PALTR EU

The Palestine Trust Society for Advice to German Jews was a 1933 agreement between the Reich Ministry of the Economy and the Palestinian Zionists that encouraged German Jews to emigrate by allowing them to export some of their assets (far more than they would be allowed to keep if they remained in Germany). 60,000 German Jews emigrated to Palestine under this agreement, which the Jews called the Haavarah Agreement.

Any Jew in Germany must surely by this time have seen the writing on the walls – the vituperative anti-Semitic rhetoric, increasing restrictions on their freedoms, jobs they could hold, places they could go – the assets they had already been forced to relinquish. It was clear that, eventually, they would end up penniless.

The Nazis gave the Jews a clear out – keep your assets and leave Germany. As experts in clever financial machinations (they managed to move all their most valuable assets out of Germany or into other denominations to survive the Great Depression okay), they could no doubt have preserved all their assets – and moved to the Holy Land. There to be free of all the hate and discrimination.

The fact that so few Jews chose to leave Germany for Palestine has never been held against them.  They have never had to explain their rationale for not going. Even after their synagogues were burned to the ground, even after all their chosen professions were closed to them – they still decided to remain in Germany and to accept the consequences.