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39-618: WRB , or wrb , may refer to: War Refugee Board World Reference Base for Soil Resources W. R. Berkley Corporation , NYSE ticker WRB WRB Refining LLC, operators of Wood River Refinery , Illinois, U.S. WRB, a part-of-speech tag in the Brown Corpus WRB. the IATA code for Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, U.S. wrb, the ISO 639 language code for

78-670: A license for relief funds to help Jews escape Romania and France. While the Treasury Department had granted the World Jewish Congress permission to send the money to Switzerland in July 1943, the State Department used various excuses, delaying permission until December, a full eight months after the program was first proposed. Josiah DuBois also found evidence that the State Department had actively tried to suppress information about

117-686: A series of meetings, Morgenthau agreed to take his staff's concerns to the President. Morgenthau, Paul, and Pehle met with President Roosevelt in the White House on Sunday, January 16, 1944. Roosevelt got an oral briefing on the facts and conclusions in the Treasury Department's memorandum, and immediately agreed to deal with the issues by creating a War Refugee Board, consisting of three cabinet members, Secretary of State Cordell Hull , Secretary Morgenthau, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson (Morgenthau had suggested that instead of Stimson, Leo Crowley, Director of

156-491: A staff lawyer, Josiah E. DuBois Jr. , investigated how and why the license had been held up. In their research, which was aided by some whistleblowers in the State Department, they discovered that in addition to blocking licenses for use of money to aid refugees, the State Department had also sent foreign missions orders not to forward information about Nazi atrocities—specifically about the Holocaust—to Washington. At

195-772: The American Jewish Congress , and Peter Bergson and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe . Two Congressional resolutions had been introduced in November 1943, calling on Roosevelt to create a commission to formulate and effectuate plans for the relief and rescue of Jews. The Senate was scheduled to vote on the resolution in late January; the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held hearings, and testimony from these hearings further discredited Breckinridge Long of

234-1038: The International Red Cross to detainees in Nazi concentration camps and supplemented these private projects with a food-parcel program of its own financed from the emergency funds of the president. Through the efforts of the War Refugee Board, refugee camps were prepared in North Africa and safe haven was arranged in Palestine , Switzerland, and Sweden. In August 1944 the WRB brought 982 Jewish refugees, who were in Italy from many countries, to The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego , in New York. These refugees were admitted outside

273-551: The US State Department not only had failed to use US government tools to rescue Jewish European refugees but instead had used them to prevent or obstruct rescue attempts, as well as preventing relevant information from being made available to the American public. Described as "political dynamite", the memorandum, shortened and re-titled Personal Report to the President , helped convince President Franklin D. Roosevelt to approve

312-623: The Warluwarra language , an extinct Australian Aboriginal language WRB. the National Rail code for Wrabness railway station in Essex, UK Wright b antigen (Wrb), located on Glycophorin A Warner Robins, Georgia See also [ edit ] All pages with titles containing WRB All pages with titles beginning with WRB Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

351-514: The American public, and made further attempts to cover up such obstructionist activities. Dubois' report was written in the first person and focused on the time period between late 1942, and late 1943. According to the report, in late 1942, largely through the efforts of Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles , the United States publicly confirmed the Nazi program and led its allies in a December 1942 public condemnation and promise of help. (At

390-560: The Foreign Economic Administration be appointed, but Roosevelt decided to appoint Stimson instead.) On January 22, 1944, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9417 creating the Board. The Treasury Department did not act in a vacuum. By the end of 1943, Roosevelt was also getting intense pressure to act on the issue from members of Congress, including Sol Bloom and Emanuel Celler ; Jewish organizations, most notably Stephen Wise and

429-731: The Hungarian government and putting pressure on them, the WRB contributed to the cessation of deportations of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz, possibly saving many of the Jews of Budapest . The Board sent the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg , and others to protect the Jews of Budapest. Through the WRB, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint ,) funded Wallenberg's rescue work there. The work by Wallenberg in Hungary

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468-530: The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, and a staff, mainly pulled from inside the Treasury Department. Though they were officially restricted to a maximum staff of thirty, some government employees (including Pehle) were considered "detailed" to the WRB, raising their staff to seventy in the summer of 1944. Brigadier General William O'Dwyer later succeeded Pehle as executive director until its dissolution at

507-715: The Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews was the initial title of a government memorandum prepared by officials of the United States Department of the Treasury . Dated January 13, 1944, during the Holocaust , its primary author was Josiah E. DuBois Jr. , Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury . Focusing on the period from late 1942 to late 1943, the report argued that certain officials within

546-474: The State Department. Establishment of the Board was thanks to the team at the Treasury Deportment and relentless long-term information campaign and pressure by Hillel Kook's high-level rescue activist group. John W. Pehle, the assistant to the secretary of treasury, was appointed executive director of the board, which was directly responsible to the president. Its members included the Secretary of State,

585-657: The Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. and his team at the Treasury. Roosevelt "stressed that it was urgent that action be taken at once to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities in Europe". The WRB was created when a group of young Treasury Department lawyers, including John Pehle , Ansel Luxford , and Josiah E. DuBois Jr. , grew frustrated by State Department delays surrounding

624-559: The Treasury Department issued a license to the World Jewish Congress to use funds in the United States to pay some of the costs of evacuating Jews from Romania and France. (This should not be confused with another initiative, by the Romanian government, to "sell" Jews for approximately $ 50 a head, with which it had no connection.) Various State Department officials delayed the license for the next five months. Treasury officials, led by

663-460: The Treasury Department were disappointed that the 1943 bi-national Bermuda Conference on refugees did not deliver results and suspected that the State Department had delayed financing for the rescue of refugees. The report has been described as a 17 or 18 pages-long memorandum . Dated January 13, 1944, the report was initiated by Treasury general counsel , Randolph Paul , authored by the Secretary's assistant Josiah E. DuBois Jr. with help from

702-541: The Treasury Department's office of Foreign Funds Control and its chief, John W. Pehle. Pehle's office had authorized a number of charitable groups to use funds in the U.S. regulated under the Trading with the Enemy Act to pay for food, medicine, and other aid to refugees and other civilian victims of the war in Europe. Those efforts were systematically blocked by some officials in the U.S. State Department. Specifically, in July 1943,

741-556: The United States. That division was under the control of Breckinridge Long , a State Department officer who had expressed admiration for both Mussolini's fascist regime and for Hitler. Henry Morgenthau Jr. , was the Secretary of the Treasury during the Roosevelt administration. By 1943, the State Department publicly confirmed reports of some details of the Nazi plan to annihilate Jews, and Morgenthau discussed this with his staff. Officials at

780-461: The War Refugee Board, issuing Executive Order 9417. Credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied countries, through the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg and others, the War Refugee Board is the only major civilian effort undertaken by the United States government to save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. The immediate cause for Roosevelt's action was pressure from the staff of

819-483: The complete extermination of the Jews in German controlled Europe, and that this Government will have to share for all time responsibility for this extermination". DuBois argued that certain officials within the State Department not only had failed to use US government tools to rescue the Jews, but had used them instead to prevent or obstruct rescue attempts, as well as preventing relevant information from being made available to

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858-530: The creation of the War Refugee Board . In 1938, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an international conference on the plight of Jewish European refugees. Held in Évian-les-Bains , France and known as the Évian Conference , no substantive change resulted. The German Foreign Office , in a sardonic reply, found it "astonishing" that other countries would decry Germany's treatment of Jews and then decline to admit them. During World War II , in

897-486: The director of foreign funds control, John Pehle , and addressed to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. The Treasury officials criticized the US State Department for its alleged obstructionism and even conspiracies, and stated that, "[u]nless remedial steps of a drastic nature are taken, and taken immediately, I am certain that no effective action will be taken by this government to prevent

936-472: The early 1940s, information about The Holocaust started to become public but was dismissed by many as exaggerated. As time passed, it became an increasingly contentious matter in contemporary American politics. At the same time, a public fear was generated concerning the war-time security risk posed by admitting refugees to the United States. The U.S. State Department's Visa Division was responsible for issuing travel visas to foreign nationals seeking to get to

975-504: The end of 1943, DuBois wrote a memorandum, "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews", which said the State Department was "guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from Hitler". DuBois took his memorandum to Treasury General Counsel Randolph E. Paul , who agreed to put his signature on it and forward it to Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. After

1014-560: The end of World War II. The Board appointed representatives in Turkey , Switzerland , Sweden , Portugal , Great Britain , Italy , and North Africa . The WRB developed and implemented various plans and programs for: The War Refugee Board enlisted the cooperation of foreign governments and international refugee and rescue organizations in carrying out these functions. Such neutral countries as Switzerland , Sweden , and Turkey were of particular importance, serving as bases of operation for

1053-468: The end of his life, WRB director Pehle described the work as "too little, too late" in contrast with the totality of the Holocaust . With the close of the war in Europe, the work of the board was at an end. By the terms of Executive Order No. 9614 the board was abolished on September 15, 1945. Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government to the Murder of the Jews Report to

1092-490: The immigration quota laws, but given no status, and it was intended that they would be repatriated to their home countries at a (successful) war's end. The WRB used the example of Fort Ontario to influence other countries to also allow additional refugees over their borders. The WRB lobbied Roosevelt to publicly condemn the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, which he did on March 24, 1944. By attracting international attention to

1131-430: The murder of the Jews from reaching the United States. When the Treasury staff learned of the State Department obstructions, they submitted a Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government to the Murder of the Jews , first drafted by DuBois, aiming to convince Morgenthau to meet with the President. Morgenthau, John Pehle, and Randolph Paul met with Roosevelt on January 16, 1944, where he agreed to create

1170-422: The report covered State's delays and failures in even filling refugee immigration quotas, ostensibly claiming security concerns. The report contains extended criticism, in particular of Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long for delay and cover-up, and stressed that more than a year had gone by and nothing had been done, although people were dying and time was of the essence. The title of Dubois' document

1209-783: The rescue and relief program. The Vatican rendered some assistance, mostly towards the very end of the war, primarily as a channel of communication to enemy regimes, such as the fascist government of Slovakia . The board obtained the cooperation of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees , the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration , and the International Committee of the Red Cross in rehabilitating and resettling refugees, finding temporary shelters for rescued victims, transporting these victims to

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1248-439: The rescue of persecuted peoples living under Nazi control. Under this licensing policy, it was possible to communicate with persons in enemy territory and to finance rescue operations with certain controls designed to bring no financial benefit to the enemy. Approximately $ 15 million in private funds was made available in this way. The board obtained blockade clearances for food shipments of private relief agencies for distribution by

1287-454: The results of the conference were kept secret. (As it turned out, neither the British nor Americans expressed much interest in taking concrete action on refugees.) In the first half of 1943, several cables from State discussed a plan to fund refugee rescue. In July, State finally approached Treasury about these refugee funds and Treasury approved but State continued to delay the funding. In addition,

1326-422: The shelters and providing for their maintenance in transit, and making relief deliveries inside enemy territory. The WRB worked closely with private U.S. relief agencies in formulating, financing, and executing plans and projects. A Treasury Department licensing policy that permitted established private agencies to transfer funds from the United States to their representatives in neutral countries aided in financing

1365-620: The time, the allies were known as the United Nations). In January 1943, Welles cabled the American delegation in Switzerland for more information to be made public. In February persons unknown sent a cable from State basically ordering the diplomats in Switzerland not to make such information public. In April, the Bermuda Conference between State Department staff and British Foreign Office staff met specifically to discuss refugee issues but

1404-448: The title WRB . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WRB&oldid=1256549813 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages War Refugee Board There

1443-607: Was increasing and persistent significant publicity and pressure on the Roosevelt administration to help the abandoned Jews of Europe. The campaign was led by the Bergson Group led by Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson). The activist group had significant support by many leading senators and congressmen mostly from states without significant Jewish voters, from Eleanor Roosevelt , famous Hollywood and Broadway personalities and other prominent citizens. President Roosevelt acted after considerable additional pressure from his friend, Secretary of

1482-409: Was later described as vehement, even fantastic, though "borne out by the grotesque revelations". The report given to the president by Morgenthau had a less "jarring", more technical title: "Personal Report to the President". The report was nonetheless still described as "scathing" and as "political dynamite", given the context of the election year 1944 . Within days of its receipt, Roosevelt approved

1521-465: Was one of the most successful and important rescue efforts by the War Refugee Board. It is difficult to determine the exact number of Jews rescued by the War Refugee Board, since so much of their work was done behind enemy lines and involved psychological warfare and other intangible rescue activities. One historian, David Wyman, credits them with saving as many as 200,000 people; the WRB staff themselves estimated they saved tens of thousands. However, near

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