The Transfer Agreement (57 page)

The attitude of Histradrut officials was typical of Mapai leadership and their allies, who saw the wealth of German Jews as the most precious hostage held by the Third Reich. As part of this thinking, Georg Landauer and the ZVfD fought for German regulations that would prevent German Jews from saving their wealth by any means other than investing it in Palestine. On August 17, ten days after the Transfer Agreement was sealed at Wilhelmstrasse, Landauer sent a letter to Hans Hartenstein. Landauer's words: "We looked for methods to make sure that sums which flow to Palestine in the framework of the presently granted three million mark concession are indeed invested there. We are also looking for solutions to prevent people using this concession in a roundabout way to establish a sure means of livelihood in other countries."
²⁰

Landauer recommended that ZVfD certification of emigrants be contingent upon purchasing land in Palestine, extending a loan to Nir, or participating in any approved Palestinian investment. Landauer's words: "Therefore I would like to suggest that the Emigrant Advisory Office ... receive instructions whereby emigrant applications based on contracts with Palestinian colonization companies receive priority status." Landauer re
minded
Hartenstein that the legal basis for such an arrangement was essentially already on the books by virtue of currency regulations that obligated the Emigrant Advisory Office to verify exactly how much cash an individual needed in order to relocate.
²¹

Landauer's August
17
letter closed with a preemptive defense against the obvious criticism: "Of course we don't want to prevent the emigration of Jews into other countries. We only want to secure the application ofthe three million mark concession in the sense that it was granted."
²²
But Landauer and his associates knew that without money, a refugee was escaping to a life of soup kitchens and near starvation, a life that almost always precluded an entire family fleeing together for simple lack of cash. Moreover, refugees were barred access to the United States and other countries unless they possessed enough money to prove they would not be public charges.

Yet without the special certification Landauer requested, the transfer might have proven a false boon. Many German Jews were desperate to leave Germany for a short time, hoping the Hitler terror might subside. German Jews were quite willing to transfer their money briefly to Palestine and then retransfer it to a desirable destination such as Holland or France. However, the awesome impact of the ZVfD certification process was that, with few exceptions, a German Jew could not save himself with any of his assets unless he did so through Palestine.

Penniless refugees were already straining the charitable resources of Europe.
It
had been a Zionist strategy from April
I933
to divert relief donations for constructive work in Palestine. Chaim Weizmann had delivered a number of speeches to Jewish groups in this vein, urging them to look only to Palestine and relinquish any serious effort to maintain refugees in Europe. One such speech on May 29 in Paris was printed verbatim in Jewish and Palestinian newspapers for weeks thereafter. At a time when Nazi racial scientists were accusing Jews of being or transmitting an infectious racial disease, Weizmann's choice of words was ironic: ''And here I must speak frankly of a very painful and delicate subject: these refugees are themselves the germ-carriers of a new outbreak of anti-Semitism."
²³

The effect of Weizmann's Herzlian rhetoric was to make Jews in neighboring haven countries wonder if they were not importing German anti-Semitism by caring for the refugees. Weizmann's true point was made elsewhere in the speech: "It is true that thanks to generous hospitality ... some tens of thousands will find refuge in France, in Czechoslovakia, in Switzerland, or in Holland; but ... we must entertain no illusions .... The world is already full—and the countries abutting on Germany will soon become saturated .... What is going to happen to those
200,000
[German
Jews] who may find themselves on the pavement tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? They are condemned to a fate which is neither life nor death." The answer was not a haven in Europe, said Weizmann. The answer was a home in Palestine.
²⁴

Weizmann urged Jews to fight for national rights, not civil rights. Energies were to be devoted away from combat with the Reich, and toward the creation of Israel. Otherwise, the same drama would merely act itself out in country after country due to the irrepressible character of anti-Semitism. This time, the crisis would have to create not a temporary haven but a permanent home. Weizmann's blunt and idealistic words marked the Zionist leadership as being unwilling to protect Jewish rights in Europe at the very moment when Jews most needed protection.

Focusing on Palestine as the only legitimate destination for large-scale emigration, the Zionist Organization rejected opportunities to resettle German Jews in havens or homes other than Eretz Yisrael. For example, in mid-July Australia announced a willingness to accept thousands of German Jewish families for settlement in the northern region around Darwin.
²⁵
Longtime Jewish colonization organizations had successfully settled a thousand Jewish families in the Crimea and another thousand in the Ukraine during the first half of
1933,
²⁶
and a proposal for an actual Jewish homeland in Manchuria had come from Japan. For years, thousands of Russian Jews and British Jews had been living in Shanghai and other Asian cities. Most had arrived after the Russian Revolution; others represented British commercial interests. Japanese leaders controlling Manchuria well remembered the help of Jewish financier Jacob Schiff in defeating the Russians during the Russo-Japanese War of
1904-1905.
SO they responded favorably to ideas advanced by Shanghai Zionists to convert part of Manchuria into a Jewish homeland.
²⁷

But the Australian, Russian, and Manchurian settlement opportunities were rejected by the Zionist Organization. Resettlement meant further dispersion and little more than another scenario for persecution, as Jews would again become guests of a host nation. A return to their own land in Palestine constituted the only end to centuries of catastrophic nomadism.

The Zionist stance made it clear: Palestine or nothing. Now or never.

A
S
the Zionists prepared for a Palestine now-or-never operation, Hitlerism spread dramatically to almost every country where people of German heritage lived. Exploiting whatever local bias seemed most suitable, hyphenated Germans created Nazi-style parties determined to infect their host countries with Aryan ideology. By summer
1933,
the Nazi menace was rapidly becoming global in nature.

AUSTRIA.
Vienna, July
22
:
The Austrian press and cabinet are divided on whether to introduce Jewish quotas into the professions and college.
Innsbruch, August
2
:
Anti-Semitic attacks in the provinces increase as Austrian Nazis manhandle Jews and paint the word
Jude
on Jewish homes.
Vienna, August
14
:
Jewish merchants discover a silent anti-Jewish boycott is in force, spurred on by the Austrian Nazi party.
¹

MEXICO.
Mexico City, July
24
:
An organization of Nazi ideologues known as Confia, backed by right-wing industrialists, asks the government to declare Jewish businessmen foreigners and raise their taxes 500
percent.
Guadalajara, August
18
:
Local authorities will investigate all Jewish businessmen for commercial code violations.
²

CZECHOSLOVAKIA.
Prague, May
31
:
Nazi students at the University of Prague disrupt plans to appoint a Jewish professor, and urge the ouster of all Jewish teachers.
³

HOLLAND.
Amsterdam, August 20
:
A Dutch Nazi party creates numerous anti-Semitic incidents. The Dutch government prepares regulations forbidding brown shirts and Nazi insignia.
⁴

UNITED STATES.
Chicago, July
29:
German-American social groups organized into Nazi cells demand the swastika flag fly over the German-American exhibit at the Century of Progress. Fair officials refuse.
Springfield, New Jersey, August
9: Seven thousand members of a German choral society holding an outdoor songfest are unexpectedly "bombed" by a low-flying plane dropping leaflets urging them to turn to Hitlerism.
⁵

RUMANIA.
Czernowitz, June 21
:
The Nazi-style Iron Guard succeeds in convincing military officials to ban a local newspaper critical of anti-Semitic activities.
Bucharest, August
15:
Denying an Iron Guard claim that a student quota for Jews has been instituted, education officials admit the shortage of space has necessitated limiting the number of students, but say religion is not a factor.
⁶

CANADA.
Hamilton, July
11
:
The Swastika Club erects eight-foot signs on the beaches declaring "No Jews Allowed on Shore Within
800
Feet.
Either Way of this Sign."
Toronto, August
16:
The
400
Swastika Club members disrupt a Jewish softball game by unfurling Nazi flags and chanting "Heil Hitler." The melee escalates into a citywide riot involving
8,000
people.
Police patrol Jewish neighborhoods until
4:00 A.M.
to prevent attacks by
roving gangs. Afterward the police ban the display of the swastika in any form.
⁷

HUNGARY.
Debreczen, August
27
:
Hungarian Nazis affix anti-Jewish posters. Local Storm Troopers guard against the signs, but police finally move in, arrest the Nazis, and remove the placards.
⁸

ENGLAND.
London, July
20
:
British Fascists wearing black shirts and swastikas hold a counterdemonstration as British Jews protest Hitlerism. Special police units guard against Fascist threats of violence.
London, July 30:
Several leading papers, including
The Daily Mail
, print articles
praising Hitlerism. A swastika appears prominently at the top of
The Daily Mail's
column, and its publisher Lord Rothermere personally endorses the Nazi movement.
⁹

BRAZIL.
Rio de Janerio, August
2
:
Brazilian Nazis, known as the Integralite party, commence a campaign to "cleanse" the nation of Jews, who "came to Brazil to rob the poor Brazilians." Integralite advocates a "Fascist Fatherland."
¹⁰

PALESTINE.
Jerusalem, April
1
:
The Arab leadership adopts Hitlerism as the long-awaited anti-Jewish weapon. The Mufti of Jerusalem, leader of Palestine's Arab community, notifies the Reich that "Mohammedans inside and outside of Palestine welcome the new German regime and hope for an expansion of fascist and anti-democratic regimes in other countries." He adds that Mohammedans everywhere will assist any Nazi campaign designed to "damage Jewish prosperity."
Haifa, June
1:
German Christians stage a march complete with swastika-bedecked Brownshirt uniforms.
¹¹

POLAND.
Bendzin, August
15
:
Polish Brownshirts end an anti-Semitic rally after police orders to disperse, but then rampage through the streets molesting Jewish citizens. Police reinforcements finally curtail the disturbance.
Czestochowa, August
21
:
Following random street attacks against Jews, Polish Fascists receive prison sentences, their publication is suspended, and their headquarters is closed.
¹²

IRAQ.
Baghdad, August
20
:
Nazi sympathizers accelerate a wave of persecution against the ancient Babylonian Jewish community. In one disturbance, Arabs waving black Fascist flags with anti-Jewish inscriptions march through a Jewish district. Policemen look on passively as Jews are beaten.
¹³

SWEDEN.
Stockholm, June
10
:
Government authorities discover Reich plans to spend
$ 10
million to propagandize for a massive Germanic state occupying all of north central Europe. Led by Swedish Nazis of German ancestry, a first step will establish a Nazi newspaper and publishing house.
Malmö, August 21:
Although townsfolk throughout Skane Province resist Nazi ideology, Swedish Nazis successfully recruit among Lund University students.
¹⁴