[4.4. Chaos in Europe with Jewish committees
without funds - Joint finances a big part of the High
Commission]
[Oct 1933: French and
Belgian committees without funds - borders will be closed
- chaos - the naive European governments don't feel
obliged]
The situation of the refugees in Western Europe on the eve
of the establishment of the High Commission was extremely
precarious. On October 11, 1933, Kahn cabled to New York
that the French National Committee was without funds and
that therefore the French government would immediately close
the border. At the same time, the Belgian committee was in
the process of being liquidated, and five to six hundred
refugees would have to leave Belgium; they would probably
try to enter France. A similar situation was developing in
Holland.
These and other countries were now closed to refugees. What
was worse, Kahn said, the Geneva decision to set up a High
Commission meant, in fact, that the private agencies were
expected to foot the bill and that the governments would not
spend a penny on the refugees.
Baerwald answered in a rather hurt tone that Kahn's cable
seemed "surprising to me"; why did handing over the
refugees' problems to the government in France mean the
closing of the borders? As to Geneva, although the new
commission would not be part of the League of Nations
machinery, the very fact that it had been proposed by a
number of governments made it "seem to us that governments
cannot refuse (to) provide part of funds."
(End note 9: 14-47, 10/12/33 [12 October 1933], 10/13/33 [13
October 1933])
It seems that Baerwald, the liberal Jew and humanitarian,
could not bring himself to believe that the governments
would actually wash their hands of the Jewish refugee
problem. More than that, the self-interest that motivated
governments was something that he and his friends
categorically refused to see.
[Joint has to finance a big
part of the High Commission(!) and has to finance McDonald
(!)]
JDC involvement in the McDonald Commission was considerable.
JDC not only had to pay for a significant part of the High
Commission's expenses
(End note 10: The High Commission's budget in 1934/5 was $
138,000, of which JDC covered $ 41,250 (CBF [Central British
Fund for German Jewry] contributed $ 21,250; ICA [Jewish
Colonization Association] $ 40,000; the rest was paid by UPA
[United Palestine Appeal] and some smaller contributors).
and support McDonald personally, but also had to enter the
lists with other groups to get their proportionate
contributions to keep the commission going. McDonald's
secretary was Nathan Katz, secretary of JDC's Paris office.
McDonald (p.143)
asked for and obtained the advice of Kahn or Warburg for
most of the projects and negotiations in which he was
engaged.
