Black Earth(27)

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The question of the settlement of European Jews was a general European one, in which Poland occupied a position somewhere between the Nazi one (Jews must be eliminated, and emigration seemed the practical way to achieve this) and the Zionist one (Jews had a right to a state, which would have to be created from an existing colony).

The question of where European Jews might settle had been open since the nineteenth century, and very different sorts of politicians and ideologues proposed the same places. The island of Madagascar, a colonial French possession off the southeast African coast in the Indian Ocean, was introduced to the discussion by the antisemite Paul de Lagarde (actually a German named B?tticher) in 1885. This idea could be considered with greater or lesser hostility or sympathy. It had supporters in Great Britain and, of course, among Germans, including the Nazi leadership. Only in French could one say “Madagassez les Juifs,” but not all of those who considered the idea in France were enemies of the Jews. Zionists also considered Madagascar, although most rejected it.

Polish authorities also allowed themselves to be tempted by the prospect of colonizing Madagascar. The idea of settling Madagascar with Polish citizens was first raised in 1926; at that time the idea was the emigration of Polish peasants from the overpopulated countryside. A decade later, after Pi?sudski’s death, the idea returned in a Jewish variant. Beck proposed the emigration of Polish Jews to Madagascar to French prime minister Léon Blum in October 1936, and Blum allowed the Poles to send a three-man exploratory delegation to the island. The representative of the Polish government thought that about fifty thousand Jews could be settled immediately—a significant number, but not one that would have affected the population balance in Poland. The delegate from the Jewish Emigration Association thought that four hundred families might settle. The agricultural expert from Palestine thought that even this was too much. The inhabitants of Madagascar rejected any settlement from Poland. French nationalists, for their part, were concerned that the Polish colonization project would succeed and that the island would become Polish. Meanwhile, the pro-Madagascar propaganda of the Polish regime backfired: When told that the island was suitable for colonization, Polish nationalists demanded “Madagascar only for the Poles!”

Beck and Drymmer expressed a special interest in the future of Palestine, a former Ottoman possession that was under British authority. The decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire had been a lesson for many European statesmen. Whereas Hitler tended to see the creation of Balkan nation-states from the Ottoman Empire as a positive example of militarism, Poles understood the same history as national liberation that would spread from Europe to Asia. Whereas European territories taken from empires after the First World War generally became nation-states, Asian territories tended to become part of the French or British empires, sometimes in the form of “mandates” from the League of Nations. These were places judged not ready for sovereignty, and thus allotted to the great powers for political tutoring. Palestine, taken from the defunct Ottoman district of South Syria, was such a mandate. Although the territory had a rather small Jewish minority when the British took control in 1920, British policy presented Palestine as a future Jewish National Home. This was in line with the hopes of Zionists, who hoped that one day a deal for full statehood could be struck.

Hitler’s Jewish policy forced all of the powers to clarify their position on the future of Palestine. About 130,000 German Jews emigrated in the years after Hitler came to power, some fifty thousand of them settling in Palestine. Their arrival reduced the demographic advantage of local Arabs, who tended to consider Palestine as part of some larger Arab homeland. Thinking that a continuation of Jewish immigration could lead to the success of Zionism, Arab leaders organized political action: first riots in April 1936, then the formation of strike committees and a general strike that lasted through October. This meant that 1937 was the moment of truth for the European states with a declared interest in the future of Palestine: Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and Poland.





London at first reacted to the Arab disturbances with a proposal for the partition of Palestine. When this led to further political chaos, the British restricted Jewish immigration to a quota. As the world was seen from London, Palestine was only a tiny part of the vast Arab and Muslim territories of the British Empire. Pleasing Jews over Palestine could mean alienating Muslims throughout the Near East and southern Asia. Berlin specified in 1937 its own attitude toward Zionism and a possible State of Israel. Palestine had appealed to the Nazi regime as a place where Jews could settle so long as this had no clear political implications for the Near East. But in spring 1937 the German consul in Jerusalem was concerned lest the creation of a State of Israel from Palestine weaken Germany’s position in the world. The German foreign minister circulated the official position to all embassies and consulates that June: Jewish statehood in Palestine was to be opposed, as a State of Israel would become a node in the world Jewish conspiracy.