two decrees setting up the central Jewish organization and the internal trust. He observed that we would have to believe that he was facing this problem constructively and so was Goering just as he believed that we were facing it constructively, and proceed pari passu. He said he was delighted to have established the contact with Emerson and suggested that he and Sir Herbert should deal henceforth directly by private correspondence, thus avoiding trips back and forth with the attendant dangers of publicity. Emerson agreed to this procedure and the discussion ended in friendly exchanges all around. [Pell.]