The Transfer Agreement (46 page)

On July
18,
Samuel Untermyer and a team of boycott associates announced that the World Jewish Economic Conference would
be
convened within forty-eight hours-not in London under the auspices of Lord Melchett, but in Amsterdam under Untermyer's guidance. The announcement was met with immediate support by all boycott groups.
²⁵

An article in
The New York Times
correctly identified Untermyer's move as a battle between Eastern European and Western European Jews for the leadership ofthe Jewish people. "Among the Western Jews," explained the article, "it was the German branch ... to which leadership was willingly granted. . .. The present situation is that Poland, with her 4.5 million Jews---the largest colony of them in Europe-threatens to assume by sheer weight of numbers the direction of the racial protective battle."
²⁶

Many Polish Jews were Revisionist Zionists. Hence, Untermyer's move also portended a victory for Revisionism within the Zionist movement over the question of whether to fight the Nazis. The last paragraph of the
Times
article delineated the stakes: "The only question now is which part of the race shall assume the new leadership. That will be decided in Amsterdam and London."
²⁷

Although Lord Melchett was convinced that Stephen Wise's World Jewish Congress would yield a more effective boycott, Melchett was unwilling to relinquish the momentum of his own ad hoc movement. So when Untermyer announced the Amsterdam Conference, Melchett publicly promised either to attend or to send his own representatives as the British delegation.
²⁸

Untermyer's sudden, well-publicized leadership leap boosted him to the vanguard of the anti-Nazi movement. For the moment he had even eclipsed Wise as the single most revered champion of Jewish rights. Even the leaders of the American Jewish Congress, Wise's personal power base, began to doubt whether Wise was still the man to follow.
²⁹

Dr. Wise tried to reassure his own loyal supporters in a late-July letter to the Congress Executive. He denied responsibility for the Melchett conference delays, but insisted that only the World Jewish Congress could or should lead the boycott struggle: "Personally, I have a suspicion that ... the American Jewish Committee inspired the plan ... to head off the Melchett-Untermyer Conference." Wise added, "It is almost impossible in writing to tell you the story of ... my own meetings in London with the gentlemen in respect to the Congress .... [Zionist leader] Dr. Goldmann and I labored with them time and again. I mean especially four men: Laski, Major Nathan [a Melchett boycott ally], Montefiore, and Lord Melchett." Wise insisted that his goal was united action toward a World Jewish Congress that would represent all Jewish people.
³⁰

He indicated that the supraorganization's planning commission would assemble in Prague during late August, just before the Eighteenth Zionist Congress. Wise assured that "a world boycott decision might well be reached in Prague." Even though many members of the World Jewish Congress would come from the solidly anti-boycott camp, Wise reasoned that established Jewish leaders would be outvoted and forced to submit to popular demand. He had taken pains to explain to conservative Anglo-Jewish leaders that a de facto popular international boycott already existed: "In Poland, it is incredibly good; in Czechoslovakia, fantastically good; in France, good; in England, fair; in America, very good."
³¹

Ultimately, Wise expected to win Jewish unity against Hitler. But in his late-July letter to New York he drilled home his determination that he would have to be the man to lead such an international movement.
It
could not be Untermyer, even though Untermyer's worldwide following was already in place. "[1] adhere to my judgment," Wise wrote, "that a world boycott cannot be publicly proclaimed by
anyone
group in world Jewry. This is our grievance against Untermyer and his two fellow musketeers."
³²

Rabbi Wise accused Untermyer of actually wrecking the boycott: "Without conferring with anyone, they took this great step [the Amsterdam Conference] in such a way as to do a minimum of hurt to German commerce and a maximum of damage to the Jewish people."
³³

But Congress leaders in New York were wondering whether Wise's World Jewish Congress would really be effective, especially with its inclusion of so many establishment anti-boycott leaders. In a rebellious action taken even before Wise wrote his late-JUly letter of defense and explanation, the American Jewish Congress suspended the subsidy for Nahum Goldmann, Wise's chief organizer in Europe. One hour after receiving a cable informing of the suspension, Wise objected in a letter he hurriedly mailed without even correcting spelling errors. "I cannot understand this," he protested. "This is only another way of saying there shall not be a World Jewish Congress ... . That decision should not and cannot be made while I am in Europe ....
It
would be just as impossible to run the American Government without Washington, as the World Jewish Congress without the services of Goldmann .... Very earnestly, I protest against such a decision which should only have come after conference with me."
³⁴

Stephen Wise was methodically erecting an international boycott apparatus in his own way. He did not want to be rushed. But many others would not wait.

Provided with only forty-eight hours' notice, not all of the thirty-five national boycott committees could attend the suddenly convened World Jewish Economic Conference in Amsterdam. Only sixteen national committees actually sent delegates. They came from Lithuania, Belgium, France, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Poland, Latvia, and other countries. Britain's delegation represented Lord Melchett as promised. Ten more national committees, unable to attend due to the conference's off-on nature and the suddenly switched site, sent telegrams of solidarity. To avoid any appearance of rivalry, Untermyer labeled the two-day gathering as
preliminary
to the actual conference Lord Melchett was still planning to host in London in October.
³⁵

From the moment on July
20
that Untermyer called the several dozen delegates to order in the hall of Amsterdam's Carleton Hotel, the conference was a procession of militancy. Each representative declared what damage his countrymen had wrought on German trade, what steps had been and could be taken to integrate non-Jewish anti-Nazi movements.
³⁶
The Dutch delegates were among the most active, boasting a 40 percent decline in Reich exports to Holland.

Fiery speeches and a feisty determination to crack German economic staying power created an impressive spectacle that finally put the world on notice that some element of the Jews was united in the war against the Third Reich. One of the most stirring testaments to the conference was recorded by
The New York Times,
which saw the convention as so important to Germany's survival that they flew their veteran Berlin correspondent, Frederick
T.
Birchall, to London to cover the event. When the conference moved to Amsterdam, Birchall followed.
³⁷
His front-page coverage began:

AMSTERDAM,
July 20-In this city upon free Dutch soil where, almost four hundred years ago, Jews driven from Spain and Portugal found a safe refuge, establishing a colony which in the next generation produced the great philosopher Spin-oza, some thirty representatives of world Jewry met today to deal with Germany's modem revival of Jewish persecution. They elected Samuel Untermyer of New York president and adopted this resolution:

"Whereas ... unanimous outcry, protests and demonstrations of Jews and non-Jews throughout the civilized world against the incredibly inhuman policy toward the Jews of Germany have been unavailing ... Whereas the Hitler government has repeatedly expressed its determination ... to annihilate them economically, to deprive them of their citizenship ... and eventually exterminate them ... now, therefore,
be
it Resolved, That boycotting of German goods, products, and shipping ... is the only effective weapon for world Jewry and humanity by way of defense and protection of Jewish rights, property and dignity in Germany .... We earnestly urge all the men and women of the civilized world, irrespective of race or creed, to support and join in this movement against brutal fanaticism and bigotry and to help lead it to a victorious conclusion and until the last traces of barbarous persecutions have been eliminated."
³⁸

The declaration of war officially proclaimed, the soldiers of Israel broke up into three businesslike commissions. The French, the Polish, and the Czechs composed policy resolutions. The Dutch, the Egyptians, and the Americans handled organizational questions. The British, the Belgians, and the Lithuanians tackled financing problems.
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Commercial rerouting was of course the real power of the conference, and this was made clear in the newspaper coverage. One of Birchall's reports, for example, explained, "The matter of supplying equally satisfying substitutes for German exports at no greater cost ... is regarded as the real key to making the boycott efficient. . . . The meeting will organize methods of obtaining and supplying this information in the minutest detail."
⁴⁰

The World Jewish Economic Conference was the spectacle Germany had hoped somehow to delay. In vain, the Nazis wondered if perhaps individual conferees might be intimidated.
If
any of them were German Jewish refugees, their families back horne could be targeted. The German consul-general in Amsterdam inquired of the Carleton Hotel manager if any of those attending were German? The manager checked with Samuel Untermyer. Untermyer gave the manager a message for the consul, which Birchall of the
Times
discreetly reported this way: "Mr. Untermyer suggested that the Nazi Consul might be invited to go to a warmer climate."
⁴¹

Working with great speed, the conferees unanimously established the new world organization they had promised. Named the World Jewish Economic Federation, it would be headquartered in London, with Lord Melchett as its honorary chairman and Untermyer as its president.
⁴²
International media coverage and a broad multinational character seemed to imbue Untermyer's new Federation with the legitimacy it desperately needed to be taken seriously. But this legitimacy was intolerable to Stephen Wise, who saw his rival Untermyer on the verge of global success. Wise began a subversion campaign.

Working through conservative Dutch leaders analogous to the American Jewish Committee, Wise issued salvo after salvo accusing Untermyer's people of representing no one and misleading world opinion. The principal mouthpiece for these attacks was David Cohen, a leader of the Dutch Jewish Committee. While the conference was in session, Cohen declared publicly that Untermyer had no right to convene his group, and that organized Dutch Jewry had not been consulted and in fact deplored the entire convention.
⁴³
Cohen then issued an "American" statement authorized by Wise in London condemning Untermyer's gathering and incongruously declaring that the great majority of American Jews were not in favor of any boycott whatsoever against Germany.
⁴⁴
Such pronouncements by Stephen Wise, the acknowledged leader of America's protest movement, did the expected damage to discredit Untermyer's new Federation.

Untermyer shot back with a widely circulated press statement castigating Wise's "apparent determination to discredit every movement he cannot lead." He publicly challenged Wise ''to tell Jewry frankly whether or not he personally favors a boycott," since no one had yet been able to solve the mystery.
⁴⁵
There was no answer because Wise was proffering different postures at different times, trying to walk a fine line between the protest movement and the establishment leaders he needed to bring his World Jewish Congress into reality.
⁴⁶

E
VEN
AS
the Amsterdam conference was struggling for acceptance, anti-Nazi reaction in London continued its schizophrenic course. The Jewish masses were demanding that all Britain boycott German goods. Jewish leaders were counseling against vocal protest or organized boycott.

The dichotomy became most visible on July
20,
1933,
the day of a giant protest and boycott parade. West End Jewish leaders had bitterly opposed the demonstration; all Jews were asked to not participate, and non-Jews were cautioned to ignore any that did march.
¹

Despite the denunciations, the July
20
parade was universally proclaimed the largest demonstration ever undertaken by British Jews, bearing all the drama of the May
10
rally in Manhattan. London newspapers reported closed shops throughout Jewish districts, a cross-section of participants, and a sea of banners:
MAKE GERMAN GOODS UNTOUCHABLE ... BE LOYAL TO THE BOYCOTT AND AVOID GERMAN GOODS.
Braving searing summer heat, the estimated
50,000
formed an orderly column, at times two and a half miles
long, and urged the thousands of spectators to join the movement.
²

The intent was to create an unmistakable wall of unity. But the newspapers could not avoid mentioning that West End Jews "took no part in the demonstration except to stare at the thousands of their co-religionists straggling past." Irrepressible notices of condemnation were issued by the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association even as the protestors marched, giving a bewildering approach-avoidance character to Jewish defense.
³