[4.2. Foundation of
new Jewish organizations in Europe]
[April 1933: Foundation of Central
British Fund for German Jewry (CBF)]
All these and other efforts were unified in April 1933, when a
committee was formed at the Rothschilds' residence in the New Court in
London, which soon became the Central British Fund for German Jewry
(CBF). There was parity in the new body between Zionists and
non-Zionists, and the first chairman of its Allocations Committee was
Sir Osmond d'Avigdor Goldsmid, president of ICA [Jewish Colonization
Association]. Separate collections
of Zionist funds ceased, but in fact a large proportion of the funds
collected went to Palestine.
(End note 3: Norman Bentwich: They Found Refuge (London 1965),
pp. 14 ff.)
JDC was not very happy about the new body, its composition or its
policies. JDC thought that CBF was too much under Weizmann's influence
- and indeed, despite the parity principle, Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow
(then president of the World Zionist Organization) were the main forces
behind CBF.
[1933: Fund raising of CBF -
sections where the money goes: Palestine, Britain, France]
By February 1934 CBF had collected 203,823 pounds, which was
proportionately more than JDC and the United Palestine Appeal (UPA) had
managed to raise in the United States in the same period.
(End note 4: Charles J. Liebman reported to Warburg on August 30, 1933
(WAC, Box 303 (c), that the British had so far raised an average of $3
per British Jew, compared to $.50 for French Jews and $.24 for U.S.
Jews).
Of this sum, 132,519 pounds were allocated; 32 % went to support
Palestine programs, 23 % was used for the 2,500 refugees who came to
Britain in 1933, and 25 % went to support vocational training of
refugees outside of Germany, most of which was directed toward
Palestine. The allocation for French refugee committees, who were
bearing the brunt of the German refugee problem in 1933, amounted to
10,479 pounds (or about $ 50,000). JDC had no choice but to assume the
main burden of the effort in the refugee countries generally and in
France in particular; in 1933 it spent $ 125,000 in France.
French Jewry itself set up a number of bodies to deal with the (p.140)
situation. An older aid committee, the Comité d'Aide et d'Accueil [Aid
and Reception Committee], was
absorbed into a national committee
(End note 5: Comité National de Secours aux Réfugiés Allemands
[National Aid Committee for German Refugees])
under Senator Henry Berenger, with Baron de Rothschild as the active
chairman. The committee's budget for 1933 amounted to $ 477,000, of
which JDC covered 20 %.
(End note 6: L (JDC Library) 13 -report for 1933 and the first months
of 1934)
Another committee, called Agriculture et Artisanat [agriuculture and
handicrafts], engaged in
vocational training, mainly but not exclusively for Palestine. HICEM
(an emigration association), Hechalutz, and OSE were also active in
France from the start, OSE specializing in aiding children.
The very fact that thousands of refugees returned to Germany during
1933 shows quite clearly that all these efforts to help were of little
avail. JDC, together with other interested agencies, was desperately
looking to governments and the League of Nations to find solutions that
a private agency could not possibly undertake.
