Historical Study Reveals Details of JDC Rescue in Europe Under Nazi Occupation
War Loan System Funded Food And Shelter For Doomed Jews When American Funds Could No Longer Reach Them
MARCH 24, 2002– New York – A dramatic story of courage and ingenuity involving the rescue of Jews under Nazi occupation has been told almost sixty years after the war.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has released the findings of an independent historical committee on loans chaired by Dr. Yitzchak Arad, former Chairman of Yad Vashem, to research files which relate to its life-saving activities during the Second World War. These activities were funded in part by loans from individual Jews living in Nazi-occupied Europe.
In the chaotic situation that existed at the time in Poland, Belgium, France and other occupied territories in Europe, JDC was feeding children and the elderly in ghettos and orphanages, providing medical services and other emergency assistance while making every attempt to get Jews out of Europe.
However, as
an American organization, JDC was not allowed to transfer
currency to areas under enemy (=Nazi) occupation. JDC
representatives in the field were starved for cash and
so turned to local Jews who were trying to get their
money out to the free world. Loans to JDC representatives
were made on the understanding that they would be repaid
once the circumstances enabled it. At that time, the
full scope of the genocide was not yet fully recognized.
JDC representatives in the field risked their lives by infiltrating Jewish ghettos controlled by the Nazis. For example, JDC’s Isaac Giterman, who was killed by the SS in the Warsaw ghetto, safeguarded the monies of those unable to escape by ‘borrowing’ large amounts of local currency, which would be paid after the war. The Arad Committee expressed its "appreciation and esteem for the initiative and dedication shown by JDC’s representatives in occupied Europe and Shanghai. All of these people risked their own lives," the report concluded. "And, indeed, many of these individuals perished while performing their tasks along with the other victims of the Holocaust."
The Arad Committee found that "the loans served the needs and interests of both parties. For the [JDC], the loans created the possibility of immediate activity on behalf of the urgent needs of the Jewish people in Occupied Europe. The lenders, on the other hand, stood the risk of losing the money in other ways, and the local currency they held was constantly being devalued. Furthermore, for the lenders, the very possession of money and/or goods constituted a grave danger, since they were prohibited from possessing them by laws instituted by the German occupiers. Transgression could lead to a death sentence for the lender and his or her family. For them, the loans solved these immediate dangers and gave them a basis for hope and some assurance they would receive the money after the war."
Many of these loans were paid as early as 1940, as soon as the lender managed to escape the Nazis. In 1945 JDC established a committee to receive further requests for reimbursement. Many of the lists kept by the JDC representatives were lost or destroyed during the war. Lenders had little or no documentation. Some produced a handwritten note on a cigarette box, others a wrinkled piece of paper. Some were only able to mention the name of the JDC representative in the city where they had lived. All were accepted for review, and most were promptly reimbursed, even when lists of lenders were lost or the JDC representative had perished at the hands of the Nazis.
The reimbursement committee continued its work through the 1950’s and some requests for reimbursement were settled as late as the 1960’s. By this time requests had been settled in JDC offices all over the world including New York, Paris, Lisbon, Budapest and in Palestine. It is safe to assume that most of those who loaned money to JDC were repaid.
In fact, the Arad Committee found JDC had "acted in good faith and weighed all matters pertaining to the repayment of the loans" and found "no flaw in the manner in which JDC operated insofar as repayment of the loans was concerned." Members of the Arad Committee are: Dr. Yitzchak Arad (Chair), former Chair of the Yad Vashem Governing Board; Prof. Yisrael Gutman, historian, chief scholar of Yad Vashem; Chair of the editorial board of the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust; Aviv Levin, Esq., Attorney, former Chief Legal Advisor and Co-Managing Director of Bank Hapoalim; and Jeshajahu Weinberg (z"l), founding Director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.
The Board of Directors of JDC discussed the findings of the Arad Committee and resolved that those loans were debts of honor that JDC would continue to honor without time limitation, deadlines or expiration dates. Although it is hard to believe that there are still individuals who had loaned money to JDC during World War II and were not reimbursed the JDC Board instructed the staff to create the mechanism for examining such requests.
Today JDC announced the formation of a new WWII Loans Review Committee responsible for examining claims on loans made to the JDC during the dark days of WWII. Former Registrar Judge of the Supreme Court of Israel, David Bar-Tov, will chair the Committee, which marks the conclusion of a heroic chapter in JDC history.
JDC Executive Vice-President Michael Schneider explained the formation of the Review Committee by stating, "when JDC formed the Arad Committee we pledged a thorough review of this important chapter in our history. There was a need to gather all facts and compose a full picture of the issue. The Arad Committee achieved this goal as much as humanly possible considering the scarcity of documents and the sad fact that all JDC staff from that period have passed away. We are continuing to do the right thing regarding war time loans to JDC. Many of these records were destroyed in the war, and so we can never be certain, or close our doors to the possibility that somewhere out there, there may still be rightful claimants to these loans. We continue to welcome and will examine every personal claim made in this matter."
Also serving on the Loans Review Committee is Herbert Block, Assistant Executive Vice-President of JDC in New York and former Assistant to the Mayor of New York. The Committee’s third member is Dr. Zvi Feine, JDC-Israel’s Deputy Director. Eliyahu Shashua, JDC International Legal Consultant will serve as Coordinator of the Committee.
Claimants may address their requests to loansreview@jdc.org
