[Marxism] FW: Part IV Zionists And/As Nazis

["Craven, Jim" <JCraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From Tom Segev "The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust"

"Senator [Werner Senator of the Jewish Agency] who was active in
bringing German Jews to Palestine, warned the Jewish Agency office in
Berlin that if it did not improve the quality of the 'human material' it
was sending, the agency was liable to cut back the number of
certificates set aside for the German capital. The immigrants from
Germany enjoyed all sorts of special benefits, Senator wrote. They
received immigration certificates after only six months of agricultural
training, while in other countries up to two years was required.
Requests for family reunification from Germans with relatives in
Palestine were also quickly approved. All this required special
attention to the quality of immigrants, who should be true pioneers.
Senator was not referring to occasional errors in judgment, he assured
his colleagues; he was talking about a trend. More and more ' welfare
cases' were arriving from Germany, as well as too many 'businessmen with
children' rather than single men and women.

  At one point it was decided that candidates above the age of
thirty-five would receive immigration certificates  'only if there is no
reason to believe that they might become a burden here.' Accordingly
they had to have a profession. 'Anyone who was a merchant', the decision
stated, or of similar employment, will not receive a certificate under
any circumstances, except in the case of veteran Zionists.' This was in
1935. ' In days of plenty, it was possible to handle this material
[emphasis added]' , explained Yitzhak Gruenbaum. 'In days of shortages
and unemployment, this material [emphasis added] will cause us many
problems...We must be allowed to choose from among the refugees those
worthy of immigration and not accept them all.' " (p. 44)

Footnote: "In 1939 the world press followed the drama of the St Louis, a
boat carrying several hundred Jewish refugees from Germany.  No country
would give them asylum. The Joint Distribution Committee asked the
Jewish Agency to allot the passengers several hundred immigration
certificates from the quota. The Jewish Agency refused. In the end the
refugees were allowed into Antwerp. [note where many were exterminated
after the takeover of Belgium by the Nazis.]. (p. 44)

" German Jews who were given immigration permits 'merely as refugees'
were also considered 'undesirable human material' by Eliahu Dobkin, a
Mapai member of the Jewish Agency executive. 'I understand very well the
special situation in which the overseas institutions dealing with German
refugees find themselves, but I would like to believe that you would
agree with me that we must approach this question not from a
philanthropic point of view but from the point of view of the country's
needs', Dobkin wrote to one of his colleagues. 'My opinion is that from
among the refugees we must bring only those who meet this condition.'
Leaders of the German immigrants agreed. 'As I see it, 90 percent of
them are not indispensible here', one of them wrote to another." (pp
44-45)  

"It was an incomparably cruel reality: every Jew who received an
immigration certificate during those years lived in Palestine knowing
that some other Jew who had not received that certificate had been
murdered. This was the basis for the sense of guilt that would later
trouble so many Israelis who escaped the Holocaust." (p 45)

to be continued...

Jim C

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