Detroit Jewry's Generosity Registered in
25-Year History of United Jewish Appeal
By MARVIN DIAMOND
Publicity Director of Jewish
Welfare Federation and
Allied Jewish Campaign
In 1938, the United Jewish
Appeal was born as an instru-
ment that would enable Ameri-
can Jews to finance the deliver-
ence of their co-religionists out
of Nazi Europe. This meant that
the work of the Joint Distribu-
tion Committee, responsible for
all relief work overseas, and the
United Palestine Appeal, which
was settling Jews in Palestine,
would be financed through one
fund-raising drive. Jews in De-
troit had supported the work of
the JDC since it was founded
during World War I. The UPA,
a confederation of Zionist groups,
had received support for coloni-
zation work in Palestine from
Detroit Jews since its founding
in 1936.
Combined fund-raising was be-
gun in Detroit in behalf of local
Jewish institutions and oppressed
Jews overseas in 1925, when a
campaign by the late Henry
Wineman raised- $150,000 from
2,794 contributors.
By 1938, when the United
Jewish Appeal was founded and
when Jews in Detroit saw their
relatives in Europe being en-
gulfed by the rising tide Of
Nazism, they had a 14 year rec-
ord of united giving and work-
ing toward common goals.
That year, the late Fred M.
Butzel and Henry Wineman
were co-chairmen of the Allied
Jewish Campaign. The drive
raised $651,889. One of the
local agencies supported by
the Federation's annual Allied
Jewish Campaign was the Re-
settlement Service, which
helped Detroit's Jewish citi-
zens make the arrangements
necessary to bring relatives
here from Europe.
Once the newcomers arrived,
the Resettlement Service and
other Federation member 'agen-
cies, the Jewish Family and
Children's Service, Jewish Com-
munity Center and the Jewish
Vocational Service, helped the
newcomers make the necessary
social and economic adjustments
to life in Detroit.
As evidence of Nazi brutality
to Jews mounted, the Ameri-
can government waived the
immigration requirements for
personal sponsorship of each
immigrant and let the Resettle-
ment Service, as an authorized
agent y, be responsible for
numbers of Jewish escapees
who settled in Detroit. More
than 4,000 were snatched from
the clutches of the Nazis and
brought to Detroit through the
work of the Resettlement
Service.
The first Hitler refugees to
arrive in Detroit were children.
The Hebrew Immigrant - Aid So-
ciety sent 100 unaccompanied
German children to Detroit in
1934. They were to be cared for
by the Resettlement Service and
placed temporarily in f o s t e r
homes by the Jewish Family and
Children's Service.
In 1937, the - first few refu-
gee families arrived in Detroit
from Germany.
Harold Silver, director of the
Resettlement Service, said that
after the "Krystal Nacht," Nov_
9, 1938, when the Nazis burned
synagogues and attacked Jews
all over Germany, hope that con-
ditions might become more toler-
able vanished and German Jews
began emigrating in significant
numbers. From November, 1933.
until the United States entered
the war in 1941, refugees came
to Detroit in a steady stream.
Wineman and -Butzel shared
campaign leadership through
1942. During that time, persist-
ant rumors about Dachau and
Auschwitz and their horrors
reached here. Those were the
days of closed borders and refu-
gees ships that were barred from
all ports, and refugees in no-
man's land and refugees fleeing
into nowhere.
When America entered the
war, contact with Europe's Jews
was cut off and efforts to save
them made impossible. When the
war ended in Europe in 1945,
the horrible work had been done.
Six million Jews, including more
than a million children, had
been exterminated.
The United Jewish Appeal
invited Louis Berry and Jo-
seph Holtzman, Detroit build-
ers -with long records of phi-
lanthropic work, to go on a
fact-finding mission to Europe.
.Holtzman and Berry saw the
camps almost before the crema-
toria fires had cooled. They re-
turned to tell their fellow Jews
in Detroit that the reports of
horror that seemed most exag-
gerated were really understate-
ments.
In 1946, the Allied Jewish
Campaign raised $3,744,000
Under the chairmanship of
Nate S. Shapero.
In 1947, it looked like the few
who still survived the camps
would also be lost. A new term
had entered the language, "DP"
for displaced person. Jews bear-
ing that title were herded into
Eichmann's camps. The furnaces
were shut down but the barbed
wire was still there, and all the
memories.
By 1947, the Communists had
taken over most of East Europe
and although some Jewish sur-
vivors went back to the coun-
tries of their birth, to live as
best they could under Commu-
nism, most chose to remain in
the camps.
There were survivors who were
willing to enter Palestine illegal-
ly at the risk of their lives to
help found a Jewish state.
Some succeeded, some died in
the attempt and others were
caught by the British and in-
terned on the island of Cyprus.
The ship Exodus, loaded with
concentration camp survivors,
could not find a port in the en-
tire world that would accept its
human cargo. After months of
trying, it returned to Germany
and the concentration camp sur-
vivors were put baCk in the
camps.
During this time, Detroit
Jews raised money to keep
these people alive and well
and to provide them with basic
needs — and with the relig-
ious articles, books, and other
amenities they needed as bad-
ly as they needed food.
In 1948, the State of Israel
was established. Now there was
a place that would welcome all
the survivors. Detroit Jews raised
$5,756,000 to empty the camps
and bring Jews to Israel. In
1949 and 1950, the slogan for
Jewish philanthropy in Detroit
was "Empty the Camps."
The work and the -generosity
of Detroit's Jewish citizens has
continued. Many of those who
survived the camps were so physi-
cally and mentally exhausted
that they could never again be
self-supporting. Detroit Jews con-
tributed to their support.
Israel, a physically inhos-
pitable and tortured land, had
to be made productive by men
and women with tortured
bodies. Detroit Jews helped fi-
nance this work, too.
Outbreaks of anti-Semitism and
the complete denial of personal
and religious freedom made it
necessary in 1952, 1953 and 1954
to rescue the Jews who had re-
turned to Eastern European
countries. The same reasons
made the rescue of Jews living
e.
dle7E.astern countries im-
in Md
perativ
Detroit Jews helped finance
this emigration from those coun-
tries and resettlement in Israel
and other free countries.
Since the end of World War
II, members of Detroit's Jewish
community - have contributed
almost fifty million dollars,
through the Allied Jewish Cam-
paign to take care of those Jews
who survived Hitler's concen-
tration camps.
Detroit Jews realize that it
will take a lifetime to heal the
wounds caused by Hitler's de-
ade of horror. Leaders of the
community who have carried on
the Wineman-Butzel tradition of
help, as Allied Jewish Campaign
chairmen, have included Maurice
Aronsson, Harvey H. Goldman,
the late Julian H. Krolik, Abe
Kasle, - Irving W. Blumberg, Ir-
win I. Cohn, Leonard N. Simons,
John E. Lurie, Max M. Fisher,
Paul Zuckerman, and this year
Charles H. Gershenson.
Hearty Greetings to the
United Jewish Appeal ..
•
•
To the great humanitarian cause that has rescued
hundreds of thousands of lives, whose funds assist in
the resettlement of tens of thousands of dispossessed
Jews annually in Israel . . . whose great program of
assistance and rehabilitation aids needy Jews in many
lands . . .
To the tireless workers who are making possible
this historic UJA program, which has reached its 25th
year of service to Jewry . .
Go Our Sincere Congratulations
on UJA's 25th Anniversary Year
MOLLY and LOUIS M. ELLIMAN
.