Jan Masaryk to Eleanor Roosevelt
Jan Masaryk to Eleanor Roosevelt
13 December 1946 [New York City]
My dear Mrs. Roosevelt:
Thank your two letters. I am looking into both cases and will report as soon as I can.6
There is a committee, which I am heading, for the specific purpose of ascertaining the properties of our Jews and displaced persons and a decent method of restitution should be forthcoming fairly soon.7 The legal aspect of these matters is very complicated, hence all these delays and understandable impatience of those concerned.
Please do not hesitate to let me know about any case that comes to your attention.
With best wishes,
Sincerely yours,
TLS AERP, FDRL
1. See ER to Harry Truman, 1 May 1946, HSTOF, HSTL.
2. See Document 97.
3. ER to Jan Masaryk, 3 December 1946, AERP.
4. Peter Buschina to ER, 4 December 1946, AERP.
5. ER knew that Masaryk was sympathetic to the plight of displaced persons. In her My Day column of February 4, 1946, she wrote: "Masaryk made a very moving address in which he spoke of the innumerable children whom he had seen at the age of six looking like old people of 60 and who, without UNRRAs help, would certainly have died" (ER to Jan Masaryk, 9 December 1946, AERP; MD, 4 February 1946).
6. No record of Masaryk's subsequent correspondence with ER on these cases exists.
7. It is unclear as to which committee Masaryk means. Although Masaryk favored restitution, he was outnumbered in a Communist-dominated government that inadequately enforced and often ignored the restitution laws passed in May 1945 and May 1946. As a result, Jews and other displaced Czechoslovakians retrieved little or nothing of their personal property or their businesses. The Czech government's move to nationalize the country's economy which began in October 1945, also discouraged restitution efforts (N. Robinson, 349, 365-66; Institute of Jewish Affairs of the World Jewish Congress, European Jewry Ten Years After the War, 96-99; Krejci and Machonin, 79; Myer et al., 92).
On the International Refugee Organization and UNICEF
On December 11, the General Assembly established the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). In the following My Day column, ER explained how the new agency would take over some of the functions and funding of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA).