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Youth Aliyah (YA - עלית הנוער ) was a Jewish organization founded in Germany by Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife (1933). The idea was to establish pioneer training programs for young Jews who had finished primary school (youths 13-years of age and older) in Palestine and settle them there. She received support from the World Zionist Organization. Freier supervised the organization's activities, recruiting young peoplr in Germany. Henrietta Szold oversaw the program and the other end in Jerusalem which prepared for the arivals. Szold was at first skeptcal of Freier's proposal that German youngsters be sent to in Palestine. She believed that Germany offered better educational and employment opportunities for Jewish children than were available in Palestine, but Hitler's rise to power and promotion of anti-Semitism soon changed her mind (1933). Hitler issued the Nurenberg Race Laws (1935) stripping Jews of their citizenship and expelling them from state schools. The children joining YA were given preliminary training in Germany before traveling to Palestine. There they were assigned to kibbutzim for 2 years to learn farming skills and Hebrew. Kibbutz Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley was one of the first kibbutzim to host the youth. The NAZIs did not interfere with this effort, although as pressure on Jews increased, funding became increasingly difficult. The major problem at first was getting the youth into Palestine. The British restricted emigration because of Arab opposition. After Kristalnacht and the approach of World War II, the NAZIs began making exit visas ifficult to obtain. Youth Aliyah activists in London as a result of the deteriorating situation in the Reich organized training for the young people outside the Reich in preparatuion for immigration to Palestine. Some of the Kindertranport children were from YA groups. YA saved an estimated 22,000 Jewish youths from the NAZIs. After the defeat of the NAZIs in World War II (May 1945), YA sent representatives to Europe to locate surviving Jewish children in Displaced Persons camps. YA also organized the move of Jewish children's homes in eastern Europe to the Western Europe, anticipating that evacuation from Communist countries might eventually become difficult. YA opened an office in Paris to oversee its European operations. Eventually YA became a department of the Palestine Jewish Agency which was the foundation for the Government of independent Israel. YA continues to operate today. The organization brings young people to Israel from North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Soviet Union and Ethiopia.
Youth Aliyah (YA - עלית הנוער ) was a Jewish organization to aid German Jewish youth. The Hebrew word 'aliyah' translates as 'elevation' or 'going up'. It was used both for being called up to the Torah reading. It was chosen for moving to the Land of Israel to give it a kind of mystical, religious meaning. The idea was that it was not just to save the youths from the NAZIs, but as a kind of service to the Jewish people. YA developed as an umbrella organization of the Zionist youth movements in Germany. It was founded by Recha Freier, a rabbi's wife in Berlin, on the same day Hitler was appointed Chncellor (January 1933). The organization was the Aid Committee for Jewish Youths. YA came into being with the merger of various organizations (May 1933). Freier was not an ordinary rabbi's wife. She was a very determined woman internt on making a contribution beyond just supporting her husband. She was also the ultimate Jewish mother, taking the all of German Jewish youth under her wing. She was a university educted educatior and ethnologist as well as a committed Zionist. And she had begun helping Jewish youth even before Hitler seized power. The idea from the beginning was to protect Jewish youth by sending them to Palestine. YA became a pioneer training programs for young Jews who had finished primary school (youths 13-years of age and older). They were to be transported to Palestine and settled there. Freier soon managed to obtain support from the World Zionist Organization for her proposed effort.
Freier supervised the organization's activities, recruiting young people in Germany. Henrietta Szold oversaw the program and the other end in Jerusalem which prepared for the arivals. Szold assumed the responsibility because she was the official in the Jewish agency responsible for social welfare.
Szold was at first skeptcal of Freier's proposal that German youngsters be sent to in Palestine. She was awareof the strong German education system and believed that Germany offered better educational and employment opportunities for Jewish children than were available in Palestine. Freier then contacted Dr. Siegfried Lehman, founder and director of Ben Shemen Youth Village in Palestine. He agreed to accept 12 children. Hitler's rise to power and promotion of anti-Semitism soon changed her mind. And learning of Lehman's support, Szold changed her opinion, agreeing to organize and lead the effort in Palestine.
As AH was being orgnized, Tamar de Sola Pool, a former national president of Hadassah (the American women's Zionist movement), and her husband had just finished a tour of Palestine and were preparing to return to the United States. Szold met her and explained the Youth Aliyah idea. Azold asked Sola Pool to request funding from Hadassah. This was vital bcause the NAZI campaign against Jews would make it very difficult for German Jews to fund the project. NAZI regulations made it very difficult to get money out of the country, especially for Jws. Sola Pool did just that. She also contactd Eddie Cantor, a popular American actor-comedian. He immediately wrote her a check for $25,000 to launch the the project. That is a very lrge sum in today's money. Hadassah would prove to be the major support for Youth Aliyah and cointinues to be do so today. Szold helped launch an appeal to Jewish communities around the world on belalf of the Jewish Agency. [Szold]
German Führer Adolf Hitler at the Nuremberg Party Congress on September 15, 1935 announced three new laws that were to be cornerstones of German racist policies and the supression of Jews and other non-Aryans. These decrees became known as the Nuremberg Laws. They were decrees which in NAZI Germany had the force of law forbidding contacts between Aryan Germans and Jews, espcecially marriage and srtipping Jewsof German citizenship. The first 1935 decree established the swastika as the official emblem of the German state. The second established special conditions for German citizenship that excluded all Jews. The third titled "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor" prohibited marrige between German citizens and Jews. Marriages violating this law were voided and extra-marital relations prohibited. Jews were prohibuted from hiring female Germans under 45 years of age. Jews were also prohibuted from flying the national flag. The first three Nuremberg Laws were subsequently supplemented with 13 further decrees, the last issued as late as 1943, as the NAZIs constantly refined the supression of non-Aryans. These laws affected millions of Germans, the exact number depending n precisely how a Jew was defined. That definition was published November 14, 1935. The NAZIs defined a Jew as anyone who either 1) had three or four racially full Jewish grandparents, 2) belonged to a Jewish religious community or joined one after September 15 when the Nuremberg Laws came into force. Also regarded as Jews was anyone married to a Jew or the children of Jewish parents. This included illegtimate children of even the non-Jewish partner. There appears to have been no serious public objection to these laws. [Davidson, p. 161.] German Jews were stripped of theitr citizenship. The immediate impact on the children was that they were expelled from state schools. There was no way of fully understanding what was going to happen, but the Nuremnberg Laws meant that Jews in Germany had no legal protection for anything the NAZIs planned to do to them. From this point on there was no future for Jewish children in Germany.
We do notbknow at this time how the children were recruited for the program. We do not know if they had trouble finding participnts or if there were more applicants thn places to fill. Nor so we know the background of he participnts. We do not yet know, for exzmple, if th children who were signing up for the orogram came from working-class or middle-clss families. We do know tht Freier at first experienced more opposition from the Jewish community in Germany than theNAZIs. Jews begn leaving Grmn when the NZI seized power. Most German Jews at first believed that appeasement and accommodation was the best approach and tht they could out liast the NAZIs. The hope was that Germny would come to its sences. The Nurremberg Laws would change many minds, but many would continue to hope. This opposition limited Freier's ability to recruit more youth.
The children joining YA were given preliminary training in Germany before traveling to Palestine. The program included instruction in agriculture, Hebrew, Zionism and Judaism, md th geographyof Palestine. The youth were trained at Hachschara centers. The Rüdnitz Estate, located at the railway line Berlin – Eberswalde, was the first preparation center. The second center was Ahrensdorf near Trebbin. Other centers were Schiebinchen (Sommerfeld/Niederlausitz), Polenzwerder near Eberswalde, Estate Winkel near Fürstenwalde, Kibbutz Rissen near Hamburg, Kibbutz Jägerlust near Flensburg, Gehringshof near Fulda. Youth Aliyah schools were opened at Cologne and Berlin. After a 4 week Hachschara program, the Hachschara youth were tested for their potential participation in YA. The nbeeded exit certificates were ordered allowing them to leace Germany for Palestine. They organized into groups and stayed together in a kibbutz or youth village for 2 years. Afterwards they could remain in th kibbutz or youth village, found new 'colonies', or pursue other opotions in Pslestine.
The YA youth were assigned to kibbutzim for 2 years to learn farming skills and Hebrew. Kibbutz Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley was one of the first kibbutzim to host the youth. One wonders what went through the minds of the young people. By the time the young people were first arriving in Palestine, all would have had terrible experiences in Germany. Widespread killing had not yet begun, but the children would have had humilitaing expriences, the loss of friends, been subjected to taunts and threats, and expelled from their schools. Their prents would have lost jobs and fiund it increasingly difficult to mke a living. Many would have lot property. On the other hand they were city children. They came from modern, well-organized urban Germany to very backward Palestine and were thrust into farming, something they had virtually no knowledge of or experience with. The Hachschara preparation program attmpted to deal with this, but in no way could really prepare them. Thus we do not know just how the youth seprate from their parents and at least at first still confortable homes suddenly fiund thmselves in very basic kibbutz farms. There must be some personl mrnoirs, but we hve not yet found them.
Youth Villages, essentially boarding schools for children were set up for youth, including many of the YA children. They are sometimes called Youth Aliyah boarding schools. Siegfried Lehmann, Manager of the children’s village Ben Shemen, took in the first YA youth. .
The NAZIs did not interfere with this effort, although as pressure on Jews increased, funding became increasingly difficult. Only after Kristalnacht (November 1938) and the approach of World War II, the NAZIs beginn making exit visas difficult to obtain. And the NAZIs began to close in on Feeier. NAZI pressure on Jewish organizations
affected YA. The Jewish Youth Support Committee was the organization Freier founded to support YA. The Committee expeled her for resorting to illegl means to get YA youth out of the Reich (1938). Freier refused to leave Germany while it was still possible to save young people. Her three sons and her husband went to Britain and a fourth son wnt to Palestine before the War (1939). Freier and her daughter Maayan remained in Germany. She had tried to help Polish Jewish refuges. The Reich Assocition (Jewish gabcy created by the NAZUS) Committee denounced her for anti-NAZI agitation (1940) Friends warned her in time and Freier managed to flee with her daughter and 40 youth people and a passport stmped 'invalid'. This began an epic odessey. She got to Vienna and then Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia at the time was neutral. The German pressure on Yugoslavia sent her on to Greece, Turkey, Syria, and finally Palestine (March 1941). We suspect that few of the Committee colleagues who dnounced her survived the Holocaust.
The major problem at first was getting the youth into Palestine. The British restricted emigration because of Arab opposition.
Youth Aliyah activists began working in London as a result of the deteriorating situation in the Reich organized training for the young people outside the Reich in preparatuion for immigration to Palestine. Some of the Kindertranport children were from YA groups. YA was at first a German Jewish program. This began to change as Hitler began to seize neighboring countries. YA attempted to asssist Jewish youth in other countries, opening centers there, although by this time NAZI policy was changing from promoting emigration to preparing for what would become the Holocaust. YAegan operating in Austrai (May 1938), the Czech Sudetenland (October 1938), the rest of Czechoslovakia (Msrch 1939), and Poland (September 1939). NAZI policy was to classify Jews, incluing children, as 'hostile foreigners' no matter what their nationality or background. After Hitler and Stalin launched the war, emigration to the British Mandate Plestin was no longer possible. YA tried to get youth to neutral countries like Belgium and the Netherlands or Denmrk and Sweden. To do so YA into a resistance group mocing people secretly acriss birders. This mean that the nunber of children who could be saved was drasticlly reduced.
The largest group of children assisted by YA during the War was the Tehran Children, actually German refugees. . They reched Palestine (February 1943). These children had sought refuge from the Germans with their families (1939). They fled eastwards from Poland together with their parents and relatives. When they reached the Soviet Union, authorities seeing them as Germans as well as Jews, expelled them to Siberia, but then decided to allow them into Central Asia. They then decided to allow them to continue on to Iran. From Iran they continued on to Pakestinee. Some 369 adults and 861 children reached Palestine. Most of the children, some 719, were orphaned, mny loing their parents during th rduous trek. YA engaged a psychologist to treat the traumatized children who were placed in different Kibbutzim.
After the defeat of the NAZIs in World War II (May 1945), th YA organizationin Plestine sent representatives to Europe to locate surviving Jewish children in Displaced Persons camps. YA also organized the move of Jewish children's homes in Eastern Europe to Western Europe, anticipating that evacuation from Communist countries might eventually become difficult. YA opened an office in Paris to oversee its European operations. Eventually YA became a department of the Palestine Jewish Agency which was the foundation for the Government of independent Israel.
We have seen various estimastes as to the number of children saved by YA. The best source on this is Yad Vashem. YA managed to get slightly over 5,000 youths safely to Palestin before Hitler and Stalin lsunched World War II (September 1939). YA tried to get the British during the war to increase the number of Jews allowed into Mandate Palestine, but to little effect. As a result, only about 9,300 Jewish children were able to enter Palestine during the war years (1939-45). YA managed to get some 15,000 to Western European countries, mostly Britin. [Yad Vashem] YA also managed to get some 16,000 Jeewish Holocaust survivor children into Mandate Palestine after the War. Most had to entere illegally because of the British restrictions. The youth were taken to kibbutzim, youth villages, and education institutions.
YA continues to operate today. Youth Aliyah Child Rescue continues to play a role in the absorption of young newcomers to Israel, particularly from the former Soviet Union and Africa. The Soviet Refuniks with American aid made possible the emigration of large number od Soviet Jews to America ans Israel. The organization has helped bring young people to Israel from North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. A modern effort was to work with ‘at risk’ children in Israel. .
Davidson, Eugene. The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler (Univesity of Missouri: Columbia, 1996), 519p.
Szold, Henrietta. "Rescue Jewish Youth!" (January 1936). Reproduced in th The Jewish Agency-Youth Aliyah Bulletin (January 1987).
Yad Vashem. "Youth Aliya" SHPOAH Resource Center.
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