Researchers examining the “displaced persons” folders in the Mayoral collections will see “File #90” written in pencil on many of the documents. Beginning with the O’Dwyer administration, clerical staff adopted the practice of assigning a number to each subject file. For example, they assigned “Num. #5” to housing-related correspondence. Juvenile Delinquency was “Num. #112,” and Long Island Railroad was “Num. File #122.” Knowledge of the numbering system is useful for researchers as referral slips found in the files often have only the numerical designation. The practice continued through the Wagner administration but appears to have been abandoned during the Lindsay years. The ‘key’ to the numerical filing system is located in the hard-copy Mayor Wagner finding guide in the Municipal Archives and Library Reading Room.
The first boatload of displaced persons arrived in New York on October 31, 1948. The story made the front page of The New York Times: “The first group of homeless Europeans to arrive under the Displaced Persons Law came up New York harbor yesterday past the Statue of Liberty amid the thunder of welcoming whistles.” The story continued, “As they lined the rail of the Army transport Gen. William Black, they were a little tearful, very polite and quite stunned as the greatest city of the western world arose before them.” The article quoted Mayor O’Dwyer’s welcoming remarks: “New York City is glad to have you here. Many of you will stay here—I wish all of you could. You will like it in New York,” [November 1, 1948].
The happy circumstances described in the Times article disguised a significant defect in the federal legislation—it denied an American visa to any persons who had entered a refugee camp after December 22, 1945. This seemingly arbitrary stipulation served to prohibit the entrance of Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust, but when faced with pogroms in postwar Poland, fled to the refugee camps in nearby Germany after December 22. According to information published by the Truman Library Institute in Independence, Missouri, President Truman had reluctantly signed the bill.“It is with very great reluctance that I have signed S. 2242, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948…The bad points of the bill are numerous. Together they form a pattern of discrimination and intolerance wholly inconsistent with the American sense of justice…The bill discriminates in callous fashion against displaced persons of the Jewish faith…The bill also excludes many displaced persons of the Catholic faith who deserve admission…”
