... And the Policeman Smiled (2 page)

There was no more euphemistic talk of vacations abroad as an antidote to Nazism. Now, those who seriously thought of getting out knew that they had to plan a long way ahead. Even if, as one observer commented, ‘they stand with one foot in Germany' the lengthening queue of visa applicants accepted that it would be years rather than months before they could return.

In a sense, this made the decision easier for the wealthier families who had to balance the likelihood of the Nazis staying in power against the legal requirement to hand over twenty-five per cent of their capital as a condition of taking the remainder out of the country. Introduced in 1931 to prevent the collapse of German currency, the ‘escape tax' (
Reichsfluchtsteuer
) was a powerful argument against emigration only so long as Nazism was seen as a temporary phenomenon. When that illusion was crushed, the exit charge was acknowledged as a bargain.

The moneyed class, particularly those with business connections overseas, had the best chance of leaving Germany without fuss. Along with leading academics, and well-known actors, singers and writers they were best equipped to re-establish themselves without causing their host country any financial embarrassment.

The prospects for the ordinary run of Jewish citizens were far less promising. Europe and America were still struggling to climb out of a massive trade recession which had cut living standards and caused heavy unemployment. The last thing any government wanted was a huge influx of German refugees. If they were unable to fend for themselves they would be a drain on overstretched resources; if they lived up to their reputation for enterprise and hard work they would take jobs from those already in possession. A third possibility, that if the incoming Jews were so industrious, far from diminishing the pool of employment they would actually create jobs, was studiously ignored.

Another factor counting against emigrating Jews was the fear of importing anti-Semitism. If it can happen in Germany it can happen here, went the argument. There was a case to be made on these lines, as subsequent events were to prove, but it was not one that was strong enough to justify shutting out the problem. Yet this is precisely what happened. In one country after another the barriers went up.

The British law on immigration allowed for special treatment ‘in the case of an immigrant who proves that he is seeking admission to this country solely to avoid prosecution on religious or political grounds', and the 1905 Aliens Act promised that ‘leave to land shall not be refused on the ground merely of want of means or the probability of his becoming a charge on the rates'. But in the early thirties, the government was unwilling to extend these provisions to German Jewry. Instead, all Continental refugees were lumped together under a general rule which allowed them to enter the country if they could support themselves and their dependants or if they had jobs to go to which did not appeal to the British. In effect, this meant domestic service or nursing for women and agriculture or the coal mines for the men.

German Jews in middle-class occupations – teaching, medicine, the law – who were among the first to be ostracised, naturally resisted the offer to take up manual labour. Instead they tried to persuade immigration authorities that they were self-supporting, hoping, once they were in, to find a niche in their own professions. The strategy worked well in the early days of Nazi rule when the refugees were so few as to be easily absorbed, but when their numbers increased to a point where chauvinistic politicians could raise the scare of an invasion by stealth, the restrictions were tightened and stronger evidence was demanded of every immigrant who claimed to be able to pay his way.

It was the same throughout Europe.

The one bright spot was the Netherlands where a liberal policy towards refugees went beyond a friendly welcome to practical help in resettlement, notably by creating training centres like the
Wieringen
farm, a large acreage of reclaimed land in the Zuider Zee. Having set the example, the Dutch were in a strong position to demand a concerted effort to solve the refugee problem. This they did at the League of Nations in Geneva where intense lobbying by Jewish groups helped towards the appointment of a high
commissioner to negotiate with the German government on behalf of refugees and to plan for their resettlement. To avoid the threat of veto by the Germans, who were then still holding on to their League membership, the high commissioner was given the League blessing, but not actually made part of the League administration. He was to have an office outside Geneva, though not too far away, at the Lausanne Palace Hotel, to be financed mainly by Jewish funds, with a staff wise in the ways of international politics but not directly accountable to the League.

But as soon as the plan was formalised, the need for it disappeared. The Germans marched out of the League. In theory the way was clear to rehabilitate the high commissioner. On the other hand, this would have meant another round of negotiations with inevitable time-wasting. In September 1933 it was decided to leave the high commissioner in limbo, of but apart from the League, prestigious but utterly powerless.

The man chosen for this impossible task was the very un-Jewish James Macdonald, a fair, blue-eyed American who was director of a privately funded organisation for international understanding. One of his chief lieutenants was Norman Bentwich, a lawyer academic, a pillar of the Anglo-Jewish community, a Zionist who had lived and worked in Palestine as a high ranking civil servant and a spirited promoter of good causes.

By now, a large part of German Jewry was only too happy to consider any proposal for releasing them from their terrible predicament. As more were thrown out of work or suffered other brutal forms of discrimination the numbers wanting to emigrate increased rapidly. Those without relatives or friends in high places, at home or abroad, turned to an organisation set up by Leo Baeck, the leading Berlin rabbi and an early advocate of organised emigration. He managed to persuade the various religious, social and political groups to work together in the
Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland
(the representative body of German Jewry), which had complete authority to negotiate with the German authorities while keeping the lines open to sympathisers overseas. At the heart of the organisation was a committee for relief and reconstruction which also prepared young people for the day when they could start their lives afresh.

Leo Baeck's initiative sparked off a response in other European countries. In Britain the lead was given by a veteran campaigner
for refugees whose experience of directing relief work went back to the Great War. Born in Germany, Otto M. Schiff was a wealthy City stockbroker who diverted much of his time and resources to the Jews' Temporary Shelter in Whitechapel. Founded towards the end of the last century to provide for the thousands of near-destitute families who fled the Russian pogroms, the Shelter was well regarded by the Home Office, the officials who held command over the destiny of foreigners seeking to enter Britain. Otto Schiff was a severely practical man who could distinguish between what might be achieved in an ideal world and what could be realistically expected in real life.

Schiff's priority was to make the powers in Whitehall realise that the German Jews were facing more than a little local difficulty. Reflecting earlier impressions in Germany, many politicians and senior civil servants had yet to be persuaded that Hitler was other than a tough operator who just might be capable of pulling Germany into shape.

There were still Jewish leaders who believed that Hitler was open to reason. Sir Herbert Samuel, one time high commissioner for Palestine and Home Secretary in the 1931 ‘National Government', Lionel de Rothschild, MP, whose banking family was said to be the sixth great power of Europe, and Lord Reading among others had frequent meetings with the German ambassador in the fond expectation of softening the Nazi line. In April 1933 there was talk of an all-Jewish Parliamentary delegation to Berlin – a proposal which did not go down well with the Foreign Office, where the visit was interpreted as interference in matters beyond British jurisdiction.

Hardly a day passed without some notable figure sounding forth on Hitler as ‘a man of peace' and his party as a ‘great stabilising force'. Alone among the national press the
Manchester Guardian
consistently denounced Nazi persecution. Other papers found much to admire. ‘Whatever one may think of his methods,' opined
The Times
, ‘Hitler is genuinely trying to transform revolutionary fervour into moderate and constructive effort and to impose a high standard of public service.'

To argue the case for those German Jews who did not see the future of their country in such rosy terms, Otto Schiff founded the Jewish Refugees Committee. (It was later to become the German Jewish Aid Committee, to get away from the idea that
refugee status was permanent, and later still to revert to the original title to escape from the abhorrence of all things German.)

His first move was to gain the sympathy of the Home Office. Schiff knew that it was not enough to argue his case on humanitarian grounds alone. Against the sufferings of the German Jews had to be set the prior claims of the British unemployed, not to mention the vocal protests of British taxpayers.

Somehow, concessions to German refugees had to be made to seem trouble-free so that the civil servants and their political masters could have the pleasure of feeling generous without appearing to give too much away. In March 1933 Schiff hit on a way of achieving this by promising that, in return for a relaxed interpretation of entry regulations, his committee would guarantee that no Jewish refugee would become a charge on public funds. In a sense this was merely a restatement of existing regulations. But Schiff's offer assumed a change of emphasis from individual to community responsibility, allowing wider discretion to immigration officials to let in immigrants who had little evidence to show that they could care for themselves. In effect, Schiff was saying that the Jewish community would look after its own. The burden was a heavy one but, at the time, even Schiff himself had no idea just how heavy. He thought in terms of perhaps four to five thousand refugees entering Britain over several years and assumed that a high proportion of these would be able to bring some money with them.

He was quickly disillusioned. Within weeks the Jewish Refugees Committee was overwhelmed by appeals for help. More staff was taken on and the Committee moved out of its cramped accommodation in the Temporary Shelter to larger accommodation at Woburn House, in Bloomsbury.

Of greater concern was the Nazi clampdown on the export of capital. Theoretically, the twenty-five per cent escape tax still applied but, since all other money had to go into blocked funds to be released at Government discretion and always at a heavily depreciated rate, the real escape tax was nearer one hundred per cent. It was clear that the work of the Jewish Refugees Committee could not be sustained without a massive fund raising campaign.

In May 1933 Lionel de Rothschild and Simon Marks, patriarch of the Marks and Spencer empire, led the way in setting-up the Central British Fund for German Jewry. With a call for a ‘united
effort of all British Jews in aid of their German brethren', the CBF brought in no less than £250,000 (close to £10 million by current values), in under a year. Through the CBF, the Jewish Refugees Committee set up lines of communication to American Jewry in the hope of raising more money and to the high commissioner for refugees at the League of Nations who was still the best prospect for finding countries where refugees could be resettled.

In both directions the going was hard. Moving with the national inclination towards isolationism, American Jewry was slow to respond to appeals for funds and unwilling to lobby the administration to adopt a more liberal policy on refugees. At the same time, cleverly thought-out schemes for giving the Germans some commercial advantages in return for releasing Jewish capital were rejected on the grounds that such manoeuvres would merely support an unsavoury dictatorship. Nor did it help that 1934 was a relatively quiet period in German-Jewish relations which lulled all but the most pessimistic into a sense of false security.

As for the League of Nations, James Macdonald and Norman Bentwich were away on their travels, busily getting nowhere. Received courteously in all countries except Poland, where anti-Semitism was a way of life long before Hitler had anything to say on the subject, they were never short of advice on where to send the refugees. New Mexico was highly favoured, being suitably remote and unspoiled, but in the event of unforeseen objections there was always Central or South West Africa, North China, Central America, Northern Australia and Alaska. ‘The more remote and emptier the region,' noted Bentwich, ‘the more detailed were the plans. It proved an ineradicable fallacy that the greatest number of persons could be put into the empty places. A knowledge of colonisation was much rarer than that of geography.'

Given a free choice most of those fleeing Germany would have opted to resettle in another European country or in America. But there was a growing counter-attraction in the Middle East. While Zionism had never been a strong movement in Germany, Palestine was an increasingly powerful draw for young people.

Administered by Britain acting as a mandatory power on behalf of the League of Nations, Palestine was the designated Jewish National Home and had been so since the Balfour Declaration of 1917. But no one, including Chaim Weizmann, the leader of the World Zionist Movement, could say if the National Home was to
be self-contained or simply a Jewish state in a predominantly Arab land. Having for years pussy-footed with Jewish nationalist aspirations, the current British policy was to restrict Jewish immigration in the forlorn hope of pacifying the Arab majority.

With the annual limit on refugees from all countries set at 40,000, it was clear that Palestine could only be a part solution to the German problem. The total population at risk was over half a million. But there was reason to believe that pressure could be brought to persuade Britain to relax her grip. After all, there was, or so it seemed to Zionist leaders, a moral commitment to the National Home which Britain would find all but impossible to abrogate.