1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,919 Live on Channel 5, this is the Ten O'Clock News with Deborah Norville. 2 00:00:12,919 --> 00:00:18,420 Coming out, revealing secret negotiation between the Nazis and the Zionists in 1933... 3 00:00:18,420 --> 00:00:21,920 allowed German Jews and their assets to go to Palestine. 4 00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:25,920 Rich Samuels joins us tonight with the story of the controversy behind the book and the 5 00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:27,640 author's struggle to write it. 6 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:28,640 Rich? 7 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:32,719 Well, with the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the spring of 1933, the Jews of the world 8 00:00:32,719 --> 00:00:34,259 were faced with a dilemma. 9 00:00:34,259 --> 00:00:38,880 They could raise a cry of protest, a cry few would heed, or they could make a deal 10 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:42,920 with Hitler, a deal that would bring a step closer their dream of an independent Jewish 11 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:44,039 state. 12 00:00:44,039 --> 00:00:46,840 The choice they made was difficult and agonizing. 13 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:48,760 This new book describes that choice. 14 00:00:48,760 --> 00:00:55,880 The book is called The Transfer Agreement. 15 00:00:55,880 --> 00:01:04,560 This is Israel a few days ago, the season of Passover. 16 00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:09,799 And this is Germany 51 years ago, the blossoming of Adolf Hitler's springtime. 17 00:01:09,799 --> 00:01:14,219 A key factor in the vitality of today's Israel, the book's author argues, was an... 18 00:01:14,219 --> 00:01:20,000 reached in 1933 between a group of Zionists and the man who would later try to kill every 19 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:21,700 living Jew. 20 00:01:21,820 --> 00:01:27,020 The great irony is that Adolf Hitler became the chief economic sponsor of the state of 21 00:01:27,020 --> 00:01:28,020 Israel. 22 00:01:28,020 --> 00:01:34,219 It will be an argument against, and a wrong argument against Zionists. 23 00:01:34,219 --> 00:01:37,579 Some who lived through those times fear the response to this book. 24 00:01:37,579 --> 00:01:40,939 The parents of the author feared its very writing. 25 00:01:40,939 --> 00:01:45,540 When your son came to you and said he was going to write this book, what was your, what 26 00:01:45,540 --> 00:01:47,420 were your feelings about his undertaking? 27 00:01:47,420 --> 00:01:50,340 I told him he's not my son anymore. 28 00:01:51,260 --> 00:01:52,260 Why did you say that? 29 00:01:53,260 --> 00:01:55,260 I told him I'm going to sit shitty. 30 00:01:56,460 --> 00:01:57,460 As though he were dead? 31 00:01:57,460 --> 00:01:58,460 That's right. 32 00:01:58,460 --> 00:02:00,460 I told him I don't like it. 33 00:02:01,460 --> 00:02:07,460 Because as being a Jew, I didn't want something to uncover my own people. 34 00:02:07,460 --> 00:02:10,460 I was buried in a grave with only seven people. 35 00:02:12,460 --> 00:02:14,460 I was seven times captured. 36 00:02:14,460 --> 00:02:17,460 Edwin Black's parents are Holocaust survivors. 37 00:02:17,580 --> 00:02:18,580 What? 38 00:02:18,580 --> 00:02:22,580 My parents never talked much about the Holocaust. 39 00:02:22,580 --> 00:02:27,580 Edwin Black, to fill the void left by the silence of his parents, has written this 40 00:02:27,580 --> 00:02:31,580 book, a dense, detailed chronicle of the early months of 1933. 41 00:02:34,580 --> 00:02:37,580 January 30th, 1933. 42 00:02:37,580 --> 00:02:39,580 Hitler becomes Germany's interim chancellor. 43 00:02:39,580 --> 00:02:41,580 The Third Reich has begun. 44 00:02:41,700 --> 00:02:50,939 But in this country on March 4th, attention is diverted by the inauguration of Franklin 45 00:02:50,939 --> 00:02:51,939 Delano Roosevelt. 46 00:02:51,939 --> 00:02:54,939 More power to you, President Roosevelt. 47 00:02:54,939 --> 00:02:59,939 The entire country's behind you, thrilled with hope and patriotism. 48 00:03:00,939 --> 00:03:04,939 But ominous headlines tell what's already happening to the Jews of Germany. 49 00:03:04,939 --> 00:03:07,939 The protest of American Jews was heard almost immediately. 50 00:03:08,300 --> 00:03:13,300 It was based on only the sparsest of press reports, and nowhere was that protest more 51 00:03:13,300 --> 00:03:16,300 vocal than here in New York City. 52 00:03:19,300 --> 00:03:24,300 Paul Creed's local and national organizations and labor parties are joining this gigantic 53 00:03:24,300 --> 00:03:27,300 demonstration passing through famous Washington Arch. 54 00:03:27,300 --> 00:03:32,659 Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, leads the 55 00:03:32,659 --> 00:03:35,300 procession down Fifth Avenue on foot. 56 00:03:35,660 --> 00:03:40,160 Father arranged for the first great mass meeting at Madison Square Garden for protest 57 00:03:40,160 --> 00:03:41,160 purposes. 58 00:03:41,160 --> 00:03:48,160 He felt that when freedom was threatened, silence condoned oppression always. 59 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:53,160 Thousands who waited hours behind police lines rushed forward as the doors of Madis... 60 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:54,160 Garden are open. 61 00:03:54,160 --> 00:03:59,160 Jews and Gentiles joined in the race for seats, and 22,000 of them get in. 62 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:04,160 I was a young kid then, you see, I was a teenager. 63 00:04:05,020 --> 00:04:10,020 I belonged to a Zionist youth group, and we were all summoned to go to that rally. 64 00:04:13,019 --> 00:04:16,019 Well, it was a very agitated rally. 65 00:04:17,019 --> 00:04:28,019 Many Yiddish speaking, few English speaking, and Rabbi Wise mounted an appeal to the... 66 00:04:28,019 --> 00:04:33,019 people to do something to save Jewish honor. 67 00:04:33,879 --> 00:04:40,879 Most of the important, well-established Jews were very angry at him, said this was... 68 00:04:40,879 --> 00:04:45,879 and that if anything happened to the Jews in Germany, the blood of the Jews would be 69 00:04:45,879 --> 00:04:46,879 on his head. 70 00:04:46,879 --> 00:04:50,879 Dr. Stephen S. Wise, rabbi of the Free Synagogue and the national leader of liber... 71 00:04:50,879 --> 00:04:53,879 speaks on behalf of the Jews of the United States. 72 00:04:53,879 --> 00:04:58,879 This is not a Jewish meeting. 73 00:04:59,740 --> 00:05:06,740 This is the conscience of America making its own field. 74 00:05:07,740 --> 00:05:11,740 The United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United 75 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:13,600 States. 76 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:17,600 The conscience of Nazi Germany made itself felt five days later. 77 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:22,600 Across the Reich, Hitler's troops shut down Jewish-owned businesses for 24 hours. 78 00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:27,600 Within days, American Jews marched calling for the boycott of all German exports. 79 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,600 Jews throughout Europe echoed that call, so did Jews everywhere. 80 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:36,600 But a group of Zionists at the same time was quietly negotiating an agreement with the 81 00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:41,600 Nazis to allow the immigration of German Jews and the transfer of their assets to... 82 00:05:42,140 --> 00:05:46,580 That deal, reported in August 1933, was the transfer agreement. 83 00:05:46,580 --> 00:05:51,580 Palestine, sparsely settled by Jews at the time, was radically changed as a result. 84 00:05:51,580 --> 00:05:58,580 I lived in Palestine from 1933 to 1936, and we saw every week transports of German Jews 85 00:06:01,580 --> 00:06:03,700 coming to settle in Palestine. 86 00:06:03,700 --> 00:06:10,700 Many new professions were introduced by them into the country, and they played a leading 87 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:16,000 role in making Palestine then a more advanced and progressive country. 88 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:23,000 Israel is really what it is because of the foundation laid by the Eastern European group 89 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:32,000 and then the lift toward an educated and well-organized government that came with t... 90 00:06:33,319 --> 00:06:36,199 of the German Jewish group. 91 00:06:36,199 --> 00:06:40,599 German Jewish settlement of Palestine was, for a time, official Nazi policy. 92 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:46,340 These photos of Jewish life in Palestine, along with a lengthy text, appeared in 1934. 93 00:06:46,340 --> 00:06:48,500 In the Berlin paper, they're on grief. 94 00:06:48,500 --> 00:06:52,900 The publisher, Hitler's propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels. 95 00:06:52,900 --> 00:06:56,820 A Nazi visits Palestine was the title of the multi-part series. 96 00:06:56,820 --> 00:06:59,700 A medal was struck by Goebbels in commemoration. 97 00:06:59,700 --> 00:07:04,780 On one side the swastika, on the other, the Star of David. 98 00:07:04,780 --> 00:07:08,860 Hitler demanded one concession for the transfer agreement, that the call for a... 99 00:07:08,860 --> 00:07:13,720 the Reich raised by Jews here and elsewhere be rejected by the Zionists. 100 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:18,160 The Zionists made that concession. 101 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:25,160 And so while Nazis were marching in Germany, and while Jews were marching here, diplomacy 102 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:27,980 was writing a more important story. 103 00:07:27,980 --> 00:07:32,780 In the Mediterranean, where the dream of a nation-state for Jewish people came a step 104 00:07:32,780 --> 00:07:34,860 closer to reality. 105 00:07:34,860 --> 00:07:38,340 The story in this book some will find hard to accept. 106 00:07:38,339 --> 00:07:41,259 I still feel the hurt. 107 00:07:41,259 --> 00:07:46,259 But after I read it, I said, I'm all with you. 108 00:07:46,259 --> 00:07:49,899 Go ahead and write it. 109 00:07:49,899 --> 00:07:54,779 Because everything was exactly what happened, and that's the truth, and you cannot deny 110 00:07:54,779 --> 00:07:55,779 it. 111 00:07:55,779 --> 00:07:58,579 And the truth must prevail. 112 00:07:58,579 --> 00:08:01,299 And I'm not worried. 113 00:08:01,300 --> 00:08:06,980 Are the people who will find the book in bad taste? 114 00:08:06,980 --> 00:08:08,579 The smart people? 115 00:08:08,579 --> 00:08:10,379 The intelligent people? 116 00:08:10,379 --> 00:08:13,939 The people who went through? 117 00:08:13,939 --> 00:08:15,540 You understand? 118 00:08:15,540 --> 00:08:21,900 The order is torn, is torn between two profound feelings. 119 00:08:21,899 --> 00:08:28,899 That he has to be for a Jewish state, and that the silence which his parents have kept, 120 00:08:31,539 --> 00:08:36,419 well he has to retaliate against that silence, and he takes it out on others. 121 00:08:36,419 --> 00:08:38,740 It was a quest. 122 00:08:38,740 --> 00:08:40,659 It took me around the world. 123 00:08:40,659 --> 00:08:43,620 Financially, it depleted me. 124 00:08:43,620 --> 00:08:47,259 Emotionally, it drained me. 125 00:08:47,259 --> 00:08:54,259 And as far as my being a Jewish person, understanding my Jewish identity, and my... 126 00:08:55,860 --> 00:09:01,259 Israel, and the Holocaust, it has fulfilled me. 127 00:09:01,259 --> 00:09:03,340 It has given me identity. 128 00:09:03,340 --> 00:09:10,340 That he tries to exorcise his own demons by creating ghosts to visit the nights of 129 00:09:17,980 --> 00:09:23,300 others is really a very personal drama. 130 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:30,300 And my only hope is that he will not damage the people, the state, and the brethren, and 131 00:09:30,299 --> 00:09:37,299 sisters who we proclaimed to church. 132 00:09:37,299 --> 00:09:38,899 Did you find what you wanted to know? 133 00:09:38,899 --> 00:09:44,259 Yes, I know what happened, and I know why. 134 00:09:44,259 --> 00:09:46,379 The transfer agreement will be available shortly. 135 00:09:46,379 --> 00:09:47,899 Macmillan is the publisher. 136 00:09:47,899 --> 00:09:48,899 Deborah? 137 00:09:48,899 --> 00:09:49,899 Thanks Rich, really interesting.