Save the Children: Primary Sources

The documents below come from the Indiana State Library and have been selected by Jill Weiss Simins. Jill is a historian at the Indiana Historical Bureau (IHB) who works on Hoosier State Chronicles (HSC), a free database of digitized Indiana newspapers.

The selections are not meant to be comprehensive, instead, they represent a range of opinions and knowledge about the Wagner-Rogers act and ways to respond to the refugee crisis prompted by Nazi aggression, inside and outside of Germany, in the years before the Holocaust and the formal outbreak of World War II. Several of the documents reflect the anti-refugee and anti-semitic bias of the time.

Statement of Clarence E. Pickett, Acting Executive Director of the Nonsectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, April 1939

March 31, 2019

Save the Children: Primary Sources

“Chaillaux Asks Ban on Aliens to Halt ‘Isms,’” Edinburg Daily Courier, May 23, 1939

Statement of Hon. Edith Norse Rogers, Representative from Massachusetts, May 1939

“Oppose Entry of Refugees,” Hammond Times, May 14, 1939

“Legion Opposes Plan to Permit 20,000 German Refugee Children to Enter U.S.,” Kokomo Tribune, May 5, 1939,

Statement of Clarence E. Pickett, Acting Executive Director of the Nonsectarian Committee for German Refugee Children, April 1939

Testimony from J. E. Nieman, Educational Director, Regular Veterans Associations, April 1939

Robert Wagner’s Testimony at the Joint Session Hearings on Wagner-Rogers Bill, April 1939

“Frankly Speaking,” (Indianapolis) Jewish Post, October 13, 1939

“A.F.L. and C.I.O. Add Support to Child Bill,” Jewish Post, June 2, 1939

A Decent Deal for Refugee Waifs from Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette – February 19, 1939

The Wagner Rogers Act, Introduced into the Congressional Record on February 8, 1939

“Freedom of the Press: Says U.S. Jews Should Take 25,000 Children,” Jewish Post, December 16, 1938

“Save The Children!,” Jewish Post, December 16, 1938

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