By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Jewish tradition says that “he who saves one soul, (it) is as if he saved the entire world” and while the American Joint Distribution Committee was unable to save millions of European Jews during the Holocaust, it did manage to save hundreds of thousands of them,
Rabbi Jonathan Porath outlined the history of the JDC and its role in helping to save European Jews at Adath Israel Congregation Sunday morning, courtesy of the sixth annual Sacks-Wilner Holocaust Education Program at the synagogue.
His remarks also coincided with the 74th anniversary of Kristallnacht “the night of the broken glass” on Nov. 9, 1938, which ramped up the Nazis’ persecution of Jews.
The JDC was founded in 1914 by American Jews to help Jews who lived in war-torn Europe and Palestine, Rabbi Porath said. The American ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau Sr., sent a cablegram to philanthropist Jacob Schiff, seeking $50,000 to help Jews who lived in Palestine. The money was raised and sent to help them.
Out of that group grew the JDC, he said. Once the war was over, the JDC thought it could disband. But there were attacks on Jews in Russia after the Russian revolution, and European Jews and those who lived in Palestine continued to need help, he said.
The Nazis’ rise to power in 1933 reinforced the need for the JDC, he said. During the 1930s, German Jews were systematically deprived of their civil rights. There was an economic boycott of Jewish merchants and professionals in Germany.
”Who was going to support (the German Jews)? The JDC said, ‘It’s our responsibility,’ and it began fundraising,” said Rabbi Porath.
The JDC spent millions of dollars to help German Jews in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II, he said.
In 1938, the Nazis invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia, with the same results for the Jewish population the loss of jobs and civil rights, and the forced expulsion from those countries. The Jews applied for visas to leave, but there was virtually nowhere to go because few countries would accept them, he said.
But when the Dominican Republic said it would accept 100,000 Jews, the JDC jumped into action and provided help, he said. Only a few hundred European Jews had escaped and settled in the Dominican Republic by the end of World War II, although more than 5,000 visas were issued, he said.
Around the same time in 1938, the Germans expelled Polish Jews who were living in Germany. They were literally dragged out of their beds and forced across the border into Poland and it was up to the JDC to help them by setting up soup kitchens and other forms of assistance, he said.
”They were people like us. They were left with nothing. Their whole lives had collapsed instantly through expulsion,” Rabbi Porath told the audience. But it also marked a turning point in the events that would lead up to the Holocaust, he said.
Herschel Grynspan, whose parents were forced to leave Germany, was angry, Rabbi Porath said. He sneaked a gun into the Germany embassy in Paris and killed German diplomat Ernst von Rath. The Nazis used it as an excuse to initiate riots against the Jews on Nov. 9, 1938 Kristallnacht in retaliation for the murder.
”After Kristallnacht, the Jews who thought if they kept their heads down that they would be able to ride out the storm discovered it was an illusion,” Rabbi Porath said. The message was clear the Jews had to leave Germany. But how? Where?
Again, the JDC stepped in to help European Jews escape, he said. Nearly 1,000 Jews crowded onto a ship headed for Cuba, having obtained permission to immigrate to the island nation. But when they arrived, the SS St. Louis was turned back. The JDC offered to pay $500,000 to the Cubans to allow the Jews to disembark, but the offer was refused and the ship returned to Europe.
From its headquarters in Lisbon during World War II, the JDC helped thousands of Jews to escape, Rabbi Porath said. Some escaped to Shanghai, which was the only place where a visa was not necessary to enter, he said. There, the JDC set up hotels and hospitals for the refugees.
The JDC also supported about 1,000 Jewish refugees who became stranded in Kladovo, Yugoslavia, when their ship became mired in ice on the river, he said. The immigrants, who were on their way to Palestine, did not survive because they were unable to escape before the Germans invaded Yugoslavia in 1941.
In country after country, the JDC tried to save the Jews, Rabbi Porath said. Sometimes, those efforts were successful. The JDC paid the Germans to allow one trainload of Hungarian Jews, which was bound for a concentration camp, to continue on to Switzerland. The JDC also stepped in and purchased food for thousands of Jews stranded in Romania.
But even after World War II ended, the JDC’s support was necessary, he said. There were riots and attacks on Jews in Poland in 1946, and the Jews had to flee. The JDC arranged for a truck to put the Jews on a train for Vienna.
Rabbi Porath acknowledged that the JDC did not do enough to save the European Jews, but only because it lacked the resources. More could have been done, but “if you save one life, it is as if you saved the world.”
”You can no longer stand on the side. No one is going to take care of the Jews but the Jews. If we don’t help our brothers and sisters, who will help us? The Jews felt the responsibility to help other Jews. We are helping others, but we are helping ourselves as well,” Rabbi Porath said.

