GWA renews support for War Treatment Study Act
November 30, 2005
The Honorable Russell Feingold
US Senate, 506 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Re: Wartime Treatment Study Act
Dear Senator Feingold,
On behalf of the German World Alliance and its international membership in Austria, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Serbia, Switzerland and the United States, I want to thank you for your initiative in introducing the Wartime
Treatment Study Act. Our organization fully supports the legislation and
looks forward to its prompt passage.
America's present war on terrorism at home and abroad highlights the importance of national security, and the dilemma of protecting it while securing civil liberties. History is instructive in striking the balance between the two, but our knowledge of relevant World War II history, a period when the U.S. was confronted with the same dilemma, is incomplete.
Almost 25 years ago, Congress created the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians to study the Japanese American experience. The Wartime Treatment Study Act will finally complete the work the CWRIC started. It will require a much-needed analysis of the European American and Latin American experience, including internment, prisoner exchange, deportation, forcible removal from prohibited zones and myriad other civil liberties violations.
Over sixty million Americans claim German ancestry. They have a long, proud history of patriotic support for the USA. We have always enthusiastically supported American ideals. We continue to support those ideals strenuously by urging a complete study of the past. We supported the Wartime Treatment Study Act when it was first introduced in August 2001 and continue to do so today. The study it would require was decades overdue then and we anxiously await the legislation’s passage. Too many witnesses have died and those remaining are very elderly. We are very frustrated that Congress has yet to pass this important legislation and would like to offer you our assistance.
I have enclosed a pamphlet on our organization for your information. Our national headquarters are in Arlington, Va. Our members live in all 50 states and in many countries around the world. Please do not hesitate to have a member of your staff contact us at any time at (703) 534 1337. We want to help ensure that the Wartime Treatment Study Act passes in this Congress.
Very truly yours,
Dr. Kearn C. Schemm. Jr.
President, German World Alliance/Deutsche Weltallianz