Vaad Hatzalah

Formation of Vaad Hatzalah

The origins of Vaad Hatzalah can be traced to the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939. In its aftermath, rabbis and students representing more than twenty Polish yeshivas, together with members of their families, fled to Vilna, which the Soviets had transferred to independent Lithuania. The refugees arrived with few resources, while Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinski and the local Orthodox community lacked the financial means to support them adequately.^[16][17]

Grodzinski therefore appealed to Rabbi Eliezer Silver of Cincinnati, a leader of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. In response, the Union's Executive Committee called an emergency meeting in connection with its semiannual convention in New York on November 13–14, 1939, at which the rabbis established a special committee and a nationwide fundraising campaign to assist the refugee yeshivas. The resulting organization, initially known as the Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivoth, later became known as Vaad Hatzalah; Silver was unanimously elected its president.^[18][1]

Rationale and initial mission

The founders' rationale for establishing a separate rescue organization alongside the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) rested on several considerations. Although the leaders of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis acknowledged and praised the JDC's broader relief efforts, they believed that the refugee rabbis and yeshiva students warranted particular attention.^[19][8] Drawing on the example of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai's appeal to preserve the academy at Yavneh at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, they saw the preservation of the yeshivas as essential to the continuity of Jewish religious life.^[20]

Many of the American rabbis were themselves alumni of these Eastern European institutions and in some cases had studied under the rabbis who were now refugees and continued to look to their European mentors for religious guidance and inspiration. They also believed that the refugee scholars had particular needs that general relief organizations were not equipped to address. These religious, institutional, and personal considerations contributed to their conviction that a separate rescue effort was necessary alongside the broader work of the JDC.^[20]

Relations with the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)

The creation of a separate rescue organization nevertheless produced tensions with the JDC. The Vaad's leaders initially emphasized their respect for the JDC and stressed that their efforts were not intended as criticism of its work.^[19] The JDC, however, was concerned that a separate fundraising campaign would confuse local Jewish communities and reduce contributions to the broader communal relief system, particularly as the Vaad began seeking allocations from local federations and welfare funds.^[21][8]

At the same time, JDC officials recognized that the Vaad was attempting a rescue project that the Joint, given its limited resources and the scale of Jewish suffering in Europe, could not fully undertake on its own. The disagreement intensified during 1940 as the Vaad's activities expanded beyond raising funds for the relocation of the refugee yeshivas to providing for the ongoing maintenance of the refugee scholars. From the JDC's perspective, this increasingly duplicated services it was already providing and deepened the institutional and fundraising conflict between the two organizations.^[22]

Escape through Japan and Shanghai

Following the Soviet annexation of Lithuania in 1940, the effort to move the refugee rabbis and yeshiva students out of Soviet territory became increasingly urgent. Soviet authorities required refugees seeking to leave to possess the necessary travel documents and pay for their journeys in U.S. dollars, making visas and financing central problems. Despite these challenges, an escape route developed across the Soviet Union to Japan using fictitious Curaçao end-visas together with legitimate Japanese transit visas. As a result, hundreds of Polish Jewish refugees successfully reached Japan by this route during late 1940 and early 1941.^[4]

By early spring 1941, however, Japan had begun restricting the entry of additional Jewish refugees. Those already in Japan required another destination, while those still in Soviet territory risked losing an available route of escape. Anatol Poneveysky of the Kobe refugee committee proposed obtaining entry permits to Shanghai. Moving refugees from Japan to Shanghai might allow additional refugees to enter Japan, while Shanghai permits could help those still in Soviet territory obtain Soviet exit permission.^[24][25]

Vaad Hatzalah participated directly through Frank Newman, an American businessman sent to Japan to hasten the immigration of rabbis and yeshiva students to the United States. Newman traveled to Shanghai with Zerach Warhaftig in February 1941 and worked with Rabbi Meir Ashkenazi to obtain entry permits. Repeated cables from Rabbi Aharon Kotler and other yeshiva leaders emphasized the urgency of obtaining documents for rabbis and students stranded in Soviet territory, and Kotler postponed his own departure for the U.S. while pressing for them. Even after the first permits were obtained, Japanese transit restrictions remained an obstacle and a more difficult problem emerged: how the limited permits should be distributed.^[26]

Rescue priorities and the Vladivostok group

The refugee rabbis and yeshiva students in Japan focused primarily on rescuing their mentors and colleagues who remained in Lithuania. Refugees from approximately twenty Polish yeshivas, together with members of prominent Lithuanian yeshivas, were competing for limited rescue opportunities. Kotler, then a leading halakhic authority among the refugee rabbis in Japan, stated that the rescue lists should be prepared according to the rules of priority set out in Horayot, a tractate of the Mishnah in Seder Nezikin (the Order of Damages).^[23][8]

The Shanghai-permit effort resulted in a concrete rescue when refugees stranded in Vladivostok were offered an opportunity to sail directly to Shanghai. The refugee leadership decided that permits should be allocated to those stranded there regardless of religious or ideological affiliation. Financing remained a serious obstacle. After Kotler reached the United States in April 1941, he obtained a promise of $2,000 from Vaad Hatzalah president Rabbi Eliezer Silver, although the funds apparently arrived too late for the first intended sailing.^[27]

The JDC ultimately paid the transportation costs. On May 1, a ship reached Shanghai carrying 50 refugees from Vladivostok, approximately half of whom were rabbis, yeshiva students, members of their families, and other Orthodox Jews. Zuroff identifies them as the first refugees demonstrably rescued through the Shanghai-permit mechanism.^[28][29]

Selection process and disputes

With more than 1,500 yeshiva students still in Lithuania and no realistic prospect of obtaining permits for everyone, individual yeshivas and other groups increasingly pressed for the rescue of their own members. Following Kotler's departure from Japan, a bnei Torah ("sons of Torah", referring to Torah scholars) committee was created to administer the distribution; Zuroff suggests that this was necessary because there was no longer a single rabbinic authority whose decisions would be accepted by all the yeshiva groups. Complaints nevertheless arose over the shares received by particular yeshivas, the preference given to yeshiva students over other endangered religious Jews, and appeals on behalf of relatives and individuals. On May 6, representatives of yeshivas and rabbis in Japan established a unified committee to oversee the permit lists, treating the matter as one of pikuach nefesh ("saving lives") and insisting that Ashkenazi not independently alter collectively approved lists.^[30]

The disputes were practical as well as institutional. Committee members objected to allocating scarce permits to people who had little realistic prospect of receiving Soviet exit permission if this meant that usable rescue documents would be unavailable to those more likely to escape. At the same time, individual yeshivas complained that their candidates were being treated unfairly. The committee opposed suspending the effort until the value of the permits could be confirmed, arguing that an opportunity available in the present might disappear without warning.^[31]

By late May, reports that Soviet authorities were recognizing Shanghai permits made the selection process still more consequential. Each yeshiva ranked its candidates according to their importance and the urgency of their need to leave. From combined lists containing more than 1,500 rabbis and students, the committee selected 336 candidates, generally allocating roughly 20 percent of each yeshiva's list. Zuroff interprets the principal criteria as scholarly standing and degree of danger but notes that important aspects of the procedure remain unclear.^[32]

Zuroff notes that Asher Czeczyk, the Radin Yeshiva representative on the committee, later testified that his list placed the wives and children of yeshiva heads immediately after the heads themselves. The surviving evidence does not establish whether other yeshiva lists followed the same practice. Zuroff therefore questions whether Kotler's earlier reference to Horayot was intended as a binding halakhic ruling and how consistently its rules influenced the final selections.^[33]

Breakdown of the rescue effort

During June 1941, Ashkenazi in Shanghai, the refugee leadership in Kobe, and Vaad Hatzalah in New York continued seeking permits and financing. Shortages of funds and unresolved transportation problems increasingly threatened the operation, and by mid-June the effort had slowed or stopped on several fronts. A Shanghai permit was of little value unless its holder could obtain Soviet permission to leave and secure transportation to China.^[34]

On June 21, 300 permits were reportedly transmitted to the Soviet Union. The following day Germany invaded the Soviet Union, effectively closing the Far Eastern escape route for most Jews still in the Baltic states. Even many who had obtained permits could no longer use them.^[35][25]

Results and assessment

The number actually rescued through the permit operation is uncertain. Ashkenazi later claimed that approximately 1,200 permits had been obtained, while Zuroff concludes that surviving documentation supports at most about 600 before the German invasion. The clearest documented rescue is the group of 50 refugees who reached Shanghai from Vladivostok, although Zuroff suggests that additional refugees may have entered Shanghai directly from Soviet territory.^[36]

Zuroff regards the episode as demonstrating that rescue could be obstructed not only by external barriers but by money shortages, transportation and other technical problems, and internal conflicts. He also emphasizes the difficult decisions rescue workers were forced to make about priorities when opportunities were insufficient to save everyone. The Shanghai-permit operation thus illustrates the difficulties involved in converting available rescue documents into actual escape.^[37]

Assistance to refugees in Shanghai

After the United States entered World War II, the Trading with the Enemy Act restricted the transfer of money and goods to Japanese-controlled Shanghai and complicated communication with the refugees. Vaad Hatzalah therefore established indirect channels through Sweden and Uruguay, with Rabbi Aaron Milewsky of Montevideo serving as an intermediary. After Uruguay severed relations with Japan in early 1942, Milewsky redirected communications through Argentina.^[9]

Under one arrangement, residents of Shanghai advanced local currency to refugee scholars while the Vaad deposited an equivalent amount into the New York bank accounts of their relatives or friends. Zuroff notes that this arrangement violated the spirit, but not the letter, of American wartime regulations. To avoid censorship, participants used coded messages based partly on biblical names. One example, dated January 16, 1942, involved an $8,000 transaction communicated by Rabbi Chaim Shmulewitz.^[9]

Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz arranged the transfer of approximately $22,200 in spring 1942 and an additional $39,000 during the following fall and winter. Between December 11, 1941, and late March 1943, the Vaad raised approximately $69,000 for refugee scholars and their families in Shanghai.^[9] During 1943, approximately $90,000 was provided to the scholars.^[40]

JDC assistance and disagreements over Shanghai

Between December 1941 and December 1943, the JDC sent nearly $400,000 to support Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Approximately $60,000 of that amount went to refugee rabbis and yeshiva students. During the same period, Vaad Hatzalah provided at least $120,000 for these scholars. Zuroff maintains that the Vaad's contributions were particularly important in enabling them to maintain their distinctive religious way of life.^[9]

Relations between the Vaad and the JDC nevertheless remained strained over fundraising, the legality of financial transfers, and rescue priorities. The JDC opposed separate Vaad fundraising campaigns because they competed with broader communal relief efforts that also assisted refugee scholars.^[8] Its officials also questioned whether the Vaad's indirect financial arrangements complied with American wartime restrictions.^[9]

Although JDC officials acknowledged that the Vaad supplemented their own relief efforts and had a legitimate claim to communal support, they discouraged contributions to the organization.^[9] The disagreement reflected the differing responsibilities of the two agencies: the JDC sought to assist the wider Jewish refugee population, while the Vaad concentrated on rabbis, yeshiva students, and their families.^[41]

Assistance to refugees in Soviet Central Asia

The Vaad's other major relief effort focused on approximately 900 refugee rabbis and yeshiva students in Soviet Central Asia. Many were among the Polish refugees displaced following the Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. After the Sikorski–Mayski agreement of July 1941 and the subsequent Soviet amnesty, many Polish refugees moved south into the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, particularly the cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara.^[9][38]

The Vaad launched a fundraising campaign for the refugee scholars on December 9, 1941. Its assistance consisted primarily of cash remittances and parcels containing food and clothing. Soviet regulations required general assistance to Polish citizens in the Soviet Union to be distributed through agencies of the Polish government-in-exile. While assistance could be directed to particular individuals, separate relief programs for Jews were not permitted. Zuroff reports that antisemitism among some Polish officials further complicated efforts to assist Jewish refugees.^[9][38]

The Vaad attempted to overcome some of these obstacles by sending money and parcels directly to named individuals during 1942 and 1943. This required precise names and addresses, which were difficult to obtain because communication with the Soviet Union was unreliable. By early January 1944, the Vaad's representative in Tehran had compiled a list of 896 refugee rabbis and yeshiva students in the Soviet Union.^[9]

Relief through Tehran

Tehran became an important center for sending assistance to refugee rabbis and yeshiva students in the Soviet Union. In fall 1942, the Vaad arranged to send food and clothing parcels through the Jewish Agency for Palestine's offices in Tehran. Additional arrangements were later made to send parcels through Peltours, a travel and shipping agency operating in the city.^[9]

By the end of June 1943, the Vaad had sent approximately $25,000 to Tehran for parcels intended for refugee scholars. According to its representatives in Palestine, this amount should have financed approximately 1,000 parcels. However, only about 285 were initially sent by the Jewish Agency to the scholars because Iranian regulations limited the agency's overall monthly shipments to 600 parcels. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Levi subsequently obtained permission to send 500 parcels to rabbis and yeshiva students in the Soviet Union.^[9]

Shipments from Tehran reached Soviet territory more quickly than those sent from Palestine and were less expensive, costing approximately $22 per parcel compared with $32 from Palestine. During 1943, a total of 1,463 parcels were sent from Tehran. Funds sent directly by the Vaad paid for 797 of these parcels. The others were financed by the Jewish Agency, Vaad representatives in Palestine, and the American Jewish Congress. Most of the funds supplied by the Vaad's representatives in Palestine originated from its headquarters in New York.^[9]

Political advocacy and the rabbis' march

As the Holocaust unfolded, reports of the mass murder of European Jews encouraged the Vaad to expand its political advocacy during 1942 and 1943. In February 1943, its leaders established a committee to promote political action on behalf of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Vaad subsequently cooperated with Peter Bergson and the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe in organizing a public demonstration in Washington.^[9][13]

On October 6, 1943, approximately 400 Orthodox rabbis participated in the demonstration, with Rabbi Eliezer Silver among its prominent organizers and participants. The rabbis called for immediate government measures to rescue European Jews, including the establishment of a dedicated rescue agency. A delegation presented its appeal to Vice President Henry A. Wallace. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not meet the demonstrators, and presidential secretary Marvin McIntyre received their petition at the White House.^[13][11]

Cypkin argues that the rabbis' march contributed to the political climate that preceded the establishment of the War Refugee Board, while Lederhendler cautions against equating political symbolism and public commitment with demonstrable rescue results. Although the march reflected the Vaad's growing advocacy on behalf of European Jews generally, its direct relief operations remained concentrated primarily on refugee rabbis, yeshiva students, and their families. The Vaad formally expanded its rescue mandate in January 1944.^[11][12][13]

Swiss and Hungarian rescue initiatives

Germany's occupation of Hungary in March 1944 prompted intensified rescue activity among Jewish organizations and individuals in Switzerland. The Sternbuch brothers in Montreux represented the American Orthodox Vaad Hatzalah and maintained contact with the Comité pro Ungarn and with representatives of the Orthodox community in Hungary, including Gyula Link and Pinchas Freudiger.^[43]

Through Swiss intermediaries, the Comité pro Ungarn established contact with Curt Trümpy, who attempted to negotiate with SS officials regarding the emigration of Hungarian Jews. Isaac Sternbuch separately used Trümpy in an effort to obtain the release of a group of Orthodox Jews imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen.^[43]

On June 2, 1944, Itzhak Gruenbaum of the Jewish Agency and Isaac Sternbuch of Vaad Hatzalah each proposed bombing Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. The proposal was presented to the Western Allied governments; however, the United States rejected it on July 4, and Britain followed on September 1. Both governments based their rejection on technical difficulties and the diversion of military resources from the broader war effort.^[44]

Negotiations with Jean-Marie Musy

In autumn 1944, Isaac Sternbuch contacted Jean-Marie Musy, a former president of Switzerland, with a request for him to approach Heinrich Himmler regarding the possible release of Jews under German rule. In October, Musy traveled to Germany with his son and reached Himmler through Walter Schellenberg. The discussions involved German demands for goods, particularly trucks, in exchange for releasing Jews. Musy later reported that his offer of medicines as part of this exchange was rejected.^[45]

On January 1, 1945, Musy met Himmler a second time in Wildbad, southern Germany. Musy reported that Himmler demanded five million Swiss francs, with the stated purpose of providing medicine and food to the German population through the Red Cross. On January 17, Sternbuch informed Vaad Hatzalah in New York of a proposal under which 30,000 Jews would be released in exchange for five million Swiss francs, at a rate of 1,400 people each month. The proposed payment was $250,000 for each convoy.^[46]

Theresienstadt transport

On February 7, 1945, a transport carrying 1,210 Jewish prisoners from Theresienstadt arrived in Switzerland. Bauer states that the transport apparently resulted from the negotiations conducted by Musy.^[47]

In connection with the proposed releases, Sternbuch obtained temporary credit from private sources and asked Vaad Hatzalah in New York for $937,000. The JDC subsequently agreed to lend the requested amount to Vaad Hatzalah.^[48]

On February 28, the War Refugee Board authorized the financial arrangement on the condition that the funds not be used as ransom. Any expenditure required the joint approval of Sternbuch and Roswell McClelland, the board's representative in Switzerland.^[48]

Despite the arrangement, no further transports took place because of opposition within the Nazi leadership and its subsequent prohibition against allowing additional Jews to leave German-controlled territory. Bauer situates the negotiations within the larger context of Himmler's late-war attempts to establish contact with the Western Allies, rather than treating them solely as a humanitarian initiative.^[49]