Chapter 3. Germany: 1933-1938 [Whole chapter]

[3.1. Effects of the NS power to the Joint - first discussions about emigration]

As we have seen, the crisis in Germany did not find JDC entirely unprepared. The warnings of Dr. Kahn and the rumblings of the rising Nazi tide in Germany had focused the attention of the organization upon the German scene even before the advent of Hitler. Once the Nazis came to power, it was only natural that JDC should try to come to the aid of German Jewry. However, the attitude of JDC was contested within the inner circle of its own leadership - this despite the fact that most of its lay leaders were descendants of German Jewish immigrants to the U.S. or had themselves been born in Germany.

[1933: Discussions in the JDC about actions in Nazi Germany]

During the first months of 1933, discussions of whether JDC should enter the German picture at all were held in New York. Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times thought that JDC was

making a fundamental and woeful blunder in this connection. It seems to me impossible to conceive that 600,000 persons in Germany can be supported from now on from any outside community. Since this obligation cannot be carried out, it should not be assumed. To do so, in my judgment, merely relieved the German Government of its responsibility that now rests upon it to permit its citizens an equality to earn their own livelihood.

(End note 1: Arthur Sulzberger to Max J. Kohler, 5/29/33 [29 May 1933], CON 21

At a Board of Directors meeting in July, James N. Rosenberg argued that there was no point in providing relief for the Jews in (p.105)

Germany, because JDC simply did not have the means to do so. The aim of the organization should be to get the German government to agree to a program of reconstruction. In this, JDC might be of some help.

(End note 2: James N. Rosenberg at Board of Directors meeting, 7/11/33 [11 July 1933])

The majority of the organization's leaders, however, adopted Dr. Bernhard Kahn's attitude that "the liberal principle in business had met its end in Germany", and that JDC must help German Jews enter into those economic fields in which they were still allowed. He was certainly in favor of constructive efforts in Germany: "Even if a district attorney can only open a stenographic office, that is surely better than if these people leave the country and go completely to wrack and ruin."

But Kahn was very much against limiting JDC help to reconstruction only. He foresaw the necessity of providing funds to create new schools for Jewish children. At the same time, he thought that Palestine was at least a partial answer to those who could no longer stay in Germany: "Jewish youth and the younger adult must have a permanent land to which to go and, under the circumstances, this can only be Palestine. Of course, exceptionally large amounts are required for the preparation of Palestine and the work for this preparation. For this purpose special means must be provided."

(End note 3: Dr. Bernhard Kahn at an Executive Committee meeting, 6/27/33 [27 June 1933])

The first immediate problem as far as Germany was concerned was political. Zionists and others demanded protests in the form of Jewish mass meetings. Kahn's opinion was expressed after meeting Morris D. Waldman, the secretary of the American Jewish Committee. He thought that Jewish mass meetings would be useless and might even be harmful. However, he foresaw a time when such meetings, particularly with the participation of prominent non-Jews, might become necessary.

(End note 4: Kahn cable to New York, 3/19/33 [19 March 1933], 14-47)

In the ensuing months he was to stick to this opinion. On March 21, 1933, Paul Baerwald cabled to the State Department in Washington, asking that American protection be given to the JDC offices in Berlin. That same day, the American Jewish Committee and the B'nai B'rith of America published a protest against Hitler that was published in the New York Times. This apparently was considered to be a moderate form of (p.106)

public intervention; friends of JDC in Germany (for example, Edward Baerwald, brother of Paul Baerwald) were opposed to more militant protests.

(End note 5: Eduard Baerwald to New York, 3/19/33 [19 March 1933], ibid [14-47])

[1933: Kahn is warned to leave Berlin - Kahn returns to New York]

It was soon clear to Kahn that his position as the European director of JDC was untenable as long as he remained in Berlin. During the last days of March, Kahn prepared his departure. On April 1 he cabled from Paris that the removal of his offices had become unavoidable. He had been personally warned, semiofficially, that because of his connection with the widely hated American Jewish community, his departure from Germany would be desirable. He added: "Future passing of German border not possible without special visa which I very likely would not get; nevertheless prepared return by end week." He never stood on German soil again.

(End note 6: Kahn to New York, 4/1/33 [1 April 1933], ibid. [14-47])

[1933: Discussions about protests and interventions of the Red Cross]

The next day, April 2, Kahn asked for protest meetings along nonsectarian lines, emphasizing the humanitarian interest in what was happening in Germany. However, such protests were to take place only if negotiations then in progress between influential Jews in London and the Nazis were fruitless. Joseph C. Hyman went to Washington to see William Phillips and Pierrepont Moffat at the State Department with this message on April 4. On April 6 a meeting was held at the home of Paul Baerwald, where the leadership of the German Jewish aristocracy in the United States convened. Participants included Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Ludwig Fogelstein, Irving Lehman, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Judge Rosenman, Solomon Lowenstein, James Marshall, Frederick M. Warburg, Judge Proskauer, Jonah B. Wise, and others. The suggestion was made that the whole situation be turned over to the International Red Cross, but the argument was advanced that IRC could not act except through the local societies of the Red Cross, which would mean that in practice the German Red Cross would have to intervene more or less against the wishes of the German government.

Proskauer, Lehman, and others were very much against what they called "separatist Jewish protests", and wanted whatever protests (p.107)

were made to remain on a purely humanitarian and nonsectarian level.

(End note 7: Meeting at the home of Paul Baerwald, 4/6/33 [6 April 1933], ibid. [14-47])

[Funds to the Hilfsverein CV]

Kahn was asked by cable whether funds could be sent into Germany. His first reply on April 12 was that funds could indeed be sent and that the best people to handle such funds would be the Hilfsverein or CV (Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens), the political organization of liberal Jewry in Germany.

[The Joint has no right to demonstrate]

As a nonpolitical organization, JDC could not be involved in any demonstrations against German persecution of the Jews. Such protests, if made, had to be left to the American Jewish Committee, whose leadership, as we have seen, was to a certain extend identical with that of JDC.

[April 1933: British Jews want that Felix M. Warburg will make pressure on British prime Minister MacDonald who will be in "USA"]
Influential British Jews tried to convince Felix M. Warburg to put pressure on the American government to try to influence the British government to intervene in behalf of German Jewry. The British prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was in the United States during the latter part of April, but Warburg did not place much hope on any direct contact that Jewish leaders might have with the British premier.

(End note 8: F.M. Warburg to Lord Reading, 4/22/33 [22 April 1933], ibid. [14-47])

[Kahn: JDC has to defend every Jewish position in Germany]

The immediate problem confronting JDC was what to do about the new situation that had arisen in Germany. The first reaction was well summed up by Dr. Kahn, who wrote in the memorandum from which we have already quoted that he was of the opinion that JDC could not give up German Jewry as completely lost. JDC had to defend to the last every position that the Jews still held in Germany.

(End note 9: Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, Dr. Kahn's material, 1931-1940, memo of 6/27/33 [27 June 1933])

[Hyman states that the young German-Jewish generation has to be prepared for emigration]

This did not mean that JDC was opposed to the emigration of large numbers of German Jews. The panic exodus that followed the Nazis' assumption of power would have made any such position hopeless in any case. The policy of JDC was enunciated clearly by Hyman when he said that, in line with the wishes of the German Jewish body, "there is no hope for the younger  generation; that it is therefore necessary to make this group capable of productive activity by being trained to vocations of agriculture, handicraft, and the like", in order to settle outside of Germany.

(End note 10: J.C. Hyman to Judge Irving Lehman, 7/14/33 [14 July 1933], R19)

[Kahn predicts: Emigration is necessary, because the conditions will be worse]

Kahn added that emigration was a necessary part of any future action in Germany. His own opinion was that the tragedy was of (p.108)

such dimensions that one feared to consider its issue. He was convinced that the conditions would not improve. "On the contrary, they must become worse."

(End note 11: Kahn, 4/28/33 [28 April 1933], 14-47)

[JDC fund raising persons in Nazi Germany]

One of the immediate steps that JDC took was to send its chief fund raiser, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, into Germany to try to arrange for a German counterpart to JDC, which would be capable of receiving funds from America and distributing them in line with JDC policy. A leader in this endeavor was Max M. Warburg, Felix M. Warburgs's brother, the head of the family banking house in Hamburg. Also involved were Karl Melchior, a high German official and a partner of Warburg in the Hamburg firm, Dr. Cora Berliner, Ludwig Tietz, a physician and a well-known public figure, and others.

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[3.2. New Jewish organizations in NS Germany since April 1933]

[13 April 1933: Foundation of the Central Committee for Help and Reconstruction (Zentral-Ausschuss für Hilfe und Aufbau ZA) - foundation of a Reichsvertretung (RV) Jüdischer Landesverbände under Judge Wolff and Rabbi Leo Baeck]

Largely because of the work of Max Warburg and Ludwig Tietz, on April 13, 1933, the so-called Zentral-Ausschuss für Hilfe und Aufbau [ZA] (Central Committee for Help and Reconstruction) was formed. In this, Jonah B. Wise played a significant role. ZA was an umbrella organization that included welfare, educational, emigration, and vocational training organizations that had existed in Germany prior to the events of 1933. Officially, ZA was founded by the provincial organization of the Jewish communities (Landesverbände), which had in their turn created a Reichsvertretung [RV] Jüdischer Landesverbände (All-German Association of Jewish Provincial Community Organizations), headed by Judge Wolff and Rabbi Leo Baeck. This first Reichsvertretung (RV) did not last very long, however, German Jewry being influenced more by its major political division into liberal and Zionist wings than it was by the organization of Jewish communities.

[Berlin Jewish Community under Heinrich Stahl]

In Berlin the head of the community was a very forceful individual by the name of Heinrich Stahl. Stahl wanted RV to be under his own influence, but this proved to be impossible because the major political organizations opposed such a solution. Tietz and Warburg, who had founded ZA, were themselves nonpolitical and, being in sympathy with both the liberal and Zionist wings, thought of themselves as the natural mediators between the two. Tietz went (p.109)

to see Dr. Weizmann in London, and Warburg's connections with JDC through his brother had helped to forge a link with the American Jewish organization. ZA became a success, with Karl Melchior and Tietz at its head.

But the first attempts to set up an RV failed almost immediately.

[Summer 1933-17 Sep 1933: Definite Foundation of Jewish All-German Association (Reichsvertretung (RV) in Essen]

During the summer of 1933 new attempts were made to create an overall political organization of German Jewry. These attempts centered in the community of Essen in western Germany. The initiators were local leaders like Dr. Georg Hirschland and Rabbi Dr. Hugo Hahn. They organized a meeting attended by the leading non-Zionist personalities in Germany and convinced them to set up a countrywide organization which also would be called the Reichsvertretung. It was Max Warburg who persuaded Dr. Beack to assume leadership of the proposed organization, and it was he who convinced Director Stahl to desist from his attempts to create a separatist organization led by the Berlin community, and instead to accept a leading position in the new RV. At last, on September 17, 1933, the new Reichsvertretung came into being, with Dr. Baeck as president, Dr. Otto Hirsch as vice-chairman, and with liberal and Zionist representatives taking a share in the work of the executive committee (Präsidialausschuss).

An immediate connection was established between the new RV and ZA. Baeck was both the president of RV and chairman of ZA. The intelligent and popular Dr. Hirsch, whose experience as a high government official in the south German state of Württemberg helped him to master the difficult work of ZA, was the administrative chairman of RV. Other individuals occupying central positions in RV also occupied parallel positions in ZA. In this way, RV could appear vis-à-vis the Jewish communities as the dispenser of foreign funds and as the organization to which the individual and the community had to turn for practical purposes.

(End note 12: See
-- K.Y. Ball-Kaduri: The National Representation of Jews in Germany; In: Yad Vashem Studies; Jerusalem 1958, 2:159 ff.;
-- Max Grunewald: The Beginning of the Reichsvertretung; In: Leo Baeck Yearbook; London 1956, 1:57 ff.
-- See also Leo Baeck's reminiscences in the same volume).

[Dr. Werner Senator returns from Palestine to Nazi Germany to participate ZA work - emigration of the Jewish youth]

One of the central figures in German Jewry, Dr. Werner Senator, a representative of the non-Zionist groups on the Jewish Agency who had emigrated to Palestine, returned to Germany in order to participate in the work of ZA. In a memorandum submitted to (p.110)

JDC in August, Senator demanded that German Jewry try to establish a dialogue with the new Nazi authorities. This should lead to a kind of concordat, like the arrangements between the Roman curia and European states, an idea which was by no means new in German Jewry, and which had almost come to fruition before the rise of Hitler to power. Such a concordat should provide for the right of the Jews to leave Germany, as well as for the rights of those who would remain in the country. Such a dialogue, Senator thought, was still possible, though the results might be painful for the Jews.

In general, however, Senator agreed to the policy that was by then evolving on the part of the foreign organization toward the German Jewish problem. He emphasized the central position of Palestine in the creation of a new Jewish society where the truly constructive forces of German Jewish youth would go, but he also stressed the necessity for providing havens for such youths in other countries. At the same time, he demanded the defense of German Jewish economic and social positions in the new state to the very last. The negotiations that he proposed with the German authorities should take place on an honorable basis. The implication was that the Jews should reorganize as a national group and that only on that basis would the Nazis deal with them.

While Senator's proposals were not accepted in toto, his way for thinking was by no means unique, both among German Jews and their supporters outside.

(End note 13: Werner Senator, 8/15/33 [15 August 1933]: Bemerkungen zu einem wirtschaftlichen Verhandlungsprogramm der deutschen Juden, 14-47)

[Joint has to accept that the Jewish youth should emigrate]

JDC was inclined to support such an action. Rosen, who visited Germany in June 1933, wrote to Kahn that the aimlessness of German Jewry's endeavors frightened him. Outside pressure might produce some results, he said, but there was no possibility of a real improvement "unless some understanding is arrived at with the government from within."

(End note 14: Dr. Joseph A. Rosen to Kahn, June 1933, Executive Committee meetings)

[Tasks for the Joint: Prepare young Jews for emigration - schooling of discriminated Jewish children - support cultural and religious institutions]

It was in this atmosphere of hope and illusion that JDC started its great rescue work for German Jewry. Its aim, after the first few months of confusion, seemed to be fairly clear: it had to help in emigration, and it had to provide training facilities for those German youths who left Germany and also for those who would have to stay in the country and adjust to the new anti-Semitic laws that (p.111)

the Nazis were in the process of enacting. Aside from that, there loomed the problem of providing schooling for Jewish children if they were forced out of the general schools. Also, it was essential to support cultural and religious institutions in the hope that these might fortify the sinking morale of German Jewry.

===


[3.3. Discrimination of Jews from jobs and schools since 1933]

[1 April 1933: Boycott day against Jewish shops]

In the meantime, economic disaster had befallen the Jews of Germany. On April 1, 1933, just two months after Hitlers' accession to power, the Nazis instituted a boycott of all Jewish stores and Jewish professionals. An official prolongation of that boycott beyond one day was prevented by a vociferous protest movement abroad.

[All in all the boycott is a flop (see: Hans-Jürgen Eitner: Hitlers Deutsche. Das Ende eines Tabus. Casimir Katz Verlag, Gemsbach 1991, p.378). The boycott should hit Jewish storehouses and one price shops (p.260). The boycott appeal is organized by Goebbels and Streicher with Hitlers consent and is performed by the SA. The boycott day is a flop. Later many Germans are starting sympathy purchases and oppose to the NS methods (p.378). The big majority of the the German population refuses to pogrom like methods against Jews (p.379)
In: Eitner: Hitlers Deutsche 1991].

[There is more effect with the work prohibitions and other restrictions, which are not much opposed by the German population, because the law would bring Germans into prison when they would help the Jews:

[4 April 1933: Work prohibition for Jews for lawyers]
However, the elimination of Jews from the German economy proceeded at a very quick pace. On April 4 a decree was published practically revoking the right of Jewish lawyers to practice in Prussia.

[7 April 1933: Work prohibition for 1/4 Jews for civil servants]
On April 7 a law ("for the reestablishment of the professional civil service") provided for the forcible retirement of all civil servants who had one Jewish grandparent or more, with a few exceptions.

[22 April 1933: Jewish doctors are excluded from sick funds]
On April 22 Jewish doctors were dropped from panels of sick funds, which until that time had provided most of them with the bulk of their income.

[2 June 1933: Jewish dentists are excluded from sick funds]
A similar law was enacted on June 2 for dentists.

[29 Sep and 4 Oct 1933: Artist and journalists are forced into Nazi organizations - Jews excluded]
After September 29 authors, actors, and musicians (and after October 4, journalists as well) had to belong to Nazi organizations, which of course excluded Jews.

[30 June 1933: Ban of Jews from functions in government and universities]
On June 30 officials and professors of the "Jewish race" were, to all intents and purposes, banned from exercising their functions in government and universities.

[End of June 1933: Kahn's estimation for 33,700 Jews lost their jobs]
By the end of June [1933], Kahn estimated that 20 %, or about 33,700 of the gainfully employed Jews, had lost their jobs.
(End note 15: See note 9 above [Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden, Dr. Kahn's material, 1931-1940, memo of 6/27/33 [27 June 1933])

[Summer 1933: Laws against Jews have effect]

The worst, however, was not the legal situation, but the permanent insecurity that now had entered German Jewish life and was to remain until the final destruction. Nazi officials used to deny that the boycott against the Jews wast still in existence after April 1, 1933, but in practice the boycott not only did not stop - it increased in ferocity as time went on [because the law prohibits Jews from professions and the German population is prohibited to help Jews by law]. German Jewry, with its peculiar occupational stratification, was particularly vulnerable to this kind of economic warfare. Over 60 percent of gainfully occupied (p.112)

Jews engaged in trade.

(End note 16: From 29 - ZA statistical section, 1933 reports. A total of 61.33 % of German Jews were engaged in trade, and 24.4 % in industry asnd crafts. A further 5.6 % were professionals. Of the 160,000 people who were engaged in trade, more than half, 89,368, were owners of trading establishments, 52,869 were employees, and only 2,913 were workers; 14,956 were family members of the owners).

In the beginning the Nazis made what seemed to be certain exceptions in their anti-Jewish measures. This was done in deference to pressure by President Hindenburg. They declared that 1 % of the persons in official positions could be Jews; pre-1914 public servants and people who had been frontline soldiers in World War I were also to remain. However, in practice, these exceptions were quite insignificant. Among the people regarded as Jewish, the Nazis included persons with one Jewish grandfather. Also, only those who were politically reliable could keep their positions.

[April-Oct 1933: Figures of banned Jews from their job]
Of the 6,000 Jewish public servants in Germany, at least 5,000 lost their jobs during the first months of the Nazi regime. Of 2,800 Jewish lawyers, at least 1,500 lost their jobs in April 1933. Of 7,000 Jewish doctors, 4-5,000 were to lose their livelihood during those spring months; a similar fate was in store for dentists, druggists and chemists, municipal officials, and public welfare workers, who together numbered another 2,500 gainfully employed people. The actors, musicians, journalists, and others accounted for some 13-15,000 Jews who were now out of work. Although their numbers were not very significant, Jewish workers were deprived of the possibility of maintaining their jobs as the Nazi regime tightened its hold over Germany.

[Discrimination of Jews from the Arbeitsfront with insurance, sick benefits and other essentials]
A law was passed forbidding Jewish membership in the official Nazi worker's organization, the Arbeitsfront. All workers who wished to take advantage of insurance, sick benefits, and other essentials had to belong to the Arbeitsfront. Soon there were no German workers who did not belong to that organization - except Jews.

The importance of all these factors for an organization like JDC which wished to help German Jewry was all too clear. "All that has been done during the past 50 years by world Jewry for their oppressed and needy brethren all over the world will now have to be repeated within three to five years for German Jewry alone."

(End note 17: The Position of the Jews in Germany, 4/28/33 [28 April 1933], 14-47)

[Numerus clausus for Jews at German NS schools and universities]
On the education front the picture was no better. No German school could have Jewish students in excess of 5 % of the total (p.113)

enrollment. Up to that time the percentage of Jews in German high schools had exceeded 10 %. Only 1.5 % of new pupils in the universities could be Jews, and among the older students only 5 % could be Jews. No East European Jew who had arrived in Germany after 1914 could be a student at a German university. All these factors presented JDC with an emergency situation.

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[3.4. Number of Jews in Germany in 1933 - with 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews 760,000]

[The number of Jews in Germany: Officially 499,682 - plus 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews - are 760,000]

The total number of Jews in Germany in 1933 was officially listed as 499,682. However, this included only people who had declared themselves as Jews by religion. Additional tens of thousands of people were Jewish by Nazi definition.

There were 50,000 individuals who were sons and daughters of Jewish parents but did not belong to the Jewish community living in Germany at that time, an estimated 35,000 of whom were partners in mixed marriages.

So-called three-quarter Jews (that is, people who had only one non-Jewish grandparent but did not belong to the Jewish community) numbered about 2,000.

Half Jews (that is, people who had two non-Jewish grandparents) were estimated at 210,000 people,

and quarter Jews were estimated at 80,000 individuals.

This meant that what the Nazis considered to be the non-Aryan population of Germany - that is, Jews, three-quarter Jews, and half Jews - numbered together about 760,000 people. (p.114)

(End note 18: Lutz Eugen Reutter: Die Hilfstätigkeit katholischer Organisationen und kirchlicher Stellen für die im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland Verfolgten, 2d Edition Hamburg 1970, p.9)

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[3.5. The first emigration wave in 1933 - visa restrictions]

[The Jewish Central Committee (ZA) in Germany and it's branches]

ZA [Zentral-Ausschuss für Hilfe und Aufbau, Engl. Central Committee for Help and Reconstruction] had to deal not only with the members of the Jewish community, but also with fairly large numbers of those who, although of Jewish parentage, had severed their link with the Jewish community prior to the Nazi rise to power. The various components of ZA dealt with different aspects of the German Jewish situation.

-- The Hilfsverein was the emigration agency for countries other than Palestine or Eastern Europe;
-- the Palästinaamt dealt with emigration to Palestine;
-- the Hauptstelle for Jewish wanderers dealt with repatriation of East European Jews to their countries of origin.

In addition, CV [Central-Verein, Hilfsverein] was also a part of ZA [Zentral-Ausschuss], as were the welfare organization of German Jews (Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle), the committee for education of RV [Reichsvertretung], the center for economic aid, the center for Jewish loan kassas, the united center for Jewish labor exchanges, and the organization of Jewish women. (p.114)

[Jews lining up before the offices of Hilfsverein (CV) and Palestine office]
The immediate major problem as far as Germany was concerned was that of emigration. With the rise of the Nazis to power, large numbers of terrorized Jews crowded the offices of the Hilfsverein and the Palestine office in search of an opportunity - any opportunity - to leave Germany.

[Arbitrary emigration: Jews come back because of lack of place or work]
Quite a number of people who had crossed the frontiers into some of the West European countries had to return to Germany soon afterward because they could not find a place to live or an occupation that would provide them with a livelihood.

[Jewish emigration 1933: 37-40,000]
The exodus of 1933, which was brought on by panic, soon subsided. At first, exaggerated figures were given as to the number of those who had left Germany. At the end of 1933 52,000 Jews were said to have fled Germany. However, it appears that a considerably smaller number left the country. Apparently not more than 37-40,000 Jews actually left Germany during that year and stayed away.

(End note 19: Werner Rosenstock: Exodus 1933-1939; In: Leo Baeck Yearbook; London 1956, 1:373-90. The author bases his article on one by Dr. Kurt Zielenzieger in the December 1937 issue of the London journal: Population).

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[3.6. The discussion about the strategy: Stay and fight or emigration]

[JDC supports emigration - many German Jews don't want emigration]
Yet the problem of whether to support emigration from Germany, and to what extent, was to be an ongoing one for the Jewish organizations outside the country. JDC, as well as other organizations, had to come to grips with the emigration problem. The official position of JDC was to support an organized and orderly emigration and oppose a panicky and disorderly flow.

Yet its emigration work was not universally accepted by its lay leaders in America. These voices were echoing their German counterparts. Thus the Reform group in Berlin stated on May 1, 1933: "We have absolutely no intention of cutting ourselves off from our German national community and our national ties and of changing over to a Jewish national or folk community."

(End note 20: Mitteilungen an die jüdische Reformgemeinde zu Berlin, 5/1/33 [1 May 1933], 26-Gen & Emerg. Germany, "J")

[9 May 1935: CV-Zeitung reports over 50 % of German Jews look Germany as their home yet]
The liberal paper CV-Zeitung in Germany echoed this sentiment as late as May 9, 1935, when it asked why the Jews should help the German government to liquidate the Jewish problem by organizing their own exodus while more than half of the German Jews still looked upon Germany as their home and would remain there.

(End note 21:
-- CV-Zeitung, 5/9/35 [9 May 1935], and
-- Jewish Chronicle, 5/24/35 [24 May 1935])

Many Jews in Great Britain and America  held a similar view.

[11 Oct 1935: Jewish Chronicle says support Jews in their fight]

On October 11, 1935, the Jewish Chronicle in London asked whether (p.115)

we are to confess ourselves, as well as the cause of tolerance, beaten, and evacuate the German Jews, nearly half a million of them, to God knows what other country. ... Repulsive? Yes, indeed it is scuttling! ... Jews will fight on. There is no other cause. Better help them than beckon them to a surrender which would disgrace them in the eyes of history and be denounced by all lovers of progress - even, perhaps, by a future regenerate Germany - as a betrayal of humanity."

(End note 22: Jewish Chronicle, 10/11/35 [11 October 1935], p.11)

[JDC: Marshall and Rosenberg are against emigration - it would be a concession to Hitler - and economy in other countries can be worse than in Germany - and other groups suffer more than the Jews]

The chief proponents of such opinions in JDC councils were James Marshall and James N. Rosenberg. Marshall thought that emigration was "a concession to the Hitler theory that the Jews must get out." Emigration "helped only a few people, whereas the bulk of the problem has to be handled in Germany itself."

(End note 23: Memorandum, Hyman to Paul Baerwald, 4/23/35 [23 April 1935], 14-46)

In light of the economic difficulties that prevailed in other countries, JDC was only aggravating the Jewish situation there by encouraging emigration, without substantially alleviating the situation in Germany.

Moreover, there were other groups in Germany that have seriously suffered. Mr. Marshall felt that in trying to emigrate, German Jews tended to set themselves off from other groups who in the long run would be helpful to them.

These were issues of fundamental importance, and it was not worth the price of losing out on them to get a few thousand Jews out of Germany;

[JDC voices against Separatist philosophy of Zionism - JDC voices for emigration]
neither was it helpful to bring large numbers of Jews into Palestine at this time.

Rosenberg added that "he was not willing to accept the Nationalist Separatist philosophy of Zionism, for he valued his American citizenship too much for that."

To voices like these, Warburg had a simple answer: "The German Jews want to leave and have come to JDC with their problems. JDC contributors with to help reeducate and retrain German Jews and get them out."

(End note 24: Executive Committee, 5/4/36 [4 Mai 1936])

The general line of JDC on the emigration issue was that there had to be as much emigration as there were places that could be found for immigrants.

(End note 25:
-- J.C. Hyman in annual report, 1934; and
-- Executive Committee, 10/9/35 [9 October 1935], speech by Hyman)

[JDC sees: NS anti-Semitism is a system, not a temporary uprising]

Warburg, Baerwald, Hyman, and the majority of the lay leaders accepted Kahn's view that German anti-Semitism was not "a passing violent action, (p.116)

that comes with all revolutionary movements, or temporary legal discrimination that may be abolished again, or may quiet down."

(End note 26: Executive Committee, 1/4/34 [4 January 1934], speech by Dr. Kahn)

Anti-Semitism was the fundamental basis of the new German state. There was no place there for German Jews. German policy was to get rid of the Jews. When this would be achieved was hard to say. It could take a generation or more if the present government stayed that long, or it could come about sooner.

[1934: JDC without strategy between help to emigrate and help in Germany]

There was no contradiction between that and the JDC view that "by the hundreds of thousands they must remain there, and we must lend them our sympathetic help", as Rosen stated. He added that it was very tragic to be a German Jewish refugee in Paris in 1934, a place where he was equally unwanted as in his German home and where he was not allowed to earn a living. In these circumstances it was sometimes even better to stay in Germany and to work out some salvation there.

(End note 27: J.A. Rosen at Board of Directors, 6/13/34 [13 June 1934])

[Rosen sees the problem of numbers of visas]

Rosen's opinion was based on some harsh facts: because of the difficulty of obtaining entry visas to various countries, not more than 15-20,000 Jews could hope to leave Germany yearly; over half the German Jews would have to remain there, at least for ten more years, whatever the conditions.

(End note 28:
-- "Summary of Activities of JDC since 1933 (11/25/35 [25 November 1935]), pamphlet. Also
--  Jonah B. Wise: Report on the Situation of Jews in Germany; February 1934, pamphlet, where he says: "The half million Jews still in Germany realize that for the great mass of them, their fate and future lie within Germany.")

[Early 1934: Wise thesis: No future in Germany - not all can emigrate]
The consequences of this stand by JDC were sometimes rather confusing. Jonah B. Wise stated early in 1934

(End note 29: Executive Committee, 1/4/34 [4 January 1934])

that

(a) there was no decent future for the Jews in Germany;
(b) some would have to remain and adjust there; and
(c) Germany had been and would continue to be a center of Jewish and world culture. Palestine and emigration generally, were not the only answer.

[1934-1935: The new laws against Jews make clear: The strategy has to be emigration]

But slowly, inexorably, it became apparent that all other aspects of German work, while necessary and important in themselves, were secondary to the necessity of removing as many Jews as possible from Hitler's grasp. This was not altogether evident in 1934, when many saw a certain stabilization in the Nazi regime's attitude to the Jews; but by 1935, and especially after the promulgation of the Nuremberg laws in that year, the situation had become clear.

[May 1935: Kreutzberger announces the exodus of the young Jewish generation in Germany]

In May 1935 Max Kreutzberger, secretary of ZA, declared to (p.117)

the members of the JDC's Executive Committee that while in the beginning there might have been divergent views and opinions, by now all elements of German Jewry regarded their condition as hopeless. The younger generation had to be prepared for an exodus, and the only course for those who remained was to let them live out their old age and die in peace.

(End note 30: Executive Committee, 5/22/35 [22 May 1935])

[Until 1935: JDC wants the fight of the Jews for equality like Jews have equal rights in the "USA"]
JDC's leaders had always taken a clear stand in opposition to a program like that. They had opposed mass emigration from countries where anti-Semitism was rampant. Their argument had been that any such emigration was a surrender to antiliberalism, and that Jews should fight and strive to become equal and loyal citizens of their countries of adoption, as they had in America.

[But Jews at these times are not equal in the "USA" in many aspects of private law, admission in clubs prohibited etc.
In: Encyclopaedia Judaica: United States]

[1937: JDC Hyman stays anti-Semitism is only temporary]
This theoretical position was bravely defended as late as 1937 by Joseph C. Hyman, when he said, in a letter to Prof. Oscar I. Janowsky, that anti-Semitism was but as temporary setback to democracy and liberalism. "We still believe that a way can be found to integrate the Jew with his environment under a liberal and tolerant system of society. ... I am not so sure that it is impossible, in this vale of tears, to count on strengthening goodwill between the Jew and his neighbors."

(End note 31: J.C. Hyman to Oscar Janowsky, 11/24/37 [24 November 1937], R13)

===


[3.7. The JDC work in NS Germany since 1934]

[3.7.1. Kinds of work]

[Since 1934: JDC work: Provide jobs, kassas, education, relief, cultural work - and emigration]

All this was theory; from a practical point of view, JDC hat to take realities into account - and the realities were unfortunately quite different from the liberal theories of Hyman and his friends. The practical efforts of JDC were directed toward vocational readjustment, the establishment of loan kassas, help in education, relief, aid to cultural institutions, and emigration - to Palestine, to other countries - and also repatriation of East European Jews.

[
However, contrary to its mode of operation in Poland, JDC wished to have nothing to do with the actual administration of the funds. ZA submitted reports and suggested allocations for a variety of purposes, to which JDC usually agreed, because in Germany, unlike Poland, JDC found men and institutions who could be relied upon to administer the funds in a satisfactory manner. The men and women in Germany, after all, were people with the same kind of background as the leadership of JDC itself; and with the establishment of ZA, in which JDC had been involved, a responsible (p.118)

central Jewish body was created of the type that JDC had wanted to see everywhere, which could now take over tasks of a practical nature. In this way JDC actually contributed to the first centralized institution German Jewry had known in modern times.

[JDC: Kahn sees clearly: Jews only can survive with handicrafts in Germany or with emigration]

For Kahn, who was administering the funds in Europe, it was obvious that vocational retraining was essential on two counts - first, because the elimination of Jews from trade and the professions left open only manual labor as a possibility for Jews in Germany; and second, because only manual workers of various kinds might hope to be accepted as immigrants to other countries.

[1932: Unemployment among Jews in Germany]

To make matters worse, unemployment among Jews had been serious even before the Nazi repressions. In Berlin alone Jewish unemployment in October 1932 was put at 7,372. If one added the unregistered this would have reached 10,000-11,000, or about 25 % of all Jewish wage earners.

(End note 32: Jewish Chronicle, 2/24/33 [24 February 1933])

[Since 1934 appr.: Central Committee (ZA) starts with job programs for lower rated jobs for Jews for emigration]

Under the circumstances, the various autonomous organizations affiliated with ZA started a large-scale program of vocational training directed largely toward agriculture, gardening, domestic science (for girls), and crafts, mainly carpentry and metal work.


[3.7.2. Job training programs for emigration]

[Zionist job training programs by Hechalutz for Palestine]

Part of these courses were organized by Hechalutz, the Zionist organization training pioneers for Palestine, which increased its membership from abut 500 prior to Hitler's rise to some 10,000 after he came to power. In 1933 approximately 2,300 youngsters, just slightly below half the total, were receiving training (largely agricultural) at Hechalutz centers; but some of the others made it to Palestine too, even though their training was not directed specifically toward any country of immigration.

Table 3 Vocational [Job] Training in Germany [given by Hechalutz centers]
Year	1933	Jan. 1934	July 1934	Dec. 1934	1935	1936	1938
No. of Trainees	5,169	6,069	6,771	4,005	7,346	7,676	3,068
(End note 33: Based on Nathan Reich: Primer, p.98; draft report for 1936-R13; and: Hymans's report to the National Council of JDC, 4/13/35 [13 April 1935])

(p.119)

[Non-Zionist job training in farming in Neuendorf for Avigdor in Argentina since 1931]

A number were directed specifically to South America. For instance, a farm at Neuendorf had been founded as early as 1931 by non-Zionist groups such as Jüdische Wanderfürsorge (Care of Jewish Migrants) - which was later to engage in the repatriation of East Europeans - to train farmers for the ICA project at Avigdor in Argentina, where many of the trainees eventually went.

[Non-Zionist job training in farming in Gross-Breesen since 1936]

In early 1936 RV established another large farm, Gross-Breesen, under Dr. Kurt Bondy, for 125 trainees. While the Zionists opposed the principle of its establishment, some Zionists (for example, Dr. Georg Lubinski) acted as special advisers. Gross-Breesen was a Jewish estate in Silesia, and after it opened in May 1936 it trained people for agricultural and carpentry work. The leaders of RV, men like Otto Hirsch and Julius Seligsohn and other liberal leaders, saw Gross-Breesen as a ray of hope for liberal Jewry in Germany.

The inspired leadership of a great educator like Bondy gave a measure of excellence to character training at the farm, besides its real technical achievements. By the spring of 1938 Gross-Breesen was actually self-supporting. But emigration plans lagged, and in 1938 plans for group settlement had to be abandoned, despite JDC attempts to settle the groups in Virginia with the help of a generous Jewish citizen of Richmond, William B. Thalheimer. (Ultimately, a small settlement was founded there at Hyde Farmlands, which lasted until 1941).

[Since Nov 1938: Non-Zionist job training in farming in Holland and England]
After the November 1938 pogrom most of the trainees, including Bondy, went to Holland and England.

(End note 34: Werner T. Angress: Auswandererlehrgut Gross-Breesen; In: Leo Baeck Yearbook (1965), 10:168 ff.

[Zionist job training in farming in Holland and other countries for Palestine since 1918]

The Zionists, on the other hand, concentrated a great deal of their efforts on taking German Jewish youngsters out of Germany and training them for Palestine in other European countries, away from the Nazi atmosphere. There was one such center in existence prior to 1933, namely, the one at Deventer, Holland, which had been established in 1918. By 1936 there were 1,248 youngsters who were being trained in 26 centers. These also included some that were not exclusively Palestine-orientated, such as Wieringen in Holland.

Holland took 378 of these young people, Czechoslovakia (p.120)

141, France 124, Denmark 213, Fascist Italy 137, and little Luxembourg 88; the rest were sent to various other countries.

Among the problems that were never solved was the lack of girls and of professions to train them in.

[The job training in farming]
Most of the training was agricultural, which accounted for over 80 % of the work done abroad. Hechalutz usually tried to lease farms where the people could live communally, but sometimes this did not work out, as in Denmark and Czechoslovakia, and the trainees were forced to live with individual peasants - which of course limited the possibilities for cultural and religious activities. There were certain places, as in Luxembourg, where only the fittest were sent, because work was especially hard in the vineyards of that country. Nevertheless, the vast majority withstood these trials, and many of them did go to Palestine and other countries in the end. In the towns, communal centers were set up for those who were learning a trade or a craft, some of them with aid of ORT (as in Lithuania).

(End note 35:
-- David J. Schweitzer at Board of Directors, 1/4/36 [4 January 1936];
-- Training and Retraining outside Germany, 8-1; and:
-- Statement of Reconstructive and Emigration Activities Carried on in Germany; no date, 14-64)

All this activity, known as Auslands-hachsharah (Foreign Training), was largely organized by Shalom Adler-Rudel, a Zionist expert in the training field, and by the German Hechalutz, with some JDC supervision and financial support. After

[Since 1936: Job training farms abroad going down because of visa problems]
1936 the Foreign Training program declined, because it became more and more difficult to place German Jewish youngsters in training abroad.

By 1937 only 774 were in training.

(End note 36: Statistics, R43)

Nevertheless, many hundreds of youngsters had found their emigration prospects enhanced by participation in these programs.


[3.7.3. Children help programs]

[Since 1932: Programs for children by Recha Freier]
Connected with problems of training was the larger question of the future of German Jewish children generally. Owing to the great emphasis Jewish tradition placed on children and their education, stress was laid on programs that dealt with solutions for the younger generation. As early as 1932 Recha Freier, wife of a Berlin rabbi, a wonderful and immensely strong-willed woman, foresaw the need to save the Jewish children. She set up an umbrella organization composed of the following groups: representatives of the Ahavah home, a famous children's institution in Germany, which was then in the process of moving to Palestine; representatives (p.121)

of the Palestine children's village, Ben Shemen, which was under the direction of a great German Jewish teacher, Ernst Lehman; and a unified body representing all the Zionist youth movements in Germany. On July 14, 1933, the umbrella organization, the Working Body for Children and Youth Aliyah, submitted a plan to ZA for settling 600 children in Palestine by 1934, at a cost of 293,300 German marks.

(End note 37: Memo of Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Kinder- und Jugendalijah to ZA, 7/14/33 [14 July 1933], 14-48)

It would accept children between the ages of 13 and 16, who would be sent to institutions like Ahavah or Ben Shemen or to kibbutzim, or placed with individual families.

[1933: Copy of Recha Freier's children's program: Youth Aliyah for Palestine]

The program was adopted, and in Palestine a central organization known as Youth Aliyah (immigration to Palestine) was set up [in 1933], headed by the veteran American Zionist Henrietta Szold. After a six-month training course in Germany, the children, who had been very carefully screened, were sent to Palestine. It was only in 1936, however, when 630 Youth Aliyah children had reached in Palestine, that the original 1933 goal was finally met. But the adjustment made by the children was very successful, and the JDC funds were well used through this program to pay for part of the cost both of training and of transportation.

[1933-1939: JDC founds the German Jewish Children's Aid for 433 children brought to the "USA"]

From the inner circle of the JDC leadership in America, too, there was a response to the need to save children. In October 1933 Dr. Solomon Lowenstein and Jacob Billikopf, head of the National Conference of Jewish Social Workers, were instrumental in setting up a committee known as the German Jewish Children's Aid to deal with the transfer of children from Germany to the United States. It was difficult for the liberal Jews of America to accept the need for the emigration of German Jewry, especially that of unaccompanied children. It was doubted that German Jewish parents would consent to the procedure.

Hyman told Billikopf that it was preferable to send the children to German-speaking countries on the Continent rather than overseas, and that it would be even better to keep them in Germany altogether.

(End note 38: Hyman to Billikopf, 1/18/34 [18 January 1934], 14-54)

There were great legal and financial difficulties. A guarantee of $ 500  per year for each child had to be given and the placement of children with families "had encountered a great many difficulties." Nevertheless, a first group (p.122)

of 53 children arrived in America in November 1934. But Dr. Lowenstein declared in May 1935 that "the expenditure would seem out of proportion to the amount actually required for general relief in Germany for tremendously large numbers of persons and projects. We have, therefore, regretfully, come to the conclusion that we could not bring over any other children."

(End note 39:
-- Dr. Lowenstein at Executive Committee, 5/22/35; and:
-- 24 - German Jewish children's aid, 1934-44)

By that time about 150 had been brought here.

After the fall of 1935 the immigration of children became feasible again, and by early 1937 the committee had filled its original quota of 250 children (actually 235) and continued to accept them at a rate of 10 to 12 a month. The total number of children who came to the United States under this program until the outbreak of the war in 1939 was 433.

(End note 40: Executive Committee, 4/14/37 [14 April 1937])

[18 children places in England and Switzerland]
A beginning was also made in children's emigration to England and Switzerland, where 18 children were placed in 1933 and 1934.

All these efforts made very little difference statistically to the estimated 101,000 children under 15 who lived in Germany in 1934.

Psychologically, however, parental consent to the emigration of about 1,000 unaccompanied youngsters by 1938 made a significant difference to the climate of exodus that was swiftly engulfing German Jewry. People began to be willing, especially after 1935, to send away their most precious possession - their children - to more hospitable lands.


[3.7.4. JDC schools]

No matter how large the special emigration programs for children might be, a large majority of them had to remain in Germany. As these children were slowly forced out of the general school system, the need arose to give them a Jewish and humanist education in special Jewish schools. Because of the small funds JDC had at its disposal at the beginning of what was inappropriately called "the German emergency", Kahn was at first against founding new institutions, for which large capital investments would have to be made.

(End note 41: Kahn to Baerwald, 2/23/34 [23 February 1934])

He was in favor of increasing the number of children in the existing schools by enlarging them, and he vigorously defended the need to provide funds for Jewish education. The British Jews, mostly Zionists, argued that no money should be given for schools (p.123)

in Germany, as the children would soon be brought out in any case. However, reality soon made this discussion academic.

In early 1933 only 6,000 out of some 50,000 Jewish children went to Jewish schools, but the numbers grew by leaps and bounds each year.

(End note 42: Primer, p. 98; see also 1934 annual report)

This tremendous effort to absorb children who were driven out of schools by the attitude of classmates and teachers and the general hate-filled atmosphere

(End note 43: An ordinance against the attendance of Jewish children in German schools was published on April 1, 1936, but was not rigidly enforced for quite some time after that).

was made possible by the resolution on the part of the German Jewish educational and spiritual leadership, men like Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Ernst Simon, and others, to build a better spiritual world for Jewry by returning to Jewish and humanist values and traditions. There probably were few eras in German Jewish history when there was such a flowering of Jewish education and thought as in those short years prior to the catastrophe.

JDC, unlike the British organizations, insisted  on aiding and supporting these activities. Kahn especially was a convinced believer in the value of spiritual resistance, and he encouraged the German leaders to use the funds they had for purposes such as these.


[3.7.5. JDC relief work - Jewish welfare recipients]

An area of activity that had to be included in ZA [Central Committee, Zentral-Ausschuss] work, which JDC strived to avoid as much as possible in Eastern Europe, was relief. In Germany there was little choice: JDC understood the need and supported large expenditures for relief. The number of welfare recipients prior to 1938 usually averaged about 20 % of the Jewish population. For example, in 1935/6 the number was 83,761; this increased somewhat in 1937. In addition, funds were

Table 4 Jewish Schools in Germany
Year	No. of schools	No. of pupils	Total Jewish children of school age
1933	70	14,300	50,000
1935	130	20,000
1937	167	23,670	39,000

(p.124)

given to the Jewish Winter Help, though during the first years of the German regime some aid was still received from the German government. (Indeed, the Germanic mind operated so efficiently that until the outbreak of war, even those Jewish recipients of government pensions who lived abroad received them punctually).

[Since 1936: Impoverishment of the Jewish communities - more concentration of the Jews in towns]
However, the continual decline of the Jewish population expressed itself in the impoverishment of the local communities where most people in need had been receiving help without recourse to the central organizations, and in the parallel population movement from small towns to large urban centers.

In 1937, of the 1,400 or so communities (Gemeinden), 309 were classified by ZA as being in need and 303 as partly in need; 120 more asked to be placed in that category. Berlin itself had 15 soup kitchens, where large numbers of free meals were given out, and about one-third of the total public Jewish funds in Germany were spent on welfare in 1935.

(End note 44: Kahn: Report and Bulletin; January 1936, R15; out of the total amount collected in Germany by all Jewish organizations, Kahn estimated that 8 million marks were given to "welfare", presumably child care, medical care, old age care, and relief).

[JDC fund raising for relief work]
German Jewish welfare was efficient and followed modern practice - a whole generation of Jewish welfare workers had, after all, been trained in Germany prior to Hitler, although with quite different prospects in view. JDC reacted to the German situation with great speed. The sum of $ 40,000 was sent to Germany immediately after Hitler's assumption of power; and after Jonah B. Wise's trip, $ 254,000 was sent.

(End note 45: Memo on JDC activities in behalf of German Jewry, 10/24/33 [24 October 1933], 14-47)

[May 1933: JDC offices searched - existence until 1939]
The JDC offices in Berlin were searched by the Nazis in May 1933, whereupon Hyman spoke to the U.S. State Department, and the American consul in Berlin intervened "energetically and effectively", as did the British consul.

(End note 46: Executive Committee, 5/25/33 [25 May 1933])

After that, the JDC office in Berlin was maintained only formally, under Prof. Eugen Mittwoch, who was responsible for it until 1939.

===


[3.8. JDC money questions - percentage of the sectors]

[JDC does not want to have dollars to change in Germany - payments abroad - payments by the German Jews]

Very soon the problem arose of whether to send dollars into Germany. In 1933 and 1934, and to some extent even in 1935, dollars were sent in; but JDC was looking for a way to prevent foreign currency from accruing to the Nazi regime through JDC's support of German Jewry. As early as July 24, 1933, James N. Rosenberg penned a memo to Paul Baerwald and Felix M. Warburg saying he was against sending dollars to Germany,

(End note 47: 14-47)

and by (p. 125)

the end of the year a way was found to avoid this. In a letter dated December 16, 1933, Eric Warburg, son of Max M. Warburg, wrote to James N. Rosenberg that the German Jewish financial expert and friend of the Warburg house, Hans Schaeffer, had worked out the so-called educational transfer plan, which had the approval of the German authorities.

(End note 48:
-- 14-46; and:
-- Warburg archives at Cincinnati (hereafter, WAC), Box 316 (d), interview of James G. McDonald with Dr. Fritz Dreyser, vice-president of the Reichsbank. It was appparently at this meeting that the final details were thrashed out and the Germans consented to the implementation of the scheme).

Under this scheme well-to-do parents would send their children abroad to study; they would pay for this in German marks at a somewhat higher rate than usual, the money to be given to ZA [Central Committee, Zentral-Ausschuss] or RV [Reichsvertretung]. JDC would then pay all the children's fees and expenses in hard currency abroad. It took some time until all the needs of ZA could be covered in this way, but generally speaking no dollars were sent into Germany by JDC after 1935.

ZA's budget was for the central organizations only. The communities had their own budgets and raised taxes to meet them. ZA's central budget was met by local collections, contributions by the communities, and the grants of foreign organizations. But in actual fact, German Jews were covering the larger part of their needs themselves, and JDC contributed only to a part of the German Jewish community's effort, namely, to the budget of ZA.

[The split of the funds]

The money thus received was then spent on the various ZA activities in different proportions. For example, in 1935 emigration accounted for some 20 % of the expenditure, whereas in 1936 this rose to about 40 %. Economic aid and vocational training remained fairly stable at around 25 % of the budget. All the other items - schools, welfare, organizations, and the like - took less by percentage, but with the overall increase in the budget this did not mean a reduction in absolute figures. On the whole, these were the proportions that prevailed in subsequent years as well.

Some small sums of money allocated by JDC to Germany did not go through ZA. Late in 1933 the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) offered their help in dealing with individual cases in Germany, where operations through recognized German agencies were impossible or inconvenient. Much of this work was actually only half legal, and the Quakers did the job very efficiently. The relationship between the two agencies, based on a common (p. 126)

Table 5 JDC Expenditures in Germany (In German marks - about 2.5 marks per $)
Year	JDC expenditure	Total ZA budget	Total raised in Germany	JDC percentage of ZA budget
1934	855,427	2,418,146	13,000,000	35.0 %
1935	933,000	2,863,000	21,000,000	32.5 %
1936	1,188,884	4,123,125		28.7 %
1937	1,610,000	4,400,000	20,000,000	36.3 %
(End note 49: Based on the following main sources: -- 28-30 - ZA reports for 1935 and 1936 -- 28-3 for the 1937 RV (ZA) budget; -- R22-ZA report for 1934 -- R19-annual report for 1933; -- R16-annual report for 1934, and Kahn's report for 1934, 1/3/35 [3 January 1935] -- R15-Kahn's Bulletin for I.1936; -- R13-draft of 1936 report, 5/28/37 [28 May 1937] -- and Baerwald's letter to F.M. Warburg, 3/3/37 [3 March 1937]; -- Executieve Committee meetings of 1/4/34, 3/6/35, 2/10/36, 12/9/37; -- summary by E.M.M. Morrissey on 3/2/36 in WAC, Box 345 (a). The figures unfortunately show fairly wide discrepancies, sometimes of over $ 10,000. The problem of the exchange rates had a great deal to do with this; we have relied chiefly on summaries made after the close of each year, for internal purposes, and have disregarded claims made in public).
Footnote: JDC expenditure: JDC in New York had the following figures (this included small allocations that did not go through the ZA budget): 1933: $ 197,000; 1934: $ 440,000; 1935: $ 290,000; 1936: $ 546,000; 1937: $ 686,000 (End note 50: Kahn to JDC, September 1938, 9-27) Footnote: Total raised in Germany: That is, the total sums raised for public purposes by all Jewish groups, communities, and organizations, including RV [Reichsvertretung] and ZA [Central Committee, Zentral-Ausschuss]. Footnote: JDC percentage of ZA budget: Local fund raising brought forth 42.8 % of the funds for the 1935 budget of ZA, 41 % in 1936, and 35.8 % in 1937. The difference between that and the JDC contribution, on one hand, and the total required, on the other, was provided largely by ICA and the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF).

idea of service without political strings, had been very close ever since World War I; in the German emergency this relationship prompted Kahn to say, "I should like to do something for the Quakers, who have behaved very well, as always."

(End note 51: 22-Gen. & Emerg. Germany, AFSC)

Reports by W.R. Hughes, the Quaker representative in Germany in 1934/5, gave JDC some insight into the type of work the Quakers did. Apart from the Quakers, JDC also gave money to other nonsectarian efforts, the total for the period up to 1936 being $ 116,557.

(End note 52: 29-Gen. & Emerg. Germany, nonsectarian relief)

===


[3.9. NS poverty methods against the Jews]

[Poverty of emigrated Jews]
The problem of Jews being able to take out enough capital to start a new life outside of Germany occupied JDC's attention to a large degree. The Germans had no interest in this, of course, because

[NS Germany: Methods to spread anti-Semitism and to impoverish the Jews: Rich Jews are taxed]
-- one of their [the German NS regime] aims in pressing for Jewish emigration was to spread anti-Semitism abroad by dumping poor Jews on unwilling countries;
-- another aim was to use the money of rich Jews to get rid (p.127)

of the poor ones;
-- and a third [aim] was to squeeze the Jews dry before they were allowed out of the country.

The fact that all this stood in contradiction to the Nazi aim of ridding Germany of as many Jews as possible did not bother the Germans. But whenever it was possible to gain a commercial or political advantage, or whenever foreign pressure made it a desirable thing to yield on the question of allowing the emigration of Jewish capital, the Nazis might relent.

===


[3.10. Haavarah agreement for emigration to Palestine]

[August 1933: Haavarah agreement for Jewish capital transfer from NS Germany to Palestine - connected with exports of German goods]

In August 1933 the Haavarah agreement was arrived at between Palestinian Jewish interests supported by the Jewish Agency and the Germans; under this agreement Jews could transfer capital to Palestine - by promoting German exports to that country. The procedure was as follows:

a Jewish immigrant deposited his money (usually the equivalent of the 1,000 pounds that entitled him to a "capitalist" immigration certificate to Palestine) in a German bank; then a German exporter shipped goods to Palestine for which he was paid with the immigrant's money; in Palestine the goods were sold to customers who paid the price to an authorized bank, which in turn paid it out to the immigrant.

The Jewish Agency justified this arrangement by saying that it was essential to save Jews and their money, and that importing capital into Palestine enabled that country to absorb many others who came there without means. According to one calculation, the total transferred by Haavarah between 1933 and the end of 1937 amounted to about 4,400,000 pounds.

(End note 53: 15-32)

JDC had no part in this particular transfer scheme, but the program aroused its interest because it shared the view of the Jewish Agency that no stone should be left unturned in the effort to bring Jewish capital out of Germany, and thereby improve the prospects of emigration for those who had to leave.

In Germany it was mainly Max M. Warburg who displayed great interest in that sort of plan.

[Money transfer within the Haavarah agreement]

The Germans at first allowed Jewish men of means to buy free foreign currency at tremendously inflated prices through a special office (Golddiskontstelle); then in 1936 another office, the Reichsstelle für Devisenbeschaffung, allowed the transfers of sums up to 4,000 gold marks, for which 8,000 (p.128)

marks were paid in Germany - although people actually had to pay in considerably more than that under various pretenses. In early 1937 a Jewish bank called Altreu was established to receive these payments, which then went partly to finance ZA. Whereas the Haavarah bank - the Paltreu - dealt with transfers to Palestine or to the Middle East only, Altreu transferred monies to other countries.

Warburg was connected with all these ventures. He was also behind the establishment, in March 1936, of a bank in London called the International Trade and Investment Agency (INTRIA), whose managing director was Siegfried Moses, a German Zionist. This bank placed orders for German goods in Germany; Altreu then paid for them out of the funds paid into it by emigrants. the goods were then sold outside Germany, and the emigrant received his money back in foreign currency from INTRIA when he arrived in his country of destination. The principle was the same as with Haavarah, and really amounted to saving Jewish capital at the price of promoting German exports, albeit with no foreign currency accruing to the Germans.

(End note 54:
-- 15-3 (10/26/36 [26 October 1936])
-- 25-Gen. & Emerg. Germany, INTRIA, esp. Kahn's letter to Hyman, 8/25/36 [25 August 1936])

[1936: Modification of the money transfer]

In the summer of 1936 the Germans suggested to JDC a somewhat different arrangement for the transfer of funds: the emigrants would pay the German marks into a JDC account in Germany; the Germans would give to JDC Polish zloty for their marks (Germany had a superabundance of zloty at the time), and this would finance JDC programs in Poland; JDC would then pay the emigrant back in foreign currency once he had left Germany. Kahn's answer was negative, because the Polish program was too small to satisfy the capital transfer needs of German Jewish emigrants; in any case, Zionist funds in Poland were used to effect a similar arrangement between JDC and the Jewish Agency (the Jewish Agency getting pounds in Palestine from JDC in return for its Polish zloty, which were used by JDC in Poland). Obviously, the Jewish Agency arrangement was preferred.

(End note 55: Ibid.)

[Money transfer by "benevolent" marks]

By 1937 another plan for the transfer of funds was arranged - the "benevolent" marks. A benefactor outside Germany who (p.129)

wished to help an individual in Germany would pay a sum of money into a bank in his own country. The bank would transfer the money to INTRIA. The equivalent of that sum in marks would then be paid by Altreu to the recipient in Germany out of funds deposited by an emigrant. When that emigrant left Germany, the money would be repaid to him by INTRIA. There was no export involved in this kind of transaction, and JDC, which was of two minds about the various export arrangements, had no hesitation in supporting this scheme. It was estimated that in 1937 some $ 400,000 was transferred to Germany in this way.

(End note 56: Ibid.)

The Germans, for reasons of their own, liberalized these arrangements in late 1937 and early 1938; people could pay up to 50,000 marks to Altreu, and sometimes received up to 50 % of this sum in foreign currency. RV [Reichsvertretung] received a certain percentage of these monies for its operations. However, on the whole JDC tried to avoid any direct connection with these banks and agencies, children of Max M. Warburg's resourceful brain - many Jews were opposed to any kind of transaction with Nazi Germany, and JDC was intent on remaining as independent as possible, and not exposing itself to attack by any side.

[At the end Palestine was in danger to be occupied by NS armies, but Rommel's army could be stopped before entering Egypt].

===


[3.11. Joint's reconstruction work in NS Germany since 1933]

Reconstruction was, of course, another sphere of activity which JDC took a very special interest. Much was said about the need for reconstruction in the German situation, though the emphasis on this decreased as the Nazi intent to evict the Jews became obvious. In the early 1930s, however, this was not quite so clear,

Table 6 Loan Kassas of the Reconstruction Foundation in Germany
Year	No. of kassas	Capital (in marks)	No. of loans	Amount loaned (in marks)
1933	42	934,000	1417	465,000
1935	60	848,000		880,000
1937	45		3500	1,070,000

(p.130)

and JDC tried, through the Reconstruction Foundation, to create loan kassas in Germany on the well-tried East European model.

After 1937 a swift decline set in as the German government made the kassas operations practically impossible, and at the end of 1938 they were terminated.

JDC also tried to create Free Loan kassas outside the Reconstruction Foundation system, as in Poland, and invested over 400,000 marks in them between 1933 and 1937. But before they could take root, the Nazis made their operations impossible too, and they were liquidated along with the rest of the kassas in December 1938.

(End note 57:
-- Printer, p. 97;
-- 24-Gen. & Emerg. Germany, Foundation, 1933-39
-- 26-Gen & Emerg. Germany, Lists, etc. 1935/6
-- 28-30-ZA report, 1936)

[1934: Less anti-Semitism in NS Germany - discussions about the Jewish future 1935]

The situation in Germany itself fluctuated from year to year. It cannot even be said that there was always a distinct trend for the worse. For instance, in 1934 - the year of the great purge in the Nazi party (June 30) - it seemed that the anti-Semitic wave had abated slightly, and there was no new wave of terror or boycott directed against the Jews. "Superficially regarded", said Kahn, "it would appear that a certain halt has been called in Germany to the measures adopted against the Jewish population."

(End note 58: Kahn report, 3/28/34 [28 March 1934]; In: WAC, Box 321 (b)

Hitler himself had reportedly said as much at a meeting with the German Statthälter (state governors). In other words, there was still room for a certain measure of self-delusion.

Against that background a great controversy between the nationalist and liberal wings of Jewry continued in Germany. Zionists demanded the recognition of Jewish separateness on the basis of Jewish national identification. The liberal CV rejected this point of view with "determined unanimity", because they saw in Germany the center of their endeavors "now, just as in the past".

(End note 59: CV-Blaetter für Deutschtum und Judentum, 1/10/35 [10 January 1935], by Dr. Emil Herzfeld. (Fate played a trick on Dr. Herzfeld: ultimately he had to settle in Palestine, where he lived out his days in national Jewish Tel Aviv). The declaration in support of Hitler's foreign policy was made in November 1933; see: Grunewald, op. cit. [The Beginning of the Reichsvertretung; In: Leo Baeck Yearbook; London 1956], pp., 57 ff.)

The liberal Jews of Germany obviously thought that they would outlast the Hitler regime, and in 1934 and early 1935 it was still possible to believe that. In early 1935 Dr. Jonah B. Wise, one of the leaders of JDC, who had just come back from Europe, agreed with this position mainly from a pragmatic point of view. The question was "to meet the onslaught of Hitler and survive it. They (the German Jews) feel they have possibilities of surviving for some years. If conditions do not radically change, many affluent persons will (p.131)

remain in Germany. Most of them will remain because there is no place for them to go and no country wants people over forty unless they have the highest specialization for some work." However, Wise added a remark that reflected a growing conviction among German Jews in the spring of 1935: "That the young people will leave is almost certain. It is said that Germany will be an old folds' home and a graveyard."

(End note 60: Executive Committee, 3/26/35 [26 March 1935]; Hyman said in his contribution to a summary for 1934 (R53): "The hope of Jewish leaders to find an orderly, constructive transformation of a segment of Jewish life, especially for the yough, within the borders of Germany itself, to be supplemented by a carefully nurtured preparation of waves of annual emigration, has been disappointed, since training is permitted only for emigration, immediate or ultimate." B.C. Vladeck, a Labor member of the JDC Executive Committee, put a socialist interpretation on the same ideas when, in a discussion with the Zionist Berl Locker (12/23/35-WAC, Box 323 (d), he said that "there is a vast underground movement in Germany of 'Aryans', socialists, etc., who are fighting the Fascist regime and that the Jew must fight along with them." Therefore, the task of progressive Jews in Germany was to stay where they were).

[End 1933: RV supports Hitler's foreign policy]

RV [Reichsvertretung] was largely under the control of liberals like Hirsch, Seligsohn, and Brodnitz. At the end of 1933 it came out with a declaration supporting Hitler's foreign policy; this was done not because of Nazi pressure but because of the German-centered convictions of its leading members.

[Jan 1935: Jewish Saar Germans included]

In January 1935 it "heartily welcomed home" the 4,800 "Jewish Saar Germans" after the Saar plebiscite had resulted in the annexation of that area by Germany. (Saarlander Jews even came from abroad to vote for the inclusion of the region in Germany!)

(End note 61: Jewish Chronicle, 1/13/35 [13 January 1935]. On the 18, the Chronicle reported that a man named Herr Fischel had come all the way from Buenos Aires, his fare paid by the German consulate, to vote for Germany).

[Naumann's National German Jews section]
There was an even more extremist Germanic section of Jewry, led by Dr. Max Naumann, whose organization tried to create a category called the National German Jews (Nationaldeutsche Juden). "We would regard it as a national calamity for Germany and for us National Jews, who are among the best Germans, if Hitler did not take the fate of the German people in his hands. The members of our league, more than 5,000 people, voted as one man for Hitler as Reich president. Hitler is our future. No one but he can solve the Jewish question."

(End note 62: Ibid., 1/11/35 [11 January 1935]. Interview of La Croix with Naumann)

This, of course, was the opinion of but a small lunatic fringe, but it is significant that these opinions should have been stated as late as the end of 1934 and early 1935.

RV [Reichsvertretung], however, was far from a supine servant of the Nazi dictatorship.

[Jewish press in NS Germany: RV fighting the regime: Streicher's Stürmer (Stormer)]
Throughout 1935 Baeck and Hirsch and their friends tried to fight back, supported by the foreign organizations, and took their case to the still-legal Jewish press in Germany. For instance, on February 8, 1935, the CV-Zeitung published a frontal attack by Rabbi Eschelbacher on Der Stürmer, Julius Streicher's obscenely anti-Semitic paper.

(End note 63: P. 11, in an article called: Eine Nummer des Stuermer)

In the same issue there was a direct attack against Streicher himself, for "accusing" an opposition leader - (p.132)

wrongly - of being Jewish. One argument used by RV [Reichsvertretung] was that since the Nazi rule was totalitarian, the Nazis could have done more against the Jews than they actually did. Since "only" certain restrictions were in force, the conclusion was that German Jewry had the right to fight back on the basis of the actual laws on the books, that they could prevent a worsening of the situation by appealing to the law.

(End note 64: CV-Zeitung, 1/31/35 [31 January 1935])

[Jewish press in NS Germany: Public protest against Streicher]
In the January 31, 1935, issue there was even a public protest by RV, signed by Baeck and Hirsch, against Streicher. Entitled "The Honor of German Jews", it culminated in the statement that "for the guarding of our honor nothing remains to us but a solemn public protest."

(End note 65: Ibid. [CV-Zeitung, 1/31/35 [31 January 1935]: "Zur Wahrung unserer Ehre bleibt uns nichts als feierlicher Protest.")

A possibility of appealing to the courts under the laws of libel was hinted at.

[Jewish press in NS Germany: Attack against Nazi minister Schemm]
This point was made in even more explicit terms on February 14, when a direct attack was printed on the Nazi minister Schemm, the "leader" of the Nazi Teacher's Association, who had abused the Jewish religion. Schemm was told that he had thereby maligned the Christian God and had "harshly insulted, not only the religious feelings of German Jews, but those of Jews all over the world as well."

(End note 66: Ibid. [CV-Zeitung], 2/14/35 [14 February 1935], p.11)

[Jewish press in NS Germany: Rundschau demands]
The Zionist Jüdische Rundschau published an article demanding that the government cease to defame Jews, that it guarantee decent material conditions under prevailing legislation, and that it establish orderly emigration procedures and autonomous cultural institutions.

(End note 67: Quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 3/15/35 [15 March 1935])

It must be remembered that this took place in Nazi Germany almost two years after the abolition of all parties and the independent press. The courage displayed by RV was wholly admirable, but of course no results were achieved.

===


[3.12. The race laws of 1935 - Zionist Jewry splits]

[Four RV demands for accepting the race laws]
All these attempts at maintaining a foothold in Germany collapsed with the publication of the Nuremberg racial laws on September 15, and the first of twelve detailed provisions (Verordnungen) on November 14, 1935. Immediately following the publication, RV came out with a four-point program demanding that, on the basis of the new laws, the government stop the defamation and the boycott, grant cultural and religious autonomy to the Jews, and recognize RV as the central Jewish organization. Under these conditions, the Jews would accept the new laws.

(End note 68: Informationsblätter der RV, 9/22/35 [22 September 1935])

[The Zionists in discussion about the race laws]
This stand produced a bitter argument between the Zionists, (p.133)

who demanded nonrecognition of the Nuremberg laws, and the RV leadership. The Zionists had been in the peculiar position of opposing the Nazis more vigorously than the liberals and yet being supported, in a way, by the government because of their advocacy of emigration to Palestine. The Nazis argued that Zionists helped Germany solve the Jewish problem and that Palestine could absorb a million Jews. If only half of these were German Jews, then the whole Jewish problem might be solved.

(End note 69: Jewish Chronicle, 5/17/35 [17 May 1935], quoting Der Völkische Beobachter)

This did not mean, of course, that the Nazis did not attack the Zionists as well; Goebbels's [newspaper] Angriff did so frequently.

[Zionist want the national definition of Jews - Kareski (Jewish Volkspartei) defends the race laws - more Zionists in the RV (Reichsvertretung) - blame of Kareski - suspicion collaboration with Gestapo]

Inside the Jewish community, the Zionists pressed for a policy of national definition and speedy emigration, and demanded a greater say in the affairs of RV. A spokesman of the Zionist Right in the Berlin community (the so-called Jewish Volkspartei), Georg Kareski, took a different position in an interview published in the [newspaper] Angriff (quoted in the Jewish Chronicle, January 3, 1936), where he defended the new laws as offering an answer to the problem of an alien nationality, provided they were executed on a basis of mutual respect.

The Zionists now turned against Kareski as well, and he was practically ostracized at a conference held at Berlin in early February 1936. However, during the following year Kareski tried repeatedly to oppose a reconstructed RV, in which the Zionists now had a greater say.

This situation came to a head in the spring of 1937 when the leaders of RV appealed to the foreign organizations to prevent the takeover of RV by Kareski, who, they insinuated, was cooperating with the Gestapo. After consultation between JDC and the British Jews, on June 11, 1937, a letter was written over the signature of Sir Herbert Samuel to Leo Baeck, in which confidence was reiterated in "the present personnel and management" of RV. Serious misgivings were expressed in the event of any change in the composition of RV.

(End note 70: Executive Committee, 9/23/37 [23 September 1937])

It is not clear whether it was this intervention that changed the situation, but it is probable that it had at least some influence. At any rate, RV maintained its independence of internal Gestapo pressure for some time longer, and Kareski's attempt was repulsed. (p.134)

===


[3.13. Competition in fund raising between JDC and Zionists - 174,803 emigrants 1933-1937]

The problem of Zionism exercised JDC, too, to a considerable extent, though from a different angle. In the United States the Palestine appeals were the direct competitors of JDC in its fund raising efforts. From a practical as well as an ideological point of view, JDC emphasized that Palestine, whatever its undoubted contribution to the solution of the German Jewish problem, could not be the only solution. Hyman, a man inclined to search for the deeper meaning of things and processes, termed Zionism in this context a millennial movement. He scoffed at the idea that nothing should be done until a millennium was reached by the aid of one program or another, because indeed "all other things are merely palliative."

(End note 71: Hyman to Janowsky, 11/24/37 [24 November 1937], R13)

The Zionists thought in terms of a national future and an overall solution, whereas JDC tended to see the immediate practical problems involved in helping persecuted Jews. The Zionists therefore were inclined to minimize avenues of rescue other than Palestine, at least until 1937/8, and often would not seriously consider the possibilities of rescuing Jews by sending them to other countries; while JDC did not see beyond the immediate present and could not tear itself from its cosmopolitan concepts, which perhaps had been valid in the liberal pre-Hitler era but had little validity in the growing catastrophe of European Jewry.

Even practically speaking, from 1933 through 1937, 38,043 out of 174,803 emigrants from Germany had found refuge in Palestine.

This is even more significant when one remembers that those who entered Palestine were settled and absorbed there, whereas the majority of those who remained in Europe were neither settled nor absorbed.

Hyman was very much concerned about the pro-Palestine statements that many of the liberal Jewish leaders in Germany made to the effect that "everything is hopeless in Germany; ... practically all want to go to Palestine." The logical conclusion from this attitude, he said, was that Palestine work and the Palestine program were the only kind of program that the American Jews should support. This was most unfortunate, Hyman stated; surely JDC was entitled to be reinforced by the Jewish leaders in Germany with a plea for aid and support of the institutions that must be maintained inside Germany. This despite the "full acknowledgment (p.136)

of what Palestine has meant to these Jews of Germany."

Hyman thought that a statement should be made by the German Jews that Palestine was not the sole outlet - which of course, factually speaking, it was not.

(End note 72:
-- The statistics are taken from an article by Max Birnbaum in the Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Synagogengemeinden in Preussen und Norddeutschland, 4/4/1938 [4 April 1938].
-- Hyman to Kahn, 10/11/35 [11 October 1935], CON. 2;
-- Hyman explained his position in an article published in the 1937 Proceedings of the National Conference of Jewish Social Welfare in the Jewish Social Service Quarterly (R12). Non-Zionists, he said, see nothing wrong in supporting Communism if this would help millions of Jews to find their feet in a new Russian economy; at the same timje they can support "the building up of a great Jewish settlement of refuge and of cultural development in Palestine and yet decline to regard themselves as actually or potentially elements of a Jewish nation with its center in Palestine." While Palestine was capable of absorbing masses of immigrants, they do "deprecate the constant emphasis on Palestine by certain groups", as a Jewish national movement. The major goal of non-Zionists was "the integration of Jews with the life of their lands of birth or adoption.")

[Hitler regime supports Zionism for emigration to Palestine]

Kahn agreed, but explained that the Nazis supported Zionism because it promised the largest emigration of Jews from Germany; hence German Jewish leaders could not make any public statement about other outlets. Still less could they mention the desire to maintain Jewish institutions in Germany. The Nazis had dissolved one meeting in Germany simply because the speaker had said, "We have to provide for the people who go away and for the Jews who must stay in Germany."

(End note 73: Kahn to Hyman, 11/3/35 [3 November 1935], CON 2)

[but at the end Palestine is projected to be occupied by NS armies].

The sharp reduction of emigration into Palestine in 1936 - only 12,929 emigrated there from Germany that year - somewhat changed the Zionist policy. Weizmann, for his part, had never taken a completely exclusive point of view, and many individual Zionists shared his stand: now, the Zionists began to cooperate in the search for outlets other than Palestine. Despite the insistence of Zionists on Palestine for national and historic reasons, the difference between them and the other became smaller. JDC abandoned its doubts about supporting emigration and began to see that maintaining institutions in Germany was only a holding operation. The Zionists outside of Germany in turn began to perceive the importance of maintaining those institutions as long as there were Jews in Germany who needed them. The two main wings in Jewish life drew slowly closer on purely practical grounds as the 1930s progressed and the situation in Germany became more and more difficult.

===


[3.14. Situation after the Nuremberg laws after 1935 - destruction of German Jewry since 1937]

After the Nuremberg laws were promulgated, the economic situation of German Jewry deteriorated swiftly. Kahn reported in November 1935 that Jewish businesses were being sold at ridiculously low prices and that Jewish unemployment had risen. Of 150,000 self-employed persons, 37,000 were now unemployed, including 20,000 who were on relief. Of the 120,000 employees and workers, 48,000 were unemployed, and of these 32,000 were on (p.136)

relief. In 1936 41 soup kitchens distributed 2,357,000 meals, and 3,000 places in old age homes were reserved for people whose families could no longer take care of them: the numbers were increasing.

(End note 74: 28-30-ZA report 1938)

Jonah B. Wise's forecast, made a year previously, that Germany would become an old age home and a graveyard to its Jews, was obviously in the process of realization.

[Jan 1937: Jewish work offices closed - work prohibition for Jews on any higher profession - World War I privilege revoked]

After early January 1937 all Jewish labor exchanges were closed, and the Arbeitsfront pressed for the discharge of Jewish employees in non-Jewish stores. A short respite was granted to German Jewry because of the 1936 Olympic Games, which took place in Germany, but persecution never really stopped. Jews were eliminated from newspaper staffs and from the arts, and they ceased to function as public notaries, apothecaries, veterinarians, and similar professions. The exemptions that had been granted earlier for frontline soldiers in World War I were now revoked.

[March 1937 appr.: Destruction of Jewry in Germany is going on]

In early 1937 there were no longer any illusions anywhere. JDC, which had moved from a position of qualified support for emigration to one of unqualified support, was quite certain that "the German problem is bound to solve itself before long. Certainly, it will not solve itself in an agreeable way. ... More people will leave in much larger numbers than statistics show; a great many have left and are here and elsewhere on visitor's passes and will never go back."

(End note 75: Felix M. Warburg at a meeting at the home of Ittleson, 4/29/37 [29 April 1937], R13)

[March 1938 appr.: 380,000 Jews in Germany left]

By early 1938 only 380,000 Jews were left in Germany. Of these, 82,000 were receiving winter relief and an additional 20,000 were getting special Jewish relief.

(End note 76: Executive Committee, 1/20/38 [20 January 1938]; Kahn on Germany, WYC, Box 327 (c), November 1935)

German Jewry was approaching its end.

[There is no indication if the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 Jews are counted within the figures or not].

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