IV 

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 


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•HRES 226 IH 

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 


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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 FedVerDate Aug 31 2005 18:21 Mar 08, 2007 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR226.IH HR226

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eral 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 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 


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1 (1) honors the life and contributions of John 

2 Pehle; and 

3 (2) commends the actions of John Pehle that 

4 rescued Jews and other minorities from the 

5 Holocause during World War II. 

Æ 


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