Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

EMERGENCY RESCUE COMMITTEE
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a Serb who resided in the town would point out all the Muslims of stature (including
lawyers, physicians, business leaders, the police chief, the mayor, among others). Upon
being pointed out, such individuals were usually killed immediately by Serb soldiers.
Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC). A refugee-rescue organization formed in New
York in 1940 to assist refugees displaced by World War II. The ERC was comprised of
activists drawn largely from New York’s literati of writers, intellectuals and artists, and
received support from influential figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), wife of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945), the president of the United States. The Committee
was particularly concerned with the fate of refugees in Vichy France, as they were
in the precarious position of living under the threat of deportation to Nazi Germany at a
moment’s notice. As the U.S. government’s policy toward refugees, and particularly
Jewish refugees, was at that time restrictive, the ERC saw its role as one of assisting them to
find safe havens—places which might include the United States, though not exclusively.
The ERC’s representative in Marseille, Varian Fry (1917–1976), was charged by the ERC
to compile lists of those in greatest need and to attempt to procure visas for their departure
through the Vichy French government. Fry’s work took on a frenzied air as he
attempted to save as many people as possible. He visited the offices of the Vichy authorities
daily, purchased visas from the allocations of foreign consuls in Marseille, and, when
all options seemed exhausted, smuggled refugees across the border into neutral Spain. For
this latter activity, and for not carrying a valid passport himself, Fry was arrested by the
Vichy police and deported to the United States in 1941. With this, the ERC’s operations
in France ceased. During the thirteen months of his ERC tour in Marseille, Fry’s efforts
saw the salvation of four thousand refugees, including many intellectuals and artists such
as: Marc Chagall (1887–1985), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Pablo Casals (1876–1973),
and Max Ernst (1891–1976). In 1942, the ERC joined with another American body, the
International Relief Association, to form the International Rescue Committee, which is
still active in refugee relief activities to this day.
Enabling Act. Passed by the German Reichstag (Parliament) on March 23, 1933, immediately
after Hitler came to power, and based on a provision of the Weimar Constitution,
this act “enabled” the Reich chancellor to operate under autocratic decree where the
security of the state was at stake. Using the pretext of a fire of highly suspicious origin at
the Reichstag on February 27, 1933, Hitler used the Enabling Act to squelch opposition,
consolidate power, and reject any legislation not proposed by the Nazis themselves. This
Act virtually opened the way to future legislation directed against all future or perceived
“enemies” of the Nazi state.
Enclosures. The Tudor period in England (1485–1603) was a time of great religious,
social, and political ferment, but few changes had such a profound and lasting impact on
the fabric of society than the enclosing of public common land behind fences, with a concomitant
amalgamation of small farms into larger estates. The processes begun at this time
saw tenants not only thrown off land that had been farmed for generations, but these same
tenants deprived of employment and sustenance. The enclosure acts that were passed in
the sixteenth century were to increase in number over the next two centuries. Seventy
were passed for the benefit of landed aristocrats between 1700 and 1760; in the first
thirty years of the reign of King George III (1738–1820), whose reign began in 1760, an
astonishing 1,355 more enclosure acts were passed. It has been estimated that the number
of acres transferred in the eighteenth century from poor farmers and tenants to prosperous