# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1323 # Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration) 852 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS A series of meetings similar to the Bad Boll Free Conferences have been tentatively planned for 1950. The N.L.C. Executive Committee decided to conduct its own conferences and not to join in conferences such as were held in 1949. Hence our 1959 “Bad Boll meetings” will be conducted along the lines of the 1948 “Free Conferences.” Displaced Persons Program World War II left in its wake the most tremendous upheaval of population ever recorded in European history. Countless num- bers of people were forced to slave labor in the Hitler war machine, others were swept before invading armies, many fled their home- land to escape hostile occupying forces, still others became fugitives because of ‘political oppression and religious persecution. Most of these people found themselves, at the end of the war, in Germany, Austria, or Italy. After V-E Day the Allied armies were faced with the grave problem of effectuating the repatriation of these millions of home- less persons. Within a few years’ time the great bulk of these people, about 7,000,000, were repatriated to their homelands. There remained approximately a million and a quarter displaced persons, mostly from Eastern European countries. Care was given them to some extent by the International Refugee Organization in camps and assembly centers. The USA Displaced Persons Act became effective on June 25, 1948. Soon numerous letters requesting information on DP place- ments and immigration regulations came to the Emergency Plan- ning Council office. Of necessity it was decided to let the Council issue pertinent DP information, resettlement forms, and other DP materials deemed necessary, to all Missouri Synod pastors. On November 4, 1949, the National Lutheran Council approached the Emergency Planning Council with a plan for possible co-operation in an over-all DP program, including re- settlement activities also in other countries, such as Brazil, Argen- tina, and Australia. It was, however, resolved not to join the NLC in its DP program, but rather to expedite assurances through the 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 MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS 853 q 3 Lutheran Welfare Agencies as well as District DP committees to carry out the planned program. - Since that time approximately 1,500 assurances have been processed, and 600 persons have been resettled by the Emergency Planning Council’s Displaced Persons department. This does not give the total picture, however, since thousands of assurances are being effected by our Welfare Agencies and District committees for the Missouri Synod which actually, because of the Emergency Planning Council support, could be called Missouri Synod assur- ances. In all, the Council has so far expended $26,668 for this phase of relief work. In addition to the American DP program carried out by the ; Emergency Planning Council, continued support has been given to 50,000 Latvian, 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- 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 peoples of Europe. Also huge numbers of religious books, such as 400,000 copies of Schild des Glaubens (a German edition of Luther’s Catechism, a Bible History, and a hymnal), tens of thousands of Bibles, dogmatics, and weekly religious magazines were printed with the funds we gave for the purchase of cellulose. The German Hilfswerk is at present diminishing its activities as far as actual relief assistance in Europe is concerned, and is centering its help more upon the plight of the 12 million refugees living in the Western Zone of Occupation of Germany.