# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S666
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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666 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS

Emergency Planning Council headquarters, to support up to 40 per,
cent of all DP work which our recognized Lutheran Welfare
Agencies expend on actual regional DP work, and to subsidize
a number of Districts which have formed their own DP committees.
. Synod’s Displaced Persons department began its work on-
November 10, 1948. The program was geared directly into every |
one of our 4,285 congregations. It issued to all the clergymen of ;
Synod an informative analysis of the “how” and “wherefore” of .
the Displaced Persons program. It furnished assurances, a ques- ,
tion and answer booklet, and asked the co-operation and help of our 4
Lutheran Welfare Agencies as well as District DP committees to |
carry out the planned program. :
Since that time approximately 1,500 assurances have been 4
processed, and 600 persons have been resettled by the Emergency 4
Planning Council’s Displaced Persons department. This does not 4
give the total picture, however, since thousands of assurances are.
being effected by our Welfare Agencies and District committees -4
for the Missouri Synod which actually, because of the Emergency .j
Planning Council support, could be called Missouri Synod assur- 3
ances. In all, the Council has so far expended $26,668 for this 4
phase of relief work. ‘
In addition to the American DP program carried out by the 4
Emergency Planning Council, continued support has been given 4
to 50,000 Latvians, Polish, and Estonian DPs living in England.
An informal working Council was established in March of 1948
which agreed to share whatever support these DPs required on
an equal basis between the National Lutheran Council and the
Missouri Synod.
Evangelisches Hilfswerk
From the very inception of the Emergency Planning Council’s
relief program the facilities of the Evangelisches Hilfswerk were :
used. Under the leadership of its director, Dr.-Eugene Gersten- gz
maier, this organization has done much to assist the German
nation in its rehabilitation struggle. Much of the Hilfswerk’s
efficiency lies in the fact that it manufactures needed relief articles
from raw materials. The great saving effected through such
a method was readily conceived by the Emergency Planning
Council, and for that reason large grants of money, $400,000 in the ;
last three years, were made to the Hilfswerk. With these funds
large quantities of cotton, cellulose, and copra were bought. Out
of these raw materials hundreds of thousands of underwear gar-
ments, millions of socks, and thousands of pounds of paper for

-books were produced. With the funds given by the Emergency

Planning Council to the Hilfswerk huge quantities of clothing were
made. These garments in turn were distributed among the needy 4

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