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{
    "localId": "12007666",
    "label": "Letter, General Dwight D. Eisenhower to President Harry S. Truman",
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    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12007666"
}

{
    "id": "12007666",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12007666",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Letter, General Dwight D. Eisenhower to President Harry S. Truman",
    "description": "This letter details the actions taken by the military government of the U.S. Zone of Occupation to house, feed, and cloth Jewish displaced persons.  Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote the letter in response to the report of Earl G. Harrison, U.S. Representative on the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees. The Harrison Report alleged that Jewish displaced persons were ill-treated in ways comparable to the Nazi regime.",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12007666",
    "collections": [
        "Eisenhower, Dwight D: Papers, Pre-Presidential",
        "Principal Files"
    ],
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    "hasTranscription": false
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{
    "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12007666",
    "naId": 12007666,
    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 8,
            "logicalDate": "1945-10-08",
            "month": 10,
            "year": 1945
        }
    ],
    "recordType": "description",
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{
    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/eisenhower/6995916/6995916_039_Page_2.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "in nearly overy instance more than the 30 aquaze feet per person of\nfloor space required for our soldiers was available.\nDisplaced persons have absolute proference over Germans for housing,\nbut the requirements of the distribution of supplies, the provision of\nmedical care, and the need for welfare activities maice it desirable\nthat displaced persons be sufficiantly concentrated so that these\nservices may be performed efficiently by the limited supervisory\npersonnel and transport at our disposal. Thus, considerable use has\nbeen made of large installations such as brick barracion, apartment\nblooks and other publio buildings in preference to scabtered individual\nbillets.\nSpecial have been established for Jowinh displaced persons.\nIn the latter part of June, the Annies were directed to collect into\nspecial assembly dentera displaced persons who did not wish to or who\ncould not be ropatriated. On 25 July 1945, Dr. Rabbi Israol Golstoin,\nPresident of the United Jewish Appeal, recomended that non-repatriable\nJews be separated from other stateless people, and placed in exclusively\nJewish centers. As a result, the American Joint Distribution Committee\nwas onled upon to supervise the ostablishment of these conters. This\npolioy was reiterated and expanded on 22 August. Special Jewish\ncontero were established for \"those Jowa who are without nationality\nor those not Soviet oitigens who do not desire to return to their\ncountry of origin\".\nAt the timm of lir. Harrison's report thera were perhape 1,000 Jows\nstill in their former concentration camps. These were too mick to be\nmoved at that time. No Jewish or other displaced persons have been\nhoused in these places longer than absolutely necessary for\nmedical quarantine and recovery from aoute illness. It has alwaya\nbeen our practice, not just our poliay. to remove these victima with\nthe utmost apeed from concentration\nThe assertion that our military guards are now substituting for 88\ntroops is definitoly misleading. One reason for limiting the numbora\npermitted to leave our assembly centers was depredation and banditry\nby displaced persona theaselves. Despite all precautions, more then\n2,000 of them died from drinicing methylated alcohol and other types\nof poisonous liquor. Many others died by violonce or ware injured\nwhile circulating outside our assembly centers. Perhaps then we were\nin our nurveillanos. ilowevor, my present polioy is\nexpressed in a letter to subordinate commanders wherein I said:"
}