[A.]
Austria
[6.1. Austrian structures of Jewry 1919-1938 - 185,246
counted Jews in 1938]
The annexation (Anschluss) of Austria on March 13, 1938, places 185,246
Jews, a large majority of them in Vienna, in German hands.
(End note 1: Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and the Tragedy of
Austrian Jewry, 1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel (editor): The Jews of
Austria; London 1967, p.486)
[Supplement: From the 13 March 1938 on the Hitler regime calls
Germany "Greater Germany" ("Grossdeutschland"). This is an important
fact in the inner Nazi propaganda. The NS occupation counted some
150,000 more persons as Jews (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews etc. (p.228), so
the NS occupation counted some 335,246 persons as Jews in Austria].
[Structure of Austrian Jewry: 80 %
of the newspapers are Jewish etc.]
Austrian Jewry was poorer than its German counterpart and less well
organized. Large numbers of Austrian Jews were dependent on charity,
and JDC had had to support relief operations and loan
kassas there before 1938. The
concentration of Jews in certain branches of the economy was very
marked: 90 % of the advertising industry was Jewish, as were 85 % of
the people in the furniture business; 80 % of the radio, newspaper, and
shoe industries was Jewish. More important - because more obvious -
51.6 % of the doctors and dentists and 62 % of the lawyers in Vienna
were Jews.
(End note 2: Ibid [Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and the Tragedy of
Austrian Jewry,
1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel (editor): The Jews of Austria; London
1967], p.480)
[Since decades the concentration of 80 % of the newspapers in Jewish
hands is provoking a big anger in the Austrian population, and it's a
pity that Jewish tactics have not changed this since 1900].
This occupational concentration made the Jews both conspicuous and
vulnerable. Austrian anti-Semitism was nothing new. At the beginning of
the century, Vienna's burgomaster, Karl Lueger, had risen to power on
the crest of anti-Semitism; the young Hitler had developed his hatred
of Jews in the slums of Vienna during that period.
[Important supplement about
history of Austrian anti-Semitism and Hitler:
There was a harsh anti-Semitism in Austria even before: Since the
worldwide breakdown of the stock markets in 1873 when the Jews were
generally blamed to speculate with all nations a popular anti-Semitism
was coming up. And add to this the Austrian government helped the
Jewish Austrian banks, but did not help the Austrian population out of
the depths, and above all not to the Austrian farmers. By this the
national movement under Schoenerer came out with a harsh anti-Semitism
which did not see that also many Jews were suffering by the worldwide
stock exchange breakdown. In these times Hitler went to school
and anti-Semitism was put into his soul by the Austrian school system.
Then, it was Lueger who was working with a moderate anti-Semitism. He
eliminated the slums in Vienna and installed new structures of
industrialization. But add to this, Hitler saw the breakdown of
democracy in 1896 by giving equal rights to the Czechs and to the Poles
in the old fashioned monarchy. By this the German Austrians got into a
minority by vote in the parliament and the monarchy could not be
governed regularly any more. Hitler's fault was that he was not going
abroad to see how democracy functioned in other countries, e.g. in
Germany or in Switzerland. Right in these times many East European Jews
came to Vienna which were
very strange for the population, did not wash often etc. and this
provoked also the anti-Semitism.
Since 1871 (since the German victory against France) German Austrian
nationalism was strong: The German Austrians wanted the accession with
Germany since 1871 but the emperor in Vienna blocked because otherwise
the emperor in Vienna would have been a second class emperor against
the emperor in Berlin. So the emperor in Vienna was holding his
connections with France for a balance of power in Europe which provoked
a hatred in the German Austrian population against France, too. Add to
this there were the Slavs (Czechs and Croats and Serbs) who wanted to
destroy Austria by installing a population bridge between the Balkan
and Czechoslovakia. The culmination point was that the emperor in
Vienna let come in Czech and Balkan police on horses into German
Austrian regions to put down German national demonstrations for a union
with Germany.
By all these faults in the policy over decades and by his own
inabilities Hitler's soul was poisoned, and also a big part of the
Austrian population never got rid of these negative feelings against
Jewish banks, against the emperor and against democracy. Hitler wanted
to paint, was not taken as a pupil two times in Vienna, got to Munich
and got into the German army as an Austrian in 1914.
Since 1919 since the Versailles treaty against Germany (with robbery of
Eastern Prussia and French-Polish manipulations at Versailles) there
was also a mass movement against democracy in Germany (France and
Britain robbed all colonies from Germany). And the St-Germain treaty
against Austria gave a lot of German Austrian territories to
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia against any law of nations. By
this the new Austrian government did not want to reorganize the economy
for this new mini state. There was a big unemployment until 1926, and
the feelings of the Austrians and the Germans were tight together and
at the same time France prohibited a succession of Germany and
Mini-Austria in the Versailles treaty and in the St-Germain treaty. So
national socialism had a wide ground to spread as a force against
criminal France democracy and - add to this - against Lenin Communism
which was financed by "American" Jewish banks (Schiff). The church
supported national socialism at the end against Communism, and most
Communist leaders were Jews and in this majority they were a target for
any national propaganda.
Add to this the racist economy leaders in "USA" under Roosevelt
supported Nazi Germany with technique and wanted Hitler would smash
Communism. So Communism and Hitlerism were financed by "US" banks to
destroy Europe and Jewry was between these forces. Jewry did not see
this and declared "USA" - the destructor of Europe - as safe haven. By
this Europe was smashed right. These are facts and not a "theory"...].
[Split Jewry in Austria between
Zionists and left wing]
Viennese Jewry was split into many factions (there were 88 religious
congregations and 356 secular organizations in Vienna at the time of
the Anschluss)
(End note 3: Ibid. [Herbert Rosenkranz: The Anschluss and the Tragedy
of Austrian Jewry,
1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel (editor): The Jews of Austria; London
1967], p.481)
and the official community organization (p.223)
- the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (IKG) [Israelite cult community] -
suffered from considerable internal strife. Two main groups contended
for leadership:
-- the Union, a liberal group with strong assimilationist tendencies in
many ways similar to the German Jewish CV [Central-Verein, engl.
Central Union];
-- and the Zionists, themselves split into a large number of factions.
[1934: Socialists are eliminated
by the Dollfuss government]
Prior to 1934 a third significant group had been the socialists, Jewish
members of the strong Austrian Marxist party. The defeat of Austrian
socialism, in the February 1934 fighting in Vienna, at the hands of the
Austrian proto-Fascist clerical party under Dollfuss endangered the
Jews, because by and large Jewish sympathies were with the socialists;
eleven out of the 30 arrested socialist leaders were Jews. But two IKG
leaders were sent abroad by the government to show the world that no
anti-Semitic measures were being planned.
[1934-1937: After stock exchange
collapse 1929: Economic misery for Jews in Austria]
While the political danger receded, economic misery increased. In 1935
JDC sent $ 20,000 to keep soup kitchens going for the impoverished
Jewish proletariat. In 1934 a quarter of Vienna's Jews were on relief.
the situation did not improve in 1936/7; in 1937, 35.5 % of the Jewish
working population were unemployed.
(End note 4:
-- 14-51, report, 2/7/34 [7 February 1934];
-- 8-18, report, 2/28/34 [28 February 1934], and other
material in that file
-- see also R62)
[1934: Installation of Jewish IKG
council in Vienna]
After the 1934 events the IKG Council was composed of 20 Zionists (16
middle class and four socialist-Zionists) and 15 Union representatives.
At the time of the Anschluss, the leader of IKG was a Zionist, Dr.
Desider Friedmann, and another Zionist, Dr. Josef Löwenherz, was
becoming increasingly important.
Despite the popularity of the last chancellor of independent Austria,
Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Anschluss was welcomed by almost all
Austrians.
[Schuschnigg was not popular and 99 % of the German Austrian population
wanted the accession because it was wanted since 1871. By this the
population throw flowers to the soldiers. But Austrians did not know
what means a National Socialist Germany and regretted the accession
bitterly already after three months when NS administration implemented
a new Nazi administration with new borders of provinces etc. in
Austria].
[6.2. Accession (Anschluss) 12
March 1938: Anti-Semitic riots -
Palestine office and Zentralstelle (Central office)]
[1938: Accession (Anschluss) and
anti-Semitism under the German NS administration]
Cardinal Innitzer's advice to all Catholics in this Catholic country to
vote for the Anschluss in the plebiscite arranged by the Nazis to
legalize their seizure of the country, the Nazi promise to
ex-socialists that they would be given the positions that Jews held,
and the further Nazi promise to end unemployment - all this helped
cement Austro-German unity.
From the very start, Nazi anti-Jewish policies in Austria were much
more radical than those in Germany
[because of the frustration of the crash in 1873 and the feeling to be
German but not to belong to Germany].
Within a matter of a (p.224)
few months Austria developed a process of Jewish humiliation,
discrimination, and expropriation that had taken five years to develop
in Germany
[by the new NS administration which was imported from Germany and
implemented over the Austrians].
[1938: NS Robbery of Jewish
property]
However, in many areas the Austrian Nazis went far beyond what had been
inflicted upon German Jews up to then. Immediately following the
Anschluss, "spontaneous" anti-Semitic outrages by the population were
encouraged by Nazi stormtroopers. Jews were beaten in public, forced to
clean streets under especially humiliating circumstances, and driven
out of their apartments.
The expropriation of the property of the owners of 26,236 Jewish
establishments in Austria started in May and June 1938. By November, 20
to 30 % of Jewish capital, valued at about 100 million German marks,
was in Nazi hands.
[Incompetent Nazi bosses bring
down the companies]
Old-time Nazis became the new Nazi-nominated managers of the Jewish
shops; most of them were uneducated people, and many were members of
the Austrian underworld. They had no notion of business methods and
speedily brought the firms to ruin.
[18 March 1938: Installation of
Gestapo in Vienna - IKG dissolved]
On March 18 [1938] the Gestapo opened a branch in Vienna
(Staatspolizeistelle, [State police office]). On that day IKG was
officially closed and its leaders arrested. A fine of 300,000 shillings
($ 40,000) was levied upon the Jews - an amount equivalent to the sum
donated to the Schuschnigg government to support it against Germany
prior to the Anschluss.
[March 1938: Eichmann and
Palestine office under Rothenberg set up in Vienna]
In March too Adolf Eichmann arrived on the scene; he was responsible to
the SD (SS security police [Sicherheitsdienst]) leader of the Danube
area on matters pertaining to Jews. He nominated the head of the
Palestine office (the Vienna branch of the immigration department of
the Jewish Agency), Dr. Alois Rothenberg, to be in charge of Palestine
emigration affairs. His main aim was the emigration of Jews, by any and
all means, with the greatest possible speed.
[10 Feb 1938: SS propaganda for
emigration of Austrian Jews]
The policy of forced emigration had been openly advocated by the SS
prior to the Anschluss; this seems to have been in line with Hitler's
own thinking.
On February 10, 1938, the SS journal, Das Schwarze Korps [The black
corps], published an article entitled "Where Should We Put the Jews?"
(Wohin mit den Juden?). The present rate of emigration, argued the Nazi
paper, was not enough.
[Jews in Germany are not
protesting against expulsion of Jews in Austria - perspective
Madagascar]
The Jews who remained in Germany were not anxious to have their
brethren, (p.225)
"the parasites",
(End note 5: For the significance of the term "parasite" as applied to
the Jews by the Nazis, see: Alexander Bein: The Jewish Parasite; In:
Leo Baeck Yearbook; London 1964, 9:3-40)
leave their present homes. Only the forced settlement of the Jews in a
country to which they would be directed could solve the question - a
hint at the Madagascar plans then being publicized by the Polish
government.
(End note 6: Julius Streicher, the notorious anti-Semite, published a
lead article entitled "Madagaskar" in the January 1938 (no. 1) issue of
his
Der Stürmer, together
with a cartoon of a Jew being driven from the world under the caption
"DAS ENDE" (The End)
[26 April 1938: Völkischer
Beobachter states all Jews have to leave Germany by 1942]
After the Anschluss, the leading Nazi daily in Germany, Der Völkische
Beobachter [The folkish observer], wrote on April 26, 1938, that all
Jews must be eliminated from Germany by 1942.
[Austria now also is Germany, and Austrians are Germans. It was
projected later to settle all the rest of the Middle European Jews in
Eastern Europe after a successful Russia campaign, but this never was
successful.
In: Chiari: Alltag hinter der Front, Droste 1998].
[1937: Inner German deportation of
100s of Jews to Allenstein and Schneidemühl and torture]
According to one source, a small experiment in forced emigration was
carried out in eastern and western Prussia in 1937, in the areas of
Allenstein (Olsztyn) and Schneidemühl (Pil). The victims, a few 100
people in all, were harassed constantly supervised, robbed of their
possessions, and driven to despair. The result was a panic exodus.
(End note 7: 38-Germany, reports, 1937-1944, report for October 1937)
[3 May 1938: Reopening of IKG -
20,000 applications for emigration permits]
After the period of partly organized bestiality, Eichmann allowed the
reopening of IKG on May 3, 1938. In a very short time, 20,000 heads of
families applied for emigration permits. This must have represented at
least 40-50,000 individuals.
[Gestapo puts 1,600 Jews into
concentration camps]
To further the desire for emigration, the Gestapo arrested about 1,600
Jews and sent them to the concentration camps of Dachau and Buchenwald
during the first three months of Nazi rule. Many of these were wealthy
Jews.
(End note 8:
-- Ibid. [38-Germany, reports, 1937-1944, report for October 1937)]
-- Nathan Katz report of 8/25/38, where he says that there were
1,700-1,800 such victims. Rosenkranz (op. cit., [The Anschluss; In:
Josef Frankel (editor): The Jews of Austria], p.488) says the victims
mentioned were prominent Jews who had been blacklisted and arrested
within two days; they were sent to Dachau on May 30. It seems that Katz
was referring to the same group. As to the figure of 20,000 emigration
applications, a report of 8/31/45 [31 August 1945] (Saly Mayer files
16), apparently written by Löwenherz, puts them at 40,000 by 5/20/38
[20 May 1938];
-- Rosenkranz [Rosenkranz, Herbert: The Anschluss and the Tragedy of
Austrian Jewry,
1938-1945; In: Josef Frankel: The Jews of Austria; London 1967], p.491)
[26 August 1938: Installation of
a Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle für jüdische
Auswanderung)]
Finally, in August, Löwenherz himself suggested to Eichmann that a
central institution be established where the Jews could get all the
necessary papers to enable them to leave the country. This was the
genesis of Eichmann's famous Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung,
the Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration, which made him a
paradigm of German efficiency in Jewish matters.
Set up on August 26, the Zentralstelle henceforth took care of
emigration procedures. Its method of operation was simple: by the time
the Jew had gone through its procedures, he was left with no property
except his ticket out of the country. All his possessions had been
"taken care of" with German thoroughness (part of them, incidentally,
went to IKG so that the many poor people who had no property could
leave Austria). Also, IKG paid for its many activities, mainly relief
and vocational retraining, from the emigrants' money). (p.226)
[In Eastern Europe for the Yiddish Jews there is NO such a
Zentralstelle. The German Jews should emigrate to Palestine, the
Yiddish not. There must be a big manipulation of all this].
[Paralyzed "American" Jewry in New
York - JDC money for soup Jewish kitchens in Austria]
The immediate reaction of the JDC central office in New York to the
Austrian disaster was consternation and paralysis. Baerwald wrote to
Jonah B. Wise a few days after the Anschluss that at a meeting with
leaders of the American Jewish Committee "everybody reluctantly agreed
that nothing much can be done (in) connection U(with the) Austrian
situation".
(End note 9: 8-21, Baerwald to Wise, 3/16/38 [16 March 1938])
Kahn, on the other hand, had no hesitation regarding the need for
action. Rosen volunteered to go to Vienna, and when he came back to
Paris on March 23 he reported having spent several 1,000 dollars for
soup kitchens through friendly officials at the American mission. Of
course much more was needed. In the absence, at first, of an officially
active IKG, he demanded American government intervention. Baerwald was
not so sure; he thought that "the best way for us to proceed is to cool
down and to wait for any new developments which may come out of
Washington".
(End note 10: Ibid. [8-21], Baerwald letters, 4/6/38 [6 April 1938]
and 4/19/38 [19 April 1938])
However, nothing much materialized from that quarter.
In the meantime, Jews were starving and desperate.
[Jews in Burgenland driven out of
their homes]
What aroused public opinion, non-Jewish as well as Jewish, was the
plight of the Jews from six small towns in the Austrian province of
Burgenland, who were evicted from their homes; some of them found
temporary refuge on a boat on the Danube [with emigration by Istanbul
to Palestine]. Neither of the neighboring countries was willing to
receive these unfortunates; action was taken against them "as though
against the Black Plague".
(End note 11:
-- Executive Committee, file, Budget and Scope Committee, 8/18/38;
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million Died; New York
1968], p.205)
[Visits from JDC representatives
in Vienna]
Meanwhile, JDC's New York office was hoping that a nonsectarian
committee could be formed to deal with the situation.
(End note 12: 8-21, Baerwald to Wise, 3/16/38 [16 March 1938])
When nothing came of it, the decision was taken to step in with as much
money as JDC had on hand. Apart from this decision in principle, JDC
tried very hard to find an American Jew of some standing who would
represent it in Vienna. Further, it did not intend to send dollars into
Austria if that could possibly be avoided.
A number of prominent personalities were sent to Vienna during the
first months of the Anschluss: Joseph A. Rosen, Alexander A. Landesco,
Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., David J. Schweitzer of the Paris (p.227)
office and others. Through them, JDC not only kept in touch with the
situation, but was able to contact Nazi agents and try to influence
their actions. The driblets of aid that these American Jews were able
to bring with them and distribute, largely through the friendliness of
Leland Morris, the U.S. consul general, were quite inadequate.
(End note 13: R11, C.M. Levy, report on a trip to Vienna,
12/1/38-12/8/38 [1 December 1938-8 December 1938])
[11 June 1938: Council for
German Jewry asks for order in emigration proceedings in Austria]
On June 11 the Council for German Jewry in London (theoretically
representing JDC as well) intervened with the German Embassy in Britain
to ask for the introduction of order into emigration proceedings.
(End note 14:
[June 1938: JDC money for Austrian
Jews]
IKG, reopened on May 3, was desperately trying to cope with the
disastrous situation. By that time JDC was clear about its obligation
to support Kahn's policy of maximum aid. In June JDC appropriated a sum
of $ 250,000 for Austria. The sum of $ 431,438 was actually expended in
Austria by the end of the year, however, or 10 % of the total JDC
spending for that year.
(End not 15: JDC's total expenditure in 1938 came to $ 4,112,979)
[6.3. NS Austria: At least 150,000 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4
Jews
etc. - at least 335,246 persons counted as Jews under NS rule]
[Emigration by IKG - at least
150,000 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews - 30,000 emigrate by summer 1939]
Emigration through IKG was slow in starting. From the first days of
Nazi rule a parallel emigration office operated under the auspices of
Frank van Gheel-Gildemeester, son of a Dutch court chaplain, whose
actual intentions and connections with the Germans have not quite been
cleared up to this day. His main concern was with the so-called
non-Aryans, that is, converted Jews or descendants of Jews who fell
under the definition of a Jew by Nazi standards. There were at least
150,000 of these in Austria, and Gildemeester claims that 30,000 had
emigrated by the summer of 1939.
(End note 16: Germany-"G", institutions and organizations)
[By this the number there are 185,246 plus at least 150,000 are at
least 335,246 people defined as Jews. For East European Jews there is
no Zentralstelle to emigrate...].
JDC had to give up its attempt to establish an American Jew as
Table
16: Persons Fed in Vienna in 1938
|
Month
|
March
|
May
|
June
|
August
|
September
|
No. fed
|
3,789
|
9,000
|
10,995
|
11,522
|
13,323
|
|
|
|
|
|
Also,
7,000 food packages
were
sent to people in their homes.
|
(End
note 17: Sources:
-- Fortnightly Digest, 24/25 and
-- R28, 1938 report.
The relief problem in
Austria had some troublesome implications. In "old" Germany the
government was at that time still supporting Jewish relief to the
extent of about 600,000-700,000 marks monthly. In Austria, JDC and
other foreign organizations were expected to foot the bill. If they
did, the Germans might demand that they do it in Germany as well; if
they did not, the Jewish poor would starve and be deported to
concentration camps as "asocial elements". The upshot, of course, was
that JDC paid).
|
(p.228)
its representative in Vienna.
[6.4. "US" Jewish organizations can only watch]
["US" Jewish organizations have to
accept the emigration wave in Austria - JDC money for emigration]
Apart from other considerations, the U.S. government was disinclined to
sanction such a move. Löwenherz, who soon became the guiding spirit of
IKG, was not trusted by JDC; at the end of 1938 Morris C. Troper, who
succeeded Kahn as European director of JDC, called him a "Gestapo
agent."
(End note 18: Germany-ICA, Troper memo, 12/26/38 [26 December 1938])
[This seems to be the right trace: Gestapo "organized" emigration to
Palestine of German and Austrian Jews for the Holy Land by Haavarah and
Zentralstelle and the Zionists are satisfied, and the liberal Jews can
only watch, and the Yiddish Jews have no chance].
Yet there was no alternative, and IKG had to be supported. Of the JDC
contribution, 60 % went to emigration. This was not done, however,
through a direct contribution of American dollars to the German
treasury. The procedure was to pay for the prospective emigrant's
tickets and other expenses outside the Reich; in return, money paid by
the emigrant to IKG was utilized to cover that institution's expenses.
It is true that this cost the Germans nothing - or, as Heydrich put it,
Jewish emigration was effected "without any payment by the German side,
not even in the form of 'additional exports.' "
(End note 19: Helmuth Krausnick: Judenverfolgung; In: Martin Broszat et
alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates; Olten und Freiburg 1965, 2:341)
[It's even more extreme: NS occupation robbed the Jews and the Jewish
organizations are financing also their emigration trip].
But Germany did not acquire any foreign currency through this method -
and Jewish property was in the Nazis' hands in any case. JDC visitors
were treated well by the Gestapo, and the Nazi agents they met became
"rather amiable young fellows" when discussing financial arrangements;
but the message that they welcomed "our cooperation in getting the Jews
out of Austria as quickly as possible", and that emigration "was
proceeding at much too slow a rate" was very definite and unmistakable.
(End note 20: CON-48, Jaretzki report, 7/3/38 [3 July 1938])
[B. Switzerland's measures against the emigration wave in
early 1938]
[6.5. The first emigration waves from Austria and Italy: Switzerland
hands the Jews over to the Nazis]
Many Jews did not, or could not, wait for any emigration arrangements
made by IKG. IN the first panic thousands fled Austria, often pushed
across the border by Nazis, mainly by SA and SS units. Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, and Yugoslavia, countries sharing a common border with
Austria, closed their frontiers. Although illegal crossings were
particularly dangerous, a small but unknown number of Jews managed to
get across. On the other hand, it was relatively easy to get into Italy
and Switzerland. Travelers with Austrian passports did not need a visa.
During the first few weeks after the Anschluss, over 3,000 refugees,
mostly Jewish, crossed the Swiss border.
(End note 21: Ludwig, op. cit. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik
der Schweiz seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p.75
[Supplement:
The Jews who were fleeing had to pay much for the people smugglers.
Only rich Jews could afford this arbitrary flight. The smugglers
(Austrian and Swiss people) made a good profit with smuggling these
refugees, mainly Jewish, but also socialist and others].
[Swiss governments appeals for
visas because of danger of more anti-Semitism]
Swiss reaction to the flow of refugees was swift. On March 26 [1938]
the federal Justice and Police Department asked the government (p.229)
(Bundesrat) to decree that holders of Austrian passports must have
entry visas. "We have to defend ourselves with all our strength, even
with a measure of callousness (Rücksichtslosigkeit) against the influx
of foreign Jews, especially from the east, if we wish to avoid creating
justified ground for an anti-Semitic movement unworthy of our country."
(End note 22: Ibid [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Schweiz
seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p.76)
[The Swiss visa fight against
Austrian Jews]
The defense "with all our strength" against refugees fleeing for their
lives was eminently successful: on March 28 the Bundesrat decreed that
visas were necessary for holders of Austrian passports. On April 8 a
circular from the federal police administration informed cantonal
police departments that unless there were very weighty reasons for
refugees to stay, they had to be told to leave the country at the
earliest possible moment. However, these stricter regulations were of
no avail,
[Since middle of May 1938: Swiss
and German government move Jews back and forth]
and from about the middle of May 1938 groups of Jews would be brought
to the Swiss border, stripped of all their possessions, kept in Nazi
jails at the border, and then sent across into Swiss territory at
night. A return into Austria meant the immediate threat of
concentration-camp treatment.
The Swiss police chief, Dr. Heinrich Rothmund, earnestly requested the
German government to put an end to these deportations into Switzerland,
"which needs these Jews just as little as Germany does."
(End note 23: Ibid. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Schweiz
seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p.82,
footnote 1; Ludwig says (p.83) that there were 3-4,000 Austrian Jewish
immigrants in Switzerland before April 1).
[Since April 1 1938: 2,000 more
Jewish refugees and illegal refugees come to Switzerland - wealthy
refugees - Swiss consulate]
After April 1 there seems to have been an influx of another 2,000
refugees who came without visas, plus an additional number of illegals.
In addition, there were wealthy refugees, who received official permits
to enter the country. In fact, the Swiss consulate in Vienna seems to
have been more liberal in granting entry permits than was warranted by
the instructions it received from the Swiss government.
[Since 1938: Anti-Semitic
propaganda in Italy provokes some 3,000 Jewish refugees entering into
Switzerland]
A similar influx of Austrian refugees into Western Europe - France,
Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium - created similar reactions there.
From Italy, where racist propaganda began under German influence in
1938, desperate refugees were trying to get into Switzerland;
apparently some 3,000 succeeded in doing so.
(End note 24: Ibid. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Schweiz
seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p.84)
[Summer 1938: Swiss government
hands over Jewish refugees to the Nazis]
But as the summer approached all countries in the West began closing
their doors to these refugees, and Switzerland began to return to
Germany the refugees caught crossing her border illegally. (p.230)
[C.] Evian [conference in summer 1938]
[Supplement: The reasons of
anti-Semitism are not discussed
Also at this moment the industrial leaders of Roosevelt's "USA" are
delivering and working for Hitler's Third Reich, and at the same time
"US" Jewish banks are financing Communism.
The Pope with it's Bible which says that the Jews had murdered Jesus is
the main cause for anti-Semitism. This would have been the main problem
to discuss. But the Pope is not at the Evian conference, and the
problem of anti-Semitism in the Bible and the existence of Jesus is not
solved until now.
So, the Evian conference is discussing only the effects of
anti-Semitism and plans to dislocate Jews. The Conference is not
discussing the real reasons for anti-Semitism and to make conclusions
for all which could have saved many lives..]
[6.6. Preparation meeting for Evian Conference on 22
March
1938]
[22 March 1938: Preparation
meeting: "President" Roosevelt invited 33 governments]
On March 22, 1938, President Roosevelt
[who gives to his industry bosses the approval to support NS Germany's
industry against Communism and the "American" banks are financing
Communism at the same time]
invited 33 governments to a conference in Europe that was to deal with
refugees from Germany and Austria. In his book
While Six Million Died, Arthur D.
Morse traces the origin of this conference to Undersecretary of State
Sumner Welles, who suggested in a memorandum that an American
initiative on the international level would counteract liberal pressure
about the restrictive quota system.
The international body that would presumably be set up would take on
the responsibility for finding places of settlement for the refugees
other than the U.S.
(End note 25: Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million
Died; New York 1968], pp. 203-4
This memorandum seems to have represented the thinking of the State
Department and its chief officials.
Another political reason behind the president's move was probably the
anti-isolationist policy it implied. The fate of the refugees was used
as a means to other ends rather than as a problem that had to be
solved. The fact that until well into June the State Department proved
incapable of expressing what it wanted to achieve at the conference
indicated that there was little intention to do something tangible for
the refugees.
(End note 26:
-- Wyman, op. cit., [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls; Amherst, Mass.,
1968], p.44
-- Michael Mashberg: America and the Refugee Crisis; M.A. thesis; City
University of New York, 1970)
[Myron C. Taylor: "USA" will not
change their quota]
Myron C. Taylor, former chairman of U.S. Steel and a Roman Catholic,
was appointed as Roosevelt's representative and given the task of
convening and chairing the conference. His appointment was probably
intended to demonstrate real American interest in the refugees. at the
same time, however, the president made it clear that the U.S. quota
system would not be changed; also, all expenditures for emigration and
settlement would have to be borne by private agencies. The task of the
American government was to exert pressure on Germany to permit the
refugees to leave and to influence countries of immigration to receive
them.
[East European Yiddish speaking Jews are not considered!]
["USA" conditions after Austria
accession (Anschluss)]
Two steps were taken in April to supplement the American initiative.
-- First, the administration declared that the Austrian quota would be
added to the German quota, and the resulting quota of 27,370, it was
hinted, would be filled to a much greater extent than heretofore.
-- Second, it was made clear that the U.S. government believed that the
solution to the problem lay in requesting (p.231)
the Germans to allow Jews to bring some of their property with them
when they left Germany. If Jews came with money, they had a good chance
of being accepted; if they came without funds, all doors would be
closed.
[Creation of an Advisory Committee
on Political Refugees]
Having made his invitation public - in the end South Africa, Iceland,
El Salvador, and Italy refused to participate, thus reducing the number
of the countries involved to 29 - Roosevelt created an Advisory
Committee on Political Refugees. There was marked anxiety not to make
it appear that Jewish refugees were involved at all. Indeed, the very
word "Jew" was considered to be somehow unmentionable;
[The term "political refugees"]
"political refugees" was the official terminology, despite the obvious
fact that the overwhelming majority of the refugees were in fact Jews.
[Only one European Jew is in the
Advisory Committee: Wise, a Zionist - JDC has no representation there]
The first meeting of the Advisory Committee was held on April 13 under
Roosevelt's chairmanship. Eleven non-Jews and three Jews (Henry
Morgenthau, Sr., Bernard M. Baruch, and Stephen S. Wise) participated.
Baruch and Morgenthau, of course, belonged to the immediate political
family of the president, so that the only political invitee was Wise,
head of the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, and
the acknowledged leader of American Zionism. Naturally, this was a blow
to the leadership of the American Jewish Committee and JDC, who made
some bitter comments about Wise's membership on the new committee.
[Baruch against higher "US" quotas
- suspicion of coordination between Baruch and Roosevelt]
Welles had prepared the president against any move to liberalize
American immigration policy, but at the meeting one of the Jews,
Baruch, went a step further: he was the only one among the participants
who opposed the president's initiative. He wondered whether "it
would be wise for our government to encourage the idea that more
refugees should come here." The fact that this had been preceded by a
private visit by Baruch to Roosevelt on the same day would seem to
indicate that this "opposition" was prearranged.
(End note 27: 9-44, memorandum on White House conference on refugees,
4/13/38 [13 April 1938]; see also: Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.:
While Six Million Died; New York 1968], p.204
[Roosevelt denies any financial
help for Jewish emigration! - and Jewish organizations make no protest]
Roosevelt explained that private agencies would have to pay for all
emigration and settlement expenses, because any government
appropriation would have to be passed by Congress, and that was not
very likely. (p.232)
McDonald was elected chairman of the new committee, and it was he who
proposed that Paul Baerwald be invited to join. The president's letter
of invitation to the JDC chairman went out on April 18. In the
meantime, the JDC leadership had agreed, at a meeting with American
Jewish Committee officers late in March, that large-scale settlement
projects were the order of the day.
(End note 28: 8-21, meeting of 3/28/38 [28 March 1938])
In all matters concerning refugees it was preferable that non-Jews take
the lead, in order to avoid anti-Semitic feelings. JDC accepted the
government's policy - no questions were asked, no requests were made,
no hint of any criticism of the government's attitude was heard.
Nothing was said regarding the government's decision to put the burden
of expenses on "nongovernmental sources".
(End note 29: Executive Committee, 4/20/38 [20 April 1938])
[6.7. Evian Conference in July 1938
- Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR) set up]
[Many countries don't want the
Jewish problem - farmers for South America possible - other countries
follow the "USA" and do not rise their quotas]
At the conference itself, held at Evian, France, between July 6 and
July 15, 1938, two main ideas seem to have been in the minds of Taylor
and George L. Warren, his executive secretary and chief aide:
-- to try to get countries of immigration to make liberal immigration
declarations,
-- and to establish international machinery (directed mainly by the
U.S.) that would enter into negotiations with Germany.
There were difficulties on both points, however. The statements of the
various representatives were discouraging and often tinged with
anti-Semitism.
For example, the Australian representative declared that "as we have no
real racial problem we are not desirous of importing one". Latin
American delegates were very restrained - a few countries, like Brazil,
Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru, offered some prospect
for the immigration of agricultural workers or farmers. All made a
special point of declaring that no merchants or intellectuals would be
allowed in.
Nowhere was special legislation to allow immigration being
contemplated, and of course in this matter the U.S. example was being
followed.
[GB representative states:
Palestine closed - possible emigration to East Africa possible]
Britain's representative, Lord Winterton, declared that Palestine was
temporarily closed to large-scale immigration until a political
solution was found. However, he declared, there were prospects for
settling refugees in Kenya and other parts of East Africa.
(End note 30: The official protocols of the Evian Conference are kept
in 9-28. Winterton said, 7/15/38 [15 July 1938], on Palestine: "Il
est apparu indispensable, non pas sans doute l'interrompre
l'immigration juive - ce qui n'a jamais été envisagé - mais de
l'assujettir à certaines restrictions d'un caractère purement
temporaire et exceptionnel, ayant pour but de maintenir, dans les
limites raisonnables, la population dans les rapports numériques
actuel, en attendant une décision définitive ... relativement à
l'avenir politique du pays" -
[Translation: "It seems to be indispensable, no, without any doubt to
interrupt the Jewish immigration - what never had been in project - but
to subject to certain restrictions of an absolute temporary and
exceptional character, for a definitive decision ... relatively for the
political future of the country"]
a clear foreshadowing of the British move away from the partition
proposal of 1937 toward the 1939 White Paper on Palestine. See
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million Died; New York
1968], pp. 212-13;
-- Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls; Amherst, Mass.,
1968], pp. 49-50, and
-- Mashberg, op. cit. [Mashberg, Michael: America and the Refugee
Crisis; M.A. thesis; City University of New York, 1970])
This declaration was "an unexpected and welcome gesture."
(End note 31: 9-27, Brotman to Laski, no date [July 1938?])
Britain (p.233)
itself, Winterton said, was not a country of immigration. Yet the
people of the United Kingdom were ready to play their part within the
narrow limits feasible, given the high degree of industrialization and
the large number of unemployed in Britain.
[European representatives state
the Jews have to go overseas - little countries only want to be
temporary havens]
European countries emphasized the necessity for emigration overseas,
but Holland and Denmark stressed their relatively liberal policies as
transit countries. Speaking for Switzerland, which had refused to play
host to the conference, the police chief, Dr. Rothmund, insisted that
his country could only be a temporary stopover en route to other places.
(End note 32: See note 30 above and: Ludwig, op. cit. [Ludwig, Carl:
Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Schweiz seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p. 84,
footnote 1)
["US" delegate Taylor states that
the machinery of emigration has to begin]
Taylor himself had no illusions regarding the prospect of getting
public governmental declarations welcoming refugees. Although insisting
in his opening speech that governments must act promptly on the refugee
question, he also said that probably no more "could be expected than
that the conference should put into motion the
machinery and correlate it with
existing machinery that will, in the long run, contribute to a
practical amelioration of the condition."
(End note 33: 9-28, and Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls;
Amherst, Mass., 1968], pp. 49-50)
[Jewish Refugees with special
education are accepted in some countries - prepare the refugees]
The declarations, while far from satisfactory, were not quite as
negative as press criticism at the time and historical accounts since
then would have us believe. While we have seen that some countries of
potential refuge refused to consider immigration, others were willing
to accept people under certain conditions. It was therefore a matter of
providing refugees with sufficient means to make their immigration to
those countries attractive to the governments concerned.
(End note 34: 9-28, Brotman memo, 7/16/38 [16 July 1938]; According
to Brotman, who represented the British Board of Deputies,
representatives of governments were apt to be more liberal privately
than int public speeches).
This was by no means easy to achieve.
[GB and France want the Jewish
refugee discussion only in the League of Nations]
Britain and France were reluctant to have the refugee question taken
out of the League of Nations, where their influence was paramount.
[Malcolm appeals for government
funds for emigration - large emigration does not seem to be possible]
Sir Neil Malcolm, the League of Nations high commissioner for refugees,
displeased the Americans by stating that government funds were needed
and that private organizations could not possibly bear the burden. He
also spoke his mind regarding the attitude of the governments and
declared that "large-scale immigration and settlement ... presently
appear impossible".
(End note 35: New York Times, 7/9/38 [9 July 1938])
Warren termed his speech "not helpful".
(End note 36: CON-2, Warren to Chamberlain, 7/9/38 [9 July 1938])
[Plan for an Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees (ICR)]
In the end, however, the British and French agreed to the setting up of
an Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), which (p.234)
would be located in London; presumably ICR would swallow up the League
committee under Malcolm.
[Polish and Romanian Jewish
problems are not discussed at Evian conference!]
These were not the only problems raised at Evian. Poland and Romania
tried to have the conference deal with the emigration of their Jewish
populations, but the delegations from Britain and France very
energetically rejected all such attempts. The discussions were limited
to the subject of persons - termed "involuntary emigrants" - who might
be forced out of Germany and Austria in the future and those who had
already left but had found no satisfactory place of permanent residence
(their number was estimated at 30,000).
Only in the long run was it proposed to deal with larger aspects of the
question, thus including the emigration problem of East European Jewry.
[So, all European Yiddish Jews are excluded from discussion...]
The delegations of German and Austrian Jews, prodded by the Gestapo to
make clear to the conferees the necessity of finding havens quickly,
made a considerable impression.
(End note 37: For a fictionalized but essentially true account, see:
Hans Habe: The Mission; New York 1966)
[Speeches from the Jewish
organizations of the "free countries" - chaos and no collaboration]
The Jewish organizations from the free countries, about 21 of them,
presented a spectacle of disunity and confusion. The Liaison Committee,
under Norman Bentwich, drew up a statement, but the individual groups
would not forgo their right to make separate appearances; as a result a
large number of speeches were made, more or less repeating each other.
(End note 38: See note 31 above [End note 31: 9-27, Brotman to Laski,
no date [July 1938?]; Brotman added that Winterton's secretary was
"doing her best to tell Lord Winterton that all Jews are not like those
at the conference." The remark reveals the Briton's anti-Semitic
instincts and the British Jew's feeling of inferiority rather than the
failings of the Jewish organizations).
Jonah B. Wise represented JDC at Evian, and his presentation on July 14
was really a summary of what JDC had achieved up to that time. He
emphasized that JDC's resources were limited and based on voluntary
contributions, and that it was necessary that the emigrants be able to
take out some of their own capital.
["USA" and JDC want to press GB to
reopen Palestine for Jewish mass immigration]
In official American eyes the role of JDC was quite important. Prior to
Evian, JDC leaders had been invited to an informal meeting with Warren,
Prof. Joseph P. Chamberlain, and James G. McDonald, where stress was
laid on the pressure that would be brought to bear on Britain to get
her to open her possessions to refugee settlement. The point was made
that if the British hold back, "they may hurt their present
relationship with our government".
(End note 39: 9-27, informal meeting, 6/3/38 [3 June 1938])
[Arabs and Palestinians are not asked...]
[WJC Goldmann is plain-talking]
It must be stressed that only the World Jewish Congress, represented
(p.235)
by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, disregarded the appeals for moderation.
-- It [WJC] sharply attacked German practices,
-- demanded that the Jewish problem be viewed as a whole,
-- said that Jews fleeing from Eastern Europe should also be helped,
-- and insisted that uncultivated areas be set aside for Jewish
settlement.
-- Also, WJC thought that government financing was indispensable
because private agencies would not be able to support the emigration by
themselves.
[The Evian results: In fact no big
result - ICR is set up under director Rublee]
JDC was not displeased with the outcome of Evian. In a telephone
conversation with Baerwald on July 14, McDonald declared that he was
"satisfied they accomplished everything that could be expected under
the circumstances."
(End note 40: Ibid. [9-27, informal meeting], McDonald to Baerwald
(telephone), 7/14/38 [14 July 1938])
Baerwald agreed. It must be remembered that JDC was privy to Taiylor's
intentions at the conference to have the U.S. set up ICR, whose task it
should be, as Taylor constantly reiterated, to negotiate with the
Germans. JDC was sympathetic to this line of thought. Its Paris
secretary, Nathan Katz, was asked to prepare for and take part in the
discussions at the first ICR meeting in London on August 3, 1938.
Taylor's statement on that occasion had been prepared "in Paris with
the cooperation of Dr. Kahn and myself", as Katz wrote.
(End note 41: Ibid. [9-27, informal meeting], Katz to Baerwald, 8/9/38
[9 August 1938])
Typically, the number of people who would have to be dealt with by ICR
in Germany was put at 660,000; this included all persecuted
"non-Aryans" and other gentiles, so that the Jewish aspect could be
toned down as much as possible.
A small administrative budget, to be paid to ICR by the governments,
was agreed to after some haggling, and George Rublee, an American
lawyer, was elected director - in fact, prospective negotiator with
Germany. An assistant director, Robert Pell, was loaned from the State
Department, indicating that these proceedings were considered to be of
some importance for American diplomacy.
(End note 42:
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million Died; New York
1968], pp. 218-19;
-- Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls; Amherst, Mass.,
1968], pp. 51-52)
JDC leadership tended to regard the very fact of American and
international involvement in the refugee problem as a great step
forward. Kahn wrote about "the message of the Evian Conference, the
significance of a great gathering which solemnly affirmed the initial
responsibility of humanity in the solution of the problems of the
refugees." (p.236)
(End note 43: Executive Committee, Kahn to Budget and Scope Committee,
9/18/38 [18 September 1938])
As a result of the Evian Conference most governments adopted a "wait
and see" attitude. (p.239)
[D.] The refugees
[6.8. France 1938 against Jewish
refugees - prison and concentration camps]
The immediate results of the conference amounted to nothing. In France,
the Austrian disaster evoked a harsh reaction on the part of the
government.
[1937: 7,000 German Jewish
refugees in France - 2,500 of them needy]
There were not many refugees in France to start with: at the end of
1937 about 7,000 German Jews lived in France, of whom 2,500 had to be
supported.
(End note 44: R28, fortnightly digest, 10/15/37 [15 October 1937])
[There are also Jewish refugees from other countries in France,
sometimes for more than 10 years].
[2 March 1938: France: Law for farming for Jewish refugees in
project - no realization]
But in early 1938, even before the Anschluss, French policy hardened.
This was the period of the final collapse of the Popular Front movement
and the rise of conservative forces. On March 2 there was a French
government proposal to settle 10,000 refugees as agricultural laborers.
Those who refused to be settled in this manner would be expelled. The
Consistoire Centrale, the main religious authority of French Jewry,
agreed in principle that Jews who disobeyed the government's orders
should not stay in France.
To avoid disaster, Kahn for JDC and Baron Robert de Rothschild for
French Jewry suggested that a sum of 3 mio. francs be set aside for
this project. The whole question was aired at a March 27, 1938, meeting
of all Jewish organizations, French and non-French, working in France.
At that meeting and again in April, the scheme was enlarged to a 20
mio. franc project; the intent was to settle 12-15,000 refugees on
French lands. Nothing came of it. In the end the French government
decided that it did not want to have refugee Jews settle on French
soil.
[End of March 1938: France:
Proposal by Serre that Jews have to collect money for returning the
Jewish refugees to NS Germany - no majority in the parliament]
However, at the March meeting, two weeks after the Anschluss [end
of March], a much more dangerous French demand was made known: Philippe
Serre, French undersecretary of state for immigration, demanded that
the Jews in France collect money for the government, to cover the
expense of forcible repatriation of refugees to Germany. Marc Jarblum,
a Zionist and the leader of the Fédération des Sociétés Juives, the
main organization of East European Jews in France, had told Serre that
no Jewish support should be expected for such a proposal. Kahn for JDC
and Edouard Oungre for HICEM had given similar answers. But the
chairman of the (p.237)
meeting, Prof. William Oualid of the Consistoire, demurred: it was
"unwise to give a point-blank refusal"; he proposed that the Jews
participate in the cost of repatriation when it was impossible "to
obtain a favorable solution". Let it be said to the credit of that
particular meeting that Oualid's suggestion failed to get majority
approval.
(End note 45: R62, meeting in Paris of 3/27/38 [27 March 1938])
[2 May 1938: France: Government
decree to define Jewish refugees as criminals - 1 month prison - then 6
months prison]
As the refugees from Austria began to pour in, French reaction
stiffened even further. On May 2, 1938, the government decreed that all
refugees who could not move to other countries and could not get
permission to stay in France would henceforth be treated as criminals.
Judges were instructed to hand down sentences of
one month's imprisonment to such
refugees. If after that month the person concerned still could not find
another country of refuge within a week of his release from prison, he
was to be
put in jail for another six
months. Children of such "recalcitrant" parents were to be
placed in charitable homes.
On October 12, 1938, further instructions were issued to the effect
that Austrian refugees in particular should be sent back. They were
given four days in which to leave France, and if they did not do so,
they were
subject to imprisonment for
many months.
(End note 46: R47, Comité pour la Défense des Israélites en Europe
Centrale et Orientale, 3/24/39 [24 March 1939])
[March 1938: France: Polish Jewish
refugees are deprived of citizenship]
These draconian measures hit not only refugees from Germany and Austria
[which was Germany now], but also Polish Jews who were deprived of
their citizenship by a Polish decree of March 1938.
(End note 47: See below in the text, p. 243)
These people, some of whom had been living in France for ten years or
more, were now suddenly subject to arrest and imprisonment because a
country, which the younger ones among them had not even seen, had
withdrawn its technical protection from them.
[12 Nov 1938: France: Jail
sentence is changed into concentration camp sentence]
Finally, on November 12 an amendment to the earlier decrees was
published, and the imprisonment was changed into forced residence. Of
course, judges were free to assign refugees to closed camps rather than
some village or town. Jewish refugees began to be interned in French
concentration camps even prior to the Nazi onslaught on France; this
internment ultimately contributed to a significant degree to the mass
murder of Jews in France by the Germans. (p.238)
[JDC with European seat in France]
JDC did not have much choice in France; this was the seat of its
European office, and Kahn had to support the refugees to the best of
JDC's limited ability.
[June-Oct 1938: German Jewish
refugees in France: Rising Figures - JDC funds - HICEM looking for
other countries - hopes on ICR for an agreement with the Third Reich]
The numbers were growing throughout 1938, but in the summer and autumn
they were still manageable. In early 1938 there were 10,000 refugees in
France; this was to increase to 25,000 in December.
JDC spent $ 130,884 in France in that year, most of it through
different French Jewish organizations in support of various aspects of
refugee work; it also spent money through HICEM, which was trying to
find places of settlement for the refugees. This was no easy task,
because as a result of the Evian Conference most governments adopted a
"wait and see" attitude. "Many countries are said to have closed their
doors in the expectation that through the establishment of the
Winterton-Rublee committee, refugees from Germany might bring some
money with them."
(End note 48: Morris D. Waldman: Nor by Power; New York, 1955, p. 82,
quoting a report to the American Jewish Committee, 11/6/38 [6
November 1938])
This, of course, was preferable to an influx of destitute refugees. JDC
leaders saw that they had to do everything in their power to enable the
newly established ICR reach an agreement with the Germans.
[6.9. England 1938: Press protests against Jewish
refugees]
[1938: GB: Protests in the press
against Jewish refugees]
The situation in France tended to repeat itself in other countries.
Britain experienced a wave of antirefugee protest in some of its most
vocal newspapers. The London
Times
and the
Manchester Guardian
had voiced satisfaction with the outcome of Evian.
(End note 49: Andrew Sharf: The British Press and Jews under Nazi Rule;
Oxford 1964, p. 171)
But there was no necessary contradiction between that and a basically
negative attitude to Jewish immigration into Britain. Jews had to find
a haven and should be helped to find one - but not in England.
"Dreadful, dreadful are the afflictions of Jewish people", cried the
Daily Express on September 2, 1938,
in an article which emphasized that there was no room for them in
Britain. The Evening News went even further on July 13: "Money we will
provide, if need be, but the law of self-preservation demands that the
word ENTER be removed from the gate."
(End note 50: Ibid. [Andrew Sharf: The British Press and Jews under
Nazi Rule; Oxford 1964], p.168
[6.10. Switzerland 1938: Camps for Jewish refugees -
handover to the Reich - and
money questions]
[1938: Switzerland: 6 camps for
German Jewish penniless refugees]
In Switzerland, too, the influx of refugees from Austria caused a sharp
reaction. Despite the measures taken in March and April, Jews continued
to cross the Swiss border. VSIA cared for those (p.239)
that managed to do so and in 1938 erected
six camps housing 877 penniless
refugees.
(End note 51: Saly Mayer files (SM), VSIA-2)
[July-15 August 1938: About
2,300 coming German Jewish refugees]
Throughout July and during the first half of August [1938] about 2,300
Jewish refugees managed to cross the border illegally.
[with the help of smugglers who were paid well by the Jewish refugees].
[15 Aug 1938: Berlin announces
all Austrians will be Germans on 1 Jan 1939 - Swiss government looks
for action against Austrian German Jewish refugees]
Since March, Austrian passport holders had had to obtain Swiss visas of
entry to get to Switzerland, but a German decree of August 15 announced
that as of January 1, 1939, all Austrian passports would be changed
into German ones; and German passport holders could enter Switzerland
without a visa. The Swiss government therefore took a series of
measures against the refugee influx.
[10 August 1938: Switzerland
shuts down the frontier for German Jewish refugees - handing over to
Germans is avoided if concentration camp would be followed]
On August 10 a police circular to border police stations established a
policy of refusal of entry to refugees.
On the same date the Swiss chief of police submitted a report to his
government; in it he stated that refugees who said they would be
interned in a concentration camp if they were returned to Germany would
not be handed over to the Germans.
The problem was what to do with the illegals already in the country. He
thought they should be expelled to Germany, but he did not dare to take
this step because it might "arouse a tremendous outcry against
Switzerland in all civilized countries."
(End note 52: Ludwig, op. cit. Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der
Schweiz seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], pp.
86-87)
[But the civilized countries were NOT civilized but all were preparing
war in Europe against Soviet Union].
[17 August 1938: Switzerland:
Police officials conference - concentration camp threat does not count
any more]
A conference of police officials on August 17 confirmed this policy,
which was then approved by the Swiss government on the August 19.
(End note 53: Ibid. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik der Schweiz
seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957]], p. 90)
This latter decision, however, went even further: henceforth there was
to be no refugee immigration from Austria at all, thus presumably
eliminating all exceptions regarding persons threatened with
concentration camps.
The position of Swiss Jewry in all this was quite difficult. At a
general meeting of VSIA [Verein Schweizerischer Israelitischer
Armenpflegen [Confederation of Swiss Israelite poor care] it was noted
that while the situation of the refugees was tragic, Swiss political
and economic interests should not be ignored.
[Big parts of the upper class of Switzerland had studied mostly in
Germany and was very anti-Semitic, supported Nazi homes in Switzerland,
and whole Switzerland depended on German coal for heating in winter].
[Feb 1938: Rumours that SIG would
not want Jewish refugees]
At the same time, however, the head of SIG, Saly Mayer, very
energetically denied rumors regarding supposed communications from the
heads of the Swiss Jewish community to the government, to the effect
that Swiss Jewry objected to the further entry of refugees into the
country. "The law of 'love thy neighbor' is still the guideline for our
actions, and we must try to achieve as much as is possible for our
brethren who are in trouble."
(End note 54: Saly Mayer's declaration at SIG in February 1938, SM,
VSIA-2)
[But the left Yiddish Jews are not wanted at all].
This was said, however, a month before the Anschluss. After that event
the situation changed. The economic burden brought on by the sudden
influx of thousands of refugees could not be sustained by the tiny
Swiss Jewish community. While some of the immigrants went on to other
destinations, and others had money at their disposal and did not become
a burden to the community,
[Oct 1938: Switzerland: 2,400
Jewish refugees in poor care]
about 2,400 had to be supported by October 1938.
(End note 55: Ibid. [Saly Mayer's declaration at SIG in February 1938,
SM, VSIA-2])
SIG stated that it was not capable, technically and financially, of
supporting a further influx.
(End note 56: This was repeatedly stated in appeals to JDC from March
1938 on.
[19 August 1938: Switzerland
closes the borders - VSIA warns IKG to send no refugee any more]
On the same day that the Swiss government made its decision to close
its borders, August 19 [1938], VSIA cabled IKG in Vienna warning it not
to send any more illegal refugees (all refugees were illegals, because
no Austrian Jew could get a legal entry permit into Switzerland unless
he was in transit to another country or had plenty of money in
Switzerland).
(End note 57: SM, VSIA-2)
In other words, Swiss Jewry felt that it had to yield to Swiss official
pressure and play a part in the official antirefugee policy.
[End 1938: 10-12,000 German Jewish
refugees in Switzerland - the police partly hands them over to the NS
German side]
By the end of 1938 there were 10-12,000 Jewish refugees who could not
get beyond Switzerland. Tragedies on the borders became the order of
the day; refugees physically resisted expulsion into German hands. But
of course such resistance was of no avail.
(End note 58: Ibid. [SM, VSIA-2])
[JDC money questions about Jewish
refugees in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium and Czechoslovakia]
In its despair Swiss Jewry, through Saly Mayer, turned to JDC. In a
cable on August 25 [1938] Kahn reported to JDC that Swiss Jews needed 1
million Swiss francs, but that only one-third of the sum could be
raised locally. The reaction of New York was that local resources
should be tapped first, because JDC's income was not geared to such
large-scale emergencies. Then, New York told Kahn, ICR should be
approached. "We have constantly in mind that settling such refugee
difficulties quickly will encourage pushing many others over frontiers."
But Kahn had a different view. He announced to his head office that he
had given emergency support not only in Switzerland, but in Luxembourg,
Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. Baerwald thought that these appropriations
were "staggering", and objected. Khan reacted sharply: on August 26 he
explained in a curt cable that it was imperative to preserve the
goodwill of Jewish and non-Jewish (p.241)
institutions. "(The) entire record (of) JDC activities constitutes (a)
precedent supporting such appropriations." He had given the money to
the Swiss "to avoid (a) debacle." Baerwald had no wish to quarrel with
his European director. In any case, he realized that JDC would have no
choice but to support the Europeans as much as possible.
On August 28 [1938] he assured Kahn that he fully realized
"appropriations unavoidable". He added: "Please do not worry. Nothing
will be done against your judgment."
(End note 59:
-- 9-40, Baerwald to Kahn; and:
-- Administration Committee files (AC), 8/24/38 [24 August 1938])
Indeed, unless they decided to change the director in Europe, JDC in
New York had no choice but to confirm the judgment of its Paris office.
The increasing force of the crisis in Europe, however, did lead the New
York leadership to weigh the possibility of a change in its European
personnel.
[JDC Kahn's decision for financing
of Jewish refugees in Switzerland: Figures]
As far as Switzerland was concerned, Kahn's action turned the country's
Jewish aid committee,
VSIA, into one
of Europe's main recipient of funds. For its six refugee camps
and its support of refugees outside the camps, JDC paid a total of $
66,000 in 1938. Total JDC expenditures in Switzerland amounted to $
72,000, which included small sums given to vocational training
institutions as well. These sums fell short of Swiss demands - Saly
Mayer wanted a monthly allocation of $ 57,600, but in the last two
months of 1938 JDC allocations to Switzerland were running at a monthly
rate of $ 20,000, which was only a little less than what was being
spent in Austria itself.
The dollars were converted into Swiss francs at the most favorable
rated, and SIG reported that they got 415,449 Swiss francs as a result,
or about 33.8 % of the Swiss Jewish community's total income of
1,820,457 Swiss francs.
(End note 60: SM, VSIA-2)
Switzerland and France were by no means the only trouble spots in the
summer of 1938.
[6.11. Anti-Jewish laws in Luxembourg, Italy, and Holland
1938]
[May 1938: Luxembourg expelling 52
Austrian Jewish refugees - JDC help for 200 new Jewish refugees]
In tiny Luxembourg 52 Austrian Jews were expelled by the authorities in
May [1938].
JDC in Paris intervened with the Luxembourg government - a very rare
thing for JDC to do - and asked it to prevent further expulsions.
Luxembourg thereupon allowed 200 refugees to enter, with the
understanding that JDC would send aid and the refugees would ultimately
be moved to other places.
The Jewish community in that country (p. 242)
numbered only 200 taxpayers, and the aid committee, Esra, was at the
end of its resources by August [1938]. When JDC could not sent enough
money, Esra told the government that it could no longer cope with the
Austrian influx, and asked for government restrictions on immigration,
without, however, excessive severity. Political refugees, it said,
should be treated "more humanely".
(End note 61: 9-38, for all the material on Luxembourg quoted in the
text).
[17 Aug 1938: Luxembourg closes
the border - police drives refugees back to NS Germany - illegal
refugees are handed over to Belgium and France]
Probably as a result of this step, Luxembourg closed its borders on
August 17.
But illegal entry continued [with payed smugglers]. The police used to
drive the refugees back into Germany, while those who managed to enter
the country were sent over the borders into Belgium and France.
[Since end of August 1938: JDC
finances Esra - Luxembourg takes 1,000 Jewish refugees]
In late August JDC undertook to help Esra maintain housing and feeding
facilities for refugees. This took care of poor refugees; the
Luxembourg government than allowed 1,000 people of means to enter the
country in late 1938.
[7 Sep 1938: Italy: Law against
citizenship of Jews who are staying since 1919]
Similar problems arose in other European countries. An Italian decree
of September 7, 1938, translated the growing racist propaganda -
instigated by the Germans and their supporters among Italy's Fascists -
into harsh practice. All Jews who had become Italian citizens since
1919 had their citizenship revoked by a stroke of a pen. All foreign
Jews who had entered the country since 1919 were supposed to leave
Italy within six months.
[1938: Holland: Figures - strict
border controls]
In Holland the borders were officially closed; 11,000 Jewish refugees
had become absorbed in the country's economy, but 2,000 were either on
relief or preparing for emigration, or both. Throughout 1938 the
government gave permission to about 2,000 additional Jews - mostly
parents of youngsters already working in Holland - to enter the country
legally. However, all further attempts to enter Holland were frustrated
by strict border controls.
[6.12. German-Polish action against Jews in 1938: Camp at
Zbaszyn]
[25 March 1938: Poland declares
all passports not valuable from Jewish Poles since 5 years abroad]
On March 25, 1938, the Polish Sejm passed a law according to which any
Polish citizen who had not visited Poland for five consecutive years
could be deprived of his citizenship, unless he passport was
specifically renewed. The original aim of this ruling was (p.243)
to prevent Polish Jews in Vienna from entering Poland after the German
occupation of Austria on March 13, 1938.
[15 June: Poland: Announcement
that Polish Jews from Vienna will be put into concentration camp]
On June 15 the Polish Telegraphic Agency reported that those Polish
Jews from Vienna who had nevertheless succeeded in crossing the Polish
border would be put into the Polish concentration camp of Bereza
Kartuska.
[1933: NS Germany: 98,747 Jews of
foreign nationality - 56,480 Polish Jews]
Among the approximately 500,000 Jews in Germany in 1933 [official
counting without 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews], there were 98,747 Jews of
foreign nationality. Of these, 56,480 were Polish Jews.
(End note 62: S. Adler-Rudel: Ostjuden in Deutschland; Tübingen 1959,
p. 166)
[Oct 1938: Denationalization of
56,480 Polish Jews in NS Germany]
Frantic attempts by many of these Jews to avoid being declared
stateless were of no avail; their denationalization was to take effect
at the end of October 1938.
The Nazi government, bent on getting rid of as many Jews as possible,
saw the Polish step as a menace to their own anti-Jewish policy. If
they did nothing, they might later not be able to expel these Jews into
Poland because the Poles would then argue that they were no longer
Polish citizens.
One of the main planks of the original Nazi party program in 1920 had
been to rid Germany of foreigners, and first and foremost this applied
to Jews. Ideologically, therefore, there was every reason for the Nazis
to prevent the continuation of Polish Jewish residence in Germany.
[But it seems NS government tolerated the Polish Jews until 1938].
[6 Oct 1938: Poland announces
renewal for passports limit for 29 October]
On October 6 [1938] the Polish government decreed that those who did
not have their passport renewed by October 29 would lose their Polish
citizenship.
[26 Oct 1938: NS Foreign Office
requests Gestapo send back Polish Jews from Germany]
On October 26 the German Foreign Office requested the Gestapo to evict
as many Polish Jews as possible from Germany.
(End note 63:
-- Ibid. [S. Adler-Rudel: Ostjuden in Deutschland; Tübingen 1959], p.153
-- Raphael Mahler: Ringelblum's Letters from and about Zbaszyn
(Hebrew): Yalkut Moreshet 2 (May 1964: 14 ff.)
[27 / 28 Oct 1938: Reich:
17,000 Polish Jews are deported back to Poland]
The Gestapo obliged with its customary promptness and brutality, and on
the night of October 27/8, some 17,000 Polish Jews in Germany were
rounded up, some of them in their nightclothes. Many were beaten. They
were put on special trains and sent to the Polish border. There some of
them were forced by the Germans to cross the border illegally; most,
however, were simply shunted across the frontier in railway carriages.
Some of the refugees still had families or other connections in Poland
and were able to resettle with some measure of ease. Others were less
fortunate. People who had left Poland dozens of years before, or had
never been to Poland at all but had inherited their (p.244)
[Nov 1938: 12,800 Jewish homeless
deportees from NS Germany in Poland - Zbaszyn open air prison for some
5,500 Polish Jews from NS Germany - figures]
Polish citizenship from their parents, found no place to stay. By early
November the JDC office counted 12,800 homeless refugees all over the
country. There were small groups of these refugees in the main Jewish
centers such as Lodz, Warsaw, and Cracow. Local refugee committees
sprang up in these places to look after the people as best they could.
The worst spot, however, was a tiny hamlet of some 4,000 inhabitants,
Zbaszyn, on the main railroad between Frankfurt on the Oder and Poznan,
which was situated on the Polish side of the border with Germany. At
the crossing the Germans expelled some 9,300 men, women, and children;
nearly 4,000 managed to get away into Poland within the first 48 hours.
The Poles were unwilling to let the rest, some 5,500, into Poland and
forced them to remain in the village. It presented a terrible sight.
Since the number of refugees was larger than the total population of
the village, they had to be housed in stables, pigsties, and other
temporary shelters.
November is a very cold month in Poland, and after the first few days
there were problems concerning bedding, heating, warm food, sanitation,
and medical attention. The refugees themselves were completely
helpless, for the Polish government would not allow any of them to
leave Zbaszyn for the interior.
[Zbaszyn became an open air prison for them].
[Polish Jewry about the Polish
Jews from Germany - help actions by JDC and others - Ringelblum's help]
Polish Jewry, however, reacted fairly swiftly. On November 4 an aid
committee was set up in Warsaw, which collected large amounts of money
locally. By July 1939 over 3.5 mio. zloty had been collected, of which
JDC contributed 20 %.
(End note 64: Germany-refugees in Poland, report: the Activity of the
General Aid Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland,
11/1/38-7/1/39 [1 November 1938-1 July 1939]. the total collection
was 3,543,299 zloty, of which JDC contributed 721,149, and other
foreign sources, 539,725).
This was besides aid in kind, which during this period amounted to over
1 million zloty more.
The struggle over the Zbaszyn refugees had an importance that
transcended mere financial considerations. JDC in Poland found itself
pursuing a policy quite different from the one it had practiced
throughout the 1930s. Giterman and the famous historian Emanuel
Ringelblum, who was a JDC employee, rushed to Zbaszyn immediately on
receipt of the news of the refugees' arrival. With local aid, they
organized the first help.
Throughout the months of (p.245)
November and December, JDC personnel directly supervised the aid
activities at Zbaszyn. The usual roles seemed to be reversed: usually,
JDC allocated money and the local committees did the actual work; in
this case, the local Warsaw committee provided the bulk of the funds,
and JDC personnel did the actual work of organizing and supervising the
aid.
At first Giterman's policy at Zbaszyn was not to erect more permanent
structures for the refugees, since this might encourage the Polish
government to regard Zbaszyn as a permanent refugee camp.
(End note 65: 29-Germany, Polish deportations, Zbaszyn, report by
Giterman, November 1938)
However, this policy of trying to pressure the Polish government into
doing something penalized the refugees rather than the government,
which refused even to provide food.
[December 1938: Cold winter in
Zbaszyn - aid organized by JDC Ringelblum]
In early December intense cold set in, and there was no choice but to
order adequate bedding and food and to construct appropriate shelters.
After the first ten days Giterman left and Ringelblum, with a devoted
staff of about ten people, stayed on. In the name of JDC he organized
food distribution, heating, first aid, distribution of clothes
(collected from all over Poland), emigration advice, and similar
essential activities. He also saw to it that there was a library, that
the schooling of children was organized, that a Talmud Torah for
Orthodox children was set up, that concerts and lectures were held.
Apparently he even collected historical material on the expulsion of
Polish Jews from Germany; unfortunately this material has not reached
us.
[End 1938: 5,200 Polish Jews from
NS Germany in Zbaszyn]
Despite repeated interventions by the Warsaw committee the Poles let
very few of the refugees enter the country, and by the end of the year
there were still 5,200 refugees at Zbaszyn.
[Finance quarrels about Zbaszyn
open air prison]
An aspect of the Zbaszyn crisis was the growing tension between the
Polish Jewish committee and JDC. Giterman stated JDC's position in a
cable he sent on December 21: "We giving contribution only when
approached by local organizations after their funds becoming
exhausted." In the U.S., meanwhile, JDC fund raising naturally became
geared to the new situation and much money was collected for aid for
refugees in Poland. In early 1939 the Warsaw refugee committee
complained that only 15 % of the funds so (p.246) far had been spent by
foreign organizations, including JDC, while all the rest had come from
the impoverished Polish Jewish community.
In New York, Alexander Kahn, chairman of JDC's Polish Committee, was
worried. He stated: "Our position is untenable, when we seek and
receive substantial contributions here for assistance to German
deportees and negligible sums are expended in the face of such dire
need."
(End note 66: Ibid. [29-Germany, Polish deportations, Zbaszyn, report
by Giterman, November 1938], quoted by Hyman to Paris JDC, 1/20/39
[20 January 1939])
[1939: More money for Zbaszyn]
Possibly as a result of repeated interventions by the New York office,
JDC expenditure for Zbaszyn increased in 1939.
[Early June 1939: 4,000 Polish
Jewish refugees at Zbaszyn]
By early June [1939] there were still 4,000 Jews at Zbaszyn, and about
$ 40,000 monthly was needed there. However, JDC in Poland was careful;
it was not completely convinced of the correctness of the Warsaw
committee's statistics, and besides, additional issues had arisen in
the meantime to complicate the problem considerably.
[Poland's action plans against
Germany]
The Polish government was extremely unhappy about the whole situation.
Trying to pay the Germans back in their own coin, it threatened to
expel German citizens from Poland, especially German Jewish refugees
who had arrived from Germany in previous years. In this tragic
situation, where the mutual animosity of two anti-Semitic states was
typically and brutally expressed by the maltreatment of each other's
Jews,
[24 Jan 1939: Agreement for no
further expulsion - temporary stay for the expelled in Germany to
arrange their affairs]
a way out was found (at least temporarily) when both countries agreed
on January 24, 1939, that no further expulsion would take place, and
that the Jewish expellees would be granted limited rights to visit
Germany to wind up their affairs there or to arrange for final
emigration to other countries.
[6.13. Poland: Emigration committees for the Jews in 1938
- no places to emigrate]
[Nov 1938: Poland: Set up of the
Jewish Emigration and Colonization Committee - and a committee of
Friends to Promote Jewish Emigration to Madagascar]
However, the Poles had learned their lesson effectively. If Germany
managed to get rid of her Jews by Gestapo methods, Poland could follow
in her footsteps. In early November the government forced the
acknowledged head of the Jewish community in Poland, Rabbi Moshe
Schorr, to set up the Jewish Emigration and Colonization Committee. The
Poles gave this organization the task of collecting 3 mio. zloty and
convincing Jewish organizations abroad to do everything in their power
to get large numbers of Polish Jews to emigrate. By and large the
Zionists boycotted this (p.247)
committee; but their leaders, Henryk Rosmarin, Ansselm Reiss, and Moshe
Kleinbaum, were told point-blank that the government no longer
considered Palestine as the only emigration goal for Jews from Poland.
"If the price paid to Germany for brutalities against the Jews will be
taking out the Jews from that country, nothing remains for Poland but
to use similar methods with regard to stimulating Jewish emigration
from Poland."
(End note 67: R10, report by Troper and Smoler, 12/2/38 [2 December
1938])
In line with this approach, and in order to increase the pressure on
the Jews, the Polish government also set up a non-Jewish committee of
Friends to Promote Jewish Emigration to Madagascar.
The main task of the members of the Jewish committee, aside from
collecting money, was to travel abroad and conduct negotiations about
the emigration of as many Jews as possible. Within a month, by December
1938, one-third of the required sum of 3 mio. zloty had been collected
from wealthy Jewish individuals in Poland.
[JDC can only watch the Polish
action for emigration committees]
The new JDC European chairman, Morris C. Troper, saw no possibility of
opposing the new Polish attitude. On December 20, 1938, he wrote to
Hyman that if the Polish emigration pressure was inevitable, then the
committee should at least be in the hands of people amenable to JDC.
(End note 68: 44-3).
[Competition in fund raising for
Polish Jews between AFPJ, WJC and JDC]
Schorr and Rosmarin were connected with the American Federation of
Polish Jews [AFPJ] and the World Jewish Congress. WJC's concept of the
unity of the Jewish people all over the world and its endeavor to set
up political machinery to represent world Jewry ran counter to JDC's
rejection of Jewish nationalism. Also, WJC and AFPJ were trying to
collect money in America for Europe's Jews, in competition with JDC.
Schorr and Rosmarin were therefore unacceptable, and Troper suggested
that three industrialists respected by JDC should be invited to the
U.S., one of whom was Karol Sachs, a very wealthy Jewish industrialist
from Lodz.
The New York office, as well as the Warsaw JDC office, were not eager
to enter into the whole problem of emigration from Poland, at least not
under such blatant Polish pressure. There was, it is true, a slow but
decisive change of JDC opinion on emigration generally. Polish
anti-Semitism seemed less marked in early 1939, (p.248)
and it was believed that the Poles had to "throw something to the
wolves."
(End note 69: 44-21, Committee on Poland and East Europe, 2/8/39 [8
February 1939])
Adler thought it was very easy to tell people not to emigrate when one
was a Jew in America. "But if they are legislated out of existence, our
only chance is emigration."
(End note 70: 44-29; Adler to Hyman, 2/9/39 [9 February 1939])
[The emigration organizations
cannot find countries for emigration of the 3 mio. Polish Jews - U.S.
quota 6,000 per year]
The problem was, of course, where to go and how to prepare effectively
for emigration. In Poland itself the stress on vocational retraining
for occupations that might be useful in applying for entry in to
overseas countries was nothing new. A report from Galicia in March 1939
stressed that "nowhere are we allowed to grow roots and we are forced
to consider our children and youths as future export merchandise. We
must try to deliver first quality."
(End note 71: 14-39; report from Galicia)
Yet in the 1939 world, not even first quality was sufficient. Palestine
was almost closed. The Polish quota for the U.S. was about 6,000
annually. South American countries were reluctant to accept Jews. The
world was unwilling to help the three million Polish Jews.
[1939: Idea of George Backer that
Jews should buy a colony]
In this desperate situation desperate remedies were thought of,
even in such level-headed circles as those at the JDC offices in New
York. George Backer, who was very active with both JDC and the American
Jewish Committee, was suggesting to the Poles that they buy a colony,
presumably in Africa, where the Jews might settle. The Polish
ambassador, he reported, responded enthusiastically.
(End note 72: 44-21, Committee on Poland and East Europe, 2/8/39 [8
February 1939])
[Jan 1939: Schorr in London - JDC
work in Poland should not put into danger - JDC does not want to see
Schorr - Schorr warns in London from the absolute discrimination of the
Jews]
In the meantime, at the end of January 1939, Rabbi Schorr and others
left for London. If they were to come to the U.S., the situation might
become difficult for JDC. JDC could not offer any places for
emigration, nor could it pay for such a huge enterprise even if there
were places to go to. A campaign for emigration might endanger the
small-scale but vitally important work that JDC was doing in Poland. No
emigration would ensue, and masses of Polish Jews who were now
receiving some help through JDC would find themselves abandoned.
JDC therefore decided that a visit by the delegation from Poland had to
be avoided.
In February 1939 Troper reported to Hyman that he had prevented the
visit and that the delegation was discussing its problems in London
instead. There, apparently, the delegation reported that the Poles had
(p.249)
threatened anti-Jewish legislation if no emigration was forthcoming.
This legislation would include "revision" of citizenship and the
elimination of Jews from the economic and cultural life of Poland.
(End note 73: 44-29; Troper to Hyman, 2/14/39 [14 February 1939];
44-4, memo on Poland, 5/1/39 [1 May 1939])
There was not much JDC could do to help.
[E.] JDC in 1938/9
[6.14. Internal change of structures within the Joint
Distribution Committee 1938/1939]
[20 Sep 1937: Death of Felix M.
Warburg - successor Paul Baerwald]
The dramatic developments in Europe caused an internal upheaval in
JDC's setup. This reorganization had already started during the last
months of Felix M. Warburg's life. When the founder and honorary
chairman of JDC died on September 20, 1937, his death was a tremendous
blow to the organization, because there were few persons in American
Jewish life who could match his humanitarianism, his personal concern
with aiding stricken Jews all over the world, and his prestige in the
Jewish and non-Jewish world.
Paul Baerwald, his close associate in JDC work, became the head of the
organization in fact as well as in name. (Years before his death,
Warburg had officially ceased active work for JDC, becoming honorary
chairman - but in reality he remained the arbiter of the organization's
fortunes).
[Since 1936/7: Growing JDC needs
new structures - Administration Committee set up]
In 1936/7 JDC grew into a large organization, and the old way of
running things no longer seemed adequate.
In June 1937 a nucleus of the Executive Committee, called the
Administration Committee, was formed to run the day-to-day affairs of
JDC. It was composed of those laymen most concerned with its work:
James N. Rosenberg, George Backer, Alexander Kahn, Morris C. Troper,
Jonah B. Wise, William Rosenwald, Herbert J. Seligman, Mrs. Harriet B.
Goldstein, David M. Bressler, and a few others.
[Weekly meetings of the
representation persons Hyman and Baerwald]
The JDC office was represented by Hyman, and of course Paul Baerwald
almost always participated. Meetings were sporadic at first, but soon
weekly meetings became the rule.
[1938-1939: JDC Structure reforms:
Steering Committee set up - Budget and Scope Committee]
By the middle of 1939 even the new committee had become too unwieldy,
and a small steering committee, composed of 15 members, began to
emerge. More and more, the Executive Committee's meetings became formal
occasions, with the real decision-making transferred to the smaller
bodies. (p.250)
In late 1938 and early 1939 committees of laymen were formed to deal
with policy decisions on separate areas, whether geographical or other.
Cultural, religious, and educational matters had been the province of a
special committee ever since the inception of JDC. There was also the
Budget and Scope Committee, which dealt with financial planning.
[JDC: Fund raising committee -
committee on refugee countries - Latin America committee - Poland and
Eastern Europe committee]
Other committees dealt with fund raising, allocations, and other
matters. In 1938 the need arose to coordinate activities in different
parts of the globe. A committee on refugee countries was therefore
formed under Edward M.M. Warburg, Felix M. Warburg's son, who was to
take his father's place in the leadership of the organization. Another
committee under Alfred Jaretzki, Jr., was formed to deal with Latin
America; a committee for Poland and Eastern Europe, under Alexander
Kahn, had been in existence for some time.
[1937: European Council of JDC set
up]
A similar process began at the European and of JDC's operations. As
early as January 1937 Baerwald began admonishing Kahn that he should be
in constant consultation with his chief accountant and representative
on the Reconstruction Foundation, David J. Schweitzer, and with Joseph
A. Rosen. A European Council of JDC was then formed, of which Kahn
became chairman and Nathan Katz secretary.
(End note 74: 44-3, Baerwald to Kahn, 1/28/37 [28 January 1937])
[April 1938: Replacement of Kahn
because of age and citizenship - successor Troper]
The truth of the matter was that Kahn was getting old; in early 1938
Troper visited the Paris office and reported that Kahn did not seem to
be able to manage the whole scope of JDC's affairs; other thought
differently.
In April 1938 the demand that Kahn be replaced was voiced at an
Executive Committee meeting. The main reason advanced seemed logical
enough: Kahn was not an American and could not move about in
German-occupied countries. JDC had to plan ahead for the eventuality of
a German takeover in Czechoslovakia, and an American Jew who knew the
American background of JDC would now be the right person to represent
the organization in Europe. When Kahn was informed of the decision, he
did not object. He moved to New York, became an American citizen, and
spent the rest of his extremely active life as a member of the JDC
office.
(End note 75:
-- Executive Committee, 4/20/38 [20 April 1938];
-- and confidential information given this author).
This is perhaps the place to evaluate the contribution of Dr. (p.251)
Bernhard Kahn to Jewish history in the interwar period. For most of the
period between the wars, Kahn was the arbiter of many Jewish economic
endeavors in the field of reconstruction and relief. Behind his cold
and remote exterior there was a warm heart and an immensely fertile
mind. None of his peers, certainly none of his successors in JDC or
elsewhere, could equal his knowledge of Judaism, Zionism, economics,
history, social work, philosophy, art - or indeed his achievements and
interest in a dozen or more fields. His departure in 1938 was, one
suspects, inevitable; but with him disappeared one of the great figures
of Jewish life - as man whose name rarely if ever appeared on the pages
of the press, and whose preoccupation with practical matters never
allowed him to devote his time to creative scholarship.
His successor as chairman of JDC's European Council was Morris C.
Troper, until then the head of a firm of accountants who had been
responsible for checking JDC's accounts. In many ways Troper was Kahn's
opposite. A simple man with simple tastes, an efficient administrator,
ebullient, he was quite unlike Kahn, the aesthete and polyglot. Troper
had a warm heart and - again, unlike Kahn - could express himself
publicly much more effectively than the shy German Jew with his foreign
accent. The difference lay, among other things, in Kahn's knowing
Europe, and that was his strength; Troper's strength lay in his
knowledge of America and American Jewry.
In autumns of 1938 Troper went to Europe to take over responsibilities
from his predecessor.
[F.] The "night of crystal" [on 9/10 November 1938]
[6.15. Night of fire, glass pieces and robbery]
[7 Nov 1938: The official
culprit Herszel Grynszpan]
On November 7, 1938, Herszel Grynszpan, a young Polish Jew whose
parents had been deported from Germany to Zbaszyn, fatally wounded
Ernst vom Rath, third secretary of the German Embassy in Paris. The
occasion provided the Nazis - actually Goebbels - with an excuse to do
what had been planned for a long time: organize a large-scale pogrom.
[9/10 Nov 1938: Almost all
Synagogues burning - Jewish sops robbed - 91 persons killed - 35,000 in
cc]
On November 9 and 10 almost all synagogues in Germany and Austria were
destroyed, windows of (p.252)
Jewish shops were smashed, goods stolen, large numbers of Jewish homes
demolished, men and women beaten, and about 91 persons killed. A wave
of arrests swept through Germany; 35,000 Jews were estimated to have
been shipped to the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and
Sachsenhausen.
(End note 76: Broszat et alia, op. cit. [Broszat, Martin et
alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates [Anatomy of the SS state]; Olten und
Freiburg 1965], 2:94-95. According to Broszat, there were about 10,000
Jewish internees in each of the main camps at Dachau, Buchenwald, and
Sachsenhausen. In his report (see note 78 below) Troper mentions an
identical number of internees. Estimates by other sources are much
higher, and are most probably incorrect).
The course of this pogrom, cynically known as the "Night of Crystal" (
Reichskristallnacht), is too
well-known to be dwelt upon here.
(End note 77: E.g.,
-- Brosza et al., op. cit. [Broszat, Martin et
alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates [Anatomy of the SS state]; Olten und
Freiburg 1965], 2:333 ff.;
-- Gerald Reitlinger: The Final Solution; London 1968
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million Died; New York
1968];
-- and other sources.
Morse, by the way, is quite mistaken regarding the origins of the
pogroms; he seems to think that they were organized by the SS, whereas
in fact the SS "only" supervised security and arrested the victims; as
a matter of fact, the whole affair was organized by Goebbels and the
Nazi party. Cf. also Hilberg, op. cit. [Hilberg, Raul: The Destruction
of European Jews; Chicago 1961], pp. 23 ff.; he puts the figure of the
arrested at 20,000; but his sources are very doubtful (affidavit of an
SS officer in 1946 and a statement by Heydrich in a discussion with
Göring). The figure quoted in the text is based on a report by Dr. Best
in December 1938).
[2 Nov 1938: SS appeals to
exclude German Jewry from official life]
It so happened, however, that Troper, on his way through Europe with
some of the JDC staff, was in Berlin at the time. His report emphasized
those aspects that had a specific importance from JDC's point of view,
but it also dealt with some of the larger aspects. Some of the facts
brought out later by historical research were already contained in it.
Troper mentioned the fact that the SS paper,
Das Schwarze Korps [The Black
Corps], had demanded on November 2 that Jews be excluded completely
from German life. Ghettoization and confiscation of property were also
hinted at, as was forced labor for unemployed Jews.
[Since mid Sep 1938: Anti-Jewish
disorders]
Anti-Jewish disorders had been taking place since mid-September.
[Beginning Oct 1938: Special
barracks prepared in the cc for coming "night of crystal"]
Troper also knew that special barracks had been prepared in several
concentration camps to house those who would ultimately be arrested.
As a result of the pogrom in November, the "basis of existence of
German Jewry has been wiped out."
(End note 78: CON-2, Troper report, 11/30/38 [30 November 1938])
[Arrests and Jewish JDC
institutions closed down - arbitrary murder]
RV and all the central Jewish institutions, except for the Hilfsverein
and the Jewish Cultural League, were closed. Most of the central
personalities of German Jewry except for Leo Baeck were among those
arrested.
In the provinces, many of the public institutions in which JDC had a
special interest were destroyed: at Königsberg it was the orphanage, at
Karlsruhe the children's home, at Mannheim the old age home, and so on.
At Bornsdorf training center the Nazis shot and killed a boy who could
not explain why there were 38 persons present instead of the 40 who
were registered there.
[Arrests of Jews who had prepared
emigration]
Often, Troper reported, the pogrom turned against those who were about
to emigrate, as in Stuttgart, where all those who had invitations to
see the U.S. consul for their visas were arrested.
[Goebbels is said to be the
instigator of the pogrom - the SS does not want the pogrom]
The reasons for the pogrom seem to have been the desire to (p.253)
radicalize the treatment of Jews and force their emigration while
robbing them of their property; at the same time, Goebbels, the main
instigator of the event, wanted to involve the masses of the German
people in the Nazi party's anti-Semitic policy. His success is in
doubt: not only was there little enthusiasm outside party and SA
circles, but there was an active rivalry with the SS; in the end
Goebbels lost out. The SS was opposed to the wild "popular"
character of the pogrom. It preferred a more orderly, quiet reign of
terror, such as became evident after the pogrom.
[The indemnity of 1 billion marks
and more]
One of the results of the pogrom was Göring's decision, at a famous
meeting on November 12 with representatives of different groups in the
Nazi party and the government, that the Jews should pay an "indemnity"
of 1 billion marks to the government. On top of that, they would have
to pay the government any sums that were paid to them by insurance
companies. In the end, the payment by the Jews came close to 1.25
billion marks.
[Since 1 Jan 1939: Aryanizations
and new prohibitions of profession for Jews in the Third Reich]
A series of measures designed to eliminate the Jews from German
economic life followed. By January 1, 1939, the only gainful occupation
a Jew could follow in the Reich was as employee of a Jewish
institution. Jewish businesses and industrial enterprises were forcibly
transferred into German hands ("aryanized"). Doctors, lawyers,
businessmen, workers, employees - they were all forbidden to practice
their occupations; doctors and dentists were even denied their
professional titles and were allowed to treat only Jewish patients.
(End note 79:
-- Broszat et alia, op. cit. [Broszat, Martin et
alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates [Anatomy of the SS state]; Olten und
Freiburg 1965], p. 335; Also:
-- RGB (Reichsgesetzblatt), Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus
dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben, 11/12/38 [12 November 1938])
[Supplement: Bribes by
aryanizations
The Aryanizations are a special chapter: The NS regime could not only
give big Jewish possessions to their captains of industry, but also
foreign industrialists of the neighbor countries were given ex-Jewish
possessions for ridiculous prices, e.g. for Swiss bosses. This
"collaboration" was a big part of the base for the anti-Jewish policy
in whole Europe].
[6.16. JDC after Reichskristallnacht - disorder of Jewish
organizations]
[Supplement:
One has to know: The "US" government is not hindering the racist
industry leaders of the "USA" to support the Hitler regime after
Reichskristallnacht with industrial machinery and machinery components.
At the end Henry Ford gets the highest order from the Hitler regime in
1943. It's absolutely not clear why the powerful Jewish organizations
never have brought this destructive collaboration between "USA" and the
Third Reich to the public].
[Since 10 Nov 1938: Fund raising
effort for the Jews in the Reich - collaboration with United Palestine
Appeal - Henry Ittleson]
Obviously, reliance on outside support became much more important after
the November pogrom than before. And it was clear that JDC would have
to take on a major share of the additional burden.
The need for a large-scale fund-raising efforts in the U.S. made itself
felt throughout 1938 and reached a climax in November. From below, from
the grass roots, there came a demand for the unification of the two
main fund-raising efforts: that of JDC and the United Palestine Appeal.
The person mainly responsible for bringing the two groups together was
Henry Ittleson, a highly influential member of what has loosely been
termed the German (p.254)
Jewish aristocracy of the American East Coast. Under Ittleson's
energetic leadership, a meeting took place on November 23 of JDC, UPA,
and the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds (CJFWF). A
combined drive for $ 20 million was decided upon.
The reasons that prompted JDC to agree to a united drive were given by
James N. Rosenberg: JDC, he said, "must recognize the powerful desire
throughout the country to avoid competing campaigns"; in New York City,
joint campaigns had already been adopted by a number of professional
groups, and separate fund raising was harmful "from the American point
of view" -
(End note 80: Executive Committee, 11/28/38 [28 November 1938])
he probably meant that separate efforts in the face of the German
threat were somehow unpatriotic.
[Dec 1938: United Jewish Appeal
set up - fund raising with UPA and National Coordinating Committee]
The United Jewish Appeal was finally set up in December, and JDC very
definitely played the leading part in it. It was to get almost 50 % of
the funds collected, the rest being shared mainly by UPA [United
Palestine Appeal] and the National Coordinating Committee, the agency
for absorbing and settling new immigrants in the U.S., which was very
closely linked to JDC.
JDC was, in effect, pushed into the new agreement. Its experience with
the UJA [UPA?] of 1934/5 had not been happy, and memories of it were
still very fresh. Zionists had then been collecting only for Palestine,
JDC Executive Committee members argued, but they still had expected JDC
to contribute to Palestine directly or indirectly through the support
of Palestine-centered organizations in Europe and the payment of the
emigrées' transportation to Palestine.
In 1938/9, the increase in the level of Nazi persecutions and the
growing misery in Eastern Europe could have absorbed JDC funds many
times over. "At no time has the Budget and Scope Committee (of JDC)
during these years of cumulative tragedy been authorized to adopt a
budget bearing any close relation to the amounts deemed necessary even
for the minimum requirements", complained Edwin I. Goldwasser, JDC's
treasurer, in late October 1938.
(End note 81: Executive Committee file, Budget and Scope Committee
10/31/38 [31 October 1938])
The upbuilding of Palestine was all very well, but Jews in Europe were
starving and persecuted - and they, JDC felt, had first claim on
whatever funds were available. (p.256)
Jews in the United States, however, were beginning to think
differently. They saw that the Jews of Europe were not the only ones
endangered; their own position and that of the U.S. might well be in
jeopardy. This obviously was no time for interorganizational rivalry.
Also, it was much more convenient (and also more profitable from the
fund raiser's point of view) - to campaign once yearly for all overseas
needs. There was clear pressure from below, for which the CJFWF was the
mouthpiece.
[Quarrel JDC - ORT]
There still remained the problem, minor but vexatious, of the separate
fund-raising efforts of smaller groups that might compete with the
larger campaign. The struggle over this question with ORT was becoming
a ritual. In early 1938 a public statement was prepared attacking ORT
for its separate fund-raising plans, and showing that 67 % of its
budget in 1937 - $ 130,000 - had really come from JDC.
(End note 82: R12, draft of public statement, 3/3/38 [3 March 1938])
In the end, as always, more moderate counsels prevailed. The prepared
statement was not issued, ORT received another allocation, and the
threat of separate fund raising was removed.
[Release of internees with the
condition of a fast emigration]
In the wake of the November pogroms, a wave of panic emigration swept
Germany and Austria. Internees in concentration camps would be released
if they undertook to leave Germany within a specified, and very short,
time. If they did not, they were threatened with rearrest, which often
meant death. The Austrian example was followed; "police and party
authorities insist that the practices which worked successfully in
Vienna in forcing Jews out of the country should likewise be applied in
Berlin and throughout the country."
(End note 83: Hyman at Executive Committee, 3/22/39 [22 March 1939])
[Disorganized Jewish organizations
- almost no emigration after Reichskristallnacht / crystal night]
The many thousands now leaving the Reich had to be supported, as well
as those staying behind. During the first weeks after the pogrom,
emigration was partly stalled as a result of the disorganization of
Jewish institutions in Germany.
[Hilfsverein cannot pay his depths
at steamship companies any more]
A case in point was the large debt that the Hilfsverein [Help
corporation], which dealt with emigration to countries other than
Palestine, had run up with steamship companies (about 55,000 marks);
now it could not repay this money because of the large-scale
confiscations of Jewish property and the billion-mark fine.
(End note 84: R11, report on a visit to Germany, William Bein, 12/6/38
[6 December 1938])
By the middle of December it was estimated that one-third of the Jewish
male working population was still in the concentration camps; the
process of release had only just begun.
(End note 85: R55, 12/14/38-12/15/38 [14 December 1938-15 December
1938], meeting in Paris)
[Support for Jewish schools and
trainees in vocational retraining]
German government subsidies to Jewish welfare and schooling were
stopped. Most of the 20,000 Jewish children of school age had to turn
to the 140 Jewish schools. These were now dependent upon Jewish support
only.
(End note 86: RV report for 1938. In May 1938 there were 68 public and
72 private Jewish schools. In these private schools there were 9,844
pupils. An additional 10,156 pupils went to German or Jewish public
schools. In July 1939 there were still 16,350 Jewish children in the
age group six to 14 in "old" Germany. I am indebted to my colleague Dr.
Yosef Walk for these details).
Support was also required for 4,000 trainees in vocational retraining
institutions in Germany and as many as 24,000 in Austria. Some of these
groups especially the more serious ones that were preparing for
agricultural pursuits in South America or Palestine, had been brutally
hit by the pogrom.
Nevertheless, it was thought that vocational retraining increased the
chances for emigration, and there were long waiting lists for these
institutions.
Generally speaking, the German Jewish organizations and their Austrian
counterparts were laboring under a terrific strain.
[Concentration process - small
Jewish communities dissolve - financial help - public kitchens]
The process of concentration in large cities was proceeding apace, and
the small communities were disbanding. In its 1939 report, the
Reichsvereinigung (successor to RV) reported that in Prussia it had
previously had 743 communities and that now 109 had disbanded, 572 were
in the process of dissolution, and 62 were still operating.
(End note 87: 28-3, 1939 Arbeitsbericht).
This meant additional financial burdens, diminished incomes, and more
suffering and heartbreak. The numbers of those requiring immediate help
in Germany and Austria was constantly increasing, as can be seen from
Table 17.
To deal with all these problems there was RV - the Reichsvertretung,
founded, as we have seen, in 1933 as a result of Jewish initiative. It
appears that the Germans were slowly working toward
Table
17: Persons Fed Daily in Public Kitchens in 1939 [in Germany and Austria]
|
Country
|
January
|
May
|
July
|
Germany
|
23,308
|
32,000
|
|
Austria
|
22,227
|
36,207
|
34,306
|
(End
note 88: Sources:
-- Executive Committee, 4/19/39 [19 April 1939]; 5/22/39 [22 May
1939];
-- 9-19
The Jewish population of Austria was about one-third of that in
Germany. The figures above show how much further the pauperization had
gone in Austria than in Germany.
|
(p.257)
the abolition of this last vestige of independence.
[6.17. Reichsvereinigung (RVE) set
up - support for "non-Aryans"]
[Since 10 Nov 1938: Prohibition
for Reichsvertretung RV - Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland
(RVE) in project]
The November pogrom was a good occasion, from their point of view, to
break with the past. Immediately after the pogrom the Nazis decided not
to allow RV to be reconstituted. However, there were divided counsels
among them as to the precise form of organization that should be forced
on the Jews.
In January, Göring still thought that the Jewish central organization
should be an adjunct to the new central emigration bureau that he had
in mind. But other ideas prevailed, and
[17 Feb 1939:
on February 17, 1939, the Jewish newssheet,
Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt [Jewish
Newspaper] the only Jewish "paper" that the Nazis allowed to appear,
announced that a new central organization of German Jewry would be set
up, the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (RVE) [Reich's
Federation of the Jews in Germany], whose members would be nominated by
the Gestapo.
[4 July 1939: Reichsvereinigung
der Juden in Deutschland set up (RVE)]
However, it was not until July 4, 1939, that the official announcement
establishing the new RVE came out. This was largely owing to internal
squabbling between German ministries.
[April 1939: Berlin Jewish leader
Stahl applies for leadership of projected RVE at the Gestapo]
But the crisis also brought forth some ugly squabbles between the
Berlin community, led by the conservative liberal Heinrich Stahl, and
the old leadership of RV. Things were brought to a head in April, when
Stahl went to the Gestapo to ask for its help in asserting his
pretensions to leadership of the Jewish community. The Gestapo
apparently did not intervene directly, but
[RVE structures - JDC supports the
Baeck-Hirsch-Lilienthal group]
in the new RVE, Stahl was made copresident with Rabbi Leo Baeck.
(End note 89: Shaul Esh: The Establishment of the Reichsvereinigung der
Juden in Deutschland and Its Activities (Hebrew); In: Yad Vashem
Studies; Jerusalem 1968, 7:19-38)
JDC was informed of what was going on in Germany; it could only deplore
internal differences at such critical times. It was not aware, of
course, of the intrigues of the Stahl group, but whenever the
Baeck-Hirsch-Lilienthal group of leaders required it, JDC supported
(p.258)
Table
18: JDC Expenditures in Germany and Austria in 1938 and 1939 (in $)
|
Year
|
Total
JDC expenditures
|
In
Germany
|
In
Austria
|
1938
|
3,799,709
|
686,000
|
431,438
|
1939
|
8,447,221
|
978,102
|
|
(End
note 90: Sources:
-- R12
-- R21
the figures do not always tally. For Germany, for instance, a brochure
entitled: Aid to Jews Overseas (R9), gives the figure of $ 981,200).
|
them to the best of its ability. It must be remembered that people like
Baerwald, Kahn, and Max M. Warburg (Felix's brother, who finally
emigrated to the U.S. in 1938) knew the German Jewish leadership
intimately and had confidence in the group that had founded and led RV
since 1933. Indeed, Max Warburg had been the initiator of RV, had taken
a decisive part in setting up its leadership, and had been to a great
extent the arbiter of its policies.
In light of this grim situation - and also, it must be added, as a
result of increased income - JDC was able to increase its financial
support for German Jews. A part of that support came through the
Quakers, who, as always in times of stress, cooperated closely with
JDC.
[Special support for "non-Aryans"]
In February 1939 JDC voted a sum of $ 100,000 to be spent by the
American Friends Service Committee, "provided that no publicity
whatsoever should be given to this grant, and with the provision that
there should be taken into account the reluctance on the part of the
contributors to JDC to have American dollars go into Germany."
(End note 91:
-- AC [Administration Committee files], 2/2/39 [2 February 1939];
-- Germany-AFSC [Quaker American Friends Service Committee], 2/9/39
[9 February 1939])
The Friends were inclined to spend this money to help "non-Aryans",
that is, people not connected with the official Jewish community but
considered to be Jews by the Nazis. Through perhaps overcareful
management only $ 26,908 of this money was spent before war broke out
in September [1939].
[G.] Emigration and flight
[6.18. Jewish Emigration figures for Germany, Austria,
Bohemia, Moravia, and Danzig 1938-1939]
Total Jewish emigration from Germany, Austria, and the Czech lands
(Bohemia and Moravia) after October 1938 is not easy to reconstruct.
The figures given in Table 19 probably do not include many
"non-Aryans", who should really be included. But they may serve as an
estimate based on material in JDC files.
Large-scale emigration started immediately after the November pogrom;
the figures were staggering compared with those for earlier emigration.
This time JDC had no hesitations - its leader had learned the lesson of
the previous years, as had the leadership of HIAS and HICEM, the two
emigrating organizations supported (p.259)
Table
19: Estimate of Jewish Emigration in 1938 and 1939
|
Year
|
From
Germany
|
From
Austria
|
From
Bohemia and Moravia
|
From
Danzig
|
Total
for year
|
1938
|
35,369
|
62,958
|
15,000
|
3,900
|
117,200
|
1939
|
68,000
|
54,451
|
20,000*
|
1,600
|
144,000
|
Total
|
|
|
|
|
261,000
|
*
Various JDC sources estimated that out of the 20,000, 5,000 were German
and Austrian refugees.
|
(End
note 92: Sources:
-- R21, 1939 draft report;
-- R54, Troper letter, 5/16/39 [16 May 1939] (he puts emigration from
"old" Germany in 1938 at 34,369);
-- R10, newsletter, 6/15/39 [15 June 1939];
-- R12)
|
by JDC. There were few illusions left. At a meeting of some of the
wealthy contributors to JDC at the end of 1938, James G. McDonald said
that "to many people in Europe to crush a Jews is no more unworthy or
reprehensible than to step on vermin and crush the life out of such
creatures. The war that the Nazis are waging is not a war against the
Jews of Germany, but against all Jews, whose influence must be
obliterated and who themselves should either be exterminated or driven
out of all civilized lands."
In concluding his talk he added: "If you think that because you live in
the United States you are immune, you are very foolish."
(End note 93: 31-Germany, refugees 1939-1942, Hyman to David L. Podell,
3/30/39 [30 March 1939])
Unfortunately what the people who listened to McDonald thought of his
remarks is not recorded. But words that today sound like prophecies,
yet were totally unacceptable before the events of November, were
listened to attentively (if sceptically) afterward.
[6.19. Sudeten accession - harsh
anti-Semitism in ex-CSSR
territories after the split of the CSSRs]
[Oct 1938: Invasion of German army
in the Sudeten territories]
The problem of mass emigration from Germany and Austria was compounded
by the addition of yet another victim of Nazi barbarism:
Czechoslovakia. In late September 1938 the Western powers had betrayed
the Czechs to Hitler at Munich. In early October the German-speaking
border lands of Bohemia and Moravia, the so-called Sudeten areas, were
occupied by the Germans.
[Supplement: The German occupation was welcomed by the German
population which had suffered under Czech rule since 1919, authorized
by the French dictation in Versailles and the treaty of St-Germain. Now
the German invasion was authorized by the Munich conference and by the
English prime minister Chamberlain. The national gold of the CSSR was
brought into Nazi hands with English and Swiss help (In: Jean Ziegler:
Die Schweiz, das Gold und die Toten)].
[Partition of the CSSR: Hungary
and
Poland performing occupations - nationalist Slovakia]
Soon afterward the Hungarians took southern Slovakia and southern
Subcarpathia, while the Poles occupied an area near Tesín. The
democratic character of the Czechoslovak republic was destroyed,
Slovakia became autonomous, and nationalist and near-Fascist (p.260)
tendencies increased. "Do not ask us for humanity", officials are
reported to have said. "We were not treated with humanity."
(End note 94: R11, November 1938, report by Noel Aronovici on a visit
to Czechoslovakia)
[Czech refugees, within about
15,000 Jews - 5-60,000 German Jews in rest CSR - anti-Semitism -
emigration projects]
The number of Czech refugees from the occupied Sudeten areas was
estimated at between 180,000 and 200,000. Of these, about 15,000 were
Jews. In addition, there were 5,000 to 6,000 refugees from Germany and
Austria still in the country.
About 2/3 of all these refugees lacked means of subsistence and had to
be supported. To find work in the new, smaller Czechoslovakia was a
practical impossibility; anti-Semitism was rampant, and Jews were
attacked as a foreign, germanizing element (most of them spoke German).
Jews themselves were expected to formulate anti-Jewish laws. In
colleges and universities Jews either were not admitted or, if already
registered, were thrown out under various pretexts. As a result,
tremendous efforts were made by Jews - refugees and natives alike - to
leave the country.
[27 Jan 1939: CSR government
proclamation for emigration of foreign refugees]
On January 27, 1939, the rightist government of Rudolf Beran issued a
proclamation demanding a speedy emigration of foreign refugees; it also
proclaimed that the government would review the status of those who had
acquired citizenship since World War I - a measure expressly directed
at the Jews.
[Prague: Jewish central
organization set up under Dr. Josef Popper - help for Jewish refugees]
In this chaotic and dangerous situation a central organization of
Jewish communities was set up in Prague under the chairmanship of Dr.
Josef Popper. In the Czech lands Marie Schmolka headed HICEM, dealing
with emigration. The Jewish Social Institute, the chief aid
organization, had to care for 1,290 persons immediately. To all other
persons, the Czech government gave an allowance of 8 crowns (about 30
cents) a day; those who could not manage were put into camps.
In the Czech lands 118,000 Jews were now crowded; they were threatened
with the fate of German Jewry.
(End note 95: Karel Lagus and Josef Polak: Mesto za Mrízemi; Prague
1964, p.334)
Of the 136,000 Jews who had been in Slovakia in 1930, 88,951 remained
in 1940; some had emigrated, but the rest had become Hungarian Jews as
a result of the 1938 annexations.
(End note 96: Livia Rothkirchen: The Destruction of Slovak Jewry
(Hebrew); Jerusalem 1961, pp.9, 14 (English summary, pp. vii, xiv)
In early 1939 a social committee (Zentrales Soziales Fürsorgekomitee)
was working in Bratislava under Dr. Robert K. Füredi and Mrs. Gizi
Fleischmann, who was to become during the war one of the great (p.261)
heroines of the Jewish tragedy. In January 1939 this committee was
supporting a foreign refugee population of 3,064 who had to be fed
daily.
(End note 97:
-- 11-2, report, 2/3/39 [3 February 1939];
-- CON-2, report by Marjorie Katz, 2/12/38; and
-- R11, see note 94 above)
[Jews temporarily driven into
no-man's-lands - Kosice and other border regions]
One of the main problems arising from the Sudeten crisis was the
terrible plight of thousands of Jews who were driven - by Germans,
Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, and even Czechs - into no-man's-land, the
small areas between the new borders. Two thousand such unfortunates
were driven by the Slovaks into a no-man's-land near Kosice, a town
which passed into Hungarian hands. The Hungarians drove most of them
back. in the end some 300 refugees, largely stateless and Slovak Jews,
spent the Slovak autumn in the open, without shelter, food, or medical
aid.
A great deal of money was spent providing them with basic necessities.
After many interventions, Slovakia finally accepted most of these
refugees.
(End note 98: See note 94 above [R11, November 1938, report by Noel
Aronovici on a visit to Czechoslovakia!)
Hundreds more were reported to be in the Austro-Moravian border areas,
between the new Sudeten frontier and the Bohemian heartland and on
other borders.
(End note 99: 11-4, 10/24/38 [24 October 1938] report)
It is next to impossible to establish the total number, but there could
not have been less than 3-4,000 persons. It was not until January 1939,
more than three months after Munich, that the last of these people
finally found a country that would harbor them, mostly in refugee camps.
(End note 100: Executive Committee, 2/26/39 [26 February 1939].
According to JTA [Jewish
Telegraphic Agency], 2,700 Jews were finally taken out from
no-man's-land by Hungarian and Slovak authorities (1/23/39 [23
January 1939])
[15 March 1939: NS occupation of
rest CSR - JDC with social committees in Prague and Bratislava -
emigration projects]
Then final disaster struck. On March 15, 1939, Germany occupied the
Czech lands; Slovakia became "independent" under a German protectorate;
and Subcarpathia was annexed by Hungary. In Prague, Marie Schmolka was
arrested by the Nazis immediately after they entered the city; she was
not released until May.
JDC policy in Czechoslovakia was to support the two social committees
in Prague and Bratislava. Prior to March, JDC was providing 40 % of the
budget of the Prague Social Institute. After March it gave more than 50
%.
(End note 101: 11-2, 6/8/39 [8 June 1939], memo on Czechoslovakia)
Large-scale aid had to be given to Slovakia to support the 2,938
refugees who were completely dependent on outside help.
(End note 102: R59, Troper letter, 6/16/39 [16 June 1939])
In the Czech lands an arrangement similar to that in Germany and
Austria was worked out, whereby American dollars would not go into
German coffers (p.262)
but would cover the costs of emigration, while the emigrants' money
would be used to cover local needs. But in Slovakia the new authorities
would not accept these arrangements, and immediate help was essential.
Reluctantly, Troper cabled his head office on June 15, 1939, that a
one-time transfer of $ 20,000 to the Slovak National Bank was
unavoidable; on the 16, New York cabled agreement.
(End note 103: 11-2, exchange of letters and cables, 6/15/39-7/21/39
[15 June-21 July 1939]
In Prague, JDC support was, as we have seen, indirect, but it ran at a
monthly rate of about $ 33,000.
[April 1939-end 1939: Emigration
of
about 35,000 Jews of CSR]
The main concern of the committees and of JDC was, of course, to aid as
many people to emigrate as possible at the greatest speed. Prior to
March 15 there was a great deal of competition from Sudeten German
opponents of Nazism and from Czechs who wished to leave the country.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1939 about 35,000 Jews managed to leave the
Czech lands.
This was facilitated by a British government-supported fund, the Lord
Mayor's Fund, which had 4 million pounds at its disposal. Despite the
fact that the fund was largely used for Czech internal requirements,
small amounts were used for Jewish refugee emigration. England was the
main destination of the emigrants; representatives of British groups,
Quakers and others, did a tremendous job in Prague, sifting and
processing applications; the staff of the British Embassy in Prague was
also very helpful.
[Flight without visa from the NS
CSR - an emigration train without visas]
Nevertheless, there were difficulties. In the panic that the occupation
of the country brought, people simply tried to flee without bothering
to obtain visas. A train with 160 Jews went across Germany in April,
only to be stopped by the Dutch because the emigrants did not have any
visas of final destination. The Gestapo declared that if the train was
still in Germany by a fixed deadline - April 29 - the refugees would be
arrested. It was only through a waving of formalities by the British
that these people were saved.
(End note 104: R60, introduction to the March-April 1939 report)
Illegal emigration to Palestine also flourished; other persons crossed
the border into Poland as Czech refugees, only to be threatened by the
Poles with deportation back into the Gestapo's hands.
(End note 105: 11-5, Smolar report, 6/9/39 [9 June 1939])
The Germans were pressing for Jewish emigration by the (p.263)
same methods that had been so successful elsewhere, and in July 1939
they established in Prague a branch office of the Central Bureau for
Jewish Emigration.
[Since March 1939: Again Jews
driven into no-man's-lands - help]
After March, too, the tragedies of small groups in no-man's-land were
repeated. Germans were expelling Jews from the Czech lands, and on the
Polish border the scenes of autumn 1938 took place once again. In all
these cases the Prague Social Institute had to intervene to keep the
people alive.
(End note 106: 11-5, Troper cable, 6/15/39 [15 June 1939])
When the curtain came down on the unhappy country in September 1939,
the fate of Czech Jewry had become identical to that of Germany and
Austria.
Where could the Jews of Central Europe have gone? No country was
willing to accept panic-stricken Jewish refugees without the necessary
and delaying prerequisites of form-filling and careful scrutiny. No
country really wanted penniless Jews.
[H. Reactions abroad to the Reichskristallnacht and to
the split of CSSR]
[6.20. France's harsh anti-Semitic
policy after
Reichskristallnacht 1938-1939 with prison and concentration camps]
[France: Central Refugee Committee
set up (Comité Central de Réfugiés)]
In France the shock of November produced a much greater readiness among
local Jewry to come to the aid of refugees. A new central coordinating
committee (Comité Central de Réfugiés) was set up under Robert de
Rothschild. They approached the government and demanded the acceptance
of 10,000 Jewish children (as in England);
[France: The law against refugees
from May 1938 is not abolished]
the committee also asked, in vain, for the abolition of the May 1938
decree against refugees. Although they were not crowned with much
success, in these actions French Jewry at last was showing "greater
energy and devotion than before".
(End note 107:
-- Hyman at Executive Committee, 3/22/39; see also:
-- Executive Committee, 1/26/39 [26 January 1939])
[France: Jewish Refugees are
handed over to Switzerland - and CH hands them over to the Gestapo]
Government reaction was not favorable. Refugees crossing illegally from
Germany into Alsace were pushed over the border to Switzerland and then
deported to Germany.
OSE, with its three homes for 185 children (there was no money for more
homes), was saddled with 100s of refugee children "without their
parents or with parents imprisoned for failing to obey expulsion
orders. ... Most of them were between the ages of five and ten."
(End note 108: R59, Troper letter, 5/16/39 [16 May 1939])
[End 1939: France: 25,000 Jewish
refugees - with 2,000 from CSR]
The number of refugees at the end of 1938 was 25,000, including 2,000
who came from Czechoslovakia in March 1939.
[Help by the Comité d'Assistance
aux Réfugiés (CAR)]
The main burden of supporting these desperate people fell to the (p.264)
Comité d'Assistance aux Réfugiés (CAR) - founded in 1936 - under Albert
Levy and Robert de Rothschild. In early 1939 it supported 10,378
persons.
[France: Prison up to one year for
Jewish refugees - only little vocational training]
Persecution - there is no other word for it - by the French authorities
reached new heights; refugees were arrested for periods up to one year,
and "many who have undergone this punishment have been expelled."
(End note 109: R46, January 1939 report)
Work permits were almost impossible to get, and vocational retraining
did not touch more than a fraction of the people: in January 1939 the
Reclassement Professionel, a French Jewish agency, was training 224
persons, and ORT was training 476.
(End note 110: Ibid. [R46, January 1939 report])
In 1939, 13,500 Jews are estimated to have emigrated into France.
(End note 111: R21, draft 1939 report)
[June 1939:
With the growing hostility of the French government to Jewish refugees,
there was a meeting in June 1939 between the main agencies dealing with
the problem - JDC, the Alliance Israélite Universelle, other French
committees, and the World Jewish Congress. The main problem that was
discussed was whether to start a public campaign in France to air the
issue. The majority of those present, including Troper for JDC, were
against such a course; it was still felt that the best way to approach
the problem would be through quiet diplomacy. Dr. Goldmann for WJC and
Marc Jarblum for the Fédération des Sociétés Juives, who demanded a
public campaign, were in the minority.
(End note 112: 15-2, meeting in Paris, 6/4/39 [4 June 1939])
JDC rejected the notion that the issue of Jewish suffering should be
aired in public so as to make it a political issue. On the other hand,
JDC continued to aid French organizations, and especially CAR, to an
ever-increasing degree. France was, after all, the main land of
immigration on the European continent. And despite the fact that JDC
was highly critical of French Jewry for the small sums being collected
in France, it poured as much money as it could into France in order to
be of as much help as possible. In 1938, $ 130,884 was spent in France,
and in 1939, $ 589,000.
(End note 113:
-- R12;
-- R21, report for 1938 and 1939)
[6.21. Belgium's anti-Semitic threats - but no measures
taken]
[Nov 1938: About 13,300 Jewish
refugies in Belgium]
Another country of immigration in Europe was Belgium. Prior to November
1938 there were about 13,300 Jewish refugees in the country, of whom
some 3,000 in Brussels required help.
(End note 114: R12, 1938 report)
The government declared that all those arriving illegally after August
(p.265)
27, 1938, would be expelled. But in actual fact there seem to have been
no expulsions. Between November 10 and the end of the year about 3,000
more refugees arrived, all of them illegally. By the end of January
1939 there were 7,500 people who had to be supported - 3,000 in Antwerp
and 4,500 in Brussels.
[Belgium: JDC help to the Jewish
refugees]
JDC action in Belgium was much more speedy than elsewhere because it
was obvious that, of all the West European countries, Belgium had
the relatively poorest community. In December 1938 JDC gave $ 20,000 to
meet the rising costs of maintaining the refugees; but this covered
about one-sixth of the actual cost, and only $ 20,000 could be raised
locally per month. In January, JDC gave $ 20,000. But that was not
enough, and Professor Max Gottschalk, head of the Brussels Jewish aid
committee, told Troper that he might have to tell the government that
his committee could no longer look after the refugees.
[Reduce of the help -
undernourishment and tuberculosis]
This insufficient help had to be further reduced, and that at a time
when JDC estimated that 95 % of the refugees were undernourished and
that tuberculosis was on the increase.
[Since March 1939: Belgium: Flow
of refugees - appeal and government's help]
In March [1939] the Belgian government was told that the committee's
resources were at an end. At that time there were already 25,000
German, Austrian, and Czech Jewish refugees in the country, of whom
10,000 had to be supported; 400 more were entering the country
illegally every week. The government's attitude was hardening, and even
legal entrants who overstayed their time faced deportion.
(End note 115: AC [Administration Committee files], Troper report,
3/31/39 [31 March 1939])
However, possibly as a result of Gottschalk's intervention, the
government relented to a considerable degree. It increased its budget
by 6 mio. Belgian francs (about $ 20,000), which enabled 3,000 refugees
to receive a government allowance. Camps were opened to house the
newcomers. The principle that Jewish organizations were the only ones
responsible for Jewish refugees was, at least in Belgium, overcome.
[Since 15 July 1939: Belgium:
Deportation threat to new refugees]
Until July 15, 1939, all those fleeing from Germany were allowed to
remain; after that date, they risked expulsion unless they were
political refugees.
JDC increased its allocations to $ 40,000 in April, $ 60,000 in (p.266)
August, and $ 80,000 in September. As a result, JDC expenditure rose
from a mere $ 106,000 in 1938 to $ 694,000 in 1939.
(End note 116:
-- R21;
-- 30-Germany, refugees in Belgium (Bruxelles);
the figures in these two sources are contradictory; file 30 has a
figure of $ 94,000 for JDC expenditures in Belgium in 1938. The
discrepancy might possibly derive from the inclusion of JDC's support
for the Belgian HICEM in the higher figure).
By the summer of 1939 two-thirds of the refugee expenditure in Belgium
was covered by JDC.
[6.22. Holland's police deports
Jews without visas to the Reich]
A similar influx of refugees came into Holland. At the end of 1938 Mrs.
van Tijn's Committee for Jewish Refugees [CJR] counted 7,000 refugees
in Holland, including about 1,800 who had arrived at the end of the
year after the November pogrom. Officially, no more people were
supposed to come in after November 11, but a 1 million guilder
guarantee by CJR prolonged the time limit to December 23.
(End note 117: For Holland, see:
-- Executive Committee, 4/19/39;
-- R46, January 1939 report;
-- 34-Germany, refugees 1935-41, 1938 report.
These are also the sources for the next paragraph in the text. Mrs. van
Tijn reports (R52, 3/23/39 [23 March 1939] meeting of refugee
committees) that the date of the closure of the Dutch border was
December 17. I have not been able to clear up the discrepancy).
After that date the Dutch police became very strict and did not
hesitate to deport entrants who were without visas. Nevertheless, the
number of Jewish refugees in Holland in early 1939 grew by about 7,000
because quite a number of German Jews had obtained legal entry permits
by showing that they had relatives who were already living in the
country.
[Three camps for Jewish refugees -
Westerbork - JDC help - vocational training]
Refugees continued to pour in through 1939. In order to care both for
illegals who had been allowed to stay and for legal entrants who had no
means of support, the government set up three camps for 600 persons.
One of these camps was at Westerbork, the future deportation center,
from which most of Dutch Jews went to their deaths in 1942-44. JDC
supported Mrs. van Tijn's committee as it had done in previous years,
especially its Wieringen project, where 270 youngsters were receiving
agricultural training in 1939, and the other Hechalutz training
centers, where another 330 were preparing for Palestine. Most of these
young people never saw the country of their destination - many were
sent to their deaths in Nazi camps; other were to form the nucleus for
one of the Jewish resistance groups in France during the war.
[6.23. Switzerland's policy
1938-1939 - "J"
stamp against Jewish refugees since 1 November 1938]
[29 Sep 1938: "J" stamp
agreement with the Third Reich]
Switzerland occupied a special place in the events outlined here. The
November pogrom was preceded by a German-Swiss agreement on September
29, 1938, regarding the special marking of passports of German Jews
with a large red "J".
The accusation was later leveled against the chief of the Swiss alien
police, Dr. Heinrich Rothmund, that he had initiated the branding of
Jews by this (p.267)
special passport symbol by suggesting the idea to the Nazis. Be that as
it may, it is quite clear that the Swiss police chief - and, what is
more important, the Swiss government - gladly accepted the regulation
that discriminated so blatantly between Jews and non-Jews, because it
made it impossible for German Jews to enter Switzerland without a visa;
"pure" Germans were, of course, free to enter Switzerland with no
formalities. The only German demand to which the Swiss objected - not
too strongly, it must be said, but with sufficient vigor to make the
Germans abandon the idea - was that Swiss Jews wishing to visit Germany
be required to obtain a visa and have their passports marked in some
special way.
(End note 118: Ludwig, op. cit. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik
der Schweiz seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], pp.
94-151)
[1 Nov 1938: "J" stamp practice
- 10,000 Jewish refugees in Switzerland - 3,062 with VSIA help]
The new provision, which went into effect in November, prevented
large-scale immigration by Jews into Switzerland. In early 1939 there
were some 10,000 Jewish refugees in the country, of whom 3,062 were
supported by VSIA.
(End note 119: SIG [Swiss Israelite Federate Corporation
(Schweizerischer Israelitischer
Gemeindebund (SIG)], op. cit., p.35)
The Swiss police, backed by the government, were not content with
preventing an influx of German Jews, however; they felt they had to
prevent the immigration of persecuted Jews from all other countries in
Europe.
[20 Jan 1939: Switzerland: Visa
regulations for all immigrants]
After January 20, 1939, therefore, all prospective immigrants into
Switzerland were required to obtain visas;
[15 March 1939: Switzerland:
Visa regulation for Czech passports]
a similar provision was introduced on March 15 for holders of
Czechoslovakian passports.
[Sep 1939: 5,000 Jewish refugees
in Switzerland]
As a result of these restrictive measures, the numbers of Jewish
refugees decreased, and by the outbreak of war there were about 5,000
Jewish refugees in Switzerland.
(End note 120: Ludwig, op. cit. [Ludwig, Carl: Die Flüchtlingspolitik
der Schweiz seit 1933
bis zur Gegenwart. Bericht an den Bundesrat [The refugee policy of
Switzerland since 1933 to the present]; Zurich, no date [1957], p.164)
However, 300 children were admitted as a special gesture.
[Help by VSIA]
Despite the seemingly easier situation, the problem of caring for the
refugees was very difficult for the Swiss Jewish community, which
numbered about 18,000. A total of 810 persons were accommodated in 16
small camps, where they were completely dependent on VSIA help.
(End note 121: VSIA files [Verein Schweizerischer Israelitischer
Armenpflegen [Confederation of
Swiss Israelite poor care], SM files [Saly Mayer files])
The Swiss were very strict about denying working permits to the
refugees. Unless the refugee had money, he had to turn for support to
JDC-supported VSIA.
[Organization of emigration by
VSIA and HICEM]
VSIA, in cooperation with HICEM, also had to try to help as many Jews
as possible to emigrate. This, too, cost money. Total VSIA expenditure
for (p.268)
1939 came to 3,688,185 francs, of which JDC contributed over 50 % (over
$ 470,000). By September 1939 JDC had sent $ 315,000 to VSIA, at a
monthly rate of $ 35,000.
(End note 122: 51-Switzerland, 1944; in a communication to this author
dated February 5, 1970, the JDC office gave the sum spent in
Switzerland in 1939 as $ 477,000. The difference, $ 7,000, was probably
not given to VSIA but to other organizations in Switzerland).
[6.24. Italy's policy against Jews
1938-1939 with
deprivation of citizenship]
JDC had to intervene in other countries in Europe as well. A steady
stream of refugees had been entering Italy. At the end of 1938 there
were some 6,000 German and Austrian Jews there, and they were not
treated too badly. But as we have already seen a decree of September 7,
1938, issued as a result largely of German influence on the Italian
Fascist regime, stated that anyone who had acquired Italian citizenship
in recent years would have to leave the country by March 12, 1939.
Apart from the six thousand refugees, this also affected 9,000 older
immigrants into Italy.
JDC tried its best to influence the Italian government to desist from
its declared intentions, and in early February, Troper contacted Myron
C. Taylor, who promised to do his best to change the Italian's
intentions. Earlier, an influential Anglo-Scots banker, Sir Andrew
McFadeyan, a partner of Sigmund Warburg's in London, also promised JDC
to use his influence with the Italians.
(End note 123:
-- R10, Troper memo on talk with Myron C. Taylor, 2/15/39 [15
February 1939];
-- R55, report, 1/8/39 [8 January 1939])
[Italy: Jewish Exodus by 12
March - further Jewish exodus]
While it is impossible to say whether all these efforts had any effect,
it is clear that by the time the fateful March 12 came, half of the
15,000 Jews had left Italy; between March and September, another 2,500
left. In the end, about 4,000 people stayed behind and were not
molested by the authorities. Most of the emigrants went to the
Americas, and quite a number went to Nice. Apart from the Jewish
organizations, the Friends were again effective in aiding the
emigrating Jews (many of whom pretended to be Catholics) get to South
American countries.
(End note 124: Rosswell McClelland, interview (H).
[6.25. Smaller havens in Europe for Jews]
On the Continent there was scarcely a country that did not accept some
refugees, but the numbers were small and many obstacles were put in
their way. In early 1939 there were still about 2,000 refugees in
Yugoslavia, although by now many had been expelled. JDC sent small sums
of money to aid the Zagreb community, which organized some help (JDC
sent $ 4,300).
Sweden took about 2,000 people, and so did Bulgaria.
There were between 16,000 and (p.269)
18,000 refugees in Poland (these were discussed above in connection
with the Zbaszyn episode). Norway accepted 2,000. There were 350 in
Luxembourg, 600 in Greece, 200 in Finland, 1,000 in Latvia, and so on.
Even in Albania there were 150 Jewish refugees from Central Europe. JDC
did not - could not - intervene in all these countries. In some, like
the Scandinavian countries, there were well-organized communities or
reasonable friendly governments. There was no way to transmit money
safely to certain places, but wherever it was possible, JDC fulfilled
its usual role.
[6.26. England's policy: 63-65,000
Jewish refugees by the end
of 1939]
Great Britain was a special case as far as the refugees were concerned.
In the wake of the November pogrom, Britain's refugee population grew
to 13,500 by January 1939. However, both government and public opinion
were under a special kind of moral pressure. To a certain degree the
government felt responsible for the Munich settlement and for the
events that followed. Then there was Palestine, where since October
1938 it had been clear that a pro-Arab compromise that would put an end
to Jewish immigration was planned. In early December the government
turned a deaf ear to the demand of the Jewish Agency to allow the
immigration of 10,000 children from Germany and Austria to Palestine.
(End note 125:
Hansard Parliamentary
Debates, House of Lords, vol. 111, no. 13, col. 463, 12/8/38,
speech by Lord Dufferin)
But it felt that an alternative should be offered. The alternative was
to create a sanctuary for children in the United Kingdom itself. In
addition, an arrangement was offered whereby Jewish women could come to
Britain to work as domestic servants. Other visas for adults with good
recommendations could also be obtained.
[End 1939: 63-65,000 Jewish
refugees in Britain]
By the end of 1939 there were between 63,000 and 65,000 refugees in
Britain. Of these, 9,354 were children and 15,000 were domestic
servants.
(End note 126:
-- R21, 1939 draft report;
-- 12-22, report, 1933-43
This large-scale acceptance of Jewish refugees, while welcomed by a
large part of the British public , did not go completely unchallenged.
(End note 127: See, for example: Sunday Pictorial, 1/20/39: Refugees
Get Jobs; Britons Get Dole.
But the climate in Britain in early 1939, and especially later, as it
became clear that Hitler would not keep the promise he gave at Munich,
was no longer unfavorable to the refugees. Many - 7-8,000 - were
liberated from concentration camps on the strength of British entry
permits.
[Since Nov 1938: Fund raising by
the Council for German Jewry - aid to refugees]
The Council for German Jewry started its collection after the (p.270)
November pogrom [1938]. It collected 850,000 pounds up to the outbreak
of war. Of this very large sum, 286,000 pounds were allocated for the
care of refugees in England; 145,270 pounds were not allocated at the
time but were used later, during the war, to support refugees in
Britain. The rest went to support work in Palestine, Shanghai and other
places.
[Dec 1938 appr.: Baldwin Fund for
Refugees set up]
Others were also making financial efforts. Under Earl Baldwin's
leadership, the Baldwin Fund for Refugees was founded; it collected
400,000 pounds. It was estimated that 90 % of the contributors to this
fund were Jews; 50 % of the money collected went to support the work of
the Council for German Jewry.
(End note 128: Joseph L. Cohen: Salvaging German Jewry; London 1939)
A number of smaller Christian committees were coordinated under the
leadership of Lord Hailey in the Christian Council for Refugees.
[Change within the Council for
German Jewry: Samuel goes - Reading comes]
The Council for German Jewry itself was transformed; in February, Lord
Samuel resigned and Lord Reading became chairman. With this change all
pretence that the council represented the American organizations, and
especially JDC, came to an end. It became officially what it had long
been in fact: a purely British institution, which cooperated with JDC
but in no sense represented it.
[Camps for Jewish refugees and
emigration expectations]
One of the more fruitful ideas advanced at that hectic time by those
favoring the entry of Jewish refugees into Britain was to create large
camps for adults and children where the refugees could remain until
more permanent homes were found for them. Kahn cabled that the idea was
in the "meantime (to) erect camps (and) training centers wherever
possible for (the) young generation."
(End note 129: 14-60, Kahn cable, 11/14/38 [14 November 1938])
The largest such camp was opened at Richborough (Kitchener Camp). Of
course, the acceptance of refugees into Britain was considered largely
a temporary measure, and most, if not all, refugees were expected
ultimately to emigrate to other countries.
(End note 130: Hyman at Executive Committee, 1/26/39 [26 January
1939])
[Jewish illegal immigration to
England by boat - protection of boat people]
During the last months before the outbreak of war, illegal immigration
was attempted even into Britain on a small scale. It is symptomatic
that British sailors were reported to have facilitated such immigration
and that British judges were inclined to recommend that such immigrants
not be deported.
(End note 131: 31-Germany, refugees, 1939-42, 2/21/39 [21 February
1939], Adler to Borchardt)
[I. 6.27. JDC saving and working for Jewish Children]
One of the main characteristics of the mass emigration of (p.271)
1938/9, and one intimately connected with Britain, was the emigration
of unaccompanied children. JDC had nothing to do with the immigration
of adults into Britain, but it played a significant part in the
attempts to save as many children as possible from German-occupied
lands before the war (and it was to play a similar role during the war
itself).
The movement to save the children started in England. Between March
1936 and November 1938, 471 children from Germany, 55 % of them Jewish
(many of the rest were probably "non-Aryans"), were brought there and
cared for by an Inter-Aid Committee supported by the Council for German
Jewry. The Friends and other Christian groups also participated in this
committee.
After the November 17, 1938, pogrom, Lord Samuel became chairman
of a subcommittee that was to promote the migration of children. On
November 21 a delegation of the Council for German Jewry and the
Inter-Aid Committee was received by the home secretary, who promised
his support in getting the children into Britain. That same evening he
announced his support in the House of Commons. As a result, the
Movement for the Care of Children from Germany was organized, which
undertook to guarantee that the children would not become public
charges and that they would reemigrate before they reached the age of
18 or when their training in Britain was completed.
Two summer camps for youth at Harwich and Lowestoft were used to
provide immediate accommodations. In Germany, Austria, and the Czech
lands, Jewish organizations and such groups as the Quakers set up
procedures to get the children to Britain. JDC had no direct contact
with this work in Britain, but through its cooperating committees in
Europe it was involved in sending the children to the safety of
England.
[149 children brought to the "USA"]
A plea by Mrs. van Tijn to accept large numbers of children into the
United States could not be answered affirmatively. The U.S.
organization for placing refugee children was limited both by the
strictness of the quota laws and by its own limitations. In November
1938 it could take 326 children, but of these, 177 children in (p.272)
Germany already had their affidavits; so that the U.S. could at that
point consider the immigration of only 149 children.
By contrast other European countries did follow the British example.
Holland accepted 1,850 children, Belgium took 800, France took 700, and
Sweden 250. Of this total of close to 13,000 children, 2,336 came from
Austria, about 8,000 from Germany, and the rest from Danzig and the
Czech lands.
(End note 132:
-- Germany file, movement for the care of children; and:
-- Movement for the Care of Children; first annual report; London, no
date, pp. 3-9)
[Over 3/8 of the JDC expenditure
for "refugee countries" 1938-1939]
When one looks at the total monetary effort expended by JDC in aiding
refugees in the different countries, the figures are quite impressive.
In 1938 and especially in 1939 there is something of a quantitative
jump as compared with previous years. In 1939 over three-eighths of the
JDC expenditures were devoted to what was known in JDC jargon as "the
refugee countries".
Table
20: JDC Expenditures in "Refugee Countries"
|
Year
|
1933
|
1934
|
1935
|
1936
|
1937
|
1938
|
1939
|
Total spent (in thousands of
$)
|
182
|
467
|
149*
|
311**
|
428
|
858.2***
|
3,243***
|
*R14,
1935 report gives $ 205,000
**R13, 1936 report gives $ 239,820
***The figures for 1938 and 1939 are appropriations, not expenditures.
|
(End
note 133: Sources:
-- R21, draft report 1939;
9-27, Kahn report, September 1938;
-- refugee countries were France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg,
Switzerland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia).
|
[J. Further happenings in Europe 1938-1939]
[6.28.] The Rublee-Schacht episode and the coordinating
foundation
[August 1938: Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees (ICR) set up]
The Evian Conference took place in July 1938. In August, ICR
[Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), set up at Evian 1938)]
held its first meeting, and George Rublee became its director. Then the
Sudeten crisis of September 1938 had prevented further progress. The
Germans were not eager to negotiate at that time. ICR and the Jewish
organizations that placed their hopes in it, on the other hand, assumed
that a breakthrough on the emigration front was possible only if
negotiations with Germany led to an orderly emigration of Jews from
that country, and if emigrants were allowed (p.273)
to take some capital with them and thus make themselves more welcome in
the host countries.
[21 Nov 1938: Britain: 11,000
Jewish refugees bring work for 15,000 Britons]
In the debate on refugees in the British House of
Commons on November 21, 1938, the home secretary pointedly referred to
the fact that the 11,000 refugees from Hitler who had been admitted to
Britain had already provided employment for 15,000 Britons. Other
countries had similar expectations. The proper way to go about
emigration, argued Max M. Warburg, was "to find jobs for German Jews on
(a) similar social standard and similar level of living as they had
before."
(End note 134: 9-30, 6/26/39 [26 June 1939], Warburg to Hyman)
The problem was, who would pay for it?
[August 1938 appr.: JDC sees clear:
Jewish emigrants need to bring some of their money with]
JDC became convinced soon after Evian that emigration "must in the
final analysis be financed with funds from German Jews themselves, for
which it will be necessary that an international agreement with Reich
authorities be reached permitting emigrants to take out some of their
money."
(End note 135: George Backer at Executive Committee, 9/29/38 [29
September 1938])
It was for this reason that JDC so wholeheartedly supported Rublee, and
as late as December 1938 saw in Evian "some consolation".
(End note 136: James N. Rosenberg at JDC annual meeting, 12/20/38 [20
December 1938])
[August 1938 appr.: JDC sees clear:
New settlements in new countries need state money]
The second point, to which JDC became converted as 1938 drew to an end
and 1939 began, was even more important. Private means, voluntary
organizations - these were well and good, but they would not be able to
settle Jews in difficult new countries. Established countries of
settlement were closing their doors. If there was to be mass
resettlement, government funds would have to be forthcoming.
(End note 137: Executive Committee, 2/13/39 [13 February 1939])
[27 Oct 1938: Rublee plan for
Jewish emigration - similar to the later Schacht plan]
In the autumn of 1938 Rublee was cooling his heels in London. In
October 27 [1938] he presented his own ideas on how the emigration of
German
Jews should be organized. It appears that these ideas were influenced
by the diplomatic contacts taking place in Berlin between members of
the British and American embassies and German authorities, mainly those
connected with Göring's office. At any rate, Rublee's proposals were
almost identical with those known later as the Schacht plan. It is also
likely that German Jews were involved in transmitting the German
proposals.
[Rublee plan for Jewish
emigration:
A. Trust fund in Germany to set up]
The content of these proposals was that 1.5 billion German marks, or 25
% of the total assets of German Jewry (estimated (p.274)
at 6 billion marks, or $ 2.4 billion), would be set up as a trust fund
in Germany. Jews abroad would raise an equivalent sum in foreign
currency, which nominally would be a loan to the emigrants. The money
abroad would pay for the actual emigration and settlement.
[B. German Jewish emigrants shall
take German goods with them and sell abroad for German export]
German emigrants would repay the capital and the interest in the form
of German goods that they would take with them and sell abroad, thus in
effect increasing German exports. However, this would have to be over
and above the "normal" level of German exports (whatever that meant).
At any rate, Schacht spoke of "additional exports" in this connection.
[The Rublee plan comes from
Fischböck, controlled by Göring, and brought to Schacht]
This plan was apparently conceived by a high Austrian Nazi economic
official, Dr. Hand Fischböck, who suggested it to Göring. Göring in
turn appears to have brought it to the attention of Hjalmar Schacht,
Germany's economic wizard who was at that time the head of the
Reichsbank.
[Nov 1938: Schacht in London
presents the Schacht plan - Hitler agrees on 2 Jan 1939]
Schacht went to London in November and presented the plan
to Winterton and Rublee. Further negotiations were to take place with
Fischböck, but Schacht apparently wanted time to present the proposals
to Hitler. He appears to have done this on January 2, 1939, and he
received Hitler's approval.
(End note 138:
-- Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls; Amherst, Mass.,
1968], pp. 53-56;
-- Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million Died; New York
1968], pp. 241-48;
-- Raul Hilberg: The Destruction of European Jews; Chicago 1961, p. 97.
All these authors rely mainly on official document publications such as:
-- Foreign Relations of the United States 1938, 1:871-74; 1939,
2:77-87, 102-24, 95-98;
-- Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, 3rd series; London
1950, 3:675-77; and:
-- Documents on German Foreign Policy, series D, 5:753-767, 780.
Some unpublished State Department material is also quoted. See also:
Mashberg, op. cit [Mashberg, Michael: America and the Refugee Crisis;
M.A. thesis; City University of New York, 1970])
[Jews and many non-Jews reject the
Schacht plan for emigration with exportation of German goods]
Jews almost unanimously rejected the Schacht plan, as did many
non-Jews.
[Jan 1939: London: New
negotiations about emigration of German Jews - new Schacht plan]
As a result of this opposition, new negotiations were started
that January in Berlin. With the help of Montagu Norman of the Bank of
England, contact was established with the Germans; then Rublee himself
came and talked with Schacht. Ribbentrop objected to these talks, but
the Schacht-Göring group overcame that opposition. Schacht's new
proposal was much more favorable to the Jews:
[Second Schacht plan details]
[A. No additional exports]
the idea of "additional
exports" was dropped,
[B. The trust is for the Jews
abroad starting a new life, for transportation and freight expenses]
and the money in the trust fund would simply be
used to buy equipment for Jews with which they could hope to start new
lives outside Germany. This might boost German exports incidentally,
but no foreign currency would accrue to the Reich treasury. Transport
and freight expenses would also be covered by these funds, insofar as
German vessels or other means of transport were used.
[C. Other expenses are paid by
Jewish corporation]
The Jewish corporation that would be set up abroad would pay for all
(p.275)
the other expenses. There would be no necessary connection between that
corporation and the trust fund, which was to be run by a directorate of
three: two Germans and one non-German.
[D. 150,000 working Jews first,
then 250,000 dependent Jews - 200,000 older Jews remain]
150,000 Jews of working age would settle abroad, to be followed by
250,000 dependents; 200,000 others would remain behind and be supported
out of Jewish capital other than that in the trust fund. The Germans
promised that these people would not be molested. For these 200,000,
some Jewish businesses might be reopened, and "Jews outside of Germany
would not be called upon to support their coreligionists in the Reich".
(End note 139:
New York Times,
2/14/39 [14 February 1939])
As soon as the scheme was started, Jews would be released from the
concentration camps.
[Negotiations about deported
German Jews in Poland]
At the same time, negotiations were opened between Germany and Poland,
and the Poles declared themselves willing to take back into Poland
4-5,000 Polish Jews from Germany, if they came with 70 % of their
property.
(End note 140: R46, January 1939 reports)
[21 Jan 1939: Schacht dismissed
- further negotiations with Helmut Wohlthat]
In the midst of the negotiations, on January 21, Rublee was
informed that Schacht had been dismissed from his post by Hitler, but
that an official by the name of Helmut Wohlthat had been nominated by
Göring - in his capacity as Germany's economic dictator - to continue
the negotiations. In a personal interview on January 23,
(End note 141: Ibid. [R46, January 1939 reports])
Göring assured Rublee that the German government was serious in its
intentions to see the negotiations through.
[Different opinions about the
second Schacht emigration plan]
Public opinion in Britain and the U.S. was divided on the new plan; so
were the Jews. Although the majority of the Zionists remained opposed
to the plan despite the improved conditions, personalities like Stephen
S. Wise and Louis Lipsky voiced approval. JDC hesitated. Its labor
component was very definitely against what became to be known as the
Rublee plan. The Jewish Labor Committee had joined with the American
Jewish Congress in Supporting the boycott of German goods, and at the
JDC leadership meetings, Adolph Held, a leading journalist of the labor
wing, voiced opposition to the scheme. The counterpart organization
that the Jews were supposed to set up would, Held thought, recognize
the right of the German government to expropriate Jewish (p.276)
property and would destroy the boycott.
(End note 142: R55, 3/17/39, Baerwald statement and discussion).
However, it was quite clear that unless some Jewish counterpart to the
trust fund was set up, the whole scheme was unworkable. This again
raised the whole problem of private organizations arranging for the
mass settlement of hundreds of thousands of people with voluntary
contributions - and JDC was convinced that this was impossible.
[British Jewish leaders urge for a
Coordinating Foundation for Jewish emigration]
At the same time, Jewish leaders in Britain were much less hesitant and
were pressing for the establishment of a Coordinating Foundation that
would fulfill two main tasks: it would serve as a secretariat in
directing emigrants to various places of settlement and it would invest
money in settlement projects.
["US" State Department supports
the Schacht-Rublee plan]
The Rublee plan had the full support of the American State Department.
[13 February 1939: Rublee
resigns - Emerson new director of the ICR]
Rublee himself resigned on February 13, 1939, having - as he thought -
accomplished his mission. The directorship of ICR [Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees (ICR) (set up at Evian 1938)] was taken over by
Sir Herbert Emerson, the League of Nations high commissioner for
refugees.
[March 1939: "US" government
campaign for the Schacht-Rublee plan to set up the "US"-GB Coordinating
Foundation]
Myron C. Taylor was again called to help the U.S. government,
and beginning in March a most extraordinary campaign was waged by the
president, the State Department, and Taylor, to press American Jewish
organizations into accepting the Rublee plan and setting up the
Coordinating Foundation together with British Jews.
[28 March and 15 April 1939:
Informal meetings about a future Coordinating Foundation - danger that
the plan is copied by other governments]
As a result of concerted pressure, a first meeting of Taylor with Lewis
L. Strauss, Henry Ittleson, Albert D. Lasker, Harold Linder, and Joseph
C. Hyman took place on March 28, 1939. A second "informal meeting of
Jews" was held on April 15.
(End note 143: 9-27, 5/4/39 [4 May 1939] memo)
At this meeting in the chambers of Roosevelt's friend Judge Rosenman,
the leadership of JDC and the American Jewish Committee, as well as
prominent Zionists like Wise and Robert Szold, decided to negotiate
with Taylor. An aide-mémoire drawn up as a result of the meeting stated
that "we should take no steps that directly or by implication would
give recognition by the Jewish community as such to the validity of any
expropriation of private property or of the requirement that German
citizens who are Jews (sic!) shall be driven into exile. We should
particularly refrain from undertaking, as a Jewish group, any step
which might tend to induce any other (p.277)
government to follow the German program."
The matter was not just Jewish, and if Taylor insisted on forming an
organization to implement the Rublee plan, this should be done "under
general and not Jewish auspices." Further, the problem was of such
magnitude "as to place it beyond the power of individuals alone to
solve, and to make it a subject for the concern and active aid of
governments."
Meetings with Taylor followed. Taylor disregarded the Jewish
reservations and chose to regard the Jewish attitude as favorable to
the creation of the Coordinating Foundation. He agreed with their
reservations, he said, and the foundation should be set up forthwith.
But to the State Department he reported that there was great reluctance
in Jewish circles because of the fear that the Jews with their own
hands, might create that ogre of anti-Semitic propaganda called
"international Jewry", against which Hitler was rampaging.
[29 April 1939: 41 Jewish
leaders agree to the Schacht-Rublee plan]
But the Jews were already relenting. On April 29 41 Jewish leaders met
and agreed to Taylor's demands. Nevertheless Roosevelt requested that a
Jewish delegation meet with him.
[4 May 1939: Roosevelt urges the
Jewish leaders to set up the Coordinating Foundation]
The meeting took place on May 4, with Baerwald, Ittleson, Strauss,
Proskauer, Sol Stroock, and Samuel I. Rosenman representing the Jews,
and Welles and Moffat representing the State Department. the president
urged the Jewish leaders to set up the foundation as quickly as
possible.
[30 May 1939: Two Jewish "US"
representatives should be sent to London to establish the Coordinating
Foundation]
In response, JDC - obviously the Jewish group most
immediately concerned - decided on May 30 to send two representatives
to London to negotiate with the British regarding the establishment of
the foundation. Paul Baerwald and Harold Linder agreed to go on the
delicate mission.
(End note 144: Executive Committee, 6/16/39 [16 June 1939])
[6.29. Steamer St. Louis with 930 Jewish refugees comes
back to Europe]
[May-June 1939: St. Louis affair:
Two "Christian"
Catholic Cuban rivals fight for money from the Jewish organizations to
admit 907 Jewish refugees - return of the ship St. Louis to Europe]
Into this crisis-ridden atmosphere there burst the St. Louis affair.
The story has been told elsewhere
(End note 145: Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million
Died; New York 1968], pp. 270 ff.)
and a bare outline will suffice here. The St. Louis, a German ship of
the Hamburg America Line, sailing under a very considerate and liberal
captain, Gustav Schroeder, left Germany on May 13, 1939, with 930
Jewish emigrants. They were all going to Havana with legal Cuban visas
issued by (p.278)
the person responsible for immigration in the Cuban government - except
for 22 persons who had decided not to rely solely on the visas and had
had them verified in Cuba at additional cost to themselves. By the time
the ship reached Cuba, the ordinary visas had been declared invalid.
Later, the JDC committee dealing with the affair came to the conclusion
that the government of President Bru of Cuba had never intended to
permit the refugees to land. The person who had issued the visas, a
Colonel Benites, supported the faction of the Cuban chief of staff,
Fulgencio Batista, a rival of President Bru's. Bru apparently thought
that to refuse permission for the landing would be a good way to fight
Batista, who, through Benites, had hoped to collect large bribes from
the refugees. It may be that Bru was willing to accept the refugees if
JDC paid very large sums not only to the government treasury but also
to his private pocket - both factions were asking for about $ 450,000
in addition to the official ransom money of $ 500,000 to the
government. JDC was prepared to pay up to $ 500,000 to the Cubans, but
since there were no additional handouts of any size. Bru refused to let
the refugees land. Apparently the State Department was of no great help
either, because it informed the lawyer representing JDC in Cuba,
Lawrence Berenson, that the Cubans were merely bluffing and that JDC
should not offer them too much.
(End note 146: CON-3, 6/27/39, Hyman to Baerwald)
The St. Louis affair put JDC on the horns of a very real dilemma. JDC
was painfully aware that if it paid a huge ransom for the 907 Jews with
Benites visas (one had committed suicide), who headed back to Europe on
the St. Louis on June 6, other Latin American governments would
probably learn the lesson and exact equal if not larger sums. The total
JDC income was to rise to $ 8.1 mio. in 1939, but ransom monies of $ 1
mio. for 900 refugees would exhaust the JDC treasury in no time. This
of course was quite apart from the fact that JDC had never agreed to
pay ransom to unscrupulous operators for innocent human beings.
What moved JDC to go against its own better judgment was the tremendous
pressure from its contributors, who saw, perhaps (p.279)
rightly, that this was a test case and a symbol and that every effort
had to be made to save the passengers. Members of the JDC staff and
leading laymen worked literally around the clock to try to find places
of refuge for the ship, which was slowly making its way back across the
Atlantic to Germany. In the end Troper in Paris contacted Max
Gottschalk in Brussels and Mrs. van Tijn in Holland who intervened with
their respective governments; in France, Jules Braunschvig went to the
French Foreign Ministry to persuade them to accept some of the
refugees. All this occurred on June 10.
In the meantime, Paul Baerwald was active in London, where the British
government also agreed to accept some of the refugees.
Finally the St. Louis passengers were landed: 181 in Holland, 288 in
Britain, 214 in Belgium, and 224 in France.
(End note 147: Agar, op. cit., p. 85, footnote 4)
In all these countries JDC undertook to support the St. Louis refugees.
In 1939, $ 500,000 was appropriated for this purpose. JDC was to carry
this obligation for a long time, until those who were not deported to
Nazi death camps finally found permanent havens.
[6.30. England wants to hand over Palestine in 1949 -
Guinea project]
[17 May 1939: British announce
to hand over Palestine to the Arabs on 17 May 1949 - 75,000 more Jews
in 5 years allowed]
Another element that influenced the discussions regarding the
establishment of the Coordinating Foundation was the situation in
Palestine.
On May 17, 1939, the British published their White Paper on Palestine,
which declared that Britain intended to hand over the Palestinian
Jewish minority to the Arabs there within ten years. Another 75,000
Jews would be allowed to enter the country within five years; after
that further Jewish immigration would be subject to Arab consent (that
is, it would cease). With this, the Zionist experiment was to come to
an end.
[17 May 1939: British Guiana project for the Jews]
To counteract this blow, the British government published, on the same
day, the
Report of the British Guiana
Refugee Commission to the Advisory Committee on Political Refugees
Appointed by the President of the United States.
(End note 148: Command Paper 6014; London 1939)
The British had suggested British Guiana as a possible area of Jewish
settlement in late 1938, after they had determined to their own
satisfaction the course they would pursue in Palestine.
(End note 149: Yehuda Bauer: From Diplomacy to Resistance; Philadelphia
1970, pp. 11, 19-24)
[14 Feb-19 April 1939: Special
commission makes trip to British Guiana]
JDC, desperately searching for areas of settlement, had sent Joseph A.
Rosen to represent it on a special commission that investigated British
Guiana between February 14 (p.280)
and April 19, 1939. Rosen fell ill immediately after his arrival, and
his signature on the report does not have any real meaning. Two other
members of the commission were British.
[17 May 1939: The commission
report about Guiana: 3-5,000 young and sturdy Jews wanted]
The commission [British Guiana Refugee Commission] reported that small
areas of settlement might possibly be developed in the more remote
parts of the colony, and that a small group of 3-5,000 young and sturdy
settlers should be chosen to start an experimental colony. It also said
that British Guiana "is not an ideal place for refugees from middle
European countries" and that no immediate large-scale settlement was
possible; there did exist a potentiality for settlement. In short, the
remote tropical colony might be a good dumping ground for European
Jews, but a longer period of time and a trial settlement were needed to
find out whether people could actually live there.
In light of the country's checkered history in later years, it seems
highly doubtful that Jews would have been welcome there at all.
Baerwald and others in JDC tried for some time afterward to defend the
Guiana venture,
(End note 150: For example, Executive Committee, 5/22/39 [22 May
1939], when Baerwald "deplored the slighting reference to British
Guiana" in a letter by Henry Montor to JDC. There were to be other
comments of this kind).
until finally the project disappeared from view, as did so many others
at the time.
The British, of course, vehemently denied all allegations that their
policies in Palestine and Guiana were in any way connected.
[22 June 1939: Meeting on
British Guiana: Money for the Coordinating Foundation for Guiana needed]
At a meeting on British Guiana held on June 22, 1939, Malcolm
MacDonald, the British colonial secretary, clearly stated that any
colonization would require investment of private Jewish money on a very
large scale. From his statements it emerges that he thought of the
Coordinating Foundation primarily as an organization to get the Guiana
project going. He hinted that if no Jewish money was forthcoming,
Britain might have to reconsider her whole refugee policy - a very
thinly veiled threat of reprisals against refugees trying to enter
Britain.
(End note 151: 30-Germany, proposals of settlement in other countries,
British Guiana, 6/22/39 [22 June 1939], report of Robert Pell to the
secretary of state).
[6.31. Last negotiations on the Coordinating Foundation
for Schacht-Rublee plan]
[British Jewish funds limited for
Coordinating Foundation - steamer St. Louis Jews need support]
The negotiations in London made another fact clear: it was doubtful if
any money at all would be forthcoming from British Jews. The reason was
that British Jewry was contributing very large sums to refugee
absorption in Britain and elsewhere; American Jewry was richer and
larger, and so far had contributed proportionately less than had
British Jewry. JDC at first thought that (p.281)
its preliminary contribution to the Coordinating Foundation would be $
500,000; this was a reasonable sum, if one remembers that the total
income in 1939 was $ 8.1 mio. But two weeks later half a million
dollars was pledged to the support of the St. Louis refugees, so that
one-eighth of JDC's money was now gone. Pressure by President
Roosevelt caused JDC to reconsider its contribution.
[It's president Roosevelt's industry which is rearming the NS army and
supporting the Hitler regime: against Communism, and Communism is
financed: by "American" banks. The world war is well organized by ...
"USA"].
[6 June 1939: JDC gives 1 mio. $
for a Coordinating Foundation]
On June 6 it [JDC] decided on a risky step: it would provide $ 1 mio.
and would set up the foundation whether the British participated or not
- a complete reversal of JDC's position in March. The lack of realism
in these negotiations is perhaps made clearer if one remembers that the
foundation , with its $ 1 million in capital, was to serve as a
counterpart to the trust fund in Germany with its $ 600 million.
(End note 152: Executive Committee, 6/5/39 [5 June 1939], 6/16/39
[16 June 1939])
At a meeting of the Administration Committee, Rosenberg stated the
reason for accepting the additional burden: there should be no
uncertainty "as to our readiness to carry through a commitment which in
effect was desired by Mr. Taylor and the president."
(End note 153: AC [Administration Committee files], 6/26/39 [26 June
1939])
[17 June 1939: Some Jewish
leaders are against participation at the Coordinating Foundation]
In the wake of the June 6 decision, another informal meeting of Jewish
leaders was convened on June 17. At this meeting Wise voiced hesitation
regarding the step taken by JDC; but only Joseph Tennenbaum of the
American Federation of Polish Jews and the American Jewish Congress, a
leading proponent of the boycott movement and later to be a historian
of the holocaust, voted against the JDC action, on the grounds that the
Coordinating Foundation would finance German exports and hinder the
anti-German boycott.
(End note 154: Executive Committee, 7/17/39 [17 July 1939]; 9-30,
6/17/39 [17 June 1939] meeting)
In the meantime, Baerwald and later Linder were negotiating with
British Jews and non-Jews in London and with Emerson of ICR
[Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR) (set up at Evian 1938)].
It soon became apparent to them that they were, in fact, negotiating
with the British government. Between June 5 and June 7 Baerwald met
Wohlthat, who had come to London ostensibly to attend a conference on
whaling.
(End note 155: 9-30, 6/7/39 [7 June 1939] memo (by J.C. Hyman)
Informed of the negotiations in London, Wohlthat expressed the German
government's willingness to carry on negotiations with even a purely
American foundation, in case the talks between American and British
Jews broke (p.282)
down. In such a case, Wohlthat stated that "probably from 5 to 10 % of
the Jewish assets in Germany would be turned over to the trust fund
there."
(End note 156: Ibid. [9-30, 6/7/39 [7 June 1939] memo (by J.C.
Hyman)])
Though we lack the documentary evidence to prove it, it seems that the
talks with Wohlthat convinced JDC that this was a project that had to
be pursued with the greatest energy. JDC had come full circle.
The basic difference of opinion with British Jews lay in the fact that
JDC was unwilling to spend money on settlement schemes that were too
expensive to be implemented without governmental help. Also, in New
York a delegation from the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish
Labor Committee met with JDC leaders on July 13 and demanded that the
Coordinating Foundation charter clearly declare that no foreign
currency would accrue to the Germans and no additional exports would
result from the foundation's operations.
(End note 157:
-- 9-30, 7/15/39 [15 July 1939] cable by Jaretzki and Hyman to
Linder. See also:
-- Adolph Held's letter to JDC, 7/12/39 [12 July 1939], in 9-30.
Held thought that "before giving our consent to the Rublee plan, which
is but a modified version of the notorious Schacht plan, we should at
least try to find an answer to the most burning question of the day:
Where will the emigrants, supposedly helped by the Rublee plan, go?")
[19 July 1939: Britain announces
to participate settlement projects when others also do]
The British government, possibly at the suggestion of Sir Herbert
Emerson, then went a step further. On July 19 the Foreign Office
declared in a communique that, contrary to its previous policy, the
British government would be prepared to participate in settlement
projects, provided other governments were ready to do the same.
(End note 158: 9-30, text of communique by Lord Winterton after a
meeting of ICR, 7/19/39 [19 July 1939])
The charter of the Coordinating Foundation made it clear that the new
organization would be quite independent of anything that happened in
Germany, that it would facilitate emigration and settlement and
"provide land services" - whatever that meant - and facilities for
emigrants. While it was not expressly stated that it would engage in
colonization, this was hinted at broadly.
[19 July 1939: JDC signs the
charter for Guiana - 20 July 1939: Published charter on Coordinating
Foundation (Schacht-Rublee plan)]
A hesitant JDC signed the charter on July 19. The next day, July 20, it
was published.
[1 September 1939: The
Coordinating Foundation charter is worthless by war]
Six weeks later, on September 1, it was killed with the first shots
fired in World War II.
[Question: Why Roosevelt was that
engaged in Jewish dislocation to Guiana?]
One of the perplexing questions that came out of the complicated
negotiations in the spring and summer of 1939 is this: Why should the
president of the United States have been so insistent that American
Jews spend large sums of money to settle Jewish emigrants in as yet
undefined and remote places? Why should he have been so concerned that
an agreement be reached between American (p.284)
and British Jews? The president's humanitarianism, while not itself in
doubt, was always tempered with political astuteness. The Coordinating
Foundation, from Roosevelt's point of view, must have had a political
purpose, possibly that of gaining international prestige by attempting
a settlement of the refugee problem - outside of the U.S., of course.
[Question: Could the German side
have been taken earnest for the Coordinating Foundation?]
The second problem is no less vexing, but relatively easier to answer:
Did the Germans really intend to implement some such scheme as the
[Schacht-]Rublee plan?
It seems quite clear that Hitler was informed in detail of the
negotiations with Rublee. Schacht's dismissal in January does not seem
to have had any connection with the Rublee plan. True, there was a
rivalry between Ribbentrop on one hand and Schacht and Göring on the
other. In January a circular letter from Ribbentrop declared that the
Jewish emigration problem was for all practical purposes insoluble, and
a more radical solution was hinted at.
(End note 159: Documents on German Foreign Policy, series D, 5:927)
But the negotiations proceeded despite Ribbentrop's objections.
(End note 160: Hilberg, loc. cit.)
In his famous instructions to Frick , Nazi minister of the interior, on
January 24, Göring expressly included among the members of the planned
central bureau of Jewish emigration Helmut Wohlthat, whom he designated
as the man responsible for the Rublee plan negotiations.
It appears that the plan became a bone of contention between Göring and
the SS. Heydrich, Himmler's chief deputy, declared on February 11 that
the implementation of the Rublee plan was by no means certain, so that
forced emigration should in the meantime be continued. Hitler himself -
as opposed to his henchmen - may have already been thinking in terms of
the destruction of the Jews, as evinced in his famous speech to the
Reichstag on January 30, 1939, and even more clearly in a talk with the
Czech foreign minister, Chvalkovsky, on January 21, where he threatened
to eliminate the Jews of Europe. In the meantime, extermination was
impractical, and any method of expulsion that produced results was good.
(End note 161: Broszat et alia, op. cit. [Broszat, Martin et
alia: Die Anatomie des SS-Staates [Anatomy of the SS state]; Olten und
Freiburg 1965], pp. 340-45)
On the whole, it seems that the Nazis took this plan seriously and were
willing to consider it as a possible solution to the Jewish question.
Meanwhile, this did not prevent them, as long (p.284)
as there was no agreement on emigration, from intensifying their
persecutions and driving out people who had no money or visas. But it
would be wrong to assume from this behavior that they had scrapped the
Rublee plan.
One author expresses regret at the fact that the Coordinating
Foundation was set up so late, that valuable time was lost, and "that
so little was accomplished in the year before the war began."
(End note 162: Wyman, op. cit. [Wyman, David S.: Paper Walls; Amherst,
Mass., 1968], p. 56)
The evidence does not seem to support this conclusion. Voluntary Jewish
sources were quite unable to collect the vast sums of money necessary
for the foundation's successful operation; areas of settlement were
not, in fact, available, and to arrange for settlement in places like
the U.S., Australia, South America, or even Palestine would have
required time.
Time was certainly not available between January and September 1939.
Had the foundation been set up in January, nothing much could have been
done before the outbreak of the war.
[End Sep 1939: Poland: "Close to 2
million Polish Jews in the hands of the Nazis"]
At the end of September, with close to two million Polish Jews in the
hands of the Nazis, Hitler and the SS turned to other solutions for the
Jewish question. The foundation passed into history.
[The anti-Semitic Catholic Polish population supported all measures
against the Jews and was willing to help, and even made mass shootings
without Nazi order].
German Jewry, it must be added, was very bitter about the negotiations.
It felt the whole weight of Heydrich's cold terror directed against
itself. The "negotiations of the Evian committee", wrote the
Hilfsverein to Lord Samuel on February 10, "have definitely done more
harm than good."
(End note 163: 31-Germany, refugees 1939-42, letter to Lord Samuel,
2/10/39 [10 February 1939])
[May 1939: German Jewish
representatives in London without result]
In May some representatives of German Jewry were allowed to go to
London; they they were expected to come back with some positive replies
regarding places of settlement and the setting up of the Coordinating
Foundation. They came back with empty hands, having been callously
rebuffed by the heads of ICR. Emerson, the ICR director, even refused
to give them a letter stating that every effort was being made to help
German Jewry."
(End note 164: Morse, op. cit. [Morse, Arthur D.: While Six Million
Died; New York 1968], pp. 248-49)
[K. 6.32.] Illegal Migration [by ship]
[July 1934: Illegal emigration to
Palestine: The ship "Velos" tries in vain]
The tragedy of Jewish emigration caused the appearance of what was to
become, for a whole decade, a phenomenon identified with (p.285)
the plight of Jews: illegal migration. As early as July 1934 the first
illegal immigrant ship to Palestine, the [ship]
Velos, made a successful run with
330 Hechalutz trainees from Poland. In September of that year the
Velos tried a second time, but the
British prevented a landing; the 310 passengers
(End note 165: Yehuda Slutsky: Sefer Toldot Hahaganah; Tel Aviv 1963,
2:528-29. There were 360 passengers, but 50 managed to land without
being noticed by the British).
attempted to find a haven "at several ports" but nowhere were they
allowed to enter. Finally they returned to Poland and obtained legal
permits to enter Palestine. HICEM requested that JDC support the
passengers, but Kahn refused. "We could not contribute to this cause as
it was a case of illegal smuggling of immigrants to Palestine."
(End note 166: R16, monthly bulletin, nos. 1 and 2, 3/6/35 [6 March
1935])
[Jan 1938: Histadruth illegal
immigration - Zionist are against this not to bother Britain]
Efforts to start illegal immigration to Palestine began again in
January 1938.
(End note 167: Slutsky, op. cit. [Yehuda Slutsky: Sefer Toldot
Hahaganah; Tel Aviv 1963], 2:1036 ff.)
This was done partly by the Histadruth (the Palestine General Jewish
Federation of Labor), partly by the Revisionists, the opponents of the
official Zionist movement, and partly by private persons and various
political groups. The official Zionist bodies were split on the
question; some of the American and British Zionists were opposed to
illegal efforts, at least as long as there was the slightest hope of an
accommodation with Britain.
[Early 1939: Emigration
negotiations to Palestine - help for stranded illegal immigrants]
In early 1939 JDC was approached by the different groups engaged in
organizing the immigration movement to Palestine. "JDC was ready to put
up 5,000 pounds if the Council (for German Jewry) and Simon Marks's
group put up a like amount each and if the Council would share in
the responsibility."
(End note 168: Kahn material, file 1939/40, 6/15/39 [15 June 1939])
This meant that JDC would participate only if the whole matter became
open, public, and, ipso facto, legal. Naturally, this did not happen,
and JDC help was not forthcoming. Troper stated that "we must continue
to take the attitude that JDC can take no part in this emigration." The
local committees (who were not part of JDC in any case), such as Mrs.
van Tijn's group in Holland or Mrs. Schmolka's group in Prague, "can do
so if they wish."
(End note 169: R55, Troper letter, 3/2/39 [2 March 1939])
This essentially was JDC's policy right up to the outbreak to the war.
With this position established in principle, there arose a question
that could not be easily answered. One could have a set policy, yet not
be able to close one's eyes to the misery and the suffering of the
people who could not manage to get through to Palestine. JDC (p.286)
was committed to helping people regardless of the politics involved.
Moreover, even ICR [Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR) (set
up at Evian 1938)], through its British director, Emerson, expressly
allowed "giving relief for humanitarian reasons to those who were
stranded through the rejection of the transports" while warning the
"responsible organizations not to give any direct help to such
transports."
(End note 170: 9-27, meeting of ICR directors [Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees (ICR) (set up at Evian 1938)] with JDC and HICEM,
7/25/39 [25 July 1939])
[Help for stranded Jews on defect
or caught emigration ships in Greece]
Some of the situations that arose were tragic indeed.
In early July 1939 the S.S.
Rim
caught fire, and its 772 passengers were landed on a Greek island.
Other ships, mismanaged by their organizers, ran out of fuel or food,
or were caught by the British and had to remain in Greek waters without
provisions.
By July 1939, $ 9,000 had been spent by JDC to help feed these people,
largely through the good offices of the Athens Jewish community, which
administered the relief.
JDC was watching the situation carefully. It received reports and
detailed information on boats filled with people trying to save
themselves by getting into Palestine; if these efforts failed, JDC
might have to step in with food and clothes and blankets, while still
maintaining its noninvolvement in the political aspects of the
situation.
(End note 171:
-- R10, 5/29/39 [29 May 1939], Kahn note for Baerwald;
-- R55, 5/11/39 [11 May 1939] report;
-- 42-Palestine, emigration to Palestine, 1937-39)
Palestine was by no means the only goal of boats bearing illegal
immigrants.
[Illegal emigration to Latin
America: Cuba with bribed officials - other countries]
At about the same time that attempts to reach Palestine were being
made, refugees without visas were trying to get to the Latin American
countries. This movement appears to have started as early as September
1938, when 43 passengers on the S.S.
Iberia
vainly tried to enter Mexico and were finally allowed to land at
Havana.
A similar journey by the S.S. Orinoco in October with 300 passengers
ended in the same way. All this of course cost money: Cuban officials
had to be bribed. Cuba remained one of the main havens throughout the
period, largely because of the venality of its officials.
For various reasons, Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, and
Bolivia also accepted visaless refugees from time to time.
[Balance March 1939: 23 boats with
1,740 passengers]
A list prepared at JDC offices in March 1939 counted 23 boats with
1,740 passengers who somehow had to be squeezed into Latin America
without proper documents.
[Returning emigration ships]
Not all these ships managed to land their human cargo. The S.S. General
(p.287)
Martin, for instance, leaving Boulogne with 25 visaless passengers in
early February [1939], had to return to Europe with the refugees
aboard. The same happened to the 40 passengers on the S.S.
Caparcona in late March.
(End note 172: For a list of the ships see
-- 29-Germany: Panic Emigration, 1938-39, 3/30/39 [30 March 1939];
-- Executive Committee, meetings between December 1938 and July 1939;
-- R9, Aid to Jews Overseas (pamphlet); also
-- R56, and
-- AC [Administration Committee files] meetings during this period).
[JDC is financing the bribes -
play with visas during the trip]
JDC had to pay a high proportion of the bribes, thinly disguised as
landing money or living expenses for the refugees. Often, too, the
passengers held forged visas, or the visas were genuine but the
receiving country had suddenly invalidated them - as happened with the
St. Louis.
To arrange matters, money had to change hands, and JDC simply could not
pay those sums.
On March 15 Baerwald sent a cable to Europe asking for a meeting of the
main emigrating agencies to consider what should be done. It was, he
said, "quite clear (that the) resources (of) private philanthropic
bodies (were) strained (to the) utmost ... even (by the) more normal
(and) orderly emigration under (the) supervision (of) responsible
bureaus."
(End note 173: Cable of 3/15/39 [15 March 1939], quoted in Hyman's
report to the Executive Committee, 3/23/39 [23 March 1939])
[Criminal circumstances around the
illegal Jewish emigration - and JDC help]
The dumping of refugees was resulting in panic migration and
exploitation by unscrupulous steamship agencies, lawyers, and venal
officials. Alarming problems were arising: indefinite maintenance of
the refugees, huge guarantees that were quite beyond the financial
capabilities of private bodies such as JDC, and the specter of a more
or less permanent threat of blackmail, endangering the operations of
different agencies. Both the steamship companies and the Germans would
know that the Jewish organizations might protest but would pay in the
end.
The other agencies - HICEM, ICA, the Council for German Jewry - were in
the same quandary. There was no real solution as long as the countries
of immigration were closed.
[Early 1939: Most of Latin
American countries close borders for Jewish emigration]
Partly as a result of this panic emigration, most Latin American
countries did in fact close their borders in early 1939. Opinions in
JDC were divided.
[JDC: Discussion to help or not]
Alexander Kahn was one of those who declared that JDC simply "had to
help them as far as our means can last, because I do not think we will
be forgiven if we take the harsh (line of) policy that we will not
help. When the next batch of 100 comes we will have to do it anyway."
The other view was expressed by Rosenberg, who argued against agreeing
to the expulsion of Jews from Europe. If (p.288)
one allowed the Germans to "eliminate" their Jews, the Poles and
Romanians were going to follow suit. In the minds of German officials,
also "there is a notion that American Jewry can meet all sorts of
emergencies." One had to say no to the refugees. "After all we are in a
world war and there are times when you have to sacrifice some of your
troops. And these unfortunates are some of our troops."
(End note 174: AC [Administration Committee files], 3/15/39 [15 March
1939])
JDC did not follow Rosenberg's counsel. It accepted the policy proposed
by Alexander Kahn, but tried to pay as little as possible in bribes;
and except in the case of the
St.
Louis it declined to offer ransom money.
[St. Louis affair: Boats Flandre
and Orduna also return to Europe]
During and after the
St. Louis
affair, illegal immigration into Latin America continued. Besides the
St. Louis, two small boats arrived at Havana: the S.S.
Flandre, a French boat with 96
refugees, and the S.S.
Orduna,
a British boat with about 40 people. Like the St. Louis passengers,
they were refused permission to land. They too returned to Europe and
were accepted by the four countries that had received others.
[American Jewish diplomatic
efforts for European Jewish emigration]
JDC had to support the Latin American Jewish communities that were
trying to care for the refugees from Europe. In December 1938 it sent a
former German Jewish social worker to Latin America to establish
contact with the communities there. These contacts bore fruit in early
1939.The Havana Refugee Committee was brought under the influence of
the New York National Coordinating Committee, later the National
Refugee Service. Other committees received direct aid from JDC and
dispensed it according to set rules to those who needed it. In 1939, $
600,000 was appropriated for this work, which affected about 68,000
Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe.
(End note 175: A detailed list of the countries and the numbers of
refugees in each was submitted to the Executive Committee meeting on
7/20/39 [20 July 1939]).
[K.6.33. Jewish emigration from the Reich (Germany and
Austria) to
Shanghai 1938-1939 - 18,000 by September 1939]
[Jewish emigration to Shanghai
without visa needed]
In a world of closed borders and hostile officialdom,
(End note 176: A good example of this in Latin America was the
secretary of the government of British Guiana (the proposed Jewish
homeland). This worthy man wrote a letter to the British Guiana
Information Bureau in New York (see above, note 172, 29-Germany) on
December 13, 1938, in response to a request for an entry permit by a
Jewish refugee. The refugee was told that anyone who had 50 pounds in
his wallet could land. However, there were some small snags: there was
no work and no employment; generally speaking, refugees would be well
advised not to come. "It would be most inadvisable for your family and
you to consider coming here. ... You are strongly advised not to
migrate to this colony.")
the Jews of Germany and Austria were ready to clutch at straws. One
such straw was Shanghai. In 1937 Shanghai was divided between the
international settlement, which was run by the foreign powers (who had,
in fact, been ruling the city during the period of the disintegration
of the Chinese state), and the Chinese part of the city, which had just
been conquered by the Japanese. There was no (p.289)
requirement for an entry visa into the city. IKG [Israelitische
Kultusgemeinde (IKG) (Austria)] became aware of this fact in Vienna in
the summer of 1938. The problem was to pay the fares to Shanghai,
usually by a German or Italian boat; later a rail connection via the
USSR into Manchuria and thence to Shanghai would also be attempted.
Shanghai became a place of refuge, especially for those people who,
threatened with arrest and a concentration camp, could find no other
place of emigration.
[Jews in Shanghai in little groups
without contact between each other]
The Jewish community in Shanghai was made up of two main elements: a
wealthy aristocracy comprised mainly of Iraqi Jews (among them were
members of the famous Sassoon and Kaddouri families), and Russian Jews
who had come from Manchuria after world War I. Since the rise of Hitler
to power, some German Jews had also arrived, mainly members of the
professions. The different groups maintained separate social and
cultural lives and evinced little mutual sympathy for one another.
The situation of the few German Jewish refugees had attracted the
attention of JDC toward the end of 1937. At that time Judge Harry A.
Hollzer of Los Angeles, a respected JDC stalwart, drew the attention of
JDC to Shanghai - his brother, Joseph Hollzer, who was the head of a
Jewish Relief Committee there, had provided him with some distinctly
disturbing information. In early 1938 there were some 500 destitute
Jews in the city, not all of them German Jews. But in London the Joint
Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish
Association decided that Shanghai was "not a matter about which any
Jewish community outside of Shanghai and Hong Kong need be troubled."
(End note 177: R52, current reports, 10/12/37 [12 October 1937])
[Jews in Shanghai don't want to
finance the new Jewish refugees - JDC help]
The truth of the matter was that the rich Jews of Shanghai were able,
but not very willing, to look after the few refugees who were then in
the city. From London it seemed ridiculous to send money to a place
like Shanghai.
JDC could not take this kind of attitude. Not only Hollzer, but also
other people turned to JDC. In February 1938 the New York office
empowered Kahn to look into the matter, though Shanghai was hardly
included in Europe, which was Kahn's proper field of activity.
(End note 178: Executive Committee, 2/24/38 [24 February 1938])
JDC records indicate that during 1938, $ 5,000 was appropriated for
refugee work in Shanghai. (p.290)
[Sep 1939: 18,000 European Jewish
refugees in Shanghai - JDC help]
After November 1938 people began streaming into the Far Eastern
metropolis. By June 1939 there were 10,000 refugees in the city, and by
the time war broke out in Europe there were close to 18,000. Most of
them found refuge in the Chinese part of the city. Unemployment was the
rule rather than the exception, because Europeans could not compete
with the Chinese for work. In early February the British, American, and
French consuls drew "the attention (of) their governments to (the)
refugee situation, particularly to (the) necessity (for) relief funds."
The U.S. government of course turned to JDC. In JDC the opinion was
that "as (the) matter came to us from (the) State Department, we must
be prepared to be helpful."
(End note 179: R55, cables 1/12/39 [12 January 1939], 2/1/39 [1
February 1939]
The Council for German Jewry in London also provided help in the form
of 5,000 pounds; but the main burden fell on JDC, which sent $ 60,000
to Shanghai before September.
Attempts to stop the influx into Shanghai were made by all the
responsible bodies dealing with emigration. But the Jewish agencies in
Germany and Austria refused to cooperate. In March 1939 the Hilfsverein
in Berlin answered with a plea to "trust us when we tell you that we
are unable to diminish the emigration from Germany and that the only
possibility to prevent our people from going to such places as Shanghai
lies in finding some more constructive opportunities for emigration."
(End note 180: R10, 3/19/39 [19 March 1939], Hyman memo to Backer)
Gestapo pressure was definitely more convincing than anything JDC could
say.
The paradox of the Shanghai situation - viewed with the benefit of
hindsight - lies in the fact that what was in 1938/9 considered the
utmost cruelty, namely, forced emigration, turned out to e a blessing
in disguise, though the disguise may often have been very heavy indeed.
The refugees in Shanghai, the illegal immigrants who were pushed onto
boats to Palestine or Latin America by their desperation, often under
direct Gestapo pressure - all of them managed to survive the holocaust.
The ones who stayed behind did not. Yet among leaders of German Jewry
in 1939, who had a clear feeling of approaching doom, it was thought to
be more dignified for a Jew to suffer death in Europe than to die of
starvation in (p.291)
Shanghai.
(End note 181: R47, 3/22 [22 March 1939?], unsigned. "One can also be
of the opinion that it would be more worthy of a Jews to go to a
martyr's death than to perish miserably in Shanghai. The first choice
would be a matter of
kiddush hashem,
the second merely a failure of Jewish emigration policies" (trans. from
German).
The truth is that the people in Shanghai did not die of starvation - in
large part thanks to JDC.
[L. 6.34. JDC in war times since 1939 - Poland's
Central
Committee 1938]
[End Aug 1939: Paris: Unique
conference on Jewish emigration - expecting the war]
During the last week in August 1939 a unique conference called by JDC
and HICEM took place in Paris. Paralleling the Zionist Congress that
was taking place at the same time in Switzerland, the meeting was
attended by about 50 Jewish leaders of social agencies throughout
Europe. Saly Mayer for Switzerland, Max Gottschalk, Gertrude van Tijn,
Isaac Giterman, and many others attended. The general subject was the
war, which everybody was expecting. JDC was keeping its bank balances
low and was distributing funds to its cooperating committees so that
they would have something in hand should the war come. At the last
moment the various committees were told that in case of war they could
spend money for six months at the same monthly rate as during the first
six months of 1939. This was to become standard JDC practice during the
war.
But the practical subjects of money and help were not the only things
discussed. The people who met in Paris in August 1939 knew that they
were facing possible death. Yet they went back to their stations, with
heavy hearts but with the clear feeling that they were responsible for
others and could not abandon them.
(End note 182:
-- R10, memo of 9/11/39 [11 September 1939];
-- 44-4, Troper to Baerwald, 8/29/39 [29 August 1939])
The End in Poland
[Poland first on the Nazi side -
gets on the British side since 31 March 1939 - Poland expects help
for emigration of the Jews by the British side]
Perhaps the most difficult of all the tasks that JDC faced in the
summer of 1939 was that of maintaining its work in Poland. The
situation there had changes somewhat in favor of the Jews when Neville
Chamberlain announced Britain's unilateral guarantee to Poland on March
31, 1939. The anti-Jewish pressure by the Polish government had
apparently been influenced by Poland's active concurrence in Nazi
Germany's foreign policy: she had participated in the rape of
Czechoslovakia in 1938, and she had agreed to Germany's anti-Soviet
policy. She was led by a group of mediocre colonels who were stifling
whatever remained in Poland of her great democratic tradition. (p.292)
In April 1939 Poland very suddenly became an ally of democratic
Britain, because the Nazi dictator demanded the annexation of Danzig
and was threatening the dismemberment of Poland. Anti-Semitism could
therefore no longer be considered a foreign policy asset. Nevertheless,
Colonel Beck, the Polish foreign minister, asked the British to help
solve the Jewish emigration problem in Poland and Romania.
The careful British answer was given on April 6, 1939.
(End note 183: JTA [Jewish
Telegraphic Agency], 4/7/39 [7 April 1939])
In it His Majesty's government declared its readiness to examine with
the governments concerned what it termed "particular problems in Poland
and Romania which are part of a larger problem." Such an examination
was not conducted prior to the outbreak of war. After the war began, it
ceased to be necessary.
[Working Jews from Zbaszyn can
enter Poland]
The change in atmosphere was felt at Zbaszyn, too. Restriction on the
movement of refugees from there into Poland were eased. Groups of
people, mainly young persons who could prove that they had work waiting
for them, or persons who had a chance to emigrate, were allowed into
the country. At the end of May 1939 3,500 refugees remained in Zbaszyn.
[Sep 1939: Zbaszyn is overrun by
the Wehrmacht]
At the outbreak of the war, the 2,000 Jews still there were overrun by
the Germans advancing into Poland.
[Early June 1939: New deportation
of Polish Jews in Germany to the Polish border - and then cc]
As a result of the increasing enmity between Germany and Poland, the
Germans tried to repeat the action of October 1938. In early June 1939
they attempted to chase 2,000 Polish Jews over the border at Zbaszyn,
but the Poles prevented them. The sufferings of the Polish Jews who
were the victims of this act are beyond description.
On June 23, the newspapers reported, hundreds of these unfortunates
were shuttled back and forth at the frontier near the town of Rybnik.
In the end, some managed to get into Poland. But most of them became
victims of Nazi brutality; anyone who could not be expelled was sent to
a concentration camp.
[Since spring 1939: Poland's
government enforces anti-Semitism with new taxations]
Polish pressure on emigration was coupled with increasingly shameless
and open acts of coercion against Jews in political and financial
matters. In the spring of 1939 the Polish government (p.293)
asked for a Polish Defense Loan, to be raised "voluntarily" throughout
the country. The Jews were forced to participate in the loan in a
manner that was far beyond their capacity. By ruthless methods that
amounted to capital taxation, Jews were forced to pay 150 mio. of the
400 mio. zloty that were raised throughout the country. This occurred
in May 1939. As a result, there was a sharp increase in Jewish business
bankruptcies. Jews who refused to pay very large assessments were
summarily arrested.
(End note 184: 44-24)
In the summer of 1939 JDC was faced with economic emergencies in Poland
that seemed grim indeed.
One of the ways to counteract the dangers facing Polish Jews was to
encourage the establishment of effective Jewish bodies in Poland. As we
have seen, there were no generally recognized Jewish representative
bodies in the country. JDC's aim of helping Jews to help themselves
could not be effectively promoted under such conditions. The primary
cause for this situation lay in the political competition between the
many different ideological trends and movements, and in the seemingly
insurmountable differences in approach between them.
[June 1937:
In June 1937 the provisional Representation of Polish Jewry, composed
of Zionists and Agudists, was established at the level of the Polish
Sejm, but it was short-lived. The World Jewish Congress established a
Polish branch in February 1938. But this was formed only of Zionist
bodies and was thus ineffective as an overall unifying factor. In any
case, JDC would have opposed the WJC branch in Poland, in line with its
general philosophy.
JDC therefore embarked on its own schemes to create something
resembling a common front of Jewish interests. The first problem was
how to hand over major JDC functions in Poland to local groups, thus
promoting greater local independence. The subject seems to have been
discussed in detail for the first time in July 1938, during a meeting
there between Kahn and the heads of the Warsaw office.
In a rather sharp and formal letter on August 11, Kahn declared that
now it would have to be decided whether the Free Loan
kassas should continue to operate
under direct JDC management (p.294)
or be transformed into independent organizations along the lines of
CENTOS and TOZ. With most of the constructive work concentrated in the
Free Loan
kassas, such a
transformation would in effect hand over most of the JDC program in
Poland to a local body.
The second proposal, also broached in Kahn's letter,
(End note 185: R55. The creation of a Polish Central Committee was
apparently discussed with Sachs in talks with Kahn in Warsaw in late
1937 (Sachs's letter to Kahn, 44-3, 9/15/38 [15 September 1938])
was for the establishment of a supervisory economic committee "composed
of leading Jewish personalities in commerce, banking, industry, and
craftsmanship". This committee would grand subsidies, subject to JDC
approval. Kahn wanted this committee to be set up by the end of 1938.
In October 1938 Morris C. Troper took over Kahn's functions in Europe.
The new European chairman of JDC visited Poland in November and found
himself in full agreement with his predecessor. JDC, he thought, still
controlled the Polish Jews "in a manner and to an extent far beyond
what might be expected from a foreign organization". He found a
"subservience in relationships" between the local organizations and the
JDC office, which he thought was harmful.
(End note 186: CON-2, Troper report, 11/30/38 [30 November 1938])
Progress was fairly rapid on the first of the two problems dealt with
in Kahn's August 1938 letter. In Poland, CEKABE, which had long been
recognized by JDC as the central institution dealing with the Free Loan
kassas, was now given the
sole responsibility for all matters affecting this most important
aspect of JDC work.
Troper could report to Hyman in early March 1939 that the kassas were
being handed over and that JDC was reserving for itself a purely
supervisory function, justified by the fact that it provided the
credits necessary for maintaining and expanding the work.
Membership on the board of CEKABE included Assimilationists and
Zionists and, of course, Giterman as the JDC representative.
(End note 187: 44-4, 3/4/39 [4 March 1939])
The problem of handing over most of the JDC functions to a Polish
Central Committee was very complicated. JDC conducted these
negotiations with a group of industrialists headed by Karol Sachs. It
seems, however, that Giterman and his Warsaw colleagues were not very
happy about this development. Troper was inclined to attribute this
opposition to Giterman's desire to maintain (p.295)
his predominant position as the JDC representative. He also hinted that
there was some jealousy within the JDC office over Giterman's position.
(End note 188: 44-4, Troper at the Committee on Poland, 4/11/39 [11
April 1939]: "Some of the men (at the Warsaw office) feel that
Giterman's situation is not satisfactory from the JDC point of view.")
But the evidence suggests that Giterman was not in agreement with the
idea of going beyond the established political bodies and relying
mainly on a group of rich men - whose practical activities up to that
time had not been very outstanding and whose ability to unite Polish
Jewry behind their leadership was doubtful.
[Central Committee set up: Only
one main faction leader within]
The first list of prospective Central Committee members submitted by
Sachs in September 1938 was indeed indicative of a trend: not a single
leader of the main factions was included except Rabbi Lewin, president
of the Agudah.
JDC could not agree to such one-sided proposals. But negotiations
continued, and early in 1939 it was clear that the leaders of the
Central Financial Institution of the Reconstruction Foundation loan
kassas, who were identical with the
group of wealthy men around Sachs, had been "charged by us" (as David
J. Schweitzer put it somewhat grandiloquently) to form the committee
"that will practically take over the functions of our present JDC
office in Warsaw."
(End note 189: 44-4, memo by Schweitzer, January 1939)
[Feb 1939: New list without Agudah
and Bund representatives]
In February [1939] a new list was submitted by Sachs to the JDC office
in Paris. This time the list was much more balanced, though here too
about one-half the committee was composed of the Sachs group. The
Zionists and even the World Jewish Congress were included, but the
Agudah and the Bund were not.
(End note 190: 44-3, Sachs to JDC, Paris, 2/28/39 [28 February 1939])
In addition, the committee was to include representatives of the main
JDC-supported organizations in Poland, such as CENTOS, TOZ, CEKABE, and
so on.
[Feb 1939: Polish government sets
up a Jewish emigration committee - Jews don't trust it]
In the meantime, as we have seen, the Polish government had set up the
Jewish emigration committee; on it were some of the people that had
been proposed for the Central Committee.
Most of Polish Jewry, especially the Bundists and the Zionists,
rejected the emigration committee as a body imposed on the Jews by the
government, and the individuals who were on it were suspect in the eyes
of the Jewish public.
Since some of them were also candidates for membership on the Central
Committee, this added complication held up negotiations. (p.296)
[1938-1939: Bund comes up in
anti-Semitic Poland against Zionists]
Another very serious problem arose concerning the participation of the
Bund. The Bund, as we have already seen, was gaining strength in Poland
in 1938/9. As Alexander Kahn put it: "There was a time when the Zionist
group could give money to help people to emigrate to Palestine. They
were the angels then." Now there was no possibility of emigrating to
Palestine because of the British restrictions. That, in Kahn's view,
explained the rise of the Bund, "which politically is the strongest
expression of the dissatisfaction of the people."
(End note 191: 44-21, Kahn at the Committee on Poland, 7/7/39 [7 July
1939])
The Bund was opposed on principle to cooperating with a group of Jewish
capitalists and Zionist leaders. Yet some of the greatest economic and
cultural achievements of Polish Jewry were connected with the Bund, and
it could not simply be ignored by JDC. "Whatever work is being done by
these (working-class) groups, especially by the Bund, the largest
party, be it their extensive school organization, their sanatoriums,
their other social and economic activity, it is done well and most
efficiently."
(End note 192: 44-4, report Schweitzer, 3/23/39 [23 March 1939])
This opinion was repeatedly supported by Bernhard and Alexander Kahn in
New York.
[Polish government wants JDC to
cut off relations with the Bund - Bund is said to be communist - Bund
is socialist]
On the other hand, the Polish government, which was aware of the
negotiations concerning the Central Committee, tried to influence JDC
to cut off its relations with the Bund. One of the leaders of JDC,
Edwin Goldwasser, had a talk on the subject with the Polish consul
general in New York in July 1939. Said Alexander Kahn: "The consul made
a statement that there was a strong feeling in Polish circles that JDC
in Poland was closely identified with the Bund, which is considered as
a Communist organization dominated by the Russian Communist party. It
is natural to assume, therefore, that any special support extended by
JDC to the Bund as such will not be viewed favorably by the Polish
authorities. Of course", Kahn added, "we here know that the Bund is a
socialist group and is opposed to Communism."
(End note 193: 44-4, A. Kahn to Troper, 7/11/39 [11 July 1939])
[Polish government wants hindering
influence in JDC representatives]
Besides its intervention in New York, the Polish government also tried
to influence, and even intimidate, JDC representatives in Poland.
Police chiefs and the press attempted to put pressure on (p.297)
persons connected with JDC in Poland to prevent further support of the
Bund.
On July 17, 1939, Giterman himself was asked to appear before the
political department of the government commissioner of Warsaw. Nothing
was said that would violate good taste, but the hints were broad and
clearly understood.
(End note 194: 44-4, memo by Giterman, 7/17/39 [17 July 1939])
JDC did not succumb to this pressure. But the Bund was not a very easy
organization to deal with. In early June one of its leaders, Mauricy
Orzech, visited Troper in Paris and conducted negotiations with him.
The Bund had just been victorious in municipal elections in Poland, and
Orzech thought, Troper reported, "that the other Jewish political
bodies had practically no political influence or representative
capacity and would either gradually wane or die out completely."
Not only did the Bund refuse to cooperate with capitalists and Zionists
in a Central Committee, but it was clear that since all the other
organizations would soon die out anyway, there was no apparent reason
why the Bund should make any concessions. Troper had to argue Orzech
out of his extraordinary and completely unrealistic position.
Earlier in 1939 a compromise had been reached to the effect that the
Bund would not sabotage the actions of a Central Committee established
by JDC.
A year after it was established the question of the Bund's cooperation
with it would be renegotiated. Now, in June 1939, this arrangement
seemed out of date. A new compromise was therefore suggested by Troper
whereby the Bund would establish a permanent body whose task it would
be to negotiate with the new Central Committee. However, only those
activities of the new committee that directly affected the Bund or one
of its subsidiary organizations would be discussed. The Bund would not
be a part of the committee or concern itself with its overall policies.
Orzech accepted this and returned to Poland to obtain the assent of his
organization.
(End note 195: 44-4, Troper to Hyman, 6/10/39 [10 June 1939])
There were indications during the summer of 1939 that the compromise
was acceptable to the Bund leadership.
Behind the negotiations with the Bund were negotiations within JDC
also. At the Warsaw office Leib Neustadt supported the claims of the
Bund. He thought that its establishments and organizations (p.298)
were models of efficiency and that they, rather than their capitalist
counterparts, should receive JDC support. In New York the labor
representatives were, of course, inclined to support such a position.
[Bund: Money questions]
Indeed, the Bund organizations managed to do a great deal with very
little money. By way of comparison, Troper himself had to write of TER,
the export subcommittee of the Economic Council (Wirtschaftsrat)
supported by JDC, that it is "under the difficulty that they get orders
which they cannot fill and they have to do all they can to prevent
people from coming from abroad so that they should not be
disillusioned. I thought it best to give them some money so that they
would have something to show."
(End note 196: R55, Troper report, 3/5/39 [5 March 1939])
Giterman was not as enthusiastic about the Bund as his colleague was.
But he, too, thought that it would be highly unfair to stop supporting
the Bund's establishments when the Central Committee was set up, and he
therefore supported the compromise suggested by Troper.
[Further Negotiations for setting
up a Central Committee - little committees don't want to loose their
function]
Negotiations regarding the Central Committee were carried on with great
intensity during the summer of 1939. Troper realized that the problem
had to be solved speedily, and he put the whole prestige of JDC behind
efforts to reach a satisfactory conclusion. The groups in Poland, both
the political groupings and the large social organizations such as
CENTOS, TOZ, CEKABE, and others, feared that their affairs would be
handed over to a committee that would lean toward one side or another
and be less impartial than the JDC office in Warsaw had been. JDC had
to put great pressure on the groups to agree to conduct their own
affairs alone rather than continue under JDC auspices.
In July a final JDC proposal was worked out. The Central Committee
would represent Jewish communal activity "in its entirety".
Article 3 of the proposed constitution stated that the committee would
coordinate the activities of the federated organizations and "represent
their interests", organize and carry out fund raising in Poland, seek
financial support abroad, and generally "consider or initiate new
proposals for dealing with social and economic welfare needs of a
national scope." In other words, what (p.299)
was proposed was an umbrella organization of Polish Jewry, which
undoubtedly would have the tendency to become involved in more than
economic and social problems. Membership in the committee, as carefully
proposed by JDC, consisted of 20 persons; more would be added later.
These 20 comprised well-known Zionist and Orthodox leaders, as well as
the group of industrialists around Sachs, who would serve as chairman
of the committee. Left-wing Zionists were also represented, and the
Bund would be taken care of by the Troper-Orzech compromise.
(End note 197: 44-4, Interim Report, July 1939)
These efforts to establish a Polish Central Committee were typical of a
trend in JDC thinking. In effect JDC was almost coercing Polish Jewry
to establish a unified front, at least in the economic and social
spheres, though it was clear that such a front would have political
overtones. JDC was trying its best to reduce its own role in Poland and
hand over its work to others.
There was an interesting contradiction in its attitudes. On one hand,
it continued its detailed supervision of economic and social
organizations in Poland; its rather patronizing attitude did not
materially change. At the same time, it was trying almost desperately
to disengage itself from day-to-day supervision and give the Polish
Jews a feeling of responsibility and leadership, so that ultimately
they would take over its work.
[Different view from the "USA"]
There was an even greater and more significant paradox. In New York,
JDC leadership was in 1939 still concentrated in the hands of the same
group that had been at the helm in the early 1930. The prevalent view
was still that the Polish Jews were "coreligionists". The idea of a
Jewish national group was viewed with skepticism, at best. Yet here was
JDC actually organizing Polish Jewry , for the first time in centuries,
as one body, as a national group within the Polish Jewry. It was left
to an apolitical, philanthropic American Jewish agency, working on
general Jewish and humanitarian principles, to attempt the unification
of Polish Jewry. Had it succeeded, it is at least possible that Polish
Jewry would have been better prepared to meet the horrors that were in
store for it. (p. 300)
[2 September 1939: Central
Committee set up]
As it was, the fate of the Central Committee of Polish Jews was
symbolic of the situation of Polish Jewry generally. JDC in New York
received a telegram, signed by Raphael Szereszewski, a former senator,
a banker, and one of the group of industrialists mentioned above, that
the Central Committee had been established. The date was September 2,
1939.
(End note 198: 44-4, cable of 9/2/39 [2 September 1939])
Twenty-four hours earlier German troops had crossed the borders of
Poland. World War II had begun. It was too late. (p.301)
[The Polish government had six months the choice to go with Hitler
against Russia, or with Russia against Hitler. There was never a
decision, but the hope that France and Britain would attack Germany
when Hitler attacks Poland. The Polish propaganda spoke of a march to
Berlin...]
