Commission for Polish Relief
[4] Both Polish and Jewish population in areas of Nazi Germany occupied was considered by German authorities to be "sub-human" (Untermensch) and as such targeted for extermination and slavery.
[21] The Commission eventually collected $6,000,000, including $3,060,704 in Polish gold deposited in the National Bank of Romania (which proved more difficult to obtain).
[4] The Nazi government provided guarantees that ships from neutral countries that transported the relief would not be targeted by Kriegsmarine submarines[21] and CPR was allowed to operate in occupied Poland (for example, in July 1941, two depots existed in Kraków and Warsaw).
[26] At the same time, Nazis were opposed to CPR requests that American nationals are allowed to distribute the supplies, or that their aid be extended to Jews.
[29] In May 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as the UK Prime Minister, and his policy made it much more difficult to ship food to continental Europe.
[30] This decision was motivated by the Nazi conquest of Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries and France, the growing importance of economic warfare and difficulties experienced by the Americans in adequately supervising the distribution of supplies in Poland.
[30] Given the large population in the German-occupied countries, the British were also concerned that the amount of goods which would be delivered through an aid program would free up considerable reserves of Nazi Germany manpower.
[30] As a result, and after extensive discussions by the British cabinet and between government departments, Churchill announced on 20 August that Britain would maintain a strict blockade of Nazi Germany and countries it occupied.
[30] This policy was supported by the European governments in exile which were based in London, though the promise of aid once territories were liberated was made in response to concerns they raised about the blockade potentially encouraging people in occupied countries to cooperate with the Nazi German forces.
[32] At the time of its announcement, the British government had no evidence that there was any actual or impending starvation in Europe and believed that food supplies would be adequate to prevent significant shortages until the spring of 1941.
[33] Secretary of State Cordell Hull later told Lord Lothian that an argument in favour of the blockade was that experience had shown that it was impossible to arrange any system of providing relief that did not, directly or indirectly, increase the food available to the German government.
[38] Nevertheless, a campaign to provide food relief to Europe continued in the US until the end of the war, though it attracted little attention after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
[36] In response to the British blockade, the Commission for Polish Relief attempted to purchase food from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, but the results were meager.
[21] The Commission was able to continue to provide a very limited amount of relief to Poland until December 1941, when Nazi Germany declared war on the United States.
