[4.9.
Nuremberg race laws 1935 provoking speedy action -
Council for German Jewry in London - but no action]
[Sep 1935: Nuremberg race
laws make clear that German Jewry has to emigrate]
The steady worsening of the situation was punctuated by
the passage of the September 1935 Nuremberg laws in
Germany, which openly made Jews into second-class
citizens. After the fall of 1935, it became clear to many
that German Jewry had no choice but to emigrate. The
problem was how long this would take and what the
financial and political tools would be necessary to effect
such emigration.
[McDonald's last action
brings British and American Jewish bodies together -
speedy action needed]
McDonald's last, and this time at least partially
successful, effort was to bring together the British and
American Jewish bodies for common action in face of the
threat to German Jews.
The irony of a non-Jewish humanitarian's being the
essential factor in achieving cooperation between Jews
should not be overlooked: McDonald reported to a rather
reluctant Warburg in November 1935 that he was trying to
persuade Lord Bearsted and Simon Marks, two leading
British Jews, to come to the United States to meet with
American Jewish leaders.
(End note 49: WAC, Box 324 (a), McDonald to Warburg,
11/21/35 [21 November 1935])
Among British Jews he found, he said, an unanimous
appreciation of the dangers and of the necessity for
speedy action. Soon
the moving spirit in the British camp became Sir Herbert
Samuel, the noted liberal leader and moderate Zionist (he
had been the first British high commissioner to Palestine
after World War I).
[Since Dec 1935: Speedy
action - Lord Bearsted and Marks present a British
emigration plan - also an ICA plan - 12 to 16 million $
costs]
Events then moved at unaccustomed speed. In December 1935
(p.153)
Lord Bearsted and Marks announced the forthcoming visit of
a "leading Jewish statesman" - obviously Samuel was meant
- and asked for the postponement of separate fund-raising
campaigns in America until consultations regarding a
concerted emigration plan from Germany could be agreed
upon. They were thinking of a plan to take 23,000 Jews out
of Germany yearly. Warburg's reaction was guarded. The
visit would be welcome, but JDC was quite clear about
preserving its independence.
In Britain, meanwhile, ICA [Jewish Colonization
Association] took a similar stand: Goldsmid promised
cooperation and coordination, but declared that ICA would
retain its independence. The reluctance with which the
more conservative groups regarded the proposals stemmed at
least partly from the fear of being swamped by Zionist
influence. Their caution was strengthened by the fact that
early in January items appeared in the New York Times
playing up the emigration plan and the forthcoming British
Jewish visit to the United States - Warburg was quite
certain that any publicity at that early stage was most
unhelpful. Also, Warburg was not quite clear what the plan
actually consisted of. According to one version it would
cost $ 16 million; another version said $ 12 million for
four years.
[21 January 1936: New
York: Jewish British emigration plan presented -
foundation of the Council for German Jewry in London]
On January 21, 1936, three representatives of British
Jewry arrived in New York: Sir Herbert Samuel, Simon
Marks, an ardent Zionist, and Lord Bearsted, a
non-Zionist. To JDC the delegation seemed obviously
weighted on the Zionist side. For about two weeks the
delegation held talks with JDC, the Refugee Economic
Committee (REC), and the Zionists. The plan now became
clearer: there were, the guests said, some 94,000 young
Jews between the ages of 17 and 35 still in Germany. It
was proposed to help 8,000 of these to emigrate yearly to
Palestine, 4,000 to the United States, and 4,000 to other
countries. Altogether, 64,000 young adults would emigrate
in four years. On top of that, an annual emigration of
5,000 children, and 500 Youth Aliyah to Palestine, would
mean another 22,000 in four years. Older people who would
leave with their younger relatives would swell the total
number to 42,000 yearly, or a total of 168,000 in four
years.
(End note 50: 15-7, for a summary of the correspondence
and reports on the delegation's visit. See also Bentwich,
op. cit. [They Found Refuge (London 1965)], pp. 30
ff. The origins of the plan can be traced to May 1935 at
least, when a similar plan was submitted to JDC by Max
Kreutzberger, secretary of ZA (Executive Committee
[Zentral-Ausschuss], 5/22/35 [22 May 1935]). He spoke of
an emigration of 15-20,000 annually, half of whom would go
to Palestine. The idea seems therefore to have emanated
from German Jewry itself and been accepted by McDonald,
who then obtained the agreement of CBF leaders in London
to support it).
The (p.154)
cost of all this would be about $ 15 million, of which
two-thirds would be borne by United States Jewry and
one-third by British Jewry. A central coordinating
committee, to be called the Council for German Jewry, was
to be set up in London.
The American Jewish bodies agreed to these proposals in
broad terms after some rather heated discussions. JDC
leaders declared that they understood the council to have
coordinating functions, because JDC's contributors would
hardly agree to having the distribution of their funds
determined by people in another country. Also, what JDC
undertook to do was essentially to devote their funds
(other than their commitments to Eastern Europe and other
places) to the saving of German Jewry in coordination with
the others. This, of course, was what JDC had been doing
in any case, so that behind the façade of declarations of
goodwill the situation had not changed materially when the
British delegation left on February 5, 1936.
On January 1 Samuel had been received by Roosevelt, who
had promised him "a sympathetic attitude on the part of
the (U.A.) German consulates in the case of all suitable
applications for emigration visas to this country."
(End note 51: Ibid. [15-7, Executive Committee /
Zentral-Ausschuss (ZA), 5/22/35 (22 May 1935)])
Yet at the final meeting of the delegations, Marks was
more realistic than the enthusiastic newspaper reports
when he said that in fact the British delegation had
accomplished very little.
[Skeptical voices of the
Joint to the agreement - Zionist efforts to get German
Jews to Palestine]
Some JDC leaders saw even the small measure of agreement
as a mistake. Vladeck, Marshall, and Rosenberg argued that
the Zionists would simply use the agreement for getting
Jews into Palestine. Zionists, Vladeck said, agreed with
Fascists that Jews should get out of Europe. That was the
reason why the Zionist flag was protected in Germany.
Repercussions in Eastern Europe to such large-scale
emigration might increase anti-Semitism there because
governments would think that they could evict Jews with
Jewish financial support. If this meant, said another
participant in the discussion, "that when Jews are hurt,
they shall immediately be taken out of the country through
a grand exodus, and ... that money is paid to bring people
out of places merely because conditions are bad there, we
would only succeed in muddling up the (p.155)
situation for other Jews all over the world." On the other
hand, William Rosenwald argued, the Zionists got their
funds on the strength of the German crisis and yet only
about 13 % (actually about 20 %) of the admissions into
Palestine were from Germany. If, as a result of the new
plan, the Zionists would devote a larger proportion of
their funds to help German Jewry, he said, the plan would
commend itself "to many of us."
(End note 52: Executive Committee, 2/10/36 [10 February
1936]; 15-11, Rosenwald memo, 2/1/36 [1 February 1936].
Cf. also
Forverts,
2/17/35 [17 February 1935])
Warburg's influence neutralized the opposition, and the
overwhelming majority of the leading JDC laymen supported
the new plan. However, events in London soon made it seem
that at least some of the criticism had been justified.
[And nobody speaks with the Palestinians and with the
Arabs. Already now the Arab propaganda is fighting against
any Jewish plan to place more Jews in Palestina].
[The Council for German
Jewry: Always quarrel about Palestine or not]
The council was to be set up in London and consist of six
men - three each from Britain and the United States. The
three Americans were to be Warburg, Baerwald, and Rabbi
Stephen Wise, the Zionist leader. With Samuel and Marks
considered as Zionists, there would thus be an equal
representation of Zionists and non-Zionists on the
council. However, after the British delegation had
returned to London, Marks invited Weizmann to join and,
probably in order not to appear partial, Goldsmid of ICA
as well. This was done without prior consultation with the
Americans. On top of that, the British now interpreted the
agreement in New York to mean that JDC would raise funds
over and above what it was spending for all its other
purposes.
In the early April session in London of the council's
Preparatory Committee, Kahn emphatically denied this
interpretation.
On April 6 Warburg wrote a very outspoken, though
humorous, letter to Bentwich, who had been appointed
director of the council, together with Sir Wyndham Deedes,
a non-Jew and a pro-Zionist. The council was, Warburg
said, clearly top-heavy on the Palestine end. His
enthusiasm, he added, was somewhat dampened. The English
had allocated their money to Palestine "in its entirety";
the consultations were therefore somewhat futile and, he
added, "some of us feel that we had better stay at home
and saw wood and satisfy the givers, as we have in the
past, by spending their contributions as the givers would
want and as the recipients desire."
(End note 53: 15-3, Kahn to New York, 4/3/36 [3 April
1936]; Baerwald to Samuel, 4/7/36 [7 April 1936]; Warburg
to Bentwich, 4/6/36 [6 April 1936]. As to Warburg's
statement that the British had allocated all their funds
to Palestine, the situation by the end of October 1936 was
that of the 721,035 pounds collected by them in Britain,
392,000 pounds had been allocated, of which 51 % went to
Palestine (see: Council of German Jewry, interim report,
10/30/36 [30 October 1936], JDC Library). Cf. also:
Executive Committee, 5/4/36 [4 May 1936]).
In the end only about half of the British funds went to
Palestine. (p.156)
[Council for German
Jewry: Quarrel about money for Palestine]
In the spring of 1936 the Zionists were demanding that
250,000 pounds be allocated to aid the immigration to
Palestine of 3,500 young trainees. This would have meant
that a very large sum of money would go to settle a
relatively small number of people, and JDC felt that it
could not agree to that - although there seems to have
been no protest on JDC's part when HICEM and ICA spent
very large sums to effect the settlement of equally small
numbers of people in Latin American countries.
One of the paradoxes of the situation was that the
Zionists, especially in America, had not been at all
enthusiastic about the establishment of the Council for
German Jewry.
[1933: Boycott of German
goods supported by American Zionism]
Under the influence of Stephen S. Wise, American Zionism
had come to support the boycott of German goods that had
been started by Abraham Coralnik and Samuel Untermeyer in
1933, to which JDC was very much opposed.
[Beginning 1936: American
Zionists don't want to buy German goods for Jewish
emigration]
American Zionists thought that the council's plan was
similar to the Jewish Agency's German transfer scheme, to
which American Zionism was largely opposed. This, as we
have mentioned, consisted of an agreement to take out
Jewish capital to Palestine in return for the promotion of
the export of German goods.
[Emigrated Jews should buy German goods in Palestine for
construction of their settlements which was happening
already by the Haaverah aggreement].
The boycott trend in the United States was so strong that
JDC, itself eager not to clash with the Zionists on this
issue, decided that no plan should be implemented that
would facilitate the export of German goods.
(End note 54: JC-1/10/36 [10 January 1936], 1/31/36 [31
January 1936])
[5 Feb 1936: Zionists
want emigration to Palestine in any case, also with
German goods]
Now, after the delegation had returned to London and the
Zionist influence had gained weight, the situation was
reversed: the Zionists had been enthusiastic supporters of
the council's plans, whereas JDC's ardor had cooled
considerably.
[Council for German
Jewry: Three JDE members are never in London - British
allocate British money]
The marriage then had hardly taken place when a separation
occurred, though both sides took great care not to
announce a divorce. On paper there were soon five American
Jewish members of the council, of whom three were JDC
representatives (Warburg, Baerwald, and Liebman; Liebman
represented REC [Refugee Economic Corporation], which was
a JDC affiliate). The two others were Zionists. In
reality, there usually was an American delegate
representing the JDC members in London who partook in the
council's deliberations.
Practically speaking, the money the council spent came
from England only (p.157)
and was allocated by the British members of the council.
As to the rest, there was much exchange of information and
consultation and some common action in Europe, especially
in the refugee countries, but no pooling of resources.
[No action to save young
German Jews by the Council because of lack of places]
The grandiose plan to evacuate young German Jews remained
on paper.
To be sure, the reason for the inaction did not lie mainly
with interorganizational differences of opinion. Money
alone, even had there been much of it (which there was
not), would not have solved everything. There had to be
places to which emigrants could be directed, and on this
major point the council did not advance beyond what
McDonald had done.
Max Warburg and Otto Hirsch from Germany "begged and
pleaded for action, meaning that monies be made available
to start sending (refugees) at the rate of 500 a month out
of Germany to various parts of the world, in addition to
immigration to Palestine."
(End note 55: Executive Committee, 7/2/36 [2 July 1936],
report by David Bressler)
[Spring 1937: Warburg's
initiative for an umbrella organization of Jewish
leaders]
In the spring of 1937, during the last months of his life,
Warburg was working on an idea to create an umbrella
organization of Jewish leaders of major organizations, to
be weighted very definitely on the non-Zionist side.
(End note 56: Executive Committee, 4/14/36 [14 April
1936])
[July 1937: Paris:
Foundation of an umbrella organization of Jewish leaders
under Warburg - only one session]
Such a committee was in fact set up and met in July [1936]
in Paris for the first and only time. But one may doubt
whether a mere reshuffling or organizational change would
have made much of a difference in a situation that was
determined by the non-Jewish world rather than by Jewish
leadership.
August 1937 approx.:
Death of Felix Warburg
[Early 1937: Warburg's
trip through Europe brings only few places for German
Jews to emigrate]
Warburg himself had been to Europe in early 1937, and his
report was not encouraging.
(End note 57: R13, Warburg at a meeting at the St. Regis
Hotel, 4/29/37 [29 April 1937]; Executive Committee,
9/27/37 [27 September 1937])
Small numbers of people could emigrate to a few places
with the help of large sums of money, provided this was
done quietly; the same was true of the United States,
where fear of anti-Semitism caused Jews to keep very quiet
regarding the numbers of Jews entering the country.
Palestine was, in 1937, awaiting the verdict of the Peel
Commission, and immigration was becoming restricted. The
outlook was bleak.
[Until 1936: Palestine
splits the emotions of the Jews]
Until 1936 Palestine was, as we have seen, a main focus of
emigration for German Jews. This fact and the emotions
aroused in the Jewish world by the controversy about
Palestine, as well as the bearing it had on the relations
in the United States between (p.158)
JDC and the Zionists, caused JDC to devote a fairly
significant part of its thinking to the Palestine problem.