[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5011 Introduced in House (IH)]







109th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5011

   To award posthumously a congressional gold medal to John Pehle in 
 recognition of his contributions to the Nation in helping rescue Jews 
      and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War II.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 16, 2006

 Ms. Woolsey introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Financial Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To award posthumously a congressional gold medal to John Pehle in 
 recognition of his contributions to the Nation in helping rescue Jews 
      and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War II.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Approximately 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered pursuant 
        to Adolf Hitler's diabolical plan for the total extermination 
        of the Jews during the reign of the Third Reich, and even more 
        would have perished had it not been for the heroic efforts of 
        John Pehle to persuade President Franklin Roosevelt of the need 
        for extraordinary measures.
            (2) As a 33-year-old lawyer working in the Foreign Funds 
        Control unit of the Department of the Treasury of the United 
        States, John Pehle, along with his colleagues at the Department 
        of the Treasury, worked to overcome bureaucratic inertia within 
        the United States Government during World War II in order to 
        rescue many Jews from the extermination camps of the Nazi 
        Holocaust.
            (3) By researching and citing pertinent and overlooked 
        precedents, in December 1943, John Pehle was instrumental in 
        helping secure the first license of communications in enemy-
        occupied territory and a remittance of $25,000 that was issued 
        by the United States Government to Gerhart Riegner, the 
        representative of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland, for 
        the rescue of Jews in France and Romania.
            (4) Overcoming internal communication problems within the 
        United States Government, John Pehle provided critical 
        information about the rapidly-worsening plight of deported Jews 
        from many parts of Europe to his superiors--Secretary of the 
        Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., General Counsel Randolph Paul, 
        and Assistant General Counsel Josiah E. Dubois--and together 
        they determined to inform President Franklin Roosevelt of the 
        urgent need for corrective action.
            (5) John Pehle accompanied Secretary Morgenthau and 
        Randolph Paul to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt on 
        January 16, 1944, to deliver a vitally important document 
        titled Personal Report to the President, which Pehle, 
        Morgenthau, and Paul were instrumental in compiling and which 
        had first been entitled Report to the Secretary on the 
        Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.
            (6)  On January 22, 1944, only 6 days after receiving the 
        Personal Report to the President, and in reaction to it, 
        President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9417, 
        establishing the War Refugee Board, and appointed John Pehle as 
        the Acting Executive Director of the Board.
            (7) Thanks largely to the heroic efforts and unparalleled 
        persistence of John Pehle, it became the policy of the United 
        States Government to implement ``the development of plans and 
        programs . . . for a) the rescue, transportation, maintenance, 
        and relief of the victims of enemy oppression, and b) the 
        establishment of havens of temporary refuge for such victims''; 
        Pehle became responsible directly to the President in 
        implementing that policy Government-wide.
            (8) In one of his first official acts at the War Refugee 
        Board, John Pehle, on January 25, 1944, drafted an overdue and 
        critically important diplomatic cable, sent to all United 
        States embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic missions, 
        that ordered ``action be taken to forestall the plot of the 
        Nazis to exterminate the Jews and other persecuted minorities 
        in Europe''.
            (9) Working with a staff of no more than 30 employees in 
        Washington, D.C., Pehle spearheaded the development of new 
        programs to increase the flow of refugees from Nazi persecution 
        to neutral countries in Europe (Turkey, Portugal, Switzerland, 
        Spain, and Sweden), who, in turn, would funnel them to Northern 
        Africa, Palestine, and North and South America, thus making 
        room for new arrivals from Nazi-occupied territories.
            (10) In 1944, Pehle and his colleagues in the War Refugee 
        Board cleared the way for the International Red Cross to 
        provide food parcels to ``stateless'' civilians in the 
        internment camps, to support and protect 3,000,000 Allied and 
        Axis prisoners of war, and to streamline Federal licensing 
        procedures for the transmission of funds to pay for Red Cross 
        relief supplies and rescue operations, thus saving the lives of 
        thousands of Jews and other internees.
            (11) President Franklin Roosevelt's promotion of John Pehle 
        from Acting Executive Director to Executive Director of the War 
        Refugee Board on March 24, 1944, coincided with the issuance of 
        a direct warning at the presidential news conference on the 
        same day, prepared by the Board, that none of those who 
        participated in the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of 
        Europe--``one of the blackest crimes of all history''--shall go 
        unpunished.
            (12) In April 1944, at the direction of John Pehle, the War 
        Refugee Board urged all neutral nations to increase their 
        diplomatic missions in Hungary to help prevent the accelerating 
        deportation of Jews to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and other Nazi 
        extermination camps and begin providing vital funding and other 
        resources such as lists of corrupt Hungarian passport 
        officials, undercover anti-Nazis, and other sympathizers to 
        assist the ingenious and heroic struggle of Raoul Wallenberg, 
        whose extraordinary personal efforts resulted in the rescue of 
        more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
            (13) John Pehle spearheaded the valiant efforts of the War 
        Refugee Board, which was responsible for the direct rescue of 
        several hundred thousand men, women, and children from the 
        Holocaust and the sustenance of thousands of Holocaust 
        survivors during 1944 and 1945, thus breathing new life into 
        the American tradition of helping the oppressed and persecuted 
        in the name of human decency.

SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

    (a) Presentation Authorized.--The Speaker of the House of 
Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate shall make 
appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of Congress, 
of a gold medal of appropriate design, to the family or personal 
representative of John Pehle in recognition of his service to the 
Nation.
    (b) Design and Striking.--For purposes of the presentation referred 
to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter in this 
Act referred to as the ``Secretary'') shall strike a gold medal with 
suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions to be determined by the 
Secretary.

SEC. 3. DUPLICATE MEDALS.

    The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold 
medal struck pursuant to section 2 under such regulations as the 
Secretary may prescribe, at a price sufficient to cover the cost 
thereof, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and 
overhead expenses, and the cost of the gold medal.

SEC. 4. STATUS OF MEDALS.

    (a) National Medals.--The medals struck under this Act are national 
medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.
    (b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of section 5134 of title 31, 
Unites States Code, all medals struck under this Act shall be 
considered to be numismatic items.

SEC. 5. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.

    (a) Authority to Use Fund Amounts.--There is authorized to be 
charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund such 
amounts as may be necessary to pay for the costs of the medals stuck 
pursuant to this Act.
    (b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of duplicate 
bronze medals authorized under section 3 shall be deposited into the 
United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
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