840.48 Refugees/7–2944: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chargé in Turkey (Kelley)
667. The following War Refugee Board 86 is for Hirschmann.
The Board is highly pleased with your efforts to increase the refugee movement from Bulgaria referred to in your 1344 of July 22.44
For your information an informal memorandum has been given to the Bulgarian Minister at Stockholm through Legation contacts. This memorandum which was prepared along the lines suggested by the Board and of which you were orally advised prior to your departure has apparently been forwarded by courier to the Bulgarian Foreign Office. Meanwhile the American Legation in Stockholm has received an informal reply from the Bulgarian Minister stating substantially the following:
“Bulgarian actions with respect to Jews have been enforced with leniency and sympathy by all of our Government branches. It is a well known fact even among the Bulgarian Jews that the late King Boris, as well as the head of the Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, have made every effort to insure that Jews were treated with compassion. This is no less true of the general Bulgarian population which has maintained a sympathy for Jews which even today will be readily admitted by the Jews. It is a fact that Jews today are living under circumstances not worse but better than those faced by large group of Bulgarian citizens who have been driven from their homes when they were destroyed by American bombing and who have lost all possessions.
The Government of Bulgaria has never turned a deaf ear to humanitarian considerations or those of tolerance. All Bulgarians are mindful that only through moral integrity can a small nation find strength. No less today than heretofore do we stand ready to give consideration to suggestions for the protection of Jews and other refugee groups, but we insist that those advancing such proposals should themselves be in a position to show leadership in humanitarian principles.
The air forces of the United States have been engaged in acts of great violence and cruelty against defenseless civilian populations in Doupnitza, Vratza, Sofia, Skopie, Velles, Plovdiv and others. A most arbitrary violence has been done to the Chateau of Vrana where the Queen, only recently made a widow, is residing with her two fatherless children of 7 and 12 years. The Chateau, which was far removed from any objective of a military nature and even far removed from other habitations, was totally destroyed.
If the people of Bulgaria can be assured that there are people in the United States of such a character who sincerely deplore these outrages and cruelties; if those who control the policies of the powerful [Page 1110] American Republic, instead of directing threats, were to give assurances that the destruction and violence of their military leaders would be replaced, and that hereafter there would be no further ruin and slaughter of an innocent civilian population, then it may be said without question that the Government of Bulgaria would be prepared to recognize the moral justification and right of the United States to advance humanitarian pleas, and the Bulgarian population would readily welcome and approve action consistent with such advice.”
The Board suggested that the Legation consider replying informally to the Bulgarian Minister in the following vein:
“The problems arising from aerial bombings are not within the province of the War Refugee Board, but in considering such patters informally and objectively one cannot overlook the bombings by forces with which Bulgaria continues to be allied, of such civilian centers as Warsaw, Rotterdam, Belgrade, Amsterdam, London and Coventry. The methodical persecution and oppression of Jews and other helpless civilian minorities as heretofore and presently practiced in German controlled and German allied areas is quite separate and apart and over and above civilian suffering on both sides incident to military action, particularly aerial warfare. This Government has taken the unequivocal position that those responsible for the oppression, persecution, deportation or extermination of such civilian minorities as has been and is being witnessed in Germany, France, the Lowlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic states, the Balkan countries and elsewhere will be punished for their crimes.”
After quoting the appeal of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of May 31 [June 3?] to the people of Hungary to protect the Jews, the Board’s cable to Minister Johnson continued as follows:
“The same applies to other Axis countries, including Bulgaria. Those to whom these warnings are applicable have it within their power henceforth so to act with respect to Jews and other helpless civilian minorities as to invite more favorable consideration than their conduct up to now may warrant, and to demonstrate a resurgence of that moral integrity which alone gives nations, large or small, strength.
For your information and guidance, the informal response transmitted in your telegram under reference45 has, of course, made a very unfavorable impression. Whether the Bulgarian Minister or his principals realize the seriousness with which the American people and Government consider the unspeakable treatment accorded Jews and other minorities by Germany and her satellites seems doubtful. It is likewise doubtful whether they realize the determination of this Government as expressed in the President’s statement of March 24 and repeated by implication in the statement above quoted to see to it that those who share the responsibility therefor will be punished.”