- Headline
-
Vermont Aid for Refugees
- Publication Date
- Friday, February 3, 1939
- Historical Event
-
Child Refugee Bill Fails in Senate
This database includes 809 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 7
- Author/Byline
- Philip Rubin
- Article Text
- To the Editor of the Free Press:
A proposal has been made to establish in Vermont a small cooperative colony of young German-Jewish refugees. I heartily endorse this proposal and believe it would be a wonderful thing, not only for the refugees but also for the Jewish communities of this State, if the latter were willing to take the initiative in founding such a colony.
"Where are we going to get the money?" This question was hurled at me recently by Jewish leaders when I proposed a similar colony in Havana, Cuba. The same query probably will come from my fellow Jews in Vermont.
Reply: Don't worry right now about the money. First, have the thing well planned. Find out what sort of land can be obtained in Vermont, what can be raised, how many people can be settled there and what would be the future prospects of the settlers. Then compute as nearly as possible the initial cost of such colonization. Finally, if you find the initial cost too heavy for the small Jewish population of Vermont to carry, there is the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which is doling out millions of dollars' worth of charity, and which would, I am certain, be willing to contribute the sum required to make a number of Jews self-sustaining on a farm in Vermont.
"Could we get the young men and women who would have the necessary experience, or at least be willing to work on a farm?"
Reply:
Only a few young German Jews and Jewesses, I found on my recent travels, have had farm experience. Most of them, however, would be willing to work hard, if such work would give them a foothold and some economic security in this country. The services of a few trained farmers who would instruct them and conduct the farm work, could be obtained. This is an age in which machinery is largely replacing manual skill on a farm, when food is even being grown without the aid of soil. There are many mechanics and technicians among young German Jews.
"If we settle them on a farm colony, will the boys and girls care to remain farmers? Will they, aspire to become individual farm owners? Will they want to remain on a co-operative farm?"
Reply: I think very few of these people, taking their racial-cultural background into consideration, would care to remain working farmers, either as individuals or in a co-operative, for the rest of their lives. However, a plan could be worked out whereby these young men and women, in return for a few years labor on the co-operative farm would become full-fledged voting members of the colony, assuring them of food and shelter for the rest of their lives, and thus, would be unwilling to leave the colony and seek employment in the cities. Under this plan, each individual would, after five years or so of service in the colony, remain attached to it while engaged in some private occupation. There would be a yearly turnover of active workers, some entering the colony for a period of service, others leaving to establish themselves around the colony in individual homes and occupations.
If Jews of Vermont, and particularly Burlington, where about half the Vermont Jews reside, will get going on this proposition. I think we might develop something in the way of farming and social security on a voluntary basis free from governmental interference, something which would be of great interest to Christians of this State and country.
PHILIP RUBIN.
20 Decatur St., Burlington. Vt., February 1, 1939. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Lael F.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: Child Refugee Bill Fails in Senate
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Bibliography
Breitman, Richard, and Alan Kraut. American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Feingold, Henry L. Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.
Gurock, Jeffrey S., ed. America, American Jews, and the Holocaust. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Hamerow, Theodor. While We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. New York: Norton, 2008.
Wyman, David S. Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
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