42. After Geneva

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THE 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

"Yes," Stephen Wise answered. "Why do you ask?" The young girl would not respond. Wise repeatedly tried to break her silence, but she would not speak until just before her stop. She was a German Jewish refugee, without family, now working as a maid in a French village. In Germany, she had lived in a nice house with her family. One night the Nazis came and abducted her brother. The next day he was returned in a coffin marked "NOT TO BE OPENED—SHOT IN FLlGHT."²

Wise asked the terrified girl, "Was the coffin opened?" She answered, "Yes, but don't ask me." Yet, in a moment more, the girl relived the discovery that her brother's face had been shot away.³

The girl's tragic story and the girl herself couldn't help but move Stephen Wise. He bluntly asked whether she thought the Geneva Conference had helped or done damage. The girl looked at him and answered, "Es muss sein, es muss sein"—(What must be, must be.)⁴ She then left the train, but her last remark haunted Wise. For several weeks, he could not help but recall in his private and public conversations that unclear instant when the innocent young refugee spoke those few words: "What must be, must be."⁵

On Friday, September 15, Rabbi Wise arrived in New York. Unlike the return of Samuel Untermyer, there were no welcoming committees, no fanfares, no national radio broadcasts. After resting on the Sabbath, Wise called a small press conference in his study at the Free Synagogue.⁶

In a dramatic session marked by Wise's barely controllable emotional outbursts, Wise tried to explain his activities abroad to reporters. He emphasized that the situation for Jews in Germany was graver than anyone could imagine. Only international pressure, hopefully by the League of Nations, coupled with the anti-Nazi boycott could "bring about the end of the Hitler regime." But, he added, the world must also be prepared to organize an emigration out of Germany. One reporter asked why Wise had wavered so long on the boycott question, and whether the Geneva resolution was not merely a repetition of the boycott voted some months earlier by Untermyer's World Jewish Economic Federation in Amsterdam.⁷

Wise replied emotionally and defensively, "You ask ... what has led me to change my mind? I have from the beginning believed that the boycott was a natural, inevitable weapon in the hands of individual Jews against Hitlerism . . . . My position from the beginning has been that a world Jewish boycott could only be declared against Germany by a world body of Jews. I have never changed my position with regard to that. If boycott there was to be, I insisted all the time that representatives of the world must assemble and declare such a boycott. This was finally done under the auspices of the World Jewish Conference ... and it was I who introduced and urged its unanimous adoption."⁸

Unable to restrain his bitterness about Untermyer's triumph, Wise added, "I do not know anything about the World Economic Federation, if there is such a body. I believe there was a conference of one dozen or fifteen people in Amsterdam, which called itself the World Jewish Economic Federation. I refuse to discuss anything that may have been said or done by the so-called World Jewish Economic Federation, or its head [Samuel Untermyer]. My battle is against Hitlerism. We Jews are engaged in a war of self-defense which will tax every atom of energy of Jews everywhere. There may be Jews who are so little concerned about the peril to world Jewry as to be prepared to engage in the divertissement of Jewish quarrel and strife. I refuse to be diverted. One war at a time.⁹

"For the same reason, I refuse to permit any celebration of my homecoming by the American Jewish Congress." This referred to the fanfare for Untermyer upon his return from Amsterdam. "There is no occasion, as far as I can see, for celebrations or banquets or thanksgivings, nor will there be any in Jewish life until after the Hitler regime shall have ended."¹⁰

Wise castigated America as being alone in refusing any sizable number of refugees. He praised "countries like England, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, and Austria in extending their hospitality to refugee Jews. Up to this time, the only great country which has failed to offer such hospitality is our own."¹¹

However, there was hope, Wise explained, because Palestine would be able to absorb 50,000 to 100,000 German Jews within the next decade. "Such a possibility is rendered likelier because for reasons ... difficult to understand, Germany permits Jews to leave the country for Palestine and to take ... £1000 of their possessions, which is not true in the case of refugees fleeing to other lands." This comment raised the issue of pacts between Germany and Zionist bodies, including the Transfer Agreement.¹²

Wise answered that there was still great confusion over whether the Transfer Agreement actually existed, although he was unalterably opposed to an arrangement allowing emigration with assets via a merchandise sale. "I, for my part, felt and feel that of all places on earth, Palestine must be above suspicion, and that nothing could be worse than that the Jewish boycott against Germany should be breached by Palestine or those wishing to go to Palestine."¹³ Wise was angry. He wanted to fight. Yet he knew whatever fight ensued could not be victorious.

For several more minutes, Wise rambled between different postures on the boycott, what the Geneva conference had actually accomplished, and whether the boycott would or would not be successful. At the end he suddenly broke into a telling of the incident on the train, recounting how he had met a young refugee girl whose brother's face had been shot away. "This is a sample of the horrors to which my people are being subjected in Germany!" he cried.¹⁴

The press conference that morning was less a presentation of fact than an unwitting statement of confusion about what organized Jewry had done and was intending to do about the Hitler question. Few reporters published any mention of Dr. Wise's statements.

One week later, on September 23, at 9:00 P.M., Dr. Wise went to the offices of the American Jewish Congress to explain his activities in Europe to several dozen members of the Congress' Administrative Committee. They wanted answers about whatever had happened to the organized boycott, why it was necessary to sabotage Untermyer's work, and what were the facts about the Transfer Agreement. This time Wise's audience was composed of people who knew many of the ins and outs of protest politics over the summer, people with the power to turn the Congress away from Wise at this moment of accountability.

After a few words of introduction, Wise began speaking: "I think the best thing to do would be to give a chronological story, a story which will be more or less chronological in its character. My work already began on the steamer going to Europe." Wise stopped. "If I am to speak frankly tonight, it must be with the understanding that you [Bernard Deutsch], as chairman, will guarantee that nothing I say will be reported in the press. I cannot begin to talk of the things which I am going to say ... unless, ladies and gentlemen, I have the feeling that nothing will be repeated." Having received the assurance he needed, Wise proceeded.¹⁵

He tried to make them understand what immeasurable good he had contributed to the worldwide protest movement. "There was no action, there was no thought of action in Europe until ... Deutsch and I ... sent those cables to Poland, Rumania, and Czechoslovakia [calling for a worldwide day of protest focusing on the March 27 Madison Square Garden rally]. The whole great European protest movement was undertaken as a result of our inspiration and suggestion .... It was not until the twenty-third or twenty-fourth of March that the agitation throughout Europe and Palestine began, not one day sooner .... Up to our last day in Europe, I never met anyone ... who did not feel that things would have been infinitely worse in Germany if it had not been for the agitation led by America—infinitely worse."¹⁶

A moment later, Wise found himself again talking about the girl on the train. "I asked that girl if she thought we had helped or done damage," related Wise. "Her answer was 'Es muss sein, es muss sein,' It has to be." His very next words were, "I want you to know, for your satisfaction, that I hesitated, I faltered just as much as anyone did. I knew the terrible responsibility. But I got the impression, I want you to know it, that our agitation was enormously helpful. All German Jews, whose judgment is worthwhile, think so."¹⁷

He returned to a chronological account explaining intrigue-filled meetings in London as he bargained with the Board of Deputies to support the Geneva conference. He repeatedly denied responsibility for canceling Untermyer's London boycott gathering, but admitted he opposed it because the World Economic Conference was convening in London at the same time. Wise recounted the serpentine development at the Eighteenth Zionist Congress, its failure even to vote on the Revisionist boycott resolution, and the confusion over the Transfer Agreement. "Labor [Mapai] must accept the responsibility ... Labor had a virtual majority; Labor controlled the Congress; Labor said absolutely nothing must be said about the boycott." Wise then told of his repeated but unavailing efforts to force revocation of the Transfer Agreement and indeed all relations between Zionist bodies and the Third Reich.¹⁸

Rabbi Wise tried to cast the best light possible upon the Second World Jewish Conference held in Geneva. Although he extolled its show of unity, he was in the end forced to confront the fact that the boycott had not been organized, that Geneva had failed in its prime mission. The boycott, asserted Wise, "is a weapon, but it is not the weapon .... The president of the United States and the prime minister of England can do more than a hundred boycotts."¹⁹

Wise spoke for some time to the Administrative Committee, alone and without interruption, offering sharp analysis, defensive explanations, rambling insights, emotional observations, and desperate denials. He had tried to explain his motives, his achievements, his contributions, his failures, his disappointments. To both critics and supporters alike, Wise summed up his efforts with these emotional words: "I gave my best, I gave the uttermost of my devotion, and such strength as I have, to the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Conference. In return, I think I have the right to ask for the loyal, faithful cooperation of the members of the Administrative Committee in the days that are coming. I would like to feel that, whether the members ... always agree with me or not—after all, I am not an arbiter, I am not a tyrant, I do not try to impose my will upon this body—I may have made a mistake in the boycott, I don't believe I did."²⁰

The very first to speak after Wise's apologia was Mrs. Goldie Myerson, an Administrative Committee member and prominent Mapai leader in America. She declared Wise could not expect Mapai people to sit by quietly in the face of his remarks about the Zionist Congress. Others tried to steer the conversation to pragmatic questions of cooperation with Untermyer's movement and whether Wise's report was acceptable. Mrs. Myerson interrupted and demanded that some of Dr. Wise's comments about Mapai be stricken from the record.²¹ Mrs. Goldie Myerson was later to change her name to Golda Meir and become one of Israel's most memorable prime ministers.

Mrs. Myerson's objections were finally overruled, and the ensuing debate revolved around whether Stephen Wise had properly explained himself. In one inadvertent but telling remark, Bernard Deutsch, Wise's most loyal associate, declared that Dr. Wise had satisfactorily answered what he had "been charged with" doing in Europe. Stephen Wise immediately stood to reject this unintentionally accusatory language. Wise denied that the vituperations of his critics, such as Untermyer, were valid charges, and he asked that Deutsch's comments be expunged from the record.²²

Then Joseph Tenenbaum, a leading boycott advocate, rose to second a motion of confidence, adding these comments: "Dr. Wise was the first to raise the question of a boycott, but a silent boycott. It is not due to him that the silent boycott on our part was not put into action .... Dr. Wise was not opposed to the [boycott] resolution, only postponement. We got his ... [pro-boycott] opinion in Prague when it was announced throughout the world . . . . I therefore rise not only to endorse the action of Dr. Wise, but to assure him that our loyalty is steadfast ... and that we are happy to greet him here and to thank him for his noble work in Europe as well as here."²³

Those dissatisfied with Wise's statement, especially Mr. Zelig Tygel, who had become an Untermyer organizer, pressed for a debate with an eye toward forcing Wise to cooperate with Untermyer.²⁴ But Wise's supporters outnumbered the critics. His supporters could not abandon the man who had devoted his entire life's energies to the defense and advancement of the Jewish community. And they could not abandon him because Stephen Wise was the Congress. Yes, there were hundreds of thousands of federated members, with branch offices and constituent organizations in dozens of cities; there were committees and commissions and special panels and an array of vice-presidents and functioning and titular officials. But all that notwithstanding, Stephen Wise was the Congress. And they could not and would not abandon him.

Nor did Stephen Wise want to be abandoned. For Wise, there was no existence outside his devotion to the cause of Jewish dignity and rights. Jewish leadership was his air, his salt, his bread.

In a moment of choice, his supporters stood to demand a resolution of full confidence for Stephen Wise. Finally, even his detractors could not abstain. The resolution was carried unanimously.²⁵

The next day, September 24, at a Congress press conference, Wise announced the immediate pursuit of German Jewish emigration, with a special provision whereby emigrants to Palestine could take part of their capital, along the lines of the Ruppin plan introduced at the Eighteenth Zionist Congress.²⁶

As for the boycott, Wise was confronted by acerbic questions from reporters about cooperation with Untermyer, Wise's sabotage of the London boycott conference, and Wise's stance on the boycott altogether. Wise answered that he would cooperate with Untermyer's League for the Defense of Jewish Rights (American alter ego of Untermyer's Federation) if Untermyer would cooperate with the American Jewish Congress. "The boycott began long before the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights was dreamed of," Wise said. "When I was pressed to declare a boycott, my position was this: A boycott, yes, by all means, the stiffest, sternest kind of boycott against German wares, products and goods, but there were ... considerations that moved me, and I am not in the last ashamed of having been governed by them.²⁷

"Some of you [reporters] may not have thought it important ... but in March and April, a rather well-known citizen of the United States whose name is Franklin Delano Roosevelt was preparing to convene . . . a World Economic Conference .... I confess that I felt as an American that I did not wish to ... [facilitate] a conference to be called in London for a boycott against Germany ... at a time and in a place at which ... the president of the United States had summoned a World Economic Conference."²⁸ With his customary flair, Wise defiantly told them, "Whether that was an error of judgment will be decided, not by you, ladies and gentlemen, but by the times that are to be."²⁹

Fall was approaching and the Reich was unsure whether they had broken the boycott. The Eighteenth Zionist Congress had adjourned on September 4 with a guarantee that the boycott would be smothered, but the ensuing days revealed a continued drama of major boycott developments. On September 6, the 600,000-member Federation of Swedish Trade Unions adopted the boycott—as their British and Dutch counterparts had in prior weeks. Sweden was among Germany's most vital customers, and because the Stockholm government openly endorsed the action, the move was seen as semiofficial. In America, Untermyer was proving unstoppable as he began constructing a nationwide boycott infrastructure to snuff out Germany's last large markets in the United States. Since so many prominent Zionists were at Geneva when Stephen Wise's conference promulgated its "spontaneous" boycott resolution, the Reich again wondered if the Zionists were not playing a duplicitous game.³⁰

On September 13, 1933, Hitler's news organ, Volkischer Beobachter, published a threatening notice. "It is clear that the Zionists are responsible for the boycott resolution presented to Geneva. With Rabbi Wise and other Geneva boycott leaders being directly drawn from the Zionist Organization, it could not be otherwise .... Boycott of this sort would be equivalent to a declaration of war! . . . The Board of Deputies is playing a double game with Germany. With one hand it is holding in check the boycott movement and with the other it is inciting the British government to act against Germany."³¹

Nazi Germany could take no chances. They would have to be ready for the worst. On September 13, Chancellor Hitler and Propaganda Minister Goebbels entered a Berlin reception room where the foreign and domestic press was waiting. As Hitler appeared, an honor cadre of tall, muscular black-shirted guards snapped to attention with a forceful click of heels, a powerful raised-arm salute, and a unison shout of "Heil Hitler." Der Führer, dressed in a dark blue double-breasted suit, acknowledged the ritual with his customary return gesture—arm casually bent at the elbow, palm facing forward.³²

Goebbels walked to the front and announced a comprehensive Winter Relief program to keep starvation from the German people during the coming bitter months. Beginning at once, all Germans would be expected to make the Sunday midday meal—traditionally the elaborate family meal—a one-pot affair costing no more than fifty pfennigs. This cost limit would restrict the fare to varieties of puddings, porridge, stew, and soup. The savings was to be donated to Winter Relief to feed the unemployed. National meatless days were to be observed once weekly, with fish being recommended to help the ailing fish industries. All public restaurants, hotels, and railway dining cars would be expected to serve model one-pot meals as an example to the rest of the country.³³

Farmers would be required to donate foodstuffs. Retailers were to contribute warm clothing. Fuel companies were to donate coal and oil. Relief goods would reach the smallest dorf via an immense distribution network manned by transport employees, the army, police, fire brigades, and Nazi volunteers. The railroads would carry all goods free of charge, the bus companies would provide vehicles. The hardest-hit towns and rural areas were to be "adopted" by more fortunate locales.³⁴

A second phase of Winter Relief revolved around a fund-raising effort that Goebbels termed "unparalleled" and "grandiose." A house-to-house donation drive was to canvass every urban and rural dwelling. Any German with an active bank account was instructed to make an immediate deduction. Workmen were to donate one hour's wages each month. All those donating once for the month would receive a special tag or home plaque making them immune from street collectors. Special donations were encouraged from all commercial concerns and individuals, especially Jews and foreign-relief organizations if they expected to keep Jews from starvation that winter. Arrangements were made for exemplary large contributions: RM 100,000 from NSDAP headquarters in Munich and Volkischer Beobachter; various banks and manufacturing firms donated RM 30,000 to RM 50,000 each; I. G. Farben outdid them all with a RM I million contribution.³⁵

The fact that Hitler appeared in person for Goebbels' announcement and the fact that the foreign press was invited was significant. This was to be the first big, decisive battle, the battle for survival. Would Germany crack that winter? Adolf Hitler was boldly telling the world his answer: nein!

The one man who most embodied the potential death blow to Germany was Samuel Untermyer. Upon learning of the Transfer Agreement and the Eighteenth Zionist Congress' refusal to join the boycott, Untermyer dispatched organizers throughout America to commence a massive fund-raising campaign for his new boycott organization. By the time the shock of Geneva's inaction registered, Untermyer's American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights had called an emergency meeting of 250 national civic, business, and interfaith leaders.³⁶

On September 10, standing before his boycott leaders at New York's Hotel Astor, Untermyer issued a warning to Hitler: "The day of reckoning is at hand!" In a matter of hours, a national strategy had been formulated. The United States was divided into twelve boycott zones. Nonsectarian coordination committees would work on an industry-by-industry basis to replace German products with substitutes of equal quality, preferably American products. Boycott offices were to act as clearinghouses to "reduce imports from Germany to the vanishing point."³⁷

Much ofthe appeal would be "strictly business," involving entrepreneurs whose sole interest was ousting their German competitors. Shielded from publicity, a great numer of major U.S. corporations could then quietly take a leading role in the boycott. The movement would be brought into every neighborhood via posters, plaques, filmstrips, and radio talk shows, all of it dovetailing with the National Recovery Act, making it a patriotic duty to switch to American goods. An international liaison office would coordinate with the commercial attachés and trade sections of foreign embassies and consulates, introduce foreign chambers of commerce to American sources, and publish weekly trade bulletins.³⁸

Women, the greatest commercial power in America, would be the front line of offense. In addition to organizing consumers, women by the thousands were to go from store to store, identifying remnant German stock and convincing merchants to return or withdraw them.³⁹

Leading the war alongside Untermyer would be a "committee of 100" located in all major cities. The top fifteen of this committee would function as the decision-making body. The assembled delegates expeditiously elected J. George Fredman of the Jewish War Veterans; Elias Ginsburg, America's topranking Revisionist; outspoken Zionist leader Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland; Max Korshak of Chicago; Philadelphia publisher J. David Stern, and ten others.⁴⁰

To blanket the nation with boycott required half a million dollars at once. An inaugural dinner was held that night, September 10, to launch the fund-raising campaign. Over 1,500 guests were encouraged by former U.S. Ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard, former secretary of state Bainbridge Colby, and former New York governor Al Smith. The major speeches congratulating U ntermyer and advocating boycott were once again broadcast live on national radio. And newspapers devoted prominent coverage to the new boycott organization.⁴¹

During the days and weeks to follow, Untermyer's hundred disciples set off to bring the nation to boycott. Donations poured in. Offices opened. Printing presses began rolling. Women took to the avenues with their banners and their clipboards.⁴²

Industrial experts were tapped to identify alternate sources for the 7,000 German products still sold in America. The boycott had been well received in the more populated East, the North, and the West, but remained relatively undeveloped in the South and the Southwest. For instance, 25 percent of the sugar beets used by southern sugar-beet refineries came from German farms in Westphalia. But swift action was seen when by September 16, the Kansas City boycott committee enlisted the cooperation of sixteen regional food wholesalers in gathering the signatures of 8,000 retail grocers demanding southern beet refineries replace German beet sugar with crops grown in America and elsewhere.⁴³

A whirlwind tour by the seventy-five-year-old Untermyer was scheduled at once for Philadelphia, Hartford, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco and other cities.⁴⁴

And he built a national organization, or at least the skeleton of one. It took several months, but there were official district offices throughout the country, and informal grass-roots offices in dozens of cities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had been raised nationally to pay for the trains and cabs, the posters and stamps, the telephones and telegrams, the rents and the little miscellaneous things like coffee and doughnuts for the December picket lines.

But it was too late. It was just too late. It had all taken too long. By the time Untermyer's organized boycott was skeletally in place, winter had arrived. Too much time had been lost. The crucial late-summer, fall, and earlywinter German exports had not been sufficiently disrupted to have an impact during the brunt of the cold winter months. Untermyer's people tried. But they just couldn't do it in time. Many had perceived the coming defeat even before the final campaign began on September 10. But they had to try. They were ultimately forced to accept the awesome reality: Germany did not crack that winter.