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As soldiers of the United Nations fight their way into lands once conquered and held by the enemy, the governments of the United Nations encounter manifold problems of reconstruction.  They have to establish order, provide shelter, feed the hungry, and work out, with the peoples of those lands, living relations designed to remove suffering and to bring about confidence and security.
In areas torn by bombardment and by fire are monuments cherished by the people of those countrysides or towns; churches, shrines, statues, pictures and other works of art.  Some may already be destroyed; some damaged.  All risk further injury or destruction.
To safeguard these things will not affect the course of battles; but it will affect the relations of invading armies with peoples whose lands they occupy and it will affect the relations between those peoples and the governments of the United Nations.  To safeguard these things will give evidence of respect for the beliefs and customs of all men, and will bear witness to their being part of the heritage of all mankind and not only of particular peoples.  To safeguard these things is part of the responsibility that lies on the governments of the United Nations.  These monuments are not merely pretty things, not merely valued signs of man's creative power.  They are expressions of faith and they stand for man's struggle to relate himself to his past and to his God.
With conviction that safeguarding of monuments is an element in the right conduct of war and in the hope for peace, we, the undersigned, wish to bring this problem to the attention of the government of the United States of America and to urge that means be sought for solving it.