Directs the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate to make appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of Congress, of a gold medal to the family or personal representative of John Pehle in recognition of his service to the Nation in helping rescue Jews and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War II.
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5011 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 5011
To award posthumously a congressional gold medal to John Pehle in
recognition of his contributions to the Nation in helping rescue Jews
and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War II.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 16, 2006
Ms. Woolsey introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Financial Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To award posthumously a congressional gold medal to John Pehle in
recognition of his contributions to the Nation in helping rescue Jews
and other minorities from the Holocaust during World War II.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Approximately 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered pursuant
to Adolf Hitler's diabolical plan for the total extermination
of the Jews during the reign of the Third Reich, and even more
would have perished had it not been for the heroic efforts of
John Pehle to persuade President Franklin Roosevelt of the need
for extraordinary measures.
(2) As a 33-year-old lawyer working in the Foreign Funds
Control unit of the Department of the Treasury of the United
States, John Pehle, along with his colleagues at the Department
of the Treasury, worked to overcome bureaucratic inertia within
the United States Government during World War II in order to
rescue many Jews from the extermination camps of the Nazi
Holocaust.
(3) By researching and citing pertinent and overlooked
precedents, in December 1943, John Pehle was instrumental in
helping secure the first license of communications in enemy-
occupied territory and a remittance of $25,000 that was issued
by the United States Government to Gerhart Riegner, the
representative of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland, for
the rescue of Jews in France and Romania.
(4) Overcoming internal communication problems within the
United States Government, John Pehle provided critical
information about the rapidly-worsening plight of deported Jews
from many parts of Europe to his superiors--Secretary of the
Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., General Counsel Randolph Paul,
and Assistant General Counsel Josiah E. Dubois--and together
they determined to inform President Franklin Roosevelt of the
urgent need for corrective action.
(5) John Pehle accompanied Secretary Morgenthau and
Randolph Paul to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt on
January 16, 1944, to deliver a vitally important document
titled Personal Report to the President, which Pehle,
Morgenthau, and Paul were instrumental in compiling and which
had first been entitled Report to the Secretary on the
Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.
(6) On January 22, 1944, only 6 days after receiving the
Personal Report to the President, and in reaction to it,
President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9417,
establishing the War Refugee Board, and appointed John Pehle as
the Acting Executive Director of the Board.
(7) Thanks largely to the heroic efforts and unparalleled
persistence of John Pehle, it became the policy of the United
States Government to implement ``the development of plans and
programs . . . for a) the rescue, transportation, maintenance,
and relief of the victims of enemy oppression, and b) the
establishment of havens of temporary refuge for such victims'';
Pehle became responsible directly to the President in
implementing that policy Government-wide.
(8) In one of his first official acts at the War Refugee
Board, John Pehle, on January 25, 1944, drafted an overdue and
critically important diplomatic cable, sent to all United
States embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic missions,
that ordered ``action be taken to forestall the plot of the
Nazis to exterminate the Jews and other persecuted minorities
in Europe''.
(9) Working with a staff of no more than 30 employees in
Washington, D.C., Pehle spearheaded the development of new
programs to increase the flow of refugees from Nazi persecution
to neutral countries in Europe (Turkey, Portugal, Switzerland,
Spain, and Sweden), who, in turn, would funnel them to Northern
Africa, Palestine, and North and South America, thus making
room for new arrivals from Nazi-occupied territories.
(10) In 1944, Pehle and his colleagues in the War Refugee
Board cleared the way for the International Red Cross to
provide food parcels to ``stateless'' civilians in the
internment camps, to support and protect 3,000,000 Allied and
Axis prisoners of war, and to streamline Federal licensing
procedures for the transmission of funds to pay for Red Cross
relief supplies and rescue operations, thus saving the lives of
thousands of Jews and other internees.
(11) President Franklin Roosevelt's promotion of John Pehle
from Acting Executive Director to Executive Director of the War
Refugee Board on March 24, 1944, coincided with the issuance of
a direct warning at the presidential news conference on the
same day, prepared by the Board, that none of those who
participated in the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of
Europe--``one of the blackest crimes of all history''--shall go
unpunished.
(12) In April 1944, at the direction of John Pehle, the War
Refugee Board urged all neutral nations to increase their
diplomatic missions in Hungary to help prevent the accelerating
deportation of Jews to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and other Nazi
extermination camps and begin providing vital funding and other
resources such as lists of corrupt Hungarian passport
officials, undercover anti-Nazis, and other sympathizers to
assist the ingenious and heroic struggle of Raoul Wallenberg,
whose extraordinary personal efforts resulted in the rescue of
more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
(13) John Pehle spearheaded the valiant efforts of the War
Refugee Board, which was responsible for the direct rescue of
several hundred thousand men, women, and children from the
Holocaust and the sustenance of thousands of Holocaust
survivors during 1944 and 1945, thus breathing new life into
the American tradition of helping the oppressed and persecuted
in the name of human decency.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.
(a) Presentation Authorized.--The Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate shall make
appropriate arrangements for the presentation, on behalf of Congress,
of a gold medal of appropriate design, to the family or personal
representative of John Pehle in recognition of his service to the
Nation.
(b) Design and Striking.--For purposes of the presentation referred
to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (hereafter in this
Act referred to as the ``Secretary'') shall strike a gold medal with
suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions to be determined by the
Secretary.
SEC. 3. DUPLICATE MEDALS.
The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold
medal struck pursuant to section 2 under such regulations as the
Secretary may prescribe, at a price sufficient to cover the cost
thereof, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and
overhead expenses, and the cost of the gold medal.
SEC. 4. STATUS OF MEDALS.
(a) National Medals.--The medals struck under this Act are national
medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.
(b) Numismatic Items.--For purposes of section 5134 of title 31,
Unites States Code, all medals struck under this Act shall be
considered to be numismatic items.
SEC. 5. AUTHORITY TO USE FUND AMOUNTS; PROCEEDS OF SALE.
(a) Authority to Use Fund Amounts.--There is authorized to be
charged against the United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund such
amounts as may be necessary to pay for the costs of the medals stuck
pursuant to this Act.
(b) Proceeds of Sale.--Amounts received from the sale of duplicate
bronze medals authorized under section 3 shall be deposited into the
United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology.
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