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