Under the circumstances, the
various autonomous organizations affiliated with ZA started a
large-scale program of vocational training directed largely toward
agriculture, gardening, domestic science (for girls), and crafts,
mainly carpentry and metal work.
[3.7.2. Job training programs for emigration]
[Zionist job training programs by
Hechalutz for emigration to Palestine]
Part of these courses were organized by Hechalutz, the Zionist
organization training pioneers for Palestine, which increased its
membership from abaut 500 prior to Hitler's rise to some 10,000 after
he
came to power. In 1933 approximately 2,300 youngsters, just slightly
below half the total, were receiving training (largely agricultural) at
Hechalutz centers; but some of the others made it to Palestine too,
even though their training was not directed specifically toward any
country of immigration.
Table
3: Vocational [Job] Training in Germany for young Jews
|
Year
|
1933
|
Jan. 1934
|
July 1934
|
Dec. 1934
|
1935
|
1936
|
1938
|
No. of Trainees
|
5,169
|
6,069
|
6,771
|
4,005
|
7,346
|
7,676
|
3,068
|
| (End
note 33: Based on Nathan Reich: Primer, p.98; draft report for
1936-R13; and: Hyman's report to the National Council of JDC, 4/13/35
[13 April 1935]). |
(p.119)
[Non-Zionist job training in
farming in Neuendorf for Avigdor in Argentina since 1931]
A number were directed specifically to South America. For instance, a
farm at Neuendorf had been founded as early as 1931 by non-Zionist
groups such as Jüdische Wanderfürsorge (Care of Jewish Migrants) -
which was later to engage in the repatriation of East Europeans - to
train farmers for the ICA project at Avigdor in Argentina, where many
of the trainees eventually went.
[Non-Zionist job training in
farming in Gross-Breesen since 1936]
In early 1936 RV established another large farm, Gross-Breesen, under
Dr. Kurt Bondy, for 125 trainees. While the Zionists opposed the
principle of its establishment, some Zionists (for example, Dr. Georg
Lubinski) acted as special advisers. Gross-Breesen was a Jewish estate
in Silesia, and after it opened in May 1936 it trained people for
agricultural and carpentry work. The leaders of RV, men like Otto
Hirsch and Julius Seligsohn and other liberal leaders, saw
Gross-Breesen as a ray of hope for liberal Jewry in Germany.
The inspired leadership of a great educator like Bondy gave a measure
of excellence to character training at the farm, besides its real
technical achievements. By the spring of 1938 Gross-Breesen was
actually self-supporting. But emigration plans lagged, and in 1938
plans for group settlement had to be abandoned, despite JDC attempts to
settle the groups in Virginia with the help of a generous Jewish
citizen of Richmond, William B. Thalheimer. (Ultimately, a small
settlement was founded there at Hyde Farmlands, which lasted until
1941).
[Since Nov 1938: Non-Zionist job
training in farming in Holland and England]
After the November 1938 pogrom most of the trainees, including Bondy,
went to Holland and England.
(End note 34: Werner T. Angress: Auswandererlehrgut Gross-Breesen; In:
Leo Baeck Yearbook (1965), 10:168 ff.
[Zionist job training in farming
in Holland and other countries for Palestine since 1918]
The Zionists, on the other hand, concentrated a great deal of their
efforts on taking German Jewish youngsters out of Germany and training
them for Palestine in other European countries, away from the Nazi
atmosphere. There was one such center in existence prior to 1933,
namely, the one at Deventer, Holland, which had been established in
1918. By 1936 there were 1,248 youngsters who were being trained in 26
centers. These also included some that were not exclusively
Palestine-orientated, such as Wieringen in Holland.
Holland took 378 of these young people, Czechoslovakia (p.120)
141, France 124, Denmark 213, Fascist Italy 137, and little Luxembourg
88; the rest were sent to various other countries.
Among the problems that were never solved was the lack of girls and of
professions to train them in.
[The job training in farming]
Most of the training was agricultural, which accounted for over 80 % of
the work done abroad. Hechalutz usually tried to lease farms where the
people could live communally, but sometimes this did not work out, as
in Denmark and Czechoslovakia, and the trainees were forced to live
with individual peasants - which of course limited the possibilities
for cultural and religious activities. There were certain places, as in
Luxembourg, where only the fittest were sent, because work was
especially hard in the vineyards of that country. Nevertheless, the
vast majority withstood these trials, and many of them did go to
Palestine and other countries in the end. In the towns, communal
centers were set up for those who were learning a trade or a craft,
some of them with aid of ORT (as in Lithuania).
(End note 35:
-- David J. Schweitzer at Board of Directors, 1/4/36 [4 January
1936];
-- Training and Retraining outside Germany, 8-1; and:
-- Statement of Reconstructive and Emigration Activities Carried on in
Germany; no date, 14-64)
All this activity, known as Auslands-hachsharah (Foreign Training), was
largely organized by Shalom Adler-Rudel, a Zionist expert in the
training field, and by the German Hechalutz, with some JDC supervision
and financial support.
[Since 1936: Job training farms
abroad going down]
Nach 1936 the Foreign Training program declined, because it became more
and
more difficult to place German Jewish youngsters in training abroad.
By 1937 only 774 were in training.
(End note 36: Statistics, R43)
Nevertheless, many hundreds of youngsters had found their emigration
prospects enhanced by participation in these programs.
[3.7.3. Children help programs]
[Since 1932: Programs for children
by Recha Freier]
Connected with problems of training was the larger question of the
future of German Jewish children generally. Owing to the great emphasis
Jewish tradition placed on children and their education, stress was
laid on programs that dealt with solutions for the younger generation.
As early as 1932 Recha Freier, wife of a Berlin rabbi, a wonderful and
immensely strong-willed woman, foresaw the need to save the Jewish
children. She set up an umbrella organization composed of the following
groups: representatives of the Ahavah home, a famous children's
institution in Germany, which was then in the process of moving to
Palestine; representatives (p.121)
of the Palestine children's village, Ben Shemen, which was under the
direction of a great German Jewish teacher, Ernst Lehman; and a unified
body representing all the Zionist youth movements in Germany. On July
14, 1933, the umbrella organization, the Working Body for Children and
Youth Aliyah, submitted a plan to ZA for settling 600 children in
Palestine by 1934, at a cost of 293,300 German marks.
(End note 37: Memo of Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kinder- und Jugendalijah
to ZA, 7/14/33 [14 July 1933], 14-48)
It would accept children between the ages of 13 and 16, who would be
sent to institutions like Ahavah or Ben Shemen or to kibbutzim, or
placed with individual families.
[1933: Copy of Recha Freier's
children's program: Youth Aliyah for Palestine]
The program was adopted, and in Palestine a central organization known
as Youth Aliyah (immigration to Palestine) was set up [in 1933], headed
by the veteran American Zionist Henrietta Szold. After a six-month
training course in Germany, the children, who had been very carefully
screened, were sent to Palestine. It was only in 1936, however, when
630 Youth Aliyah children had reached in Palestine, that the original
1933 goal was finally met. But the adjustment made by the children was
very successful, and the JDC funds were well used through this program
to pay for part of the cost both of training and of transportation.
[1933-1939: JDC founds the German
Jewish Children's Aid for 433 children brought to the "USA"]
From the inner circle of the JDC leadership in America, too, there was
a response to the need to save children. In October 1933 Dr. Solomon
Lowenstein and Jacob Billikopf, head of the National Conference of
Jewish Social Workers, were instrumental in setting up a committee
known as the German Jewish Children's Aid to deal with the transfer of
children from Germany to the United States. It was difficult for the
liberal Jews of America to accept the need for the emigration of German
Jewry, especially that of unaccompanied children. It was doubted that
German Jewish parents would consent to the procedure.
Hyman told Billikopf that it was preferable to send the children to
German-speaking countries on the Continent rather than overseas, and
that it would be even better to keep them in Germany altogether.
(End note 38: Hyman to Billikopf, 1/18/34 [18 January 1934], 14-54)
There were great legal and financial difficulties. A guarantee of $
500 per year for each child had to be given and the placement of
children with families "had encountered a great many difficulties."
Nevertheless, a first group (p.122)
of 53 children arrived in America in November 1934. But Dr. Lowenstein
declared in May 1935 that "the expenditure would seem out of proportion
to the amount actually required for general relief in Germany for
tremendously large numbers of persons and projects. We have, therefore,
regretfully, come to the conclusion that we could not bring over any
other children."
(End note 39:
-- Dr. Lowenstein at Executive Committee, 5/22/35; and:
-- 24 - German Jewish children's aid, 1934-44)
By that time about 150 had been brought here.
After the fall of 1935 [Nuremberg race laws] the immigration of
children became feasible
again, and by early 1937 the committee had filled its original quota of
250 children (actually 235) and continued to accept them at a rate of
10 to 12 a month. The total number of children who came to the United
States under this program until the outbreak of the war in 1939 was 433.
(End note 40: Executive Committee, 4/14/37 [14 April 1937])
[18 children placed in England and
Switzerland]
A beginning was also made in children's emigration to England and
Switzerland, where 18 children were placed in 1933 and 1934.
All these efforts made very little difference statistically to the
estimated 101,000 [Jewish] children under 15 who lived in Germany in
1934.
Psychologically, however, parental consent to the emigration of about
1,000 unaccompanied youngsters by 1938 made a significant difference to
the climate of exodus that was swiftly engulfing German Jewry. People
began to be willing, especially after 1935, to send away their most
precious possession - their children - to more hospitable lands.
[3.7.4. JDC schools]
No matter how large the special emigration programs for children might
be, a large majority of them had to remain in Germany. As these
children were slowly forced out of the general school system, the need
arose to give them a Jewish and humanist education in special Jewish
schools. Because of the small funds JDC had at its disposal at the
beginning of what was inappropriately called "the German emergency",
Kahn was at first against founding new institutions, for which large
capital investments would have to be made.
(End note 41: Kahn to Baerwald, 2/23/34 [23 February 1934])
He was in favor of increasing the number of children in the existing
schools by enlarging them, and he vigorously defended the need to
provide funds for Jewish education. The British Jews, mostly Zionists,
argued that no money should be given for schools (p.123)
in Germany, as the children would soon be brought out in any case.
However, reality soon made this discussion academic.
In early 1933 only 6,000 out of some 50,000 Jewish children went to
Jewish schools, but the numbers [of Jewish children who went to school]
grew by leaps and bounds each year.
(End note 42: Primer, p. 98; see also 1934 annual report)
This tremendous effort to absorb children who were driven out of
schools by the attitude of classmates and teachers and the general
hate-filled atmosphere
(End note 43: An ordinance against the attendance of Jewish children in
German schools was published on April 1, 1936, but was not rigidly
enforced for quite some time after that).
was made possible by the resolution on the part of the German Jewish
educational and spiritual leadership, men like Leo Baeck, Martin Buber,
Ernst Simon, and others, to build a better spiritual world for Jewry by
returning to Jewish and humanist values and traditions. There probably
were few eras in German Jewish history when there was such a flowering
of Jewish education and thought as in those short years prior to the
catastrophe.
JDC, unlike the British organizations, insisted on aiding and
supporting these activities. Kahn especially was a convinced believer
in the value of spiritual resistance, and he encouraged the German
leaders to use the funds they had for purposes such as these.
[3.7.5. JDC relief work - Jewish welfare recipients]
An area of activity that had to be included in ZA [Central Committee,
Zentral-Ausschuss] work, which JDC strived to avoid as much as possible
in Eastern Europe, was relief. In Germany there was little choice: JDC
understood the need and supported large expenditures for relief. The
number of welfare recipients prior to 1938 usually averaged about 20 %
of the Jewish population. For example, in 1935/6 the number was 83,761;
this increased somewhat in 1937. In addition, funds were
Table
4: Jewish Schools in Germany
|
Year
|
No. of
schools
|
No. of
pupils
|
Total
Jewish children of school age
|
1933
|
70
|
14.300
|
50.000
|
1935
|
130
|
20.000
|
|
1937
|
167
|
23.670
|
39.000
|
(p.124)
given to the Jewish Winter Help, though during the first years of the
German regime some aid was still received from the German government.
(Indeed, the Germanic mind operated so efficiently that until the
outbreak of war, even those Jewish recipients of government pensions
who lived abroad received them punctually).
[Since 1936: Impoverishment of the
Jewish communities - more concentration of the Jews in towns]
However, the continual decline of the Jewish population expressed
itself in the impoverishment of the local communities where most people
in need had been receiving help without recourse to the central
organizations, and in the parallel population movement from small towns
to large urban centers.
In 1937, of the 1,400 or so communities (Gemeinden), 309 were
classified by ZA as being in need and 303 as partly in need; 120 more
asked to be placed in that category. Berlin itself had 15 soup
kitchens, where large numbers of free meals were given out, and about
one-third of the total public Jewish funds in Germany were spent on
welfare in 1935.
(End note 44: Kahn: Report and Bulletin; January 1936, R15; out of the
total amount collected in Germany by all Jewish organizations, Kahn
estimated that 8 million marks were given to "welfare", presumably
child care, medical care, old age care, and relief).
[JDC fund raising for relief work]
German Jewish welfare was efficient and followed modern practice - a
whole generation of Jewish welfare workers had, after all, been trained
in Germany prior to Hitler, although with quite different prospects in
view. JDC reacted to the German situation with great speed. The sum of
$ 40,000 was sent to Germany immediately after Hitler's assumption of
power; and after Jonah B. Wise's trip, $ 254,000 was sent.
(End note 45: Memo on JDC activities in behalf of German Jewry,
10/24/33 [24 October 1933], 14-47)
[May 1933: The Joint offices are
searched -
existence until 1939]
The JDC offices in Berlin were searched by the Nazis in May 1933,
whereupon Hyman spoke to the U.S. State Department, and the American
consul in Berlin intervened "energetically and effectively", as did the
British consul.
(End note 46: Executive Committee, 5/25/33 [25 May 1933])
After that, the JDC office in Berlin was maintained only formally,
under Prof. Eugen Mittwoch, who was responsible for it until 1939.
