Harrison Report

The Harrison Report was an investigation report from August 1945 on the situation of Displaced Persons (DPs for short) in Germany and Austria after the end of the Second World War . The report was prepared by Earl G. Harrison (1899–1955), an American lawyer, on behalf of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICG) and was addressed to the US President Harry S. Truman .

The rapporteur and his inspection tour

Harrison worked in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration from 1940 to 1941 as Director of Alien Registration at the United States Department of Justice and then from 1942 to 1944 as Commissioner for the Immigration and Naturalization Service . In 1945/1946 he represented the United States in the ICG.

When President Truman received disturbing news about the conditions in the DP camps, he asked Harrison on June 22, 1945 to find out more. During July 1945 Harrison visited a total of 30 DP camps. A representative of the Joint Distribution Committee accompanied him ; Two US officials also supported him for a time.

The report

On August 3, 1945, Harrison sent his report to President Truman. It was based on extensive diary notes. On September 30, 1945, the New York Times published the full-length report; the Joint Distribution Committee distributed the report under the title The plight of the displaced Jews in Europe. A report to President Truman, released by The White House immediately as a special edition.

Contents overview

The comparatively concise report is structured as follows:

I. Description of the conditions in the DP camps in Germany and Austria (CONDITIONS)

Living conditions in the originally German camps
Deaths, e.g. For example, in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp alone, 23,000 burials (90% of them Jewish DPs) and a lack of medical care
clothing
Reintegration programs have not yet started or have hardly started.
Lack of family reunification and missing persons search
Food supply
Lack of heating etc. for the coming winter (estimate that one million DPs will have to spend the winter in camps)

II. Special needs of the Jewish DPs (NEEDS OF THE JEWS)

The most important thing for surviving Jews is to be recognized as Jewish victims of the Nazis. As the most cruelly persecuted group, they need special support now. It is therefore advisable to turn away from the previous practice in which the Jews were assigned to the other DPs in their countries of origin. If the DPs were to continue to be grouped according to nationalities, it would not be possible to give priority aid to the Jews without the necessary preferential treatment leading to conflicts with the non-Jewish DPs of their nationality. Harrison estimates the number of Jews in the American zone at a maximum of 100,000. They come mainly from Poland, Hungary, Romania and Germany / Austria.
Then the wishes regarding the future place of life follow:

Above all, the surviving Jews want to leave Germany.
The Hungarian and Romanian Jews are more willing to return to their countries of origin, the Jews from the Baltic countries and the Polish less so. Some German Jews want to stay in Germany.
For the vast majority there is only one goal: Palestine . Especially since the Baltic and Polish Jews are staunch Zionists . However, some choose Palestine because they have little / no hope of being accepted by the western countries.
A minority would like to emigrate to the USA, England, the British Dominions or South America.

The third necessity is: clothes, shoes, diet food, medication, beds, reading material. Harrison points out that in contrast, Germans are best dressed across Europe.

III. Further procedure (MANNER IN WHICH NEEDS ARE BEING MET)

In this chapter, Harrison et al. a. with the criticism of the UNRRA staff (e.g. lack of English skills) and with the question of including other non-governmental welfare organizations in the care of the camps.

IV. Recommendations (CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS)

The urgent task of caring for the group of Jews
Departure of the Jews from Germany
1. Support for a speedy return to the countries of origin, if desired
2. For humanitarian reasons, the Great Britain's 1939 White Paper lifted the immigration bans to Palestine. It is not acceptable for the gates to Palestine to close after the gates of the concentration camps have opened.
3. Immigration Rates to the United States
Measures if the repatriations are delayed (e.g. TB sanatoriums, long-term psychiatric clinics, rehabilitation courses)
Until they can leave the country, an interim solution is to set up separate camps for the Jewish survivors. Not as a privilege, but to adequately care for those who have been humiliated the most. Comments on statelessness and looting.
Transfer of the camps to UNRRA administration
Selection of the responsible army officers
More effective monitoring of conditions in the camps through controls by external officials
Improvements in mail traffic for the DPs, in the tracing service and in family reunification

V. Further remarks

In this chapter Harrison admits that the US military administration faces many challenges at once. Finally, he once again urged the Jewish DPs to enter Palestine without delay.

Summary

In his report, Harrison came to the conclusion that the situation of the DPs in the DP camps in Germany and Austria was terribly bad three months after the end of the war and urgently needed improvement. In particular, he criticized the inadequate supply of food and medication to the camp residents, which led to a high mortality rate in the camps. The equipment with warm clothing is inadequate. Former concentration camp prisoners are forced to wear either their prisoner uniform or SS uniforms. It is unreasonable that some of them should remain in former concentration camps after their liberation and wait for their repatriation , while the German civilian population in rural areas should live largely undisturbed in their own houses. The barracks in which the DPs were housed were not suitable for the winter.

Harrison attacked the US military administration with harsh words: In view of their completely inadequate commitment to the DPs, he had to ask himself "whether the German people will not accept that we will continue or at least tacitly approve of the Nazi policy".

Truman's reaction and the aftermath of the report

President Truman responded immediately. In a letter dated August 31, 1945 to General Eisenhower , the commander-in-chief of the US occupation forces in Germany, he reproachfully pointed out that Eisenhower's subordinates' policy had not been implemented and instructed him to take the following measures to ensure: The displaced would have to be given preference over the German population in terms of housing provision; they should not remain crammed into one-time concentration camps. He required significantly more apartment requisitions . After all, according to the decisions of the Potsdam Conference , “the Germans” should not be released from responsibility for “what they have brought upon themselves”. For his part, Truman agreed to work with the British government to facilitate the immigration of Jewish refugees into the Mandate Palestine. The Harrison Report had a considerable influence on the development of US policy on Palestine up to 1947.

Eisenhower blamed General Patton as commander of the 3rd US Army for the grievances in the DP camps. Because Patton did not hide his disdain for the DPs. This contributed to Eisenhower's removal of Patton from his command as military governor in Bavaria on September 28, 1945. In his reply to Truman on October 8, 1945, Eisenhower described the difficulties facing the US military administration. He replied that at the time of Harrison's inspection trip there had been no more than 1,000 DPs still living in former concentration camps, and confirmed that the required separate DP camps for surviving Jews had meanwhile been set up.

The Harrison Report improved the situation of displaced persons. The management of the camps, which were previously under the military administration, was entrusted to UNRRA, an aid organization of the United Nations .

It was not until 1948 that the US Federal Displaced Persons Act made it possible for approximately 200,000 affected persons (DPs) to immigrate to the USA regardless of existing quotas for other immigrants .