The Transfer Agreement (66 page)

Following Professor Brodetsky's speech, the Actions Committee went into yet another session, this one to discuss the ultimate recommendations of the special Commission on German Jews. As expected, disagreements dominated. By late that Tuesday morning, the special Commission on German Jews joined the other Zionist deliberative bodies and declared a deadlock. The Revisionists would be allowed to present their minority position to the full Congress for a vote.
⁹
The commission's conflicting recommendations were to be presented at the Congress session that Tuesday afternoon, but with no presidium to rule on agenda questions, the scheduled German debate was postponed.
¹⁰

The Tuesday-afternoon session was confined to more public speechmak
ing and more closed-door political haggling over the formation of a presidium. Despite pleas by peacemakers and intermediaries, all compromises were rejected. Yet unless the presidium deadlock was broken soon, the question would be forced to the floor.
¹¹

While virtually all important Congress functions on August
22
had been
frozen by factional conflict, the editors of
Vossische Zeitung
in Berlin were reviewing an extraordinary piece of information. Their Eighteenth Zionist Congress coverage featured a wrap-up of developments, but added to the Prague summary was a leaked report that a trust company organized in Berlin had successfully negotiated a transfer of Jewish assets to Palestine. According to the report, the agreement would allow Jews to purchase up to RM 3 million of German machinery and receive credit for the sales in Palestinian accounts. Furthermore, emigrating German Zionists could transfer an additional RM 3 million capital to Palestine in cash.
¹²

Vossische Zeitung's
transfer item, however, was slightly incorrect. It was unlikely that any authoritative Reich governmental or ZVfD source leaked the news because the item confused machinery purchases and emigration assets as separate matters. It is more likely that the news was leaked by unofficial Nazi sources in Germany or dissident Zionists in Prague. In either case, the delegates would soon have to decide one way or the other: boycott Germany, or purchase Nazi merchandise to facilitate emigration and an assets transfer. The
Vossische Zeitung
article would appear in the next day's editions.

The Wednesday-afternoon August
23
session was as embroiled as any other. No presidium was available to decide agenda questions, especially the burning issue of whether the Arlosoroff assassination or the Hitler menace would be the focal point of debate. In frustration, the religious Mizrachi party introduced a motion for a floor vote to bypass the Actions Committee deadlock, allowing delegates to directly elect a presidium with equal representation for all parties. This motion was blocked by Mapai as being irregular. Mizrachi refused to accept Mapai's veto, forcing a vote on the very question of voting. This maneuver Mapai could not block. The vote on the question to vote would resolve the presidium fiasco once and for all.
¹³

As the vote was getting under way in Prague, news of the Transfer Agreement had spread all over Germany, and most major German papers were carrying the item.
¹⁴
But those newspapers had not arrived in Prague by the afternoon vote. So the Transfer Agreement was not yet a factor. The vote on the presidium question would be a contest strictly on the issue of Revision-ist isolation versus Mapai domination.

All Mapai delegates of course voted to defeat Mizrachi's motion. Mizrachi and Revisionist delegates voted in favor. The General Zionists and Radical Zionist delegates, however, were divided along intraparty lines. A tense Congress waited as the 300 delegate votes were counted one by one. Not until the last moment was the outcome clear: 149 votes for the Mizrachi-Revisionist motion, 151 against. The motion to vote was defeated by two votes.
¹⁵

Immediately thereafter, Mapai forces nominated Leo Motzkin to become Congress president and oversee personally the formation of a presidium. Mizrachi and the Revisionists immediately declared they would not participate. And that afternoon, Motzkin and Mapai leaders formed a presidium mostly of Labor Zionists, with token General Zionist and Radical Zionist representation.
¹⁶
The Eighteenth Zionist Congress would henceforth be run by Mapai.

News of the Transfer Agreement had not yet reached the eyes and ears of delegates in Prague. But the ZVfD in Berlin was quite aware that within hours the news would become common knowledge around the world. To help shape the thrust of the revelation, the ZVfD issued its own press release during the afternoon of August
23.
The release confirmed that an agreement had indeed been reached between the ZVfD and Economics Minister Kurt Schmitt allowing transfer to Palestine of RM 3 million in Jewish assets via merchandise sales. The ZVfD hoped its announcement would be hailed as an important breakthrough.
¹⁷

At the same time in Prague, Dr. Arthur Ruppin told reporters that he would present the Congress delegates with an explanation of the agreement reached with the Third Reich. He would say little more than that it did in fact provide for the transfer of RM 3 million—about
$1
million—through the purchase of German goods via the Anglo-Palestine Bank. Between the German papers arriving in Prague, news of the ZVfD's statement, and Dr. Ruppin's announcement, the entire Congress was by nightfall blazing with speculation about the possibilities and ramifications of a Reich-Zionist transfer agreement.
¹⁸

Although the Transfer Agreement was sealed on August 7, 1933, with verbal commitments, the fine technical points weren't completed until August 22, even as the Congress was in session. By the morning of August
24,
the news had reached the newspapers of all Europe, America, and Palestine.
¹⁹
Zionist delegates in Prague entered the Thursday, August
24
morning session of the Congress anxious to know more. Each had his own notion of whether the agreement represented a betrayal of the Jewish people or a daring move to save the German Jews and create a national wellspring for Eretz Yisrael.

With a Mapai-controlled presidium now in place, the twice-delayed session on the Hitler crisis could now take place. Three major agenda items were scheduled. First, a report by Sokolow summarizing "the state of the Jewish people" around the world—a traditional address that had been postponed over the question of how vocally to condemn German persecution. The second presentation would explain Ruppin's proposed two-stage immi
gration scheme and the Transfer Agreement. The day would end with a Congress decision on commission resolutions committing the Zionist movement either to fight Hitler, or work with him. The Revisionists pinned their hopes on this final event; if somehow they could present their minority report and force a debate on the merits, they believed they could sway the consciences of the delegates.

This was also the day the Nazis were listening with keenest attention. Nazi officials had unmistakably warned: The sterility of the Congress' German resolution, the uncompromising suppression of any boycott or protest mandates, and the complete absence of any hostile demonstrations against Germany—these would be the prerequisites for future cooperation.

So in his speech, Sokolow did his best to sound defiant yet avoid affronting the Reich. His references to Germany were oblique: "The tragedy of the Jewish Diaspora has been revealed in Germany in a manner that is without precedent for centuries. . . . Not only German Jewry, but the whole of the Jewish people is attacked when one speaks of the inferiority of the Jewish race, and when Jewish honor is degraded in so extreme a fashion. . . . It is impossible for us to let anti-Semitism display its fury without our energetic, emphatic protest."
²⁰

However, Sokolow quickly added, "It is not our task to influence or criticize the internal developments of the German people, which have gravely suffered through the war and its consequences. We are not gathered here to criticize anyone nation or any one state. It is not part of the program . . . of the Zionist Organization to break its [shepherd's] staff over this or that state organization, this or that economic system. Our duty is to speak the truth."
²¹

On the other hand, Sokolow, using the words of Justice Brandeis, cried out to a cheering throng, "The Jews will never forget and never forgive Germany's insult. . . . Jews will respect ancient Spain more than present Germany because it is better to have a complete exodus of Jews than be degraded in this manner." The cheers continued as Sokolow ended with the rousing but empty warning, "There is now no capitulation, no surrender, no yielding words!"
²²

Such oratory walked a tightrope between the expectant Jewish world and the attentive Third Reich. But if the delegates had any delusions, the next speech, the anxiously awaited report of Dr. Ruppin, changed their minds. Dr. Ruppin's first words were these: "My address on the adaptation of German Jews to Palestinian life, and their settlement therein, will lead you down from the high peaks of political debate into the low valleys of economic problems."
²³

A procession of economic statistics followed. Ruppin detailed the numbers of persecuted German Jews out of work, profession by profession, and explained why they held no hope for any other livelihood under the Nazi regime. He then outlined the emigration plan. Two hundred thousand Jews
would leave Germany for a variety of nations. Because of water shortages and economic unreadiness, Palestine could accept only
1,000
families now—about
4,000
persons. Only
50,000
to 100,000
more could come over the next decade.
²⁴
"I am afraid I must disappoint all those," said Dr. Ruppin, "who had hoped to say that Palestine would absorb just so many German immigrants in just so much time . . . . The number of German Jews who can be taken into Palestine depends on the capital which they bring with them and on the sums which are contributed to that end by world Jewry.
It
is very difficult at the present moment to say anything about these factors."
²⁵

It was all sounding very fiscal for an exodus. And, of course, Dr. Ruppin was not mentioning that German Jewish assets would not be reimbursed unless the German Jews actually reached Palestine's shore. Yet he did make one point eminently clear: "We shall of course help only those Jews who want to go to Palestine. Emigrants choosing some other country are of course perfectly free to do so."
²⁶

The burning question of the Transfer Agreement was then summed up in barely a sentence or two. He merely explained that the question of German Jewish capital held great promise because an emigration agreement had been reached with the Reich. Who had arranged ,the agreement? "A few months ago," Dr. Ruppin said, "Mr. Sam Cohen had the wisdom to conduct with great care and diligence negotiations with the appropriate authorities iri Germany . . . enabling Jews who wish to emigrate to Palestine to take with them part of their capital in the form of currency and merchandise. You will later on be informed of some of the details in this matter by the German Commission. On the basis of these negotiations, I feel . . . there will be no obstacles to an organized immigration of Jews from Germany along with permission to take a part of their property."
²⁷

Sam Cohen, attending the Congress as the alternate delegate from Luxembourg, did not hesitate to grant press interviews immediately afterward. Cohen confirmed that it was he who had convinced the Reich Economics Ministry during more than two months of negotiations to transfer German Jewish assets to Palestine.
²⁸

As the Thursday-morning session closed, things were still rather unclear. The newspaper items about the Transfer Agreement had been short and indistinct. Dr. Ruppin's "presentation" amounted to a fleeting, ambiguous mention, treating the issue as a proud achievement. And the entire arrangement had been successfully placed on the shoulders of none other than Mr. Sam Cohen.
If
a backlash occurred, Cohen would receive it. For his part, Cohen was willing to risk such a backlash. In exchange for providing the official Zionist institutions with deniability, Cohen was getting his hard-earned glory. Ironically, shortly thereafter, Dr. Ruppin saw to it that most drafts of his speech not already printed deleted any reference to the Transfer Agreement or Mr. Sam Cohen.
²⁹
Dr. Ruppin apparently preferred history to believe he had never even mentioned the subject.

T
HURSDAY
EVENING,
August
24
,
brought the showdown on Nazi Germany. The Congress reconvened just a few hours after Dr. Ruppin's parenthetical transfer disclosure. The agreement's full import had not yet been realized. On first hearing, it sounded like a noble project. German Jewish emigrants would be allowed to take part of their assets to Palestine. Who could argue with such an arrangement? But the maze of provisos and special conditions attached to Haavara were as yet unknown. The magnitude of merchandise traffic, the cooperative economic ventures between the Reich and Palestinian sources, the planned Liquidation Bank, the facts about mandatory loans, the actual mechanism of transfer, and the financial dangers to the German Jews—these were all unknowns.

Besides, there wasn't time to delve into the serpentine issue of transfer. The big issue now facing the delegates was the ultimate resolution on Germany. The German Commission had formulated two majority resolutions, reciting the particular grievances and vested interests of Labor, General Zionists, Radical Zionists, and the Mizrachi. But these contradictory, taped-together resolutions were so devoid of affrontive language toward Germany, so transparently submissive,
¹
and so disallowing of the anti-Nazi boycott that the Revisionists flaty rejected them. By blocking the unanimous approval required to adopt a resolution, the Revisionists forced their own boycott-mandating minority resolution to a floor debate and vote.