[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 226 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 226

To recognize John Pehle for 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 7, 2007

 Ms. Woolsey submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
                    the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
To recognize John Pehle for his contributions to the Nation in helping 
 rescue Jews and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War 
                                  II.

Whereas 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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas 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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas, 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'';
Whereas, working with a staff of no more than 30 employees in Washington, DC, 
        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;
Whereas, 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;
Whereas 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;
Whereas, 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; and
Whereas 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: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved,  That the House of Representatives--
            (1) honors the life and contributions of John Pehle; and
            (2) commends the actions of John Pehle that rescued Jews 
        and other minorities from the Holocause during World War II.
                                 <all>