JEWS ON WAY TO GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25275, 29 August 1947, Page 7

JEWS ON WAY TO GERMANY

INQUIRIES BY U.S. GOVERNMENT

FRANCE REPLIES TO BRITISH REQUEST

(Rec. 11.55 p.m.) LONDON, Aug. 28. “The United States Government is very much concerned over the fate of 4000 Jews being sent to Germany, and is in constant contact with the British Government on the matter,” said the United States Acting-Secre-tary of State (Mr Robert Lovett) in Washington. “We are doing our utmost to get the facts. The United States is anxious to learn whether Britain intends in fact to unload the refugees in Hamburg, and if so, where they will be sent from there.” A French Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that France had agreed to the British Government’s request that the Jews be received in France. The French Government, however, had stipulated that the Jews must be Willing to land in France, that their admission would not constitute a precedent for the admission of other displaced persons, and that by admitting these refugees the total refugees in France would not exceed the limit of 8000 fixed by the French Government in August, 1946. The Pari? correspondent of the “Observer” says that the French Government is ipaintaining the view that no refugees will be accepted if the British use force to disembark them. The British authorities in Germany are moving 10,000 German and Polish refugees from two camps along the Russian zone border in Schleswig Holstein in preparation for the reception of the Jews. The High Court has adjourned until to-day the hearing of the application for a writ of habeas corpus directed to Mr Ernest Bevin and Mr A. Creech Jones and calling on them to produce six persons who are on the ships going to Hamburg. A spokesman for the 1500 immigrants aboard the Ocean Vigour saia that they would not forcibly resist disembarkation at Hamburg. On the other hand, the immigrants aboard tfie Runnymede Park lasfnight still swore they Would fight before landing. Colonel Martin Gregson, commander of the British troops escorting the refugees, appealed to about 60 expectant mothers aboard the three ships to land at Gibraltar. A statement issued to the- newspapers said that arrangements could be made for 30 of the most urgent cases to land at Gibraltar, including dependent children under 14. The women would be shipped to Palestine when they were fit to travel, their number being deducted from the immigration quota. The authorities in Gibraltar said that six of the women had agreed to land. The correspondent also say? that while the ships were lying off Gibraltar last night depth charges were dropped every 15 minutes around the ships as a precaution against “frog men.” Powerful batteries of searchlights from the subterranean fortifications on Gibraltar lit the ships.