[4.8. The
first emigration wave - no help and the reasons -
German Jews impoverished in France - partly return to
Germany]
[1934: French Jews want
to get rid of the German Jewish refugees because of
economic crisis - and "USA" are not helping either]
The attitude of French Jewry to German Jewish refugees was
a source of constant and occasionally bitter criticism by
Kahn in his letters to JDC in New York. French Jews were
inclined to criticize American Jewry for not helping
enough - this (p.150)
was in 1934, at the height of the economic crisis in the
United States. The solution advocated by French Jews was
to get the German Jews to emigrate as quickly as possible.
They even repeated these demands in official bodies where
they were represented such as the Advisory Council of the
McDonald Commission, and Kahn thought he had to threaten
with a negative reaction on the part of American Jews if
it became known that French Jews wanted to get rid of the
refugees.
(End note 39: Dr. Kahn's material, file Hilfsverein,
1932-1935, Kahn to Hyman, 5/11/34 [11 May 1934])
[1933-1934: France:
National Jewish committee quits in 1934 - liquidating
commission takes over support for impoverished Jewish
refugees in France]
The National Committee that had been set up in 1933
dissolved in June 1934. A liquidating commission, which
was to have taken over support for deserving refugees,
refused help to certain categories of emigrants. These
included people who had not applied for aid previously but
had now used up their resources and could not continue
without aid. Having sold all their effects, including
clothing, people had to find money for hotel bills. Many
were faced with the "alternatives of stealing or begging.
Thefts, and what is more frequent, cases of petty larceny"
(End note 40: Gen. & Emerg. Germany, refugees 1934/5,
German Commission report (translated), signed by Prof.
Georg Bernhard, Dr. Sammy Gronemann, and Dr. Oscar Cohn,
among others).
were reported. Well-to-do German Jewish refugees managed
to collect 200,000 francs in early 1934, but this was not
enough. A similar effort in Britain had to cease when CBF
demanded that all money be channeled through its own
organization. Facilities in Paris were bad: the only
shelter in Paris was crowded and vermin-infested.
[1934-1935: France:
Little agriculture training for Jewish refugees by
Agriculture et Artisanat]
Groups that tried to train refugees for emigration, such
as Agriculture et Artisanat, could show only very modest
results: by 1935, the latter group had trained 350 men, of
whom 200 had left France. HICEM helped 2,343 people to
emigrate in 1934.
(End note 41: R22, 1934 draft report)
[Kahn resumes: Economic
crisis and unemployment makes Jewish refugees to an
enemy]
There seemed little possibility of solving the problem
with the means then at the disposal of Jewish
organizations. Kahn summed it all up by saying that the
economic crisis and the many unemployed in the very cities
where the refugees were trying to settle "had led humanity
back to those savage days of human history when every
stranger who came to a foreign land was considered an
enemy who had to be destroyed."
(End note 42: R16, Kahn report, 1/3/35 [3 January 1935])
[1934: France: Direct
help for refugees by the Joint - French Jews are
blocking the settling of German Jews]
There was really no successor organization to the National
Committee, and JDC simply did not have the means to feed
and clothe (p.151)
the refugees. There were about 10-12,000 Jewish refugees
in France in 1934, of whom probably not more than 3,500
were completely dependent on aid. Yet JDC had to spend $
170,000 directly on refugees in France, because local
support withered. JDC tried to obtain work permits by
direct intervention with the French premier, Flandin. "The
French Jews did everything possible to frustrate our
efforts at constructive work there. ... We might have been
able to settle several hundred families on the land in
France, and it would have done a great deal of good for
the Jews there. We may still be able to do so, but we have
already met with insurmountable opposition there. The
reason is that the French Jews are afraid of
anti-Semitism."
(End note 43: Executive Committee, 1/7/35 [7 January
1935]; cf. also 1/4/34 [4 January 1934])
[1934: Political murders
in France spread fear of anti-Semitism - Jewish refugees
are not admitted]
The truth of the matter was that French Jewry was
frightened by the rise of French Fascist movements, which
caused serious disturbances in Paris in February 1934.
After the assassination in Marseille of King Alexander of
Yugoslavia and the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou,
on October 9, 1934, the head of the French Jewish
Consistoire, the highest religious institution of French
Jewry, declared that nothing should be done to settle the
refugees permanently in Paris.
(End note 44: See note 39 above; Kahn letter, 10/26/34 [26
October 1934])
[German Jewish refugees
returned to the Third Reich land in concentration camps]
JDC had little alternative but to aid, to the best of its
very limited resources, as many refugees as possible to
emigrate from France. During 1934 many refugees had no
other choice but to return to Germany. 1,200 to 1,500 did
so from Holland and twice that number from France.
In 1935 the refugee committees ceased this practice
because they learned that the Germans had been sending
Jewish returnees to concentration camps from late January
[1935] on. A JDC bulletin quoted a German government
circular to the effect that "these repatriates should be
brought into a concentration camp to learn there the
National-Socialist tenets, which they had no opportunity
to learn while they were abroad."
(End note 45: R16, JDC monthly bulletin, nos. 1 & 2,
3/6/35 [6 March 1935]; ibid., nos. 3 & 4, 6/3/35 [3
June 1935])
[1935: France: No help
for German Jewish refugees - deportation orders - few
deported Jews - hided Jews]
In 1935 the situation worsened. Welfare for German Jewish
refugees came to a virtual stop. JDC efforts to have
French Jewry inaugurate a new campaign to raise funds met
with no success. The French government was issuing
deportation orders by the thousands, (p.152)
though few were actually carried out against Jews. In the
early part of the year [1935] there probably were not more
than 9,000 refugees in France, of whom about 2,000 were
estimated to be in hiding from deportation.
(End note 46: R14, Kahn's report for 1935, Jan. 1936)
[1936: France: All local
French Jewish committees quit - Joint is alone helping
the Jewish refugees in France]
By the end of 1935 and in early 1936 the refugee aid
committees that had mushroomed in France in 1933/4 began
to disappear. Agriculture et Artisanat dissolved in 1936;
(End note 47: In Paris there had been a committee known as
the Assistance Médicale aux Enfants run by a lady doctor,
a refugee from Germany, with the help of her lover,
another German refugee. She used the name of the Baroness
de Rothschild for raising money without bothering to
inform that lady of the fact, and provided medical
assistance to some 1,200 infants and small children (R16,
May 1935 report). She also received some JDC funds. One
day her lover's wife turned up and found the couple at the
Assistance Médicale. The lovers escaped through the
window, the wife committed suicide, the baroness
discovered that for two years she had been the head of a
fairly well-known institution, and the Assistance Médicale
dissolved. What happened to the children who had received
its help is not recorded (R15, Kahn to Morrison, 3/1/36 [1
March 1936]. Similarly, an organization called Renouveau,
purporting to train youngsters under the influence of
religious Zionism, came to an ignominious end (28-9).
others followed suit. With the advent of the left-wing
Popular Front government in 1936, the Rothschilds and
their supporters tended to withdraw from the scene. Kahn,
usually so conservative in his opinions, was moved to say
that apart from JDC "nobody cares about the German
refugees in France, neither ICA, the Jewish community, the
British (Jews), nor any other organization."
(End note 48: Dr. Kahn's material, file Hilfsverein,
1936-1939, Kahn to Baerwald, 6/18/36 [18 June 1936])
