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OCR Page 1 of 6Summary of the First and Partial Report of Earl G. Harrison*
upon his Mission to Europe to inquire into the condition and needs
of those who are possibly non-repatriable and stateless (especially
the Jews) among the displaced persons in the SHAEF area of Germany.
I
Generally speaking, three months after V-E Day and even longer
after the liberation of individual groups, many Jewish displaced persons
and other possibly stateless and non-repatriables are living under guard,
behind barbed-wire fences, in camps of several descriptions, (built by
the Germans for Jews and slave-laborers) including some of the most
notorious of the concentration camps, amidst crowded, frequently un-
sanitary and generally grim conditions, in complete idleness, with no
opportunity, except surreptitiously, to communicate with the outside
world, waiting, hoping for some word of encouragement and action in
their behalf. Many of the Jewish displaced persons, late in July,
had no clothing other than their concentration camp garb - a hideous
striped pajama effect, while others, to their chagrin, were obliged
to wear discarded s.s. uniforms.
With a few notable exceptions, nothing in the way of a program
of activity or organized effort toward rehabilitation has been inaugurated
and the internees, for they are literally such, have little to do except
to dwell upon their plight, the uncertainty of their future and, what
is more unfortunate, to draw comparisons between their treatment "under
the Germans" and "in liberation". Beyond knowing that they are no
longer in danger of the gas chambers, torture, and other forms of
* Mr. Harrison directed the first national registration of aliens for
the Department of Justice in 1940, served as Commissioner of Immigration
and Naturalization, 1942-1944 and is presently the United States Repre-
sentative on the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. He is Dean
of the University of Pennsylvania Lew School.
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