FORMER S.S. MAN ENTERED AUSTRALIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1947, Page 4

FORMER S.S. MAN ENTERED AUSTRALIA

CANBERRA, March 21. The Australian Migration Organisation will be overhauled, following a disclosure yesterday that a former German naval officer and S.S. man had obtained a permit to enter the country. “Someone acted stupidly in permitting this man to get on the ship,” said Mr A .A. Calwell, Minister of Immigration, today,' when he announced the overhaul of the system. Further precautions would be taken to prevent other undesirables from trying to break through. He said that a man, called Lerch, had obtained his permit by misrepresentation. He was given a dictation test in Rumania, and his permit was cancelled.

Mr Calwell told the House of Representatives that an elderly Jewish woman in Melbourne obtained a permit for her daughter to enter the country. Word was sent to the girl, in Germany, who wrote to her mother saying that she had since married. Another permit was then issued for her husband. The girl had suffered at the hands of the Germans, and her husband was partly Jewish. Acting on information received, immigration officials were waiting for him when the ship reached Cairns.