The Transfer Agreement (77 page)

Nahum Goldmann opened the session, announcing to the crowded hall that the various committees of the conference had formulated resolutions divided into two parts. He added, "It is no secret that the resolution about the boycott was preceded by long negotiation. In the end, we agreed, however. And I believe this text can be unanimously approved."
¹
Goldmann then announced, "I will read the [non-boycott] resolutions first, because they are the least controversial." He then read the resolutions calling for elections in Jewish communities throughout the world to create the World Jewish Congress as a democratic representative body to fight for Jewish rights. The enthusiastic crowd shouted their approval, and Goldmann proclaimed that the resolution was adopted by acclamation.
²

"I am now asking Dr. Wise to read the boycott resolution."
³
Wise stepped up to the lectern to read the six sentences divided into two paragraphs that the Jewish world and indeed all foes of Hitler had awaited. The last sentence was the pivotal one.
It
would explain the shift from a spontaneous boycott to an organized boycott under the coordination of a Central Jewish Committee.

Wise began reading: "The World Jewish Conference notes with deepest satisfaction that from the beginning of the Hitler regime, and its anti-Jewish laws and acts, the Jewish people instinctively and spontaneously resorted to the one immediately accessible weapon of self-defense: the moral and economic boycott. In the spirit of individual and collective self-respect, the Jewish people through the boycott affirms that Jews cannot hold any economic or other relation with the Nazi government of the Third Reich"—this was the reference to Zionist deals with Germany—"and believes that its boycott must continue to be shared by millions of non-Jews in all lands, who understand and sympathize with the Jewish people's abhorrence of the Nazi anti-Jewish precept and practice."
⁴

Wise went on: "When the Jewish boycott of German goods and wares is to be ended depends not upon the Jewish people but upon the Nazi govern
ment. This instrumentality of moral and economic pressure Jews have been compelled reluctantly to adopt and utilize. But they will not lay this down until such time as the great wrong inflicted upon the German Jews is undone and the German Jews once again be placed in the status and position which were rightly their own before the accession of the Hitler government."
⁵

The final sentence was to ordain the Central Jewish Committee to enforce the ban on Jewish relations with the Reich—which would end the Transfer Agreement, and coordinate the spontaneous boycott. Wise read the words: "The conference solemnly calls upon the Jewish people loyally to continue in their legitimate, honorable, and peaceable resistance against the war waged by Hitlerism upon the German Jews and upon the whole Jewish people."
⁶

But where was it? Where was the enforcement clause? Where was the Central Jewish Committee? Where was the promise to be organized? This resolution merely called for the continuation of the
spontaneous
boycott, the "unorganized" boycott.

They had backed down.
It
is unknown exactly when. Sometime after the reporters left late on the night of September 7, perhaps in the middle of the night, perhaps at dawn, perhaps just before noon. But sometime before the September 8 closing ceremony, the boycott resolution of the Second World Jewish Conference was changed.
⁷
The decisive moment had come, but Wise, Goldmann, and the others on the resolutions committee could not carry through. Not if it meant war with Zionism, and subversion of what increasingly seemed to be the pivotal opportunity to redeem the Jewish nation. Israel was at stake. The Jewish people were at stake.

It was a choice, and perhaps since Prague they all knew what choice they would make no matter how hard they protested and resisted. Those who understood even a fraction of the power the Transfer Agreement held knew in their hearts that the Jewish State would rise out of the anguish and ashes of German Jewry—and indeed German Jewry would be only the first wave. Nazism would reach out to all Europe. Whole branches of the Jewish people may wither, but the trunk remains. Wise, Goldmann, and the others saw the branches going down and grabbed for the trunk with a sense of desperation and destiny.

Wise had probably known it deep inside for days as he grasped the true meaning of the Transfer Agreement. Torn between the instinct to fight and the need for establishing a Jewish national home, Wise himself acted out the fundamental Jewish conflict between the call of Zion and the urge to achieve equality in the Diaspora. Two days before, on September 6, Stephen Wise had injected an unexpected and strangely melancholy passage into a speech before the conference. Essentially, he conceded the destruction of European Jewry as a sacrificial warning to the world of the coming Hitler danger. He said this: "Once again the Jewish people seems called upon to playa great role in history, perhaps the greatest role in all the ages of its tragic history. Once again the Jewish people are called upon to suffer, for we are the suffering servants of humanity. We are called upon to suffer that humanity and civilization may survive and may endure. We have suffered before. We are the eternal suffering servants of God, of that world history which is world judgment.

"We do not rebel against the tragic role we must play if only the nations of the earth may achieve some gain, may profit as a result of our sufferings, and may realize in time the enormity of the danger they face in that common enemy of mankind which has no other aim than to conquer and destroy. We are ready if only the precious and the beautiful things of life may survive. This is once again the mission of the Jews."
⁸

It was in this same speech that Wise suddenly switched topics and lashed out at Zionist commercial ties with Nazi Germany.

What went through Wise's mind on September 8 as he read the resolution that reneged on his international promise to organize the anti-Nazi boycott no one will ever know. The conference audience, however, was unaware of the subtle change, unaware that the construction of Dr. Wise's well-elocuted words specifically deleted the coordinating authority he had promised. When the sixth and final sentence of the boycott resolution was read, they all cheered and applauded. Goldmann took the opportunity to say, "I note that the resolution has been accepted unanimously." Even more applause followed.
⁹

Wise even followed up with a stern denunciation of Palestinian commercial relations with Germany. He called it "the new Golden Calf—the Golden Orange," and told a cheering crowd, "I think I speak the mind of Jews everywhere when I say we hold in abhorrence any Jew, whether in or out of Palestine, who undertakes to make commercial arrangements with the Nazi government for any reason whatsoever." He added the obligatory qualifications that hopefully such rumors were not true.
¹⁰

After the boycott resolution, Goldmann introduced Leo Motzkin, who read a special third resolution, this one on the German Jewish question. The eloquent five-point declaration condemned Nazi persecution and called for a program under League of Nations auspices to finance the emigration of German Jews to Palestine. The conference's resolution on the German Jewish question, except for its condemnatory language, was almost identical to the one passed at Prague. Goldmann then announced that this third resolution was also unanimously adopted.
¹¹

He added that a special decision had been made to turn over "the political affairs" of the Second World Jewish Conference to the Paris-based Committee of Jewish Delegations until international elections created a viable World Jewish Congress. The Committee of Jewish Delegations was a Zionist-sponsored Jewish defense body that, like the Zionist Organization, was recognized by the League of Nations. The president of the Committee of Jewish Delegations was Leo Motzkin. The Committee would manage the Geneva conference's "political affairs" in joint tenancy with a panel of ten eminent Jewish and Zionist leaders, including Nahum Goldmann and Victor Jacobson, a member of the Zionist Executive.
¹²

While the "political affairs" of the conference mainly embraced the special resolution calling for organized emigration to Palestine, they also included
the spontaneous boycott. As such, leadership of the worldwide boycott was being consigned to Zionist officials and Zionist organizations. This was the fate of the international boycott so painstakingly nurtured by the Jews of the world. The boycott would be led by leaders who in fact opposed it.

Once again, after reading the text of the decision, Goldmann announced adoption by acclamation.
¹³

Stephen Wise then rose to deliver his final comments.
It
must have been a difficult speech. He could not boast of triumph in finally organizing the Jewish people. Instead, he had to pretend the Geneva conference was not a fiasco for the boycott movement. Wise rambled a bit and contradicted himself. In fact, his first two sentences were: "We have just adopted a most important [boycott] resolution.
It
is true that in that resolution we have said nothing new to the Jewish people, but we dare believe that we have fulfilled its wish and ... have given our approval to that which the masses of the people have instinctively done from the beginning and demanded of us—namely, moved forward to the boycott."
¹⁴

Wise once more felt obligated to explain: "We have postponed action ... for half a year in the hope that a change might come over the situation. Alas, the situation grows graver from day to day, and it is now nothing more but instinctive preservation which moves us to resort to ... the only weapon which is accessible to us, namely the moral and material boycott .... We do not declare war against Germany, but ... we are prepared to defend ourselves against the will of Hitler Germany to destroy. We must defend ourselves because we are a people which lives and wishes to live."
¹⁵

In a dramatic flourish, he declared to the crowd, "My last word that I wish to speak to you is thi—Our people lives—Am
γisrael chai
!
"
¹⁶

Wild applause erupted as the audience cheered the emotional moment,
¹⁷
never comprehending that it was an ovation for failure. The object of the conference—creation of a world boycott infrastructure—was never achieved, was in fact abandoned.

A few minutes later, Nahum Goldmann formally declared the Second World Jewish Conference to be over. Even before he did, the delegates were streaming for the doors, confident that an organized boycott was to be triumphantly led by conference leaders. A dramatic confrontation in the aisle only reinforced that view. The Munich correspondent for Hitler's personal newspaper,
Volkischer Beobachter,
was seated in the press gallery. He was about to leave when he was suddenly confronted by Stephen Wise. As a crowd drew around, Wise told the Nazi in perfect German: "I cannot help wondering what would have been my fate ... if I had come to Nuremberg . . . . The representative of
Volkischer Beobachter
can remain quietly here. He is secure among us and all that we ask of him is that he reports the truth. There is nothing secret in our councils, and we wish above all that the Germany of Hitler learn the truth ... concerning our feelings and attitudes."
¹⁸

Drama, applause, speechmaking, plenty of promises, eloquent resolutions, and defiant confrontation made the Second World Jewish Conference an elaborate show that pleased its audience. But when the boycott resolution was finally studied, revealing an obvious absence of any move to organize the anti-Hitler movement, it quickly became clear that the Geneva conference simply did not advance the boycott cause.

A syndicated column in the St. Louis Jewish weekly
Modern View
reported, "After considerable debate and argument, the resolution committee of the World Jewish Conference ... brought in a report which failed to proclaim a world Jewish boycott against Germany, but which endorsed the 'instinctive and spontaneous resort to boycott' which already exists." London's
Jewish Chronicle
said the resolutions "opened no new avenues and would be approved by any Jewish gathering." Many other newspapers chose to merely report the Geneva resolution matter-of-factly, emphasizing that the conference called for the continuation of the "spontaneous" boycott, with the word "spontaneous" always in quotes. And of course, Stephen Wise himself told the delegates in Salle Centrale,
"It
is true that in that resolution we have said nothing new to the Jewish people."
¹⁹

In many ways, Geneva was the crossroads, more than New York, Jerusalem, London, Amsterdam, or Prague—or at least Geneva was the final crossroads. An awesome choice was made. Stephen Wise and the other Jewish leaders made the choice. They chose the road to Palestine.

T
HE
SECOND WORLD JEWISH CONFERENCE
occupied Stephen Wise's thoughts as the train headed north from Geneva to Paris. Decisions had
been made that only God could judge, only history could vindicate. During the several-hour train ride, a shy and obviously fearful seventeen-year-old German girl kept glancing furtively at Wise and his party. Wise could not help but notice, and in fact became preoccupied with the girt. Several times he tried to speak with her, but she would only stare in silence. Finally, near Paris she gathered the courage to ask,
"Are
you coming from the World
Jewish Conference in Geneva?"
¹